The Dark Sacrament

by David Kiely

  The pages fell from his hands and fluttered to the floor. He slumped onto the sofa. The Dwyers helped him to his feet.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do this!” he gasped. He had the air about him of a man defeated.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Father,” Moya said kindly.

  “I’ll try to find someone else who can help you.”

  “God, I hope so,” Shane said. “I really do.”

  They went to the kitchen. Father Dorrity was clearly shaken, but, after a restorative cup of tea and glass of brandy, he was himself again. He tried to make light of the incident, told them not to worry, that he had a bit of a cold coming on and had not eaten since breakfast. Shane accompanied him out to his car.

  “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Moya,” the priest said. “I didn’t want to frighten her, but was there anything of the old cottage left in that room we were in?”

  “I don’t understand, Father. All that was left was the bare foundation stones, and we built on those.”

  “Are you sure now? Nothing left along that gable where ye have the sofa?”

  It was then that Shane remembered.

  “Well, come to think of it, there was something. The hearthstone. It was such a heavy thing—so heavy, in fact, that we couldn’t move it. So we just left it and built over it.”

  Father Dorrity was thoughtful. “I see,” he said, almost to himself. “Yes, it’s becoming clearer now. That’s where it lives.”

  “What? What d’you mean, ‘it’? What are you talking about, Father?”

  “I don’t want to alarm you, Shane, but I’m not an exorcist. And that’s what your house needs: an exorcism. I’ll need to ask the bishop. Not every priest can do that kind of thing, you see.”

  “But what is it? What’s causing all of this, Father?”

  Father Dorrity avoided answering. He got into his car.

  “I’ll phone you at the end of the week,” he said, starting the engine. “By then, we should have the name of a good priest for the job. In the meantime, keep up the prayers—and sprinkle holy water as often as you can.”

  With that, the good man sped off, leaving Shane in the yard feeling more uneasy and confounded than ever.

  Despite the priest’s portentous words, the Dwyers had a further two weeks free of any paranormal incident. Looking back on that period, they almost found themselves believing that the forces ranged against them were deciding on what to send next to torment the family. A fresh phase of manifestations again saw a change in direction. It was as though what lay beneath the hearthstone was demonstrating the variety of phenomena it could conjure up.

  On February 2, 2005, Moya was awakened by what she took to be the cries of a child. She sat up in bed, startled and at once alert. Was it one of the children? Shane continued sleeping. But when it came again, she realized that the weeping came not from inside but from outside the house.

  She went to the window and pulled the curtain aside, but could see nothing. She went quietly out onto the landing—and was abruptly brought up short.

  At the far window stood the figure of a woman, wearing what looked like a white nightdress. She was gazing down into the backyard.

  Moya did not know what to do or think. Was she hallucinating? Then she heard the unmistakable sound of weeping again. This time, however, it was not the cries of children, nor was it coming from outside. The woman by the window was weeping.

  She hurried back and woke Shane. She needed him as a witness; maybe she was seeing and hearing things.

  “Right, I’ll have a look,” he said sleepily.

  The apparition was still there. And the sobbing had intensified. Now a plangent wailing filled the house.

  “Don’t go near her,” Moya whispered, clutching Shane’s arm.

  “Why not? I’m sick of this bloody nonsense. And anyway, I want to see her face.” A mane of dark, shoulder-length hair hid the woman’s face from view.

  “For heaven’s sake, don’t go near her!” Moya warned again.

  But Shane was already approaching the woman in white. She stood as still as a statue, albeit a translucent statue, with hands joined in an attitude of prayer.

  “I don’t know what it was,” Shane tells us, “but something about the woman made me think I knew her, that I recognized her from somewhere. Only when I got up really close, almost close enough to touch her, did I see it. It was my granny.”

  Shane’s grandmother had died when he was eight. But the figure of the woman was much younger than he remembered his grandmother to be. This was a younger version. It was as though a ghost from another time was being shown to him—a time long before his own birth.

  “Granny, is it you?” he asked. He did not feel in any way threatened.

  But the figure still did not move; it seemed quite oblivious to his presence. He put out a hand to touch her. As he did, she dissolved into “a kind of mist” and was gone. The weeping died away.

  The couple went back to bed. Emma and Rory were—as usual—staying over at their grandmother’s, and consequently under no threat. In all honesty, the Dwyers did not regard the apparition as being in any way threatening. Neither had any great urge to leave the house—not at that time of night and without good reason. They went back to sleep.

  But, at around 4 a.m., they were wide awake again. They heard, plainly, the mournful cries of the woman. This time they were coming from the yard.

  “It was terrible,” Shane tells us, “because we could hear children crying too. I thought of the four Dwyer children who had died as babies. They were calling out, ‘Mommy, Mommy!’”

  Moya suggested that the children and the wailing woman were somehow connected. It almost seemed as though she were crying out for her lost children, and that they in turn were searching for her. It seemed to Moya that all were searching in vain, making their respective wailing all the more poignant.

  “It went on for ages,” Shane says. “We felt helpless to do anything. We just sat there in bed and spent the rest of the night praying for them.”

  There was to be a further development. On inspecting the red room later that morning, they discovered something decidedly ominous. It likewise involved children, and it shook Moya to the core. The framed photographs of Emma and little Rory had been turned to face the wall.

  They were reluctant to bother Father Dorrity again but felt they had no choice. The parish priest expressed his sympathy “for your troubles,” and promised he would send his curate to celebrate another Mass. He told the Dwyers that he had apprised the bishop of their situation. They learned that the wheels had been set in motion: a suitable exorcist was being sought.

  Two days later, the curate came. Another Eucharist was celebrated and the house blessed a third time. But the manifestations continued undeterred.

  The hooded figure began to appear more frequently, always at night and always in a corner of the couple’s bedroom. The screaming at the windows and the hammering on the doors resumed. It was too much to take—the family was forced to move out again.

  With some reluctance, Shane made the decision to consult other clergymen. He did not doubt Father Dorrity’s sincerity—the man had, after all, put himself in the firing line on their behalf—but he could not wait forever for the bishop to respond.

  An aunt of his had befriended a Presbyterian minister who was well acquainted with the paranormal. He was happy to help and offered his services at once.

  “He performed what he called a ‘deliverance,’” Shane recalls. “He was reluctant to call it an exorcism but I suppose that was what it was. But whatever the name you want to give it, it was very effective. The house was definitely better after it. We had no more bother for a long while.”

  The minister followed it up with weekly prayer meetings in the red room, attended by Shane’s mother, his sister Maura, and a number of other relatives.

  For three whole months there was peace. Then, as bad luck would have it, the minister was called away on missionary work. Before
leaving, he stressed the importance of the weekly prayer meetings.

  A few days following the clergyman’s departure, Shane received a perplexing telephone call. That call was to herald a new and bizarre phase in a haunting that had already thrown up some of the most perplexing manifestations ever witnessed in that part of Ireland.

  “My name,” the caller said, “is Vincent Davage. You don’t know me, Mr. Dwyer, but I know about your predicament.”

  It was early June, and Shane had taken the call at work. The stranger spoke with a cultured Galway accent. Without much preamble, he was offering to help “where others have failed.” Shane was mystified.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “I don’t know who you are and I don’t know how you got this number—and furthermore, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The only people outside the family circle who knew about his “predicament” were the religious. He had been led to believe that their discretion could be relied on.

  “Oh, but I think you do know what I’m talking about.” The voice took on an authoritative edge. He was reminded of a clergyman, an elderly clergyman perhaps. “I have knowledge of these things, you see. I know about the manifestations in your home. I had the same trouble myself. I’m offering my services, and they come with a blessing.”

  Shane was mystified. “Are you a priest?” There was a marked silence on the end of the line. “Hello, are you still there?”

  “No, not a priest….” He received the impression that Mr. Davage found the question amusing. “But I come with a special blessing.”

  “Well, I put my trust in the Church, if it’s all the same to—”

  “But your Church is not having any effect now, is it?” the caller interrupted. “I’ll come at a time of my choosing. Good-bye.”

  The line went dead.

  Shane was deeply disturbed by the call. He considered phoning Father Dorrity, or perhaps his mother. He decided against it. He thought it best to keep it to himself. He would not even tell Moya. There was no reason, he decided, to bother her with something that in all likelihood was a hoax. She had enough on her plate.

  The following evening, however, just as the couple finished supper, an unfamiliar car pulled into the yard. The children were at their grandmother’s as usual.

  “You expecting someone?” Moya asked.

  “Not that I know of.” Car doors slammed. Shane parted the net curtain and looked out. A man and three women were surveying the house. He thought there was something unsettling about them and the manner in which they strode purposefully toward the house, as if on a mission. There was none of the hesitancy one would associate with newcomers.

  The women were youngish, early twenties, perhaps. They were attired in clothing that was almost of an “ethnic” nature: long cotton skirts, hand knits, and headscarves. The man was dressed casually.

  Shane immediately thought of the curious phone call. He looked at Moya, but she only shrugged. The doorbell sounded. He took a deep breath and prepared to answer it.

  The man who stood on the doorstep was middle-aged and of slim build. Shane stared at the close-cropped blond hair, the gray eyes, and the sickly pallor. The visitor held out a hand. “Vincent Davage. We spoke yesterday.”

  Shane opened his mouth to say something, but before he knew what was happening, Davage and his entourage had pushed past him and were walking in single file down the hallway in the direction of the red room.

  “What in God’s name d’you think you’re playing at!” Shane called out. Moya was on his heels. “No one invited you here.”

  “No,” Davage said, “but nonetheless you need me.”

  Two of the women arranged chairs, while the third drew the curtains. The room was plunged into semidarkness.

  “This room is the focus,” Davage announced. The four arranged themselves around the table and linked hands. “This is where it lives.”

  “Look, we want you out of here now!” Moya cried, her anger rising. “Do you hear me? And if you’re thinking of having a bloody seance in here, you’d better think again. We’re not into that nonsense. So kindly get out, please.”

  “I’m calling the police,” Shane said, making for the door.

  Davage turned in his seat, still linking hands with the women on either side. His voice was calm and decisive. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mr. Dwyer. You might end up worse off than you are now. I am here to calm the evil that is in your midst. Last night, the gates of hell opened up once more. I was shown what must be done. It is advisable that you and your wife heed what I say. We are here to help.”

  The Dwyers were stunned. Abruptly, the dynamics of the situation had changed—changed utterly and in the most chilling way. Shane tried to speak, but the words simply would not come. There was a tense silence.

  “Shut the door, please,” Davage ordered, “and we can begin.” He bowed his head and the women did likewise.

  “All right. Very well.” Shane was choosing his words carefully. Something was cautioning him not to inflame the situation further. It’s for the best, he was telling himself; if this arrogant man can achieve what he says he can, then why not let him try? “But we pray first,” he insisted. “That’s the deal. Then do what you have to and just go.”

  “We don’t pray.” One of the women had spoken for the first time.

  “No, we don’t pray,” echoed Davage; “we connect. You pray if you wish. It won’t affect what we do, one way or the other.”

  Greatly alarmed, the couple found their rosary beads and knelt down by an armchair. They focused on the Sacred Heart picture above the fireplace.

  “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” they began, trying to pray as vigorously as possible, in order to mask their distress, “Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only son, Our Lord…”

  Halfway through the first decade, however, they were forced to stop. Davage had begun speaking in a strange language. The women appeared to be chanting; their heads were no longer bowed but raised up and tilted to one side. Their eyes were closed.

  “I really couldn’t tell what kind of language he was speaking,” Shane recalls. “It didn’t sound like Latin. God knows what it was: Coptic, Hebrew, Aramaic…take your pick. We’d never heard it before and we sure as hell never want to hear it again. Then, during it, the very same thing happened as when Father Dorrity was praying. That rumbling sound, only this time it was louder and it didn’t stay under the sofa. It started to move across the floor. We could actually feel the floor vibrating under us—like there was something moving under the floorboards, very fast. And after about, say, a minute, it went out under the door and into the hall.”

  The Dwyers were terrified, more so than when the unseen entity had assaulted the priest. This was paranormal activity of a different order. They had never seen the like of it. It seemed to them that Davage and his band had brought a new menace into their home, one that was gaining ground by the minute. They had nothing but prayer to hold it in check; they prayed more loudly than before. But Davage’s voice kept rising progressively, the words spoken in the strange language vying with their prayer. Then, all at once, he stopped.

  “Our guest in the hallway wishes to come in now,” he announced. He turned to the Dwyers. “You do not have to look at it if you don’t want to. In which case, it would be best to keep your eyes closed.”

  “I can honestly say that, until that night, we thought we’d experienced enough horror to last us a lifetime,” Shane says. “But when Davage said that, the pair of us just went into shock. We knelt there, just stiff with fear. We couldn’t move. We couldn’t speak. We tried to pray again, but it was as if we were struck dumb. All we could do was shut our eyes tight and wait.”

  They heard the group direct some mysterious command in the direction of the door. For a few moments, there was nothing unusual.

  “That changed,” says Shane. “There was this gradual coldness in the room. It crept up on you. It chilled you to the bone. I ke
pt my eyes closed, and I know Moya did, too.”

  They heard the doorknob turn and the door slowly open. The cold intensified, but there was something else: a truly vile odor was pervading the room.

  “It”—or indeed “the guest,” as Davage called it—was now in the doorway.

  “The smell of it was horrible. Really, really bad, like burning hair. I tried to hold my nose, but it was useless. Both of us started to feel really sick. But there really was nothing we could do. The urge to run out of the room was very strong, but that would have meant opening our eyes, and we couldn’t bear to look at it. Besides, it was blocking the doorway—that’s how it seemed. Something was telling us that, if we looked at it, we’d probably never recover from it…that we’d be part of it—if you can understand that. It’s very hard to describe. It was just surreal, terrifying. I never want to go through anything like it ever again.”

  Did he have the impression that this presence had human form?

  “It’s very hard to say. It was huge, that’s for sure. And it rustled…like it had wings or suchlike….” He stops and chooses his words carefully. “I now know that it was…that it was a demon. What we’ve learned since then bears that out.”

  Davage began addressing the creature in his arcane language. They could tell by his voice that he had turned in his chair and was talking to it, as if he were “having a conversation with someone.”

  Astonishingly, the presence began answering in the same, strange-sounding language.

  “But the voice was disembodied,” Shane explains. “A man’s voice, very deep, but it was coming from all around the room. From the ceiling, the floor, everywhere. Sometimes we’d hear it right behind us, then in front…then from the armchair that we were kneeling beside.”

  Both voices grew in volume. They seemed to be arguing. Shane wanted desperately to glance at his wife to check if she was all right. He was terrified. How must she be?

  But he knew he dared not look. He could feel her arm against his, trembling. He felt certain he could hear her teeth chattering, not only from abject terror but from the subzero temperature in the room.