A Foul Possession

My name is Julian. Eight-years old. Too young to handle the discovery of my brother Leon’s demonic possession. He’s fourteen and a half, and I suspect his possession had something to do with that new girl he’s been hanging around with. Her name is Taylor and she wears a lot of black and I find her unpleasant. She smells like the entrance to the mall where everyone always stands in the cold to smoke what my mom calls “sponsored cancer”. I don’t really know what that means, but I know cancer is bad and scary.

Taylor comes over on a Fridays. I’m usually playing PlayStation, and no matter what I’m playing I can always hear the jingle of the metal hanging from Taylor’s clothes as she walks by. I used to think it was my dog Loki and his collar, but his jingles are happy jingles, fast and excited. Taylor’s jingles are slow and steady like something from a horror movie. I’ll see the shadow of her big black boots slide under my door, and when she goes I’ll notice I’m holding my breath. I imagine her sniffing in my direction to seek me out, but so far she hasn’t tried to harvest my soul.

She said hi once when I was getting a sandwich. I knew better than to let her work her demonic magic on me, so I only nodded and hauled it back to my room before she could enchant me with her demon words.

“He’s just a little shy,” my mom says as I run away.

Like heck I’m shy. I just know a witch lady when I see one.

I started to suspect Leon was possessed around the time he came back from a three day break with mom. I was left to stay with my aunt Rachel. She gossiped on the phone and watched cheesy romance movies the whole time. She seems to have a lot of problems but they also seem to make her laugh a lot. She confuses me. Her food would burn, and when I would announce it to her she’d wail and do a tip toe run to the stove to salvage the black mess of whatever. I had buttered noodles for three nights.

Anyway, Leon was with mom when she came to get me.

“Hi sweetie.” Mom turned towards me after I buckled myself in, and I remember how tired she looked. I never saw so much purple under her eyes and I thought she had makeup on. “Did you have fun with Rachel?” She smiled and waved at Rachel as she asked, who was standing at her door with her phone pressed against her skull.

I said I did.

I asked Leon how their trip was and didn’t get an answer. I didn’t think he heard me, so I asked him again.

“Fine,” he said. He didn’t even turn back, and then he turned the radio on.

Mom smiled at me through the rearview mirror while petting Leon’s head. She turned the radio down a tiny bit and then we drove back home. We picked up burritos along the way, but Leon said he didn’t want one. This was the first time I ever heard Leon say he didn’t want a juicy barbacoa with extra guac.

When we got home I ate mine and watched Netflix with mom. Leon just went upstairs to his room without saying anything, meanwhile mom’s phone kept buzzing the whole time we were eating and watching.

I finished and wanted to play video games, and on my way up I ran into Leon as he was heading to the bathroom.

I asked if he wanted to play PlayStation with me.

“No.”

Leon always wanted to play, or would at least ask what I was playing. Instead he pushed past me and when I asked if he was sure he just closed the door. I stood there and thought about waiting for him to come out so I could ask again. He took too long and i got bored, so I left it at that.

Leon might not have wanted play, but my best friend Andre was online, so I added him to my party and he started telling me about the wins and kill streaks I missed out on while I was at my aunts.

“So did your brother lose his soul yet?” he asked.

Andre was the first one to tell me that Leon was maybe gonna lose his soul to Taylor. His older brother Marcus said Leon was gonna lose his “V card” to “that kinky goth chick”, and when Andre asked what that meant he told him it meant his soul, and that Taylor was known to practice demon worship behind the McDonalds by the movie theatre.

I told Andre I didn’t know, but that Leon was acting weirder.

“I’m never getting a girlfriend, man. Eff that.”

I told him I wasn’t getting one, either. Girls are annoying and I don’t like getting grabbed and kissed on the cheek by them.

Andre and I played for an hour before I decided I needed to pee. When I got into the hallway the bathroom door was still shut. Or Leon had just gone into the bathroom again and I hadn’t heard him. I knocked and there was no answer. I knocked again and I heard Leon throw up. He gagged and retched and it sounded like he was turning into a zombie.

I said his name and knocked again.

“Go away, Julian.”

I asked if he was okay and his response was throwing up more.

I asked if he was sick.

“No. I just ate something I shouldn’t have.”

I didn’t see him eat anything so that only made me more suspicious.

After a bit of quiet I said I needed to pee. I heard the toilet flush, the tap run, and then the door handle being tugged on like it had done something wrong. Leon was pale when he came out and I guess I didn’t move out of his way fast enough because he grabbed my shoulder and pushed me against the wall.

“You’re so fucking annoying, sometimes,” he said, and kept walking until he got to his room and shut his door.

This made me sad. Leon and I would mess around and fight sometimes but he never got angry and tried to hurt me for real. My shoulder was kinda sore but I forgave him and hoped he was okay. But when I went into the bathroom I knew for a fact that he definitely was not okay. There were little red blood speckles in the upper bowl of the toilet where the water didn’t quite reach when it was flushed. Leon had been throwing up blood.

I’ve played games and I’ve seen a lot of movies where people get possessed, and the dumbest thing people do in those is let the possessed person know that they know. That’s why when I peed I peed on the blood and made sure it was gone.

When I got back to Andre I told him what I saw and he got very excited.

“Shit, dude, your bro’s actually like…possessed.”

I said I dunno.

“What about the movies!?” he asks. “Every exorcist movie is based on a true story!”

That was true.

I asked what I should do.

“Hold on, I’m googling…also, ready up. I can only play for twenty more minutes before dad starts yelling at me.”

I hit triangle on my controller and waited for Andre to direct me in the salvation of my brother’s soul.

“So you need like…some rope, maybe. Some holy water. You definitely need a cross.”

I said I have a cross.

“You’ve gotta pray at him while he’s lying down and then that pisses the demon off and he’ll go away. But be careful. He might try to smack you or something. Just kick him in the dick if he tries.”

I told Andre I wasn’t gonna kick Leon in the dick.

“It’s not his dick right now, though! it’s the demons. He won’t even feel it. He’ll thank you for it.”

I told him okay, but the anticipation of doing an exorcism on my brother made me fidgety and I couldn’t sit there, anymore. I needed to see what supplies I had in the house. I said bye to Andre and got up to start my search.

Mom sat at the island in our kitchen when I walked in. She had a glass of wine and some letters beside her, letters that seemed to be confusing or worrying her. I couldn’t tell which. She didn’t say anything to me as I started going through each of our “random stuff” drawers to look for the one cross I knew I’d seen in the house a few times. It was about as long as my own hand, with shiny red wood and a silver statue of Jesus. I remember holding it at people and telling them the power of Christ compels them, but mom didn’t like that.

“That’s your grandfather’s cross,” she said, taking it from me delicately. “Not a toy.” But then she thought for a bit. “Actually, blessing heathens is something he probably would have loved to see you do, but this thing is fragile.”

I asked what heathens are and mom said I shouldn’t worry about it, just yet.

But I’ve looked it up since then and it turns out that I’m a pretty big heathen, myself. Or an infidel. I like the sound of heretic more, though. Julian the heretic.

When I went through the last drawer and came up with nothing, I called out to mom. It took me three tries to break her away from the letters she was reading.

“Yeah, honey, what’s up?”

I asked if she knew where granddad’s cross was.

“Why are you looking for that?” It seemed to make her sad that I was.

I said I just wanted to use it for praying.

“Really?” she asked. “How come?”

My grandparents on my mom’s side were super religious, but mom didn’t really like what they had to say about some things. We never went to church, except for when my dad died, but I don’t remember that at all. Leon told me about it and I think it’s better that I don’t. Mom likes to tell us that we can believe whatever we want as long as we don’t hurt anyone else, and I think that’s a good rule.

I said I wanted to pray to see if anything will happen.

“Oh? What are you praying for?”

I said world peace.

But she didn’t seem to buy that. “Julian, did Leon tell you something that’s making you worried?"

I said no.

This made her get off her chair and kneel in front of me. She smiled but her eyes were sad and she took my face in her hands.

“You’re my little man,” she said. “My big strong guy. So I’m gonna be honest with you. Your brother Leon isn’t feeling the best right now. But he’s gonna be okay. He’s just having some tummy problems at the moment.”

I knew this is probably what the demon told my mom, so I thought it best to keep her in the dark about it. That way she’d be safe.

Oh, I said. That’s why he’s been grumpy.

“Yeah, your brother’s just gonna need a little bit of space. We both have to be patient with him and show him how much we love him. Does that sound good to you?”

I told her I already loved him more than anything else.

And this made her cry. She hugged me, and through some sniffles said, “How did you two get to be so amazing? Were you secretly raised by other people?”

Her shoulder was pressed against my mouth, so when I said I dunno it came out as a deep mumble.

This made her laugh. She wiped her eyes and said, “Good answer.” And then after a moment, “Okay. Your grandad’s cross is in the desk in my office, in the third drawer on the right. Please don’t make it messy.”

I promised I wouldn’t.

“Off you go. Mom’s gotta tend to grown-up things.”

I left her with those letters. I didn’t even think about how sad mom would be if she found out that Leon was possessed. I see her get sad sometimes and that makes me feel sad. This is one thing I definitely won’t let her feel sad about.

The cross was right where mom said it was, underneath a green papery box with frayed corners and dents that looked like dark veins. When I picked it up there was a curious rustle that didn’t sound like anything needed for an office. I knew I probably shouldn’t have gone snooping, but I felt drawn.

I flipped the lid and was hit with this smell that seemed old. Unique but familiar. This was the same smell that came off my dad’s clothes in mom’s closet, and from the other bigger boxes in the attic that have most of his things. Mom said all that stuff would be ours when we got older and had better use for it, stuff like books and other random objects that meant a lot to him.

But here in this box were small journals, pens, a jar of weirdly shaped dice, and then a pile of small metal figurines and pins. This was some of my dad’s Dungeons and Dragons stuff. There were basilisks, trolls, wispy looking demons, and the one that stood out the most to me: a silver haired warrior with two swords strapped to his back, standing on a mossy stone platform.

I remember mom talking about this, and how dad was obsessed with these things called glyphs, magic markings put on ordinary things to make them do cool things. Put them on a chair to make whoever sits on it paralysed. Etch them into the blade of a sword to make everything it touches burn.

This gave me an idea.

I put everything back carefully, all except a pin that detailed one of those glyphs. I stuck that on my shirt and ran to my room. In my closet was a nerf sword, a beaten styrofoam blade with a sturdy handle. I hauled it to the bathroom and ran the bath, just enough to dunk the sword. I pulled out my grandfather’s cross and blessed the water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I held the nerf sword delicately with two hands, offering it to the water. In my mind I imagined it sinking to the bottom of the bath with a muffled thunk, a radiant light outlining the sword in its blessing, but the moment I let it go it just started bobbing clumsily.

Disappointing.

I pushed the sword down and held it for a few moments, enough until I was sure it had absorbed a good amount. I dried it a little when it came out, but kept the blade good and damp. Should it come to it, I’d be ready to do battle with the demon claiming my brother.

Night came, and when I was sure both my mom and brother were asleep, I snuck out; cross in hand, several lines of pre-cut garden wire, and the sword sheathed on my back, tucked into the neckline of my shirt. I knew I was probably ill-equipped for pushing a demon back into the chasms of whatever realm it crawled from, but this was my brother.

Home took on the qualities of a morbid dungeon when I skulked in the dark, tip-toeing with my back against the wall. It was too quiet, and the light from the bathroom created too many shadows. How was I to know if this demon couldn’t do other things outside of Leon’s body? What if it was lying in wait, and there I was just walking into a trap. These thoughts tightened my brain, made fear, and stopped me before I could round the corner of the hall to Leon’s bedroom. I saw the head of something barely peering at me from that corner, a hairless white face and an eye that looked too big for a person, unblinking. I hadn’t noticed the long, gnarled hands clasped around the corner’s edge, but I did see them slide back, along with the face.

This was my fear, my own thoughts fighting against me.

I kept going.

Leon liked to fall asleep with headphones on while listening to podcasts, and tonight was no different. His door creaked when it opened, and I heard the sound of small digital voices cramming his ears from the hall. The only light in his room was the green glow coming from the power button of his humidifier. Everything else was misted darkness. As fast as I could, I dropped to a crawl and made my way to the front pegs of his bed. I tied garden wire around the first, connecting it to the radiator beside his bed, and the second to his desk. When I finished, I stood at the foot of his bed and held the cross high.

The power of Christ compels you! I said.

He snored.

Those were definitely the words I needed to say. I had looked it up.

The power of Christ compels you! I said again.

Nothing.

I drew my sword.

I cast you out! I shouted, whacking Leon’s exposed foot.

It shot back into the sheets like an eel, and I swear I could see smoke in its wake. Leon sat up, half asleep, one earbud hanging from the other that hadn’t fallen out. He mumbled something, but before the demon could lure me in with anything I shouted again.

The power of Christ compels you! Release Leon, demon. I cast you out!

“Julian, what the hell? It’s four in the morning.”

I cast you out! I said again, whacking the other exposed foot.

“Cut the shit, you’re gonna wake mom up. Back to bed.”

I wouldn’t give in.

I summon the power of Christ and I command you to leave my brother’s body, demon! I said.

Now Leon looked annoyed.

“Alright. I dunno why you thought this would be funny or cute, but it sure as shit isn’t. Get out and go to bed. Now.”

But I repeated myself.

“Okay.”

He threw his blankets aside. The surrounding mist bent and coiled around him as he did, putting him in a green haze that cast his face in horrible shadows.. The demon was coming.

Leon leapt from the left side of his bed, closest to his desk, and stormed towards me. I crouched a little and held the sword in front of me.

“Out,” he said, pointing towards the door, just as his foot caught the wire and sent him sprawling forward.

I didn’t really know how heavy his desk was, but not heavy enough to stay in place, apparently. It lurched a good bit and sent his monitor flying to the floor, as well as his Xbox and other collectibles. He slammed his knee into the floor, and lay there cradling it. Through gritted teeth and pained growls he said,

“What the fuck?”

I had come too far, and couldn’t give up now.

The power of Christ compels you! I said, whacking him on his exposed neck.

It didn’t seem to bother him as much as the knee pain.

Louder this time.

The power of Christ compels you, demon! With my sword I cast you out!

“Knock it off!”

That’s when mom came in and flipped the light switch.

“Oh my god! What the hell’s going on in here?”

I took a step back as she approached and knelt down.

“I’m fine. I just tripped. Julian’s being an idiot.”

Their eyes fell to the garden wire, and then both of them looked at me.

“Julian, you need to go to your room right now. I’ll be in to talk to you in a minute.”

I wanted so badly to tell her that this needed to be done, that I was only trying to protect the both of them from something they didn’t understand, but the look on my mom’s face, and the pain I had already caused for Leon, told me I needed to do what she told me.

I was just playing, I said. I’m sorry.

And then I retreated.

My weapons were out of sight when mom finally made her way to me. I sat myself on the edge of my bed, hands folded, head down. We weren’t a family that yelled at each other when we got angry, but something told me this would be different. She closed my door after she came in and sat beside me.

“Julian, remember what we talked about, earlier?”

I said yes.

“I know you love your brother, and I know that means wanting to have fun, but he really needs to rest at the moment. So we really can’t have a repeat of this right now. Do you understand?”

I said I did.

“Good. You broke his monitor, though. He’s not happy about that and neither am I. Those things are not cheap.”

And the Xbox? I asked.

“He said that’s fine. You’ve got some extra chores to do for the monitor, though.”

I said I understood, and that I was sorry. I was.

“This isn’t a time for negativity or being angry about stuff that can be bought. So what we’re gonna do is…we’re gonna hug it out, and then we’re gonna try to do better tomorrow. How does that sound?”

It sounded good to me.

“Alright. C’mere.”

I went to hug her, but her eyes fell on dad’s pin, still stuck to my shirt. She studied it for a minute. I held my breath. This was the first time I had ever taken anything of dad’s for myself.

“That’s your dad’s pin,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

“Do you know what that sign means?”

I shook my head.

“It means protection. Your dad had this ritual…every time he was about to get on a plane he’d put that pin on to keep everyone safe.”

I asked if he had it when he got sick.

“I don’t think he did, sweety.”

Do you think it would have helped? I asked.

She blew out a big breath of air before answering. “You know, I’m not sure. Maybe. It’s nice to believe that some magic still exists in the world, but there are some things that even magic can’t fix.”

I asked if I could hold onto it.

“Only if you promise to look after it.”

I promised.

After a hefty hug, she told me she loved me and to get into bed. She made her way to the door as I crawled in.

“Goodnight, Julian.”

Everything she told me I told her back, and then the lights went out.

A week had gone by after that night. It was slow and had pockets of tension that came up whenever I found myself with both my mom and Leon. He’d become paler than usual, had sunken eyes, and didn’t seem to want to talk. It was mom that steered our conversations, usually at me about school or what my friends were up to, but, like Leon, I didn’t have much to add. My thoughts were too much on Leon’s, both of us strung up in private mind cellars with no visitors. I wondered if he was recovering from my exorcism, if the demon inside him had actually left. He seemed more tired than mean, but I couldn’t be sure.

Friday came along soon enough, and with it the presence of Taylor.

I was on my bean bag reading comics when I heard her coming up the stairs with Leon. I hadn’t thought about what day it was, and didn’t have time to shut my door before their passing. Leon walked by without even looking in, but Taylor actually hugged the frame of my door to say hi. I barely peaked over the Avengers comic I was reading to look at her. She stood there with a smile, and didn’t seem all that evil right then. She was actually kinda pretty.

Hi, I said.

“Is that an Avengers comic you’re reading?”

I didn’t think satanists knew about The Avengers.

Yeah, I said.

She took a step closer, her body not reacting at all to granddad’s cross, which I hung by the door to ward off anything else that might want to harm me when I sleep.

“Which one? I have a few Avengers comics of my own, buy my favourite is Punisher…like that isn’t obvious,” she chuckled, looking at her clothes.

It’s just the one where they’re looking for the infinity gems, I said.

“Ah, a true believer. I like that you call them gems, not stones. That’s how you know somebody reads the comics.”

I had been reading for an hour, and a decent amount of monologues from Captain America had me feeling braver than usual.

I asked her what she wanted with my brother.

This made her smile.

“I’m just after his soul,” she said.

And there it was. The confirmation.

Her smile only got bigger when I stayed quiet.

“I’m kidding, dude. You know Leon and I have been friends since middle school, right? I guess we just never hung out because that’s how rumours start. You’ll get there. But right now he needs a friend and so…yeah, here I am.”

Since middle school?

“Anyways, sorry to interrupt. Enjoy your comic!”

Before she could go, I told her to wait.

She looked back at me, eyebrows raised.

I asked if she’d hand me the cross hanging up beside her.

“The cross?” she said, scanning for it. “Oh. Sure thing.”

She flicked it up and off the hook where my coat used to be and studied it passively as she brought it over.

It didn’t burn her and she certainly didn’t seem bothered by the power of Christ.

“There ya go,” she said, holding it in front of me.

I took it and said thanks.

“I didn’t know you guys were religious.”

I said we weren’t, that it was my grandad’s and even he only really used it to pray for others who had hard times, knees stuck in the ground and head hung heavy. And I don’t know why it came to me then or what struck me to say it, but without any shred of embarrassment I asked Taylor if she’d pray with me for Leon. I didn’t know how to pray, and I had always thought it was stupid to ask an all-knowing entity for something to come true when it probably already knew how things were gonna go down further along the road. It’d be like asking a local for directions to a bridge he knows burned down some years back, but screw it, he’ll let you figure that out for yourself when you get there. I can’t say what went through Taylor’s head at that moment, but she said yes in a way that didn’t make me feel awkward and we bowed our heads in silence and had a go of it. There was a strong chance I didn’t say what I needed or wanted to say because I felt like I was under pressure, but it was comforting in it’s own way, and I did feel better afterwards.

Thanks, I said.

“Any time at all, dude.”

Maybe Taylor wasn’t as bad as I thought.

It was a week later that mom told me Leon needed an operation.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” she kept saying, but in a constrained way that only made the knot in my stomach feel tighter. “He’s just gotta get something taken out of his stomach and he’s gonna be all better.”

When I asked what it was she told me it that sometimes the body makes extra stuff that isn’t needed and can make you sick, and when I asked if that meant cancer she looked like I’d just thunked her head with a toaster.

She brought me in for a hug before telling me yes.

And it was the rawness of that hug and the utter desperation I felt in her grip that delinked the veil of the supernatural in my brain. There was nothing magical or righteous about Leon’s affliction, and the turn of that dial caused a spark-ridden malfunction that upended the rightness of the world and ripped me from my child-like stupor. I was no longer the warrior brandishing arms against the primordial forces of evil, I was a kid crying into his mother’s sweater.

“Don’t cry,” mom said, holding the back of my head. “He’s gonna be fine.”

But I felt the pitter patter of her own tears hitting my head as she said this, and our own living room might as well have been the middle of an endless ocean, both of us adrift and uncertain.

It was me, mom, Rachel, and Taylor that stood around Leon’s hospital bed while he was being prepped for surgery, chock full of meek conversational nothings to fill the gap of time before his surgery. A doctor had come in with a smile to tell us she’s going to take the best care of Leon, and in that moment she was more a hero than anything I’d ever read in a comic book.

When it came time for Leon to go under, mom pushed me forward to give Leon a hug.

“Give him a big one now,” the nurse said with a brave smile, “Cause it’s soft hugs for a while after this.”

And that I did, the same way mom had hugged me earlier. In a whisper I asked if he was gonna be okay.

“Obviously,” was all he could say, but his hug held firm.

Everyone else needed one last hug before he left, one last affirmation that they’d be there when he wakes up, and in that time my fingers traced the pin I had taken from mom’s drawer, dad’s rune of protection.

I called for the nurse to wait as she rolled him away. I ran up to Leon and put the pin in his hands.

“What’s this?” he asked.

It was dad’s, I said. It means protection.

His fist clenched it, and with glossy eyes he was taken from all of us into the long white sterile halls of the unknown.

In the hours we waited, I fell asleep with my head on mom’s thigh. It seemed like I dreamed of everything and nothing all at once, the end of all I knew and the beginnings that had yet to sprout, spiralling around each other in a vicious helix that sought to destroy each other until the ladder of it all crumbled and neither could bring light or ruin. A nudge brought me from this cataclysm, into an an awakening that gifted me the sight of a smiling mother, her hands clasped lovingly to my face.

“Do you want to see your brother?” she asked.

I said I did.