by Y G Maupin
“Sisters. We once again gather to honor the elements and the changing seasons. We celebrate the god and the goddess, all of them within us and around us, and ask that they join our circle and bless our offerings. Oestara, hear our words as we make our offerings to you.” With this, she turned to Beryl who stepped forward with her branch. One by one ,each woman came forward, presenting an item or token to make sacred or ask a petition. At last, it was T’s turn.
“Who comes forward and what is your request?” Alice asked.
T swallowed and cleared her throat. “It is I, T, and I offer my garments that I wore when I made my petition 6 moons back.” She stepped forward and brushed the tears from her eyes that slowly began to stream down her cheeks. Alice stepped back to reveal a cauldron at her feet that was hidden in her magenta robes. She motioned with her head for T to drop the dress into the pot.
“Is that all you ask?” Alice questioned.
T spoke up.” Yes, I mean no. I only offer my dress and ask that the spirits of the earth and sky release my request so that the spirit of Jackson Paget can return safely to the other side,” she ended in a whisper, almost choking on the tears that started flowing again. Alice handed her the white candle at the base of the cauldron and poured a clear liquid on top of the fabric.
“What’s that?” T asked, but Alice shook her head and motioned for T to touch the candle to the edge of the cauldron. Alice put out an arm, a touch too late, to hold T back from the eventual burst of fire as it ignited and quickly died down and the fabric of the cotton garment burned quickly, the artificial threads of the embroidery melting first into the fabric.
“And so it is done,” Alice intoned, and the ale and cakes were offered to begin the down slope of closing the circle.
Later that hour, as the candles were shrinking down to chubby nubs of wax, the women passed a bottle of wine and sang traditional songs that included ancient rhythms as well as modern songs, even from the top forty. They were a raucous tribe of women, drunk with alcohol and the empowerment of the spirits of the gods. This could go on for hours and had the weather been warmer, they could have watched the sunrise like they had done so last September. Birdie cradled her statue as she sat cross legged on the ground between Beryl and T.
“I think the goddess has spoken to me tonight,” she whispered slightly, slurring her words.
Anesta laughed out loud and then covered her mouth quickly, as the outburst seemed mocking, almost mean.
“I’m sorry, I have no idea where that came from,” she said, her eyes wide open.
“I do,” Sharon answered, passing the bottle to Alice who sat on her left, lolling in Sarah’s lap.
“You think she’s full of shit. You look at her and all you see is a vacuous slut that is pissing her life away.”
Sharon stopped and sat up. “Oh Shit. I have no idea why I said that?” her voice panicked, as she looked around at all the women.
Alice and Sarah were momentarily surprised but then started to cackle. Birdie had tears in her eyes and Beryl was fuming. Only T was oblivious to it all as she stared at the fire in the cauldron.
“What the hell...” started Beryl, as she put her arms around Birdie's shoulders. “Sharon that is not like you. That is just downright cruel. And Anesta, maybe you just think that you’re better than everyone because you drive a nice car and you look good for your age.”
Anesta gasped and stood up, her fists at her side. Beryl continued. “It’s messed up that we can’t be supportive of one another at all times, not just when we want to sit in our coven, casting circles and stuff. We need to be kind to one another and be the support we never had.” Birdie sobbed even harder.
“I’m tired of people calling me slut. Where did they get that idea? Because of my mom?”
“Maybe because you are a slut,” murmured Sharon again, slapping her hands over her mouth as her eyes opened as wide as saucers.
“Enough.” Alice warned sharply. “We should feel free to say what we need to say to each other whether we’ve been drinking or not. We are here to improve one another and to lift each other up. If it means that we have to be honest in our statements, so be it. But it serves no purpose if we don’t combine a solution with the smack down we just issued. Now Birdie,” she said, turning to the sniffling woman. “Your sexual expression is yours to own. If you are not hurting anyone, then it shouldn’t matter what or how or how often you do what you do as long as you are not hurting yourself. Ever since women have spread their legs either for lovers or to get ahead or just to survive, it’s been used against us. If you know why you do it and you don’t cry when it’s over, well..” she drifted off, and then turned to Sarah, who was now leaning against her, fighting the sleep that comes with drinking too much wine.
Sarah drew her hand over her face and added, “Dear, one cannot help who they are related to. You are your own person and your mother’s reputation should not matter. Ugg, so tired of this puritanical mindset.” She ended and drooped back down to cuddle Alice. Anesta started picking up her scarves and stuffing items into her cotton shoulder bag.
“I think this night has closed. I hope everyone got their requests in,” she huffed, as she slipped her feet into her shoes.
Sharon moaned in protest. “Oh come on, Anesta. Get that stick out of your ass, you never stay long, like you’re too good to hang out with us low lives.”
“Speak for yourself,” interjected Alice. “We are far from low lives. I know where I come from and that I matter in this world.”
Birdie slapped her palms on her knees.”Welp. I guess this night is over. Like I was saying, I felt spirits moving over me tonight. I hope you did too, since I’m sure that’s the only action any of you are getting. Good night.” She left to hoots and cackles of laughter and calls for her to stay.
Anesta followed her through T’s house and minutes later the sounds of vehicles starting up and gravel crunching under tires drifted off in the early spring night.
“What time is it?” Alice asked, as she gathered her things and reached for her phone. “Oh, it is late. Come on, Sarah. Time to let out the cats.” She nudged her partner.
“I let them out before we left,” she droned. “Well, this ended very yucky. I’m sorry, T. Let us help you get everything put away,” she started, but the young woman was still quiet, entranced with the now dying flames in the cauldron.
“There were spirits tonight. I could feel it. I know some of you had to feel it too. I’m hoping all of you were touched,” she added, and lightly rested her chin on her folded arms held up at her knees. She looked like the saddest child.
“Are you alright?” Sharon asked, as she slowly gathered her things. “Need us to stay?”
T shook her head slowly. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. Don’t worry about cleaning up. I’ve got it in the morning.” T drew herself up, stretched out and walked into her home.
The next day was the beginning of the end for most of the citizens of their small town.
Six
Calvin Dowdy crouched in the bushes of his old accountant’s modest home. If there was any sad sack son of a bitch in town, Myron Thompson was the one. Myron ran a small office, with small ideas and basically no hopes or dreams to speak of. Most of the week, the street in front of his home was empty with very few customers. Myron felt that his software and equipment could handle most of his clients needs. It was unnecessary, in his eyes, for any kind of upgrade or enhancement to his business. Myron believed that you made do with what you had and if there was no growth or increase, then that was god's will. Calvin had been his largest client, and when he passed, the Dowdy estate was handled by a larger firm in the Dallas area where most of his sons lived.
To say that Myron's business faltered after Calvins passing was an understatement. It was devastating. Colleagues, the guys at lodge and even his wife cajoled and expressed concerns with his resolute belief that it was business as usual at Thompson and Company. There was no “company” to speak of and after increa
sing her hours at work, looking for better employment and finding it 45 minutes away, that Lydia Thompson left in disgust, having endured a lifetime of marriage to a man with no ambition or self-awareness to recognize the writing on the wall. So, she packed her bags and the two dachshunds, Gertie and Bertie, and left to move in with her sister closer to her new job.
That was two years ago, and she had since filed and was granted a divorce from Myron. Yet, Myron continued with his myopic belief that he was doing just fine. Calvin knew he wasn’t doing fine. He had been spying on him for over a year.
At first, out of necessity. Calvin’s range was limited to a small area that he had inhabited when he was alive . It was always that way, it was explained to him. So as not to overwhelm the recently departed with sights and sounds that they would no longer be able to partake in. They were stuck.
The deceased were limited to walking distance from where they died for the first 2 years and afterwards they were granted access to their homes and so on and so forth until they had been dead for over ten years, which would give them opportunities to travel within 100 miles from where they took their last breath. Pity to those that died in their homes, for they would be anchored there for what seemed forever, watching their loved ones mourn, pack their things away and slowly get on with their lives.
Calvin had died on the street outside Myron’s home/office from a massive heart attack that had been working its way to killing him all week. After he dropped off paperwork to Myron, he had planned to hit the golf course with some of his buddies from his old job that he had recently retired from. All that changed in a matter of minutes, as he clutched his chest, the other hand on the handle of the cherry red corvette he had finally gotten around to driving out of the garage. His oldest son had nagged for years to let him borrow it, eventually changing his tune to that of trying to convince Calvin to sell since he had never driven it other than the time he had purchased it over twenty-three years ago.
Calvin had clenched the ownership of that car as tight as a miser. Refusing to let go the dream that someday he would take the time to take it out for a spin beyond his driveway where he moved it to keep the fluids pumping and the tires from going flat. He didn’t know his other son, the younger one, took it out at least once a week, even driving it to the coast one time. How Calvin didn’t notice the corvette missing for the weekend, was a surprise only to him.
Everyone else was well aware that Calvin was a workaholic, a slave to the grind and he expected everyone else to work as hard as he had too. But here was his chance to get it all back. Everything he had worked for and missed out on. All the vacations he never took, and the parties he declined attending. The birthdays for his children and grandchildren where he only sent a gift but never went to deliver the gifts himself. He really didn’t know what it was like to swim in his pool and he only used the hot tub a couple of times when he pulled a muscle reaching for a file at work. Calvin didn’t let anything stop him from making money. Which is why when retirement was pushed on him, he laughed. At first he thought they were playing a joke on him, knowing that he didn’t like to play games and he never really had time for idle chit chat with anyone when he visited the offices. But then he saw the writing on the wall and from there it was just cruel reality.
At sixty-eight, Calvin had done more than four men combined in the business world and in his mind, he still had more to do. But his partners at work and his wife were relentless, and then there was the business clause that that board would bring up if he didn’t go quietly in the night, he was reminded by one of the partners that was younger by about eleven-years-old.
“Come on, Calvin. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Shoot. Most guys your age have already retired.”
“Yeah and what did that get them?” he shot back. “A toboggan ride to senility and a faster eulogy. Thanks for killing me, Bob,” he had said, as he closed a box full of awards and memorabilia.
He never took that box with him. What for. He just left it on his desk in his office and walked out. He also didn’t go to the retirement party which they held anyway, he had heard, because they had spent so much on the food and booze. “Idiots,” he had muttered, as he paced in his den staring at the golf clubs his son had sent him. They didn’t visit him either. Regular chips off the old block, they were. Even his daughter was too busy running a realty office an hour away in Fort Worth to come see him with her girls. They had all learned growing up what was important to Calvin. It sure wasn’t about life to him. But it was about to be.
The rules were clear. Calvin wasn’t sure if you call it rules per se but the way he had heard it from the postman who had died delivering the mail on Myron’s street four years before him, they were getting a chance to go back among the living. They both stood in the middle of the street, as life moved around and through them. Cars passed by; kids on bikes and mothers pushing strollers with curious babies peering out at them.
“Ok start over again, Doug. I’m not sure you’re explaining this right,” Calvin had said, a hand on the postman’s ripped USPS shirt.
The man sighed. He was used to having to explain things over and over when he was alive. He had hoped to avoid monotony in the afterlife as well. Taking a deep breath with lungs that didn’t require air, he started over again.
“Last month, while I was at the post office, everyone was talking about how there was a new rule, kind of like an idea or suggestion that they were going to open up the chance to go back.”
“Who’s they?” Calvin asked.
“I don’t know. The same people you run into when you first come over. Them. Anyway, the way this works is you have to find someone to take your place here and then you go back. And you do it anyway that you can to make them come over, you just make them, you know.” And then he motioned a finger across his neck, lolled his head over and stuck out his tongue. Calvin shook his head.
“What do you mean, make them come over? How do I do that?” he asked impatiently. The postman shifted hips on legs that were at odd angles and directions.
“You have got to be kidding me, Calvin, How long have you been dead?”
Calvin shrugged his shoulders. ”Dunno. I guess it's coming on two years?”
“Well, what you obviously have been wasting your time on instead of learning to push the living is who knows!” the postman articulated, with waving arms.
“What do you mean, push the living? How do you do that? What does that do?” Calvin implored the government worker. This was information that he didn’t have, that was crucial and he hated being out of the loop.
“Hang on, keep your pants on,” the postman said, lifting his hat to reveal the exposed skull where the car ran him over. Calvin inwardly cringed at the sight. He still wasn’t used to seeing the dead that way.
“You have to make them see you without actually seeing you. You move things, you change stuff in their environment, like pictures or dolls.” To which he slightly chuckled. “That one’s really fun.”
“And then what?” Calvin interrupted ,wanting to get the show on the road. The postman looked him square in the eyes.
“You make them think that they’re crazy. So, that they hurt themselves or someone else. It doesn’t matter. Once they die, as long as we are right there, we get to come back. Now what we can come back as I have no idea. A bum on the street or a fly on a hotdog. I haven’t met anyone that actually did it. I only heard that it could be done and we all can try. I guess it depends on how badly you want to go back. I’ve met quite a few people that are just happy being dead. I don’t know, Calvin. Do you want to go back?” The postman was talking to himself at the point. Calvin had disappeared.
T woke up the next morning later than she would have liked. Sleeping in didn’t always feel good, sometimes it made you feel worse, especially if you hadn’t eaten the night before and had cried yourself to sleep. Her phone had been ringing on and off for the better part of the morning since the first call around eight thirty. It had been Sharon. T ha
d just let it go to voicemail and rolled over. Ten minutes later, Birdie called, hung up and then called again. Alice and Sarah had each called her in the last 45 minutes. The only people that hadn’t called were Anesta and Beryl. They had both seemed angry the night before. T had trouble recalling quite a bit after they started drinking, but this was the first time she didn’t remember putting herself to bed. Groaning from the body aches, T swung her legs over the side of the bed and was surprised to see her burned dress below her. The very same dress she was wearing when she spoke her spell, or curse as she thought of it, and within the hour Jackson was dead. The same dress they had burned last night.
They had been arguing off and on for the last two months. T had moved in with him after they had been dating for five months, which was fast for the both of them. But they didn’t care. T could see the cautious looks in his family’s eyes when he introduced her to them. The challenges ran the gamut from let’s see how long she sticks around to oh he could do so much better than her and that was just the gaggle of cousins that were visiting. His father had a smile that was warm and lovely, though his eyes looked sad. Jackson’s sister, Jenna, had the largest, fakest most insincere welcome for T as she hugged her hello that same day.