The Adorable Little Antichrist
Melinda didn’t yet have many life experiences, but of those she did have, Easter was her favorite.
She loved going to Grandma Doris and Grandpaw Bill’s house for Easter lunch with the whole family. She and her older sister and cousins would hunt for Easter eggs in the backyard then sit on the floor of the living room and pop open each colored plastic egg, dump out all of the candy—Tootsie Rolls, Double Bubbles, mini Hershey Krackels and Kisses—then devour as much as they could before Grandma Doris would herd them into the dining room where they’d have ham, green bean casserole, and Aunt Amy’s special bacon mashed potatoes.
After lunch, Melinda and her cousins would paint eggs with Grandma Doris. She made custom stencils for the grandchildren to use; their names, scenes from the Easter story, and Bible quotes. As the eggs dried, she’d fix them heaping ice cream sundaes. Melinda always ate the ice cream so fast that she gave herself an ice cream headache. Grandpaw Bill showed her a way to get rid of the headache by putting her hand on her forehead and scrunching her face up really, really tight. It always worked.
This year, buckled in her car seat for the hour long drive to Grandma Doris and Grandpaw Bill’s house, Melinda wasn’t thinking of the candy and sundaes and fun because she was consumed with thoughts of dread. Because before the Easter festivities at Grandma and Grandpaw’s house, the family attended Easter services at the evangelical church where Grandpaw Bill was pastor. Although Melinda loved the new dress her mother had sewed for her, she was desperately worried that her attendance at church would cause a most terrifying disaster.
Last Easter, after the food had been eaten and the eggs had dried and her cousins had left, Melinda’s older sister played piano for her mom, dad, and grandparents while Melinda played in the TV room with the new American Girl doll that the Easter Bunny had delivered to her in a basket. Avoiding a second go-around of a troubled rendition of Alouette, Grandpaw Bill took a seat on the couch near Melinda.
“Do you like your new doll?” he asked her.
“Yes. She looks like me,” Melinda said.
“I think you’re prettier,” Grandpaw Bill said.
“But she’s very pretty.”
“Yes, she is pretty, too.”
Melinda was only five years old last year, the youngest of all the grandchildren and there was no secret that she was Grandpaw Bill’s favorite. “I love all my grandchildren the same, except for Melinda, who I love more,” Grandpaw Bill would say in a matter that left room to interpret that he might be joking. “And that’s because Melinda has the eyes of an angel.”
“Let me ask you something, Angel Eyes. Do you feel Jesus inside of you?”
Although she was only five, Melinda had been bombarded with stories and the teachings of Jesus Christ, God’s son, mankind’s savior. Almost everything in her little world was connected to Christianity. She was read books like God Bless You and Goodnight, Lift the Flap Bible, God Gave Us You and the Berenstain Bears collection. She watched Veggie Tales and was made to say her prayers before bed every night and over every single meal when at Grandma Doris and Grandpaw Bill’s. She even had to give thanks to Jesus before opening each of her found plastic eggs. She was told to pray for Grandpaw Bill’s heart and thank God and Jesus for not letting it be attacked again. In Melinda’s world, everything was a blessing and, therefore, everything needed a blessing.
But despite the inundation of God and Jesus and the prophets and the angels and her adoration for her grandparents who found a way to mention God or Jesus every third sentence, Melinda didn’t get it. She didn’t feel moved by the songs or the stories or the moral lessons. She thought that rising from the dead was a frightening thing, which was why her parents prohibited Halloween in their home. That holiday was pure evil, they said. Ghosts and zombies and vampires are works of the Devil. But Melinda liked dressing up and playing pretend, and didn’t see the harm between doing that on any given day and doing it on Halloween where there was more candy to be had. She had candy at Easter, and Easter was a holiday that talked a lot about rising from the dead, and she knew that somebody was dressing up in an Easter Bunny costume. What was the difference?
So when Grandpaw Bill, her beloved Grandpaw Bill, asked her if she felt Jesus inside of her, Melinda knew she could only respond one way: lie.
“Yes.” Her very first lie.
“And do you feel his love inside of you?”
Her second lie. “Yes”
“And do you love Jesus the way Jesus loves you?”
Three. “Yes.”
“That’s my girl. Come give your old grandpaw a big angel hug.” She climbed onto Grandpaw Bill’s lap, wrapped her little arms around his thick neck and squeezed him as hard as she could. “Ooooooo. That’s the stuff. I can feel Jesus’ love for you every time you hug me. Do you know that?”
“Yes, Grandpaw.” Four.
Melinda knew lying was a sin. That’s what Grandpaw Bill told her over and over. Not to scold her, but to warn her of the Devil’s path. Lying was off limits. But hurting the ones you love was also a sin. He told her that, too. And certainly, not loving Jesus or God was a sin. Every adult in her life told her that on a regular basis. It was as common as saying “Good morning” or “What do you want to be when you grow up?” to which she received the most praise when she responded by saying, “A mommy,” which wasn’t untrue but she also wanted to be a builder—an architect, though she didn’t yet know that word—but it always drew laughs and a noticeable condescending kind of praise. She worried that if she hurt her Grandpaw by admitting she didn’t feel Jesus or love him, she’d have two sins to answer for instead of just one. But once she started the sin of lying, she couldn’t stop.
“I see angels on my bed,” Melinda said.
“You do!?”
“Uh-huh. I see pretty angels sitting on my bed.”
“When do you see these angels?”
“Every day. When I say my prayers. When I wake up.”
“What do these angels look like?”
“They’re beautiful. They look like my mom. And have big wings that look really soft.”
“Do they say anything to you?”
“Uh-huh. They sing to me.”
“They sing to you!? That’s incredible. What do they sing?”
“Radio songs.”
“Wow! I’ve never heard of angels singing radio songs to little girls every morning and night. You must be pretty special. But Ialready knew that.” Grandpaw Bill hugged Melinda again and he kissed her forehead. “Come on, let’s go hear your sister practice her piano. She sure does need it.”
That night, Melinda lay in bed unable to fall asleep. She kept counting her lies. One–two–three–four–five… She lost track from there because she wasn’t sure if the stories about the singing angels on her bed counted as one lie or if every word of the story counted as its own lie. Melinda knew she was in trouble. She couldn’t lie to her Grandpaw—a preacher no less—and not feel Jesus’ love without being punished for it. Worse still, for her to even be capable of such sinful activity something must have been terribly wrong with her.
Just before dawn that Monday morning after Easter Sunday, after thrashing in her bed between tiny moments of light sleep, Melinda concluded that she was the opposite of what Grandpaw Bill thought she was. She was no angel. She was, in fact, the antichrist. She did her best to hide this uncovered truth from her family by burying it deep down inside of her. It wasn’t until that following Easter that her truth boiled to the surface.
On the ride to Grandpaw Bill’s church, Melinda was unable to focus on anything but the dread. It was her older sister’s tattling scream that brought her back to the rest of her religious and real world surrounding her car seat. “Mom! Melinda’s making a hole in her dress.” Melinda looked at her lap. She had, without realizing it, clawed away at the fabric of her dress to make a hole slightly smaller than her own hand. Through it, a scratched-red, gently bleeding pale thigh. She pulled her hand away from her leg in horror. The undersides of her fingernails were stuffed with her thigh skin and a cotton blend.
“Melinda Lynne!” her mother shrieked. “What in God’s name have you done?”
In God’s name? Nothing, Melinda thought. In Satan’s name? She had destroyed something beautiful, thus sabotaging Easter Sunday Mass. It was just the kind of thing the antichrist would do. “I’m sorry, Mommy,” Melinda said.
“That was a brand-new dress! I slaved making that for you. Just for today. So you would look extra beautiful for Grandpaw Bill and all of our Church Family. Now look at it. And look at your leg! You’re bleeding!” She turned to her husband who was driving. “Dale, it looks like she’s hurt herself. I don’t know what she was thinking.” Turning back to her daughter, “What were you thinking?” And then back to her husband. “We need to turn around.”
“Linda, we can’t go back home. We’ll miss church,” Dale said.
“She can’t go to church with a bloody hole in her Easter Sunday dress. She looks like a.. a… I don’t know… a demon’s child.”
“Your father will kill us.”
This is how it begins, Melinda thought. Without conscious effort, she had ignited fury, fear, confusion, and potentially death. She started to cry. And as she did, the sky, which had been clear and blue all morning, turned a deep gray and dropped fat rain onto the car. The wind howled. Lightening streaked the sky followed by enormous thunder claps. Did she do that? Did she turn the weather? Or were those God’s tears? Grandma Doris and Grandpaw Bill had told her once that thunderstorms were heaven’s angels horsing around. Thunder was them bowling and lightening was them flipping heaven’s light switches on and off. Rain was the tears of God weeping over the angels’ misbehavior. Was God crying over her misbehavior or was it she who had control over the weather? Weather control sounds like something the antichrist could have. She had more power than she ever thought she could. She had to get a hold of it before something terrible happened.
She forced herself to stop crying. She wiped the tears away. The rain stopped. The sky returned to its previous pristine condition. “Wow,” her dad said. “That was the shortest storm I’ve ever seen.”
“I guess we’ll just have to go to church like this, then,” Linda huffed.
“Melinda is going to get in trouble from Grandpaw,” her older sister taunted.
“Janie, you knock it off right now or you won’t get any candy at Grandma’s. I’ll give all of yours to Melinda.”
“What?! Why? She’s the one who ruined her dress and scratched her leg up.”
“Not another word about it. Melinda, are you okay?” Melinda nodded and forced a weak smile. Linda turned around and stared at the road for a moment before saying to her husband quietly and without turning her head toward him, “I think there’s something wrong with Melinda.”
Despite the presence of Jesus and God in their daily lives, Melinda and her immediate family didn’t go to church all that often. Christmas, Easter, and a few other times during the year when visiting Grandma Doris and Grandpaw Bill was it. But when they were there, they were treated like royalty. Linda had been raised in that town and in that church so it was much like a princess returning to her kingdom when they came. But this Easter Sunday, they were not greeted with adoration. No parishioners fawned over the adorable Janie and Melinda. Instead, they received looks of confusion, and walked through whispers of disgrace as they made their way to the first pew, which was honorably reserved for royalty. Linda, Dale, Janie, and Melinda all knew it was Melinda’s scratched leg and torn dress that was causing the disquiet.
They greeted Grandma Doris with the usual hugs and kisses. The family did its best to hide Melinda from view so she was last to be greeted by Grandma Doris. When she saw Melinda, she gasped and lifted herself away from Melinda’s outstretched arms.
“My goodness! What happened to her?” Grandma Doris asked them collectively.
“She snagged her dress getting into the car. Scraped her leg, too,” Linda said.
A lie, Melinda thought. Her mother had never lied in church before. Who would do such a thing? It must have been her powers of evil influence at work.
“It looks like she scratched herself raw,” Grandma Doris said. She kneeled down to Melinda’s eye level. “Melinda, darling, what did you do?”
Melinda tried not to cry. She had no idea what damage she could cause if she began crying in church. Another thunderstorm? A tornado? And she certainly did not want to lie. But what choice did she have? “I scratched myself getting into the car. I ripped my dress.”
“It looks like it was such a pretty dress. You must be more careful. Why weren’t you more careful?”
Melinda shrugged.
“Isn’t that the dress your mother made for you just for today?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Linda interjected. “We’ll stop off and pick up a new dress for her on the way to the house.”
“Good luck finding anything that’s open on Easter Sunday. Honestly, Linda.”
Grandma Doris turned away and walked to the next row of pews to greet the other parishioners. Melinda saw how Grandma Doris and the other parishioners looked back at her. There was disgust on their faces. Embarrassment. Shame blanketed Melinda’s family as they huddled in their royal pew. Melinda sunk into the nook of her father’s arm as best she could while he covered her shredded leg and torn dress with his hand as best he could.
Grandpaw Bill came out from the big wooden door that led to his office. Melinda loved it when he would take her in there. He had all of these coloring books that depicted stories from the Bible like David and Goliath, Cain killing Abel, and Jesus being crucified. Violent as the stories were, the scenes in the book were drawn kid-friendly, and Melinda had filled them in with the manic scribbling and joy of a child. He would talk with her and play with her and always make her laugh. Behind that door was a safe place for Melinda and she thought that if she could only get Grandpaw Bill to let her sit in his office during church the problems she had caused would all go away and Easter would be saved.
Grandpaw Bill greeted his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughters first like always. And as had been the routine all morning, Melinda was reserved for last.
“Melinda! Angel Eyes! What happened to you!?”
“I scratched myself getting into the car. I ripped my dress.
“I’m so sorry, Dad.” Linda said.
“Well, are you okay?” Grandpaw Bill said to Melinda. She nodded fighting back tears. “As long as you’re okay. We can get you a new dress.” He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead then moved on to greet the other parishioners.
Melinda was overcome with relief. If Grandpaw Bill wasn’t angry then no one else had a right to be angry and Easter would not have to be ruined. It was a close call.
The service began the way it always did, with a few jokes from Grandpaw Bill that went over Melinda’s head followed by a few he aimed right at Melinda and the other kids’ sensibilities. He made it through the majority of the story, which was all comfortable and familiar to Melinda. She had forgotten about her torn dress and her Grandma’s and her parents’ and the parishioners’ disgust over it. And she’d forgotten about the warm and stinging pain in her thigh. And she had forgotten about being the antichrist. And then Grandpaw Bill singled her out.
This wasn’t uncommon. He had looked directly at Melinda when he told a story or made an important point that he wanted to be sure she took in. No one else ever seemed to notice their little secret code of church communication. This time, however, there was something different in the way Grandpaw Bill addressed Melinda when he said, “And so we have to consider our own lives and the way we live them when we consider the sacrifice Jesus made for us.” It was as if he’d given part of the code to the whole congregation and now, they knew that he was talking to her, about her. Her father recognized it and squeezed her tighter. Was he comforting her? Was he restraining her?
Melinda pulled away from her father. She sat upright. She was angry now. Grandpaw Bill had outed her, he had betrayed her trust. He looked down at her from his altar with his familiar kind eyes laced with pointed shame. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to scream. She stared back at Grandpaw Bill. Her eyes narrowed, focused on his, the stare penetrating past his eyes and into his soul. Melinda felt the rage rise in her. A burning sensation ignited in her thighs. She was digging her fingernails deep into her own flesh. Her dad noticed.
“Melinda,” he whispered. “Stop it.”
“Eww,” Janie said, scooting away from her sister and closer to her mother who then noticed.
Linda reached across her eldest daughter and lightly slapped at Melinda’s hands. “Melinda! Knock it off. What are you doing!?” she said through clenched teeth.
None of this stopped Melinda. Her fury, her hurt, her fear and shame was pure focus. She dug deeper into her legs. The blood began to run down her thighs, soaking through her dress and forming a small puddle in the pew. Grandpaw Bill stopped speaking. His face went blank and then white. He tried to take a deep breath but his chest was locked. He grabbed at his left arm. He then looked confused and took another step away from the altar.
“I…” he eeked out. “I…”
Grandpaw Bill stumbled some more. With his hand now on his chest, he reached out toward the congregation, his eyes still locked with Melinda’s. He took one step forward then collapsed, tumbling down the remaining stairs rolling to Melinda’s feet in the first pew. Congregants gasped. Grandma Doris jumped up. “Bill!” she yelped. “Dad!” Linda echoed. Grandma Doris knelt beside her husband and held his head as he and Melinda maintained their standoff.
His gaze turned from confusion to pleading. He stretched his hand out to Melinda. “Angel Eyes…” Melinda focused harder. Now Dale, Linda, Grandma Doris, and several other parishioners were around him trying to make sense of the situation.
“We need a doctor!” Dale called out. “Someone call 9-1-1!”
Melinda’s fingers dug deeper still into her thighs and her stare pierced deeper into Grandpaw Bill’s eyes. She saw a single tear stream down his face. “Please…” he barely managed to say. Melinda could only think one thing. And though she didn’t mean it, she said it out loud.
“Liar.”
Grandpaw Bill made half a gasp, his body convulsed upward and his eyes rolled back in his head. A loud thunderclap shook the small church. The lights flickered.
“Liar,” Melinda said again.
And then Grandpaw Bill’s body relaxed. “No!” Doris and Linda shrieked simultaneously. Janie burst into a spastic fit of tears and wails. “Goddammit!” Dale hollered. “Get a goddamn doctor!”
What did Dad just say!? Melinda turned to her father. Another thunderclap. This one brought its lightning bolt with it, striking the large cross on the steeple. The lights went out. The clouds had made the early spring evening dark as midnight. The spark illuminated the darkened sanctuary momentarily, just long enough for Linda and Janie and Grandma Doris see Dale slump over Grandpaw Bill’s body.
Melinda finally stood up. Her legs were running red with blood as if she were living the ten plagues. Linda looked at her, tears of anger, confusion, and sadness stained her face. “What have you done!?”
“I tore my dress, Mommy,” Melinda said as she walked down the main aisle of the church and outside into the thunder and lightning. She threw her arms into the sky and screamed. The wind picked up and she was lifted from the ground, slowly at first and then fast into the dark sky. As she ascended, she looked down to see her sister standing below looking up at her sister, Melinda, the antichrist.
