The Occult Persuasion and the Anarchist's Solution

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “I would love that,” I said, and that made leaving him bearable.

  He put me on a ferry to Balmain and I watched him turn and walk away. I wanted to dive off the boat, swim to the shore, and cling to him until the moment he died. But that wasn’t possible and I soon lost sight of him. I wondered why life was such a complicated and contradictory thing. I tried to tell myself that was what made it interesting, but all I felt was heartbroken.

  34. LYNDON

  “YOU ARE SURE it was him? And her?” I was back at the hotel with Jason and Sean, neither of whom offered any information about their post-meeting activities, and I didn’t feel that I could ask.

  “Yes,” I said. “It was both of them. It was.”

  Neither Sean nor Jason wanted to talk about what I had seen, and I was baffled.

  “Maybe he’s a private investigator?” I said.

  Jason shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “Or maybe it wasn’t him or Margaux you saw.”

  “It was,” I insisted.

  “You were sober?” Jason asked, and I realized that I looked dishevelled.

  “Sort of,” I replied. “I can recognize my own wife, you know.”

  “And would she say the same of you? Maybe she’s had a makeover too and looks nothing like her former self.”

  I was stunned by this thought but before I could pursue it, Jason asked me where I had been for the rest of the afternoon.

  I turned bright red. “I was at the pub, the Newtown Hotel, and this girl, she was at the meeting, Polly…”

  I didn’t get any further. They both burst out laughing.

  “Cleaned your pipes, didn’t she?” Jason said. “Took you back to hers, fed you Viagra from her sweet little tongue, and then she practiced the Kama Sutra with the “Sea of Love” in the background?”

  “I see,” I said, and I was as deflated as my cock had been after the first time I came.

  “Don’t feel embarrassed,” Sean said. “It makes you truly one of us. It’s an honourary rite of passage being with Polly.”

  “Even you?”

  He nodded. “Even me. And then, seconds after the greatest orgasm of your life, she kicks you out.”

  “Does it ever happen again with her?” I asked hopefully, but they both shook their heads. I sank down into a chair. “Well, it was Margaux that I saw,” I insisted.

  “Go and have a shower,” Jason advised me. “And if you have a change of clothing, I’d opt for that too. You have the distinct odour of a dog having had his day.”

  “Nice,” I replied, but I felt happier. I hadn’t realized how lost I felt without him and Sean, and it was no wonder I had fallen for Polly’s charms. Although, admittedly, I would fallen for her even if my pals had been right by my side.

  “Here’s the plan,” Jason said, when I emerged from the shower. “We’re getting room service and then we’ve got work to do. Sean’s driving to Frenchs Forest and Lyndon, you and I are going to Wollongong. I’ve rented a car for the night. We’re going to time how long it takes for us to get onto the bridge at exactly five a.m. from both those places. It may take a few tries, so we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

  35. MARGAUX

  IT WAS TEN P.M. Rick, Adam, Graham, Tim, and I were gathered at the gates of the Callan Park. A few dog walkers were still entering the park. I wondered what kind of spell Trish was going to cast and whether we would go unnoticed. I didn’t want to get picked up by the police for vandalizing the place.

  Nancy Senior had been remarkably quiet, which led me to harbour the hope that she had left, satisfied with having nearly killed her niece. Graham told me that Nancy Junior was doing well in hospital and would be released later that day.

  “Maybe crazy Nancy is done with me,” I said hopefully to Graham.

  “Perhaps. But I doubt it.”

  “Where’s Trish?” Adam was anxious. I hugged him close.

  “She’ll be here soon. I know this feels a bit weird.”

  “A bit?” Adam laughed, a shaky sound, and I wondered what I was getting him into.

  Trish arrived, pulling a little shopping cart with her. I introduced her to the others. She was dressed entirely in white—even her glasses had white frames.

  “Is this dangerous?” Adam asked her.

  “Very. Of course, but we’ll take every step to make sure we are safe,” she said, and we set off down the hill.

  Adam looked at me doubtfully. “Very,” he mouthed, and I shrugged.

  “We have to do it,” I whispered to him and he nodded.

  Rick offered to pull Trish’s cart, and she thanked him but declined.

  “So where to now?” Graham asked the question we had all been wondering.

  “The Garry Owen House. We need to be in the same room where she first appeared to you.” Trish was matter-of-fact. “One of my friends is part of the writers’ group here, and so I have a key to get in.

  This made sense and so we didn’t say anything more. We reached the front doors of the Garry Owen House, grateful that the small parking lot in the front was empty. There were no lights on inside and when Trish unlocked the door, the interior was dark and shadowed. “There’s no security,” Trish said. “They’re awfully trusting, which is good for us.”

  We filed up the stairs, using the flashlights on our phones.

  We got to the room and the first thing Trish did was take out a folded-up sheet of black paper and a roll of duct tape. “Here,” she said to Adam and Rick. “Put this on the window. Make sure it’s thoroughly sealed. We will be lighting candles and can’t have anyone spotting us.”

  Rick and Adam did as she asked while she unpacked the rest of her bag. There was a solid object wrapped in purple satin, as well as an abalone shell, a smudging wand, incense, an incense burner, charcoal, and a wand that looked like something out of a Harry Potter movie. It all felt a bit ridiculous, and I wanted to smile and make a joke, but I realized the seriousness of the situation.

  Trish also placed a number of candles on the floor, along with six water glasses and a carton of eggs. She added a jug of water to the gathered pile and unwrapped a black-handled knife from the purple cloth.

  The room was empty apart from a small desk and chair. Trish moved these against the wall and stacked the chair on top of the desk. She took out a large piece of chalk and a length of string. She asked me to stand in the centre of the room and hold the string. Then, using me as her central compass point, she drew a circle around the perimeter of the room with the chalk, her knife in hand. She did this in a clockwise direction and she completed the circle three times. She explained what she was doing as she worked.

  She placed candles at the north, south, east, and west ends of the circle and lit them. She then lit the sage, and blessed and cleansed the room.

  I was convinced this would have the smoke alarm going off pronto, but she didn’t do it for long. Then she poured water into four of the glasses and gently dropped an unbroken egg into each one. She placed these next to the candles. She further blessed the circle with her wand as she scattered a small rain of salt round the perimeter of the circle. She lit a cone of incense and placed it in the centre of the circle, along with the abalone shell. She put an opaque crystal at the north candle, explaining that it signified the earth. Then she put a feather near the west candle to represent air; an additional lit candle at the south, for fire; and a glass of water at the east to represent the strength of the rising sun.

  In final preparation, she took the photographs of Nancy that I had taken from Nancy Junior and she put them in the abalone shell. “When the time comes,” she said, “you’ll need to light these.” She placed a box of matches near the shell.

  “But how will I know when that is?” I was panic-stricken.

  “You just will.”

  Trish then sprinkled holy water around the circle. She invited us to joi
n her in the circle and she asked me to bring my phone with the pictures of the Virgin Mary as well as the photographs of Nancy.

  We stood in the circle, facing east. “Breathe,” Trish said. “We will be protected. Relax your bodies. Stay present. Stay calm. We will be safe.”

  I could not help but recall the last time I was in this room when I was anything but safe. But I closed my eyes and tried to believe in the power of the white magic that Trish was evoking.

  “Spirits of Air, I call on you,” she said. “Air, beautiful friend, caress us. Spirits of Fire, I call on you, the pure flame of spiritual energy. Spirits of the Earth, I call on you. Spirits of Water, I call on you. Mother Earth, come, protect us. Father Sky, come protect us. Bring your strength and wisdom into this circle. Now, let us be seated.”

  We sat down, but my knees were not what they used to be. Sitting cross-legged on the floor was too painful. I tucked my legs to one side and hoped that my body would co-operate with the evening’s activities. I looked over at Tim, wondering how he was doing, but he seemed serene and relaxed. Clearly, his knees weren’t troubling him. I told myself that I needed to get back to doing yoga as soon as the trip was over. My mind was wandering, thinking about what my life would be like after all of this was said and done. Was there a way to resume a normal life? And did I even want that?

  “Please let us hold hands,” Trish said, and my reverie was interrupted. I grabbed her hand to my left and Graham’s to my right.

  “True,” Trish began to recite, “without falsehood, and most true, that which is above is the same as that which is below, and that which is below is the same as that which is above, for the performance of the miracles of the One Thing. And as all things are from One, by the mediation of One, so all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation. The Sun is its Father, the Moon is its Mother, the Wind carries it in its belly, its nurse is the Earth. This is the Father of all perfection or consummation of the whole world. So thou hast the glory of the whole world—therefore, let all obscurity flee before thee. This is the strong force of all forces, overcoming and penetrating every solid thing. So the world was created.” She fell silent and let go of my hand.

  “Nancy Simms,” Trish called out.

  I jumped at the sound of her name.

  “It is time to set you free. It is time to end your unholy alliance with Margaux. You need to go where you belong. We are here to set you free.”

  She turned to me. “Delete the pictures off your phone,” she said, and I scrambled to do as she said. My hands were shaking as I scrolled and found the images. I selected them and deleted them and the very second I did that, my phone died. It instantly turned black, and at the same time, all the candles in the room were snuffed out. The temperature dropped by twenty degrees. I shivered.

  “Welcome, Nancy,” Trish said, which I couldn’t really support. Welcome? My heart had swelled to three times its size and it was blocking the back of my throat.

  Trish got up and relit the candles. But as soon as she sat down, they were extinguished, as if with one breath.

  I wanted to run away as fast as I could, but I was frozen with terror. I was a block of ice, unable to move or blink.

  Trish calmly lit the candles again. She took my phone and placed it next to the abalone shell in the centre of the circle. “Nancy,” she said calmly, “I can light those candles as many times as you blow them out. Stop being childish. We simply want to help you.”

  To my surprise, the candles remained lit, and the room resounded with peals of laughter. It was the pretty, happy, summer-day laugher of a carefree girl except that it was unmistakably chilling and evil. A cold wind blew around the circle, dropping the temperature even further. Our breath was visible as we exhaled, clouds around our faces, and I saw that the others were as cold as I was.

  The wind gathered shape and a vortex of fury spiralled and darted around the circle, pausing in front of each of us, as if considering us carefully, and then moving on. It did this twice before stopping in front of Adam. My belly clenched and I gritted my teeth.

  The vortex formed the shape of a hand. The long, slender fingers flexed and stretched. It was clearly a woman’s hand, elegant and fine, with oval, tapered nails. The hand clenched into a fist and to my horror, the fist pulled back, took careful aim, and drove into Adam’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. He fell out of the circle and lay there, curled up, groaning. But the hand didn’t let him lie there—it grabbed him by his hair and hauled him back up into a seated position. And then it slapped him across the face, left, right, left, right, leaving ugly red welts. My boy. She was attacking my boy. Attacking me was one thing, but no one was allowed to touch my baby.

  The hand grabbed him by the throat and squeezed. I had to save him. Adam’s eyes were bulging, and he was turning purple. I grabbed the matches and set the photographs of Nancy alight in the abalone shell. I launched myself across the circle to Adam. The hand was choking him. Rick was also trying to reach him, but he was being held off by a force field as if he were leaning into a wind tunnel, straining to move forward but unable to do anything.

  But I was Adam’s mother. “Leave him alone,” I shouted, and I grabbed the hand. It felt like any woman’s hand would, with soft skin. It was silky, cool, and definitely alive.

  “You bitch,” I shouted. “You barren bitch, let go of my son! Let go of my child!” I leaned down and bit the hand until it let go of Adam and he fell backwards. Rick was released and he rushed to Adam.

  The hand slapped me hard across the face, and I got to my feet.

  “Let me see all of you, you coward,” I shouted. “Stop playing your stupid tricks and show yourself to me.”

  And she did. Beautiful Nancy, cool in her starched uniform, her hat jaunty, her eyes wide and innocent. She put her hands on her hips, as if to say, Now what?

  “And now,” I said, shaking with rage, “I condemn you to hell. I condemn you to the live in the excrement you forced upon others. You will not be allowed to wash, and you will be tied up. You will be given drugs and made to think that you have gone insane. You will suffer from paranoia, delusions, and frantic frenzy. You will claw at your own skin to try to escape, but you will be trapped forever. And, you will watch yourself become a deranged filthy beast. You will stand outside of yourself and bear witness to the piece of human garbage that you truly are. Your teeth will fall out, leaving bleeding holes in your mouth. Your skin will wither, and you will lose your hair. And you will watch all of it happen. And you will be powerless. You will be like a newborn baby, without the strength of a kitten. I summoned you by the power of my rage, and, by the power of my rage, I banish you. BE GONE!”

  And with that, I grabbed Trish’s sacred knife, the knife I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch, and I buried it deep in that bitch’s cold heart. The knife glowed a fiery red and turned black. Nancy opened her mouth to scream, and instead of moths or worms, she spewed maggots, so many that she choked on them. She began to fade, but still, she fumbled for the knife, trying to tug it out of her chest. The knife turned a violent aquamarine blue, seemingly lit from within, and then, the thing that was Nancy shattered like an exploding glass vase, and the fragments and remnants flashed radioactive green before fizzling and disappearing.

  The knife fell to the floor with a dull thud.

  I whipped back to Adam who was still holding his throat. Rick was hugging him, and I put my arms around both of them.

  “My baby,” I said, my voice was hoarse. “How dare she. Are you okay? Please tell me you are okay.”

  “Mom,” he managed to say, “you were awesome. Wow!”

  This made all of us laugh and the release was beautiful.

  “I’m sorry I used your knife,” I told Trish. “I’ll get you another one.”

  Wide-eyed, Trish shook her head. “Please, don’t give it another thought. I am relieved it worked. You never really know
what will work and what won’t.”

  Tim held out his arms. “Group hug,” he said. “For me, if no one else. I’m shaking like a leaf. I swear I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I’ve seen some things in my life but nothing like that.”

  We all gathered in a hug, and no one said anything for a moment. With our heads bowed and our arms around each other, I knew we were all counting our blessings that we were alive.

  I pulled back, exhausted. “I can’t wait to have a hot bath,” I said. “I feel like I’ve run a marathon.” I, like Tim, was shivering and covered in goosebumps.

  “It’s shock,” Graham said, and she yanked off her cardigan and wrapped it around me. I hugged it close, thanking her.

  “Let’s get the heck outta here,” Rick said, and even his drawl sounded speeded up.

  “I know we want to get out of here as soon as possible,” Trish said, “but we need to close the circle and cleanse the room. We have to finish this properly.”

  Tired as we were, we assured her that we understood, although our reluctance to remain in the room was palpable. Trish walked us through the closing circle ceremony, and we packed up the candles, the incense, the abalone shell with the ashes, and the rest of the tools. We all kept glancing around nervously. I think we were all worried that Nancy would find some way to come back and put us through another round of hell.

  But everything went smoothly. Rick took down the window covering, and by the time we were ready to leave, there was no evidence of us ever having been there, except for a very faint chalk circle on the carpet and the smell of smoke and incense in the air.

  “I’ll cleanse everything when I get home,” Trish said, “but we still need to break the eggs outside and pour the water on top of them at the four points around Garry Owen House.”

  We followed her lead, stopping to do as she said. The air outside was cool and fresh and when we poured the final drop of water on the last egg, I knew the others felt as I did. It was over. We were free. We were finally ready to leave. It was close to three a.m.