WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (57 page)

“Have no fear, the liberator is here.” I said. He was in bad shape and I feared it may be too late. I squinted to get a clear view but th
e sun pierced my vision in a blinded whiteness. 
“We will help you on your journey.” I wipe my eyes and reach down to pick it up and my shoulders overshadow the pavement and I saw the imposter for who he was. I gasped at the atrocity before me. A jagged piece of paper hung limp off the flat side of the 
not—a—turtle
 
shell,
 and on it was a picture of the Jolly Green Giant. Jesus Christ, I had just liberated a can of green beans. 
I was mortified.
 My reputation would be ruined.
No, maybe not. I had to think this out. 
It was an easy mistake to make. It
did
look by all accounts to be a turtle from a distance, and Mag spotted it first. It was her fault, not mine.
I could not believe it. 
The can was crushed, rusted and ran over so many times, it had formed a tortoise shell shape so
tarnished it looked like a turtle shell. 
“Impersonator.” I said gritting my teeth.

“Caarrrrrrrrr!” Mag’s yell stabs my ears. It was followed by loud, insistent horn blowing. When we started this club, we appointed dad as our backup man. Some
times, he exceeds his authority, like today. 
Beep-beep-beeep—beep-beep-beep.
 I dropped the imposter
like hot coals and run. 
An old pick up whizzed by a few seconds after I made it safely across.

“Is he dead.” Mag said following close behind me. I didn’t know what to say. I climbed in the front seat and slammed the door. Mag got in and lurched over the seat waiting on answers. She had the same look she gets when a death occurs in the animal kingdom. Altogether, we’ve only lost one turtle in five years and it devastated her to know end.
I wasn’t sure she could handle another.  Dad started up
MISS and sped off. Mag stared a hole in me.
I could tell a lie.
Save myself a lot of embarrassment. Save all of us from Mag’s dramatic waterworks. If she ever started crying—you’d be h
ard pressed to get her to stop and I know she has a few welling up right now. 
I could let her cry and save face, keep my reputation as a liberator in tack. 
I could do that, right?
Mag's cheeks shook and her lips trembled.
I couldn’t take it.  I caved. 

“It’s not dead.” I said. Dang democracy makes a girl too honest for her own good. “It’s a can of green beans, okay?
There.
” I shoved my back against the seat.  “
Now you know. So shut up.”

Dad let off the gas and slowed. He looked at me as if he was trying to comprehend what I said. “A can of GREEN BEANS!” He said smirking. MISS puttered in Lena speed and the inside of the ca
r was silent. 
The car exploded into laughter, bust a gut, roaring, belly hurting laughter.

“Was it snap beans?” Dad said. His face was giggle red. Giggle red is when you’ve laughed so hard your stomach hurts and your skin turns color. Dad
used to turn us giggle red when he tickles us. 

“The jolly green giant thanks you Willodean.” Mag sai
d joining in the fun.  S
he was a little bit overly dramatic for my taste, rolling around in the back seat like an idiot. I was suspicious she knew all along. You just never know about Mag.

“Ho-ho-ho!” Dad said thumping me on the arm. Before it was over, we were all giggle red. Dad spun off in Miss and
the rest of the way, we poked fun at the imposter. 
On the ride back, dad was relaxed, smoking one after another. My thighs were icy from the cold orange crush between them. Mag guzzled on a Nehi grape and we each of us had two packs of 
Now—or—Laters
and a stash of tootsie rolls. From the speakers, Conway Twitty sang 
Linda on my Mind
 and the world was good. Dad suddenly slowed down to Le
na speed and lowered the volume on the radio. 
We were near my humiliation point.
I felt my eyes roll.  I would never leave this down. 
Dad never drives at a slow pace
but Miss was at a crawl.  “Hey girls.” He said pointing out the window, a
cigarette rolled between his fingers. “It’s a turtle.”

“Ho-ho-ho, green giant!” Mag said. She leaned forward to make sure I heard her.

“Hahaha…real funny. You’re the one who saw it first Mag.” She gave me a careless look and shoved a tootsie roll in her mouth. Dad turned the radio back up, floored it and we left the imposter in smoke and burnt rubber. To this day, I refuse to eat green beans and literally hate the jolly green giant.

*** 

When we weren’t saving turtles we were on the lookout for dirt dancers. Our first encounter was
one I’d never forget. 
Maw Sue was sewing a quilt on the front porch. Mag and I were dueling it out with a grueling round of Hopscotch. I was winning and she was one hair away from the perfect storm. Suddenly, everything shifted. The atmosphere around us stilled abruptly, almost instant, the kind that makes you stop, look and listen, where all details, senses and central awareness is astute. Maw Sue stopped sewing. We glanced at her for answers. She stood unmo
ved.  W
e followed her eyes and saw it swooping up the ditch towards us. It dipped, dived and spun. It licked the ground snatching up dirt in its twirling vortex of turbo charged wind. Leaves, twigs, and dust debris swirled in its grip. Sand sifted between the leaves, crispy and crunchy. It was
wind sweeping beautiful, a dance of nature, unseen before. 

“Eyes to see, ears to hear, girls.” Maw Sue said. “Let me introduce you. This is a dirt dancer. A divine invitation to dance. A reminder that we are not alone in this world. You see...you hear…”

Oh, we did see...we did hear.
 We were fascinated and held captive by this twirling wonder in front of us.

“They don’t come round much. Most people don’t even see them; too busy, ears are plugged up, eyes dull, sleepers. But girls, know this. If you’re eyes are blessed enough to recognize them—then there is a message.
Indeed. 
They are trying to tell you something.” Maw Sue went soft, wet with emotion as if she was caught up somewhere else altogether. “Most people call them dirt devils, or a leaf tornado but seekers, we know them as Dirt dancers. The old legend is that God created them when he put wind into existence and they show up anywhere, anytime but always for a message. It’s to remind us of the simple things, to slow down, be still, to look, listen, accept the divine and to dance with him.”

I stood in bare feet while my gift went on overload, maximum capacity. I could see the dirt dancer in the realm I am in, yet he is inside his own realm, protected, safe, of this world and not of this world. It was incredible and overwhelming. My skin trickled
like being brushed with soft sand winds.  I
t was otherworldly, yet in my vision,
and supernatural, yet visible in nature. 
I simply wanted to run, not able to contain what I was seeing, or if it was a dream of sorts. It was like standing close to a raging majesty waterfall, the sounds drowning out all others.

“Don’t be a stick in the mud. Introduce yourself Willodean, Maggie.”

“Uhhh, okay.” I said not sure what to do.
How does one introduce oneself to a dirt dancer?
Surely, not like Mag, who was running around, flaying herself up into the air like an imbecile.

“Just be ladylike. Bow and enjoy the dance.” Maw Sue said as if she’d been doing it all her life, a casual daily affair of dancing with dirt, energy of nature, divine
spirits. My breath was steady, my heart beat in my throat. 
It didn't seem real, what I saw, what I felt. But I raised my hand and gave a courtesy. The invisible spinning vortex of leaves, twigs and nature came to life before my vision. His appearance magnified as if someone drew him in thin air with chalked hands, a smoky, almost not there apparition. His wind figure of turbulenc
e roared, pulling me in to him romantically. 
His hand reached out for mine, smoky, translucent, almost as if it wasn’t there at all, as if shaking
the hand of a cloud. 
He was wind and power. Spirit and Secrets. Untamed and unbound. Divine.
 He was formed from the wild energy of the unseen anatomy of wind and caught up with his spinning vortex figure was a mixture of debris; leaves of all colors, sand, clay, soil, sticks and twigs, clothing made from nature. His face was the shape of a beautiful man, his gray clay skin, see through, enchanting like crushed boulders into fine sand, then wet with rain and left to glisten in the sunset, permanent, never fading. His blue eyes were earth’s deepest sapphires and when I gazed into them—two flames set me on fire as my gut heated up like an oven. I realized my own poverty in his brilliance, his power, his unbound breath not tethered to anything in this world. I felt dirty, and unworthy of his presence, not good enough.
I am not enough.
  I
looked down at my God awful patchwork shorts. 
Jesus—God—and Bethlehem
. I’m not dressed for a ball. I can’t dance in this pathetic outfit.
A girl needs a bell gown to dance, right? That’s in all the movies, all the storybooks. I don’t have a dress.
I can’t dance.  I wished to be like Scarlet O’
hara in Gone with the Wind and jerk down a curtain and make a dress.
My panic button is pushed. I want to run. I am not pr
epared to dance with the divine so I am bashful, embarrassed. 
Immediately a rush of smoke billows in front of me followed by sounds of darkness, boulders falling down
mountains, plundering rainfall, watered mist. 

“You have a beautiful dress, my lady.” The dirt dancer says. His voice was sun and moon. Light and dark. Stars and clouds. Void and fullness. Form and firmament. I gasped with the raw, real beauty of
him, of everything I saw, felt. 

“You must see yourself as the divine sees you—as you see me, in the realm beyond your own vision.” He said in my spirit as I listened understanding and not understanding, trapped by the intent of his words but seemingly unworthy of them. My heart was pressed, overwhelmed. “Faith sees the unseen. Seekers live in the moment, embracing each second without worries of the next second. Now, my lady, will you honor me with the dance?” He bowed and curtsied. The earth shook or maybe it was
my skin trembling. 

“Take my hand and take your place, madam.” His voice turned to a thousand crushing leaves while I was swept up in a gentle storm of light,
dark turbulence, clouds crisp and smoky. 
Take my place?
 His language met mine own soul’s language, as if he knew me, the real me, all of me, whimsical and deep thinker, light and dark, crazy and sane. I felt a hot tear spill down my cheek. 
Take my place. Take my place.
 

As a seeker, my vision altered. I saw the centerpiece, my candy lid as a crown, the rows of stars and moons glistening like a halo. I felt lovely, dignified, and royal. The dirt dancer’s cyclonic power pulled me into him all at once until his world unified with mine, one mind, spirit and soul, an embodiment of divine love. I
was meshed within him, within love, within spirit. 
Nothing else existed but us. 
I saw myself in his blue sapphire eyes. 
It was self satisfying,
a raw nakedness. 
I saw my
self as I was meant to be seen and it was okay.  I was not panicked or scared. 
I cared not if the whole world saw. I was unashamed, unafraid, and unaffected by the world around me
. I was one with the divine.
 I was no longer in patchwork or a stretchy t-shirt, no dirty bare feet.
Not at all.  I had a beautiful, one of a kind, unique as a fingerprint dress. 

The fabric of my dress was unexplainable, otherworldly as if all the threading was plucked from the Garden of Eden before the fall, pristine and pure. My toes are surrounded with plush silk slippers made from intense bluebonnet petals. My bodice is a tight Victorian corset and showcases hundreds of tree leaves, golden, orange, brown and red, all weaved together with tangled wisteria vines. Sprinkled on top is a several specimens of rich soil like cinnamon dust with iridescent browns to the sugar pearls of sandy beaches. The sleeves are separated at the shoulders and dotted with elaborate roses of every color imaginable. Holding the sleeves on the dress is an assortment of honeysuckle vines interlacing the ties, and sprouting up from underneath is baby breath and a dusting of vibrant yellow pollen which sparkles as if it had been absorbing the sun. My neckline is, …well, let’s just say that Lena Hart would flip her beehive wig if she seen my breasts pushed up in such a perky fashion. My full skirt billows out like an overstuffed cupcake with one bite out of the front, open to my knees and shows off my tree moss tights. Circling the skirt is feathers from various Texas birds. I felt beautiful, for the first time, 
ever.