Episode 58: Lost & Found

We receive some aid in the search for our missing friend from an unlikely source. Plus another phone call from Mark, this one with more dire consequences. We formulate a plan to bring him home, but at great cost to one of us.

Content Warning:  demonic forces, occult practices and summoning magic, mysticism, physical injury, self mutilation, white magic, religious ceremonies, magical artifacts

Host: Chris Estes
Writer: Chris Estes
Senior Investigator: Lucas Knight
Senior Investigator: Tom Wilson
Special Investigator: Megan Meadows
Special Guest: C. E. Talbot
Special Guest: Mark Mercier
Sound Design: Chris Estes
Producer: Megan Meadows

Transcript

 Malevolent Maine

Episode 58: Lost & Found

Malevolent Maine is a horror podcast, and may contain material not suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

INTRO: 

TOM: A visit to a Katie Clark performance. And the epic conclusion to our year long investigation into the King Beyond the Desert. These are the final stories coming your way in season 3. 

Hey guys, it’s Tom. Things are starting to come together, and we’ve got a lot of exciting things for you in these last three episodes. I’m particularly excited about today’s story. If you’ve been wondering about Mark, well this one’s for you. And if you want to know more about Mark, or Lucas’s investigation into the HBCC, or Chris’s dealings with the Black Tarot, head on over to patreon.com/MalevolentMaine, where for just a small monthly fee you’ll have access to all our side stories, including Witch’s Mark, which fills in the gaps on Mark’s missing year. Plus, our Malevolent Morsel extra scenes and whatever else we can cook up. Thanks so much for listening, don’t forget to rate and review if you can. And enjoy!

The woods are quiet. Not of the normal woods sounds - birds, insects, squirrels rustling in the leaves - but of the one sound you’re desperate to hear. The sound of a familiar voice. He’s out here somewhere, you know that. He has to be. And yet… what if you’re too late. Then suddenly you see it. A fallen birch tree with the shape of a skull imprinted in its peeling bark. And beyond that? A massive oak tree. And there’s something there at the base of it.

This is Malevolent Maine.

TITLE SEQUENCE

X marks the spot, MMers. Today’s story doesn’t need an introduction, so we’re going to jump right into it.

Ever since last Halloween, our friend and colleague Mark has been missing. As many of you will recall, last year we followed five different witch covens who were preparing mystical relics to use in a summoning ceremony meant to call the Mother Witch, an extremely powerful and extremely evil entity back to our world. We caught up with these five covens as they were performing the sixth and final spell, the Ritual of Blood. 

The witches sacrificed one of their own, a woman named Sybil, and used her blood to open the gates to whatever realm the Mother Witch had been trapped in. Their plan was to use one of their leaders, a witch going by title of the Betrothed of Spirit, to be a pure vessel for the Mother Witch, a sort of dark goddess to inhabit.

Mark launched himself into the summoning circle, knocking the Betrothed free just as the ritual completed. There was a blinding flash of yellow-green light and Mark was gone. Just the charred remains of the five skulls used in the summoning remained. 

Our initial thought was that Mark had been consumed by this spell, and we mourned our friend and the sacrifice he made to save us all. But it turns out that was only the beginning of the story. 

TOM: That’s right. We started getting phone calls from Mark. He called our office late at night, when no one was around. His messages were vague and cryptic, but they were proof that Mark was alive. He was out there somewhere - we had no idea where - but he was alive. And that was a start.

LUCAS: Then we started receiving emails containing audio recordings Mark had been making. He started them as a sort of audio journal, a place to store his thoughts and to help him process what had happened to him, but they quickly descended into something else. A malevolent entity was co-existing inside his mind, a being that was using Mark to do horrible things against his will.

The recordings paint a picture of man growing more and more desperate. At times Mark comes off as sick, sometimes he’s paranoid, others he seems to be losing his mind all together. In the recordings he recounts horrific things he’d done while sleepwalking or under the influence of this being.

The recordings didn’t come regularly, often months from when they had been initially recorded, which made it difficult to track him. They were sent from public libraries and other places with free internet capable computers. He moved around a lot, starting in a town called Lamentation, New Mexico, but quickly moving eastward to places in Texas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. 

He stuck to small towns, the kind of places similar to our home state, where people mostly kept to themselves, and didn’t pay much attention to a man passing through. He worked when he could find cash paying jobs, under the table, with no paper trail. Places that wouldn’t ask too many questions.

At first, we believed that Mark might be in the middle of a mental health crisis, a break from reality. Often the odd phone calls or the rambling recordings didn’t make much sense to us, and we, perhaps wrongly, assumed that Mark was losing his mind.

And perhaps he was, just not in the so-called traditional sense. We came to believe that Mark had become infected with the Mother Witch’s spirit. The dark energy that was meant for the Betrothed somehow went into Mark instead. He was fighting against it, even subconsciously, but it was a battle he couldn’t win. 

More and more the Mother Witch exerted control, making him do and say things without his knowledge or consent. It was clear that she was feeding on Mark like a parasite, growing ever stronger, and that soon there wouldn’t be anything left of the Mark we knew.

MEGAN: But then the Mother Witch messed up, or Mark broke free. During one of his random calls, he let slip the name of the town he was calling from, North Freedom, Wisconsin. Chris and Lucas rushed off to find him, but by the time they got there, he was gone, vanished again. Discouraged, the guys came home, and we attempted to formulate some kind of plan to find Mark.

We began to suspect that time was running out. The Mother Witch was growing stronger and stronger. If we didn’t find him and help him soon, then it would be too late.

LUCAS: The other issue we had was with the Mother Witch herself. This is a being of immense evil, capable of atrocious things. If she were to get free, to reprogram Mark so to speak, and use his body as her new host, her power would be unlimited and capability for cruelty off the charts. In all recorded mentions of the Mother Witch she is said to be stronger and more evil than Satan, himself. It is said she wishes to destroy this world to remake it in her own image, and that only those loyal to her will remain in the new dark world she will create.

If this being did break free of Mark, or, as we came to believe, consumed him fully, then we would have a serious threat on our hands, one we might not be capable of handling.

So the question became, what do we do about Mark? We knew he was heading slowly eastward, that he was losing strength, but that he was struggling to contain the evil inside of him. He didn’t want to be found, and yet he kept reaching out to us. Almost subconsciously asking for help. 

How do you help someone you can’t find?

It was a listener, Colleen, who suggested we seek the help of white witches, or those who use their gifts for good. We contacted several that we knew, but, as you can imagine after our confrontation with a state-wide conspiracy of witches, relations were a little strained.

Still, these were men and women who believed their craft was meant to be used for healing and helping, and they offered to do what they could. The problem was, without knowing exactly where Mark was, all they could do was send positive energy out into the universe with the hopes it would reach him. 

Several of the more skilled practitioners we talked to said that if what we suspected was true, if the Mother Witch was possessing Mark, her dark influence might be more than a match for the white magick they were offering up.

Nevertheless, this was better than nothing. Our only real hope would be finding Mark and bringing him back so that we could prepare an exorcism or some other ceremony to separate the two. Our white witches promised to continue their efforts, but we weren’t exactly hopeful.

Then we received a phone call.

TALBOT: Hello. I have performed a divination regarding your missing friend, Mark, and may have found a path by which he can be located and possibly cleansed.

That’s C. E. Talbot, our friend and an accomplished magician in his own way. If you’ve been following us this season, you know that Talbot is one of the people we use as a resource when we encounter things a little over our heads. He’s extremely knowledgeable, though a little…eccentric, to say the least. We recently recovered an amulet that had become a sort of conduit to the demon world that Talbot had once used in a summoning ceremony several years ago. With his help, we were able to purge the demon from the pendant, and close the door Talbot left open all those years ago.

CHRIS: Cleansed? Like another dung man?

TALBOT: Nothing so base as the previous ritual, though. The energy of the Mother Witch is vastly different than so called demonic entities and cannot be approached in the same manner.

This energy is not displacing his, but entwining with it, consuming it, perverting it into its own shape, similar to how a virus overtakes an organism and then inserts itself into the cell structures, using them to reproduce itself. There may be a way to focus this energy and direct it outwards, like a bolt from a crossbow, at a new target.

CHRIS: But we don’t even know where Mark is.

TALBOT: I may be able to enlist the aid of another entity to find him. Remember, these energies are not good or evil, they are simply tools to be used for either purpose, depending on the operator. They also exist on a much different vibratory level than us in the material world, and in so being, they are not bound by our laws of time and space.

CHRIS: You want us to summon a demon to find Mark? Isn’t that only going to make things worse?

TALBOT: Absolutely not. I am at the peak of my abilities, and my mind has been tempered by years of practice. My rituals are ironclad these days, utilizing multiple layers of protection. There is no chance of anything going awry. 

CHRIS: But how would we do it?

TALBOT A talisman can be created to anchor Mark more firmly within himself, and hopefully strengthen his ability to resist the Mother Witch. It will require a great sacrifice from someone to lend it energy, but I can also inscribe it with a word of vast power, relating to the Lords of the Fey. You know, their kind is quite misunderstood. In fact, most homes are host to at least one of their kind, although in modern times we have lost the ability to notice them at all, and their antics are often chalked up to poltergeists and the like.

In fact, when I was younger-

CHRIS: Talbot?

TALBOT: Uh, apologies, the word, yes, Eldarion.

So…we could create a talisman, something that a supernatural entity would send to Mark , something that could help him even if we couldn’t find him. 

It would be dangerous and come only at the cost of great personal sacrifice. For all we knew we could be letting a demon back into the world like the kind that plagued Talbot. This would be a treacherous process and one we wouldn’t be able to undo if it went wrong. It would be -

[in studio]

TOM: I’ll do it.

CHRIS: Woah, woah, woah. Tom, think about the risks.

LUCAS: We can find another way. We can -.

TOM: Mark would do it for us. That’s why he ran into the circle in the first place. I couldn’t stop him then, but… I’ll do whatever it takes to bring him back.

CHRIS: Are you sure?

TOM: Yeah. Yeah I am. Let’s bring Mark home.

Tom was determined to see this through, and we all agreed it was our best hope for actually helping Mark. So we reached out to Talbot again to arrange the plan.

He sent us the talisman, something he created or altered from a private stock of artifacts he had. It was a small silver pocket watch style compass that opened and closed. It looked like the kind of a thing a boy scout from the 1940s would carry around. It was looped on a silver chain so it could be worn like a necklace. The needle inside the compass appeared to be broken. It didn’t bob or move as we turned it around in our hands, but Talbot assured us that didn’t matter. The compass was just a vessel for the power we would be putting into it. It was pure and strong, and would convey our aid to Mark. The front of the compass was plain and worn smooth from years’ worth of use, but on the back, engraved in a spidery script was the word of power Talbot had given us. 

With the talisman ready, all we had to do now was finish the ritual to empower it and summon the entity to take it to Mark.

We gathered at sunset on a quiet, secluded beach. We drew a circle in the sand with sea salt, digging a small trench so the salt wouldn’t blow away. Tom placed the compass in the center of this circle, then the four of us - Megan, Lucas, Tom, and myself - sat in a circle, holding hands. Tom sat with his back to the ocean, facing west and the setting sun. Beside him on either side, resting on small white silk sheets, was a white candle and a sterilized knife.  

[On Location]

MEGAN: Here we go again. I hope this isn’t like last time.

LUCAS: It won’t be.

CHRIS: You ready, Tom?

TOM: [deep breath] Yeah. [starts ritual] “By the power of the setting sun and the vastness of the sea, I call upon the ancient forces of light and hope. Let this talisman be a beacon of strength and courage in times of darkness.”

Tom let go of our hands and then picked up the knife. After only a slight moment of hesitation drew it across the palm of his hand. The cut was deep and blood immediately welled up. He was going to need medical attention after this, but he was determined to finish the ceremony.

TOM: [in pain] “With my blood… with my blood… I offer a part of my own essence… a token of my dedication and…and the price I willingly pay.”

MEGAN: [amazed] Oh my God! It’s absorbing the blood!

Megan was right. Tom held his hand over the compass and drops of blood fell freely onto it. But just as soon as they touched the metal, they seemed to be sucked into its silvery surface, leaving the sand around it soaked in blood, but the compass itself was completely clean.

Tom took up the white candle in his bloodied hand, small rivers of blood running down his arm, and held it over his head.

TOM: [still in a lot of pain] “Light of the sun, strength of the sea, essence of life, hear me. Empower this object with hope and aid, to guide the lost, to banish the night.”

As he spoke the candle ignited, as if the dying light of the sun had sparked it to life. Tom held it there for a moment and as the wax began to melt it rolled down his hand mixing with his blood. He stifled a cry as the hot wax seeped into his wound.

When his hand had become almost completely encased in the candle wax, looking like a white glove, he held it out over the compass. Three drops of wax fell onto it, and again were absorbed by the silver.

TOM: [in a lot of pain, barely able to speak] “Through this pain…through this pai… I channel my power. Let… let the sacrifice be accepted, and let this talisman…let this talisman… shine with the force… of my spirit.”

The compass seemed to glow bright white for a moment, though that may have been a trick of the light. Then, with the candle burned out completely, his hand still encased in the hardening wax, Tom began to brush aside the salt circle.

TOM: “Come! …Come you spirits of the beyond… Unseen servants of the mind’s eye… Take… take this offering and deliver this…this talisman to the one who needs it. This I command and thus… mote it be.”

There was a flash of bright light. It’s hard to explain. It was  every color and none at the same time. It was blinding and it filled out vision. The waves seemed to pound the surf and a great gust of wind rose, tearing at our clothes and hair. There was a horrible shrieking sound, like nails tearing through a chalkboard. Then a thunderclap that knocked all of us flat on our backs. 

[In Studio]

LUCAS: When we opened our eyes, the compass was gone. There was no indent on the ground where it had been, like it hadn’t been there at all. The trench we dug for the salt was gone, the sand was smooth. The white silk sheets and the knife were gone too.

MEGAN: At first all I could hear was that screaming. Or ripping. It was like a piece of paper being ripped slowly, but at a pitch so high I thought my ears were bleeding. I don’t know when I realized it was just the sound of the waves hitting the shore. I mean, it wasn’t that the whole time. It couldn’t have been. But as my ears returned to normal that’s what I heard. That and Tom.

Tom lay moaning on the sand, rocking back and forth slightly.

TOM: The pain. Oh, it was so bright. I think I cut down to the bone or whatever. I could see…I could see inside my hand. Then the candle. It was like I had dipped my whole hand in gasoline and lit it on fire. I don’t even remember the end of the ritual; I was in too much pain.

LUCAS: Tom was crying when we went to him. Little sobs that were almost silent, but he kept sucking in air through his teeth and sort of hissing in pain. It was getting louder and louder, like the pain was rising.

MEGAN: We didn’t know what to do, but we knew we needed to help. I started clawing at the candle wax on his hand. It had completely cooled and hardened, but I started ripping chunks off.

TOM: I don’t know what I was doing. I could feel the tears and the sand stuck to them. And my hand… my hand felt like some had cut it off. Like…like…

LUCAS: The wax came off in these great white globs. And…and I don’t know why but I noticed, none of the sand stuck to it. Not only his hand and not when it fell away onto the sand. Tom was almost screaming now and somehow we knew if we didn’t get that wax off of him something terrible was going to happen.

MEGAN: We just started tearing, all of us. Chris was sort of holding Tom down so he wouldn’t move, like kind of sitting on him. And we just kept pulling at that wax. It was so thick. I was afraid we were going to pull his hand off with it. Like it had melted along with the candle. Then I saw pink skin…

TOM: As soon as they pulled off the wax, as soon as my skin touched the air, it was like this cooling sensation. Like those commercials for gum or whatever when everything turns frosty when someone breathes. The more they got off the wax, the smaller and smaller the pain felt. Like it was going down a drain. And when they got it all off…

Tom’s hand was clean and a healthy pink beneath the candle wax. There was no trace of the blood that had stained it moments before. His hand was still clenched in a fist from holding the stub of the candle, which had seemingly melted away into the rest of the wax glove. After a moment, Tom opened his eyes, eyes clear of pain, and slowly opened his palm.

There was a faint white line running across his palm about the width of a pencil. The thick scar tissue looked old and was nearly flat with the skin. The wound, the cut Tom had carved into his own hand looked as if it had happened a decade ago.

TOM: It still hurts a little. Every now and then. When I make a fist or when I squeeze something too tight, but…it’s not bad. It…I don’t know how to explain it. It…healed itself. Magic.

Talbot’s talisman was gone, and we had to assume…or perhaps, hope, that it would find its way to Mark. We had to hope that it would help him. We had to hope it wasn’t too late. 

Two days later we received an email from an unknown phone number. When we opened it we found an audio recording. It was Mark. We’re going to play some of it for you now.

MARK: The name of the town is Confluence. It’s in Pennsylvania and I know that because when I look through those green eyes I can see the license plates on all the cars that whizzed by me… Y-yesterday, a man came to see me… He had placed a small silver compass in my hand. Its needle pointed just west of north to a fixed point, and whenever I moved it, it stayed true to that direction.

Somehow, somehow the talisman, the compass, found its way to Mark, delivered by Talbot’s unseen entities. And what’s more, he gave us his location. 

LUCAS: Confluence is in the south west corner of Pennsylvania. It’s small, located at the palace where several rivers flow together, and located just south of the massive Ohiopyle State Park. 

The audio was recent, seemingly recorded moments before it was sent to us. And it was the second time Mark had told us specifically where he was located. But that wasn’t all.

MARK: The compass led me here, and if I could I would give it to you. But I can’t, so you’ll have to follow my directions. I hope I got them right. There’s no time to go back and check.

If you get this. Chris. Lucas… Tom. I’ve chained myself to the tree. The iron is thick and the locks are new. I think it will hold me…for a few days at least. I…I threw away the key, as far as I could. Out of reach at least. 

I have the compass and I have my word… I need to say it soon or I never will. I don’t know how long I can last out here, but I will do my best to keep her trapped.

Find me. Please. Before it’s too late.

Mark had given us detailed directions to a tree somewhere in the woods of Ohiopyle State Park. He had seemingly chained himself to this tree in an attempt to keep him and the Mother Witch from moving, from escaping us. And he was waiting for us. We knew what we had to do.

TOM: Let’s go! C’mon, let’s go now!

LUCAS: Yeah. We have to.

CHRIS: Let’s do it.

We threw together some supplies from the office, equipment we thought we might need, and raced out.

MEGAN: It’s a four and half hour flight from Portland to the closest airport, Morgantown Municipal, in West Virginia. Then another hour drive to Confluence. I couldn’t get the guys a flight for several hours, so instead they decided to drive. It’s an eleven hour drive, but if they left right away they would make it well before the plane would have landed, plus renting a car, and all of that. Somehow the guys managed to shave an hour and half off the time. I don’t even want to know how.

TOM: We drove fast. Very fast.

We arrived at the Ohiopyle State Park just before sunset. We hadn’t stopped once. We kept our recorders on as we ventured into the park, first following the established trail where Mark must have gone in, then branching off it, into the untamed wilderness, hoping that the instructions Mark left us would lead us to him. 

We got lost once and for a moment thought we were in real trouble. We had run off blindly into the 19,000 acre state park, and if we weren’t careful, we would have a real chance of getting lost ourselves. Mark went to the woods to hide himself from others, putting his faith in the compass that had seemingly directed him here. His goal had been to contain the Mother Witch. Our goal - search and rescue - meant we needed to be smarter, more deliberate. We didn’t have a magic compass to guide us.

After about fifteen minutes of frantic searching and back tracking, in which we all felt a little bit of panic rising inside us, we made our way back to the last landmark he had left us in his recording, and this time moved off more slowly. 

When we knew we were getting close, we started calling for him.

[on location]

TOM: Mark?

LUCAS: Mark?

CHRIS: Mark?

TOM: Mark, where are you? If you can hear us yell.

LUCAS: Mark?

MARK: [faintly, weak] O–over here.

TOM: Mark! 

CHRIS: This way!

TOM: Mark?

MARK: Tom?

TOM: Mark! [shouting] Guys! I found him! It’s okay! He’s okay. He’s…

LUCAS: Mark!

MARK: Hey…guys…I knew… I knew you’d save me.

Mark had chained himself to a large oak tree. He used thick iron chains, wrapped around his chest, arms and legs, and several padlocks that looked new. He also had on a pair of handcuffs that had started digging into his wrists. He had been there for three days, as near as we could tell. He was weak; he had eaten anything since the morning he had come out to the woods. He had been in and out of consciousness nearly that entire time. About a day before, he had gained enough lucidity to record his final message and send it to us. We were just thankful he had enough reception for it to go through.

We found his phone, smashed and drained of battery not far from where he had chained himself to a tree. His backpack, a ripped and torn cheap thing he had gotten at some dollar store wasn’t far from where we found him. We tried searching, but couldn’t find the keys to the locks, which he said he threw away after locking himself up.

Mark had lost almost eighty pounds. His clothes were ripped and torn rags. He was dirty, feverish, and his hair had begun to fall out. He looked twice his age. No, he looked dead already. But clutched in his hand was the silver compass we had sent him. Somehow it had preserved him long enough for us to find him. 

He was on the brink of death. I don’t know how much longer he could have held out, with no food or water, exposed to the elements like that. Plus, the monstrous thing eating him from the inside out. If we hadn’t gotten there when we did.

TOM: But we did. We…I was too late that night at the Witch Tree, but we weren’t this time….Not this time.

We cut Mark from the tree using bolt cutters we had been smart enough to bring from home. Using some long sturdy branches and a couple of blankets, we rigged up a sort of stretcher, something we vaguely remembered how to do from our Scouting days as kids. And then together…all four of us… made our way out of the woods, for the first time in almost a year.

LUCAS: Dealing with someone who is possessed can be a very difficult thing. During typical demonic possession, the person under the influence of the spirit often exhibits traits and abilities they don’t normally possess. You’ve probably seen these in the movies - speaking in strange voices or in strange languages, moving in inhuman, impossible ways. Sometimes they possess superhuman strength, able to break free of shackles and bonds meant to keep them from fleeing. We expected these sorts of things from Mark, but we also knew we were dealing with something much stronger than any sort of demon. The Mother Witch was said to be more powerful than Satan, so we made sure we took extra precautions when transporting Mark back on our long journey home.

Once back to our car, we bound Mark with a silver chain, something we had picked up from a friend who trades in the supernatural. We looped several crosses and rosaries over his head, as well as the holy symbols from several other religions. We dabbed his forehead, hands and feet in holy water, and tied sprigs of lavender, mandrake, and yarrow to him. We bound each finger of his hand to a small willow branch using white silken string. We placed a minister’s Bible from the 1800s on his lap and one of us took turns passing a crystal over his face and reciting a cleansing and purifying mantra every hour. Mark never once fought us on these things, in fact, he insisted that after we cleaned the wounds on his wrists, that we handcuff him again, this time to the passenger door. Luckily we had found those keys in the bottom of his bag. He kept the silver compass around his neck, where he could easily reach it.

This may seem a little extravagant and not at all practical, but in our line of work these are the things you prepare for. While many people have a travel kit that contains emergency food, batteries, money, and a first aid kit, we have several that contain components for all kinds of rituals.

Lucas, Tom, and myself wore three different protective charms, two openly, and one hidden somewhere on our body in secret, and Lucas drew protective wards in henna on the back of our necks.

We stopped at the first church we could find and asked the reverend to bless our car. She was hesitant, but when she saw Mark and we explained what we were doing, she agreed. She also gave us several small vials of holy water, and even though she wasn’t Catholic, blessed several wafers for us to feed to Mark.

If you know where to look, you’ll find certain symbols along the road. These are for many different things and can give a person a lot of information if they know how to read them. Every time we came across one that indicated a white witch or warlock, we stopped and paid for cleansing, purifying, and healing rituals. 

But as you’ll hear, even that wasn’t enough.

We’re going to play for you a small snippet of audio from our drive home. The eleven hour ordeal, which stretched to thirteen with all of our stops for blessings, was fraught with these kinds of interactions.

For long stretches of the drive Mark would sit silently, his head leaning against the cool glass of the window. We would talk to him, and sometimes he would talk back. During these times, he was still Mark, our Mark. He would explain things about his journey, the things he could at least, and tell us stories. Once he even asked about a certain movie that had come out while he was gone, and whether it was as good as he had been hoping. 

Other times, he was silent. Not saying anything. He was sick, not with the kind of disease medicine can cure - though we did give him several - but with a disease of the soul, a festering, blood-sucking parasite that was consuming him entirely. He was a man with his hand on a dead man’s switch, barely keeping the world from exploding. His haunted eyes would often watch the miles sweep past us, but I’m not really sure he saw it. He was seeing something else, the dark future the voices inside his head promised, perhaps.

There were other times, however, when despite all of our wards and charms, in spite of all the spells and talismans, the Mother Witch was still able to come out. The chains and sigils kept us physically safe from her, at least for the time being, but we could not stop her from coming out and taunting us.

We’ll play one of those now, but be warned, it’s a little disturbing, and our more sensitive listeners may find it uncomfortable.

[on location]

TOM: It’s going to be alright, Mark. We’ll get you home. We’ll get this all figured out.

MARK: Home?

LUCAS: Yeah. We have some ideas we think might work. We’ve called in all our experts, cashed in quite a few favors.

CHRIS: It’s just good to have you back, Mark. We really missed you.

MARK: I missed you too.

WITCH’s MARK: You deplorable walking sacks of excrement! You think you have done anything to stop me? I will kill each and every one of you. I will start with your most distant kin, and remove their skin, once inch at a time. I will slaughter your families and eat their dripping hearts in front of you. I will wear their eyeballs around my neck. I will remove your guts with my bare hands, one gentle pull at a time, until you unravel around my fingers.

LUCAS: He’s doing it again.

TOM: Come back to us, Mark. Fight it buddy. Don’t let her win.

LUCAS: [starts reciting a mantra]: "By the light within and the strength of my will, I stand as a barrier against all that is dark. No shadow shall cross, no malice shall pass. I am the guardian of this sacred space. Begone, all evil, and leave only peace."

WITCH’S MARK: [speaking over Lucas] I will drink your precious minds. I will burn your very souls from your body and parade them around naked and afraid while I devour this world. You will kneel before me for a thousand years, groveling in the very filth I leave behind, until finally, only when I have extracted every last scrap and tittle of pain from you, will I allow you to fade into the black ether in my wake. I will - Argh!

TOM: Fight in, Mark. Fight it.

We returned home a little over twenty-four hours after we had left, exhausted and afraid. But we had Mark, and for the first time in a long time, we felt something else, hope.

We prepared a room for Mark in our offices, and created a schedule where one of us would always be with him. We increased the magical protections and called in several of our friendly witches and practitioners to see what they could do. They all offered spells and charms that would hold back the Mother Witch’s influence, if only temporarily. Each of them said the same thing - there was nothing we could do. The Mother Witch was simply too powerful. Eventually, she would win this battle.

We even called Talbot, hoping that he could offer us some help.

TALBOT: I am at a loss for how to proceed. It seems that the Mother Witch is simply too powerful, her energy is too tightly entwined with his essence. The hooks are too deep, and removing them by force may be disastrous. Their etheric bodies are fusing.

If it were only a matter of some astral bonding, it would be simple, but when etheric bodies are bound together, their actual life forces start to meld. Somewhat like the cordyceps fungus, if you've ever heard of- 

CHRIS: But what about the magic word? El-

TALBOT:  Stop. It mustn't be uttered. Since the word was bound to the talisman, it has become a trigger, one that should only be used by Mark at the appropriate time. It may be successful, but then again it may fail utterly. Whatever players are involved in this drama, they have their own designs that are far beyond my abilities as a seer. The future is clouded and uncertain. 

For now, we’re not sure what else to do. Mark is home and at least for the moment he’s safe. Or at least safer than he was.

[in studio]

LUCAS: He seems more himself these days. As long as we keep up the magical wards and renew the spells, he’s almost like the old Mark. He talks with us. He even jokes with us a little. But we all know. Even he knows. It’s just a matter of time[getting a little choked up]…before… 

MEGAN: It’s just so sad. He’s so small and scared. You can see it in his eyes. And it’s awful we have to lock him in the back room. There are times when he seems so normal. Like when we used to joke about stuff - movies and video games and stuff. He’ll be so normal. And then…he…no, she will say those awful things. She said something so foul about my mom and dad the other day… I just… I don’t know. It’s just tough.

TOM: He’s home. He’s with us. We’re going to find a way to beat this. Whether it’s the silver compass or something else. I’ll find those witches, the Five Covens. I’ll make them talk. I…[breaks down] I don’t know what to do. I thought if we found him…if we brought him back…then things would be okay. But…He can barely even walk under the weight of all those charms and crystals and whatever. It’s not right. It’s not fair! He doesn’t deserve this. 

We’re doing everything in our power to help Mark. But the Mother Witch’s infection is strong and deeply rooted. We’re together again, but for how long? And…what happens if the Mother Witch wins? How do you stop something so powerful it bends the laws of reality? How do you defeat an evil not from this world?

For now…

Stay safe out there, Maine.

MALEVOLENT MORSEL:

MARK: [hesitant] H-hello? Is this thing on? God, it’s been so long since I’ve been in this studio. I don’t even know if I remember how to…

A year. A year of my life taken by that thing. No, say it. Call her by her right name. She’s taken so much from you already.

The Mother Witch.

[sighs]

For so long I couldn’t say that. Couldn’t think that. She kept it from my mind. That night at the Witch tree, and the Ritual of Blood. She made me forget that so I wouldn’t try to stop her. 

Christ, she made me forget so much.

But now I’m here. I’m…[struggling to say the word] home.

I can’t believe they found me. I can’t believe I’m back. This whole thing has been… there’s not even a word for it. But they did it. We did it. We’re together.

We just have to find a way to stop this before… before…

Damn, keep it together, Mark. There’s so much to catch up on. This stuff with Katie and the King Beyond the Desert. The Hierophants. All of it. 

And I’m stuck in here. They won’t let me go out. I called…I called my parents. I had to make up some excuse. They wouldn’t understand. They don’t understand. I promised I’d see them soon, but for now I needed to stay away. They were angry. At me. At the guys. But it’s for the best. I know that.

They’re keeping me locked up, and I know it’s for my own good. No, that’s not fair. We’re keeping me locked up. We have to. If I get out and the… Mother Witch takes over…

There’s got to be something I can do!

I have the compass, at least. And the word. The special word. Talbot calls it a power word. He won’t tell me what it will do. Or if it will even do anything. But he told me I would need to use it. That I’d know when to use. How the hell am I supposed to know?

LITTLE MARK VOICE: Hold on. The time is coming.

MARK: For now I’ll just keep doing what I can. I need to stay calm. To learn what I can. There’s got to be a way to get rid of her. There just has to be…

Malevolent Maine is Lucas Knight, Tom Wilson, and Chris Estes.

If you’d like to read more about our investigations check out our website at malevolentmaine.com

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Thank you for listening to Malevolent Maine. 

And as always, stay safe out there, Maine.