The Dark Sacrament (20 page)

Until it happened again—and again. She was seeing it every day. She questioned Lucy. “I always put it on top, Mommy. I thought
you
were changing it.”

The three children were sitting down to tea, having just got home from school. “Maybe it's the lady,” said Darren, tucking into a slice of cake. He grinned.

“Now stop that! There's no lady in this house—and don't speak with your mouth full.”

“There is, Mommy,” Sandy announced bravely. “Lucy saw her twice—and we
feel
her in the bedroom as well.”

“What!” Linda was stunned. “Is this true, Lucy?”

The child nodded.

“Come with me. Take your tea with you if you like.”

She brought Lucy into the front room and shut the door. It was time to have it out with the girl.

“Now, I won't say anything about you being naughty, all right? You just tell me what happened. Right from the beginning.”

The story came out. “I saw her when I was in the bath on Monday night,” Lucy began. “She went past the door because the door was open…and she…She stopped and looked at me, but she had no eyes, Mommy, because her face was all fuzzy like the monk's.”

Linda stared at her daughter and feigned a smile. She had no
great wish to hear any more of this, yet knew she must.

“And the second time, dear?” she managed to say.

“The second time was yesterday when I was putting out the bin. She was…she was in the backyard. She was praying, Mommy.”

“How do you know that?”

Lucy screwed up her little face, irritated that her mother should ask such a silly question. “Because she was kneeling behind the wall and she had her hands joined…and she had a brooch on.”

“A brooch?”

“Yes. It was gold with a red diamond in the middle.”

“Why did you not tell me this before?” Linda's concern was growing.

“I didn't want to upset you, Mommy.”

“I'll not be upset, Lucy.” Linda tried to keep her voice calm. “Now promise me, sweetheart, the next time you see a strange woman or man, you must call me immediately. I want to see them as well, and I want to ask them what they're up to.”

Lucy nodded.

“And there's no woman in your bedroom. It's the mirror inside the door.” Linda had placed a cheval mirror that had belonged to her mother in the girls' room. Because of its age, it tended to swing too freely in its bracket. “Any time I walk into your room, the mirror moves, because it's an old mirror. It's not because of any strange lady. Even a bird flying past the window gets reflected in it, and you'd think it was a person.”

The child seemed content with this explanation. She finished her tea, did her homework, and went out to play with the others.

 

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of Lucy's case is the extraordinary variety of her visions, coupled with the fact that they could appear at any hour of the day, nearly always in broad daylight and usually when she was engaged in some activity or other. Her encounters ap
pear all the more baffling when one considers that over 80 percent of ghostly apparitions are seen at night, commonly when the observer is in a relaxed state, either having woken from sleep or about to fall asleep. Technically, these twin states of consciousness are known respectively as the hypnopompic and hypnagogic. Extensive studies have shown that an individual can experience odd phenomena when in either state. They may take the form of visions and other imagery; a frightening aspect can be a paralysis lasting minutes or even a loss of speech.

 

Lucy was, of course, wide awake when she observed her “ghosts.” Her brain was active and therefore entirely able to distinguish truth from illusion. Daylight also lent clarity and relative unambiguity.

Her next vision made its presence felt one evening at around seven—once again before night had properly fallen.

Lucy was in the room she shares with Sandy. Their beds stand about four feet apart. The door was fully open and the landing light was on. Lucy sat down on her bed to slip into her sneakers. She had just laced them up and was about to rise when, in her own words, she “was made to sit down again.”

There was a man standing just inside the door.

She tried to call out to her mother but discovered she was tongue-tied. Again she had the sensation of being “held” in the one spot.

The man was tall, about six foot; he looked to be in his thirties and was clad in a dark green uniform with matching beret. Around his waist he wore a black belt and across his left breast pocket was a military ribbon rack. Unlike with the lady and the monk, there was no “fuzziness” about this figure—Lucy saw his face clearly. He was stern and very pale, with sharp features—long nose, thin lips, and small, narrowed eyes—and he moved his head from side to side as if peering from one corner of the room to the other. He did not look
at Lucy—at least, not as far as she could tell.

The most significant thing about him, however, was his right arm. It ended at the elbow, and the sleeve was pinned back and secured at the shoulder. Because he was standing behind Sandy's bed, Lucy could not see his feet. But she had seen enough and at last felt able to shout for her mother. As she did so, the “soldier” disappeared.

Linda arrived breathless at the top of the stairs, to find a distraught Lucy once more insisting on the veracity of what she had just seen.

Later that same evening, when she had finally gotten the children settled in bed, Linda decided it was time to tell Ian. Knowing him to be a skeptic, she did not expect much understanding. He was unwinding in the sitting room after a long day, watching the sports channel with his feet up. Bad timing, she thought, but he has to know; I can't shoulder all this on my own.

As she had anticipated, Ian saw little cause for alarm. “After all,” he assured her, “ghosts never harmed anyone. Lucy will grow out of it. It's just a phase.”

“But, Ian, these visions seem so
real
to her! We have to do something about them.”

“Look,” he said, “your mother was psychic and you're psychic. Lucy's inherited the ‘gift.' More like a curse, if you ask me.”

Her husband spoke the truth. Linda did indeed share a most unusual “gift” with her mother: an ability to perceive things that others could not. At times, she could almost guess what another was thinking, and she frequently knew what people were about to say before they said it. And Ian was correct: it was more of a curse than a blessing.

“She'll grow out of it,” he said again. “And anyway,
I
haven't noticed any change in her. She seems perfectly all right to me.”

“But, Ian, you don't see her from one end of the day to the next. I do. And I'm really worried about her. She's just not herself.”

“Well, if it puts your mind at ease, go along and see that parish
priest of yours. Priests seem to be good at driving out ghosts and things, if them Hollywood films are anything to go by.”

She was a bit miffed by his flippancy, for it hit a sore spot. Ian is Methodist and Linda is Catholic. When they married, each retained his or her respective beliefs, but Linda agreed to the children being brought up in her husband's faith.

“Look, it's not funny!” she said.

“Sorry, love. I know it isn't.” He yawned. “God, I'm tired. Bedtime, I think.”

Linda knew there was no point in further discussion. She got up as he switched off the TV.

“It's interesting about that soldier, though,” he said as they climbed the stairs. “That set me thinking, so it did.”

Linda turned, startled.

“Why's that?”

“Well, during the First World War there was an army battalion stationed on this land. My grandfather used to tell me stories about them when I was a wee one.”

Not surprisingly, this information gave Linda no comfort whatsoever. She knew little about ghosts, had never seen one, and, like many people, only half-believed in them. Ian was a doubting Thomas, but she herself never shut the door on the paranormal. But one thing she knew of ghosts: they were frequently the souls of men who had met violent ends—like some soldiers do. Lucy's vision was of a battle-scarred veteran; Ian's words were causing Linda to think that the man might well have suffered a violent death on her property.

The notion appalled her. She resolved to go and see Father Lawless the following day. Clearly, this was a case of a restless soul—possibly more than one—and surely a Catholic priest was ideally placed to offer help on the plight of souls.

As it turned out, Father Lawless saw little cause for concern.

“Oh, we don't take such things seriously anymore, Mrs. Gillespie,” he said. “Maybe a couple of hundred years ago, but not in these more enlightened times. Children have very active imaginations
these days. All that rot they see on TV and the films has a harmful effect. Pray more, and sprinkle some holy water; that's my advice. I'll get you a bottle.”

He left the room and returned a few minutes later with the holy water and a prayer leaflet.

“Now, I'm giving you this Divine Mercy Chaplet to say. It's very powerful altogether. It reminds us that God's love is unlimited and available to all of us. It's good to get into the habit of regular prayer; that way, you'll feel God's protection and won't be too fearful of these paranormal things. The chaplet affords you great security. Say it every day—and have little Lucy say it also. In no time, all this will clear up. You'll see.”

 

The Divine Mercy Chaplet has an intriguing history, as Linda would learn. Its message and devotion stem from the writings of a Polish nun. Born into poverty as Helen Kowalska, the third of ten children, she would become known as Sister Faustina.

On February 22, 1931, when Helen was twenty-six, Jesus appeared to her in a most singular vision. He was robed in white. Rays of light, some red and others white, emanated from his heart. An inner voice—she believed it to be the voice of her Savior—explained that the rays represented “the blood and water that gushed forth from the depths of my mercy when my agonizing heart was pierced on the cross. The pale rays symbolize the water, which cleanses and purifies the soul.”

The vision continued to reappear. Sister Faustina kept a record of these mystical encounters, which would run to over six hundred pages. The message is always the same: that God is merciful, that he is love itself poured out for us, and that he wants us all to turn to him with true repentance while there is still time.

The nun was given to understand that she was the recipient of a new mystic image of Jesus and its accompanying message, one that would take its place alongside that of the Sacred Heart. This
was a momentous revelation, yet it would be many years after Sister Faustina's death in 1940 before it was recognized and accepted by the Vatican. She herself foresaw its proscription, imposed in 1959 by Pope John XXIII. Apparently, poor and misleading translations of her diary would circulate, whereby the revelation would become corrupted. The Vatican would impose a ban. She wrote that it would remain in place until “suddenly the action of God will come upon the scene with genuine power, to bear witness to the truth.”

It was not until April 1978 that the ban was lifted. The man responsible was the archbishop of Sister Faustina's home diocese, Karol Wojtyla. In October of that same year he would become Pope John Paul II. Sister Faustina was canonized in April 2000.

 

Linda felt better after her visit to Father Lawless. His words had reassured her. He seemed to believe that regular prayer was the remedy. Perhaps it's all that's needed, she told herself: a little more faith and an adherence to the godly.

Back at the farmhouse, she decided to perform her own “cleansing” using the holy water. She would have the house to herself for the best part of an hour before the children returned from school.

She went from room to room, downstairs first, then upstairs, sprinkling the water and urging the spirits to go to their eternal rest in the peace of God. She left the girls' room until last.

When she entered, she found that the presence of the “lady” was almost palpable. But it was not unpleasant, not threatening in any way. Linda blessed every corner, sprinkling the water more liberally on the spot where she felt the “visitor” to be standing. She knew with near certainty that she was there; it was much the same sensation as that of another person being in the room. She almost felt she could speak to that “other.” And no, there was still nothing threatening about the presence, not even after she had sprinkled the holy water. Nevertheless, Linda resented another encroaching on
her private space, her home, her children's privacy.

“Go!” she ordered. “Go in the name of God.” Then, feeling more annoyed than courageous, she said: “This is
my
house, not yours. Whoever you are, you're not wanted here.”

Linda fetched her rosary, got down on her knees by Lucy's bed, and recited the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy, gazing all the while at the picture on the prayer leaflet that the priest had given her. To her relief, she felt a change coming over the room. There was the sense of a presence departing.

There followed a period of peace and quiet. Lucy saw no more phenomena, and Linda inwardly thanked God. Father Lawless's advice had borne fruit. She berated herself for not putting more trust in him; she prayed each morning and night with the children, hoping that the peace would last.

It did not. Three weeks following her visit to the priest, Linda's confidence took a knock when Lucy had her sixth vision. In fact, it was as if the respite had been sent to tease and taunt. Lucy was to experience five more apparitions, a fresh one appearing every other day.

The first three were of an extraordinary nature, and again all were seen during the day, after Lucy had returned from school.