(Gotta love this picture. I thought she was the coolest character out of ALL of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.)
What The Bones Say
Angel woke up in a cold sweat. Third night
in a row that she had a dream about being chased by some dark shadowy figure.
She couldn’t see the face, she could just hear it breathing, and see white
teeth flash in the moon light. What the hell was it? And why was it after her?
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she got
up and walked to the bathroom still trembling from the nightmare that seemed
more real than dream. “No denying
it,” she said. “This is a
message.”
After showering and washing away the
evidence of the terror from her body, Angel got dressed and headed down stairs
to her kitchen. Smelling fresh bacon & eggs cooking, hearing the Today show
in the background, and listening to the sweet, soft humming of her BFF at the
stove, she felt a little better, and quickly pushed the dream from her mind.
“Hey girly! I thought you were never gonna
get up. Bon Dieu! You sleep like the
dead.”
Celeste Monroe, her oldest and closest
friend since like sandbox. Always had a knack for putting a smile on her face
even in the worst situations. Now was no different.
“You ok, cher? You are awfully quiet this morning.”
Stumbling over her thoughts, Angel finally
decided to start from the beginning and tell her friend what has been going
on. Celeste was a Hoodoo. Born and
raised. She had a gift for divination and interpreting dreams. If anyone would
know what was going on she would.
“I had a…dream last night. I was being
chased.”
“Was he hot? Cause if he was, you should
of let him catch you.”
“Nasty.”
“What? I’m just saying, if I was the one
being chased by some hot guy I would find a way to trip and fall and let him
catch me.” A big Cheshire cat grin crossing her full lips.
Sighing, Angel pulled out the chair at the
kitchen table, , pushed a few stray locs out of her face, and started to
recount her reoccurring dream, the large shadowy creature in it, and the extreme fear she has been
plagued with for the past three nights.
Turnign the stove off and moving their
breakfast to a cool trivet, Celeste sat down at the table with her and thought
for a bit before she responded to what was relayed to her.
“DO you think it was a dream or …?”
“Please don’t say it.”
“Cher.
You know you have a gift for visions, and if this is something that is gonna
happen, and to you specifically, you need to face it and figure out what all of
it means.”
Deep down Angel knew she was right. “I…I
know.”
Getting up from the table she walked over
to the window and watched the sun sparkle off the bayou water. Angel knew it
was a “message.” A vision, and that if she didn’t figure it out in time, a
life, mainly hers might be in danger.
Looking at Celeste, she nodded her head.
“Yes, I do believe it was a vision. This just felt too REAL to be a regular
dream. I’ve had enough visions in my life to know the difference. And THIS…this was no regular dream, mon ami.”
“Well then. Looks like we have work to do.
Go get de bones.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Groaning like a child told to clean her
room, Angel went and grabbed a small leather bag with the veve for Papa Legba, lovingly embroidered on the front of it
in silver thread. Hearing the click clack of its contents soothed her. The bones never lied to
her. They never hurt her. They may have told her truths that she wasn’t ready
to hear yet, but she knew needed to be heard. Walking back into the kitchen she
thought about a reading she gave 4 months ago. It was for a woman who was
caught in a love triangle with her husband and his best friend. She loved both
of them dearly, but was miserable in her marriage, and wanted to have the same
passion and love in her life that she originally had with her husband, but with
this other man.
Angel picked up the bones prayed to her
guardian Loa & to Papa Legba to show her the truth that this woman
desperately needed to see to make the right choice in her life.
The bones were thrown. They bounced around
for a couple of seconds before landing in their ordained pattern. Two strong yeses, two strong no’s. A decision
to be made. One not to taken lightly. She picked them up again, shook them and
let them fly onto the table. Three
no’s and one strong yes. If the woman stayed with her husband and waited out
this storm in their marriage, there will be much happiness in the end. A third
and final roll. Three yeses, one strong no. If she went with the other man, her
husband’s best friend, she might be happy and content for a while (a honeymoon
period), but in the end, it would fall apart. Her world would be torn apart, and so would his.
Angel got a thank you card from the woman
two weeks ago. She stayed with her husband. They went to counseling found the
root of their problems, and are now happier than they have been in years. Her
affair with the other man? She ended it that night she left Angel’s house following
the reading. Her lover evidently moved on to another woman, and his wife found out.
Left him, took their children, and most of his money in the process. Angel
chuckled thanking bon Dieu, that this
woman actually listened to the advise the loa were sending her through the
bones, and not doing like some of her other clients do. Ignore the truth given,
and end up worse off than what they were to start.
Sitting down at the table, Celeste
approaches her with a fragrant cup of tea. “This will relax you. Help you to
see what needs to be seen.”
While sipping the tea, her best friend
cleansed her with the smoke of a burning sage bundle, and prayed for insight
and protection for them both.
“You know I have a difficult time doing
readings for myself. I can never see past my own damn cloud of emotions and
thoughts to see what is spelled out right in front of me.”
“It takes time and practice. You know
this.”
“Time and practice…I have had the past 10
years, worth of time and practice. You would think I would have gotten the hang
of this by now.”
Shaking her perfectly cornrowed head,
Celeste gently grabbed her friend’s hand from across the table, patted it and gave
a warm motherly smile. “It was 10 years of off and on spotty practice. If you
had practiced everyday like ma-tante was trying to get you to do instead of vi-key-vi, -half
assed- you wouldn’t be having this problem now.”
“I know. I know. Well, I guess I better
let these bad boys fly and see what was after me and what it wanted.”
Picking up the bag, Angel poured the bones
into her hand. The energy in them sparked through her fingers like they were
made of pure electricity. Hmmm… she
thought. These have never felt like this
before. Normally they would feel like a warm pulse or, heartbeat in her hand,
but this was sharper. Almost painful.
“C-, touch these and tell me what you
feel.”
Celeste reached for the bones in her hand and was
about to grab them, when a large blue white arch of energy shot out and shocked
her.
“Merde!
Fuck that hurt! Have they ever done that before?” Rubbing her injured hand and
bruised ego.
“No. Never. I haven’t cleansed them in a
week or two since my last client was here. Maybe they just need a bit of the
smoke.”
“Maybe.” But , Celeste felt like it was
something else that was causing the bones to go haywire and arch energy like
that. Something dark.
Picking up the sage bundle, Angel prayed
to La Sirene asking that her cool waters would cleanse the bones of any
negativity, and she asked Papa Legba to close the door on any negative spirits
that might be causing the problem.
“Ok. I think they are ready. Let’s try
this again.”
“You go right ahead. I am keeping my hands
to myself. And be careful, cher. I
have a bad feeling. Something is not right about this.”
“So I shouldn’t do this?”
“No, you have to. I mean I have a bad
feeling about this whole situation. Your bones have not reacted like this
before, and I find it no coincidence that they seem booby trapped since you started having this dream.”
Angel bit her lip, mulling over her choices.
“Can’t you do a card reading for me? I mean we would get a more detailed
picture of what is going on.”
“I guess we can.” Getting her cards from a
secret drawer built into their herb cabinet, she jumped back and gasped as
first smoke then flames burst forth from the drawer instantly incinerating all
that was inside of it.
“What the hell?!!!”
“Get the fire extinguisher!”
Angel came running back from the pantry
with the extinguisher. After four
to five blasts, the fire was finally put out.
“Well looks like cards are a no go.”
“Get the holy water, the exorcism incense,
and the white chalk. We are gonna get answers, and we are gonna get them now.”
The deadly fire in Celeste’s eyes showed
that her friend was not only pissed about her favorite tarot deck and other
sacred items being turned into ash, but that she was determined to find whoever
or what ever it was that had invaded their private space and declared war.
