The Banishing (14 page)

It had been close to 4:00 AM when Mark had gone to bed. He was still upstairs now, in a deep slumber. When Melissa had crept out of bed to go downstairs, she had peered over and watched him. His sleep seemed deep, untroubled, his breathing steady and slow. She imagined he wouldn’t be awake for a long time; he must be exhausted.

Melissa placed her mug of coffee on the table and pulled back the curtains. It was an ugly Sunday morning. The streets were slick with rain, and the sky above was an uncompromising promise of more bad weather to come. She sighed, sat back on the sofa, curled her legs beneath her, and took a mouthful of coffee. It tasted good. She opted not to eat anything for breakfast, as her appetite was still a distant memory. She never seemed to feel hungry, anymore. She looked down at her clothes, at the unflattering way her pajamas hung from her increasingly skinny frame; her body seemed lost under the folds of material.

Most women would envy her weight loss. To her, it was just a reminder of how everything in her life was crumbling. The once solid system of her life, now degenerating and falling apart.

She flipped open the small screen to the camcorder and stared at the footage she had captured. Her skin crawled as she saw the black shadow sliding across the room, Mark’s dead, lifeless eyes staring ahead, responding to it. It. The thing. Responding to whatever it was communicating: thoughts, ideas into his head.

Things about suffering. About blood.

Melissa lifted it closer to her face and watched it. There was nothing she could see of the figure at all. It was simply like a smudge of black, tall and dark. No features could be discerned, just vast, dark emptiness. She snapped it shut and stared at the room around her.

This was where
it
had been. Here. In their lounge. In their home.

She stared around at the normal things, symbols of her once ordinary life. The clutter of magazines and newspapers in the paper rack. Books and films stacked messily on the shelving unit. Photos of Mark and her on top of the fireplace. Pictures of them on holiday in Tenerife. A picture of their wedding day, Mark standing tall, his face upright and proud, his arm around her. Melissa smiling and happy, a princess on her big day.

She barely recognized the couple in the photograph anymore. Those photos seemed to be from another time, another dimension.

Melissa suddenly felt a longing for Mark, for the man she knew back then on their wedding day. The strong man. The man who cracked inappropriate jokes when he was nervous. The man who used to rub her feet when she returned from work after a hard day. The man who used to get pissed off when she picked up shifts at the hospital on a weekend, because it meant that they wouldn’t have much time together. The man who adored her. She pined for that, hungered to have him back in a way that scared her.

Things had changed, though.

Here in the lounge, Mark was seeing things. Melissa knew that, now. Seeing things like she was.

Melissa tip-toed upstairs, pulled on a pair of jeans and a black sweater, tied her long, dark—and
messy
hair, she noted, embarrassed that she hadn’t been taking care of herself—into a ponytail, and while being careful to not wake Mark, grabbed her car keys and decided she needed to get out. Do something. Anything.

* * * *

“Did you know the people who lived here before us?” She was standing at the porch of her next door neighbor, leaning in to take cover from the rain, which had begun pouring heavily from the blackening sky above.

Melissa didn’t know her next door neighbor. She had only seen her occasionally and nodded an occasional hello from across the driveway. She was an elderly woman, in her late sixties, Melissa guessed. Her hair was a short crop of gray, and her eyes were magnified beneath thick glasses. She was thin, frail-looking, her arms folded defensively across her chest.

“I would invite you in,” the woman said, her eyes fixed firmly on Melissa. She seemed to be cautious, wary of the woman who had landed on her doorstep. “My husband isn’t feeling too well—it’s the flu. I wouldn’t want you to catch anything,” she said, pulling the door behind her. She stepped out onto the porch, seemingly oblivious to the pelting rain and icy air of the November morning, and forced a smile.

Even with a smile, Melissa thought, the woman looked stern. Abrupt.

“That’s okay. I don’t need to come in. I only want a minute of your time.”

The woman nodded. “I’m Mrs. Donnelly,” she said.

Melissa smiled. “I’m from next door—number 46. Melissa Sanderson.”

The woman nodded, again. “I know.”

The prize for friendliest neighbor goes to
— “All I really wanted to ask you was…well, I just wanted to know if you knew the people who lived here before us?”

The woman was silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “You purchased the house, didn’t you? Didn’t you meet Richard Danvers when you were sorting out the paperwork?”

Melissa shook her head. Frustrated at the way the woman was doing anything but answering her question. “It was all done through the estate agents. We never actually met anybody.”

Mrs. Donnelly nodded again, her lips upturned slightly, and Melissa wondered if that was the old woman’s idea of a warm smile. “Melissa, I barely knew the couple who lived there. I’m sorry.”

She swallowed hard. Felt disappointed. “I see.” She had the feeling the woman wouldn’t help even if she could. “Not to worry. Sorry for troubling you.”

Melissa turned to leave when the woman called behind her. “Why?”

“Why what?”

Mrs. Donnelly, her arms still tugged tightly across her chest, took a step forward. “Why do you want to know about who lived there before?”

What do I say to that? I’m seeing ghosts. I think my home may be haunted, and my husband is hearing voices telling him to do God-knows-what
— “I just had a couple of questions, that’s all. Nothing important.”

“They made noises, too,” the woman said, her voice low, as if she were frightened of anybody hearing what she had to say.

Melissa froze. She stepped back beneath the porch. Her hair was already damp, dripping globules of water down her face and neck. “Noises?”

“Late at night, but sometimes in the day, too. I heard them. Everybody must’ve heard them, they were so loud.”

Melissa‘s mind raced. “What noises?”

“A whole lot of screaming and shouting, that’s what,” Mrs. Donnelly said, her voice taut, riddled with anger. “Used to keep me and my husband up at all hours. Her screaming and crying. I tell you, some nights she’d just about give me nightmares.”

The couple there before us. He hit her, too?
The thought hit her with full force, and she felt suddenly sure that whatever was happening to Mark and her, it had happened before. It was the house. It had to be.

“What was happening?” Melissa pressed.

“Well, I don’t know.”

Melissa wanted to shake the woman, force her to speak. Why is she clamming up, now? She pressed further, annoyed. “Please. Anything you could tell me, I’d appreciate it, Mrs. Donnelly.”

The woman shrugged. “Well, of course I never saw anything, myself. I kept to myself. I didn’t want anything to do with it, but that couple…they were trouble. I heard him, the way he shouted…and her screams. He was doing terrible things to that poor girl,” she said, shaking her head. “Terrible things. I never heard such awful sounds.”

Melissa felt her stomach churn, felt light-headed.
What the hell am I dealing with
, she thought? “He...hit her?”

Mrs. Donnelly retreated back to her front door and stepped back inside. “I need to get back to my husband. He is really sick, Melissa.”

“Do you know what happened?” she pressed.

The old woman hesitated, her hand against the door. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t
want
to know. They just left one night. Disappeared. House went up for sale, then you appeared.”

“Thank you so much for your time,” Melissa said, forcing a smile.

The woman nodded. Her lips upturned into that half-smile again. “She was always over at Saint Peters, you know. I saw her there, sometimes.”

“Saint Peters?”

“That Catholic church at the end of the high street. She was always there, every Sunday without fail. The priest there might be able to give you some help.”

Melissa thanked her once again and climbed into the car.

Chapter Seventeen

She discovered that Mass was still going on in the church. The parking lot was full, and some vehicles were even nudged against the slim pavements, blocking the walkway.

Did this many people still believe? Have faith?

Her own faith seemed like a distant memory, something lost, unfathomable. Melissa wondered, as she sat there in her car, watching the front doors of Saint Peters Catholic Church, how people sustained such a strong belief in God. Did they share the same world that she did? Did they also see the suffering, the damage, the awful things that happened and wonder why—if their God was real—He didn’t intervene? Or at the least, didn’t they question whether He cared at all?

She realized, with a fleeting feeling of bewilderment, that she would have to push all of her previous beliefs and feelings aside. She had to admit she knew nothing, if everything she was finding out was true. If the things happening in her home were real.

This meant anything was possible, surely?
Even God
?

Melissa shut off the engine and watched, waiting. It was almost 10:00 AM, and she hoped that Mass would be finishing anytime now. She hoped the priest would have time to see her. Whether he could help her at all was another thing entirely, but she had to try.

Mark was hopefully still in bed, sleeping. Maybe she could get back home before he even got up, so she wouldn’t have to try to find an explanation for what she’d been up to. That
would be fun
, she thought. Mark was under some kind of spell, it seemed to her. Did he really even know that he was falling under some sort of trance…that he was hearing that shadow talking to him?
Did he know?

Melissa tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. She was beginning to feel impatient. What if Mass went on until 11:00 AM? She sighed. Didn’t some of those Catholic services go on for hours? She decided then that she’d give herself another 15 minutes. If nobody came out by then, she’d drive by in the afternoon or after work tomorrow.

Melissa jumped as a shrill ring filled the car. Her mobile phone.
What if it’s Mark wanting to know where I am?
She reached over to the passenger seat and fumbled inside her coat pocket for the phone. She was relieved when she saw it was Sharon calling and not Mark.

“Hello Sharon,” Melissa said, turning back to the church. She didn’t want to miss the priest coming out—if he did come out at all; the weather was still bad. Cold and wet. Damp and gray. Depressing.

“Well, thanks for returning my call! Didn’t you get my text?”

Sharon. Annoyed.

Melissa had totally forgotten her text from yesterday, asking her to call her back. She’d had so much going on that Sharon hadn’t even entered her thoughts, she realized with a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry I didn‘t call. Really.”

“You could’ve at least sent a text, even if you didn’t have the time to phone.”
Didn’t have the time. For me, your friend.
The dig Sharon was making was not missed on Melissa. She squirmed in her seat, unsure of what to say. Should she tell her what had been happening? What she had seen on the camera last night?

“I know you’re pissed off. I
am
sorry. Forgive me. I should’ve called.”

Sharon sighed. “Yeah well, it doesn‘t matter, now. I was just worried, that’s all. With everything that’s been going on with you…I worry about you. I worry that you’re not safe, and when I don’t hear from you—”

“You think something bad has happened. I understand. I should have thought.” Melissa’s eyes stayed fixed on the doors of the church. They remained shut. Nobody had emerged from inside, yet.

“I don’t even like to call you on the landline, because I don’t want to cause any shit between you and Mark.”

“I know. Sorry, Sharon. I’m all right, though.”
Well, I‘m alive. Surviving.
“How’re you? Did you have a good weekend?”

Sharon laughed. “Jonathon stayed over Saturday night. Let’s just say any night with Jonathon is a good night.”

Melissa laughed. “I’m not going to ask you for the sordid details,” she said.

“I sometimes think I might be onto a winner with him,” Sharon admitted. Melissa knew this was a big admission on her friend’s part; Sharon had spent the last few years of her life fleeting from one man to the next, scared of commitment. Scared of being hurt, she simply cut them off. Jonathon, although she had only been seeing him for a few months, was turning into something more for Sharon. Melissa could see it, could tell.

“Shall we book the church for a summer wedding?” Melissa chided.

Sharon laughed again. “I wouldn’t go
that
far.”