WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (49 page)

No. No. Don’t do it.
 I always lost it when adults cried. Their broke—always,
always
broke me.

“I ttttried.” She wailed and blubbered in great wracking sobs. “I really did. I grew up way to fast—.” She took a deep breath.
Wave after wave of emotion racked her.  “
God. I was so young—too young—and it all happened so fast, so fast—I lost my way…” She stomped her feet on the floor and beat her knees. She pushed the chair back and went into a child tantrum. It was painful to watch. I had never seen her like this. All I could think about was the bedroom, the madness that existed there, the enemies waiting…waiting for both of us. If I indeed,
had the pugnator gift, I should have helped her, saved her, but I couldn’t even think straight. 
A hot mess of tears leaked from my swollen eyes, running down my neck and past my t-shirt into my belly button. I think Maw Sue
forgot I was there. 
That seems to happen to me a lot now days.

“All the stories mamma told me—and the curse, the legends, all of it—ughhhh.” She wailed again. Her head shook side to side like a dog shedding water from its coat. Her arms flayed in the air. “And—and all those people before me, those people I didn’t know, I read about their madness, their curse—agghhh.” She snarled and gritted her teeth. “It was hard to read that shit. Jesus—I had enough problems of my own. And then you leave me mamma! You leave me!”

Oh no.  She’s not even talking to me anymore.  She’s talking to her mama. 
In between the gulfs of madness and the low hum of the refrigerator, I heard a whisper barely audible, but inside my gifted, cursed
ears—it was a deafening scream in the room and inside the house, inside me. 

“I want it to end—stop—just take me home.” Maw Sue cries. “Come get me mamma. Come get meeee.” She buried her head in her lap. She p
ounded the table with her fist, held up and lost in some other place, some other time. 
I felt tangled up with her, knowing, understanding, wanting it to end and then, as if it never happened, she raised up. She wiped her face, sniffled a few times and co
mposed herself in a flat second.  Denial in its truest form. 
It was snappy—clouds and rainbows, sunshine and rain—all at the same time.

She turned in my direction but she didn’t look me in the eye—she looked past me, right through me. “I remember when I was your age. I was so lost. Are you lost Willodean?”
I saw myself in the reflection of her gray eyes and I could barely speak, my mind tossing, turning, seeing shadows and Dresdens and scary things. 
And that’s when the consummation of all that existed hedged on my answer. I’d always been lost—since the beginning, for as long as my brain will let me remember. I wanted to scream, “YES! YES!” but I didn’t get the chance.

“We are all lost in our own mortal way, searching, seeking something better, something to fill us up.” She
crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. 
“And while you’re lost the enemy will hit you—slam you in your weakest points and you won’t even know it until it’s too late. It takes backbone to get back up and let me tell you this much and you hear me good...” Her voice went deep and dark. Her eyes me
t mine, hot swords slicing fear.  G
oose bumps rose up on my skin and the hair on my neck stood at attention. “The devil attacks the mind first. That’s those Amodgians shadows I’ve told you about. If you can live your life 
despite
 them—you will do good. You’ll be okay. Most of us live our entire lives trying to avoid the thorns, pluck them off, and get rid of them— when all along they were given to us to endure. To make us lean on something other than ourselves. When we do that—it’s like looking at a rose for the first time. It’s not the thorns you see—it’s the bloom of the rose petals. The beauty beyond the thorns.” Her eyes flickered intensely
.  Inside them I see
the petal people, platoons of soldiers, generations of Cupitors, strong and resilient. I thought of her morbid death ritual, the one she
repeated ever since Aunt Raven died, collecting long stem roses, corpse memory of someone long dead.   

“Willodean, when you were born, I knew there was hope. Only then did I see rose petals instead of the thorns. Do you understand? Maybe my life was a lesson to keep you
from making the same mistakes I did. 
I vowed when you were born to create in you what I couldn’t do for myself. Maybe some of us fail—so that others learn and accomplish what we couldn’t.”

She looked me up and down, smiling
while she rubbed that red stone, hot and heated as if it was sending off sparks. 
“I mean, at least I hope that’s what it is. And another thing—you shouldn’t have went into my bedroom that day.” She grabbed her wrist to hide the scars I knew were there. She made it a habit to wear long sleeves even in summer to keep others from seeing her thorns.
She could not fool me. 
The chair shrieked and before I knew it Maw Sue was at my knees, grabbing me by the arms and shaking me.

“Willodean. Don’t ever, 
ever
 lose the heart of who you are, right now. 
Right now.
” Her voice was dominant and loud. “Cupitors keep their childlike heart even as they age. You are innocent and the heart you have now is the heart you want to keep forever. Don’t let life and the burdens kill the childlike heart. Don’t do it. Don’t do it…” Her voice faded into a desperate plea. I felt the pain of her scarred wrists against my skin, binding its madness with my own. It stirred up the house inside me, the room of death bucked and lusted and called out my name. I fell in and out of time, in dark places.

“Willodean.” Her voice snapped me back to the room and her grip was hard. “I have always told you the truth about life and the horrible things that can happen. I tell you because I want you to know that you are stronger. Stronger than me, stronger than you know. You can learn to channel the curses like the old sages did, how they used their gifts for good, despite what the enemy, those horrible shadows tried to do to destroy it. 
Heart
. They held onto their heart.” She reached out and touched my chest like she was pushing buttons on an elevator. “It’s right there. Believe in yourself, use your gifts and use them wisely. Never lose your heart. Never…” She latched onto my neck and pulled me to her chest and cradled me like baby.
I felt the heat of the red necklace singe my skin like a branding iron.  It soothed me in a strange, punishing sort of way. 

“Unless they become as little children. They shall not see the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is in you. Heart…don’t lose heart.” My head spun. I
heard her whispers and her hands gently patting my back. 
The Dumas of Umbra went into a frenzy. It’s was like a spot light surged through it, exposing all the darkness while the sin and secrets fled into the shadows that held them.

I was the one crying now. Great sobs with
snot pouring from my nose.  Weeping, gasping, furiously uncontrollable cries. 
Maw Sue held me and spoke a whisper of babble that sounded like another language but I was too lost in her hug to care, her arms rocked and wrapped themselves around the hurt, and I folded up inside them like a baby chick under a wing. The power behind those
arms simply understood my aches and that was all that mattered. 
“I—I don’t want the shadows to take you Maw Sue.” Visions of the bedroom emerged.

“Child…child.” She reached out, grabbed my chin and raised it up with her feeble fingers. 
“Don’t you worry about me—I’m a grown ass woman.” She giggled and it made me half-laugh and half-cry.
And then I felt it. 
Did she feel it too?
The entanglement, as if our pain and turmoil was a twin standing next to us, mirroring off of each other, unable to separate our emotions.

“I’m gonna be fine.” She said winking.
The stone leaped at me with bloody, cruel liquid fingers.  In
my mind, it showed me things I didn’t want to
see. 
I wondered how Maw Sue found such a thing so calming when all
it did was provoke me to fear and horrible images. 
Maw Sue was optimistic in words but her glance said what she didn’t have the guts to say. The stone said it for her. The presence of the enemy was here, strongly felt
by both of us.  He
was watching and waiting for an opportunity to strike.

“Whew. That was intense.” Maw Sue got up from her kneeling position.  Her body popping and cracking.  “
I need a nap. Oww…cramp…cramp.” She held her calf and hobbled across the room. She stopped halfway. “Hey.” She said looking back in pain. “Didn’t this conversation start out about shit?” We both fell out laughing.

“Talk about shit
perspective.” She said limping, half-cry, half-laugh.  She went to her
tic-tac cabinet, “I’m gonna lay down awhile Willodean—get a sleep perspective.”

She poured out a handful of pills and swallowed them without water.

“Okay.” I
said upturning my mouth.  How she takes pills without water is beyond me.  I can barely take an aspirin without a jug of orange juice following it.  I
gathered my wits about me while she hobbled off to the living room. The television volume went up and the squeal of her rocker rang out amidst the many voices in my ears. Maw Sue had never been able to sleep without noise. She said it matched the activity in her head. I hate silence but I hate the head noise too.
So I’m not sure where I fall into on that spectrum. 

I lollygagged outside for a while, exhausted f
rom my crying spell.  All I could think of was our talk.  The whole talk.  Every word.  Before long,
I ended up in the garden. Just me and the shit perspective. I ran my fingers in the dirt, laughing
out loud thinking about what she said. 
I grabbed a few strawberries
and forced them down my throat.  The
whole time I’m thinking, “Oh my God I’m eating a product of shit, shit, shit.” I fought the urge to hurl with each bite. The gaggle in my throat didn’t go away until I learned to concentrate on the sweetness of the strawberry, and not how it was cultivated. 
Shit perspective. I looked at the petals not the thorns.
 
I was never able to eat another strawberry without thinking of that story. 
Damn you Maw Sue.
 

Weeks passed, neither of us mentio
ned the bedroom incident again.  It was simply a shared
silent awareness between us, the tangled messes of our gifts, our curses, the petals and the thorns. 
It was the unspoken madness that was, that is, and that will always be.

Weeks later, on a rather hot July evening, Maw Sue paid me fifty cents to help weed her garden.
I had my back turned the other direction, hearing her hoe blade slice through the dirt and weeds, repetitiously, then they stopped.  In the silence that followed, f
or a split second my mind went there. 
There
 being the same realm it always goes when I think the worst of the worst. My heart palpitated, my windpipe clogged and I couldn't breathe. I stood suspended as my thoughts whirled in the little house of horrors where everything th
at can go wrong, does go wrong.  Images flashed—ravaged me like a savage, tormented me. 
I just knew I’d turn around and find her face down in the hot dirt, her body mangled and twisted, the blade sliced through her right side—dead. 
Jesus Christ with a hoe!
 
What is wrong with me?
 
Bang! Bang! On the head with a hoe
! 
Stop it Willodean, just stop it!
 Trying to keep my crazy thoughts at bay, I frantically turn
ed around.  Relief surged through me.  She was
propped up against the hoe ha
ndle with that look in her eyes, glaring at me.  

“What?”

“You accumulated any shit lately?” She said raising her chin ever so slightly, followed by a big ‘ole rip roaring snuff spit.

“If you mean, have I ate strawberries, then that would be a yes.”

“Pretty sweet ain’t it? That’s what I mean by perspective.” She winked. “Enjoy the fruit while you can honey, cause when you grow up, shit hits the fan and it’s all downhill from there.” She let out a hardy laugh and kicked the dirt up with her feet
.  “
You know what the difference between a sleeper who gets shit on and a seeker who gets shit on?”

“Uhh—no” I gave her a 
where—is—this—going
 look.

“Fruit” she says matter of fact.
Oh. Great. More Farmer’s Almanac stuff.

“Hmmm…” I said wondering. 

“Simple as that. Seekers grow and do something with what they have, regardless. Make lemons out of lemonade. But Sleepers, naw, they just dry up and wither on the vine. 
Perspective.
 Get it?” She pushed up her
glasses as if she was waiting on me to answer her, but she didn’t wait at all.  She just spouted off a long list
of tips and antidotes from the garden gods.