“Amy, you realize how this sounds, right? You can’t be serious.” His tone wasn’t angry or accusatory but calm. Even. Like he was yet again explaining how to work the new wireless security system we had installed last year, which I still couldn’t figure out how to operate.

I was equally calm in my response, although my chest burned with anger and frustration. “Yes, I know how it sounds. Believe me—I know. Just saying it makes me feel worse about it all. But there is something very wrong with Liz, and we know it’s not self-created. She’s in real danger. We all are. We have to try, in the hopes of getting it all to stop.” I leaned forward, my voice shaking. “Please, Mark. I need you to support me.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I believe that you believe in this. But I just can’t rationally accept the idea that an exorcism is going to fix everything.”

I sat back on the couch and took a long breath in and then let it out. I stared at the coffee table in front of me, my eyes trained on the leg that Rocky had chewed. “Okay, well if you can’t accept it, if your mind doesn’t let you go there, then at least understand that this is something I—no, we: Jess, Melissa, and I—have to do. We have to at least try before something worse happens next.” I looked up at him.

He shook his head slightly and hunched his shoulders forward. There was a long moment while I waited for him to say something. Say anything. Tell me I needed professional help, tell me he was going to lock me away.

“If it’s what you need to do,” he said quietly, his eyes never lifting toward mine.

It was the best I was going to get from him. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what had happened, or what needed to happen next. But at least he wasn’t going to try to stop me. And we had been honest with each other.

“It is,” I said.

“When is this all happening?” he said.

I swallowed hard. “I’m going to text Tim and find a time. And if it goes according to plan, we should all be safe after it’s done.”

“And what if it doesn’t? If you truly believe there’s a demon inside of her—and I’m not saying I do—what happens if it attacks you guys or hurts Liz even more?” His voice was flat.

I shook my head, even though a jolt of fear ran down my arms. “I can’t even think about that possibility. It has to work. We’ve gathered all the evidence and research we can. We have a book with an incantation and the process for the ritual. It will be successful because we won’t let it be anything else.”