Victorian Dreams Pt. 01

The next morning, Haley couldn't decide whether it had all been a dream or real. She had overslept as a result of the late night visitations and the prior sleepless night, and felt slightly feverish, like she was taking the flu, so called in sick to work.

She sat at her computer most of the day using the bible program's concordance search function to research Demonic related passages in the holy text.

She of course found the numerous stories of demon possession the bible is rife with and read the story where Lucifer, an angel of God, had fallen from Grace and was cast out of heaven. The only text she could discover regarding casting demons out and exorcisms or demonic possession elimination was the stories of the miracles Jesus performed casting the devils out of various people. And the story of the temptations when Jesus was fasting in the wilderness, the words "Get thee hence, Satan." resonated in Haley's hungry mind.

She found no use for the stories of Jesus casting out demons because she wasn't Jesus and didn't figure she had the power for such feats. Yet, she found the approach in each instance was basically the same. Whether Jesus or his apostles later after Jesus crucifixion, the 'steps' were still basically the same.

She found she also took some comfort in the 23rd Psalm.

She really didn't know how to pray, so she took on the task of memorizing the 23rd Psalm so she could use it as a prayer if needs be.

As a young girl, she had enjoyed the fact her parents didn't attend church and other than getting bored on Sunday mornings, waiting for her friends who did go to church to return home so they could play together, she rarely found significance in Sunday's. As a young adult, Sunday's purpose had merely been as the day you went to champagne brunch. In the Bible belt that was the south, the only TV programming was Televangelists. Then cable came along, and she could always find a program that featured architecture or interior design that she could enjoy if there wasn't a brunch to attend.

Now she wished she had had at least a basic religious indoctrination, even if only minimal.

It is funny how some things don't mean anything when you are young and as you grow older you find uses for these skills and real world applications and they suddenly take on importance and purpose and meaning.

Though geometry teachers could give you real world applications, for the use of the formula for determining hypotenuse length, etc., it would probably be hard for a preacher or parent or other religious indoctrinator to give you a real world example and use for incantations that are designed to cast out demonic possession.

Haley was an intelligent woman and was trying desperately to gain a grasp of prayer and other religious teachings without the aid of spiritual leadership, though help did come in a rather unique way.

That night at bedtime, she got onto her knees at her bedside to 'pray' before going to sleep, as she had seen the act of supplication performed in movies and on TV and recited the 23rd Psalm. At the end of the verse, she added the seemingly obligatory 'Amen'. And then turned in for the night.

Shortly after she started to drift off to slumber land, she felt the cool 'draft' on her cheek, and turned to see the angelic looking girl floating next to her bed again.

Chapter 24

"Your attempts at prayer have been duly noted. The religious emblems you have placed around the house are helpful in serving as reminders, but they will not stop the Master or his evil hoards. Your resolve is all that can stop them. Do not be seduced by the pleasures you will be promised. Hold strong to a resolve not to give in to temptation and continue to seek the Lord for help. He can only aid you, though, by making you stronger and by holding you bold in your resolve and with your will. The Master will probably begin to try to seduce you soon. He will use subtlety and trickery to try to seduce you to his service. If you loose to him, your existence for all eternity will be sorrowful. Just as my mother's is."

Haley felt for certain now, from the 'my mother' reference, this was the spirit of Clarice that was visiting her, at night. When the entity spoke of her mother, a tear trickled across her angelic face, and Haley thought certain she felt its wetness land on her arm.

"Are there any tactics in particular the Master will use to try to trick me?" Haley thought to try to talk to the spirit and gain more information.

"His trickery changes. He will try new tactics if old ones fail. He has millennia of experience to draw from. Don't trust anything that seems out of the ordinary. For you see you must go to him, he is limited in that regard, just as our Lord is in his ability to help you. Sleep now, but be ever vigilant."

"Don't go. Wait...." Haley's words trailed off as she tried to hold the angelic spirit. The vapor cloud that shown so brightly disappeared casting the room once again in darkness.

Haley slept though fitfully and her alarm rang far too soon. She arose and prepared her tea as she went about her preparations for work.

On the way in to work she had another idea, and at lunch visited the Christian Bookstore again, looking for text on demons and related topics. When she asked the young clerk about possible books on the subject, purposefully being vague seemed appropriate, and the only thing he could suggest was she do an Internet search. The store didn't carry any books on demons, preferring to focus on the text that expounded on the positive aspect of spirituality within the Judeo-Christian faith.

Haley was a little miffed as she drove the few blocks back to the office. From what she understood about the demonic goings on in the basement chamber of her home, focusing on the positive aspects of spirituality and not preparing folks for the possibility of having to deal with Satan or other negative spiritual influences seemed naïve and pretentious.

That evening at home, she searched the Internet as the young clerk had suggested. At a popular search engine, she found 48,900 references as the result of a search on 'demonic possession' but most seemed to only highlight the myths of the topic in occultism.

"If I want to start a cult and use demonic possession as a pretext to the cults activities I am set. God help anyone that wants to rid themselves or prepare themselves to fight the devil." She muttered out of frustration.

It occurred to her that it was just possible that once possessed there was no salvation, unless you got a visit by Jesus or one of his Apostles. Not likely two millennia after they had walked the earth.

Her positive nature though had a problem grasping that concept. Her lack of religious indoctrination was starting to become a hindrance again, but she felt surely an all-powerful God, had the power to exorcise demons. One just needed to understand the right incantation or tasks to perform to get the deed done.

One web site had stated modern Christians, Catholics, and Jews alike tended to think of possessions by Satan or his demons as more likely psychiatric illness than anything else.

Considering what Haley was reading in Clarice diary and being party to in her own home, she thought this a rather naïve assertion by the very folks, who should be aware of the dangers the dark ones of evil could and would without hesitation produce. Haley tried a different tact. She searched 'voodoo' and found 1,540,000 websites, though a large percentage of these were on software for computer monitors. The rest were essentially without important information.

She continued to search, looking for specific answers or information to deal with the menace that lurked in her basement at night.

She looked at paganism and found it had no concept of Satan or the devil and didn't embrace the Judeo-Christian concept of good versus evil. So she restricted her search to only encompass Christian religion and its dogma and precepts. She found 108,000 web sites on exorcism, but found most were similar to the ones she had researched on demonic possession. They mostly saw the need for exorcism as antiquated and that what was once believed to be demonic possession requiring exorcism was now viewed as schizophrenia or similar mental health issues.

At the conclusion of her search, she was frustrated, tired and no more intelligent on the subject than she had been when she started. She had found one web site that had intrigued her, though, and Haley book marked it for further review.

Chapter 25

Haley was almost reluctant to go to bed that night. Her fears regarding the events that occur in the night were growing. She wasn't scared enough to leave, yet. But then she had never been one to cut and run.

At times she had even been characterized as being hardheaded in her tenacity to stick things out. Yet, fear of the unknown was gaining in its significance and seemingly approaching a level that would override her tenacious attitudes. That night she again knelt and prayed, using the 23rd Psalm again as her prayer of supplication asking for divine support against the forces of evil she seemed destined to have to confront.

As she lie in bed for hours, mulling over the possibilities of the evils she might be forced to encounter, it appeared sleep wouldn't come, but slowly when the visitors and noises she normally heard in the night failed to materialize, she began to drift off to sleep.

When her alarm summoned her to another day the next morning, she dressed and ate her light breakfast. While drinking the last of her tea, before setting off on the commute to work, she considered not having been visited the night before and consulted a calendar. She noted the prior night had been the full moon.

Haley recalled in her readings of Clarice accounts of events, the light of the moon's phase played a role. She consulted the diary and read again where Clarice had had her initial encounters, after the moon was full and had entered its waning phases and the nights were growing darker. Even her very first sightings had been when clouds obscured the moon's light. These items of information were beginning to congeal in Haley's mind, though she didn't understand why or even with a fundamental level of cognition.

As she drove in to work that day, she found her mind grappling with what she knew and what she didn't know. The fear that the passing of the moon's full phase might bring new encounters and activity had taken root, and during the day, she found she couldn't concentrate on her work for thinking of the possible encounters that may lie in her path.

That evening at home, she revisited the book-marked page she had located in her search engine results the night before and discovered the 'Prayer of Saint Michael'. This was a Catholic prayer of supplication to Michael the Archangel, apparently one of Gods fiercest warriors against evil and wrongdoing. It was apparently an instrumental part of Catholic rites of exorcism.

Haley researched Michael in her Bible program and discovered he was the angel God had sent to stand at the entrance of the Garden of Eden with a flaming sword to prevent Adam and Eve from returning after they had been expelled. He was also the angel that stayed Abrams hand from sacrificing his son in his obedience test by God. There were several other events chronicled in the Bible where Michael was the instrument of execution of God's wishes in a particular matter. So Haley figured the prayer a good one. She spent the evening memorizing the text of the prayer.

That night she wasn't overly concerned about visitors, because the moon had just been full the night before, the sky was crystal clear, and the accounts she had reread in Clarice diary indicated she probably had a week, weather permitting to rest and prepare before her first encounter with the evil that lurked in the night in her house. She did however continue in her prayer again using the 23rd Psalm, as she knelt by her bedside.

She wasn't bothered that night by any of the evil visitors Clarice had witnessed, but the angelic creature she attributed to the ghost of Clarice made another visit.

Chapter 26

She was just drifting off to sleep again, when she felt the cold draft on her face. She opened her eyes slowly and the angelic pools of blue that were the girl's eyes were gazing intently into her own.

"Your attempts at attaining knowledge and your continued reliance on prayer are of great benefit, but you must seek other assistance in the things that represent the Holy Father."

Haley was uncertain in what that meant, so she asked directly.

"What do you mean by the 'things that represent the Holy Father'?"

"I am of limited abilities in what I can and can't do to assist you, but as you do things, I can tell you what will help and what will not. You obtained things of significance, that represent the Holy Father before, you just need to think on the things that you have done before and do them again and I can tell you if you are on the right course. These are not my rules, but they are the boundaries I am compelled to respect. I can guide you, but I am limited in how I guide."

"Follow your instincts. I think they are leading you onto the correct path. I will help in whatever ways I can." As the spirit of the girl spoke, her vaporous hand reached out and gently caressed the face of her human friend.

"I still don't understand, but I will do as you have instructed, and evaluate what I have done already and pursue increasing these things."

Haley watched as the vaporous-form of Clarice disappeared, leaving the room once again bathed in darkness. She couldn't understand why a 'Christian God' wouldn't allow his angels to provide the detailed information necessary to defeat this assault by those opposed to his goodness.

She didn't understand that both sides were limited in what they could do in an agreement like arrangement, that prevented dark age type scourges on the part of the devil, but also limited God to intervention that didn't directly relieve man of the wiles of the devil. There could be no more Moses-like miracles by God on man's behalf.

Chapter 27

She didn't sleep much as she continued to pore over in her mind what Clarice had said to her. What exactly did 'things that represent the Holy Father' mean? She kept thinking over and over and couldn't understand, what the term meant. The spirit had said that prayer and knowledge were good but not enough. So she figured though her prayer of the 23rd Psalm and the 'prayer of St. Michael' important knowledge, they weren't enough. What more is there that she had done?"

Though she hadn't had much sleep the night before, her mind wasn't dull as usually was the case in sleep-depravation. It was keenly analyzing what she knew.

That evening the Texas summer promised some heat- induced thundershowers, so Haley stayed off her computer, for fear a lightening strike might damage the cherished source of information. She disconnected the modem cable and unplugged it from the wall.

She prayed as normal when she went to bed, going to her knees at her bedside, and reciting the now familiar 23rd Psalm.

She went to bed earlier than normal, not actively thinking about the possibilities of visitors, and not making a cognizant link to the fact the moon was obscured with storm clouds this night. Her lack of concerns could probably be attributed to the fatigue catching up in her usually analytical mind. She drifted off to sleep quickly, the fatigue producing a bone-weariness in her. The clock's illuminated digits read 9:20 as the sleep overtook her.

Around 1am Haley awakened with a start. There was a presence in the room and it wasn't the cool draft that signaled a visit from Clarice. It was like Clarice had reported in her diary. A vaporous light would appear in one shadow of the room, and when she tried to focus on it too intently it would disappear, only to appear elsewhere in the room or another would take its place.

At one point she thought she could see three or four entities, in various stages of appearance. A light in the corner to her left, a dimmer light in the corner to her right, these were just glows, not really discernable as apparitions. These 'lights or glows' had the dirty yellow coloring to them, Clarice had mentioned, so Haley quickly surmised it was the evil entities and not angelic presences she had seen thus far. When Clarice, or the entity Haley attributed to the angelic ghost of Clarice appeared, it was bathed in a soft white light.

Then a glow quickly took shape at the foot of her bed. The other's were becoming discernable as entities, but kept their distance. This presence though materialized almost as quickly as a room being flooded with light as the switch is turned.

Haley immediately noted an odor that was the foulest she had ever encountered and another odor that had a burnt characteristic to it, as well.

The burnt odor reminded her of the smell she had encountered when she had first toured the house, weeks earlier.

The entity that materialized at the foot of her bed appeared to resemble what Haley had created in her mind as the image of the raven-haired lady.

As the entities across the room began to materialize further, she recognized them as the concubines chained to the wall. She made these distinctions from the clothing they wore. Clarice had said they all wore diaphanous clothing that revealed the lushness of their bodies underneath, but the chained women who had been described as having lost their virginity outside the constraints of marriage, and so were the 'common concubines' for the minions, wore red, while the raven-haired woman, who had lost her virginity to her husband on her wedding night wore the same diaphanous clothing, displaying her bodies lushness, but the color was black. The clothing color must have been like a uniform. The 'common concubines' wearing the red, while the 'Master's concubines' wore black.

The entities in the corners of the room were dressed in the red diaphanous uniforms, while the woman at the foot of the bed wore the same in black.

Chapter 28

As quickly as they materialized, the common concubines started to chant the mantra Clarice had written in her diary. "The Master cometh."

The two vaporous spirits that hovered in the corners of the room chanted "The Master cometh." over and over incessantly in a strange eerie voice.

"The Master cometh."

"The Master cometh."

The raven-haired woman only stood at the foot of the bed, not saying anything, just appearing to observe Haley's reactions to the events taking place in the room. After several minutes, she drifted around to the side of the bed and drew nearer to Haley. She came up the opposite side of the bed that Clarice usually visited. Haley didn't know why or even if it was significant, but that fact immediately materialized in her mind as she drew nearer. At the same time, the two 'common concubine' entities that had hovered in the corner began to move closer. Haley felt a fear grip her as the raven-haired lady drew close enough for Haley to reach out and touch her, had she chosen to do so, and the other entities moved in as if they were surrounding the bed.

The mantra the two were chanting grew louder as they approached. "The Master cometh" seemed to echo in the sleeping quarters small space.

The raven-haired lady now hovered as close as Clarice spirit had and began to speak.

"You must go to the Master, my child. When you accept him as your Master, he will become visible to you. And then the pleasures he promises will be realized. If you are pure, he will honor you by having you bear his son, only if you are pure, though. Then your existence through all eternity will be assured. Go to him now, he awaits your presence in the chamber below."

Haley recognized the words as those Clarice had written in her diary as having been said to her on a night immediately after the full moon, decades earlier. She could also feel her self slipping into the hypnotic mire that Clarice had referenced was characteristic of the siren's song effect of the woman's words. Her breath was the mist of vapor Clarice described and had the scent of a field of flowers in bloom as had been chronicled in the girl's writings. Haley quickly realized this was the same concubine Clarice had written about.