It is simply beautiful, like the sight of butterflies on yellow leaves, to have the gift of imagination. It is simply, even undoubtedly, a largely held notion – unless you were born on some other planet – that babies should cry when they come. But Evelyn laughed. Moreso to the discomfort of the overbearing nurses who were now tiredly busy with the unenviable task of clearing up the entire labour space.
To ensure this was entirely not a nightmare they needed to wake up from, they pinched themselves and then proceeded to make the baby conform. They pinched it. And when that seemed not enough, they spanked it and went a little bit further to use a needle on the baby's soft and delicate chin. But instead, Evelyn the little queer baby let out a guffaw that left the nurses embarrassed and perplexed.
No one had ever seen a baby like this before, more so in Eastside General Hospital famed for delivering more famous and successful individuals than any other hospital in Earth history. But that wasn't the only thing remarkable about Evelyn. She was born with a black crucifix. This the nurses discovered last. And to say this held a great implication, for it meant it had simply appeared afterwards.
For no one saw it when the baby first came. There was something grave about it all – that even the most irreligious amongst the midwives quivered with fright. Next, they sent for Sister Mariana whose first sinister action was to burn incense. Then she read the rosary and held the little hand of the infant. And that was the moment the baby cried with a fervent gust of relief.
The nurses marvelled and praised the god of Sister Mariana – for amidst the lot were Buddhists, Muslims and even staunch, diehard atheists. She took the crucifix from the palm of the baby, wherein there was also a note, and tried to pacify Evelyn's bearer who was simply a teen with the demeanour of a savage adolescent.
No one saw Sister Mariana again, nor did anyone hear about the contents of the note – so much that as years passed by, and Evelyn turned seven, her mother kept returning to ask of the Sister who had intervened in the strange delivery. She was interested to know what the letter contained. Especially now that it was starkly evident that Evelyn speaks animal language and remembers events that had occurred before she was even born.
But the nurses, most of whom were new faces, could not give accurate information as to the whereabouts of Sister Mariana. But at the fifteenth visit, Ms. Sawyer asked the Chief Physician in charge to help her go through the records of birth dating back to the year Evelyn was born. Sorry, Madam, I don't think that is a request I can ever grant you, the doctor said.
When the bugging became too much, like the cacophonous sound of an old locomotive engine, the doctor asked Ms. Sawyer to please put her best foot forward in a place like a cemetery where no one would ever hear her. Hurt but undaunted, Ms. Sawyer persisted till the number of visits had reached a degree that if the doctor had done nothing to support Ms. Sawyer's cause it would have amounted to nothing but sheer cruelty. So, this time, they laid the bone of contention on the existential table of reasoning and tried to get to the marrow of it.
The doctor called his lawyer and made Ms. Sawyer sign some documents to ensure whatever information she would take away from the records would not be used in such a way as to cause harm to the hospital or to the individuals whose information she would be made privy. At the end, the lawyer left with a duffle bag containing gift cards and antique paintings – some sort of kind gesture from the office of The Chief Physician.
And what had Ms. Sawyer found (or, more accurately, gathered)? On the sixteenth of January, before Evelyn was born, two sex workers had made a certain deadly pact – a pact that involved life and death. One other, an adolescent virgin as at the time of occurrence, was dragooned unknowingly into the pact which involved slitting their wrists and sharing their bloods mixed with wine.
This was a blood covenant of the rarest sort. One of the hookers, who was heavily pregnant, doused a certain sacred text in gasoline before setting it on fire. Then she made the rest smoke dry leaves of cannabis with her – all wrapped up with the pages torn off the book whose narrator, the virgin, had kept unnamed in the document tucked in-between the records of birth that ensued a minute or so after that night. Evelyn was born at exactly 12:05, and it was the moment a swirl of hypnotic gas had surrounded the three women smoking the sacred text.
Then the document revealed, albeit passively, that the two women were expecting the return of a mad deity who was banished by talking elemental forces whose voices they had begun to hear after a night with a man in his bath tub. En passe, the revelation was that they had been possessed by the spirit of this deity seeking to come back to a realm he once knew.
And so he had communicated to the two women how this could only work with the help of an adolescent virgin who must comply from beginning to the very end of the ritual. The pieces of the text the virgin had seen read: Woman, who are like thou? Not one rose from earthly gardens can compare. Thy beauty surpasses that of the world's ornaments. Woman, thou art precious. From ages past, thou hath been the most precious object in the world. The body of a woman's precious.
And so are virgins, usherers of good or bad. Let ye virgins rejoice, for ye are the most powerful. Ye know not what forces ye carry. But I Shimock the mad God, shall come through one of ye to reclaim earth realm. The text was seen lying on the floor, just next to her foot, as the final stage of the ritual was nearing completion. And it was that moment that she realised she had become pregnant.
"This is serious." the doctor said. "But I will call it a well-written story, a fable of some outrageous sort."
"I wouldn't call it that." Ms. Sawyer said. "There are forces. Think about it. If the heavens without pillars don't fall, and the moon doesn't shine by day, and the sun doesn't rise amiss, then there are powers controlling all of these things. I am certain there is some redemption in this document, something that could save my daughter who apart from communicating with all kinds of animals have developed certain strange mannerisms and habits. But then there's something that's still not clear."
"Well, I don't care. And neither am I interested in the clarity of it. I am a scientist to the core, and if you wouldn't mind I have some important businesses to attend to. Take this document and have a nice day."
And upon the doctor's dismissal, Ms. Sawyer took the note and set about to leave. In the corridor of the hospital, she acknowledged that indeed something was off about everything. Not thinking much about it, she left the hospital building and entered the street.
***
When Ms. Sawyer got home, she opened a can of sardined spinach and began to think quietly about everything. The birds outside, as she could see through her windows, were flapping and perching haphazardly. She pondered about everything in such slow tempo that enjoying the meal would have been quite difficult and arduous a venture.
Then as she thought out almost aloud, a certain young lad in elfish black robe tapped on the window overlooking a scanty old garden. He was wearing a black hat with a pointed end that tipped over, and his nose was the longest Ms. Sawyer had ever seen. But what's that noise of his? The beating of his hideous heart?
And before she could bring herself to think alright, the young man ushered in Evelyn as though his utmost desire had been to say 'Look who I brought for you. Surprised?' Terror of an unprecedented magnitude scorched the throat of Ms. Sawyer as she watched the strange fellow take her daughter farther away from the window.
Forced to rise upon her feet, she began to approach the window. Abruptly, and confusedly so, another male with the same kind of robe was hewing a worm-infested stump ungraciously attacked by birds. The birds were so many that the sight of the man hewing at the stump provided a poetic portrait of the macabre. And when Ms. Sawyer eventually opened the window, Evelyn was alone.
"Come inside, Evelyn." she said. "Come."
And when Evelyn made it into the house through the door, Ms. Sawyer returned again to her "semi-detached" daydreaming.
***
The next day, Ms. Sawyer found herself given to worries as she pondered about her recent lacklustre hallucinations and dreary imaginations. She thought about the horror of having one's womb rented to an unseen tenant who turns the body of the host to an unequivocal support system. And while she thought about this in the unfaithful hours of the morning, she saw Evelyn stretch her hands to the ceiling (killing a wandering gecko).
But she was certain this was only in her imagination, and Evelyn wished she held that notion for much too long. And just in recent days, she had started to have snippets that her childhood may not have happened quite the way she remembers it. Probably there were facts and figures hidden away from her early days. Perhaps to protect her as well. And as she sat upon the wooden chair looking rather lost, Evelyn saw a large spider emerge eastwards from the ceiling.
The spider, a typical "daddy long legs", crept steadily across the board – it's spinnerets working so steadfastly Evelyn could swear she could hear the sound of all of their movements.
"Come." she heard the spider say. It was hanging down from the ceiling at this point, so close that Evelyn could grab it if she ever wanted. "I have something to say."
"Alright." Evelyn said – it was almost a whisper. And just at that instance, the spider climbed up and raced down the ceiling as Evelyn gazed suspiciously. Reaching the westward portion of the ceiling, the spider turned to find Evelyn still unsure if she should follow.
"Come!" screamed the spider – "before it's too late" – that if Ms. Sawyer could hear like Evelyn once in a while it would have startled her back to reality.
Quietly – not like she cared if her mom noticed at all – she walked past Ms. Sawyer to the point where the spider hung menacingly. The only thing was she needed not to be seen talking to a spider. It was hanging down the front of the door that led to the corridor – its eyes shining like tiny specks of gold dust.
"Open sesame!" the spider said. But the door did not open. "Please, Evelyn, a little push." the spider said firmly. And when Evelyn turned the doorknob, she turned to see if her mother was looking. But lo! Her mother was still in the clouds – probably somewhere where someone's thoughts could hardly condense to a wakening.
"Where are we going?" Evelyn asked as the door opened and rested on the adjacent wall.
"To somewhere you've never dreamed of, somewhere so blessed it can enthrall the stars," said the spider.
"What shall we find?"
"Make a wish." the spider replied. "Just a wish, whatever the wish."
Evelyn stood for a while and thought very deeply about the spider's adventurous offer. And when she could not come up with a wish of her own, the spider dropped to her earlobe.
"Now I see it must be, I presume, such an arduous task for you. If so, then I suggest you choose between meeting a travel writer on the island of Austa or meeting the magician on a long lost ship in Bermuda. Oh, please, make a wish!"
Evelyn thought about the spider's proposal in what would scarcely amount to a careful consideration and settled for the latter.
"Alright." the spider said and jumped to the ground. "Follow, It's show time." Evelyn shut the door gently and followed the talking arthropod till they reached the door to the backyard.
"But before you open this door," began the spider as Evelyn stretched a hand for the silver knob. "I must let you know that when tempers fray and death circles closer, your midnight coughing could buy your daylight coffin. So life is spent and our meaning remains."
But Evelyn did not think much about what the spider meant. She simply opened the door as her adventurous impulses dictated. Half-dead birds flapped to the earth in their multitudes. And Evelyn noticed, to her greatest surprise, that the door had opened to another world. It felt like a peek into a parallel dimension, familiar yet exotic.
A world of its own kind. But it was Bermuda – a portion no one had ever seen. And as Evelyn looked to the far horizon, the mast of a wrecked ship with yellow-green sails could be seen (several birds flying all about it). Something like a resurrected woolly mammoth stood amidst two trees like conifers. A man with an axe across his shoulder stood next to the mammoth. He looked like a neanderthal.
His thumbs and toes were podgy, and his eyes were naturally swollen by the lashes whose hairs were brown. It was very much uncertain if the man could see. The spider began to climb the legs of Evelyn, tickling her as it journeyed upward, till it got up to her shoulder.
"It is, my lady, almost certain that most of us need to see from the shoulder of giants." the spider announced. "This land has been enchanted by the magician in his fury. Now, over there! We have a meeting to do."
And with just a nod, Evelyn began to walk cautiously across the landscape – the land getting bluey and reddish with every trod, and the spider hanging every now and then from the top of her ear. Purplish crabs emerged from the seemingly inked sands and began to run along, avoiding being crushed. The early morning sun here hung in the sky in its orangey magnificence, and made the sight of the ship ahead a beautiful thing to behold.
Evelyn walked on with caution under the clear blue sky that stretched overhead. And once or twice she heard her name in cold whispers. But there was no one to be seen when she turned around. Could it be her mind? The spider hung still, whispering and making Evelyn privy of whatever that's pertinent. The present wind whooshed in calculated cadences, something like the rise and fall of a note in fifth harmonic.
If one needed a reason to believe there's some place of rustless beauty called paradise, this certainly would have sufficed. And as Evelyn walked further down the sandy landscape, she began to hear something like the sound of music. But there was no music at all. It was the magician's shoe rapping on a steel contraption – perhaps one fashioned from the loins of magic.
"That's what he does. He raps his foot on that whatchamacallit. Somehow – considering things more introspectively –" the spider began without notice. "You will find that this place is some El Dorado you could wish for, and that you have come so close to the hub of the world's greatest wheel of wonder as one such as you could never have dreamt.
There is no beauty greater than the one you shall be exposed to within these exoteric plains. How already lucky you are! For not a great majority of the world's mortals get here – through dreams or enchanted reality. I can count the numbers on my fingers, trust me. It is a world revealed through assisted-dreaming or, like yours, by a pact with the spirits."
"Spirits?!" Evelyn rasped.
"Yes." continued the spider. "And when you meet the magician, do remember to ask for the potions in red bottles – remember, not blue, or white, nor green, privileged child of the gods."
"Gods?" Evelyn enquired. "But I have no blood of the gods."
"Worry not, for not everything shall be let known. And the ones that shall come to you in due season, all the truths and all the meanings."
At this time, they were nearing the ship – the spider and the girl who had been led away from her mother's house.
"I'm getting scared." Evelyn said. "Just a little bit. I have never been out like this before."
"It's normal to be afraid." replied the spider. "That's what makes us animals. We must fear to live. Whether we are humans or spiders or shrews do not matter. But we must learn to manage these fears. There are some ghiblis here that feed on them – they attack the moment they sense it. You must therefore protect yourself from fear."
And just then, a man holding a shapeless guitar emerged from the ship. His hair hung in the most disheveled way – it was blonde as it was white – and it looked as though he had been smoking or sleeping as his eyes suggested. Round his head was a turban with white and red colours, and a sign that resembled a scorpion with a deadly insect. Evelyn exhaled and thought of what to do.
"What can I say?" she asked the spider.
"Anything." replied the confident spider. "Just anything. But make it count. Your gambit can define the course of events and steer it to whatever direction. The magician has made no friends in a long while."
And just as Evelyn opened her mouth to speak, she realized the magician was shaking and twirling in plumes of smoke, a sort of abracadabra spilling from his mouth like longheld animal syllables.
It certainly does help, whenever, to have the deluge of courage. But in this case, Evelyn was handicapped. She had never seen a thing like this before. The magician took a collar and put it on his neck. The collar had just fitted itself as a second one on his neck when he burst out: Bidi bidi shukumbi astala astala laho.
"Please, sir!" Evelyn blurted at last. "I'm here to find potions in red bottles."
He was almost dancing now in the plumes of smoke that had gathered around him, spilling more abracadabra as he emerged from the purple plumes. His eyes glistened with a strange kind of wonder, as his nose twirled like ductile strings. "Ha! Goosebumpsy wanderer! What are you? A boy, a fish, or a girl?"
Evelyn felt the eccentric niceties to the magician's words.
"Tell him a fish. Tell him a fish!" the spider encouraged.
And as soon as the word spilled out of Evelyn's mouth, the magician went into sheer rage. "I see the joke you think I am now! But no worries at all. I shall turn you into a stone. Prepare to lose your useful life."
"Please!" Evelyn pleaded. "It's the spider. Believe me."
"What spider?" the magician pried.
"If you'd let me, I'd show you." Evelyn said, grabbing the "daddy long legs" from her ear. And just then, a three-headed egret appeared from behind the magician – and so Evelyn took her attention to it before the magician said:
"Be anxious for nothing, for I see what you are up against. You are with the seven-legged Atropos spider from The Half-underworld. Beware! He's a puny traitor."
"I'm not, Evelyn." protested the spider. "Don't believe a man who knows too much magic than he knows the names of things."
The magician, with stark disgust clearly written upon his face, tried to get off the ship to where the girl stood. "I can hear you, spider! I can hear you godforsaken Atropos spider!" Then he stumbled and fell into a blue glue. Rising from it in a slippery motion, he grabbed the purple-headed egret and tried to get away from all the gluey mess on the deck. "Trust me, girl." he continued. "I can make all your wishes come true."
"Yeah!" said the spider. "And maybe get you turned to a toad."
There was a sign of pure and utter indignation on the magician's face, and it seemed he would punish the spider. But the magician, however, had other ideas. He struggled away further from the gluey mess, dragging his feet with cautiousness befitting such circumstances. And all along, his intention was to get over the situation and find his foot out of the ship.
"Ha!" he muttered and stumbled over with his gray robe out of the ship and onto the Bermudan soil. And upon setting foot on the coloured landscape, he reached for the girl's arms – his eyes burning with "shouting" colours that contrasted with the somberness of his robe. Then the magician laughed in a telling way that chilled the girl's blood. "Now, I shall put you under a crushing stone to 'uplift' my worries.
Not a single worry has found Opaloomza, not since he exiled himself. And now you little one has come to insult me."
The moment seized Evelyn's breath. She could hardly mutter a word with the shock that ensued. "Lai benasmus!" continued the magician, putting a noose on Evelyn's neck. "I will enjoy eating your bones. "Hai benasmus onasmus."
"Please, Opaloomza." Evelyn managed to say. "I desire only potions in red bottles."
"Yes, potions!" exclaimed the spider. "Give us the potion."
"No way." said the magician. "That red bottle of potion stays with me. I may have given it out in the past, but no more shall I. Not to you and your Atropos spider. Not to you and that puny traitor."
Then began the struggle amidst the vista of doom. But the magician made whatever effort six and half a dozen of the others – ensuring they achieved the same result. But the girl struggled further, knocking down piles and piles of sticks and bottles.
"I will eat your bones!" the magician's voice echoed as he tied the girl's hands. And when he tried to crush the spider on the girl's shoulder and missed, he tied her neck to a magical stick near the body of the ship. "Prepare to meet your death." he continued. "And I wonder how tasty your marrow shall be!"
And just then a strange bird perched on the magician's head and whispered something to his ear. The magician turned and looked at the girl with a certain apprehension that had suddenly overtaken him.
"Please, Opaloomza." the girl begged. "What shall I give in exchange for my freedom? Name it! Anything."
The magician smiled, coming close enough as though he would kiss her lips. "How lovely the gift of hearts ! I pronounce you, therefore, my love." said the magician. "Let me make you my Ramona, the one that shall stay forever."
"Accept it." the spider urged. "Accept it, little girl. We can have our bottle of potion. And I shall soon be the richest in the land of Atropos. Oh, what dreams are made of!"
But something twirled in Evelyn's belly. That must have been disgusting. And as the magician's perfume swirled all around, Evelyn opened her mouth and refused the magician's love.
"I'm sorry. But I shall not fall for a love like this. My love's a tree growing where all the cedars of Lebanon cannot reach."
And suddenly the magician turned into a she-cat, twirling and twirling in smoke as he burned with anger. "Oh, please, love me like Ramona!" he cried. "Love me like Juliet! Oh, love me like Echo!"
But the girl had gathered her flowing gown, and was already running down the yellow and green road that led to an enchanting door. And when she reached the doorknob and turned it, she was back home again – her mother sitting somewhere with what seemed like a stark, vacant preoccupation.
***
Evelyn would continue to live her indescribable life in pure secrecy, never telling anyone about the strange quotidian life she lived – nor how remarkable or loathsome it was. When everyone talked about their best days in school, Evelyn would keep a heightened degree of quietness – afraid she might spill the secrets of her life which has the sure propensity to scare the kids who attended the conservatory Alice Jeanmorre Memorial School.
Suddenly, and to her utter disbelief, she would notice that trees wilted when she worked at the garden behind the school's cathedral. But nobody noticed nor asked why leaves browned and fell in their multitudes whenever she assisted in this hallowed farming routine. It would seem she was all alone in these.
Then one day, during her last days and her last sports at Alice Jeanmorre, something happened while she was watching the girls play volleyball. At the stand where everyone sat, a woman joined the row of spectators sitting next to Evelyn. There was this beam on her face that tried to hide a wriggling somberness. In her hand was a chaplet and a black pamphlet.
She wore a certain brilliant key on her neck – the thing hanging so menacingly that Evelyn watched it with rapt attention. Something was coming to her. But, perhaps, she was misremembering it. She observed the woman meticulously – long before she could even utter a single word. From her dressing, she could tell she was a nun.
And then, like she had prayed the girl into existence, the woman held her neck like a window to something sinister. "It's time to start a new chapter." she whispered and fixed a note into her palm. And that was all. She stood up and put on her glasses. Evelyn watched her till she was out of sight. And when eventually she opened the note, she saw the words:
Keep this for the black virgin of Montserrat. Wait for signs and keys.
Evelyn closed her eyes and pressed the note deep into the pocket of her uniform, and heaved a deep breath that sounded much like a fallen eagle's eyrie.
***
During the days that followed after graduation, news spread that the quiet Evelyn had been admitted to Eastside General Hospital after a domestic fall. Friends who, far and wide, tried to sympathize with their alumna turned to the school magazine to see her face once again and – for those who didn't really know her during her time at Alice – to at least reckon with the sad occurrence.
But something would appear clearly amiss during this moment of stark attempt at reliving memories. In fact, Phoebe was the first to notice while poring through the pictures she took that had Evelyn in them. There were fifteen of them. And in all those fifteen pictures, Evelyn was missing. Then she went to the school album.
Staring at the part where Margarita Thompson-Kurie House posed after winning gold at the inter-school games, she realized the part where Evelyn was squatting in front was rather empty. Then at the bottom left, where she had stood with the pompous school captain Flaubert, the boy's outstretched arm was seen simply hanging in thin air – the arm which hitherto held the waist of Evelyn.
This picture was controversial at the time it was taken! A quivering shock ran down her spine, and she felt her mind shattering into smithereens. Next, Phoebe phoned Jelloyd the school's disciplinary prefect who confirmed the same in his own album. Then began the suspicion that Evelyn may not have been the normal schoolgirl they all thought her to be.
This was seeming like the greatest horror in their individual lives. And when they tried to report their growing horrors to the principal, they heard their amiable Mr. Collins had run out of town leaving behind his properties, a dog, a wife and a kid.
Bio:
Marvel Chukwudi Pephel, also known as Poet Panda, is a Nigerian biochemist, writer and poet. He has contributed research papers to the field of Biochemistry as Nwachukwu Godslove Pephel. As a poet, Pephel's work explores themes of love, life, nature, and social issues, with a unique blend of creativity and scientific insight. His poetry is characterized by its lyrical style, depth, and emotional resonance. His work is a testament to the intersection of art and science. He is a fan of the surrealist painter Salvador Dali, and writers Helen Oyeyemi, Ray Bradbury, Irving Washington, Edgar Allan Poe, Frank G. Slaughter and Philip K. Dick. He calculates what he calls "Creative Functions", an experimental but effective way of writing short story endings before their beginnings.