House of Darkness House of Light (42 page)

Defying gravity, he was beside her with a bounce from sofa to hearthstone. A single yank had pulled her feet from the slippers, fully engulfed in flames. Cradled in his arms, he carried her away from danger while Andrea ran for a cool washcloth to place on her forehead. The putrid odor of melting polyester fibers and rubber permeated the air. While the girls rapidly opened doors and windows, Roger closely examined his wife. She had escaped unscathed from an ordeal with a potential to claim her, had circumstances been different, had she been home alone. It was no time to chastise her for standing so close, too close to the fire. It was no time for any kind of reprisal. Instead, her children gathered around to welcome her back to them. Hearts raced. Hands trembled. A few fearful tears were shed that night…the fear of what could have been.

Remarkably, both her feet were uninjured, not burned at all. Roger’s quick actions spared her the horrible pain of blistered skin. As Carolyn was able to speak again, she did so by gratefully acknowledging his efforts on her behalf. The girls described those few tense moments to their mother, explaining how daddy had sprung into action. Roger seemed embarrassed by all their praise, disguising it with the devilish grin he kept in reserve for awkward emotional interludes. Playfully accusing his wife of hating those damn Santa slippers enough to set them on fire, while she was wearing them…she finally smiled. A crisis averted…this time. She would have to be more careful.

Carolyn continued to suffer from the fainting spells. It was not an isolated incident. This persistent dilemma worsened over time. Within several weeks Roger would be, once again, plucking his wife from the jaws of a fiery death. They were home alone. She collapsed in a pile on the hearthstone and both of her legs folded into the open flames. A pair of heavy denim jeans bought her husband time enough to snuff out the fire; another disconcerting episode, to say the least. His fears coupled with frustrations; he had legitimate concerns. What if he had not been home that morning? But he was…and used this near tragic opportunity to confront the severity of the situation; time to address the issue…to acknowledge the inherent dangers to heart, hearth and home. It was time to resolve the dilemma. He had his wife’s attention. He’d saved her life, and she knew it. Carolyn felt increasingly weak and vulnerable; frightened again by what might have been.

Roger insisted and Carolyn agreed to visit another doctor. There had to be an explanation, some remedy for a condition which became life threatening. In time they would discover the truth; a mystery more than medical in nature. The will of another was being exerted upon this mistress of the house, with malice and forethought…with deliberate intent: A bitch from hell.

Her light was being excised and extinguished. Carolyn began entering the realm she could not comprehend and was therefore unable to fight its entry. Flight was no longer an option, no fight left in her; there was nowhere to run, not a peaceful place to hide away from herself. The woman was beginning to experience an
oppression
imposed, inevitably leading her where she did not want to go, leading her to experience the terrifying presence of another in her consciousness. It was the presence of a spirit so cold she could not get warm. Ultimately, Carolyn would begin to see the world through the evil eyes of an intruding soul and come to know the unbearable darkness of being.

“If you follow reason far enough it always leads

to conclusions that are contrary to reason.”

Samuel Butler

 
bats!

“Adventure is not outside; it is within.”

Ray Stannard Baker

There were thousands of them. Their property was littered with bats; in the barn and in the trees; amazing displays at twilight. Darting frantically across the yard, diving and flirting with the horizon as the sky turned shades of rose and lavender; they were a wonder to behold. Mosquitoes were never really a problem, even though they grew to approximately the size of these predators themselves, destined to be meals for hoards of brown bats dotting a skyline; flying across the landscape at light speed. Though relatively harmless, their number was intimidating. At first the children were terrified and their parents were overwhelmed by the sheer volume, but, as with all things at their farm, “Ya get used to it.” Lining the rafters of the barn, hanging upside down like little vampires, they’d sleep all day and come to life only as the Sun began to wane at the strange time wedged between day and night. From dusk ‘til dawn the nocturnal souls re-emerged: creatures of the night. Whenever moonlight illuminated their wild journey, it was pure spectacle.

It was late, sometime after eleven o’clock when an evil onslaught occurred. Roger and Carolyn were watching the news when the shrill, squeaking beasts made their presence known. During ten summers spent in a farmhouse prone to remain cold regardless of the weather, there were only a few stifling nights when it was too hot to sleep upstairs. The heat of the day would rise and get trapped; bedrooms would become intolerable if the wind died after sunset. It was one of those nights. There was a sleeper sofa out on the porch. Christine and Cindy asked if they could camp out there for the night. Roger pulled the heavy monstrosity open as Carolyn gathered sheets. The porch was spacious, even with the full-sized bed sprawled wide open. It was fully screened in and well-protected from the elements and insects. Andrea had intended to crash out there, too. Nancy and April braved their own bedroom with nothing but a box fan and wide-open windows but no one was asleep yet. The temperature topped one hundred that day. No one
could
sleep!

The night remained quiet; moist air was stagnant. Even the crickets seemed lethargic from steam heat. Suddenly, a screaming rush of bats flew down the chimney, filling the parlor with wings and things. Parents began bobbing and weaving to avoid impact. A farmhouse was instantly alive with exceedingly unpleasant activity. As the bats, five or six in total, realized the error of their
way,
a mistaken path taken directly into the house, they did of course become as panicked as their hosts and tried to promptly exit the premises. Both front doors were wide open onto the porch and they followed the scent of fresh air. Where did it lead them? Onto the front porch: Shrieking is never as loud as when it comes through the pinched vocal chords of an adolescent girl…times two. Christine and Cynthia were hysterical. Ducking beneath the sheets with each pass, they begged for deliverance from the wretched vermin. Roger sent Andrea running to the woodshed to retrieve the set of badminton rackets: Let the games begin! Had anyone been outside watching in the bright moonlight of the night they would have witnessed events at once comical and traumatic. With eyes closed, it would have sounded much worse than it actually looked. Upheaval reigned supreme. Nancy and April came running downstairs to see what huge disruption was happening on the ground level of their house, thus plowing into a pair of bats circling the dining room. Both girls had an ample head of hair in which to tangle, which naturally happened. Chaos! Bedlam! There are no words which adequately express a frenetic scene as it unfolded. Roger threw one racket to Nancy. She began flailing wildly through thick air, not really aiming, but relying instead on a lucky strike. Carolyn was on their porch trying to open the door, providing access to an exit, swatting at them with each pass; not to injure, but rather to usher them outside. Andrea joined her, weapon in hand. Roger covered the parlor. April hid up underneath the dining room table, making a bit of a racket. One down…at April’s feet…only wounded. She instantly retreated from an insecure position. Roger bounced one off the wall, finishing the job with a single swat. Meanwhile, mother and eldest daughter were proving to be lousy doubles partners; a poor match for crafty critters. As formidable adversaries, these bats used uncanny evasive maneuvers, outwitting their opponents. Finally, at precisely the same time, both ladies made contact and each bat went flying into the bed: a grand slam. One fluttered furiously in protest at the center of Cynthia’s lap and one was caught in the web of Christine’s hair, wounded and fighting to extricate itself from an impenetrable blond mass. Chris still has nightmares about this brief but horrific event and has never recovered from her fear of bats. Nor has she forgiven her eldest sister for having such pathetically poor aim. Cindy cannot tolerate anything flying near her head; she’s instantly transported back to that terrible night of her life whenever a bird or even a butterfly draws too close. Childhood trauma: the gift that keeps on giving.

Perhaps it was an innocent mistake as a single bat chasing something under cover of darkness could have been followed by others in search of a meal and then down the chimney they all came. Though it would happen several more times during their decade on the farm, there was nothing necessarily sinister or supernatural about these bizarre occurrences. It may well explain why the chimney had been sealed…perhaps mistaken as swallows? Yet, the bats did seem to gravitate to the structure and they were repeatedly found dead in the house; one thirsty creature drowned in their toilet! The first one up and out of bed that unfortunate
morning let everyone else know about an intruder with a single high-pitched holler, vibrating the household, walls to foundation: poor Nancy. It was always a rather unsavory encounter. The odd and inexplicable occurrence cannot, in good faith, be attributed to anything other than the law of averages; with that many bats incessantly circling their property someone was bound to take a wrong turn from time to time. It was certainly a spooky but apparently natural phenomenon, or so they presumed. Mrs. Warren later claimed it was yet another manifestation of the resident demon attempting to possess the mistress of the house, though no one in the family subscribed to her lurid interpretation of its meaning as an evil threat or omen; harbingers of things to come. Like the flies; only bigger. It warrants inclusion because, for
some
members of the family, it is still a delightful tale to tell, though others are not quite so fondly amused. Carolyn steadfastly maintains her position on the subject of bats: of all the occurrences in the house over the years they lived there, natural or supernatural, her most horrifying memory is the sound of a bat flying over her face in the darkness of night. Nothing ever touched her core fears more profoundly than these creatures. No one could afford to forget an obvious connection made. The name Bathsheba begins with B-A-T.

“May you have warm words on a cool evening, a full moon

on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door.”

An Irish Blessing

The Child in the House

Walter Pater (1839-1894)

“For sitting one day in the garden below an open window, he heard people talking, and could not but listen, how, in a sleepless hour, a sick woman had seen one of the dead sitting beside her, come to call her hence; and from the broken talk evolved with much clearness the notion that not all those dead people had really departed to the churchyard, nor were quite so motionless as they looked, but led a secret, half-fugitive life in their old homes, quite free by night, though sometimes visible in the day, dodging from room to room, with no great goodwill towards those who shared the space with them. All night the figure sat beside him in the reveries of his broken sleep, and was not quite gone in the morning — an odd, irreconcilable new member of the household, making the sweet familiar chambers unfriendly and suspect by its uncertain presence. He could have hated the dead he had pitied so, for being thus. Afterwards he came to think of those poor, home-returning ghosts, which all men have fancied to themselves — the revenants – pathetically, as crying, or beating with vain hands at the doors, as the wind came, their cries distinguishable in it as a wild inner note.”

~ A figure gray and ghostly ~

Christine as a 19th Century maiden in a vintage fashion show

“In death, I am born.”

American Indian Proverb

III.

 
Wicked Woman…Evil Ways

“Judge not according to the appearance but judge righteous judgment.”

John VII v. 24

Once the worst of the shock subsided from the “
torches
”
incident, Carolyn became hell bent and determined to identify the demon who wished her dead. As months passed she became increasingly sad and preoccupied with morose thoughts, all revolving around death. She began serious historical research. Carolyn became as a tortured soul; the one who did the haunting. From local graveyards to dusty record rooms, archives of libraries to tattered parchment of old family Bibles; whenever and wherever she could find a reference to the house and its history, she took detailed notes, compiling a story centuries past and personalities passed. Who were these spirits? Why do some remain when most move on? Would there be any salvation for their souls? She was compelled to resolve this dilemma; send them on their way to the other side. But weren’t they already on the other side? So how could they be in two very different spaces simultaneously? In spite of numerous, sometimes horrifying encounters, it was the mystery she longed to absorb intellectually; the only thing she and her husband were in total agreement about: there had to be a logical, scientifically-based explanation for what was happening. There had to be some reason why the spirits had lingered after death; some way to usher them onward, to achieve a release from what she perceived to be a perpetual imprisonment. The woman
needed
to understand; a moral imperative on two fronts. First, she’d longed to spare her family and herself this gross intrusion. Likewise, she’d wondered if she had been called to this house to help these spirits escape it. Carolyn believed if she had the power and knowledge to do so, it was her ethical obligation to provide an escape hatch for them; a portal from which they could flee but one which could also be sealed shut; the door closed so tightly they could never return: Part of the plan…selfish by design.