Ben thought for a minute, “Yeah, actually, right after the drowning in reservoir, when we were back here, a woman materialized near Marie and was taunting me. She matched that description.”
Marie felt a shiver run down her spine. She wondered about the person she saw at the bottom of the reservoir. Could that have been Hester even then? She realized this person was definitely persistent.
“She said I was legendary among the Shadows. Why would she say that? What would make me any different,” Marie asked.
“Well,” said Henry, “In my work, I usually track souls like Hester. They are an interesting breed. They usually have an ax to grind and they are attracted to something they want.”
“Okay. So what do I have that she wants?”
“I can think of one thing,” said Tom, “For as long as I can remember, you have had an incredible ability to shake off suggestions by the shadows. You’re like Teflon to them. It has made it incredibly easy to be your Protector. Usually I just keep you from falling out of 3rd story windows when you hang out of them. You’re more a danger to yourself than they are to you. Most souls that end up being Shadows in the ‘other’ world seem to be bad luck magnets. Besides being accident prone, they are very easily led around by the Shadows around them.
If Hester sees that you have some ability for ‘good luck”, never putting two and two together that avoiding suggestions by the Shadows may be what helps you, she may very well be curious.”
“Curious, I could understand, but she seems bent on getting Marie. It doesn’t add up,” said Henry as he pondered this thought. “Could it be that Marie has more than crazy skills for deflecting dark suggestion? Maybe there really is something about her, something we have taken for granted. A special gift?”
Marie listened to their conversation with half-hearted ears. She was more concerned with Allen. She drifted toward him at the table. He was picking at French fries. He’d had two bites of the club sandwich. She sat down in the chair next to him at the table. She watched him sigh and pick at his food. What is he thinking? He was staring at the food in its white Styrofoam take-out box. A deep sadness permeated from him.
Marie moved and sat in his chair, actually sharing the same space, the two of them as close as she could get. She couldn’t feel him at all, but she could feel the sadness. She wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes hoping he could feel the hug, the love. He put his head in his hands and started to cry quietly.
“Oh, Marie. I miss you so much,” he sobbed gently.
Marie slipped down onto the floor next to him and wished so much she could touch him. She tried to put her arm around him but it slide through the nothingness of her world.
“Allen. I’m with you. I’ll figure this out. I love you. Don’t give up. Please don’t give up. I need you.” She closed her eyes and cried, too. Then she wondered, the same energy she used to repel the Shadows might get through to him.
She stood up and closed her eyes. She balled up her fists at her sides. She concentrated on Allen and how much she missed him. She thought of them laughing and walking hand in hand down a trail. His eyes were filled with joy when he looked at her. She thought about how much she had to get back to her world, her place with him, and then she held her arms toward Allen and threw all that love at him. With the will of her soul, she threw every part of herself at him, hoping he would feel it.
He sighed and then got up and went to the bedroom. It seemed to make no difference. She followed him and watched him shake off his shorts, get under the covers and close his eyes. There was no epiphany, no sudden change, not really anything. The chasm between them was too great and the evil working on him was too strong. Her love alone would not save him.
She watched him fall asleep and then turned to go back into the living room. She crashed into Hester whose expression was anything but sympathy. Marie took a step backwards, surprised to meet a solid object. Hester looked different than before at the Shadow’s Lair. A glowing red aura surrounded her. Not only her, but it seemed to now engulf the entire room. Marie screamed for Tom but her voice seemed like she was screaming into a vacuum of space. It was like the dorm bedroom was now somewhere else. Horrified, Marie looked quickly at Allen who lay sleeping obliviously on the bed and then back at Hester.
“You’re a tough one to track down, running off with those creeps all the time. I figured eventually you’d remember poor old Allen,” she said with a mocking tone.
“What do you WANT?” Marie finally found her voice. “Leave us alone!”
“Oh no, pretty girl. Leaving you alone is the last thing I want. And this time you’re coming with me or he is. He would be a smaller consolation prize, but there is some satisfaction in that still. Yes, there is an amount of reciprocity in that.” Hester trailed off weighing this in her mind.
“What? What are you talking about?” vented Marie as she stepped between Allen and Hester.
Hester laughed. “Oh, you all are such a dull bunch. So amazingly self-absorbed, just like you have been for over 200 years. How would you like to throw your whole life away, strangle your own newborns, lose your youth and any dreams of a nice life away? That’s what I did for that idiot Thomas Helm. I loved him. I loved him from the moment I saw him, but he didn’t care. So I waited and waited. I was tied to his dullard brother Leonard who never cared about me. Time after time my belly grew from that hideous man’s seed. But I would never let his offspring have the breath of life. No, my firstborn would be Tom’s. Tom’s firstborn would be my child. I saved that for him if I couldn’t save my maidenhood. No, that was long gone thanks to the vile human that bought me as an indentured servant. I was just a little girl.”
Her voice sounded far away and she smiled a silly giddy smile. “Daddy! Daddy! I’m here! Yes, mommy! Daddy is our hero. He’ll make life all better in the New World.” She paused and her face contorted to its natural evil self.
“But then they were gone. Buried in the sea. The illness took half the ship. I don’t know why I survived. I wish I had died with them. A miller took me as an indentured servant and I served that family for 12 years. His wife hated me. Their brats thought they were better than me. And, the miller used me.”
“But then I met Tom. Beautiful, sweet Tom. He was perfect. So smart and strong. I knew he would restore me to love. He would love me.” At that moment Marie wondered if anyone could have loved Hester. Her red hair had a mind of its own. Her face was freckled and pocked. Her dark green eyes looked more threatening than anything. She was missing several teeth. No doubt the miller had never got her dental care of even bothered to make her brush her teeth as a child. Marie wondered if they even had toothbrushes 200 years ago, but surely someone had thought of something that would work.
Hester’s eyes focused on Marie, “But then that damn Jenny came along and ruined everything. She gave Tom his firstborn. There was nothing I could do short of killing her while her belly swelled. But that wouldn’t have worked. Not that I didn’t try to think of some way.
So I told her to watch her babies close. I knew that if I ever had the chance, I’d snatch them right to hell. She and Tom would pay! They would pay and pay until the debt was settled. I managed to get most of them. One at the time. Some sooner and some later. I sent them on to their maker. I watched Jenny and Tom cry for them. Stupid fools! My babies would have lived. Tom would have never had any reason to cry if he’d loved me. He should hate Jenny for what she caused. She is the reason he suffered.”
Marie was reeling from all this. This woman is crazy! She watched Hester speak as though all this was normal and reasonable. It dawned on Marie that, as Tom and Jenny’s descendant, Hester would gleefully kill her and leave her for Tom to find. She would also hurt Allen and delight in Marie’s pain. Clearly the debt had not been paid in full yet.
“So Hester, why don’t you just talk to Tom about how you feel? Have you ever sat down and just talked to him about all this?” Marie said as she skirted along the wall toward the door.
Marie was almost to the door. “But maybe he actually had feelings for you, too. Maybe he just didn’t know how to tell you.” Marie continued to distract Hester.
Hester started to answer and then in an instant was inches from Marie’s face. “Silly girl. You may have got loose once before, but I won’t make that mistake again. Go ahead, try the door. Scream! Yell! Beat on the walls! They won’t hear you. I’ve spent 200 years in the after-life and I haven’t been twiddling my thumbs. Nothing can get in or out of here until I release it.”
Hester had created a force field with her hate that had them caged. “So now I’ll ask you again. Are you coming with me or will dear Allen be my new pet? Of course, he won’t likely survive like you did. It’ll be a one-way ticket for him.”
“So… it’s not a one-way ticket for me?” Marie probed.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I suppose anything is possible, but one thing is for sure, it was my power that pulled you into this world, you’ll need my power to get you out. All you have to do is one little thing for me.”
Marie pondered this. It was Hester that pulled her into the “other world.” It had to be some incredible amount of power to do that. No one knew why she survived. Other souls that were taken by the Dark Shadows just died and went on. But one thing was niggling Marie’s mind: was it really only Hester that could send her back? One thing was for certain, she could not risk Allen’s life. For whatever reason, Marie knew Hester was right, Allen would likely die if Hester wanted to take him.
“Ok, what is this ‘one thing’?” Marie asked confidently.
Hester smiled. Her gummy, toothy grin made Marie wince. “Nope. You have to come with me first. Then I’ll tell you.”
With no choice left, Marie said, “Alright. Let’s go. But you’ll help me get back to the living then, right?” Marie knew in the back of her head that making deals with crazy people never worked out but it was worth a try. She could only hope that Lorenzo had more power than Hester. He had saved her before. Surely he could save her this time.
“Oh, sure, honey.” Hester had a distant look on her face that gave Marie no confidence that she would ever be seen again.
In a flash, they disappeared. The room went to normal. Allen stirred and woke up dazed. Tom, Jacob, and Henry sprang into the room. It was too late, however. Marie had made a deal with the devil.
CHAPTER 18 – A LITTLE PIECE OF HELL
Hester knew from the last time that Marie would not easily do her bidding. She couldn’t make a mistake this time and give Marie a chance to get loose.
In a flash, they appeared in small space that resembled the bottom of a well. Marie blinked and looked around trying to get her bearings. Hester vanished and darkness surrounded Marie. Not darkness as in the absence of light, but darkness because Marie was surrounded by Hester’s shadow. Like a vaporless cloud, the shadow covered Marie. If Marie had had a body, the shadow would have even gone into her lungs as she breathed.
Hate, fear, anger, and sadness pressed in on Marie. All of the emotions of 200 years which Hester had lived with poured over Marie. This was another level completely from the torture of the dark Shadows before. This was an inflicted depression. Hester had deposited Marie in a sort of hell to which no one could be immune. Marie tried to block the feelings out, but it was like holding back plastic sheeting from your face under water. It was too much.
Marie tried to scream but there was no sound. She tried to struggle but there was nowhere to go. She couldn’t block the emotions from her mind. She had the slightest feelings of giving up, being overwhelmed. Hester then laid in a new torture: she began to remind Marie of every slight and hurtful thing Marie had lived through. Hester had been skirting around Marie for years, despite Tom’s effort to keep Shadows away. Hester had been watching and waiting for the right time. She had been enjoying all the little prickly moments in Marie’s life. There were kids in grade school that said she was weird. There was a boy in middle school that made fun of her acne. There was a time when all her friends were fighting and didn’t talk to each other, but said things behind each other’s backs. There was the young man she was going to marry and it ended in a hateful argument. There were the times Marie felt alone and ugly and unloved. In Marie’s mind, she saw Lydia with her arms around Allen. Lydia whispered in Allen’s ear and he kissed her. Lydia smiled and told him she would never leave him like Marie did. Hester played them for Marie like an afternoon matinee.
Like a deep depression that feels like quicksand, it didn’t take long until Marie gave up completely. So lost in her own pain fueled with Hester’s anger in her mind, Marie forgot everything. She just didn’t care about anything anymore. Allen seemed to not exist in this private hell. There was no escape. She just curled up on the cold, rocky ground and tried to sleep, but souls don’t sleep. There is no escape for them.
After a period of time that felt like forever, when Hester could tell that Marie no longer fought against her, the Shadow returned to Hester’s shape. Marie lay on the ground motionless. Time was on Hester’s side now. She had in her possession a live New Soul completely harnessed.
CHAPTER 19 – MARIE, THE DARK SHADOW
“Help me,” Marie pleaded, reaching up to Hester.
“Yes, dear. I’m here.” Hester crooned. “I’ll keep the mean Shadows away.”
Marie weakly sat up and looked around. “Can you get me out of here?” she asked.
“Of course I can, but before we go, we need to talk about a few things. You know this is all that nasty Jenny and Tom’s fault. They could have saved you, but they didn’t. All they care about is themselves. I’ve seen it many times. They left me for dead. Never came to see if I was okay after the Indians took me.”
“Oh. That’s awful. You must have been scared.”
“Yes, but they are selfish and greedy. We must punish people like that. They hurt you, Marie. They made you all alone here. You’ll never get home again. Your life is a waste!”
Marie quietly started tearing up. She had no will to refute Hester or even strength to hope otherwise. The depression stole from her any will to change things.
Hester prodded, “Don’t you hate them? They stole everything from you.”
“Um. I guess so.” Marie couldn’t quite remember what exactly they had done but she knew she felt horrible sadness.
“I watched them abandon you. They left you here to suffer. They stole your life. They stole everything. They even left your precious Allen to be swallowed by Shadows so that he’ll never love you again. He just thinks you abandoned him. That Lydia already has her hooks in him and is planning to move in with him. They did it to me, too. They stole my chance for love. But you, you can make them pay!”
“What? Make them pay? How? Allen, he must hate me. He is letting Lydia move in? They left me here? They could have saved me?” Marie started to piece together the lie into a truth in her mind.
“Yessss. My sweet girl.” Hester smoothed Marie’s hair back and caressed her cheek. Marie’s eyes went black with anger. Now all the anger around Hester felt right. It felt normal to Marie, almost comforting. She and Hester both were victims that had lost everything. Marie felt the searing pain of having the love of your life ripped from you.
“Where are they? I’ll tear them apart, starting with that Lydia!” growled Marie, the hatred rising.
“Oh, we have to be smart. I have been on their trail a long, long time, but I have a plan and only you can make it work. Let’s go.”
In a flash, Hester and Marie materialized in the hallway of the home where Jenny was protecting baby George. The door to the nursery was closed. It was dark. Marie didn’t know what time it was, but the house was completely silent.
“Now, hon-hee,” Hester hissed a bit through her one-toothed mouth. She was nearly giddy and tried to contain herself. She had thought about this for years. If she could
just get a New Soul to do her bidding, she would have more power. The New Soul’s power was much stronger. Just as a prayer or an encouraging word could smite the efforts of the Shadows, so also could hate and vengeance overtake a Protector. Just as a dark Shadow could be stamped out by a Protector or the prayer of a New Soul, a Protector could be overtaken and even destroyed by the unadulterated power of hate. This was Hester’s real plan: she wanted to destroy Jenny and then Tom. If she could do that, then they would have paid the ultimate cost for her pain. She had considered taking Tom for her slave, but decided he was tarnished. He would never love her like she’d wanted. Now she just wanted him obliterated.
“… I am going to distract her by going after the baby. You have to concentrate. I’ll help you.” Hester put her hands on Marie’s shoulders and let all of the dark, vile thoughts from the well fill Marie’s head. Marie’s expression was like that of a trance. No emotion. Just emptiness. “Now, when she is trying to get to me, you unleash your pain on her. Throw it from your heart to hers. It will weaken her and then I will help you. We’ll make her pay.”
Marie nodded absently. Her eyes were dark and fixed on the door to the nursery. Hester went first through the door. After about 5 seconds, Marie went through. The nursery was dark, but shadows of the blooming tree outside fell across the floor in the moonlight. Marie darted behind a rocking chair.
Jenny had spotted Hester’s shadow near the crib and was trying to stamp it out. The sweet chubby baby, now about two months old slept on its tummy sucking on its fist. Hester was persistent and her shadow was already creeping through the bars of the crib, inching toward baby George. Jenny was feverishly smacking at the shadow.
Marie inched up behind Jenny, her eyes, glazed in the trance. With all her might, Marie threw the hatred onto Jenny. Jenny slumped and fell under the crib. She groped at the floor trying to regain composure, not knowing what had hit her. Hester immediately materialized and joined Marie’s effort at dousing any positive energy Jenny could muster. Jenny laid on the floor like a lead blanket held her pinned.
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