The Other Side of Darkness (39 page)

“No!” I scream in defiance. “I will not let you win, Satan!” I will go to Sister Bronte and confess my sins. I will ask her to pray for my deliverance. And I cannot wait until this evening’s midweek service to do this. I must do it now. Since it’s nearly noon, I suspect that Sister Bronte and some of the others will be at the church, praying and preparing for this evening.

I don’t remember driving across town, but suddenly I’m pulling into the church parking lot. And I am relieved to see both Brother Glenn’s and Sister Bronte’s cars parked in front. I am so eager to be with my brothers and sisters, to confess my sins and be made whole, that I run up to the building. The sanctuary is dark, but I see a slit of light beneath the office door, and I hurry over and push it open. But what I see inside the office makes me stop, and my hand flies to my mouth in horror. How can this be? How is this even possible? I quietly close the door. Bronte and Glenn never saw me, but I clearly saw them—partially dressed and tangled up in each other’s arms. There is no disputing what they were doing.

By the time I get home, I am in shock. My hands are shaking, and I feel like I can’t quite breathe. So I call Cynthia and tell her everything.

“Oh, Ruth! How can you make up such a filthy lie?”

“It’s not a—”

“I know you must be ashamed of yourself for betraying Melinda, but to make up a story like—”

So I hang up and sink to my knees and beg God for help. But my voice seems drowned out by all the demons screaming filth and accusations at me. My house is full of them now. I don’t think it will ever be clean. I will never be clean.

The phone is ringing, adding to the noise, but I won’t answer it. No good news can come from it. If I had the strength, I would rip the vile thing off the wall. But suddenly I hear Sarah’s frightened voice speaking on the answering machine.

“Mommy,” she says in tiny voice. “Daddy said not to call you, but Grandma is asleep, and I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Mommy?”

I grab the phone. “Hi, Sarah.” I force cheer into my voice.

“Mommy!”

“Are you girls okay?”

“We don’t know why Daddy made us come to Grandma’s. He said you weren’t doing a good job being a mommy and that you were sick and you’d left us.”

“I didn’t leave you,” I say, suddenly finding some old resolve. “I went out this morning to help a friend. Do you remember Melinda from church?”

“The fat lady?”

“We don’t call her that, do we, Sarah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Melinda was having some very hard problems, and I went to pray with her. And, well, it’s very, very sad. You see, Melinda died.” I pause, waiting for some kind of response. Maybe even sympathy. “Do you understand what I’m telling you, Sarah?”

“Melinda died?”

“Yes! So you see, I really needed to be there. She needed my help—” And now I start to cry.

“I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m sorry I called Melinda fat.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I just wanted you to understand why I left. Then I came home, and my girls were gone, and I was already so sad. Can you can imagine how upsetting it was when you weren’t here?”

“Can you come and get us now, Mommy?”

“Yes. Don’t wake up Grandma. But tell Mary what I told you and that I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. You girls be ready to go. Okay?”

“Okay.”

So I grab my purse and my Bible and a few things for the girls and for me. I gather a few pieces of clothing, some food, some blankets, and I load these into the car and take off, speeding to my mother’s house. I know that’s the grandma Rick dumped them with since his mother lives nearly a thousand miles away. Although I’m sure he will consider that too, in time. Who knows what plans he has made?

Unfortunately, my mother is awake when I slip in the back door. And suddenly I realize that I will be fighting one of the biggest battles of my life today. Standing up to my mother is never a small thing. As hard as it was to deal with Rick, this could be harder. I will need my wits about me. No “crazy” talk about spiritual things that these people cannot understand. Instead, I will be crafty like the Enemy. I explain to my mother about my friend who died today, how I had to go to her to help, but then I came home, and the girls were gone.

“How did she die?” my mother asks. And I notice how tired she looks. She’s lost weight, and there are dark circles beneath her eyes.

“That’s not important now,” I say as I take Sarah by the hand. “What is important is that Rick is making some big mistakes. It was very wrong for him to bring the girls to you. To try to hide them from me as if he’s playing some weird control game with me. Can’t you see that?”

She looks as if she’s considering my words, trying to decide what’s best to say. But I can tell she doesn’t have much fight left in her. “But we are worried about you, Ruth. We think you’re having some, uh, some mental problems.”

“And did Rick tell you that he’s been having an affair? Did he tell you that he comes home from work several hours late every night and that he’s been cheating on me? Don’t you think that might give a person some problems?”

She seems slightly shocked by this, so I continue.

“Did he tell you that his influence in our lives has been very, very wrong? Or that he’s the main reason I’m struggling like this? Did he?
Did he?”

“Well, no …”

I take Mary’s hand now. “I didn’t think so.”

“But, Ruth—”

“Good-bye, Mother.” I walk toward the door, and I can hear her behind me, but I doubt she will try to stop us. She doesn’t appear to be very strong. “When you’re ready to hear the truth, Mother, maybe you will talk to me instead of Rick!” Then I open the front door. “Come on, girls.”

No one speaks as we get into the car. I tell the girls to buckle up, and then I drive into town, where I fill the tank with gas, using my emergency credit card since this is definitely an emergency. I tuck the card back into my purse, hoping it will hold out long
enough for me to get where I need to go. I expect this will be a long trip.

“Why’s all this stuff in here?” asks Mary as she peers back to where Sarah is sitting amid random pieces of clothing, blankets, and other things I hastily threw into the car.

“We’re taking a trip,” I say brightly as I enter the freeway, heading north.

“Where are we going?” asks Mary in a voice that sounds frightened.

“The Lord will lead,” I assure them.

T
he thick gray clouds make this December afternoon seem even darker than it is. Or maybe it’s just demonic oppression. But after driving north for a couple of hours, it occurs to me that I am literally driving into enemy territory. How stupid could I be? Naturally, there would be even more demonic activity up north—demons love the darkness! What was I thinking?

We’re already in Washington State now, but I take the next exit, deciding to do a one-eighty and go south instead. But as I do this, I feel stupid, stupid, stupid. What is wrong with me? I take the circle loop, then drive under the overpass, make a right turn, and I am back on the freeway, going the exact opposite direction. What a waste!

“Where are we going, Mom?” asks Mary in a quiet, respectful voice. I know she’s being extra careful now. I’m sure this is because I’ve snapped at both of them for asking too many questions. Finally I had to tell them to shut up! I felt bad at first since I don’t usually talk to my girls like that. But it was the only way to make them understand. I couldn’t tell them that their insistent questioning was making me start to think that the demons were still with us, hidden in my girls, and that I was dragging them up the freeway with me.

“Are we going home now?” asks Sarah from the backseat.

“No! We are not going home. We don’t have a home. Don’t you understand? Our home has become Satan’s home, and we can’t go
back to it. It has been defiled and contaminated, and it should probably just be burned to the ground.”

Then Sarah starts to cry, and I wish I hadn’t said so much. I glance at Mary, and she has her knees pulled up to her chest with a frightened look in her eyes.

“Don’t be afraid,” I tell them. “We just need to pray. Let’s all pray together. Let’s bind Satan and his demons from this car, and I’m sure we’ll all start to feel better.”

So we begin to pray, and we bind and cast out, and as we’re doing this, it occurs to me that some of the items I brought from home must be contaminated too. It’s dark now, but I must get rid of these things. We cannot keep taking the old sinful things with us. Finally I pull into a rest stop. I encourage the girls to take a bathroom break, reminding them to be careful not to touch anything and that I’ll be right behind them. As soon as they’re nearly to the rest room, I gather a couple of armloads of all the things in the car, and I stuff them into the various trash barrels.

I feel better now that the car is empty. We are driving down the freeway, going south, and it seems like a fresh start.

“Where’s all the stuff that was in the car?” asks Mary after just a few miles.

“I put it away.”

“Where?” asks Mary.

I turn and glare at her in the darkness. “You can’t keep questioning everything I do, Mary. That is rebellious. And don’t you remember that rebellion is like witchcraft? You don’t want to be a witch, do you?”

“I just wondered …”

“Where is Samantha?” asks Sarah.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said to your sister?”

“But I—”

“No buts,” I shoot back at her. “Just be quiet. Go to sleep or something.”

Both girls are amazingly quiet for the next several hours. I’m sure it’s because they are scared. But maybe they should be scared. Maybe it will help them respect what an enormous battle we are in, as well as the fact that I am willing to keep fighting and fighting and fighting. Even if I am all alone and fighting without assistance of any kind, I’m still willing to stand up and oppose our enemy. And I am doing this for my daughters.

They didn’t say anything when I stopped in our town on our way back south. But I was nearly out of gas by then and knew I should fill up. Still, I could sense the questions in Mary’s mind. She thought something was wrong, but she was afraid to say so. To help smooth things over with the girls, I allowed them to get whatever they liked from the gas station convenience store. “You can get junk food or anything.” I was surprised when they only picked out a few things. And not any candy.

But now that I’m back in the car, driving south, and it’s almost eleven, I realize that using this credit card might be a big mistake. For one thing it has Rick’s name on it, and that means it’s tainted too. Just using it to fill the tank with gas is like inviting Satan to ride along with us. But the other thing, and perhaps even more troubling, is that I’m worried Rick might try to trace us through this credit card. He might be following us right now. The set of headlights that’s been tailing us the past twenty minutes may very well belong to him.

So I take the next exit, which goes out into the country, just to see if the headlights behind us turn too. They don’t. And for a few
minutes, I feel relieved. But at the same time I am extremely worried that the other pieces of ID I’m carrying—my bank card and whatnot—could be used to trace me as well. So I keep driving until I come to a small bridge. Then, thinking the girls are still asleep, I quietly get out and empty the contents of my purse into the river.
There, that should do it
.

“What are you doing?” Mary is out of the car and walking toward me.

“Get back in the car! I didn’t say you could get out.”

“But what are you doing?” she asks again, and I can tell she is crying. “What are you doing, Mom?”

“Just getting rid of all the contaminants. Don’t worry about it.”

“But I thought—” Her voice breaks as we return to the car. “I thought you were going to jump off that bridge.”

“Why would I do that?” I put the car in gear and head back toward the freeway.

“I … I don’t know.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“But I’m afraid, Mom. I want to go home.”

“I want to go home too,” says Sarah from the backseat.

“I already told you. We can’t go home. We don’t have a home!”

“But we do,” persists Sarah. “And Daddy is there. And Bonnie and Clyde are there. And I want to go back.”

“No! We can’t go back. We can never go back.” And now both girls are sobbing so loudly that I can hardly think. And I can’t even pray.

I’m on the freeway again, still driving south, but I feel so confused. Something is wrong, and I’m sure it’s demonic. And I’m afraid it’s with my girls. I’m afraid that the influence of Rick, and maybe
even Matthew, has been too much for them. I’m afraid they are still allowing Satan’s influence in their lives.

“We need to cast out your demons,” I say as I drive. “Let’s ask the Lord to bind and cast out every last demon that’s in you, girls. Can you do that with me?”

“I don’t have any demons in me, Mommy,” says Sarah.

“You don’t know that. They’re tricky. Remember? They pretend to be other things. We need to bind them and cast them out.”

“No!” shouts Mary. “We don’t. This is crazy, Mom. I want to go home. I want to see Dad and the dogs, and I want to—”

“Get thee behind me, Satan! In the name of Jesus, I bind you from my girls. In the name of Jesus, I cast you out of this car. You are not welcome here, you Father of Lies, you foul Deceiver. Leave us at once!”

Both girls are crying again. And I can tell this isn’t working.

“Please, Mom,” begs Mary. “Please take us home.”

“Yes, Mommy,” says Sarah. “Please!”

“No! We don’t have a home. You have to understand that.”

Then Mary unbuckles her seat belt, and for one frightening moment, I think she’s going to leap out of the car onto the freeway. But instead she climbs over the front seat and goes into the back with Sarah. “Let’s pray, Sarah,” she says. “Let’s ask the Lord to help us.”

And then they begin to pray. But instead of asking the Lord to protect them from Satan and his demons, they are begging the Lord to protect them from
me!
I can’t believe my ears, and I want to yell at them and tell them to stop. But somehow I can’t.