The Pond by the Cabin

The cabin in the woods has been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Bright and bold, it flickered with a warning for all those that could see its eerie glow - “death soon come”.

In the small Virginian town of Thistledown, there was a population of about 630 people. Give or take a population of nephews that fall on hard times every few years to stay on their aunt’s pull-out couch. The majority of the town was black and it was a sight to see. Driving through the town, the historic and old feel would cause the driver to presume the town would lack in the melanin category.

Local legend claims that the cabin was the original home of the founders of the town. It rests ten miles south in the thick of the woods, nestled between two sick and twisted honey locust trees that wound into one another. Though their branches intruded over one another, it seems they made special room for the cabin. It almost looked like a dwarfed mansion with a branched gate protecting it. Or protecting those on the other side.

It seems severely out of place because of the unruliness of the flora that took up residence around it. With the fall forcing the leaves off most trees, it was a welcomed sight at first to see the green of the honey locust trees. Out of place against the piles of undisturbed brown, orange, yellow and red leaves the rest of the trees shook off. It almost invited onlookers in. A gleam of light reflects the sun on the kiddy-sized pond to the right of the cabin. Maybe not a pond, but more of a perpetual puddle.

It was home to all manner of mosquitos, frogs and any other amphibian that loved the diversity of the landscape. A strange sight to see - especially if it was meant to be the last things you’d see in this life.

______________

I tore out of the woods with more speed than I’d ever handled with these two feet, but there is always an added boost when adeline was involved. I can hear the dogs in a distance, picking up my scents. With my heart beating in my ears, I could barely hear the men holding their leashes shouting before I spotted the cabin.

As my chest heaved and hoed, I switched directions quickly - out of line with the path I’d originally set. Hoping that would slow my pursuers, I jumped a small ledge that hid the small cabin a way. Once on the same level, it makes you wonder how you ever missed it. I had no time to ponder because I could hear their change in direction.

With my heels hitting my butt, I try to slow my running to conceal the noise. Hopefully, I could make it seem like I had just redirected and kept running further into the woods. I ran to the left of the cabin to avoid the pond. I ripped through the piles of leaves that had blown around the perimeter of the house. Strangely, it was as if once you came upon the trees growing like an arch around the cabin, a chilling sensation went up your back. Though once I ran a little behind it, I felt it lift.

My original plan was to hide under the house, but once I was in range of that odd sensation, it made me change my mind. Like a cool, not cold drip of water down your spine, the cabin almost calmed me.

Once I bent the corner of the cabin, I caught my breath on the back of the cabin. I tried to slow my breathing, but also listen intently to how close these men were. I could hear them - maybe a half a mile behind me.

______________

“Earth to Ivy. Are you even listening?” Tyler snapped in front of eyes. She slowly came into focus as the last bell rang. I hadn’t been feeling well. Sweating, weak and out of sorts, I tried to focus my vision. Her thin caramel fingers with pink claws atop slowing formed in the foreground of my vision.

“My bad, girl. I don’t know where I just went…” I tried to recover but still felt off center.

“You okay? You sure you wanna walk home? TJ said he’d give you a ride. He texted me while y’all were in Bio. He said you looked green… which scared me because chocolate and green just don’t go together - especially on my homegirl’s face.” Tyler said as she slammed her locker.

Tyler was always fiercely loyal and concerned. I loved that about her. I had always been someone that was a bit detached. It wasn’t that I didn’t care - I just spent so much time in my head that it was hard for me to react outside of it.

I shook my head. I could never accept a ride from TJ - even on a day like this. TJ was Tyler’s twin - he was so fine. Lawd, sometimes I had to remember to breathe when I was around him and that’s on a good day.

“No, no, I am fine,” I assured Tyler. I couldn’t risk embarrassing myself in front of that man anymore than I had recently.

Tyler sucks her teeth, “I know you not still tripping about the other day. TJ thought it was funny. Not like ‘haha Ivy lame’ funny but like ‘oh she wild’ funny.”

I groaned, “Tyler, you weren’t there. I was all by myself in the hallway which you know is my comfort zone then I swore I heard someone whispering… I mean, it just threw me off. Anyone - anyone else could have caught me, but why him?”

“Girl you acting like he caught you sacrificing a goat. You just misheard what he said - that’s all. Honestly, I don’t know why you’d even reply if you thought TJ was asking you on a date. You know he off limits. That’s like incense.”

I sigh, “Tyler, incest and no it wouldn’t. You deciding I am yall triplet is not the same as me actually..”

Tyler waves her hand and demands, “Girl, stop. I’m stressed out enough. Don’t raise my pressure.”

I roll my eyes. The issue isn’t that I am a hot mess - the issue is how I misheard him. Clear as day. “I wish Ivy would stop being so shy. I’d take her on a date”. It wasn’t as if he’d asked me on a date, but that I heard something I wasn’t supposed to.

Like I heard inside TJ’s mind.

“Ivy, you sure? It really ain’t no thing.”

“No, no, I’m good,” I lied. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get through the initial embarrassment, but that was the second time that something like that has happened recently. I heard something private but no one was talking… out loud at least.

_________

I stumbled through the student parking lot, trying to hold it together enough to make it to the trail on the far end that led through the woods towards my house.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure why, but every time that I had these weird episodes where I was nauseated and disorientated, being in the woods would help it subside.

Being 17 was enough of a chore, but being a beautiful weirdo was a whole ‘nother trauma entirely. Whether it was navigating this nagging feeling of displacement or wading through these headaches, it was an added curse that I was not into the same things that my peers loved.

Being in a predominantly black community was great because I didn’t have to feel other by something that I could not hide. It’s hard to explain unless you’re from a semi-conservative culture, but it is very easy to hide my love for the macabre. It’s not so easy to hide my chocolate skin.

Even though I didn’t wear my difference, it slipped every now and then like a bra strap under a tank top. When I knew a reference to an old film or a sample from a song that was used in a cult classic, it was still a chore to recover from the heavy silence that my peers used to outcast me.

I sighed deeply as I walked further into the forest trail. The trail begins to skew down a small hill that makes seeing the student parking lot impossible once at the bottom. This is always the ‘point of no return’ in my head - I guess I was more right than I expected.

This path was convenient but it did come with its own price. As I turned with the path, I took my twice wrapped headband on my wrist and began to fashion my large coily afro into a puff.

Though it does not involve me folding in half to get all my hair concentrated on top of my head, it did require me to stretch my hair in sections. After I gathered all my hair into the puff, I was a bit more relieved as I would be less likely to collect gnats or spiderwebs in the low hanging branches of the overgrowth in my ‘fro.

The second I was completely immersed in the woods, it was as if my headache retired. It dissolved completely until all I could feel was the gentle breeze on my face. Closing my eyes to soak in the moment, something caught my eye as I opened them.

My grandmother. Which would have been a welcomed sight if she hadn’t been dead for five years. I know I was frozen in fear, but I’d know her anywhere. She stood not too far from me, next to a tree. She did not speak, but she looked concerned and pointed.

I followed her finger to see a group of men shouting and running towards me. At first, I wondered how I hadn’t heard them. Then I realized that I didn’t have time to think about it. I needed to run.

Now this is was the oddest part. I couldn’t hear my grandmother’s voice through the apparition in front of me, but in my head. As I began to run, I had to keep reminding myself to not turn around.

“Ivy, don’t stop running - just listen. I should have told you this while I was still there to protect you, but thankfully your gift gives you access to the other side,” my grandmother's voice echoed through my mind as branches grabbed and pinched me.

“Sweetie, you’re from a long line of practitioners. Witches as the white folk call us. It has been a dormant gene for a while. None of us have had powers like you. Most of us could find a missing object or persist so much that we succeed in an impossible feat, but you’re one of a kind.”

I know my eyes had to be the size of saucers because it felt like I was getting a full screen view of the forest.

“Listen, girl. Don’t let fear confuse you – listen good. The men behind you want your heart. Not like a suitor, more like an appetizer. You see, white men cannot conjure. White women barely can, but they can wreak enough havoc if they want,” in the midst of her thought, she popped up again in the further part of the woods, pointing to the left.

I quickly redirected as she continued, “You gotta remember in your head, best you can - to get to that cabin in the middle of the woods. It is a safe haven for people like us.”

The woods passed me like clothes in a rinse cycle. “Grammy, what am I gonna do..?”

“Don’t speak. Save your energy, gal. Them dogs gonna get you quicker. Breathe, girl, breathe,” she assured me.

I breathed through my nose and out my mouth and kept on the path until I could see the valley before the cabin.

__________

As I caught my breath and crept around the side of the house, my grandmother came in clear to my head again.

“Ivy. Don’t go into the house. To get inside, you slip around the side and get into the puddle.”

“The puddle?” I thought wildly as my breath started to even, but before I could think on it more. I went around the corner and peeked to see how close they were.

As they started to pour over into the valley of the cabin, I crept over to the deep puddle-pond. Then as I jumped in, I looked over the cabin. It was the strangest thing.

Breaking the surface of the pond made the cabin door open and shut quickly. It was the briefest second, but it seemed so out of place. As I entered the cool pool, I was immediately brought into a living room.

Not even a little wet, I stood up and studied the room. It looked like what you’d imagine a cabin’s interior looked like. Simple, but rustic. I had washed up on a tattered yellow rug in front of a platformed fireplace. Over the dusty, red couch in front of me, I could see a window with a large, thick curtain.

In my rush, I jumped on the couch than hopped over. I ran to the window and threw open the curtains to see a replica of the living room I was currently in. Before I could wrap my mind around it, I saw the front door open in the second…living room.

“Close that curtain before they come over here. Now listen, baby. This cabin is a fortress. It was built to protect the first people to found this town. Ever wondered how a town full of black folk was able to thrive so close to the Mason Dixon line? Magic. Magic protected and kept us. The founders of this town were running from the slave-catchers and found this valley. They knew it was the perfect place to create this haven.”

Suddenly there was a rumble, but it didn’t seem to be happening outward. It was happening in my mind. Shaking up my view and everything.

“Your headaches and nausea have been a result of your powers trying to settle. Your body is trying to learn when to tune in and out of other’s minds and other worlds.”

“Other worlds? Grammy, I don’t understand.”

“Listen, you’re a medium. You’re not only tuned into the spirit world which is why you can see and hear me, but you are also tuned in with other spiritual beings. From time to time, you’ll hear the thoughts of those that have entered your spirit in one way or another. The closer you get to someone, the louder their thoughts. Now, this is the most important part.”

“Grammy, I… I’m a… what…” I tried to collect my thoughts.

“Listen. The cabin you are in is alive. It knows its kin and other magical folks from those that have ill-intent. Now neutral parties will only ever see the cabin and lose interest. Seeing as you’re magical, the cabin let you in - to hide you. However, those folks coming for your heart are intruders.”

“Intruders? They’re murderers…”

“Attempted. Now listen here, this trade off for its protection is steep, but fair. It powers it - especially for another practitioner that may need this cabin later on.”

“What are you telling me, Grammy?”

“If you want to leave the cabin, you must either offer the cabin your powers or your life. Now I don’t mean ending your life - no. But you will be given a new one. Full of power and completely left to your own vices. I’ll be with you always. Whether you have the power to hear me or not. I’ll always be with you.”

With my back to the curtained window, I forgot the men were there until I heard their screams. Pouring over the wooden barrier, I heard what could only be bones crunching and bodies thumping across the walls. The added stress only pushed my decision forward.

Of course, there was nothing I wanted more than to return to my life, but why? What was I holding onto so tightly that was worth me never exploring this new side of me?

Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, friends and life dearly. But I have never fit in. Never.

I can feel the immense love that everyone has for me, but it never feels like I am attached to them. They don’t belong to me. Neither does this life. For the most part, I have smiled and nodded to get on to get along, but where is the real connection?

“Grammy, if I give up my life… will it be as if I… I… I died?” I asked with eyes full of tears.

“Sort of, baby. You’ll cease to exist in this reality. Still tethered to them, but not quite belonging to them. You’ll roam the Earth to save other women like you and help people with your gifts.”

“Then I want to keep my powers and give up my life.”

“That’s alright, baby. Take a minute. When you’re ready - untie that headband and throw it into the fire.”

“Fire?”

As soon as I asked, a fire roared in the chimney. “Yes, your hair is your connection to your spirit. Ever have a bad hair day when everything is going well? If you accept your powers, that means you accept everything your hair encounters. Think of your coils as spiritual antennas. Antennas don’t like interference.”

I approach the fire, take a deep breath, close my eyes and drop the hair tie in.

As soon as the hair tie sparks in the fire, I was transported back into the woods. This time, I was on the peak of the cabin’s valley.

Staring at the dogs left outside by the owners that would never reclaim them. I whistled once and the two dogs that were chasing me to my death just moments ago obliged with happy trots to my side.

I looked in the direction of Thistledown one last time then at the cabin which both saved and restarted my life. As I smiled down at the dogs and looked at the cabin again, it was as if the curtain was quickly drawn.

If I didn’t know any better, I would think the cabin was winking at me. Wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s happened today.