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2007

Winter

Venum came home just before Christmas and landed a job at Piper. Our Pastor was the Safety Manager there and so it seemed like a cinch. It was odd with him back home and having to answer to someone again. I struggled more with keeping Spirit contained and out of trouble. I did notice, however, that Venum was still very secretive and was still staying out after he would get off work. Several times when he was gone, my phone would ring and when I picked it up, they would hang up. I knew Melissa had my number again but wondered how. I had changed our home number at least three times since she started to become so crazy.

I asked Venum about her some time after he returned from training and he just denied ever having any relations with her at all. I was stunned at how he still denied it...but I dropped it for now.


2007

Winter

Damian was in his last year of elementary school and he was very excited about growing up. I started to picture him growing up and moving away and it was just too much for me and so I pushed the thought away for the time being. Dorian was in head start and Devon had one more year to be home with momma, in fact; Devon was in line to be going to head start in the next school year.

Venum started talking about me getting a job and I really wasn't happy about it. I wanted to work for myself so badly that I couldn't stand it. There were many reasons why I wanted to stay home. One reason was quickly disappearing and that reason was because I wanted to raise my babies....i had accomplished that and they were leaving for school. Another reason was because for years I had worked off and on to help with the bills only to have Venum spend his money on drugs, alcohol, toys and women. I was disgusted by this and it made me stubborn. The other reason was because Iknew I was different and sometimes, I had problems with dealing with 'normal' people...and not to mention, the pure joy and freedom that I got when staying at home. And so we disagreed about it all. In the end, he won...as he usually did and I started looking for a job.


2008

Spring

I met one of my best friends and her name was Angel. I knew he from the neighborhood in passing and from the grocery store. But one day, she came to my house to ask if her son could play with mine and so we started to talk. Venum was there and he met her too. She seemed like a good person and so I invited her to come hang out with me sometime. I told her that I was looking for a job and that I might not always be around to hang out with her during the day and so we might as well get to know each other now...and we did.

Angel had car trouble one day and Venum stopped and helped her get her car started. He told me that she was so excited that she hugged him and she didn't even really know him. At the time, I thought it was cute.

I learned things about Angel...private things that kind of shocked me. I heard that she and her husband had an open marriage. I told her in so many ways that I wasn't interested. There was more than one reason why I wasn't interested in having an adventure with them. Although, I must add, she never really formally asked me to anyway. One reason was because I did not trust Venum with women at all  at this point. Another reason was because I was just not interested at the time and I was confused about love and life. I was still very fixated on Gavin and nothing else could take his place in my mind.

And so, me and Angel talked of other things as I got used to the facts of what she told me. I wanted to be her friend no matter who or what she was and so I did that.


2008

Spring.

I met Darla and she was sweet. But I just met her, and at first...she was just an aquaintance. After a while, I got to know her better and then I met her sister in law, Tracey. I noticed that Darla seemed to talk to Gavin lots and she smiled at him too. It became apparent that she liked him and maybe even as I liked him. Thing was, Darla was just 19 and much more suited to Gavin than I was. At this time, I was 33, Gavin was 23 and she was 19. The math showed the simple solution in age...you would think. But I just couldn't put him out of my mind. I decided then and there that the only way I would be able to stop wanting Gavin was to write about him.


2008

I started something and it was odd. I decided to create the story of Spirit, the Dark Faerie... And so I did. Spirit was born to fairy parents, or so the story went. She was born but she was very sick and so the fairies didn't want her. One night....the fairies crept up to a small farm house where a couple, a son and a newborn daughter were sleeping. The fairies, they snuck into the window of the nursery and switched Spirit(the sick fairy baby) with the human child. The little boy, who was seven(my brother Allen) he witnessed the whole thing and that is why he always hated Spirit. Little did he know, but when he was an infant, he was switched with a demon...which is much more controversial. Because of such demented children, the parents would go mad and the youngsters would run away into the forest and create a normal life in their heads before returning to society. Spirit would become a college professor while Allen and his dark demon half...would become quite famous in the world of Horror and Sci fi. This was my story and yet there was more. When the young man(Gavin) would register for college...little did he know, he would be taking one of Ms. Kimana's(Spirit, the dark faeries) classes and they would fall deeply in love.

This was my plan to get rid of Gavin. I would write him away until at the end of the story...he would die to save Spirit from the evil faeries. Then in real life, Gavin would never know about her love for him...and she would be free from the agonizing reality of never being with him.
Seemed like a plan....but nothing ever really goes according to plan, does it.


2008

Spring

I wrote and wrote and wrote and the more I wrote, the less I cared about what Venum was doing. I would read parts of my story to Damian to see if the magical parts would make him smile. He seemed to love the story but I would stop just short of anything disturbing. I wrote first in pen and then I got high speed internet. At fist, I never really used the internet...I only used the documents to created my chapters on my book. I rewrote and rewrote the story until I thought I had it in full. I then let my brother read it who said that it really needed a lot of work and sounded kinda childish. So I wrote it again. I had manuscripts all over the place, stuck in the book shelf, in duffle bags, in boxes and then finally I started to rip up old manuscripts and rely on two forms of the story only. Then, when I was confident...i told Angel about GAvin...bit by bit...I told her. I think it was the first time I realized that I could trust her. Then I told Angel about the story and she seemed to really enjoy the whole idea.
I never really realized that with every moment that I created the story, Spirit took a breath. She grew stronger and stronger with every line and every edit. I had no idea what I was doing. Thing is...I never even realized where the whole idea came from. But one night, in a dream...she came to me.


2008

The Spirit dream

I was sitting in the darkness where I love to sit and just be with me. It was quiet there at first, just like it was most of the time. I dreamed now on many occasions where I am sitting in the darkness touching my face and smiling. I am knowing myself without the influence of anything, or anyone. I am alone.

But then I hear a voice, a distant voice and it is a sound and pitch that I had forgotten some time ago. I listen intently as the voice grows nearer to me...and then I see a small light growing. And then there is a face, a small freckled face framed by the reddest hair...and imprinted with green green eyes. She smiles and I know her...Anna. She comes and sits with me putting the candle at our feet. She reaches over and caressed my face and then she looks sad. I speak to her.

"I am so sorry for what happened to you, Anna." I frown and I know that because I feel it.

She smiles again "No need for sorrys, I am here to help you. I was gone for way too long and death is no excuse."

I tilt my head in wonder at her beautiful voice "But death cannot be helped, Anna. It is not your fault."

She laughs and the sound tickles my ears. It is not like Spirit's laugh but it is innocent and beautiful. "I am here to balance you.....and her. You are headed for disaster if you do not control her...she is dangerous...deadly, I might even venture to say."

When Anna spoke those words I feel fear...fear of something near to us. "She is here, Anna...I feel her."

"Yes, she is and she loves you because she is you. I am not saying that you should punish her at all. She deserves her freedom and she deserves everything that she desires...because she is simply you...uninhibited by anything...anything at all." Anna pauses then rethinks her statement. "She deserves everything but....true freedom can be very dangerous unless you know how to balance. I am here for that. I am your logic, your reason."

I frowned again and yes, I felt it crack across my face and knew it for the negative feeling it gave.

"But Anna, if Spirit is freedom and you are logic...then what am I...what is Sherrie?"

A tear descended from Anna's cheek and hit her breast which was speckled all over with freckles. She looked very sad. "Oh...my dear, Sherrie is unhealed pain....horrendous pain. Sherrie cannot filter the pain through...  pain and darkness...she is also unihibited...but if left with her own devices...Sherrie will soon end her suffering. sherrie is truth, stark and bitter truth of her insanity, madness and torture. Sherrie forgets nothing,  nothing especially herself. She is quiet and timid giving everythign of herself to benefit others but she is punishment, she is hurting and pulsating fear...this is Sherrie." Anna looks around at the darkness surrounding her and looks back at me. "Sherrie is here, you are her and Sherrie is hearing this with her physical soul. Sherrie is the little girl who died so long ago in the arms of death and so lives again through death...do you remember Death, Sherrie?"

At that moment, memories flashed through my head of broken dolls and little bottles of poison, Cami's face as I was choking her and my parent's death as a dark figure stood just at their bedside. I gasped and my breath came fast and in spurts. "I...I ...I know death...I sent him away."

Anna smiled a sad smile and then she said..."No, he dug a hole inside you...there..." she poked my chest just where my heart would be. " he dug a hole and then he climbed right in. Death walks with you and you walk with death."

At that moment, the words of Rides Lightning came to me of Spirit's meaning. "Spiritwalker, walks among the dead."

That moment...that is when I heard the other laughter. It was her laughter and it was mocking yet very comforting at the same time. I heard Spirit laugh at me because she was free...

And maybe, just maybe she wasn't the one we had to worry about.
......................
I woke and I started to write...not just about Spirit and her story...but I wrote everything. I took a notebook and filled it with various thoughts and random shit. I wrote from front to back and on the cover itself. Then I found another notebook. I wrote until my fingers cramped and swoll. I waited a while, fed my children, watched television a bit and then I wrote again. By the end of the day, there were several files on my computer filled with writings...notebooks stacked on the chair filled with scribbles....some pure nonesense and some revelations. I wrote it out and that night, I lay awake, things rushing through my head...I just could not sleep. The light from the bathroom reminded me of Anna. I spoke to her just to see what would happen. Inside my head, I heard a small still voice.
"Yes, I am here."
............
And then there were three.