How to Banish a Hell-Bitch (or Other Nasty Mojo) Part 1

A little backstory:

During my first pregnancy with Jack, I began to have dreams of a large black figure stalking me within my home. The worst dream ended with this thing strangling me in my kitchen. Then it began crossing into reality; I'd awake in the night to see it lurking in the corner of our bedroom, moving ever closer to the edge of my bed. At this time, I was a fledgling Witch with only basic knowledge, so I performed a simple house cleansing. The spirit disappeared...for a little while.

As soon as we brought Jack home from the hospital, shit got weird. And it escalated fast. It started with smelling cigarette smoke around the apartment, then hearing what sounded like high heeled shoes clicking around the bedroom. One night, I had laid Jack down in his nursery and leaving the door cracked a little, snuck back into the living room for a little Netflix. Gradually, I began to notice a whispering voice on the monitor, getting louder and louder until it was clearly the voice of a woman. And she just sounded like evil. I was frozen for a moment, until Jack started screaming and my body leapt into action. Running towards his bedroom door, I watched it close. The feeling in the pit of my stomach when that door slammed shut by itself was nothing compared to what I felt when I realized the door knob wouldn't turn, as if it was locked. But this door doesn't have a lock. I began slamming my body against the door, constantly shaking the knob, all the while Jack was wailing for me and that disgusting voice kept on babbling. My mind on the breaking point, I screamed "Get away from my baby!" and the door suddenly opened. I of course, went tumbling to the floor into an empty room. Besides the squalling baby, I mean.

I told myself it was all a freak accident; a crossed signal on the monitor, a gust blew the door shut and it got stuck. Jack slept with me that night however...

I tried to forget about it, until a few nights later when we had company over, a husband and wife who are long-time best friends of ours. C immediately made a comment about the nursery (where Jack was napping at the time), that something felt off about it, and just seeing the door made her uncomfortable. I pulled her outside to tell her what had happened, as she was a practicing Witch of many years. She was freaked, and it just kinda confirmed that suspicion I had had that something was not normal in my home. We went back inside to see my husband holding Jack, with both men white as ghosts. The conversation went as follows:

Me: "What happened, he should be sleeping."

J: "He was, but there was-"

T: "We heard something on the monitor!"

J "No, someone, we heard someone on the monitor."

Me: "Was it a woman?"

They responded with slow nods.

Me: "I think it wants the baby."

Jack began co-sleeping with us permanently. No way was I leaving him alone in that room. But the spirit didn't stay contained in the nursery. I would lay in bed, clutching my sleeping infant, catching a glimpse of a shadow whipping past the bed. Feeling a hostile energy circling the room, like a tiger pacing its cage. For some reason, she could not get to the baby when he was with me, perhaps due to my act of defiance earlier?

She started messing with us in other ways. I'd hear the baby crying, only to run into our bedroom and find him out like a light. Things went missing, things moved on their own. The smell of cigarettes became an almost constant occurrence, as well as cold spots, voices, being physically touched. It culminated with us waking up one morning to find that anything hanging on our walls was now on the floor. Everything: photos, art, mirrors... it was all taken down and placed on the floor, leaning up the wall.

At this point, I got the coven involved. We all sat down and performed a banishing ritual in my bedroom. It was again, slightly basic, based on our varying levels of experience. But it was effective, and we were all passionate and eager to get rid of this thing. All in all, it was a powerful experience; it ended with us yelling an incantation in unison for it to leave 3 times. On the third time, our ring of candles was almost entirely extinguished by a huge gust of wind that came from the corner of the room behind me and shot out the door. It was over...I thought.

About a year later, the cigarette smoke and heels came back. I immediately called the coven over for a "touch-up" on our banishment spell. Again, the house was peaceful.

Until recently. It began as it always did, with a whiff of cigarette smoke in random spots of the apartment. Then the mimicking started. I'd hear Cora crying, only to find her sleeping soundly when I went to check her on her. I'd hear Jack having a conversation in his bedroom, only to find the room empty. Like empty, empty; Jack was never in there. He'd be in the kitchen with his daddy, or watching cartoons in the living room. At this point, I knew: I was gonna need to kick this thing's ass if I was going to get rid of it for good. Luckily, with three years of experience and studying under my belt, I had a few new tricks up my sleeve.

Stay tuned for Part 2.