WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1)

by Fowler Robertson

  “You don’t know what you’re doing dear. There is pain ahead. And Willodean, you of all people, cannot handle pain. Just come back to the room where you don’t have to feel. We will take care of you.” My heart beats rapid and his desperate pleas almost persuade me. A part of me wants to believe them, to rest in nothingness where I don’t have to feel, to fight, to do anything. Take the easy way out. And then another part of me, is telling me to step up, move forward or I’ll simply die in that room.

  “Don’t do this. You know where it always leads. Pain.” Another shadow appears and intercepts into my mind, and he presses the pain button of memory to remind me of what I will face if I move forward. I buckle over. Breathless, palpable fear swells. When I look up the room is full of shadows. They are stronger in groups, their fluctuating vortex of lies pull at me, slicking my skin with smoke and mirrors.

  “You’re weak.” One says. Yes. He’s right, I am weak. Maybe I’ve always been weak.

  “Yes. Way too weak to face another disappointment.” Another one says, “Come, join us in the room.” But I don’t know if I can go to the room, something in me has changed…I don’t want to go but I don’t want to hurt either.

  “They are right. Come.” Another one says swooping in. The room is like large black gnats. They all start talking at once, pushing and pressing words into me. “Come and rest. Just stay awhile.” Too many words, too many things….I can’t take this. I bury myself into the man pillow. I scream and cry. I need someone, a strong man, an able body to save me, tell me what to do, help me, take me, do for me what I cannot do for myself. I need. I need. Oh God, how I need. Need. I hate that word.

  “NO. You are not weak.” The lioness voice roars into the room. I raise up frightened, my hair blows straight backwards and my skin flaps as if Maw Sue is only inches from my face. I smell the camel cigarettes, moth balls and old lady powder. I cannot see her, only hear her voice. My ears tingle in hearing her words. I want to believe her, acknowledge the words and eat them as food, consume them to give me strength and courage. Form a new life in me. I want it so much.

  “Willodean Hart. Use your gift. Do not forget who you are—and where you come from…”

  “You will fail.” The shadow cuts Maw Sue’s words off. It snatches them into his cloak of blackness. Snatches are just one more weapon in a shadows arsenal of tricks. They grab encouraging words like crumbs before the words have a chance to soak inside the soul. They know the power of words. The shadow is at my face, circling me. I feel his hot sweaty breathe ignite every inch of my wasted flesh.

  “You will fail. Again.” He says. Then he shoots an interception into my mind, making me remember my failures, my attempts of love, of life, failure in everything. It is what I am. A complete failure. I grab my ears and scream unable to take his words, his pressure and prodding. I cannot bear to see myself, to view the memories of the truth, my sad pitiful self. Failure. Failure. Failure. Pain surges inside and out. I had forgotten how powerful the interceptions are. They are among the greatest of weapons, to prick and intensify my fear, remind me of what was, what is, what will never be. My failures, my marriage, my divorce, my sins, my secrets, the horrible things I’ve done, the unforgivable, the unpardonable sin.

  Before I realize it, I am not in my bedroom. The shadows have taken me inside the house, inside me. They drag me down the long dreadful hallway I know all too well. They drop me in front of the fear room. I can barely look at the door. It’s made from a thousand hands all tangled together, grabbing, reaching, pulling, pinching, snatching, knocking, turning, twisting. So many hands, like a pit of brooding snake heads hissing and biting. In the center of the hand door, a skeletal hand holds a nameplate. It spells out my struggles. FEAR. The door knob isn’t a door knob, it’s a creepy hand with long slender fingers and nails with sharp points. The shadows make me reach out, grip the hand and shake, and then turn as if turning a knob but my hand always trembles. The slender hand always penetrates more fear into me, as if I didn’t have enough already. The hand releases mine and the door opens. The shadows shove me in. It’s different every time I go inside. Today, there is door after door, just a fear room of more doors. I sink to the floor. A door opens and plays out reenactments of my life and forces me to watch. Then another door, another failed attempt at life, at love, at living. I don’t want to see it—who I’ve become and why. I cover my eyes to avoid the sight but hearing it through my cursed ears is enough to send me over the edge. I close my eyes, and deny. Deny, deny. The whole time I feel the hands come out. I’m grabbed, groped and pulled with a thousand fingers of shame. It is dark under my eyelids, dark inside the house inside me, the house I can never leave. I am rocking forward and back, my body in little clock ticks, waiting for death, waiting to live, waiting for something, or someone, to save me. But all I see is darkness. Regret. Punishment. I scream a thousand screams that no one hears.

  “Remember who you are Willodean!” Maw Sue words slip in, penetrating the darkness with an unseen candle of light, a ceremonial ritual just for me. I see us both face to face with the dark, the lesser light. “Get yourself together. This is not who you are. You must fight. You are enough. Believe in yourself. Use the gift.”

  I eat her words and the nourishment stirs something passionate in me, yet at the same time, something dark and disturbing reacts bitterly towards her.

  But you didn’t fight? You just gave up. You left me? Why should I fight if you didn’t fight Maw Sue? Huh? Tell me why? The air deadened between us in the darkness underneath my eyelids.

  “Little girl.” Maw Sue said as calm as the night wind. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Some things are not as they seem. Whether or not it worked out as we planned is not our call. I have no time for this questioning. I have but one message for you and I shall finish it and you shall get it before I depart. Now you buck up and remember who you are, and what I taught you. In time you will understand all things.”

  The intensity of her words soaking inside my soul alarmed the Amodgians. I felt a barrage of chains break and snap. Something or someone was set free to roam wild. A rebel soul awakened. A willow tree weeping. The Amodgians kick into overdrive, whispering interceptions, while the hands pick, prod and grope. I am losing my mind, or what’s left of it and then my internal dialogue kicks in high gear. Buck up? I’m supposed to buck up and use the gift I’m not really sure how to use? How? But the shadows will be angry. She knows what they can do. I’m scared. I can’t.

  Make a move anyway. No. Move through the torment. No. I can’t do it. They will come for me. They always come for me. Push pass. Go to the pain but not into the pain. Don’t let it take you. Feel it and then go forward. No. No. No. I can’t.

  My mind goes blank and then I understand why. I hear her running through the house, room to room, door to door, the pitter-patter of her bare feet sounds like distant drums getting closer. Was she the one set loose? Oh no. She is remembering things—and I am remembering with her. No. No. Stop it. Our mind intermingles as one. My heart swells with satisfaction. I see us happy and sitting in a mud puddle on a warm summer day. We envision gifts, crackles, dirt tunnels, mirror bins and promises. The thought pulls me from the fear room and back to my bedroom. From fear to joy? How did that happen?

  “Come back.” The shadow says. One after another they return to taunt me until the room is filled with their desperate cries. I plug my ears as best I can and think about the little girl in the puddle, the mud caked on her legs, her arms, the sun on her face, the joy in her smile. I soothe my troubled mind with the visions while the ancient blood of Cupitors surges in me. And then I had an epitome, similar to the one I had on the porch when I took my crackle vows, except this time, I’m a full-fledged adult. The thought was plum crazy and nothing about it made a lick of sense. I giggled while my mind entertained it.

  I stared out the window at the leaf crackle as it spun in the spider web, high up in the wondering tree. A huge smile swept across my face, so much it hurt.

&
nbsp; Climb the tree Willodean, climb the tree. A part of me longed for freedom, excavation and light. As far as I could tell—the only thing that stood in my way, right then and there—was a windowsill.

  Adult Willodean screams —No Way! Don’t do this. What will people think?

  Child Willodean whoops and laughs—Heck yeah. Let’s do this. Rebel yell!

  The next thing I know, I’m causing a ruckus in the neighborhood. In a flash, I’m out the window and up the tree. An air of mischievous flushes through me. I remembered the awesome pranks Mag and I played on Maw Sue and how much I used to love life, the silly things, the belly laughs and taking risks because of faith. What happened to that girl? Halfway up the tree, I slip into a mode of eclectic insanity. I have no idea if I’m a child or an adult, or both. I hear Maw Sue’s laughter in the heat of the wind as it blows. I was a sight, still in my pink pajamas with white coffee cups and spotted Dalmatians. My bizarre behavior set the cups to rattling and provoked the dogs to bark which caused neighbors to come out on porches. I was barefoot with no makeup, dark circles under my eyes and wild tousled hair. The wind pat me on the back and the leaves clapped with applause. Every thought in my mind was aimed at freedom, as if it was a target to be reached, to be touched, and felt. Every step unlocked a chain inside me, inside the house.

  Simply be. Birds of the air, lilies of the field, stars of heaven. Simply be. It was a rebirth and a spirit of childhood longing set free and I’m not even sure how it happened. I stopped midway to brace myself on the branches and could see Mr. Kotter, Horseshack and John smiling up at me. I giggled and mounted upwards. Barefoot and with childlike determination, I climbed. I press through every thought that terrifies me, or makes me doubt. I discard the heart critics, my failed past, the terrible whispers of the shadows that linger in the midst of my afflicted mind. I shut it out. I climb for one purpose. To reach the crackle. To claim my vow. To live my namesake.

  For Willodean Adult Hart, recently divorced, no direction, no purpose, no identity, lost woman—this was epic. It was profound not because it was grand or glorious in spectacle but because it was the opposite. I was childlike and acted out the desires of a yearning wild heart, a heart that was long ago disengaged, and deadened for reasons I can’t explain or remember. But now I feel a surge of new air, unfamiliar inhalations as if breathing for the first time. I felt alive. I can’t remember when I last felt alive. It was remarkable. I clung to the tree bark and felt the wind bristle against my skin, uncapping hidden wells of memory like water sprouts. Maw Sue used to say something about salvation. It stilled me with the thought and took my breath away like it did the first time I heard it. I held onto the tree as if I was holding on to the memory, scared it would slip from me, without meaning, snatched by the Amodgians and I would forever be lost in the dark, inside the house, damned to the hell I created inside the rooms, behind the doors of my own mind.

  Salvation meant much more than we realize. For Cupitors, words held a form of power, underlying attributes, significant and meaningful, life changing and world changing. In the ancient language, salvation meant room to breathe. Hearing it the first time, the air was sucked from my drab vessel of bones and cast into the atmosphere of heavens portal and before I could faint, it was rushed back to me, different, not of this earth, abundant, effervescent, fresh and redeeming. Literally, new breath. And right now, on this branch it’s happening all over again. I feel as if I haven’t taken a real breath since childhood. My lungs expanded and my body weightless and airy as if I could take flight and float away. For the first time, in a long time, I had room to breathe. I inhaled the crisp redemption and kept climbing. I finally reached the summit of the wondering tree, the precipice of my own soul where I could see the horizon, my past and my present staring back at me. Tears welled in my eyes and streamed down my cheeks. I stared at the darkness without a candle. I stared into the light without shadows. The lesser light and the light merged in my vision and I comprehended my pain in another realm where all things collide and give understanding.

  It was Godlike redemption in a climb, a leaf, a crackle, the wind, birds of the air, and lilies of the field and stars of heaven. Room to find me. Room to simply be. Room to accept. Room to forgive. Room to make lovely my losses. I had room to breathe. Before my next breath, my next heartbeat, without hesitation, preparation or thought—I plucked the leaf out of the spider web while the crackle clung to it with its tiny claws. I saved the crackle but in a greater sense of things, I saved myself as silly as it sounded. I had been the one stuck inside a tangled web of life. It was me that needed saving. I spin the leaf in my hands and stare into the transparent crackle. Beyond my vision I see the gaping stare of the creeper and his wife, Myrtle. Creeper is sitting on his porch, in his bright orange clam shell chair. I feel a stir of trouble in the air reminiscent of my childhood. Myrtle is slack jawed and has her hands on her face. Creeper is like a statue with only his eyes occasionally moving. I am overcome with laughter. It was déjà vu, 1970, all over again. They think I’ve lost my mind.

  I miss the days of reckless youth and entertaining the neighbors and bringing people to their porches. I sighed nostalgically and began the climb downward. I pretended to slip a few times to give a good show, what the heck. Might as well. I reached the elbowed arm of the tree next to my window and sat down to inspect the crackle. Myrtle goes back inside the house but creeper remains in his claim shell. For the first time, the please other people Willodean doesn’t care. Don’t care. Don’t care. I almost want to stick my tongue out and make faces but that would be too much like a ten year old. Instead, I let my feet dangle and twirl the leaf in my hand while the crackle hangs on. My minds sifts through memories of rowdy rendezvouses with my sister as I take in the nature around me. My senses are in full mode and it’s electrifying. So what now?

  “Come baaaaack.” A shadows says. His voice is throaty and filled with desperation, threatened by my soul’s peaceful trance. One after another they swarm in like bees to the hive. The wonder of nature is blocked by the other realm of solemn shadows, hovering and slithering. They whisper, “Run. Retreat.” They gargle, hiss and project interceptions into my mind of failure. Of pain. A violent wind sweeps in from nowhere swirling and rushing, peeling bark off like paint chips and rattling the tree leaves like clinking chandeliers. In one realm of vision, an orchestra of creation, vibrant and wonderful. Clouds, trees, creatures big and small, the earth more alive than I’ve ever known. And in the other vision, the shadows trying to fight their way back to me. I must have activated my gift when I listened to my childlike heart. Yes. That is it. I listened to my true self and in doing so, the enchanted gift gave place to manifest itself. The gift I hate. The gift I love. The terrible, tragic splendid gift. It is the treasure I’ve ran from, denied, put away, forsook. A thought enters my mind but it wasn’t from the shadows. It was the little girl. I can hear her in my mind as plain as I could hear Maw Sue.

  In rejecting the gift—you rejected your true self. Your namesake had nowhere to go. It was yours to begin with. Yours—mine—ours.

  A great heat rose up from my belly and surged through my bones rattling me to no end. Maw Sue taught me there were two kinds of people in the world. Seekers and sleepers. Seekers are driven by a force outside themselves and cannot rest until they connect with the source. As they seek out their purpose, they will come up against opposition, great forces, the Amodgians. If seekers can overcome all the obstacles in the journey by activating their gifts, and using them, they will accomplish their purpose in life and propel others to do so. She said in the heart of every Cupitor is a rock stone, dull and bland. Each time you rise above and use your gift, the stone is polished and turns a different color until it shines brightly and others are attracted to that light. There are many gifts, of course, too many to list, but the one I remember the most is the gift given to all seekers, the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Through this, they will hear the spirit voice, the connector of all and are given insight and wisdom
into life. Sleepers overlook this and their stones are dull and jagged.

  Gifts can only be activated by the simple magic of childlike vision and hearing. It is the greatest of gifts and accessible to every seeker.

  I was drawn to stories, and research, and meaning. So I guess the seeker life made sense to me. Back then. A lot has changed over time. I was eight when she showed me a picture of Michelangelo’s masterful painting, The Creation of Adam, in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Like most seekers are, I was drawn instantly to the mystical void, the space of time held up between the fingers of Adam and God, as if I belonged in that tiny space, waiting to be connected to the almighty, so that I could feel the wholeness of what it means to be Seven and finally live abundantly in it as I was meant to. It was surreal then, and it’s surreal now. I dreamed of going to Rome one day to see it in person, to stare into the void between those fingers. I used to think if I could see it just once, then surely, by then, Adam and God’s fingers would be touching. And so would mine. Seven. Complete. And the world would be right again. But that was when faith was uncomplicated, simple. No answers. Just pure belief without structure. Remembering this brings a hard shell resistance, a barrier that keeps me pushed back. The shadows are gone because they cannot stand the heart of a child, how they believe without facts, risk without fear.

  I sit in silence but I am not alone. Something or someone is with me, unseen, but felt in a realm, palpable and close. I shudder and my heart leaps and wanes. I feel the sovereignty in everything around me, all connected, me to it, it to me, all as one. Her heart was pounding in me but I could not let her out, not yet, maybe not ever. She wants to come alive, to be set free, for good, but I just cannot do that now. It is not safe. And then, on instinct, she acted out through me. Her power fueled me from long ago. My hand lifted with the leaf crackle until it was high above my head fighting the gusts of wind.