Check your friend list. Do you dream of love, sex, connection? Hand-holding, hugging, family celebrations? We were all born to search for Alliances. An alliance is symbiotic, good for both sides of the equation. To reach out, you must each decide your motive (“I Could Use a Friend”). Approach with the CERTAINTY that you are WORTHY of friendship. This last one is tricky because we are all looking for validation. This is the source of many “imposter” dreams where we find ourselves naked in front of the entire class, unprepared on Test Day!
Goddesses Need Respect – A Goddess is a Soul Apart. You have a mission, and the Other must be worthy of you. You must be able to respect them, too. You can see that dominance/submission becomes a zero-sum game with each trying to knuckle the other under. No relationship can last under that stress and it degenerates into a destructive spiral.
Goddesses Have Mystery – You are aware of vast reaches of your Self that are unknown and In Development. Most of your promises are tenuous. You are stepping forward with hope into uncharted and potentially dangerous wilderness. This means the pair must accept each other in good faith, as followers of the Light. You will rapidly see you cannot forge relationships until you have a working concept of what the Light is and what its potentialities are. Too many aspirants want the Lover to define them when our obligation is to define ourselves. Accept that with a mystery this vast, it can’t be “solved”. It can only be momentarily elucidated as we receive glimpses of our path and purpose.
Good Relationships are Complementary – You don’t have to provide everything, and they don’t either. Each of you has lapses and blindness the other can improve.
You Are a Giver and Worthy of Help – We can’t get through this alone, and we don’t want to. Luckily, we are surrounded by other humans, struggling, just like us. If we pledge to help each other, we can dispatch terror and celebrate joy! Comforting! But how can we tell the difference between Builders and Exploiters? We don’t want to end up as someone else’s meal.
Goddess Danger – When someone is trying to mangle your self-esteem, recognize this. Even if it comes in the guise of “friendship” this person is an enemy. This is not what friends are for. When someone is trying to “capture” you, i.e. limit and control your possibilities and behavior, that person is a hostage-taker looking for slaves. NOT a friend.
Goddess Challenge – How to recognize friends? Friends are honest: “I just don’t like that dress but maybe it’s me.” Friends are forgiving, ‘I’m sorry, I was having a bad day. I know you’re sorry, too.” Friends are fun, “Let’s cheer ourselves up.” Friends are helpful: “Let’s figure a way out of this.” Are you honest, forgiving, fun-loving and helpful? You’re ready to be a friend. Friendship is a good place to start. Be the friend you want to have – warm, funny, loyal, truthful.
Love Enriches – It Does Not Deplete – – Friends are a mirror in which we see ourselves. We can experiment with possibilities, we can expand our reach. Our intelligence is doubled, as well as our efforts. Our sorrows are halved and our ideas are increased exponentially. Reach out! You never know until you try. And there’s always the possibility of Love and deepening sexual connection.
Love Transforms as a Goddess Transforms – Things you thought you could not do seem possible now because someone believes in you. Believe in yourself because they do, and honor them by believing in them, in return.
Locked Back to Back the Goddess Pair Sees Everything – Gaze turns outward at the world, not inward on each other. Are you chewing or strengthening? Learn the steps of your tango. Add new steps of your own.
As You Change, the Couple Changes – Compare Training Journals. Are you evolving? Can you evolve together? Is it safe to speak the truth? Does one partner try to dominate? Does one partner use infantile behaviors to get “their way”? There is no “one way.” As joint goddess, the couple has goals also. Compare. Allow differences. The truth will be revealed.
Models & Mentors – “You are my sun, my moon and all my stars”
– e.e. cummings
“All that we love deeply becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller
“Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place”– Zora Neale Hurston
“Love is not proud or boastful, keeps no record of past mistakes – love rejoices in the truth” –
II Corinthians
“Laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live” – Rumi
Something’s Always Coming. Are you having bad dreams? Of natural disasters like storms, volcanoes and flooding? Do you fear war, robbery, violation, home invasion? Or do you dream about your loved one’s face turning bitter and their words cutting sharply? Conflict is inevitable. It is even necessary – birth pangs seem terrifying. In dreams we rehearse our fears until some of us fear to dream.
It Always Comes Before You’re Ready – Here it is – the reason you become a goddess. You must always be larger than the fight. You must embody the meaning of the fight, and to do that you have to discover what the meaning is. You represent the Principle of Life and have committed yourself to its immortalization.
Battle or go under. It’s not pleasant under there. The force against you is superior – unthinking – inhuman – so you will have to be wily and know when to expend energy and when to conserve your strength.
You are a Force Field. You are a magnet for desire, change, for evolution itself. This comes by virtue of your goddess decision making. Others may tell you to stand back, take your place in line or wait your turn but your appearance into this chaotic universe triggered no such guarantee. We are here to learn to use our power.
Conflict Makes a Goddess – Force stirs up resistance. Actions create re-action as we swing back and forth in our determination and direction. We clash and crash. Sometimes we regret it bitterly, “why did I do that?” Sometimes we fear loss or harm so much we become immobilized. The challenge is to assume your stride, elucidate your goals and plan a direction.
Goddess Danger – It’s all too easy to make others fear you. The one with the biggest weapon THINKS she the fight. But what looks like compliance to you could be revolution – you will be toppled and lose your heart’s desire.
Goddess Opportunity – Learning to use conflict constructively and creatively is a Superpower. Other people are force fields, too. If there is any way to blend these powers and head in the same direction, we become invincible. Welcome the knowledge provided by Storm.
Study Your Opponent – Some clever scholar has separated these opponents into groups & classes. Read up! Some opponents – physical contests, weather conditions – don’t even have a brain. So who – or what – are you playing against?
You Are Playing Against Yourself – your own fear, incapacity, beginner status. Seek mentoring so you have advice along the journey. Who is the sensei who will guide you? Someone who desires both your safety and your growth.
Reward Yourself – The best place to do this is your training journal. Think hard about every contest and how you performed. Assess your challenges and accomplishments. Way to go!
Models & Mentors – “I used to tell myself, boy, if you can survive this, you can survive anything” – Tom Lichtenberg
“Laughter is the proof that our tragedies don’t define us. Laughter is the survivor’s language” – Josh James
“Cancer didn’t bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet”
– Michael Douglas
“If you want to awaken humanity, awaken yourself. If you want to eliminate suffering, eliminate what is negative in yourself. Your gift to the world is our self-transformation.” –Lao Tzu
To Become a Goddess Is to Accept Your Power. But power is fearsome. We are all familiar with fires that escape control, rage-fueled emotional spirals, explosives that blow up their wielders and the dangers of endlessly escalating weaponry. Once the Goddess’ unleashes power, much can go wrong.
The Power is there whether you claim it or not. To abjure your power is to deny your personhood – something women and marginalized groups have always been commanded to do. If you try to get in touch with your personal power, won’t you tempt established Power to come after you?
Power is About More than Control and bending unfriendly circumstances to your desire and will. It is the process of fulfilling your natural growth pattern, becoming the person God always intended you to be. You have an immortal mandate but you must claim it.
You Are Iconic –Goddesses invoke more than magic, they exemplify the inherent magic that is especially, irreplaceably Individuated Self. You have a power no one else has, incorporated in your being, your possibilities, your desires and your memories. This takes a lifetime to accept because we all nervously want to be Someone Else and experience existence through the armor of Having only an Outside instead of just the very vulnerable Inside in which we all feel imprisoned.
Only Illegitimate Power Will Fear You – The Universe that God created accepts a glorious new creature fulfilling their immortal mandate, while stolen power – the desire to crush, to control and to drain – will be forced to reveal itself in the fullness of its jealous evil.
Dreams Will Instruct You – Your dreams bring all these passions together as psychic poetry, elucidating what you think you want, what you hope you want and what you are afraid you want. The ultimate magic is to seize conscious control of this potent power source.
Goddess Challenge – The challenge is to truly connect with others, reveal our world Inside, and avoid blasting their apparently impenetrable Outside with our terror, our longing and our fear. As the demons come after you, you will deploy the skills and techniques of dissembling, transmutation, transformation, mirror-magic and emotional mastery. The demons are hungry, pathetic in their eternal emptiness.
Goddess Danger – We cannot take hostages and we must never become a hostage. Freedom is a fine line to walk. If we wish to reach out, we must treat those struggling to stand upright with respect and demand like respect for ourselves. Accept your “experiments”; do not fear them but allow them to take you where you need to go.
Goddess Opportunities – There will be stumbles and terrors aplenty, also successes that LOOK like stumbles and terrors, but which we only realize on reflection were real leaps forward. This is why we must carefully assess our daily efforts without being harsh with ourselves. Speak gently to yourself as you would to a most beloved child. You are the Universe’s Own Beloved Child. It is not selfish to commit to this belief, it is simply placing the oxygen mask over your own face FIRST so that you can administer this life-saving force to others. Find someone with whom you can share your journey, without fear or judgment. This connection will teach us everything we need to know about how to connect with others.
Fear & Trembling: Where would we ever get the courage to become goddess? Human history begins with an enormous fear of the Almighty or whatever is causing all that lightning, those earthquakes and striking everybody down. Killing small helpless, pretty things was meant to be flattering and propitiatory to this God (I don’t get it either.) Then Jesus arrived with a message about how God was really loving, generous and wanted the best for us. We know how that turned out.
Becoming a Goddess: As children, we struggled to understand where we fit on the power spectrum. I tried killing a snake, and experimented with bullying other children the way I was bullied. I didn’t care for it. The only relief was in thinking about, researching and understanding the philosophical concepts about what was going on. My earliest researches, as for many children, were in astronomy and dinosaurs. The cold magnificence of the planets and the complete wipeout of the dinosaurs gave me a way to stand back from the immediate suffering of the schoolyard. I then moved on to the early Egyptians who tried to solve their problems through magic and art. The art was visually appealing and the magic was emotionally soothing.
Pick Your Battles: I saw that most schoolyard fights were a reaction to the immediate suffering of pain or confusion, and that they magnified, rather than solved, those problems. There was a manifest holiness about this discovery. It rescued me from the torture of everyday life and elevated me to a plane where every other contributing thinker had already become immortalized.
Study & Strategy: I read everything I could get my hands on in history and biography (research) and in fairy tales (magic). When I fell in love with the novels of C.S. Lewis and Rumer Godden, the world judged my taste good – when I discovered Agatha Christie, it did not – but it turned out everyone else was reading her too. Agatha is a short course on human nature (original sin) and a proponent of both the scientific and Socratic methods. She’s great training for a Goddess. I wrote it all down in my Training Journal.
Claiming Your Power: By the time you’re a teenager you can see you have some power – some mental, some physical. The question is developing it and finding appropriate gurus. It is key to step out of the dominance/submission game.
Keep Going – Recognize that you have been touched by the goddess and honor her by being grateful for the glorious gifts of life.
Models & Mentors: “I did not deceive you. I permitted you to deceive yourself.” Agatha Christie
“An Indian proverb says everyone is a house with four rooms – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. Most of us live in one room or the other but if you don’t visit each room each day you are not a complete person.” – Rumer Godden
“You are never too old to dream a new dream or set a new goal”
Do your dreams pulse with some energy ripening inside you? You are gathering force for a great work.
You Are A Power – You struggle to take command of your force. You feel the power and strength of undefined wishes and an inchoate longing to create your place in the world. No guide exists to this wilderness, you will have to map this forest yourself. Be brave.
All Connection Is an Energy Transfer –When you make any contact – even exchange a glance – with another living being, a current of energy passes between you, even if the “other” has been ruled “non-sentient” by our limited – and limiting – standards. In the depth of your being, you feel the electric thrill. This is the basis for the healing behind “forest bathing” and “garden bathing.”
Energy Drainage – That fact sets up the possibility that energy – your life force – can be sucked right out of you. Recognize when this is happening – when you are being fed upon. Get away from the predator as fast as you can go.
Goddess Challenge – There are plenty of traps ahead. Do not become discouraged. Accept that the flow of energy pulses with your every heartbeat, with your sleep/rest cycle, with the obligations you willingly seek to smooth your path.
Goddess Danger – Some of these obligations become too heavy, others seek to deter you from your set course. Still others offer false maps that seem to promise the ease of “I don’t have to do this alone.” We are all alone inside our heads and you – and only you – must be satisfied with the map you create. If you aren’t there’s no fellowship or wealth that can compensate you for that loss.
Goddess Opportunity – We revel in and with our fellow travelers. There could be a soulmate among them – for a time or for a life. Accept the wisdom of others, the wisdom of the path, consult other maps in designing your own. Be prepared to alter your map – joyously – with each new and fresh discovery. There will be many. Salut!
How Did People You Admire Manifest the Life Force? Jesus spent an epic 40 day & nights in the desert. Margaret Mead lived in Samoa studying the Samoans. Carl Sagan describes his “defining moment” as visiting the World’s Fair at four years old. It exploded and expanded his mind. Who are your models? Research them and study their transitions and experiments.
Magic & Mystery: A you accept yourself and accept your changes, you are confronting the dynamic of change, which is the manifestation of energy in existence. We are all alive and moving. This is a dance and you are the choreographer and star. Erik Erikson said “A good life is like a weaving. Energy is created in the tension. The pull and tug, the struggle, is everything.”
Commit to tiring yourself out during the day with thought, exercise and interrelations so that you can enjoy healthy sleep at night.
Models & Mentors – ‘Every thought has an energy. Thoughts send out a magnetic frequency” – Rhonda Byrne
“Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it – for it is a faculty of the psyche” – Germaine Greer
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration” – Nikola Tesla
“The more positive energy you throw into the universe, the more positive energy you get back”
(On the beach. Door in the house opens and CHARMAYNE, wearing only a filmy cover-up over her bikini, steps out exultantly to spread her arms to the moon)
CHARMAYNE Moon, Mother-Sister-Goddess, whose tears fertilize the world, I seek permission to penetrate your veil.
WHITNEY (Awkwardly standing) Er – Char –
CHARMAYNE Oh, my God, Whitney! You scared the life out of me. What are you doing here?
WHITNEY Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.
CHARMAYNE (Insulted)
I’m surprised, that’s all. You’re never here this late. Should I be flattered? What have you got there?
(WHITNEY proffers the bottle.)
WHITNEY I was trying to get up the nerve to speak to you.
CHARMAYNE Tequila?
(Laughs.)
WHITNEY It’s my drink. Want some?
CHARMAYNE Why couldn’t you just come to the door?
WHITNEY You were…with someone.
CHARMAYNE (Burbling laughter)
Ramon’s gone, you must have heard the television! Don’t be jealous of the television. You’re adorable! Give me some of that.
(Seats herself comfortably and takes the bottle)
WHITNEY Sorry I don’t have any cups.
CHARMAYNE Oh. Whitney, I’m the Queen of Cups, didn’t you know?
(Laughs and drinks)
Queen of bottles, too. So what did you want to talk to me about?
WHITNEY I wanted to ask your advice on something.
(Making it up on the spur of the moment)
I’ve got a problem at college, and you know all about men. My advisor is…handsy.
CHARMAYNE Handsy! There’s an expression I haven’t heard for awhile.
WHITNEY (Inspired) He’s a real – Casper the Grasper. He always pretends it’s a joke or a mistake. I don’t know what to do. He’s the head of the department. If I complain –
CHARMAYNE Never complain, Whit. Never settle. We’re better than that. You need to get even. Trust me, that’s where all the real satisfaction is.
(Takes another swig – offers it to WHITNEY who pretends to drink)
This is so much fun! I was yearning for a Girls Night Out!
(Puts her arm through WHITNEY’S)
This may amaze you, but I get lonely too. It’s a well-kept secret life can be lonely at the top. Finding my equal just gets harder and harder.
WHITNEY There’s Ramon –
CHARMAYNE Oh, please! Ramon’s just an employee and he knows it. Men! Even well-trained men are…a limited indulgence. And there’s one thing they can’t ever get right.
(Smacks WHITNEY’S thigh as she cuddles up to her)
This part.
(EIGHT looks over the boulder. WHITNEY seems emboldened by his presence)
WHITNEY So have you ever done it? Gotten even?
CHARMAYNE (Bragging)
I always get even. Nobody messes with me twice.
(Swig. She’s not even sharing the bottle anymore)
WHITNEY (Settling down for a story)
Tell me about it.
CHARMAYNE You’ll have to take off your clothes first.
(Uncomfortable moment. WHITNEY pulls away.)
Did you think offering me a drink would be enough to get me to unburden?
WHITNEY What are you talking about?
CHARMAYNE I need to know you’re not recording me, silly girl. I’ve been blackmailed by pros. What happens on Girls Night Out stays on Girls Night Out. Hos before bros. Come on. Hurry it up. Look at me, I’m not wearing anything.
WHITNEY (Peels down to her underwear)
Believe me, I’m not “recording” anything.
CHARMAYNE That’s what they all say. Knowledge backfires in the hands of the novice. Turn around. Let me look. Phone turned off?
(She runs her hand thru bra & panties)
You know what? I believe you. You couldn’t lie to save your soul. And you’re the most awful blusher, has anybody ever told you that? You blush with your whole body!
WHITNEY (Blushing)
I’m aware.
CHARMAYNE Lucky for you. People automatically trust blushers because blushing’s involuntary.
WHITNEY People trust me because they know I care about the truth.
CHARMAYNE Oh, bullshit! The truth! The Sacred Truth! There’s no such thing! There’s what happened and there’s what we think happened – who can tell the difference? OK, sit down. Take a load off. Have a drink to loosen you up.
(WHITNEY pretends to drink)
You’ve got a good body, you know that? Nice and hard. Lovely tone. You’re lacking a waist, that’s all. You inherited your father’s physique as well as his brains. It’s all about pluses and minuses. You have to work against the minuses. Men are prejudiced against waistless girls because their hard wiring makes them suckers for a certain waist to hip proportion. Did you know that? But we don’t care about them, do we? Who needs them? Prisoners of their reflexes! Born to mate! Man proposes, the goddess disposes!
WHITNEY Charmayne, you turn every conversation into a Whitney – critiqueathon. Why’s that?
CHARMAYNE Because you interest me, little Whit. You interest me extremely. You’re smart. The way your father was … at first.
WHITNEY (Refusing to be drawn. Grits her teeth to get through this.)
Please don’t talk about him. And don’t tell me to make myself gorgeous for Casper the Grasper.
CHARMAYNE Listen, if you were gorgeous he wouldn’t have the nerve to touch you.
WHITNEY I think the beautiful get harassed, too.
CHARMAYNE But they have more options. They can –
WHITNEY I want to hear about you. Tell me about that time that you got even.
CHARMAYNE (Very expansive)
There are so many! But let’s start at the beginning. Here’s something you didn’t know about me. I had a stepfather. You may complain about me, but the problem with you, Whit, is that you always take your good luck for granted. I never take anything for granted. I’m a day at the beach compared to that guy. Talk about “handsy”!
WHITNEY (Pretending to drink, then surrendering the bottle)
So what was he like?
CHARMAYNE What was he like? He was a monster, that’s what he was like. He was Death, the Hanged Man, the Tower. He thought he was the God of Wrath, that asshole. He was only a king of Destruction.
(Swigs from the bottle)
Destruction is easy. It’s creation that’s hard. It’s creating that takes it out of you. Every time I look in the mirror and recreate myself, I am spitting on his grave. He acted so convinced that I’d end up nothing, just like him. All he ever gave me was a spiral fracture of the arm.
WHITNEY (Shocked and appalled)
Why’d your Mom marry him?
CHARMAYNE She couldn’t believe he wanted to marry her! She’d never been married – God knows who my real father was. She thought if any vaguely presentable guy – even some unemployed wastrel on disability – proposes to you, you HAVE to say yes. She met him at the diner where she cooked. Oh, yeah, my Mom worked. And worked and worked. Two shifts a day. My step-dad was supposed to take care of me. She thought she’d hit the lottery to win some guy with a disability check and nothing but time on his hands to look after me for free. He used every second ratcheting up my misery. I couldn’t stay at school every minute, but you better believe I wanted to. I knew I had to go home to him eventually. But the joke was on him. He thought he was so smart but he sure underestimated me.
(She’s lost, now, talking to the audience)
What a scrawny, worthless loser! He knew the entire universe despised him so he thought he’d get himself a slave. Someone he could push around. I was eleven when he told me it was his duty to teach me about sex. He said that was what stepfathers were for.
WHITNEY But your Mom –
CHARMAYNE (Angrily)
Oh, my Mom knew perfectly well what was going on! It meant she didn’t have to cope with him!
(Returns attention to courting the audience, cultivating her reverie. WHITNEY muffles up to ease the flow)
Mom’s cooperation (I should say her silence, because she was way too fat to “cooperate”) could be bought with a carton of snack cakes.
My step-dad pretended I was ugly; that he could barely bring himself to touch me. He expected me to worship him. But he must have known that the moment I grew up I’d try to get away. Maybe he thought he could keep me forever, like a hostage. Once, when my girlfriends and I streaked our hair for a sleepover, he acted as if I had set the house on fire. Luckily it was the kind that washes out; otherwise I think he really would have shaved my head.
I remember exactly how scared I felt the first time I decided to ignore my stepfather’s dictates about how I should look and dress. My first day of high school I knew I couldn’t go in there looking like some Amish refugee. I had to step up my game. It was terror, rank terror, the kind that makes you wet yourself; but you know what enemies forget? That fear is the rocket fuel of rebellion. Remember that, Whitney. You’ll never experience an emotion like that; you’ve been too sheltered. My stepfather’s own possessive rage became the engine of his death.
I try not to think about him too often because my energy is the only thing that gives him life, but you know, I’m glad to share this with you. Open it up, get it out of my head. The memories are still there, perfect and crystal clear. Nothing that happened in all those years since packs that kind of punch. I was just beginning to realize that my stepfather couldn’t actually read my mind, had no eyes in the back of his head, could not see through walls, did not have spies everywhere, was not connected to the Mafia or the CIA. It was him or me. How could I destroy him?
That year Saturn and Mars were equally fiery, it was dry and there was a comet. Perfect for revolution. He was weakening and I was strengthening. Your father taught you that in chess queens rule: my step-dad was too stupid to know it. So our battles escalated. I was getting as tall as he was; he must have figured his fists and penis were no longer sufficient to control me. One day he produced a gun. His idea was that we would have a threesome, little me, paralyzed with fear, and Superman with his two dicks. My idea was different.
He knew I was afraid of the cellar. He used to lock me down there for punishment when I was little. As a child, I thought it was the mouth of hell; a dirt hole stinking like a sewer clawed out beneath the bowels of the house. When he pushed me down there I never even passed the top step but just clung to the doorknob, eye pressed to the light crack, wailing for release.
(A slug of fast-vanishing booze. Turns her attention back to WHITNEY)
Will is a muscle, Whit; you can train it just the way you train the body. I had transcended so many fears already; why couldn’t I outgrow this one? What is the fear of confrontation, really, but the fear of change? What is the fear of being caught but the fear of ultimate failure, of not being powerful enough? Poisoning him didn’t work – I tried that – hoping to make his death look accidental; so, what if he simply disappeared? Nobody except his bar buddies would even notice he was gone. And they were way too fuzzyheaded to stage any meaningful hunt. Mom could just keep cashing his checks. Who would know? And she owed me. He’d overstayed his welcome on this planet; neither of us needed a babysitter any more. If weapons are engines of confrontation, Whitney, both of us could use them.
That was when I fell in love with power, Whitney. I had to, and you can too, or you’ll never get anywhere. Let me be your teacher.
(Strokes WHITNEY’s hair, uses finger for a gun)
Pop, pop, pop, and “pop” is gone. I knew how to cock the pistol; I knew how to release the safety because I’d seen him do it countless times. If the cellar was dirty and stinky, and no one ever went down there, why couldn’t I bury him where nobody would ever look?
So, while he was out buying smokes I fired up my nerve and took a flashlight down to check it out. That wooden staircase rocked like it was going to collapse, but I told myself it had only to hold me two more times. There were bugs, just as I feared; centipedes and worms, but now I saw them as my friends. Let them eat the bastard up; if only they’d chew his bones as well. The walls were caving in; hunks of unhewn stone overpowered by tree roots. Then I saw my blessing. A wooden well cover. I knew the time was now.
I recalled the furor when the county forced us on to public water. My step-dad raged that fluoridation was a commie plot. And all that time the old well was down there. Water in the bottom reflected my flashlight as I leaned over. It was even set flush with the floor; what could be easier? I practiced moving the wooden cover; no problemo. The only difficulty now was to get him down here with the gun.
So I told him I heard rats; I knew he longed for targets; especially in front of me. When I said they were scratching at the door, he was ready to go.
But he liked being a man of surprises, fancying he was in control. He made me go down first, carrying the flashlight and a garbage bag. That meant I couldn’t tackle him from behind the way I’d planned. It cut down on my time for action, because as I think I said before, the place was just a tiny hole. He would see I was a liar.
But if he had surprises, I had ideas. The garbage bag gave me a good one. I had a friend who earnestly believed violence engenders hauntings, but she didn’t see her own death coming. But if what she said is true, that cellar’s haunted forever by me in a red sweater, red kilt and plaid tights; and my step-dad wearing a garbage bag over his head while we struggled for the gun. I had to drop the flashlight; it shot a crazy, useless stream of light across the floor; we were in darkness.
He was wiry and desperate and amazingly strong, but I had the gun two-handed and I would not have let it go if the world around me exploded into flames. I discovered in that moment the secret of power, Whit, if you want something with your whole being, if you have not one cell of doubt, you are invincible. I had to kick his crotch to loosen up his grip, but the gun came to me pre-cocked. What an idiot! I shot him right through the bag. That gun kicked like a rattlesnake. I shot him again and again and again, and one of the bullets somehow came back to graze me in the face. Doesn’t bother me. This chip along my cheekbone – see? I wear it as a badge of honor.
(Demonstrates to WHITNEY)
I still have that gun. I can show you if you want to see it.
(She’s slurring her words now. Shakes the empty bottle.)
There’s another one that fell before The Queen of Swords! Think we should put a message in this thing? What would we say?
(Pulls arm back to throw bottle into the audience, sits down hard)
WHITNEY So you’re telling me to shoot my way out?
(CHARMAYNE laughs. shakes & holds her head)
CHARMAYNE Oh, Whitney, you’re always so literal! Your father hoped you’d be a lawyer. Wow, am I drunk. Guess I should have eaten dinner, but who wants to eat alone? Don’t be so silly, Whit. You can’t dip your hand in the same river twice. Your guy’s got weaknesses is all I’m saying. Search – searching –
(Seems like she’s losing track of her thoughts)
You’ve got to search them out. I can’t do everything for you. Learn to defend yourself. No one helps anyone else and the sooner you find that out, the better off you’ll be.
(Throws herself on her back)
Look at those stars, Whit. So many stars. Every star’s a lost soul, struggling for a piece of sun. Did you know I can’t sleep, Whit? I haven’t slept in days. But, I think I can sleep now. There’s something so safe, so reassuring about you.
(Loud snoring. EIGHT and WHITNEY stand over her looking down)
WHITNEY Should we move her?
EIGHT Don’t disturb her. Jeez, when she goes down, she goes down hard.
(CHARMAYNE reaches up scrabbling at the air.)
CHARMAYNE I hear you! What did you say?
(Burps)
This has been so fun. Look out, there’s two of you!
(Rolls over, cuddles up in WHITNEY’s clothes. WHITNEY tries to cover herself – EIGHT lends her his Hawaiian shirt)
WHITNEY I don’t – thanks.
EIGHT Hey, it’s a beautiful night.
WHITNEY Well, they say confession is good for the soul. But you have to have a soul.
EIGHT I’m sure she’s got something left way down deep in there. But it’s probably a poor, stubby, underfed little thing. You take off, I’ll watch over her.
(Lights up on The Library Basement Stacks at Dead Lake Community College a mini set with bookcase and elderly woman – MRS PREECE – wearing coke bottle glasses perched atop library ladder, putting books away. )
MRS PREECE Why are all these students so freakishly tall? I’m going to kill myself, one of those days, trying to approximate the eye line of some basketball-playing mutant. (WHITNEY appears shyly around the bookcase.)
WHITNEY Are you Mrs. Preece?
MRS. PREECE No need to shout. I’m half-blind, not deaf. Depends who’s asking.
WHITNEY I’ve been researching past Dead Lake students and the girl at the front desk said you know everything.
MRS. PREECE (Coming down the ladder) Then I’m that Mrs. Preece. For all I knew you were looking for my mother in law and she’s been dead these forty years. And believe you me, she was no picnic when she was alive, and now that she’s dead she’s been particularly troublesome.
(Looks WHITNEY up & down)
Aren’t you a nice young lady! Most girls these days look so terrible I pity them. They want to look terrible is what I conclude. It’s all I can do to keep from jumping back and gagging when I see one coming – it’s like some vision of the Apocalypse. They’re arming up for something – God knows what.
(Crosses herself)
You look like a strong healthy girl. Not like those female zombies.
WHITNEY I missed a lot. I guess I’ve been… held back.
MRS. PREECE Well, stay in school forever, that’s my advice. You, – you play hockey? What’s your sport?
WHITNEY God no. I hate sports.
MRS. PREECE Don’t say that, girl. Games are all we have to look forward to. The only time we get to win. I was a left wing in my time. But you can’t even say “left-wing” these days. Teatime!
(She swivels the ladder & bookcase to reveal two basket chairs and a squat bookcase holding a smoking kettle, which she unplugs. She pours two mugs of tea and settles into chair with a sigh.)
WHITNEY (Accepting a mug) Do you live down here?
MRS. PREECE Might as well. They’ve got facilities, haven’t they? Heat, light, the whole ball of wax. I’ve got a home but why go there? The spirit of my dead mother-in-law makes it clear she doesn’t approve of my housekeeping. No, libraries are where it’s at! Temples of learning, sanctuaries of knowledge. And they’re too cheap to hire a security guard for all this treasure. Scary. All they’ve got is little old me. When I go, it’s “poof” for all these memories. If I’m going to be haunted by somebody, I choose Emerson. Or any of the Transcendentalists, really.
(Waves a hand)
Education is SO wasted on the young. And it don’t stick long on the old folks, neither. People remember the way things SHOULD have happened. But I –
(Taps her head)
Been blessed in the brain-basket. I like the past. I remember the way things REALLY happened. So, long story short, you’ve come to the right place. Sit down and make yourself to home.
(Long sip)
Such a pleasure having company I’d smoke if I thought I could get away with it, but they’ve got them damn detectors. Interested in the Lake, you say? Good riddance to it! The Black Lagoon, we used to call it! Oh, it was a pile of muck after all the frogs died. You one of those conservation nuts? An echo-terrorist?
WHITNEY Eco-terrorist? No. Actually I’m looking for a person. I’m Whitney Quantreau, and I’m looking for Charmayne Carr. She claims she attended this school. Charmayne Carr?
MRS. PREECE I should have guessed right away that’s what you wanted! EVERYBODY’S looking for that one. Nobody knows what became of her. She just abandoned her house and walked away! But she wasn’t a student, she was a teacher. Health Ed.
WHITNEY She was? Who – who’s looking for her?
MRS. PREECE Her family. They need to know where she’s at! Got no idea in hell what’s become of her! And she used to support the lot of them. So it came as a shock. Does make a motive for sneaking away, having that pack hounding after you, I’d be thinking. And the cops say adults can go where they please. It’s a free country. You know what became of her?
WHITNEY Well – she got married. That’s all.
MRS. PREECE Married? To a MAN?
WHITNEY (Flustered) To my father, actually. What did you think?
MRS. PREECE Well, I’m not sure what’s the PC word for it, but she was one of them long-time dykes. Dressed like a man most of the time! Oh she was miserable when they tried to get her up into any sort of skirt. Nowadays she’d just go and get her sex fixed to something matching her desires.
WHITNEY (Shows her phone)
Is this her?
MRS. PREECE (Clutches her heart like she’s seen a ghost) Oh my goodness!
(Takes the phone)
Never thought I’d see HER again. So she’s a blonde now? She was a redhead when I knew her.
WHITNEY Isn’t that Charmayne Carr?
MRS. PREECE No, it most certainly isn’t! That’s Pearleen Purdy – Charmayne’s – I don’t know WHAT you’d call her. Doctor Carr’s girlfriend.
WHITNEY Are you certain?
MRS. PREECE How could a body be wrong about a thing like that? Nobody ever forgot Pearleen once they saw her. I’ve even got a picture of them together here somewhere.
(Produces a pile of college yearbooks from squat bookcase and shuffles through them)
These are my own personal Firewalkers. I don’t let them out of my hands.
WHITNEY Firewalkers!
MRS. PREECE Name of our basketball team, you know, the Firewalkers. Ought to be Airwalkers, but that was taken and we’re obligated to honor the Indians since we took their land whether they like it or not. Everyone walks through fire around here. Burning up the countryside’s practically a ritual. Let’s see, fourteen years ago, wasn’t it? The two of them were in a play together. “The Real Inspector Hound.”
(Offers the book)
Charmayne’s the one with the moustache. She was playing a man of course. Inspector Foot of the Yard.
(Agitated)
Now don’t you get stains on that!
WHITNEY (Puts mug down respectfully)
She – Pearleen looks so different!
MRS. PREECE Pearleen was older than most of the students. Word was she’d been a stripper out of Branson, Missouri. You’ve heard of Branson, Missouri? At The Gentleman’s Secret. Well, Dr. Carr had a nice big house out on the Heights and poor Pearleen grew up on that sorry lake. She came home when the developers passed out education money. Dr. Carr liked to invite girl students – poor students – I should say PRETTY students out to the Heights to live with her. She “helped” them. Folks around here called her place “The Opium Den” because it was so – I don’t know what you’d call it. Eastern-like. Cultish. With draperies and bronzes and incense. The works.
WHITNEY Cult-ish?
MRS. PREECE Yeah, Dr. Carr had one of them goddess religions she was the queen of. To each her own, I say. Live and let live.
WHITNEY Isis? TAROT? Let me guess, was she…the Queen of Swords?
MRS. PREECE Bingo. That’s it exactly. She played the cards and Pearleen played her. Dr. Carr made a pot of money with one of them role-playing games. Dr. Carr was the Queen and Pearleen was supposed to be a Princess, I think that’s the way it went. But Pearleen got rid of all those other girls one by one. Reminds me of a cat I used to have. He just couldn’t share. He chased all the other cats right off my bed. Couldn’t abide the competition. We try to turn the other cheek to promote a professional atmosphere but I‘m telling you, it was the scandal of the campus!
WHITNEY (Produces phone, uses zoom)
Did Charmayne Carr – Dr Carr – ever wear this necklace?
MRS. PREECE That dagger there? Well, it looks familiar. She had lots of totem like materials. But Dr. Carr had all these folds around her neck, you see… No one wants to gaze at that too closely! No, she was never one of the “pretty ones!”
WHITNEY And then she disappeared! Didn’t anybody find it suspicious?
MRS PREECE Suspicious! Wasn’t I telling you her family had a meltdown! They came out here screaming like banshees! Finally declared her legally dead so they could sell her property!
WHITNEY Do you remember any of their names?
MRS PREECE Her brother had some very ordinary name. Like John. But I’m telling you, they don’t care anymore. The estate’s settled! They’ve even got a fake gravesite established somewhere – had a service with shrieking and wailing. Be quite a shock to them when she comes back. They’re not wanting to resurrect the dead. You’ve got a different problem than that.
WHITNEY My stepmom’s an identity thief!
MRS. PREECE Your poor dad’s the one got trouble, bless his heart. Play and then pay, I say! Usually through the nose. I demand all my bills up front.
WHITNEY Too late for that. He’s dead, too.
(MRS PREECE drops her Firewalker with a resounding bang. Lights out.)
I’d like you to tell my fortune. Give me a reading. You know. With the cards.
CHARMAYNE
(Instantly interested)
Oh, you’d like that, would you? Why the sudden change of tune?
WHITNEY
(Graceless shrug)
I don’t want to come back on Thursday.
CHARMAYNE
(Rippling laugh)
I like you, Whitney. You shouldn’t be so teasable. I guess it’s Ramon who will have to come back Thursday. Surprises refresh me. You’ve never availed yourself of my gift of cartomancy before. Let me get my cards.
(Door snaps shut)
WHITNEY
(Seats herself in a patio chair)
Here goes nothing.
CHARMAYNE
(Appearing with a full tray)
Here, take this.
(Lumbers WHITNEY with enormous tray while CHARMAYNE carefully closes door behind her)
Careful with that!
(WHITNEY unloads tray onto patio table)
CHARMAYNE
I’m so pleased about this little tête a tête. Choose your poison. Kids these days drink only vodka. Vodka! (She snorts) Youth is so wasted on the young.
WHITNEY
I drink tequila.
CHARMAYNE
Oh, I bet you do. Care to knock back some shots?
(She mimes it)
In vino veritas, Whitney. I’ll save you the worm.
WHITNEY
Please don’t quote Latin at me. It makes me feel I’m back at boarding school.
CHARMAYNE
Life’s one school after another, Whitney. Endless initiation into unimagined horizons. All birth’s painful. A little medicine eases the transition.
WHITNEY
No thanks. I still have to drive home. Water’s fine.
CHARMAYNE
You always were as stubborn as a mule. So be it! Ready to concentrate on the future?
WHITNEY
I still have some questions about the past.
CHARMAYNE
(Sits, bounces a leg impatiently)
Oh, Whitney, Whitney! If I could only get you to see that your obsession with the past is so self-defeating! Here you are a young girl – an almost beautiful young girl who could be better than beautiful if she made any effort – and all you do is look back. On a mere nineteen years of life!
(Shakes her head)
If I’d stayed stuck like you, I’d still be gigging frogs down by the lake.
WHITNEY
What lake?
CHARMAYNE
(Immediate self-protection)
Oh, I grew up on a lake. Didn’t I mention? A sad sleazy little lake surrounded by wooden cabins – some of them actually on wheels. It’s all gone now.
WHITNEY
Maybe, but surely the lake is still there.
CHARMAYNE
Oh no. It’s all gone now. Paved over. Things change, Whitney. Get used to it! The past is always more disgusting than people are willing to concede.
WHITNEY
But who would pave a lake?
CHARMAYNE
The water was attacked by some invasive…they had to get rid of it. I would have walked through fire to get out of that place.
WHITNEY
(Very stubborn)
But how could you still be at the lake if it’s gone?
CHARMAYNE
I would have fought the changes, that’s my point. But what would I get? A dead lake and a dying life ! Instead, look at this!
(Waves over the audience)
I have the ocean! The whole Atlantic Ocean…
WHITNEY
So tell me about that dagger you wear around your neck.
CHARMAYNE
(Playing with it)
A girl after my own heart! No sooner do I give one gift than you want another. This golden dagger is a dear memento given to me by my mentor years ago. On completing my study of tarot.
WHITNEY
(Flat footedly)
What was her name?
CHARMAYNE
Oh, Whitney…Whitney…You can never bathe in the same river twice! I only care about the future. All this could be yours someday… if you play your cards right.
WHITNEY
Depends which deck we’re using.
CHARMAYNE
(Silvery laughter)
My deck of course! You don’t have a deck! Whitney, I want to be your friend. I treasured my own mentor – she made all the difference in my life – I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a protégée. I never knew it would be you.
WHITNEY
Why do you think so?
CHARMAYNE
You’re so young, so unformed. And you have such a thirst for knowledge! I was that way once, wondering how things work.
(Reaches out to touch WHITNEY’S hair – WHITNEY steels herself)
If only you knew how much I want to give you things.
WHITNEY
You do?
(This disturbs her)
Like what?
CHARMAYNE
I could show you the lynchpins of the universe if only you would let me. Very few of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouths and a golden rattle clutched in our chubby baby hands the way you were, Whitney. You need to see the world for what it really is. You don’t accept what’s on offer – you go your own way – I was like that, too. I can teach you how to never be defeated. But first I must know. Are you a Querent or a Firewalker?
WHITNEY
A what?
CHARMAYNE
Is this idle curiosity or will you accept the challenge that is offered – whatever it requires? Can you stand up to what must be revealed?
(She produced and shuffles the tarot cards – with threatening skill)
The time is never riper. Open your mind, Whitney and accept. IF that’s what you’re here for.
WHITNEY
I’m definitely a firewalker.
CHARMAYNE
I thought so! Welcome to the Way of Fire. Enter the temple. Cut.
(Offers cards to WHITNEY who cuts the deck and selects one.)
CHARMAYNE
Don’t just take a card. Wait for the proper moment.
WHITNEY
Did you ever wait?
CHARMAYNE
(CHARMAYNE takes the card from her and studies it)
Touché!
I suppose you chose the card most eager to speak to you. Look, it’s The Fool!
(Tarot of The Fool springs up as a hologram or on projection screen)
WHITNEY
That’s supposed to be me?
CHARMAYNE
It’s the card you chose so yes, it has something to say to you. Look at it.
WHITNEY
That I‘m a number zero? Is that what it’s telling me? I don’t like your tarot language.
CHARMAYNE
You’re always braced for insult, Whitney. In your private language you can never be defined by someone else. Open your cage. The Fool is stuck, he can’t move on. Moving on is the First Principle of Life.
WHITNEY
(Leaning across the table)
My father is gone.
CHARMAYNE
He was almost ninety, Whitney. Death happens. You had him longer than I did. Get over it. I never question the past.
WHITNEY
I was raised to appreciate history because if you don’t understand it, you repeat it.
CHARMAYNE
We all were born graceless and angry, raging and accusatory. It’s only a shame if you stay that way. Look at the fool’s face. He thinks he’s free. See the rose he picked? All the while he’s standing on a cliff edge!
WHITNEY
I reject this card. I demand another card.
(Snatches one up. CHARMAYNE is unflustered.)
CHARMAYNE
That’s not the way this game is played.
WHITNEY
Maybe it’s the way I play. You don’t get to define me.
CHARMAYNE
Fortunately the tarot is wiser than you. Look what you’ve chosen! The Tarot laughs!
(Queen of Swords card appears onscreen – bare breasted and swinging double knives)
WHITNEY
You put that there!
CHARMAYNE
You chose it yourself!
WHITNEY
You probably had that card up your sleeve. Here’s my card – I’ll turn it up myself.
(Priestess Tarot card onscreen)
CHARMAYNE
The High Priestess! How appropriate!
WHITNEY
What’s appropriate about that?
CHARMAYNE
The High Priestess is a woman pretending to be a man, Whitney. She abhors feminine wiles. Because you’re so interested in history you might as well know she’s base on Pope Joan, the only female Pope. She’s the guardian of hidden knowledge. See, she’s holding the Torah with the last letter hidden.
(WHITNEY bridles)
WHITNEY
She looks like a little old man.
CHARMAYNE
Don’t take everything so personally. Seekers are often forced to wear disguise. Life’s a contest and the weak go to the wall. Look at the Priestess standing on the moon between the lotus pillars and ask yourself, how does that make you feel?
WHITNEY
Weak.
CHARMAYNE
Well don’t admit it ever. Never spill your guts. The first law is bluster. After awhile it comes naturally.
WHITNEY
I thought the first law was moving on.
CHARMAYNE
(Irritated)
That’s the first principle. Try to keep up.
WHITNEY
Doesn’t bluster risk losing yourself?
CHARMAYNE
There is no self! We are self-created. Your father always used to say – oh, never mind. The Priestess reveals her secret when the time is right.
WHITNEY
What did my father always say?
CHARMAYNE
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now allow me to choose a card for you.
(Prince of Wands appears. He looks a lot like EIGHT)
CHARMAYNE
I knew a man would show up sooner or later. Do you know this handsome devil? What do you suppose is the meaning of his big, big stick?
(She laughs)
(WHITNEY works hard to stay cool)
WHITNEY
I‘ve met him.
CHARMAYNE
(Surprised and nettled that there’s anything she doesn’t know)
Oh? Where? Is he your boyfriend?
WHITNEY
(Smug)
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
CHARMAYNE
Still waters run deep! Possibly he’s your power card, Whitney. The elegant Prince of Wands has been pushed out of his home and sent on a journey with no weapon to protect himself other than sticks he picks up. He’s a dowser.
WHITNEY
He’s a treasure seeker.
CHARMAYNE
Well I’d very much like to meet him. We could have a tequila party. Would you like that?
WHITNEY
No. Just tell me what it means.
CHARMAYNE
This must be very new – I don’t blame you wanting to keep him to yourself. The Prince of Wands is about developing intuition, cultivating talents. He’s a wily character, not well born like the Prince of Swords. He’s scrappy, like me, came from nothing. He’s had to learn to excel at something – to master it. He presages sudden changes of direction, even a journey. It could be a lucky card, Whitney, especially since you rejected The Fool. But like everything else in life, you must claim it. Claim your power, Whitney, I can show you how. Should you fail; the card’s power is reversed. Then it presages devastating loss, capture, and imprisonment.
WHITNEY
Imprisonment?
CHARMAYNE
(Exasperated)
I could say more if you would tell me about him.
WHITNEY
Forget it. Give me another card.
CHARMAYNE
You’re entitled to an eight card spread.
WHITNEY
Eight?
CHARMAYNE
Is that your lucky number?
WHITNEY
Maybe.
(WHITNEY spreads cards messily over the table)
CHARMAYNE
This isn’t slapjack, Whitney. We all have to play the cards the goddess deals. You’ll cancel out the reading!
(WHITNEY throws cards to the ground.)
CHARMAYNE
Some reverence if you please!
WHITNEY
(Produces a card triumphantly)
Here’s the one I want! Judgment!
(The Judgment card appears onscreen)
Even this one’s not very impressive. Why does the Tarot show nothing but little old men?
CHARMAYNE
It doesn’t. The Major Arcana is strongly female.
WHITNEY
Well the Judgment Card looks like my Dad to me.
CHARMAYNE
That shows your ignorance. Some have eyes but are too blind to see.
(Wearily picking up cards)
The Tarot won’t be mocked, Whitney. You’re asking for trouble.
WHITNEY
I don’t think I’m the one in trouble.
CHARMAYNE
Believe me, you are.
WHITNEY
I DON’T believe you. Your threats are vague – you can’t even be specific.
CHARMAYNE
(Threateningly)
It’s whatever you most fear that stalks you. Behind the fear lies…the wish.
(She laughs)
The ignorant are so helpless! This card doesn’t even signify what you think it means.
WHITNEY
So what does it mean, then?
CHARMAYNE
It’s the regeneration card. See the dead rising on the bottom of the card there? That angel’s going to suck them right up into her trumpet!
(She laughs wildly)
WHITNEY
You don’t think the dead can rise?
CHARMAYNE
Depends on how they died.
WHITNEY
What do you mean, HOW?
CHARMAYNE
(Threateningly)
They can’t rise if they’ve lost their souls.
WHITNEY
(Shaken)
Oh, that’s bullshit. Who says that?
CHARMAYNE
The Book of the Dead. They’re the experts. Your firewalk is just beginning, Whitney! I’ve been doing it for years. My feet are well-hardened. There’s so much you don’t know.
WHITNEY
(Overturns the table standing up)
I guess the reading’s over.
(They face each other across the mess)
CHARMAYNE
I guess it is. Some people can’t be helped.
(As CHARMAYNE bends down WHITNEY pretends to leave but hides behind the boulder, trying to calm her breathing).
CHARMAYNE
(Calling after her)
That was a one-time offer! Let me know if you ever get serious about claiming your power!
(Shrugs)
Kids. They insist on leaving the field to me. Which is fine, knowing how I hate to share.
(Clears the table, takes tray into house EXIT).
WHITNEY
(Pulls out her phone and starts typing)
Book of the Dead, eh? I have some magic of my own and it’s called Google. I remember now, that faked up résumé said something about Dead Lake Community College…
(Getting up her nerve…calling after CHARMAYNE …too late)
Like you speak French!
(Goes to sit disconsolately on a boulder.)
This is MY story and I’m not letting her tell it.
(A beachily dressed; closely shaved man with a metal detector comes up the beach slowly. Investigating.)
WHITNEY
Hey! Don’t you know this is private property?
EIGHT
Only to the waterline. No one owns the ocean. Which means it belongs to everyone. This your place?
WHITNEY
No. Belongs to my stepmother. The place she sold to buy this one was the house I grew up in.
EIGHT
So now you’re free. Like me.
WHITNEY
(Watches him work)
Who are you? What are you doing?
EIGHT
I’m a beachcomber and a treasure hunter. Name’s Eight. Like Pieces of Eight.
WHITNEY
Is that what you find?
EIGHT
I find everything eventually. Look at this.
(She comes closer)
WHITNEY
What is it?
EIGHT
Prehistoric shark’s tooth.
WHITNEY
Looks like an arrowhead.
EIGHT
They could have used it for that. You want it?
(She shrinks from contact)
WHITNEY
I don’t know. What would I do with it?
EIGHT
(Lifts his arm)
Treasure seekers help other treasure seekers. It’s the beachcomber’s code. Otherwise it goes back to the sea.
WHITNEY
Then I’ll take it.
(Turns it over in her hands.)
I wish it was a magic charm.
EIGHT
Really? Why’s that?
WHITNEY
I need magic to fight her.
(Gesticulates at house and whispers)
She’s a demon.
EIGHT
You mean demonic? Or an actual demon?
WHITNEY
I mean an actual demon. Like from another planet.
EIGHT
Most demons are homegrown.
WHITNEY
This one cultivates magic. Reads Tarot. Calls herself The Queen of Swords.
EIGHT
That’s nothing but a pack of cards. No magic there.
WHITNEY
She murdered my father. I know it.
(A beat. Game change.)
EIGHT
You sure of that?
WHITNEY
Absolutely certain. He had this neurological condition, and he hired her to be his attendant. She wasn’t qualified – not at all. He had me sit in the interviews since I lived there too. I could see how taken with her he was. I begged him not to do it but –
(she shrugs sadly)
EIGHT
Let me guess. She was a sight for sore eyes.
WHITNEY
(Nodding)
Yeah. But so fake, though! Fake everything: hair, breasts, accent. Fake résumé, even. But he didn’t want to see through her. He just didn’t care.
EIGHT
I get it. He wanted to take his own path to health.
WHITNEY
He wanted to grab for the gusto. As soon as they were married –
(Slits her own throat with a finger.)
EIGHT
Any idea how she did it?
WHITNEY
Smothering? Drugs? It wouldn’t have been hard. She cremated him right away and there wasn’t even an autopsy.
EIGHT
Did you tell anybody?
WHITNEY
I told everybody. But she has them all under her spell. People were relieved he was gone! Less trouble for everybody. Even my sisters who – neither of them can stand Charmayne – said, “Well, at least he died happy!” I was the only one who even missed him. He was already old when we were born, you see. Darby – that’s my oldest sister – said – “Oh, he’d been gone a long time already. Can’t you see that?” And McKenzie – she’s the other one – said – “Everyone dies “unnaturally” nowadays. That’s what death is.” I was the only one who thought it was wrong. My dad said the only education worth having is learning to tell right from wrong.
EIGHT
I get it. You thirst after righteousness.
WHITNEY
Justice. Justice is what I want. People keep telling me it doesn’t exist.
EIGHT
Are you certain it’s not revenge you’re looking for?
WHITNEY
Well, that would be nice too. I mean, she makes me so mad. Don’t you feel it? Wouldn’t anyone? But justice is what I’ll settle for.
EIGHT
It’s a bad situation.
WHITNEY
You don’t know what a relief it is to have someone actually listen to me. I even – one day – I saw him.
EIGHT
You saw him? Your father’s – ghost?
WHITNEY
(Nodding vigorously)
I did.
EIGHT
Was he all about vengeance?
WHITNEY
He didn’t speak.
(Tears up.)
He just showed up in my room at college – probably the same moment she was killing him – and looked at me so sadly. I knew it was some kind of vision because he was his younger self – from before he had his stroke. I thought he was angry at me. Going away to school and leaving him alone with Charmayne – maybe I let him down.
EIGHT
Hey, you told him not to hire her. I mean, you were just a kid! What could you do?
WHITNEY
He admired people who “spoke truth to power”. He wanted me to be self-sufficient, use logic and hone my own instincts. She was awful to him! She made him beg for water. I saw it.
EIGHT
Sounds like a demon all right.
WHITNEY
“Withholding hydration” they call it. I should have protected him, the way he always protected me. He said I was his intellectual heir.
EIGHT
Are we talking money?
WHITNEY
No, I don’t mean that. We already had trust funds and things. What I mean is, he told me I was like him, that I had the same kind of mind. He said knowledge is everything and you have to cultivate a bullshit detector. Even though I was the youngest – me and my sisters have different mothers – he told everyone only I was fit to stand in his shoes.
EIGHT
Well, I’m starting to see why your sisters might not want to cooperate.
WHITNEY
People have to stand up for what they believe!
(Very earnestly.)
EIGHT
You blush when you’re angry.
WHITNEY
I blush whenever there’s another person in the room. But what do you think I should do? I’m scared of her. She threatened me.
EIGHT
How?
WHITNEY
She said I’m nothing and she created everything. She’ll send me back into the darkness. She wants to “tell my fortune” so she can predict all the terrible things that are going to happen to me. When she calls herself Queen of Swords, she tries to sound like she’s Master of the Universe.
EIGHT
Sounds like a con artist to me. They just feel around for anything someone will believe. Don’t let her get the drop on you.
WHITNEY
But what if those cards tell the future?
EIGHT
Tarot’s just another dead language, Whitney. You could learn it if you really wanted to. Language shapes how people think.
(Taps his head)
Don’t meet her on her turf. Predators like their prey frozen. And confused.
WHITNEY
How did you know my name?
EIGHT
I hang around. I hear things.
WHITNEY
So, you’re an eavesdropper.
EIGHT
Treasure seekers are serendipitous. We pick up what we can find.
WHITNEY
Well, you can’t pick me up.
EIGHT
(Still working his stretch of beach)
I wouldn’t dream of it.
WHITNEY
(not thrilled to hear this)
But what if she really is magic? It seems that way sometimes. I don’t know how to stand up to her.
EIGHT
Don’t sideline yourself so quick. You’re here, aren’t you? A person who can see the dead can do anything. Magic’s a game and anyone can play. Games are about rule-making – about control – gaining advantage on somebody, Whit.
WHITNEY
My father said never to play a game that’s rigged.
EIGHT
What if its rigged in your favor? And this one is. You know what happens to murderers?
WHITNEY
I’m hoping they get caught.
EIGHT
The truth will out.
WHITNEY
(Looking nervously up at the house)
Charmayne thinks she’s indestructible.
EIGHT
Wow. Sounds like a dare. I’m partial to dares myself.
WHITNEY
She says anything anybody tries to do to her comes back on them a million times. That it’s pointless to fight her. But I’m not giving up. You see why (looks at the tooth) I might need all the magic I can get?
EIGHT
Make her play your game.
WHITNEY
I’d love to see that! What do I do? Exactly?
EIGHT
Today’s your lucky day. I just happen to know some magic.
WHITNEY
Is that part of being a treasure seeker?
EIGHT
Sure. First, you master the elements. That’s way bigger magic than flipping cards and cutting off old men’s hydration.
WHITNEY
(Skeptical)
So how’d you that?
EIGHT
I’ve been swept out to sea. I’ve been buried in sand and I’ve been frozen in snow.
WHITNEY
We’re going to need way bigger magic than that.
EIGHT
See this mark on the top of my head?
WHITNEY
(Rubbing his head)
Looks like scars! Where did they come from?
EIGHT
I had a demon of my own. Once.
WHITNEY
You did?
EIGHT
Yeah, and he was hard to destroy. Took a piece out of me, I can tell you. He marked me right here.
WHITNEY
(Very hopeful)
Did you mark him?
EIGHT
I told you I destroyed him. And then I marked myself.
(Opens his Hawaiian shirt to show tattoo)
WHITNEY
(Reading)
“Be not Afraid.” How’s that help anything?
EIGHT
It’s a reminder.
WHITNEY
But you defeated him?
EIGHT
Sure did. He’s locked in a box and he’ll never get out. That’s what sent me wandering.
WHITNEY
How come?
EIGHT
Because every action produces an opposite reaction. He’s static, I’m in motion. Searching.
WHITNEY
But if he’s still alive…can’t he still hurt you?
EIGHT
No. He’s lost all his power. But I did have to take control. And I had to work on setting myself free.
WHITNEY
(Flouncing down onto the beach)
I’d rather just kill her. Serve her right.
EIGHT
No, no; don’t give her that. That’s what she wants.
WHITNEY
Trust me, that is NOT what she WANTS.
EIGHT
(Nodding vigorously)
Trust ME, it is. She’s hoping to turn you into HER. She’d have a new young life, a new young body. I’m not sure anyone could rescue you then.
WHITNEY
So tell me what you think I should I do.
EIGHT
Play it by the Bible. You’ve got to call a demon by its name.
WHITNEY
(Unimpressed)
Really? The Bible? That’s all you’ve got?
EIGHT
Hey, the Bible’s full of demons.
WHITNEY
So how do I learn her name? Tell me.
EIGHT
You said she had a fake everything. If that fake résumé still exists. I’d start there.
WHITNEY
(Arms crossed)
She probably destroyed every copy. Then what?
EIGHT
Don’t be a “yes, but”. You know she’s got secrets. The past’s the best predictor of the future. Find out her past and make sure she knows you know. Believe me, suddenly she’ll find you the most interesting person on the planet.
WHITNEY
Why’s that?
EIGHT
Because here’s the secret. Demons long to be revealed. If she invites you to dance –
(Does a little dance, waltzing the metal detector)
Dance with her. Then – suddenly, at the time of your choosing you – step aside.
WHITNEY
Step aside?
EIGHT
(Involving her in his dance)
Step aside. Let her own momentum bring her down.
WHITNEY
(Very frustrated, dancing like she has two left feet)
I‘ll never get it.
EIGHT
First you have to tell your own fortune. Then you tell hers.
(Heads off down the beach while she’s thinking about it)
WHITNEY
She’ll try to put ideas in my head!
EIGHT
But if she’s a demon, your ideas are stronger than her ideas.
WHITNEY
You don’t know how persuasive she can be.
EIGHT
(From the end of the beach)
Oh, I know.
WHITNEY
Wait! Where are you going?
EIGHT
I’ve got to get moving. I only found one treasure here.
WHITNEY
And you gave it away.
EIGHT
(Looking at her meaningfully)
That’s not the one I mean.
(Resumes his quest)
WHITNEY
Wait, wait! Give me your phone number!
(Pulls out her phone)
EIGHT
I don’t use those things.
WHITNEY
But where can I find you? When will I see you again?
EIGHT
Don’t worry. I’m always around. I like this beach.
CHARACTERS (4) Charmayne: a beautiful, powerful woman just at the drop off point into middle age Whitney: a stubborn, determined girl on the cusp of adulthood who doesn’t give a damn about her looks Eight: mysterious male beachcomber, late 20’s The Guardians of the Past: (can be played by a single actor) Dr Quantreau: elderly male in fishing regalia Mrs. Preece: bug-eyed, spry, elderly woman Mr. Butterbatch: an old man leaning on his broom; a fount of knowledge Mrs. Davish: motherly, grave-tending woman
SCENES:
A “beach cottage” exterior in the Hamptons & beach
The basement “stacks” of a community college library
Hamptons beach
Empty strip club “Guilty Pleasures” in the early morning
Hamptons
Dead Lake Cemetery
SCENE 1 (Morning. The seaside. Corner of a Hamptons-type “cottage”, boulder, hammock, patio set, easy chair, beachplum. WHITNEY forcefully banging on the door.)
WHITNEY This is MY story and she DOESN’T get to tell it! Charmayne!! Charmayne!!
(Through the French windows above the front door we see a man and a woman waltzing together. CHARMAYNE, expensively dressed for glittering “sport” opens the doors and leans out over the balcony. Man hovers in background. All we can see of him is his lithe figure, a glitter of gold necklaces and a shirt open to the navel. )
CHARMAYNE Go away little Whitney. Can’t you see its time for my fencing lesson?
(Making cha-cha moves)
WHITNEY Is that what you call it?
CHARMAYNE That’s what everyone calls it. You’d do well to engage in a little exercise plan of your own.
(WHITNEY resumes hammering on door which CHARMAYNE eventually opens carrying a pair of old-fashioned sabers, one in each hand. Door closes behind so WHITNEY can’t see in)
CHARMAYNE (Swinging the swords in her hands)
Really, Whitney. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how unattractive it is to make a pest out of yourself?
WHITNEY Why can’t I go in?
CHARMAYNE (Briskly) Because it’s my house now, Whitney. I don’t want you to see it till it’s done. It’s going to be a work of art. This morning I had the carpet men; this afternoon I had the drapery men, and this evening…(sniffs the air)
WHITNEY That’s a lot of men.
CHARMAYNE One shouldn’t be afraid of these things, Whitney. And this evening… Who knows what the evening holds? En garde!
(She treats WHITNEY to a frightening display of swordswomanship. WHITNEY tries to remain calm)
WHITNEY I didn’t come to see your games.
CHARMAYNE These aren’t games, poor little Whitney, these are the skills of life. Look! I’ll show you a few moves!
(Tosses a saber at WHITNEY who ducks – it clatters away.) Oh, Whitney, you’re no fun. You really need to step more boldly in the world.
WHITNEY (A little sad, childishly punctured. She’s easy game)
I’m here, aren’t I? I like fishing. And skeet shooting.
CHARMAYNE Both of those can be done from an easy chair! Where’s the challenge in that? Why not crouch in a dark basement under a garden hose waiting for rats to skitter past if that’s all you’re going to do.
WHITNEY Seriously, when am I going to see inside? I just wondered…you know, about the family things…
CHARMAYNE There are no family things I like everything new. Antiques are a fraud perpetrated on the unwary. Don’t you remember we agreed you’d give me twenty-four hours notice before showing up?
WHITNEY I doubt we ever agreed about anything.
CHARMAYNE I’m afraid your lack of planning doesn’t constitute my emergency.
WHITNEY I’m giving you twenty-four hours notice now, then.
CHARMAYNE I’m so sorry, no can do tomorrow. How about Thursday?
WHITNEY (Like she’s never heard of it)
Thursday!!
CHARMAYNE (Silky)
Do try to squeeze it in. Young people fetishize spontaneity. When you’re all grown up I’m sure you’ll realize everything worth having comes through careful planning. Shall we say “tea?” Cinq à sept is my favorite hour. Ta ta, then.
I like women willful, late For appointments, fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy, yet of course all of that is tiresome. But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality. Women keep turning on me saying, “You don’t love me.” What good is it to have been so happy when it ends so painfully? I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”, “Murderer.” She has made me feel a monster. Below the surface of the will I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives Hidden away somewhere To marry my present wife.
EVA I find your misery gratifying. When I was younger I used to Accommodate everyone – Now I’m recalcitrant. You’re never out of my thoughts, but Sadness dulls one. Honestly, I always risk failing you, Failing you in outstandingness. You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary, we have been extraordinary together. We’re specimens under glass. It hurts because the pin runs through both of us. The agonizing force of missing you Is sweeping over me. We have eternity connecting us, Backward & forward but I can’t get anyone to believe it.
EVAN Would my death simplify things? My wife struggles with carrying the conversation While I stare glumly at the rain. We go to an expensive little restaurant And pretend we are on a date to really talk.
EVA That woman’s killing you. Imagine if you were dead and your wife Wrote a book explaining you To everyone! That’s true suffering – Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.
EVAN My wife won’t be writing any books About me or about anything. You’re the one To write the book. I feel safe in your hands.
EVA Except I’ve told you over and over You’ll outlive me. You’re killing me. Or your wife is. I’ll die of my addiction – We always do. We prefer it. Will you write about me?
EVAN I’ve lied to everyone for So long, I’m sure that truth Is beyond me.
EVA I’d rather see you dead at my feet Than dead ON your feet. That would be a mercy killing – The last unbearable agony – Wondering if you existed at all. I have small talent for this. I have disgraced my idealism, Pretending boredom can be fruitful. Waiting, waiting for you everywhere. I Wake one day to find I’ve lost my looks, my hair, fascination, brain – everything.
EVAN You’re simply waking up In an empty hotel. The light is always different The morning after. This is what middle-aged people do. I love the brutality of your world. You never fade. You are my word made flesh.
EVA You are my religion. Until In fell in love with you I was 25 inside. I lived in a world of dreams and theories. Your experiences seem realer to me than mine.
EVAN To have touched the same places Is a bond between us. Social instinct is my religion.
EVA Middle-aged people go to weddings Out of perverse fascination for the bride. I was that bride – My day was all champagne. Anaesthetized It doesn’t hurt so much. Such a sense of enormity came over me I almost fainted. I gave Allen the dirtiest look: “You caused this.” Without wedding dress I was a restless, dowdy snob. People were falling in love left and right – Even in decaying marriages. I wanted that – He read my subtext. And I was caught.
EVAN These dreary parties have a decaying effect. My loneliness for you is like a whiplash. Your absence is a bitter injury But nothing can injure our love – We’re too strong for them. I’m silenced till I hear from you. If I let myself go I would feel desperate. I can’t bear you’re going to France without me – isn’t love our country?
EVA I won’t say “I’ll die if you don’t come” Because I know you would come if you possibly could. What a skeleton in the cupboard a wife is.
EVAN Don’t be jealous of Elayna. You are the only goal Toward which my life is tending. You are the meaning of my life. I could never live for work alone.
EVA You enlarge my soul. In your mind is my existence. You’re more real to me than me. I’m in a peculiar psychic state. It’s an atmosphere of illusion. I envy Elayna all the time. It drips like an irritant over my nerves.
EVAN What of Allen? You Have your worse half too.
EVA Oh, Allen spends his time lost in woods, Falling in love with trees. He’s No threat to anyone.
EVAN To understand one’s destiny One needs a framework for this mass of experience. How can I live separated from you? If I stopped caring for you I couldn’t care for anything. I need my wife, her whip-cracking organization. I loathe living in the squalor I get into on my own. Having breakfast OUT of bed is the last horror. Miasmic feelings of impossibility and terror. Help me.
EVA We help each other By existing. Except for God I have no help but you. Our love is growing more formidable as our unshakeable belief Grows stronger. Like grace, it renews itself. All yesterday I glowed. My inability to accept your wife Is my deformity – help me with it. The light of our love is the only light for me.
Alysse Aallyn 