Mother of Darkwaters: Book one of the Vessel series (67 page)

   Julianna yells out in frustration. She turns and looks at Lilith, “I don’t understand.”

   “Your mother’s physical story ended whenever your father killed her. He is not of my bloodline. He’s story will not be there. If you went through with it, it will be in your story.”

   “Of course I went through with it. I blew his freakin’ brains out,” Julianna says within her agitation. She walks the wall’s length to get to her story. She is still a little hurt that Lilith never told her about her father’s actions against her mother. She had to read it for herself.

   Julianna stops and begins reading. When she finishes, she turns around and looks at Lilith.

   “Is it there?”

   “You know it is,” Julianna answers venomously, “And I still can’t believe you let me think she died from cancer.”

   “I will not be a part of the butchering of your family,” Lilith says with narrowed brows, “Family is important.”

   “You didn’t know that I’d kill him,” Julianna refuses her reasoning.

   Lilith quickly stands up, “I am a warrior, child. I understand revenge. It is an empty promise of victory laced with the burdens of regret and despair. Don’t you ever believe my intentions for you are to bring you to harm. I had only desired to help you grow before you found out the truth. Your adolescence has brought about something which can never be changed. Did you not think to ask your mother about this first? Your father? Do you even know his reasoning behind this? Did you ask first? Tell me. Did you ask him before you ended his life? Or was it like that boy you ended for a ridiculous key that damned your soul to this place?”

   Julianna stands speechless.

   “No words?”, Lilith questions mockingly, “The young all powerful
Mother
has no words?”

   Julianna looks down at the black sand around her pale feet. She speaks quietly with no confidence in her tone, “Why didn’t you say all of this whenever I first told you what I was going to do?”

   “Would any of this stopped you? Or would you have believed me to be a deceitful liar?”

   Julianna pauses before guiltily nodding in agreement with Lilith’s last statement.

   “You do no trust outside of you comfort area, child. This is your biggest problem. And it is your biggest weakness. Your future child’s father knows this about you.”

   Julianna looks up, “Knows what?”

   “He knows if you
think
you understand, then you will trust your evaluations without question. The boy and your father are proof of this. Trusting me would have been outside of your comfort area. Would it not?”

   Julianna stares.

   “Weakness, child – it leads to the kind of decisions you have been making.”

   Lilith turns and sits back down upon her rock. A few silent minutes pass by before Julianna interrupts the heavy atmosphere.

   “I need to go and find him,” Julianna quietly speaks.

   Lilith looks out over the earth-line, “Where is he from your physical body?”

   “I don’t know.”

   Lilith looks down and shakes her head. A couple of seconds later, she looks back up. Julianna has made it around the rock and is standing to her left.

   “He is new to this part of his existence. If he was not of the Chosen, he will probably be close to the place where you ended his physical life. It takes time to learn how to move within this place. The rules are so much different than what his mind is telling him.”

   “How do I get there? It is too far to walk it.”

   Lilith gets up and walks towards the earth-line without giving Julianna a single look. When she nears the border, she pauses. Julianna stops at her left side.

   “Next lesson,” Lilith begins, “You must cross the earth-line. Remember what my beach looks like. Remember how the sand between your toes feels. You will need this to get back. On that side of the line, you will be unable to appear here as you do whenever you come from your physical body. Over there, the governing rules are followed by everyone – including you. It is like how your physical laws must be followed by the living. You cannot just appear on the beach. You will have to appear at the line and then cross over. This is my punishment. Not yours. Do you understand me so far?”

   “I get it.”

   “Remember,” Lilith continues, “Coming back is the same as leaving.”

   Julianna nods, covers her head with her hoodie, and crosses the earth-line. She turns back around and looks at Lilith.

   “Close your eyes,” Lilith instructs. Whenever Julianna complies, Lilith begins speaking again.

   “Think of the place where you ended his physical existence. What does it look like? How does it feel? How does it smell? How does it…”

   Lilith pauses. She turns back and walks towards her rock.

   Julianna begins thinking of her father’s house. One image sticks out above the rest – the scene of the gore spewing onto the plastic-covered wall behind him. She gasps as she feels like a roller coaster speeding down its first hill. The sudden unexpected rush causes her to panic. She quickly opens her eyes and sees an empty room. It is clean. There is no furniture – no gore. But she easily recognizes it as the place of where she grew up.

   “Are you dead?”, a voice speaks from behind her. Julianna’s eyes widen. Lilith has taught her to not trust voices within this realm. She follows Lilith’s rules by bowing her head and slowly turning around to face the voice behind her. When she sees her father, he is shaking from fear and glancing nervously all around the room.

   “Why are you here?”, the frightened man exuberates his panic, “Do you hear me?”

   Julianna slips the hoodie down to her shoulders. Her father’s eyes water and his lips tremble. He staggers backwards and trips over his feet landing his buttocks upon the floor.

   “Who - who are you?”, the man desperately calls out, “Why do you look like my daughter?”

   “Why did you kill my mom?”, Julianna responds coldly.

   “Ju - Julia?”, the man questions. He quickly crawls on his hands and knees. When he approaches her feet, he attempts to take hold of her ankles, “Oh thank God.”

   Julianna backs away, “Don’t you say that again. Have you not figured out He has sentenced you to burn?”

   The man’s tears increase as he looks upward into his daughter’s familiar green eyes.

   “But why? I asked Him to forgive me for Theresa.”

    Julianna has the sudden urge to kick him in the face. Instead, she squats down to eye-level.

   “Do you not know your own God’s rules?”, Julianna smirks, “Whenever you ask for forgiveness, dear father, you must turn away from the deeds He despises.”

   Julianna touches her left pointer finger to her father’s nose, “And you were a drunk.”

   The young woman stands up and presents the room with her hands, “Welcome to hell, daddy – right where you sent my mother.”

   Julianna pulls her hoodie back up, “Enjoy.”

   “Wait!”, the man pleas, “Pl-please Julia. This place is horrible. I will explain it to you. Just please stay a little longer. Please.”

   Julianna crosses her arms. Out of the corner of her right eye, she sees a shadow dart along the wall.

   “Come out,” Julianna’s tone is the reflection of boredom, “I will not harm you.” She notices her father scrambling away from the wall. He turns to view his tormentor.

   The shadow exhibits compliance as it shrinks to the size of a child and speaks with a high pitched voice.

   “Julie - ahh - na.”

   “The one and only,” Julianna impatiently answers, “Now tell me, what is your name demon?”

   “Hee-hee,” the demon laughs, “No - no - no, Julie - ahh - na.”

   “Shall I call on Dranestan to deal with you?”, Julianna counters.

   “Dranestan,” the demon panics, “No - no - no, Julie - ahh - na. No - no.”

   A moment later, the child demon disappears and reappears again between herself and her father. He shoves his little right hand into the gaping hole within the back of her father’s head. The man screams out in agony. The demon looks up at Julianna and smiles.

   “Stop that,” Julianna scolds, “You can play later.”

   The child demon frowns and pulls his hand out of the man’s head. The tortured soul falls into the floor, takes a fetal position, and cries.

   “Tell me your name, demon,” Julianna sounds irritated, “Last chance or its Dranestan.”   

   “Jamés,” the demon pronounces his name as Jaw-mayes.

  Julianna smiles and lowers herself to the child’s perspective. She understands this demon is showing itself as a child in order to appeal to her softer side. Jamés is low-ranking. He has no military authority outside of foot soldier. This is one of the oddities of this place. To see a demon, is to instantly know its rank, power, and authority.

   “Can I please talk to my father?”, Julianna questions with a set of puppy dog eyes.

   “You not hurt Jamés?”

   “I love you little guys,” Julianna says while holding out her arms, “Come here.”

   Jamés nervously looks at her offered hands. He has been warned not to touch her. However, he has also been instructed to obey her until his master is done with her. His orders seemed clear until now. Now, he is just plain confused.

   Julianna laughs like a loving mother, “It is okay, Jamés. I just want to hold your cute little hands. You’re so adorable.”

   Julianna’s father regains enough composure to look at these so-called adorable hands. They are covered black with long jagged nails. There’s nothing adorable about
those
hands.

   “Okay - okay,” the child demon agrees, “Okay - okay.”

   Julianna smiles as the demon takes hold of her hands. She winks.

   “Go home, Jamés.”

   The demon cocks his head to the right and laughs.

   “Jamés is home.”

   “Oh, that’s right,” Julianna realizes her mistake. She forgot that this whole place is considered their domain. She winks again, “Thank you.”

   The demon frowns.

   “Go look at the earth-line until I leave, Jamés.”

   “No - no,” the child demon stamps his feet, “You trick Jamés.”

   An instant later, the child demon vanishes.

   Julianna’s nose crinkles as she looks at her father’s gore on her hand. She stands up, walks over to him, and wipes the gore on his jeans.

   “Get up. He is gone as long as I’m here. But if you don’t start talking, I’m outta here.”

   The trembling and weak man forces himself to a sitting position.

   “Talk.”

   “I’m so sorry, Julia,” the man begins sobbing, “I’m so - so sorry.”

   “Quit your bawling. You have an eternity to do that.”

   The man reaches up and feels the large hole in the back of his head. He does his best to not break down again.

   “You know,” Julianna explains her father’s recent irony, “That demon’s name is spelled like yours.”

   James Atwood lifts his watery eyes to view his angry daughter, “Why?”

   “I have no idea. Now talk or I’m gone.”

   “Have - have you seen Theresa? Pl-please take me to her.”

   “Are you freakin’ serious right now?!”, Julianna screams at him, “I can’t believe you just asked me that!”

   “Did - did you ask her what happened?”

   “I didn’t have to! I read it for myself!”

   James looks down at the floor. His shoulders begin shaking with each new sob.

   “I didn’t want to…”

     
Sniffle.

   “Theresa, my dear love…”

     
Sniffle.

   James looks up at his daughter, “She made me promise.”

   Julianna takes a step back. Her anger is quickly being replaced with an unexpected horror.

   “She tried to separate the prophecy-line so it would skip you…”

     
Sniffle.

   “…She told me everything about the wall and made me promise to raise you in church. She - she said her first attempt failed and said the only way to save you was to kill her.”

   The man shakes his head, “I didn’t want to. Gawd, I didn’t want to.”

   Julianna covers her mouth with her left hand. Her lips quake in sync with the tears filling her eyes. She shakes her head with denial.

   “I failed her…”

     
Sniffle.

   His dark eyes begs his daughter, “…I failed you both.”

   Julianna backs up some more. She closes her eyes to rip herself away from the scene of her broken father. She thinks about Lilith’s beach. A rush flows through her. An instant later, she can see the earth-line. She briefly glances at Lilith while she rushes across it. The woman of many braids looks away. Julianna falls to her hands and knees and screams out hysterically. The beach fills with the sounds of her anguish.

   Lilith observes faces across the earth-line beginning to gather around the hypnotic choruses of Julianna’s wailing. They gather in hopeful anticipation. Lilith lifts her right hand and flips them off.

   “You need to concentrate, child. Go home to your body,” Lilith calmly instructs, “This place is designed to feed off of despair. Come back when you calm.”

   Julianna vaguely distinguishes Lilith’s comments within her confused mind. She understands what the woman is trying to convey to her – not even the Mother can override the way something is designed by
Him
. She gags.

     Julianna throws off her covers and leans over the side of her bed. Nyquil PM spews all over the marble flooring. Tears rush down her cheeks and drop into the putrid mess as her stomach convulses again. She vomits until there is nothing left and continues vomiting long after. With each successive stomach spasm, she groans against the pain of her dry-heaves. When the spasms finally slow themselves, Julianna Cora Atwood – murderer of her father – passes out from exhaustion. Despair is the new blanket upon her bed. Regret is her new pillow. Pain is the stuffed animal in which she must now embrace for comfort.   

Chapter 13

   Friends  

   “Uh…”, Julianna moans while swiping at hands, “Leave me alone.”