The Dark Sacrament Read online

  He turned. Minutes before, the demure young woman had par-taken of the Eucharist. Now she was hideously transformed. Her neck had become impossibly elongated, the facial skin had tightened, and the lips were drawn back into a mocking smirk. The eyes that fixed him with blazing hatred were no longer those of Heather Mitchelson.

  It was 1992. Canon William H. Lendrum, then age sixty-eight, had been battling the preternatural for more than two decades. Now, fifteen years later, he remembers that incident with trepidation, for it differed greatly from the work his ministry usually requires. That day, the canon tells us, he came face-to-face with great evil; it was a case of demonic possession that would require a major exorcism.

  The Anglican Church—much like the Catholic Church—has a strict protocol governing exorcism. A minister is obliged to alert his bishop before proceeding. This is largely a matter of courtesy, but in the case of a major exorcism, it is the minister’s bounden duty.

  That day, however, there was neither time nor opportunity to notify the bishop. For Canon Lendrum, the danger was clear and present in Heather Mitchelson. He would have to act at once.

  “There is a demon in the room,” he said again.

  His two assistants did not share his calm. They occupied chairs to the left and right of Heather. They had followed closely every stage of the Eucharist. Both were experienced participants in the sacred rite of exorcism; both were schooled in the ways of extraphysical entities. For all that, they were shocked, taken unawares. They, too, had imagined it was all over.

  Now Heather was lunging at her partner, Joe. He looked terrified. With two quick, curt gestures, Canon Lendrum motioned to him to remove himself from harm’s way. Joe retreated to the back of the room.

  There was no time for the canon to retrieve his sacred instruments, but he did not truly need them; prayer would be enough. He advanced on Heather.

  “You foul and evil spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ—”

  “You’ll never get rid of me!” The woman slithered off the couch, cackling and taunting. “She’s mine, mine, mine, mine.”

  The voice was that of a very old woman. It seemed to issue, by turns, from the young woman’s mouth and from various points in the room. She was writhing on the floor, her body coiling and uncoiling itself, her tongue lolling obscenely.

  The exorcist was left in no doubt: these were the words and actions of the demoniac, the possessed. Not too long before this, he had confronted a young man who had likewise hissed and wriggled in much the same manner when he prayed over him. On that occasion, he had been unsuccessful. The demon had won the battle. The canon recalls the chilling words that issued from the young man’s mouth, the voice greatly distorted.

  “He belongs to me. I am not going.” And with that the young man fled from the house.

  This time, the canon was determined not to be thwarted. He mustered the words of power, which unclean entities go in dread of.

  “In accordance with the authority that he has given to his Church,” he intoned, “I bind you, and I forbid you to speak or interfere with this woman.”

  He placed a hand on Heather Mitchelson’s head. She recoiled from his touch. Within moments, she was on her feet, snarling. He backed away. He was no longer calm.

  He could not believe that she could summon such energy. She was barely five feet tall and weighed perhaps ninety pounds, but her arms and fists seemed to belong to a strongly built man. She caught him in a body lock. His two assistants sprang to the canon’s defense and tried to pull her off, but she shrugged the men away with the ease of a freestyle wrestler, knocking them to the floor.

  The exorcist was faltering. Another blow to the jaw nearly felled him. He struggled to retain his balance as the assistants tried again to restrain her.

  “In the name of Jesus—stop!” the canon shouted.

  His words had an astonishing effect. Heather fell to the floor as if struck by a heavy object. She lay still as a stone, eyes wide and staring, all strength seemingly drained from her. The canon, recovered somewhat but still a little groggy from the blows he had sustained, bent over her.

  “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to release your name!”

  On hearing the words “Jesus Christ,” Heather went into a violent spasm. The canon’s assistants grasped her arms and legs. At that moment, she was as much a danger to herself as to others; she was flailing about, out of control. But by and by the fit subsided. The assistants relaxed their grip and allowed Heather to sit up, very slowly. The canon retrieved his cross and prayer book.

  Heather seemed to slump down into herself; her posture became that of an old, decrepit being. The shoulders grew hunched; her chin sank low onto her chest. She began cackling. Joe, still in his position of safety, was aghast. He was recalling other cackling, other incidents. That which he feared was returning.

  “She’s mine. She’s always been mine.” It was the voice of the old woman again. “You can’t have her. Never, never, never!”

  “I command you, in the name of Jesus, give me your name.”

  “Damn you!” came the curse from Heather’s lips.

  “I command you, in the name of Jesus Christ, give me your name.”

  He noted that the holy name was finding its mark, wearing the demon down.

  “Damn you, damn you, damn you.” She spat into the canon’s face. “She never belonged to him. She’s ours. We serve the Master. Before the sperm met the egg she was ours.”

  The voice began to jabber, the words pouring out in a demented meter of their own, like a travesty of a children’s play song.

  “Before the filth met the filth she was ours! In the darkness of the womb she was ours. In the depths of the garden she was ours. Always ours, always ours…ours!” The final word was drawn out in a harsh, rasping hiss.

  The demon was playing for time. The canon recognized the gibberish for the desperate delaying tactic it was. Soon, the pleading would start.

  “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you, give me your name.”

  Heather’s body was contorting again. She curled herself into the fetal position and lay back down.

  “Sal…Sala…Salac…Salaci…Salacia!” She drummed out the name in a childlike, staccato rhythm.

  At a signal from Canon Lendrum, his assistants went to lift her back onto the couch. It should have been simple. It was not: they found her to be as immovable as granite. They could not budge her; it was as if an unseen force was pinning her to the floor. It was yet another sign—as if further evidence were needed—that Heather was demonically possessed. The canon strode to her and raised a hand.

  “I command you, vile spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ, leave this woman now!”

  Heather’s body seemed to relax. She uncurled herself and lay flat on her back, eyes staring at the ceiling. The assistants held her arms and legs as the canon continued to pray over her.

  “You vile spirit, I am speaking to you now in the name and with the authority of Jesus Christ. At my command, you will depart from this woman whom you have tormented for many days and nights, and you will go to your own place—”

  Suddenly Heather shot upright. It was as if an invisible hand had yanked her by the hair. The sardonic expression was back. She began moving her head from side to side in a weaving motion, smiling and drooling.

  Another demon was making its presence felt; the canon was certain of it. There was a marked difference in Heather’s features. This time, her face seemed to flatten; the mouth drooped.

  “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you—”

  “We will never leave her.” The deafening roar cut across the canon’s words. The new voice was quite unlike that of the old woman; it seemed to emerge from the floor itself. “We’ll kill her first!”

  Then the voice took on the cadence of a schoolyard bully’s—malicious, singsong, mocking.

  “We tried her before with her blades and pills, blades and pills, blades-and-pills––”

  “I command y
ou in the name of Jesus Christ, release your name!”

  The face took on a haughty look. The sneer was back again, but there was another personality, another consciousness, behind it.

  “I am Uncle Seth,” a masculine voice announced. “Lover of the little ones. Robber of the little souls. Killer of the Innocents.”

  The words had a robotic timbre, slowed and slurred, like an old gramophone winding down. On the last syllable, the young woman’s hands flew to her throat. They began to squeeze. She was choking; her face was turning blue. The canon’s assistants rushed to break the grip of those hands—and found they could not.

  Heather Mitchelson was throttling herself to death.

  “Please,” Joe cried, “can’t somebody do something?”

  But the canon stilled him with a gesture. He had cautioned Joe not to speak unless spoken to. In the meantime, the assistants were winning. It was not the first time they had had to contend with a display of unnatural strength by the possessed. After a struggle, they pried Heather’s hands away and pinioned her arms behind her back. She would do no more mischief—not to herself, not to anybody.

  “I command you in the name of Jesus to depart from this woman,” the canon urged in a mighty voice. It surprised Joe with its volume and intensity. “I have bound you and stripped you of your power to resist––”

  Heather’s head began to weave from side to side again.

  “We take them in the dark…always in the dark…in the depths of the dark. We walk for the Master in the dark.”

  The voice was faltering under the authority of the canon’s. The demoniac’s neck slackened and her head fell to one side. As was the case from the beginning, the eyes remained wide open and unblinking.

  “You will go quietly, and you will hurt no one as you leave!” the canon ordered.

  “No! Please, don’t send us to him.” The voice was that of a pleading child. “We cannot go to him…. Please, not to the cold place. We need the warm…the bodies of the warm…to live in the blood of the bodies of the warm.”

  The voice began to chant with a breathless urgency: “…of the warm, of the warm…to do for the Master in the bodies of the blood of the warm—”

  “Go now to that place that the Lord Jesus Christ has appointed for you!”

  “…to kill with the hands of the bodies of the warm…to rage in the sweat in the blood in the warm—”

  “There you will remain until he releases you!” the canon thundered.

  “…to see through the eyes of the bodies of the warm…to live in the dark in the blood of bodies…warm…”

  The voice was becoming weak and hesitant. The canon was certain that the final expulsion was near. He spoke with renewed vigor and authority.

  “In the name of Jesus Christ, go now to that place that the Lord has appointed for you. In the name of Jesus Christ I command you!”

  “Warm…please, we need the warm. Please!”

  The assistants relaxed their grip. Heather fell back onto the floor with closed eyes. She had fainted.

  The canon’s voice continued to rise in volume as the demon’s grip weakened. “Go now to that place that the Lord Jesus Christ has appointed for you and there you will remain until he releases you!”

  Something extraordinary happened at that moment. A dramatic change occurred, but it was invisible to all in that room. Joe reports a “lifting.” A presence had departed.

  The young woman opened her eyes and looked about her, plainly disoriented.

  “What am I doing on the floor?” she asked, in all innocence. She turned to the young man near the window. “Joe? What’s going on?”

  In common with most victims of possession, Heather had no recollection of what had just taken place. For the best part of two hours, her entire being had been invaded by an alien force. Now there was only Heather Mitchelson.

  The ordeal was at an end. The ghosts of family evil had been laid to rest.

  In the winter of 1992, twenty-four-year-old Heather Mitchelson and her partner, Joe Kilmartin, were living in a rented home on the outskirts of Balbriggan. It is a small town in County Louth and lies a little to the north of Dublin City. Joe drove a truck for a living and Heather worked in a dry cleaners in the town. To the outsider, they were the average young couple, outwardly no different from their friends and neighbors.

  But outward appearances can be deceptive. Inside, Heather carried the scars of years of abuse. She had had the great misfortune to be born into a family that was far from ordinary.

  Her mother, Bernadette Rafters, was just seventeen when she gave birth to her daughter. Her marriage to Dessie Mitchelson, then twenty-seven, was a disaster in the making. Dessie was a drunk, a failure, who moreover had a violent streak. It was a volatile mixture. Dessie was bad with relationships, was forever getting into arguments with his buddies—and would generally take it out on his young wife. He beat her often, for no reason. When Bernadette became pregnant with Heather, it seemed to be the spur he needed to beat her even more.

  It did not end there. The arrival of the baby had an even worse effect on Dessie. He was jealous of the affection lavished on it. The beatings started again. Before long, he was even hurting the infant.

  Bernadette should have read the danger signs but evidently did not. She became pregnant twice more by Dessie; two boys were to join Heather in the unhappy family. Dessie abused them as well.

  His alcoholism grew steadily worse; home life grew correspondingly unbearable for Heather and her siblings. They found themselves having to flee the home frequently—often in the middle of the night—and finding sanctuary with a succession of relatives. By all accounts, the relatives were not much better than the children’s parents. Bernadette, as a result of her husband’s abuse, simply could not cope and spent lengthy periods in mental institutions. From time to time the children were given over to foster care.

  When Heather turned five, an event occurred that, tragic though it was, ensured that the children found a more permanent “home.” Dessie died in a car accident. Bernadette, freed at last from her husband’s tyranny, left the children in her mother’s safekeeping and went to England to find work. In this she was successful. She sent “Nan Sal” regular payments from her salary, on the understanding that she would return by and by.

  We do not know if the children fared any better under the eye of Nan Sal. The grandmother’s home was a dilapidated cottage outside of town. Given the family background and the horrors they had endured from the beginning, one can assume that their day-to-day reality continued to be one of bleak dejection and fear.

  What we do know is that a strong bond developed between Heather and Nan Sal. It was not, however, the healthy, loving bond one might expect, but something altogether more sinister. In the years she lived with her grandmother, the child would become initiated into a world of evil—an evil that was to pursue her for the remainder of her life.

  In all, the children spent five years with their grandmother; Nan Sal died in 1978. Bernadette returned to her children, took up with another man, and the family became a stable unit. Or so one might hope. But evil has the uncanny knack of seeking out the weak and the vulnerable. The “stepfather” turned out to be far worse than Dessie Mitchelson. According to Heather, he was a serial child abuser. To complete the picture of depravity, he seemed to have her mother’s tacit approval to do whatever he pleased with the children.

  Given such circumstances, Heather and her brothers stood little chance of ever leading normal, well-adjusted lives. The boys emerged into adulthood as aggressive and violent as their father. Like Dessie, they abused alcohol—and drugs—and were frequently in trouble with the law. Heather, for her part, withdrew into herself; she developed an eating disorder, tried to kill herself twice, and, like her mother, suffered prolonged periods of depression that required hospitalization.

  It was while she was undergoing treatment, having survived her second suicide attempt, that she had the good fortune to meet Joe Kilmartin. He was vis
iting his sister, who shared Heather’s hospital room. When Heather was well again, Joe looked her up. Romance followed. They set up a home together. Heather, for the first time in her life, felt settled and happy. Having endured an abusive father, deviant relatives, and a pedophile stepfather, she had found a “normal” man.

  Her happiness was to last a little short of two years. In 1992, she had her first experience of the preternatural.

  The encounter took place after dark. Joe was not at home; he often worked nights. Heather was roused from sleep.

  Her bedside clock told her that it was close to three in the morning; it was still dark, and would be dark for hours yet, this being late February.

  Standing at the foot of the bed was the figure of an elderly woman, clearly visible by the light given off by a street lamp close by Heather’s window. The figure was stooped, the lined face set in a smile.

  Heather was alarmed, and with good reason. She was looking at the woman whom she had not seen since the age of ten. Nan Sal had been dead all of fourteen years.

  The grandmother was wearing what could have been a pale blue nightgown but might equally well have been a ball gown; it was a long, flowing garment with a frilled neckline and cuffs. Heather wanted to scream but was too frightened to do even that. She shrank back against the headboard.

  “Nan Sal,” she ventured, surprised that she could even find her voice, “what do you want?”

  She hoped that, by speaking, she might cause the vision to disappear and prove it was nothing but a dream. The last thing she expected was for her dead relative to answer her. Like most people, Heather had grown up with the notion of ghosts being no more than moving images, phantoms that do not as a rule interact with the real world of the living. Now the phantom was proving her wrong, and the words her dead grandmother uttered filled her with abject terror.

  “Heather,” the vision said, “soon you’ll be with me.”