Apocryphal Family Tree: The Rough Draft

Lenny tries to summon a deity and Valkeyrie shows up

Lenny wanted to summon her dead ancestors and she wanted to do it now while Winnie wasn't on this plane to interrupt her and was likely getting distracted as an afterlife vigilant with the Gatecrashers. Deep breath, Lenny reminded herself, she was more practiced this time. She'd stolen away a little before midnight so she could try to summon the former apprentices in the graveyard behind the homestead where they are buried. The homestead isn't a church, but it is consecrated ground so Lenny figured it still counts.
Lenny stood in the gateway to the burial ground and asked for them to join her here. To help her, if they could. Nothing. Lenny wasn't going to shout, she didn't want to wake anyone, especially anyone who might stop her. Today I walked confidently into the backyard burial ground with the purpose of summoning the former apprentices, because Aunty Winnie warned me against Pagan deities. Not Mami Wata, not yet. I want to get used to dealing with supernaturals first. Instead I got the daughter of Egyptian Warrior Goddess Bast and Roman Transition/Portal Deity Janus. Her mother named her Valkeyrie because doors need keys and death is a transition, and warriors are totally her thing.
"It's an homage, not appropriation," the muscle-bound brown woman says to me. "You can call me Val, but most humans call me Key."
She's about my size, except wider where I'm deeper. She also may be entirely made out of muscle. Home girl knows she's lovely to look at, clad in leather armor that is a few shades darker than her.
"I have a lot of questions, but mostly I want to cancel my request. I was trying to get a multiple relatives of mine," Lenny said. "I'm not related to you."
"Oh no, you are. I can feel it in my magic that we're related," Key said.
"Really? What culture or cultures besides Egypt worship your mom?" I was excited that I'd finally caught a break.
Key barked a laugh of surprise. "Sorry, not what I meant. Even deities need family trees and shit," Key said. "What I meant was our magics are related. Having a similar power or magic doesn't mean your related. I can tell you have at least one kind of transition magic and most likely that is a death magic. But African American death magic isn't like the death magic of Santa Muerte isn't like the death magic of the Lakota people, and isn't like the death magic of African deities, even though African American death magic came at least partially from an African deity."
"That makes sense. Since we're not actually related, I'm standing by my original 'no thanks.'" I said.
I went inside to look over the summoning spell I had once again screwed up. When I sat down at the kitchen table, Key sat down across from me.
"It's rude to not invite your guests in. Or offer food or drink. The stuff in the sacrifice is to get our attention, we don't actually partake in it." Key said and then smiled. I could tell she was lying.
"Then what is it for?" I asked.
"Getting our attention. I already said. Paying attention is very important."
"I can't invite you to a place that isn't my home," I said. If she's gonna bend the truth, so am I.
"I know you're related to the people that live here," Key said.
Lenny gasped. "Ah, well if you know that you'll also know that I don't know them very well because my family was estranged from the family at large for a few decades over something that has been rendered moot."
"So invite me back to where you are living now," Key said.
"Also no. I'm not walking into deity-lite central with an I don't know what that I summoned in the backyard burial ground of the homestead."
"Look, I'm trying to make this easy. You summoned me here after all." Key said.
"I have a feeling I didn't really and that you tapped my phone line." Lenny said.
"I can still get you the thing you want, but if I do, you need to make an offering to me. A real offering, of something I truly want." Key said.
"How can you get met ancestors?" Lenny said.
"You're gonna get you your ancestors. I'm just gonna draw you a map on how you'll get there." Lenny said.
Lenny thought for a long time, weighing her options.
"It is nearly dawn!" Key said.
"Okay, sure. Fine . What do I have to do?"
"There's a door in Winnie's house that is hard coded to get to Heaven. Use it and you can go to them."
Lenny tried to keep her face calm when Key dropped Winnie's name like she knew her. But if she knew Winnie, why wasn't she already at the house? Did Winnie not trust her?
"And if I find it and see the former apprentices, what are you asking for?"
"When you find it and verify that it works, I want to be invited to your house and I also want to use it." Key said.
Lenny knew she'd already made the deal. Agreed to it with the affirmative words that came out her mouth. Deep breath. Only way to have it be over was to go through it. Lenny could do that.
"Is there a better way to contact you then a summoning spell?" Lenny said.
Lenny's phone buzzed twice with a text. She looked at her pocket and then back up at Key. She wasn't holding a phone.
"You gon get that? Might be important."
Lenny pulled it out with a text from Harlan . She unlocked her phone and the message said, I knew you wouldn't listen. Key doesn't have a phone but you can text me.
Lenny felt a million years played. Harlan had definitely played her and she was going to find out how and why and now.
"Are they all plants?" Lenny thought so hard she didn't realize she'd also said it out loud.
"None of them are plants." Key said. "We honestly don't know what they are, but we know they aren't plants. Demigods, supernatural creatures, who knows?" Key said and shrugged.
Lenny needed to think and she needed to do it alone and. Key is persistently here. Lenny turned and stormed in the opposite direction. She kept walking and then worried that maybe Key would follow her through any doorway she opened, because even though Lenny hadn't told Harlan about the key, Lenny figured that somehow between Harlan and her father Janus, Key just knew about the portal thing.
Lenny kept walking and went into the the main house on the homestead. Assured by the lack of people or other sounds, Lenny felt alone enough to try a doorway. She had been thinking about home and she accidentally opened the door to her room in her parents house. For so many reasons, as long as it existed as a room she could access, it would be a home to Lenny. It was around 2AM and to Lenny's surprise there was a lump in her bed. A lump that stirred at the sounds being made. Lenny noted that she needed to talk to Sep since he's clearly left some updates out of their weekly check in chat that he'd instated shortly after learning about the looming death sentence of Lenny's head. Sep hated that Lenny called them "are you dead yet?" calls. Lenny didn't like that he'd hid this from her for a couple of decades.
"I didn't want to wake you," came Lenny's mother's voice from the far side of the lump. "You get so wound up when I come to bed late and then oh don't let me go to sleep."
Her mom's voice was sleepy, like maybe she wasn't fully awake. Lenny shut the door and removed the key. Lenny made a second note to ask Sep what the fuck that was all about. How long has mom and dad not been sleeping in the same bed? And what did it mean? And also on an unrelated note had mom said anything about maybe a weird dream involving Lenny but thinking it was dad recently?
Lenny wanted to get home and find the door, but her mind was currently obsessing over what was happening in her parents relationship. Are they okay? Is this because of her? Is Dad mad because the secret he kept for Mom had driven Lenny away? Is this because Mon was hiding from Dad after what she'd done forcing their family to hide from her family? Lenny started to make herself tea as quietly as she could. The routine of it and the forced time outs helped Lenny calm down. While Lenny waited for the water to boil she sent texts to the sibling chat asking what was up with the parents and how long Mom had been sleeping in her bed. Bay responded with an interrobang. What a nerdy little military jock. Sep did not answer, even though he likely was awake and not busy. Friday may be for fucking but we're technically into Saturday morning now. Lenny fought the urge to make a snide remark or ten. Lenny was trying to keep a low profile in this not quite her kitchen but still she's welcome there spot. She failed as Nor came in wearing what looked like incredibly cozy and also way too hot pajamas. Nor's eyemask rested on top of her bonnet.
"What is you doing here?" Nor said, her voice groggy and full of warble from sleep.
"Gettin the dirt on summoning the dead apprentices," Lenny said.
Nor smiled and made a slow finger gun motion as she clicked her tongue.
"I knew that was a good idea," Nor said. "As far as I can tell no other apprentice has contact with the others. Which just seems dumb. Y'all can see the dead and you don't help one another out? That's with dumb or selfish," Nor said.
Lenny explained how no it in fact wasn't like that, it wasn't like that at all. She couldn't call upon the former apprentices because they'd so clearly moved on to the next plane of existence.