My DIY exorcism
My primary school Bible banished the spook bothering my baby.
Hugging my three-month-old daughter Emma, I proudly surveyed the newly decorated nursery. ‘You’re going to love sleeping here,’ I smiled. The wallpaper was festooned with floating clouds. Emma’s cute little outfits were hung on a line as we didn’t have space for a wardrobe. A nightlight that played nursery rhymes glowed softly. My partner, Jake, had lived in this bungalow with his mum when he was a teenager. Now she’d moved in with her partner it was just our little family. There was no heating apart from a gas fire in the lounge and a heater in the main bedroom, so when Emma arrived, she slept in our room. Now her room was ready. The only glitch? At bedtime, Emma didn’t seem so keen. I tried settling her at the usual time, but every time I put her down, she bawled. As Jake was on earlies, it was up to me to rock her for hours, trying to get her to sleep. By the third night, my nerves were jangled. Emma just wouldn’t drop off. We ended up letting her fall asleep in her pram. ‘It’s not too warm or cold, I’m in the room with her. What’s the problem?’ I grumbled to Jake. ‘Maybe it’s the ghost?’ he said.
What? Clocking my confused expression, Jake explained. ‘When I lived here with Mum and slept in what’s now Emma’s room I had terrible
Could Emma see the man?
nightmares,’ he revealed. ‘An old man with white hair would sit on my chest.’ ‘Remember me asking you if you’d slept well the first night you stayed over?’ Jake asked. I nodded. At the time I’d assumed he was making conversation. ‘I was actually asking if you’d seen the old man. My school friends had similar experiences when they stayed over,’ he explained.
Maybe Emma could see the old man? My heart sank. I loved our home! What could we do? Then I had an idea. When I left primary school. I’d been presented with a Bible. Grabbing it off the shelf, I went into Emma’s room, opened it to Matthew and began to read The Lord’s Prayer. Then I said, ‘Whatever is in here, leave this place, you don’t belong here. You must go to the next stage of your journey to the afterlife.’ Then I said The Lord’s Prayer again and left the Bible open on Matthew and left the room. Bedtime came… and Emma gurgled happily in her cot, staying sound asleep until the morning. I’ve never been so relieved. Before this incident I’d never given spooks a second thought. But the Bible stayed in her room until we moved three years later. We never found out who the old man was. But in our new home, I left the Bible close to the threshold, keeping us safe from anyone who might have followed us.