Story: Conviction

The girl’s probably only six, but with her pupils and irises eaten away like that—leaving behind just the whites and a map of red veins—she looks ancient.

Once I rip the demon out of somebody, their eyes usually go back to normal. But not hers. I wait on the family’s floral couch, her mom tensed forward beside me.

And then the girl takes a shuddering breath, props herself up on the carpet. She blinks rapidly, but her eyes are still ruined.

Her mom turns to me, forehead creased. “What’s wrong with her eyes, Calloway?”

I stand and shrug, suddenly glad she paid me in advance. “Parting gift from the demon. They might heal over time; might not.”

Some scars are more permanent than others, after all.

She frowns, but then a little boy barrels into the room. He stares at his sister, the relief coming off him in waves, choking the air. When he hugs her, it’s like he’s got some piece of himself back, too.

I look away, then let myself out.

***

When I was sixteen, I killed my twin sister.

I didn’t mean to, which I sometimes pretend is the same thing as meaning it wasn’t my fault. My parents do the same.

But we all know the truth, and sometimes, I feel like that’s all there is to me. Like everything that should be me died with Lindsay, and I’ll never get it back. Like this is all that’s left.

***

When I finally make it back to my cheap motel room, Roswell materializes, wringing his blurry hands. Looking at a ghost is like looking at an optical illusion—easier to see from a distance, at an angle—but after two weeks, I’m starting to get used to it.

“Well?” he says. “How’s the kid?”

I kick off my shoes, but leave my coat on. “She’s fine.”

It’s kind of bizarre—how some spirits end up gnarled and nasty and vengeful, nothing like their live selves, but a few wind up like Roswell: more human than most people.

“Thank God,” he says, hands going to his throat. The bruise there is dark and livid, the only distinct thing about his hazy form.

“Something like that,” I agree. “Anyways, I’ll put together a knock for you this evening. Then we’ll head out, see who answers.”

He wavers at that, like he doubts me. Probably fair. I found him terrorizing an old lady two weeks ago, but when I tried to send him packing, he couldn’t be put to rest. Even after all the usual tricks—torching his bones, breaking all his emotional tethers—he’s still around.

The guy was desperate enough to kill himself to get out of here, and now he’s more stuck than ever.

“Don’t give me that,” I say, sinking onto a bed. “I said I’ll figure it out, didn’t I?”

In the end, all you really need to banish a spirit is conviction. You have to want them gone, really mean it. That’s why I’m good at the job.

“You took forever coming back,” he says after awhile, once I’ve almost tricked myself into falling asleep. “I thought you bailed. How does a drifter like you not own a car?”

In my head, brakes squeal. The rain smears all the lights into chaos, an abstract painting.

“I don’t like driving,” I say eventually.

When I close my eyes, I only see moonlight glinting off glass and endless, stretching asphalt.

***

I lie there for hours, curled on my side till it’s dark out. Then I get up and put together a knock box.

First I take a little wooden box, rough and rectangular. Like a miniature casket. I tip a jar of soul-black dirt into it, burying the bones of a kid’s pinkie finger and some snipped-up baseball cards of Roswell’s. Actually bargaining with a demon isn’t the goal, just getting answers about Roswell’s soul—but we still have to summon one.

I’m weighing the knock box in my hand, trying to decide if a strong enough demon would answer it, when the room freezes over.

I drop the box. Dirt and bones and Babe Ruth’s face spill across the floor. It’s stupid—I know what this is, it’s nothing new—but my stomach drops anyway.

Lindsay surges up from nowhere, eyes huge and black, hair writhing around her hollow face like snakes or secrets. There’s nothing indistinct about her when she lunges across the room at me.

“I hate you,” she hisses, and I don’t know if this is actually Lindsay talking or just all that’s left of her, but I know I believe her.

I was the one driving, and she was the one who paid for it.

She lashes out at me, and her hands are more like claws now, gnarled and ice-cold, slashing through my chest. When I look down, there’s no wound—but it aches, and suddenly I can’t breathe.

“This is your fault,” she says, eyes burning. “Everything is all your fault.”

And when I meet her gaze, I know it is.

But then Roswell appears, nebulous and unsure. Maybe he’s feeling brave, maybe he just hopes this is a way out—but he blurs forward and strikes out at my sister.

It only buys me a second, but that’s all I need.

I reach into my coat pocket, yank out a gas-station snuff box. Inside is a handful of iron filings mixed with salt and holy oil; I shield my eyes and fling the stuff at her. There’s a soft crackling noise, like a campfire going up, and it's like Lindsay was never there at all.

I drop down onto the floor, take a shaky breath. My chest still aches.

“Is it over?” Roswell asks, rematerializing.

“Yeah,” I say tiredly.

But it isn’t. Not really. She’ll be back like she always is, and I’ll try to send her away, but it won’t stick.

To banish a spirit, all you really need is to want it gone.

Author's Note: This week, my story was (very loosely) inspired by The Imp of the Well, a story involving a man who saves an imp out of a well and gets a favor in return: the imp will possess the sultan's daughter, only leaving her body when the man comes to heal her, making him look like a hero. From that, I wound up with this piece about a guy who goes around exorcising demons from people and solving their supernatural problems, but who doesn't deal with his own issues nearly as well.

Bibliography:  Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales by Ignacz Kunos. Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.

Image Credit: "Straight Shot Through Windshield with Wipers on Fast" by Wonderlane. Source: Flickr.