LEWISTON – It was dark and quiet in the basement of Marguerite Roy’s home. A video camera buzzed softly. There was a faint whine from a small device used to detect invisible, electromagnetic forces.

“OK. An orb just moved in front of you and over into the corner,” said Bill Washell, in a low, controlled voice. “OK. There’s one moving right toward us now. They seem to be coming from that corner of the room.”

Washell explained that small orbs seen through a camera viewfinder may be the energy of unseen spirits.

Then there was a commotion from upstairs. Feet were pounding across the floor. Muffled voices, sounding frightened and alarmed.

Marguerite Roy was falling into a trance.

Reclining in a plush easy chair in her living room, the 73-year-old woman’s head rolled back on her neck. Her eyes rolled beneath closed lids. Her lips moved silently.

“Say your prayers, Marguerite. Say your prayers and hang on to that rosary.”

It was Nancy Caswell, kneeling next to the troubled woman. She clutched Marguerite’s wrists. She shouted for someone to get some holy water and a crucifix.

“Hang on, Marguerite. Hang on, girl.”

They began to pray. “Hail Mary, full of grace. The lord is with thee …”

In time, Marguerite began to mouth the words. She began to chant along with others who were praying and trying to bring her back.

Having run from downstairs, Washell snapped a picture of Marguerite with his digital camera. When he looked at the photo through the display screen, there was an orb above the woman’s head.

“Wow,” he whispered. “It’s very clear, very pronounced.”

Her husband watched warily from a nearby chair and prayed aloud. Her son and his girlfriend, Lisa, prayed from a couch across the room.

They had hoped it wouldn’t come to this tonight.

Haunted home?

Caswell and Washell are the leading members of the Lewiston-based Maine Paranormal Research Association. They were at the Roys’ home at Tall Pines apartments for the second time, trying to pin down the cause of what plagued Marguerite.

Earlier in the night, she and her husband, Joseph Leo Roy, explained that the haunting had become worse. For most of the 12 years they had lived here, it was just a nuisance. Marguerite heard things in the night. Items were dropped or thrown around.

Lately, Marguerite said, it seemed as though a spirit in the house were trying to hurt her.

“One time, I got up in the night to go to the bathroom. I was sitting on the edge of the bed when I was pushed. I was pushed so hard, I fell and hit my head on the foot of the bed,” Marguerite said. “My husband didn’t wake up. There was nobody else there.”

She says she has seen red, glowing eyes in the darkness of an empty room. She has felt something unseen climb into the bathtub with her. Noises and strange feelings wake her at night.

Her family does not doubt that Marguerite Roy is the victim of a haunting.

“I’ve never seen anything like this my whole life,” said 79-year-old Joseph Leo. “Something is happening to her and I take it seriously.”

“I’ve seen things fly out of her hands,” said Clifford Roy, Marguerite’s 37-year-old son.

When Marguerite began speaking in a language nobody could recognize on an earlier occasion, they called a priest from a local church.

“He was making me pray,” Marguerite said. “He was making me say ‘Hail Mary’ and I didn’t want to.”

According to the Roys, a young man who once lived in this apartment was a devil worshipper. He and other Satanists had been known to gather in the basement for black mass. But nobody seems to know exactly what took place down there.

In a trance

On this night less than a week before Christmas, the team quickly began searching for the epicenter of the disturbances. Caswell and Washell set up a video camera, a digital thermometer, an audio recorder and an electromagnetic field detector in the basement.

Washell watched a dark corner through the video viewfinder. The electromagnetic sensor whined like a faraway dentist drill. The recorder ticked away the seconds, capturing all sound in the basement.

“I’m looking for any spirit voices,” Washell said. “Maybe they will let us know what’s going on.”

It was minutes later that the most frightful part of the evening began – when Marguerite slipped into a troubled fog upstairs. It continued for nearly an hour.

“Come on, Marguerite. Keep it away. Keep it away from you,” said Caswell, as she continued to rub holy water onto the woman’s forehead.

Marguerite clutched the rosary. She prayed over and over as others led her. But she was losing focus. She began to mumble and speak in a garbled voice. Her lips curled in a snarl.

“Be our defense against wickedness and snares of the devil,” Caswell and the others chanted.

Then Marguerite’s eyes flew open. She began to shriek.

“Michael! Michael! Help me, Michael!”

A look of fright crossed her features. Her eyes were wide open again.

“No! Get away! Get out of here! Get away from him!”

Praying continued. More holy water was dipped out of a coffee mug and rolled onto Marguerite’s head. She was breathing heavily and panting.

“Take what’s in this house, Michael,” she said in a sob. “Destroy everything that has come in here.”

Michael was the name of Marguerite’s son, who was shot in 1991 and who died a few years later. No one in the room mentioned those facts.

Marguerite began to calm. The intensity evaporated like a mist. Her husband rubbed her shoulders while others began to breathe more normally.

The Maine Paranormal Research group vowed to be back within days. Others wished Marguerite well. Her family remained with her.

“I’m so tired,” she said. “I’m so tired and afraid. I’m afraid I won’t be able to fight it anymore.”

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