Midwinter of the Spirit

‘He’s a projection. Do you know what I mean by that?’

Merrily said, ‘Can I think about it?’

Projection?

Psychic projection, psychological projection – a grey area. Come on, Huw, what are we dealing with here?

We don’t fully understand this, but if we assume, to put it simply, that an imprint exists on a sensory wavelength or plane parallel to our own, then it follows that some people are capable of tuning into that wavelength, sometimes allowing the imprint to be transmitted in a way that renders it visible to others. They may be able, consciously or unconsciously, to lend it the energy it needs to manifest. They may even create their own imprint, projecting it like a hologram. If you come across one of these, you’re unlikely to be able to get rid of it through prayer or ritual alone. You’ve got to stop the person from doing it.

Merrily imagined, in the part of the passage where the bulb had blown, turning it into a black tunnel, a man in a doublebreasted suit bringing a match to his cigarette, exhaling the smoke towards her – smoke which rose in a V, a grey, sardonic smile – before shrivelling up into his own vapour like a silently bursting balloon.

‘You’re thinking, is this devilry – aren’t you?’ The light through Miss White’s glasses was intense and focused, like when as a kid you used the sun through a magnifying glass to burn a hole in a newspaper.

‘I suppose I am.’

‘Would you settle for naughty?’

‘I’d love to, but I don’t think I’d be allowed to. You see, the problem – as I see it – is that you’ve created an energy form separate from yourself, but possessing a few atoms of your transferred… intelligence?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘How far is that from it acquiring a level of existence of its own? A primitive level, perhaps, but then other – possibly negative – energies might be attracted to it. And then you could have trouble that’s not so easy to control: a volatile – a poltergeist. Or worse.’

‘Yes.’ Athena White sat down next to Merrily. ‘I follow your argument. It’s unlikely, though, especially if I’m here.’

‘But… I’m sorry, Athena, but you’re not always going to be here, are you?’

‘He’ll die when I die.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Oh, you are a pain, Mrs Clergyperson. All right, I’ll consider it. But it’ll be a frightful wrench – for all of us.’

‘I’m sure he’ll live on in all your memories.’

‘I’ve said I’ll consider it,’ Athena snapped. ‘Now tell me about Denzil Joy.’

There was a rapping on the door, and Susan Thorpe said, ‘Miss White, is there a woman in there with you?’

‘I’m here, Susan,’ Merrily said. ‘Miss White’s been helping me.’

‘I hope she can keep her mouth shut.’

Miss White said loftily, ‘You may, for once, count on it, Thorpe. Now leave us.’

‘You know I can’t drag the party out much longer.’

‘Well, tell your husband to take his clothes off.’

‘Oh!’ said Susan Thorpe. They heard her footsteps recede.

‘That makes me feel quite queasy,’ Merrily said.

‘Wait till you’re as old as they are.’ Mrs White stood up. ‘Merrily, I’m very disturbed by this. I think he’s feeding off you.’

‘Don’t.’

‘If one doesn’t face these things, one can’t take remedial action. I suspect you haven’t been yourself for some days. Tired? Depleted? Prone to emotional outbursts?’

‘Well, yes, since you ask. And also flu-like symptoms: vaguely sore throat, blocked nose, temperature. I put it down to stress.’

‘Losing the will to fight it?’

‘Half the time I just want to run away. I mean… Well, to be quite honest, this was going to be my last job as Deliverance consultant… diocesan exorcist.’

‘You were giving it up?’ An eyebrow rose above the spectacles. ‘While, under different circumstances, that is a decision one might wish to applaud—’

‘I felt I couldn’t cope. I felt under attack from all kinds of different directions.’

‘As you may well be. This could be precisely what’s happening. How many people know of your appalling experience with this man?’

‘I don’t know. The nurses involved… my daughter, Jane… my Deliverance course tutor. And Canon Dobbs, of course.’

‘As he appeared to have arranged it for you? The sheer ignorance of the clergy dumbfounds me. Who else?’

‘There’s no one else I’ve told, I don’t think. It’s not something I enjoy talking about. What’s the significance of that, anyway? If I mishandled the job in the hospital, and I’ve let him in, that’s not their fault.’

‘Admittedly, the idea of an unhappy spirit desperately clinging at the moment of death to a living person is not unknown, particularly in a sexually charged situation. But I think you must also consider the possibility of psychic attack by person or persons unknown. Which is far far more common than most people would imagine. Merely thinking ill of someone is its most basic form, but we may be looking at something more complex in this instance. If I were to lend you my copy of Dion Fortune’s Psychic Self- Defence…’

‘What are you trying to do to me? I’m a Christian.’

‘As was Fortune herself, after her fashion. Merrily, how soon after the incident at the hospital did this unclean presence make itself apparent?’

‘I felt tired afterwards, but that was natural; I’d been up all night. But I don’t think I really became aware of it until I was called in to cleanse a desecrated church.’

‘Interesting. This was during your service?’

‘Well, I didn’t actually… It was before.’

‘When you entered the church?’

‘I…’ Merrily remembered standing outside the church talking to the policemen – with a stiffness and a clamminess in her vestments. Had she felt that in the car on the way there? Possibly.

‘Think back, Merrily. Who were you with when you first experienced something amiss?’

‘Policemen? I don’t know, can’t think. I’m mixed up and a bit anxious because I’m sitting here, a minister of the Church, unburdening myself to a practising occultist who, by force of willpower, has created a haunted house.’

‘Who would you normally go to for spiritual help?’

‘Huw, my course tutor, who was in the church with me when I exhibited what must have seemed to him like many of the symptoms of demonic possession.’

‘In which case, why the blue blazes—?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘All right.’ Athena White placed a hand on Merrily’s knee. It didn’t feel like a cloven hoof. ‘Go home, pull your bed into the centre of the room, and draw a pentacle…’

‘You have got to be joking!’

‘All right, a circle – in salt, or even chalk – around the bed. Perform whatever rite your religion allows, but supplement it, when you’re lying in bed, by visualizing rings of bright orange or golden light around you and above you, so that you are enclosed in an orb of light. Keep that in your mind constantly until you fall asleep. If you awake in the night, visualize it at once, intact. This should bring you unmolested to the morning.’

‘A circle?’

‘Don’t be afraid of it. There is but one God. Consider it heavenly light – angelic.’

Huw and Dobbs? Merrily frowned. She always knew it had to be something like this.

‘Secondly, take the robes – vestments – you were wearing in the church when you were spiritually assaulted