I had begun to piece together so many pieces to the puzzle of my past, from the numerous different handwritings in my had begun to piece together so many pieces to the puzzle of journals, the missing time when other parts were up, to the different names I used to go by when I met people. The fractured memories and forgetting began to disappear. I was finding out more about who I was and in all this remembering, I longed to have additional confirmation. Even with the understanding, I needed more answers, and I needed to know just how deep The Family darkness ran. It was with that courage welling up within me that I made the most dangerous phone call of my life.

I picked up the phone and called my mother. During my middle school years, she had obsessively spent a tremendous amount of time and resources carefully documenting my Family’s Ancestry, tracing the bloodlines to The Royals and rulers of old. By so doing my Family sought to substantiate its appeals to our “Divine Right to Rule.” I was coming to grips with the reality of my past, and I knew I could validate so much of what I remembered from those ancient records. I asked her if she could send them to me. Ever amiable, she agreed to my requests, and I decided to probe further.

“Mom, what do you know about the Knights of Columbus?”

She told me that Grandpa is a part of it and it’s a good old boys club that does pancake breakfasts and fundraisers for children. I nearly gagged. My pedophilic abusers were specifically recruited and connected to their young victims (their altar boys) through the Knights of Columbus and its various seasonal “Youth Groups” and other “Finder” programs. I pressed her on this and warned her of the evil that underpins what Grandpa does with his Knights during their get-togethers. With childlike innocence, she tried to assure me they are just the best of people and promised me again that she would send me the records I’d requested.

That was the last time I spoke with my mother.

Unfortunately, other phone calls were made after I hung up. The Underworld’s Spidery Web had just been tripped. I had spoken The Secrets, and my forbidden past could never be allowed to see the light of day. The Family would never allow The Secrets to be revealed no matter how much blood, innocent or guilty, it cost.

Just a few days passed, and I continued my research documenting and disseminating the memories of murder and finding that there could be a cleansing from even that kind of shame and guilt I was woefully unaware of the carnal wheels of chaos churning just below our feet.