Hope and Her Gift

Hope: The Protected Zone

"Hope!" the sound of a three year old girl yelling came through the front door.
"Jenna!" I yelled.and picked up my little three year old sister Jenna. "How's my little sister this evening?"
"Good. We went shopping with mommy and she bought me and Ian peppermint sticks." the little girl said with sparkles in her eyes.
"Nice!" I smiled and lightly poked my little sister's nose. Then I put her down. "I gotta go talk to mom."
"Ok." Jenna smiled. I walked into the kitchen where my Mom was already making spaghetti sauce for dinner.
"Hey Mom?"
"Hey Hope?"
"Is it alright if Anya stays the night?"
"As long as it's alright with Karen, I have no problem with it, you know Anya is always welcome to be here overnight."
"Oh, Aunt Karen is perfectly fine with it. She would rather have Anya not leave a protective zone until after it's light out after what happened yesterday anyway." I said while sticking my finger in the sauce. Mom lightly slapped it.
"Aw," I complained at her.
"What do you mean, after what happened yesterday? What did you see and who did you tell?"
"Actually, this time, I saw something, but didn't have to say anything before something bad happened." I said and proceeded to grab a noodle and crunch on it.
"Would you stop it?" Mom lightly slapped my fingers again. "So what happened and how come I haven't heard about this till now?
"Well, I didn't, um." I put another noodle in my mouth. Mom put her hand in front of my mouth.
"Spit it and tell me." she raised her eyebrows at me and tapped her foot. There was no getting out of telling her when she started tapping her foot.
"Ok. When we went to talk to that guy about college, I saw a demon and the demon was telling another guy to throw a knife at Anya and I. And he did throw the knife." I said the words extremely fast.
"Gotcha." Mom said. "Well, I'll call Karen and let her know that Anya is staying here."
"Anya's staying?" Jenna asked.
"Yep." I bent over and put my hands on my knees. "And that means we can do girl night."
"Yeah!" Jenna said jumping up and down.
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Everyone ate dinner and enjoyed it thoroughly. My mom makes the absolute best spaghetti sauce made with actual cup up garlic cloves.
Then Anya, Jenna, and I went down to the basement to have our girls night. We did an evening of prayer and devotion and then played games and even watched a bunch of old Scooby Doo episodes. Then Jenna fell asleep and Anya and I talked until 1 a.m. Just as I was about to fall asleep I heard a slam. Soon a bunch more slams were heard all around the house.
"Oh no." I groaned. Jenna woke up.
"Do you hear the slams too?" Jenna hugged me tightly.
"Yep." I answered.
"I don't like this." Jenna said.
"Me neither kid." I agreed.
"Why are you guys talking? It's 2:00 in the morning." Anya said groggily as she rolled over to look at us. "Your talking woke me up."
"You didn't hear the slamming?" Jenna asked.
"No." Anya said.
"She can't hear that sweetie." I quickly explained. "She didn't inherit that ability to hear the angels and the demons."
"So why is there slamming then?" Anya asked.
"You know that protective zone that came about when the pastor came in and prayed at your house and our house? Well when that came about demons could no longer get in here, when they want to get at us, they still try to get in, and it slams against the protective zone. It wakes us up every time." I explained. "Man somebody's up to something and they're after us." The slamming continued through most of the night.