The Mermuring Maiden, page 24
“This jackal wants to wipe out the lineage of his watery creator siblings,” said Manulir.
“But he is a part of that lineage,” said a confused Mer-queen.
“He wants to be king. He wants the mutants to rule,” the Mer-king concluded.
Then the triumvirate said no more.
Chapter 2
The medicine man opened his eyes and immediately stood up from his prone position. He felt invigorated, strong and alert. He scanned his lodge and could see at once the chaos surrounding him. It was exciting. He could distinguish between corn and split pea, or black-eyed peas and small grains. He could tell which seeds were soaked through from those that were damp and beginning to mold. He could feel the skin on the little lizard drum tightening from the rays of morning sun spilling through the thatched roof. He could hear a mouse scurrying from left to right, trying to hide behind an upturned basket. It was trying to find an escape route into the woods, or was it trying to hide itself from the medicine man’s gaze. This amazed him. Now it was so easy to take in everything, all at once, while keeping all the information separate.
“Hah!” cried the medicine man. He could see like the eagle and it was exhilarating. His sense of smell was so keen he could decipher which bean had spoiled from the ones that had begun to sprout.
“Ha, dearest Amma. Thank you!” he screamed.
His voice had changed. His tenor had become a baritone. This was good. He believed depth in sound reflected a more profound understanding. People would not only hear him they would feel him talking. He wanted to explore his world with his new eyes, but first he had to clear the old ones.
The man lifted the spilled basket and grabbed a mouse by its tail. He went outside and flung it far into the woods. He picked up some kindling and added it to the ashes from last night’s fire. Next he took some salt and nuggets of copal incense from his pocket and threw it onto the stack of wood. Then he lit it and with one long deep baritone exhalation he slowly breathed life into the fire. “Aaahhhhmmmmaaaah,” he said with intention, and the fire bristled and raged its appreciation in dark crimson tones. It was exciting. Even the elements were doing his bidding.
The man quickly walked into his granary and sorted through the debris. He adeptly collected the medicine that was still of use and discarded the rest. When the basket was full he threw the entire contents onto the fire and he repeated his mantra honoring the Creator. “Aaahhhhmmmmaaaah,” he groaned.
The medicine man did this until his granary lay beautifully bare, adorned only by his most powerful artifacts. In the east was his lava stone mortar and pestle, which he filled with copal and frankincense, wenge and myrrh. In the south he buried the lizard drum in the earth and then stacked his ancestral red dirt bowls in a basket over it, however the crystal bowl he used to honor the waters of the west had been broken so he dug a hole and pushed all the black stones he could find into its form. It looked like a mosaic basin of tourmaline and onyx, lava stone and obsidian, shungite and black abalone. Afterward he filled the ebon
fountain with spring water that was so clear he could see his reflection, and he screamed.
“Ughaaaah!” cried the medicine man. There in the water his hairy face and yellow eyes were mirrored back at him. The man now had a week’s worth of growth on his face and the whites of his eyes had turned an amber hue. When he raised his hands to examine himself, he noticed the downy tufts of hair. It extended the length of his arms all the way down to the backs of his hands. “Amma, what is this?” he growled. However, when he demanded an answer from his creator he saw his teeth had grown, making his jaw appear longer.
The man fell to all fours and began exploring his body from head to toe. Had he died and been reborn? It seemed the only answer for such a transformation. His senses were keen, way keener than ever before. His hair had turned coarse and wiry and it had grown up the back of his neck. He now had hair on his hands and over his toes. His incisors were longer and slightly separate from the others, and his legs and hips opened and closed and lifted and lowered effortlessly. There was no muscular strain to his movements. It was as if his body responded immediately to his thoughts. Almost involuntarily like his eyelids did when dirt became airborne.
The man sat down and listened to the machinations of his internal organs. His blood flowed easily. His heart beat steadily. He had no desire to urinate or eat. He was simply alert, aware and erect. The man stared at himself in awe for a good long moment. Then he returned to cleaning up his granary.
He turned to the north. Normally the eagle would fly in the northern sky but it felt wrong today. He spied the eagle’s feather hanging over the doorway and he remembered dropping it during last night’s ceremony. Was it no longer pure? He knew it was never good to doubt one’s tools. It could make the medicine bad, so the man searched his granary for something new for his northern entrance. The heron was too graceful to do the job he needed. The hawk was too independent to listen to his subtle wisdom. The falcon could take his vision higher and assure its success and it would do his bidding by any means necessary. “Yes,” said the Man-of-Medicine. “Yes, the falcon will fly perfectly here.”
When his granary was intact the man pulled up a stool and sat by the fire. The large clump of wet beans and wood and trinkets and feathers burnt slowly emitting huge cloudy rolls of smoke. The strange bonfire produced amazing light. There were so many colors bursting forth in the flames. It sizzled like the fire show the Chinese put on in the marketplace at the end of their year.
The man pulled his stool just behind the ring of light exuding from the fire. It was hot. This was good. He became sleepy. He needed to get some rest. He was looking forward to dreaming tonight. He couldn’t wait to see the other dimensions with his newly developed awareness. He knew Amma would explain why Spirit had blessed him. He was happy and proud to be the emissary for his creator. He would never fail Amma. He felt like the Hogons of the old culture. They were pure and untouched by earthly woes. He was sure he would be given divine wisdom tonight. He knew a message was coming because Amma had given him his new form so he would not forget or misunderstand it. His new senses would never allow it. He could not wait to fall asleep.
And so it was the Man-of-Medicine fell soundly asleep.
Chapter 3
The Herb-Woman’s chest was on fire. A bolt of lightning split the sky and the flash illuminated the blisters covering her torso. They were getting larger. She knew she should lance them but she didn’t have the energy to lift herself out of bed, yet get everything needed to safely do it. Plus, she was out of the mother aloe vera, and the young new stalks didn’t have the wisdom for the job. She needed fresh dragon’s blood too and given the storm brewing, harvesting the sap was out of the question. She had a little left in a glass jar in the cupboard but like her tea she preferred all her medicine to be as fresh as possible.
The storm was growing. There was a clap of thunder so intense that it made the fluid in the roots woman’s blisters burse from side to side.
“Aaaough!” cried the Herb-Woman. It was painful. She had to do something to relieve her agony. She had some young cucumbers in her clay bowl. They would bring relief, not for long, but immediately.
The Herb-Woman gently removed her pillow filling the gap behind her lower back and placed it horizontally underneath her. She inched her body down until her shoulders were slightly raised. Next she squeezed her stomach and slung her legs over the side of the bed. “Aaaaeough eee, Amma!” she screamed, and the tears voluntarily fell from her eyes.
The pain was excruciating. She wanted to call out to Emadi for help but she was too ashamed to do so. Unless she was willing to completely confide in her daughter she had to let her remain innocently angry with her. She had to protect her. She knew the medicine man was already suspicious so Emadi’s questioning him would agitate him all the more. He respected her daughter’s strength but if she got in his way he would not hesitate to trample her like a weed. Plus, he knew she was having her moon. He could smell the fresh blood and it terrified him. A menstruating woman could absorb the power of the most powerful shaman anywhere. Men were afraid of the creative abilities of fertile women. That was why so many took them by force. They wanted their creative nurturing power for themselves. She would kill a man who tried to force himself upon her daughter, and all it would take was a kind word and a cup of puff adder-mint tea.
The Herb-Woman steadied her breath while she sat at the edge of her cot and waited to hear her daughter’s gentle snores coming from the hammock. Young women had such hot blood. She couldn’t remember the last time she slept in the open on a hot night. She was too old for that now. The cool air and lack of firm support underneath her body would have crippled her for the rest of the day.
She watched her daughter sleep while she regained her strength. She wanted to get moving so she’d have a little time to herself. It was going to rain shortly and the storm would surely bring her daughter rushing back into the house. The Herb-Woman needed this time. She wasn’t ready for her daughter’s questions. She had no idea what was happening to her anyway so what could she honestly tell her.
The old woman got out of bed and walked into the kitchen like a pregnant sloth. She made it to the chair closest to the doorway and slid into it. She was exhausted. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this badly. She took the broom from the corner and used it to push the bowl of Persian cucumbers toward her. She was going to have a harder time getting to the knife. They were in the drawer and since the broom didn’t have fingers she would have to use it as a cane and make the five-foot walk.
The Herb-Woman took a deep breath and lifted herself out of the chair and took one giant step. Thunder was heard in the distance and then a long bolt of lightning flashed through the small kitchen window and she stopped. “Please, mother Amma, gently please,” she said to no one and everyone. She continued her hobbled walking until she made it to the counter. She gingerly opened the utensil drawer and took out her paring knife. As she turned to make her way back to the table where the cool fruit lay, another clap of thunder was heard, and it was quickly accompanied by more lightning.
The woman took the round two-sided mirror from the counter and set it before her on the table. She reached in her pocket and removed the small Zippo lighter her daughter had given her from her last trip into the city. It was a prized possession the woman rarely used, especially when flint or stone was around. She placed it on the table and picked up the knife and sliced the cucumbers into thin uniformed pieces.
Again the thunder rang out into the night air and again it was accompanied by another electric light. It made the woman jump. “Why is thunder coming before lightening?” she asked. Maybe she imagined it. Maybe sound did come before light. She wasn’t feeling well enough to take on such spiritual matters right now. She needed to release the burning in her chest, and quickly, but before she lanced the boils she needed to put their message down first.
The woman was tired. She didn’t have the energy to cut vegetables yet go back to her room for a pen and paper so she flipped the mirror to its smaller view and drew the design directly onto the glass with the only thing available—her daughter’s eyebrow pencil. Normally this would have upset her. Her daughter always left her hair supplies, barrettes, rubber bands, Marcel irons and scissors, lipsticks and pencils in an old coffee tin on the table. Not only was it unclean to have it near her herbs, it left her bloodline open to manipulation. A strong shaman could take your hair or nails or a tissue you used to blow your nose to blow you to smithereens. Her daughter knew this. She had helped her cure many people from this sickness of the soul. Usually it was a lover wanting revenge or an envious neighbor coveting the joy of another. She had yelled at her own flesh too many times about leaving pieces of herself all over, but her child was trusting—too trusting.
After recording the shape and whereabouts of her blisters the woman flipped the mirror over and studied the sores one by one. The first one had swollen to the point that it looked like a bee’s butt in mid sting. She purified her needle with fire then she soaked it in the cool solution of green aloe vera and witch hazel herbs. She moved the slices of cucumber nearby so they were ready to absorb the pain that was sure to come. She decided to pour herself a glass of fermented herbs in case the cucumber cooled off before the pain did. She took her broomstick and pushed the liquor jar toward her. She didn’t have the heart to get up for a glass so she opened the Mason jar and took a long gulp. She was ready.
A huge clap of thunder shook the house and was followed by a bright, neon-blue jagged line of light. The Herb-Woman quickly pushed the needle into the bulbous sore and gripped the table and screamed into the sleeve of her nightgown. She did not see the figure in the shadows outside her window. She did not taste the burn from the shot of herbal alcohol she consumed. She did not see the bright orange mucous oozing out onto the table. She did not hear her heart pounding a staccato rhythm. She only felt pain. She was consumed by pain, the burning brutal pain of Frill Lebo’s release.
Emadi saw it. She saw it all. The lightning entered the house and traveled into the needle. The needle sparked when her mother pierced her skin. She couldn’t believe the orange orbs she saw exiting her mother’s body. She felt the electricity the orange bubbles emanated as it crossed the room and entered her tear ducts. Then the orbs floated inside her throat and they made the star gland in the center of her head sparkle. She felt it all and it was awesome! But Emadi never saw her mother slide off her chair onto the floor. Nor did she feel her mother’s last breath or hear her last words.
“Be careful, my flesh, stay light and rise above the rest,” said the Herb-Woman as she slowly exited this world and entered another.
Chapter 4
“Too much!” Rose said. “That was way too much,” she said again. Then she flung the covers off her body and breathed in the cool sea air. She patted the bum of the young man sleeping beside her and got out of bed. “Sleepin’ like the baby you are,” she quietly said.
She grabbed her tobacco pouch from the nightstand and the batiste linen nightdress she inherited from her great-grandmother and quietly made her way out the back door into the garden. She slid the soft thin fabric over her svelte body and sat down in the grass and rolled herself a cigarette.
“Too much,” she mumbled again. “I have to stop drinkin’ my own recipes,” she lilted in that sweet southern tone indigenous to the island. She loved the island. It was where her grandmother was born and her great-grandmother had escaped to. It was her great grandma that took the family tree down a paler path. She had been pushed off the little canoe they used to escape the slave ship by those bigger and darker than her, so she only slept with Indians and Creoles after that. Now all that was left was a group of yellow slaves trying to oppress each other. “Shame, shame on me, callin’ us yellow,” she muttered as she blew out smoke.
She looked at the young man dreaming in her bed. He came to her three nights ago wanting her to make the reverend’s wife fall in love with him. He wanted to get off the island and he was willing to take Jacob’s ladder to get there. “Little devil, you,” she quietly said to herself.
Why anyone would want the reverend’s wife was beyond her. The woman was the town slut and her cuckolded husband was the most pious person she had ever met. She guessed between the two of them there was balance. But this boy had a gift. He was pure and truly innocent and he had the voice of an angel. He could sing. That’s why she slept with him and drank her own Kool-Aid, so he would have more experience to make that kind of decision. Asking for help from the ancestors on the other side of the veil could prove disastrous. He had to be careful of what he was asking for; because the preacher’s wife was the darkest light-skinned woman she had ever met. She was truly evil. Rose stopped thinking bad thoughts about her neighbors. She really had no judgment about the wife or her lover. People would live whatever lessons they needed learning. She was just ornery because of that feeling. It always made her a touch testy.
Rose headed to the only place where the bad couldn’t get her—her rose garden. Nothing bad ever happened around sweetness. She called it her aromatherapy. She had planted gardenias and frangipani bushes and honeysuckle, jasmine and wisteria vines, and lily of the valley covered the ground and it was all sheltered by huge magnolia and jacaranda trees that her mother’s mother had planted. She kicked off her slippers and walked in the moist dirt. She had been doing it since childhood, but she had never appreciated it more since her return home some eight years ago. She looked down upon her namesakes and smiled. “Well, here you are my sweet sterling silvers,” she sighed.
Rose had gotten that particular bunch of rose bushes from a president’s wife that must always remain nameless. She wanted out of the oval office as much as the people wanted her husband out so she came to Rose and asked her assistance and Rose did help her for a kindly sum. It allowed her the rare fragrant Sterling Silver roses from Asia that she so adored plus the rest of her family’s land.
“And there you are,” she coldly said to the apparition. “Too much,” she quietly told herself before fading off into a crisp, adrenaline-filled stillness.
The old woman sat silently panting in the corner under the jacaranda tree. She looked at Rose and gulped like a guppy that had jumped from a fish tank onto a shag carpet. She was not from the island. That was for sure. Her clothes alone gave that away. Rose couldn’t tell if it was the sweet smell of the garden or the huge boils on the ghost’s chest oozing a syrupy tangerine pus making her feel ill, but she definitely wasn’t feeling well now.
“Good evening. You know where you are?” asked Rose.
The spirit woman looked at her with the blankest expression she had ever seen but she understood the question. Rose could tell because she started to look around for the answer. She was trying to remember or familiarize herself with her present surroundings.
