Legacy

Originally written Thursday, December 1, 2005

On the Underground Railroad, I was going to say. It made me think of something, and I had to get in touch with Richard in a hurry. He’d said the other night that Moshe was interested in that part of the museum collection, and there’s a particular piece that, well, I don’t know if it’s actually at the museum or not, but it’s out there somewhere. Two of them, in fact. They’re not in the same place at the moment, that much I know, and that’s a good thing. But it would explain why he’s snooping around here and why he’s snooping whom.

I’m being cryptic. I’m sorry. It’s just that despite the anonymity of the internet medium, this info is a tad too confidential to be fully forthcoming about. So I’ll try to fill you in with the basics. If things resolve as I hope, I’ll be able to tell you a more complete story. One part of a three-part charm was put into my safekeeping by a West Indian slave named Bella whom I helped escape northward in the 1850s. Let’s just say that if someone’s looking to put all three back together, we’re in for some nasty weather. That is, at least, assuming that the power of the voodoo legacy the charms contain is as strong as the priestess told me it is. And if there’s one thing I believe in, it’s the power of legacy.

Anyway, Richard says that the item is not in the museum’s display collection, but he’d explore the archives for it in the next few days. If nothing else, the revelation last night probably spared you from reading my droning and complaining about my past. Still, all moments of our lives connect; it’s just that mine are particularly broadly distributed.

I feel like I should note one more thing. It was probably brought on by my conversation with Patrick and Dennis, but that night—the 29th—I dreamed of Stina. I should have known better than to claim that I’m no longer affected by her death, because every time I start to think it, the universe reminds me otherwise. In the dream, I’m in the middle of the woods, in a clearing that my less conscious mind has prevented me from forgetting since I lost her from the very spot centuries ago. This time, the clearing is located in Patrick and Dennis’s backyard. The fungus-covered log, the circle of saplings, and the charred remains of the bonfire are all in the same spots, but there is an upstairs window visible above the branches. Patrick comes out with a bag of marshmallows and starts sticking them on his fingertips and holding his hand over the extinguished bonfire. Dennis starts yelling at him from the upper window about chocolate. The marshmallows won’t melt without chocolate, he says. Then Stina comes out from nowhere, stands on top of the burnt logs, and before I can reach her, she catches fire and a moment later disappears in flames. Dennis is then by Patrick’s side, both of them happily eating their s’mores, but my attention is focused on the smoky air where her calm, brave, cat-like eyes had been just seconds before. It doesn’t feel like a nightmare (since students of the Grey Orchid generally have lucid dreams at will, we don’t have nightmares; even Patrick has passed that level of training); but I’m left with a sense of frustration because she’s vanished again. She always vanishes.