The Defiance

by Laura Gallier

  My father gripped the sofa cushion beneath him, nervous, I think. “I’d been so sheltered all my life from harsh realities,” he said, “I actually thought if I explained how much I loved Susan and begged those people to leave her alone, they’d have pity and relent. But they showed no mercy. They admitted they were determined to kill Susan for having defected from their society. And that’s when . . .” He lowered his head and sighed. “They dealt me the terms.”

  “Okay?” I waited.

  “I’m so sorry, Owen. I didn’t know.”

  I tensed my abs, as if that would help soften the blow of whatever information he was about to deliver. “Go on. Please.”

  “They said they’d give up on their vengeance against Susan if I’d—” He paused. “If I vowed that we’d give our firstborn to them someday.” He stared at the hardwood floors now—anywhere but my face. “We didn’t plan on having children anytime soon, and I thought it was a ridiculous demand anyway. I told myself we’d never have to actually follow through on it. I just needed to say whatever was necessary to make it out alive so I could go to the FBI and put an end to this sadistic group once and for all. Unfortunately I was so unknowledgeable about the occult and their rituals—about the binding power of spiritual oaths and the global underground influence these people had—I repeated their words after them and made what I thought was a meaningless vow, sealing it with a drop of my blood.

  “They roughed me up so badly after that, I was surprised I regained consciousness. I managed to make it back to New Haven, but I didn’t want to scare Susan by telling her the truth about where I’d been and why I was so battered. So I told her a contrived story. Meanwhile, I went immediately to a family friend of mine, an FBI agent, and reported everything. I didn’t understand at first why he refused to help me, as did the second agent I spoke with. But I soon discovered they’d both been threatened and blackmailed by the occult and weren’t willing to risk being whistleblowers.”

  He slumped and held his forehead in his hand. “Days later, while Susan was at work, I saw a positive pregnancy test in the trash can. She’d obviously tried to conceal it from me, afraid I’d resent her for the timing of it, I think. But I wasn’t upset at all. I was happy, but also . . . terrified.

  “I started making plans that instant to move out of state with Susan—flee the country if that’s what it was going to take to protect my family. I marched into the closet and grabbed a suitcase . . .” He needed another pause. A long breath. “But the phone rang, and a man warned me that the secret society was already aware of the pregnancy—there was nothing they didn’t know about us. And there was nowhere we could run where they wouldn’t track us down and take the newborn I owed them.”

  I sat still as stone, my heart racing. “So, what’d you do?”

  He stood and paced the living room. “I returned to Masonville to find Susan’s parents. She’d told me they held prominent positions in the occult, particularly her mother.”

  He took another glance round the room, and it felt like my chest caved in. “You came here, to this house?”

  He swallowed hard, then pointed in the direction of my mom’s lounge chair. “Your grandparents sat over there while I got down on both knees and literally begged them to help me—to have compassion on their daughter and soon-coming grandchild and use their influence to call off the mission against us. To help pardon me from the satanic vow I’d made in ignorance.”

  “And?”

  He faced away from me. “Once again, I was given only one option—a cruel, devastating form of penance in exchange for breaking a vow to the kingdom of darkness.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, I think because they started trembling. “Susan’s parents would see to it that her life and yours would be spared, along with mine, providing I never made contact with either of you ever again, from that moment on. Ever.”

  I stood, even though my legs felt numb. “But I thought it was your parents who manipulated my mom into abandoning you when she was pregnant with me.”

  “My parents did talk Susan into leaving me, but it was only because I went to them and managed to convince them I wanted out of the marriage. I never could have rejected Susan and my unborn child, but my mother was all too willing to send her away.”

  He faced my direction but kept his head down. “My parents aren’t the same hard-hearted people they used to be. And Owen, it was the only way at the time I knew how to protect your mom and you. I didn’t want either of you to ever think I’d forsaken you.”

  “But that’s exactly what you did.”

  He finally looked me in the face. It was only then that I noticed Creepers had flocked to the scene, spying, pressing their huge bodies and mangled faces against every window in the room. But I couldn’t have cared less about them at that moment.

  “Owen.” My father approached me. “I’m not here to make excuses—only to own up to the choices I made as a young man, when I was terrified and in over my head. Susan’s parents warned that the instant I spoke to their daughter or our child—to you—their society would know, and they’d close in swiftly on you both, no matter your age or how much time had passed.”

  “But why?” I shouted. “Why would my own grandparents want to separate you from us?”

  He stayed calm. “Darkened people do cruel things. And there’s nothing crueler than forcing a father to abandon his wife and child.” He reached toward me. “Son—”

  “Don’t touch me!” I dodged his hand. “You could have found another way. You could have fought for us!” The anger in me was hotter than the fire that had nearly killed me.

  “I was so young, Owen. And they had supernatural means to carry out their directives. Evil powers.”

  “That’s your excuse for turning your back on us?”

  He took calming breaths, clearly working to keep his peace. “I couldn’t see Susan again without risking that she’d be killed—that both of you would be brutally murdered—so I did what I thought I had to in order to protect you at the time.”

  I squared my shoulders and addressed him like a prosecutor, not like a son. “All this time, you let my mom believe she’s the one who left you, and she’s despised herself for it. Nearly drank herself to death over it.”

  His whole body crumpled, and he shrank to the sofa. “You have no idea how much I agonize over that.” He bent so far forward, I thought he might fall to the floor. “It was me who sent financial support all those years, not my parents. I wanted to provide for Susan and you.”

  “Am I supposed to say thank you?” I wiped my cheek against my shoulder, absorbing a runaway tear into my shirt.

  “I know it’s inexcusable, Owen. I messed up everything and failed your mother and you in the worst of ways. And yes, I kept up with where you lived and even risked everything for the chance to catch brief, distant glimpses of you several times. But I know that doesn’t begin to heal the wrong—the void of my absence.”

  He stood and stepped toward me, but I turned my back on him. I could feel his breath on my neck. “I’ve put us all at great risk by coming here today, but I had to see you. And Son, it’s because of you, my love for you, that I devoted my life to learning all I could about spiritual laws—how to break demonic-world oaths and satanic vows. And I run a covert, global operation to rescue children around the world who are trapped and abused in the occult. Believe me, Owen, I’d always planned to meet you and tell you everything someday, at the right time.”

  I whipped around and faced him. “Oh, really? And when was that going to be?”

  “When Susan’s parents passed away.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “They’ve been dead for over two years.”

  The front door opened, intruding on us.

  “Owen, whose vehicle—”

  My mother’s shopping bag hit the floor. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out. Finally . . .

  “Stephen?”

  I think my father stopped breathing. “Hello, Susan.”

  TWENTY-SEVE
N

  NEITHER OF MY PARENTS BLINKED.

  My mother’s voice shook. “What—what are you doing here?”

  “I came to see my . . . our son. I apologize for barging in on you unannounced.” My father gulped. “I was just leaving.”

  “You are?” I said. “Already?”

  He leaned toward me and whispered. “I have to. If you only knew the danger I’ve put us in today—I don’t have a choice.”

  I let him hug me, then squared my shoulders. “You do have a choice. Don’t run off like this, Dad—not again.” I looked toward my mother, her bottom lip quivering. “She deserves a better goodbye. An honest one this time.”

  Mom furrowed her brow in pained confusion. My father squinted the same way I always did when battling an emotional lump in my throat.

  He gave me a single nod.

  And with that, I walked away, past my mother and out the front door, so my parents could finally be alone. Together, after having been torn apart for a lifetime.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I SAT ON MY MOTORCYCLE in my mom’s gravel driveway, engine off, staring up at the early evening sky. I was relieved my parents were talking. Still, I wished I could go back in time and fix everything somehow. Redo our family history, starting with both sets of my grandparents. Had any of them ever stopped to consider the domino effect of their decisions? How their kids and grandkids would pay?

  How I’d be impacted?

  The thought came boomeranging back at me: Was I thinking about how my choices would someday affect my kids and grandkids?

  Then again, if I married Ray Anne, would I ever even have any?

  Suddenly I was desperate to hear her voice. I reached into my pocket for my cell but pulled out my wallet instead—a frustrating reminder that my phone had been burned up. Elle’s bookmark was wedged in my billfold. I read it.

  “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close, Psalm 27:10.”

  Pretty relevant to my life. And so like Elle to somehow know it would be. But the longer I considered the verse, the more resentment ground within me like a bag of rocks in my chest . . . Where was the Lord when I was seven years old and my mom left me home alone all weekend while she stayed across town with her boyfriend? I’d curled up in her bedsheets and cried the entire time. And where was God when I was trudging through snow at four years old, our pantry so empty I was willing to eat grass if I found any, and I fell into a sewer pipe and nearly died? Apparently some man had finally pulled me out, but was I supposed to believe God had been “holding me close” as I was trapped and freezing for hours?

  I shoved the bookmark back in my wallet and did the usual—stopped thinking and suppressed emotion. I needed God to help me save lives in Masonville; I couldn’t afford to anger him with bitter accusations.

  Still seated on my bike, I turned over my shoulder and commanded the Creepers still spying into my mom’s house to go at once. Watchmen reached up out of the earth and snatched the Creepers by their feeble ankles, yanking them underground, demolishing their stakeout. Heaven’s army usually invaded from the air—this stealth attack from below was extremely cool.

  An hour passed, and I remained amazed that my parents were actually in the same room together. I wasn’t willing to interrupt them.

  I drove to the church—what remained of it—and searched for my dog, but sadly, couldn’t find her. I determined I’d keep trying. I headed to Ray Anne’s house, anxious to tell her my father had come to town, but even more eager just to see her. If she refused to speak to me, I’d settle for just being near her. I pulled down harder on the gas.

  “I love you.”

  It was weird how easily I could envision her sweet face and say it into the wind, as long as she wasn’t there to hear it.

  As I turned into her neighborhood, it occurred to me that I’d never once heard my mom tell any man she loved him, and she hadn’t said it all that often to me over the years.

  I’d told her even fewer times.

  I knocked on the Greiners’ door and also at the garage apartment, but there was no answer. No one home. I had no choice but to move on to my next important stop.

  I raced to the edge of town, parked among the cornstalks, then began the trek to the abandoned house, as hollow as the principality buried beside it. At least I hoped Molek was still there, stuck in the dirt.

  Thankfully there was some daylight left. I had no cellular GPS—no phone—but I was confident I could find the spot by memory now. I had to. It was my duty to make sure Molek stayed down and the Rulers didn’t prevail. It was Ray Anne’s calling too, but she was buried alive herself right now in paranoid fear.

  I’d only begun to traipse past rows of cornstalks, mulling over my father’s shocking admissions, when the distraught infant came at me again—screaming its head off this time, like it was being tortured.

  It’s indescribably distressing to cover your ears, only to have a noise get louder.

  I charged ahead, determined to stay on mission, even with that foreboding presence surrounding me like it was somehow in front of me, behind me, and hovering on both sides.

  My will to keep going took a huge hit when my body began physically reacting to the affliction. It was like something was moving inside me, clamping down on my heart like an iron claw, then twisting in my gut, then lower still, pressing against my bladder until it felt it might burst. I had no choice but to stop and hunch over, cradling my midsection with both arms. The experience reminded me of when I’d first drunk the well water and it had wrecked my insides, only this was much, much more painful.

  “God, help me.”

  It only got worse. The aggressive sensation traveled back up, assaulting my gut and heart all over again. And with it came crippling emotions I couldn’t begin to process.

  I didn’t recall this form of anguish while spying on any of the Cosmic Rulers, but I still wondered if this internal torture was their doing. “No evil has any authority over me,” I uttered. But up and down the sensation went, moving through me like a hostile hand tearing apart my organs—like those insects from hell that, months ago, had infested my apartment were now squirming inside me. I moaned. How long could my beating heart take this degree of torment?

  I hit my knees in the dirt. “God, please.”

  There was no spirit of Suicide around. The pain alone was enough to make me want to die. It was that bad.

  I collapsed onto my side and crunched into a ball. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I felt a baby nestled against my chest, writhing like Jackson would do when he didn’t feel well.

  “Get away from me!”

  A tiny hand hit my sweaty neck and clung to my skin. And then came the crushing. It was like the child’s invisible accomplice had lain on top of me, pressing its massive weight against my right shoulder and hip and legs. It felt like more than one tormentor—like a dogpile of them was smothering me.

  “God, where are you?”

  The full-scale assault continued: the excruciating movement inside me. The mountain of oppression bearing down on me. The ghostly infant haunting me.

  “Jesus!”

  I don’t know how long I lay there, disoriented and groaning. I only know that at some point, that gentle yet commanding voice I’d come to know spoke from within.

  STAND UP.

  I couldn’t stop clawing the sides of my head, much less stand. “I can’t.”

  I waited for another instruction—something more doable. But it never came.

  Still lying on my side, feeling as if a mound of steel had me pinned down, I realized I had a choice. I could lie there in defeat or try to stand like I’d been told. Try, at least.

  I pushed against the ground, but my upper-body strength was practically nonexistent. “Lord, help me stand.”

  I was in no less pain when I finally sat up. I could still feel the baby on the ground next to me. It paused for brief moments to catch its breath before wailing again, like real babies do.

>   “Lord, help me stand,” I pled again, feeling an intense, incompatible mix of faith toward God and contempt, to be honest.

  I rose to my knees, then dragged my foot across the dirt until the sole of my shoe was flat on the ground, my aura shining around it.

  “Lord, help me stand.”

  I bent forward and breathed—in through my nose, out through my mouth—as the inner affliction bore down on my bladder again. What kind of evil was this?

  “Lord, help me stand.”

  I held out hope Custos would come lift me up. At the very least, the old man. He’d rescued me twice before, when I was too weak to help myself. But minutes ticked on like hours, and no one came. I had to use both hands and press against the earth with all my depleted might. Soon, I was bent over, but on my feet. The weight of the invisible monster pressed down hard on my back.

  “Lord, help me stand. All the way.”

  I wanted to hit my knees again, not straighten my spine and lengthen my tortured gut. But inch by inch, I lifted my upper body until at last, I stood upright. The oppressive weight bore down on my shoulders now, the baby still protesting at my feet.

  WALK WITH ME.

  Another divine instruction that seemed out of reach. I didn’t feel like I could take a step, much less walk, but I moved my foot forward a few inches. “Help me walk with you, Lord.”

  I managed one step. Then another. Then another. The pain the same. My resolve renewing.

  I finally managed to walk, struggling the same way Ray Anne had after back-to-back surgeries. I begged God with every ounce of humility in me to please, please, please take away the agony—even slightly. And silence the infant, which was still following right behind me.

  But he didn’t.

  Over an hour after I’d started the trek, I finally arrived at the little abandoned house, no less miserable. But I had to force my focus off my pain and onto what mattered most right now.