Cadalie’s Saturday evening exorcism
Date: 2025-06-28 17:21
(Cadalie’s Saturday evening exorcism)
[Sat Jun 28 2025]
Williams Memorial Gardens/span>/spanafternoon, about 75F(23C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. The mist is heaviest At Foxglove and Blackstone/span>/spanThe afternoon air hangs thick with the promise of rain as dark clouds gather overhead, casting Williams Memorial Gardens in muted grays and greens. Meridith, Cadalie, Lykaia, and Catrina stand near the cemetery’s main path, where a small crowd has begun to disperse after what appears to have been some kind of disturbance.
An elderly groundskeeper approaches them, his weathered hands trembling slightly as he clutches a worn baseball cap. “Thank goodness you’re here,” he says, his voice strained. “It’s Mrs. Henderson again – third time this week. Found her wandering between the headstones at dawn, talking to herself… or to someone we couldn’t see.”
He gestures toward a bench near the Foxglove section where a middle-aged woman sits wrapped in a blanket, her eyes distant and unfocused. “She keeps saying she has to ‘tell them the stories’ and won’t let anyone near that old locket she’s wearing. Been acting strange ever since she found it last Tuesday while visiting her husband’s grave.”
The mist swirls thicker around the Foxglove and Blackstone areas of the cemetery, and even from this distance, the faint sound of whispered voices seems to drift on the humid breeze. Mrs. Henderson’s fingers worry constantly at something silver hanging from her neck, and her lips move in silent conversation with the empty air beside her.
The groundskeeper looks between the four women hopefully. “The family called you folks because… well, because this isn’t exactly normal, is it?”
“That so?” Cadalie asks as sweet as lemons, full red sclera and pupils staring down with her lidded eyes. “Well, does she happen to be out today? I’ll be able to see to her problems for certain.”
“We should be able to handle it, yes.” Catrina tells the groundskeeper. Then, she points the woman out to Cadalie. “Over there, I think.”
Meridith peers at the old man, and bites back her desire to ask if Mrs.Henderson is dead or not. It feels self explanatory. Like, why else would he be worried, but still. What if he’s just wrong? Tech support calls of ‘is it plugged in’ ring in her head. Sometimes they just forgot to plug it in. For a moment, she’s a bit stun locked, following around the others.
“Locket. Okay.” Lykaia says, more off-handed, to then peer at the old lady. “She’s old. Should be an easy grab. Then examine. Or gentler approach preferred?”
The groundskeeper nods gratefully at Cadalie’s offer, though he takes an unconscious step back from her unsettling gaze. “Mrs. Henderson, yes – she’s right there on the bench. Been sitting in that same spot for hours now.”
As the group approaches, Mrs. Henderson becomes more visible through the thickening mist. She’s a woman in her sixties with graying hair pulled back in a loose bun, wearing a simple floral dress that’s now wrinkled from her long vigil. The silver locket catches what little light filters through the storm clouds, and it seems to pulse with a faint, cold luminescence.
Mrs. Henderson’s head tilts as if listening to something, then she nods and whispers, “Yes, I understand. The roses by the third headstone… she wants them to know about the roses.” Her fingers trace the locket’s surface in repetitive patterns.
The groundskeeper follows at a distance, wringing his cap. “Started Tuesday morning when she came to put flowers on Harold’s grave – that’s her husband, passed two months ago. Found that locket half-buried near his headstone and just… changed. Won’t eat, barely sleeps, keeps talking about messages that need delivering.”
Around the Foxglove section, several headstones bear the carved rose and thorn motifs that seem to echo the locket’s design. The whispered voices grow slightly more distinct as they near Mrs. Henderson, though the words remain unclear. A few other visitors to the cemetery give the area a wide berth, unconsciously avoiding the growing cold spot that seems to center on the woman and her mysterious jewelry.
Mrs. Henderson suddenly looks up, her eyes focusing on the approaching group with startling clarity. “Oh! You can see them too, can’t you? They’ve been waiting so long to tell their stories.”
Meridith humss and walks about. To someone, she offers, “I do miss gee-ma’s stories. What’s wrong with letting a lil ghost woman chat boredly to people at a cemetary. I mean. Psychic echo aside, I’m not seeing any evidence of harm?” She wonders.
Meridith humss and walks about. To Cadalie, she offers, “I do miss gee-ma’s stories. What’s wrong with letting a lil ghost woman chat boredly to people at a cemetary. I mean. Psychic echo aside, I’m not seeing any evidence of harm?” She wonders.
“Gentler if we can manage.” Catrina tells Lykaia with a sigh. “Bad press and all.” Then she raises her voice to speak to Mrs. Henderson. “Good afternoon, Ma’am. I’m afraid my friends and I can’t see what you are, but, we would be happy to see if you would be so kind as to show us?” Those rose markings earn a glare from her as she speaks, but aside from that, she keeps her smile polite, friendly, and open.
“H-why, it only costs her sanity.” Cadalie looks into the air with a dull devil-may-care smile, observing something, perhaps as she steps up. “We can be polite.” She supposes to Lykaia absently, clasping her hands in front of her.
“Hello, dear Missus Henderson. I, Pontifex Cadalie, have come just for you-” She lets a cute finger revolve at the old woman with a smile full of teeth as she leads her on, “Do you happen to have a message for me?”
“So. She’s also physically weak, starved.” Lykaia points out, shaded eyes keeping on Mrs. Henderson now. “Idea’s she’s not eating. Changed. Obsessed. Possibly possessive-like obsession, madam Meridith.” She summarizes, though her shades eyes stay on Henderson. Catrina does there say her preference and she falls a little further back, taking to glancing around the area.
Mrs. Henderson’s eyes light up at Cadalie’s introduction, and she clutches the locket tighter to her chest. “Oh yes, Pontifex! So many messages, so many stories they need to share.” Her voice carries an odd cadence, as if multiple people are speaking through her at once.
She stands unsteadily from the bench, and it becomes clear that Lykaia’s assessment is accurate – the woman has lost considerable weight, her dress hanging loose on her frame. Dark circles ring her eyes, but they burn with an unnatural intensity.
“Eleanor says hello,” Mrs. Henderson continues, her voice dropping to a whisper as she addresses Cadalie directly. “She’s been waiting in the silver, waiting for someone who could truly see. The others…” She gestures vaguely at the headstones around them. “Thomas wants his son to know about the hidden letters. Margaret needs her sister to forgive her for the wedding dress. And Harold…” Her voice breaks slightly. “My Harold says the insurance papers are in the blue shoebox, not the filing cabinet.”
As she speaks, the temperature around the group drops noticeably. Frost begins forming on the nearby grass despite the warm afternoon, and the whispered voices grow more distinct. The locket itself seems to pulse with each name she mentions, growing brighter and somehow heavier-looking against her chest.
The groundskeeper shifts nervously behind them. “See? This is what I mean. She knows things… things she shouldn’t know. Thomas Whitmore’s son came by yesterday asking about letters, and Margaret Kelloway’s sister has been visiting that grave for thirty years.”
Mrs. Henderson takes a step toward Cadalie, her movements jerky and unnatural. “They chose me to be their voice. The locket… it helps me hear them clearly. Would you like to hold it? To hear what they’re saying?”
Meridith oh’s softly. “Oh. I thought she was dead. Oh my gosh.” She rubs her forehead. “So. Not a ghost. Just a cursed locket. Silly me.” She taps her head. “Or. Wait. Um.” She taps her chin. “Is she a ghost who is also cursed…?”
Stepping up behind Cadalie, Catrina lowers her voice. “I’ve got your back, if you want to test that thing for yourself.”
Lykaia calls over “Okay. Get insurance papers in blue shoebox, not filing cabinet. Be right back.” She doesn’t leave, but still mentions. “Sounds less like a curse. Unless delusions. Someone clairvoyant here?”
“Mhm-mhm.” Cadalie nods along as the woman speaks, turning in a hushed tone to Catrina. “It’s not pretty, but the safest solution for her truly in unconsciousness.”
Rather than coldcocking the woman, however, she just stares forward with those red eyes and sets the poor woman into a trance.
“Clairaudient.” She answers Lykaia, sighing as she takes her metal gauntlet’s talon and sets it to the cursed object with a degree of separation. “It’s a relic, near as I can tell- but I don’t know why she’s distracted so.”
“Tell him about the roses I planted behind the shed…”
“The deed is in the piano bench, she needs to know…”
“I never meant what I said about her dress, please…”
“The blue shoebox, Harold, the BLUE one…”
But underneath all these voices, one stands out – younger, more urgent: “Don’t let them wear it! I tried to warn them, but it won’t let me go. The silver… Edmund used grave-silver… it binds us here…”
The groundskeeper gasps as frost spreads outward from where Mrs. Henderson stands, coating the nearby headstones in a thin layer of ice despite the warm afternoon. “What’s happening to her?”
Mrs. Henderson’s lips move soundlessly in the trance, but her body begins to shiver violently. The locket grows visibly brighter, and several of the rose-carved headstones around the Foxglove section seem to shimmer as if viewed through heat waves.
Lykaia notices movement in her peripheral vision – translucent figures beginning to materialize near the headstones, all of them reaching toward Mrs. Henderson with expressions of desperate longing. They appear to be drawn to the locket like moths to flame.
The whispered voices grow louder, more insistent, as if sensing that someone can finally hear them clearly.
“Please… don’t let them wear it long. Edmund made it from grave-silver, bound with grief too deep. I tried to warn her, but the voices… they’re so lonely, so desperate to be heard. It gets heavier with each story, each soul that speaks through the wearer.”
Lykaia’s observation proves accurate – around the Foxglove section, several visitors have indeed gathered near specific graves, some carrying blue boxes, others with letters, as if drawn by some inexplicable compulsion to fulfill the messages Mrs. Henderson had been delivering.
The locket pulses again, and Mrs. Henderson’s body shivers despite the trance. “The binding grows stronger with use. Soon she won’t be able to remove it at all.”
“You shouldn’t be able to talk.” Cadalie dotes upon the possessed woman in a dangerous motherly tone. Someone shouldn’t be talkin’ back to momma superior. Her hand grasps around the locket and she sighs, for it’s time to get out the wooden paddle of her back-hand.
It’s a hollow *THUNK* to the temple, reserved, but well applied for a forced ‘lunch-break.’
Meridith’s clownish behavior ends. She has her arms folded around her body, hawk-like gaze flicking around the scene, wary the moment. Her gaze flicks to the gravekeeper, and she barks simply, “Get back,” authoriative and harsh. She turns her gaze back towards Cadalie. “We’ve solved enough. Take it, and break it.”
“A bit… forceful, but it’ll work.” Catrina nods to Meridith, stepping forward to offer aid to Cadalie if necessary with her own magic.
Cadalie carefully extracts the locket from around the woman’s neck- rather than ripping it through her neck. Her pause might have considered the option. Then, she sets it on the floor. “I’m not lookin’ to pay the cost for this’un. We can bury it deep enough, I can call for a supplicant, or- if you’d like, a ritual may suit you?” She turns, standing up and looking down to Catrina.
Lykaia rubs her eyes and narrows her eyes under sunglasses. Pale greens peering through briefly as her glasses rise. “Fuck me.” She complains. “Am the only one seeing… spirits? Ghosts? Fuck me.” She says that again and treads closer towards the group and Mrs. Henderson, just in time to see the wooden paddle thunking.
“Please… I never wanted this. Edmund’s grief bound us all together. The silver came from coins left on graves – it holds their final wishes, their regrets. Breaking it might trap them forever, but leaving it whole…”
The voice trails off as one of the translucent figures – a young woman in 1890s dress – becomes more solid near the locket. She looks directly at Lykaia with pleading eyes.
Around the cemetery, several visitors continue their compelled tasks, driven by messages they received through Mrs. Henderson. The locket’s influence seems to extend beyond just its wearer.
pinches the bridge of her nose and scowls. “You don’t get a second chance, or a do-over. There is no -unfinished business-. You got a fucking ending, it’s your fault if you didn’t like it!” Meridith shouts towards all the spectres and spirits lurking just out of view. “Bring that locket here. Maybe we gotta burn it in the fires of mount doom, but I think a fucking sword might suffice.”
Letting out a groan, Lykaia looks to Cadalie and then to Catrina. “Cat. You know rituals. Got an idea?” Then she looks back at the translucent figures, and the young woman specifically, and straight up stares at her. Beads of crystals grows along her lashes and the lower line of her left eye.
“They’re the echoes of others’ psyches, Meri.” Cadalie coos gently, forgetting the illusory facade of her eyes long enough for it to dim to something more human. “No sense in gettin’ frustrated with ’em. Regrets is all they are, now.”
Crouching by the locket, Catrina pokes it, then hooks the chain on her finger. “Meridith has a good idea. Lets test it. Sometimes its not arcane, but just a strong lady stabbing something with a piece of metal really really hard that does the trick.” Then, she flicks it to Meridith’s feet.
“There is a way. The binding can be undone, but it requires understanding Edmund’s original ritual. He carved our names into the silver using a consecrated blade, mixed our essence with cemetery soil, and sealed it with his tears of grief. To free us properly, the ritual must be reversed – not destroyed, but unwound.”
The groundskeeper, who had retreated to a safe distance, calls out nervously: “The old maintenance shed has Edmund Hartwell’s tools! Been locked up since 1897, but I’ve got the key!”
Thunder rumbles overhead as the storm clouds thicken, and the first drops of rain begin to fall on the cemetery grounds.
“Desecrated knife.” Cadalie shrugs as she hands the hilt over to Meridith.
Lykaia touches along her left eye, where the crystals formed, and sighs. “I’ll get them.” She says, and then jogs the distance over to mister groundskeeper.
“Think anyone can manage some tears of joy then?” Catrina asks, shrugging.
Meridith shifts back. One step, two. Her eyes flick across the assembled group, Lykaia, Cadalie, Catrina. She snags the desecrated blade and for a moment, peers at Cadalie. She jams the knife into the side of her arm, dealing a mild wound to herself and a hot hiss of pain. Enough to bring joy to the most stoic of suffering-enjoyers. She pivots, godly blood soaking the blade and slams it down into the locket.
“Thank you. Edmund’s love was true, but grief should not bind the dead to serve the living. We can rest now.”
The locket splits cleanly along the blade’s edge, revealing a small compartment containing a lock of hair, a pressed flower, and a tiny scroll. As these items are exposed to the air, they crumble to dust and blow away on the wind. The oppressive cold lifts immediately, and the frost on the nearby headstones begins to melt.
Mrs. Henderson stirs on the ground, blinking in confusion. “Where… what happened? I was visiting Harold’s grave and then…” She looks around at the group with clear, normal eyes. “Did I faint? I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”
The groundskeeper returns with Lykaia, carrying an old toolbox, but stops short when he sees the destroyed locket. “Is it… is it over?”
Around the cemetery, the visitors who had been compelled to deliver messages look around in bewilderment, their supernatural compulsions broken. The storm clouds above begin to part, allowing the first rays of late afternoon sunlight to break through.
The rose carvings on the headstones no longer seem to move, and the cemetery feels peaceful once more – truly peaceful, without the weight of unfinished business pressing down upon it.
“See.” Catrina says, dusting off her hands of nonexistent dirt and standing. “Strong lady, piece of metal, really really hard.”
Lykaia scans the area to see if there’s anything else that is odd.
Meridith closes her eyes, feeling relief wash over her, followed by the sting of pain. She pulls a hand to her arm, wincing as it bleeds freely. She wipes the knife off, and offers it hilt first to Cadalie. She looks around. “If you die. The burden ends. That’s the deal. That’s what we’re offered. So don’t fucking stick around suffering.”
Cadalie folds a gauntleted hand over her mouth, looking at Meridith’s wound with struggling brows and a flutter of bubbling joy in her throat. “.Thahh.. That was very kind of you.”
The cursed locket has been destroyed, Mrs. Henderson freed from its influence, and the trapped spirits finally allowed to rest. The cemetery returns to peace.
“Looks clear.” Lykaia says, giving the Groundskeeper a glance and then moving closer to Catrina. “Cat. What did I miss?”
“Meri stabbed it.” Catrina tells Lykaia simply, for that is exactly what happened.
Meridith shakes her head. “Gordian knot solution. People treat the dead with kid gloves but…” She exhales hot. “So many names repeat, the same figures, posed different…like a play suffering rewrites…I hate this fatecrafted bullshit.”
with a struggling breath for hair amidst a hiccup of swallowed laughter, Cadalie’s hand flops down into a clasp as she rides out a little wave of suffering with a genial giddiness. “Oh- don’t worry so much over it! It’s beeen funnnnn.”
The groundskeeper helps Mrs. Henderson to her feet, supporting her as she sways slightly. “Let’s get you something to eat, ma’am. Your family’s been worried sick.” He turns back to the group with genuine gratitude. “Thank you all. I’ve worked these grounds for thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything like what happened this week.”
Mrs. Henderson looks back at the scattered remains of the locket, now just tarnished silver fragments on the gravel path. “I remember voices… so many voices. They seemed so sad, so desperate. But now…” She takes a deep breath of the clearing air. “Now it’s quiet. Peaceful quiet, not empty quiet.”
The late afternoon sun breaks fully through the dissipating storm clouds, casting long golden shadows between the headstones. A few other cemetery visitors approach cautiously, no longer driven by supernatural compulsions but simply curious about the commotion.
The groundskeeper begins collecting the locket fragments with a small dustpan. “I’ll make sure these get properly disposed of. Buried deep where they can’t cause any more trouble.”
Williams Memorial Gardens settles back into its natural rhythm – a place of remembrance and rest, rather than unfinished business and desperate whispers. The carved roses on the headstones catch the sunlight normally now, their stone surfaces warm to the touch instead of unnaturally cold.
The crisis has been resolved, and the afternoon is growing late. The storm has passed, leaving the air fresh and clean.