All four of us rushed toward His Majesty’s room where we had thought we would find him awake and singing as he had at Windsor. Instead, we found the King face down on the ground, arms bent in a strange contortion, but he appeared to be asleep. How he had escaped his restraints was a mystery I could not immediately resolve, nor was it one I cared about with a banshee haunting the palace.

“John, Robert, get him back into his chair,” I commanded. “Thomas, get the guards.”

All three of them did as I asked. While I waited for the guards to arrive, I tried to determine who the banshee had come for. I feared it was me as I had seemed to be the only one who had heard the loudest incantation of its warning. Of course, in his fragile state, it could have been His Majesty. That death would visit him was not unthinkable.

The guards arrived quickly, a squad of ten. Their polished black boots clacked against the stone floor, waking the King after he was seated in his restraining chair. They formed a perimeter around the room, holding their muskets at attention. Greville stumbled into the room, donning his evening wear.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Greville barked. “Is there an intruder?”

“Banshee,” Robert muttered.

“A what?” Greville replied.

“A harbinger of death,” Robert eerily intoned.

Doctor Warren appeared from the opposite doorway, gently applying his wig. The dim candlelight produced a most unfortunate visage on his puffy, craggy face.

“What nonsense is this now?” he yawned. “I heard all of this clattering about from the second floor. This had better be—”

“Please be quiet, Doctor Warren,” I groaned.

He stood near me as we all glanced around at the windows and the hearth in the room. Just when I was about to take a breath, the candle flames leapt upward, forming long skeletal fingers as they had in Windsor. Two of the guards gasped and recoiled while the others grasped their weapons.

“Stand closer, all of you,” I ordered in a loud whisper.

Warren and my sons did so, forming a circle around the King. A quiet moment passed again, with only the sounds of our breathing being evident.

“YN DDWFN YN Y PALAS, YN FARW AC YN AFLONYDD, YN FARW AC YN CRIO, YN FARW AC YN SGRECHIAN, YN FARW AC AR EI BEN EI HUN!” His Majesty screamed.

All of us leapt off our feet. We turned and saw the King writhing again in his restraints, his jaw unhinged and his eyes flickering about randomly. The song became deafening. I soon could not hear anything other than the twisted melody His Majesty sang. As the incessant and swelling music filled the room, the candles all dimmed until none of us could see one another beyond the faintest of outlines.

Down from the floor emerged a translucent blue ethereal child, glowing like moonlight. An abyssal giggle came from this ghostly visitor as he began to prance around the floor. At that moment, the banshee’s warning again slithered down the chimney, melding with His Majesty’s mournful song. My boys were not as experienced as I in confronting such phenomena and Doctor Warren certainly had never encountered such an event.

“All of you, all of us, join hands. Prayer is our only answer now,” I said. There was hesitation, but then the boy’s ghost began crying in such powerful sobs that the windows rattled. “Now!”

Warren grasped my hand as did John. The other two formed up a chain with Warren. At that same moment, one of the guards looked down at the ghostly boy in curiosity.

“All of you, join us in prayer now!” I tried commanding, but the King’s singing and the banshee’s wailing overwhelmed my attempt.

“Our Father, which art in Heaven,” I began and the others soon repeated after me.

The child’s lamentations descended into a pitch I had never heard from man or beast before. The soldier who had been attempting to examine the boy’s spirit suddenly screamed and burst into tears. He laughed manically and then cried despondently. The boy’s spirit threw up his hands in rapturous joy as he bounded over to another soldier. The first soldier who had fallen victim to the child’s machinations unattached his bayonet. Without a moment’s hesitation, he thrust it through his own head. The blade broke out through the back of his skull with a sickening crack.

“Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.”

I tried closing my eyes. Pernicious curiosity had me at a disadvantage and I felt compelled to observe that wretched spectacle, especially as the boy’s cries swelled to fill the whole room and even the whole palace. They reverberated as though they came from the bottom of a deep well. Outside the windows I again saw the milky white banshee gliding past the palace. I never saw her look at me or anyone else. Indeed, her head was turned skywards along with her spindly skeletal arms and twisted hands.

“Heno yw eich nossssonnnnnn,” a voice again come down through the hearth.

“Give us this day our daily bread,” we continued our prayer, even amidst the chaos.

A third soldier began screaming as the boy’s ghost pranced around him, disjointedly wailing in lamentations of otherworldly anguish even as he outwardly appeared to be joyous. The second and third soldiers embraced in their misery. Then they separated, nodded at one another and pointed their muskets toward their counterpart’s chest. On a swift count to three, they each pulled the trigger. Deafening blasts, flame, and smoke. The two men fell dead.

I felt Warren’s hand go cold and shake. He almost broke concentration on the Lord’s Prayer, but I admonished him to continue by harshly tugging at his hand. It was vital that we all continue, no matter the distraction. My boys knew well that it was the only chance we had against that primal evil of the banshee and her malevolent magic. Warren appeared clever enough to understand that much without having to be told.

Four of the soldiers joined hands in our circle and continued with the Lord’s Prayer. The other three took to trying to shoot or impale the boy’s spirit. Two bullets passed through harmlessly and the bayonets had no more success. I know not what the men thought they were trying to achieve.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The boy’s ghost floated up to one of the men’s faces. A horrible cry sounded out from the boy as his mouth drooped open unnaturally wide. Screeches and howls not of this earth came forth. The soldier thrust fingers into his ears deeply, so far that he drove them past his eardrums. He then ripped off his own ears and scratched at his face in agony. The remaining two guards, screaming in terror, ran out the doors to the outside, leaving their muskets behind.

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” we concluded.

The instant the prayer was completed, the boy’s ghost vanished, the banshee’s deathly warning ceased, and the King was at rest again. Warren looked at me with the most astonished countenance I have ever seen on an adult man.

“H… How did—” he stammered.

“Our forefathers purged most of these lands before, all with the power of God,” I wearily interjected. “Any clergyman knows that, Doctor Warren.”

When I looked out the window, I noticed a strange lingering red blur, not so much a mist as it appeared like a translucent garment. By the time I adjusted my glasses, it had passed.