The Banishing

by Fiona Dodwell

  On it, shaky and blurred like a home movie, was an open casket. Beside it crying, was Mark, shaking and sobbing, his face puffy and red from his tears. The camera jerked shakily toward the casket, surrounded by flowers, and inside she finally saw the body. Pale, waxy, taut skin, gray. Her. Melissa Sanderson. Dead. Both of her eyes had been crudely stitched shut, and her mouth too had been threaded shut, the skin puckered and ugly.

  She suddenly felt sick and gagged, lurching forward at the sight meeting her on the TV screen.

  Her funeral. Her death.

  It’s not real. I’m here, her thoughts retaliated as she stared at the ugly abomination.

  The camera zoomed into the dead, threaded face—her face—and suddenly her body in the casket began jerking as somebody leaned forward to close the lid on her corpse.

  Her body. Trapped inside. To decay.

  “No!” Melissa screamed, falling to her knees, her eyes glued to the screen. “No! Stop it!” she cried out.

  Suddenly, the TV screen flickered and turned black. The image and the noise faded to silence, nothing.

  Melissa, still on her knees, shook with heavy sobs that filled the air around her. She let the tears fall, heavy and unbidden, her whole body twisted with each desperate cry.

  Something sharp hit her on the back.

  Melissa, stunned, turned around to see a dark object on the floor beside her. She leaned forward on her hands and knees and picked it up. It was the photo of her wedding with Mark, a single crack down the middle of the glass on the frame.

  “He is mine, and you are his,” a deep, rasping voice spilled into the silence. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, seeming both near and far.

  “Fuck you!” Melissa shouted, pulling herself to her feet. “You’re going. I’m going to get you out of this fucking house!”

  She felt her whole body tremble, with anger this time, not with tears, and clutching the framed picture of her wedding day, she ran back upstairs.

  She needed Mark. Had to have him with her.

  When she reached the doorway to the bedroom, she saw his silhouette against the window, the moonlight shedding its glow across his body. He was staring at something outside, shaking his head.

  “Wanting her dead,” he said, his voice small, almost silent, in the stillness of the bedroom. “Wanting her dead.”

  Suddenly, Mark spun around and faced her. Melissa wanted to scream when she was that his face was an empty patchwork of shadows...in that darkness, she couldn’t even find his eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I’m sorry but I don’t feel well,” she lied on the phone to her manager. “I’ve been up all night. I think it must be the flu or something,” she added. There was no way at all, Melissa knew, that she could go to work. She was broken. Tired. A wreck.

  She mumbled more apologies and hung up, staring dully at the kitchen around her. The normality of everyday life mixed in with the horror of the night before. She sat there at the kitchen table, holding a mug of hot coffee, staring into space and wondering what had happened.

  She remembered seeing Mark at the window, talking to…it, again. After that…her mind hit a window of emptiness…Had she gone back to bed and fallen asleep? Had Mark returned to bed? None of the memories came. All she knew was she had woken that morning in bed as normal.

  Mark dressed and left for work a few minutes ago, leaving the house in silence. Didn’t even say goodbye, Melissa thought, bitterly.

  Now, she was alone. In the house. With it. The demon. She shivered and looked around her, but she couldn’t sense anything. Yet, she didn’t feel safer for it, knowing on some level that the thing could deceive. That it was probably always here, watching and waiting, like a cat watching a bird through the trees.

  Prowling. Ready to pounce.

  Melissa took a sip of the strong, black coffee. The warm drink felt good. She couldn’t face eating again, despite her awareness that her body was breaking down. She was becoming nothing but skin and bones…but she couldn’t force herself. The idea of eating sickened her.

  It occurred to her that it was probably the demon, too. Out to destroy everything, even her own immune system. Her enjoyment of food. Hadn’t everything been tainted, now? Not just her marriage, but her own body and mind?

  All tainted.

  Melissa looked up at the wall clock and saw it was almost nine.

  “The library,” she said to herself, remembering the book Grace mentioned.

  * * * *

  She decided to walk. She was in desperate need of fresh air. Melissa knew she was taking a risk. If somebody from work saw her out after she had called in sick, she’d be in trouble, but that was the least of her problems.

  This was much bigger.

  By the time she reached the town library, she had worked up a sweat. Despite the cold, winter air, she had warmed up on her brisk walk, her desperation to get to the book spurring her on.

  She didn’t have a library card, but she knew she’d be able to have a look through the book while she was there, and maybe photocopy something, if need be.

  Melissa climbed the short steps up to the double doors of the main entrance and went inside.

  The smell of wood, polish, stale air, and books lingered all around her, and she smiled at the librarian standing behind the front desk. She knew it’d be quicker if she asked, rather than waiting to find the book herself.

  Melissa smiled and went over to the desk, pulled out the small slip of paper she tore out of the notebook, and handed it across the desk. “I’m looking for this book,” she said. “Demons in Exile, by E. F. Brown.”

  The old woman picked up the paper, squinted down at the handwritten note, then handed it back. “Should be under the Spirituality/Occult section,” she said. “From here, turn left, keep going until you pass the Religion section, and then you’ll find the place you’re looking for.”

  Melissa thanked the woman, snaked her way through the aisle of book shelves, and kept going until she found the section. Spirituality/Occult, it said it bright, blue letters above the shelving unit.

  Melissa looked around her, suddenly feeling self-conscious as she ran her hand along books about haunting, demons, possession, and poltergeists. Crazy things, she thought to herself.

  She lowered herself, scanning the row of titles. At first, she almost missed it, but as she went through the row of books again, she saw it nudged between a copy of the Satanist’s Bible—Was there such a thing? she thought, disgusted—and a study on mental illness and possession.

  There. Melissa pulled out the small paperback and looked at the cover. Demons in Exile, by E. F. Brown. A picture of a cross was in the center of the cover, followed by a small pentagram beneath. Symbols of hope and evil, Melissa knew, staring down.

  Clutching the book, Melissa went over to an empty table at the far end of the library and sat down, immediately flipping through the book.

  The book was written by somebody who seemed to know what they were talking about. How somebody became an expert on demons and demonic possession, she didn’t want to know. Just turning the yellowed, aging paper felt like trespassing, somehow. Touching upon another world she wanted no part of. Melissa scanned over the introduction page and felt a chill—like icy fingers caressing her body—as the words jumped out at her:

  The name demon derives from the Greek word “Daimon”, meaning “intelligent”. Demons know, think, understand….They have the ability to enter into a person’s body, to control them, affect them. Demons have the ability to attach themselves to homes, to people, to objects…Melissa swallowed hard and felt sick at the words—the words that had been her life for so long now.

  Demons can affect an individual’s speech, even at times expressing a new language previously unspoken by the possessed person. Often times, ind
ividuals possessed will enter a trance-like state…Melissa lifted her gaze from the page, searching back in her mind at the countless times that she had walked in on Mark talking, interacting with it. With the demon.

  Melissa looked around her, and the library seemed empty. Not surprising for a Monday morning, but she found the pressing silence, the stale, thick air to be suffocating. She wanted out, but she couldn’t borrow the book. She hadn’t joined the library when she moved to town.

  She unzipped her coat, leaned forward, her head inches away from the page, and began skim reading, again…

  Demons can be violent, aggressive in nature. They like to inhabit individuals in order to express this negative nature. In famous cases of demonic possession, death has been caused (although, this is rare); more often than this, violence occurs in the family home. Discord, chaos, and to segregate the family unit are all particular favorites of the demon.

  Melissa recognized the words, the familiarity of them pressing in her mind, awakening memories of things she saw and felt.

  Although one cannot fully understand what they are, it is believed that demons existed before human beings inhabited this earth. Many people believe they were once angels, and they, in their thirst for power, defied God and were banished from the Holy Kingdom. Forever banished, these demons, discarnate beings, have since roamed the Earth, seeking persons they may possess, in order to enjoy the use of a physical body, and to enjoy wreaking havoc in the family home.

  Where happiness lies, demons feel pain. Where people are united, demons want to separate. Where people have faith, demons seek to disillusion, to shatter.

  Melissa sank lower in the chair. With each word she read, she became more depressed. Useless, she thought, tired. Learning about these things won’t stop them.

  Dejected and resigned, Melissa grabbed the book and stood up. She already started to walk away when she noticed a small slip of paper flutter to the floor. She stepped back, leaned over, and picked it up. It was a small, handwritten note. She recognized the handwriting as belonging to Grace Danvers. On it were four simple words, circled in red:

  Try the Banishing Ritual?

  Chapter Thirty

  Melissa stepped out of the library, glad to be back out in the cold and the light, away from the yellowing, aging air of the empty and lifeless library.

  She had slipped the small piece of paper that had fallen from the book—it must have been inside, tucked in one of the pages—inside her pocket, determined to find out what the banishing ritual was. She’d look it up online when she got home, but now, she had no time. She had to get home. Father Owen was due soon.

  Walking along the busy pavement, Melissa nudged her way through the bustling crowds, eager to get home and to not be seen by any potential colleagues who would report seeing her when she should be home, sick.

  She felt movement in her coat pocket, and she immediately pulled out her mobile phone. It blinked with a yellow light, warning her that she had an incoming call. She lifted it and saw it was Sharon.

  “Hi, Sharon.”

  “Melissa! Thank God you’re okay.”

  “Yes, I’m all right,” Melissa said. Just about. Except that I have demons in my home.

  “You know I worry about you, shit. It wouldn’t hurt you to call me every now and then, you know?”

  “A lot has been happening, Sharon. I told you. Things are happening. I don’t mean to cut you out or anything. I just—”

  “You just are. Cutting me out. I tried calling you at home when I heard you were off sick today. Is it Mark, again? He hit you again or something? I’ll get that prick. I’m so mad at you for staying with him. Enough is enough.”

  Melissa listened to her friend ramble down the phone line, and was glad to be out of the main shopping area and onto the road toward her house. It was quieter, private. “I know, I know. I’m sorting it out, though.”

  Sharon laughed in her ear. “Sorting it out? How exactly? Shit, Mel. You’ll end up dead. When you don’t turn up to work like that, it puts the shits up me!”

  Melissa couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s crass, sassy, vulgar way of expressing herself. She’d always been that way, for as long as Melissa had known her. “Is everything okay with you?” she asked, trying to veer away from the subject. There was no point in getting further into what was happening with Mark and the house. She’d never believe Melissa. She felt sure of that much.

  Sharon sighed. “It’s going very well with me and Jonathon. He turned out to be more than just a good time between the sheets.”

  Melissa smiled again. How good it must be to be so free. To be in a world where everything was normal, real. Where demons didn’t wait, watching from shadows.

  “I’m glad. You’ll have to introduce us sometime.”

  Sharon snorted. “You mean you’ll actually grace me with your presence?”

  Melissa walked faster as heavy clouds began loosening splatters of water from above. Melissa rolled her eyes. “One day you’ll be able to understand this, I promise. For now, I just need time. Time to sort things out.” She fidgeted in her coat pockets, searching for her front door keys, and stopped, frozen to the spot. The dark shadow was watching her from the lounge window of her house. Waiting.

  Inside, all felt normal. After Melissa had said goodbye to Sharon, she had nervously entered the house, inching her way into the lounge and peering in.

  Empty. Nothing. The nothingness, the absence of anything almost mocking her, because she knew the demon-thing was there, somewhere, in the small maze of her home.

  She started to head toward the kitchen, her heart still fast and wild from the ugly sight, when the front door bell rang, echoing all through the house.

  Melissa turned and answered the door. Relieved to have company, she stepped aside and let Father Owen enter.

  * * * *

  He was damp from the rain. His glasses fogged with condensation, and he wiped them with a gray handkerchief he’d produced from his coat pocket. He was wearing a long, black coat and a hat, which he took off as he followed Melissa into the kitchen.

  Father Owen sat down at the kitchen table while Melissa made coffee. She switched on the kettle and pulled two mugs down from the cupboard.

  “How have you been?” the priest asked, leaning on the table, his eyes resting on hers.

  Melissa ran a hand through her dark hair and rolled her eyes. “You don’t want to know the answer to that.”

  “I do,” Father Owen persisted. “I really do.”

  Melissa waited for the kettle to boil, then poured out the drinks. She carried them over to the table, handing one to the priest, who took it and smiled a thank-you.

  She sat down across from him, taking a sip. “I’ve learned quite a bit since I spoke to you last. I went to see Richard Danvers.”

  Father Owen raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Grace’s husband?”

  Melissa nodded. “He’s in a psychiatric ward.”

  “I’m not surprised at all, after what he did to Grace.”

  “It was this house. Like the things Grace said to you, remember? I know that even priests have to be careful about making assumptions about things like that, but I’m telling you here and now. There is something in this house. Like you said, a possession or something. A demon.”

  The priest said nothing, watching Melissa intently and waiting for her to tell more.

  She held the hot mug in her hand and stared down at the drink inside. She watched her reflection shift and glide across the surface of the drink. “I read some notes Grace wrote. I have the book upstairs, actually. She…knew it, too. She was abused by Richard, but she knew it was the demon or whatever it was in this house making him do it. I know it sounds crazy or whatever…It’s all true. Grace saw things here the way I have. Shadows, things moving, and I found out more.” M
elissa paused, looking up at the priest and hesitating. She was unsure whether to go on, unable to read the priest’s thoughts and feelings about what she was saying.

  “Go on,” Father Owen pressed at last.

  “There was a case back in 1989. A man called Sebastian Harping lived here, in this house. He murdered six women over the period of six months, and on the sixth day of December he used their blood and organs in some sort of satanic ritual to invite a demon into the house.”

  The priest had paled, his eyes darkening. “I’ve heard of the case. The papers called it the ‘Case of the Beast’. I didn’t realize it was here.”

  “It was. Whatever that…that demon is, whatever reason Harping had for bringing it here, I don’t know. I do know it’s still here, and it’s ruining my marriage.” Melissa laughed, suddenly. “Ruining my life, actually. I can barely think straight, anymore.”

  Father Owen lifted his eyes, looking around the room. “These things happen. There are more things in this world than you or I could ever imagine.”

  “So, do you believe me?” Melissa pressed.

  The priest smiled but didn’t answer. “Is your husband here?”

  “At work.”

  “Does he know I’m here?”

  Melissa shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t let that happen. I know he wouldn’t. Father, do you sense anything? Feel anything here?”

  He chuckled. “I’m a priest, not a psychic, Melissa. I know demons exist, and even if I could sense anything, a demon is going to hide from someone like me. Not because I am great, but because the One I represent is great.”

  Melissa nodded.

  “Do you want me to go around and bless the house? Melissa, I fear that after the things you’ve experienced here, I’m in way over my head. I feel that if there is a case here, and we can document it, then we might be able to get permission for an exorcism. That might be the route to take.”