THE HOUSE INSIDE ME

by Camelia Wheatley

  I raised the blade and swung. It was quick. When it was done, the whispering in my head stopped. I could hear Meg’s low moan again and her pacing in the dirt. By the look on her face, I knew she remembered. This night was guided by someone beyond me and I had to follow its lead. Come what may.

  “Come on, Meg.” I handed her the machete while I picked up the owl and tossed it in the bed of the truck. “Drink some vodka. It’ll calm you. This is just as it should be. You remember, don’t you, Meg?”

  She slammed the door of the truck and said, “Of course I remember our savage childhood. Who wouldn’t remember cutting an animal in half and wearing its blood? That was Easter, wasn’t it?” I busted out laughing. She passed the vodka and I took several swigs while Meg cranked the truck and we barreled down the dirt road laughing like we were kids again. A few minutes later Meg stopped and killed the engine. The headlights shined a beam of light over the edge of the riverbank. There was a stillness inside the cab. In the silence we both braced ourselves. What used to be a wonderful, whimsical fun place for us as kids, and teenagers, had long ago turned into something ugly. After the night of the great sadness, neither of us returned. Until now. My stomach turned flip-flops. I reached for the vodka once more and stared out at the lapping water, quiet and silent, my eyes barely blinking. Inside my head, the broken knob clicked and all I could hear were my own screams.

  “Cass, what are we doing here?” she said, stoic and reserved. I could barely utter a sound. Without words, I grabbed my mirror bin and opened the door. I walked straight to the edge of the riverbank, the exact place the great sadness took me. Meg followed but stayed a safe distance behind me. The woods had changed over time. Brush had grown up thickly, covering where our fire pit used to be, and new trees had sprouted and grown tall, adding a shrouded look to what used to be open and airy. The river seemed wider but the pool of water, our old swimming hole had not changed, it had only birthed a smaller pool below the crest, eaten up from erosion. A small and beautiful waterfall trickled down from each pool and slowly made its way down the river. The way I see it, Mother Nature had to recover from the violence committed here that awful night and drown out the sounds of my screams and the bad energy left here. It was replaced with the sounds and beauty of a waterfall.

  It was time. I sat my mirror bin on the ground beside me and sat in the dirt. While I stared into the water, I picked up handfuls of dirt, one after another, throwing them into the water in anger, then grief. In a brutal siege of suffering, I lamented my loss of innocence. I wept until everything grew silent in my mind and all I could hear was the faint rushing trickle of the waterfall. I turned and motioned to Meg sitting on the hood of the truck.

  “Let’s get on with it,” I said in a better frame of mind. My tears had dried. It was time to make things right.

  “Get on with what? What are we doing?” Meg said, confused and walking closer.

  “This is where I lost myself. It may seem crazy, but I am STILL HERE. I may have left this place and lived a messed-up life, but that little girl is still HERE. I know you didn’t believe much in Maw Sue’s rituals, her strange ways, but once upon a time, I did. Back then, I had some connection to myself that I don’t have now, and I need to find it again, reconnect, get it back. You don’t have to say anything, you don’t even have to participate, but I really do need you to be here for me. Can you do that, Meg?”

  “I’m right here,” Meg answered. “For what it’s worth, regardless of our differences or belief, I’ll do whatever it takes to help you, Cass. You just lead the way.”

  “Thank you.” I reached out and hugged her. “Okay,” I said, letting go. “Let’s do this. Since therapy, I’ve had an abundance of childhood memories return. One of them was at Maw Sue’s at night, with a fire ritual, and the owl ceremony, and the cutting of hands.” I bared my arm in front of me, and rubbed the seven scar. “Do you remember that night?”

  “Is that the night we were playing with Coke bottles and cut ourselves?” She stuck her palm out.

  “No, Meg. No. That is not the truth. That is what I’m talking about. Mother lied to us. We were so little, and she was so upset with Maw Sue for her rituals, and for cutting our hands that she had Maw Sue locked up in Castle Pines. We were told over and over again that these scars were made by me and you playing with Coke bottles, until eventually, we both believed the story. What she didn’t know is that Maw Sue had the same seven scar and the ceremony had already been done. All the years later, I questioned it, and the memories were vague and spliced, but it was all chopped up and I could not piece it together until recently.”

  “What?” Meg said, stunned. “You mean we didn’t play with bottles?”

  “No, Meg. Maw Sue made these cuts. You really don’t remember?”

  “Apparently not. Why did she do that?” Meg’s voice changed as she rubbed her seven scars.

  “Well, I didn’t remember it all these years, until I basically lost my damn mind with Sam, and reenacted the ceremony with a cleansing fire at his girlfriend’s house, and got arrested for it. Then comes therapy, and poof! Memories like a motherfucker. I went through hell to find them, so now that I know the truth, I’m telling it like it is. I’ll give you the short version. That day in 1970-something, we were riding with Maw Sue, driving home from the store, and Maw Sue found a wounded owl in the middle of the road…”

  Meg gasped with a hissing rasp. “Oh. My. God.” She turned and pointed to the truck.

  “We just hit an owl. I hit an owl. I killed an owl.” Her voice grew shrill, loud and fast.

  “Meg, calm down. I know. It’s okay. It’s part of it. Just slow down and let me finish and you’ll understand.”

  “But…”

  “No. Listen,” I said, grabbing her hand. “Remember that Maw Sue said owls are sacred and shouldn’t suffer. To our ancestors in the Seventh Tribe there is a deeper meaning to it all, and I’m trying to explain that right now. Maw Sue took the owl home, and that night we had the ceremony, she made necklaces, she put the owl in the fire, she mixed the blood with our blood after she cut our palms into a seven. Everything was great, we danced, sang and celebrated. It was fun. But…a bit later, Mother showed up. She threw a hissy fit and went batshit crazy when she saw our hands and called Maw Sue a mad butcher. She threw our necklaces in the fire and dragged us back home and had Maw Sue committed to Castle Pines. It was a nightmare. I snuck out and saw it all. Now, hear me out. This is important. I believe everything has led us to this moment tonight. Bad or good and all the in-between, even the owl you hit earlier. Are you listening, Meg?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m listening, but I’m going to need a drink real soon because this is a little too much for me to process.”

  “Yeah, me too. Okay, so…the mirror bins. They were made for the seven sisters, their individual ritual, consecration, cleansing and empowerment to seal it with each daughter’s own persona of self. Which is what Maw Sue was doing that night, but we didn’t finish it. We got interrupted. Ours was not completed as it should have been. Maw Sue told us we’d seal it with three words at the end of the ceremony, completing it by closing the mirror bin. But everything went wrong when Mother showed up. Our mirror bins were open. I have replayed this memory over and over again, trying to figure it out. That is what happened. It has to be. I tried constantly to think of three words that Maw Sue would say. I racked my brain senseless going over everything, time and time again, until now. Until the owl. When you hit that owl tonight, it just came to me, all the memories, and Maw Sue’s words. They fly silent. It has to be it. I vaguely remember Maw Sue closing my bin a few times, when I had it with me at her house a few summers, when we stayed with her. It was if she relived something from her own childhood, her times with the mirror bin as a child, and she’d whisper, they fly silent and close it. Maw Sue told us the amulet or the mirror bin, as we know it, is in many ways a miniature encapsulation of each person, in spirit and embodiment, our true persona, the owl’s wisdom and the omnipotent pow
er of something beyond us, something bigger, Godly, majestic. So, for instance, my mirror bin belonged to our great-great grandmother Joseymae, so her energy, her spirit, and persona is in there, her blood in soaked in the wood, so is the owl they sacrificed for wisdom. The night of the ceremony, my spirit and energy, along with my blood and that of the owl, was joined to the wood as well. But, here’s the kicker. Because of the chaos that night—it wasn’t finished.”

  “How in the hell do you remember all this?” Meg said, astounded and shaking her head.

  I cracked up laughing. “Therapy and pain. Believe me, it wasn’t easy.”

  Meg sprawled out on the dirt. “Now that you’re saying this, some things are coming together, but I don’t have a memory like you do. Mine is fragmented. I wish I could remember.”

  “Here’s my theory, Meg. Because of the terrible events, Mother showing up, Maw Sue carted off to Castle Pines, both of us traumatized, the made-up lies, all of it disrupted the ending of the ceremony. Our ritual wasn’t sealed. The door was left open, so to speak. Because of that, I believe a great deal of chaos was allowed to enter in our lives, that ordinarily wouldn’t have been allowed had we sealed it. Because of that, it wreaked havoc, upturned life as we know it. Left it off-kilter so to speak. It’s a long shot but I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and tonight when you hit that owl—in one millisecond, it spiraled together in my head. I was shocked. It just all came together. The pieces lined up and I knew what we have to do. We have to finish the ceremony tonight. We have everything we need, the mirror bins, an owl sacrifice, and one thing we didn’t have back then.”

  “What’s that?” Meg asked.

  “Alcohol.” I smiled. “Are you ready to make it right? Seal the amulet. Finish it.”

  “This is like Wizard of Oz overload. I mean, you think that’s the reason our lives are turned upside down is the ceremony wasn’t finished? I barely remember that night, Cass. But hey, what the hell, if you say so, then I’m ready to help you. You’ve been through more than me. I will say, it’s creepy with the owl though, but I’m all in, sister. Let’s seal the amulet by God.”

  We high-fived each other and giggled like we were little kids again playing with crackles and the world was our oyster. We scrambled around trying to set up the area with as much as we could remember. Brambles, honeysuckles, pine needles, cones and vines made a circle in the dirt with a fire pit in the middle. I opened my mirror bin and pulled out two roses, the Petal People, the Immortelles Everlastings, the broken me, the dead flower me, the one I plucked off the wild rosebush the night of the great sadness when the best parts of me abandoned all. The other Petal Person is the flower I picked for my mother back then, the mother who never saw me, who I erased from my life, because she made me feel non-existent. Both, petal people dead. I sat the roses aside and took out the brittle locust crown and placed it on my head. The damp air of the Texas heat beaded my skin with pellets of sweat. My heart felt heavy like stone.

  “Now it’s your turn, Meg.”

  “Most certainly. I am a diamond queen, after all,” she said, winking. She opened her mirror bin and pulled out Aunt Raven’s green scarf and threw it around her neck and shoulders. Then placed the mangled crown on her head. I think she enjoyed this, although she’d never admit it. The moment was magical as if we had the whole forest to ourselves. The night sky anointed us with bright stars and a faint glow of the moon creeping through the pines. I thought of Mother Moonshine and knew part of her was here, whether she knew it or not.

  “Wait!” Meg shouted and took off running to the truck. She came back with the machete, and both head and body of the owl carcass. She would have looked wild and wooly, almost primal, if it were not for the green scarf blowing behind her. It was then I knew Meg had begun to remember her past. I watched the shiny diamond show off. Like she always does. She took a stick, poked the fire and inserted the owl’s head between two logs. The flames erupted. Smoke suffered upwards while the feathers smoked, singed and curled. The sounds took me back and I would have gotten lost in the glow of roasting eyes if it hadn’t been for Meg distracting me with her newfound Seventh Tribe knowledge. I couldn’t help but rib her a little like I used to do.

  “This is great, Meg, that you’re remembering and all, but you DO KNOW we ate an eyeball.” She stopped abruptly and turned to look at me.

  “We did not,” she said with an unconvincing eye twitch. “I would have remembered an eyeball. Good try, Cass. You know if that was true, I’d have told every kid at school. I’d have been, ‘So what if your dad’s an Olympic Athlete, did he eat an eyeball, because I DID!’” Meg and I busted out laughing. Then she went back to her primal roots of being a fashionable Daniel Boone with a green scarf. I watched her with amazement. Dad raising her like a boy was coming in handy because she knew her stuff. She stripped off a piece of bark from a nearby tree to make a bowl. Plucked a few feathers from the carcass, respectfully as Maw Sue had taught us, in awe of the owl’s magical presence. She told us because the owl flies silent, they are like ghosts—they could be near us and we’d never know it. They fly silent. It was so mysterious to me, even saying the words made a chill go up my spine.

  Meg laid the carcass on a large log, hacked the feet off and drained the blood into the bowls of bark she had made. I watched as she replicated almost every ceremonial move Maw Sue made. At times, I saw her ghost intermingle within as if she was watching to make sure we did it correctly. It was hard for me not to tear up seeing her. There were other times I’d get caught up in the flames of the fire, the owl skull, its hollow eyes, and the memory of childhood ceremonies mixed with the current events, me setting fire to Sam’s stuff, the animal trophies, my own ceremonial cleanse and the way life turned out, for me and Meg, how everything is connected. It all led to the here and now.

  All in all, I was proud of my heritage, so amazed at the stories and the ceremonies as if the past merged with the present. I knew my ancestors better now, understand them more, even though I never met them. I had yet to read any of the manuscripts, scrolls and books they left to Maw Sue, or possibly they were actually Aunt Raven’s, since she had the large library. I would get to that soon. They were tucked away in my closet waiting for me when the time is right. First things first.

  Meg placed the bowl on the ground near us. She went back to the fire and put the sharp knife edge in the flames.

  She returned and said, “This might hurt a bit and I don’t have any of Maw Sue’s salve to numb it, so are you sure you want to do this?”

  “This is necessary pain, Meg. It’s nothing compared to the pain I’ve already suffered.”

  I held out my palm and took a deep abiding breath. The seven-scar glowed under the moon and the crackling firelight. There was a sharp pinch, and a sting when she pierced the scar open. This would be the third time it had been cut. Seven drops of blood fell from the gash. The sound of the dripping almost drove me to madness, hearing them repeatedly in my mind for months, and now, in reality. It validated my childhood memories, my flashbacks. I glanced down and watched the mirror bin take in my fullness, my energy, all of me, my blood absorbed into the veins of the wood while a shudder ran through my body, a unification of oneness I hadn’t felt before.

  “My turn,” Meg said cheerfully, holding out a bandage and the knife. She seemed distant, almost removed from the circumstances of what we were doing, but then again, Meg had always been reserved, never one to show emotion. I wrapped my palm, took the knife and exchanged places with Meg. Her seven-scar pulsated as it awaited its fate. I glanced up at her to make sure she was on the same page.

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “It’s too late to second-guess now, sister. Let’s do this. Rock and roll.”

  My smile turned serious and I made the cut. My ears heard all sorts of sounds, like portals opening, water gushing, windows slamming, strange and eerie sounds, and I could not fathom what they actually were. I was holding in air the whole time the blood dropped, drip
, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. Seven drops into the mirror bin that used to belong to Aunt Raven. I glanced up and Meg was emotional, although she was fighting not to be.

  “You did great,” I said, handing her a bandage.

  She winced with confidence. “Well, what can I say, I’m kind of a warrior. I ate an eyeball once.”

  We both busted out laughing. We giggled so much blood gushed from our wounds.

  “Oh. Lord. I need a drink before we finish this shit,” I said, looking for the vodka bottle.

  “Me too. A double. Why not a triple?” Meg said.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  We shed our shoes and sat in the pine needle circle in front of the roaring fire with the owl’s skull burning in the flames, while we stared out across the river. It was pitch of dark in the distance with the large dreadful pines standing watch over us, and the river was slick like black glass while the trickle of the waterfall and the sounds of the night soothed our wrecked souls. We drank the expensive vodka and sat in the silence of nostalgia.

  “You remember what’s next? Or is this it? Do we close the mirror bins now or what?” Meg asked, breaking the quiet.

  “I do remember. We’re not through, sister. There’s more,” I said, smiling and taking another swig. I jumped up and did a little jig. “We get to be warriors because we are in the Seventh Tribe. Now…let’s do some face painting.”

  Meg smiled and grabbed the bark bowl of owl’s blood. She dropped seven drops of blood into my mirror bin, mixing with my own blood and those of generations ago. It was perfect. Then Meg and I faced each other. She dipped her finger into the bowl and placed stripes and designs on my face as she spoke the ancient words, our rites of passage.

  “Inner light, divine wisdom, vision…” She paused and her lips trembled. A big tear puddled in her eye and she sniffled. “And Love. The greatest of these is Love.”

  When she finished, I shed a few tears.

  “Awww…so perfect, Meg. You added your own swag to it, you sparkly diamond you!” I punched her in the arm. I was a proud sister. She had come so far.