by David Clark
As Ainslee inspected the tray, she saw William was now sitting up in the bed. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said.
“Morning,” he said, as he swung his legs out of the bed and headed to the bath.
“So, any more wild dreams last night?”, she asked.
“No,” he responded. He must have been exhausted, as he hadn’t dreamt at all, or he didn’t remember any that he had. It was a curious question, though. “What do you mean?”
“You mentioned a forty foot bull when I woke you to come to bed.”
William remembered saying something about it before he fell asleep, but couldn’t remember how much he had told her. It was easy for him to see how someone who wasn’t there, and didn’t have all the other experiences he has had throughout his life, could see that as a wild dream. There was a brief thought in his head to tell her it was just a dream and protect her from any fear that might come from knowing demons like that really existed, but that thought lasted only a few seconds. She was his wife, and part of his life now. There was no shielding her from that. “Oh, that wasn’t a dream. That was real,” he said.
A loud clang echoed from the other room.
“You okay?”, he asked as he poked his head through the door into the main room. Being okay was a relative state. Ainslee was alive and uninjured, sitting there at the table, with a shattered coffee cup on the floor and her face frozen with her mouth and eyes wide open, but her world would never be the same.
“This is not a joke?”, she asked. A hint of a quiver in her voice.
“This is not a joke. It was real. Cristobal took me out with a group of others to handle a demon called Morax,” said William. He used a white linen to dry the water he had splashed on his face. He intended to take a bath, but needed to handle this first. Ignoring the cup on the floor for the moment, he spun the other chair around and sat on it backwards, facing her. His arms were crossed along the top of the chair. “Ainslee, I know this all seems and sounds crazy, but this is all true. It is not a trick. There is more to the world than you know. I have known since I was very young.”
“But this?”, she interrupted. “You see monsters, too?”
“Well, to be honest, from what I understand, you could see them, too.”
That statement slapped her straight back in the chair. Her quick movement made the chair skip backwards. One of its legs hit a portion of the cup and sent it skidding across the floor like a demonic top.
“Cristobal told me demons appear to the living in many forms. Sometimes they appear like what we saw last night. Sometimes as a person. Every time it is for the same purpose, though. They want to manipulate you. They will make promises to make you follow them willingly, and if that doesn’t work, they will possess your soul… or something like that. I am still learning.”
Before William had headed inside the night before, Cristobal had explained that that was what had happened to his wife, and why she had been acting like she was. When the demon promised to save her son in return for her help, it had expected her to do exactly as it said. She had refused him that last night, so it took possession of her soul and used her body as a vessel to carry out his doings. The concept of possession was one William was not that familiar with, but he had heard Father Henry mention it during some of his sermons. The facts Cristobal shared scared him far more than any fire and brimstone point Father Henry had been attempting. Chills rolled through his body as he heard stories about people mumbling in multiple voices, in all different languages, at the same time, scratches that appeared in victims from inside out, body parts contorting to the point of snapping bones, and strange fluids dripping from every orifice in the body. As shocking as those stories were, the ones about the exorcisms Cristobal had witnessed made him want to swim all the way back to his simple life in St. Margaret’s Hope, and never look back. William had to ask if he would be expected to do exorcisms. Cristobal reassured him that he wouldn’t, or at least not that type. That in a way what he was doing with the spirits was an exorcism, but he wouldn’t be asked to perform a real one, those were reserved for trained priests only.
“How many have you seen?”
“Two, counting last night,” William answered, not pausing long enough for her to say anything else before he added, “but those are just the ones I know of. Like I said, they could take any form.”
Several deep sighs escaped Ainslee as William got up and picked up the jagged pieces of the broken porcelain coffee cup. There was a small puddle of coffee just beneath the table. William was on his way to retrieve the same towel he had used to dry off his face when she sighed again and asked, “So I could be a demon?”
To say that was not the next comment he was expecting from his wife would be the understatement of the year. His back was to her when she said it, but he stopped and spun around. There she sat, on the chair, with a pool of brown coffee underneath her, and that same mischievous smile on her face that he saw that day in the woods when they were younger. “You aren’t taking this seriously, are you?”
“I am,” she said. A crooked smile adorned her face.
“You know they can kill you if they want,” William said.
The cute crooked smile on Ainslee’s face melted away into one of worry and dread. Her head dropped and she looked around the room. The air had been knocked out of her attempt to bring levity to their morning, and now she took two deep breaths to regain it.
“It’s true, they can hurt or kill you, but you need to know, you are in no more danger from them now than you were before. The only difference is you know about it.”
“Okay,” she said, and then she said it again, “Okay.” The second one softer than the first. Her eyes continued to wander around the room.
He attempted to reassure her, “Trust me, you are in no more danger than you were before. Don’t worry about it.”
She muttered “Okay” two more times.
He meant what he said. There was no point in her worrying about any of this. She was just as likely to encounter a demon before as she is now. In fact, the way he thought about it, she was better off knowing about them. She is now aware that they exist, and can be on the alert when one tries to manipulate her. William hoped in time she might look at it this way, along with the rest of what they would both learn about this new life. What he was sure of was, he didn’t like seeing his wife so full of woe, especially not about something she had no control over.
She had just picked up the second coffee cup from the tray and started to lift it toward her mouth when William said, “I am serious. The ghosts I used to see around you back home were probably more dangerous.”
The cup fell a few inches back to the table with a thud, and sloshed several drops of coffee onto the table. This time, the impact was not hard enough to crack or shatter the cup. Her face shot toward her husband, who was walking back with a towel in his hand and a wry smile on his face.
24
Wake up, head to the great library, read and study with Cristobal for 9 or 10 hours, and then return to his residence. That was the pattern William fell into for the next several days. Twice there was the extra treat of spending the last waning hours of sunlight walking around the surrounding streets and shops with his wife. They walked hand in hand through the streets and took in the sights. To two people from a sleepy farming and fishing town, Vatican City, and the surrounding city of Rome, was something neither had ever imagined existed. Their ever-present chaperone, Sister Francine, acted as a tour guide.
On the last day of their second week, she asked each of them if they wanted to walk a little further, there was something she thought they would really want to see. It was only late afternoon, with plenty of light left in the day, but that didn’t factor into their decision much. The level of enthusiasm Sister Francine showed, the first sign of any emotion William had seen from her, was what convinced them. They walked southwest, away from the Vatican and out of Vatican City. She and Ainslee had gone as far as the Tiber River a few times, but never a
cross. This time, the three of them walked across the river and continued down the home and shop-lined street.
People, friendly people, were all over the place, going about their business. Some alone, some in couples, and others as families with children. All exchanged a pleasant greeting with one another as they passed, even with Ainslee and William, people they had never met. They were strangers in a strange world, but they felt as welcome as if they had always been here. Soon they approached the Piazza del Campidoglio. Up the incline they walked and out into the Roman Forum. Sister Francine kept moving at a steady pace, but William and Ainslee fell behind. The sight of the old roman arches, pillars, and other ruins was distracting them from their walk. Their eyes gazed skyward, with their necks stretched to take in the view. They rejoined their guide at a magnificent stone archway that she told them was called the Arch of Titus.
William had seen old buildings before, even what some might call ruins, but nothing like this. Nothing over a thousand years old, and nothing so grand. “I want to thank you for taking us and showing us these wonders,” he said to Sister Francine.
His statement elicited the giggle of a young girl from her. The reaction of the reserved nun confused him, or it did until she took both of them by the hand and walked them to the left, around the arch. Neither William nor Ainslee could open their eyes wide enough to take in what she had just shown them. It was enormous. The thought that man could build something so large was hard for either to fathom. Before they had a chance to ask what it was, she told them it was called “the Coliseum”.
They made one trip around the structure as Sister Francine explained its history. The explanation, and the ensuing questions from both of her guests, continued all the way back to the Vatican, to their room, and even when she re-entered a short time later with their dinner. If they thought the world they’d known in their old life was small before, this made it seem minuscule.
After dinner, William had planned to take Ainslee out to the steps to enjoy the star-filled night Cristobal had shown him last week. It was a spot he had visited twice since, to ponder what he had learned, and his purpose there. Both were still hard for him to have a complete grasp of, but he was getting it. When he opened the door to walk her out, Cristobal was standing there, again with two monks holding lanterns, and another figure hidden in the darkness down the hall.
“Good evening, Ainslee. Do you mind if we borrow your husband tonight? We have some work to do.”
“Of course not. More demon hunting?”, she asked.
In the light cast by the lanterns, Ainslee could see the uncomfortable look upon the faces of the two monks. She looked at Cristobal, who looked at her with a stoic expression. In an attempt to recover, she asked, “Can I walk him out? We were on our way out to look at the stars.”
Cristobal didn’t say anything, he just smiled and bowed as she exited holding William’s hand. Cardinal Depeche led the procession down the hallway, with the lantern-holding monks behind him. Ainslee, William, and Cristobal followed close behind. When they exited, the procession didn’t stop. At the top of the stairs, Ainslee gave her husband a quick kiss and sat down. From there, she watched the group walk through and out of the plaza.
“So, I will ask the same question my wife did. Are we going after another demon?”
“Not tonight. Tonight, is an important night. You are to show us what you have learned,” said Cristobal.
“So, I am facing it?”, asked William. A sliver of trepidation set in at the thought of going to battle with a demon like he witnessed the other night.
Cristobal laughed and said, “No, not a demon. This is just a run-of-the-mill spirit.” With a slap on his back he added, “You shouldn’t have any trouble with this. Just go with what you have learned.”
The group walked, and walked, and walked. William’s legs were still feeling the long walk to and from the Coliseum. The extra miles were adding to the muscle soreness he felt, the cold brisk night wasn’t helping things much either.
Deep into the night, along a tree-lined road that headed out of Rome, the group paused at a cross-street while Cardinal Depeche studied their surroundings. In front of them was a dense grove of trees. To either side were roads that lead out, away from the city, with sparse buildings positioned on what looked like farms under the pale light of the moon. The gas lamps that lit the city were non-existent here. Darkness enveloped everything that wasn’t in the glow of the light from either of the two lanterns the monks carried, or the light from the full moon high above them. He acted like he was searching for a landmark to determine which road to take, but that wasn’t it. William knew it, but he wasn’t sure who else did either. The cold sweat and row of pin pricks on the back of his neck were his tell-tale signs that their destination was close.
A hand emerged from under the red robe and waved for someone to walk forward. Neither of the two monks moved, but Cristobal took a single step forward and nudged William to move, as well. They joined Cardinal Depeche at the front, Cristobal stayed just a step or two behind, where he could serve as a translator. Fear of what was out there didn’t consume William, nor should it. He couldn’t remember the last time a spirit had made him afraid, but this was different. Others were watching, judging, what he did. That terrified him.
“William, He wants you to take the lead,” said Cristobal.
“And do what?” William looked back at Cristobal with his eyebrows raised.
He waved William forward and said, “Show us what you’ve learned.” Cardinal Depeche said a phrase in Italian. Cristobal translated, “Save the Spirit.” He waved him forward again, and said, “Go on.”
William took a few tentative steps off the road; in the direction he knew the spirit was. The chills that radiated down his body told him it wasn’t too far away, and he was right. The dense forest of majestic Mediterranean cypress trees blocked the light of the full moon, casting the group in an eerie cocoon of darkness. Overhead, the treetops swayed, and the leaves chattered in the breeze, robbing them of any sense of calm and silence. The forest floor was barren, robbed of life-giving sunlight. This allowed William to move among the trunks unimpeded. The party that followed close behind weren’t impeded either. They stayed just a few feet behind him at all times. William could feel the four sets of eyes on him from behind, and the spirit that grew closer ahead of him, with every step.
The towering cypress trees gave way to a grove of gnarled cork oak. The moonlight played in between their large, twisted, and distorted branches. The movement of the branches in the wind brought them and their shadows to life. Like a hideous beast living in hiding behind the cypress. William couldn’t take his eyes off the shadows. The chill deepened inside him and a great weight landed on his shoulders. With each step, it became heavier and heavier. He felt his back and legs bending under the great force but, like Atlas, he straightened and pushed that force up, and steadied himself to support the weight of the world on his frame.
In the distance, among the old cork oaks, the flickering form came into view. The form was that of an older man. His black coat, and white shirt with ruffled cuffs, looked pristine. If it weren’t for the blue flickering of the form, and the hollow eyes, one might think this were an Italian gentleman, out for an evening stroll in the light of a full moon. Make that an evening float. His legs moved as if he were walking, but they were three feet above the ground as he circled around and around the same tree.
William approached him, but he paid no attention as he circled around the tree again. Over the last three days Cristobal and William had talked about this very moment a great many times. Not the test, or whatever this was, but the moment when he would stand in front of a spirit and try to help it find its way. Based on his teachings, William had thought there would be more to it. With all the focus on why spirits remain connected to the world of the living, he expected to have to resolve or remove that connection to free them, but that was not the case. Cristobal had said they were not connected, so much as stuck, and n
eeded encouragement to move on. During their lessons William was surprised, and disappointed, to learn there was not just one way to provide that. In fact, there are many ways, the challenge was knowing what was needed for each situation. He reminded William, no one said this would be easy, in fact, it was hard, but he was chosen to have this gift for a reason. William found it interesting no one had told him what that reason was.
Holding his hand up toward the spirit. Not being the most religious of people, William didn’t have any bible verses memorized. William began, “O’ heavenly Father. I request you give me the power to help this soul.”
The spirit passed right by William and kept going around the tree.
He moved closer and began again, “God Almighty, help this lost soul find his way home.”
Again, the spirit didn’t look at him, didn’t pause, and didn’t stop.
Feeling a slight flush in his face more than the chills, he moved closer and put his hand up again. A strong and determined voice behind him shouted “Fermare! Fermare! Fermare!” before William was able to utter another world.
He looked around and saw Cardinal Depeche marching forward. The red-cloaked man passed by him and proceeded to a spot a few feet closer to the spirit than William had stood. He stood there with his hands crossed in front of him at his waist. No hand held up toward the spirit, or anything. In an even tone of voice, he said, “Devo confrontarti con una giornata estiva? Sei più adorabile e più temperato. I venti forti agitano le care gemme di maggio, E la locazione estiva ha un appuntamento troppo breve.”
The spirit stopped in its tracks and hovered there. It turned ever so slightly in the direction of the cardinal. Without another word, the cardinal turned and walked back toward William. He stopped and tapped him dead center in his chest and said, “From here.” He tapped William on the chest a final time before he walked back to join the others.