She wrung her hands. "I don't know, hun. I've had to tell this story so many times...Maybe I should just start from the beginning." She paused. "Josh began acting strangely a year before last. I first thought that his behavior might be emotional. His father...em, he committed suicide two years ago, and Josh hadn't been the same since. I took him to several therapists, but once he started acting so out of character, I thought maybe I should take him to see a doctor."
She paused. The woman took a slow, deep breath to continue. "It started off with little things. He reacted aggressively when he didn't get his way. He would try to hit me, or even his friends and teachers at school. He got suspended several times. And then he stopped sleeping normally, and his whole personality changed. Whenever we went to a doctor, he seemed perfectly normal. His MRIs were clear and his therapist said he was making great progress. Then I started hearing him talking to himself in his room, in a voice that wasn't his. I thought maybe he had snuck someone into the house, but whenever I caught him doing it, he was alone. Things started happening around the house and I...I just had a feeling that this wasn't something that could be explained by doctors or medicine."
Barbara stopped there. She knew she probably sounded crazy. This woman had no reason to believe her. But she knew what she had witnessed.
"So...I started looking within my faith for answers. When the first priest came, Josh just growled and snarled at him like a dog. The priest couldn't do anything for him, so he recommended I call a colleague of his. When he came, he brought another priest with him. They did all they could, but Josh ended up attacking the older man and giving him a nasty bite on his arm. He suggested that I had Josh restrained and left to go to the hospital. I can only assume that word got around, because after that, no one else would even try to see my son. That was when I got the e-mail from Isaac Partway. I was so desperate, that I didn't spend time thinking about the situation; I just wanted it to be over."
Her frail voice broke at the end of her words. Barbara was now alone. No family, no friends, nothing but a meager job and her husband's life insurance to get by on.