I’m sitting at the desk, in my room…
I’m sitting at the fire, outside the lair.
And I am not alone.
“Normally, I’d stay for coffee. But there isn’t the time. Good evening, girl.” I look up to watch an elderly black gentleman, with a crooked cane, come around the fire. Behind him, a large mangy and menacing black dog looks at me with friendly eyes.
“Papa Le… um… Sir?”
He laughs. “You’re surprised to see me? After what you’ve been given?”
“Very surprised, Sir. I recognize the cane. I recognize the dog. I recognize your gait. But I don’t recognize your face, nor your clothes. And this is the last place I would expect to see you.” I remained kneeling by the fire. When he continued to approach, I started to stand up. Quickly he tapped me on my back with his cane. It was a light touch, but it undid my knees and I fell back down.
“There’s a time for decorum, girl, and a time to get shit done. The matter of the cowries have to be settled, or things will go from bad to worse.” As he spoke I felt a wave of nausea overtake me. I was struggling to hold it back. If this is Papa Legba, I can’t allow myself to be ill in front of him. That would just be rude. If this isn’t Papa Legba, I need my wits to figure out who this is, and how to extricate myself from the scene.
The cane tapped me lightly on the shoulder. Just enough for me to feel the chill of the worn smooth wood. Each tap unsettled my stomach more and more. “Let it out, girl! Let it out! I know you mean to be prim and proper before me, like you are to my brother!” He laughs. “But this time, girl, let it out!” He taps me again and I can’t hold back. I turn so not to splash against him and vomit onto the ash dusted ground. “That’s it! Just let it happen.” He chuckles as a second wave overtakes me, and my seemingly empty stomach rejects a significant amount of matter. I am reminded why I have a revulsion to even the sight of Bubble (tapioca) Tea.
“Bitter fruit has bitter seeds. You don’t want that to hang around in your system. You’ll get quite ill.” The second wave eases and I feel a little more empty than I did before. I start to push the effluence into the fire. What came out of me was repulsive. Offensive. I am reminded of the poisoned apple that felled Snow White, but I don’t know what I took in that would do this to me. I just have an instinct to burn it. All of it. Let the fire consume and purge it away.
He taps me on the shoulder again. I feel something shake loose deep within me. Another wave of nausea comes up, but I don’t fight it this time. I just make sure I’m aiming towards the fire and not towards him. “He knew. He knew because you told him. You even told him why, once. But the why doesn’t matter. All that matters is he knew you weren’t to have them, and he put them in your hand anyway. Once he placed them on your car, you were undone. There was no way to know not to take it, without taking it. If he didn’t know, you wouldn’t be ill. But he knew. And now here you are, girl, puking your guts out like you done drunk too much.” The whole time he was speaking, he was tapping me gently on the back with his crooked cane.
I vomited so much. Every time I thought I was done, he would tap me and more would come up. But as I vomited, I did not feel better. As the loose matter escaped from me, I felt something twisting inside me. Something squirming and moving. Something trying to burrow itself deeper even as my body was rejecting the putrid matter that had surrounded it.
“You feel it, girl. I can see the horror on your face. Yes. That too must come out.” He stopped gently tapping and started giving me bone jarring whacks on my lower back. “I know you don’t think me to be who I am. That doesn’t matter right now. Open your mouth, girl, and let that thing come out!” He slaps my back with fierceness and the squirming thing is jarred loose. I vomit forcefully and feel it squirming out my throat. The sensation opens my stomach even more and I add more to the ground. But what trickled out was normal bile. With the creature now ejected, my body was empty.
“Quick! Kill it! I can’t do it, girl, you have to! Pierce it!” I stared at the squirming thing long enough to note it was slime coated, shaped like an eel, finned like a fish, with a lamprey’s mouth. As I stared, I saw the fins start to elongate. It stopped squirming randomly, and was trying to walk on the fins like a lungfish. Trying to get away from the fire.
Oh hell naw.
I grabbed a sharp rock from the fire’s containing ring, ignoring the heat of it, and spiked the fish-thing through the head. It jerked violently as I impaled it, pinning it to the ground. I did not release the rock until it had stopped all movement.
“Eww.” He laughs at my summation. I pulled the rock up, with the fish-thing seared to its still hot surface, and threw it into the fire. The flames hissed at first, then began destroying the creature. I pushed the dirt surrounding the vomit into the fire as well. The fire did not recede from my demand, but accepted all that was pushed past the containing stones. For good measure, I threw in a few sticks of dry firewood.
A glass of water was held before me. Without thinking, I took it, mumbled my thanks, and drank half of it before remembering the situation. In mid-gulp, I looked up at the man with wary eyes. He only laughed more.
“The cowries are yours, girl. You’ve paid my price for having them. You are free to so as you will with them. You owe me nothing more.”
“Forgive my caution, Sir. But I still don’t believe you are who you appear to be. Not here, not at this fire. I still think I’m seeing what I want to see.”
“And the leech?”
“An expression of my guilt.”
“Ah.” He laughs more. “In that case, until you have settled it in your mind, I suggest being very careful what you do with the cowries. Guilt is a powerful thing.” He chuckles as he turns and starts to limp away on his crooked cane. “Throw the glass into the fire as well, girl. Since you don’t think I’m here, let there be nothing here to prove it.” He stops, turns, and looks at me with humor. “And just where would you expect to find me, anyway?”
“The crossroads, where I set up the impromptu altar.” The scene around me changes, and I am back at that dirt intersection again. The stones are still in place, but overrun with weeds. “Now, see, if you were who you claim to be, I would not have had to think of this place to be brought here.”
He laughs, and the scene shifts again to my fire. “Oh girl, my brother said you’re as stubborn as a river in flood. Now I know what he means.”
He turns and walks away from the fire. His dog sniffs at me in curiosity then runs off after his master. I finish off the water and chuck the glass into the fire, wondering if I just got out of one trouble, only to jump into another.
I look down at my hands, and look up to find I’m back in my room once more. According to the clock, only five minutes has passed.
… ~later that night, after I’ve gone to bed~ …
Wow. I don’t remember this ocean. It reminds me of the shores of Puerto Rico. Beautiful. But just where am I?
“Neutral ground.” I turn to the speaker and see two women stepping out of the ocean onto the shore before me. The lead woman is slightly darker than me, with long and thick nappy hair arranged in loops of braids and twists. She is adorned in pearls, thin gold chains, and ornate shells. In her right hand she has a scepter-staff on which hangs many large shells, held in place with gold wires and carefully draped kelp. She wears a blue-green dress, the color of tropical shallows. The dress is adorned with swirls of iridescent scales the size of quarters, with long thin white shells embroidered as accents. I have a sudden vision of a coat-of-arms, with the scales and shells on the shield with dolphins attending and a crown above.
The other dark skinned woman is dressed in gown of the same blue-green color, but her hair is wrapped up in lengths of cloth the same color. She wears a few bracelets and a choker from which hung a scallop as a medallion. She was attending to the grand woman, keeping the waves from twisting her elaborate gown as she came to a halt, not quite on dry land, but not quite in the sea either.
I had an idea who this might be, but I said nothing about it.
“Good day, Madam. The sea is showing me all its treasures today. How lovely you are.” I bowed in respect.
She took my honest admiration pleasantly. “I shall be quick, for I know you have not much time. The cowry shells. I would have them, please.” She held out her opened left hand towards me. She smiled in anticipation.
“I can not give them to you, Madam. They are not mine to give.” I smiled grimly and bowed.
Her smile faded for a moment. “I happen to know you have been released from the binding my brother placed upon you. If you are still concerned, tell those that ask, that I took them. This way, your hands are clean. They belong to me anyway, having come from my realm. Return them to me.”
I looked at her and smiled sadly. “Forgive me, Madam. I don’t know you. I’ve never met you. I don’t know what tells are true and what is playing on my ignorance. I don’t even know for sure if who I saw earlier was really who I think I saw. If I give them to you, and I am wrong, then I will have poured out more trouble upon myself. My doubt is greater than my understanding.”
She tapped her scepter staff in annoyance, causing the large shells to clink against each other sharply. I gasped in fear they would break. She noted and laughed. “You worry? About this? You worry about the wrong things, Weaver. You care too much for those things you have no power over. I tell you again, give me the shells. You will not come to harm for this. I want them, and you are free to give them. What would you do with them, anyway?”
Behind her, her attendant muttered, “Do not think because you are safe from a few that you are safe from the many. My Lady is being very patient with you. If you were to ask for something in kind, a payment of sorts, she would grant it if it were asked honestly.”
“I’m not even safe from the few!” I sighed. “Lady, Queen of the Oceans, if my conscience was clear, I would gladly give you all fourteen of them and ask for nothing in return. But my conscience is muddled. I can not give them to you as such.” I bowed with outstretched hands. “I can not give you what I do not feel is mine.”
I expected her to be angry. She smiled and laughed instead. When I stood up, she looked on me in judgment. “Very well, Weaver. Your mind is resolute, I see.” From her tone, I feel like I’ve passed a test I did not know I was taking. “I can not force you to give them up. Nor will I force you to act against your conscience. Good day, Weaver.”
She turned and began wading into deeper water. Her attendant kept the waves away until the Lady was under the surface. The attendant looked back at me with a curious mix of wonder and disappointment, then dove into the waters after her mistress.
A large wave broke at my feet, spraying me with seawater. Surprisingly cold, the temperature shocked me out of the dream.
…
Make of that, what you may.