THE HOUSE INSIDE ME

by Camelia Wheatley

  My heart pounded like distant drums. Maw Sue walked in front of me. I bowed my head. This was it. It was my Mary said yes moment. I was being anointed. In my heart I knew who I was. My personal identity. My connection straight from the pines. By golly, I was Southern sap. Queen of the pine curtain.

  “You, Cass Collard, are first born. You are a child of God gifted with a precious and beautiful gift. Anointed from a great line of Seekers. You are empowered with the blessing of the Seventh Tribe.” She placed the crown on my head. I felt my gut heat up on the inside, my skin hot and clammy. I felt dizzy. She reached her hands to the heavens and closed her eyes. I wanted to do what ceremonial people do—but I didn’t want to miss anything either. Instead of closing my eyes, I saw everything magically manifest. I had to see the words come out of her lips, see the heavens accept them, pick out a star for my identity and take in the whole moment of my birth.

  “Birds of the air, oh the lilies of the field. Great stars of Heaven. Cass wants to be whole and complete. Make her seven. Send her crumbs so she may consume and make her life a beautiful bloom. In honor of the seven. Amen.”

  In a whisper I said yes. I felt a whoosh in the air. I lost track of words, time and thoughts. The heavens spun with clouds, angels and prisms of blue, yellow and white.

  After it was over, Meg and I floated down the dirt trail like newly anointed queens of the pine woods. A gentle breeze licked my skin and goose bumps broke out on my arms and tingled up my spine. I glanced back and the common man’s savior was still there, smiling. I waved and skipped ahead to catch up with Meg. Together the magical and mysterious burned me slowly from the inside out. The pine curtain was ablaze. A veil had been lifted in heaven and on Earth and the Collard girls were never the same.

  The childhood memory had overpowered me so much I forgot where I was. For a second I thought I was still in the past, in that moment of the sacred, but then I noticed the blood streaming down my arm and onto my nightgown. And then I remembered falling back against the Locust tree when the owl flew up. I glanced over at the Locust tree and plucked a few swords from it’s limbs. Holding them made tears pour from my eyes and my heart was heavily burdened. I sat in grief beneath the warrior tree of my childhood. The pine guardians of the forest stood watch around me while I cried. Where is this little girl now? Where did she go and why? I had no answers but for the first time in a long time, probably since childhood, I felt the touch of a mystical God emerge and make me tremble in his realness. After all, he is the common man’s savior.

  When I was able to stop crying and gather my wits about me, I walked back to my house. I cleaned and bandaged my cut and then made me some coffee. Still rattled from today’s events, I felt the blue lines calling me. I jotted down my Locust tree adventure, the owl, the memories, the little girl. I wrote of the beginnings, the madness, sleeping long hours, rarely going outside, numb to myself, to my mind, my emotions, the pain. The times I cared not for living—but could not will myself to die. I wrote of death and being alone. I wrote of darkness pulling me under. I dreamed of death, saw visions of my death, and heard whispers of dying from those voices I constantly had to shut out. Those were the deep soil days of darkness where I wandered inside the House of Seven, inside my own body, building each room from whatever mindset I was in at the time. I constructed this whimsical and weird, haunted house inside me, board by board, misery by misery, fear by fear, nail after nail. There is a shadow guard, a truth teller, a soldier, a strong female presence standing outside the house holding a sword at her side. She’s always been there, but only now, after the locust tree cut me, do I realize who this shadow is. The shadow is only an altered version of me, the protective one I created at one time or another, and she holds a locust sword, sharp and ready to slice, safeguarding me at all cost. She is the shield and the sword girl who protects the little girl inside the house, the girl who couldn’t protect herself. There are times in my dreams I visit the little girl inside the house of seven without fear, but when I wake up, I will not let her come out. The broken knob clicks and madness prevails. Pain is unbearable. There are nights I cling to the shadow soldier and beg her to stab me with the locust sword and be done with it. She refuses. Instead, she whispers words riveting my backbone with steel girders. “You are grit and courage. Blood and tears. Stars and moon dust. You are faith and hope. You are beautiful clusters and constellations of promise.”

  I want to believe her words but can’t. On rare occasions in my daydreams, when I am under the control of the knob in my head and my soul is restless, the little girl will throw out her magic and put me under a spell. I believe the little girl inside the house with the magical words, and the spirit of belief and wonder. Once she persuaded me to let her out of her room to roam freely with me. I agreed, with the understanding she had to go back in. I wanted her to realize how cruel it was outside. I wanted her to see she was safer inside the house of seven. Safe in the darkness, alone without anyone to hurt her. She was not convinced. She’d try to sway me with stories of great and marvelous things, of people and places, of families and of love. Great love. An unfailing love. One I hadn’t seen or felt until today behind the thick curtain of the pines on the forest trail when the locust tree pricked my skin and opened me up to bleed emotions and remind me of the suffering servant. The greatest love of them all.

  She made me feel hope. Maybe for the first time. Hope I could eat like crumbs off a beggar’s table. Hope like the brisk fingers of the wind on my cheeks. Hope like the common mans saviors kind of hope. I should have known it wouldn’t last long. A hideous fear rose up and snatched hope away. My eyes grew dim. The light was too bright. What was I thinking? I could never be her again. Not after all the bad things I’ve done. So I doubled down. Shut the door. Locked it up. Silenced the little girl.

  9

  Make Lovely Your Losses

  Man is least himself when he talks

  in his own person. Give him a mask

  and he will tell you the truth.

  ~Oscar Wilde

  I am sitting on the couch after journaling a rather painful marriage memory. It’s like I’m re-living it over again. Writing it out makes it real. So real, I can’t deny what happened. Sam cheated on me, and he was verbally abusive to the point I actually believed his vicious lies. He was the one sleeping with other women, but by the time we finished arguing, he had twisted the entire scenario on me and accused me of being the one having an affair. It would be twisted to put the blame on me, for something I did or did not do…every single time. Of course, I know now, after therapy, and painful aftermath, this is a part of the abusers’ way of making the woman stay put, in her place, so she won’t have the strength or the self-esteem to leave. Plus, the “crazy-making” of the lies does exactly what it’s named for—CRAZY-MAKING! It paralyzes the victim, often making them feel as if they are actually losing their minds. They start to question if they really are how the abuser portrays them, leading to guilt, shame, and low self-esteem and complete insanity. You learn to not trust your own judgement or your own reactions, or feelings. Numbness becomes a reality. It was such a painful, emotional time for me then, and now even more so, because I’m facing it on the blue line.

  After the divorce, life stopped for me. Looking back, it was the only substance I knew existed in a vow, in the matrimonial ceremony, and without it I was a zombie picking scabs off others just to feel alive. Pain and suffering were my companions, my only point of reference. The depression didn’t help matters. I had lost weight, my skin was pale and my head always hurt with the heaviness I couldn’t explain, like too much information was held there, with no way out. I remember constantly grabbling the man pillow because I had to have something to hold—in order to hold myself together.

  Long before therapy I desired nothing more than to rid myself of this monster, this gnawing malaise, a damaged organ inside my wrecked body. The broken knob, my curse. If I’d known what it was, I would have yanked it out with my bare hands. My existence was on tw
o planks, all or nothing and pain or numbness. There was no in-between, no gray area, no middle ground. When you’re crazy, days mix with the nights, the sun collides with the moon and everything is blackened. No light, just darkness even when the sun shines. I turn toward the window. Being alone after the divorce had left me literally lost and empty and so maddened in my mind, it’s a wonder I got through each day without being locked up. But Cass Cleo Collard wears her masks well.

  I am drifting in and out of memory, listening to the wind blow the leaves across the lawn as if they are running, tumbling gymnasts. The tree limbs bounce up and down in slow motion as if they are waving and trying to get my attention. Wake up, Cass, they say. I sigh loudly and hold my man pillow tightly to keep from dying and slipping into no-man’s land. A place where I’m alone. A place of spinsters and cat ladies, beggars and bag ladies. I lean into the windowsill, lost in what is and what isn’t. Sorrow and sadness. How my whole life has changed in just a few months, how I’m changing, learning so much about a past I left behind, but I know there is more to come. It’s getting harder and harder to deal. I’m beginning to crack and lose my stability. I’m trying. But it’s hard when the broken knob clicks and I have no control.

  I lean my cheek against the warm glass and watch the ferocious wind whip the Chinese tallow tree as if it’s a spoiled child in need of punishment. They grow wild around these parts, sprouting up everywhere. The one outside is almost identical to the one near my bedroom window as a child. Meg and I called it our wondering tree. We’d sit on its branches and wonder about life. In the springtime I’d leave my window open. The smell was my version of heaven, slightly sweet, not overwhelming. The tree bloomed with yellow-green clusters of spiked flowers, and attracted thousands of bees. The buzzing was so loud my room vibrated. I felt transported to a peaceful state of mind and solitude. It was like riding the back of a bumblebee with no cares, no silence, no crazy, no feeling different, no maddening houses, just floating inside a long chant of the universe. When autumn came, the leaves dropped and the bees disappeared. The silence of my bedroom returned and drove me insane. It summoned me back to the house inside me. As a child unable to cope, I returned to it, the house of seven, again and again.

  Looking at any tree reminds me of this. But I am no longer a little girl with whims and wanderings. I don’t have time to sit in treetops. Or do I? Suddenly, I catch a glimpse of something I’m not sure is real or imagined. I unhinge from my man pillow and open the window. The air rushes in and a slight dislodging occurs in my chest. The Texas humidity slaps me like a damp dishrag. Orange, red and brown leaves flutter from the spindly limbs like chandeliers. I come undone. High in the treetop it hangs, waiting for me to acknowledge its presence, bow to its kingship and grovel in its majesty. It’s lush and dripping with morning dew. The drops glisten and bounce across the fabric of its sticky weave. Normally, I’m leery of spiders but their craftsmanship astounds me and leaves me in awe. Something so small can create such beauty time and time again, over and over. It’s three feet across, stretching from one limb to another and draped with a gallery of crisp, colorful leaf curtains. The small brown spider bounces like it’s on a trampoline. What holds my gaze and makes my heart drop is a tiny cicada shell clinging to a brown leaf. It hangs loosely from a single thread frayed at the bottom of the web. Seeing it brings a rush of childhood memories and a teardrop from another time pools in my eyes. The leaf spins in the air and my vision goes blurry. My mind connects, drifting from past to present, yearning for something unknown, unseen. Something hidden in the wind, the leaves, the web, the cicada shell. On impact, I emerge into another realm, a world of forgotten magic, held up in a lost, forgotten childhood seeking to reclaim me and take me back. I hear Maw Sue’s voice again.

  “Make lovely your losses, Cass.”

  My heart shatters. I want to scream at her spirit words. A deep quiver rumbles from a dark place, a hidden room inside the house. Underneath. Below. My vision goes dark. Pure black. Fear trickles up my spine. I feel someone grab my hand and pull me into another realm. My vision opens up to a colorless view, a landscape of black and white. Moss trees are everywhere and hanging upside down from the sinewy limbs are little girls with long moss hair, creatures with spirit eyes that glow in the dark and watch me. Demented versions of me at every age, the bad parts of me I don’t like. A creepy house, abandoned and disjointed, sits a few feet away. Beside it is a large locust tree with shiny swords clinging to every limb and standing in front is the shadow soldier I see in my dreams. A girl, me, the persona of who I was, at one point or another. At the front entrance, on the door, a large number seven is carved into the decayed wood. It glows in a sizzling amber color, like pulsated fire. At the opposite end of the porch is a swing swaying unattended and making an eek-eek sound familiar to my childlike ears. Beneath the carved-out seven is a broken and crippled doorknob. It wiggles, clicks and opens. Suddenly I find myself inside, walking the hallways, passing room after room. There is a familiar blue blackness of the house, as if I’ve been here a thousand times before, but just now allowed to see it as I saw it back then. My mind created this place as a child. And it also erased it. Until now. I am now in the belly of the house inside me. The foundation rules me. Controls me. I stop in front of a doorway. The nameplate on the door is unreadable. LERACKC. As soon as my mind reads it the letters move and scramble.

  “Crackle.” When I say it, the doorknob rattles and the heavy door swings open. A phantom force pushes me inside. The door slams loudly behind me. My heart bolts. My flesh gooses out in a cold sweat. I feel clammy and filled with fear. Everything is different. Everything is the same. Something is, and something isn’t. I am me, but I am her. I am Cass the child…and Cass the adult. It is odd, ethereal, a drifting in of two worlds. Lost, but found. Here, but there. Her, but me.

  In the earthly realm, I am an adult clutching my man pillow. In the otherworld, inside the house inside me, I am simply a child staring at the room I built. It’s like being inside my own skeleton, bones, muscles, blood; a persona of my life manifested in stone and wood, a house of Cass, a House of Seven. She is here. I can feel her presence. Without warning she rips through the walls like a torrential ghost. We are inches apart. She is the same as I remember. Everything I used to be. Everything I wish I was now. Our eyes blend together, blue to blue, transferring our energy, one to another. She is a deeper part of me, unknown and complex. A conflicting twin who knows things—disturbing, awful things. Pine curtain secrets.

  “Accept me. Let me go! Let me out!” she says with piercing intention.

  “No. No. No.” I shake my head in protest. “You know I can’t do.” In a rage, she disappears. Behind me a door opens. I am yanked up like a rag doll and dragged down the hallway by an invisible force. I am dropped in front of a door. The door is black. The nameplate reads letters EMMROY ZLINGZUM. I feel a hot stench against my neck.

  “Stay here in your favorite room, Cass,” the voice hisses. “The coping room. The leave-it-be room. It-never-happened room. Don’t-go-back-there room. Denial room. Silent room. Go ahead. It shall be your suffering room.” The letters on the nameplate scramble, but never make words, they just shift and sort. The doorknob transforms into a slinky ghostly hand of smoke and shadows. A chill runs the length of my spine. My mouth feels muted, silenced. The door opens and I am swept inside. An escalation of terror enters me. A fear so intense I find myself screaming, but no words escape my mouth, just polarized air. Out of nowhere, I am suddenly back in my own house, still in my bedroom, clutching my man pillow. I feel this sadness enter me, a menacing depression, an enemy with cupped fingers reaching to suck me down to a cavernous depth of black hell. I see him for the beast he is, his figure transforming before my eyes, his oppressive beast-like body on top of me bearing down, a savage pressing my pores, riding me, bedding me as his bride while he fondles my breasts and licks his forked tongue across my cheek, his hot breath igniting the hairs on my flesh as he slides his sword into my privates, twistin
g and slicing away my innocence. I feel his darkness flowing through me as he ejaculates a thousand demon babies inside me, scattered and roaming to do their harm. He is a master of me, robbing me of myself, physically, mentally and spiritually, and when he takes me, he takes me down for weeks at a time. I have no desire to do anything, to talk to anyone, to speak to anyone, to get dressed, to bathe, or to brush my teeth or comb my hair. My lungs exhale and smell as stale as a dog. There are days I have no strength. To lift my arm is more effort than I can bear. My mind is a road map, red lines sprouting in every direction, and yet I go nowhere. I find myself staring into the distance void more than I can concentrate.

  In rare times, I rise up with a sudden gust of energy, supernatural in nature, I cannot explain it otherwise, and it reckons me with aimless pleasure to pick and pilferage for landmarks, a road, a doorway, a map or a memory, a hidden enclosure, but all I get are the adamant cries from a voice I barely recognize screaming inside me. I retreat internally to cope, while I shut the world out. I struggle to hold her inside me, keep her where she belongs. I fear the walls are not strong enough to hold her. She is growing violent and adamant and determined to find a way out. I feel tiny ruptures as if the foundation of the house splinters and shifts under her stomping protest. Voices slip through the cracks of the house, of my soul. I rise up from my death bed, eyes wild and alert. What happens next, I cannot explain. My room becomes a bridge, a connection to things buried, stored away, hidden, forgotten, abandoned, denied, an entryway into my past—a voice silenced long ago. It isn’t a cosmic boom or a thundering awakening. It isn’t phenomenal in the grand sense of things—quite the opposite. It is simple and transcending. My heart beats rapidly, my senses alive, acute and responsive, vision crisp, scent anew, tongue tasting and skin feeling. It is strange. I find myself saying a prayer, a way forward, to repair the damage of my past. I know I must deal with all the clusters of my life, good, bad and ugly.