Chapter 39

Chapter 39 of 56 · 9-minute read

I pace for the next fifteen minutes before I’m too tired to go on and then sink into one of the plastic chairs in the waiting room. No pile-ups on the interstate tonight or natural disasters or anything that might flood this room with worried loved ones. On the wall behind me, a news channel plays silently on the TV, but I’m all alone. Not even a janitor or nurse in sight.

I pull out my phone and check the battery life, which is still high after recharging it while I recharged myself with a nap before Virgil came over to show me the shadow farm meditation. Try as I might, I can’t break this wall of loneliness tumbling down on me tonight. I’m grateful Virgil is here, but he’s taking care of business and Dixon is in Tallahassee overnight to close a real estate deal.

I desperately wish I could talk to Shelby. Because of his assignment, which should be over by Thanksgiving, we’ve been unable to communicate for months. The good news is that he’s planning to retire and come back home early next year. The bad news is, our mother won’t last that long and pulling him out of his assignment for a family funeral is too dangerous for him. Not that Mama even remembers him anymore. She stopped asking about him with this last downward spiral.

I’d like to chat with the girls. Neither have come home to see my mom or me, for their own reasons. Though they talked to her on the phone several times a week before my mom’s ICU stay, it’s probably just as well they don’t see her like this. I want them to keep their good memories of her when she was sturdier and still more like the grandmother they remember from childhood than the husk of a person she is now.

It’s too late at night to text the kids, especially Rhiannon who doesn’t need me interrupting her sleep now that her pregnancy is in the last weeks and she’s increasingly uncomfortable. Besides, I don’t want my neediness to interfere with her day-trading and her own need for as much rest as she can get. We talk almost daily, but my focus for now is on my ancestor rather than my descendants.

I don’t talk as often to Sonnet and Christabel—usually once a week—but I do usually watch their daily barrage of messages over social media. Their tour across the country as “Ravenz Legacy” includes not only interviews and podcasts on how to set up a successful healing center but they also perform a music-and-manifestation show two to four times a week, at $1200 a pop in person, usually to a packed venue, and $300 as a webcast. While they package their shows and sell them as a subscription service on YouTube, I as Sonnet’s mom and Christabel’s mentor have the advantage of a free subscription and can watch their new content any time I want as well as my older favorites. In each four-hour show, they alternate between Sonnet and Christabel’s duets and short inspirational speeches on manifesting your deepest desires. Both girls sing or take turns, accompanied by Sonnet on a twelve-string guitar that used to belong to Jesse. Then Christabel channels her spirit guides for the first twenty-five people Sonnet chooses from their in-person attendees. Before my mom was admitted to the ICU, she used to listen to the girls’ show to hear Sonnet sing, something that would calm her more often than anything or anyone else.

Lonely for my daughter, I dig my phone out of my pocket, find their subscription channel, and play their most recent upload, which is the show from this evening and is still live-streaming. My heart is racing, my chest heavy, and yet watching my kids enjoy their success after finding their purpose so early in life gives me wings and light.

Sonnet perches on a four-legged stool in the middle of the stage, two microphones on a stand as she strums her guitar and sings. I don’t recognize the song, but I know by the style and content that it’s one she wrote herself. She’d been a young teen when Jesse taught her how to write music to match her poetry, and the two of them and Christabel had played together a few times in our house before Jesse lost himself.

The camera pans the stage to find Christabel standing with her own microphone. Sonnet sings each verse, but Christabel harmonizes on the chorus, which is quickly picked up by the crowd. The camera zooms in on three Gen-X women with their arms raised, swaying, singing along. Another new hit in the making!

Christabel suddenly stops singing and stares straight ahead. She blinks three times as Sonnet’s voice fades, but the strumming continues. Then Christabel spins to peer directly into the camera as if she’s looking through the lens and space at me, alone in this miserable waiting room. It’s like my former student knows. She crosses the stage to lean into Sonnet’s ear, cups her hand as she speaks even though her lips are out of my sight.

Frowning, Sonnet plays and replays the same chord as she listens to her partner. Finally, she nods and transitions into a different sequence of chords. She leans into the microphone and smiles at the crowd.

“I’d like to share something with you now, both you and our live audience and those watching from home, and those especially of you with a heaviness in your hearts tonight.”

Sonnet pauses to pluck at the strings, then continues quietly as she speaks.

“I didn’t write this song. I don’t know who did. It’s an old song that has been passed down through the generations of my mother’s family. Other kids got their rock-a-bye babies, but my mom sang to me a different lullaby. Many, in fact. They were all folk songs. From a collection known as the Child ballads, but not because they’re lullabies, because most are not. Some of these songs come from medieval times, but they were still passed down in my family from mother to daughter as far back as anyone can remember. My mom’s never heard me sing this song. She doesn’t even know that I remember her singing it to me when I was a baby. It’s one of the same songs that her mother sang to her, and her mother before her. So this is a little gift for her—” Sonnet’s voice breaks— “because she’s going through a really hard time right now and I can’t be there. She’s watching the great circle of life. I know she’s listening tonight—Christabel’s spirit guides say so. But I hope she’ll share this with her mother soon, and help her remember the connection between the mothers and daughters in our family.”

Sonnet begins to sing. I clutch my phone, as the hot tears well in my eyes. Some people call it “The Riddle Song,” but I know it as “I Gave My Love a Cherry.” That’s what Mama called it, and Grandma, and the great-grandma I can barely remember. Clutching my phone with both hands, I sob so hard I can barely hear Sonnet’s voice on the tiny speakers.

As Sonnet finishes the old folk song, Christabel steps forward to the edge of the stage, microphone in hand, and looks directly into the camera. A hush falls across her audience.

“That’s it for our show tonight,” Christabel says.

The crowd groans.

“I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking. You’ve heard my guides’ message for twenty-four attendees and we still have time for one more. But tonight, my guides are telling me to do something a little different. My guides have a message for someone very dear to me.” She glances at Sonnet. “To us. I would not be here today were it not for this person. I mean, she not only taught me and encouraged me and took me in when I had no one, but she actually saved my life a few years ago. Like I said, I would not be here without her.”

The crowd sighs in unison.

“The Old Gods gave her an important mission in this lifetime, but it’s come true in a way she didn’t expect. You see, the mission given to her was to create a healing center—a Center of Light—and she did. She looked into the future and saw healing centers popping up all over the country, and people helping people through dark times. Only it wasn’t work that she herself had to do or do alone. She created the model that midwifed what Sonnet and I do here with you tonight. What you see here on this stage and when you work with Sonnet and me to set up your own healing centers is her legacy, which is why we call ourselves ‘Ravenz Legacy.’ So this reading tonight is for you, Raven.”

Cheers from the crowd drown her words. She waits for silence and continues.

“Raven, our hearts are with you tonight and through these coming weeks. Not just Sonnet and me, but everyone here. We send you love, light, and energy to hold space tonight for what you need. We help you open a doorway you thought you’d lost.” She frowns as she listens to something no one else can hear. “Three doorways. One for your mom, one to the past, one to the future.”

“Raven, Raven, Raven!” The live audience chants my magickal name. “Raven, Raven, Raven!”

Christabel waves her hand through the air in front of her as if smoothing rough edges, and they go quiet. Then she looks again into the camera. A sad smile spreads across her face.

“Raven, that song passed down through your matriarchal line should be a source of comfort because it reminds you of what you need to know. It’s more than a riddle: it’s an answer. The singer gave her love a cherry without a stone, a chicken without bones, a ring without end, and a baby with no crying. All impossible, right? But possible if you think of them in a different time. They are not always the same. Every phase of life will be different. The cherry doesn’t have a pit yet because it’s in the blooming stage. The chicken is still in the egg. The ring is rolling. The baby isn’t crying because it’s sleeping. The song doesn’t say that the cherry, chicken, ring, or baby are always in one particular state of being. At other times in their life cycle, they will be different but no less who they are. The blooming cherry, the pipping chicken, the rolling ring, and the sleeping baby are all brief stages of life or even of daily life, so don’t define yourself and others by one phase of existence. We are all always changing, and what is right at one time in our lives is not right at others. These stages are all windows of opportunity, and the windows open and close.”

Christabel still peers into the camera, but her eyes are unfocused now. She frowns deeply, then sighs as she blinks back into focus. She grins.

“Raven? My guides have another message for you. Two, actually. They say I should tell you that you’re safe and that nothing is going to hurt you. Mind your visions. They’re real. My guides also say that you will have love again. It’s already found you. I mean, they know you’ve had love before, but this time will be—wow—easy. Like in the song, it’s all about the timing. You weren’t ready for this love before and neither was he. But you both are now. He’s going to be everything you want and need for this stage of your life. Raven, you’re with this man tonight. He’s⁠—”

“Laurie? Baby?”

I jerk my head up. Heaving from running, Dixon towers over me in the doorway of the ICU waiting room.

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