THE HOUSE INSIDE ME

by Camelia Wheatley

  “How? Where? When?”

  “Mom.” Meg smiled and bobbled like one of those dashboard hula girls.

  “My mother?” I said, baffled. “Like your mom, and my mother?”

  “Yes. Isn’t it exciting?”

  I was floored.

  “You know how Mom saves everything. Dad found it in the well shed along with some books and stuff Maw Sue left behind that apparently Mama C kept and then after she passed, Papa C boxed it up. And you won’t believe what’s in there. Some Seventh Tribe stuff, too. Old strange books, and handwritten scroll type things. You know more about all those stories than I do. Now it’s yours. It’s in the bedroom. I’ll load it up before you leave. Mom meant to give it to you yesterday, but the cobbler incident had everyone undone. Oh…and I have mine too. It still had the green scarf in it. Remember?” She reached underneath the bar and took out her mirror bin, the one that belonged to Aunt Raven. The room seemed to fill with magic in particles of time and place that made me dizzy and yet, hopeful.

  The mirror bins sat on the bar side by side, blood to blood, sister to sister, generation to generation. I stared at both objects in disbelief as if they had magically appeared, through some method of time travel, spilling out spirits of yesterday. My mind instantly flashed images, seven sisters, drops of blood, the sizzling amber glow of number seven, Petal People and voices I didn’t recognize. There was an odd hum in the air as if the whole room vibrated at a low level, like the buzz of a beehive from a distance. I felt like a little girl again. The one who believed in magic. I reached over to touch the pewter mirror on the outer lid of my bin and my heart did flip-flops. The energy of it was alive and filled my ears with strange whispers and noises. A magic glimmer altered my vision.

  Seeing—hearing—knowing.

  I knew that my life was about to change. Touching the mirror bin was like touching the heart of a child and hearing it beat for the first time—but not any child.

  The child.

  The little girl.

  The one I left behind the pine curtain.

  25

  Clusters and Cass

  The mind is not a vessel to

  be filled but a fire to be kindled

  - Plutarch

  My skin breaks out in a cold sweat as I turn into the cemetery. Noises filter in and out, car doors and low murmurs. A mass of people encroaches the funeral tent. I stare at Papa C’s coffin while the preacher does his thing. Yada-yada, blessings, Heaven, spirits, amen. The bugle plays “Taps” since Papa C was a WWII hero. I’m lost in an elegy of sorrows. The musical notes grow strong hands and clutch each person by the throat until they choke and break down. The last note holds on, refusing to say goodbye. I understand. I hate goodbyes. It bounces off headstones, pewter vases and angelic statues with chubby faces. It splits rocks, cracks the earth, shakes the heavens and makes angels weep. I stare into the vast portal of scattered souls laid to rest through the ages. My vision blurs. I feel removed from everyone around me. I’m held inside a thin strip of space where two worlds intersect, each yearning for the other.

  I wonder if this is how the Seventh Tribe felt when they conducted their ceremonies, feeling the space of time existing in this world, and the next colliding and all the in-between places. Did they feel like giving in? Did they touch the void? The gap, the place of entanglement. Were they taken by it, in ecstasy or madness? Maw Sue’s voice enters in my tender aching ears.

  “It’s not your season, Cass. You keep moving forward. You are doing well, my child. So good, honey. You don’t know it yet but you are more of a Seeker now than ever. Blessed. Anointed. Beloved. I am proud of you and Meg.” The words sink in and stir up a plethora of childhood memories. A veil is lifted. My gift is accelerated. Over the top. Never before have I crossed this line of enchanted dazzling interpretation. I see things. I hear things.

  Across the cemetery there is a sea of people, a faint glow of souls dimly lit at each tomb. Each one is holding a flower, just like the Petal People, the everlasting Immortelles. Every facial expression holds a story, their eyes wet with memory, with joy and sorrow. My mind hears their voices and a thousand words rush in, poured out like sweet sap straight to my gifted ears. Their otherworldly faces are unlike anything I have ever seen, a candle glow lit from another world, an eternal flame consuming them, keeping them, as they wait expectantly for others to follow. And then I see her and him. My breath feels sucked from my body. May Dell and Papa C stand together behind the tombstone. They both are smiling with eyes glowing from another world. I look. I look with tears of joy and tear of pain. I look with love.

  The gravesite funeral is brief. Family and friends chat a while until each leave one by one. I can’t help but stare at my mother differently. She catches my eyes as her and Dad are getting in the car, and she holds my stare for just a mere moment, then let’s go, as if the thought of me knowing disturbs her. I wonder if my face showed it. Meg sits down beside me holding a white carnation. “Petal People?”

  “Yes,” Meg says, smiling. “I’m freaking exhausted though. I’m going home for a nap. How about you?”

  “I’m heading out, soon,” I say, hugging her. “Thank you for last night, Meg. It’s helped me.”

  “Seventh Tribe, Sis. Bonded by blood.” We high-five and hug. “Love you much.”

  “I love you too,” I say, pondering all the flux of information from the past twenty-four hours. After she drives away, the cemetery is silent, subdued. I go over to Papa C’s casket and pluck a yellow rose. I place my hand on the flower arrangement over the casket and close my eyes to say a prayer. Before I can utter a word, pain jolts me undone. I jerk back to see blood trickle down my finger, spilling into my palm. It is thick and slow-crawling and unleashes a terrible, awful emergence inside the house, inside me. Flashes of the moss tree damsels with spirited eyes cross my mind, the door of the house blazes a fiery number seven, and a thousand screaming sirens are going off inside the walls, stirring up insidious commotions, a topsy-turvy, chaotic, spinning orbit of existence making me insane. Lights flick on and off, doors open and shut violently, windows pop open and close, glass breaks and boards splinter. Roses and flower petals explode like confetti, blood pools up from the floor joists while light beams turn to swords and battle the dark shadows. An assortment of hands prick, prod, reach and grab at me.

  As the lights flicker, I catch a glimpse of the shadows haunting me my whole life. She is standing amongst them. She is stronger and able to stand within them without letting them destroy her. She is an accumulation of every little girl I’ve encountered since my memories came back. In a blitz of images, it’s me at five, at six, seven, at eight, at ten, twelve, fifteen and sixteen. A freaky carousel of little girls going round and round all looking at me. My vision goes black, then a terrible light and I’m back at the cemetery. I grab the casket in front of me to keep myself from falling. It feels clammy and slick. When my vision clears, I realize what my hand is touching. SHE is perched on top of my grandfather’s casket like the DQ of the Dairy Queen. Immediately she has control of me, her eyes grabbing mine and making me feel sweet suckles of memories and bitter sap.

  “It’s just you and me, Cass,” she says, laughing. She points to herself, then me. “You—me—us. Yeah, I know. It’s kind of hard to understand and put into words since we are the same, huh? I’m a bigger part of you than you want to admit, since you’ve denied me half the time. I’m the main cluster, you can bet your life on it. Even your Doc lady would agree.”

  Something inside me uncurls and stretches its claws, awakened for the first time.

  “Oh…don’t even try it. I can read your thoughts,” the little girl says. “Make me seven—make me seven.” Her tone is mocking and childish. She is holding a creepy, dried white rose, wicked almost, mangled and torn. Her war-torn eyes stay glued to me as if she is simply reading a book about my life, page by page, detailing every sin, every secret transgression, ever single thought and deed. She is the exact replica of my dreams and ni
ghtmares, still dressed in hideous patchwork shorts and an orange T-shirt, freckled face and a cascade of limp dishwater hair. She is barefoot and her toes are spotted with peeling red nail polish.

  “No. You’re not imagining this,” the little girl says. “This is real. Cass real. Cassidy Cleopatra Collard real. Cluster real. Seventh Tribe real. Seeker real.” She spins the rose in her hands. I notice her finger is cut exactly where my finger is cut, identical drops of blood, dripping one after another, and she has the same seven scar.

  “Yeah. You got it. You’re me. I’m you, except I’m the eight-year-old you, and you…” She points her fingers at me, wiggling them like little worms. “Well, you’re the adult, grown-up, womanly version of me. Ewww, gross. By the way, how’s that working out for you? From what I’ve seen, it’s just as I suspected. I mean the crackles were on point. Right? Remember that? You predicted it. Never wanting to grow up.” Her face crinkles into whimsical expressions familiar to me. I’m not sure if I’m hallucinating or daydreaming or if I’m going insane. Slipping down the rabbit hole again.

  “Oh. You’re seeing me all right, Cass. You do,” she says, pointing her fingers to her eyes, then mine. “So…now you’ve acknowledged my existence…and let me just say, gosh almighty and Lord Tarnation, you are a stubborn shit. I thought I was going to be stuck inside the house of seven forever. It’s about time you listened to me and let me out. After everything…finally.”

  She wipes the damp sweat from her face and pulls her hair off her neck. She leans forward and draws my eyes to hers. “I encourage you to go forward and by encourage, I mean you don’t have a choice, unless you want to remain stuck and circle the freaking mountain of stuck for the rest of your life. I tell you this much, I’M NOT going back in. I’m done with secrets.”

  She laughs. “It’s time to do what Seekers do, Cass. You know the drill. Maw Sue taught you all you need to know. Doc lady. Your therapist, well she knows too. Do what she taught you. Work it out, Cass. Black angels, blue lines, you know the drill. Look into the void.”

  The girl reaches out and touches my cheek in the way I want to touch hers. Her lips never move but my gifted ears hear her speak. There is a long-drawn-out silence in between what I hear and what I want to believe.

  Her hands lift toward the sky. “Use the gift, Cass. Reach, reach, reach.” My right-hand lifts in response to a magical force. “Make me seven—make me seven,” I speak, barely audible. Whispers fill the gap between my ears. A hard resistance fights me internally and externally. Shadows emerge but I don’t engage them. I face the little girl. Our hands lift and clasp together. My ears fill with sounds. A thousand voices, hers, mine, Maw Sue’s, Papa and Mama C’s, Big Pops’, Jesus’s, apostles’, prophets’, the Petal Peoples’, the Seven Sisters, the whole Seventh Tribe, Brue and Simon and many voices from the graves. Words in unison, across time and death, across family lines and ages, centuries, generations, all speaking to form a cosmic intervention, inside me and outside me. Beyond me. A bolt of electricity shoots through me. I fall slowly forward and emerge inside a thick fog, falling without control; I lose my balance and mobility. I go right through the little girl, her figure a transparent apparition, like seeing my own reflection in glass, of me, of her, of us, all tangled up. Step by step, second by second, the world I know, the world I seek, the shadows hunting me, the child I hate, and the child I love. We touch, we merge together, her visions, my visions, my fears, her courage, her fears, my weakness, our vows, our faults, our good, our bad, sweet sap, bitter sap, Southern sap, bleeding and healing, wild roses, drips of blood, voices from Petal People and Mason jars, speaking, talking, shouting, and telling twisted tales. Then a shuddering silence covers me.

  My mind at rest. My madness stilled. It is a peaceful calm. I’m not sure how long I stay in this state of relaxation, like floating on a river. Perhaps I am dead and this is how it feels. Such peace. Such quiet. When I come to myself, I am every bit alive and on my knees in front of the casket. The little girl is gone. I am alone. Everything is different. Everything is the same. I had evidently crossed a line in the sand, stepped over, and entered a realm of magical oneness, and then fell back to earth, never to return to where I was. Or how I was. I hear a voice out of the earth, below and above, beyond and inward, internal and external, a whisper in the dust, a stirring voice so quiet, it is loud, and so overwhelming it calms nature to a deep sleep, a subtle trance. A connection of unity, transformation, and transcending pricks my soul with terrible, splendid wonders. Particles, little decibels of righteous fury enter the foundation of the cursed house within me, making a disturbance, throwing on light, spilling out truth and sending the shadows into chaos and turmoil. The wisp of spirit speaks like ferocious winds wrapping around trees and whipping the branches. We are one. The girl and I are one. The adult. The child. As it should be. I accept the woman I was, the woman I am and the woman I should be. The woman I will be. I look and accept the little girl who was, in all the darkness and light, in the good and the bad, I accept her. I look at her victories and her defeats. I hug her and love her unconditionally. I accept what I know and what I don’t understand. I look to let go and finally accept, fully, completely, who I am, black angels, broken knobs, and blue lines.

  26

  All Is Seven

  For a man to conquer himself is the

  first and noblest of all victories

  - Plato

  Weeks after Papa C’s funeral and my partial acceptance of the little girl inside me, a valid part of my whole self, I began to have an influx of memory flashbacks, more vivid than ever before. The same scathing flashes, images, dripping blood, then the gentle rain followed by a memory.

  I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. It was a typical day in 1970-something. I forget the date; it was too damn hot. It must have been August with scorching sun and dishrag humidity. Meg and I were riding in the front seat of Maw Sue’s Ford Ranchero, which was a new concept in the automobile industry, a car with one full front seat but a bed like a truck, the best of both worlds. We had the windows down, on our way back from the Pick-N-Pack. I was probably eight years old or thereabout. Out of nowhere, Maw Sue skidded to a stop and Meg and I were catapulted to the dashboard and ended up in the floorboard. Maw Sue opened the door and ran out. Meg and I untangled ourselves, jumped up and followed.

  Lying in the middle of the road was a barn owl. Its wings were disjointed and its eyes aglow and it was still breathing.

  “Did we hit it?” I screamed.

  “No, child. We didn’t, but someone did and its suffering,” Maw Sue said, spitting a wad of snuff on the asphalt.

  “It’s hurting. Oh my God. What do we do, what do we do?” Meg and I both screamed and cried and went all out of sorts till it made Maw Sue throw up her hands and yell.

  “Girls. Quit your bantering,” she said, walking back to her car. She lifted the seat and pulled out a machete and began walking toward the owl. My eyes sprang from their sockets. Meg let out an awkward squeal.

  “But, but can’t you save it? There has to be something we can do,” I said, whining.

  “I am saving it,” Maw Sue said, just as the blade sliced through the neck bone. The sound was like loud air shifting and spiraling through a funnel close to your ears. “Girls…sometimes death is merciful,” Maw Sue said, glancing up at us, “especially for the sacred.”

  My heartbeat wouldn’t slow down and I couldn’t catch air in my lungs. A strange fog fell upon the earth, engulfed us, and vaporized as if it had never been. The sky regained its bluish tint and the rays of torrid heat returned to punish us. Maw Sue picked the owl up in two pieces and chunked it in the back of her Ford. Meg and I watched it roll around in the bed of the truck with tears in our eyes. At dusk Maw Sue asked us to come over and bring our mirror bins. We were puzzled and yet fascinated as to what she was going to do.

  Meg squinted and said, “I’m not eating an owl, Cass. I’m not.”

  I laughed. “Me neither.” We arrived to
find a campfire out in the backyard lit with candles in the shape of a seven. We knew it was some sort of ceremonial tradition, attributing to the Seventh Tribe, but we didn’t know what we were in for. Maw Sue had cut the foot talons off the owl which was kind of creepy. The long spiky tongs lay near the flames on a piece of white cloth surrounded by pieces of bone, feathers and twine. Suddenly, my heart leapt backwards as my eyes focused on the fire. Squished between the logs the owl carcass was eaten up by the leaping flames, now only bones and particles of flesh, its skull peering out at me with empty eye holes glowing yellow and orange. The smoke smelled like rosemary. Maw Sue was known to spice up fires with herbs and tonics. This was common in most of the ceremonies we’ve had before, but none of them involved roasting a dead owl and butchering it. For a split second—and I hated myself for even thinking it, but I couldn’t help it—I wondered if Maw Sue was crazy and the townsfolk might be right in their assumptions. And then I hated myself for even doubting her. This is just tradition, I told myself, just ritual, pure and simple.

  Meg had gradually nudged herself as close to my side as possible and her right hand draped against my thigh for stability. I gulped a hard spirit of unknowing. We watched Maw Sue with curiosity. She was throwing spices and herbs into the fire. It glowed a prism of colors. I watched the owl’s eyes turn from red to green to yellow and then blue. Maw Sue was praying and chanting the strange language of seven we seldom understood.

  She had a small sharp knife in her hand. “Cass. Meg. Set your mirror bins at your feet.” We did as she said and placed the heirlooms on the ground. I swear I could hear a thousand whispers inside the mirror bin, words I couldn’t decipher, the same voices that echoed inside my head at times. It was strange. I glanced down at the ground to the pewter mirror on top of the bin and saw reflections, swirling shadows of people, or ghosts, but definitely human forms dancing and slinking, and moving in all sorts of ways. Floating all around them were the petals of a hundred different flowers swept up by the wind and the flames from the fire that leapt beside it. In this moment, I knew we were not alone.