Seduction via the Moonlight

The Day I met an Evil Spirit on the Beach

Photo by filmplusdigital on Unsplash

I was on the beach one night, a couple of blocks from my dingy, cramped, cheap flat that was really part of an old Queenslander house that was split into four shitty units. But whatever. The rent was cheap, for that area at least.

It was a beautiful beach, one that tourists pay good money to go to, and didn’t want people like me messing it up. I was one of the people the city wanted to pretend didn’t exist. A thief, a criminal, a ragamuffin who had been homeless and dived into dumpsters for lukewarm burgers.

It had white sand, palm trees, and all that jazz, not far from the gorgeous Whitsunday Islands on the Queensland coastline, where people went surfing and diving in the Great Barrier Reef.

My fiance was with me, a conservative fundamentalist military brat from Louisiana. Silver beams of the full moon shone across the water, making a triangle of light, starting at the moon and ending at my location on the beach. I felt an uncontrollable urge to go into the water.

“Come, be with me, embrace your destiny as a princess of light,” the demon said. I knew the sound of its voice.

The beauty made a compelling argument, and a cool breeze suddenly blew my long black hair around my face.

“I love you, you can be with me forever, you just have to walk into the water.” I shivered even though it had been warm earlier that day.

“I can’t,” I whispered, while walking towards the water anyway.

“That’s it, the water will embrace you. You will cease to exist in this form. I want you. I’m the only one that has ever loved you. Nobody else will ever love you, at least not the way that I do. All you have to do is walk into the water, and keep walking.”

I wanted to feel the water’s embrace so badly, for it sounded like a decent proposition. Ceasing to exist as a human was a tempting offer to a suicidal young woman after all.

I clearly understood that if I chose to go into the water, that would be the end for me. It was an exciting invitation that sent chills down my entire body.

I could see it as a baptism of rebirth, like Edna Pontellier in The Awakening. It would be a baptism that could hand me the keys to the power I’d always dreamed of having.

The demon’s voice was soft and beautiful, like a lover wooing their fairytale maiden. I felt compelled to go into the water, I appreciated its beauty. Here I was being offered a chance at a new life where I would be drunk on power. The proposition was greatly alluring.

It sounded like an offer that I couldn’t turn down, and yet I hesitated. I still, many years later, think that if it weren’t for Jesus giving me a moment of clarity, I’d have walked into the water and let it consume me. Or perhaps it was the sheer terror of water that held me back.

I had already taken my thongs off, and my feet felt grounded in the sand. It was cool and offered some relief to my tired, aching feet. There hadn’t been such a beautiful night in a while. I was fully dressed in a white blouse with a suitably modest neckline and a brown velvet skirt.

My fiance put his hand on my arm, which was enough to break the spell for a few seconds.

“We should go,” he said, “I don’t like it here.”

“It’s lovely,” I said. “Look at the moonbeams.”

He suddenly sensed that something was going on with me, and as I started making counted, deliberate steps towards the water, the moonbeams still dancing on the waves in dazzling brilliance, he grabbed my arm tight.

I struggled and fought with what he described later as superhuman strength, and ultimately, such as has never happened again, I got away from him. I suppose though that the fighting had brought me back to my present reality and not the reality I was being seduced by.

With a sigh and deep sadness, I turned and followed him back to my car which he insisted on driving, and it was the only time that I let him because it was a couple of blocks. He wasn’t used to driving on the left-hand side of the road.

I felt so empty inside, my heart was aching as I’d wanted to enter the water so badly and give my soul to the demon. It was compelling and sounded so sweet and loving and told me I could trust it.

But for reasons known only to God, and with much intervention from a God I didn’t know then, I made my way back home instead of to the destruction of my soul.

For many years, I would grieve not giving myself to the demon when I had the chance, but now I’m glad I didn’t.