by Terri Grimes
“Amen,” we said in unison.
We opened our eyes and looked around at each other. There must be more to it than this. My heart sunk to my feet when I saw Lillith pulling items out of her over-sized bag. Because then I knew there was indeed much more and this was just the beginning.
“I need a place to light this candle and leave it undisturbed,” Lillith said, drawing a fat white taper from her bag.
“We can put it on this table at the bottom of the stairs, if that’s okay,” I said taking the candle from her hands.
“Perfect.” She took a disposable lighter out of her bag next. Lighting the candle she turned to us to explain, “I light this candle to absorb negative energy. This candle must remain lit during the entire process. Once we have finished, I’ll remove the candle from your home and thus the negativity. This candle must not, under any circumstances, be brought back into your home once it is removed. Do you understand?” She looked at me as she spoke.
“I understand.”
“Good.” She withdrew a large box of kosher salt from the bag, handing it to Sam. “You know what to do, my friend.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said as he took the box of salt and headed outside.
“What is he doing?” Timmy asked.
Lillith’s demeanor was solemn. “Sam is putting salt around the perimeter of the house to drive away demons and prevent any further negativity from entering the home.”
“Oh,” Timmy and I both said at the same time, the severity of my situation becoming more real by the moment.
Once Sam returned, Lillith withdrew the final item from her bag. Lighting the large torch made of sage, she motioned for all of us to follow her. She walked into the dining room where she began encanting blessings in Latin.
“Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.” Lillith waved the smoking sage torch, liberally wafting smoke into every nook and cranny, speaking several more words of Latin before moving on to the next corner. Once she finished each corner of the room, she moved to the next room and followed the same procedure.
I breathed a sigh of relief when Lillith finished with the last room downstairs. So far, nothing had fought back. I was beginning to think this might end up being a cakewalk after all. Timmy, Sam and I smiled as we followed Lillith up the stairs to the second floor. I noted that Lillith was far from smiling, but my mood was so jovial that I chose to ignore it.
Sam opened the door to the second floor study and stood aside to let us enter. Lillith entered the book-lined room first, then Timmy. I was third in line with Sam bringing up the rear. I heard Timmy squeal with excitement and when he turned to face me, I could see that his eyes were lit up like a Christmas tree and his smile wide.
“This is just like this documentary I saw once on PBS,” he gushed.
“What was the documentary about?” I asked, trying to see around Timmy into the room.
“It was about this very thing, of course,” he said, waving an arm toward the center of the room as he stepped out of my line of vision. “It was all about object stacking in haunted houses.”
My jaw made a light clicking sound as my mouth fell open when he unblocked my view. There, in the very center of the room, was a wooden desk chair, upside down. That wasn’t the amazing part however. What really awed me was the seeing the large cherry desk perched precariously on top of the chair. There is no reason the desk should have been able to be placed on the chair, balancing with split hair precision, but there it was. And stacked on top of the desk were four leather couch cushions from the sofa located on the other side of the room.
“Damn,” I drawled, arching my eyebrows and widening my eyes as I took in the scene.
“You said it, sistah,” Timmy agreed.
“Sam, you’ve got a big problem on your hands, I’m afraid,” Lillith said with a sigh as she waved the sage torch in all four corners of the room.
Timmy and I turned to look at Sam’s reaction.
His face was grave and solemn. “I know, Lil. It’s not going to be easy to get this one to move on, will it?”
“I would have said, not by a long shot, but I’ve not met with any resistance so far. We may be home free.”
“Should we even bother to continue with the blessing?”
“Absolutely,” she said firmly. “It’s important to shut any paranormal doors we open and that’s the purpose of completing the blessing. You don’t want that thing back.”
The rest of the blessing went smoothly and without incident. That’s what shocked me most. After dealing with the entity for the last couple of months, I had come to understand that it thrived on reaction. So to have it go without even a hint of a fight was suspicious to me.
“It may take a couple of days for you to see the full benefit of the cleansing, but the atmosphere in here is already much better now,” Lillith said as she blew out the candle to carry with her.
She was right. I could feel a lightness to the air in the downstairs areas.
“What will you do with the candle?” I asked.
“I’ll take it to my office and recite special Wiccan prayers over it to neutralize the negativity. Then I’ll bury it and hope it’s never dug up.”
“What happens if someone digs it up?” Timmy asked.
Lillith stopped her packing and looked directly at me. “If the candle is removed from the dirt, the negativity will increase ten fold and be released into the atmosphere. Not only will you feel the presence back in your home, but anyone coming within any distance of the candle will be impacted as well.”
“Not to worry though, guys. I’ve known Lil for some time and she’s very thorough with her cleansings. Just relax and put it out of your minds,” Sam assured us with an air of confidence as he drew Lillith in his arms for a hug. “We appreciate all you’ve done, Lil,” he said as he released her from his embrace.
“Yes, we do appreciate it. Thank you so much,” I said, drawing her to me for a huge hug as well.
As Sam walked Lillith to her car, Timmy and I went into the kitchen. I was shocked to see Timmy putting on his jacket.
“Are you leaving?” I asked.
“Well, yeah. “You’re obviously not going to have an investigation tonight.”
“Oh yes we are. Why would you think we wouldn’t be investigating?”
“There’s nothing left to investigate. Lillith got rid of the nasty, remember?”
I shook my head. “That’s precisely why we need to investigate tonight. We need to make sure there is nothing left. Anyway,” I said with a shrug, “you heard her. She said it could take several days for the blessing to work.”
“That’s correct,” Sam chimed in as he entered the kitchen. “That makes tonight a very important night of investigation. Although her purpose was to make the prevalent entity leave, there could be lesser-known spirits around that are so benign you never noticed them. With the dominant entity gone, this is the perfect opportunity to find out if there’s anyone else here and if they need our help.”
“Oh,” Timmy said in a voice laced with disappointment.
Sam patted him on the back. “Gertie and I can handle this one on our own, Tim. It’s okay if you’ve got other plans and need to leave.
“Are you sure?” Timmy asked with hesitation as his fingers hovered above the buttons on his coat, as if he were unsure if he should unbutton them.
“Yes, I’m sure.” Sam smiled as he gave Timmy a gentle shove toward the door. “Right Gertie?”
Timmy looked at me, waiting for my response.
“Absolutely. Now go on and get out of here before we change our minds.”
“Well, you don’t have to tell me twice. Have fun kiddies.
Toodles!” Timmy he waggled his fingers at us over his shoulder on his way out of the door.
Fourteen
The clatter of dishes in the kitchen made me jump.
“Where do you keep your coffee cups, Gertie?” The deep, smooth rumble of Sam’s voice comforted my jang
led nerves. If he continued to root through my cupboards, he’d have all my dishes chipped before he even got to the coffee cups.
I sighed shaking my head back and forth in disbelief a couple of times as he ducked into the food pantry. Somehow I didn’t think even he expected to find coffee cups in the pantry.
“Women are logical. We keep things like coffee cups and glasses in the cupboards next to the sink. It’s a given,” I said, reaching into the cupboard and pulling out two generous sized coffee mugs.
Sam popped his head out of the pantry door, a bag of pretzels in hand. “Oh. That’s where my mom kept glasses and cups too. Weird, huh?”
A disturbing jolt of electricity coursed through my lower abdomen when he spoke. I licked my suddenly dry lips.
“Yeah, that’s really weird. Almost logical, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah.” He laughed, popping a handful of mini pretzels in his mouth, giving me a wink.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a glass of iced tea? I don’t think coffee goes so well with pretzels,” I said pointing to the bag in his hand.
“No, s’kay. Coffee’s better for a full night of investigating,” he said, popping another fistful of pretzels in his mouth and
crunching hard. “Keeps me awake on the drive home.”
I bit my tongue to keep from telling him he didn’t have to drive home, but could stay the night. Thoughts like that would do nothing but get me in trouble so I focused on averting my thoughts.
“I wish Timmy would have stayed to help tonight.” Secretly I was glad he hadn’t because I was hoping that meant I could stay in the back of Sam’s van monitoring the investigation, or at least in the kitchen.
“Poor guy was freaked out I think, between what happened last night and then with you seeing the demon duck into the guest room tonight.”
And getting a full visual of my granny panties, I wanted to add.
“He seemed to enjoy the furniture stacking though.”
“He did at that, didn’t he?” Sam said. “Odd but that would have been the thing I would have thought to have scared him the most.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, scrunching my brow.
“Something of that magnitude can only be done by a powerful energy and usually a dark one.”
I felt the hair standing up on my arms at the thought. I wrapped my arms around myself as I shivered.
“But with Lil’s house blessing calming things down, I think you and I can handle tonight’s investigation just fine,” Sam continued.
“Speak for yourself,” I mumbled.
“What was that?”
I spoke louder. “I was just saying cream and sugar. Do you want cream and sugar in your coffee?” I set two cups on the counter in front of the coffee pot. The kitchen filled with the aromatic scent of fresh brewed coffee as the last few drops of liquid dropped into the glass carafe.
“No thanks, just black,” he said over his wide shoulder as he dived into the pantry again, this time coming up with a bag of Fig Newton’s.
I set two cups of hot coffee on the kitchen table, plopping down into the chair next to Sam. I held my mug in both hands and blew on the steaming liquid, watching him rip open the bag of cookies.
“So, this hole in the wall thing…”
“Portal,” he said, his mouth full of Fig Newton cookie. “Dark, powerful entities can have the ability to create and open portals. It’s not an easy thing and it does take a lot out of them. That’s why once they open a portal to the other dimension they tend to use that particular portal exclusively.”
He popped another cookie into his mouth, the muscles in his jaw working as he chewed. “So it was no surprise to me that we didn’t find another portal, or hole in the wall, if you will.”
“Portal?” I asked. “What exactly is a portal? I mean, other than being a hole in the wall.”
Sam shot an incredulous look my way. “Are you serious?” he asked, as his eyebrows rose almost to his hairline, his warm hazel eyes twinkling with amusement.
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug of one shoulder before repeating, “what’s a portal? All I can imagine is a ship’s window.” I fought the urge to reach out and brush away the lone cookie crumb that rested on the corner of his mouth.
His tongue darted out, nabbing the lone cookie crumb. “Seriously?” He laughed.
“Sorry, I may live in a haunted house but that doesn’t make me an expert on all things paranormal.”
“Gee, I wouldn’t have guessed,” he sneered around a bite of cookie. Despite all the cookies he was shoving in his mouth, I bet he didn’t gain an ounce. The cad.
“Well?”
“Thinking of it as a ship’s window is the perfect analogy. On a ship, you would look out a portal to see from your room out onto the deck, or even the ocean. Granted some regions call them portholes, but despite the terminology, we can agree they are windows that allow you to see into another area. Right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Same thing in the spirit world. But a paranormal portal not only allows the entity to look from one dimension to another, it allows them to physically transport themselves from a lower plane of existence to our realm of being and of course, back again.”
He wrapped his long fingers around his mug and raised it to his mouth, blowing on it before taking a noisy gulp of the coffee.
“Hold on, Cowboy, you’re losing me with the planes of existence and realms,” I protested. They hadn’t talked about planes and realms on any of the ghost hunting shows I’d seen.
“Sorry, Gertie. A portal is a gateway from another plane of existence to our world. Usually a lower plane of existence.” His face grew solemn and his voice low. “A much lower plane of existence.”
Oh. Shit. I was beginning to see where he was going with this. My tone was so soft it was almost a whisper. “You mean…like hell?”
“Maybe not that low. But you get the general idea. There are lower realms, or worlds, if you prefer calling them that. They are not quite low enough to be called hell, but nasty energies do congregate there, pooling their negativity and garnering strength.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Garnering strength for what?”
“When a person spends their time on our earthly plane doing negative things, often when they die they’re afraid to cross over into the light, into Heaven, if you will. So they go to a lower plane of existence that is neither Heaven nor Hell or just stay here.”
“I’ve always thought that bad people went to Hell and good people went to Heaven,” I said. “But you’re telling me people, good and bad, get the option to go where they want when they die.”
He nodded. “There are differing theories, but my belief is that all people get the privilege of crossing into the light. Often people who’ve done bad things on earth will choose to remain where they are. Thus,” he waved his hand in a circular motion, “a haunting.”
“What about that lower plane you mentioned?”
“They can opt to go there if they want. Think of it as a waiting room. Neither here nor there.”
“That makes no sense! Isn’t Heaven the whole point of dying? You know, being reunited with loved ones, being happy in the ever-after and all that stuff.”
“You would think. But imagine a murderer or a rapist, they wouldn’t want to cross over into the light because of the judgment they perceive will occur.”
“I thought you were home free if you saw the light when you died. Wow, I had no idea,” I exclaimed.
“Few people do,” he said with a shrug. “So, the negative energies become grounded entities, learning rather quickly that they can create a portal that allows them to pop in and out of our realm at will.”
“That’s not only creepy, that’s pretty scary to think of murderers and rapists popping in and out whenever they choose.” Goosebumps rose on my arms as I thought of the ghostly entity that had been roaming within my house for the last couple of months. I knew from all the times I’d gotten my bu
tt pinched or my boob grazed that he was no boy scout.
“Not to scare you further, but think of the lower realms as a maximum security prison full of the baddest of the bad. Then they build a tunnel, linking them to the rest of society. A tunnel where they can creep in at will, do a few dirty deeds and then pop back before the prison guards even realize they’ve been gone. That would be the portal.”
“I don’t like the sounds of that. Talk about sneaky,” I said as I reached for the bag of Fig Newton’s, pinching off a corner of one cookie, placing the morsel in my mouth.
“You bet it is,” he agreed, as he retrieved the bag of cookies from my grasp. “The good thing is, they almost always limit themselves to the areas where they committed their crimes.”
“Why is that?”
“Think about the sheer amount of energy that goes into an act of violence. The victim puts out enough energy with their fear to light up New York City. Add in the emotions of the criminal and you have an energy-fest of unimaginable proportions. It’s a scientific fact energy doesn’t die. It’s my belief that the energy expended in an act of violence hangs in the area it occurred, drawing the entity back, time and time again.”
“How do you explain the entity being here? I really don’t think an act of violence took place in my house. I know for fact one hasn’t during the year I’ve owned it.”
“I said “almost” always. Looks like you’re that rare one percent.”
“Lucky me.” That just figured. “What about poltergeists? Are they part of the lower realms?”
“Yup,” he said. “In fact, you might say that poltergeists are junior bad asses. Bad asses in training is a good way to put it. They do annoying things like move furniture, throw pebbles or stones and even pull hair. Typical juvenile bad behavior. Just trying to get attention.”
“Sounds like my cousin Milton,” I said.
“Is he dead?”
“No, he’s just an ornery cuss. A ten year old that can’t seem to behave himself.” I laughed in spite of myself, thinking about some of Milton’s more recent antics.
“With a name like that, can you blame him?”
