Chapter 1: Welcome to the Grotto

“STOP IT. THAT HURTS. MOMMY HELP ME, MOMMY, I NEED YOU PLEASE HELP me...” Then nothing. “Mommy, I need you. I had a bad dream.”

I heard a ladies voice, “Carol, I’m not your mom. But she would want me to talk with you. Your bad dream is over.”

I could now see I was in a bedroom and the lady whose voice I heard was sitting next to me. “Please lady, I want my mommy.”

“I’m very sorry Carol, but you have just died.”

“I don’t think I’m in Hell. Is this Heaven?”

“No honey, we are in The Grotto. We are in between, something like Purgatory. Except that you will never be punished for anything you did before that awful man killed you.”

“I feel alive. Why can’t I just go home? I am sure that mom would want me back.”

“Dear Carol, she wants you back more than life itself. But that man killed you. Your body will be found and your mother will cry for a long time. My mother did that when I died.”

“You’re dead too?”

“Yes. I’ve been here for several years. One of the things I do in The Grotto is to help new arrivals adjust to their time in The Grotto.”

I remember that I didn’t feel dead. I felt sad for mom and my sister. I felt sad for me. I felt ... tears. I remember the lady, Joyce was her name, crying with me.

At the time I thought I was living in Joyce’s apartment. She let me help cook and help wash dishes. We spent three or possibly four days just talking about anything and everything.

Then she asked if I would like to meet some of the other girls.

“There are other girls here? Yes, I want to meet them. Where are they?”

Joyce opened a door that I hadn’t noticed before. It looked like she lived on the edge of a park. “It’s time to introduce yourself to some of the others.”

I ran to meet my new friends.

My favorite play structure had a thick rope. You stood on a low platform, grabbed the rope, backed up, and ran and jumped. Most of the time I ended on the other platform, went to the back of the queue and when it was my turn repeated my actions returning to the other side. After I got back in line I asked the girl ahead of me, “Joyce over there says that I’m dead. Is that true?”

“Everyone here is dead. I’m supposed to let Joyce answer your other questions.”

I took my turn and walked back to Joyce’s place.

“Joyce, I just talked with a friend. I had questions but she said that you were supposed to answer my questions.”

“We have an important job to do here. But before I get into that, listen carefully: You can stay here in The Grotto as long as you like. You can leave any time you want to leave. But when you leave you absolutely cannot return. Do you go straight to Heaven? I don’t know. Or is it like Nirvana in Buddhism where, as far as I can tell, it’s just like a light being turned off for the last time? Or is it something else? I simply do not know.

“Now about that important job: It’s revenge for killing us. The man who killed you is now dead. If I were in charge of the universe he would be in Hell reliving, re-experiencing, his every pain filled moment of his extremely painful death over and over forever. That evil man deserves no less than to suffer for his act of killing you and the damage that he did to girls that managed to escape with their lives – the damage done to their lives was as bad as murder.

“Almost half of the girls who come here leave within a few weeks. Those who stay have the opportunity of learning revenge. But many stay for a few or many years just playing with the other girls before deciding to leave.

“Any time you decide anything just call for Joyce. I will come and we can talk. I would like you the see the room you share with three other girls. You are likely to become close friends.”

In a way, it was just like camp except that everything was clean. We ate together with other groups. We played together. We talked a lot. And like other 9yo girls, we made up stories and laughed a lot.