Adelaide’s scream suddenly cut off and her breath was now used to mutter those strange words. Eva pulled her out of the bed with Malachi’s help and sat her up on the bed. She brought in some oatmeal to spoon feed Adelaide and spooned water between her lips as well. Malachi insisted they feed her and give her water. It made sense to Eva but it hurt her when Malachi had to hold Adelaide’s jaw open and then massage her neck to get her to swallow. She hated this part more than cleaning up after her daughter or bathing her.
“We can’t keep doing this. Tonight we stop the medicine. It’s only made her worse.” Eva insisted.
“I think you’re right. This isn’t working either. When is he coming back?” Malachi asked as he guided Adelaide back against her pillows.
“Doc Avery? Tomorrow I believe.” Eva said before she took the bowl back into the kitchen.
Malachi followed her out of the room, leaving the rest of Adelaide’s care to her mother. If he had to he’d undress her and bathe her, put fresh clothes on her but they’d both agreed that was Eva’s task to complete. Malachi thumped into the living room, settling on the couch to stretch out his painful joint. It was only getting worse and as the air cooled it was going to become intolerable. Perhaps he’d talk to the doctor about it when he came, see if he had anything that would ease the pain.
“Then we’ll discuss his option, I think. Maybe they can help her.” He broached the subject she’d refused to speak about except to dismiss it.
“No.” Eva shouted the word as she slammed down a metal bowl. “We are not institutionalizing our daughter. We simply aren’t.”
“Eva, my love, she is only growing worse. If we leave her like this she will die. I know that as well as I know anything. The girl is dying and we’re just torturing her. She can be cared for in that place, treated.
“No Malachi, stop it! Just stop. We are not abandoning her in her time of need!” Eva threw her hands over her ears, shaking her head.
“Eva, we are not abandoning her!” He shouted back at her. The first time in their marriage that Malachi had raised his voice. “She’s dying and we’re killing ourselves taking care of her. It’s not fair to any of us.”
“No, I’m not having it. She is not insane, Malachi, she is tormented!” The words were screamed out in frustration and fear, and anger. Eva stepped back at how forceful her anger was.
“She is tormented, but it’s not demons and it’s not insanity. There is something wrong inside of her, Eva, why is that so hard for you to recognize? Look at her for crying out loud! She’s just skin and bones. Her skin is dried out like leather and her hair just hangs there, even after you washed it. Her eyes do not see us, she does not hear us. She’s like a walking corpse and you won’t let her go where she can be helped. We don’t know how to help her but you insist you do in your stubbornness. Your arrogance is going to kill our daughter.”
“You’re the arrogant one, Malachi.” She replied coldly, her eyes frozen and hard. “You can’t see what’s before you and replace it with science, science that you don’t even understand! No, she’s not leaving this house and that’s final. You can go somewhere else if you don’t want to help me, if you want to just get rid of her. She’s not leaving this house and that’s final.”
Malachi stared in shock at his wife. In all their years she’d never spoken so harshly to him, never raised her voice, and never ever told him to get out. He knew he’d lost then and sat back on the couch, unsure of what to do. His wife or his daughter that was the option she left him with.
They both forgot the argument as odd noises started to come from Adelaide’s room. Malachi was slower getting up from the couch and arrived in the room after Eva. What he saw stopped him cold. He scrubbed at his eyes, trying to dispel the image.
Adelaide was levitating from the bed, her body convulsing as her back moved further from the bed. He could see daylight between her body and the bed. His eyes were glued to that part of her body, focused solely on that area where the light came beaming through. Alright, perhaps Eva wasn’t so silly after all.
“What do we do?” He asked his wife.
“I don’t know!” Eva replied.
Suddenly Adelaide’s body fell back to the bed and she stood, as if in a trance, and walked out of the room, heading for the front door. Her gait was uneven and she almost fell several times. From deep in her chest a growl came, words they could not understand were uttered, and the pair stepped back as she passed them. Eva ran as her daughter headed for the front door, trying to keep Adelaide from walking outside.
“No.” This new creature that was their daughter growled and pushed Eva away, knocking her to the floor.
Malachi ignored his knee and ran into the room, tackling the thin wraith that was now his daughter. He pulled her down and dragged her into the bedroom. She thrashed, kicking and screaming, her eyes completely dead.
“Find some rope!” Malachi screamed as Adelaide, far stronger than he thought she should be, tried to throw him off of her, snarling at him as she tried to bite his hands away from her. “Quickly Eva, anything that we can tie her with.”
Eva didn’t want to tie her daughter down but knew it had to be done. She thought of her scarves, silken and hopefully less damaging to Adelaide’s skin. She ran to fetch them and handed them over to Malachi. She saw his eyes fill with tears but he finally blinked and pushed her hand up, the bones finally healed enough to remove the braces they’d made for her, and tied it to the bed.
Eva tied the other one with her own eyes filled with tears. Adelaide kicked her legs so fiercely they decided to tie those as well and soon the girl was still, her struggles ceasing when she figured out she could not get away. She started to moan then, a long keening sound that broke their already shattered hearts.
“Well, we aren’t Catholic so we can’t call a priest. We’ll try your way first, Eva. We’ll give it a little more time.”
And just like that the argument was over and they both went to fetch the Bible. It wasn’t in the drawer beside Adelaide’s bed. They looked around the room and underneath the bed they found what was left of it.
“Do you think she did this?” Eva asked in a whisper, pulling the shredded paper and cover from under the bead, certain the holy book was beyond repair. The pages were absolutely shredded into tiny pieces.
Eva looked up at Malachi, who had fear in his eyes. This wasn’t good. This was very bad. Adelaide had destroyed the Good Book, the only book that mattered.
Chapter Seven
“Perhaps mice got to it?” Malachi offered as an explanation for the destroyed Bible. His voice couldn’t hide his doubt and Eva looked at him with consternation.
“Not overnight like that. I only put it in the drawer last night. How did it get out of the drawer and under the bed? No, Adelaide had to be the one who did it. Between that, the strange voices coming out of her mouth, and the rest of it, surely you can’t just dismiss it all as some kind of sickness, Malachi. Fetch your Bible, let’s get to work.”
Malachi sighed and went for his own Bible, bringing it back into the living room from his own nightstand. He flipped through, looking for the words he sought. He read aloud to Eva and they started to form a plan.
“Right, I don’t know if we can do this or not, but we’ll try it before we do anything else. You go pray over some water maybe that will make it holy enough. We’ll have to anoint her with bacon grease; it’s all we’ve got. As for the rest, we’ll just have to do what we can.”
“Let’s pray first, Malachi.” Eva asked, holding out her hand. He took it and they stood in front of the only picture on the wall in the living room, a cheap print of Jesus someone had traded Eva for one of her crocheted lace doilies.
“Dear Lord, we ask you for your hand in guiding us through helping our daughter. We ask that you make our efforts fruitful and release Adelaide from her afflictions, Lord. We cast evil and the devil from our home, in Jesus’s name. We pray for peace, protection, and proclaim that we do your will, Lord. Hear
our prayers, please Lord, and give us respite. Amen.” Malachi wasn’t much for thinking up prayers but hoped the simple words worked.
“Right then. I’ll do the water, you anoint her.” Eva said, pouring some water into a glass jar and spending quite a few minutes praying over it rather fervently.
Adelaide screamed as her father drew a cross on her forehead with bacon grease, in her world a pagan symbol was being carved into her head with a primitive knife as one of the evil ones pinned her arms and legs to the ground with stakes and rope. Strange words that she understood were being spoken, but she didn’t know how she understood them. Thrashing against the ropes Adelaide tried to get away from the cutting knife with an antler handle. The incisions burned on her forehead and her tears returned once more.
She knew what was happening; they’d started the process to turn her into one of them. She fought them but was defenseless. Then one of them came into the circle she had been placed in and blew some kind of liquid from their mouth all over her body. The one that had carved the symbol into her head took a flaming stick from the bonfire near them and set it against her hair. Her now naked body burst into flames and her screams of agony died out quickly as her body once more began to convulse and she fell into the world of blackness where nothing existed, not even pain.
Eva and Malachi jumped away as Adelaide’s body began to react to the stress she was under. They’d never heard the term seizure, had no idea what it meant, and wouldn’t have recognized it as English if someone had spoken it to them. They just saw their sleeping daughter go from calm and peaceful to a frantic bundle of spasms as they began to do the Lord’s work on her.
“We can’t let this stop us, Malachi. It’s just them Moon-eyed people trying to stop us. Those devils are fighting powerfully hard to keep our girl. Anoint her once more, make sure that stays on and I’ll start to pray.”
Horrible sounds came from Adelaide as Eva began to pray. Sounds that could only come from Hell, or from the crushing spasms that made up convulsions, came out of her throat, squeals and other sounds that seemed to be mocking Eva as she prayed. Eva perceived the thrashings and sounds as an attempt to stop her from praying and started to pray louder, her voice rising higher and higher.
Eva began to feel like she’d reached some new plane, an area where she was untouchable and her words were holy. She closed her eyes and swore she could feel a holy glow emanating from her skin as she spoke, extorting the demons to leave Addy in peace and the Lord to fight this mighty battle with her. She prayed on and on, never letting any of Addy’s actions distract her.
When Addy’s body finally collapsed back on to the bed, rising once more Malachi noted, Eva continued her prayers and Malachi went to his knees, joining her. Their prayer were not scripted but soon their words joined together in harmony and they spoke as one. Malachi soon began to feel that glow of holy power and put his hands on Addy’s forehead, trying to cast the demons out with force.
Neither were really sure if it was a demon, a spirit, or just something evil but their sight told them something evil was going on and they’d finally joined forces to cast it out of their lives and out of Addy. With a scream her body relaxed once more and Eva thought it was all over.
She stopped praying and ran over to her daughter. When Addy opened her eyes Eva stepped back once more. No, the battle had only just begun.
“Momma?” Addy asked, her red bulging eyes a nightmare to behold. Both of her eyes were filled with blood, her tears staining her cheeks red.
“Be gone demon!” Eva yelled, throwing more water at the thing that had once been her daughter.
“Momma, help me. I’m trapped and they won’t let me go. Momma please help me.”
“Be gone I said!” The frantic mother threw more water, splashing her daughters face and chest.
Malachi just kept praying, his own words now silent. It was all he knew to do.
Chapter Eight
Eva left the room, overcome with grief and an overwhelming feeling of defeat. The demons were pretending to be Adelaide now and mocking her. They were also harming Adelaide. She was sure that was a warning that if she continued her current course they would kill her daughter. Eva shivered against the now frigid night air. Snow was coming early this year; she could feel it in her bones. They’d be locked in, cut off from the world. There was no way the doctor would be able to get to them tomorrow.
Heaving her plump body up from the couch Eva went to the window and sure enough there were flakes of white snow falling from the sky already. Doubt filled her as she watched the snow fall, trapping them in their home and in the holler. Maybe their god was too new to fight against the old gods, the Moon-eyed people who were far older?
The Good Book taught them that their god was eternal, the alpha and omega. But maybe he wasn’t? Maybe the gods of this land were even older than that? Far more powerful than the Biblical God from so far away? These were local gods, this was their land. Eva dismissed that notion but then thought that if they could still show their presence in the world then maybe she wasn’t far off from the truth. Maybe she was approaching this in the wrong way.
“Malachi? Honey stop for a minute please, come in here.”
“What is it Eva?” He asked as she started frying cured bacon and mixing some biscuits for a light supper.
“What if we're coming at this wrong? We’re talking about spirits, gods, demons, that our God doesn’t know. For that matter, we’re taught our God is the only god but if we admit these spirits are from different gods, or are themselves gods, then we need to approach them in a way they’d understand.”
“I reckon.” Malachi said, trying to catch up to Eva’s train of thought. He’d have to think about this for a while.
“I just don’t know what that means. Maybe someone in town would know more?”
“Ben Rogers might, but I don’t know of anyone else. He’s your friend Maisy’s cousin, remember? If we could get down and talk to him…” His words trailed off as Eva started to shake her head.
“No, it’s snowing now. It’ll be a couple of days at least.”
“Well we’ll just have to keep her alive that long, won’t we?” Malachi brushed his hand through his still thick white hair and rubbed at his unshaven face.
Truth be told he had no idea what to do, or what to believe for that matter. He was a simple man with simple needs. He hadn’t asked for any of this and he knew he wasn’t some genius that could solve the mystery of how to treat his daughter. He knew something was wrong but he didn’t know what. A part of him still thought the problem was simply biological but he’d seen that space between the bed and Adelaide. There was no explanation for that, biology couldn’t explain levitation.
Eva placed biscuits and fried bacon on the table and they started to eat but neither tasted the food. Their thoughts were consumed with trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle.
“I wish there was someone to help.” Malachi said out loud though he wasn’t aware he had.
“I do too, darling. I really do. Do you think we should leave her be for now?” Eva asked, placing her hand over Malachi’s.
“I guess we should keep praying and stop the pills but the rest; I don’t think we know enough about it to keep messing with it. Let’s find out from this man what he knows, then decide.” A defeated Malachi took his hand back and got up from the table to check on the animals once more before going to bed. He needed to rest now. It wasn’t going to get better any time soon and it could always get worse.
Eva knew he was starting to feel overwhelmed because she was as well. Her daughter was in her own bedroom tied to her bed to keep her from wandering outside for heaven’s sake. Who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed?
Eva reached over to her pile of paper, blank pieces she’d collected over the years from different places, some of it was no more than wrapping paper from the grocer’s that she’d cut up into pieces for writing on. She started to write down everything she could remember her mother telling her about these ent
ities she just knew were tormenting her daughter.
They were a part of the earliest stories of the Native Americans of the area, thought to have been in the area even before the Native Americans migrated to the Appalachians. They were a strong people but their major strength came from their intellect. Their eyes were weak and they were sensitive to the sun, especially their skin and eyes. They often hid in the shadows, plotting raids and other nefarious deeds at night. They would infrequently steal women as brides, the children of such unions being sent back to the woman’s tribe if they were “normal” human beings at birth. They also spoke a language the tribes of the area could not understand but when the Europeans showed up some of the English words they spoke were similar to the Moon Eyes words.
So what were they? Gods? Ghosts? Demons? Eva blew her breath out of her mouth, causing the hair at her forehead to move around. Eva had never heard of other such people. Of what she knew, there were no white people that pale. She supposed that didn’t mean that the people couldn’t have existed but then been wiped out, look how many Native American tribes no longer existed if you wanted the truth of it. She might not have a lot of knowledge but that didn’t mean she couldn’t puzzle things out.
She knew her mother had told her how to get rid of spirits and “haints” as she’d called them but she just couldn’t for the life of her remember what that was. Eva looked up as she heard Adelaide murmuring in her bedroom. Once more she couldn’t make the words out but knew her daughter was miserable.
Thriller: Horror: Conceived (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story) Page 27