Esther Grace Thompson sat quietly looking out of the second-floor window of her Manoa home. She helplessly watched different groups of curious people enter and exit her house throughout the day. They were complete strangers leaving with priceless items that she had either bought or acquired, some had been gifted to her. It seemed as if her entire life were being emptied out from her womb, piece by piece. A memory left with each item, be it a China Hutch or an oil painting, a favorite box of sterling silverware or even something as simple as a collection of movie ticket stubs from the old Palace theater. Everything was a physical sentiment, a memento, a broken heart, a moment of delirious happiness, and a finality of one part of a life that was like a wheel turning day which transitioned into another.
Esther counted to herself as each item left in the hands of those that she never knew and would most certainly never see again.
“A thousand and fifty-two,” She whispered.
Her eyes began to sting while the tears stained her cheeks; it was as if she were watching her own child being taken from her knowing that she would never lay eyes upon it thereafter.
“Why remember it that way?” She scolded herself, “couldn’t you have thought of a puppy or some other sort of pet Esther?”
“It did happen,” She reminded herself.
She was all of sixteen years old when her infant child was only but a few days newly born. The infant’s father Garrett Thompson appeared at the front office of the home for wayward girls in Honolulu on Beretania Street. He was a bank executive at Hawaiiana Bank, and a descendant of a well to do missionary family; he met Esther one night at a business party at his home on round top drive.
….
Esther’s teacher from the Hawaiian School for girls had brought Esther and five other girls to the Thompson estate to help prepare and serve food and drinks for an evening gathering of local bankers and their wives, Garrett was the host. He’d noticed Esther right off and took an immediate liking to her before the evening was over Garrett had Esther in the servant’s bungalow where he deflowered her quickly before anyone had noticed that she had disappeared. However, her teacher Mrs. Saffrey noticed. Esther was severely reprimanded and told to return to her duties and to mind the task she was given, otherwise, she would not be able to go home for the weekend. Before she knew it, she was pregnant and was soon expelled from the school. Her parents were at the mercy of Mrs. Saffrey who strongly suggested that Esther is sent to a home for wayward girls so as not to besmirch the reputation of her family.
“It did happen,” Esther repeated to herself, “it did happen.”
….
Today
The hour was four in the afternoon when she noticed a woman carrying an old soda box crate to her car. Her heart leaped into her throat when she realized what was in the crate. She fought to raise herself from her chair and even when doing so, she could only walk slowly to her window. Her body shook with anxiety and worry, she had to warn this poor woman but it was too late. By the time Esther reached the window, the woman was already gone.
“No,” Esther whispered, “God help her…”
…………………………………………..
Today
“I need your help!” Came the woman’s voice over the phone.
“I’m sorry?” The phone call was very abrupt and the voice on the other side of the phone was frantic to the point of being hysterical.
“My house is haunted and my children are being attacked, I called around but no one will help me! So, I found your website; you know how to do this kind stuff right?” The woman said.
“What kind of stuff?” I asked.
“Blessing my house, getting rid of it, or them or whatever it is!” She screamed.
“Okay, I’m assuming you’re at home, do you want to give me your address?” I asked.
She fired off the numbers so quickly that I had to ask her to slow down in order to be certain that I could get the information correct. It was an address in Manoa. The home was of the old Tudor style architecture and its location was appropriate for the demographic. There were other homes like it in Manoa, most were of the old southern plantation style but there were always a few gems like this one.
The place was a mixture of everything; there were old antiques and crystals, and chairs and pillows and an imitation Persian rug and skull candles of a different variety which were placed wherever they could be fitted. The mere presence of these items proved to be very disconcerting on the psyche, the woman began to point out the area in the house where she claimed that the haunting occurred; her son’s bedroom. She claimed that he was assaulted on a nightly basis while he slept, some unseen force pulled him out of his bed and began to slap and scratch him. She then showed me pictures she’d taken as proof of the wounds her son suffered. At that same time her son walked in the door and after the proper introductions were exchanged, I asked the young man if I could speak to him privately, to which we retired to the backyard. I asked his permission to address him candidly. Luckily he was agreeable and the conversation was designed to discover if he had any issues that affected him to the point where he became withdrawn or aloof? Did he feel as if his mother was too overbearing or repressive to the point where he could not be himself while in her presence? All questions were answered in the negative. He was a normal healthy young man and not the focus or the agent of a poltergeist, why then was he being attacked?
At that moment he and I stood below the picture windows just outside the living room and that’s when I glanced up and saw it. They sat four in a row and lined the entire bottom of the windowsill; blood candles. I immediately ran into the house and pushed past the woman so suddenly that she let out a scream. I tore through the main living room and headed straight to the picture windows.
Dammed, they’ve already been used.
“Where’d you get these?” I asked.
“What?” The woman replied.
Pointing down I said, “These blood candles, where’d you get them?”
She blinked for a second and said, “From an estate sale up here in Manoa; I think the address was 3125 Kahalewai,”
“Estate sale?” I asked, “like when people liquidate their things and have to sell them for money?”
“Something like that,” She replied.
I looked at her living room again with a renewed realization, everything that cluttered her space was bought from estate sales.
“I’m going to cleanse your home,” I told her, ‘but first and foremost, you’ve got to get rid of these blood candles now!”
She hesitated and I couldn’t waste any time trying to convince her of the severity of having those blood candles in her home and what it really meant.
“If you want your son to continue being assaulted then, by all means, keep these candles and I’ll call it a day. It’s up to you,” I said.
…………………………………………………………
Esther’s anger consumed her so completely that she’d wanted Garrett to meet his end in a most horrible manner. He’d come and taken her child, their child and she had no say in the matter. His family had far too much influence in business and in politics and Esther was nothing more than a lowly Hawaiian girl with no morals as far as the Thompsons were concerned. Unfortunately, every elder in her family were all practitioners of Christianity and none would assist her in finding someone who could perform pule ‘ana’ana. As fate would have it, her mother hired a girl from the old home for wayward girls to work as a maid. When the girl learned of Esther’s dilemma she was only more than willing to share her acquainted skill in the dark arts and she offered to teach Esther the use of the blood candles and their purpose in summoning evil, Esther was all too willing. Garrett Thompson would be the sacrifice. The blood candles were lit and the ceremony and prayers that were meant to take Garrett’s life proceeded without interruption. In three days time, the papers had printed a bit of unfortunate news; there was a death in the Thompson home but it was not Garrett. It was an infant child found dead in its crib. It had died mysteriously and without apparent cause. Afterward, Esther was inconsolable and the girl who helped her with the blood candle ceremony was released a short time later because she was caught stealing. When Esther finally came out of her slump she hid the blood candles but for some strange reason, she'd never gotten rid of them. In later years she would never marry but instead as a means of thumbing her nose to the Thompsons, she took their last name. Esther was smart and did well enough for herself that she made money through investments and land holdings until she finally owned her own house in Manoa where she lived out the rest of her life. The blood candles were finally hidden in her basement where it was long forgotten.
…………………………………………………
Today
I saw Esther Thompson the second I got out of my car. Her face seemed to contrast the drab atmosphere of the Manoa home. Its facade appeared to have seen more glorious days in it’s past but now Esther was all that was left of whatever those events might have been. I made certain that she could see me when I opened the trunk of my car and removed the plain looking box. I pulled the cover back and carried it to the middle of the lawn and held it up for her to see. For a minute a sense of moral relief washed over her face as she placed her hand on her window and smiled. I returned her smile and watched as a ray of sunlight slowly reflected its light on the glass, lifting itself ever so gently from the bottom to top. As it did so, Esther Grace Thompson faded away as the light became brighter and brighter.
The house was empty now save for a few scraps old papers here and there. The junk cleaners were very thorough and left nothing important behind. I found my way down to the old basement where I placed the box of blood candles in the corner right where they belonged. Esther’s house would be torn down in the next few months and hopefully, any trace of the blood candles would be destroyed along with it.
Somewhere out there in the firmament, Esther Grace Thompson and her infant child are reunited and are finally at peace.
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