Chapter 11

Hong Kong – Leon
Canada – Matthew
USA – Alfred
Seychelles – Shelly
Australia – Kyle
England – Arthur /Artie
France – Fran / Francis
Denmark –Mathias Norman
Norway – Lukas Norman
Liechtenstein – Lilly Zwingli
Switzerland – Vash Zwingli


"We bought it at auction from the bank. So, we never knew who had lived here." Explains Arthur as he and Francis are gathered with the other couple around the kitchen table. Lukas and Mathias share a long glance before Lukas nods at Mathias, leaving him to explain for both.
"Well, we both fear that your house needs a cleansing." Mathias observes Francis and Arthur and notices the big question marks written on them, so he clarifies:
"An exorcism."
Arthur squints and looks then at his spouse and back at Mathias.
"Exorcism? I thought that is something you do to people?"
Francis looks as baffled as Arthur and does not even try to hide it.
"Not necessarily." Lukas speaks up calmly and gives Francis and Arthur long looks to check that they are listening. Francis, who is sitting on the edge of the chair, turns to Arthur and grabs the other's shoulder.
"We have to get out of here-"
He gets stopped by Mathias:
"I'm afraid that's not going to help."
Both Francis and Arthur freeze. Then Francis lowers his hand and sits properly on his chair again as Mathias continues:
"Uh…" he starts, not wanting to deepen the obvious fear of the couple. "Lukas saw something…"
He turns his head to Lukas and lets his partner explain since it was him who saw it.

"I've been seeing the dark energy that haunts your house and your land," Lukas starts:
Lukas slowly turns his head, hands still trembling and his mouth slightly opened as if all his air got sucked out. His head is not held high as usual but lowered and his eyes glare at something above Mathias head. A soft creaking noise stems from the tree but can only be heard by Lukas. Lukas eyes widen slightly as he sees old and scrawny feet swaying soft in the breeze just beside Mathias' head. Those feet are attached to legs that disappear in a white night gown, worn out and yellowed by the time. There, on the largest branch of the tree is an old, stiff body of a woman swaying in the soft breeze. Her long hair covers her face and her neck is twisted unnaturally around the rope that holds her above the ground.

"I saw it first when I came through your door. It was latched to your back."
Mathias steps in and shakes hands with the man, nodding at him. His look quickly scans the hallway and immediately notices presumably Francis' husband crossing the hallway towards them. The man is even smaller than Francis but got a similar tired look on him that does not suit him at all. But despite everything, his clothes are tidy and the look in his emerald green eyes is more curious and determinate. Lukas is right behind Mathias and also studies the two men in front of him. It does not even take a second before he notices a dark aura in a blurred shape of a human standing right behind the couple.

"Then I saw it again with the kids when we walked in the living room."
"Those are our adopted children." Francis points from one to another, following the age.
"Leon, Matthew, Alfred, Kyle and our only daughter Shelly."
Lukas nods and looks at every single one of them, memorizing who is who and taking in their apparent personalities. He looks at the whole picture and stiffens almost unnoticeably for the family. Behind Alfred and Matthew, right beside Leon, there he sees again the dark and blurred shape of a human.

"And it doesn't matter where you go, this dark entity has latched itself to your family and it's feeding off you," finishes Lukas his explanation without any mercy, knowing that the truth will be the best. Francis buries his face in his hands, the shocking truth and all its consequences slowly sinking in. He lifts his head some and asks with a shaken tone:
"Even if we leave?"
Mathias takes the turn this time and still has a soft smile on his lips, a way to give the couple security in this dark time he believes:
"Sometimes when you get haunted, it's like stepping on gum. You take it with you." He earns a light frown from his partner at his side for explaining something so blunt. Lukas takes a deep breath, getting the attention of the couple on him again:
"Look, I have to tell you. You have a lot of spirits in here, but this is the one that I'm most worried about, because it is so hateful."
"So what do we do?" asks Arthur, overwhelmed by the situation and new knowledge. "Call a priest?"
Mathias shakes his head:
"I wish it was that easy. Performing an exorcism is an archaic procedure. It requires years of training and…" He turns his head to Lukas. "…even then I saw It go horribly wrong." They once more share a long stare. And it is Lukas who slowly blinks at Mathias like a cat, to reassure him to continue.
"But before we come so far, the church has to authorize it first." He looks first at Francis and then at Arthur with a serious look, no smile or hidden joke in his message:
"It means we got to investigate, gather evidence and provide proof. And that's the hard part."

All of the adults stand once again together, this time on the porch to say their good bye. But before that, Mathias wants to address a last concern:
"Have your children been baptized?"
Arthur shakes his head. "No. We never got around to that. We're not really a church going family." Mathias gives a long sigh, looking at a clock in his hand he got from the house. "Well, you may want to rethink that. Our presence here could make things worse." He looks up again with an apologetic look. Francis tilts his head:
"Why?"
"Because we're a threat and whatever you're dealing with here isn't gonna like us. So far, it hasn't done anything violent and that's a good sign. So we're gonna have our guy do some homework on the property though to see what we're against at.


Lukas and his little brother Emil are together on the bed, lying comfortably as the older one just finishes telling a fairytale. He closes the book and puts it on the nightstand. He sits gently up but gets held back by his brother who pulls on his sleeve. He faces him and blinks some, waiting for Emil to tell what he wishes. But the silver haired boy just smiles and reaches with his hand under the pillow and grabs something with an anticipating smile.
"What are you up to?" Lukas finally asks and sits up in his bed, to get a better view of what Emil does.
Emil opens his hand and in his palm there lies something silvery in a bundle.
"I got a present for you."
Lukas gasps in surprise for his brother and carefully takes it in his hand. Carefully he stretches the elegant but coarsened chain out and it reveals a silver medallion with engraved branches forming a frame. Lukas opens the locket and finds a picture in it of Emil laughing at the photographer.
"I got it when Scandi and I were out today." Emil sits up too and leans on Lukas' arm. "One for you and one for me."
Lukas frames the picture with his thumb and smiles fondly at the gift.
"I put a picture of you and Mathias in mine. Scandi explained that this way you and me can always be together."
Emil takes his own little locket out from under his pajamas. He opens it and shows his brother the two pictures in it. One shows Lukas smiling fondly at the photographer, which was Mathias. On the other side is Mathias with a genuine smile plastered on his face, messy hair and freckles all over his nose and cheeks.
Lukas smiles softly at him and kisses his head.


Lukas sits later that evening in the dining room, the locket in his hands and studies the little picture in deep thoughts. In front of him is a little mess made out of different papers, photographs and maps. In the neighbor room Mathias is working silently for himself on the case. The recorder is laced in front of him, headphones on his head and papers and notes spread around him. Suddenly he gets up, taking off the headphones. As those are still plugged in in the recorder, he just takes both in his hands and turns to his husband.
"Hey, Hon?"

Lukas snaps the locket shut and turns to him, raising an eyebrow.
Mathias quickly gets at Lukas' side and sets the recorder and headphones on the table.
"You're not gonna believe this. Francis' voice didn't get recorded." He unplugs the headphones and sits down beside Lukas.
"Listen." He pushes a button and the conversation of the other day gets played again. Mathias voice is to be heard, more raspy this time and distant.
"My name is Mathias Norman. It is the 1. November 1971. I am sitting here with Francis Bonnefoy who has been experiencing with his family supernatural occurrences. Go ahead ."
Silence
"From the first occurrence." Demands Mathias seemingly at anyone.
Silence

Mathias watches closely the reaction of Lukas, but he only tilts his head, brows furrowed slightly in concentration and confusion.
"Nothing." States Mathias again, as to make sure that his husband understands what is wrong with the just shown recording. He pushes the button to stop the still silent recording in which Francis would have actually explained the strange occurrences.
"Did you find anything?" He asks, pointing at the spread out notes, photographs, maps and documents on the table.
"Lots," starts Lukas and picks up a photograph.
"It's no wonder they are going through all this." He hands him the old picture and some other smaller ones, showing the old mansion in which the Bonnefoy's are living in right now. But on the pictures, the mansion looks new, in its full prime.
"That's the original farm house. It was built in 1863 by a man named Jedson Sherman, who was married to a woman named Bathsheba." Lukas gives Mathias a serious look.
"She's related to Mary Town Estye. She's one of the woman accused of witchcraft in Salem, she was hung during the trials."
Mathias studies the pictures in his hand and breathes out a little "…wow".
Lukas looks down on the little mess on the table and continues to explain, his voice cold and calm but Mathias still catches the troubled note in his voice.
"So, after Bathsheba married Jedson, they had a baby, and when the baby was seven days old, Jedson caught her sacrificing it in front of the fireplace." Mathias' eyes widen some but he remains silent and listens closely to what Lukas has to say.
" She ran out to that tree by the dock, climbed up, proclaimed her love to Satan, cursed anyone who tried to take her land, and hung herself." Lukas takes a worn out document and puts it on the photograph of the old mansion which Mathias has put in front of him.
"Time of death was pronounced at 3:07 in the morning." Mathias looks down on the certificate of death in front of him.
"Well, that explains a few things." He states and looks at Lukas who nods in agreement and already reaches for the next thing to show Mathias.
"Yeah… So does this."
Again, two old photographs but this time put in two frames that are bound together with a string of leather so you could open and close them like book. On the first picture, which was black and white like the other pictures already shown, was a baby in a white dress, smiling at someone left of the photographer. On the right side was a man with blond hair reaching down to his chin, looking proudly with his head lifted upwards. One arm is slung around the shoulders of a young girl with a nice rose dress and a ribbon in her hair, smiling timidly at the camera.
"His last name is Zwingli, he lived there in the 30's. He had a sister named Lilly who mysteriously disappeared in the woods. Then he killed himself in the cellar."
Mathias studies the persons on the black and white pictures before putting the pictures away, focusing away from the persons passed away to the map Lukas is spreading out over the table.
"Since then the original 80 hectares farm has been divided and sold off. There was another boy who drowned in the pond here, he lived in the house over here." Lukas continues and points at a little square on the map, the symbol for a house.
"And a woman who worked as a maid in the neighboring home, she committed suicide too."
Mathias nods slowly, his mind putting together the pieces of the puzzle of this case.
"People who took her land." Mathias deducts correctly and just as Lukas wants to confirm, a button on the recorder gets pushed and once again the interview starts with Mathias presenting their case. Both Mathias and Lukas turn their heads towards the device in different states of confusion, both their eyebrows are furrowed and their bodies tense whilst listening to the recording. But as the expected silence during Francis' explanation was replaced by something else, both lean forward towards the device. Mathias' hands grip on the table and Lukas' jaw clenches up. The silence got replaced by moans filled with pain, cries and pleadings, whispers and the unsteady rustle of a bad microphone.