The Crying Bridge

The Crying Bridge--Chapter 39

 They had all gotten up from the blanket and returned to porch. Once everyone was seated with cold drinks and something sweet, Evan started.

"Can someone tell me what the fuck just happened?" He was still feeling freaked out and he did not like how weak and pale his wife looked. She kept saying she was fine but he wasn't buying it. "You said you could contain everything and that did not feel like fucking containment to me. Someone needs to start talking."

"I understand your confusion and concern," Dylan said. "And I will admit we've never had anything quite like that happen before."

"Emmett tried to break free from us," Louise explained.

"No shit," Evan said, irritated. "That was him, right? The wind and the swing and Del feeling cold and almost fainting? How the fuck did that happen?"

Del had never seen him so angry. She took his hand in hers, trying to calm him but he wasn't having it. "Can he come back. Can he hurt Del?" Evan demanded.

"Absolutely not," Dylan said with utter confidence. "Emmett became even more angry and combative once he realized what we meant to do, that we were sending him on. We've never pushed a spirit like this to move on...he understood as we began that he would be in Hell. And he fought us."

"Hell?" Evan echoed. "Are you serious? I thought Del was just using a phrase. Are you saying you actually sent him to Hell? The real, biblical Hell?"

"That's exactly what they're saying, Evan," Del said softly.

Evan just looked at her, surprised. "Hell?" He repeated.

She nodded. "It's what he deserves. And he was not a Christian, so there was no where else for him to go."

Evan sat back, trying to process it all. He would not have thought his kind, generous wife could do something so final. And so cold. He looked at her, looked into those hazel eyes he loved so much and thought he understood. It was Caleb. The fact that he had murdered his own baby and carelessly buried him with no remorse at all. He knew how much the pain of ending her first pregnancy still lingered in her, knew what an agonizing choice it had been and that she had so much love for the promise of that child. He knew how fiercely she already love the twins growing inside her. And she simply couldn't reconcile those feelings with the existence of a monster like Emmett Steinhurst. He realized she was right. The son of a bitch was exactly where he belonged.

"Okay," he finally said. "So, again, what exactly happened. You said nothing could get past the two of you."

"And nothing did," Benjamin told him. "What we experienced was Emmett trying but we were prepared for that. When they called to me and I made physical contact, I was able to keep him there while they closed the opening between this world and the spirit world. They were then able to bind him in the closed space."

"Then we broke the communication link to him and he simply was pulled into Hell," Louise explained. "Without a link to us or the spirit world, there was just no other option. The closed space just sort of squeezes out of existence as we open it back up."

Evan's head was starting to hurt. He started to speak but Dylan cut him off. "I know it seems very confusing and for someone not a part of what we do, it is. Let me try to explain a bit more. If we were to open our space before closing the portal to the spirit world, then anything could get through into this realm. But we always shut down the portal first. We just usually send the spirit through it first."