In the Forest of Light and Dark Read Free Page A

From what I had managed to piece together, though, over the years—because mama would never talk about her past—was there had been a lot of pretty messed up rumors about my Grandma Lyanna circulating around in Mount Harrison. Apparently, the people there had thought of her as somewhat of a Witch, or harridan, or something like that. Like she was the old woman who had given Snow White the poison apple. Well, at least that’s how I had pictured her in my mind to be when I had thought of her. But, judging from that small wallet-sized photo of her that my mama still kept in her bedroom, she really didn’t look that way at all though. She was still very much quite youthful looking and appealing for her age. Not that she was all that old in the first place of course. I think she was only in her upper fifties.
     From what I had taken of her, though. I somewhat get the impression that my Grandma Lyanna was into a lot of pretty weird stuff my mama would never elaborate on. That she was like Wiccan or something similar—casting spells, growing herbs, deeply into moon catchers and dancing by a boiling cauldron. You know, the fairy tale type of weird shit that would’ve gotten her burned at the stake a few hundred years ago but thankfully people are too smart to believe in today. Well, I probably shouldn’t even say that, if you take a look around here you’ll still find plenty of morons in Saraland, and even more in New Orleans where they still believe in voodoo and zombies. And, every once in a while I’ll still hear of a story in the news about how a woman made ghetto lobster out of one of her kids because she said the Devil made her do it.
     But, for now, let’s get back to my mama. So, the way I figured it… My mama takes off because she just couldn’t deal with Grandma Lyanna’s weirdness, or her reputation, or all the dicks in her hometown talking shit about the two of them. (I can relate.) So, she leaves home at eighteen for the South and spends the next two and a half years partying in N’awlins. (That’s New Orleans for you Yankees who read this.) Until one day, she finds herself knocked-up with me, compliments of some dirt bag and a bottle of tequila.
     But, it’s not all bad though. A year or two after I was born, she meets my Step Daddy Cade at a Phish show while I was apparently dancing for a crowd of onlookers, one of which happened to be my Step Daddy Cade, and they’ve been together ever since.
     Really though, I guess you could say my mama’s story isn’t all that uncommon now that I’ve thought about it. It’s the same one that gets played out over-and-over again, especially here in Saraland. And, as I grew up in Alabama, I saw this same thing happen to some of the girls in-and-around my hometown quite-a-bit. It even eventually happened to my friend Lettie Sheppard, and I had already told you about my friend Amanda and her baby Jeremy.
     So at this point, like I said, my mama hugs me again and then asks me if I’m gonna be alright, and I tell her, “Yes, I’m fine.” I then let my tongue slip by telling her that since I’d never met Grandma Lyanna, so… And I didn’t want to say, so her dying is really no big deal to me , but honestly that’s  kind of how I felt. I was sixteen. I was self-involved. That’s how all sixteen-year-olds think, right?
     Anyways, given that it was obvious that the news had saddened my mama, I then found myself being the one giving her a hug and asking her if she’d be the one to be alright, to which she replied, “I’ll be fine, honey. You go be with your friends if you had something already planned. There’s not much we can do now anyways.” Then, she kissed me atop my forehead again and told me how sweet I was. Soon after that I was out the door, but not before having made a quick stop to my room where I retrieved some of the contents of my cigar box.
 
    *****
 
    A week later I had turned seventeen and