The Devil I Know: My Haunting Journey with Ronnie DeFeo and the True Story ofthe Amityville Murders (36 page)

I ran to the side of the bed and held the book to her head. As she fell backward, I slid my grandfather’s mojo bag up over my head and tried to place it on hers, but a resistant force battled me, and I couldn’t get it down. Her eyes flickered through again, and the dark forked tongue became pink and rounded, surrounded by full, rose-colored lips.

“Mom! I’m here! It’s Jackie!”

“No!” Will shouted. “Jackie, it’s a trick! Walk away!”

Her breaths started to come in great heaving gasps, and her head swung wildly back and forth. Over my shoulder, I saw a thick fog drifting into the room. It rolled past Will and Joanne, covering them. A moment before it reached Ray, the invisible nails pinning him to the wall came loose, and he tumbled to the floor.

Suddenly I was slung back across the room, to where I’d been standing before. The book and the mojo bag had both dropped out of my hands, and now I couldn’t see either one. Within moments, the fog filled the entire room, and everything was obscured. I looked back toward the bed, but it was concealed. I started to become dizzy. With what strength I had left, I called out Joanne’s name, then Will’s.

“We’re still here!” I heard Joanne shout, though I didn’t know from which part of the room. “Don’t stop!” In my daughter’s voice there was no fear. Only strength.

From the other side of the room, out of the fog, a
figure emerged. It was a man. A large man, with a distinctive side-to-side walk that projected ease and power at the same time.

My father. As he walked across the room, the fog began to lift and separate. I stopped talking. I could see my mother’s bed again. He walked over to the side of it and put his hand out. A hand reached out from the bed, and right away I noticed the luster of its skin. The hand was smooth and milky, attached to an arm that was the same. I looked at her face, which bore the same striking light of youth. My mother was there, new again.

Mary took my father’s hand and got up out of the bed. My father looked toward me and grinned, the corners of his eyes welling. My mother, pure, unmarred, smiled, too. They turned together and walked into what remained of the fog, which swirled powerfully for a moment and then, with the slightest whisper, vanished. In its place came a beautiful, fresh scent, filling the room.

“Look!” Will yelled, pointing out the window. A wrecking ball on a thick chain swept down in an arc and smashed into the wall like a bomb, shattering the concrete and brick.

We all raced for the stairs as the walls around them started to buckle. Uncle Ray held Joanne’s hand and went as quickly down the steps as he could, Will in front of them, taking the steps two and three at a time. I was in the rear. Will stopped, retreated, and pulled Ray and Joanne in front of him. “Don’t stop!” he told them. “Keep going! Go, go!” Then he grabbed me by the arms and yelled, “Jackie, wake up!”

I was trying to get us out, but something was restricting my flight. I focused, tried to get us back, but I was blocked.

“Wake up!” Will yelled. Just like I’d implored Ronnie to do.

I sprinted for the door. The wrecking ball came sweeping down again and smashed the remaining wall to pieces just as I ran through the doorway. Ahead of me I saw Will, Joanne, and Ray running for the car. We were getting out. I headed toward them.

“Not so fast,” I heard, and then a hand was around my neck. “The score is
not
settled,” Lucifer said, bringing his face close to mine and clamping his hand tighter around my throat. I swatted at it in vain as he pushed me back into the hotel. “You interfered when you shouldn’t have. I warned you.” He squeezed my windpipe. I started to see black spots. “Now you must take your mother’s place.”

“Hey.”

It was Joanne. I looked to the side to see her standing there, defiant.

“Let my mother go. It’s me you want, isn’t it?”

The demon turned to Joanne and smiled, relaxing his grip on my throat.

“Joanne—no!” I said in a gasp as my windpipe sought air.

“An exchange?” he said.

“
JOANNE!
”

But I was too late. The air hadn’t come back in fast enough. I fell away, back into my body, back to the other side.

Sometimes the student
is the best teacher.

I was back in my bed, sitting up, disoriented. The six candles had burnt to the bottom of their wicks, and the room was quiet apart from the soft sounds of a man weeping. It was Uncle Ray, in the corner of the room, frightened, but returned. He’d made it back through.

And as I came back into myself fully, I saw them: Will and Joanne, each standing at a mirror on either side of the circle and holding a thick canvas down over the glass. From somewhere between two dimensions, the voice of the demon, though muffled, tried to press through, accompanied by loud scratching noises. Will and Joanne pressed the canvases down harder. The voice, and the noises, started to recede, then, after a few seconds, shrank away to nothing.

I looked at Joanne. Around her neck was the mojo bag I had tried to slide over my mother’s head. I jumped off the bed, ran over to my daughter, and hugged her. Will walked over and wrapped both of us in his big arms. Ray staggered across the circle and leaned himself against us as a group, still crying, but now tears of joy and relief.

Joanne slid the mojo bag up over her head and placed it in my hands, smiling. She had come full circle. She knew who she was and the bloodline she shared.

Maybe that’s all any of us really wants: to know who we are, and, for better or for worse, where we came from.

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing
the world he didn’t exist.” That’s a line from the movie
The Usual Suspects
. I think about it often, because I wouldn’t mind being one of those people—the ones who aren’t aware. I’ve been aware of him all my life, and I suppose I always will be. I can’t say I’ve won the war. I can say only that I’ve won the most recent battle.

Ronnie still calls, of course. Delivered from the entity that haunted him or not, he’s still an inmate, and inmates still like to talk, perhaps none more than him. Except now, he’s mostly quiet on the phone. I’d almost describe him as serene, though that would be false. He’s free from the evil that tortured his days and nights, yes, but free is not the same thing as pure. We are pristine only at the beginning.

I try not to think about the evil spirit lurking somewhere in wait, but one tries not to continue watching
horror movies or gawking at car accidents, too. Will, Joanne, Ray, and I are a more resilient team than ever, but we know that in the gaps of our conversations there are things unsaid that none of us wants to broach. I lay my head down at night and the distant voices still whisper—souls lost or in pain, seeking rescue. Sometimes, in the middle of washing dishes or doing laundry, I’ll look up and think I see someone watching me. Each of us hears the doorbell ring at odd hours, followed by knocking. We don’t get up to answer. We let the game play out, then we try to roll back over and find sleep. Every one of us in life is continually building up our spiritual suit of armor. Yours just looks different from mine.

I still ask why I was chosen for this. Does connecting the living with the dead truly represent a higher responsibility? I’ve crossed the two lines so often that half the time I barely know which world I’m occupying. I feed the homeless with two legs and with four, dry the eyes of those whose spirits have been darkened or broken. People call me generous. They call me charitable. I’m not. I’m just trying to relieve myself from ever wanting. It’s a continuous act of freedom. The more one gives up materially, the better she feeds her own soul. We all have our chains to drag, but we can make them lighter. We can shed old skin and start new.

I look in the mirror and can still see, somewhere in there, the face of the little person I once was. I wasn’t little for very long, but she’s there, and I still hold on to her. She’s the innocent part of me, the part who only got to stay that way for a few years. The young shall indeed
lead the old, as Mr. Gramp liked to say. I cling to that little girl with something like desperation but more like love. She’s the part of me that can move through the days unfettered and unafraid. She has no thought of heaven or hell, no fear of hurt or evil. As long as she lives, I live.

On one side of the road, the sun shines; on the other, it rains fire. You can’t always choose which side of the road you end up on. There isn’t anyone born in this world for whom the two sides of the road don’t sometimes converge. The question for all of us is whether we can make it from one side back to the other. I didn’t choose my path, Mother, but I also didn’t run from it.

I don’t know where my journey, nor that of Ronnie DeFeo, will lead. But I do know that darkness exists, and that I will continue, forever, to seek light.

I know the devil isn’t done…

For more than two decades, world-renowned psychic Jackie Barrett has been astounding television, radio, and guest audiences with her ability to communicate with the dead. Unlike a typical medium, Jackie’s unique ability allows her clients to interact directly with the dead. Her client list includes A-list celebrities, notable politicians, professional athletes, and business leaders. She has a legion of faithful believers, including various crime fighting units all over the globe, and her sterling reputation has gained her an honorary captain’s badge from the New York Police Department. Jackie is a leading expert on occult crimes, which has taken her to the darkest corners of humanity. Jackie has appeared on A&E, Bio, WE, MTV, Lifetime, E!, and the Travel Channel, as well as in numerous newspapers, magazines, and radio shows. You can visit her website at www.jackiebarrett.com.

Me in 1967, age five. I had already started to conduct séances for my mother.