At that, the temperature in the room plummeted even more—so much so that I could see my breath as I exhaled. I glanced over at Ryan and noticed he was focused on his own breath, which billowed out of him like a white cloud. “It’s freezing in here,” I whispered.
Ryan just nodded as his attention fell to Christopher and Lovie, who just continued busying themselves with the ritual, acting like they were used to subzero temperatures. When Ryan glanced back at me, he smiled consolingly. “They don’t appear to be concerned,” he started.
“So I guess we shouldn’t be either?” I interrupted.
He shrugged. “Guess not.”
We followed Christopher and Lovie as they walked single file into the next room, the incense wafting behind them and reminding me of some sort of holy procession. ’Course I really couldn’t say there was anything holy about Christopher.
The room into which they ventured happened to be a bathroom, but apparently evil spirits were not immune to restrooms because Christopher and Lovie repeated the entire ritual all over again. Approximately five minutes later, they retreated from the bathroom and started down the hallway again. I could have sworn the feeling of freezing air followed us; it seemed like it was nipping at my heels as we walked. As soon as we paused, it surrounded me in its icy embrace.
“Are they gonna do this to every room?” Ryan whispered down at me, an expression of concern spreading across his handsome face. Apparently neither of us had been prepared for how lengthy this process was. Or maybe it was that neither of us were prepared for the bitter cold.
I glanced up at him with a consoling smile. “I think so.”
“We’ll be here all day!” he whispered back with a laugh as he gripped my side and pulled me into him, whispering into my ear, “Good thing I’ve got you to distract me.”
I playfully swatted him while I wondered if Drake would pipe up with one of his snide comments. I was surprised when he didn’t.
Meanwhile, Christopher and Lovie finished their ministrations in the next bedroom, so Ryan and I followed them to the next room as Lovie continued to do her juggling act with the various artifacts involved in the exorcism.
“Well, I would consider yourself lucky that neither of them have yet mentioned the possession,” Drake said.
“I’m still going to tell him,” I responded resolutely.
“Je ne suis pas convaincu. I am not convinced.”
“Why is it getting so cold in here? ” I asked him, deciding to change the subject.
“I did not notice that it was,” he responded, which I found odd since I figured he could experience the same outside influences that I could. But apparently that wasn’t the case because I was shivering; it was so cold in the room.
After what felt like an eternity, Christopher and Lovie had “cleansed” the entire upstairs as well as the majority of the downstairs with the exception of the kitchen, but we were merely a salt bowl and a steel sword from completion. Once the salt had been spread and drawings of pentagrams and crosses had been drawn, Christopher turned to face us with a sigh.
“No doubt you feel the presence?” Christopher asked, first spearing me with his expression, and then Ryan. At the mention of “the presence,” I felt my heart drop down to my feet as a sense of foreboding and fear began working its way up my spine.
“All I feel is the bitter cold,” I answered, my teeth chattering as I faced Lovie, who looked as if she were completely comfortable in her short sleeves. “Aren’t you freezing?” I asked, shaking my head in wonder at the realization that she didn’t appear to be. “Can’t you feel that?”
Lovie shook her head and offered me an expression of consolation. “We have trained ourselves ta deflect the imprintin’ o’ the spirits. It is cold only if you allow yerself ta be influenced. Otherwise, it’s all in yer head.”
As soon as she finished speaking, and almost in response, there was a sudden howl of wind that started at one end of the hallway and blew through to the end, throwing itself against us full force. I felt my hair blow out behind me and had to right myself against the intensity of the blast so I wouldn’t get knocked over. I wasn’t sure if the sudden pounding in my ears was my own heartbeat or something else.
“What the hell?!” Ryan exclaimed at the same time I heard myself scream as another gust of wind slammed against us.
“Quiet!” Christopher wailed out over the growing gust, which continued to howl with an uncanny roar. “Do not grant it the strength of your beliefs!”
I figured that meant if you don’t believe it, you won’t see it. Well, one, if not all of us, had to be believing in something because before I could so much as blink, it felt like the ground beneath me was giving way. I grabbed Ryan’s arm as I tried to right myself, but it felt as if the floor was shaking in a violent earthquake, the walls of the house looming impossibly low and close to me as it attempted to ride the rumbling earth.
“Ryan!” I screamed as I felt myself start to fall toward the floor. I felt his big arms suddenly encircling me around the waist as he thrust us both up against the wall. I was so scared, I couldn’t even think, could barely even command myself to breathe.
“Do not grant it power over you!” Christopher’s voice suddenly rose up over the cacophony of the wind and the rumbling of the earth. “I consecrate this threshold that it shield against malevolence and evil and all creatures that would do us harm from now until forever!” he yelled out as he gripped Lovie’s hand, and the two of them continued to throw salt and holy water into each corner of the room, doing their best to move forward on their unsteady legs.
When Christopher held his sword up to draw the image of the pentagram, it seemed as if the entire house were twisting and turning around him. I could hear the sounds of creaking floorboards, slamming doors, and groaning as the house appeared to vacillate this way and that. The floor looked as if it were miles away as I glanced down at it, my vision suddenly going blurry only to become clear again. The walls seemed alive as they throbbed back and forth, as if in response to my throbbing heartbeat.
“Drake! ” I yelled in my thoughts. “What’s happening? What’s going on? ”
“I feel and see nothing, ma minette,” he answered coolly. “I do not understand of what you speak.
So somehow and for whatever reason, Drake couldn’t see or hear any of this? Maybe all of this really was just a hallucination, then? Maybe it wasn’t real? The floor seemed to buckle beneath me as soon as the thought left my mind, and I screamed out as Ryan wrapped his arms around me more tightly, pulling me toward him.
“Close your eyes, Pey,” he crooned into my ears. “Close your eyes an’ don’t let it scare you.”
I did as he instructed and felt the cold suddenly give way as the sounds of destruction settled into oblivion around me. I could still feel the floor moving beneath me, though, as if it were floating on an upset river.
“Deny the hallucinations!” Christopher wailed. “Deny the artifice!”
“I consecrate this threshold that it shield ’gainst malevolence an’ evil an’ all creatures that would do us harm from now ’til forever!” Lovie called out, her voice loud and strong.
The earthquake rumblings suddenly ceased and the house was completely quiet and still. It was as if nothing had ever happened, as if there hadn’t been an arctic and vindictive wind blowing through the hallway at all. I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, turning my gaze to Christopher, who wore the expression of someone nervous…worried.