In Honor of Her Brother, Part Ii

...For a year they lived and were not bothered, began to question what it was they’d heard, but one careless night, though the love was sublime, Miriam got pregnant for the second time. Not long after things started going amiss, Brad tried to stay calm,”Let’s not read into this.” But furniture moved, the creaking returned, they heard pained howls that left them disturbed. And one still night, quieter than most tombs, Miriam heard a dripping from the bathroom. She felt a terror most will never know, refused to get up, clutching covers close. For ten long minutes the dripping went on, then suddenly stopped, and a new horror spawned, ’cause in the doorway a tortured shape stood, bone scraping on wood as it moved down… Then something behind it, a new brilliant form, shined with ethereal light by the door! It was a young man, shimmering in white, that beamed out brightly, lighting up the night. He grasped the horror in a great bear-hug, crushing inwards the great demonic thug, as the young man fought with this entity fell, he cried,”You are long overdue down in Hell!” Then in a flash the two figures vanished, Miriam sat up stunned, Brad oblivious, light appeared again, then over her bed, the young man floated, looking exhausted. And though she’d not seen her first little one, somehow she knew that she looked on her son. The shape of his face, both Brad’s and her own, the spirit of a boy she never had known… James smiled and said,”The priest asked the Big Man if he could stop this from happening again. Normally He says that,’Vengeance is Mine,’ but He subcontracted out to me this time.” Miriam gasped,”I….there’s so much to say…” James said,”Don’t fear, you’ll meet me at the gates. No need to rush though, live out all your years, there’s so much to show my sister down here.” With that he faded, the room now serene, she awakened Brad to tell what she’d seen, he seemed skeptical, but didn’t press the fact, but the creaking and howls never came back. From that day forth their farm was a refuge, devoid of spirits, now hopeful and true, and to a girl Miriam became mother, named Etta-James, in honor of her brother.