The Dark Sacrament by David Kiely Read Free Book Online Page A

doing on the floor?” she asked, in all innocence. She turned to the young man near the window. “Joe? What’s going on?”
    In common with most victims of possession, Heather had no recollection of what had just taken place. For the best part of two hours, her entire being had been invaded by an alien force. Now there was only Heather Mitchelson.
    The ordeal was at an end. The ghosts of family evil had been laid to rest.
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    In the winter of 1992, twenty-four-year-old Heather Mitchelson and her partner, Joe Kilmartin, were living in a rented home on the outskirts of Balbriggan. It is a small town in County Louth and lies a little to the north of Dublin City. Joe drove a truck for a living and Heather worked in a dry cleaners in the town. To the outsider, they were the average young couple, outwardly no different from their friends and neighbors.
    But outward appearances can be deceptive. Inside, Heather carried the scars of years of abuse. She had had the great misfortune to be born into a family that was far from ordinary.
    Her mother, Bernadette Rafters, was just seventeen when she gave birth to her daughter. Her marriage to Dessie Mitchelson, then twenty-seven, was a disaster in the making. Dessie was a drunk, a failure, who moreover had a violent streak. It was a volatile mixture. Dessie was bad with relationships, was forever getting into arguments with his buddies—and would generally take it out on his young wife. He beat her often, for no reason. When Bernadette became pregnant with Heather, it seemed to be the spur he needed to beat her even more.
    It did not end there. The arrival of the baby had an even worse effect on Dessie. He was jealous of the affection lavished on it. The beatings started again. Before long, he was even hurting the infant.
    Bernadette should have read the danger signs but evidently did not. She became pregnant twice more by Dessie; two boys were to join Heather in the unhappy family. Dessie abused them as well.
    His alcoholism grew steadily worse; home life grew correspondingly unbearable for Heather and her siblings. They found themselves having to flee the home frequently—often in the middle of the night—and finding sanctuary with a succession of relatives. By all accounts, the relatives were not much better than the children’s parents. Bernadette, as a result of her husband’s abuse, simply couldnot cope and spent lengthy periods in mental institutions. From time to time the children were given over to foster care.
    When Heather turned five, an event occurred that, tragic though it was, ensured that the children found a more permanent “home.” Dessie died in a car accident. Bernadette, freed at last from her husband’s tyranny, left the children in her mother’s safekeeping and went to England to find work. In this she was successful. She sent “Nan Sal” regular payments from her salary, on the understanding that she would return by and by.
    We do not know if the children fared any better under the eye of Nan Sal. The grandmother’s home was a dilapidated cottage outside of town. Given the family background and the horrors they had endured from the beginning, one can assume that their day-to-day reality continued to be one of bleak dejection and fear.
    What we do know is that a strong bond developed between Heather and Nan Sal. It was not, however, the healthy, loving bond one might expect, but something altogether more sinister. In the years she lived with her grandmother, the child would become initiated into a world of evil—an evil that was to pursue her for the remainder of her life.
    In all, the children spent five years with their grandmother; Nan Sal died in 1978. Bernadette returned to her children, took up with another man, and the family became a stable unit. Or so one might hope. But evil has the uncanny knack of seeking out the weak and the vulnerable. The “stepfather” turned out to be far