“A Cupitor who is naturally a seeker should be in constant searching mode. On a mission to fill that void in themselves, fill in the gap that separates them from God. You must. It is your life’s work to make a connection. When all is done and your mission complete, you will be a perfect seven, set apart and the seeker shall be made whole. Complete. A Cupitor.”
I was amazed and wanted so much to touch the space right then and there, fill up the void, and touch God’s fingers. Maw Sue had so many sidelines and stories to the Cupitor legend that it was hard to keep up with all of them. Mag rarely showed interest at all. The rest of the family thought Maw Sue was a whack job full of pills, herbal concoctions and vanilla extract.
“But what about the sleepers?” Mag said vaguely interested. She doodled on construction paper, never looking up. Every once in a while, Mag would randomly ask a question and I’d get suspicious of her intentions and give her the eye.
“Maggie, sleepers don’t know the void exists.” Maw Sue said with the saddest face I’d ever seen. “It’s up to the seekers to tell them.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility.” Mag said with a huff. If it didn’t involve money, Mag could care one iota about it. As for me, a giant just sat on my shoulders, and no matter what I did to knock him off, he wouldn’t budge. He was heavy and I felt a tremendous burden from that point on.
“Yes. It’s a lot of responsibility girls but if God made you specifically for it—then with his help you can fulfill it. Why would you want to be something that you wasn’t made to be? And remember—you are a Cupitor by blood. It’s in you to endure.”
The words spin like ghost spirits, telling me who I am, who I should be, who I could be. I’m grown now, but I feel as if I’m sitting at Maw Sue’s feet, listening to the stories, the legends, the primitive meanings left behind generations ago, passed down to me, a great responsibility to bear, a giant on my shoulders—and now look at me. I have ruined it all. I am nothing but crazy. Tragic. Here I am. Divorced, no job, no nothing. I have failed at everything. It was my fault. It was always my fault. I’d give anything to be a number seven right here and now, no question about it. I want to fill the empty void that exists between my fingers and God’s, between my heart and his, the big gaping hole in my life. Fill it. Fill all of it. You do not deserve to be seven after what you have done. You are zero. Nothing. The words haunt me, and echo off the walls inside the house, inside me, reminding me, putting me back in my rightful place. I am stirred. I am restless. I am weary. I need peace. I need calm.
The foundation of my inner core released something without my permission, set it loose to wander freely. A parade of snapping locks, swinging doors, open windows, rattling walls, and crumbling partitions ensued. A loud whisper rang out but it wasn’t my voice.
“Surrender.” It said. When I heard the words I felt like I was dying. Again, and again, and again. I wanted to run—to jump—to act out. Wildly. Dangerously. Leap from the tree limb, plunge to my death. Stop the pain. I needed refuge. I wanted my crackle shell, a house to climb inside, emerge, drift and wander freely, unhindered, unaffected. The pure sanity of a child unaffected by contaminants. I want to float on the wind untethered to earth. I want to scream out, “Catch me! Catch me! Oh great maker of the wind. Oh great gardener of the lilies. Planter of the stars. Creator of the heavens. I’m lost. So lost. Do you see me? Can you hear me? I’m here…right here. In the gap. Touch me. Touch the gap.”
I am crying wildly. Words haunt me. Cupitor’s are created to seek. If they don’t seek—they die. Spiritually their soul will wither away in darkness to join the shadows to wander aimlessly, disconnected and empty. Seekers are meant for purpose. Seek, learn, grow and progress. That’s the only road. The journey is not easy. It is a great and terrible burden with great cost. It requires giving up…sometimes people, places and things. It is different for each seeker. It requires walking roads never traveled. It is otherworldly so one, not even themselves cannot foresee the consequences or the road ahead. To advance and grow one must have a heart of complete surrender and faith. The more accepting of otherworldly things, the more you will have to let go of the earthy things. These two do not blend together. We are made carnal and we crave carnal. The spirit world craves spirit things. Carnal and spiritual do not mix. You cannot hold onto one and grasp the other. Spiritual life cannot be made from fleshly deeds. A seeker can see no other realm and hear no other words. To cross over—requires letting go.
I wanted to let go. I really, really did. The burden too heavy to carry, too impossible to fulfill, too worthy and noble for a horrible, fearful adult like me. And when I had almost given up, abandoned all thought of moving forward, I remember the poem. Before I could even think about it—before the Amodgians could snatch it from me, take what wasn’t theirs, I spoke the haunting words that would forever change my course in this life—and the one beyond.
“I surrender to thee. I let go. Fill the void between our fingertips.” My voice was soft as whisper, barely audible, a broken child—a broken adult. “Make lovely my losses.” The house inside me quivered. The bark of the willow tree bent but it did not break. Sap leaked and ran out from the wounded grain. It tasted sweet and bitter. “Birds of the air, lilies of the field and the stars of heaven. Simple be. Whole and complete. Make me seven. Send me crumbs that I may consume and make my life a beautiful bloom.”
Once the words left my lips, it was utter abandonment as if I could float away on a gust of wind. A small hand squeezed mine although I could not see it. I knew she was there, beside me in spirit, and we merged as one, to fill the gap, to think as one, to speak in unison, if only once, as if it was meant to be this way. I should have known it would not last. Change always sends the Amodgians to attack.
“You’ll regret it!” The violent voice rushes in only inches from my face. I caught the tree limb just before I fell. One after another they came. To remind me of my fate, my gift, my curse. My gifted eyes could see the full aspect of the other realm, the realm that pimpled my skin into goose bumps of terror. They know I want better for myself, my need for more, for change. For ME.
“It won’t last.” They hissed. “We know you. We all know you.” Their fowl stench blew black smut into the air, turning the tree leaves black and leaving a smutty film on my skin. It was their way of tarnishing me, reminding me, keeping me in my place. Their place. “You are breakable. You can’t handle it.” All of them speak together in unison, a dark army of one commanded to destroy me. Their voices turned into a screeching, a burning, on fire from the inside out. It was awful to hear and I feared my ears would bleed and burst. The flames trickled on my skin, hot and peeling. “You’ll never make it alone. You’ll crumble by yourself Willodean Hart. We know you.”
I sat in the heat and fire of their words. Somewhere inside the house, inside me, a room was going up in smoke, heat and flames. I knew their words were true, to an extent. I was breakable. Fragile. I hadn’t been able to cope with anything for as long as I could remember. I was broken. Damaged. I had always been this way, as far back as I could remember. It was always one thing or another, a mess in my life, occupied by some object or detail. I would start projects and never finish. I was a loner as a child, isolated and drifting like a leaf at the mercy of the wind. I tried to fit in—do what others did. School was a nightmare. Fear followed me where ever I went. I signed up for tennis, only to drop out the first day, fear. Fear of being found out, fear of someone talking about me, seeing me in the wide open space of life. I was terrified of exposure. If someone really knew me—they wouldn’t like me at all. In my mind, to be seen, to be known was a violation and everyone would hate me if they knew the real me. I tried to find a fit. I did a variety of things. I took up sewing. I made it halfway through a dress. Quit. Unfinished. Same thing for knitting, guitar lessons, singing, piano. The list is endless. I can’t find myself in anything. I exist in nothing.
No matter what, I always return to my old ways, my old habits. My safe, miserable comfo
rtable, chaotic life—inside the house, inside me. It seems to be the only fit I have. I fear it will be the only fit. Even with this thought, something unnamed stirs inside me, only noticeable now, in the stillness of everything as it is. When I could think of nothing else, Branson popped in my thoughts. It was hard to erase him although I tried. I wanted him, the familiar, yearning in my deep. I am alone. Very much alone. Alone. I still hate that word. And to top it off, my parents think I’ve lost my mind, which I have, kinda. They’ve never believed the old stories, the family secret. They don’t consider the curse as a genuine family illness. They simply thought I had an overly stimulated imagination as a child and Maw Sue didn’t help things with her wild concocted stories. Lena Hart said I’d grow out of it. So much for wishful thinking. I think she hates me, always has. Family rules. Don’t say that, don’t be like that. Stop it. Be better. Shut up. Stay quiet. Be still. Why can’t you be like everyone else? Now straighten up. Act like a lady.
I was just starting to agree with the heart critics taunts when the roof splits with the rupture of Lena’s voice.
“Willoooodean! Willodeannnn!” She squealed. Her voice was twenty shades of frantic. Lena’s voice was the only one that could compete with the eerie shadows and make my skin pinch. I nearly fell out of the tree trying to get inside the window. Her voice held various degrees of pitch, from a low teeth snarl to a glass breaking, one second away from murder shrill. As kids, Mag and I created a code book to use as a guide to her various temperaments and though my memory is vague—this code did not sound favorable. I shot through the window like a scared lizard and landed on top of the man pillow, just in time to see my mother round the corner in a southern terror.
“Jesus, Joseph and Mary!” She said out of breath. She fingered her lips in worry. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”
I was dumbfounded. What? Kill myself? I was thrown off kilter. I expected her to roll out twenty questions but certainly not this one. Sure, I’d hadn’t been the best mental patient, nor the trophy daughter. Not for the past six months, not since the divorce, not since my break down. And sure, I wished for death on a daily basis to rid myself of the pain that beckoned and burped its way out of me but in honesty—I’d never really tried to slice my wrist or anything like that—had I? Did I enter another realm and just not know it? Did I try to kill myself? Now I was worried. What had I done all those weeks laid up in the twilight?
Lena Hart doesn’t use the holy family in everyday dialect unless it’s a serious matter. Jesus loves me—this I know—about Lena Hart. Her verbiage is pure and undefiled Bible belt methodology which she assumes keeps her from spouting off profanity and committing murder. She’s used it on dad a gazillion times. Mag and I knew it well. Code 10. It’s the mother lode. It really meant Holy Shit Balls! Run for your life. Now I’m really puzzled. I need to get back in the wondering tree so I can wonder about what has gotten into Lena. Of course, I don’t know her at all. Never have, but not for lack of trying. Her overzealous scream and her comment has me concerned. The irony. Me…kill myself…now?
I wanted to yell, “Oh contraire. Quite the opposite. I want to live Lena Hart. LIVE! Now more than ever.” And then rattle off, “SEVEN!” Just to throw her off.
Since I’m lost in thought she thinks I’m ignoring her. This makes her fiddle more so. “Why—I just—.” She says in spurts, pacing about the room and glancing at me in dire straits. I’ve never seen her this dramatic and flustered. She rubs her eyebrows and presses her forehead. It’s like she’s having flashbacks, little infant terrors of my painful birth. Awww…the disappointment. The forehead press is Code 9. If I could just get her to zero I’d be in the cool. Good luck with that.
“What were you doing in the tree for God’s sakes?” She said out of nowhere. How did she know I was in the tree? I gave her an odd glance as if not to give myself up. She cupped her hand to her mouth as if waiting for horrible news. I hadn’t let them see me climb the tree—FOR THIS VERY REASON. Panic, unnecessary panic. Inside the house inside me, the internal threat meter goes off. I need a sufficient answer to satisfy Lena’s interrogation methods.
“Whaat?” I say unable to think of anything else. I can’t tell her that days ago, I climbed the tree to save a crackle clinging to a leaf, tangled inside a web of shame. I can’t tell her I made a vow when I was a child. I can’t tell her I have lost that child. I can’t tell her the tree is a safe refuge for me. She wouldn’t’ understand. She has been fixated on my declining mental capacity since I moved in, after the divorce, after the meltdown. I have no memory of those dark days afterward, I was in and out of some terrifying places, just smudges in my memory now, shadows, fears, dark clouds. I know what her problem is. She doesn’t fool me in the least. She fears I’ll be the headliner in Pine Log’s paper. You know, those read-all-about-it black fonts of shame, about some girl jumping in front of a truck or swallowed arsenic but only after holding a public confession, spilling out the family sins and secrets. That scares her the most—being found out. Who knows what she’s hiding. It’s probably the same pink elephant I tried to flush out as a kid. And then…it hits me smack in the face. Well, I’ll be damned. It’s me. I’m the families big secret. I’m the pink elephant. Sigh. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I did try to kill myself and just not know it. There IS something dark in me that would rather taste a horrific death, be done with it, than to live the tragedy of an empty, uneventful life. I’m always chasing the void, it seems, the space, the empty gap between my fingertips and Gods. Why can’t I connect—whyyyyyyyyy?
As much as I try to deny my heritage, my family tree and all its weirdness, eccentricities and the like—my heart will not accept anything but its intended Cupitor purpose. It remains unfounded, hidden in the house in one of the rooms but by golly, I intend to change that. Today. In fact, right now. As soon as I can get Lena Hart out of my bedroom. I laugh out loud. I can’t help it. I am learning in my wanton wanderings, in and out of the wondering tree, in and out of the house inside me, that there is a knob in my head that clicks on and off at will. The broken knob goes into all or nothing mode. A mission mill of its own making. It waivers between the two—a horrific pit of despair which leads to a mode of just kill me now. Or it goes on high speed acceleration like some blitzed out speed freak with every compulsive habit known to man, acted out in a short span of time, until I’m spent, empty and exhausted, which leads me right back to the caldron of get-a-knife-and-end-it-all. It is only now, in my saner moments of reality, that I am beginning to understand this crazy behavior and why it happens. At first, Doctors put me on all kinds of mood altering drugs which actually made it worse. Whatever evil is in me—is not going away with earthly methods, that’s for sure. But don’t tell that to my family. I’m not supposed to be like this, they say. Not my child. Not my sister. Not my daughter. Everyone pretends that the great sadness doesn’t exist and never has. I mean—hell, if it doesn’t exist—then neither do I exist. Now to me, that makes perfect sense.
I sit on my cherry blossom mattress holding my man pillow and listening to Lena Hart ramble on and on about who knows what. It’s been this way since childhood, the ups and downs of my curse a rollercoaster I can’t get off. The divorce likely drove me over the edge, or that’s what they say. If Maw Sue were alive, I could talk to her. But I’m the reason she’s dead to begin with. That is one thing I can’t erase. I didn’t think I had it in me—but the curse knew. The Amodgians knew. Maw Sue knew as well. She knew the powerful and destructive nature of this bloodline and how it can turn on you with a snap, although she tried to warn me and teach me all she knew, it was too late. I did the awful. I made a terrible, terrible mistake of which I shall never recover. I am alone now, with the curse and its affects. I shall not accept it nor shall I entice it to live in it. I am not sure of anything. Only pain. Yes, I am sure of the pain.
For as long as I can remember, even as a child, there has been a great pain, held up inside me, a captive inside the house, harboring inside a room, yet
I cannot tell you what it is or how it got there or why it hurts so badly. It sits under heavily guarded walls, with a host of secrets, unbearable memories. I can see the door frame, the archway, the molding. I rattle the knob—but there is a force that will not let me enter in. It drives me mad because I cannot confront it. I cannot see it for what it is. When I am so crazy of not being able to enter, I go instead to the uncomfortable comfort of the shadow room. The Amodgians know me better than I know myself. They lull me to a hypnotic state where I don’t have to think, do, figure or confront. No one talks, no one judges, no growth, no forward, no backwards, no feelings, no emotions, no anger—just ethereal nothingness. As long as I keep it that way, the shadows leave me alone, they just let me be. I am not a threat. They are there, just simmering in the nothingness of all I am, all I will ever be. They remind of this daily, minutes, seconds—eternity. They only attack when I’m combative or when I try to get answers, or when I grow tired and want to move forward, progressing, growing, and learning. Maybe Maw Sue was wrong. Maybe I’m a sleeper after all. Could that be the reason I am so stuck? What if I missed something very important? What if everything I was taught was false? What if she was crazy as everyone said?
I am lost in thoughts. So much I forget that Lena Hart is still in the room. When I come to my senses she is eyeballing me like I’ve sliced a baby bird, ate it and have feathers hanging out of my mouth. Her jaw is slack and she’s fretting. Her fingers tread across her teeth making a clicking noise. Uh-oh. She may implode to code 10. Suddenly and without warning a battle ensues within me, internal demons fight and slay me. Lena’s blue blades of steel pluck me from the inner torment of the madness that is me, inside the house, inside me—and flings me to the reality that I know. Right here, real life, right now.
WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) Page 10