Not All Ghosts Are Holy

by Bridge, Linda

• ISBN13: 9781463435073
• ISBN10: 146343507X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-09-22
• Publisher: Author Solutions

Excerpts

Sharp, painful, cold...terror! My stomach knotted with pain caused by panic. Trembling overtook every muscle in my body! Terror gripped my heart as I froze in the presence of eternal death! No longer glancing, I searched for a familiar face ... but ... it wasn't there. Instead, there was a deep, oily black ... endless void ... no face at all. The void faded into endless nothingness, as if everything around it was being absorbed. Its emptiness was constantly undulating. There was no shape, no definition, and no end—a black hole. I peered into this void for a sign of life, only to sense a paralyzing feeling of death. My life was being sucked from me as I looked into that void. There was no substance to it. There was no movement, yet the movement was constant and indefinable. There was no habit, no mantle, and no black veil. There was nothing. Just ... a deep void. It seemed to absorb all matter around it. It became threatening. It was coming after me! I ran, turning the corner, I ran down the stairs. "Dear God, let the downstairs novitiate door be open. Just let it be open." The door swung open freely with such force that the window rattled and the doorknob fractured the stucco on the outside wall. My mantle, picked up by the wind, flew out of control behind me as I raced down the walkway to the chapel. The clasp, which was digging into my throat, began to loosen its grasp on the mantle as I ran. I glanced backward. "It" could almost touch the hem of my flying mantle. The choir door was only yards away. "Dear God, let the door be unlocked. I can hear him behind me. His step is becoming louder. Closer! Oh, God, I'm terrified. Help me, please, help me. Please, the door, please be unlocked. Be unlocked!" Breathless, I reached the door in what felt like the slow motion of a movie. I reached for the knob, and I felt the cold steel filling the palm of my clammy hand. "Dear God, let it be unlocked." I twisted the knob. The latch clicked, and I pulled the massive wood door toward me. Panic rose into my throat as I heard the dreaded, feared, and quick-paced step approaching. Oh, God! The desperate need to look and know if "It" was too close for me to escape raced through me as I flung the door open. In terrified panic, I leapt up the two steps in a single stride, into the middle of the sister's choir and the safety of the Lord's Sacred Presence. I sank to my knees before the Blessed Sacrament. My mantle and brown robe lost their billows of air and slowly settled in woolen waves around me on the floor. Sitting back on the calves of my legs, I leaned forward to kiss the cold floor with dry, parched lips. "It" would not come into the House of God! I was safe. The mantle had barely settled on the floor before I quickly rose and moved to the altar rail. Kneeling close to the altar, I tried to catch my breath. In the peaceful quiet of the dark, early morning hours, I realized that the choir door had closed behind me without the fearful sound of those dreaded footsteps in my wake. Then ... the grinding sound of the choir doorknob being turned pierced the deafening silence of the sanctuary. My heart leapt. Panic exuded from every pore of my being. A cold draft penetrated my habit. Fear encompassed me, and my fingers turned white as they clenched the marble railing. A deep, slow, drawn out, deliberate, unspoken sound filled the chapel: "I want your soul!" Then the cold chill disappeared. In the quiet distance, I heard the sound of the morning bell ringing to awaken the sisters from their night of quiet slumber. As I turned to look at the clock on the choir wall, a nauseating reality came to me—I was alone in a world that had never been awakened by "my" bell. * * * 5:00 a.m. The day had officially begun. "Real" time had started. I stood and silently proceeded to my stall. I heard the key in the outside lock of the sisters' choir; Sister Thomas Marie, assigned to awaken the community for Morning Prayer, was just arriving. She turned on the lights, then unlocked the side door of the choir to allow the novices entrance—the door that had been unlocked for me. No questions were asked as to how I had been able to get into the locked choir. My presence apparently was not noticed. As I knelt in our stall, one sister after another arrived for prayer. * * * 5:20 a.m. The chant of Lauds filled the echoing chambers of the Sanctuary. Peace and serenity enveloped a community absorbed in prayer. All were oblivious to "the evil in the night." "Sisters, let us pray." I would never tell. Never!