House of Darkness House of Light Read online

  Though this happened numerous times the visit always began with a faint whisper in the air, the sound so diminished it was barely audible. Listen up. Like a mysterious tap on the shoulder, it was a calling card of sorts. A gentle nudge… the perfect pitch to capture her attention. Over time, Andrea came to expect it when she was alone in her room, though as she learned, never really alone. She wondered. Boo! Who would come as a vapor to dance around her bedroom? Was it a familiar spirit in another form or was it something else? It remains a mystery. Of one thing she is certain. It was a benevolent presence. Passive/aggressive perhaps, but no threat issued or implied. Holy smoke!

  ***

  Cindy forgot her sweater. It was upstairs in her bedroom. Though spring had officially arrived, nights still got quite chilly at the farm and they were quickly running short of firewood… again. Roger had ordered his troops to assemble; time to trek into the woods. Running back into an empty house to retrieve her warmer outerwear, a strange thing happened as Cindy ascended the staircase. As the light upstairs abruptly shifted, it appeared to be different than it should have been for that time of day, especially because the light was at its brightest during morning hours. There was a haze in the air; that smoky blue/gray, flimsy wispiness to the atmosphere; one she could not identify. It shared her space, surrounding her as she entered the bedroom. Then Cynthia heard the most remarkable sounds. She distinctly heard a family assembling in the dining room downstairs, gathering together for the meal. They were all laughing and chatting incessantly. Cindy could hear every word they uttered, as if the smoke signal carried and magnified the conversation, as if they were in the same room with her. Though she knew they were actually downstairs, in reality, the farmhouse manipulated sound, a stellar feat she knew well. It enhanced certain sounds while muting others, but these voices were with her, moving through the child’s forehead, from inside. There is no explaining the phenomenon. She knew the voices but it wasn’t her family… or was it?

  The youngster grabbed what she had come to retrieve then ran through the farmhouse, anxious to escape an eerily familiar sensation enveloping the solitary child. In spite of that laborious chore still ahead of her, she felt compelled to rejoin her father in haste before being chastised for an extended absence. The general was waiting and ready to go. As Cindy rapidly made her way through the parlor, heading for the door, she glanced into the dining room. There they were, just as she knew they would be, enjoying an opulent meal. Five or six of them, maybe more; she allowed herself only one quick glimpse then flew through the door, returning to her mother’s side. Tugging at the sleeve of her coat, Carolyn leaned over, listening as an awestruck kid whispered in her ear: “Mom, there’s a whole bunch of people eating in our dining room.” Pausing to reflect on the perceived intrusion, Carolyn thought Cindy’s vision must have been remarkable. Then it was time to decide what remark to make, in reply. Though she had not yet observed these particular apparitions, Carolyn knew Cindy was telling the truth. A family of spirits, dining out in their dining room, seemed perfectly logical. Cindy searched her mother’s perplexed expression while her mother searched for words. As the troops began loading up into the truck, Carolyn leaned over again, cupping her hands around Cindy’s ear.

  “Why don’t we just keep this between us so your sisters will leave them alone… so they can eat in peace.” Nodding in agreement, Cindy knew they’d rush the joint to catch a glimpse, disrupting both the mission and the meal, crashing a party for the sake of curiosity. Dad would freak out… not worth it.

  “They’ll keep an eye on the place while we’re gone.” Carolyn winked at a wide-eyed wonderful kid. Cindy tried to return the gesture but blinked both eyes, soliciting a kiss on the forehead. Then they all hopped in the truck and went over the river and through the woods… . on a family matter.

  ***

  Sam came to spend the weekend with his family. Even though their house was big, four extra souls made for cramped quarters upstairs. Some shuffling had to occur, so to accommodate everybody. His two daughters slept upstairs with five more who were anxious to receive them: a slumber party! Sleeping bags were pulled out from the eaves and popcorn hot from the stove, melted butter drizzled over it, made for smiles all around. The Olevson family had come to spend time in a timeless portal… what could possibly go wrong?

  Once everyone had settled down for the night, dispersed throughout three bedrooms, Cindy grabbed her sleeping bag, dragging it into Andrea’s room, the thick braided rug providing extra cushion on the chilly hardwood floors. Even though she’d been invited to bunk in with her big sister before going to bed, Cindy preferred to stay where she was at the time, insisting it felt more like a real slumber party that way. She was excited! Hunkering down with all the other girls in the middle room, she changed her mind. It got crowded and uncomfortable. But what a Saturday night! Popcorn and fruit punch with sherbet, a movie with friends—awesome! Some wicked good fun had by all! Little did she know, the most significant event of the night had yet to occur, resulting in an extremely close encounter of the bizarre kind; Andrea’s room got crowded, too.

  Something woke the youngster just about 3:00 a.m. A sensation signaling some intrusion disturbed her sleep. Rising up, raising her head, Cynthia was about to experience the rudest awakening of her life. The nightlight revealed the dark presence of an opaque figure hovering directly over her sister, only inches above. Cindy gasped, drawing her breath inward, where she held it, shocked by the sight, waiting to see what would happen next. Andrea was motionless, lying on her side, a quilt up over her head. The black vaporous apparition was free-floating, lifting up then skimming down again, almost touching the child through the surface of the quilt. Contact. It resembled a storm cloud, the elusive form rising then falling. As the child beneath the blanket remained perfectly still, it breathed deeply in and out, hanging over her as if it was breathing for her, in unison with her. Cindy found the natural syncopation mesmerizing; an incredibly striking element of the vision before the eyes of this beholder: virtual simpatico between mortal and immortal. Cindy described the entity as a dense black liquid mist that covered her sister like a shroud. She insists that it appeared to be doing something to Andrea, perhaps drawing energy from her or something far more nefarious… literally fusing with her. To the little girl, by then wide awake, they appeared to be as one. Cindy could only stare, awestruck.

  Startled, alarmed by a sense of dread creeping into her consciousness, she propped herself up on her elbows to better observe what was going on in dim light. As she did so, the slight, almost imperceptible movement was instantly noted. Still wrapped snuggly inside the treasured sleeping bag she’d received the previous Christmas, straining her eyes to see better, Cindy was astounded when the obscure form suddenly made a seismic shift in her direction, as if it recognized her as the intruder. Cynthia would be severely punished for the perceived infraction. Hang on for dear life, little girl! You’re going for a ride.

  From its position over the body in bed, the entity swept down, leaping off of Andrea with one grand SWOOSH! It raced toward Cindy from across the room. Passing just above her head, she screamed as it wrapped itself around her ankles and dragged her off the palate where she lay; jerking her body so hard her head struck the floor. It pulled her as she wailed for help, begging it to stop. It didn’t matter who might be awakened by the commotion; the more the better. This was a crisis. Cindy needed all the help she could get. Sounds of abject horror; shrill screams poured from her soul. Andrea never moved. Cynthia went into panic mode. Once she realized she could not be heard by anyone (otherwise the entire household would have been up and by her side) the child freaked out as it began dragging her backwards down the staircase. A hysterical girl held captive, pleading for her life, sweet little Cindy latched onto the banister at the top of the stairs, just as her torso was being hauled past it. With all the might she could muster, hooking the hardwood post with the crook of her elbow, she clung on and screamed at the top of her lungs. It felt as if a
monster was ripping her legs off her body, dismembering her.

  Cindy implored God to intervene. It stopped. Release. Gasping for breath, the wounded kid hoisted her trembling body back up the stairs. Perched on the landing like a frightened baby bird, the totally traumatized entirely mind-blown teenager attempted to recover from an overt assault. It was then Cindy realized and felt so ashamed. During this horrendous encounter the poor kid became so scared, she wet herself. Her pajamas saturated down to the socks, sobbing uncontrollably, Cindy does not recall how long she sat there crying, but remembers how hard she’d cried. Cynthia could barely move. Her body was stiffening, becoming more rigid by the minute, so sore it hurt to breathe. Composing herself, she had a decision to make. Though her wild shrieking had not roused one single soul, she was afraid that sneaking into the middle bedroom to retrieve some fresh clothing might stir the dead once the incident was over. A modest child, this mishap was the last thing a fourteen year old wanted her house guests to know about. Instead, she would quietly descend the stairs, heading straight for the laundry pantry to get something clean and dry to put on. Stunned into submission, as she rose, Cindy gazed at her sister. No movement. No sound. No signs of life at all. As a mind-altering moment, it was something she then blocked from memory for the next twenty years.

  The pantry they used as a laundry room posed hazards of its own. In the dark, it was an even spookier space, frightening to step into unaccompanied. Cindy flung open the door and snatched anything that looked like it would fit then traveled the length of the house to the bathroom. The child was frantic. Attempting to navigate the house in shadows, she glanced around and behind her, rushing to clean up fast then change her clothes, not knowing if she was truly alone. Was the horror show all over? Or was the morbid apparition still there, lurking somewhere else… waiting to terrorize her all over again?

  They were invisible stalkers. No one was ever alone. As Cynthia returned to the parlor undetected, she piled her soiled laundry and sleeping bag into a basket just inside the pantry door, then curled up on the sofa and fell asleep.

  Carolyn was up at dawn, preparing a menu bouncing around in her brain, a breakfast feast for their guests. “What are you doing down here, honey?”

  “Too crowded upstairs and I got kinda cold.” Secrets and lies in disguise. While her mother made coffee Cindy nonchalantly did her laundry. She must have been discreet about it. No one seemed to notice. It was a lovely Sunday spent among friends but Cynthia couldn’t shake the shock of her experience. Andrea was exhausted. In spite of a solid night of sleep, she woke wrung out and spent the day recovering from what she assumed was the residual fatigue from an exceptionally active day before or an oncoming cold. Cindy knew it. She knew precisely why her sister was drained. Though apparently unaware of it, she too had been through quite an ordeal… one she survived. Overjoyed that Annie was all right, Cindy never said a word to her about what she saw, what happened to both of them that night. Her throat was raw, still quite sore from screaming her bloody head off. Nobody noticed the bruises on her chin or elbows; it was simple enough to hide evidence of the supernatural assault. There was no need to explain something no one realized happened at all. It was a sin of omission but that evil presence was something beyond sin.

  It required courage, an act of selflessness for Cindy to expose a secret and tell the tale, one she closely guarded and did not divulge for more than three decades. Only her husband knew and he did not hear it until they had been married for twenty years. Cindy found disclosing such details quite difficult and does not discuss things she would prefer to forget, but some things are impossible to forget. Yet, some events were all but forgotten, blocked by her subconscious mind, as an act of mercy. This was the case with the encounter Cynthia could not process and therefore suppressed. It took twenty years for her to remember this experience in full. During that time she had apparently relegated the horrifying, heinous episode primarily to a secluded realm of the subconscious mind as something wicked to feed the nightmares when they’d come to dine on her memories. Though Cindy thought about it infrequently, as she moved on with her life and raised a family of her own, it remained a painful and humiliating memory, one which would occasionally rear its ugly head when she least expected it. Whenever the terrible image intruded on the present, she’d shove it back into the past where it belonged. Ancient history. Dead and gone. Then one day, out of the blue, from the vast beyond it struck her; bolt of lightning. She remembered this incident in its entirety, including a belief that her sister had died. It was what she had blocked out for decades. Cynthia suddenly recalled an overwhelming fear, belief that Andrea perished during the episode, her life force drained until she became an empty vessel.

  Calling a memory up again with such vivid detail proved it never left her. Cindy’s thoughtful interpretation of the experience is fascinating. Hindsight has convinced her that she interrupted the devious plot and she believes what happened that terrible night was something akin to catching a thief in the act: criminal intent. She had disturbed something evil doing the devil’s footwork, surprising it in the midst of an insidious process involving her big sister. The innocent child was severely reprimanded, physically punished for witnessing its work, becoming both observer and victim during a dark night of the soul.

  Wondering aloud, she recently posed a provocative, if rhetorical question: “How many times did THIS happen to us?” There is no way of knowing how often they had been touched by spirit over the course of a decade. How many times did this kind of thing happen, only to go undetected because everyone slept through it, or was forced to sleep, while someone else was kicking and screaming her way out of the bubble. Cynthia’s eyes were pleading with her sister for answers as Andrea recorded every word for posterity, concerned by the haunting question. “Why didn’t I sleep through it just like everyone else? Why did I wake up? Was I supposed to wake up? Was I supposed to see IT? Was I destined to be the one to stop it and take the beating for it? I’ve never seen anything like this in my life and when I noticed it, it noticed me! Then it swept across the bedroom, like a wind gust in a hurricane! It was stunning! It was absolutely huge! It took up space but had no real form and appeared to be at least five times more dense than smoke from the chimney, almost solid. That thing literally blew my mind. It felt like I went out of my mind! God! I was so upset and embarrassed by what happened to me. Then I had to go into that damn laundry room, all by myself and we never went in there alone. The door could slam from behind and trap us at any minute and it often did. After what I had been through, well, I propped it wide open with a basket in front of that door so it could not close. I could still hear my heart pounding inside my ears and I was pouring with sweat but the house was freezing cold. Then I had to go into our bathroom alone and I didn’t know where that thing had gone or even if it really was gone! Whatever it was, it was pure evil. It was the most terrible night of my life. I begged God for help, to make it let me go and make it go away. When it finally released me, my legs felt so light! It yanked on them so hard that my whole body hurt like hell. I don’t know why I’ve hesitated so long to tell anybody about this. I guess because it’s private and painful to talk about. I was so scared I peed my pants.” Cynthia hung her head. She spoke with some urgency, anxious to be done with these gruesome details of her story… done. An incident from thirty-five years ago still brings tears to the tired eyes of one beholder who has seen too much. She will never fully recover. Childhood trauma: the gift that keeps on giving.

  Once Cynthia found her way past the sense of shame she associated with the manifestation her reluctance subsided, considering it important enough to set aside her personal concerns. This particular episode is included in the tale only because Cindy decided not to keep her secret any longer. Regarding the family from which it was withheld for so long, among them it is considered a minor infraction: a sin of omission. All is forgiven. It is not always easy to be honest or much fun to be forthright. Secrets and lies have their place. All is
revealed in its right and proper time. Proof of the assertion: fear conquers all until it is conquered. Only love conquers fear. Afraid of being perceived as a coward among her siblings, the child who’d seen too much and endured too much grew up, evolving into one strong, resilient and deeply spiritual woman. They are proud of her. Truth be told, Cindy is the bravest one of all.

  “In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.”

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  ~ tripped up and down a treacherous stairwell ~

  staking a claim

  “Angels descending, bring from above, /

  Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.”

  Fanny J. Crosby

  Nothing delighted Carolyn more than working in her garden spot; countless hours spent tending to fragile sprigs, watching them shoot up, popping through the surface of rich, fertile earth. The woman knew her garden would produce prolifically. She’d plunge her bare hands deeply into black, pungent soil then hold it to her nose, breathing it deeply into her soul. This had been her dream and she knew this was where she belonged, staking tomatoes, staking a claim to the land. Her land. It had been laying fallow for so many years, basking in the glow and afterglow of Sun and Moon, the Light of its life. There it was, pleading to fulfill its destiny, to propagate life again. Carolyn reveled in this process, from planting to harvest time. A promise made then kept, she finally had her garden spot, a place in the country in which to revel and reveal the cosmic secrecy of seed. The mistress of the house found her heart’s desire.