Girl From the Tree House, стр. 85

the fish in the pond that didn’t notice the gradual pollution of the water until it was almost too late. We had too many child-parts and us older ones didn’t work together well enough to operate effectively.

Doctors diagnosed us with Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID as they call it. But don’t get all hung up about it. You could call it green eggs and ham; it wouldn’t make a difference. It’s just a term that holds no meaning for us. The Disorder part doesn’t describe us, but the scumbags who inflicted multiple waves of abuse on us from early childhood. All it does is it shifts the blame to the victim of abuse and lets the perpetrator go scot-free. For me, DID means we are a family of parts. There are many of us—fifty altogether—and we call ourselves the Tribe and when we come out in force, a lot is going on.

Becoming a person with different, distinct parts was our way of coping with abuse and bringing order into the chaos of our life. The Original person was Elizabeth. When bad things happened early on in her life, she’d called on the angels for help—and the angels listened. She could go away into the recesses of her mind and we came along, taking over and coping with whatever happened.

To begin with, we were two, but soon we had to call on more help. Things were just too hard for just one or two people to cope. It turned out we all love Elizabeth and go through fire for her…and many of us have, even if we weren’t aware of her in the past.

Call us crazy, maybe we are. Enough people have called us that over the years. To us, it’s the world that’s crazy with all the wars, mayhem, murder, and abuse wherever you look. Compared to that, we think we are pretty cool.

After Horace died, we needed a Five-Star-General to plan our getaway. That’s when Sky stepped up and organized us. To be honest, that was probably the first time we older ones worked together. And it worked. We escaped and found freedom and a new life in our late aunt’s homestead on the South Island.

As it happened, though, total peace and freedom had to wait because our childhood abusers must have felt threatened about our newfound freedom and tried to get rid of us.

The good news was, though, we were no longer the confused woman they’d known, the one who didn’t have the slightest idea if she was coming or going. We became organized and started working together as a team. That was our turning point and the beginning of their demise.

Let that be a warning to all the filthy abusers. There will be a reckoning. If it doesn’t take place in this life, there will be a heavenly judgment day, or they’ll be reincarnated and come back as the cockroaches that they are.

We helped to put the bad guys that hurt us behind bars. That was super cool but it also was a super scary time. The aftermath was ugly. It’s what I struggle with the most. It turns out, when people find out you have a psychiatric diagnosis, they can’t help but hold it against you. We immediately became the mental one and people gave us a wide berth. Often I regret that we had to stand up and tell our story to get Sebastian Feldman and his Gateway cronies behind bars. But it was necessary. They had to be stopped. Many children’s lives depended on it.

So now we live on Auntie Amanda’s homestead with Scottie. He’s our hero and we love him. He’s our lover, brother, father, mate, best friend, and protector. He’s become part of our family and every single one of us loves him differently. That makes for a lot of love. Miss Marple said once,

You guys are pure love.

You all came from love,

from helping a helpless child.

No matter what it cost you.

That was a pretty neat thing to say.

Yep, she was a great lady and we all miss her a lot.

* * *

Chapter Two

Elise: 1 March 2017, Midday, Wright’s Homestead

“Next time you talk to the cow at the city council. I was this far from giving her a piece of my mind.” Lilly indicates about an inch with her index finger and thumb. She’s fuming but underneath all that bluster I know are frustration and hurt. She feels people treat us as if we’re attractions of a Victorian freak show like the bearded lady, the elephant man, or the woman with three breasts.

She sits back on the stairs, her elbows resting behind her on the landing, and staring forlornly into the empty space.

“I’m glad you didn’t.” I put as much feeling into my voice as I can to let her know she’s not alone, that I have her back, even if I’m less feisty than she is. “The last thing we want is to draw even more attention to us. We want the building permit to go through quickly and without much hassle.”

But Lilly is far from being pacified. Her eyes all but shoot darts.

“Did you see her smug face? “I don’t know what’s wrong with people. You appear totally normal to me.” She mimicked the condescending tone of the office clerk at the town hall.

“She literally said that. This far. Honestly.” Up came her fingers again.

Of all of us, Lilly suffers the most under the unpleasant attention the court case and Annabelle’s article about us has caused. She feels responsible that the newspapers reported about life in detail. As if we had any other choice. We all agreed to go to court.

“Just ignore her. I’m sure she meant well.” At least I hope so, but like Lilly, I’m disheartened by some people’s attitude. We all are.

“Heaven save me from people who mean well.” She rolls her eyes and is gone, leaving me with a residue of her feelings.

I move to the open window and lean