The Baby Chronicles
Page 16
In the Seen …
“Daddy,” she screamed, jerking from her fitful slumber. “Daddy!”
Albert put his hands over his ears as though in intense pain. Strife called out to Anger, “Now! Hit … him … now!” he yelled.
Anger flung himself on Albert in a full frontal attack. Albert became even more agitated than before.
“Can … you … please … quiet … that … child … down!” he said menacingly between clenched teeth. It was becoming harder and harder to bridle his anger.
Emma became very frightened. She had never seen Albert act this way before. She whispered softly, “Lord, please help us.” As she whispered this prayer, she looked into her husband’s face. He looked as though he were in pain. Emma summoned the courage to whisper another quick prayer. “Father God, please help us in the name of …”
Again, before she could utter the name of Jesus, another attack was launched against both her and her husband. Emma felt a sharp stabbing pain in her lower back. The pain seared hotly around her midsection causing her to double over. Clutching her stomach, she felt the baby leap vigorously inside her body. For the briefest moment, concern filled Albert’s eyes. Then Anger attacked again.
“Look at you, Emma. You’re pathetic,” growled Albert. “You think you can fool me into thinking you’re in pain so I’ll stop yelling, don’t you? Well, it’s not going to work,” he shouted menacingly, standing over her, pointing an accusing finger in her face.
The look on Albert’s face was enough to frighten even the bravest person. But at this moment, in pain and vulnerable, Emma was not that person.
THIRTY-FOUR
Summitville Community Church
Dottie threw open the doors of the church and rushed to the altar, the urge to pray great. She had called fifteen homes before Clarice picked her up. She knew it would be at least twenty minutes before the closest prayer warriors arrived. She knelt before the altar in anguish.
“God, you have hidden the reason from me for this great urge to pray. Lord, please help me pray by the power of Your Spirit for whatever need there is in this community.”
She knew the Lord had called them to pray for someone or something in their small community. She just didn’t know what. As Dottie cried out to the Lord, Clarice joined her. They both praised the Lord for guiding them and bringing the other prayer warriors safely to the church. The two women worshiped for about ten minutes before others began to file in. Some were still half asleep. All were more than willing to assemble together to pray.
Dottie went to the podium and opened her Bible for a word as she prepared those gathered to pray.
Wells Farmhouse
Abuse entered the room silently. He looked to Strife who gleefully gave him the nod to have his way with this family. Abuse wrapped his tentacle-like arms around Albert’s shoulders.
“That screaming is driving me crazy …” Albert shouted to the atmosphere in the room as Insanity took over his mind. Darkness clouded Albert’s mind like a shroud. He couldn’t think. All he knew was that he wanted the screaming to stop.
“I can’t take this anymore …” Abuse whispered into Albert’s ear.
“I can’t take this anymore …” shouted Albert as he strode toward the bed.
Another pain tore through Emma, rendering her helpless to calm Margarette Ann. She saw the desperate look on her husband’s face as though through a fog. Another pain hitting her with the force of a train slamming into a car caused her to faint.
Margarette Ann screamed deliriously. She struggled to get away from those eyes, those ugly red, yellow, and green eyes that were everywhere, but she couldn’t.
Albert reached the side of the bed where his little girl lay. He looked down at his tormentor, the one causing him so much pain right now.
“This screaming has to stop …” Anger and Abuse whispered into his ears simultaneously. Destruction laughed in the background. He would win this battle. This little girl would not preach about Him, not if Destruction could help it.
“This … screaming … has … to … stop!” Albert yelled as he picked up a pillow.
Summitville Community Church Sanctuary
Sister Lorene Wagner started playing the piano. At first she played softly. Suddenly, the impulse to play songs about the blood of Jesus and victory came upon her.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.
How precious is that flow,
That makes me white as snow,
No other fount’ I know,
Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.
I know it was the blood,
I know it was the blood,
I know it was the blood for me.
One day when I was lost,
Jesus died on the cross, and
I know it was the blood for me.
The Blood that Jesus shed for me,
Way back on Calvary,
The Blood that gives me strength,
From day to day
It will never lose its power.
The voices of the saints filled the sanctuary of the Community Church. Unknown to those gathered, the sound of their singing amplified throughout the community into the farmland surrounding the church.
Angels of the Most High God joined in the much-loved choruses, causing the songs to have more volume than the small group of people could give them. The songs reverberated through the town to the little farmhouse that housed Albert, Emma, and Margarette Ann Wells and their unwelcome guests, the demons from the throne of darkness.
Candol and Anka, Margarette Ann’s guardian angels, were joined by hundreds of angels sent by the worship of the saints. They shined brightly as the prayers strengthened the angels as well as the occupants of the house.
Albert looked from the pillow to the face of his daughter over and over. Why did he have this pillow? Why was Margarette Ann screaming? What was wrong with Emma?
Over and over these questions came to his mind but he couldn’t make a decision.
“Shut that blasted singing out of here!” cursed Destruction.
The din of the saints and angels singing those songs about the blood and victory caused his flunkies to lose their concentration. Many of them held their hands over their ears to block out that dreadful singing.
Destruction rose out of the house to see what was going on. He couldn’t believe his devilish eyes! Everywhere he looked, angels of the Most High God, in their full splendor, were singing the songs he hated about that nobody Jesus and His blood.
“You will not win!” he shouted at the angels, shaking his fists at them for emphasis. “This is my territory! This is my time, blast you!” he cursed at the loudly singing angels.
He flew back into the house in time to see Candol and Anka laying their hands on Margarette Ann to soothe her. Mischief and Fright were chained in the corner. CD had been thrown out of the house into the middle of the sleeping cornfield.
Albert looked at his peacefully sleeping daughter. He looked at the pillow and said to no one in particular, “Let me put this under her little head.”
Emma stirred as another contraction hit. Warily, she called to Albert, “Honey, I need to go to the hospital; my water broke.”
Albert rushed to her side, not quite sure what had gone on. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” He remembered flashes of the past hour or so but couldn’t remember how it started.
“Nooo!” yelled Destruction. Yet again, he knew he had lost. The angels of the Lord advanced on him threateningly.
“No, this is my time, I tell you. This is my time. She’s mine,” he whimpered as the angels of the Lord forced him and his demons to leave through the walls and floors.
“Victory is mine, victory is mine,
Victory today is mine!
I told Satan ‘Get thee behind!’
Victory today is mine!”
Emmaline
THIRTY-FIVE
Charlotte, North Carolina: May 27, 1964
Mama, Alton’s getting out of prison today,” Maybelle told her mother Emmaline with a sigh. Today was Little Emmaline’s fourth birthday. They had a big party planned for her.
“Ummhmm,” replied her mother noncommittally, wondering where her daughter was going with this conversation.
It was four years to the day since Emmaline’s son Jimmy rescued his baby sister from her husband, Alton. Maybelle and Little Emmaline almost lost their lives that day because of the beating Alton inflicted on Maybelle and by proxy, Little Emmaline. Thank God he hadn’t succeeded in his plans of doing away with either of her precious little girls!
Emmaline had to admit that her little namesake was a scrapper, that was for sure. Emmaline Ruth Johnson had come into the world fighting to keep her life. Every day she fought to show anyone interested that she was going to come out on top.
“Mama, Alton’s mom called to ask if Alton could come by to see me and Little Emmaline today. She says he is really sorry for what he did and wants to make it up to me and Little Emmaline,” Maybelle explained.
Emmaline thought back to that dreadful day four years ago when she and her husband arrived at the emergency room to see their daughter. Had their daughter-in-law not been in the ambulance with Maybelle, they would not have recognized their own child.
Alton had beaten their Maybelle so badly! Her face was a swollen mass of bloody pulp on her head. Her face, lips, and eyelids were swollen twice their normal size. Hair was pulled out of her scalp in various places in plugs, leaving gaping wounds all over her head. Blood was everywhere!
Everyone, family and doctors included, wondered how Maybelle could have possibly survived the brutality. It brought tears to Emmaline’s eyes just thinking about it. When her parents met the ambulance at the hospital, Maybelle was in severe pain and had lost much blood. Through it all, she remained conscious to everyone’s surprise. Upon seeing their daughter, Stanley and Emmaline cried, partly from joy that she and the baby were alive but mostly with anguish that Alton had beaten Maybelle so viciously.
“Honey,” she asked, forcing herself out of her reverie, “what exactly does Alton mean by ‘make it up’ to you?” She hoped he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.
“I don’t know, Mama,” Maybelle said hesitantly.
Since that awful day, Maybelle’s family had rallied around her and Little Emmaline and become fiercely protective of them both. When Alton’s parents came to the hospital to see the baby, Maybelle’s brothers made sure they were never left alone with Little Emmaline. When they requested to see Maybelle, Emmaline stood guard over her daughter with as much ferocity as a lioness protecting her cubs.
Finally allowed to visit with Maybelle for a few moments, Henry and Annie Johnson were appalled by what they saw. They found it hard to believe that their son could do what had been done to Maybelle’s body. Granted, Alton had changed since the incident in Nashville. They wondered if it was possible that he had changed this much.
“Mama, we’re not getting back together if that’s what you’re worried about,” Maybelle assured her mother who breathed a sigh of relief. “But I do want him to know that Little Emmaline and I are still standing despite his attempts on our lives.”
As they ended the call a few moments later, Emmaline thought about how much she loved hearing the strength in her daughter’s voice. After her stay in the hospital, Maybelle recovered slowly but steadily. She followed the doctor’s advice and never looked back. Emmaline watched her daughter grow stronger and wiser during the last four years. Maybelle had done remarkably well.
Maybelle returned to school for her Bachelor’s degree in English so she could teach. She finished her course work in two years while raising Little Emmaline alone. She never considered dating anyone because she simply didn’t want to be bothered.
Maybelle thought about what she and her mother had just discussed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the little face peeping around the corner. She continued to stand at the kitchen sink as though deep in thought. She did not want Little Emmaline to know she had been found out.
Turning her back to the child as though to do the dishes, the shy little voice finally spoke, asking softly, “Mama, is my daddy coming over here?”
Maybelle didn’t keep any of the horrible details of that day from the child. Today though, she wished she had. She did not want her daughter tainted by what Alton had become after his experience. She neither knew what kind of attitude he had after prison nor was she willing to find out.
Although Alton’s mother said he had changed, Maybelle still remembered the worst beating she had ever suffered. She remembered the pitying yet skeptical looks in Alton’s parents’ eyes when they visited her in the hospital.
Although in a drug-induced haze, Maybelle never forgot the questions Henry and Annie asked her that day. When she and the baby were finally able to go home from the hospital, they had continued the same line of questioning as they prepared for Alton’s trial that sent him to prison for four years.
“Maybelle, are you sure Alton did this? What did you do to him? You know how much of a temper he has now after his incident, honey. Was he drinking? Did you say something to set him off? Honey, is Little Emmaline Alton’s baby? What other reason would he have for beating you like this?” The last two questions hurt Maybelle the most.
Maybelle would never forget those questions or the way they made her feel as her mother and father-in-law earnestly broached the subject with her. With time, the pain of the questions eased. Maybelle tenaciously went on with her life.
When Annie Johnson called her a week before, though, those same questions came back to mind. Maybelle forced herself to forget about them as she told Annie she would consider Alton being able to come and visit.
Putting all of it out of her mind for the moment, she turned to her pretty little chocolate drop of a daughter who came into the kitchen.
“Little Emmaline, I don’t know yet if we should allow him to come and visit us. What do you think we should do, sweetheart?” Maybelle asked her daughter. Little Emmaline closely resembled the father she had never met, the father who had attempted to stop her life from being.
Little Emmaline sat at the kitchen table quietly considering her mother’s question. In church since birth, this little one had wisdom beyond her four years, sometimes causing her mother to wonder who the Lord had given to her to be a mother over.
“Mama, why did Daddy do this to us?” Little Emmaline asked thoughtfully.
Discussing the incident before with her, Little Emmaline didn’t say very much. Much of what was told to her, she kept in her heart. A curious child who was often closed-mouthed about many things, Little Emmaline never had much to say.
“Mama, is he the same as he was before?” Little Emmaline asked seriously in her tiny voice.
Maybelle smiled gently at the curious little girl. She wondered the same thing.
THIRTY-SIX
Hanging up the phone, Emmaline Carter smiled to herself. Maybelle June Johnson was a strong young woman and a remarkable teacher in Charlotte. Tireless in her efforts to help her students learn to speak and write English correctly, she was an example to everyone she met of how to overcome any obstacle.
And now this man who had almost killed her and their child was trying to come back into her life? Hmmph, not if I can help it, Emmaline thought to herself.
In the Unseen …
Division and his partner Strife split their time between the two women who were about to speak on the telephone. Emmaline Carter and Annie Johnson played important roles in the scenarios about to occur in the city of Charlotte concerning their two children, Alton and Maybelle.
The two demons had driven a wedge b
etween these two for the past four Earth-years. Now that Alton was in town, it was essential that they remained divided. Little Emmaline was an integral part of the plan Almighty God had for Charlotte and these two families. The Forces of Darkness were committed to keeping that plan from coming to pass.
Holy Guardian Angels Echol, Axel, and Virdon were well aware of the cloud of confusion these two minions had placed over the women’s minds. Cloaked from their sight in the atmosphere, Echol and Axel positioned themselves while Virdon attended to Little Emmaline. Echol stationed himself with Grandmother Emmaline and Axel with Annie for the removal of the confusion. Time was of the essence.
In the Seen …
Emmaline picked up the phone to call Alton’s mother Annie. She hadn’t spoken with her since Little Emmaline’s last birthday. Communications between the two were strained since the beating. They both wanted to maintain a good relationship with each other because of the connection of Little Emmaline. But every time Emmaline looked at her daughter, she withdrew from the relationship.
“Hello,” Annie said as she answered the phone.
“Hello, Annie,” Emmaline replied distantly. “How’ve you been?” she asked. She didn’t know whether she cared to hear the answer or not.
“Oh, Emmaline,” Annie responded tentatively. She didn’t know how this conversation would go. She remembered the last conversation with Emmaline; they had both decided it would be better if they remained at a distance. “I’m fine. How are you?”
“Look, I’ll just get to the point,” Emmaline said matter-of-factly. “Why does your son need to see Maybelle and Little Emmaline?” Emmaline asked. She waited for an answer. She wasn’t going to beat around the bush. Alton was a sore subject with her.