The World of Myth Magazine

I knock softly at my daughter’s bedroom door.

“Annie, are you in there?” I ask. “It’s mom.”

“There is no Annie here…” comes a growl from within.

“I thought you said you killed it,” I hiss to my husband who is standing in the hall beside me, he anxiously wrings his hands.

“I said all the words, I am certain that it died last night with the cat,” Harold mutters.

“Something like this you can’t kill, not with some words in a book,” I try to explain, speaking slowly like I would if I were trying to teach a toddler. “You can only banish them, return them to their home, a place they really don’t want to go.”

“I know, I know,” my husband tells me.

I choose to ignore him.

“Darling,” I say, speaking to the closed door again. “It’s your mom and pa, we’re coming in.”

“No! You can’t!” growls our daughter, the voice is not hers, but I know in my heart of hearts she is in there somewhere still.

“You want me to come in too?” whimpers my husband.

He is dressed in his gown that is covered in crucifix symbols; a chain with a child in a manger hangs, swinging as Harold’s hands continue to tremor. I try not to smile as I notice in the early morning light that my husband has on his black shirt and white collar, he has gone old-school, traditional.

“Yes darling,” I say kindly though kindness is the last thing on my mind. “This is something we will need to do together.”

“Well, alright then,” he agrees.

I am dressed in my fluffy bunny slippers, pink with blue pom-pom tails. A white bathrobe that I received as a gift for my birthday last year covers my nakedness. I still drip upon the hall carpet; my body and hair still damp from my morning shower. I have not had any caffeine yet and I can smell bacon sizzling in the pan that is on the stovetop downstairs. There is a stronger smell though wafting through the house, emanating from our daughter’s room. It is the distinct smell of sulfur, rotten eggs mixed with sin.

I try the door handle but find it is hot to touch. I hide my hands within the sleeves of my robe and try to twist the handle again. The artificial fibers burn but the knob slowly rotates, and the door flies open.

“Mom! Dad! Help me!” cries the voice of Annie, our daughter. “Help me, please!”

I don’t know if it truly is our Annie who cries out, or if it is the thing that possesses her, mocking us, making us doubt as we hear the familiar sound.

“Hang in there darling, we are going to help you through this,” promises my husband, Annie’s father. He is great at making promises he does not yet know that he can keep. He is a kind-hearted fool and I love him dearly for that, but right now, in this very unique moment, kind-heartedness and foolery are two things that we can do without.

“What do we do?” I whisper to my husband as I peer into the darkness.

My eyes adjust and I can kind of make out the mound of bedsheets lying disheveled upon the floor. The mess of top and bottom sheet and woolen blankets are starting to smolder. The drawers of the bedside are all open with the contents floating throughout the room. The lamp light is shattered and a black flame burns where the globe once was, it dances though there is no breeze.

“Step one foot into my realm and I will claim your soul too,” growls the voice from the ceiling.

I stare upwards to see my six-year-old daughter and as she turns to look down I can see that her eyes are no longer her own. They have been replaced with pools of emptiness. To stare into such pools would be to become lost forever. I rip my eyes away from such a face and again look about the bedroom.

“Quite the mess you have made this morning,” I mutter as I put on my best telling-off voice.

My husband gives me a confused look, but I ignore him and keep talking.

“I need you to clean it up this instant,” I say.

“Ok, mommy,” mocks that which resides within my child.

Annie has never called me mommy, always mom, and always with respect, love, and admiration.

“In the name of the Son of God, I order you to come out of our daughter!” commands my husband using the same deep and powerful voice that he projects from the pulpit. He is full of righteousness and vigor but still has no common sense.

Harold steps out from behind me and I see he is holding a coffee cup; it is filled to the brim with a clear liquid. As the liquid leaves his fingers and is flicked into the room I watch the droplets. They have been launched in a perfect arc that will allow them to splash upon our daughter’s cheek. There is a hiss as the water touches skin and our daughter makes a noise that begins as a child’s whimper but ends as a canine’s howl. Annie’s head twists halfway around, unnatural, now she is clinging to the ceiling on all fours but looking straight down at us, her pa, and her mom. The eyes of emptiness seeking to meet ours that see.

“Come out!” calls my husband again and he flicks another barrage of droplets. “Come out and leave the girl be!”

Again, the droplets strike true. This time the howl is not even that of an animal. The head twists again and the neck resembles liquorish.

“Stop!” I urge, but Harold does not heed me.

He steps into the bedroom and suddenly the coffee cup in his hand is torn away and slammed viciously upon the opposite wall.

“We’re not thirsty, daddy dearest…” growls our daughter. “But we are most certainly hungry.”

With neck still twisted in an impossible way the body of Annie drops from above and spins like a cat to land upon its knees and hands. There is a crunching sound as bones break and I see my little girl’s face twist in pain. I know she is still in there somewhere, but it won’t be long before we lose her forever. My darling Annie with chocolate skin, my fierce little lion cub with a heart larger than an elephant’s.

“Keep chanting!” I say to Harold. “I think it could be working.”

“Chanting?” my husband replies, indignant. “I’ll have you know that these are prayers, special prayers that have come from long ago.”

“Sorry, keep on praying then,” I say, then I hold my tongue, not wanting to create an argument when what I need is a distraction.

My husband’s faith is straight and true, but it is not the only faith, as much as he would like it to be. It is not the oldest faith either. My people have been telling stories since well before his Son of God supposedly arrived. Where there are stories there is always some grain of truth, someone who has borne witness, one to tell the tale which is added to and taken from until what is real becomes some nonsense you can use to amuse the very young or the very old. My mother was a teller of tales. She knew the truth and she taught her daughters well.

“I call upon thee, Azzurrah, Jur-Ne-Aau-Tun, Creature of Darkness, Wyrm, Horned and Hoofed…” cries out my husband, his tiny symbol of the infant in a crib thrust forward like it will make the creature change its mind.

“I’ll be right back!” I cry out to Harold as I step back slowly and then race down the steps.

“Where are you..?” states my husband in dismay.

I hear the creature move but do not stay to watch and witness. I have a plan, a plan that simply must work out.

I take them two at a time, the stairs of our home, I am so very confident that I know them well. What is inside our child though has talents; powers that can warp and pervert, whether it is the physical or what the mind perceives. Those same stairs elongate and then drop away until I find myself falling, tumbling, reaching the bottom, and then falling further still. I feel pain but I also feel the cool tiles of the kitchen. I cannot see but I can hear the bacon burning. I turn off the stove and then find the pantry. My pantry is well stocked, and I know what is on every shelf. Harold is still playing with our daughter, so for now, the creature is not bothering with mom. I take up the sack of salt, normally far too heavy for me to carry on my own but certain circumstances grant great strength, or so my mother’s stories say. I have the great sack halfway back up the stairs before I finally feel the weight. My arms ache as I dump it at the bedroom door. I grab a handful and throw it at our daughter. A second handful I carefully run as a line beneath the doorframe.

“Mom, please, stop,” begs the voice of my little girl.

I look up and I can see that the eyes have changed from empty pits to a beautiful brown.

“Aaaggggggg…” gurgles my husband and I can see his eyes of blue are bulging as his skin turns a similar color.

I throw some salt towards the claws that clasp him around the throat, the squeezing claws, the claws that refuse to let go. Little tongues of dark flame rise up from where the salt strikes Annie’s skin. Good quality, properly blessed, Himalayan rock salt, the stuff only my mother knows how to buy and sneak through Customs at the airport. It does the trick and the claws release. Brown eyes turn dark, a tiny pinprick of orange fire is evident amongst the blackness. I smell sulfur again, stronger this time, so strong I cannot help but gag.

“Thank you,” Harold whispers. “The cat never did anything like this.”

“Maybe that’s because the cat wasn’t actually possessed,” I suggest.

My husband has forgotten where he left his bravery, the foolishness that made him run into that room. He backs away from our daughter and I know I have a choice to choose.

“Get back in there, hero,” I say as I give Howard’s rump a kick. It is a fine rump, one that looks pretty good in a pair of jeans. In a priestly gown, it does not look like much at all. No distractions, no hesitation. My choice is made, and I am satisfied. There is no guilt as he stumbles forward and faces the child and her claws again.

“What do I do?” Howard begs to know. “What do you want me to do?”

“Hold still!” I say as I encircle him in salt.

I flick my wrist just as my mother taught me and frantically etch out the symbols I need before husband and daughter and what is within can realize what I hope to do.

“Mother…” growls the creature, eyes flicking my way, for the first time truly focusing on me and me alone. “Mother, what are you doing?”

“What a mother has to do,” I reply.

More salt, more symbols, and then the words come. They are the ancient words that my ancestors know. Mothers were taught those words by grandmothers, who had taught them by great-grandmothers, and so on, and so on until those words have come to me. I in turn will teach them to my Annie, if this all turns out the way I plan. Otherwise, there is no point, the words will be lost, gone forever. I am glad right now that I thought Annie was too young, if she had heard the words before now she could have changed things, the creature would have known, and the words would not come out right. Instead, my words are my own and they are spoken with power.

They work immediately, those words; a swarm of flies pouring out on my daughter’s screaming mouth. Pouring out until I think the girl has no more breath left in her. Such a swarm needs a place to stay. My words protect me and my little girl, a lioness, and her baby. That only leaves the man in the cloak. He is no longer my husband, no longer that man who holds me in the dark and loves me when the nightmares come. He is nothing but a net, a vessel into which I pour that possession. The creature is caught within my symbols, stuck like a sacrificial cow in the mud. From within the folds of my birthday present, I pull out my knife. Stone of my stone, blessed by my people’s faith.

“Return home,” I murmur through grinding teeth. “Return from whence you came and never, ever come back.”

The little child that hangs and swings around that man’s neck grows horns and claws and hooves and wings. I plunge my dagger into the place just below the little figure and I am overwhelmed with the stench from the world below. It floods my senses as I plunge the dagger deeper. Fire, brimstone, rottenness, the corrupt. My eyes bear witness to that which should not be seen. I close them once, tightly, and I whisper my mother’s name. When I open them up I see the sun beaming in. My daughter Annie is there at the bedroom blind with eyes that are full of love.

“Pa is dead,” she tells me.

“I know,” I say. “I didn’t have a choice.

“No, you did,” Annie says, and she kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you for choosing me.”

“Come, Annie, time to pack,” I say as I touch the place where my daughter’s kiss lingers.

“Where are we going?” my daughter asks, always curious.

“First we’ve got to burn this house, no ritual site should be left standing,” I explain.

“And then,” asks Annie as she places her favorite pullover into a backpack along with a pair of jeans.

“And then I think it is time we took a trip to visit grandma,” I reply.

The fire burns tall and hungry as Annie, and I drive out of the front yard. I can see in the rear view mirror of my hatchback how the flames consume all. They dance, flickering, the blackest of blacks. Above though there is a white cloud gathering. The waters will fall and soon there will be nothing but ash.

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