Letters to Maxine

CHAPTER 15

Culmination

Over the next three days, Jasmine experience nightmares and constant feelings of dread. An unfamiliar voice tormented her, refusing her any peace or rest.

"You will be my sacrifice," it said.

Her father noticed the change. And as his mind created scenario after scenario, he thought back to her beginning. The night of Jasmine's conception, what he thought was a game turned to darkness.

Amélie always claimed to be from an ancient European coven. Still, he considered it foreplay and didn't think it was true. Whenever she confessed herself as an ambassador of the earth and nature, they'd have sex. It didn't matter where they were. A park, elevator, car, or beach.

After their engagement to be wed, the physical intimacy stopped. Amélie wouldn't touch him, not even for a kiss. She'd gone cold towards Roger for two months with no explanation until a late October night.

Amélie took him to the woods in a New York State Park, Fort Stanwix. Beneath a full moon, hidden by the trees, she made love to him. Her passion and sensual acts were unlike anything he'd experienced before. When they finished, and just before leaving, she put his finger into her mouth. As she caressed it with her tongue, and unbeknownst to him, she pin-pricked his palm. She was quick to switch from his forefinger to the blood flowing from below his thumb.

Without an apology or any sign of regret, she looked at him with stunning eyes.

"It is done, my love," she said. "I'm ready to be yours."

He'd thought about this night for sixteen years. Sometimes he'd fear what happened and would ask Amélie what it meant. She'd play it off with a smile and laugh, making him think it silly. However, everything changed on the night Jasmine turned sixteen. That was the catalyst for despair.

Amélie had planned a grand coming-of-age party for Jasmine. She rented a ballroom at a Manhattan restaurant and hired a catering company to create decorations and table settings. Jasmine's outfit alone cost $6,700, including her dress, shoes, and necklace.

As the guests arrived, Amélie hadn't. By the lighting of the candles, Roger had become concerned. And by the night's end, Amélie was nowhere to be found.

There was nothing, even after filing a missing person and going through every known associate Roger could remember.

On the third night, however, just past one o'clock, a knock came at the back door. As Roger rushed down the stairs and opened his cell phone to his security app, he forbade Jasmine to follow. A dark figure lay on the concrete apron that led to the back doorway. It would stand, stumble away from the camera, then fall against the door.

"Stay upstairs, for God's sake, please, Jasmine. And call nine-one-one."

He waited until it moved off the apron before opening the door. Amélie appeared like a ghost, with her pale, gaunt face and empty eyes staring off into the distance. She stumbled into view, her clothes torn and bloodied, as if being left for dead.

She barely slept for days and would be found huddled in the corner or a closet. She refused any police involvement or medical care. When she wasn't bed resting, she had tremors and paranoid delusions of priests and packs of wolves. Although it worsened, she refused any explanation or speak about where she'd been those missing days.

The next three months saw a fierce downward spiral with no end. Amélie lost weight, looked haggard, and distanced herself from Roger and Jasmine. The track marks and burns on Amélie's arms and feet told him the severity of her mysterious nights.

As a husband, it was the most helpless feeling imaginable, leading to utter ruin. And when Jasmine began showing her mother's emotional signs and symptoms, it was a fear most realized.