The year the Devil took over (Unfinished)

My name is Hellen and I have a story to tell you that will be disturbing and frightening. It has been nearly fifteen years since the devil took over my soul. It was a horrible experience. It was like being in a trance- but I am getting ahead of myself. I will go back to the beginning of this whole mess, I was five-years-old. It was Thanksgiving morning and I wanted to help my mother in the kitchen. I walked in and said, "Hi mommy! Can I help?" She looked at me with her bright blue eyes, wavy pale blonde hair, and pale complexion, so much different than my strait black hair cut off at my elbow, tan complexion, and emerald colored eyes that I later turned blue with contacts that I did not need.
My mother then said with a bit of hesitation, " Okay, sweetheart. " Why don’t you help me light the wood stove?" She said as she motioned for me to go over and get the matches.
"You want me to help with the wood stove?" I asked in surprise, (my mother had never let me help her with the wood stove in fear I might burn myself badly). "I thought you wouldn’t let me help you with the wood stove until I was eight," I was truly surprised at her decision because my mother was not the kind of person you would expect to be lenient. She stood by all of her rules as if she had a knife at her throat ready to cut if she did not.
" I think it is best for you to just try it," she said in a pleading voice as I had never heard her use in my life. But what I did not know at the time was that she was testing me for something that would reveal secrets that I myself did not know at the time.
"Okay, I guess..." I said in an unsure voice as I went to do her bidding and get the matches out. I went over to the old black wood stove that I had had nightmares where I was looking at it with wonder and it would suddenly burst into flame! I had this dream many times, but in my dream it always felt as though it had never happened before.
I walked toward the wood stove, looking at it as if it really would burst into flames any minute. "Are you sure I can’t just stir the gravy?" I asked in the same pleading tone my mother had used, " I mean we can always wait until I turn eight."
" no." She said in an impatient tone that was so unlike her usual, calm voice. " you are old enough."
So I lit the match after a few try’s, ( I had never lit a match in my life) and then all of a sudden I felt older, but in a good way, as if I had just turned six. But then the match went out -as old matches do, and these were old- and I got so mad that I stuffed my hands in the little stove, feeling a spark as if I had just had a static shock, and the stove- the part that was supposed to- burst into flames, my little five-year-old hands still inside, but not being at all effected by the orange and yellow flames that engulfed them. My mother looked scared and somehow unsurprised. I took my hands out of the flames, feeling the warmth that was somewhat pleasurable disappear. "Mommy?" I said, in a frightened voice. "What’s the matter?" I new well what was the matter, I had just started a fire with my bare hands and lived to tell the tale. Who would not be scared?
" I am sorry." she looked at me sadly, "you are gifted with the same thing your mother was."
" But you are my mommy!" I said it in a voice that was still pleading, " I know you look different, but that just happens sometimes!" even as I said it I new that it was a lost cause. I had at times thought that it might be, but I had always forced the thought from my head, saying it could not be true. But now I was being proven wrong by the only one I could trust to know, considering the fact that my father- or at least who I had thought was my father up until then- had died in a car crash when I was 2-years-old.
"I’m sorry I did not tell you earlier, your um- adopted father and I found you in the forest on our honey-moon and decided to keep you." she said it with tears running down her face, her eyes red and puffy. " we loved you then and I love you now like a daughter!"
" Like a daughter," I repeated bitterly. " You lied to me!" I screamed at her, my five-year-old fury building as I screamed on, "you told me stories when I was scared, about when I was a baby!" now I was really mad, " and then I find out that you didn’t even know about me then?" I know I should have been more thoughtful at the fact that she was trying as hard as she could, but at five it is not likely that I would think of anyone’s well-being but my own. " I never want to see you again!" I yelled, as I ran up the stairs to my room and threw myself onto the bed sobbing until my throat was sore.
I heard a knock on the door and I heard the person I once thought to be my mother say, " Hellen, dear, I have some more truths to tell you." I felt sorry for her and yet I waited a little longer before I let her in. " can I come in?" I wanted to scream at her and say I never wanted to see her, again. But instead I let her go on until I could collect myself. " I’m really sorry." she said it as though that would make it all better, but it didn’t. I was still ‘found’, I was still just some dumb thing that you find somewhere. Even as all this was racing through my mind I could still hear that voice outside my door and I was getting sick of it.
I sighed, " come in." I said in a quiet voice that I was amazed she heard.
She walked in and sat on the bed beside me. " I really am sorry for not telling you sooner," she said in a soothing voice that did it’s job more than I had thought it would. " I know it is hard to find out something like this, especially considering what just happened." now she held me close, saying all of this in a low voice. " I also know that it is hard to talk about, but we need to talk about it." she looked at me, grief making her eyes shimmer with tears. " I wish I had told you sooner."
I looked into her tear-filled eyes and said, " I know you do," I paused and then said, "I’m sorry I yelled, I’m sorry I got mad at you." I could see her crystal blue eyes catch a hint of happiness at the thought that I might have forgiven her.
" Oh honey, I don’t deserve your apology." she said more sadly than I had thought she would have. " I don’t deserve for you to forgive me," that was hard to hear, but the next thing was even worse, " I don’t even deserve for you to love me." by then that little spark of happiness was gone and replaced by complete and total sorrow .
" you’re wrong, mommy!" I said louder than I meant to, " you deserve my love and my forgiveness too." -as a child people were amazed by my vocabulary- now I could see her eyes light up and she looked like she was just about to say something, but I was not finished. " I know you feel bad, and I know it’s all my fault!"
I started to cry and she cuddled me even closer in her arms, laughing and crying at the same time. " It’s not your fault, honey." she said, copying her soothing tone she had used earlier. " it is my fault entirely, I should have told you about your real life sooner." Right at that point she paused for a long moment, but finally started talking again, telling me of my true life as far as she new it. " your fath- um, my husband and I were on our honeymoon on the Smoky Mountains," she paused again and looked at me, probably wondering how I was taking it. When I didn’t answer she went on, "we decided to take a hike and found a sign that said, ‘NO ENTRANCE’,but we decided to go there anyway." she paused again and made sure I wasn’t going to say anything before going on, " We walked along a trail that led through deep woods and that finally ended in a lush, green meadow that would take your breathe away at it’s beautiful scent’s of flowers of so many kinds I could not even name them all, though I win awards for things like that." She smiled then at the thought of the awards she had won for her wonderful way with flowers.
" Go on." I said impatiently. My so-called-mother looked at me and I sighed. " I’m sorry." I said feeling bad that I had been pushy.
" Don’t be, it is fine. Oh! And while we have paused in the story," She looked at me to make sure it was ok for her to wait a second, and I nodded (regretfully,) in consent. " Since you have found out that I am not your mother, you can call me Sara." That surprised me a whole lot. "What if I don’t want to call you Sara?" I asked, "what if I want to call you something else?" She looked at me in just as much surprise as I had and said, "well, it depends on what it is, like if it is a bad name, although I probably deserve it." She said that part more to herself, "what do you want to call me?"
" I want to call you mommy!" I said, and I burst into tears, and so did my mother. "I want you to be my mommy!" I said the last part in a voice that was muffled by my mother’s shoulder.
"I know you do, and I wish I could give that to you!" that touched my heart, "I can’t give you that though, but you can still call me mommy if you want." That made me happier, but then I remembered something.
"I’m sorry, but can we get back to the story?" I hated to do that, but I really did want to learn the history of my life. "Mommy." I added for good measure.
"I suppose we can," she said in a still happy voice.
"Now lets see, where was I?" She thought for a while, but could not seem to remember.
She looked at me as though she thought I would tell her, which I did, "you were telling me about the flowers in the meadow thingy." I told her.
"Oh yes, now I remember," she did not seem very happy about remembering, but then, it was a hurtful subject.
"Mommy?" I looked into her eyes, which were the main things that were showing emotion. " Thank you." Though I could have meant anything in that simple ‘thank you’, my mother understood instantly that I meant everything she had done in the past few hours. "Now, I’m sorry, but can you keep telling me the story?" I knew that I was being a little impatient, but not many 5-year-olds are patient.
" Of course, Honey." She sounded hurt, but an impatient five-year-old would care about nothing until they were satisfied that they had gotten what they wanted. "Now, as we entered, we paused to catch our breath," as if she were acting out the story, she paused and looked at me with a smile that did not reach her eyes. "And as we did, a beautiful young woman stepped out of a particularly high patch of flowers-" at that point I tugged at her sleeve and said,
"what does ‘par-tic-ular-ly’ mean?"
She smiled a little brighter at that and said, "it is kind of like a detail," I looked at her blankly, and so she tried using an example, " in that sentence, I might have said ‘one of the larger patches of flowers’, but ‘particularly’ was much shorter, wasn’t it?
I thought about it for a second and when I finally figured it out I nodded, " now I get it!" I exclaimed, proud that I had understood.
Mother looked at me and smiled more than she had since the ‘accident’ with the stove.
"The woman looked just like you," she paused, trying to remember if she was correct in that small detail, and when she was satisfied she went on, " we were very shocked at seeing someone there, but we assumed she was a worker, though we did not know how anyone could work in her beautiful emerald colored dress with gold embroidery, the dress matched her eyes so well that we figured it was made just for her." At that point she stopped, looking as though she were deep in thought, " she walked right up to us and said in a beautiful, clear voice, ‘I thought perhaps someone would decide to ignore that sign.’ she did not look like she disapproved us being there, and so we said so and she replied, ‘I wished for the right person to come here so that I could show them something.’ we were very surprised at this statement," mother glanced at me as if she were thinking about something she was trying to hide from me. "We were so surprised when she beckoned us to follow her that for a minute we did not move, but when she beckoned again, we followed, through the large patch of flowers that she had come out of and up a hill. On our way up it, the lady started to talk again after at least ten minutes of silence, ‘I have been very rude, I was so very eager to show you the ‘gift’, that I forgot introductions, my name is Gwyneth Miranda, daughter of fire, and you are?’ we looked at her for a second, (more like stared at her!) And then replied. I replied, ‘my name is Sara Montgomery, um.... daughter of Alice Donaldson, and this is my husband, Cameron Montgomery, sun of Christopher Montgomery.’ I then asked a question that seemed the most important for some reason, ‘ why do you introduce yourself like that, naming your mother?’ she looked at me with a surprised look on her face, ‘ why, you did it too, well, I suppose you were only trying to mimic me,’ at the word ‘trying’ I stood up as strait as possible on a hill, and said, ‘what do you mean ‘trying’? She laughed a small beautiful laugh that was as merry as birds singing, ‘I did not name my mother, I simply named my power.’ I gawked at her and then said-" my mother looked at me as though I were a ghost and said, "why, honey! You’re as pale as a ghost!" that explained it right there. I had turned white at the mention of my mother and had not completely gained all my color yet.
"It’s ok mommy, I’m just happy to know about my , um. . . other mommy." I knew that it was not very realistic, but it was all I could think of. "Can we get back to the story?" I asked, I was starting to get hungry and I did not want to interrupt the story by saying anything. "Well, before we start, how long will the story last, mommy?"
Mother looked at me curiously, and then replied, "well, I’m not entirely sure. . .we can take a brake if you want."
I thought about the fact that I did not ask for her to pause the story, therefore I would look less like I did not want to know the story (which I did.), so I decided that we would take a brake, "oh, ok. . . but only for a little bit." So we went down stairs and just then we heard a knock at the door.
We looked at each other and mom said, "I am afraid our guests have started to arrive." she laughed a short, mirthless laugh, and then she went to open the door. "Who is it?" She asked when the knock came again.
"Guess who." A mysterious, beautiful voice said through the door. mom stopped dead in her tracks, and I was suddenly glad that mom was not holding anything because she would have dropped it if she had. "I will not wait all day, you know." It came again, that beautiful, elegant and somewhat sorrowful voice that, now that I thought about it, sounded familiar, but the kind of familiar that is from years ago.
Just then I noticed that mom had gotten to the door and was standing there holding the door knob almost as if she were trying to keep the owner of the voice out. I calmly walked over towards the door, gently moved Sara away from the door and opened it. For a moment I thought I was looking at an older version of me, tall, beautiful, elegant in her emerald green silk dress that nearly dragged on the floor and that matched her eyes so perfectly I could not believe it. Her black hair was longer than mine, but only by an inch or so. Her skin was pale just like mine, but the thing that caught my attention the most, was a beautiful diamond covered pin, set in silver, of an eagle with emeralds for her-for some reason I new that it was a female eagle, though I did not know how- eyes that, once again, matched the color of the woman’s eyes, that right now were eyeing the inside of the house impatiently.
"Oh! I’m sorry, come in!" I said, opening the door wider so that she could come in. " I would ask to take your coat," I said, "but you are not wearing one."
"Then we shall just have to fix that." Just then a beautiful sort of a wrap appeared with a wave of her hand. It was a lighter green than her dress, but it seemed to match perfectly. She then handed it to me as if it were normal to have it just appear out of thin air. I just stared at it. After about ten seconds, I took it slowly, saying, " How did you do that?!" she looked somewhat surprised as she glanced at Sara, who had finally recovered from her shock and who was staring at her feet guiltily, "I see you have not told her," the beautiful woman said, "if you won’t tell her, then I will."
" mommy was just telling me about when you gave me to her." I said in an accusing voice, "did you even miss me when mommy left?"
She looked at me in surprise. "Why, Andrea!" She exclaimed, "you do not understand, I had to hide you!" she looked very surprised that I did not know that she had to so-called "hide" me.
"We did not get that far in the story," Sara said as she looked up timidly, "we were going downstairs to check on the food and to take a break."
The lady glared at Sara and said, "she should not have been told even as little as you decided to blurt!" she seemed even more furious by now, "why in all the world would you break the vows you took?" she looked like she wanted to stare a hole through Sara, she turned to look at me and then turned her glare at a plastic cup that I had accidentally left on the little table in the walkway, and as she glared, it started to smoke and wither and finally melt into a pool of clear liquid that sort of looked like steaming water. "There, that is better, now, remember how I told you it was necessary to tell her of her powers, but not of her past?" she scolded Sara, "you have no idea what danger Andrea could be in if the wrong person ever found out what you’ve started to tell her."
"My name is not Andrea!" I yelled,"it is Hellen!" I was getting mad at being talked about as if I were not there. "And if you want to tell me about how I started a fire with my bare hands, then I will be in my room!" with that, I ran upstairs and repeated what I had done earlier by slamming my door, throwing myself onto the bed, and crying my heart out.
"Oh great! Now look what you’ve done!" Sara said, "for your information, that is the second time she has run up there and started crying, and both of them were caused by you!" Sara felt her anger rising, she did not have what it took to beat this woman up, she wanted to try, but she did not for Hellen’s sake.
"Now how could I have caused the first without even being here?" said Gwyneth, (for that was who this beautiful woman was).
"It was your secret that I had kept! If it weren’t for you I would not even have that secret!" Sara yelled, letting her very rare temper get the better of her, "the poor girl just found out that she was adopted! She is only five and yet you act like she is supposed to be able to take it!"
She saw the calm look on Gwyneth’s face and was about to say something about it, but Gwyneth spoke first, "I understand you are angry, but it is just as much your fault as it is mine," she said in a voice that matched her face, "now, Andrea is up there crying, should we go and comfort her?" She seemed unsure what to do, which surprised Sara, but she decided that maybe, since it was Gwyneth’s fault that Hellen was up there, Gwyneth should be the one to go up and calm and comfort Hellen.
"I think you should go up there, I will stay down here and take care of the food." Sara could see the surprised look on Gwyneth’s face, which disappeared quickly after it appeared.
"I suppose I could..." said Gwyneth.
I could hear my adopted mother and my real mother arguing downstairs, but I could not hear what they were saying. I had stopped crying after only about 12 seconds after I landed on my bed because I was trying to listen to what they were saying, suddenly I realized that the arguing had stopped, and then I heard a knock on the door,
"Andre- Hellen? It is Gwyneth, may I come in?" I heard that mysterious voice say through the door.
"I suppose so," I said, not really wanting her to, but I was kind of curious about her. Gwyneth opened the door and I noticed that she was now wearing very flowing pants that were so baggy, they looked like vintage, which I loved, I also noticed a couple of other things about her, 1. She was wearing a shirt that was green and also baggy, and that the outfit was all the color of her eyes, like all of her clothes I had seen her in, and she was also wearing a thin gold chain with a golden locket that had an emerald-it figures-embedded in the front of it.
"What is in that locket, if I may ask?" It seemed amazingly captivating for some unknown reason.
"Why, you are wonderfully observant, and, since you are my daughter, (though I know you were unaware of that) then, yes, you may." She walked swiftly towards the bed, sat on the edge, and opened the locket with a touch of the finger, there, on one side of the locket, there was a picture of a young man, who, at first glance, looked somewhat like me, though he had eyes that were a stunningly dark color, "that is your father, he was a great man, but he ran off when he found out that I was pregnant with you, and he vowed that when you were 12, that he would take you from me," she looked so sad, and she glanced at me and then back at the locket, "well, what is done is done, no use in crying over the past," she looked at the other side of the locket, it was a picture of herself, only a little younger, "I suppose, by the recognition on your face, you know that is me," and then, when I nodded, she did something that I did not expect, she lifted the side of the locket that had a picture of her and I found out that it was on hinges and that she flipped it like a page. There, on the other side of her picture, was a picture of a somewhat younger Sara, but she skipped right over that, there, on the other side, was a picture of a smiling baby with eyes just like emeralds, "that is you," she said in a proud voice, "I was so happy the day you were born, you don’t understand how hard it was for me to let you go." tears started to fill her eyes and I could not take seeing this beautiful woman, who, just seconds ago, had claimed to be my true mother, cry.
"Don’t cry, I know now how hard it must have been and I am sorry I got so mad!" I said, and just then, I decided to hug her, and you should have seen the look of surprisal!