Walking Within the Shadows

In the final book of the series, Annabelle Jackson has decided to make a decision that she feels will help lend structure and discipline in her life, and also a concentration that will help to led her far away from her previous life of evil, sex and a penchant for sadism. Annabelle opts for the grueling and very intense curriculum of med school at Princeton University in New Jersey and then, she proceeds on to her residency at S.U.N.Y. (State University of New York). She continues and obtains her license in psychiatry, in part, she determines, to make some kind of attempt to understand some of her own psychological issues.

Now a psychiatrist, Dr. Annabelle Jackson finds herself lured once again back to South Beach, Florida with Delaney, her daughter, who is now nine years of age. Annabelle accepts a position with her former psychiatrist who had treated her and had become a close friend some years before. As she sets up her office with Dr. Leslie, she quickly realizes that the hours and the work load are most disagreeable with her. Coupled with that realization, Annabelle sees Dr. Leslie, who is now considering retirement, and her working over thirty five years and it strikes fear into her psyche. Annabelle sees in Dr. Leslie what she will become in, as Dr. Leslie had intimated, in no time at all! Now, Annabelle comes to the realization that she is going to have some rather serious issues with her aging, her growing older. She quickly decides that she is not going to accept Dr. Leslie's offer of taking control of her practice once Dr. Leslie decides on a final retirement date.

Delaney Jackson, Annabelle's young nine year old daughter also presents her mother with a number of very perplexing issues. As Delaney has grown, it is evident that she is much, much more than a child prodigy. She seems to possess great powers and a kind of extra-sensory perception. In time, Annabelle, her family and friends bear witness to a number of Delaney's remarkable qualities and they all quickly seem to reach the same assumption; Delaney is certainly not like anyone else they have ever known! She has the capacity to learn and digest information at a rate that seems impossible. She can teach herself the most complex of problems, even solving a most complex problem that her papa, her grandfather has from his work that he seemingly cannot solve. Delaney's uncanny and startling capabilities only heightens Annabelle's anxieties and insecurities. Annabelle states on many occasions that all she wanted for Delaney is to have an unencumbered, care-free childhood, very unlike the childhood Annabelle had experienced.

Through all the problems and complexities confronting Annabelle, she decides to conceive another child, adding insult upon injury as Annabelle's mental stability is none too secure or stable. Again, she cheats death in a near-drowning incident that has her family and friends most concerned about her. And, her pediatrician who is vacationing close by and on a short break from her practice, notifies her that she is in fact, pregnant. As Annabelle realizes when she hears from Delaney that her baby may in fact prove to possess her most evil side, she determines that nothing will ever be normal or without issues, that she has been relegated all her life to many kinds of abnormal and unsettling circumstances. Annabelle intuitively comes to the realization that Delaney now represents her more rational, virtuous side, while Kya, her just conceived baby, may possibly represent the evil, sinister side of her, the side that she had tried so diligently to banish from her troubled mind.