"I don't know who told me to give Tabby a bath. She's gone," Ace cried.
Going over to turn off the water, Pete screamed.
Laying in the bottom was a little girl, her blond hair snaking about her blue bloated face. Her white dress floating above her prone body. Her eyes stared up at him.
Scooping his hands in to pull her out, all Pete's searching hands could touch was the bottom of the tub. The body way gone.
"Josh! Josh!" Pete screamed.
"What's the matter. What's going on!" Josh said, coming into the bathroom, surprised to find both his kids crying.
"I didn't mean to hurt Tabby," Ace wailed.
Wrapping Tabby in a towel, Josh leaned back before Pete collided into him.
"I told him, I told him, I told him I wasn't having nightmares. This house is haunted," Pete muttered, running into the living room, picking up the phone, dialing Father Devon's number, "Devon remember the conversation we had ? I insist that you please come over!"
"I telling you daddy the girl I saw is gone.. She wanted to be my friend," Ace insisted.
Josh took Tabby's and Ace's hands, going into the living room.
"I saw her too," Pete said, putting the phone down, "Josh it was different this time. I didn't see a woman. This time it was a child. Josh, she was dead, I mean in the tub, I could tell she was dead."
"All right, I believe you this time," Josh cried "I, I."
Putting Tabby down Josh felt a hand on his shoulder. Pete gasped.
A woman with flaxen hair tied back and frigid blue eyes whispered, "God condemns what you're doing. He wants your children dead. It's the only way to save them. He sent me to them. I'll be a mother to them Don't worry. I'll kill the evil you installed in them. I will love them after they are dead and kill the evil in their souls with love."
"Mother, it didn't work," the chid said, appearing to Pete, Josh, and their children. She bounced a rubber ball, "Drowning her didn't work. Are you sure she isn't already a good little girl?"
"This will work," the woman said, throwing a candle from the entertainment center.
The candle landed on Ace's lap. The wind from her breath fanned the small flame to roar engulfing the child's flesh and hair. She and her daughter disappeared.
"Damn!" Josh yelled wrapping his screaming three year old in a rug. Running out the door, Pete pulled the hose inside, dousing Ace with water. With reluctance the flames died.
"What the hell is going on?" Christov said, coming into the house along with Father Devon..
"Pete, you haven't been the only one to confide in me about sightings," Father Devon said, "Christov saw her first in Chicago."
Peeling the rug off the burned child, Josh sliced his wrist, rubbing his blood into Ace' s burns, Pete handed Ace a rat to kill. The crying child bit with his small fangs into the kicking rat's artery.
"This is all my fault," Christov said remorsefully, "I shouldn't have talked to her. She lied to me. She told me she was Marie Glapion, a voodum queen."
"She isn't," David said glumly, "She appeared to Christov in a shape she thought Christov would be impressed with. His having a conversation with her opened the doors she needed to be more of a presence in this world. Pete, Josh tell me about any conversation she had with you."
Quickly, they informed Father Devon of her words and what they saw
"She wants to save your children by being a mother to them," Father Devon said thoughtfully.
"What is she some sort of whacked out ghost of a social worker from child protective services!" Christov said angrily.
"In a sense yes she is," Father Devon said, "Even through I'm no longer with the Roman Catholic Church, I still keep my hand on the pulse of the spirit world. Christov when you told me about your sightings, and Pete when you told me about seeing a ghost I went into the library to look though the files of back issues of the Chicago Times. I looked through the obituaries to see who had died the week Christov first saw her. A mother drowned her nine year old daughter, Arabelle, in the bath tub. She did it to save her."
"To save her?' Josh cried.
"She knew the father was sexually abusing their daughter. This woman had a long history of mental problems. Her husband was divorcing her because he could no longer live with her or live their Christian fundamentalist life style. He confessed the truth to her."
The truth?' Pete said in a faint voice, while he comforted Ace.
"That he was gay. When she found out her already weak mind was pathetically destroyed. She believed he would make her daughter as dammed and as evil he was if he was granted visitation rights or full custody. She drowned her daughter and waited for him to come home intending to shoot him. They fought for the gun, and he ended up accidentally killing her."
A Hot Wheel car flew though the air slamming itself into David's face. Soon a host of Ace's toy cars went zinging through the room, pelting Father Devon. A child's laughter lurked into the room.
"Listen you," Christov yelled, "We talked before! Calm your child down. We know your a good mother, let's talk this out!"
The child's laughter was put out. The cars stopped their assault.
"You refused to go to purgatory! You refused to realize what you have done in killing your daughter and trying to kill your husband was wrong," Father Devon cried, "You feel God is being unfair to you. So you stay away from the light because you fear God will be unjust. How can you as a so called good Christian keep your daughter at your side lost in the spirit world? You have to take her and yourself into the light. Leave these people be spirit. You're a liar, you're on no mission from God!"
"It's all a misunderstanding," she whispered, appearing before him, "Father Devon it's all wrong. God is mistaken. There is no need for me to go to purgatory. There is no need for me to ask forgiveness, to be sorry for anything I have done. Arabella would have gone to hell for having such a father. He would have gone to hell to if he consummated any more acts of sexual profanity with men. I loved my husband! Once all three of us were dead we would be able to stay being a family! I would have led them on the path of goodness and we would have been happy! You are like him. You have all have chosen to be dammed. You chosen your children to be damned. Soon you will touch your children as lovers. You're tainted perverted! "
"Haunt your stupid husband than. Come on, go where ever he's at and burn him," Christov yelled.
"I cannot bear to see him. He's with his lover. Damn him to hell, I cannot save him. But the children," she cried, "God will come around and understand my intentions are good once they are dead. We'll all be angels, not souls in purgatory. He cannot misjudge their killings as a selfish act as He misjudged by killing of Arabella. He thought I was jealous of the love my husband and daughter had for each other God was wrong so, so wrong.""
"God doesn't want you because you do not want anything to do with Him," Pete cried.
"Nor do you, Look at at you. Unnatural, I can fix things, make it all right," she cried. Embodying herself, she became Pete's spitting image, "Father Devon, you're lonely, I now what you want. Even through I look as I do, I'm still a woman. We can give our children Arabella, Tabby, and Ace a normal life. A family nature intended. Father Devon kill the beasts."
Horrified, Father Devon's mind strayed from his sanity into his desires. The ghost embraced him, giving him searching out kisses. Passionately the ghost cupped Father Devon between the legs, stroking him.
"Father Devon?' Pete whispered.
Flinging himself at Pete, Father Devon took out a knife Father Devon sent flames out at Pete Fire started to eat at Pete's clothes.
Christov pulled Father Devon back by his shoulders, breaking Father Devon's concentration. The flames flew upwards, starting to fan on the ceiling instead.
Pete scrambled to Father Devon, taking the knife Father Devon dropped In a split second Pete thrust the knife into Tabby's chest. Blood seeped through the cloth, "It's a mortal sin to kill her," Pete yelled.
"No, your saving her. You're rescuing her. You would teach her all kinds of immorality if you didn't show her the mercy you're showing her now. You're saving her by killing her!" the ghost wildly approved.
Stabbing Tabby's small body again, Pete yelled, "You're not innocent. Killing her is a mortal sin."
"She can't sin once she's dead. Her thighs will never be played with by you, monster. What she would be taught by you she's now incapable of doing. You are good man after all! Kill her." the ghost gloated.
"But mother" Arabella said confused, "You said that man was a demon, a devil! And that's why we had to kill Tabby. How can a devil do an act of goodness? You told me to kill Tabby. He's a devil and he's killing Tabby. Did you lie to me? Am I devil like him?"
"You're killing her didn't' work," her mother insisted, "because your an angel."
"I could of killed her by setting her on fire. Mother you taught me violence, you taught me hate, you taught me sin, not father!" Arabella cried.
"But I," her mother stammered.
"You taught me how to be mean. You taught me how to hurt people That man you kissed wasn't daddy!" Arabella accused her mother.
"Death broke all ties between me and or father, " she cried.
"I miss my father," Araballe said in a low voice.
"Listen Arebella, you don't have to listen to your mother. She didn't make you into a good little girl by killing you. You already were good," Pete cried seeping his blood into Tabby's wound, "I'm sorry I hurt Tabby. I'm sorry you hurt Tabby too, and I'm sorry your mother hurt you. Your mother isn't sorry she hurt you. Listen to me. You don't have to listen to a mother who hurts you to make you into a good little girl! You don't have to hate people the people she hates to be good. You're mother didn't she once teach you it's bad to hurt people before she and your father broke up?"
"Yes," Arbella said confused.
"It is," Pete said firmly, "It is bad for mortals to hurt other mortals. Go into the light without your mother."
"'Ill miss her."
"If your mother loves you, she'll go into the light with you," Pete insisted, rocking a crying Tabby, "You're the only one who can help your mother. You can teach her what she did to you and what she tried to do to your father was wrong, it was wrong."
"I love her," Araballe wept.
"Other's love you too," Josh said quietly, "Don't be afraid. Remember how afraid you were when she held you down in the water. Remember how you struggled? How you couldn't breathe."
"Arabella don't listen to them Don't. I love you, I love you,' she said, falling to her knees, embracing the child. "You may be no angel of God, but you're my angel. My pure, little angel. I saved you."
"Mother, you're cold! You're so cold!!" Arabella screamed
Pulling away from her mother, Arabella yelled "It hurt I couldn't breath. I wanted you to help me. To stop! You kept on hurting me till I died. You made me to the same thing to Tabby you did to me. I'm not good."
"No, no you're good," the ghost wept, "You were helping Tabby like I helped you. I did help you! You have to understand I did help you."
"Run, run into the light," Josh yelled.
Disappearing from her mother's side, Arabella was gone.
tbc