A few minutes later, everyone was already at the grandmother’s room. We were a tad too many people for a room of that size, but it would suffice.
As I entered and carefully stood right next to the grandma’s bed, the father asked me the question that everyone must have had in their minds at that moment.
“And… what are we supposed to do here, exactly?”
His voice was a whisper, just loud enough for me to hear it clearly in the otherwise completely silent room.
I was pretty sure that, deep within them, they knew what that ‘truth’ I was about to show them was. Their nervousness spoke volumes.
“I’m going to tell you how to exorcise the being that haunts all of you. As I am sure your daughter has already told you, it’s a being I have decided to call the blind butterfly.”
My reply was spoken in a similarly quiet tone, if mostly for the sake of respect. I continued.
“You will be freed from the curse you all possess right now, but for that I will have to – and I won’t sugarcoat my words here – slap each of you once.”
“…”
They were all speechless, as was natural. I would actually have been worried if they agreed to it just like that.
“I assure you it is necessary. But please don’t worry, I obviously have no intention of hurting any of you. It’s a formality, if anything, but one that cannot be skipped.”
“… Okay, so be it.”
He then reluctantly agreed to my terms, and with the rest remaining silent, I interpreted that as everyone being fine with me proceeding.
I got closer to them, and commanded them to close their eyes and follow my orders without fail.
“Now I will slap all of you. After I finish, I will tell you that you can open your eyes. Until then please do not open them under any circumstance.”
I proceeded.
One after another, I slapped them all, as gently as possible.
And once I finished, I spoke again, this time at a normal volume.
“Now, please, open your eyes.”
And there they saw the bed, empty, as they stared in shock and realized the “truth”.
……
“Thank you so much for your help, really. What you have done for us and how thankful we are is not something we can simply express with words.” Claudia spoke to me with tears in her eyes.
“It’s nothing. I literally did nothing, as you surely know. So no need to thank me.”
“Still. I know, but still…”
She came close.
…
She couldn’t do it.
I didn’t expect her to.
But it was still somewhat painful.
She waved at me as I left, tears on her face and a smile on her lips.
“Goodbye, and see you tomorrow at school.”