WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) Read Free

was just too easy.  When I returned—for the one hundredth and fifty seventh time— disaster . 
    “Act of God.”  She said all innocent and fragile.    Act of God, my foot.   Cards are strewn all over the porch, down the steps and across the yard.  Checkers are littered on the grass and the board is hanging limp in the cleft of a sycamore tree. 
    “Really Mag?”  I said.  My hands on both hips disgusted.  She just twiddled her thumbs and looked at me all innocent like. The more I interrogated her, the more elaborate the Act of God. 
    “It’s my namesake.”  She says trying to explain. The story is, somehow, out of nowhere, a massive wind swept across the porch and disbanded from its swirling vortex a mob of ugly, hairy, big nosed trolls who tied Mag to the porch post, and then proceeded to ransack the game like a bunch of Viking savages. Mag was as shocked as I was or that’s the way she played it off.  I stared at her in awe, not that it was unbelievable but because Mag only used her strange imagination when it was to her benefit.  Supposedly, before they left, all thirty of them licked her on the cheek with their crusty inflamed troll tongues.
    “Really Mag, a mob of trolls?” 
    “Yep.” She said. “And they were horrific. Smelled bad too.” 
     
    Mag finally stopped her rant and continued our card game and t his time I was prepared.  Come what may. 
    “I thought you had to go to the bathroom?”  Mag says jittery and nervous.    
    “Nope.”  My bladder was empty. Trolls or not, I wasn’t leaving. Mag is hesitant and her shoulders see-saw up and down. I’m cautious because I know better than to underestimate her.  Just when she has a look of defeat—she’ll swell up and flip your world upside down.  And right on time,  she does .  The goddess of the south did what she does best— with or without  my weak bladder.  She caused a distraction. The player was about to get played.  My weakness—became Mag’s trump card.   
    “Hey look!”  She pointed to the leaning rail. “It’s the crackles.”  I was compelled to look before the epic debacle occurred.  Simultaneously, out of the corner of my eye, I saw several things happen.  My head swiveled towards the defenseless crackle hanging by its tiny claws on the wooden post and that’s when I witnessed the mishap, the national emergency, the act of God, the tragic destruction. It was brilliant .  Mag stood up gracefully and swiftly leg maneu vered her way across the porch.  Her big foot desecrated the swordfish and with one twist, the goldfish was all jacked up and disjointed.  A few more karate moves, and the tuna was stuck halfway inside the floor slats with doglegged fins and an assortment of upturned fish parts.  When it was over, I was furious. I wanted to throw Mag off the porch and settle things right then and there but my love for crackles overtook my desire to beat the big-L off my sister’s forehead. Basically, she was saved by a crackle. 
    We had always been fascinated with the strange creatures.  Their transparent skin left my mind to wander to the empty places inside me, fragile and void, hanging and waiting, and looking for place. Crackles must be handled with care, loose fingers, no constriction, no binding.  If you mishandle them, their thin barrel chest will cave in and their tiny feet will fall off, plus they make the most awful bone crushing sound since the dawn of mankind.  And bugs. 
    When we first discovered them, I made the mistake of plucking one off the tree bark and literally thought my spine cracked into splinters. It was a lesson that garnered the creature a change of namesake.  Their official encyclopedia bug name was  Auchenorrhynchake  which sounded like a hock of throat spit. For short, they were called Cicadas but that still sounded a lot like French and we didn’t have no French in the South, so Mag and I fixed it.  On a hot summer day in Pine Log, Texas, the