WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Everyone says it doesn’t exist—and maybe they’re right, so I try to think as they do.  I grab my man pillow and lean my head out the window, taking in the breeze and rays of the sun for the first time in months. The Texas humidity slaps me like a damp dish rag .  O range, red and brown leaves clink from spindly limbs like sky chandeliers. I close my eyes and absorb the Vitamin D my body is craving from being in utter darkness, inwardly and outwardly.  After a good soaking, I open my eyes and come undone.
    It was high up in the wondering tree, waiting for me to acknowledge  its presence, bow to its kingship, and grovel in its majesty.  I lost my breath with its sight, lush and dripping with morning dew. The drops glistened and bounced across the fabric of its sticky weave. I had always been leery of spiders in general, but their craftsmanship was astounding and often left me in awe.  I wondered how something so small could create such beauty time and time again, over and over as if it simply wasn’t going to quit.  And then I wondered why I couldn’t do the same?  The spider web was three foot across, one limb to another and draped with a gallery of crisp, colorful leaf curtains. The small brown spider clung to the stretchy yarn but that’s not what held my gaze and made my heart drop. In the center of the web, hanging from a single thread and clinging to a brown leaf was my redemption. I could feel a tear pool up in my eyes, left over in time, waiting on this very moment to spill out, to release.  The tiny cicada crackle clung to a dried maple leaf. 
    Like me. Holding on. Tossed in the wind. Drifting. Waiting .  Stuck.
    Memories flood inside my mind, bits and pieces, childhood relics so vivid and real, I feared I would die from their impact. The leaf crackle spun blurry in my vision, around and around it toiled and my mind connected to it, drifting from past to present and yearning for something unknown, unseen. Suddenly I emerged into another realm, a world of forgotten magic, held up in a lost childhood that sought to reclaim me. Maw Sue appeared at the foot of my bed, ghastly, ghostly again and scaring me to death. 
    “Make lovely your losses, Willodean.”
    My heart shattered like pellets of window glass as if it understood the meaning for the first time. She vanished, once again, leaving me to grieve in my wake of incredible afflictions.  I saw nothing lovely. It didn't feel lovely. How is one to make lovely the pain? Make lovely our losses.  It’s simply mad.    I glanced at the  crackle as if it would speak and tell me the answers I needed.  Instead, I saw myself in its place, stuck, brittle bones, clinging to threads, tangled up, spinning and unable to escape the peril, drifting through days without direction, focus, and left to the mercy of the gusting winds.  Unreleased. Captive.  There was a thread in me that felt mysteriously attached to these objects, the wind, the web, the leaf, and the crackle shell, all appearing like snapshots from my childhood. The wind would gently sway and move the leaf crackle and at the same time, my heart would flutter and move with it, aching and ravaged with lost desires. My mind spun a web of thoughts.    A leaf didn’t belong in a spider web. Nor did a crackle. How did it get there? Did it marry the wrong man, make a gazillion bad decisions, drink liquor to null the pain, horde up in a house of horrors, have sex with strangers, fight internal demons, or swallow bottles of pills to kill the pain? Did it give up? Did it fight a great sadness? Was it gifted and cursed? Was it searching for meaning? Was its namesake nameless? Did it wish for death every day? Did it feel dead already? How did it get there? Where did it start? And how will it end?
    A deep quiver rumbled from a dark place, a hidden room inside the house, beside my heart.  Underneath. Below.  It was unsettling. Something grabbed my hand and pulled me.  Invisible force. Strong.