Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 75 -

My father’s house appeared from the fog, like a monster rising up out of the earth to swallow me whole. It took my breath away to see those old grimey windows, the gables, the porch crumbling with time and disrepair. A phantom house, full of ghostly memories, and festering pain. Of course they would be here. Where else would demons hide?

I stood in the dirt yard, shocked that I barely had to catch my breath. The longer I stayed here the more it felt like a dream, like nothing was real. I feared that if I stayed too long, my mind would drift forever, further and further, until I had gone so far that I could never return.

Even so, perhaps I never would return. My own survival paled in comparison to stopping the Four on their rampage. I had stopped them from killing Damian, but only just. If my very fragile control slipped in even the slightest, they could attack him again and countless others. They would be set free upon the world…

But I had to send them back to Hell.

I knew part of what it would require: their seals on my body would have to be broken. I had my cleaver, I had the means to do it if I could regain enough control over my limbs to cut into my own body. But once I did that, the blood loss would weaken me quickly. I didn’t know how long I would be able to hold on, if at all. So I would face them here first, weaken them if I could. Then cut them from my flesh.

The house seemed to echo with voices long gone. It screamed insults, muttered threats, echoed with the sounds of beatings. I could almost see my father’s face in the window, glaring out at me, crooking his finger at me to come inside.
The thought made me shudder. Demons I could face, but my own father? Or my mother’s weeping, her manipulative words, her disapproving looks? They made me want to curl up small and hide. But I couldn’t hide anymore.

They’re waiting for you. Will you still face them?

The Legion lingered close behind me, pacing like wolves in the grass. “Of course I’ll face them,” I whispered, but my determination wavered in fear. Krahia had once made me face Richard and my father, and though I had overcome them, some memories still had knives deep plunged deep within me, and they were being twisted now.

I ascended the porch steps. The last time I had been there the door had been locked, but now I found it slightly ajar. Strange scarpings in the dusty floor told me that something - someone - had crawled in not long ago. I imagined the Gray One’s scuttling body, dragging herself into the house to hide and lie in wait. I entered slowly, the silence almost claustrophobic. There lay the familiar hearth to my left, with a small threadbare couch and chair, and the dusty sad pinao. Beyond it was the tiny kitchen, the barewood table and three chairs. To my left, the narrow stairway that led to the bedrooms on the upper floor.

The kitchen drew me. It looked so much like I remembered it, though now covered in a fine layer of dust. The smooth wooden countertops, worn to a shine with age.  The bread box, with its delicately painted little flowers. The stacks of chipped plates and my mother’s precious set of silverware tucked into its wooden box against the wall. I had my very few fond memories of childhood in that kitchen: standing on a teetering stool as I helped my mother knead bread or peel potatoes. In the days when I was still small enough for her to not care about my looks or fuss over what I ate…

“What did I ever do to be cursed with such a homely daughter?”

My stomach twisted, and a chill went up my spine. The voice was behind me, but not too close. A voice that echoed through the years, gripped the knives in my gut, and twisted wickedly.

My mother’s voice.

I turned, slowly. She stood with her back to me, long blonde hair braided, wearing the same pale gray dress she usually wore. She was an illusion, only an illusion - but still my eyes filled with tears. My mother...my sad, hateful, trapped, confused mother. The woman who would look at her own aging face in the mirror and weep, who bore the bruises father left her as if it were her duty, who would read me Bible verses on obedience after father whipped me.