Sonnet herself had come to me and complained that there was a heaviness in the room around me, that she was getting headaches just as I was, and that it felt like someone was sitting on her head. We all knew that feeling.

We’d dealt with it last summer during the big exorcism of August. A few nights ago, Sonnet had complained of feeling many, many people crowded into the room around her and around us. She was quite sensitive to it and asked if we could do some kind of banishing or cleansing to get rid of them.

I had been in the middle of a major project for the office, plus a book deadline that very evening, so I’d asked if she minded if we waited until the weekend because I needed time to find some white sage if we planned to smudge every room. She’d shrugged, not liking the answer, but understanding that I had deadlines and that the mundane was interfering.

Sonnet had tried to let me know how urgently she felt the need for the cleansing of our home, yet I had put her off. I shouldn’t have. I just simply had so many things I had to get done. I didn’t know how I’d get them all done and meet my deadlines without getting into legal trouble for postponing my projects in favor of a smudging.

And then the third thing happened within three days—and that’s always a sure sign that something is trying to get my attention. Two days ago, I’d realized that the oil in my car needed to be changed so I’d stopped by the quickie oil change place—I never can remember the name of it but it’s next door to my favorite fast food chicken restaurant. While sitting with fried chicken fingers and sweet tea in a hard orange-painted booth, I flipped through a local newspaper and glanced over classified ads and its many sermons by local pastors, mostly Baptist.

To my amazement, the newspaper carried an ad for local Christian psychic, Ava, as well as an article she had written on how to cleanse your house. I could hardly believe what I was reading. It wasn’t the usual fare for any newspapers here in the Bible Belt, but as I read through the article, I realized it was a cleansing technique that I knew and hadn’t used in a couple years in my own home and that, by Gods, it was time to try it again.

“Okay, yes, got it,” I said as I threw away the paper. Time for a cleansing.

All it took was a quick trip to the grocery store to buy a couple of packs of Epson salts and several plastic bottles of rubbing alcohol. I had bought aluminum pie plates, too, because I didn’t have quite enough left over in my own pantry. Then I came home and announced my plans to Rhiannon and Sonnet.

Both girls are curious and excited. They don’t remember the last I did something similar in the house.

They do remember what we did for Hurricane Ivan, Hurricane Dennis, and then Hurricane Katrina, where we warded the windows and the entire property. They remember, too, the warding ritual I did at their grandmother’s house. They were both quite impressed that when a tornado hit six months later, it skirted the perimeter of my parents’ farm, its path matching the crisscrosses of the fence before it zigzagged entirely around the farm and took out 42 houses on their road, right down to the foundation.

With hurricanes and other threats, the girls have waved Nag Champa incense around all the rooms or burned cedar oil, but they’ve never played with open flame the way we’re going to tonight.

The first thing I do is have the girls clear out wide spaces in their not-so-neat rooms. We don’t want to catch curtains or bed linens or dirty clothes on fire. Sonnet’s room is mostly clean, since she spent the weekend straightening up, and she easily arranges a spot on the floor about three feet by three feet in measure.

Rhiannon on the other hand…well, I can’t even see her carpet. I haven’t been able to for months, but I’m a lot less stressed since I decided years ago not to clean up after her or for her. She has an altar in her room atop an old dresser that we found at Goodwill. It’s decorated mostly with Buddhas, crystals, and the occasional unicorn.

It’s a very special and very powerful altar. She often burns Nag Champa and, with some supervision, does a few candles spells there. She clears the space on the altar, removing absolutely everything with the exception of four special crystals that she sets up in a circle.

Like the girls, I create some mundane space that will become sacred space in each of the rooms—my bedroom, bathroom, the guest room, family room, living room, kitchen, office. It’s a big house, and there’s plenty of room for astral nasties to hide.

“Are we doing it in every room?” Rhiannon asks. “It’s going to take a long time.” She’s worried about getting her homework finished.

“Are we going to light the purifiers all at one time?” Sonnet quizzes.

“No, Sweetie. We are doing one at a time. Possibly two if we can keep an eye on two rooms at once. It will take longer that way, but it’s safer. Plus, I want to watch and see what happens as we burn each one.”

I start by preparing the pans, one for each room of the house, plus the garage and the front porch. I lay out the pans on the floor and pour Epson salt about an inch deep into each one, which is roughly about two cups of salt per pan. I’ll add the alcohol later, just before I fire up each one.

I’ve used this same process several times to create sacred space at rituals and gatherings. Almost always, I’ve poured in the alcohol, used a very long-stemmed match or long lighter to keep setting myself on fire, sparked off a low-glowing blue flame, and watched it burn for a few minutes.

Since that’s always been outdoors in the woods of a State Park or on stone or concrete, it’s probably best if, before I try it indoors and risk setting my house on fire, I start with one pyre in the driveway closest to the front doorstep. It’s the place I’ve cleansed a number of times before and continue to cleanse periodically, especially since my ex comes to this door. The black salt I put there seems to work because he has only come in once in all the time it’s been there and only then under dire circumstances.

The last time I did any type of ritual to burn away negativity was for Jesse when I did the protection spell for him that he requested. It ended with me fleeing from the kitchen to the driveway with the small brass cauldron