Behind the Darkness

by W. Franklin Lattimore

  Garian stabbed his right forefinger at him. “Liar! I was there! I heard what was said! I saw what was done! You had rebellion in your hearts, every one of you! You wanted your independence from the Throne, and you received your wish! You wanted to be forever free from the Master’s rule and his presence, and one day, as this human has well said, you will get your wish!”

  An uneasy silence spilled over the room.

  Brent realized that Elizabeth was not returning. He broke from the stillness and exited the bedroom, thinking to find the girl just outside the door. He was wrong.

  He looked through the flooring and walls of the house, locating her downstairs in the kitchen.

  Brent transported himself into the room to see Elizabeth standing by the sink with a glass of water in her hand.

  “You’ve got to calm down, girl,” Elizabeth told herself. “Just get through this night. Get some sleep and you’ll figure out what to do tomorrow. Just get through this night.”

  Brent walked up to her. “Please, Elizabeth, allow yourself to hear me. There is yet a purpose for you and for your baby. Don’t throw your futures away.”

  The demon on her shoulder immediately began to counter his pleas. It spoke with a smirk on its face. This was apparently just as much a game as it was an assignment. “Peace, Elizabeth. There is peace in death. Death is the great answer. It removes the pain.”

  “Silence! In the name of Jesus Christ, silence!”

  Phased but for a moment, the spirit continued. “Fast or slow, suicide will lead to eternal rest. No more pressure. No more pregnancy. No more disappointed family members.”

  Garian appeared in the dining room, followed by the demon of death.

  The angel said, “The name of the Holy and Eternal Christ will not be of assistance to you by way of your tongue.”

  “But why?” asked Brent. “It has always…” Then it hit him. Joshua. Another part of his self-reliance test. Then something else occurred to him; Garian’s wording: “…will not be of assistance to you by way of YOUR tongue.”

  An answer!

  Brent turned to Garian. “I’ve got someplace that I need to go.”

  The angel gave him a simple nod of acknowledgment.

  BRENT APPEARED AT the foot of Tina Morrison’s bed. He quickly walked to the right side where she faced the alarm clock on her night stand. Her face was lit by the faint red glow of its display.

  He wasted no time. “Tina!” he yelled. “Tina! Awake! You are needed, Tina! Awake and arise!”

  She began to stir.

  “Yes, Tina! That’s it! I need your help! Elizabeth needs your help!”

  Tina’s eyes blinked open. She tilted her head up to see her alarm clock. 12:25 AM. She groaned and rolled over.

  “Tina Anne Morrison! I command you to wake up!”

  Tina immediately rolled onto her back, eyes wide open, clearly anticipating that she would hear something else if she truly had heard something the first time.

  “Tina, Elizabeth is in trouble! She needs you to pray! Pray for her protection! Now!”

  Tina’s breathing became rapid. “Elizabeth?” she whispered.

  “Yes, Tina. Elizabeth needs your prayers! Pray for protection!”

  “God, what’s wrong?” she asked silently. What’s wrong with Elizabeth?”

  “LISTEN! I need you to PRAY!”

  Tina responded by immediately pushing down her covers and kneeling on her bed. She looked up toward Heaven and started to cry out to God.

  “Father, I come to you on behalf of my friend, Elizabeth! I’m scared for her. Please, in the name of Jesus I ask you for her protection! For her and for her baby!”

  Brent had one last thing to say before leaving. “Keep praying, Tina! Don’t stop praying!”

  Tina lurched forward onto all fours and, with all that was in her, began pleading for God’s intervention.

  AT THE EDGE of Colleen Burns’ bed, Brent attempted the exact same method he’d used with Tina.

  Shouting.

  “Colleen! Colleen, I need you to wake up! You need to help Elizabeth! Awake, Colleen!”

  No sign that he was getting through.

  “COLLEEN! WAKE UP!”

  Nothing. Dead to the world.

  Maybe not the best metaphor to use in this situation.

  ONE LAST BEDROOM. One he’d never entered before.

  He walked to the edge of the bed where the lone occupant was nearly falling out.

  Brent cupped his hands, realizing that he needed to start off with maximum voice noise.

  “KYLE RUSSELL! AWAKE!”

  And he did—utterly startled. So great was his alarm that he lost his balance at the edge of the bed and fall to the floor.

  If it had occurred during any other circumstance, Brent would have laughed. As it was playing out, he was only relieved.

  Kyle was on his feet right away, staring. “I know I heard something!” His heart was hammering.

  “Kyle, I need you to pray!”

  The boy’s eyes told the story. They went wide.

  This kid has definitely made himself sensitive to the voice of the Spirit, thought Brent.

  “Kyle, pray for Elizabeth Franklin! Pray for her protection! She needs prayer cover right now!”

  “Y-yes, Lord. Right away!”

  The ‘Lord’ moniker that Kyle gave him was obviously misplaced, but he couldn’t exactly tell Kyle that.

  “Do not stop praying, Kyle! I need you to pray deep and pray hard!”

  Kyle dropped to his knees beside his bed and began to pray in the Spirit.

  Good man, thought Brent. Good man!

  BRENT WAS BACK in the kitchen in a flash. Not everything was as he had left it, though.

  Elizabeth was on her knees weeping, trying to remain as quiet as possible while voicing her demands.

  “Stop it! Shut up! Get out of my head!”

  Brent didn’t understand what was happening. He turned to look at Garian who had moved into the kitchen. He only smiled and nodded.

  Brent faced Elizabeth again. What was happening finally struck him. Every time the spirit of suicide tried to speak a convincing word to her, she perceived it as a voice. She obviously knew something wasn’t right; she just couldn’t understand what it was.

  Having been identified, at least to some degree, the spirit became frustrated.

  Brent listened in to her thoughts.

  “This can’t be happening!” “Shut up, I said!” “Voices. Not mine! From where?”

  Garian walked directly up to Elizabeth and, with his massive right hand, grabbed the head of the suicidal spirit. The demon wrapped its tail more tightly around Elizabeth’s neck, so Garian squeezed. The demon relented and uncurled its tail.

  The guardian angel hurled the demon out of the kitchen and through the dining room wall, but it only disappeared for a few seconds. It returned by winged flight and came to roost on the left shoulder of the spirit of death.

  Brent heard the little demon softly speak. “I’m sorry, master. But you saw what happened. What could I do?”

  The death demon also grabbed the smaller one by the head and threw it to the floor. Then it placed its leathery foot over the majority of the suicidal spirit’s body and held it in place. “Do not speak!”

  The smaller spirit closed its mouth, accepting its punishment.

  Brent walked over to Elizabeth. Her eyes were darting back and forth. “Is it gone? I don’t hear it.” She stood silently, listening.

  Brent feared startling her with his own voice if she was now capable of hearing it, so he didn’t say a word. He allowed for her heart to slow down and her breathing to ease.

  Garian spoke. “Brent, I am getting the prayer coverage for Elizabeth that I need to guarantee a peaceful rest. She will not be interrupted again this night.”

  As if confirmed by some other authority, the two demons silently departed the house through the kitchen wall.

  Now, finally, Brent could allow his own breathing and pulse to q
uiet down.

  Be careful what you wish for—you may get it, thought Brent.

  He lay staring at the ceiling of the hundred-year-old bedroom.

  After the departure of the demons, Brent had once again ended up standing alone in Elizabeth’s bedroom. All he had wanted was to awaken back in his mamaw’s farmhouse, believing that there would be nothing to do as the teenage girl slept. Now that he had received what he had wished, a pang of regret ran through his system. Had he blown it? Had he actually wished himself out of Elizabeth’s life, accidentally and forever?

  How could things come to an abrupt end without resolution?

  He had awakened to the day that he and his family would be leaving Kentucky for Ohio, and it was quite possibly the final time that he would ever see his ‘Green Gables.’ Discouraging, to say the least, but at the moment, it was Elizabeth with whom he was most concerned.

  Did leaving this house for Ohio mean that his visits to help Elizabeth were over? Had he been given a set amount of time to protect her and the baby, but blown it? Was he never to find out what happened?

  Brent sat up, swung his feet off the bed and onto the floor, and then he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

  He smelled bacon.

  At least I’ve got that going for me this morning.

  Brent got up, changed into some day clothes—clean jeans and a T-shirt—then headed down the stairs for breakfast.

  When he walked into the kitchen he found that his Aunt Susan was frying up eggs, bacon, and sausage. His mom was in the process of closing the oven door after pulling out a pan of freshly baked biscuits. Brent’s stomach growled.

  His Aunt Susan glimpsed him coming into the room and turned to him. “Good morning, Brent,” she said with a big smile. She received the response that Brent was sure she was hoping for, because he couldn’t hold back a spontaneous smile of his own.

  “Good morning, Aunt Susan. Good morning, Mom.”

  “You always seem to wake up right on time whenever breakfast comes from the stove,” said his mom with laugh.

  “Here’s to perfect timing,” Brent replied, attempting to allay any appearance of discouragement.

  “Your dad, Lydia, and Uncle Mike are in the back dining room,” said Aunt Susan.

  Brent walked back. The men and Lydia were listening to the old AM radio that had rested on the same small table by the back door for decades. At the moment, a news broadcast was playing.

  “Good morning, Brent!” said his Uncle Mark.

  Everyone seemed just a little too lively this morning. His dad raised a hand of acknowledgment, and his sister gave him a smile.

  Brent gave a quick wave and a “G’morning.” He could see that they were intent on listening to the only electronic form of entertainment that the house had to offer.

  “In international news today, Russian President Boris Yeltsin again called on Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to move immediately to transform the Soviet Union to a free-market economy. Gorbachev rejected the idea, stating that it is his new union treaty that must be implemented, allowing for a slow transition. He went on to say that the increasingly democratized block of Soviet republics needs the Soviet Union’s economic power and current markets in order to prosper.

  “Moving on to the Middle East, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein remained defiant this morning, stating that his country’s invasion of Kuwait was a legitimate re-assimilation of sovereign Iraqi territory. President Bush, today, called on nations to condemn the actions of Iraq and to exert diplomatic pressure to force the Iraqi president to relent and withdraw his troops…”

  “The world never stops being an interesting place, does it?” said Uncle Mark to no one in particular.

  “It’s making me a bit nervous,” said Lydia.

  “Why?” asked Brent, as he moved to join them in the oval dining booth.

  “The Middle East. It’s where my squadron is tasked to deploy if anything ever happens over there.”

  Their dad looked at Lydia, his face becoming serious. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah, well, there never really seemed to be a reason to talk about it. All eyes have been on the breakup of the Soviet Union. Who was concerned with the Middle East?”

  “I doubt there’s anything to worry about,” said Uncle Mark. “There are all kinds of mini-crises all over the planet. We don’t jump into every one of them.”

  “Hopefully, you’re right,” said Lydia.

  “Yes, hopefully you’re right,” said their dad, concern evident in his eyes.

  Aunt Susan and Sharon Lawton walked into the dining area with plates of steaming food. Setting them down on the large table, they both went back and retrieved all the plates and utensils necessary to turn good food into good eating.

  BRENT SPENT THE remainder of the morning on the front porch of the old farmhouse doing two things: viewing the scenery out in front of the house all the way up into the lush, green mountains and reading some of the novel he had brought with him from Ohio. It was a quiet—almost peaceful—way to spend the morning of the first Tuesday in August. The beautiful outdoors, though, would be too hot and humid to enjoy in another couple of hours.

  He closed the novel again, using his finger to mark his spot. Almost peaceful.

  In a matter of six or seven hours, the family would be cooped up in the car again heading for home, and yet, during all of his time in Kentucky, nothing that he had been dealing with had been fully resolved.

  He still didn’t understand the when and why of his mamaw’s death.

  He still didn’t know how things were going to turn out for Elizabeth.

  He didn’t know how to handle the additional loss of this old house with all of its memories.

  Brent leaned his head back against the house’s wood siding and closed his eyes.

  Joshua, what’s going on? It still feels like everything’s collapsing. I thought there would be answers.

  He lifted his head and sighed.

  Will Elizabeth’s reality continue as I sleep in my own bedroom in Millsville? I need to know how it ends. I don’t want to leave yet, especially if its resolution is somehow tied to this house.

  The door to the porch opened. Lydia stepped out into the sunlit morning. She walked over and sat next to Brent on the pillow-padded bench.

  She sighed.

  “Exactly,” said Brent.

  She looked over at him and gave him a sad smile. “I asked Mom and Aunt Susan if we had to wait until everyone got here before we could choose certain items in the house to take with us. They said it was best if we did wait.”

  Both of them redirected their eyes to the view ahead of them.

  “I hope I can remember what all of this looks like,” said Lydia.

  “Dad said he’s going to take a lot of pictures.”

  “I know. But it won’t be the same.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Everyone should be here in about two hours. I guess everyone’s last day is today.”

  Brent nodded.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of praying,” Lydia said. “I’m starting to feel better, I think. I’m going to get over my anger at God. I know I said it already, but you were right; I don’t know Mamaw’s story. I’ve got to believe that God knows what he’s doing—not just with her, but with all of us.”

  Brent looked over at her, choosing to remain quiet.

  “I mean, either God’s heart toward all of us is good or it’s not. Either the Bible is true or it’s not. I don’t get to create a mixture of good and bad in God, and I don’t get to just choose certain things in the Bible to be true. It’s the Word of God.”

  Brent pursed his lips and turned back to look over the yard.

  He sighed.

  She’s right, and you know it.

  PEOPLE FILLED THE living room. Three house fans were set up to blow, as best they could, over the large group. All the children of Brent’s grandparents were sitting in a room that they had occupied many tim
es together as they had grown up.

  Brent wondered at the nostalgia.

  For whatever the reason, Brent had thought that everyone would just hop right into claiming mementos from the estate, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Aunt Susan—the baby of the Moore family—had called everyone together to just sit, relax, and talk. It had been the right thing to do. The laughter and the memories shared among the family were priceless.

  He, his sister, all of their cousins, and all of the spouses heard stories about…

  How they all spent most of the daytime hours during the coldest days of winter in the same room to stay as warm as possible.

  How the hottest days were spent at the ‘swimming hole’ in the creek just up the road.

  How the three girls would spend time with their mother learning how to sew and knit and bake.

  How the three boys learned from their father how to build things with their own hands and how to hunt.

  All six of Brent’s aunts and uncles had stories to tell about the one-on-one time that each shared with their “Mother” and “Daddy.”

  There was a lot of laughter on the final day together in the mountains, just as there probably was when six brothers and sisters were kids growing up in the old house.

  Eventually, Aunt Susan—still called Sissy by her brothers and sisters—decided to take it upon herself to switch the conversation over to how to handle the contents of the house.

  Brent didn’t know how all of this was going to play out. Were there any items over which some of them would quarrel?

  “Well,” she began, “I guess we ought to get through this. I know that most of us have to leave tonight to head back to our homes.” Taking a moment to look around at everybody, she said, “I think that there are too many of us in here to all do a walkthrough, so I would like to suggest this: All six of us kids and our spouses get to stay, along with all of our children. If all of our grandchildren and those who have married into the family would do us a huge favor and head on outside, it would be greatly appreciated. We’ll try to get through this process of looking for keepsakes—and arguing about who gets to keep them—as quickly as possible.”