Victoria came to Millie and softly touched her cheek, making a tear flow from her eye.
"Sweet Millicent, it's over and my darling girls have ended the possession from Heather. We are free again and our spirits can be in peace."
"I'm so sorry, Victoria. So much hurt and pain has happened to us all because of her."
"Yes, she did cause a great deal of pain and misery, but that is gone now and we are blessed with a peaceful eternity."
"I'm so glad it's over for you all. I know how long it's been for you to be under her control and now as you say, a peaceful eternity. I'm afraid my eternity won't be so peaceful, not after what I've done. I know I'm to be damned for it."
"No, Millicent, you didn't do anything wrong to him. You won't be damned for it, this I know."
"How? How do you know, Victoria? I hid him away in a hole in the ground, so I wouldn't have to explain anything. There was no honour or respect shown to him like there should have been."
"He will be honoured properly in time, dear, not to worry. As will we all."
"I don't understand? How will we be honoured?"
"By my daughter's namesake, Olivia. She will honour the Lancaster's as we should have been. I thought I would be damned for how I had shamed us all. My own baby suffered for it and Jocelyn as well. I had to live that year with the saddest heart I could ever have. I was happy to be released from that life of misery, knowing every day would be held in agony for what I had caused. I was responsible for my own daughter's death and that of her loving friend and all I wanted to do was stop them from making the same mistake I had, because I knew it was Heather possessing them. I couldn't let them suffer the same fate as me."
Victoria wasn't as solid or real looking as Livy and Josie. She was held in a lavender glow, tiny dots of gold sparkling throughout her. She was translucent, but her body was well defined in shape and detail.
"I couldn't tell them why they were doing that and had no other choice but to try and end it. My daughter and Jocelyn have forgiven me and know that I bless their love. I know it is wrong to decide how a heart should love another, for only that heart can know and I had no right to decide for them. I see them now and I wish I had of let them love one another. I see how beautiful their love is. I only wish I had the same love from Heather. It could be so wonderful at times and I loved that, but she abused me in so many ways too. I was left with her mark many a time and had to hide it from everyone. She cared not for my well being, nor my possible shame. She did to me, what her father and brothers had done to her, making me share in it with her. When she died and the marks finally left my body, I felt I could be with Neil and married him. I had Olivia and felt all of it was past. I was with my second child and it was taken from me by her. She came and killed it inside me and later, I found that it was a boy and she would have nothing of it coming from me. I was cursed by her for as long as I lived and I would never be free of her. I never wanted to be with child again and go through what I did before and face the chance of losing another."
"Oh Victoria, I had no idea. Even your diaries never shared any of that. The last was your regret for denying Livy."
"My sweet Livy, I adored her so. I will forever more now. Both of them."
"Mama, I do love you. I'm so happy you accept Josie and I and who were are and want us to be together. I only wish now, that you could have shared such a love as ours and known how wonderful it is."
"I so wished for that, my child. I do love the touch of a woman and would have enjoyed a lifetime of it, if only it were to be."
"Victoria, I understand, I felt that too with Beth."
"I wanted you to feel that with her. I want all women to feel that joy of being together."
"You brought us together?"
"Yes, like all girls and women who came to my house, I tried to show them how wonderful it was."
"But...that means..."
"Yes, I have tried all this time to end Heather from possessing me and spread the joys of loving a woman. Heather used my powers to come back and almost destroyed all that I was creating."
"What is it you're trying to create?"
"A place where all women can love one another. A place where we don't have to hide away from everyone if we want to be together."
"That's why every woman feels like that? You've made us feel like that?"
"Yes, we must enjoy it."
"But what of those who don't want to?"
"All women want to. I read it in their minds and hearts. They dream of another woman and I wish to make that come true."
"Are you saying all women are lesbians, Victoria? I don't quite understand."
"All women love one another. We love who we are. We can be with men, but we need to be with other women more."
Millie sat on the bed with Livy and Josie at either side, feeling the comfort of them with her, as Victoria stood in front of her and caressed her cheeks with her hands.
"Yes, we do need the love of other women, I can see that, but making love together, why do we need to do that?"
"Because we will never know true pleasure until we do. I was with a woman and I was with a man and even though there was cruelty, there was far more pleasure in what I had with Heather, than I did with Neil."
Millie looked at her, then at the two on either side of her, knowing the happiness they shared by being together. She thought of her own experience and how it stayed with her a lifetime, as one of her most memorable times making love. It was hard to deny what Victoria was saying, despite a society that would never see that and agree with it. She knew in her heart the truth of it and saw it in Olivia and Lisa, in Livy and Josie, in Chelsea and anyone else who was touched by the possessing love of another woman. It was a conundrum of the mind to imagine, so she resigned to just accept it in her life and admit to it.
"I understand now. I know what my own heart has felt and I can't deny that. I treasure my moment with Beth and wished it would never have stopped. I agree, I have never felt the same with a man, even my Walter, God rest his soul, couldn't come close to making me feel like Beth did."
Victoria held her arms open to Millie, who rose to join her, then Livy and Josie rose too. They all shared a hug in bonding of the moment, Millie wrapped in supernatural love. What the past had put asunder and darkened the name of Lancaster all this time, was being forgiven and accepted as the past. From that moment forward, all of them would be held in the Sapphic bond of women and be a single focus for that love.
Vic sat with Joe and Bert, drinking the last of the beer, nursing his wounded pride and the pain in his heart. Joe had no idea what to say to either of them, as the vision of lesbian loving weighed heavy on their minds.
"I just don't fucking get it. I don't. Just, why the fuck would she do a thing like that? In our home no less. She's never done anything like that, even remotely and to walk in and see her like that with Chelsea on top of her, I mean, what the fuck?"
"Vic, I can't explain it, but you know and I know it ain't Marlene's doing. It's all that ghost shit doing it. You know what you saw and everything, just like I did, so don't go getting all bent out of shape over it, at least until you know the real reason for it. I'm just saying, Mar could be possessed somehow. She was over there with them and we don't know what happened there. All you said was Mar got some oil on her, you know and that's all you really know. Who says Olivia was telling you everything? You really trust a woman that was almost possessed to be God knows what by Heather and she's going to be straight with you?"