Maw Sue glared at me. It was too late to stop talking now. I had to know.
“What happened Maw Sue?”
She sighed real loud until I thought the windows of the house would pop. Her chest rose and fell in mountainous breaths. She flopped her skirt against her thigh. She rubbed the stone, while the dragon’s eye grew restless and mad. I hated that stupid stone even though she loved it and swore it soothed her. I was sure it was because of Aunt Raven, her being dead and all, after Maw Sue took it, maybe a strange curse befell her, who knows. In another thought, I wished I had something to soothe my soul, if only for a minute, to see what it feels like. Maybe I was jealous I didn’t have a red stone for myself, I’m not sure. I just know that sometimes, I reckon I’d do anything to stop the madness inside the house. I dream of splitting it in two, me half and Maw Sue the other half, that way we’d both be soothed in the mind, in spirit. My mind was a travesty.
She rushed to the table and lit a cigarette. “Sit down Willodean” she said blowing out a thick fog of smoke. I saw shadows and creepy things. “It’s time we had a talk.” Her voice was mysterious, dark and made me want to run. I wanted to know—but now that I was fixing to know—I didn’t want to know.
I sat down across from her. She looked at me hard and long, which made it worse, because I thought she might have changed her mind, because she cut away, then got up from her chair, stood still a second, then sat back down. I could barely breathe with anticipation and anxiety.
“Since you were born I have tried to help you find your way in this life. God knows, our family is loaded down with unhealthy traits, both genetic and self-afflicted and not to mention, all the crap the world puts on us. Unfortunately, our family inherited the gift, the one I have told you about since you were born, the gift that comes with attachments, the curse. Yes, it’s an oxymoron statement, like gift and curse and how can they both be one and the same, all that. I understand the confusion, believe me, I do. Not everyone has it—and everyone handles it differently if they do. In fact, some cannot handle it. I did not do my part well Willodean. I made some bad mistakes. I did not do what was required of me. But that is why I have labored so hard to teach you differently, so you will do what I could not. I made a promise that I would be here for you, regardless. My mother had the gift, her father had the gift, Aunt Raven had…” she stopped, hesitated. “Well, let’s just say there are others that have different gifts—anyway, they were like us. Gifted and cursed, that’s all you need to know right now.” She sighed. Her eyes were terribly red and leaked.
“The mind can be a terrible place, especially ours. My mother, God rest her soul, did not have the opportunity to teach me all she could about the gift, how to channel it correctly, how to be a Pugnator and fight the darkness when it came.”
Pugnator? I’ve heard that before. Where have I heard that? Maw Sue was fighting back tears, her expression erasing a thousand bitter memories she didn’t or couldn’t relive. I gasped suddenly. Ms. Blanche, the beauty shop, pugnators. I remembered but Maw Sue was still talking.
“My mother died way too early for me to absorb everything about the gift and because of it—the curse just seemed to overtake me and then, well …life just happened. One thing after another. I felt suffocated with things, bills, responsibilities, people and crying babies, dead husbands and my mind, it just cracked.”
“What’s a Pugnator?” I said not having a filter. I was so caught up, all I could see was the Dresden inside the beauty shop and the fear that wrapped me up in not knowing what was happening and then Ms. Blanche, her words…
“I haven’t told you about a Pugnator?” She said nodding her head. “Well God forbid I am falling down on my job.”
“No. You didn't tell me, Ms. Blanche did. She told me way back—.”
“Blanche?” Maw Sue was startled and leaned across the table. “Persimmons Blanche? Big black woman?”
“Yeah” I said confused. “She works…”
“Well, Lord be.” Maw Sue cut me off and glared. “She told you about a Pugnator?”
“Uhh, yeah, I was….” I said trying to remember. “I mean, kinda. Not really. I mean, I was seeing those Dresden’s for the first time and she told me I had the gift and that I could fight them, that I was a pugnator. I meant to tell you but it was the first time and I was scared and had all the other cursed stuff in my head to deal with. I just put it away ‘cause I didn’t want to remember. I just wanted everything to go away. All of it.”
“I ain't believing that 'a tall, she told me...” Maw Sue’s voice cut off. She crossed her arms. “Persimmons and I grew up together.” She adjusted her glasses. Her expression told me she was holding something back. “Lord, she knows a lot about me, too much, I reckon. And yes, Willodean, we share common…gifts and other things.”
“She’s nice. I really like her.” I smiled.
“Well, that’s good.” She said with a smirk. “She is nice. Does she know who you are?” Her eyebrow raised in wait.
“I don’t know? Maybe, maybe not.”
“Well, next time you see her—tell her who you are. That ought to get her goat.” Maw Sue chuckled to herself. “Persimmons Blanche, my, my, my. How the world turns.”
“But what is a Pugnator—I still don’t know, I mean, she said a fighter, or something but what does that mean, really?”
“Oh. Yes, well, she’s right.” Maw Sue said leaning over the table in a storytelling mode. “A Pugnator is a Cupitor that fights with every ounce of being they have, courage overriding the fear in their bones, and they are overcomers, avenging the Amodgians and their evil conniving ways. You see, not all Cupitors have the Pugnator gene. It's rare, but possible. I don’t have it, that’s for sure. I could never fight them. In fact, the bedroom …” she paused and her lips rolled under as if she wasn’t sure what to say. The stirrings, sights and sounds whirred, clicked and rummaged inside my head, inside the house, inside me, as if the exact replica had built itself a haven in me. It was to remind me of my fate, my destiny, my namesake and it scared me to death.
“Pugnators are from the ancient texts of our appointed family. They were written by a sage long, long ago. I used to listen to my mother tell me how brave, how strong and courageous they were to stand and fight the terrible interceptors of the mind for that is where the battle always starts, in the mind. I don’t remember the stories exactly, it’s all in the books somewhere. I’ve forgotten most of them.”
“But I want to hear them.” I said filled with excitement. I loved new stories, especially when they were about my ancestors.
“Calm down child, I have all the stories, somewhere—.”
“You do?” I whined. "Where?" I wanted to start looking now. Get answers. Get soothing. Get healed. Whole. Seven.
“Somewhere—I can’t promise I’ll find them right away, I’ll have to look. I'm tired here lately, give me some time. When I find them, I’ll give them to you, how about that? You can read and read. There is enough words to keep you reading a lifetime, that’s for sure.”
“Awesome. I need all the help I can get.”
“Don’t we all.” She said nodding her head and rubbing the stone.
“Is it like the poem Seven?” I hoped for hope. Happy endings. The end better than the beginning.
“Yes. Maybe so, Willodean. No matter how my story ends, Willodean, I want your story to end like that poem. Touch the fingers Willodean…fill the gap. And you know what, now that I think about it, maybe some of us get closer to seven, in a different way than others, contributing to our generation in the only way we know how and maybe we won’t know it until long, long after we're gone. I don’t know, but that’s what I’d like to think, anyway. You know?” The gaze of her pupils were glass. Gray and hopeful horizons. “Maybe by helping others get to seven—we are made whole as well.” I saw a flicker of hope return to her eyes.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded caught up in the spell of something untouchable.
“Willodean, remember this.” S
he looked me straight in the eyes, focused, line to line. “As you get older, your gift will increase. But remember when anything grows, increases, matures, expands and all that—you can expect to struggle. The enemy will return to stop you and he will grow stronger as you grow stronger. Expect suffering because the enemy sees you as a threat. The life of a Cupitor is a journey of constant struggle but it is rewarding as well. Every time you break a chain and grow, despite the obstacles—it allows others to do the same. Since we were given the gift of eyes to see and ears to hear—the only way the enemy can get to us is through our minds. That is where he attacks us the most. It starts in the mind, Willodean. The mind. It is attached to the very core of our being, our heart. Our deepest commitments to God and ourselves, lie dormant in our hearts waiting to bloom like seeds planted in rich soil. The mind is the nurturing center of the body, and whatever comes through it, affects it as a whole, understand? But here’s the thing. You cannot fight spiritual with fleshly weapons. You must use your gifts.”
“Uhh...huh” I said lying. I had no idea what she was talking about. I knew exactly how MY mind worked. CHAOS. One hundred percent. Maw Sue was in full storytelling mission mode and I was glad but I didn't know how long it would last, so even if I didn't understand, I listened anyway.
“The Amodgians know full well anything that goes in the mind has to be mixed with faith to count for anything because without it—nothing grows, nothing moves forward, nothing changes. Change is struggle, change is doing the hard stuff when everything else seems easier. Change is taking the hard road when everyone else is strutting down easy street. With faith comes hope and with hope comes change and with change comes freedom and with freedom comes life. Real life—the life that the God of Abraham promised.”
Then she stopped. Her lips quivered, she gripped them tight, rolling them inward and out. Her eyes welled up with big puddles of water and the whites of her pupils went red and streaked.
No. No. Don’t do it. I always lost it when adults cried. Their broke—always, always broke me.
“I ttttried.” She wailed and blubbered in great wracking sobs. “I really did. I grew up way to fast—.” She took a deep breath. Wave after wave of emotion racked her. “God. I was so young—too young—and it all happened so fast, so fast—I lost my way…” She stomped her feet on the floor and beat her knees. She pushed the chair back and went into a child tantrum. It was painful to watch. I had never seen her like this. All I could think about was the bedroom, the madness that existed there, the enemies waiting…waiting for both of us. If I indeed, had the pugnator gift, I should have helped her, saved her, but I couldn’t even think straight. A hot mess of tears leaked from my swollen eyes, running down my neck and past my t-shirt into my belly button. I think Maw Sue forgot I was there. That seems to happen to me a lot now days.
“All the stories mamma told me—and the curse, the legends, all of it—ughhhh.” She wailed again. Her head shook side to side like a dog shedding water from its coat. Her arms flayed in the air. “And—and all those people before me, those people I didn’t know, I read about their madness, their curse—agghhh.” She snarled and gritted her teeth. “It was hard to read that shit. Jesus—I had enough problems of my own. And then you leave me mamma! You leave me!”
Oh no. She’s not even talking to me anymore. She’s talking to her mama. In between the gulfs of madness and the low hum of the refrigerator, I heard a whisper barely audible, but inside my gifted, cursed ears—it was a deafening scream in the room and inside the house, inside me.
“I want it to end—stop—just take me home.” Maw Sue cries. “Come get me mamma. Come get meeee.” She buried her head in her lap. She pounded the table with her fist, held up and lost in some other place, some other time. I felt tangled up with her, knowing, understanding, wanting it to end and then, as if it never happened, she raised up. She wiped her face, sniffled a few times and composed herself in a flat second. Denial in its truest form. It was snappy—clouds and rainbows, sunshine and rain—all at the same time.
She turned in my direction but she didn’t look me in the eye—she looked past me, right through me. “I remember when I was your age. I was so lost. Are you lost Willodean?” I saw myself in the reflection of her gray eyes and I could barely speak, my mind tossing, turning, seeing shadows and Dresdens and scary things. And that’s when the consummation of all that existed hedged on my answer. I’d always been lost—since the beginning, for as long as my brain will let me remember. I wanted to scream, “YES! YES!” but I didn’t get the chance.
“We are all lost in our own mortal way, searching, seeking something better, something to fill us up.” She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. “And while you’re lost the enemy will hit you—slam you in your weakest points and you won’t even know it until it’s too late. It takes backbone to get back up and let me tell you this much and you hear me good...” Her voice went deep and dark. Her eyes met mine, hot swords slicing fear. Goose bumps rose up on my skin and the hair on my neck stood at attention. “The devil attacks the mind first. That’s those Amodgians shadows I’ve told you about. If you can live your life despite them—you will do good. You’ll be okay. Most of us live our entire lives trying to avoid the thorns, pluck them off, and get rid of them— when all along they were given to us to endure. To make us lean on something other than ourselves. When we do that—it’s like looking at a rose for the first time. It’s not the thorns you see—it’s the bloom of the rose petals. The beauty beyond the thorns.” Her eyes flickered intensely. Inside them I see the petal people, platoons of soldiers, generations of Cupitors, strong and resilient. I thought of her morbid death ritual, the one she repeated ever since Aunt Raven died, collecting long stem roses, corpse memory of someone long dead.
“Willodean, when you were born, I knew there was hope. Only then did I see rose petals instead of the thorns. Do you understand? Maybe my life was a lesson to keep you from making the same mistakes I did. I vowed when you were born to create in you what I couldn’t do for myself. Maybe some of us fail—so that others learn and accomplish what we couldn’t.”
She looked me up and down, smiling while she rubbed that red stone, hot and heated as if it was sending off sparks. “I mean, at least I hope that’s what it is. And another thing—you shouldn’t have went into my bedroom that day.” She grabbed her wrist to hide the scars I knew were there. She made it a habit to wear long sleeves even in summer to keep others from seeing her thorns. She could not fool me. The chair shrieked and before I knew it Maw Sue was at my knees, grabbing me by the arms and shaking me.
“Willodean. Don’t ever, ever lose the heart of who you are, right now. Right now.” Her voice was dominant and loud. “Cupitors keep their childlike heart even as they age. You are innocent and the heart you have now is the heart you want to keep forever. Don’t let life and the burdens kill the childlike heart. Don’t do it. Don’t do it…” Her voice faded into a desperate plea. I felt the pain of her scarred wrists against my skin, binding its madness with my own. It stirred up the house inside me, the room of death bucked and lusted and called out my name. I fell in and out of time, in dark places.
“Willodean.” Her voice snapped me back to the room and her grip was hard. “I have always told you the truth about life and the horrible things that can happen. I tell you because I want you to know that you are stronger. Stronger than me, stronger than you know. You can learn to channel the curses like the old sages did, how they used their gifts for good, despite what the enemy, those horrible shadows tried to do to destroy it. Heart. They held onto their heart.” She reached out and touched my chest like she was pushing buttons on an elevator. “It’s right there. Believe in yourself, use your gifts and use them wisely. Never lose your heart. Never…” She latched onto my neck and pulled me to her chest and cradled me like baby. I felt the heat of the red necklace singe my skin like a branding iron. It soothed me in a strange, punishing sort of way.
“Unless they become as littl
e children. They shall not see the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is in you. Heart…don’t lose heart.” My head spun. I heard her whispers and her hands gently patting my back. The Dumas of Umbra went into a frenzy. It’s was like a spot light surged through it, exposing all the darkness while the sin and secrets fled into the shadows that held them.
I was the one crying now. Great sobs with snot pouring from my nose. Weeping, gasping, furiously uncontrollable cries. Maw Sue held me and spoke a whisper of babble that sounded like another language but I was too lost in her hug to care, her arms rocked and wrapped themselves around the hurt, and I folded up inside them like a baby chick under a wing. The power behind those arms simply understood my aches and that was all that mattered. “I—I don’t want the shadows to take you Maw Sue.” Visions of the bedroom emerged.
“Child…child.” She reached out, grabbed my chin and raised it up with her feeble fingers. “Don’t you worry about me—I’m a grown ass woman.” She giggled and it made me half-laugh and half-cry. And then I felt it. Did she feel it too? The entanglement, as if our pain and turmoil was a twin standing next to us, mirroring off of each other, unable to separate our emotions.
“I’m gonna be fine.” She said winking. The stone leaped at me with bloody, cruel liquid fingers. In my mind, it showed me things I didn’t want to see. I wondered how Maw Sue found such a thing so calming when all it did was provoke me to fear and horrible images. Maw Sue was optimistic in words but her glance said what she didn’t have the guts to say. The stone said it for her. The presence of the enemy was here, strongly felt by both of us. He was watching and waiting for an opportunity to strike.
“Whew. That was intense.” Maw Sue got up from her kneeling position. Her body popping and cracking. “I need a nap. Oww…cramp…cramp.” She held her calf and hobbled across the room. She stopped halfway. “Hey.” She said looking back in pain. “Didn’t this conversation start out about shit?” We both fell out laughing.
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