Marietta and Anne Faith
saw it at the same time. After praying the last prayer for their mother.
Miles away, in the ruined
church at Sorrow Creek, Marietta convulsed.
"It's like… he's being
born, but the mouth is full of teeth. They're not cutting him—they're just…
there. Watching him squeeze through."
Anne Faith's face went
pale, her hand instinctively moving to her head… "Not a birth canal. A mirror.
He's seeing every choice that led him there, and the teeth are the consequences
he ignored."
Anne Faith's pendant
burned against her skin. She saw that wine and bread filled Dan's stomach and
turned his insides inside out. The sacrament of the body of the Eucharist Dan
had taken in his waking life, a Eucharist that he had eaten worthily at the time.
Dan's spirit, a blue orb
flickering in the space between life and death, a dark, insidious red velvet
shadow clinging to its edges like oil that refused to wash clean. But the gold
was there too—bright, warm, winning.
Anne Faith gripped
Marietta's compass and then gripped the silver jagged cross. Marietta placed
her hand over her sister's.
They prayed once more.
Anne Faith, "I know you
deceived us, Dan. You stalked us. You scared us. You were a predator wearing a
victim's face."
Marietta, "But you gave…
You gave her the ward-stone."
Marietta paused, a frown
creasing her brow. For a split second, she couldn't remember her mother's name,
only the shape of the love she felt. The air seemed to thin, as if a piece of
her memory was missing. "
Their voices merged, a
harmony learned in a womb, refined in battle.
Marietta and Anne Faith,
"We hope you're not in hell, Dan. We hope you find what you've been looking for
since you were seven. We know you were misunderstood by love— you were taught
that drowning was baptism, that control was care, that suffering proved your
undoing."
Tears streamed down
Marietta's face. Anne Faith's pendant burned warm—not with warning, but with
hope.
Marietta and Anne Faith,
"Hear our prayers, Lord Jesus Christ. Love, the Daughters of Light. Amen."
The Response, Dan's
Perspective.
In the space beyond death,
Dan heard them.
Two girls he'd terrorized,
offering grace he didn't deserve. Calling him a misunderstood boy, instead of a
monster.
Dan, to God, to himself,
to the universe, said, "I don't deserve this."
God, "That's what
makes it grace, Son. Welcome home."
Together, they watched
Dan's soul—a blue orb now, cleansed—float toward endless light. They both also
saw a pure gold light go ahead of Dan's soul; it was Maryanne's soul. Maryanne
blessed them as she moved on into the afterlife. As Marietta and Anne Faith
both saw the vision, the memory of their beloved mom faded out of existence…
Anne Faith immediately realized this and said, "What was that?"
Marietta "Seems like we
just experienced a taste of the life beyond this one. She smirked, but that
feeling in my gut says something's wrong like we're forgetting a love that was
so fond…"
Anne Faith "A love that
shaped our story, or life.
It was our life.
It blessed us when it
left…"
Marietta said, "Why are we
outside this ruined church? We need to get home, or at least to Aunt Clara's
and Elijah's to tell them what's happened."
Anne Faith said, " What
has happened all I remember is making it out of that church and that weird
vision after we prayed for that creepy Dan guy." To tell you the truth,
"I can't recall what happened inside the ruined church or how we even got
there"
Marietta said, "It's that
love the one we feel under the deepest layer of our skin, and in the depths of
our hearts still. It feels like it's fading in and out of memory." We need more
answers. Marietta and Anne Faith found their mom's car and don't recognize it.
They both said it looks like we got lucky enough, a car up the road still with
keys in it. They step in and see a cross with jagged edges, and dried blood
hanging around the mirror, and they feel a tug at their hearts. Anne Faith
said, "This car seems to familiar to not be ours." Marietta started the engine.
"Then we're going back to Clara's. If anyone remembers, it's family," said
Marietta. The rain started as they pulled onto the highway."