Gemma

Gemma is the adolescent girl with wings, a birth defect caused by her mother smoking Fairy Dust.  Gemma is in New York City, searching for her mother, who ran away when Gemma was six.  Earlier posts from Gemma appeared in OGW 9/24/09, 10/29/09, 2/4/10, and 7/29/10.  In this, longer, post, Gemma finishes her visit with the Hag, who divinates where Gemma can find her mother.

Gemmma:  “Spirit of Fire, burn away the masks which may hide Gemma’s mother from her --” 

     I close my eyes.  I barely breathe.  This is so stupid, and yet I want to believe.  I want to believe this is a spell that will conjure my mother.  I want to believe that tomorrow midnight -- the dawn of spring -- the Hag will turn into a beautiful maiden, and she will have fulfilled her destiny and magic will be real and my mother will appear in this circle next to me any second now, any second now I’ll smell her rosemary shampoo and feel her hand rest on mine and I’ll stop shivering and --

     “Spirit of Water, wash away the obstacles that stand between Gemma and Maya--”

     I smell incense, not my mother.  Incense and rosewater and the slight stink of diaper, a smell I remember from when Jacob, my Jacob, was a baby.  

     Great, just great, the most magical witch in the city wears Depends.  Opening my eyes a crack, I see her bare feet right next to me.  They are smooth and milk-white, not the hairy, bunioned things I expected.  But instead of seeing the magic in that, I want to scream, You’re not a witch! I but I don’t, I just sniffle again as I start to cry, thinking, It’s hopeless.  This old woman will never find --

      “Spirit of Earth, ground us... ground us...”

     Ground us in reality, woman!  Like, get a grip, I think, mustering up some anger out of my fear and heartache and starting to stand up again.  With surprising strength, the old lady pushes me back down. 

     “Ground us in reality,” she says, which freaks me the hell out, I mean does everyone here read minds?  Again, I try to stand, and again she pushes me down.  “You must not break the circle,” she says, and then she totters away to the cabinet over the sink.  I’m watching her as she stands on her toes and reaches in, pulls down a box -- not a shoe box but maybe a boot box -- and brings it back to the circle.  She puts the it in the circle with me.

     All of this has been as if I’m not here looking at her.  Frustration is welling up inside of me like a tornado gathering momentum and sucking everything in.  I’m shaking, I’m so mad.  Where is my mother, that’s all I came here to find out!  I don’t have time for hocus pocus bullcrap.

     “What the --”

     Before I can even get going on my rant, the old, haggy, witching woman gasps!  She claps her hands to her cheeks, and her mouth is a ridiculous “O”.  Putting her hands on the box, she says, “Look what the spirits have brought!”  She pushes the box toward me until it touches my legs.

     Seriously? 

     FUCKING WACK JOB WITCH, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MOTHER!  I scream in my head.

     The bitch witch opens the box slowly.

     Oh my Goddess.  Oh my Goddess!  I dive into the box with my hands, grabbing letters addressed with my mother’s handwriting -- oh God, I remember now how she used to dot her “i’s” with little hearts...  Envelopes marked “Return to Sender”, envelopes addressed to me!  Fifty letters, easy, plus drawings, a little watercolor of me, a silver ring with a dragon etched into it that says “Luis”.  That’s my Celtic zodiac sign.  I put the ring on, and my finger feels warm, and then the warmth rushes up my arm and to my heart.  Other trinkets that clatter and tinkle as I scrape my fingers through the box, feeling my mother, physically feeling her presence.

     I’m crying so hard, I can hardly see.  I’m happy to have the box, but I’m going to rip the old woman’s head off for not just giving it to me.  I want to boil her in oil.  I want to shake her until she breaks into pieces and leave her on her weird kitchen floor in her weird, fake circle, a puddle of baby blue satin and tulle.

     “You!  You!  You, you -- you had this all this time and you made me sit here and wait and you saw, you saw how upset I was, and you, you pretended to do magic, but I saw you!  I saw you turn on the stove to make it warm!  I saw you get my mother’s things out of the cabinet!  You’re just, you are -- you are a LIAR! I HATE YOU!”

     I drop handfuls of my mother’s letters back into the box, try to put the top on but am shaking so badly, I can’t even do that simple task, and I feel like such a loser and a chump.  Finally, I get the top on and clutch the box to my body -- protecting it, loving it, holding on to it for dear life.  I scramble to my feet and run to the door in a totally ridiculous way because I am still wearing my tight leather skirt and I can’t move my legs that well, plus my foot has fallen asleep --

     “Fuck a duck!” I say, withholding a scream as I struggle with the chains and bolts holding me in.  I can’t get out, I can’t get out, help me help me “MoFo!” I cry out.  I can’t breathe.

     The old woman puts her arm over my shoulder.  I feel something like an electric shock, and for an instant I think I’ve been tasered!  Either because of the taser or because I’m panicking, I can’t move!  I call out with my mind for my Fant friends, “Help me!”

     Suddenly, the shock fades, and like before, when Aleia touched my chest, I feel calm.  I watch while a hand unfastens the door and opens it for me.

     “Go in peace, Believe in peace, Create peace,” I hear, but it’s not the old woman’s gruff, warbling voice -- it’s a soft, warm, feminine voice that feels on my ears like a swallow of warm milk would feel.

     As I leave, I turn to look, and instead of seeing the old woman, I see a beautiful maiden.  She smiles.  “Spring is early this year,” she says just as Ian comes barreling up the stairs. 

     “No!” I say to him, but it’s too late.

     He’s yanked a pole out of the bannister, and is brandishing it like a sword, aiming for the hag/maiden’s throat.

Gemma

Gemma is the adolescent girl with wings, a birth defect caused by her mother smoking Fairy Dust.  Gemma is in New York City, searching for her mother, who ran away when Gemma was six.  Earlier posts from Gemma appeared in OGW 9/24/09, 10/29/09, and 2/4/10

Gemma: “Very interesting,” says the woman, peering into my teacup.  “It says here that you must watch out for the hooved poet.”

     “Aren’t you supposed to read the tea leaves?”  I say in a tiny voice, not strong enough to argue, but anxious enough to be a little bitchy about some supposed prophecy coming out of the Lipton tea bag floating in my cup, especially a prophecy that doesn’t tell me shit about where my mother is.  Plus I’m a little p.o’ed at the implication that I have to watch out for a hooved poet, not just any poet -- it seems like racism, or Fant-ism or something, and I take it personally. 

     I feel fragile, and everything seems personal, instead of just maybe this is a crazy old lady who wants some company and wants to give me some tea, and is trying her best.  I’m the one who just wants to cry.  I’m the one with the bad attitude.

     Which is why I let the woman take my hand, and I follow her into a small kitchen with a slanted ceiling on one side, a scarred brown card table with rickety metal poles for legs, a half-sized refrigerator and a teapot shaped like an owl’s head on the stove.  It smells like onions.

     I feel so weak, I can’t even bear to help the woman as she pushes the card table into a corner.  I can’t bear to stand up.

     As if she read my mind, the old woman says, “Sit,” gesturing with a wrinkled, twisted hand, down at the floor, a floor made of a strange assortment of tiles -- patterns, solids, faux stone of gray, brown and red, a row of glossy black granite and a half row of pinkish marble, a large square made of smaller squares of purple and yellow, a circle of blue glass.  She wants me to sit inside the circle.  I don’t think so.

     Goosebumps rise on my arms.  I shiver.

     “You’re cold, just a sec,” she says, stepping into the circle herself.  She spins around, tottering, and I recover enough strength to reach out to steady her, getting a fistful of baby blue tulle which then suddenly I’m afraid will tear, so I let go, and she really sways for a moment, but catches herself. 

     She smiles at me and winks, then closes her eyes, which I wish she wouldn’t do because she’s going to break a hip or something, especially spinning in the long prom dress she’s wearing.  “Spirit of fire, I command you, bring us warmth!”

     It doesn’t feel warmer, but I can’t tell her that, and now that she’s gone to all this trouble, I can’t tell her I wasn’t cold anyway.  My goosebumps are anticipation or fear, but --

     WTF?  She is opening the oven door and turning up the gas.  A whoosh fills the oven with a flash of blue flame, and then heat does ripple out.   

     “So mote it be!”  she yells, which is a strain for her little old lady voice, and for a moment she turns away, bent over with a dry cough that I’m almost afraid won’t stop.  Like I don’t have enough problems, now I’m afraid for this poor old lady who’s supposed to be helping me.  Yet I’m the one gently patting her back.  I can’t believe this crazy lady is my best hope of finding my mother again.  I shudder.

Gemma's Mom

Gemma’s Mom:  Gemma is a thirteen year old who has just sprouted fairy wings because her mother was an addicted to fairy Dust.  When she burned out and her wings stopped working, Gemma’s Mom ran, leaving Gemma when she was only six.  Gemma first appeared in a short story, “Wings”, then in OGW 9/24/09, 10/29/09, 2/4/10, and now she’s the narrator of a novel I’m working on.  The following is a letter Gemma’s mother wrote to Gemma when she was eight.

My darling girl, my little fairy, my precious Gem,

Remember when I used to fly?

Remember that poem I used to read to you?   “Come away, human chyld/ to the waters and the wyld/ With a fairy hand in hand/ From a world more full of weeping than you can understand.”  I saw it framed on the wall of a friend’s bedroom yesterday, and I began to cry.  I’d tried not to think of you for so long.  My feelings for you came rushing back in that instant, breaking the wall I’d built up around my heart.

Do you still love me?  I used to be your whole world.  Are you very angry with me?  Have you tried to forget me?  Please believe me when I say I love you very much.  I’ve been scared and lonely and trying to heal.  But yesterday, the Goddess showed me that Yeats poem, and I knew it was a sign that I needed you back in my life.  I’ve missed you soooo much. 

You must wonder why it took me two years to write to you.  Maybe you’re wondering why I never came home.

Remember when you couldn’t wait to be like me?  When I left, I didn’t want you to see me so broken.  I didn’t want you to want to be like me any more.  I left to spare you.

Honey, I couldn’t bring you with me, or come back, not the way I was. 

It’s taken me two years, but I’m learning to fly again.  I have friends, I have the Goddess in my life, I’m painting beautiful pictures (like we used to, together.  Remember when we used to paint together?  Is that mural still on the wall in the upstairs hall?  Or did your father paint over it?  He probably did paint over it.  I don’t want to place blame, but in order for you to understand why I left, you should know that your father never understood me.

I should’ve taken you with me.  Every day I’ve thought of you.  Every day.  I have a picture of us from the day you were born, you’re a little doll, porcelein-white, sucking on the long sleeve of a onesy that covers your hand.  Your head is against my neck, and you are at peace.  As am I.

      

I was afraid to write to you.  I was afraid your father had turned you against me.  Do you understand, I loved him so much, but he stopped caring about me.  In the end, he wasn’t even talking to me!  He never understood me.  How devastated I was after Jacob was born, when I stopped being able to fly.

I’m not blaming Jacob -- he was such a sweet boy!  How is he? 

You were tooo young to understand, but when Jacob was born, something inside me snapped.  I think it was what’s called post-partum depression, which you’re too young to understand.  I was just so sad.  I felt like I was in a horror movie, only it was real and it was never going to end.

I felt trapped.  I was dying inside.  My wings had stopped working and were worn out and dull and I couldn’t understand why, but I know now it was because of my heavy heart.  I’d always used flying to lighten my spirit, but it wasn’t working anymore.  Even your sweet, heart-shaped face and contagious laughter couldn’t lift me up.  My wings were heavy weights.  Jacob was another weight I couldn’t carry.  Your father didn’t want to help me.

You used to say, “It’s all right Mommy,” and pat my hand.  But it wasn’t.

Anyway, enough sad talk.  I love you Gemma, I always have and always will.  I am getting better, and when I am fully healed, I will bring you to New York City to live with me.  We were meant to be together.  Goddess willing, we will be.

Please forgive me.  I love you, baby.

Love,

Mommy

Gemma

Gemma first appeared in an unpublished short story, “Wings”, then in OGW 9/24/09 and 10/29/09.  Gemma’s mother abandoned her when she was a child.  Mom was addicted to smoking faery dust, and now that Gem’s an adolescent she has what all the daughters of dusters got – wings.  Horrified and outcast, Gemma left home for NYC to find her mother, and herself. 

Gemma:  Fear wrapped around my neck like Samantha, Ian’s pet python, gone wild.  Tightening, then loosening so I could almost taste air again… and then tight again, choking me.

Gemma, get a hold of yourself, the reasonable, somehow calm me said inside.

Aaaaaaaa cough cough gasp Aaaaaaa… (sound fading out to nothing) said the real me, the anxiety-driven, wings-fluttering, freaked-out me.

“Are you gonna knock?” said Iris.

“She’s chicken,” said Lola.

“Just knock,” said Ian.

“I’m here for you no matter what,” said Luke.

“Knock!” everyone shouted at once.

I did.  I thrust my arm out and rapped hard on the door twice, paused, and then a third time.  All the voices in my head were quiet.  I was alone in the hall outside the fifth floor walk-up.  My knock seemed to linger in the empty air.  When the air stilled, I knocked again, more gently, calmly this time because I was sure no one was home.

“Who is it?  Who’s out there?”  said a gruff voice, and I jumped back.  “Who are you?” said the voice.  Old woman?  Old man?  I couldn’t tell, but I imagined a milky eyeball pressed against the peep hole.

“Gemma,” I said.  “Um, it’s me, Gemma?  I’m looking for my mother?”

“I ain’t her.  Go away!”

“I’m here for you,” Luke said in my head before I could run. 

“Oh. Um.  Do you know um Belle um Green?  Or, I mean maybe she calls herself Belle LaGuin?  I was told, well, I mean, I heard she lives here?”  I pulled my jacket closer, forgetting for a moment that Luke and I had cut out a hole for my wings and they were out there for anyone to see now. 

I am looking for my mother, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of! I thought, and with that, my wings beat, and I rose up off the floor.  Gemma, me, adolescent faery.  On my own in New York, and doing fine.  I pounded on the door this time.

The door opened a crack.  “All right, all right.  Just come down from there.  I’ll tell you what I know.”  A gnarled hand appeared around the edge of the open door, and a long finger with a sharp, yellowed nail beckoned.  “Come on, quit your lollygagging and get in before someone sees you.  This is a nice neighborhood.”