The Holy Water Incident
I was supposed to have dinner with two theatre associates of mine, Evans and Ann Donnell, on Monday evening, January 8, 2001, to discuss plans for the upcoming production of my play. That morning I had told Brittany I needed to go to this working dinner, and she didn’t seem to care. However, as time neared for me to leave, she became noticeably agitated.
School was only in session half a day that day, so I picked Britt and her friend Jennifer up at about eleven a.m. Jennifer had decided to come to our house, where the girls planned to watch movies. While they watched their movies on VHS, I worked on that week’s theatre review for the newspaper. Afterward, I went upstairs and took a shower to prepare to go to Evans’s house, where I needed to be at seven p.m. After I showered, I told the girls that Jennifer would need to call her mom to come pick her up, or she could leave with me and I’d drop her off.
Then out of the blue, Brittany started begging me not to go. She was jittery and seemed frightened of something. This was very much unlike her. I often rehearsed at night and Britt stayed home with her grandmother who lived with me part-time to help out. Usually she was more than happy to see me go. Now back in those days we still had dial-up and you couldn’t connect with the internet while someone else was on the phone. My absence would give her time to play on the internet without being pestered by me to get off the computer so I could make calls.
I really didn’t know how long my meeting was going to last, and school would be back in session the next day. This was a school night, and Britt wasn’t really allowed to stay at a friend’s house on school nights.
But Britt actually started crying, begging me not to go. I knew she was still upset about the banging and pounding on the walls we’d been experiencing for the last few weeks. She had also been more than a little apprehensive about going upstairs by herself, particularly to take a shower. So I asked my mother to accompany Britt upstairs when she took her shower and maybe sit in the bathroom with her so that she wouldn’t be afraid—and I told Brittany this. This plan seemed to help, but she was still tearful and didn’t want me to go.
But I had to, so I dropped Jennifer off at her apartment and proceeded to Evans’s house about twenty miles away on the other side of town. I was very worried about Britt, so when I got to Evans’s I called home to see if she was okay. The line was busy, so I figured she was on the internet. We went ahead and had dinner.
Since I knew both Ann and Evans were open to metaphysical ideas, I told them about the wall-pounding incident. Ann then said she thought she had just what I needed. She went into another part of their house and came back with a small bottle of holy water she had obtained at her Greek Orthodox church. She explained that she usually gets a bottle every year during the Epiphany season, but for some reason had felt she needed to pick up two this year. She said, “I believe this one was meant for you to have.”
Ann went on to explain how I should sprinkle holy water around the house to “protect it from evil influences.” Also, since Brittany seemed to be the object of all the odd activity, it would be a good idea to sprinkle some of it on her forehead as personal protection for her. I’d never done anything like this before, but it seemed like an appropriate plan to me.
After dinner and our discussion about the production, I tried calling Britt again, but the line was still busy. So I took my bottle of holy water and returned home. I was unusually anxious and found myself driving over the speed limit to get there faster. As I drove, I prayed to God, the Goddess, and any other powerful supernatural beings that might be willing to help protect Brittany from whatever it was she was so afraid of that evening.
When I arrived home, Brittany came out to the car to meet me. She volunteered that she hadn’t taken that bath, because an email friend had called her from Louisiana and talked for three hours. He was the boyfriend of a friend of Britt’s, so I think they’d mostly talked about Britt’s friend.
I showed her the little bottle of holy water and explained to her what it was for—and how we needed to sprinkle it around the house and on her to protect from evil forces. At first she seemed to be very supportive of this idea and wanted to help me.
Britt followed me upstairs, and we began the ritual in my room. I removed the lid and started sprinkling the holy water all about the room. But after a few minutes, she seemed to lose much of her initial interest. While I sprinkled, she sat on the side of my bed and just watched. I didn’t take much notice of her behavior and mostly attributed it to typical teenager moodiness.
After I felt the room was sufficiently sprinkled, I told Brittany what Ann had said about the need to sprinkle a bit of it on her to protect her too.
At this, she became even more surly, curled up into a ball on the bed, and covered her face. She simply said, “No, I don’t want that.” I suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I feared that I knew the reason for her reluctance, but I just couldn’t believe it was happening. Hoping that I was just being silly, I kind of laughed a little and told her that this was just something that had to be done.
As she lay on the bed, I sprinkled a bit of the holy water on her forehead—but she tried to shield her face. As the water touched her skin, she recoiled as if I’d poured battery acid on her.
Each time I sprinkled a bit more holy water on her, she grimaced in pain and cried out. She started to get up and move away from me. Without a real clue as to what to do, I just instinctively held her down and doused more water on her hair. After a few moments, my daughter relaxed, shuddered, and said, “They don’t like that.” Thinking whatever was in her had been forced to vacate and the worst of it was over, I began leading her out into the hallway. I told Britt we needed to sprinkle her room too.
As we entered Brittany’s room, she began pulling against me and saying that she didn’t want to “go in there.” All this was starting to really scare me, but I felt there was no going back. Once we got inside Britt’s room, she became belligerent—aggressively fighting to get away from me. The distorted expression on her face was one I’ll never forget.
She strangely, somehow, no longer looked like my daughter. Although the facial characteristics were the same, I’ve never seen anyone look out at me through eyes that expressed such hate and malevolence.
“I’ll kill her; you can’t stop me,” the force within her spat out.
Totally petrified but knowing I had to finish what I’d started, I tightened my grip on her. Whatever this was, it projected more maleficence than anything I’d ever encountered. Although I was looking at my daughter, a being I loved more than anything in the world, I felt I was in the presence of something absolutely despicable.
I tossed another liberal dose of holy water on her forehead, and she flung herself onto the floor. Snarling as she crawled toward the wall, she clawed her fingernails deep into the carpet. Down on all fours, she sounded more like a wild beast than a fifteen-year-old girl. Once she reached the corner of the room, she repeatedly banged her head against the wall in what appeared to be an attempt to knock herself unconscious. She was still down on her elbows and knees.
Afraid she was going to seriously hurt herself, I knelt beside Brittany and grabbed her arms, pulling her away from the wall. I was on my knees, holding her down. She was flailing at the air, trying to hit me and kicking at me with her feet. Loudly cursing me, she screamed out that God was dead and that I also would be soon. She was lightly foaming at the mouth and spitting in my direction, though I was able to dodge the spittle. Her eyes rolled back into her head so that only the whites were visible. She thrust her tongue out at some distance, exploring the world with it as if she were a serpent. I truly did not know that a tongue could extend that far. Then her eyes reappeared. Although her expression was as purely evil as anything I’d ever seen, the eyes had a look of wonderment in them as if they’d never looked out at the world before. The effect was similar to how a tiny baby looks at the world, but a vengeful baby.
She began kicking me, and I had to sit on her legs to avoid the kicks. Meanwhile, I held her wrists to avoid being scratched or hit. She had suddenly grown extremely strong, exerting more power in her movements than I would have thought her capable. I continued to sprinkle the holy water, and this seemed to be the only real weapon I had. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep her down.
Although I was terrified, I also found myself becoming furious with this thing that was trying to steal my daughter. I continued dousing her with holy water, determined I would not let it have my little girl!
About this time, the entity told me, “We’ve been in here for a year.”
Not knowing what else to do, I started calling Brittany’s name.
“We have her now, and we’ll never let her come out,” it snarled.
“No, you don’t have anything. You’re just air; you’re nothing more than a deranged idea. Let me speak to my daughter!” I tossed another dash of holy water.
Suddenly Britt’s demeanor changed. Instead of the grotesque mask of hate I had just been looking at, my little girl came back. Her eyes were filled with tears. It was the most heart-wrenching thing I’ve ever seen.
“Daddy, help me,” she uttered in a tiny voice.
“Don’t worry, sweetie, Daddy’s here. Everything’s going to be okay.” I kissed her on the forehead and held her tight. I told her I wouldn’t let anything harm her and to hang in there.
“I can’t hold on. They’re too strong. They won’t let me go. Bye, Daddy, I love you.”
I felt desperation, despair, and the widest array of negative, poor self-image emotions conceivable. I began talking to Brittany about fun things that we had done in the past.
“Remember that camping trip we took to Fall Creek Falls State Park?” I asked her, trying to make her change her focus. I described several things we’d done on the trip. She looked up at me and smiled weakly.
“You know the first time I ever saw you smile?” I asked, shaking with fear that this terrible gargoyle might return at any moment. “You were just a little baby sitting in a car seat on the kitchen counter. I was getting ready to take you out and put you in the car. You looked up at me and smiled.” I related that story and a couple more. These memories from her past as the true Brittany seemed to help her hold on.
“Daddy, I didn’t even know they were in there,” she weakly volunteered.
“It’s okay, sweetie.”
Then, with a powerful surge, it kicked and bucked and nearly threw me off. My nearly eighty-year-old mother, who was staying with us for the week, was downstairs. She heard the commotion and rushed upstairs as quickly as she could.
Nearly hysterical herself, she asked what on earth was going on. Not having the time to explain, I just motioned for her to help me. She told me later that she thought Brittany was having some kind of seizure. My mom knelt down and aided in holding Brittany, while I continued to dash holy water on her. Britt went limp again as she lay on her stomach on the carpet. I began singing songs that I’d sung to her as a baby and again called her name. She looked up at me and smiled, rolling back over. My mom began massaging her legs as I continued to sing silly, kiddy songs from her childhood. In a wee little voice, Britt started singing too.
Then just as suddenly as it had left, the demon/spirit returned. With an indescribable round of obscenities, the entity spat at Britt’s grandmother and again started bucking. By now it was slobbering all over itself. I still held her wrists, but she was flailing with more force than ever. I honestly didn’t know how much longer I could hold out.
I told my mother to go downstairs and call Brittany’s mother, Sheila. As she left, the entity told me it was taking Brittany to hell and it would see me there soon.
I splashed another volley of holy water on her forehead. Then I looked at the bottle out of the corner of my eye. This was the first time I’d noticed the bottle was becoming empty. I never let on to the demons that I was concerned, but from that point forward I became more conservative with my applications.
Despite their aversion to the holy water, the demons seemed to be getting physically stronger—so I was greatly relieved when my mom returned from calling Sheila to help me hold Britt down. During the fifteen minutes it took Sheila to drive over from her house, Brittany alternated between herself and being possessed by unspeakable evil forces. I could tell that Mima was considerably freaked out by other voices emanating from her granddaughter, but much to her credit, she pitched right in to help and didn’t let the weirdness of the situation interfere with assisting me.
My mom was always extremely uncomfortable about any mention of things paranormal because of her own unwanted abilities, but with real evil threatening her granddaughter, she was a trouper. Whenever the true Brittany would emerge, Mima and I would talk to her about things we knew she loved—her friends, trips we’d taken, plays she’d been in—anything that would anchor her in the reality of our dimension and not that of the demons’. We both sang songs to her—me, old Beatles tunes I’d sung to her as a baby, and Mima, old pre-World War II songs she’d sung Brittany when she’d babysit her. Sometimes Britt would weakly try to sing the songs too. But when the demons would reappear, she once more cursed and spat, drooled on herself, clawed at us, and kicked wildly.
When Sheila arrived, it took her a moment to actually believe what she was seeing. At first she called out to Brittany as if she could be reasoned with. But after getting no response from her daughter, it only took her a fraction of a moment to cross the room and help out in the restraining process. I quickly filled her in on the events of the last hour.
Sheila, at this point in her life, adhered to a pretty fundamentalist Christian theological view of the universe. She’d been attending a nondenominational local church (which Britt also attended whenever she stayed at her mom’s). As I held Brittany to the floor, Sheila leaned over and made the sign of the cross on Britt’s forehead with her finger. Even though this whole episode had been prompted by a Christian gesture of repelling evil with holy water, it hadn’t occurred to me to try this—and also, possibly because I was just so rattled by everything that was going on, I wasn’t thinking straight. However, Sheila’s symbolic act seemed to cause the entity inside Brittany excruciating pain—much the same reaction I’d gotten from the holy water.
Then Sheila began intoning, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, come out.” At that, the entity wailed and moaned and was visibly undergoing a great deal of discomfort. Nevertheless, the entity was still vigorously fighting us—trying to free itself by bucking the body it was possessing. As we held Brittany’s arms, she dug her nails into our hands. Again, she began spitting at us, lolling her tongue around in all directions like a serpent, and rolling her eyeballs into the backs of their sockets so only the whites of her eyes could be seen. Brittany, controlled by the demon, was working herself up into a complete frenzy, and it was becoming more and more difficult to restrain her.
Seeing the positive effect Sheila’s Christian invocations were having, I also called upon the Trinity as I continued to dispense the holy water. During the rare moments when the entity permitted the real Brittany to surface, I would kiss her on the forehead and talk to her about fun activities we’d shared over the years. I’d sing more ridiculous children’s songs to her that had been important to her as a youngster. When Sheila saw that this technique was effective in keeping Britt with us longer, she’d join in and sing too. One odd song, in particular, had a soothing effect.
When she was a baby, if Britt was truly upset, nothing much seemed to work—until one day, after exhausting my repertoire of songs, I started singing “Dixie.” For some odd reason, she’d always calm down whenever we’d sing the anthem of the Old South to her. No other song worked. So on this most cursed night I sang “Dixie,” and her mother joined in. Like a magic spell, it gave us a much-needed reprieve. At moments when the demon would relinquish its hold on Britt, she would come back to us and weakly join in on singing her favorite babyhood song. It was heartbreaking to hear her sing in that tiny, faraway voice and watch the pain on her tear-drenched face.
But the good moments were few and far between. The demon seemed to be determined to win this battle, and I was becoming particularly concerned because the bottle of holy water was nearly empty. I noticed the entity inside Britt kept looking at the bottle, and I think that it, too, was gauging the amount left.
With all the horror we could handle going on, it was easy to lose track of time. But at some point, Sheila told my mother to call 911. So Mima went into the next room to make the call. As bad as the situation was, I had resisted calling for outside intervention. I kept hoping we could handle this ourselves. I was certain that paramedics and doctors would just think Brittany was crazy. Possessions aren’t in most people’s daily experience, and I guess maybe I was afraid they would take Britt away from me if they thought she was insane. But I knew what I had been witnessing, so I was certain she was totally and solidly sane. I was and am now convinced the disturbance was being caused by some evil, supernatural being inhabiting her body.
But because of everything we had been through at that point, I didn’t know what else to do either. It was becoming obvious that we weren’t going to be able to scare the demon away; and now without the holy water, I wasn’t sure we could handle it at all.
Britt was still thrashing around, kicking, screaming, and cursing so loudly that when the paramedics finally arrived, I didn’t even notice them. But suddenly I realized the room was full of people asking questions. There were three paramedics and three police officers. I was too busy holding Britt down to pay much attention to their uniforms, but I think they were Wilson County Sheriff’s deputies. They questioned us about what had been happening, and after we’d filled them in—I was certain they’d think Britt and I both were crazy.
But they didn’t try to reach obvious conclusions or judge. They simply did their jobs like true professionals. They suggested we take Britt to the local hospital for observation and to be checked out. She screamed and wailed, protesting that she didn’t want to go. At that point I couldn’t tell if that was the entity talking or Brittany. But it was obvious that we were going to need help in handling her. I was less than enthused about taking Britt to a hospital, but I was relieved with this short-term solution. It would, at least, give us a chance to catch our breath and regroup. Then, one of the paramedics knelt beside her, took her hand, and was somehow able to calm her down.
During this lull in the chaos, Sheila found a wooden cross on Brittany’s dresser that she had made the past summer at an Episcopal summer camp for kids. Britt had made several—one each for Sheila and me, one for her grandmother, and one for herself. Sheila bent over and put the cross around Britt’s neck, saying: “Wear this and you’ll be all right.”
Britt looked up, exhausted and bleary-eyed, and just said, “Okay.”
The paramedics went downstairs to get a gurney, and Sheila followed them out, asking how this transport was supposed to work. For a brief moment, I was holding Brittany down by myself. She seemed to be much calmer now, and I thought she had regained some control. I had given her a silver ring with a pentagram on it for Christmas, something she’d asked for. It also included a matching bracelet with little silver pentagrams dangling from it. She had these on at the time. Suddenly she sat up and started trying to take them off and asked me to help her. We got them off and left them on the floor. At the time, I thought maybe that due to the incidents of that night, she had concluded these symbols had some negative (even evil) connotation and wanted to be rid of them. I didn’t discover till later that it was the demon that found the pentagram offensive.
The paramedics decided they couldn’t get her down the stairs on the stretcher, so I took her by one arm and a paramedic took the other. We walked her slowly down the stairs. Britt was very weak and basically spaced-out, so getting her downstairs wasn’t exactly easy.
At the foot of the stairs, the paramedics put Britt onto a stretcher and took her outside. It was cold, and snow was lightly falling. It seemed a night more fit for a peaceful Christmas tableau than the hell we were going through. I could see the ambulance and a couple of police cars, all with their blinking lights piercing the cold night air and ricocheting off each other and the condo townhomes. Without fanfare, Britt was carried out to the ambulance. Instinctively, I felt as though she were being taken away to serve some unjust sentence to hell.
Sheila said she’d drive over behind the ambulance. I grabbed a coat and asked if I could ride with Britt. I was told I couldn’t ride in the back with her, but I could sit up front with the driver. I barely noticed our next-door neighbor coming over and talking with my mother. I learned later Mima told him Brittany had had a bad reaction to her medicine. This pacified him, as he said that his mother had also had a seizure once due to a negative reaction to medication. Funny how we are so quick to fabricate stories that rationalize our experiences to fit into others’ conceptions of reality.
The trip to the hospital was totally surreal. With the siren screaming like a banshee, the flashing lights framed the ambulance in a kaleidoscope of ungodly illumination. I felt like I was a character in someone else’s dream. Through a window in the cab, I could see that Brittany was bucking like a wild horse in the stretcher, but luckily they had her strapped down. Then she suddenly became quiet and very weakly started calling, “Daddy, Daddy.” The partition was open, so I kept telling her that I was there, and everything was going to be all right.
Since there was no children’s psych ward at the local hospital, they took her to the emergency room. They rushed us right into a very small room where nurses hooked Brittany up to several monitors and busied themselves with taking her blood pressure and completing various and sundry other tasks. A doctor came in after fifteen minutes or so and asked Brittany how she was feeling and why she thought she was there. Sensing the answers necessary for her release, she naturally told him she felt fine, was okay now, and just wanted to go home.
Afterward he took Sheila and I outside and asked us what had happened. Sheila described how Brittany seemed not to be in control of her own thoughts and actions and was screaming, ranting and raving and trying to hurt herself and everyone else—but stopped short of theorizing about demonic possession. I said I felt we had been dealing with a demonic entity that had tried to possess Brittany.
“It might not have been quite as graphic and surreal as a scene from The Exorcist, but it came pretty close,” I said. I told him that the only thing that seemed to keep the entity (as I openly referred to it) from completely taking over her body was when I sprinkled the holy water on her. He showed more interest in my theories than I thought he would, but that might only have been because he may have thought I was the one who was crazy. But whatever he may have theorized, he kept it to himself and said he was going to analyze the physical evidence and talk with a couple of other doctors about what steps should be taken next. We went back into the room to find Brittany much calmer and acting perfectly normal, though quite tired—as we all were.
The medical people weren’t taking my stories about the powers of holy water too seriously, but I was certain that my old friend and parish priest, Father Jeff, would. Granted, we hadn’t been attending church regularly for the last year or so—but I felt confident that I could still count on Father Jeff for anything. So as soon as we had finished with the doctor, I used the phone in the room to call him. Yes, Father Jeff would surely understand.
Sadly, however our priest did not react at all in the way I thought he would. I considered him a friend—not just our family priest. I was confident that once he heard the story of Brittany’s possession, he’d rush down to the hospital to be by her side. However, after I’d given him the abbreviated version of the pure hell we’d gone through that night—he told me this was just an “area” that he didn’t know anything about.
Although Father Jeff was an Episcopal priest, he had started his career as a Roman Catholic priest. He left the Catholic Church because he fell in love with a woman he met in a church organization for which he worked. Jane became his future wife. Because of his upbringing and education in Catholicism, I just assumed that all Catholic priests had at least some training in exorcisms. As a former Catholic myself, I knew that exorcism was an established rite of the Church. But my assumptions about Father Jeff’s willingness to help were naive. He seemed very uncomfortable in even discussing what had happened to Brittany and said that he just couldn’t drive the twenty miles or so to the hospital from his home that late. However he said that Jane was in the area and he’d tell her to stop by the hospital. I was quite disappointed at Father Jeff’s cavalier attitude toward what I felt was a very real presence of evil threatening my family.
With that avenue of assistance closed to us, I grimly realized we were on our own. But thank God, Brittany had calmed down considerably over what we’d been dealing with earlier. We’d just spent over three hours dealing with some sort of foreign entity, speaking to it, holding it down, trying to prevent it from harming Brittany, i.e., banging her head against the floor or biting herself. But now she just seemed like a very tired and bewildered fifteen-year-old girl. She said she remembered what had happened, but it was as if she had been an observer rather than a participant.
But frankly, I wasn’t convinced she was totally back in control of herself. Even though she was speaking much more sensibly, it still seemed to me that when she didn’t think anyone was observing her directly, I’d catch her looking about the room as a prisoner might, formulating a plan of escape. At moments when Sheila and I were talking to each other, out of the corner of my eye I’d notice Brittany with that dark glow I’d become familiar with as she thrashed about cursing all of creation on the floor of her pink ruffled room.
I also noticed that she’d be speaking normally with her mother and I one moment, but her mood would change dramatically when the occasional nurse would come in to check on her. She never actually said anything to the nurses that would cause them to suspect she wasn’t herself, but I noticed that sharp, slightly squinting glare in her eyes I’d become so negatively familiar with as I wrestled with the entity. Her expression wasn’t something you could exactly define, but I knew there was something off-kilter about it.
Jane arrived before long, sitting down next to Britt and holding her hand. As a licensed practical nurse, she was comfortable in dealing with just about any medical malady or physical situation. She talked for a few minutes with Brittany, asking her how she was feeling and expressing warmth and sympathy. But she kept her enquiries on a very superficial level. She never mentioned anything about possession or demonic entities.
Jane asked if she could pray with us, and Brittany tentatively said yes. I could see Britt wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about receiving this prayer, but then she really hadn’t been raised in a terribly religious home. Britt had been baptized into the Episcopal Church, but we only attended sporadically throughout most of her life.
We all joined hands around Brittany’s bed and prayed a rather innocuous, nondescript prayer that made no mention of casting out demons or requesting protection from God against any kind of invasive evil. It certainly was well-intentioned and couldn’t possibly have hurt—but it sure wasn’t what I had been hoping for.
However, during the prayer I opened my eyes and looked over at Brittany. For a moment I had one of those blood-chilling moments you usually have only during nightmares. She was glaring at Jane with those dark eyes that just simply weren’t hers. She or it silently glanced over at me, and on her face was a slight smirk, though it only lasted for a second. When she realized I was watching her, she closed her eyes again as the muscles in her face relaxed.
After the brief prayer, Sheila followed Jane out into the hallway, while I stayed with Brittany. Britt seemed back in control of her true personality now, but she was understandably exhausted. We all agreed that although we were fond of Jane, we had hoped to see Father Jeff. I volunteered that I was certain that he’d come by as soon as he could, but I could see that Brittany was extremely disappointed that he hadn’t. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done. Sheila returned after a few minutes followed by a nurse wanting to take Britt’s blood pressure and do all the other mundane but necessary things the floor nurses are required to do every so often.
While the nurse attended to Brittany, Sheila motioned for me to follow her out into the hall. She said Jane had told her that Brittany “was not possessed” and suggested we have more psychiatric tests done and simply follow the doctors’ recommendations. According to Jane, Brittany was experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia. We were both quite let down by this unemotional non-advice, but by then we were becoming numb to doctors, nurses, and now Jane not believing us.
About this time my mother arrived at the hospital. As we stood out in the hall, Mima showed me a letter she had found in Brittany’s room. It was a suicide note. Now I felt like my sense of reality was being turned inside out. In the note, Brittany talked about how she could no longer cope with life, specifically referring to her recent breakup with Chase; apologized to everyone for being “a failure”; talked about her lifelong struggle with an up-and-down weight problem; and went on to conclude that her only course of action was to “end it all” by taking her own life. She didn’t mention how she intended to accomplish her suicide.
I felt as if the floor had disappeared and left me standing on nothing. Brittany apparently was having serious issues that I was unaware of. I knew that she had been quite depressed since her breakup with Chase, but I was frankly flabbergasted that anyone would kill themselves over a teen romance. I did, however, remember that just about a week earlier, Brittany had watched a rented movie called The Virgin Suicides about a group of teen sisters who ended up committing suicide en masse—primarily over emotional issues. Brittany had always been extremely impressionable as well as dramatic, so I couldn’t help but wonder if the influence of that movie wasn’t at least partially responsible for the suicide note.
But the why of it seemed almost inconsequential at that particular moment. We were in a hospital because our daughter had been wheeled in after being tied down to a gurney, kicking and screaming from what appeared to me to be possession by some foreign entity. Was she truly suicidal? If so, was it due to emotional stress, or the influence of the entity I’d witnessed? But this was not a time for introspective navel-gazing. Our daughter’s life was at stake, so there had to be a course of action. So when Mima went into the room to see Brittany, Sheila and I walked to the nurses’ station and showed the letter to the nurse we’d gotten to know who took it to the attending ER doctor.
We had already been informed that all that could be done for Brittany was to hold her under observation, but the hospital near our home did not have a juvenile psych ward. At that point, the doctor was talking about sending her home and giving us a list of psychiatrists to call the next day for an appointment. However, the suicide note changed everything. I learned that night that any time an emotionally unstable patient is perceived to be a threat to his or her own life, extended observation is required. After seeing the letter, the doctor came out and told us they were going to call the two closest hospitals with juvenile psych wards to see what the bed availability was.
I did not want to see her placed in a psych ward, but I honestly also have to say that I was fearful of what might happen if I took her back home. I was completely worn out by then and had very little confidence that I could fight the demon or whatever this entity was again if it were to break out as soon as we got inside the door. The nurse came back and informed us that both juvenile wards downtown were currently full. The larger, more well-known facility was certain they wouldn’t have an opening for several days—however, the smaller hospital was expecting a vacancy within a couple of hours. I couldn’t decide whether this was welcome news or not, but there really wasn’t time to ponder perceived possibilities. And yet I couldn’t help but wonder that if Britt was receptive to malignant beings not existing in physical form nor encumbered by physical mass with the evil intent of possessing her body, would she be safe anywhere?
Sheila and I decided not to tell Brittany about the probable transfer to a psych ward until it was a certainty.
Britt was on her mother’s insurance policy, so some hospital bureaucrat had finally cornered Sheila to fill out insurance forms. Trying to stay out of the way, I headed back to the small room. As I approached the door, Mima burst out in a dither, frantically looking right and left down the hall.
“Bill, go after Brittany,” my mom shouted. “Stop her!”
“What do you mean? Where is she?” I rushed past Mima into the tiny room to find it empty with only the disheveled bed staring back at me.
“A nurse came in and told her to get ready,” my mother said, “that they’re transferring her to a children’s psych ward. She jumped up, shoved me out of the way, got her coat, and ran out. She didn’t even have her shoes on.”
Before I could digest any of this and come up with an appropriate reaction, I saw a huge uniformed security guard coming around the corner with Brittany firmly in tow. She had gotten as far as the ER lobby before being nabbed. She was screaming that she wasn’t going to another hospital and wanted to go home.
She was taken back to the room and strapped to the bed. The real Brittany seemed fully in charge now. She was bewildered by where she’d found herself and why she was shackled to the bed. It was a heart-wrenching experience to see my daughter overcome with fear, confusion, and tears.
Many years later I asked Brittany to write down what it was like for her during the possession. This is what she wrote.
Brittany’s Possession Narrative
I can safely tell you my brain was somewhere else for most of it. I think it was kind of like when something traumatic happens to you, your brain blocks it out.
However, I remember the burning feeling of holy water, and then I woke up in a nightmare. I was strapped to the bed in a local hospital with my pastor’s wife holding my hand. Apparently we were waiting for me to be transferred to the local psych ward. I kept crying, “Daddy? Mommy?” I could see them in the hallway. I didn’t want the pastor’s wife there. She made the entities uneasy, and every time she touched my hand I felt a shocking revulsion.
Before long, orderlies and nurses came into the room and transferred the now self-aware Brittany to a gurney for transport to a hospital downtown with a juvenile psych ward. Mima went back home, while Sheila and I followed the emergency vehicle to the new hospital. We were both apprehensive about this move, but we frankly didn’t know what else to do. I’ll always fantasize if we might have been better off if we’d just taken her home. But by that point, we were both afraid that once Britt was away from professional help—whatever had possessed her would come menacingly back, and we’d already proven unable to cope with it.