WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (64 page)

I
was positive Maw Sue would never miss it.  She
will get well and life will be as it was before. I need her. I really need her. The necklace
began to burn my hands so I put it inside my pocket. 
I slipped out of the house and walked home. I
t was dark and the moon was barely visible.  I
darted the flashlight on the ground
to find the trail home.  I heard something behind me and jumped.  I stopped and flashed the light around.  An owl who-who’d and I could hear its wings flap nearby as it flew by.  Whew!  I turned around but when I did I noticed the blood trail behind him.  It led right up to my pocket where the stone was.  I ran faster until I reached the house, made a sneaky tip-toe to my room and quietly closed the door and then let out an exhausting sigh.  A
t first I didn't know if the stone was ma
king my vision warped, and seeing things but when I turned the light on, my bloodied pockets told me otherwise. 
Now I was scared. Really frightened. It was on my hands and running down my legs, and pooling in my pocket. 
Stay calm Willodean. This is part of your purpose. You’re born for this. Rid the curse. Make it go away. Save the family. Save Maw Sue and yourself. You’re a pugnator. You can do it.
 I pulled the burning stone, red and wet
from my pocket and it felt as if it was on fire. 
I dropped it instantly. The stone 
sat on my pink carpet burning like a coal without a fire. 
What have I done?
I lunged underneath my bed and pulled out the mirror bin.
It’s my destiny
. 
This is part of it. Do it.
 I opened the lid and grabbed the dirty t-shirt on the floor. I laid it on top of the necklace so I could pick it up without it burning my flesh. It soaked immediately
turning a blood red mess. 
God!
 I grabbed it in a wad and held it over the mirror bin and dropped it inside. The plunk was the loudest, clanging bell sound I had ever heard. The ringing went on forever. I slammed the lid down, latched it shut and shoved it under my bed. I was out of breath and worried sick of what it all meant. 
Did I make a mistake?
I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I kept hearing that stone leap out in ripples and boun
ce the mirror bin under my bed against the bed railings. 
Every knock mad
e my heart flinch and lock up. After a few hours wide eyed and awake, I regretted my decision.  Come first light, if I survived, I planned on taking that dad-blasted red stone back to its rightful owner. 
 

Porch Silence

Dark slumber. Shadows. Moons and stars. Lilies. Peppermint. Copper pennies. Branson. 
One after another, my mind alternates.
 I am lost in them and suddenly a bright stream of light floods my vision extracting me f
rom my memories. I’m lying flat.  I
must be in my bed waking
from one of those stupid dreams.  My mind is foggy, my eyes crusty.  I’m able to stare
at the ceiling, but it’s odd and different as if someone painted it during the night. I can’t say if I’m five years old or forty years old. Time seems irrelevant. My vision is disorientated. Chatters grow loud, whispering, lots of whispering, people voices overriding my sleep, dreams, my awakening. I spring upwards from my pillow, unsettled and shaken to discover that I am not in my own home.

“Geeeshhh
…” I say out loud and fall back on the pillow.  I had forgotten where I was.  Which is in my childhood bedroom. 
Lena insisted Mag and I stay over since it was late, but mainly because we had one too many shots of tequila. It’s weird for me to wake up here, now that I’m in a better frame of mind, or reality, and not in a psychotic meltdown. Things seem connected and clearer. My bedroom is the
same as it was when I was a kid and I hadn’t noticed that before. 
It’s like stepping back in time, the furniture, the curtains, the mattress, the fears. 
Oh, yes, the fears.
 I shudder thinking about it. 
Secrets, lots of secrets here.
 Last time I slept here I was immersed within the house of shadows, inside myself, behind locked doors, stuck in the walls with no way out until everything changed when I eyed the crackle, heard Maw Sue’s voice, interpreted my visions. It’s easier in my bedroom to enter inside the house, inside me and slip away to portals unknown, rooms I created, but dare not speak of.

And then I remember last night, something niggling me in my sleep, or when I tried to sleep, that is.  I tossed and turned while the room fell into a darkness that was familiar. 
I stared into the black ceiling of nothingness for a long, long time, listening to the whir of the metal fan, my mind restless, on full throttle, tumbling out rational and irrational matter until it exploded above me like fireworks, then fading
in streaks and dust particles which as they fell turned into stemmed roses, which in turn became the petal people falling into me, as I absorbed them into the house inside me. 
I could no more stop their entrance or exorcist them out of me. I wanted to run like the dickens, but
I was locked to the mattress like a captive of my imaginations.  The mattress didn’t help none either.  It was older than me, but not as old as the marshmallow bed Maw Sue used to have, but old enough and that night it want
ed to reminisce like a lost friend excited to catch up, chat, cry, revisit, laugh, scream, hug and torment me relentlessly. While I lay on top of it, I rolled into the aged old
indentions of my body molded over time.  I went to the house inside me and
revi
sited the horrors in each room.  Inside wallpaper Branson room I traced the fine
etched features
of his face hoping to find some sense of it all.  I saw the good and melted within it but just as it took me in, his words
became belligerent and abusive, and I ran out with my hands on my ears trying to stop the horrible from entering in and taking root
. 
I rolled on the mattress fighting
its mold, and the dream state it took me to.  I was reminded of my relationships, men who
love me, hate me, miss me, love me again, reject me, push me away, hold me tight, treat me like shit, make up with sex, vow not to treat me bad, then break the vow and treat me worse than before, vow again, break the vow, treat me like shit again, love me, hate me, reject me. And the whole
crazy charade repeats itself.  It’s no wonder I’m bat shit crazy.
It takes me a few minutes after I wake up to sort through the battlefield of the dream state. The mattress squeals from my body pressure
as if it wants me to stay.  I hear
noises outside the door, people stirring. It must be Lena in the ki
tchen doing what she does best, making deserts into tombstone memorials that can’t be eaten.  And then I remember why I’m here and my heart sinks. 

Papa Hart’s visitation is this evening. The dreadful casket viewing death walkabout. 
Ugh. I hate. I hate.
 I remember his talks about the old days, when people died, and how they were buried on the prairie somewhere and marked with a stick o
r a rock. That was fine by him, much preferred over the newer version of funerals. 
He told me there were too many rules to be born and too many rules to die. It was about money. 
Period.
 Papa Hart and I used to talk about this on the porch. 
Old times—new times, changes.
Thinking about it makes me want to crawl under the covers and never get out
of bed. I hear a car door slam outside and wonder who it could be. 
I jump across the bed and sweep the pink curtains back. A rattling ‘ole pickup truck glides by slowly, a hand flung out the window in a wave. 
Who’s outside this early?
 The truck passes and reveals Mr. Montalongo’s porch with two empty chairs and my heart jumps in its throat, because he’s long gone, but my childhood eyes see him there, like he was always there, on his porch, in his chair, staring with bug eyes like a creeper. “Hello wondering tree.” I glance up at
the branches, the leaves, the arms that held me so many times.  Th
e urge to climb it overtakes me.
Reckless freedom
. My heart flutters in response and I notice the web is
no longer there, moved on—just like me. 
“Willodean, you up.” BAM, BAM! Lena pounds on the door.

“Jesus.” I said startled out of my mind. “I am now.” The banging ripples down t
he hallway to Mag's old bedroom. 

“Yawl come eat breakfast before it gets cold.” Lena said maki
ng one last round of pounding. I hear Paul grumble from the other side of the wall. 
He's been working out of town and got in late last night. The only thing that will rise Maggie’s husband
from the dead of sleep is food. 
How Mag has kept his hollowed out six foot two inch frame full of groceries is a miracle. Their food bill is probably enormous.

“Morni
ng.” Lena said when she saw me come out of the bedroom. 
She rushed
around the kitchen with more energy that I was ready to observe. 
Uh-oh.
 I scan the kitchen for fruit tombstones, desserts of death but only the cobbler and the fried pies remain immortalized.
Uneaten
. Maybe Lena is coming to grips. 
Maybe…

“Morning.” I said in my give-me-coffee or die voice. I spot the fresh cooked biscuits and think of Dell and how much my mama wanted that recipe of hers. I don’t even know where it is—last I saw it, it was in my mirror bin and Lord knows where that thing went. Who knows, it probably got buried deep inside the house inside
me. Maybe it's better that way because it took the red stone necklace, the horrible dragon with it. 
My mind i
s enough, I certainly don’t need any help. 
I scarf up a biscuit. It’s warm and crunchy and delicious. Lena
has a gift for cooking, that’s for sure, but I wonder what her curse is?  Oh…
I forgot...
it's me. 
I
laughed out loud spontaneously. 
Not my daughter. Not my child.

“Sleep well?” She said
glancing over. 
Her hands dipped in and out of the sink, plucking plastic bowls and silverware.

“Uh-huh. Sorta…” I said remembering my dreams, the walls closing in on me, the ceiling exploding into petal
people.  “I’m going outside.” I opened the door in a rush to avoid conversation.  The
humid Texas air
hit me like a wool blanket.  T
he sun was coming up over the pine trees and I could smell the fresh dew on the ground, while the
scent of pine waffled through the air reminding me of my childhood.  T
he forest behind the house where Mag and I played as kids was shoulder to shoulder with large pines, thick as thieves and scattered with assorted scrub brush. That's why they called it the Pine thicket. Getting through it was difficult if not impossible. Before I knew it I was walking the old trail, the same path my bare feet walked a million times over. My childlike eyes scan the nooks and crannies, and hiding places along th
e way. I hear voices and look behind me.  Dad is
in the driveway talking to people in a white car. They notice me and wave. I wave back. I have no idea who they are. Just strangers bringing stacks of aluminum trays. It’s been like this for three days, Pine Log neighbors, friends and family, church folks delivering food, a sympathy of death doled out in donuts, condolences in candied carrots, sandwiches of sorrow. 

I turn and walk down the trail. 
My heart hurts because I remember what I want to forget. Last year, about this time, Papa Hart’s memory started to decline. Once that happened, confusion muddled him. His health wasn’t good either. I visited him often, porch sitting, talking and checking on him, letting him know I cared and tried to soak up every inch of him in my memory. Even in my own troubles, I focused on him,
while I had him here, because I knew his time was short and it freaked me out.  It felt like everything of me, in him, what I know of him, my childhood was going down with him, and I couldn’t stand the thought of it. 

His dodge truck sits undisturbed under the shed. It's been there since Dad had the unfortunate duty of taking his keys away. From that day forward, dad was the bad guy who took his freedom. William bull-headed Hart was convinced he could still drive, operate machinery, plow a garden, drive a boat, bait a hook and whatever the hell else he wanted to do. In his mind, he was young, confused at times, but still young. It was his body that didn’t cooperate. Before long, dementia set in and it was hard for him to decipher if something was a dream, reality, the present or the past. He remembered people’s faces but the time was altered, as if he was forty years in the past. 
I can relate, Papa Hart. I can relate.
 His personality changes, his shuffling feet, his paranoia and then it got crazy. Out of nowhere Papa Hart concocted an unimaginable story and his first born was the blame.