Episode Recap: The Real Conjuring

As the Perron family pulled up to the house, Carolyn was already in love with it. Her husband, Roger, wasn't happy that she'd gone ahead and put down a $500 deposit on the house, as that was a lot more money in 1970 than it is today. However, he ended up agreeing that she had done the right thing.

As the eldest daughter, Andrea ended up with a lot of responsibility. Her sisters, Nancy, April, Cindy, and Christine, scattered to the four winds to explore the new house and the land that surrounded it.

One day, the five sisters were working in a bedroom when Cindy came up with the idea to play hide and seek. When her sisters began counting, Cindy ran off to find the best hiding place she could in the maze-like house. As she looked, the door to the cellar just opened on its own. Sure that she'd end up finding an awesome hiding spot therein, Cindy grabbed a flashlight and went downstairs. She looked around, and found an old wooden box that didn't have any kind of latch on it. She lifted the lid and ducked inside to hide.

As her sisters hunted high and low, the box lid fell closed on Cindy. She pushed with all her might, but the lid wouldn't open. Frightened, she tried to scream for help. She could feel the air running out of the old box. Something was holding her in that box, and she was sure she was going to die in there. When her sisters finally found her, Cindy was ghost white and terrified.

Christine always hated that the family didn't have curtains or blinds on the windows and was always wary of whatever might have been outside. One night, as she was washing dishes, the sound of the cellar door opening on its own got her attention. A strange, cold draft began to ebb around her ankles. When she looked at the window again, she saw a terrifyingly gruesome reflection of something behind her. Whirling around, she saw nothing there.

One afternoon while Andrea was upstairs in her room doing her homework, she heard a baby crying. Andrea was the only one home, and there were certainly no babies in the house. She tried to follow the sound and ended up on the first floor. The infant screamed ... and then just fell silent. Andrea suddenly heard the creaking of the cellar door, and her breath became visible in the rapidly chilling air. Within moments, the cellar door slammed shut, again on its own.

When her father came home, Andrea told him about it and he went to check the cellar. The latch on the door wasn't broken, and he wasn't sure what to think. As he was downstairs, he felt a hand stroking his back. He thought for a few moments that it was Carolyn, but when he turned around, there was nobody else in the cellar with him. He went back upstairs, closed the cellar door and nailed a board over it to keep it closed.

One night, Andrea had a nightmare. She was standing in her parents' room, watching helplessly as a strange woman with sticks for hands tormented her mother. Andrea could see her father just lying there with scratches as though a wild animal had attacked him. The strange woman turned her head toward Andrea, and she knew that the woman saw her. Andrea was paralyzed by the strange woman's gaze.

When she snapped awake, Andrea thought the woman was gone. She went downstairs and saw her mother sitting at the kitchen table frantically sketching something. When Andrea saw what Carolyn was drawing, she was stunned: it was the same woman from her nightmare. Andrea was devastated when Carolyn told her that yes, what she'd seen in her nightmare had actually happened. They were both stunned when they saw the same scratches on Roger's back that Andrea had seen in the nightmare. Roger was scared, but still believed there had to be a rational explanation. He was not ready to believe that the kids were in any danger.

On another night, the girls decided to have a sleepover in Andrea's room. Cindy woke up in the middle of the night as the room grew icy cold. She looked up and saw something hovering over Andrea's bed. As Cindy blinked to try to figure out what she was seeing, the creature grabbed her and dragged her out of the room to the staircase. Cindy instinctively grabbed the railing, sure that her time had come. She could tell her attacker was an old woman and knew she was going to be dragged to the cellar. Just when Cindy thought she couldn't hold on any longer, the terror stopped.

On another evening, Carolyn was awakened by the smell of smoke. Two very tall men entered her bedroom, followed by a woman. All three were holding what Carolyn thought were torches. The mystery woman began to bang her torch on the floor and chanted what Carolyn was sure was an incantation. The chanting ended with the woman's torch coming down hard on Carolyn's leg. She threw back the covers to look, and when she looked back up, the dark trio was gone. Roger woke up and saw Carolyn was terrified. She told him to look at her leg, and when he saw blood from the stabbing, they knew it was the beginning of the real damage to come ...

Carolyn began to prematurely age, and Christine was disturbed by her mother's condition deteriorating before her eyes. Carolyn was sure that something was feeding off of her, and knew she had to find out what had happened in the house. She managed to find some of the early records of the house, a building filled with tragedy. Carolyn thought the house might have been cursed.

When she read of a woman named Bathsheba Sherman, Carolyn immediately thought she was on to the source. Sherman had been in charge of children on the farm decades before, and during that time, an infant had died. There had been rumors in the area that Sherman had made a deal with the Devil, and the infant had been a sacrifice to ensure Sherman's eternal youth and beauty. According to the medical report, the infant had died of a needle to the base of the skull. Carolyn immediately began to wonder if it had been Sherman who had stabbed her in the leg with what had felt like a big needle, and wondered if Sherman had cursed the property. Could that curse and impalement have been the cause of Carolyn's deteriorating condition?

One night, renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren showed up at the Perron family's door. They had heard about the troubles that the family was having and had come to help. Skeptical, Carolyn was desperate for the help. Lorraine went from room to room, taking in the energies she felt. All was quiet, until Lorraine began to tremble. She told the Perrons that she could sense a 'malignant presence' in the house, and said the name was Bathsheba. While Ed took the girls into another room, Lorraine told Carolyn that they had the Devil living in the house. The Warrens wanted to perform a séance. Roger was against it, but they went ahead.

During the séance, the children were sent upstairs but managed to sneak down and watched through a crack in the door. The chaos began no more than two minutes into the séance. The entire house trembled. The table they were using for the séance lifted off the floor and dropped back down with a solid thud. Andrea watched her mother collapse into herself in agonizing pain. Roger watched his wife contort into a pretzel, convinced Carolyn was possessed. While they watched, Carolyn's chair shot backward and her head hit the floor hard. Andrea was sure she'd just watcher her mother die.

Roger rushed to his wife's side, screaming that Ed and Lorraine had killed her. He kicked the investigators out of the house, terrified and fed up. He shook Carolyn's unconscious body, yelling that she couldn't leave them. Cindy begged for her mother to come back to them. Carolyn slowly regained consciousness, sure her children had been what had brought her back.

In a desperate bid to protect his family, Roger sold the house. Carolyn could not have been happier.