Out of the Mind Of . . . A Fantasy and Paranormal Anthology

by Barbara Combs Williams

  There was a small closet in one wall, but it was full of daddy's shotguns and rifles, winter coats, shoes, extra quilts and sheets and anything else that didn't fit anywhere else.

  I continued my hesitant creep silently over to my hiding place, my drawer in the wardrobe, and fished out a small flashlight and the hand mirror.

  What was that noise? It almost made me squeal out loud. I realized it was our dog Big Boy, sniffing and scratching around outside the window.

  Please Big Boy, don't start barking at something, I don't need you to get in on the act, I silently prayed. I didn't want anyone to wake up and see me being so silly. I heard a few soft sighs and bedcovers rustling, but not much more happened.

  I had everything in place, hand mirror up, flashlight positioned just like I practiced, but then I suddenly pictured seeing my once-time boyfriend, Jimmy Johnson in the reflection. He was someone I didn't want to see. We had ended our so-called relationship on a very sour note. So, I hesitated . . . what a chicken.

  I didn't know if I felt more stupid for being up at midnight on Halloween or possibly turning tail at the last moment. I just knew if I saw Jimmy, I probably would holler like a fool.

  Even though I was trying my hardest to be quiet, my little sister Melinda, we called her Lin, woke up anyway and groggily asked, "What you doing Angel?"

  It always annoyed me when anyone other than my mama called me Angel. It always made me feel special when my mama called me that. I felt like it made up for so much in my life that was just . . . typical. I am Angela to everyone else.

  I hushed her up quickly and said, "trying to go the bathroom, go back to sleep."

  Lin always stuck to my side like glue. We were the youngest two at home, even though I was six years older than she was. I guess I was like a second mama to her, what with playing with her and sharing the same bed.

  I could see her outline sitting up in bed, trying hard to see what I was doing. I quickly put the small mirror and flashlight back in my drawer and crawled back into bed. Lin snuggled up against me and like the Walton family on TV, said, "Good night, Angel."

  "Hush" I said, "be quiet and go to sleep with your nosey self before I tell mama on you."

  I lay in bed after that for what seemed like hours, but probably only about ten minutes before I finally went to sleep. Old Big Boy decided that he did feel like barking at something and started in.

  I wanted to yell out loud myself. I felt like a fool for staying up all night long. I was confused and frightened and not exactly sure why. In my agitated state I ended up sleeping on my stomach. That was the first night I had ‘the dream.’

  THE SUMMER OF 1976 had seen so many witches riding my back I felt I had a permanent dent there. Somewhere in the ‘in-between hours’ before dawn, I would have terrible dreams, actually looking back on it now, I had night terrors.

  Were the night terrors really a big fat warty nosed witch with a pointy black hat and flowing dress riding my back, or something else? Was it something deeper in me, something that I was missing?

  It always felt like someone was suffocating me and not just because Lin was stuck to my side like we were Siamese twins.

  Too often I felt like I was awake and not asleep when these dreams occurred. The colors were so vivid, the sounds so crisp and clear, and the people I encountered so real I thought I had been transported into some other place and time.

  I often awoke sweaty and scared, heart pounding, breath quick. Once I woke up standing in front of the wardrobe mirror reaching out to something or someone. I saw a dim reflection of my face, scrutinizing my face. Was that something over my shoulder or just too much blackberry pie late in the evening?

  I had what I called "The Dream" . . . a giant chasm stretches out below me, but it's filled with beautiful colors of violet and rose, indigo, tawny gold, and deep dark chocolate.

  A menacing sky was overhead, swirling with murky and dangerous looking clouds. I would find myself standing on the edge of the cliff ready to fall or jump off, I didn't know which. I also didn't know into what, but the sense of foreboding was overwhelming. At the same time I wanted to go there, I wanted to be part of the scene going on below.

  I could see something going on far below. I couldn't tell if it were people or animals I saw, but something was moving around down there. I would stand there in the howling wind, but I could clearly hear a voice calling me over the wind. The voice was at once pleading, but also demanding. It seemed to want me to turn back or did it want me to move forward. But, even though I was afraid of what was off the edge, I wanted to step off.

  I turned away from the voice which seemed to come from behind me. I put one foot out, toes jutting over the edge and balanced myself there for what seemed like hours. I had on some sort of pale blue top but there didn't seem to be a bottom. I found myself tugging at the top, trying to pull it down to cover myself more.

  I wasn't naked, but I felt uncovered, unprotected, missing something too important to overlook. Just as my indecision grew overlong, I stumbled forward and the choice was made for me.

  I started to scream, but no sound came out, in fact all sound ceased as if I was in a giant vacuum. I felt the air buffet me but instead of falling, I was floating for a moment, then suddenly I started to fall. I was falling so rapidly and so out of control that I knew if I hit the sides or bottom of the chasm I would not survive.

  I awoke sweating and scared, I felt a heavy weight on my back, cutting off my breath. Lin had thrown one leg and an arm over me.

  Mama told us if you die in a dream you die for real, how did she know? Was I going to die?

  LIN SNUGGLED UP SO close to me in the bed, I could hardly breathe and certainly not sleep. It was the middle of August and of course way too hot and muggy.

  All I could think of as I lay beside her and listened to the night sounds of my other two sisters' regular breathing, was this summer is a turning point.

  I am going off to the big city of Atlanta in September to college. I am leaving this small country backwoods town behind me. I will meet interesting new people, get from under the stifling hand of my mother and father and be "grown."

  I wanted to re-invent myself into someone other than a small town country girl. I wanted to be somebody else. I didn't want to take anything of my old life with me, how childish I was in my thinking, but that's how you feel when you're seventeen.

  I was raised on a little farm in Pineville Georgia. I and my sisters shared a small five room farmhouse with mama and daddy. My daddy had inherited the fifty acres from his father back in the 50s and even built the house we lived in himself.

  My two older sisters Elmira (Mira) and Martha Ann had already gone off to a little college in south Georgia. Mira had one more semester to go and would graduate in December. Martha Ann was at the same college, but they acted like they never saw each other while they were there.

  I always thought this information, that Mira was her sister, was something Martha Ann didn't want her classmates to know. I didn't know for sure who was embarrassed by whom, but I had my guess. They were both home for summer break.

  We were all two years apart in birth, except Lin. My daddy always said I was his baby and it took me years and some maturity to understand that the six year difference in age between me and Lin was something that was quite accidental.

  Daddy was a farmer by choice in the daytime, but he also worked at the aluminum mill on the graveyard shift.

  Mama, who was ten years younger than daddy, worked in a small textile factory that made women and girls clothes.

  They had married when mama was twenty and daddy was thirty. Daddy would laugh and say, "When I first saw that tall yella gal I knew I was gonna marry her, even though she weren't but fifteen at the time."

  Daddy had served in the Air force and come back home to marry mama when she was old enough. I often thought, boy, he must have wanted to marry her pretty badly to wait so long – something like five years . . . and her likewise. That must have been some k
ind of love or there must have been even fewer people you could marry back then who weren't related to you.

  We lived way out in the woods down a gravel and dirt road. Our nearest neighbor was a mile away. We didn't have other kids to play with except at school. We had to be best friends with each other or sometimes our numerous cousins when we got a chance.

  Being good country girls we all learned how to sew from the home-ed classes at school and our mama at home. Mama was and is an excellent seamstress and quilt maker. We had an old Singer sewing machine that folded down under the top and left you with a desk on top. When we weren't sewing, we used the sewing machine as a desk to study on. Yes, it was crowded into that small bedroom as well.

  As a little girl, I would wander in the woods for hours, just walking around pretending to be a character out of some book I had read. My favorite spot was down in the pasture where the old mule used to graze . . . back up in the pine trees a way.

  There was a clearing where a tree had fallen over and left an old stump. I would sit down on that stump and talk out loud.

  I loved to be the misunderstood heroine who saves the day. I secretly thought of myself that way. Of course, I had special powers. I would show up in the end, after everyone had doubted me and save all my so-called friends and family. I would never tell anyone how I knew but would just let them wonder how I did it. What a gift from God!

  My daddy said I had the gift of sight. He told me over and over how I would be able to see the future. Like yeah, right!

  I remember getting plenty of whippings for being in the woods too long and not gathering eggs or washing dishes or whatever it was I was supposed to do instead of what I was doing. Since my imagination was so heightened, I sometimes had trouble discerning reality from my dreams or visions. Did I imagine it, dream it, or really lived it in some other time and place.

  In a lot of ways the summer of 1976 was the longest summer of my life. I couldn't wait for it to end, because I believed soon I would be living the life I read about in my books and seeing for real, things I only dreamed about.

  I would learn so many things in college. I couldn't wait to go to a real university library. I longed to meet all the new friends I would make . . . especially boyfriends. The first thing though, I had to make it to September.

  Mira and Martha Ann were home for the summer. They already had a taste of being 'grown.’ Mira was to graduate in December with a degree in education. Mama and daddy thought she was going to be a teacher. The rest of us knew better.

  Mira was the beautiful sister. She was gorgeous and she knew it. Elmira had thick reddish curly hair always styled just right, milk chocolate colored skin and a body that gave 36-24-36 pause. She was one of those girls that in high school would make all the other girls hold on tightly to their boyfriends when she walked by, because she could look at them and get them, just that quickly.

  I, on the other hand was one of those girls that people snickered about behind their hands. I always had a problem with my hair, it was thick and curly like Elmira's, but I couldn't do anything with it. It stuck up all over my head in some sort of weird parody of an afro. Other kids used to laugh and say, "Girl you need to tame that lion."

  I never felt pretty and of course was way too smart for most folks. I had graduated valedictorian in June with the top SAT scores.

  Martha Ann was pretty, in a shy sort of way. Her hair was long and black and came half way down her back when she combed it out. She usually wore it in one plait doubled up in a knot.

  Mama always said it was the Indian on her mother's side of the family that gave her that hair. Martha Ann wore glasses and had that serious, studious look about her. She was very smart and could sew some fancy clothes, so she was always dressed right on. Neither one of us was even noticed though, if Elmira was around and of course Melinda being the youngest got all the cute.

  We girls all knew Mira had no intentions of being a teacher, she was just waiting to graduate and get to Atlanta and get to all that partying going on.

  Martha Ann still had two years to go and was taking early childhood education. She actually did want to be a teacher. Martha Ann was the other type, who wanted a husband, small town and to me all that boredom that goes along with it.

  Poor Lin had a long way to go with being only eleven, but I tried to cheer her up with how I would come home on the greyhound as often as I could. She was the cutest thing with her long plaits hanging down her back. She was light skinned like mama, but small for eleven. She often reminded me of the tiny princess from a fairy tale.

  I knew deep down inside she would miss me greatly; I was the big sister who would take care of her and play with her, but I was not going to blow my chance at freedom.

  We girls had been playing around in the kitchen watching for mama to come home. It was Mira's day to cook, so she was at the big table making biscuits. Martha Ann had just finished cutting her part of the grass and had come inside to wash some of the sweat off her face. Lin and I were playing with the fish we would fry up once mama got settled.

  Daddy had gone to bed because he had to go in to his night shift job. All in all we were feeling good, because Friday's were pay days and daddy had brought ice cream and soda, and we would fry fish and have a good time.

  Mama came home that hot Friday in August as usual . . . tired and sweaty. Being as few cars came along the road by our house, we could hear a car coming from a ways off. We saw her slowly drive down the graveled driveway in the Chevrolet Impala.

  Big Boy jumped up from his usual spot under the shade tree and ran circles around the car as she pulled in. She pulled into her spot beside the old Chevrolet truck that daddy drove to work. Both parking spots were in the back outside the back porch, and she came through the kitchen door smiling and asking us if we had cooked yet.

  Of course, we had everything under control. There was something about the weekend that put a smile on everyone's face, even though mama was tired, she was looking forward to Friday fish, Saturday shopping in the larger town of Lakeview and Sunday at church.

  As mama went quietly into her bedroom to put away her purse, I suddenly caught my breath. I realized I had seen this scene before and not just because this was the usual Friday thing.

  Later I found out I was having something the old folks called "second sight". At the time, I only knew that I knew what was going to happen next and went so far as to say it before mama could.

  "Martha Ann, did you finish the dress you were sewing for church? You better hurry up if you are going to wear it this Sunday. Melinda baby, what kind of ice cream did your daddy buy this time, peach or lemon?" I blurted this out before mama could.

  Mama looked at me strangely and said, "Angel, how did you know I was going to say that?"

  I stood there stupidly replaying the whole scene in my head, down to the look she was giving me. "I just did," I said. As I stood there I also clearly remembered a dream I had the night before and knew this was not going to be the usual wonderful Friday.

  In the dream, we were sitting in the living room watching Friday evening TV. In that dreamy sort of way, the phone rings. Of course, Mira jumps up to answer, expecting one of her many boyfriends.

  She was still rocking those hot pants with the bicentennial red, white and blue design from the fourth of July. Everything she wore was always too short or too tight or both. Mama was always fussing at her about her clothes and being on the phone too long and nobody else being able to get through. I supposed she was waiting to see which boyfriend would call first and take her out to the movies.

  Mira swishes over to the phone with real attitude. I was so surprised to hear her say, "Yes mam, hold on, here's mama."

  Mama goes to the phone and says, "Hello." In the dream I see tears start to roll down her cheeks, she asks, "Was anyone with her when it happened? Oh my Lord, oh my Lord."

  In the same dreamy sort of way of understanding I know it is my mother's sister that something has happened to.

  Aunt Elmira
is my mother's oldest sister. She was at least twelve years older than mama. My sister Elmira was named after her. Aunt Elmira's husband had died when I was a little girl and her children were grown and gone, as folks say, to Atlanta or their own homes in town. She lived in town by herself now, but still had plenty of neighbors to gossip with.

  She was also my favorite aunt. She had taken cake decoration classes once and made me a beautiful yellow and white frosted cake for my sixteenth birthday. She had spelled out "Happy 16th Birthday Angel" on the top in yellow icing. I let her get away with the Angel part because she was my favorite. She was the aunt we all loved to go visit, because we knew she would have mouth-watering things to eat, and we could sneak and listen to grown folks conversations about everybody else in town.

  IT WAS AROUND 6:00 pm that Friday evening and Lin, Martha Ann, Mira, Mama, and I were sitting in the living room watching TV when the phone rang. My heart started pounding and my whole body heated up. I moved closer to the fan blowing in the window, hoping for some relief from the heat and started praying as I watched Mira swish over to the phone with those red, white, and blue hot pants on.

  She had on a little bitty red t-shirt that was way too tight. All her stomach was showing between the tiny shirt and the hip hugging shorts. As usual she put on her smiley, I know you don't see me, but I am gorgeous voice when she answered the phone. "Hello .... yes mam, hold on a minute, here she is. Mama."

  "Lord," I prayed, "Please don't let my dream come true; please don't let Mira give the phone to my mother. Please, Lord, don't let my auntie die." I watched my mother's face as all my fears played out in reality. The fan could have been blowing 20 degrees for all the good it did my body. I felt so hot inside and out and knew it would be a long time before I would feel comfortable again.