The Possession

by Michael Rutger

  “Not really,” Molly said.

  “Exactly. And then think about what each of those stages involves—and bear in mind Darwin himself admitted that he couldn’t imagine how natural selection could have produced something as complex as the eye. ‘Interprets the signals and presents the result to our minds as an image’? Easy for you to say, my friend. Most of us have only the vaguest idea of how that happens on a computer screen. In our heads, there’s no screen. So where is the image? Somewhere in our minds. And nobody’s really sure where they are, either. Without light to bounce off an object, it’s gone. It’s no different, it’s still there, just no longer visible.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s actually invisible, Nolan,” Ken said, though he sounded less convinced.

  “I know, but remember: we’ve only got our nerves’ and brains’ word for it that what we think we can see is actually there, too. We don’t apprehend things directly. Bounced light, electrical blips along specialized tissue, conjured in our brains with the aid of short- and long-term memory to patch in details, together with a host of cognitive functions like having your attention drawn by something fastmoving or a contrasting ability to tune out events that seem unimportant. We have amazingly little idea of how this all works. And so we build walls around the stuff we do understand, and declare everything outside to be nonsense. We make it invisible to the mind.”

  Ken rolled his eyes, but Val nodded. “There are walls like this all over the world,” she said. “Humans have been building them for tens of thousands of years, maybe longer. In the distant past the design process was understood far better—the shapes that will hold back the things we can’t see and have no way of dealing with.”

  Molly looked unnerved. “But what are these things called?”

  “A hundred things. They’ve had a different name in every culture and language that’s ever existed.”

  “Just one or two will do, love,” Ken said.

  “Monsters.” Val shrugged. “Or demons. Take your pick.”

  Part Three

  Our psychological energies are reflexive in character, invisible to the mind’s eye, even as their consequences in the world are visible.

  —James Hollis, Living an Examined Life

  This was a winter visit,

  with the wind north-west.

  We see things not as they are,

  but as we are ourselves.

  —H. M. Tomlinson, The Gift

  Chapter

  45

  As Alaina approached the Hardaker house she saw two silhouettes side by side in one of the upper rooms, watching out the window. It was the only building in the street where you could even tell people were inside. Everybody else was skulking, lights low. Watching television. Scrolling through their phones, scroll, scroll, scroll. Even reading, maybe, some of them.

  Hiding from the world. From themselves. Doing something—anything—to transport their minds and feelings elsewhere. Put up a fragile wall and curl up like a baby bird in your shell. Don’t be here, be there. Pretend it’s all okay.

  Did they realize?

  Of course not. People have no idea what they’re up to half the time, or why. They tell themselves stories about what they’re doing, concoct plans and schedules, but they’re not the truth. Everybody makes up their own fairy tales so they don’t know why they’re anxious or depressed or happy or sad. They’re just there, those feelings. They prowl, the troops of Midian. Sometimes they put their arms around you. There’s nothing you can do about it.

  If you want to see what’s really going on, if you want to be safe from people, you have to live outside.

  Don’t ever trust the village. They lie.

  Alaina had walked the entire circumference of the town, counterclockwise. She cut her finger with her pocketknife and allowed drops to fall in various places, as her mother had done twenty-five years ago. There had been something emphatic in one of the journals about urinating on the bridge near the motel, but that seemed weird and it was really cold and raining, and she’d decided it could wait for another night.

  Nothing felt any different, though.

  It wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.

  Everything just felt empty and sad. The streets reeked of loss. There was something else going on here that she didn’t understand, and it was stopping things working. Somebody else had control of the narrative. Somebody was screwing this up. It was time to get this thing reframed. Make it hers. Get it right.

  The first step was punishment, and for that she needed witnesses.

  It was time for others to step up.

  But they didn’t answer the door.

  Alaina rang the bell again. And a third time.

  They’d seen her coming. They must have. Alaina walked back from the front of the house and looked up at the window where Maddy and Nadja had been standing before. They’d turned the light off.

  But she could tell they were still there. There was a darkness against the darkness inside. Why weren’t they coming down? Why weren’t they opening the door? It wasn’t because of their parents. Alaina knew they were out of town. So WTF?

  She texted Maddy. It was delivered. Then read. On-screen receipts for both events. But nothing came back.

  She texted again, this time just ?

  Thirty seconds later Maddy replied: Go away

  Alaina stared at the screen. Then texted: ???

  Maddy: everything is fucked up

  Alaina angrily thumbed a response, having to redo several words because of rain on the screen: I told u it would be this way, its how it works

  A pause, then from Nadja: we don’t want your gifts

  From Maddy: youre not normal

  Alaina blinked, staring at the screen, feeling the back of her head start to throb. Then carefully thumbed: last chance, bitches

  She watched as two further messages came on screen.

  From Maddy: We’re blocking u

  Then, from Nadja: bye

  As fast as she could, Alaina replied: FUCK U

  Then she turned and stalked away down the road. She didn’t see all the lights in the Hardaker house suddenly come on, glow brighter and brighter, and then blow out. But she heard things laughing in the corners, on rooftops and in the drains.

  She stopped, and spoke quietly to the invisibles. “Don’t piss me off. That would be a mistake.”

  By the time she turned into the main street she came shrouded in darkness. She could feel things rubbing against her, flying over her head, and hear them jumping on parked cars. Every now and then a glimpse of form, of faces.

  She heard shouting, too.

  A man was standing outside the liquor store, enveloped in mist. He looked like he’d been there a while. He was soaked. He was shouting at things he couldn’t see, waving his arms, creating sparkling trails in the light from the sign, which was blinking on and off.

  “Hey, handsome. Pierre, right?”

  Pierre stopped, turned to peer into the mist. “Who’s there?” Anybody who knew Pierre would have been able to spot immediately that his voice didn’t sound right. “Who are you?”

  “We met before. The night I came back.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “So let’s meet again. My name is Alaina. But all you need to know is that I’m the boss of you.”

  Pierre blinked. “I don’t understand what’s happening. What’s inside me?”

  “I have no idea. Just do what it wants. It may tell you to hurt people. And that’s okay. Go nuts.”

  She walked away, leaving Pierre standing in the middle of the road like an empty coat.

  Once more there was a single building with lights in it. Not a house this time, but a place she knew well. Better than anyone below the age of twenty-one should.

  She stopped on the opposite side of the street.

  Only a few people were in the Tap. The barmaid with gray hair. Val. Another woman, younger, and two guys. The other people who’d been here in the street the night she cam
e home. So everybody from then was right here, now, except one.

  The woman who’d driven her to the hospital, and then come the next morning.

  Why wasn’t she with them? Did that mean something?

  Was she the problem here?

  The woman’s friends were all looking out of the window of the Tap, but Alaina couldn’t imagine why. The fog was thick and getting thicker. The rain didn’t feel like it would ever stop. They didn’t seem like they were looking at her, or as if they could even see her.

  The window glowed. It looked warm in there.

  Alaina blinked. For a moment it had seemed like there was another person in the Tap, cozied up against the bar, her back to the world, happy for a while.

  But that wasn’t real. And there was no sign of the one person she wanted to see. He’d turn up to work sooner or later. Or if not, then Alaina would go to Plan B. If he was hiding from her, she’d bait the trap harder.

  But what until then?

  Alaina stalked away into the mist, figuring she may as well go piss on the bridge and see if it helped.

  Chapter

  46

  Sounds. Music. Muted conversation. Quiet laughter.

  Kristy opened her eyes.

  She was lying in the corridor between the two main areas of Olsen’s. There was a rug underneath her now, however, against her face—whereas the floorboards had been bare before. The rug was red and threadbare. It’d had seen a lot of use, the passing of many feet. It smelled of dust and spilt beer.

  She pushed herself upright, put her back against the wall, legs out straight in front. Sat blinking for a moment. It felt like when you zone out on a long drive and come back to realize you’ve steered the car safely for five miles with no recollection of what you saw or did, or the decisions you made. Or like an entire year of your life, during which you’ve lived the same way, like a driverless car piloting down the highway with no idea where it’s going, or why.

  The noises were coming from the bar. There were more chairs and tables in there now, and people. Not all of them looked like they were one hundred percent there. Their edges were translucent, like those old photos where the exposure time was very long and people didn’t know the picture was being taken, or realize they had to stand still, and so appeared as curious blurs.

  Someone walked past.

  They came from the restaurant, stepping over Kristy’s legs as though it were no big deal to find someone sprawled there. They walked along the corridor and into the bar. As they arrived, the room became empty again.

  Kristy stood. Cautiously took a few steps toward the bar. The bar was fully stocked, and you could smell bourbon and beer and the lower note of some kind of food. And the room wasn’t empty after all. She simply couldn’t see who was in there, or understand why they were looking at her with what felt like generous pity.

  Kristy was getting scared now.

  She went the other way. Hesitated a moment outside the storage room—the shelves were now full, though none of the labels looked modern. The trap door was closed. A woman stood over the sink, her back to the door, shoulders bent, gently shaking. A house dress out of the 1930s.

  By the time Kristy got to the restaurant she’d started to hear music again. The air was hot, stifling, muffling everything. The restaurant was devoid of people, but there were tables and chairs. The tables were small and round and red, and the room smelled of burgers and fries. The bar on the side looked more like a counter, the kind where you’d stand and select from the menu on the wall behind the servers and take a number and wait for your meal to arrive on a red tray.

  The windows on the side were different, too. No longer boarded over. They were big sheets of glass.

  The front door was ajar.

  Kristy went through. It should have let her out into the parking lot, but it didn’t.

  Chapter

  47

  Ken nudged me, pointed at the window. It was snowing now.

  “I’m going out that door in two minutes,” I told Val. “Is that what I’m going to find?”

  “No. It’ll be the same as before. It is actually raining. In real life. And the mist, we can’t do anything about. Some of that’s real, too. The snow you’re seeing may be because Molly’s feeling cold.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not there to be understood.”

  “That’s cute but doesn’t sound like it actually means anything.”

  “Everything we think ‘means something’ feels that way because it sticks to the path, right? And you’ve never walked this way before.”

  “Fuck is that supposed to mean?” Ken asked. He was looking back at the vodka bottles with the air of a man who was close to deciding that later could also mean now.

  “It means,” I said, looking at Val, “it doesn’t fit with the way we believe the world works—which is a function of the shape of our minds and of the structures of language. Right? When we come up against something that doesn’t mesh, can’t be expressed, everything breaks. Stuff stops meaning and can’t be understood. Not consciously, anyway. Is that close?”

  “Surprisingly close.”

  “So. You’re saying things we can’t see have always existed side by side with us. Creatures that don’t fit in our world, or our understanding of it. And so we’re afraid of them, like we’re afraid of the dark.”

  “It’s because of them that we are afraid of the dark. When you’re not distracted by all the things you can see, it’s easier to feel the presence of things that you can’t.”

  “Okay. And when we do encounter them, we don’t have the slots in our minds to deal with them, and so our imaginations do whatever they can to incorporate these things into some kind of picture—even if it means hearing things that aren’t sounds, and seeing things that aren’t there, or seeing them wrongly. Yes?”

  Val nodded. “Hence myths, ghosts, monsters.”

  “So why is this happening? And why now?”

  “Alaina is…causing a lot of problems. Breaking some of the walls—or getting other people to do it. She’s made contact with forces she’s simply not equipped to deal with yet. Using spells she doesn’t understand.”

  “Is her whole ‘Lilith’ thing basically a witch fantasy?”

  “It’s not a fantasy,” Val said. “She is a witch. Natural born. There’s nothing she can do about it. And that’s why I’m here.”

  “I don’t believe in witches.”

  “That’s a shame, because up until now you were on a good streak of saying smart stuff.”

  “Try me instead,” Molly said. “What are they? Witches?”

  “The term’s been used to describe different things in different cultures at different times. Could be an older woman with wisdom and experience. Can just be someone who knows herbs. But it can also refer to people with the knack.”

  “Of seeing the things that most people can’t?”

  “Yes. Though other people can sometimes do it intermittently. Children, though they lose the ability early these days. People in certain kinds of mental distress. Animals—especially cats. The difference is witches can do it all the time. Not just see, but communicate.”

  “Seriously?” Ken said. “And how would that work?”

  “We’re not sure,” Val said. “But at least part of it is genetic. Many of the differences between humans and Neanderthals relate not to the genetic code we have—a vast amount is the same—but which parts are switched on. Some genes associated with diseases, especially complications of the mind like schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer’s, were present in Neanderthal DNA too—but not activated. Turning them on rewired our brains to evolutionary advantage, but at a cost: it’s easier for us to live, but we’re not seeing the whole truth. Some people have a touch of it still, the ones with the sight—and that’s why the facility is often associated with mental challenges, a tendency toward madness and depression. That’s not the only reason why those things happen, but sometimes. If you have it your whole
life, and receive guidance, you can get accustomed to it—and learn how to use it.”

  I stood. “And so where do you come in on this?”

  “I was a doctor. I had a patient who was presenting with serious mental health issues. A young patient. She’d been referred by the school, and her mother was extremely resistant to me giving her drugs. After a while I came to understand why. I stopped being a doctor and joined the Knack. Our job is to help witches. In ancient days that was largely a matter of physical protection. Helping them escape bad situations. Now it’s more of a support network. Alaina’s mother died before she had the chance to help her daughter understand who she was. I was moved into position to be on hand to help when the time came.”

  “How’d that work out for you?”

  “Very badly. Something triggered Alaina earlier than it should. I don’t know what—though the principal’s class might be part. Either way, the knack started to come on her early, and it came on fast. And then she disappeared, and while she was away made contact with things that are supposed to stay the other side of the wall.”

  “When she came back she said she was dead.”

  “Ascending to witch-hood is often framed as a rebirth. You go away, you change in fundamental ways, you come back. And while she was in the wilderness some of these things convinced her to disturb the integrity of some physical walls—so there are spirits abroad now that shouldn’t be.”

  Molly had remained silent for most of the discussion, listening hard. “She released demons?”

  “The things we give that name to, yes. That’s why everybody’s indoors tonight. They know something’s wrong. There are parts of the world where the danger is higher, because far more of these other things live here. Walls were built in those places—here, Europe, the Middle East, across the world. To keep the others on the outside. Something like this happened here fifty years ago. The people in town don’t know what is going on right now—only that the best thing is to turn away.”