Angels and Demons

Well, I could hardly drag my old body up into a standing position after I’d had my cry for you. I get so stiff and sore these days, it was all I could do to put myself upright.

But your reflection was gone from the water, and I felt better, if not a bit drained. I continued across the bridge, looking at all the little houses lining the channel. They were as pretty as a picture there that day, with the sun shining and the leaves falling, and all the late summer flowers still in bloom.

I heard an eagle cry. It warmed my heart and made me smile.

The rock was just ahead, that huge smooth flat stone that soaks up the sun’s warmth and radiates heat to anyone crossing its path.

A warming rock, it is.

I stood on the rock on the far side of the bridge and looked back across the marshland and the channel, and at all the wildlife. It was warm there, and the heat got my blood circulating again. I started to come back to life.

There were so many birds chirping and swooping—and the willows. Oh! You should have seen the willows that day! I don’t know why, Beanie, but they were so majestic.

The breeze captured the long hanging branches and swung them back and forth, all together, like it was choreographing a dance. I could hear the soft tinkling of the leaves as they snapped together, swinging back and forth, back and forth.

It looked to me like they were giant brooms sweeping the marsh clean.

In all the years, I’ve never seen the willows move together like that before, and I nearly started to cry. There I was, the only person in the whole world witnessing this wonderful sight, listening to the snap of the leaves as they all moved and changed direction together.

It was a beautiful ballet, a waltz being danced just for me, Beanie.

A Waltz of the Willows.

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Well, I looked up ahead. I was going to walk down the little dirt road running behind the cabins lining the channel, but there was the old logging road, straight up in front of me.

I couldn’t believe how long it had been since I ventured up that old road.

So I decided to be adventurous and walk up a bit.

You remember how many times we hiked that logging road all the way over to the other side of the lake, Beanie? So many times, any one of us should be able to hike it blindfolded.

Well, it’s not much of a road anymore, being all overgrown like it is. I guess folks don’t go hiking through the woods like they used to.

Anyway, it was calling to me, and I answered the call.

Just a bit, I told myself. I’ll walk a short way up this trail and see what’s familiar and what is new.

There were both.

My, but the forest has flourished over the years. Every now and then I had to push some shrubbery or tree branches out of the way so I could continue up the steady incline of the trail.

I decided I would turn around as soon as I reached the spot where the trail leveled out.

Remember how it climbed for a while and then leveled out, Beanie?

That’s all I was doing, just going that far.

It was heavenly in that forest, and I was feeling so fine. Like a young girl again.

So sweet and musky and earthy, all the smells I’ve missed terribly. I may have even started to forget them, Beanie.

How could a person so in love with nature be gone so long that they forget the most important things in life?

But the smells were bringing back things forgotten. I was having such a wonderful time remembering all the things I loved about the trees and the mountains and the smells of nature.

It was rejuvenating.

What a shame, I told myself, that I have allowed others to keep me away from what I love.

And for what?

What were they trying to save me for, anyway?

More of these Golden Years?

I decided it was their problem, not mine, and I wouldn’t be held back any longer.

I was forging ahead and enjoying it so much, you have no idea. And I wasn’t tired at all, just excited by being reunited with all the familiar old smells and sights.

And the feeling that one belongs there, in the arms of Mother Nature, in what is real and reliable and true.

There was the biggest squirrel running on up ahead of me, and then it just about flew up a tree and began to scold me a mile a minute, for trespassing, I suppose.

It’s amazing the amount of noise one little squirrel can make.

So I kept going, and after a while I noticed I could no longer hear him.

I guess that meant I’d gone a ways, all right.

That little creek—you remember that creek, Beanie?

It was trickling water down along the side of the trail for a while before I realized that the creek being there meant I’d gone way past the turnaround point.

How did I do that without noticing?

I was heading on a gentle downhill slope now, and it was getting hard to see the path. I really thought it was just because of the overgrowth.

I didn’t realize for a long while that it was dusk.

I decided to turn around and get back out in the open a bit so I could catch sunlight again. I would surely be able to follow the trail better with just a little more light.

But when I turned around, there were so many trees and such thick brush in front of me, I wondered just how it was that I’d gotten where I was.

I looked all around.

Where had the trail gone?

I was having so much trouble seeing in the deep darkness of the thick forest when suddenly I realized what a silly old fool I was.

It wasn’t dark because I was so deep in the forest.

It was dark because it was nightfall!

Well, I took a deep breath and looked carefully around for signs of the trail. I thought I spotted it and headed off in a different direction. It looked like there was a path in there, if I could just get all the overgrowth out of my way.

But I was wrong.

After a while I thought it would be best to go back to where I started and get my bearings. I turned to walk back but couldn’t tell where I’d come from.

That’s the moment when it occurred to me that I could actually be lost.

I couldn’t think of a nicer place to be lost, yet at the same time, it was kind of frightening.

I don’t think a soul in the world knew where I was.

About then, I also noticed how tired I suddenly was, and how cold it had become.

I was grateful for my wool jacket and wool socks, and much to my surprise, there were some old gloves in my jacket pocket. I never figured out whose they were, but I was happy to find them.

Well, I stayed calm and sat down on a fallen tree.

I closed my eyes and inhaled the fresh mountain air and knew I was all right.

I thought about walking on a bit farther or trying to head back. I knew I would most likely be able to find my way after a rest, as I was very tired out by then.

I was feeling the effects of such a long hike on an old body like mine, and drained from the emotional journey too. I was thinking it had been quite some time since I’d…

And that’s when I felt myself slide to the ground.

Just sink slowly down.

I leaned my head against the fallen tree I’d been sitting on and suddenly fell into the most peaceful sleep, Beanie girl, with summer dreams playing in my mind.

All sunshine and laughter, and children running and jumping off the dock, splashing in the water.

All of it coming back to life.

It was wonderful.

And then I slept fitfully for a while.

I don’t know when it was that I first felt the damp, cold fingers of an October night creep under my clothing to chill my bones.

It sent shivers down my spine, an uneasiness that brought me fully awake.

I clenched my teeth to stop the chattering, amazed at how much the temperature had dropped.

My neck was so sore I could hardly move it, but when I did, I simply lowered myself flat to the ground and snuggled in as close as I could to the fallen tree.

It was quite large and offered a bit of protection.

Next thing I saw was the stars—a galaxy of diamonds sparkling and glistening over every inch of an amazing blanket of black velvet sky.

I picked them out, my favorites, one by one, and put them on my fingers, diamonds sparkling in the night.

It was infinitely deep, the universe was. Like there would never be an end to the depth of it.

A shooting star streaked across the icy blackness, leaving a frosty white trail behind.

I was so happy at that moment.

Oh, I know I was miserable, so cold and damp and alone.

But I was also crazy alive, so much more alive than I’d been in such a long time.

I closed my eyes and shivered from the marrow of my bones through the outer layer of my skin.

A breeze was picking up, blowing the branches of the pines like giant arms waving over me.

Were they signaling for me to get out or to stay put? I don’t know.

But they became more and more restless with the oncoming wind.

I tried to burrow closer to the tree, pulling my knees up to my chest, but my back was so chilled it felt better to have it flat on the ground.

So I looked up again at the stars.

There was no moon that night.

I don’t know where it was, but I sure would have welcomed it.

The wind blew stronger, and the trees started to wave their arms every which way, like they were frantic to warn me of something.

I would have gotten up and run if I could have, if I had any idea where to run to.

But my body was paralyzed and so tight to the ground, like Mother Earth had her arms around me, holding me in place.

I shivered and hugged my arms around myself as tightly as I could, pressing in as close as possible to the tree and to the ground.

I closed my eyes and was surprised to see a glimpse of my angel.

I hadn’t seen her since I was a child.

She threw light and warmth my way for a split second, and I felt hope.

I was surprised she’d found me way out there, after all those years.

I kept my eyes closed, hoping to catch another glimpse of her, but the wind in the trees was getting stronger and stronger.

My eyes opened, and my lovely celestial view was hindered by the frantic whipping of the branches, like they were being thrashed about from the base of their giant trunks.

I felt a chill of a different kind.

The chill of fear, the fear one gets when evil is present.

The skin on the back of my neck prickled.

I closed my eyes again and prayed for protection from the evil I could feel approaching, an evil I was familiar with but couldn’t remember from where or when.

Yet a familiar dread crept into my mind, and with it a desire to get away.

I tried to think of something, anything good, but couldn’t persuade my mind to leave well enough alone.

I had to know where this dread was coming from, why it felt so familiar and what it led to.

It was the feeling you get when you know you’re going to be handed some bad news and you’re trying to prepare yourself, telling yourself everything’s going to be all right even though you know better.

That anxiety and dread of something you’ll have to explain, of something that’ll cost you in more ways than one.

That’s the feeling I had right then.

A very real dread.

I turned on my side and pressed my back into the fallen tree.

I held myself as tightly as I could and slowly opened my eyes, praying to the Lord that I would not see the glowing red eyes.

But they were there.

Eyes that glowed from the pit of hell, stalking me, seeking me out, claiming me.

They stared from somewhere in the forest, from the protection of a thicket. Peering out cowardly, menacingly at me, knowing I was weak and terrified and alone.

I had no covers to pull over my head and no easy chair in the corner to jump behind, and my angel was nowhere to be seen.

It was just the two of us.

The demon and me.

And then there came the stench, a smell far worse than anything I’ve ever experienced, worse than sulfur.

It eked from the pores of the filthy, deteriorating vessel, a vessel of evil, of ugliness, lies, and deceit.

A stench from the belly of a decaying corpse.

It was stronger here, out in the night, than it had ever been.

My nostrils burned and my eyes teared.

My throat was raw as I tried to scream out for help, help from my angel, for I knew no human would find me there.

The eyes came closer.

They never blinked.

Not once.

They locked onto mine and held me there, piercing through flesh and bone, reaching for the place inside me that still remembered being afraid.

I could feel them closing around my soul.

And suddenly I was a frightened child again.

As a child, my angel would have had her wings around me by now, blocking the eyes from touching my soul.

Where was she now?

Now that I was old and alone and needed her more than ever before?

I screamed out loud, screamed for the salvation of my soul.

Screamed for the God who’d forsaken me and for the angel who was my lost guardian.

And then she was there.

Not in front of me with her wings around me, but behind me, calming my racing heart.

She whispered strength and courage into my ears.

She breathed the sweetness of life and righteousness into my veins.

And I opened my eyes wide as I struggled to sit up.

The fallen tree offered a branch to grip as I struggled to my feet and held myself straight and tall.

I threw my fist in the air.

I denounced the demon and all its power and everything it stood for.

I claimed my own soul for all that is goodness and truth.

I screamed my freedom as the demon stood in my presence, so close I could feel its bitter, icy breath and see every detail of contorted pain in the folds of its hideous face.

I held its blood-red eyes with my own, steadily, barely able to breathe from fear sharp as a reaper’s blade, and I denounced its power over me.

I proclaimed myself untouchable, for how could a child of God be touched by such evil?

It opened its cancerous mouth and tore it wide with claws like scissors, then screamed a deafening, piercing cry as it ripped open its own chest, spilling hatred everywhere.

Yet it never touched me.

For how could an ambassador of hell touch one filled with the breath from an angel of God?

I was, at that moment, young and strong and righteous, and I knew I had won.

I could finally laugh in the face of such evil and proclaim myself victorious.

I watched the evil turn on itself, bent on destruction.

I stood firmly in its path, not wavering in my conviction, no longer trembling in fear.

I watched until there was nothing left.

Then my angel finally put her wings around me and laid me to the ground.

She whispered victory to my whole being.

I closed my eyes.

And once again, I slept.

Adeline continues next week with Chapter Ten.