Chapter Eighteen #4
“Mmmmm…Nope,” I said before turning back to face the covered door.
When I could no longer see the doorknob, I decided to sit.
Making myself comfortable on the grass that gently hugged my legs and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for the door I saw Ayira go through to appear once again.
After about 30 minutes of stubbornly sitting there, and ignoring the smell of something buttery being baked, I decided to say fuck it.
I got up, brushed the dirt off my sweats and walked towards the house with a determined stride.
“If a weird old man answers by offering you candy, don’t take the candy, Maggie.
Don’t you do it,” I said to myself. “Smack him and run for the nearest door inside…If he’s 400lbs your weight, hit him with a brick and run…
elsewhere. You got this…It’s cool. You’re the freaking moon. You have powers. You have abilities…”
I stepped onto the wooden steps with my hand touching the freshly painted railing.
When I looked back out, it looked like we were in the middle of a field, somewhere in the middle of the US where nothing but farmers and tornados reside.
I stepped up to the door, clearing my throat with a nervous ahem, and held the screen back with my hip.
Just when I was about to knock, the door suddenly opened as an older woman, very old…
Impossibly old with the deep wrinkles, crystal white, blue eyes, thin white hair that barely hung against her neck, and a long cream tunic with beads and jewelry decorating her arms. Her brown skin was about as dark as one gets when they stay in the sun too long, but when she slowly reached out with a trembling hand, I stepped forward.
“I’ve been waiting for you, come in. Shoes off.”
Hesitant, I reached to strip down to my bare feet, leaving my socks tucked in my sneakers without taking my eyes off of her.
Grabbing the door frame, I stepped inside the home as my mouth dropped at the sheer size of the tree planted right in the middle of the foyer.
It stretched as high as the roof which could have been the canopy of a rainforest but as we walked around towards the kitchen, she motioned for me to sit at the island countertop in one of the stools.
Washing her hands, she began to move around her bright kitchen that was filled with herbs, spices, jars, and fresh fruits and veggies laid out on the counter.
When she reached her hand out, a vine slithered from the ceiling, reaching down towards her as if it was desperate to be touched by her but instead, she plucked a leaf from it.
“I sent for Anansi and told him I wanted to speak to you alone for a moment.”
“Who?” I asked, watching the vines creep around the walls in their own system of magic.
Her voice was shaky and full of cracks and tremors when she poured two cups of hot liquid from a pot.
“Should…should you be holding the pot like that at your age? Do you need help?” I asked.
I could hear the old woman chuckle as she placed it back on the stove.
“You ask who,” she murmured, amused. Turning towards the island counter, her hand held the first trembling cup to push towards me.
“I’m sorry…who…who are you?” I asked before looking around.
“I am…Gaia,” she said. My head snapped forward. Did I hear that right? Gaia? The old biddy brought the coffee mug to her lips where the steam was undoubtedly drifting into the air, she took a sip like it was nothing.
“You’re…you…you’re…what everyone is saying I…am…”
She placed her mug down as her face looked up with her eyes fluttering closed as she began to slowly circle the island.
Her wrinkled hand began to drag along the granite counter.
Her skin slowly pulled back to a youthful supple brown and her white hair grew thick against her backside.
She continued to circle around me, smiling as age seemed to be going backwards for her.
“I am…who you are…” She said as her hand came to her neck. The wrinkles slowly seeped back into her skin, tightening its hold while her fangs slowly drew out with an arch of her neck. She continued to circle around me as I watched in awe the different faces she took on.
“Meant to become,” she concluded. “I go by many names…” She tapped her nose as her deep brown complexion turned to a honey before tapping it again as she went to a pale yellow with a brown mole on the corner of her mouth.
“Many faces…” Tapping her chin, her complexion trickled to dark as if her face slowly fell into a bed of paint only to look back at me as a reddish-brown complexion traced up her arms, folding against her shoulders until her entire neck and face was covered.
Her white eyes became brown, then hazel, then dark green with each blink before settling on a dark brown.
“But I am you.” Smiling, she blinked both eyes as her complexion matched mine, eyes became dark red with her hair turning dark brown before trickling into white strands.
Her face was identical to mine to the point where I could have been looking in a mirror.
We stared at each other for a moment as my heart throbbed in my chest.
“Hi,” she greeted softly. She even sounds like me. Studying every inch of my features, her eyes eventually settled back into my mine with a comfortable gaze.
“Hi,” I croaked.
I’ve never seen magic like this before. Even her white hair, thick and luscious in its natural state, began to shift in its growth. Just like mine.
“So…what are…you..what am I?” I asked. There was silence for another moment.
Only the sound of the creeping vines traveling against the walls, slithering around the corners and archways until I heard tiny footsteps from above.
I looked up, hearing them cascade down until a little boy burst into the opening of the kitchen, one with a vaguely familiar face.
He smiled at me just as Gaia made her way towards him, handing him a lollipop before sending him off.
I waited until the sounds of his little feet disappeared when she looked back at me again. She finally responded.
“Confused, I’m sure.” Gaia pulled up a chair to sit in front of me. Smiling, her dark complexion suddenly spilled into a creamy butter brown as she gently smoothed one hand down her white hair.
“I…I…” Looking up at the stretching vines crossing over the ceiling. “Confused is an understatement.”
“I am you from many many moons and suns ago,” she finally admitted.
“We’re related?” I asked. She leaned in close as her face slowly shifted into mine again.
“In a way, we are…Yes.”
“So if you’re alive…”
“Only through you. I wanted to see what I’ve become…what I turned into…”
I felt my eyes burn with tears because what did she see, and was she happy with it?
“Well get your disappointment out now while I’m here,” I choked with a toss of my arms in the air.
“I still live at home with my mother even though I haven’t seen my parents in over a year it seems. I have little to no family if any at all at this point which contradicts everything I just said.
Everyone expects great things from me…or everyone expects me to be this powerful violent Moon Goddess…
I’m not even sure what I am and the abilities I did manage to have, suddenly don’t work anymore. ”
Her brows came together but she never broke contact, just listened. I unintentionally broke down at the realization that this may be an illusion. That I may be facing myself, my own insecurities and fears that have been locked away for years.
“I haven’t been happy in a long time…Just…
going around pretending for the sake of everyone else, and I’m tired.
I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of laughing and making jokes of my own life just so others don’t see how…
fucked it is. I’m tired of suppressing everything for others to be happy and comfortable around me.
I’m tired because I’ve been feeling like I have to pretend to be someone I’m not.
I am just Maggie Grey, and it seems like it’s not enough these days,” I told her before realizing how this must sound.
Smearing my wet cheeks with my hand, I sniffed away the rest of my tears.
“I probably come off pretentious as hell. This is probably trivial compared to…whatever…you have in mind about me and my life…”
She simply stared at me as I caught the strands of her hair beginning to shift around.
You could hear the hairs touch and twist as they began to quietly braid from the ends up to her scalp.
In awe, I watched as her entire head of thick white natural hair suddenly became braided with individuals parting her scalp.
She looks like the embodiment of nature itself.
Everything about her was fresh, vibrant, and alive.
“Okay, not to change the subject but I need to learn how to do that with my hair,” I laughed. She looked at her own hair, touching it with her hand as the braids gently fell back apart in soft waves.
“You already know how to do it. Why have you lost confidence in yourself… I was never like this,” she said, confused.
“Why are you calling yourself the Moon Goddess. You are Gaia…That is the name I was given. Words have meaning…meaning and intent can be powerful and that creates the highest form of magic.”
“It’s…it’s what…The moon–––”
She stood up, having heard enough of any moon talk as her hair slowly darkened by the roots until it was a soft mahogany brown to the very ends.
She took my hand and forced me on my feet to follow her.
I could see a peek of her fangs attempting to draw back down from her gums but that was only if she was triggered by hunger.
Vampires should only draw their fangs when they’re preparing to eat or attack which…
“Come,” she said, taking me towards the back door. When she saw my hesitation, she smiled as her tongue peeked between her fangs. “I’m not going to feed on you if that’s what you fear…”