WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (69 page)

“Forward!” I hear the screams of the president. The smell of copper and mint flood my nose. I watch my small hands unlock the red stone necklace from Maw Sue’s neck, the blood running like a faucet and me flinging it inside the mirror bin, the screams deep into the night, the terr
ible awful. 
Shame on you Willodean.
She is dead because of you.  It is all your fault. 

“William Henry!” The voice floats gently in
my ears distracting me. 
It is a distance voice, faint and barely there, if not at all. And then I smell biscuits. 
It is Dell.
 The barely there apparition pulls him to her. The closer they get—the farther I am. I want to run to her but the barrier between us, a thick glass, the line that separates this world and the next won’t allow it. 
Past emerged into present. Child to adult
. 
Grandmother to grand
daughter. 
And just like that—
it was over.
 I slipped away from ethereal-God-gazing-blindness and fell back to earth like a tragic, crumpled white kite. When I opened my eyes the room is hazy and shrouded with the sacredness of a sanctuary. I feel as if I am in church, alone, solitude, silence. 
God.
 
Three lines, twelve words
.  His hot fierce eyes gaze
hit me till I thought for sure my skin would melt off. It was a surge of energy, as if I’d been hit with the backhand of God.  Marked, subdued.  A terrible animosity came over me confusing me with a
flood of emotions. I felt into that place, that deafening hush when you close the casket for the last time or the gap of space between a tear
drop falling and landing. 
It was like that.
 I could barely catch breathe. I realized this was my last gift. My last moment with my grandfather. 
Our time. Our porch time. Storytelling or silence. And though we could not be on the porch,
our minds took us there. 
 I looked, I relished, I held on and let go. Over and over again. I was a lot like my grandfather. 
We did not say Goodbye
. 

Before I left, I leaned over and ki
ssed his rough, unshaven cheek.  I
lingered long, my heart heavy and weighing me down. I squeezed his hand and tried to remember the way his calloused skin felt in my hands,
the era of a great generation never to be again, not in my lifetime. 
An era of porch tales, houses constructed, fishing trips,
blackberries and gardens grown.  Tinker shop tales and motors built, and monsters spitting fire.  War fought and won, buddies lost and buried.  Children born and held, love given, accepted and shared. 
Hands that touched, that felt
, that gripped.  Scattered seeds and harvesting in groves.  Life lived—life loved. 
I will not say goodbye.

I painted a picture in my head with all the detai
ls, scents, sights and feelings of Papa Hart and our times.  I
built a room inside the house, inside me and called it
snake runner, even though I had no idea what that was, it was going to inspire me to find out, but in the meantime, I would still have the memories inside our room to enjoy whenever I wanted. 

I let go of his hand. I let go of this man. I shall take the memories with me. I shall.

Love looks. Love lets go.

I felt the earth rumble
or the building shake but it was more than that.  I
knew…

My spirit eyes saw him first.  Across the sky an
Escort rode
a white horse that trampled the clouds with his hoofs and dispersed them like dust. 
In that moment I remembered a peculiar story of battle
he told me long ago. 
Papa Hart said he first saw Escorts in the war when he watched in horrible cond
itions, all of his comrade’s die. 
He explained their appearance and it is
exactly as he said.  In m
oments like this,
I don’t feel cursed.  It is the opposite. 
I am grateful for the gift. 
My gift.
 My eyes, my ears. For in them, I see hope.

He wore a long grayish robe, translucent and tinted as if
an ocean was wrapped around him in a cloak.  On both sides it flowed outward like a hard rain falling sideways. 
His piercing eyes were the light of many fires flickering within two flames. One hour and six minutes later, Papa Hart left this life. He met the gaze of God, the eternal light. He looked for the last time. He looked at me and then he let go.  

It’s been three days since I saw him last and I’m a mess. 
I can’t seem to let go of anything. I relive it over and over again. I’m completely toast, mind, body and spirit and we haven’t even had the visitation, much less the funeral. The next few days will probably finish me of
f. Maybe they’ll dig two graves and throw me in one. 
Maw Sue’s words poke me like some haunt.

“Willodean, don’t stare at the darkness too long. It will take you out of season.”

 “Okay, Maw Sue. Okay. I hear you. I hear you.” I say
out loud. 
 

That night I fell asleep on the couch covered in old pictures, memories of my life as a child growing up next to my grandparents and great grandparents. In my dreams I didn’t want to take life for granted. I didn’t want to be crazy and all up in my head with worry, morbid thoughts and fears. I wanted to celebrate the small things; live life full, experience the love of family, laughter, friends, relationships, forgiveness, a sunset, a sunrise, the moon shining bright, fly like the birds of air, smell like lilies of the field, shine like stars of heaven, eyes to see, ears to hear, find my place, wear my centerpiece, go out knowing, dance with dirt dancers, revile in secret sister codes, tell porch tales, sink into storytelling and silence and consume a basket of crumbs of my life, simple be.
Yes.  Simply be.  My dreams reminded me of what my heart desires. But getting there in real life is altogether a different ballgame. 
My mind doesn’t cooperate. The curse won’t let me.

I woke up staring into the faces of snapshots all over the place, on my face, in my ears, under my arms, between my legs, tickling my feet, on top of covers, underneath, above, below and around, scattered everywhere. It's like the people in the pictures had a party while I slept.
But that is not what amazed me.  Scared me.  Freaked me out. 

When I sat up—foggy and out of place, it took me a second to realize the picture were in biographical order as they happened.
Year to year in order. 
A crumb sprang up on my tongue
reminding me. 
I was not going
to forsake its sweetness and spit it out.  I swallowed it with gladness and right then and there,
I decided to fulfill my childhood vow—the one I made on the porch when I was seven. When I was innocent about life, about love, before I let the curse run havoc on me, before I stole the necklace and regretted it, before it dest
royed everything I loved, everything I cherished. 
I vowed to find the little girl with spirit eyes and spirit ears, the Willodean Hart I used to be, the little girl with the crackle shell and dreams. When I find her, I want to crawl inside her crackle shell and love her, and never let go. I fell off the bed and went straight to my
knees. Pictures fell around me speaking voices of time and place. 
I recited the poem I knew by heart. I prayed to the Marie Antoinette God of my childhood.

I want to simple be God.  Birds of the air, l
ilies of the field and the stars of heaven. Take me God and make me seven. Send me crumbs that I may consume and make my life a beautiful bloom.

The Mason Jar

I was eleven, mortified and stuck inside the morgue. It was the Mason room inside the house, where petal people live and surround me, whisper and tell me things. For years, I went there and stood in front of her casket where she slept and in horror repeating the mantra, “I’m sorry I took the necklace. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m so sorry. I will not say goodbye. I will not say goodbye.”

Of course,
as it happened inside the room, inside the house, inside me, it also acted itself out in my real life.  One way or the other it bled out like the thick southern sap of my own making.   

At Maw Sue’s funeral, I refused to leave the casket.
I just stood there like a statue. 
Maw Sue lay there stiff and lifeless and I saw myself laying with her, squished beside her and taken by the same shadows, the same afflictions and curse that neither of us
was able to defend ourselves against. 
Did she miss the necklace even now?  Does she know the truth now?  She was dead because of me and I could not forgive myself. 
I thought by taking the necklace it would save us from the curse and make our lives better, but
instead it took her from me. 
And I’m next. I
just know it. 
I tried to take it back. But it was too late. I beat the dickens out of the mirror bin, even slammed it against the wondering tree and took it to the tinker shop and hit it with Papa Hart’s big hammer but it refused to open like some chamber door to heaven, only open to saints and Tessy Pearson. I
just wanted to take everything back.  I
wanted to give her the stupid red stone so she could rub it all she wanted to and get back to her normal crazy self, but it was no use.
Life just turned on a dime. 

Maw Sue had been in and out of the loony clinic, for weeks. Her tic-tac’s didn’t work like they used to, so she took more, overdosing, intensifying the madness within her. She went into the clinic, the awful place with no name to recover and mend, only to return more troubled than before. 
Jesus with a banjo on a rooftop crazy. Elvis has left the building crazy. 
The hardest part was that she acted like she didn’t know me anymore. It was like I didn’t exist. She walked the lonely road where only she could travel and it freaked me out. I wasn’t ready to let her go.

“No.” I’d scream at her. “You stop it Maw Sue.” My lips trembled top to bottom. She’d stare at me with lost eyes as if
she didn’t know me. 
“Love looks.” I’d say real close to her face.

“Look at me. It’s Willodean. Look at me.”
I’d scream over and over. 

“Where is Larken?” She said caught up somewhere else. “Will you go get Larken for me, hon. I need to talk to Larken.”

Larken? Jesus Christ, where is she?
 
Doesn’t she hear me?
 I had so much to learn about the gift and the curse and
how to channel it all for good.  I wasn’t doing a good job on anything for that matter.  I mess things up left and right. 

“Let’s go over t
he channeling method, shall we?” I’d say.  I move her legs, her arms in a storytelling mode to get her to remember.  “
Tell me again how to handle the shadows. Tell me of the
gifts, the ancestors, and the curse.  Tell me
how the pugnators defended themselves.
Tell me of the Cupitor’s. 
Tell me Maw Sue.”

“What time do I need to go to work? Am I late? Oh, god, I can’t be late. I have to sew. They don’t like it when I’m late.”
She’d say.  Then she’d try to get up from her chair but before she could rise, she’d revert to the daze again, and sit back down. 

And Larken?
 Larken had long been dead.
She was somewhere in her past and I could not reach her. 
I felt utterly alone. Alone with the gift and curse that I didn’t know how to use. I rambled through the house tearing closets up and looking underneath the beds, looking for the journals, the guide books, the old scrolls, anything that explained what I needed to know. I HAD TO FIND ANSWERS. I chastised myself the whole time.

“It’s your own fault Willodean. You never do what you’re told. You never listen. Why didn’t you learn all this when you could. You messed the universe up when you stole the necklace and now the plan is screwed. Now it’s too late. TOO LATE! You’re doomed.” I exhausted myself looking
for the journals. 
I could find no existence of scrolls, or diaries, or books of Cupitor magic, nothing that suggested anything that Maw Sue said was true. And then I wondered if it was all a bunch of lies. Is what everyone said true, is Maw Sue just mad?

I remember the last anguished days before her death, the last time I saw her alive. She was disturbed, 
darkly disturbed
 and clinging to that damn Mason jar
.
 In her cryptic, wrinkled hands it sat with the assortment of dried roses she kept inside it for as long as I can remember. Each one a representation of loved one passed, a single rose plucked from a funeral wreath or casket arrangement. She kept reaching for the necklace that wasn't there until she scratched long, bleeding marks down her neck and chest. I used to think the red stone dragon was the eye attached to her very bloodline, surging and pulsating under her skin, leaping and torturing me. When Maw Sue clawed for the stone, I'd feel regret and beat the mirror bin again, sledgehammering it to death, bricks, sticks and more, but it didn’t budge or splinter, as if it was forged in the fires of hell its
elf and I would be condemned to pay for my sins. 
I figured no one
could open it except the devil.  Once I got to hell, he’d open it and say, “
Well done. Willodean. You stole something that wasn’t yours and plum killed your grandmother. Good job. Ready for some flames now? You like it torched or sizzling hot?” I would burn in eternal hell for what I had done. I felt sad, guilty and crushed for Maw Sue, her madness,
our madness.