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TIME DID NOT HEAL; IT DESTROYED.
Five months had passed since the Warrens’ last case in Pennsylvania. Judy was happily married to her lovely husband Tony and expecting a child, and Ed’s heart condition was remaining stable now that he was no longer exerting himself by hunting demons.
But for Lorraine Warren, time had stopped.
She could pinpoint the exact moment when her world had fallen into disarray, when everything that was dear to her had been destroyed. But she couldn't bring herself to tell anyone about her feelings. Not even Ed.
He’s suffered enough, Lorraine thought to herself. I shouldn’t make it worse by sharing my pain.
She played the role of the good wife as she always did— the happy homemaker, the mother with a bright smile who hummed hymns as she baked a fresh batch of cookies in the oven. But her mind was plagued by images that wouldn't go away.
Judy's body hanging from the rafters in the attic. The thump as her precious daughter's body fell motionless to the floor. Ed clutching his chest, gasping “I can't”! as Judy struggled to stay in the land of the living. The fear, the prayers… and the mirror. Oh, God, the mirror.
That demonic mirror had been Lorraine’s nemesis for much of her life. It had infected Judy, and by doing so, it had sunk its venomous fangs into the whole Warren family. It had finally been defeated, but at what cost?
“Lorraine? Honey?”
Ed’s voice, soft and tender, called out to his wife.
Lorraine opened her eyes and realized that she had been standing by the sink reminiscing about that fateful night yet again. Her hands were grasping the counter with a white-knuckled grip and her breaths were coming out in short pants.
Ed stepped closer to Lorraine. He could instantly tell that his wife was in distress. After spending thirty-odd years with Lorraine, he knew all her emotions better than he knew his own.
“Lorraine. Tell me what you're seeing.”
He reached out and covered her hands with his own, gently pulling her fingers from the counter and intertwining them with his. Lorraine didn't fight, she simply let him handle her as he wished.
When it was clear that Lorraine had calmed down a little bit, Ed led her to their bedroom and sat down with her on the bed. He then moved his hands from her hands to her back and began stroking in a circular pattern, breathing deeply and slowly as he massaged her tense muscles.
Lorraine looked deeply into Ed’s eyes and saw nothing but love. Overwhelmed by her emotions and desperate for comfort, she cried out to him.
“Oh, Ed! Oh!”
She buried her face in his shoulder and shook with restrained sobs. Lorraine Warren was a strong woman. She had faced Valak without backing down. But in moments like this, when the world felt like it was falling apart, she couldn't help but yearn for the comforting arms of her husband.
“Lorraine, I'm here. Tell me what you were seeing!”
Ed urged.
Lorraine gulped down a sob and took a few shaky breaths. She knew that she had to open up about her fear, about her nightmares… but it was going to be quite hard. Every word felt like a shard of glass stabbing her vocal cords, but she managed to do it.
“It's the memories, Ed. They won't leave me. I can't forget the house. Judy… oh, my Judy!”
Ed shushed Lorraine and ran his fingers through her wavy hair. She smelled of sugar and vanilla syrup, his favorite scent. It meant she had been baking cookies in the oven recently.
“It's over, my love. The demon won't trouble us again. We exorcised it ourselves, remember?”
Lorraine sniffled and shook her head against Ed’s muscular chest. She knew the demon had been exorcised, of course. Logically, the case was over. But in her mind, she was stuck back at the Smurl house on the night Judy had been possessed. She couldn't escape.
“The nightmares, they feel so real. I can see my reflection in a mirror, and then Judy falls, and she's not breathing. You're standing over her, but there's nothing you can do. My heart feels like it's going to stop too!”
Ed felt tears coming to his eyes upon hearing Lorraine's confession. He had residual trauma from the Smurl house incident as well. He had bad memories from every case he'd done, he just hid them better and buried them behind dry humor and afternoons spent playing billiards with Tony.
Despite dealing with residual effects himself, he had never even thought to ask Lorraine, his darling wife, if she had been suffering too. Lorraine was an empath, a woman with an innate ability to feel the pain and sorrow of others and connect with their spirits. Of course she would be feeling far more pain than Ed was, especially after witnessing her own daughter lying dead on the floor.
“Lorraine, my darling Lorraine.”
He held her close, caressing every last inch of her skin as she sobbed into his chest. He began to rock her softly, and she tensed up at first before relaxing into his embrace.
“It's over, Lorraine. Our Judy is safe. No demons can control her anymore. You don't need to be afraid.”
Lorraine gazed into Ed’s eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes possessed the unique hue of a slightly overcast sky. The tears streaming down her cheeks were like raindrops falling from the clouds onto Ed’s lapel.
“And you? Your heart? Ed, every day I wake up thinking it's going to be the last day I spend with you. I lie next to you some nights unable to sleep because of the fear, the uncertainty. I can't, I just-”
Lorraine’s rant was silenced by a gentle kiss on the lips. It was nothing more than the touch of a butterfly wing, gossamer lips brushing against pale skin. The kiss was purely for comfort, an attempt to try and silence Lorraine’s constant overthinking. But Lorraine found herself leaning into the kiss, parting her lips to let Ed’s tongue slide into her mouth. Her heart was racing, and she needed a distraction from the sick feelings her fear was causing in her body.
Ed lowered her down to the bed and reached for her skirt, but she shook her head and pulled away.
“Not tonight, Ed. I just can't. Not after everything I told you.”
Ed withdrew immediately, sitting beside her on the bed with his hands clenched into fists on his lap. Lorraine noticed that and felt guilt begin to claw at her heart.
“The memories are too much,” she whispered, resting her hand on one of his fists. “Please don't blame me. You don't know how hard it is, to bear not only my emotions, but the emotions of a whole family. To see images in my head that won't go away, images of demons, of blood!”
Ed sighed and rested his head on Lorraine’s shoulder. He knew he was foolish to feel any disappointment from her rejection, and that she was nothing but right about how exhausting her powers were for her.
“I'm sorry, Lorraine. You're right. I'm being selfish.”
Lorraine rested her hand on his back, and he put his hand in her lap. The couple sat together in silence, just listening to each other’s breaths. Then Lorraine’s hand began to move.
In a few slow, shaky motions, Lorraine placed her hand above Ed’s heart. She curled her fingers against his warm skin, feeling the raised pattern of the surgical scars on his chest. She despised the scars, they brought tears to her eyes whenever she saw them. Ed, on the other hand, viewed them as a testament to his bravery (and his recklessness, though he would deny the existence of that particular trait.
Lorraine left her hand there, feeling the steady beat of her beloved’s heart beneath her fingertips. Slowly but surely, the dark vestiges of the nightmares that had been tormenting her for so many days withdrew. She could see light again, breathe easier.
“Your heart. It's beating, it's healthy,” she said, feeling choked up again.
“I told you there was no need to be afraid,” Ed murmured.
He took Lorraine’s hands from his chest and kissed them tenderly. The tension in them was gone, and they rested limply in Ed’s grasp.
Suddenly, the couple noticed a burning smell coming from the kitchen. Lorraine gasped and got up with a start.
“My cookies!” she wailed, taking off towards the kitchen.
Ed laughed at her absent-mindedness and followed her into the kitchen, where she was using oven mitts to carry a baking tray of burnt oatmeal raisin cookies.
“They're ruined!” she cried, gazing down at what was meant to be her masterpiece.
Ed looked down at the cookies. Lorraine had baked a dozen, and out of the dozen, seven of them were burnt black. The other five had slight brown burn marks, but nothing too dramatic. Ed picked up one of the five good ones and sunk his teeth into it, instantly burning his tongue.
“Ed Warren!” Lorraine snapped in exasperation.
She rushed to her husband’s side with a cup of cool milk.
“Here, drink this. And give me that cookie!”
She tried to take the cookie from Ed’s hand, but he stuck the rest of it in his mouth and chugged the milk down with it. Lorraine rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips, making a show out of looking irritated when, in reality, she found her husband adorable when he acted childish like this.
“You’re worse than Judy was when she was a child!” she chided him.
Ed laughed boisterously and pulled Lorraine into his arms, kissing the top of her head and her forehead. She playfully pushed him away and complained of the “taste of cookies and milk getting everywhere”. Ed pulled her closer and remarked that her cookies tasted sweet, so that would be no problem.
Lost in each other’s embrace, the last echoes of the Smurl house left Lorraine and Ed’s mind permanently. They had each other, and they had their daughter and her family. Regardless of what demons came to assail them, they knew that if they stood strong as a family, they could take anything Hell threw at them.