As Roger’s caginess became more an irritant than viable argument in opposition, Carolyn began to dismiss him as irrelevant, nothing to add to the discourse. If he could not admit what was happening in their house after witnessing what he had, there was no hope for the man. As he scrambled to come up with one lame and utterly implausible explanation after another, he sounded ridiculous. When he realized the same it was too late; she no longer took him seriously. Circumspect about the trial, Carolyn now defends his former position, aware it was fear dictating his every action and reaction. He was as subject to the Law of Cause and Effect as any other mortal soul.
The brilliant philosopher Rene Descartes made an erudite assertion regarding the matter. He declared: “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” Doubt is an integral and truly critical element of faith and ultimately, belief, causing mortals to examine what is seen and unseen, forcing us to grow as the catalyst to an evolving thought process encompassing what is visible to the naked eye of the beholder and what must be seen by more esoteric means: Intuition. a healthy process unless taken to extremes. When doubt is used in combat as a weapon of war, when there is no fight to pick, it ceases being a rational pursuit and sinks to the depths of depravity; a taunt, a reason to disagree for the sake of being disagreeable. At some salient point of reference when someone is confronted by too much evidence to deny, doubt becomes a human crutch and as such, is an obstacle to further enlightenment. When finally acknowledged, accepting what’s invisible around us, something as significant as the air we breathe to live, we can and will, at last, see the Light.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the
rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the
servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Albert Einstein
abandon all hope ye who enter here
“When you say a situation or a person is hopeless,
you’re slamming the door in the face of God.”
Charles L. Allen
The priest who came and told Carolyn the house could not be cleansed was only a precursor to an event of a far more sinister nature; lowlight of the summer. One pleasantly cool morning the girls got up before their mother and were all having breakfast together around the kitchen table. Jennifer and Pooh Bear began barking; both were outside the kitchen door sharing a breakfast of their own when each suddenly sounded their alarm, something neither was prone to do without provocation and a good reason. Andrea peeked out the window and could see a beat up Chevy sedan parked on the side of Round Top Road, directly across from their house. It was difficult to spy the intruder at first, obscured as he was by those enormous evergreens in their front yard. What she could see was some kind of sign… two pieces of cardboard, it appeared, secured to one long pole, protruding out from behind the hemlock. The eldest immediately went out onto the front porch for a better look, telling her younger siblings to remain behind. What she heard and soon witnessed was a young man walking back and forth in front of their house, spewing one Bible verse after another, one fanatical phrase after another about a house and its inhabitants being possessed by the Devil himself. A sign of the times. Sticks and stones. Demonstrating as a one-man side-of-the-road-show. Before Andrea could alert her mother she heard a click behind her right shoulder and turned around just in time for the Boom! There stood Carolyn with her shotgun raised and pointed, aiming the weapon directly at a holy roller. Of course, the bullet flew over his head and into the dense forest beyond but the man did not linger long enough to find out if she had missed her target or was simply forewarning him of what was to come if he did not exit the premises immediately… which he promptly did… dropping his home made sign on the ground. The car squealed away like a baby pig running frantically back to its mommy. It was over. Carolyn dropped the shotgun to her hip then turned and walked back into the parlor. Andrea ran to the road to make sure he was gone and while she was there, retrieved the protest sign. Its flimsy paper had disintegrated; it looked as if it had been used before; painted over. Hateful words, scrawled across one side; on the other, “abandon all hope ye who enter here.” A sign of the times.
The telephone rang; one of the neighbors checking in to make sure everything was all right. A shotgun is a formidable opponent; a noisy one as well. Its discharge did not escape the attention of anyone within half a mile of the house: a sonic boom of sorts. Carolyn has always been a proponent of the Big Bang Theory.
“Carolyn? Are you all right?” Mrs. Pettigrew was as curious as she was conscientious.
“We’re fine; just someone on the property who didn’t belong here. He’s gone now.”
“Do you want me to send my husband down?”
“No need… but thank you for the offer. I’m here with the girls.”
“Well call me if you need us; I’ll send the boys.” Bless her heart… still too frightened to come.
The mother of invention was also the recycling queen. Carolyn took the ugly, illiterate object from her daughter and used this particular sign of the times as kindling. Up in smoke and flames it went; the ignition source for a blazing inferno in the fireplace… there was a chill in the air that morning, after all. Carolyn’s reflexive reaction was oddly comforting to her children. Mom was a bad ass eagle eye with a shotgun. It made them all feel safe from the outside world, no matter how active their inside world became. The insulation and isolation had been breached against her will again and Carolyn was angry, mumbling to herself in utter disgust as she stoked the pyre… up in flames it goes… coming here to scare my kids… burn in hell you sick son of a bitch.
“I’m sick to death of being told there is no hope here… there’s always hope… this guy is just a blithering idiot. Maybe there is no hope for him… but a priest coming here… telling me this house cannot be cleansed of spirits… it is sacrilegious! Imagine a priest telling someone there is no hope!” Carolyn was livid; her darkest fear was in knowing a priest and the freak were both right.
“Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul
and sings the tune without the words and never stops . . . at all.”
Emily Dickinson
clearing the air
“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”
Aldous Huxley
Time came for a long walk in the woods so to practice the presence of God. It was time for her to take a quantum leap in consciousness, the mistress of the house having grown weary of disappointment, loss and regret. Having lived too long this way, she was anxious to find another way, a different path, so she took the road less traveled. Expecting the best upon arrival at the farm, she had begun to assume the worst. Clearing the cobwebs, coming to terms with her mortality was easy compared to grappling with immortality. It was time to clear the air, though not with her irascible husband. She didn’t really care what he thought about anything. No. Instead, Carolyn had a needed conversation with God.
Recalling what happened when she and Roger first discussed spirits in their house it was on that day all the bothersome flies dropped dead, again. Airing their differences never proved very beneficial. Usually it became a battle of wits, an altercation with no real winner or loser, just animosity and contempt. There was no point in reliving the past. It was dead and gone but not forgotten… never forgotten. There would be no peace between the couple again, only fleeting moments of silence, an occasional pause for reflection. No form and substance left to the pair, they floated around each other like spirits, avoiding contact, keeping a necessary distance to keep what peace and quiet existed in their home.
There was no point in attempting to clear the air in a home which would instantly fill with the stench of death as an entity made its presence known without fair warning at any given moment. No way to remove a sudden chill. Open every door and window. No was to dispel
an immortal being which claimed the place. No way to keep her kids out of harm’s way. No way to usher them along. The priest told her so. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Perron. This house cannot be cleansed.” Cleared of spirits? Never happen. If they refused to move on, why did she feel so entrenched, dug in to a place that offered no hope, only hell on Earth?
Carolyn went into the forest to meet her Maker. Face to face. Up close and personal. She asked the pertinent question: why? Why had this happened to her and her family? Was there no escape? Were they supposed to be there, supposed to see and hear the sights and sounds of immortality? Was there such a thing as destiny? Was it fate or some cruel joke? The home of her dreams was a nightmare. Conflict erupted as she heard the words she wanted to ignore. Let it be.
There is a cycle in Nature, a pure and perfect union of elements that conspire to create and recreate in every moment. Nature is patient. It is cruel and heartless. It is stunningly beautiful. It is harsh, controlling and utterly unforgiving, possessing no conscience, no will. It runs hot and cold, wet and dry, dark and light. It is neither good nor evil. It is.
Oppressive air began to lift, replaced with something lighter, much easier to breathe. Carolyn began to breathe again. Over time she began to accept her plight not as a lot in life but as a lot of life crammed into a house alive with death. Regarding the true nature of a decade-long experience, it was an expression of Nature. Darkness and Light. It was both. It was everything. Earth had spoken words of wisdom: Let it be.
“The voice of Nature loudly cries
And many a message from the skies,
That something in us never dies.”
Robert Burns
epiphany
“There is no death, only a change of worlds.”
American Indian Proverb
Within a few weeks of the final visit and Warren departure from the farm, another incident occurred, metaphysical in nature; no ordinary manifestation. Carolyn was tempted to call and confess it to the couple, though she resisted the urge, fearing further unwelcome intervention. She still considers it to be of utmost importance, one incident which explained all the rest. The deepest, most profound spiritual encounter of her life, it was a revelation. A miracle. A moment of epiphany… the answer to pensive prayers. Resolution. God.
***
Wandering their house like a nomad on a cold desert night, the vacancy in her eyes spoke of the hopelessness inhabiting an empty soul. To escape such a pitiful interpretation of her own plight, Carolyn spent a great deal of time in her bed. Exhaustion and pain were consuming the woman like a voracious animal, stripping flesh from her bones… eating her alive. The children would have suffered benign neglect, if not for the intervention of their eldest sister. The girls went to Andrea for… everything. Appearing to be a sack of skeletal remains, the emaciated remnants of their mother kept up a pretense of being, of animated existence as a shadow of her former self while her girls became increasingly frightened of losing her to the black hole, darkness surrounding them in a house alive with death. Carolyn had become a living apparition, a frail and fragile creature, a ghost of a woman. The seekers and soothsayers, the ones who had come to the séance with their morbid curiosity in tow just weeks before, would have been stunned by the change; the metamorphosis. Wasting away, Carolyn’s weight plunged below one hundred pounds. This was a rapid transition. Sustained by coffee and cigarettes, she would literally faint into bed. Andrea’s self-appointed task became keeping her sisters well fed and the home fires burning. It was the least she could do for the mother she loved as much as life itself. When alone, she prayed for the wonderful woman who’d given her life.
Late one exceptionally chilly night Carolyn emerged from her bedroom, taking up residence on the hearthstone in front of the fireplace. Andrea had stoked the fire and was sprawled out on the sofa, surrounded by her books. Having gotten her sisters settled into bed, it was finally her turn to address the study postponed earlier. Delighted to see her mother awake and alert, she shuffled out from beneath a blanket of literature, the history of the Western world, anxious to embrace a woman who somehow seemed to be more of a stranger, unfamiliar in body and mind. Having slept right through dinner, her dutiful daughter offered to suspend her homework and warm up the leftovers of food she had prepared earlier. Carolyn declined a hot meal, reassuring her concerned daughter, she wasn’t really hungry. Unacceptable. “I insist. You have to eat something.” Andrea turned toward the kitchen.
“Would you bring me a cup of coffee, too? To wash it down?”
“At this hour?” Though skeptical of the request, Andrea knew her mother was impervious to the effects of caffeine. She was only teasing, just trying to coax a smile from the forlorn figure in front of her eyes.
“It won’t keep me up. Haven’t you noticed? Lately I can always sleep.”
“I’ve noticed.” Not an indictment, Andrea meant to achieve a playful tone by the retort but certain sadness infiltrated her brief response instead.
Holding firm to her position in front of the fire, the mother felt only regret for her daughter while she watched Andrea disappear through a dark dining room door. Turning to face the fire, Carolyn lifted the iron poker and tended the flaming logs. A cacophony of sound erupted behind her the moment she leaned down into the fireplace. It was a multitude of voices in conversation. Raucous laughter rang through the room. Startled, Carolyn turned around to locate the source of the sound. Rising slowly, the mystifying sight before her eyes claimed, and in fact demanded her undivided attention. Laying aside the tool in hand, she focused on the adjoining room which had been, just a few seconds before, as dark and vacant as her eyes had been in recent weeks.
There they were: men, women and children gathered together around a table not her own. In a brightly lighted room, sharing a festive meal, several children were at play, running around the room as a tall, lean woman cooked something over the open flame of a fireplace which had been sealed many decades before Carolyn bought the house. The men were drinking from large steins and helping themselves to opulent bowls of food already being served from the center of the long, hand-hewn table. Benches ran along the rugged piece of wood and two men sat, side by side, sharing a grin as they toasted the cook and the very fine meal being placed before them. The mother gently scolded her naughty children, insisting they settle down, take a seat and eat. The men laughed heartily, hoisting their steins once again. Souls in glorious celebration, it was a gathering in tribute to the value of family and friends. It was a striking image, a manifestation unlike any she’d ever witnessed in the home, though Cindy had described it before, as an expression of pure love.
One big happy family! Carolyn stared at them in disbelief. She vividly recalls feeling humbled by it, unafraid, entirely peaceful in their presence. It was fascinating to her; their clothing, their speech… words no longer in use. She felt a sense of familiarity. No anxiety at all. Could they be real? She wondered if she might be hallucinating… but the details, the language… these people were from another time, another century; not an illusion or some figment of her imagination. They were real. After a few moments of being utterly transfixed by disbelief, Carolyn decided… she did believe her eyes.
One of the men looked up from his plate. He turned his head and stared directly at Carolyn, in sheer amazement. She met his fixed gaze, smiling in response. He could see her as well as she could see him, and they shared an intense moment of mutual recognition. Without diverting his eyes, he gently and discreetly used his elbow to nudge the man seated beside him, indicating where he too should look, on the hearthstone of the fireplace. “Ya see that?” It was the last thing Carolyn heard then they were gone. All gone. A terrible burden had been inexplicably lifted. Carolyn realized the truth… epiphany! During that point of cosmic convergence, in shared space, she was the ghost.
Andrea emerged through the doorway, entering the dining room, empty and dark. She could see her mother in the distance, still standing where she left her, on the hearthstone. Ins
tantly, the youngster saw there was something different about her mother, something so starkly altered, it was impossible to escape notice. A furrowed brow had softened. Light had returned to her eyes, infusing her entire being, bathed in a pale, translucent glow. The woman was shining for no apparent reason, appearing angelic, ethereal; not of this world. Approaching, balancing a tray of food and drink, Andrea was received with the brightest smile she’d seen on a face for longer than she could remember. It was a welcome relief, and amazing change, occurring during the brief time required to warm a bowl of beef stew and brew a pot of coffee. As the light slowly dissipated a smile remained, leaving a mother renewed and ravenous. Without discussing this miraculous experience, Carolyn gratefully accepted the delicious midnight meal. She was as hungry for the food as Andrea was hungry for her mother to return to their family. The youngster went to bed feeling happy and hopeful, though perplexed by the sudden improvement.
House of Darkness House of Light Page 48