Where life is on the line - #163

How may I direct you?

This week’s post is a little unconventional, but I had fun, and I hope you do too. If you want to support work like this, hit the ❤️ or Restack it on Notes. If you’ve been reading for awhile, try a paid subscription.

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“You have reached the Directory. How may I direct you?”

“Yes, hi, I’m trying to reach an ancestor.”

“Name please?”

“Oh, I don’t have one.”

There was a pause.

“Well, how about maternal or paternal?”

“Either, I guess? I’m looking for like, a criminal, or a rebel. I need some inspiration.”

“Inspiration. I see. Well, there are criminals on your mother’s side and rebels on your father’s. What would you like?”

“Criminal?”

“I can patch you into your great grandfather: bootlegger, Sicilian Mafia. Will that do?”

“Oh, sorry, I meant like, an ancient ancestor.”

“Mmm. Unfortunately I cannot help you there.”

“Oh. But isn’t this like, the whole directory of dead souls?”

The operator harrumphed.

“We can’t possibly keep all those records. Many lines are dead. What good would keeping them around do? You don’t even have a name, and I assure you, many of our calls are equally as directionless.”

“Jesus Christ,” the woman whispered as she rubbed her brow.

“He is both busy and brown, so neither available nor your ancestor.”

“No, sorry,” she was fumbling, “it’s just a saying now, on Earth, to express frustration. I’m sorry, I just… I really need some help.”

“Mmm. Is there perhaps another way I can assist you?”

“Uh, well do you know how I might contact an ancient ancestor?”

“You might try a summoning circle.”

“How do I do that?”

“You could start by Googling it. That’s a saying. On Earth. To express frustration.”

“Ha, ha.” The woman said, her lip curling. “Well this has been super helpful. Thank you!”

“Thank you for calling the Directory, where life is on the line.”

Later, she sat with several Good & Well Supply candles surrounding her, scented according to various National Parks. They were the only candles she had, so hopefully this would not limit her to North American ancestors fond of nature. She read several incantations as various cats climbed into her lap sweetly, then nibbled on her hand less sweetly to indicate they wanted treats, not pets. As she chanted, she gently, gently!, shoved them away.

The first ancestor to enter the chat was a 17-year-old girl dialing in from what looked to be Norway, maybe Sweden. She yelled one word, not very pleasantly, and backed away against the exterior wall of a barn-like structure.

The second ancestor was a string bean of a boy, not yet able to grow a beard, and utterly, entirely drunk. There were wine bottles everywhere. Sicily, certainly.

The third ancestor was a plump-cheeked girl, and she looks absolutely thrilled, lit entirely by candlelight.

All three were speaking at once, and the woman could not understand any of them.

“You have reached the Directory. How may I direct you?”

“Hi! Yes, this is sort of urgent: I called earlier about contacting an ancient ancestor, and it was recommended I start a summoning circle. Which I did, but—sorry, this is embarrassing—but I didn’t think about the fact that they wouldn’t speak English and now I don’t know what to do.”

“What did you think they would speak?”

“I guess I thought that like, through space and time or whatever we’d just be able to understand each other?” Her voice lifted with every word, deeply aware of how stupid it sounded now that she had to present this theory to someone else.

“Mmm.”

(A pause.)

“Please don’t tell me to google it.”

“I can act as a translator, but there is a fee.”

“Oh, uh, what is it?”

“Clarity.”

“Like, clarity of the connection?”

“Clarity of the message. I can’t be expected to remember every dialect that ever existed.”

“Sure, OK. Let’s do it.”

The operator dialed into the summoning circle and, when presented with the terrified Norwegian girl, the drunk Sicilian boy, and the more mysterious third, she laughed.

There was a purring on the line before the woman realized it was her turn to speak.

“Hi! Hello. I’m a… descendant of yours, in the future, and I’m looking for some advice.”

Perhaps you are thinking (as she is) that she ought to have been slightly better prepared for this call. But desperation is not known for its preparation.

The Norwegian girl barked something.

“I believe that is the word for witch,” the Operator offered.

“Oh no, no! I’m not a witch!”

“Yet thou summoned us?” the candlelit girl said, her voice giving her away as quite young. Was this the English part of the family? The woman thought the girl had been speaking in tongues at first, but this sounded like a British period drama.

“Ah, right, but that—” the woman paused for a moment. She was going to say that doesn’t mean she’s a witch, but doesn’t it? And why not identify as a witch? She felt some patriarchal fear and, ashamed of it, decided to forge on as witch-like as she could manage.

“Ok, yes, I summoned you. My family is in a time of great need. I need uh…” She was going to say money, but was that going to make sense? “...a lot of gold? Quickly?” She heard the operator make a noise close to a snort.

The boy spoke a few words, or rather slurred, half stumbling to the floor, then smiled what he must have believed to be his best smile.

“I believe that was a marriage proposal.”

The shadowed girl spoke: “Marry the mayor’s son!”

“The mayor’s son here is actually quite young, and the position of mayor is more honorary—”

“And then dispatch his whole issue!” The girl grinned, her teeth careening at different angles in her mouth.

“Sorry,” the woman began to panic, “can you give me a second?”

She switched lines to the operator..

“Hi, sorry, is there a way to summon like, older ancestors?”

“Good grief, you are terribly picky. Are you looking to commune with chimps?”

“No, I mean, ancestors who are old people. I’m gonna be 40 this year, and these are basically children.”

“If you are in the position of needing, as you put it, ‘a lot of gold’, you might realize you did not come from ‘a lot of gold’. Your ancient ancestors were lucky to see 40, my dear. Be grateful you managed to summon anyone who wasn’t in a coffin or a pew.”

The woman sighed deeply as she switched back to the feral children on the other end of the Acadia, Capitol Reef, and Yosemite candles.

“Let me try this again. I’m in a tough spot, and I need some guidance. What guidance do you have for me?”

The Norwegian girl softened, then considered, speaking in her tongue.

“She said a Völva knows how to heal, so look to heal yourself,” the Operator offered.

“A vulva?”

“A Völva is a Norse witch, and she considers you to be that. She seems to have some sympathy that a creature she considers quite powerful and dangerous is in reality quite dim.”

“Thanks for that.”

“You could write a stealing spell!” The littlest girl was slowly becoming more illuminated as dawn appeared to sneak into her room, revealing her to be perhaps only 10 years old, holding a single candle under a blanket. Footsteps could be heard creaking closer to her.

The boy had taken a seat, on the floor, empty bottles scattered around him, saying something close to cchiù vinu, bonu. More wine, good.

“OK, lovely to meet you all! I’ll uh let you go then, I guess.” And slowly, their visages faded into the painted plywood floor and the log walls that surrounded her. She sat with the smells of sage and sea salt and cedarwood, blurring together, and rested her head in her hands.

“Operator?” she chanced into the dark.

“Mmhmm?”

“I don’t know why, but I thought I would have been talking to someone who had been watching all this time, you know? Not like, interrupting someone minding the sheep.”

“Souls need rest, dear. When connecting with an old one, it’s better to catch them when they’re alert. Oftentimes people get mere glimpses, and that seems to be enough to convince the old there’s something to work for and the new that perhaps life isn’t as bad as they thought. But a strong connection like that, well the reality of our pasts is often quite dull. Though I did enjoy that roguish little girl. I dare say she was delighted to find a witch in the family.”

“Loved her energy, worried about her murderous tendencies.”

“Well, murder was quite a bit more common in her time. And desperate people do desperate things… do they not?” You could hear her eyebrows raise, if she had them, on that last line—an olive branch of wisdom to a woman sitting on an unfinished floor, talking to the past.

“I just have no idea what to do next. I have never felt so overwhelmed and undersupplied in my whole life, and everyone keeps telling me I’ll figure it out, that I always figure it out, but I just—” she slumped, feeling the truth spilling from her mouth. “I really, really, really wanted someone else to figure it out this time.”

“If someone else completes the puzzle, then you’ve solved nothing.”

“Wow, so helpful. Thank you for that.”

“There was good advice there, if you were willing to listen.”

“To do the puzzle myself?”

“No, silly girl. To drink wine, work on your spells, and see if you might heal yourself in the process. Did you want to see if the bootlegger says any different? Mind you, he was murdered.”

The woman laughed and heard a car pulling into the driveway.

“Reality is home, time to clean up and be normal.”

“Apologies, I can’t seem to find ‘normal’ in your ancestral line.”

“When you’re good, you’re good. I will give you that.”

“Good luck to you, love. Try to remember, you’ll be dead soon enough.”

“Looking forward to being temporarily part of your rolodex.”

“Thank you for calling the Directory, where life is on the line.”

The car door opened and shut outside. The woman blew out the candles, carrying Acadia to the bathroom, Capitol Reef to the boy’s room, and Yosemite to the front hall. She opened the door to her husband, coffee cup in one hand, car seat in the other, the boy smiling ear to ear.

She kissed them both, and they all piled into the house unpacking various bags and babies.

“Any luck today?” the man asked, a softness in his tone.

The woman reached into the pantry he had built for them, full of boxes and bags. She grabbed a bottle of wine.

“Some.” She smiled, and he kissed her, his wife, smelling faintly of the sea, the desert, and whatever lay beyond.

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Hoping your ancestors are as helpful as you need them to be this week.

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If things feel a little witchy around these parts, it’s because witching plays a role in the novel I’m writing. Hear all about the path to writing it here:

Or here: