WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1)

by Fowler Robertson

  I reluctantly put on pajamas but for the record, I didn’t like it one bit and I made it known. I stomped to my room while the spent octopus sprawled out on the couch, soap bubbles smiling in her hair while she drank a glass of wine. Dad sitting across from her, was on his fifth beer. I could always tell by the empty can tower on the floor. He gave me a sympathetic glance right before I slammed the door of my room. I felt the piercing stare of Lena’s steely eyes through the walls. I smirked in satisfaction and sighed loud enough to blow my windows out.

  “God. What a day.” I knelt at my bedside and pulled out my salvation. The mirror bin. Just seeing it made me feel better. It was a treasured gift from Maw Sue on the day I was born. According to family legend, this peculiar box, over six generations old holds my destiny, among other things I haven’t figured out yet. Maw Sue says time will tell me all things I need to know. Of course, she doesn’t have a clue that I’m not going to grow up, so there. Who knows what might happen now.

  Stashed inside was all my favorite things. The rock I found at the creek, a milky crystal with jagged ends like teeth. A blue jay feather I found in the wondering tree, when I was praying for God to take care of me, and wondered how he was going to do it, and all, since I knew me, and it wasn’t easy. I opened my eyes. The blue marvel was floating right in front of me as if it dropped from heaven. I grabbed it and with its touch the answer flooded my heart. If God takes care of the birds of the air, the beast of the earth, the lilies of the field, and the stars of heaven, then how much more will he take care of me. I shouldn’t worry about the how’s and why’s. He does it all. My heart swelled so big I thought I might break the limb. I always loved it when I heard God’s voice. And I was sure of it…couldn’t no one convince me any different.

  Underneath the rock and feather, there is an assortment of poems that Maw Sue gave me and on top of them in a beige pouch is several medicinal herbs from her garden. When she ran out of doctors in four counties who wouldn’t give her any more pills to take, she’d resort to the garden. The smell of the herbs themselves could change a mood in an instant. She showed me how to be one with the earth when all hell broke loose on earth. I could think of no time like the present, besides the soap smell was making me nauseated. I crushed the Rosemary and Sage leaves into my hands and rubbed them on my necks and my arms and put my hands up to my nose to take in their earthy fresh aroma. When I could no longer smell soap, I took out my pen and notebook. Maw Sue said it was good for those who are gifted with the Dumas of Umbra, the house inside me, to journal our thoughts in an effort to remember them because the curse can render us mindless without memories if we’re not careful. It was called, memory muzzling and it’s the Amodgians strongest weapon against us. I didn’t want it to happen to me, so I was meticulous to journal every day.

  Today is a game changer. I am going to write a letter to my grown up self. The future me, the molt-have sex-die adult. Ewww. Just thinking about it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I sealed my namesake in blue ink and folded the paper vow into a square and placed it inside the mirror bin, closing the lid. The mirror attached to the outside lid, sparkled and glistened on the ceiling, and walls, followed by an array of shadows and things I try not acknowledge. I gasped suddenly. I had left the crackle outside when Lena had her hose fit. I bolted out the door slipping pass the octopus who now had a fresh bottle of wine next to her, while dad was fast asleep and snoring in his chair.

  I stopped in the kitchen to pour a glass of water to avoid suspicion and then slipped out the back sliding glass door. It was ink splat dark except for the small kitchen light making a key whole glare out the window. I walked to the edge of the cement patio until my eyes adjusted to the lesser light. The night sky was a thousand diamonds glistening and I paused for a second to wonder. Maybe I could learn to like the lesser light after all, especially when its beauty is jaw dropping. It wasn’t about the night sky anyway. Deep inside I knew what it was. It was the dark house inside me that left me undone, most times, if not all times. Now, where did I put that crackle? I want to commemorate this day because if the dreadful curse of adulthood hits and I’m left to wander like a desert lizard with all the other idiots, at least I’ll have a reminder of what’s important; the simple, barefoot kid at heart who plays in the mud, dances in the rain, builds pine straw houses, climbs trees and plays sky cloud with the angels. At the end of each day, I want to stare into the lesser light and not be afraid and most of all, I want to make lovely my losses. I have to remember everything I’ve learned in case adulthood and molting inadvertently screws up my brains. And sex—God forbid! I don’t want to think about what that might do. After seeing it in a magazine once, I have never recovered from its strange affects. It was like an alien invaded my bones and swam through my organs causing all sorts of oddities, reflexes and gushing anomalies. If that’s part of being a grown up, I want nothing to do with it.

  My eyes had finally adjusted to the dark and I found the crackle inside the broken tea cup at the edge of the patio. I held it gently in my hands and slipped back inside the house. When I got to my room, I placed the crackle inside the mirror bin on top of my vow and closed the lid and then I let out a hopeful sigh. I hoped the mirror bin would fulfill its destiny in me, as it did with all my ancestors before me. After all, I am a seeker, a common girl from a great line of Cupitors. Namesake ready.

  Sleepers

  I sat for hours staring out the window into a space of time, lost in childhood dreams and tree climbs. I drifted back to the inner sanctum of the crackle shell room where she lives, where she hides, safe from the world and all its troubles. It is good that she is there and not here. I want nothing more than to make amends for what I did to her but some things can’t be undone.

  “Eyes to see—ears to hear.” The voice came into my room like a wind squall.

  “Jesus!” I said agitated. The dead woman’s voice was back. “Quit scaring me like that. What if my parents walk in and find me conversing with the dead? They already think I’ve flipped my lid like you did, which I’m beginning to wonder if they’re right. If they get one notion I’m talking to you, a dead person, a ghost of all people, they’ll put me away for good. I’ll go to one of those sanitarium places, you know, those terrible awful places you used to visit.”

  I scan the room waiting for her to appear, follow her voice. Only silence and the sifting of wind outside. “Maw Sue?” I began to wonder if I heard her at all. Maybe I am going crazy. Maybe the curse is real. If I know her, she isn’t going to be quiet when it comes to the gift. She’s a squeaky wheel when it comes to Cupitors, seekers, sleepers and the family history. When I was a kid it was all she talked about, that is, when she wasn’t locked up somewhere. Thinking of it made goose pimples rise up on my arms. How close am I to going to that place? When Maw Sue died, I was sure the curse died with her. The gifts, the superstitions, candle rituals, all of it. Dead. It was magical to the child Willodean but that child is no more.

  “Is that what you think?” She says startling me. She stood at the foot of my bed like a paper doll, thin and wafted. And suddenly, next to her, she appeared. My breath left me and I stuttered in mind. How did she get here? I didn’t let her out. What is happening? How did you…where did you...what did you…

  “Aww hush.” Maw Sue said stammering in her ghostly realm. She read my thoughts and banished them. The little girl sneered and liked it a little too much for my taste. I gave her the slant eye. It seems I am being cornered by a little girl and a dead relative. The urge to flee hit me like a bolt of lightning. My skin twitched and my heart pounded. The little girls face stared through me in a knowing fashion that made me nervous, as if she saw everything in me, a deep scholastic eye that no one else could penetrate. Maw Sue’s was strictly piss and vinegar. That meant business as usual. She was not leaving till she finished what she came to do and I have no idea what that might be. Hopefully, she’ll take me with her and save me some misery of my own existence. Wispy and subjective, they glided over me like
misty apparations, invading, terrible and touchy. I felt a strange energy field that pulled me, yet held me back. The little girl locked eyes on me, as if searching deep inside me. I closed my eyes to will her away but I had no power against her as he held me in a vice.

  “Devinio, devinio, devinio.” They chant and their arms reach upwards. The sun shines outside but the room grows a bitter dark I can taste. “Devinio. Devenio. Devenio.” Soon, I am shaking like an unbalanced washing machine, jerking with knots and lumps while the house inside me cracks and splinters on its rocky foundation. This sets the shadows lose to roam freely, unhindered, to stir up secrets and cause chaos.

  “Noooo!” I screamed into the blackness. A floodlight inside the house teetered and swayed, exposing the dark things, leaving a pallor of screams inside my ears.

  “This is the end of me…the end.” The lesser light swallowed my words like hot liquid sliding down its caustic throat and I absorbed into the inky damaged dark. When I thought for sure I was at deaths door, the room lit up with an illuminating candle, otherworldly, as if Maw Sue plucked off the edge of a star. It flickered and held me spellbound. It took me a few long exhausting breathes to gather my wits and my panicked heart to slow in beats. Before I knew what I was doing I was snuggled next to a ghost of Maw Sue, as if I was eight years old again, inside the walls of her bedroom during the candle ceremonies. I watched the shadows leap and dance across the haunt of my room, their airless footsteps and lightweight arms touching the dark places I want to forget. They whisper and tell me things. Terrible awful things. I glance at Maw Sue beside me, holding the star candle, her hands like fog blending in with the smoke rising from the flames, while a multitude of shadows engulf the room, in front, behind, above, and through her. The little girl was pressed into me on the other side but I kept scooting closer to Maw Sue, not letting her invade me like she wanted to. Our breath was one, inhaling, exhaling, our heart rhythm tied to some dark thing neither of us could understand. Her accepting. Me refusing. It had always been this way. Maw Sue turned and whispered as if she had read my thoughts again.

  “Without your demons there are no angels. How you survive is what makes you who you are.”

  I saw myself kicked out of the family nest, a fledging falling to the ground, left to survive on its own. Life and death in the hands of the unknown.

  “It is time Willodean.” Maw Sue stood up, the little girl followed.

  Time? Time for what? My mind spun, the star faded in a last twinkle. The little girl stung me with her eye stare and made me see, hear and feel. I was forced to bear the unthinkable. Believe the unbelievable. Her acceptance and my denial raged an internal mind battle until I surrendered to their wishes.

  “Accept the namesake you denied.” Their words ran together until I felt cornered, overruled, defeated. I gave in.

  I wished for eyes to see and ears to hear. I wished to remember what I could not bear. I wished to be me—true to my namesake, me. I wished to bear the great horrible, tragic splendid gift because I am a Cupitor. I am a seeker and that’s what seekers do.

  Once I spoke the words, my adrenalin flushed as if some parallel universe shifted on its axis affecting the earth’s atmosphere.

  “It’s time to go back Willodean.” The little girl nodded and grabbed my hand. I felt a warm burn and thought of Mag and our need for touch when we were kids, a hug to mend us, a hand to hold, to squeeze and remind us we were alive. Maw Sue went to chanting or praying, I couldn’t tell. Her feathery voice set me on edge while her lips spilled out prophecies bearing my name. Prophecies I could never, ever, in a million years live up to. And the next thing I know, I’m right where I began. In the window, alone. No ghosts, no shadows, no star candles, just me and a man pillow. Alone. I hate that word.

  I lean out the window and take in the suns gaze while my eyes fall upon the web again, while the leaf spins and the crackle grips to hang on. I feel carried away in thought, beyond myself and suddenly I mesh with the earth as nature spills out its tender mercies that unravel my soul. Tears pool in my eyes. My body is squeezed, crushed and I’m breathless.

  “Quit over thinking Willodean.” Maw Sue’s voice rang out. “Just believe.”

  I did not see her, but I could hear her hot and humid voice riding the edge of the wind, slapping my skin to life, to live.

  “You are not a sleeper. You are a Cupitor. Seek.” Her voice was rolls of thunder. My head began to throb. I felt a sludge of fear trickle in. RETREAT. RETREAT. I want to run. Sirens went off inside the house inside me, a warning alert to danger, too many emotions, too much pain. When this happens I talk to the dialogue devil inside my mind.

  So what are you going to do Willodean? You’re stuck—you’ve made some bad decisions. Sure, you’ve messed up terribly. But you are the only one who can change it. Follow your heart. Believe for the unbelievable. Let go of what doesn’t work. Embrace the unknown. Let go. Do it. Remember the blue jay feather, the lilies of the field—stars of heaven—the crumbs of life. Simply be. Remember all the stories and what they mean? And how about the magic? Your family is from the great lineage of Cupitor’s. Some do not get a choice. Remember that.

  But I’m scared. I hate change. I don’t want to move forward into something I don’t know, something uncomfortable, unknown. What will happen? What if I don’t like it? What if it’s horrible? What if it crushes my heart like earlier when I couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was a warning. I can’t take any more pain. I just can’t.

  Voices ran together like large bodies of water, streams meeting at the ocean, fresh tears meeting salty waves, pounding me with fear. As always, when fear consumes me they show up. Summoned from the fear room where they slumber, inside the house, the Amodgians appear. Anything remotely different in character, a hesitation, a change of mind, a step forward, always provokes them to swarm like gnats. They are the dark shadows my grandmother warned me about. They take the gift in me, the buried treasure, what is rightfully mine before I have a chance to discover what it is and use it. The earlier they strike, the better chances they have in keeping it for themselves. In reality, if I don’t know what they’ve taken, if it’s gone, removed from my spirit, my life, my everything—I’ll never miss it because I don’t know what it is that’s missing. It’s like I never had it to begin with. Or that’s what they want you to believe. They are wrong. For instance, Cupitors know when a namesake is missing. It may take a while to realize it’s gone, but when they do, watch out, because they will seek to the end of time, to reclaim it. The Amodgians are the Cupitors worst enemy. They play to a seekers weakness and strengths. Considering myself, they know everything about me and it’s their nature to hinder, stir, stop, or provoke. I am the only one who can see them, feel them, sense them—because they are mine. Old Cupitor legend says for every great gift God bestows to his children, a great and awful Amodgian shadow is attached, ready to remove the gift, destroy it, taint it, make it what it isn’t and lead us astray to ruin our lives. To prepare me for life, she told me the old stories, and after hearing them, Dracula and Vampires were mere cartoons in comparison. She said the greatest warriors are made by the strike of an enemy’s sword and the shadow Amodgians will strike, it’s just a matter of time. For every shadow Amodgian assigned to me, each has a lesson of preparation to learn, confront, deal, overcome, whatever, which somehow prepares me for the next level of life. She made it seem like a great adventure awaited me but I fear I have messed it up somehow. I see wreckage and ruin and I’m surrounded by these horrible gargling pits of dark water, the shadows swarming, isolating me from land and firm footing. They keep me stuck, immovable in fear while they target my mind, my weakness. They are experts in memory muzzling, harboring all our good memories of childhood, of love, of hope, inside their dreadful rooms of captivity. My childhood is a blurry mess of inconsistencies and I’m surprised I remember anything at all. Here lately, subtle memories are returning more than I can contain them. The little girl whispers it’s the kindling blood of a warrior beating in
me, awakened to something more, and it shall not rest till it has it. Whatever it is—it has stirred up a ruckus inside the house. A rumble of doors shake, locks click, windows rattle and the walls buckle.

  From what I can remember of the old stories, the shadows recognize facial expressions, body mechanics, eye signals and much more. They are the great observers of man, the enemy of all he was created to be. They engage mankind from his or her birth, onward, studying everything about their subject, mannerisms, character, functions, fears, tempers, weakness, strengths, likes and dislikes and more. They use this information against us to keep us from forming our greater self, our purpose, our life. I can assure you they wrecked a world of havoc on me as a child, which has basically rendered me incapacitated as a woman, an adult. They had a big part in killing Maw Sue. Others say she just lost her mind, but I know the truth.

  Inside the house, inside me, right now, they are in a state of sheer pandemonium. My thoughts of going forward have called them to arms. They use weapons of intercepting voices into my head, to throw me off, to distract and make me doubt. They want to keep me where I am, stuck. They have the ability to disguise the great light of the universe, they are the gentlemen in white suits, the prince to save you, a chameleon of your dreams, the great opportunists—but they are deceitful. They are not who they seem, and if given a chance, they will destroy you. My lips tremble and my teeth chatter because it brings to life all I fear. Among their many weapons, an interception of confusion is second best, to memory muzzling.

  “Willodean” the shadows whisper in my gullible ear, “You don’t know what you’re saying. Go back to sleep. Take another pill. You probably need to rest.”

  No I don’t, I’ve slept enough. I am getting better now. They are trying to fool me. I see the enemy of who this shadow of doubt is—his lies blending into the dark room, seeping into my ears, invading my thoughts, pools of black water at midnight without a moon.