WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (67 page)

“Did you love Casper?” Maw Sue said pulling us from our incubus. Time warped. A slow stream of white smoke blew out from her lips. She flicked the cigarette in her hand as it somersaulted to the ground and then she crushed it with
the oversized Sea monsters on her feet. 
What the heck kind of stupid question is that? Does she think Mag bawls like this for the heck of it?
 The urge to bop Maw Sue with t
he death shovel overwhelmed me.  K
nock some sense into the grim reaper, the detached,
unmoved, unemotional mortician that is my great grandmother. 

“Yesss.” I hiss. Then I give her a stern talking to. As much as I can get away with,
that is. “Look at her.” I said pointing to Mag.  Of course, Mag was locked up in oblivion with Casper and word cries. 
“Is that not love for a cat?”

“Well, that’s understandable. She’s hurt. But there is much you two don’t understand. 
This is not the end. 
Love looks
.” There was a long pause between what she said and what I heard as if my soul had to digest it, let it sink in, feel its way around. I saw her lips qu
iver and something plagued within her eyes. 
Her vision vaporized into the horizon with the identical look I’ve seen on Papa Hart a million times. As if they see something I can’t…
Love looks….love looks…love looks.
 The words repeated in my head. 
What does that mean?
 Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last hour and a half….
looking
? I mean, the cat practically has tire prints on his head and she still wants us to look? I was about to ask her what the hell kind of torture ceremony this was and then I was going to confess that I stole her stupid necklace and I never wanted the damn curse to begin with. I would tell her that I was going to live my life like I wanted to. 
No curse. No necklace, no Dumas of Umbra, no house of shadows shit.
NONE.
I was done, comprehend, done.  It’s m
y life. My way.

“Love looks at the good.” She said turning around.
Her eyes saw right through me as if she discerned my thoughts, word for word. 
I felt guilty. Inflamed. Sorry. She walked over, and pushed me against Mag until we touched shoulders. “Li
sten here girls.” She bent down on our level. 
“Now I want you to close your eyes and look at the good times…” she paused and looked down at the hole, “with Casper. Savor them, absorb them, and keep them with you in your heart like a movie that you can play and rewind over and over again.” She paused but this time, a shield fell betw
een us and messed up my vision like a wall of glass. 
My heart was getting squishy and ached. “Just keep your eyes closed and remember. Replay the journey of your life with your loved ones, the good, the bad, all of it and then—you’ll see a bright light.”

What? A Bright light? What is she talking about? I’ve never seen a bright light? My guilt was telling me I would never see the bright light after all I’ve done.

“
The bright light is the gaze of God’s eyes telling you it is time to let go. Let your loved ones go to the other side.”

My lips turned hot. Saliva boiled in my throat. I felt a flame suddenly light up and burn, burn, burn. I was consumed with raw power and I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move. Maw Sue had an altogether different approach to the dead than Papa Hart’s 
straight up—I will not say goodbye
 theory. To each his own, I reckon. I’m not sure what I believe, if any of it. The house inside me tends to collect the dead a
s if they don't want to be dead so I reckon I’m just a haunted house of bones and spirits. 

“You see, girls…” She put her hands on each of our shoulders. “If we are left behind, then it means we still have work to do. We are still in our season of living. So, what I’m saying girls, is love them, look at them, rewind the movie all you want but when you see the light and you will…every single time, then you simply meet the gaze of God, let it fill you with warmth and love and then 
let go
.” Heat rose up from my belly and I needed to breathe but I feared I’d s
et Maw Sue’s gray hair on fire with my heated breathe of fire. 
I held on to her every word. Somewhere in my spirit, in the deepest recesses, the words settled in to rest as if to lie in wait, reserved for another time and place. It was the strangest sensation ever.
I heard hacking and looked up. 
I thought Mag might have finally choked on her word fits but it was Maw Sue. She was wiggling her jaw and adjusting the ball of snuff in her gums. After several despicable noises, she congregated a big ‘ole hunk of it and let it rip about two feet away. 
Gross. Nasty. Uncalled for. Bad funeral conduct.

An image of Casper sitting in God’s lap licking a bowl of milk with a flattened head enters my mind
. STOP IT!
 I smack my hand against my head to dismantle the crude images until Maw Sue’s voice distracts me.

“You see girls…If you stare into death long enough, the enemy will take you out of season and you don’t want that. We are given 
life
 for a reason. Don’t be a sleeper when you are called to be a seeker. It is a choice. We
all
have a choice.” Her eyes flared to mine and in them I saw the necklace, the red dragon eye stone bea
ting a bloody drumbeat of guilt that tore me asunder. 

“Death comes to all of us but if we are in Jesus, the good book says no matter if we make our bed in hell, we will still come out with our life. And 
if we do
—we need to live it. You understand?”

Well, I understand
now
, I thought to myself. If anyone made a bed in hell,
it was me.
I was snuggled right up next to the devils master bedroom.

“I understand! I understand” I wanted to scream but couldn’t. My mind was held up on one word, 
enemy
. It provoked something dark and brooding in me that I didn’t want to admit was there. I have always known the enemy well, 
too well at times
. I fear he knows me better than I know me. After all, he is attached to my gift, the enemy of my soul who tells me strange things, who sneaks into my daydreams and night visions and follows my every move, lurking at my back, breathing down my neck, always there, always learning me, watching me, tempting me. The shadow room inside the house appears in my vision and an unsettled fear swept over me. The shadows laugh at Maw Sue’s words inside the house, inside me. Around their wispy necks, they all wear a red stone necklace bleeding out a spray of red mist. The stone is hungry and waiting. The stone, like the shadows are waiting on me. I fear
I have played into their hands by taking the necklace.  I was tricked. 
I have always felt him, the enemy, continually wanting me, hunting me, waiting for me to mess up so he can make his move on me, and do what Maw Sue said, 
take me out of season.

“Okay girls.” Maw Sue said wiping her hands together. “Wrap it up. Get on with it. Let’s do what ya gotta do. Gaze. Let go…yada—yada.”

Her voice was chip-chop.  Get this over.  But f
or Mag and I, the world spun meticulously out of orbit. We fell into a thin, hyperbolic state of being as if Heaven gently came down to meet us, to gaze into our tired, tearful eyes 
and well,
 we weren’t ready to let go—
not yet
. Maw Sue starts fidgeting with her apron, lights numerous cigarettes and paces behind us. “Remember all the fun, the laughs, the purring,” she says yawning. “And you know, all that meow cat stuff, ehhh.” She taps her mouth and yawns again.

“The scratching!” Mag blurted out. I
was completely taken back by Mag’s miraculous recovery.  S
he was out of her raise-the-dead coma.

“He was mean as a rattlesnake.” I
said joining in. 

“Yeah, to you.” Mag said laughing.
Maw Sue didn’t see any humor whatsoever, because it was holding up her nap time. 

“Come on girls.” She clapped her hands. “He’s not getting any deader.”

Mag and I looked at each other. Our sister signals converge. We gave her a southern-aristocrat-look-of-defiance that said
we-will-take-our-sweet-southern-time.

“I tell ya what. I’m gonna go inside for a while and you two stare as long as you need. Alright.” Before we could answer, we heard the screen door squeal, the bell ring out and the door slam shut. We looked at each other with question marks. Neither of us was entirely sure of this God gazing ceremony but
one thing we knew.  I
f we didn’t get to it, the flies were going to cart us all off.

“What do we do?” Mag said. She looked so discombobulated it almost made me cry. By this time, she had inched over and put her hand on my thigh.

“Okay Mag.” I
said putting my hand over hers.  “
Are you ready to go on a journey and meet God’s gaze?”
I had no idea what I was doing but I was good at lying so I just went with it. 
She pouted her lip outward. That meant a big no. “We have to Mag. Come on. Look at him.” There was a swarm of blackness on his white fur. “Maw Sue’s right.”

“Fine.” Mag snapped and rolled her eyes to heaven giving God the stink eye. I gripped her hand and squeezed. We coded signals back and forth. Sharing our pain, our grief.

“On the count of three, close your eyes. When you are finished, let me know by squeezing my hand twice, okay.”

Mag nodded her head in agreement but I could tell she
wasn’t too happy about it. 
We could be here for days if left to Mag’s agenda.

“Three, two, one.”
We both closed our eyes. 
I’m not sure about Mag’s journey but I stared very hard at Casper underneath my eyelids, inside the darkness of memories, until hot tears literally burned my cheeks. It felt like the white fire that always burnt our thighs when we got in trouble.
My whole body felt it was on fire from the inside out. 
I tried to remember all the good times, even though Mag had more of those with Casper than I did. I was just prey, attacked at random, my legs used as scratch pads, or the day he whacked me across the nose, leaving a six inch brand across my face. I went to school looking like I fought Zorro and lost. I admit there were rare times wh
en Casper and I ended up alone.  We
formed a bond based on isolation. He’d curl up in my lap and I’d fall asleep
hearing him purr. 
 
Love looks.
Maw Sue’s words drift in my head. Okay, okay. I'm looking. 
I loved. I looked. I loved that cat as much as I could love a cat, I guess and Lord knows, I’ve looked about as much as a human can look, for Pete’s sake. Overlook, I reckon.
I think Mag went into overkill, loving and looking in excess. My fingers were crushed from her hand squeezing.
I did hear her moan, cry and then a few giggles, then back to crying.  Maw Sue was right though. 

The light indeed showed up. I couldn’t believe it.
We met God’s bright gaze underneath our eyelids.  The darkness just opened up to a grand illumination of epic, sun, intense light.  To meet it with my eyes shut was such brilliance, it
left me wondering what it would be like if my eyes were open. Holy smokes, I’d be blind for sure. It was luminous, frosty white and dreamlike. Inside the bright light, I was rubbing Casper’s white fur and he was purring like a freight train. I heard the sounds of things unearthly, unexplainable and it was peaceful. Peace
like a river as everyone always says, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt.  I watched Casper trot
straight into God's lap. He was this bright light figure with no face, just illuminating energy, pulsating outward like a thousand wind gusts.
It was similar to the energy of the dirt dancer, but in maximized voltage.  It was thunder and rain mixed together. 

“Let go. His season is over. He is home now. Straight up Willodean. Straight up.”
The mixture of voice and season said. 
For a second I didn’t know if i
t was God talking or Papa Hart or a mixture of all. 
Casper meowed loudly. It was like he was telling me to back off, in our own love-hate way. And this time, Casper was perfect in every way a cat should be. He rubbed his non-flat normal head across God’s chest. I’m not sure how long I stayed in the light of the burning lamp but the next thing I know, my hand is breaking. I open my eyes and Mag's is pulling her hand away from mine.

“Owww you moron, let me go.” She gave me the ratt
lesnake look. 

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You and your ape hands.” She
said pulling away.  I should be the one griping
since my hand is practically white from her vice grip.

“Just quit your griping and go get Maw Sue.” I
said.  I
jumped
up and starting chasing flies which were in swarms. 
I looked like a bad ballerina dancer. Maw Sue came o
ut refreshed from her power nap.  But she
wasted no time in chit-chat.