Superstition

Chapter five

The next day Ulises went back to the cabin with Lady Mariza and a couple of his employees to collect the rest of her belongings, including the chickens and the plants. While doing so he felt the energies radiating from the different objects. Some of them were incredibly powerful, touching them felt energizing, tingling and sometimes painful.
By the afternoon hunger started to make him feel weak but he fought it with diligence. Baba granny put her talismans in a box and the house's drawing on the walls started to appear, all kinds of symbols, on the door, door frames, windows, floor, they were runes, Hebrew, Persian, Sanskrit and more.
— You should bring your kid here.— She said.
— Here? Why? We don't have medical equipment.
— His problem is not medical, and the more he is away from his body, the higher the probability for another soul to take over. It will have the same memories but it will be someone else. Sometimes they can be benign, lost souls that saw another opportunity to find redemption, that's why you see so many people go through such drastic changes in personality and priorities after a near-death experience. But sometimes they are non-human beings that prey on the gifted people and open doors for more of them to come through.— She ominously said.
— How being here could help?
— Here I can protect him, besides, hospitals are hotspots of strong energy and lost souls. Spiritual energies that are not good nor bad, but they are definitely dangerous for a vulnerable body. You must have felt it.
— Yes, I did, to be honest. Okay, I trust you, I'll see what to say to Devenna.
When the night sat on that autumn day, Ulises was meditating next to the fire, breathing the smoke of some herbs his Baba Granny prepared for him.
—By morning the tea will be ready and you'll have to concentrate on the memory of your kid.
The night advanced and the trance went deeper and deeper to suddenly be disturbed by the ringing of the phone. He picked it up, it was his wife, worried after not hearing from him for an entire day. He explained what he had been doing, helping an old family friend, a long distant relative. They argued a bit, but she trusted his criteria. They continued talking until she fell asleep, he recognized the need to talk she had, they were a very talkative couple, especially her, he most enjoyed listening.
By the first morning lights, Ulises was ready, sitting in the quiet living room next to the fire and the old lady. She watched him with care, the way his wide stomach breathed how his fingers twitched in his trance state.
— I think you are ready. She said as she poured the black dense tea into a teacup.
— Bottoms up.— He said drinking it in one big gulp.
— Oh my...— She said with wide-open eyes.
— What's wrong?
— You were supposed to drink it slowly, well, anyway, set yourself ready, you are going on an intense trip
Her last words sounded distant and lost. Ulises immediately saw the veil of reality melt away, revealing the strings of time and space, giving each object their properties. His fingers melted on the carpet and his skin diluted in the air. He felt a nostalgic oniric relief, a liquid state of being. He forgot himself until he heard the cracking voice of Baba. Her voice ripped space to form a new vibration of reality, she spoke words that went straight to the matrix of the universe and brought from oblivion a warm and beautiful laugh, a baby's laughter with a string directly connected to Ulises centre.
The string pulled him through time, his childhood emotions and his teenage fears and worries, he saw his past from a spectator perspective and kept going. Outside of his life, he saw his father's black void of depression. He heard the voice of ancient pains, forgotten languages and raw emotions, languages belonging to beings whose physical bodies had become dust, or could have never been. The string pulled him through a crowded bestiary of voices to face an infinite swirling galaxy of lights in the darkness of oblivion. Hovering above them was that laughter origin, now turned into a melancholic and painful sensation, between the movement and the stunning sound of pain. Ulises felt his son's presence and broke himself out of the trance by forcing his body to reach the unreachable.
— It's okay, you are here, you are back, Ulises, quick, you have to tell me what you saw before you forget it.
— I saw a tornado of despair and Adrian was about to fall in it.—Cried Ulises while recovering his breath.— I felt millions of presences around him, some of them weren't humans and some of them saw me too.
— What religion have you taught your kid?— Asked the old lady scratching her hairy chin.
— None, we have no religion here, what's with that question?— He asked dazzled and very lost, feeling his body as new and wired in reverse, he tried to move but fell on his side like a baby that couldn’t sit by itself.
— He is not in the beyond, he is in the underworld, in one underworld.— She stated
— Is he dead?— Screamed him in worry with his cheek firmly on the floor.
— No, no, is not that, but he is in more danger than I thought. He is gifted as few are, and he can move his essence through the various veils of the beyond, and he trapped himself in one of the underworlds.
— What do you mean? Be clear for God sake!— He yelled irritated as he incorporated like a human puppet.
— He can't control his emotions, no one can really, so he pushed himself into the underworld, probably hell, out of guilt.
— Guilt for what?
— I don't know, probably the fact that he is consuming drugs.
— You are right, I felt his guilt, he addressed it to me. He must have thought he was a disappointment to me and sent his soul to Hell! Fuck this shit!.— He screamed as the epiphany settled in his mind.
He started to drunkenly kick things and crush them against the walls, while lady Mariza stared silently to the fire.
— Reality is made by belief Ulises, we are only what we think ourselves to be, our minds, primitive as they may be, shape the world. I only lived this long because of the collective beliefs and collection of stories of the Baba Yaga, that feeds me, and that creates me. Beliefs are the only real element of what reality is composed, but you can't control your reality or your beliefs, they are imposed on you as a kid. There is no way to tame the flames that forge Gods.
— What are you rambling about?
— You need to get your kid back!
— I will, I will be in Montevideo before sunset.
— I don't mean his body, I mean his soul, you need to go to the underworld and bring him back
— Do you want me to kill myself and go to hell? Are you senile or something?
— First of all, apologize, you mortal, the fact that we are family doesn't mean I won't eat you if you disrespect me.— She yelled with a voice that echoed in an infinite otherworldly cavern.
— I'm, I'm really sorry Baba, I'm too worried, I don't know what to do.
— I just told you what to do.— She answered still angry.
— But how do I do it?— He asked with tears in his small blue eyes.
— In the old world, there used to be many pathways into the underworlds, at the very north in Siberia or the caves of Greece. But you can find one here in the southern part of this continent. What do you call it?
— Cabo de Hornos?
— Exactly, you need to peregrinate there to be worthy of a conference with the one in charge. You need to walk your way there, not to pay for your trip. Just being carried by the generosity of people. Then you'll be able to free him.
— That 's crazy.
— Yes, it is. In the meanwhile, I can take care of his body and protect it with your wife.
— This, all of this, is too crazy. I can't go, I must stay here.
— My dear, you must still remember that long November night, don't you? You will know how crazy reality can be.
By afternoon Ulises phoned his wife, talked for almost three hours and the conversation had heated and cooled down a couple of times before finishing. She finally accepted to move Adrian if there were no changes in his state after a certain time.
Time was essential according to Baba granny so she decided to go to Montevideo and visit the boy in the hospital and protect him with her spells. But Ulises' fate was completely unpredictable.
While Mariza Flyntz took the bus to Montevideo, Ulises Flyntz walked the route with his trenchcoat, a big backpack and a handbag filled with clothes and Baba's magical objects, she was a very resourceful woman, but he also had a gift and antecedent filled with obscurantism and obsessions working now in his favour to find the best possible solution for his predicament.
As he had learned, there was no leeway on magical instructions, if you are supposed to do something in a certain way, to try any other interpretation may cause horrible repercussions. He had to walk his way to hell and with no arguments, he was going to do it, barefoot if necessary, it was a small price to pay for the wellbeing of his son.