Of course, this was all before I even knew who she was. Yet even when I recognized her and found myself face to face with this monster from my past and listened to her cold hateful threats, I had still felt compassion toward her and forgiveness. I knew somehow she could not harm me in that moment. And I spoke truth to her. I offered her things to think about and hopefully those words would find their way into her heart.
I told Elisabeth about the enormous demon I saw behind her and how it had her bound up in chains. It was influencing a lot of her words and actions but not all of them. She still had the power of choice during moments of our conversation. I saw her choose hatred and sadomasochism to fuel her rage.
The demon had deceived her into allowing her own enslavement. Those chains could be broken but only by the power of God. And only if she truly wanted it deep within her heart. You cannot pray away someone’s will. To try to do so is the same as to practice witchcraft. If they want their demons, you shouldn’t try to kick them out. They might leave for a while, but they’ll come back home.
If you do, she will seek the demon out once more and likewise, it shall seek her out. Then it will return back unto her, bringing seven more demonic spirits with it.
I heard this answer deep in my heart and knew it must be from the Bible. There were so many answers in there. That was one book I needed to start reading again. Angelica had even encouraged me to do so. And now I was ready to get my life back in relationship with God, I should read what he intended me to know.
At the mention of this new demon and his power over Jill, Elisabeth shivered once more and clutched at her legs, holding them tighter with her arms.
“Do you see them all the time now?” she asked in a small voice.
“What? Oh, the demons? No. Not all the time. Thank God! I think I see into that spiritual realm when God wants me to. When it is something he thinks I need to see. I wouldn’t want to see it twenty-four hours a day. I think there are reasons why we weren’t created to see it all the time. Not as humans anyway. It’d probably make us too afraid to step outside of our own homes. Let alone see what might be trying to get into our homes.” I shivered too at the thought.
“Thank God, indeed. I wouldn’t want to see that stuff,” Elisabeth said certainly. “He must have something big lined up for you if he’s training you to see those things and sense creepy stuff in people. But what could it be?” Elisabeth had a new fire in her eyes now. She was getting excited for me too but also wary of the course God was taking me through.
“I honestly don’t know yet. But I do know God put you in my life for a reason. I always thought he sent you to me as my guardian angel and to be my one true friend on earth. But I see now he had a much broader vision in mind. Somehow, I think you’ll help me make sense out of this. Whether it is keeping me grounded during this extreme growth process and learning curve I have in front of me or simply to listen so I can verbalize all the wonderful and terrible things that have been happening. You are the only person I can imagine sharing any of this with,” I said sincerely.
I had reached out and took hold of her clenched hands. She unfolded them and took my hands.
“Whatever I can do to help you, I will. If I think of anything useful, I’ll share it with you. I promise. Whatever God needs from me, I’ll give.” Elisabeth said, looking at me intently in the eyes but her voice was soft.
“I won’t make you promise me anything, Liz. After all, it might get a lot worse before it gets better. And I don’t think Satan likes I have the…the item God had me seek out. I think he’s enraged, actually. I’ve been getting attacked relentlessly ever since. The long walk on that dark lonely street in Turin, Italy, was nothing compared to the battles I’ve been thrown into since. It’s like every horror and demon from my past has raised up against me trying to destroy me. I won’t give in. I won’t let myself be consumed by fear, hate or panic. I won’t let it distract me from whatever it is God has planned.”
“Jill. She wasn’t a coincidence, was she?” Elisabeth asked.
“No. I don’t believe she was. But I can tell you this. It is not a coincidence I’ve been reliving my nightmares in perfect clarity since Saturday night. I’ve relived them, then had all the poison and emotional residue scraped off me by God’s hands. It’s like he doesn’t want me to hide from my fears but to face them. It hasn’t been fun. In fact, it’s sucked. But the freedom and release I feel afterward has been incredible. The peace was amazing,” I said, a mixture of distress and relief in my voice.
“What you said was amazing. You don’t feel peace now?” Liz asked curiously.
“I have peace deep down and a solid hope and faith in God’s protection over me. But my own carnal mind and careless emotions can drown it out. I’ve been having to choose every time something comes up to hang onto my peace and put all my trust in God rather than give into fear,” I replied.
“Like with Jill? I still can’t believe you stayed out there so long and talked to her alone. I was so mad at you when I found out who she was. I had even checked the window, you know? You looked calm, and she looked like she was listening to something that was making her think really hard. I didn’t want to interrupt you ministering to her. That’s what it looked like to me at the time.” Liz looked genuinely upset. Angry at herself for leaving me alone out there and angry at me for putting myself in that position.
“Liz, I’m sorry I scared you. But I had to listen to the unction in my spirit. If God is telling me to do something, I have to trust him to keep me safe. Even when I saw the demon with her, I knew I had a host of unseen angels bearing arms behind me ready to wage battle on my behalf. I could sense it. I’m not saying I need to run off doing dangerous things alone just because I want to test God. Somehow, I think he wouldn’t approve and might even let me get a real taste of danger to keep me from doing it again. It’d be like me…” I broke off, suddenly feeling ashamed.
“Like you doing what?” Liz asked.
I gave her a sheepish look and didn’t want to admit it. Somehow it seemed incredibly foolish I had ever considered what I had been planning to do. Here I was, telling her I had to trust in God to keep me safe through all the opposition the enemy attacked me with, and I had been ready to go out on my own under my own power to try and take down the enemy.
“Like what, Melanie? What has you looking so distraught and conflicted?” Elisabeth asked kindly.
“Well, you know how you told me not to even consider doing anything rash like move out and try to take on Jill or the old gang alone?” I asked, biting my lower lip.
“Uhm,” Elisabeth said through tight lips.
“Well, I had actually been planning a way to draw them out after me, to keep you out of it. From what it sounded like, Jill and the rest have fantasized about finishing me off. Well, you know that. You heard the recording. But I didn’t want them to remember their old grudge toward you either. After all, it was you who called the cops and stepped up in their face when they were still calling out threats to me. They’re likely to want to punish you too,” I said, a little too earnest.
“And you were going to sneak out one day when I was at work or away at a seminar, leave me a note not telling me where you’d gone but saying good-bye, so I wouldn’t be in danger? Is that it?” Elisabeth asked, a slight smile on her face.
I didn’t understand the smile, but I answered her anyway. “Yep. That was pretty much exactly what I was going to do,” I admitted, feeling more like a fool than ever.
Elisabeth threw her head back and laughed. When she had regained her calm demeanor, she said through a slight snicker, “Oh, Melanie. I do love you. Do you think I didn’t see that in your face every time I told you not to do anything rash? I mean, I know you would only have done it out of love for me. And for that, I truly appreciate the gesture. But, Melanie, there is safety in numbers. You don’t want to be living alone if they show up unexpected. You are better off here in a familiar house, around familiar neighbors, and more importantly, with m
e. I hope you realize that now.” Her voice was soft again by the end.
“I know. I know. I just didn’t want you involved,” I answered, abashed.
“So back to the main topic at hand. What other things happened? I know David basically confessed his love for you in front of your philosophy class and embarrassed you almost to death,” Liz asked, snickering as she visualized the humiliating scene.
“Actually, something kind of bigger happened again Sunday night. Before that thing with David in class on Monday, I mean.” I cringed. This was not going to be a fun thing to relive or to talk about. But in this, I truly needed my best friend’s ears and heart.
“You suddenly got very serious. Talk to me,” Liz said, growing serious herself and leaning in.
I took another sip of my rapidly cooling chocolate coffee and then cleared my throat. My eyes were tearing up as I recalled this painful truth.
“I had a suppressed memory come back in full force. Liz, it came back with a vengeance. Actually, it was more like a living memory of remembering a buried memory. It—well, I think you’ll be able to follow this. Sunday night, I had another nightmare. Hmm…I was four years old… I had watched my father murder and rape my mother,” I began in a strangled broken voice.
“What?” Liz asked, breathless.
At this, my eyes overflowed with tears. They broke over and ran down my face. “I had been so little at the time, Liz. I didn’t understand she was dead. I just knew my father—that Dwayne— had hurt her really bad that time. And I didn’t understand he was…raping her either while she lay unconscious. I-I thought my mommy was asleep.” My voice broke now into complete sobs, and I huddled in on myself.
Elisabeth made to move toward me to comfort me just as Vivian had, but I held my hand out to stop her.
“No. Not yet. Let me just ge-get it out.”
Elisabeth sat back on her side of the bed and waited with a deep look of pain and concern in her eyes while I did my best to regain control of my sobs and gasping breaths. When I was able to speak coherently once more, I pressed on.
“I had been playing dress up in their closet when I heard them yelling. He had followed her into their bedroom and started hitting her. He didn’t see me while he was on top of her, beating her mercilessly. Then once she stopped moving and screaming, he pulled up her dress and started fumbling with his own pants. I was so scared I hid further in the closet and tried to make it all go away.
“Then I forgot it, Liz. I buried it away. It got lost in the pain of her disappearance and his lies that she ran off and abandoned us. And then a month or so later, my father had stuffed our Christmas stockings with the news article that said our mother had been found dead in a ditch, off Gas Point Road, just outside of town.
“I didn’t remember it again until I was about twelve. The memory woke me out of a nightmare I had been having of that day. Vivian was there. She comforted me, and I told her everything I could remember about the dream.
“The next morning, I woke to her screaming at my father. She was accusing him of murdering our mom. I came running into the living room when I heard the kitchen being torn apart. Vi was lying there all busted up with her neck at an odd angle. My father made me go back to my room. So, I did. I was too afraid not to. I listened as my father’s heavy footsteps took him out to the garage, then back into the house with what sounded like plastic being dragged behind him. I was too terrified to go out to see. So when I knew he was gone for sure, I went to find Vivian. She was gone too. I never saw her again… I let her down. I let her down.” I was rocking myself and shaking my head back and forth, hot tears running on my cheeks, unrestrained.
“When I heard on the news a young woman’s body was found near a high school wrapped in plastic, I knew it was her. I found a paper in our neighbor’s garbage and found the full article. It only showed a body in plastic with a foot dangling out of the bottom. But I recognized her foot. We had painted our toenails with funny designs the day before she died. I knew it was her. The article said the young lady had been raped, stabbed, and her neck broken. My father must have raped her while she was dying, like he had my mother. My father is a psychopath, Liz! He’s a monster! He must have wanted it to look as if the main motive of her death was an attack with the intent to sexually assault her. Maybe he wanted it to look like it had just gotten out of hand.”
Elisabeth sat with horror on her face. Her own eyes flooding with angry tears. I rushed on. Unable to stop the flow of words that sought to escape me as if running from the pain within.
“Regardless, he killed them both, Liz. He murdered, and raped both my mother and my sister. That is what I had repressed. That is what I had pushed away and was afraid to admit to myself. I was too afraid to know the truth because I was stuck living with that evil sadistic man. I was too afraid to leave. Too afraid to tell anyone. Too afraid to remember, or I might have killed myself from the pain. The only way I knew to survive was to block it out and try to tell myself it was all a bad dream, nothing more.
“Eventually, I did forget. I was a witness to both murders and I forgot!” I said through heaving sobs. “I let them both down! My father is a serial killer, Liz. Two makes it serial. Jill being raped and beaten by him makes her a survivor of his attack. He could have killed her too. But somehow, he didn’t. There has to be others, Liz. I can feel it. I know it. I know it,” I said, my voice growing rigid with my anger at such terrible crimes not being brought to justice.
I grew silent. Lost for words now. I knew it was true. Suddenly, I knew it was true. I hadn’t even considered it until this moment. But as the thoughts had flowed from one conclusion to the next and the words came to my mouth and I spoke them, I felt the truth bite my tongue and spoil bitterly in my mouth.
“Holy mother, Melanie. Oh my God.” Elisabeth was pale. She was as still as a statue, eyes wide with horror at what I had witnessed and shared with her. She placed her hand over her mouth, and I could tell she was trying not to freak out on me. It was a lot to take in.
“And,” I began slowly, “I don’t know why, but I think there is something else I’ve forgotten. Something real important. I can feel it riding the edge of my thoughts, but it’s like it’s behind a veil, and I can’t see what it is. I don’t know if it is another detail I’ve forgotten or an answer as to what to do. But it’s there,” I said, finally dabbing at my eyes with the tissue I had left.
“Melanie. Oh, Melanie. I am deeply sorry for what you saw. That must have been excruciatingly painful to witness at such a young age. No wonder you blocked it out. It was either you made yourself forget it or risk being destroyed inside by it. Knowing you were living with the man who stole your family from you— murdered them and raped them. All you could do was try to survive. Try to make it through each day. You didn’t let them down. You didn’t!” Elisabeth grabbed my hands fiercely and looked into my eyes from only a couple inches away.
“But I never told anyone, Liz. I let the world go on without them. I let everyone think my mom ran off with a lover and got herself killed and my sister was attacked and killed by a teenage stalker from another school. I-I never got justice served for them. He stayed free! He didn’t get the death penalty he deserves!” I was nearly shouting now and crying at the same time.
“You didn’t have a choice. What if you started asking questions? What if you had called the cops and no one believed you? What then?” Liz was talking firmly to me, almost scolding me, trying to make me hear what she was saying and understand.
“I don’t know. I should have done something,” I said, hanging my head.
“No!” She lifted my chin gently with her soft hand, though her words were definite and stern. “No, Mel,” she said more gently now that my eyes were locked onto her. “Do you remember what you told me before about what happened to you when you had tried to tell a teacher about the abuse you were suffering from him at home? How badly he started to beat you until your sister stepped in?”
“Yes,” I said in a small voic
e.
“He wouldn’t have stopped beating you until he killed you, like he had done to them if you had told a single word about it to anyone. Even if nothing came from it and he was brought in for questioning, you would have been dead. I think on some level, you knew that. You knew you had two choices. Forget and live, or remember and be murdered like them.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, clasping her hands.
“Your sister and your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to die to avenge them. They would have wanted you to keep on living despite him. To survive. Then get as far away from him as you could. They always tried to protect you from him. They would not have wanted you to die for them.”
“But, Liz, they deserve better than this. They really do,” I said in anguish.
She leaned over now and hugged me, holding me gently to her, just as Vivian used to do. I let her hug me now. I let my sister and my mother hug me through her. It was as though I was surrounded by their love as well as my dear friend’s arms. I hugged her back and cried until I felt like my eyes could not cry a single drop more.
I broke away slowly, and she released me reluctantly, wiping at her own eyes.
“God will right these wrongs. Somehow, someway. Maybe he’ll help us find some proof somewhere. Something admissible in court. Your testimony would be devastating to his defense, especially with the years of abuse you suffered and witnessed. But a jury will need hard evidence. Something that won’t allow for a reasonable doubt. Something undisputable. Maybe I can call my grandfather and have him pull the old case files. I don’t think they ever arrested anyone for either murder, did they?” Elisabeth asked me. She was regaining her composure again as she spoke her thoughts.
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