Melanie and Charley Talk Voodoo
Michael
Around noon, Melanie knocks on the doorframe of wherever Charley has set up her little mountain of books: either the den with the TV on or Charley's bedroom, your choice. On a TV tray, Melanie presents a little egg salad sandwich, some celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins on (ants on a log!) and a glass of milk or juice, whichever Charley wants. As Melanie snoops at the covers of the books that Charley took out of the URIEL library—Voodoo by Alfred Métraux, Psychic Phenomena of Jamaica by Father Joseph J. Williams, S.J., Secrets of Voodoo by Milo Rigaud—raise not a little bit of internal alarm in Melanie but also she just sort of internally sighs and thinks to herself, "Okay, well … this is probably the kind of thing a Bay Area progressive school would encourage, 'getting to know other cultures,' that sort of thing," and tries to gamely make conversation about them.
"My goodness! This is awfully interesting looking, Charley." She sort of pokes at the "mod" looking cover of the Métraux. "Reminds me of that James Bond film your father and I went to see a couple of weeks ago. Chilling!" Melanie makes an exaggerated shiver.
Mel
Charley giggles at her mom’s pantomime and picks up her milk. “Oh I wanted to see it! It has Voodoo in it?? Can Jane take me?!”
Michael
"Well, that film is a little mature for a young lady of your age," Melanie says. "Gosh, it may have been a little mature for a young lady of my age!"
"Speaking of which, this is definitely different from the Social Studies I had to do at school," Melanie says, changing the subject. "So what are we learning about here?"
Mel
Charley is distracted from her disappointment of a no-go for the Bond movie by the questions of her studies. She playfully picks up the Matraux book and with a motion that suggests the creature is alive says. “Voodoo mom! VOOOOODOOOO!”
Michael
Ah, the periodic obsessions of the young, Melanie thinks to herself. She's been through it with all the Ransom kids (maybe not Jane so much when she was littler, but her being very concerned with politics right now seems to be filling that role as a young adult). And Melanie absolutely wants to engage with her daughter as best she can, even if she finds the subject matter a little outré. "Okay, smart girl. You be the teacher. Tell me all about it. What is Voodoo?"
Mel
Surprised Melanie doesn’t know especially after seeing Live and Let Die. She considers how to answer the question. “Well, from what I’ve read it’s a religion about Spirit. A blend of African religions and Roman Catholic. Kinda like our church is a blend or a branch of the Catholic Church only Voodoo makes a lot more sense.”
She could go on.
Michael
That's a lot for Melanie to take in all at once, but she's committed to the role of student to Charley's teacher, and decides to approach it on that tack. "Interesting! So this happened when African slaves were brought to the New World and encountered Christianity, and something new was born from it. It does sound a little like Mormonism! Englishmen came over to the New World and met the descendants of Lehi and Nephi and before too long Joseph Smith had found the record of how Jesus showed himself to them after the Resurrection, to make sure they heard the Good News too. Of course they forgot after a while, but that's why the Angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith the Golden Plates. The religious traditions of two continents, coming together."
"But Voodoo makes more sense than Mormonism, huh?" Melanie puts on an ironic voice of a doubtful student. "Why do you say that?"
Mel
Charley finishes her milk before saying more. “Well, I haven’t finished my research but it focuses on Spirit. That’s something important. Some of the other religions … Well it’s on the sideline. The focus tends to be about good vs evil about human behavior and control. It feels a bit gutted to me.” The word gutted felt funny to use but seemed right at the same time for Charley/Lily/Jack/Charlie.
Michael
Charley can sense Melanie just a little bit in awe of what a deep thinker this little child prodigy seems to be. "Spirit is important. The things we can't touch, but can only feel. Sometimes we forget spirit because everyday life is so full of other things. Going to work, buying the groceries, going to the dentist, watching television." Melanie seems a bit wistful, a bit thoughtful now. "I used to feel that way about my religion when I was a little girl too. I used to look at the gold statue of the Angel Moroni, blowing his trumpet on top of the Temple, the highest point on this already colossal building, and I used to feel my heart literally leap in my chest. They call that 'awe.'" Melanie picks a raisin off of one of Charley's ants-on-a-log, chews it thoughtfully. "I used to imagine that one day, maybe on the Day of Judgment, that statue would come to life, spread its wings, and blow the trumpet for the first and last time and call all the faithful to him."
Mel
Concerned. “But you don’t think that anymore?”
Michael
"I got older. I lost that sense of wonder, after … " Melanie raises her eyebrows and smirks ruefully to herself. "You said it yourself, Charley. Sometimes the people in charge of a church are more concerned about 'control' and 'behavior' than wonder, or spirit, or a little girl's curious questions."
"And of course your father and I drifted away from attending Church a few years ago. Your father had his reasons," here Melanie pauses again with a sigh, "but sometimes I miss it. That's the other thing about religion, Charley … community. Worship brings us human beings together under God's eye to do good works, charity, and to help each other. But maybe in the end, that sense of community is also Spirit."
Mel
"It's a kind of Spirit. So, if you miss it, you should go back. I would go with you but I'm trying to find answers to how the universe works. And I won't find them there." Charley's mind drifts back to the mention of her dad and the sad tone in her mother's voice when she spoke of him and what was. " She decides not to speak of it and instead says. "You should do what makes you happy mom."
Michael
Again, a mix of contradictory emotions cross Melanie's face as Charley speaks: relief, shock, and stunned speechlessness, but as Charley finishes speaking, Melanie says, "Oh Charley. If it was only that simple. Happiness, I mean. Some people spend their whole grown-up lives trying to figure out what makes them happy." Melanie almost can't help but speak to Charley like she's much older, like she was a daughter who grew up and moved away and came back to live with the family. Maybe there is something to that "old soul" stuff the hippies believe, Melanie thinks to herself. Melanie then backs up a second to the thing Charley buried in the midst of all that and says, "Wait a second. You're trying to find answers to … how the universe works? In Voodoo?"
Mel
She was going to explain how it is that easy. But the turn of conversation has left those words adrift. Now amused by her mother’s question she replies, “Well yes!? You have to look everywhere for answers. Besides, it deals with Spirit and the universe is consciousness so they relate.”
Michael
Melanie's mouth stays open just a second too long at "the universe is consciousness." She's trying to keep up with her little prodigy, to engage with her seeing as how she's so excited about something, but the conversation and its metaphysical dimension is growing increasingly more difficult for Melanie to conceptualize. "So... Voodoo is a religion where there is Spirit in, well, everything?"
Mel
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Would you like to borrow my book?”
“I think you would like it.”
Michael
Melanie melts at this show of vulnerability. "Yes, Charley. I would like that very much." She picks up the Métraux which looks like the most accessible of all the books. "Bedtime reading, with your father out late tonight." She smiles. "Jane and Eddie also said they're going to be out late tonight so it's just you and me for dinner tonight." Sounds like Eddie's punishment didn't last too long. "What do you say we go pick up some takeout for dinner, and some ice cream, and watch TV together? Brady Bunch and Partridge Family tonight. I could use a break from cooking. It would make me very happy to spend some time with my little girl."
After dinner, ice cream, and all that talk of voodoo, Charley gets into bed. (Maybe she's reading one of the more technical Vodou texts in bed with a flashlight.) As she drifts off to sleep, she feels a faint grinding in her guts, kind of like when she gets carsick, almost as if she's moving... but far more powerful than those feelings of discomfort is the fatigue that suddenly overwhelms her. She falls asleep. In her hypnogogic state she is jarred, her limbs outstretched and stiff, her vision overwhelmed with visions of falling multicolored blocks. It feels scary to Charley on a subconscious level, but also … right. Like a question she'd been asking all day is about to be answered. Sleep paralysis... the night hag... the visitation... says the past-life presence of Jack Parsons deep in Charley's mind. Prepare for contact. Papa Legba crouches, balancing himself on his cane, at the foot of Charley's bed. Somehow this full-sized adult man balances on the foot of this tiny bed, but the size differential seems to waver back and forth in Charley's "vision." Is he tiny or huge? Is he here or did Charley go somewhere else? Quantum effects, Charley thinks to herself, her eyes fluttering behind her eyelids as Papa Legba speaks. "Ma petite écolière. You called, in your way. I answered. We don't have the rhum but such an elixir is not for children, non?"
He doesn't look like Roger, not at all. But Roger, when he is being ridden, looks a bit like him.
Mel
Wanting to respond to the looming presence at the foot of her bed, Charley finds she can't. Now panicking, she has to work hard to slow down her breath. As Charley calms herself, more of her room becomes visible, revealing three giant statues directly behind the Lord of Crossroads. Their stone forms have skins of shadow that shifts in the blue-grey light. "She wonders, is that, Morpheus, Phobetor, and Phantasos, the sons of Sleep? Ovid wrote of them … "
And as Charley tries to make them out more clearly, they smile. Changing the totality of their features until a metamorphosis is complete. No longer the Heirs of Sleep but Lwa. The Baron La Croix, Baron Criminel, and Baron Samedi. But as soon as Charley identifies them, they fade into shadow. As they leave, she hears a voice behind her that says, "Beware, the Gates of Horn and Ivory." The room now seems settled, freeing her to look to Papa Legba. Her thoughts speak to him. "Papa Legba? Are you here to help me?"
Michael
Papa laughs his smoky, croaky laugh, drawing from his long pipe. He watches with a wry smile his good cousins fade into the background as statuary behind the Gates of Horn and Ivory. "Indeed I am, ma petite! I come to complete my bargain with you. I owe you an answer which is a question, n'est-ce pas? You remember, when you went to, aheh, 'Oz'?"
"You asked mon cheval, 'What would you, ask you, if you were me?' And I told you cette question was, eh, imprécise, you left too much unspecified, too much unspoken. I hope in the time between meetings you have remembered this lesson, mon écoliere. Even if you have not, my second boon should demonstrate the importance. Yes, I do owe you this much. The answer … or rather the question, for you to ask me next. And it is:
What payment of mine, given freely and of my own will, without bond of servitude, bond of soul, or harm to myself or others — a payment possible for me alone to pay in my lifetime — would you, Papa Legba, Guardian of the Threshold, require of me, to teach me the skills to find the fate of my family and protect us from the repercussions of that search?"
"Ask it, or ask another: my second boon is granted."
Mel
Charley considers her teacher's offer and finds it difficult to accept without asking more. But that's not how it works... She finds she can now speak freely and asks without fear. "What payment of mine, given freely and of my own will, without bond of servitude, bond of soul, or harm to myself or others — a payment possible for me alone to pay in my lifetime — would you, Papa Legba, Guardian of the Threshold, require of me, to teach me the skills to find the fate of my family and protect us from the repercussions of that search?"
Michael
Suddenly solemn, Papa consecrates the question with a gulp of spectral rum; in the individual droplets in the green glass bottle, Charley can see tumbling microscopic bulges, undulating shapes that seem to go deeper than even Charley's quantum sight can track. In this elixir, Charley realizes, is liquid wisdom. Papa Legba now speaks.
"Papa Legba, Opener of the Way, asks, as a payment for his tutelage, for you to answer him three questions, of his own, asked and answered within your mortal lifetime, for you and you alone to search out and answer, and him and him alone to hear." In a flash Charley understands she may not know the why or when of the "searching out" of these secrets Papa Legba wishes to hear now, but that when they come near to Charley in her lifetime's journey, near to her position in time and space, Charley will know.
Charley has made contact, as Jack Parsons said. The higher system (the universe) has connected to the terminal (Charley): she feels like a spinning tape reel in the lab all full of data now. But there is, inevitably, one more piece of data that Papa Legba wishes to bring from the other side. One more download.
"My little one, there is one last request I must make of you, a petty request, a message to bring to your houngan." Charley at first thinks Papa is talking about Dad, Archie, being the houngan: the high priest of URIEL. Mostly that's because Charley is also generally thinking about Dad right now; she can't help but feel, vaguely through her Special Rapport, that the reason why she was able to meet with Papa Legba so easily tonight has … something to do with Dad. But Dad can't be doing something like a Voodoo ceremony right now, Charley says to herself, that wouldn't make any sense. Papa Legba must mean Roger.
"Please let Rogier know that he has a task to complete for my cousins' benefit, oui? And for yours! He is to look into your eyes to discover who is your head's master, your maître de la tête, your patron loa! Tell him only he is to discern this; he may call upon me while his eyes are upon you but all I will do is witness. You were very naughty trying to sneak a peek at your patron just now, by the way ma chère, I saw what you did there." He gestures to the shadowy loa behind the Gates, their forms misty and uncertain in the lands of false and true dreams.
"It is always a pleasure to meet with you, mon écolière. You and I, we work well together, but alas, I am only here to open the doorway, ha ha, to carry you over the threshold. To go deeper you must have your own patron. Do not be alarmed! You will not become the cheval when you receive this mantle, bien sûr, but instead think of receiving their name as you would receive your … baptisme.
In the space between worlds as Papa Legba retreats, Charley feels a hyper-slick, hyper-conductive violet liquid leak from her eyes, ears, mouth, hands and feet as she floats through a seemingly endless void on her way back to the waking world. Fright Check, succeed on a 13 or less.
>>>> SUCCESS by 4
You passed the Fright Check. Charley sleeps through the rest of the night and wakes up on Saturday morning none the worse for wear and completely fatigue-free.