After that, people arrived in rapid succession.

It was decided that the best thing would be to give a child dose of sleeling pills and have Eloim sleep through the whole process. The EMT, Johnny, could monitor him all the way through to make sure everything would be fine.

In our afternoon Xander and I had googled a few known cases of children behind exorcised and cases like Anneliese Michel had haunted us ever since. And yes, exorcism, as a human having a connection to a spirit or entity required such a practice to break the connection. Eloim wasn’t possessed so it would not be as arduous, and the priest did mention that at the first sign of possession he was out as he needed approval from the Vatican for this, and had not the expertise required.

The rabbi seemed very understanding and the men went to prepare for what was to come.

The Medium, Hector, was a very normal dude, no plashes and glitter, or spooky voice. It did make me feel a little better about this. I was still worried that this was the right thing to do, but I reminded myself that if a simple blessing by a priest gave us nearly a month of peace, then this had a good chance of working, at the very least temporarily.

God, I hoped it would stick.

I held Xander’s hand tightly into mine.

He squeezed in reply as we looked on, on what was about to happen.

In the end, the basement was chosen for the rite. Not because of a creepy factor, but because there was no furniture there. There was a section which was a large room where we had plenty of space to operate. The walls we solid stones, the floor concrete and the ceiling unfinished, so there was a limited amount of property damage that could be done, but the thought of property damage with a child in the middle didn’t make us any less fearful.

The Medium walked the house to get a good feel on the situation, or so he said. He ended his walk in our final destination in the basement, while the other men we setting up shop.

There was a small bed being set up on the floor for Eloim, and Johnny was bringing in his medical equipment. Everyone had been instructed to have their cellphone at hand if anyone had to call an ambulance. Marcus was overlooking the whole thing with an eagle eye. Two small tables had been set up for the priest and rabbi to put their paraphernalia on.

We finally gave the pills to Eloim, and Xander and I stayed with him, rocking him until he fell asleep, then we moved him to the basement, and placed him in the middle of the mattress. At least, asleep, he would not know what was going on, or would see anything terrifying.

I sat on the floor next to his little body, holding his limp hand. On the other side, Johnny took his pulse every five minutes.

Xander sat behind me, with his legs on either side of me and his arm carefully surrounding my body.

When everyone was ready, we gave the okay to proceed.

It started simply. Hector asked for everyone to give him a few minutes to try and reach out to Enola. He had been given the run down on what the situation had been with Enola about when she was alive and what happened after her death.

Then, when Hector gave the nod to the others, both men began chanting their prayers.

They were a strange musicality to prayers. Maybe it’s the word chosen, or the structure, but there is a rhythm to prayers, one that I’ve always found soothing. The drone of the priests prayers and the musicality of the rabbi’s had a strange cacophony to them that didn’t quite fit, but didn’t quite clash either. They soon found their pace and continued for a lot longer. Clearly the priest thought this required far longer prayers that he had previously given us, and the rabbi seemed of a similar opinion.

I inserted my finger in between Xander’s. “I love you.”

He pressed his chin in the crook of my neck and muttered next to my ear, “I love you too.”

We stayed this way for a long while in silence.

“Enola? Are you there?” asked Hector to the room at large. “Enola, it’s time for you to move on.”

“This is your fault,” he all heard below the chanting of the men.

“Whose fault is it?” asked Hector.

I felt Xander tense behind me.

“Whose fault is it?” repeated Hector.

“Her,” we heard.

No matter about all the Zen energies that I tried to pour into my vein, this iced my blood. Echoes of all the injuries I had suffered pulsed in my nerve endings. My bruises were all gone now, no scratches left, and I wasn’t keen on getting new ones. Again.

I instinctively leaned into Xander’s embrace, which he tightened in response.

The cloth on the priest tables, slid off on its own, dragging with it all of his things to the ground. Luckily, nothing had broken. Xander had insisted on nothing made of glass in the room, just in case. It had been a good call, that Marcus had approved.

The rabbi’s table flipped on its side, leading to another series of crashes on the cement floor.

Johnny’s eyes were round and looking around very intently. Marcus hadn’t told us if he had experience with anything like that, but he never moved from his spot and continued to monitor Eloim.

“Enola, you can’t continue this. You are hurting people, you are hurting Eloim,” said Hector.

“No,” we heard louder this time.

We could still not see her.

The prayers were still underway.

All the little objects that were strewn on the floor started flying my way. I pulled my legs bend up, sheltering half of my body, and Xander arms went over my upper body and head, protecting the rest.

Most of those things had little weight to them and were not particularly painful, other than maybe a bible hitting my shin. Few of them connected hard and a few hit Xander instead.

“Stop,” we heard this time and suspected it was aimed at the prayers.

“Enola,” began Hector.

“No,” she replied, and I saw Hector twitch as a series of claw marks appeared on his arms, then I felt a few on mine.

“Die,” I heard whispered in my ears.