2. Only the beginning.
2
Only the beginning.
“For a demon to possess a host, a soul wound is required. The soul—also known as the psyche, the essence, the spirit—inhabits and controls the body. It is not contained in one part like the brain or the heart, but spread over the entire body in what the Chinese like to call Qi. It moves and nourishes the flesh. The soul takes all of the space it inhabits, and to create room for a demon to find residency, a soul wound is needed. Trauma damages the Qi, often beyond repair. The bigger the traumatic event(s), the stronger the demon the host can welcome.”
-Extract from the State Exorcists’ Manual , edition of 2047.
WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA, 2033
It’s on my seventh birthday, January 2nd 2033, that I got possessed by a demon.
It started like any other day of my childhood, which means I was thoroughly ignored by my family. My father was a financial trader who spent most of his time in New York, leaving his young and beautiful wife with their three sons in a mansion in Williamsburg. I was a third child, and my mother had so little love to spare for others that by the time she had me, she already ran out of it. My older brothers had learned from our absent father and selfish mother, and I was better off avoiding them.
On that morning in January, I stole a warm croissant in the kitchen—my mother was expecting her girlfriends for brunch—and escaped to the garden. The grass was white with frost as I took off running to the edge of the forest. There was an old treehouse that my father had bought for my brothers years ago. Adam and Ethan had long abandoned it and so it became my kingdom. A few of the planks had rotten away with time and neglect and I had to be careful. But it was entirely mine and I could hide up there to avoid my brothers and my mother’s annoying friends.
I pulled a dusty and damp blanket over my lap and ate my croissant while the winter sun struggled to warm the day. Strangely enough, I remember being happy in those days. Children, if left alone to their own devices, will find ways to entertain themselves.
My father hadn’t called for my birthday, certainly too busy in New York to care. My mother never remembered. The cook would bake me a cake for dinner—she had a calendar for such events—and bring it to the table, surprising everyone.
“Oh, is it your birthday again?” my mother would say while my brothers ate the cake without a second glance at me.
The warm croissant stolen from the kitchen tasted better than any birthday cake, because it was entirely mine.
But as I was finishing my stolen breakfast, my mother called my name from the garden. I froze, hesitating between hiding or fleeing.
“Jonah, honey! Are you up there?”
And I went a little weak in the knees because she hadn’t called me endearing names in months. She only ever did when her friends were around and she wanted to appear as a ‘good mother’. Hope bloomed in my chest. Maybe she remembered my birthday. I walked to the entrance of the tree house and stood near the edge.
“Yes, mother?” I said.
“There you are! I’ve been looking for you.” She smiled.
She was quite beautiful, with long blonde hair and bright eyes. It was never truer than when she showed you attention. And I was a flower in need of sunshine; I craved her attention.
Unlike my brothers, who were blonde like my mother, I had taken my father’s colors. My hair was brown, and my eyes were dark. But I had her smile.
“Why?” I asked, wondering if I was in trouble.
“I have a surprise for you tonight. Make sure to stay around, okay?” she said.
She did remember my birthday! I nodded eagerly.
She left, her pretty blue dress dragging in the morning frost.
I spent the day in the house, waiting patiently for my surprise while keeping an eye on my mother. Her girlfriends left around five, all tipsy from an afternoon of drinking and gossiping.
She said nothing in the evening. No mention of my surprise. The cook forgot to make a cake for me, so no one even realized it was my birthday. But I was a young fool, and I figured it was because they had something big planned for later.
Before going to bed, my mother whispered in my ear, “Go to sleep. I’ll come get you when your surprise is ready. And don’t say a word to your brothers, okay? Or to anyone. It’s our secret.”
I nodded with a grin. “Yes.”
I was thrilled about getting something that my cruel brothers couldn’t touch.
“Promise me, honey,” she said.
“I promise.”
She smiled and kissed my cheek. I went to bed with a skip in my steps.
Of course, I was so excited I didn’t sleep. And so, I was already up when my mother entered my bedroom around midnight. She led me by the hand through our dark and quiet house. The cook and housekeepers had left a few hours ago. The place always scared me when everyone was asleep. It looked like the haunted mansions in movies. But my mother was with me, and I wasn’t afraid.
We reached the door to the basement. She pulled out a key. We were never allowed down there, it was where my father kept his guns and computers. It was the perfect place to hide a surprise. She turned the light on and the white stairs appeared.
“Go on,” she told me.
I walked downstairs as she locked the door behind us. My eyes widened as I took the large circles on the wooden floor. It was made with chalk, like a hopscotch game, and what I thought was sand. There were strange markings all around the circle.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A game,” my mother said, coming down the stairs. “Be careful not to touch the salt lines.”
So my birthday present was a game? I was happy. For a child starved for affection like I was, a game with my mother was better than any shiny toy.
“What kind of game?” I asked.
“You’ll see. Help me light the candles.”
She handed me a box of matches. That’s when I noticed the black candles around the circle. It was like a different kind of birthday cake. Would I blow out the candles and make a wish?
Once all the flames danced around the drawings, my mother turned the lights off and kneeled outside of the circle.
“Stand in the center, honey. And be careful not to touch the lines,” she repeated.
I obeyed. Once I stood in the middle, she gestured for me to turn my back. I faced the opposite wall, wondering what the game was. My father had hung all kinds of paintings in the basement. They were supposed to be investments and that’s why they were hidden down there. The one just in front of me depicted a tortured face, painted in an explosion of colors. There was a title underneath the canvas that said: The Little Death . It creeped me out.
My mother warned me to keep my eyes closed and not turn until she said so.
She started singing in a strange language. I was puzzled. When I opened my eyes just a little, the candles’ flames were dancing in a phantom wind. The face on the painting seemed to move with the shadows cast by the fires. I had to fight the urge to turn to take a look at what she was doing. She sang louder and a shiver ran down my spine. The air in the basement was warmer than the rest of the house and I was sweating.
When finally, she stopped and asked me to turn, I was eager to be done with the game.
But when I faced her, she said, “I’m sorry, honey,” and she slashed my throat with a kitchen knife.
I gasped and reached for my neck. The skin parted under my fingers and a river of blood poured over the yellow pajamas that my father had gotten me for Christmas days ago. I tried to scream, but only a gurgling noise escaped my lips and more blood came out of my mouth. I fell to my knees in the center of the circle.
My mother sang some more, tears streaming down her face. The knife was on her lap.
Years later, as the number of possessions increased all around the world and the public learned about demons, I would come to understand what she had done. She’d sacrificed me to create a soul wound deep enough to let a demon in. She’d been introduced by one of her girlfriends to the dark arts. She’d wanted something. I would never know what but I could guess. Youth, beauty, power… All the physical attributes that a demon could offer.
Except my mother had overestimated her love for me. The sacrifice was great, but not for her. I was the one with a broken heart as I was dying on the basement floor on my birthday, my throat slit by the person who should have cared for me the most. My soul wound was tremendous, and it succeeded in inviting a powerful demon.
The demon didn’t come for my mother; it came for me. He crossed over from Hell through the small gateway my mother had opened with the ritual. His deep voice echoed in my head as he took possession of my body.
“ Your pain tastes delicious, little one .”
I convulsed on the floor, eyes rolled back and blood drenching the ritual ground. The demon shoved me to the last corner of my own flesh. He took over and turned me into a silent passenger. The pain receded.
I watched through the windows of my eyes as he rose to my feet. The blood kept pouring from my slit throat, but I wasn’t dying anymore. The demon kept me alive.
My mother was livid as she watched me. She was still on her knees. The knife had fallen from her lap.
“No!” she screamed. “You came for me! You’re mine!”
The demon laughed with my voice. “ You? You are unworthy of me. But your son… Your son is quite… comfortable to inhabit .” He flexed my hand. My little fingers were covered in blood. My blood.
The demon grabbed the disregarded knife with incredible speed and plunged it into my mother’s chest. Her gasp was so similar to mine when she had cut me. I squirmed, deep in the recess of my body, as I witnessed her die.
The demon walked upstairs, taking the knife. He left bloody footprints on the white steps. He took us to Ethan’s bedroom first and killed him in his sleep.
Adam was awake when we opened the door. He screamed when he noticed the blood all over my body. He tried to escape, but the demon tripped him on his way to the door. He buried the knife in his back and left it there, the handle wet with blood.
By the time we exited the room, my body was running out of steam. I was only a seven-year-old after all, possessed by a powerful demon. I’d reached my limit. I passed out in front of my bedroom’s door, the demon’s deep voice lulling me into oblivion.
“ Rest, child. We have a world to conquer .”
I woke up on a hospital bed. I knew immediately where I was; I’d broken my arm a few months before and spent a day in a similar room. The smell hit me first. Antiseptics, soap fragrances, and the underlying bitter taste of human misery. I didn’t know it yet, but my senses were already sharper. My DNA had started its mutations to accommodate the demon inside me.
I panicked and tried to rise, which resulted in the catheter and other machines plugged to my body to pull at my skin.
“ Calm down, child ,” said a deep voice in my head. “ You are okay .”
He only succeeded at making me panic more. Even a seven-year-old knows that hearing voices in one’s head is never a good sign.
Some alarm must have gone off somewhere, because a nurse came running. She tried to shush me back into docility, but I was having none of it.
“Settle yourself, Jonah,” the nurse said.
There was something tight around my neck; it bothered me. I reached for it and found bandages. The nightmare hadn’t really been one. My mother had slit my throat.
The memories of killing her and my brothers were so vivid. Even though it hadn’t really been me, I still felt the weight of the knife in my hand.
I wailed, like any child would, but my demon would have none of it. He forced my mouth shut, taking the wheel for a second.
“ Stop that ,” he warned.
And I obeyed, too terrified to rebel.
“We’ll call your father,” said the nurse, unaware of my internal struggle with a demon. “He’s been… busy.”
I would learn later that he’d been planning my mother and brothers’ funeral and dealing with the police. For the events that had occurred at home would soon be known as the ‘House Shaw Massacre ’ . I was the sole survivor and only witness. Nobody expected a seven-year-old to be the perpetrator.
The nurse left, and I cried quietly on the pillow, afraid of repercussions.
“ Do not fret, child ,” said my demon. “ This is only the beginnin g.”
And he was right.