Poltergiest

I risk a hot shower again even though I’m pretty sure I know what will happen. It’s worth it to soothe my aching

muscles and rinse all the blood off my hands. As expected, the fog of condensation floats steadily upward towards

the bathroom mirror, erasing my reflection, except for the smooth lines where the message is drawn. I wait until I

get out to read it this time. ‘YOU HAVEN’T CLEANED THE BATHROOM THIS WEEK HAVE YOU.’ I sigh

and wipe it away with a flannel. Another appears almost instantly ‘WELL HOW RUDE.’ ‘Hello, Mother’ I say,

resigned to this new and not entirely unexpected facet of my existence. ‘YOU HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO CLEAR

THOSE STRETCH MARKS YET THEN.’ ‘I’m not trying to, I don’t mind them.’ I say. It’s not exactly a lie. I want

to not mind them. ‘OK,OK, JUST TRYING TO HELP. I’VE GOT TO BE OFF ANYWAY, I’VE FINALLY GOT A

MEETING TO TALK ABOUT THE ASH THAT KEEPS DRIFTING INTO MY CIRCLE. YOU’D THINK

LUCIFER WOULD RUN A TIGHTER SHIP WOULDN’T YOU?’ ‘Indeed. Good luck.’ ‘THANK YOU DARLING.

LOVE YOU LOTS. DO TRY TO VISIT MY GRAVE AGAIN SOON WON’T YOU?’ I roll my eyes, 'Love you too.’

‘I SAW THAT’ ‘GOODBYE MUM’ I say in the usual exasperated but affectionate tones I use with my Mother. 

She’s pretty much always been this way. Not a poltergeist who is simultaneously running the 8th circle of hell and

apparently being very disappointed with the Prince of Darkness's hold over his minions. That’s relatively new. No,

the… how do I put this… very active interest in my life and choices which can sometimes be less than ideal. Only

now instead of text messages and phone calls it’s writing on the bathroom mirror and messages spelled in my peas.

It was a bit of a shock the first time to be honest. She’s always been sort of pagan adjacent I suppose? You know,

astrology charts and tarot cards, but not anything more than that. Just dabbling really. But it turns out she was very

good at it, and that caught the attention of The Horned One Downstairs. He basically offered her a job sprucing the

place up a bit, organising things, getting the demons into shape. He said the only outbreaks of disease he wants are

the ones he plans, and the minions have been lax on infection control. He said he liked my Mother’s attention to

detail and ability to persuade recalcitrant colleagues. I still think he had absolutely no idea what he was in for. I’m

sort of proud of her for that. Unfortunately it also means that she has even more of an ability to use her persuasion

to try to ensure my path in life is up to her high standards, whenever she likes, in whatever way a poltergeist is able

to. Which it turns out is a lot of ways.

Of course I tried to stop it at first by just changing things around a bit. I stopped eating peas, or any other easily

arrangable foods, and moved the mirror from the bathroom. But then came the messages carved into soap and

written on the bedroom mirror in my favourite lipstick. Morse code using the lamps in the evening. Use of the

podcast app on my phone with words interspersed with white noise. Writing in the dust on my bookshelves. There’s

few things more innately terrifying than hearing a new answerphone message from your dead Mother at 3 am.

Especially since she still shouts down the speaker like she’s got to reach you with only the power of her own voice.

And it’s not like I want her to completely stop contacting me all together. It’s nice to have a bit of a chat sometimes,

catch up on what she’s been doing, and hear all the gossip about the love affairs of the other demonic creatures. But

I’d just like some boundaries, that’s all. Whatever happened to the good old fashioned ouija board? Or a nice classic

seance? At least then I get to burn a few scented candles while she tells me what I’m doing wrong. 

So we’ve been on a bit of a pagan journey ourselves, my friend Nicola and I. She’s also pretty witchy and was well

up for a dabble in some of the more mysterious forces of the supernatural. And she believed me the first time. Actually

completely took it in her stride to be honest. I suppose it is within my Mother’s usual behaviour profile. So we tried

the sage burning and the spell bottles and the protective crystals and the salt circles. They actually seemed to attract her

more if anything. It’s a touch disconcerting to attempt to do a protective spell and end up with OOH THAT SMELLS

NICE ARE YOU DOING A SUNDAY DINNER written in ash on your altar. So yesterday we decided we needed to

take things up a notch with some minor blood sacrifice. Just our own, don’t worry, no fluffy, scaly or feathery creatures

were harmed in the making of this trans-realm boundary setting. But that clearly hasn’t worked either. We were

starting to run out of ideas and I was considering faking my own death to at least confuse her for a bit, when something

of a light bulb moment occurred. ‘Hang on a minute’ I said ‘All the pagan stuff we have been doing just seems to draw

her in right?’ ‘Yep pretty much’ Nicola replied, absentmindedly swinging a feather toy for my cat. ‘Ok so why don’t

we use that then? Instead of trying to keep her away with all the things, we just attract her to a specific place with them?

It’s the paranormal equivalent of using the mute feature on your phone. I still get the messages but they only turn up in

a place where I can choose when to receive them?’ Nicola looked up as the cat pounced on his adorable prey. ‘That

could fucking work’ she said. ‘It fucking could couldn’t it?’ I replied, starting to grin. 

And it fucking did. The next day, we set up an altar in the huge old fashioned wardrobe I bought on a whim for £30

from a charity shop, because it looked like it led to Narnia and it still had a skeleton key. One half was just shelving,

and I used it to keep all my out of season clothes, currently packed with my summer dresses. We cleared a shelf, put all

the things we had already tried in there, the crystals, the candles, the salt, the sage, the spell bottles, and the ouija board

, crystal ball, tarot cards and astrology books that used to be hers for good measure. It already had a full length mirror

on the inside door, so I included the lipstick she’d already ruined in there as well. And the next day… nothing. No

message in the bathroom mirror, no words spelled out in cutlery on the kitchen side, my favourite soap was clean and

uncarved. My makeup stayed in its bag and my shoelaces in their shoes. So I opened the wardrobe, and there it was,

written in lipstick, the first message of the new era. ‘I LIKE WHAT YOU'VE DONE WITH THIS.’ I grinned happily

and a little smugly. ‘YOU COULD DO WITH IRONING YOUR COTTON DRESSES THOUGH THE CREASES

DON’T LOOK VERY GOOD’ I sigh. Some things never change. And then I close the door, lock it with my skeleton

key, and get on with my day. I’ll come back to Mother when I feel like it.