The Black Heart Crypt

The three aunts tightened their circle around Aunt Francine.

The cats circling the aunts’ ankles hissed, their tiny mouths opening wide to expose needle-sharp fangs.

“Show the dybbuk its false reflection,” said Hannah.

The three sisters slowly brought silvery signal mirrors, the kind hikers pack in survival kits, up to their eyes. Zack could see Aunt Francine’s face flickering in their flat and shiny surfaces.

She suddenly looked totally paralyzed.

Zack moved closer to Judy.

“She wants to hurt me,” he whispered.

“Not to worry, Zack, dear,” Aunt Ginny declared from the porch. “This dybbuk shall soon depart.”

Aunt Sophie tossed a glittering handful of sparkling powder over Aunt Francine’s head.

“Now, if we were ghosts more powerful than the spirit currently possessing the body,” explained Aunt Ginny, “we could simply shove the weaker soul out and replace it with one of our own.”

“But since we’re all alive,” said Aunt Sophie, “we must perform an exorcism.”

Exorcism? Zack gulped. He had seen that movie on DVD.

“Typically,” decreed Aunt Hannah, “this rite is performed by a rabbi and a cohort of ten.”

“However,” said Aunt Ginny, “we three have streamlined the ceremony to its essence.”

“You must have three,” said Aunt Hannah.

“Oh, yes,” added Aunt Sophie. “Three is the absolute, bare minimum.”

Pyewacket, Mister Cookiepants, and Mystic yowled.

“It is time to begin!” said Aunt Hannah.

Aunt Ginny cleared her throat and started to chant: “We three declare it so, the uninvited visitor must now go!”

“Stop!” shrieked the dybbuk. “You stop that this instant!”

Aunt Francine remained frozen in the center of the circle, her arms stubbornly stiff. She couldn’t claw but she sure could shriek.

“I want Zack! Stop this foolishness immediately!”

His three great-aunts would not listen to her pleas. They reached out for each other’s hands and, swaying slightly side to side, continued their eerie incantation:

“Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d!”

The black cat in the pack howled loudly.

Zack and Judy stood mesmerized, watching the three women fearlessly circling the snarling demon.

“Round the dybbuk now we go;

Leave this body by the toe.

Spirit, under cold stone lie;

You have had your chance to die.”

Aunt Sophie tossed more sparkling powder up into the air.

“Eye of newt and hoof of cow,

Leave this body, leave it now!”

Now Aunt Ginny pulled out a tin party horn, the kind people blow on New Year’s Eve.

“In the traditional dybbuk exorcism ritual,” she said over her shoulder, “the rabbi would now blow certain strident notes on the shofar, a ram’s horn used in Jewish religious ceremonies, to shake loose the soul possessing the body.”

“We, however,” said Hannah, “have found that any jarring horn will suffice.”

“The more sour the notes, the better,” added Sophie. “Virginia?”

Aunt Ginny brought the party horn up to her lips and blew a jangled jumble of clashing trumpet honks that sounded like monkey squeals and donkey bleats.

Aunt Francine started to quiver.

And shimmy.

Her body slumped to the floor.

A purple mist seeped up out of her crumpled form.

The violet cloud quickly took shape.

Zack’s dead mother, her head bald, her body swallowed up by a hospital gown, her eyes nearly popping out of her skull, stood on the porch, staring down at him.

Zack wasn’t sure, but it looked like she might be crying.