Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be for my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head is bloody but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears, Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
Invictus by William Ernest Henley
I remember the day our family of six moved from a one bedroom apartment into a four bedroom house. I was 4. It was December, close to Christmas and I can recall quite vividly the scene as my father drove down the block where our new house was. Myself and all of my siblings, with our little faces pressed against the back windows, were picking out the houses with pretty lights and the most decorations as the one we wanted to live in. So it was quite a disappointment, made most notable by our resounding no’s, when he turned into the driveway of the only house on the block enclosed fully in darkness.
I don’t recall actually going into the house for the first time, walking through the door - was I first, last, I don’t know. I don’t remember any of the rooms that we walked into, but I am sure we walked into them all. The only recollection I have from that evening, besides the drive down the block, was of being in the basement. I remember two round metal poles on the front side of the house underneath the living room and kitchen, and while my parents and siblings were walking around, looking into other rooms in the basement, I was holding on to the pole with my left arm outstretched, swinging around it, giggling. And that was it.
I remember snippets from kindergarten and first grade and then events here and there throughout the years until I was about thirteen. Then I pretty much can track through most of the years with more clarity and consistency. It was at this same time that I started to have these feelings, very bad feelings, about the basement. At first it surprised me because I never had any notion about it. But maybe because I hadn’t really gone into the basement by myself or at night after we moved in. But at thirteen, I was responsible for doing a lot of house chores and getting the clean clothes from the dryer and folding them was one of them.
The door to the basement was in the hallway right off the kitchen. The stairway split the bottom floor into two halves. There were nine steps to reach the bottom. If you opened the door to go downstairs, you blocked the rest of the hallway where the bathroom that everyone used and two bedrooms were. The four light switches that illuminated either side, were at the very bottom of those stairs on the wall. So at night, you had to make it to the bottom in whatever light was coming from above, before you could turn on the lights to see. However, if someone was trying to get past the door, they would close it and proceed through the hall in whichever direction they were headed. At those times you were cast into pitch darkness.
The laundry room, which I referred to back then as the “wash room” was to the left, from the bottom of the stairs, past the door to outside steps that brought you up into the backyard, followed by a two sided closet. In addition to the washing machine and dryer, there was sink for the runoff, the oil tank and of course, clotheslines strewn way up under the ceiling and out of my reach. Continuing past the “wash room” was a bathroom that was not really used, which was odd considering the only other bathroom, upstairs, was fought over by six and then seven family members, and then a slim door that I never saw opened. I believe that was where the electrical box and other mechanics that operated a house were hidden.
So It happened on not any one particular day, when custiously going down the stairs to the laundry room, paying full attention, the empty clothes basket in hand, that I felt it. There was a wave of something dark, something to be feared, something eerie. It stopped me in my tracks, midway down the stairs, and I could not proceed. I stood there, very still, not sure of myself or what this was. It was the first time that I would know pure terror. Cold, piercing, hair standing up on end, stop breathing, eyes wide, gut wrenching terror. It was as if a Deatheater had sucked out my heart and soul. Never, in my entire life from the beginning till now, had I felt anything that would ever come close, and there were plenty of things that have been a source of fear. But never like this.
I remember noticing that it was day time and there was subdued light filtering through the back door and the half windows sitting up to the ceiling at ground level, on the back wall. Although I felt my very being threatened beyond just a life, I somehow knew that as long as there was light, and I was in that light, I would not be harmed, I could not be “gotten to”. And with this thought running on replay in my head, my heart pounding and breath held, I lept down the remaining stairs to the bottom, slammed my hand up on the wall to flip on the lights, darted into the washroom, retrieved the clothes, slammed down the lights, and climbed up just as fast, taking two and three stairs at one time, all the while praying to God that no one would close the door. At the top, I quickly closed the door behind me, never looking back. Catching my breath and calming myself down, I told myself “I made it”. But “made it” from what?
After that incident, I only went down in the basement during the day, when there was daylight, and that light from day found its way into the basement, even if it was muted and minimal. On some level, I knew I was still not completely safe and would continue to sprint, making it to the bottom, only hitting two of the nine steps, into the washroom, grabbing clothes and then repeating the same going back up. I never looked beyond what was right in front of me, never allowed myself to see what was waiting for just one mishap, one slight chance and noticed at one point, I was not even daring to breathe, until I heard the click of the basement door, closing behind me. And a few days later, whatever “it” was that lay in wait in the basement, came hunting for me, in my dreams.
I was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down into complete darkness and terrified, knowing that the most evil was waiting. I felt it, I knew it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it down and back up without losing myself. When I felt the nerve to go, I jumped mid way on the staircase and then to the bottom, running to the washroom. On my way back, trying to run back up the stairs, I was touched, groped at, and then pulled back, in an effort to drag me down by a harsh, cold, pure evil entity. I struggled to pull myself out of its grasp, extremely terrified. I was fighting for my life, knowing beyond anything else, that if I did not make it out of this grasp and back up those stairs, I would be erased from my life into a horror that I would not ever come back from, never recover. I pulled with all my might to get to the top of the stairs knowing that on the other side of that closed door, I would be safe.
How long did this go on, the terror and the dreams, I am not quite sure. Not for a long time, but long enough that I knew intuitively that I must somehow use the light, stay in the light and I would, at the very least, not be dragged off.. In the darkness, there were such horrors that I could not entertain or go beyond more than that simple thought. I never said anything to anyone, partly because I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what this was or if they would believe that I knew that there was something truly evil there. Eventually I graduated from wash duty and on to other things like meals and keeping my two younger brothers from killing each other and babysitting for the neighbors. The dreams stopped and after some time when I no longer felt threatened, felt that cold terror, the basement blurred into a cautionary tale.
When I was well into my thirties, my sister and I were talking about something or other that had to do with our childhood, when I mentioned that I had been terrified of the basement, that I couldn’t go down there after dark. I stopped at that point, without further details. But what she said to me, in response, took my breath away...
“Mom always felt there was something evil in the basement. Did you know that she had the priest come and perform an exorcism to get rid of it? “
I stopped cold. I would come to realize the way other people saw things, I would feel them, and feel way more than anyone could see. But in the light, I knew I would always be safe.
Comments