He walked over to the girls. Colleen had broken the ice by talking about some of her new music purchases. She had pulled a few CDs out of her backpack in order to start reading the lyrics of another song.
Removing the sleeve from the CD case that contained the lyrics, she began to recite. That’s when Brent noticed another open case beside her backpack. The breeze through the courtyard tickled the insert.
He was struck with an idea.
A great idea! he thought. But could he pull it off?
Brent got down on all fours with the open CD case right before him. Joshua had warned him not to blow on any Bibles to get the pages to flip to certain Scripture verses. And he wouldn’t. But the very fact that Joshua had told him not to, meant that he was able. Right?
Please, let this work!
Brent began to blow on the insert. It fluttered even more with his effort.
Yes! This can actually work!
He blew again; harder this time. And on this second attempt, his breath caught the paper in just the right way. It dislodged itself from the plastic case and began to follow the natural breeze across the grass. At first none of the three girls noticed.
A particular young man did, though.
Kyle Russell was on his feet right away, just as Tina remarked to Colleen that she thought something might have blown out of her backpack. While Colleen checked to see if she was missing anything, Kyle intercepted the paper tri-fold.
Brent listened in as he picked it up.
“Okay, just play it cool. Don’t screw this up by saying something stupid.”
Kyle walked up to the three girls. While Elizabeth’s back was to him, Colleen and Tina watched his approach.
“Umm… Hi. I think this belongs to someone over here.”
He showed them the insert of the Taylor Dayne CD.
“Oh, hey…that would be mine,” said Colleen. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” Kyle said, handing it over.
“Thank you,” she said.
Kyle just gave a nod, then said, “So, do you all come here often?”
And while Kyle cringed at his words, the three girls—including Elizabeth—giggled.
“Okay. No guts, no glory,” he thought. “I’m Kyle,” he said reaching out a hand to Colleen.
“Colleen.”
He looked over at Tina and smiled. She gave him what he’d hoped for. “I’m Tina.”
Looking to Elizabeth now, he said, “And you aaare…Elizabeth? Right?”
She gave him a bewildered look. “Yeah. How did you…?”
“Well, that’s easy. You’re the pretty, new girl in the school,” he said with a grin. “Please, God, let that not have been too much!”
Brent saw that some color came to Elizabeth’s face. That wouldn’t have happened had Kyle’s compliment not struck her home.
“Well, I… Uhh…” she sputtered. “Well, thank you!”
Elizabeth held out her hand. He took it and gave it a simple squeeze and let it go.
“Am I interrupting anything? ‘Cause I could leave and go look for other things blowing in the wind.”
Brent liked this kid. Good wit!
The girls laughed. Tina shrugged and looked at her friends. “No, you’re good. Have a seat.”
He did.
Brent was elated. The spirit of suicide was not. Touché back, he thought with a grin of his own.
BRENT STOOD ON the bus next to Elizabeth’s seat as it carried her home. She was much more relaxed at the moment. He had been listening to her thoughts throughout the remainder of the school day, and she was captured by this boy.
Granted, every hope that took form in her mind about the possibility of getting to know him was countered by the knowledge that she was pregnant and the belief that, after he found out, there was no way he would want to get to know her.
There was a lot of internal conflict, but at least some of it was good.
Finally, thought Brent, something on which to build.
Brent transported himself to Elizabeth’s home ahead of her arrival. He wanted to find out what, if anything, awaited her there. At this point, he needed to be as far ahead in the knowledge department as possible.
Standing in the middle of the living room, he could hear Mrs. Franklin upstairs. He looked through the ceiling to see her standing in her bedroom. In her hands were two dresses on hangers.
He sent himself into the room to see if those dresses meant what he suspected.
“Hmm… Blue?” She held the sequined dress before her while looking into the full-length mirror beside her dresser. “I don’t know. Not exactly feeling it.” She tossed the dress behind her onto the bed and lifted the other before her. “Dark green. Haven’t worn it in a while. I don’t think Nancy has seen this one. It does look good with my hair. Okay, done. Green it is!”
Laura Franklin proceeded to hang up the blue dress in her sizable walk-in closet, then walked back out with a pair of matching heels. She looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand as she set the dress on the bed and the shoes on the floor. “I’ll need to start getting ready in about an hour and a half.”
Great, thought Brent with no small amount of sarcasm. That’s just perfect. Can’t you two take your eyes off yourselves for a while? “Your daughter wants to kill herself!” he screamed.
As he expected, not even a hint that she had heard him.
Elizabeth would be home at any moment, and she was going to find that she was, once again, alone for the evening. Alone time was not what this girl needed.
“IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT! Get together! Fun with some friends! Pizza! Games! Call Elizabeth! Call Tina!”
Brent was doing his best to get into the head of Colleen Burns. He figured that she would be the best candidate for suggesting something fun for the evening, and, it was acutely apparent that she would be best served by getting out of her home environment for a little while. It hadn’t taken long before her mom began nagging her about her failings both as a daughter and as a ‘normal’ human being. Apparently, she wasn’t living up to family expectations.
Standing within the confines of a rather lavish kitchen, Colleen continued to hear about it. “Your brother and his girlfriend are coming over. The least you could do is spend some time with the two of them and us. It won’t kill you to play nice for a few hours.”
“Yeah, right. Playing nice means tolerating Kara’s de-meaning looks and her prissy attitude. Then when all of you begin to drink…” “I’m sorry, but I’ve got plans. Tina and I, and several friends, are getting together for a night of movies and pizza at her place,” she lied. “We may even be spending the night.” “Please, God, let that happen!”
“You and your religious friends sure do have a way of making the rest of us feel excluded. Doesn’t sound like the Jesus I heard about as a kid. I thought he wanted to be around ‘sinners’ like us.”
“There we go with the finger quotes again. Always trying to use my beliefs against me.” “Well, Mom, if you and Dad would like to come to church with me on Sunday, I’ll show you that my ‘religious’…” She used the finger quotes back at her mom. “…friends are normal people and that Jesus is much more than you think he is.”
Vonda Burns glared at her daughter for a moment then turned away, walking out of the kitchen.
Colleen glanced upward. “God? Are you going to do something about these people before I explode?”
She, too, left the kitchen and went up to her bedroom. Closing the door behind her, she picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hi, Mrs. Morrison. Is Tina there? It’s Colleen.”
About thirty seconds later, Tina picked up.
“Are you doing anything tonight?” asked Colleen.
“Nothing’s changed since study hall. My family will probably all be home for the evening. How about you? Got an idea for something to do? I’m sure I can get out of doing nothing,” Tina quipped with a laugh.
“Well, I just told my mom—and I guess I should confess to you—tha
t I was going to be over at your house with friends having pizza and watching movies. Want to make that happen?”
Colleen couldn’t tell if the pause at the other end of the line included a rolling of Tina’s eyes or not, but it was likely.
“Hold on. Okay?” said Tina. “Be right back.”
As Colleen waited, she prayed. “God, I know I do things out of order sometimes. I probably shouldn’t have told my mom that I already had plans, but I need to get out of…”
“Okay, I’m back. Mom says that if you would like to come over, you can. But we’re not allowed to have a bunch of other friends.”
Colleen was so very glad to hear that. Another thought struck.
“Do you think maybe…Elizabeth?”
“Good question. I’ll ask Mom, but I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
And that was exactly what Brent wanted to hear!
WHEN BRENT ARRIVED back at the Franklin home, Garian was waiting.
Brent had been picking up on the clue that when this giant being was around, something not-so-good was likely to be encountered around the next bend.
The two stood on the landing on the second floor, just outside Elizabeth’s bedroom.
“What’s going on?” asked Brent.
“The Enemy will step up his attack on Elizabeth today.”
Brent nodded, accepting the news. “I already have a plan in the works. Hopefully it will do two things: buy some time and get Elizabeth out of a lonely house.”
“Your plan, if it does work, may only be delaying a tragedy. The more she refuses truth, the more time the Enemy has to manipulate her. The outcome will not be good.”
“I know,” said Brent, feeling the burden of the angel’s estimation. “Somehow we have got to get her to hear…to want to hear the truth about God’s existence and his love for her. We’ve got to silence these demons.”
“Agreed.”
“What about some more of you? Angels.”
Garian genuinely looked perplexed with Brent’s question. “For what reason?”
Brent thought the answer obvious, but said, “You know. Intimidation. A show of strength.”
Clarity hit Garian’s eyes. “Son of Earth, this war that we are engaged in against the Enemy has been going on for eons—thousands upon thousands of years. The fallen ones who have been surrounding Elizabeth know the balance of power is against them. They know that I have the strength to vanquish several of their kind at one time. But, for the time being, there are rules of engagement that protect them from slaughter.”
Brent grew a little angry with the response. “But why? Why are there rules? Why can’t we just attack and rid Elizabeth of the demons?”
“For the same reason that the Great War began in the first place: free will. Life is the greatest gift given to Creation. The second greatest is the capability granted each individual—Angelkind and Mankind, alike—of choosing one’s own path.
“Lucifer’s self-pride was the catalyst for revolution. He chose to disregard the power of the Word who is known as Christ. The moment that a created being chose to challenge the One who created him, everything in creation shifted. Everything became bent. But without the Word providing us—and you—with the ability to choose for ourselves, we would be no more than mindless servants—something that the Word did not want. I admit to not understanding all of the Word’s reasoning. I only know that he wanted his creation to both honor and love him because they desired to—each of his own free will.”
“Okay, I get that. But the demons that are trying to destroy Elizabeth…doesn’t what you just said apply to what they’re doing? Aren’t they violating Elizabeth’s free will?”
“No.”
Brent waited a moment, hoping for more. When nothing came, he simply said, “No?”
For the briefest of moments, Brent thought he saw frustration register in the face of the angel.
“No. They merely manipulate. Ultimately, any final decisions made will belong to Elizabeth. Understand that, even if no angels or demons were involved, Mankind’s sin nature would incline most to disregard the Word’s gift of salvation. In this world, fallen beings manipulate fallen beings. Free will manipulates free will. The outcome is ultimately a desire of the heart—that of one who is faced with a decision. In this case, so far as I am granted wisdom and insight, Elizabeth is desiring within her heart something other than God. She wants freedom from any restraints. The Word—God—in her mind, is just another form of governance over her own wishes. She believes that, if she is not the one in control, then the outcomes in her life will not be her own. She wishes to be, above all things, self-sufficient.”
“Yeah, well, she is self-sufficiently wanting to kill herself,” said Brent, frustrated.
Everything that Garian had said made sense. He wished that he had asked the angel about these things sooner, though he didn’t know how this new revelation would have changed anything.
Free will. Brent was glad that it had been given by God, but he was also hating so many of its effects.
He looked at Garian. “Let’s go to Elizabeth. Let’s see if we can do some free-will manipulation of our own.”
There was something strange about seeing demons in the daylight. It seemed unnatural somehow. Demons belonged in nightmares and in deep, dark nights, in dungeons and in haunted houses. But when Brent and Garian stood outside on the Franklin’s back deck in the light of a beautiful Friday afternoon, they were faced again with the spirits of death and suicide.
Brent felt mentally exhausted just at the sight of them. Thinking about what Garian had said about a war that had been going on for eons made him realize that these beings had been fighting non-stop since the time of Creation. In comparison, Brent’s mental lethargy after contending for only two-and-a-half days was really a joke. But then, fighting in a spiritual conflict had not been a life-long preoccupation. He wasn’t used to the ebb and flow of war. Battle fatigue was a brand new experience and not something for which he would ever yearn.
Another look at Elizabeth, though, caused a new resolve to internalize. He would battle for as long as necessary to win this girl’s life.
The spirit of suicide was in its usual spot, but the spirit of death was standing at a distance in the grass of the backyard. Brent thought that maybe the demon was using the same tactic that he had used both times in the courtyard of Elizabeth’s school—observing, watching for a tactical advantage. Or it was just as likely that the thing wasn’t comfortable being close to Garian’s imposing frame.
Regardless, Brent knew that the demon was monitoring the situation and making sure its minion was fulfilling its role in the struggle to take Elizabeth’s life.
Brent decided that he wasn’t going to give up on making his own voice heard by Elizabeth. He hoped her encounter with Kyle earlier in the afternoon had been positive enough to bring down her internal self-defenses a bit.
Brent walked up to Elizabeth as she sat in a chair at the glass-topped patio table. She had two of her school text books in front of her. They were unopened. The fact, though, that they were even there must have put a bit of a kink into the minds of the demons as to how easy her demise was going to be. Those books meant study, and study meant that she was toying with the idea of another day of life.
Brent wasn’t ignorant. He knew that the girl’s hope was in the boy she had met earlier in the day. It wasn’t what was needed to turn her life around, but it certainly was a step in the right direction.
As usual, the demon’s tail constricted Elizabeth’s throat at his approach—afraid, apparently, that somehow Brent might have the wherewithal to ward it off. Brent ignored it. At the moment, the little creature was silent, probably because two of its adversaries had arrived.
Brent leaned in toward Elizabeth’s ear, all the while making sure to keep the more powerful demon of death in view. He gave a glance over to Garian who was on the other side of the table several steps away. The guardian angel had his arms crossed, his right hand resting upon t
he pommel of his sword. He gave Brent a nod to proceed.
Brent decided to take a different approach than he had in the past. He decided to speak just barely above a whisper.
With his lips almost close enough to touch her right ear, he said, “I think Kyle Russell might like me. He’s definitely cute. I can tell he’s a good guy.” He said it again. “I think Kyle Russell might like me. He’s definitely cute. I can tell he’s a good guy.” And again. “I think Kyle Russell might like me. He’s definitely cute. I can tell he’s a good guy.”
Brent saw a twitch in the tail of the suicide spirit. It wasn’t liking what it was hearing. And that probably meant that it knew that Brent’s words might actually be heard by the teenager.
Elizabeth’s cheek showed some movement. The beginnings of a smile.
It is working! he proclaimed inwardly.
The demon, at her other ear, began its own barrage of words. “It’s useless. My life is such a mess. Killing myself is still the best option. I won’t miss Kyle when I’m dead.”
Brent understood, even as the demon began repeating its words, that it was the one with the recognizable voice. She once again believed the demon’s voice to be her own. But Brent wasn’t going to give up as quickly as he had on previous attempts. He continued to repeat himself, feeding her with an idea that could create a desire to hold on.
“I think Kyle Russell might like me. He’s definitely cute. I can tell he’s a good guy.”
The words that Brent spoke were definitely hitting home—enough, apparently, that she was getting a bit agitated. And when that agitation peaked, her left hand flew up to her left ear and waved back and forth a couple of times, as if trying to swat away a mosquito.
The suicidal spirit jumped, its tail loosening.
That’s it, Elizabeth! he nearly said out loud.
“I think Kyle Russell might like me. He’s definitely cute. I can tell he’s a good guy.”
The demon made another attempt to speak its lies, and another irritated flight of Elizabeth’s hand caused the spirit to launch into the air. It hovered a good four or five feet away from her with fear in its eyes. When Brent looked at it, he could see that the thing was staring at its master in the backyard.
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