Free Sacrifice by John Everson

grabbed me by my hair, yanking me to my feet. My mom appeared behind him in the doorway, but as usual, she didn’t say or do a thing. My hair was really long back then, and he held it up in the air for her to see, motioning at it with his free hand. It felt like he was going to pull it all out by its roots, and I began crying and clawing at his arm to release me.
    “ ‘This is the culprit,’ he said, pointing at the orange knot of hair sticking out of his fist. ‘I read it in the book. Witches can be known by the orange of their hair and their frequent conversations with the invisible. You have birthed a witch, woman.’
    “ ‘She’s just a child,’ my mom finally said in my defense, and he just snarled at her. ‘Get the book. We are going to rid our house of her demons right now.’
    “My momma disappeared and came back a minute later with the book. My dad didn’t let go of my hair the whole time, and Becca clung to my leg and kept saying, ‘I’m sorry’ over and over. ‘Get the white candle,’ he demanded, ‘and the vial of holy water.’ He asked for a bunch of things, and when my momma had brought them all, he shoved me down on the floor and demanded that I stay there. Then, with his foot on my chest holding me down, he began saying a bunch of funny-sounding stuff from the book, Latin I’m guessing now, and waving the lit white candle around the room. When he reached the end of the words, his face seemed to grow larger and larger to me, and his voice boomed through the room. I’ll never forget what happened next.
    “ ‘In the name of the Lord God Jesus Christ, I command all those spirits who lack the anchor of flesh to leave this place, never to return. From my house I banish thee, from my life I banish thee, from all corners of the earth I banish thee. I command thee to release your hold on this mortal coil and follow the road you’ve strayed from back to where you belong. By the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I banish thee to hell.’ ”
    “All around me I suddenly heard the most unearthly screams and screeches, and I saw Becca rise up from the floor into the air, her mouth open wide and her eyes rolling back to white. She was growing hazy and stretched, almost like a wax candle that has begun to slide and melt. Her screams filled my head and deafened me, and I screamed out myself. Then she was gone, and the rest of the house fell silent and my father slammed the book shut.
    “ ‘Are they gone?’ he asked. I was crying harder and rolling up into a ball, but he yanked me off the floor by my hair again. ‘Tell me the truth,’ he yelled again. ‘Are they gone?’
    “ ‘Yes, Daddy,’ I said. ‘You killed them.’
    “He smiled and nodded at my mother, but now I really began to cry in earnest.
    “ ‘You killed all of my friends,’ I screamed.
    “He grabbed me with both hands by my waist and threw me into my bed. ‘From now on you play with real friends, and not these devils,’ he said. ‘I find another devil in my house, and I’ll do to you what I just did to them.’ ”
    Alex stopped talking, and Joe studied her face as she wiped away tears from her eyes and looked down into the flames. It was a wild story, but given his own tale, he couldn’t completely doubt her. It was also a troubling tale in a way he couldn’t completely put his finger on. What were the chances that a man haunted by a demon would pick up a hitchhiker plagued by ghosts?
    “So you never saw Becca again?”
    She shook her head. “Nope. Or Stacy or Jack. Or any of the others that had kept me company around the house and backyard for years. My house was like a prison to me after that day. There was no one to talk to, no one to play with. I still saw ghosts when we went shopping at the supermarket, or walking along the roadways in town, but I was careful never to talk to them. I knew my dad would kill them—and me—if he saw me talking to them. So things were pretty quiet for a couple years.”
    “You still