The Dark Side of Eleanor Warwick
EXORCISM

Rita glances up in surprise as Eleanor and Kim step back into the apartment.

“I don’t believe any of this,” Kim mutters under her breath, “but she probably does. If this helps, then just make it quick.”

“I will,” Eleanor answers. She takes a seat across from Rita. “Hi. How are you feeling tonight?”

“Why are you still here?”

“Mother, be nice.” Kim looks at Eleanor. “Just get on with it.”

“Right.”

Eleanor takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. She speaks a few words, too soft to be deciphered. Holding her hands in front of her face, she slowly pulls them apart.

Kim swears she sees a slight ripple in the air.

Rita watches intently, edging closer.

Eleanor opens her eyes. She quickly slaps her hands together with a yip. Rita and Kim both flinch at the sudden motion. Eleanor looks away shaking her hands.

“Whoa,” she says. “That is…yikes.” Eleanor looks at Rita and smiles awkwardly. “I have good news, Mrs. Chen. You’re not cursed.”

Rita’s eyes flare and she glares at her daughter. “Why are you telling stranger about this?”

“This is nonsense,” Kim scoffs. “It’s all nonsense.”

“Not nonsense!” Rita shouts before carrying on in Mandarin.

The two begin to argue again, but Eleanor speaks up.

“Possessed.” The Chens stop their bickering and look at Eleanor. She removes her glasses and rubs her sinuses. “You’re possessed.”

Rita eases back on the sofa, her shoulders slump. “What are you? Wu?”

“Sort of,” Eleanor confirms.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know the name, exactly, but it’s a smoky apparition. Very dark. Scary.”

Rita slowly looks over her shoulder but sees nothing.

“Mrs. Chen, do you find you have difficulty enjoying things? Do you feel cold no matter how you try to warm up? Do you feel like someone is always watching you?”

Rita’s lip quivers. Her eyes water. “Always.”

“That’s enough, Eleanor. You’re upsetting her,” Kim says.

“No!” Rita snaps. “She only one who believes me!”

“Mother- .”

“Enough!” Rita turns to Eleanor. She leans forward. “Can you help me?”

“I haven’t done an exorcism in a long time, but yes. I think I can.”

“An exorcism? You can’t be serious.”

“What do I need to do?” Rita asks, standing.

Eleanor considers. “I need candles. Some sulfur. I think I have some in the car. I need a knife or something sharp. We need something very valuable to you.”

“Daughter,” Rita says casually.

Kim’s eyebrows arch. “Oh, no. You leave me out of this.”

“And a circle,” Eleanor adds. “One big enough for the three of us.”

“I said leave me out of this.”

“She have rope.”

Kim and Eleanor look at each other and then to Rita. “Excuse me?” Kim asks.

“Rope make circle.”

“What…what makes you think I have rope?”

Rita stares at her daughter. “For your job. You think I don’t know?”

Shaking her head, Kim sighs. “I was hoping.”

“I know. You spank weirdos like her.” She gestures to Eleanor.

“Hey! I’m helping you!”

“Not yet. You go to car.”

Eleanor begins to retort but decides to take the high road. “Move the furniture please.”

As Eleanor disappears through the door, Kim frowns and heads into her room. When she returns, she has a small box of candles and a spool of rope. “Well, go ahead,” she says.

Rita stares blankly. “What?”

Setting the materials aside, Kim begins to move the couch. “Let me have it. Lecture me about what a disgrace I am.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kim looks up at her. “I’m a dominatrix, Mother. I spank weirdos.”

“I know. I said that.”

“Yeah. So let’s hear it. How much of an embarrassment am I?”

Rita shrugs. “I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care. You have your own business. It’s good thing.”

“I…I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you would disapprove.”

“That’s because you always think worst of me! I tell you I’m cursed, you call me liar!”

“I’m still not convinced you are.”

“Weirdo said so!”

“Eleanor is not a wizard, Mother. The very idea is ridiculous.”

Before the conversation can continue, Eleanor returns to the apartment brandishing a small Ziploc of yellow powder. “Okay. I’ve got the sulfur.”

“You just carry sulfur around with you?”

Eleanor dumps the powder into a bowl. “If I were ever pulled over the contents of my trunk would have me on an FBI watchlist.”

Once the furniture is moved, the women make a large circle with the rope. They set up the candles in groups of threes and fours and light them. Kim switches off the lights and pulls the curtains closed. Only the glow of the candles remains.

Eleanor sits on the floor and Rita takes her place across from her. Kim stands along the edge of the circle, her arms crossed.

“Okay. I’m going to draw out the spirit that’s possessing you. Once it’s out in the open, I can banish it. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully?”

Eleanor waves away Kim’s concern. “Probably. Whatever happens, once the ritual has started, no one can leave the circle until it’s over.”

“Why not?”

“As long as we’re in the circle, the spirit can’t take hold of us. It’ll be exposed. Vulnerable. If it gets its hooks back into one of us, it’ll hide. Drawing it out again would be very difficult. Probably beyond my power. You’d need a full tilt exorcist, and even then you’d probably have to wait until the spirit gets comfortable again.”

“But- .”

“No more questions,” Rita insists. “Start.”

Nodding, Eleanor mutters in a strange language. She waves her hand over the bowl of sulfur. Lifting the knife borrowed from Kim’s kitchen, she cuts her palm, allowing blood to drip into the bowl.

“Candle, please.” She holds her uncut hand out to Kim. Kim complies. Eleanor casually drops the candle into the bowl.

Kim is no chemist, but she knows sulfur is combustible. She shrieks in alarm, lifting her arms to shield her face. But nothing comes. No explosion. Not even a sound.

She lowers her arms. The bowl of sulfur quietly burns, a blue flame rising.

“How is it blue? It shouldn’t be blue. Should it?”

Rita hushes her. “Quiet. Wu is concentrating.”

Eyes closed, Eleanor moves her hands in graceful motions. Kim watches in disbelief as the wispy smoke rising from the bowl joins her movements. It flows like water, forming arches and slashes through the air.

Suddenly, the candle flames flicker and join the bowl, shining a cobalt blue. The light casts the room in an eerie azure.

Kim glances around in a near panic. “Eleanor! Whatever you’re doing, stop it! You’re freaking me out!”

Eleanor opens her eyes. “Rita?”

The old woman’s eyes water. She stares at Eleanor with near reverence. “Don’t stop. Please.”

Reaching through the lingering smoke, Eleanor offers her hands. Rita clasps them without hesitation.

The smoke flows toward Rita, circling her. She closes her eyes. A soft gasp escapes her as she feels warmth for the first time in a long time.

A slight smile edges Kim’s face as she sees a contented look on her mother’s face. A rare sight indeed. But her expression changes to one of horror as the wisps of smoke rise over Rita and a shape begins to form.

The figure is vaguely humanoid. Its shoulders are broad and it has impossibly long arms. The smoke casts around it. It waves at the smoke as if trying to pull away some cobwebs.

Suddenly Eleanor lets go of Rita’s hands and reaches up, grasping at air. The smoke follows her commands. The wispy tendrils seize the spirit, wrapping around it like chains. The spirit jerks and bucks, desperately trying to get free.

“Get behind me!” Eleanor shouts.

Rita looks up to see the ephemeral creature. With a cry, she scurries along the floor.

Eleanor glances at Kim. Staring up at the spirit, Kim is frozen in place. Her eyes are wide, her mouth hanging open.

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“Nora!” Rita calls.

The spirit whips its head toward Kim. She gasps, taking a step back.

Eleanor looks down to find Kim’s foot right up against the rope. “Kim! Stay in the circle!”

The spirit struggles against the bindings, reaching for her. Kim whispers something in Mandarin.

“Kim, no!”

She takes another step back, outside the circle.

The spirit howls, a deep bellowing sound. It rips free of the smoke and a burst of air extinguishes the candles.

The apartment plunges into darkness.

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