“Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Beulah watched her sister’s lips as she said the prayer aloud. Esther’s face was ashen white, her hands shook from the tips of her fingers all the way to her wrists.
“You are my hiding place,” prayed Esther. “You preserve me from trouble.” Her breath came in quick pants and the words of the Lord were shrill as they left her mouth. “You surround me with songs of de…of de…”
“Of deliverance,” Beulah finished for her.
Beulah’s voice was as steady and calm, as always. She was the older of the two. Her entire life, she’d soothed Essie’s fears, shined the light to scare off the monsters under the bed, and sung her little sister back to sleep after a nightmare.
Beulah pulled her sister into her arms now. She buried Esther’s head beneath her chin and stroked the back of her head. Instead of singing, Beulah began another prayer.
No song could wake them from this nightmare. The monsters weren’t under the bed. They were on the other side of the door.
“It’s like a roller coaster ride,” said a small, frightened voice.
Beulah looked down at the small child huddled in her lap. Big brown eyes widened in fear as they peered up at her.
They were in the Heavens. They were somewhere up in space, in the abode of God. But God was nowhere to be found.
The three of them had been snatched up by demons. Then rescued by a second group of demons. Now they were on a spaceship being chased by God knows what.
“I don’t like roller coasters, mommy. Can we get off now, please?”
Beulah pulled her daughter into her bosom. Eva clutched her spindly arms around Beulah’s neck and sniffled into her chest. Between her sister’s panting and her daughter’s sniffling, Beulah had no space for her own fears.
“The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles,” Beulah chanted, hoping the prayer brought peace to her loved ones. She hoped it would quell the shaking of her own spirit.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted,” she continued. “He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
The door to their cage opened with a swish. It wasn’t a cage with bars. But there was no discernible way to get in or out, so Beulah deemed it a cage.
A demon didn’t enter. A human did. A human woman.
The woman was brown-skinned with thick, curly hair. She wore long robes, like the demons. Beulah had first seen the woman when they were held captive on another ship. Back on that ship, the woman had come to rescue them. The woman told them that her name was Shanti. Shanti and two blue demons had freed them from that first ship, only to take them captive onto this ship.
“How are you all holding up?” Shanti had a grimace on her face as she surveyed the three of them huddled together. Her voice was filled with both compassion and concern.
“You said you would take us home,” Beulah said.
“I know.” Shanti came into the room. The door materialized behind her. “But the Eloheem can’t just now. You see, we’re being chased.”
“I thought the demons that took us were dead?”
“One died,” Shanti confirmed. “My mates decided to take the second on board.”
Beulah covered Eva’s ears. Partly out of the mention of plural marriage. Partly out of the mention of the continued presence of the crazed demon who’d taken them while they were out on a nice walk through the woods.
“But he’s locked away safe where he can’t harm anybody,” said Shanti
“Then who’s chasing us?” Esther’s voice was a shrill wail. “And why?”
Shanti came over and sat down on the large bed that dominated the room. “You ever hear those stories about little, gray men abducting humans for experiments?”
Esther’s eyes widened. She turned and hid her head in her sister’s chest alongside Eva. This nightmare simply kept getting worse and worse.
Beulah stopped listening to Shanti talk about the little, gray men chasing after them. They had to get home as soon as possible. It was Eva’s weekend with her father. If they didn’t turn the ship around soon, they’d miss his visitation with Eva.
Josiah often missed visitations with his daughter. He hadn’t made a scheduled date in over a month. But Beulah always had Eva ready for him, just in case he did show.
The divorce had been hard on Eva who thought the sun rose and set on her father. For the first few months of their separation, Eva had assumed her father was simply on business trips. Sleepover trips, Eva called them. But her six-year-old mind also knew that, in the past, business trips had never lasted more than a couple days.
By the second week, Eva began waking up with nightmares that her daddy was in danger. Beulah hadn’t known how to tell the poor girl that her daddy wasn’t in danger. He was in another woman’s bed. Beulah had stopped waking up in the middle of the night reaching for Josiah within the first year of their marriage. She was used to him having sleepovers elsewhere.
“I want my daddy. I want my daddy.”
Beulah gathered her baby to her. Eva’s little body shook and heaved with sobs. “We need to be home in two days. It's her father's weekend.”
Shanti's face contorted into what Beulah was coming to know as her lawyer face. Beluah's divorce attorney had worn the same grimace each time she delivered bad news about the divorce that Beulah had never wanted.
“I'm so sorry, but were not going to make it in time,” said Shanti. “You see, time moves differently out in space. The weekend has already come and gone.”
Beulah felt her stomach drop. Real fear clenched her gut. What if Josiah was waiting for them at the house? What if he'd called the police? He would charge Beulah with child abduction and she would lose Eva for good.
This could not go on any longer. She'd lost her husband. She wasn't going to lose her daughter. She had to get home now.
If you enjoyed Her Dual Abduction, then I hope you’ll join me for Pakua and Yehfe’s story with Beulah in Her Dual Surrender.
