Day 33 Page 8

  With the help of the glowing lights, Evita could see a large purple clustered rock sitting next to a deck of cards on a small glass end table. She slowly kneeled down upon the largest pillow in the room, which was covered in multi-colored symmetrical shapes. She flicked the tassels of the pillow with her fingers as the doctor went over to the waterfall and made tea on a small 2-topped hot plate that was adorned in copper to match the bottom of the fountain floor.

  “You feel okay?” Diana flashed a reassuring grin. Evita nodded her yes, but in her head, she thought “for now.” The doctor handed Evita a small mug and squatted down on the pillow beside her.

  “I brought you here because what you’re dealing with is not a curse, it’s a gift. You have a gift of healing people, Evita.” Evita gulped her tea. The doctor grabbed a nearby sound bowl and began humming along with its peaceful buzzing. Her eyes were closed and she inhaled and exhaled deeply. She sat the bowl down beside her crossed legs and grabbed a bundle of dried sage and a match. Smoke filled the air with another calming scent.

  “This is to cleanse the space of negative energy”. Diana told Evita, who was still confused, but now intrigued.

  “If I’m here to help people, why couldn’t I help my mother before it was too late?” This was a good question. Diana explained that often times, we aren’t aware that someone, and even ourselves, ever needed a remedy until the pain became too real for us to endure. She explained that we have a habit of suppressing our emotions, which causes us to ignore the changes that need to be made in our lives.

  “You didn’t understand how powerful you were as a child and you didn’t know she needed your help”, the doctor stood gently on her feet and began to slowly pace throughout the room with her sage. “Sometimes spirits reach for your helping hand, far beyond the veil of death, to right the wrongs they had no control over during their life. It’s nothing to be freaked out about.”

  All Evita ever knew was the Baptist church. If it wasn’t God, it wasn’t real. The man worked, the woman cooked. The men wore pants and the ladies wore dresses. Her mother was meant to be subservient to her father and Evita was meant to stay quiet and do her homework. If she wasn’t in a bible study class, Evita was at choir practice, or assisting with a church fund bake sale. She wasn’t even supposed to drink alcohol, let alone discuss “spirits”.

  “If your grandmother has already passed, then that means there’s two people trying to reach you, your mother may be using her imagery to get to you as well”, the doctor explained as she blew on the sage, while the smoke dissipated.

  “I don’t know what you mean”, Evita was more confused than she was when all this began.

  “Think of the world in terms of energy”, Diana said as she grabbed the purple stone cluster and held it snuggly in her well-manicured hands. “Energy never dies, correct? It transforms. So, what do you think happens to the energy within us all once our bodies are no longer conscious? I’m sure it transforms as well, but into what, where?” Evita contemplated, wishing she had the answers.

  “We shift into different dimensions. Our energy may not be visible or tangible, but it can be felt forever. Think back to how you felt around your father as a child, were you happy, sad?”

  “I was angry”, Evita unknowingly closed her eyes to envision how she felt, “I was always angry. I didn’t like hearing him coming down the hallway. My heart would tense up like I knew something bad would happen.”

  “Because you knew”, Diana took another sip of her tea. “I know doctors are more known for western medicine and healing techniques, but I find myself feeling more relief through holistic remedies. Depending on the client, I always offer holistic approaches before anything else”. She mentioned the usage of herbs, crystals, and oils during meditation could aid in achieving what she referred to as “high vibrations”. Diana explained lavender could help ease Evita’s dreams and allow her to relax, how a crystal called howlite could help bring clarity to her dreams. Rosemary brought love and carnelian helped with creativity. Selenite was used to realign the entire body and lapis lazuli aided in understand and speaking our truths.

  Diana went through about 15 different herbs and crystals with healing properties. She recalled watching her mother make healing potions filled with dried jasmine buds, galangal root, lavender, and rosemary. They burned sage to cleanse their home of evil spirits every Sunday morning. They prayed for love while holding rose quartz and for protection while holding black tourmaline. Evita sat and listened in a daze.

  “Dreams are either subconscious feelings we have yet to come to terms with, or are premonitions of what is to come”, the doctor lit another stick of incense that filled the air with some more of that spicy, eucalyptus scent. “It looks like your brain might be dabbling in both.”

  Evita looked on in more confusion, the doctor continued. “Deep down, you know something happened to your mother that you can no longer keep a secret. It was something so horrific that you’ve manage to block it out for thirteen years.” A tear fell from Evita’s right eye. “You’re being asked to remember to repair your mother’s legacy. I went through something similar.” Evita’s eyes grew wide with intrigue.

  “When I was six years old, I was molested”, Evita was shocked. The doctor seemed so well put together. But then again, how can a healer heal if they have not yet had to heal themselves?

  “It was a very dry desert night. The heat almost choked me. This man, he stood tall, shadowing over my small body. He put his hands down my pants and told me not to tell anyone, and that if I did, he would kill me. The next morning, I woke up to my mother holding me, hunched over her left shoulder, carrying me to a smoking station wagon. The sun was hot on my neck, but the heat on my face came from the fire burning from the house I once called home. The man disappeared along with the house. My mother mysteriously went missing a year later, and I had dreams, nonstop, for the entire year following. When I turned 24, I went through what you’re going through right now. Mysterious notes, whispers in the distance, unknown faces coming to me in my sleep. The man turned out to be my mother’s co-worker who she allowed to stay with us that night. He later killed her for trying to burn him alive,”

  Evita sat in shock. “My dreams led me to find him, in an old cabin in the middle of a wooded area. He was eventually arrested and sentenced to death in the state Louisiana.”

  It was definitely time to sage after that story. Diana went to make more tea.

  “There are no rules to overcoming traumatic experiences, Evita. It is up to you to find the best route to mitigating your dream state, but as someone who has felt the terror that you’re enduring, meditation, and a deeper knowing of yourself, will put all of this to ease. Don’t bury the pain, feel it, experience it, so that it can come to pass.”

  Evita was feeling it; she was getting chills and seeing things in the distance, it went far beyond just dreams. She was beginning to constantly check over her shoulder for old ladies with bloody finger tips. Every now and then she’d think of how her father banged on the table instead of banging on her body. Every slam sent a wave of anger through Evita’s heart.

  Every glimpse of that fake grin Clarice wore, hit Evita in the stomach like a bag of rocks. She could see Michelle’s name printed on the front of envelopes, the picture of her mother roped and chained, the sonogram of an illegitimate little brother or sister; all of which she could feel in a hard ball that sat in the bottom of her throat. She was feeling it and it was not coming to pass.

  The doctor reached for a clear quartz crystal pendulum that hung from a six-inch-long piece of hemp string beside the pillows where they sat.

  “Relax”, she whispered. The incense burned in the near distance and sage smoke continued to fill the air. Diana gently allowed the pendulum to swing in front of Evita’s face. Evita relaxed so easily, she dozed off.

  She awoke to a harsh rainfall that beat against the glass walls of the doctor’s home. Lightning flashed and a roll of thunder follow
ed. Evita stood up to stretch and reached down to touch her toes, stretching her hamstrings. She tip toed to avoid waking Diana, who had fallen asleep beside her. Evita snuck into the kitchen and searched for some loose leaf black tea. As she stood curled over the marble countertops, Evita poured searing hot water into a glass mason jar. Lemon pulp stirred around the bottom of the glass.

  A drop of water fell on Evita’s shoulder. She brushed off the water and continued stirring, not giving it a second thought. Then, another drop. She looked above her towards the ceiling to find nothing. She continued stirring her tea. Evita felt a small hair touch on the same shoulder, like a faint poke. She looked over and there was a single gray hair; she brushed it away. The spoon clinked against the jar. Another hair fell on the opposite shoulder, tickling her neck on its way down. She looked up toward the ceiling again and saw nothing.

  As she took a sip of tea, a gust of wind flew past the back of her neck. Evita quickly turned to find no one behind her. Her breaths began to quicken. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and took another sip of her tea. She reopened her eyes and the old, gray-haired lady stood in front of her with blood falling from her eyeballs, like the little girl with the red dress, but more. There was more blood. Evita screamed at the top of her lungs and awakened to Diana clutching her shoulders in the palm of her hands.

  “Another dream?!” Diana asked frantically. Evita nodded her head up and down 90 mph, gasping and gulping.

  She began weeping and dropped her head into Diana’s bosom. Evita finally fell back asleep draped over the doctor’s lap. Diana silently read a book about the psychosis of REM sleep dreams. When Evita woke up, this time in a much more peaceful manner, Diana asked that she go to her house and retrieve the rest of the photo albums and letters from her basement for their appointment tomorrow. It was time to identify the woman in Evita’s dreams once and for all. The images hadn’t come from nowhere, and the doctor was determined to discover their origin.

  DAY 22

  THE NEXT day, while Brennan was away playing a pick-up basketball game, Evita prepared for another day of unraveling truths. She had called in to take a couple more days away from Slam, since she never called out much anyway. She put on a pair of freshly pressed skinny jeans and a tee shirt with a black and white abstract design. Evita drove to the doctor’s home with ten albums stacked tall in the backseat of her sedan.

  This time, Evita’s arrival to this glorious mass of glass felt much different. Yesterday, it felt brand new, an unknown world of unforeseen pleasures. Today, it felt like she belonged there, like this is the place her dreams have been trying to push her. In her arms, Evita cradled five of the dusty books, and Diana met her outside to retrieve the rest.

  The room was set up with the usual incense, but this time soft jazz music was playing in the background. The two sat on the same pillows on the left side of the floor. Diana gestured toward the photo album that Evita held so closely to her chest. The rest stood in a pile on the carpet next to her pillow.

  The first few photos were taken in an amusement park. Photos of Vivian plastered on every page. This album seemed to span over a few years, during her ages of about seven to nine years old. Vivian’s brown skin gleamed under the strong sun, her mouth stretched from ear to ear, bearing beautifully white teeth. Large tangled coils, evidence of her distant African heritage, reached towards the rays that stretched to reach this small beacon of light. The warmth touched Evita’s skin and she felt as if she stood back in time with the younger version of her innocent, untouched mother. She wanted to reach in and pull her out of the book, holding her close to safety.

  As the pages flipped, the photos turned into Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Decorative trees, fancy gift-wrapped boxes and Halloween costumes and carved pumpkins laced each page. Old overweight women with canes and church hats grinned toward the lens. Small children dressed in similar garments, with fabric covered in either race cars or flowers. Papier-mâché masks were hand painted in water colors and scribbled with Crayola.

  The country sun gave golden overtones to a sea of chocolate. Vivian’s smile was the life of each page’s party. Evita was stricken with happy tears and could barely contain her excitement. It was as if her mother was brought back to life, given a second chance to pursue happiness. Evita wondered if her father had ever smiled. Were there pictures laying around anywhere that could possibly change the hatred Evita coveted so dearly? She doubted it.

  On the second to last page, there was one photo placed in the center. It was the only black and white picture in the entire book. The Young Vivian stood on the right side, wearing a halter dress with a bow tied at her waist. Willow trees hung low enough for her to reach. A dark gravel pathway gave grounding under her feet. On the left side of the photo, there was a woman with long braids on both sides of her head. She wore a bright smile with perfectly straight teeth and a long bright gown to her ankles. Flowers covered the fabric as she gripped her daughter’s hand tightly and held her hip with the other hand.

  “This is her”, Evita pointed frantically. “This is the lady with the gray hair!” Evita gulped, “My grandmother.”

  DAY 23

  “SO NOW what?” Kasha questioned as she sat on her faux fur carpet painting her toenails a metallic blue.

  “Well, Diana promised to help me find my grandmother, and I guess we go from there.” Evita had no idea what was next, but more memories began coming back to her. She vaguely recalled a visit to a bayou near her grandmother’s home when she was five years old. Evita, Vivian, and Evita’s grandmother sat by swamps under trees similar to the ones in the photo. They picked dandelions and foraged the field for ripe blackberries by day and sang nursey rhymes by a fire pit at night.

  If she closed her eyes, Evita could smell the scent of thick humidity in the air; she could feel the breeze of birds flying past her face. Bugs buzzed past her ears, leaves fell onto her forehead. Ring-Around-the-Rosy made Evita’s dress fly high up to her hips, and her ruffled socks lost elasticity from all the running in grasslands. It was a heaven she had been forced to forget.

  The imagery of her grandmother triggered her senses to remember every second she spent with her. Evita’s mind had associated so much pain with the loss of Vivian, the absence of her grandmother, and the pain Reverend Thomas inflicted upon her as a result; so, she disassociated herself entirely from her past. What else had she come accustomed to forgetting?

  Another memory began to surface. A month had passed after Vivian’s death. Evita cried all day and night and the only time she found peace was when she received a letter from her grandmother. On this day, the rain matched Evita’s tears and slammed against her bedroom window as she lie on top of a pink quilt knitted by Vivian just a year before she passed. The Reverend threw the door open, in a slight rage, but this was normal to Evita by now. “Here”, he grunted as he threw the soggy envelope onto the bed, leaving a brown stain on the handmade quilt. “I’m headed to the church. Clarice is in the office”, he declared on his way out for the night.

  The letter told a story where Evita’s grandmother reminisced on meditating with Vivian, the same way Vivian would with Evita. They stretched their limbs into the air while taking deep breaths and envisioning positive images. They’d chant mantras together that affirmed abundance and peace in their lives. Evita’s grandmother asked that she maintain her practices even now that her mother was gone. She asked that Evita try her hardest to remember her mother’s touch, sound, and scent, but most importantly the values her mother had passed onto her.

  Evita seemed passive when it came to The Reverend, or even with Brennan and other life decisions, so this blissful peacefulness became an inherited trait that was bittersweet. Evita obtained her passiveness through practicing a high level of patience for the people in her life, proving that there’s always a silver lining to our so-called flaws. These were characteristics only Vivian was able to pass down, but there was clearly a thin line.

  In her teenage
and early adult years, Vivian began to grow into her own. Her mother had prepared her with a holistic foundation; teaching her how to garden and cook feasts from scratch. Her mother instilled the importance of yoga and other meditative practices. She believed strongly in preventive healthcare and homemaking. As Vivian grew older, she, of course, separated from her mother’s grasp more and more. Vivian maintained the basis of her upbringing with ease, caring for herself in the most delicate of ways even without the watchful eyes of her mother. She eventually grew to be very attractive, and her pig tails morphed into back-length wet-set curls, fluffed out well enough to fly with the wind.

  Vivian was shapely, but modest, and wore knee-length dresses with short sleeves covered in abstract designs. She was a mix of 60s and futuristic 90s fashion, somehow seamlessly. Vivian’s innocence echoed through the high school hallways and attracted the opposite; distracted, undedicated students who never stayed for classes past lunch time. Vivian was very quiet and standoffish in public environments, but her radiance shined so bright from within, that the bad boys were like moths to a flame, needing to soak up her warmth. This is how she eventually attracted The Reverend, ironically.

  Carl Thomas was his name; a senior, varsity football player with a 2.1 GPA and a juvenile detention record. His older brother, Terry, was actually a junior who had been held back 4 times in a row. They had a younger sister Crystal who was smart enough to make straight A’s all through elementary and middle, but for some reason once she joined the junior varsity volleyball team in the 9th grade, she began taking notice of the older boys who ran varsity track and field.

  Her shorts cuffed to the bottom of her butt and drew in a lot of attention during Wednesday night games. Crystal ended up getting pregnant by one of the senior sports players who later left her once he got to college. The Reverend’s father was also a reverend, who took after his father and his father’s father. Crystal’s pregnancy was deemed unacceptable and an unworthy experience for a reverend’s daughter. She was disowned from the family and kicked out of the house at just 15 years old.