THE HOUSE INSIDE ME
Page 1
Copyright © 2021 by Camelia Wheatley
All rights reserved. Cambee Press Publications, an imprint of CameliaWheatley.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
FIRST EDITION JULY 13, 2021 CAMBEE PRESS
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be please to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.
ISBN ; 978-1-7356081-3-6 Hardcover
ISBN ; 978-1-7356081-5-0 Paperback
ISBN ; 978-1-7356081-4-3 Ebook
PUBLISHED IN THE USA
The House Inside Me
A Novel
Camelia Wheatley
Contents
PART 1 - 1988
NEWS YOU CAN USE
1. The Devil In The Details
2. Adapt and thrive
3. The House Of Seven
4. Pots, Pans & Powder Pistons
5. Making beds, living lies
NEWS YOU CAN USE
6. Rose Petals and Rusty Nails
7. Black Angels & Blue Lines
8. Behind The Pine Curtain
9. Make Lovely Your Losses
NEWS YOU CAN USE
10. Room to Breathe
11. Black Angels
12. A Door Called Death
PART II - 1970’S…
NEWS YOU CAN USE
13. Seekers, Sages and Seers
14. The House Inside Me
15. Go Out Knowing
16. Maw Sue’s Birth Story 1903
17. Cassidy’s Birth Story 1963
NEWS YOU CAN USE
18. Love Looks
19. The Funeral
20. Mad Dog
21. The Sky Is Falling
PART III - 1988
22. The Great Sadness
23. The Terrible Awful
24. Sister Codes
25. Clusters and Cass
26. All Is Seven
27. Burn It Down
28. Mason Jars And Mirror Bins
29. Two Buckets, One Choice
NEWS YOU CAN USE
30. Queen of the Pine Curtain
A Special Note from the Author
Acknowledgments
DIY Immortelles Everlasting
About the Author
Other Books by Camelia Wheatley
PART 1 - 1988
CASSIDY THE ADULT
The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.
~ Leonardo da Vinci
For what we learn as children grows up with the soul and becomes united with it.
~Irenaeus Polycarp
NEWS YOU CAN USE
BY EDNA ROLLINS
JUNE 3, 1988
THE BEST NEWS THIS SIDE OF SALT FLATS RIVER
What has become known as the collard green fire is still a mystery to locals. The details are unclear, but here is what we do know. A disturbed unknown woman targeted an innocent woman’s home, by setting a rather large fire in her front yard with multiple garbage bags full of men’s attire, animal bones, deer horns and one large silver bowl of collard greens. You read that right, a bowl of collard greens. This and other aspects of the fire make this the strangest night on record that anyone in this town can remember. There were several eyewitnesses. Myrtle Holsomback lives two houses down and said it was a God-awful sight to see. She thought perhaps she was dreaming at first, but when she saw the red paint on the woman’s face lit up by the flames, as she danced around the fire, she knew it was nothing but unbiblical evil. She has called a town meeting to put an end to this foolishness before it gets out of hand. Myrtle said this is how cults form, and as a long-standing patriarch, she will not let it gain roots. Another witness, Gladys Poland, lives next door and had just arrived home from the women’s quilting club when the flames went up. She thought at first it was Halloween and she had lost track of her days or forgot to take her pills, but this was not the case. She watched the peculiar incident take place from her front porch. The woman was angry and chanting words she has never heard before. She knew she had to do something so she called the police but they wouldn’t listen to her, because there wasn’t a law against dancing around a fire. She kept saying it was different, but they wouldn’t listen. Myrtle has been a part of the neighborhood watch for thirty years and she knew a thing or two about keeping watchful eyes out for mischief. She said next time she makes a phone call to the police department, she bets a wooden nickel they will listen to her, because she was right all along.
Fred Ferguson was another witness and lives across the street. He had been raking leaves earlier that day and noticed her driving by slow and suspicious. He didn’t recognize her from the neighborhood, but it wasn’t till after dark when the same truck stopped in the drive across the street that he knew she was up to no good. According to Fred, she had long blonde hair, dark shades and red lipstick. When she got out, the utility light at the corner gave him an unobstructed view. He was startled because unlike earlier that day, she now had red streaks on her face, like she was a warrior going into battle. She was dressed in black and had a necklace hanging down her chest that looked like bones and feathers. She jumped in the back of the truck and started throwing garbage bags into the yard like a crazed banshee. Some of them busted wide open and a shirt or boot would fall out and she’d throw it so hard, it was like she was aiming at the windows. She tossed lamps, couch cushions, pillows, paintings and all sort of stuff until it was stacked up tall and wide. Fred was hypnotized as if this woman had hexed him and as strange as it was, he couldn’t look away. Afterwards, she bailed out and started stacking the bags as tall as a timber fire. She put the lamp right in the middle and sat a deer head with large antlers on top. Then she walked back to the cab of the truck and took out a gas container and something furry. Whatever it was she threw it into the fire. Fred was wide eyed and anxious as he watched her pour gas all around the bags in a circle and then threw the container in the pile, lit a match and poof, the whole pile went up in flames. That’s when she started chanting and singing all sorts of chatter. Fred said she was singing that old song, Minnie the Moocher while she danced, yipped and yelled, and held that feathery boney necklace up in the air as if she was casting spells. She danced and sang in circles around the flames, slinging her arms and legs, and her body, until she tossed her hair off. That’s right, folks. Slung her blonde wig right off her head. But that didn’t stop her. She shook out her long brown hair and went back to slinging and dancing. She danced and threw something into the fire that made it change colors. He could only imagine what it was, but swears he never seen a fire do that before. Then he said she just stopped, walked to the truck, and drove out of the driveway. Fred sighed in relief and thought this was the end of that—but no. She stopped at the mailbox, and got out of the truck carrying a large silver bowl. Fred thought to himself, what in tarnation is this girl fixing to do now? She walked to the end of the driveway and set the bowl down. She lit a match and held it in front of her face trancelike, then blew it out, dropped it in the bowl and left. Once Fred snapped out of it and called the police, he ran outside to find Gladys and a few others b
y the road. He walked straight away to that silver bowl. Do you know what he found? Collard greens and that burnt match. Fred swears it’s the strangest night he’s ever encountered in his seventy-six years of living in Pine Log.
There you have it, folks. Three witnesses to the event that has rocked this small community. We may never know what provoked this woman or shall I say, witch, to destroy a perfectly manicured lawn with bags of clothing and household goods. Word is, she even had a blood sacrifice. Everything the eye witnesses testified to seeing point to the inevitable. Before this gets out of hand, I say we join Gladys and put an end to it. A prayer chain has been started, so if you’d like to join, contact her for more information. It’s a peculiar thing, for sure, this strange fire which also spread to Mr. Bailey’s prized Begonia flowerbed next door, completely destroying it to ashes. If you would like to donate to replace them, the quilting club has set up a collection so he will not miss out on next year’s Bloom Best contest. You can talk to Sue Ann at the Holy Church of the Bride for information. As for the strange fire and bowl of collard greens, Pine Log residents may never know what provoked this woman to insanity, but one thing is for sure. Folks around these parts will not be able to eat their freshly harvested collard greens without thinking of the terrible night Pine Log almost burned to the ground. Until next time, tune into KTBR local radio news station 109.9. I’m Edna Rollins and that’s news you can use.
1
The Devil In The Details
We derive our vitality
from our store of madness.
~Emil Cioran
The receptionist clears her throat, peers over the tall counter with her beady eyes like two black-eyed peas. Her expression is part fear and part anxiety. I look away from her but I can still feel her eyes. She knows who I am, besides, everyone in town can’t stop jaw-jacking about it. You’d think townsfolk might find something else to gossip about since it’d been over six months since the fire. But no. They have to drag it out for centuries. This appointment will only add icing to the cake and by the end of the day, the whole damn town will know I’m seeing a shrink. It annoys me even more, and I still feel her burning stare. I turn slowly towards the counter. She meets my eyes as if she wants to say something.
I glance away and lean back in the chair. My eyes roll around in my head and come to rest on the lobby coffee table.
“You have got to be kidding me? Shit! Shit! Shit!” I blared out loud to myself, reaching for the eyesore that has tormented me for months on end.
“Uhh-hem…,” the bland secretary said in a prudish tone.
“Pipe down, Pearl or Penelope or whatever your name is.” I said with a whisper gripping the Pine Log Gazette in my hand like I was wringing Edna Rollins wrinkled neck. I sprang upwards on my feet and paced the floor like an uptight ostrich. This was the umpteenth copy I’d found. No matter how many I burn, the ashes seem to multiply as if this town, or maybe Edna doesn’t want anyone to forget. I wasn’t the only one to endure the gossip of this tyrant woman. But all I could do was steam in my misery.
This was day one of my mandatory psychiatric treatment and I had twelve months to go. I didn’t know if I’d make it. Would anyone mention Castle Pines, the notorious mental ward? Would I go there? The thought sent a rack of chills through me. As a child that place scared the heebie-jeebies out of me and my sister, Meg. Back then, adults didn’t talk much about it, just shrug and change the subject. Except for Edna Rollins, the notorious gossip queen of Pine Log. She sat outside the gate and watched who they carted in, she snooped around town with her busybody ears calculating the smallest of details on just about everyone. Her journalistic approach had no boundaries, no limits, no filter. I couldn’t have been more than seven when she stirred up a storm of controversy when she wrote about the crazy happenings at Castle Pines. It was all speculation, just laundry-line chat and made-up drama, but folks ate it up and by the time stories got around, they were so over-sensationalized no one could tell the truth from a lie. Edna had crossed a line and some folks around town agreed. Maw Sue got caught in the crossfire. I was just a kid, but I heard the hurtful names they called my great grandmother behind her back: crazy old bat, Mad Sue, head case, nutter, superstitious old woman, basket case, loon. I would get spitting mad when I heard it.
I do remember that much, although the rest of my memories are vague, just like the night of the fire, as if someone or something doesn’t want me to remember. The memories are like dark shadows clawing at my feet and I see them and hear them, but when I reach out to grab them, they disperse. I can see the memory’s outline, its dark dimensions, its movement, and FEEL the intense emotions it provokes, but it’s out of my grasp. If I have lost my mind, maybe this doctor can help me get it back, but if she can’t, I may end up like Maw Sue, carted off in a paddy wagon to Castle Pines. And Lord help me then. The whole town will talk and make up names, Crazy Collard Girl, Mad Cass, Coo-coo Cassidy. Everyone knows my family tree, all the way down the line to the Seventh Tribe, which is why everyone is suspicious to begin with. And all thanks to the gossip queen, Edna Rollins and her big mouth. It’s as if we descended from some cult bloodline that this town is spooked by. I can’t run from it because I’m apart of it. I just don’t remember my childhood enough to know exactly why or how to deal with it. If only Maw Sue were still alive. I could talk to her like I did when I was little, and she’d know exactly what to do. If I could just conjure up the memories, it would help me. She was the only one I could talk to as a kid. She understood me, the real me, and I understood her. Now, no-one understands me, I have no idea who I am, and I’m stuck in small-town hell.
The doctor’s office was not what I envisioned. I heard the horror stories about Castle Pines. This was different. Modern. Sleek. I was hoping the mental health field had changed considerably since the days of Maw Sue, because I lost a lot of sleep hearing about the atrocities and so-called medical experiments. Instead of white walls with no windows, or windows with bars, strange machinery or men in white coats, this office was like a therapeutic retreat, a commune for classy hippies, a modern-day Zen-den. I did catch a subtle whiff every now and then, a leftover smell, like the scent of tears, or a terrible fear, a musky smell I knew all too well. The front office had a waterfall flowing into a fish tank and classical music playing out of the speakers in the ceiling. I stared at the tank and watched the graceful fish of all sorts and sizes swim through the water, and underneath green leaves and across underwater fish cities until one particular fish caught my eye. It was far from graceful. This irratic finned fish was almost in a panic. It swam side to side, around in circles, back and forth, then darted as fast as it could to the other side of the tank, then on a whim, back again. The rest of the fish seemed unmoved by this small fishes behavior, as if they had grown accustomed to it. What’s weird, is I felt like that erratic fish. Just living in a state of pure panic, overwhelmed, trying to escape, find my way out, back and forth, over and over, here and there, and everywhere, always in a mode of adrenalin and exhaustion, yet…still swimming, and yet, getting nowhere. I sighed and looked upward. The stark white walls and pale gray borders with rock chips spilling downwards drew me into a painting hanging on the wall in the far corner.
I stood in front of this framed art mesmerized. And there it was again, this feeling of being drawn in, pulled by a magnetic force beyond myself. In the painting, I saw myself—a strange embodiment of a person I was, or used to be, or am now, I wasn’t sure. Me in the blurry brushstrokes where the colors ran together, out of proportion—chaos—messy and mad. I was stirred with emotions rising up from a deep, dark place inside me, foreign, but real. My messy life emerged inside this painting, alive and moving, describing my past with every stroke of the brush. The swirls of reddish-orange sky towered above a long bridge and a blackened body of churning water. Two shadowy figures stood conjoined at the edge of the bridge, but the tortured soul at the forefront pulled me to him. The figure stood trembling in fright, terror in his face, his body me
lting, his skin slipping into the otherworldliness behind him, above him, beneath him, an atmosphere of texture, of unseen imps and demons, the tangled environment of touch, sound and sight, elements of nature and self, the spiral of all things seen and unseen dissolving. His hands were clasped around his alien-shaped head as if his mind had imploded but no one else could see it. His mouth was open in a circle while the hell of his internal existence excavated the invisible demons from inside him. I saw the demons for what they were, because I had them too. I stood aghast as if I stared into my own tragic soul while I read the inscription below the painting.
Artist, Edvard Munch, painter of the famous and emotionally charged work, The Scream. He is said to have suffered from depression, agoraphobia, a nervous breakdown and hallucinations, one of which inspired The Scream. Mental illness also ran in his family, most notably with his sister. The Norwegian artist said of the relationship between his mental illness and his work, “My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder … my sufferings are part of myself and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art.” In one of his journals he wrote, “Illness, insanity and death were the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life.”