Apocryphal Family Tree: The Rough Draft

Knock knock knocking on Heaven's door

We're standing outside the door, knocking to be let in to Heaven, the back way. I'm finally gonna meet the apprentices. I could also eventually meet the Gatecrashers. I'm so ready for this.

The Apprentices
I can hear the scuffling around and giggling behind the door while we waited.
"I will be rude and walk in if someone doesn't open the door, please."
"We'll be right there," said a voice too close to the door.
I opened the door and a water bucket splattered me. Everyone was on the ground in stitches laughing.
"I'm so glad I'm not staying or I'm going to start thinking this pranks that were old in middle school are the height of comedy."
That got everyone's attention.
"Whatchu mean not staying?" Said a man that had to be one of the apprentices because I'd never met him in either of my visits.
"Like my body is waiting for me back in the living dimension. Which I found out Heaven is a pocket universe to the living dimension. How cool is that. Hopper told me."
"Very cool. How come you get to go back?"
"No idea. Just know that I do have a body waiting for me."
"Pretty sure it's because the drama queen died in a doorway and she's related to Janus."
" You make a good point. That could be part of the reason why. Also I hadn't put together that Winnie and Janus supernaturally set up my parents. Makes sense though."
I inhaled deeply. It smelled so good and I look forward to finally being able to dig in.
As we sat down to eat, we talked a lot. It was nice to finally get to shoot the shit with other people who know what it's like. Who get it and aren't scared of me or for me.
"I don't understand why Winnie never comes here when she dies. Why she always goes with the Gatecrashers."
"That what she told you? And you just believed her?"
I opened my mouth to refute that and save some of dignity but realized that wasn't possible at this point for this particular topic so I closed my mouth.
Apparently Winnie is a bit of a liar. She'd called herself an over-exaggerator. She does spend some time here, towards the ends of her journey back from the dead. And the Gatecrashers know. They get it. They have family here that they sometimes visit now that they no longer feel like Heaven is trying to keep cage them and keep them from being great. It exists and they exist. It's a weight off my shoulders to know that I won't have anyone trying to come rescue me because they know this area and that if a ping comes from here, they'll just let Winnie know and she can come deal with her own family.
It's so nice that I start to worry that something is going to go wrong. Thanks thought patterns that keep me anxious. What if they don't recognize my ping and I cause a big hullabaloo. ("Then you'll not be allowed back through official channels for a while." Everyone laughs at this since I didn't come through official channels to begin with.)
We're having such a good time we didn't notice the door open. Winnie stood at the table, looking at us.
"Holy shit, you did it." Winnie said.
"Language!" Eleanor the First said. "Around my babies you will watch your tongue. No cussin'."
"Oh. This is great. I'm going to be able to go on more missions with you and this will really get the momentum going."
Which I hadn't thought of what would happen if I did survive, I was so busy preparing for if I didn't survive. I hadn't planned to continued going on missions with Winnie. That's her thing. I want to figure out what's going on with Bast's cat and Mami Wata's snake. I want to know why one person gets picked for death sense every generation. There's something deliberate and weird about it and I have a feeling that a deity is behind it. I want to know if more people can become what I've become, or if it's only those who have the death sense. I'm so curious and going on missions won't satisfy any of that curiosity.
"I'm sorry, I can't go on missions with you, Winnie. I have plans of my own to see through."
Winnie looked taken aback. How dare I, but before she spoke, Eleanor the First put her hand on Winnie's forearm and Winnie softened.
"It's your life. The door is always open for you to return."
I smiled and said, "Thank you. I think this will help you in the long run. We can finally figure out which deities are our kin and if I know the rules, you don't have to be so scared about what it means when supernatural beings are interested in your apprentices and also how you can protect us in a way that isn't also killing us. Because that's not really protection. That is so kind of weird, close to abuse cycle shit that I want to put a stop to."
"Also we need to talk about how you made deals with European far and deities but African ones scare you. That shit is so unhealthy. And dangerous." I did not mean to start lecturing my aunt at the Heavenly dinner table y'all, but here we are.
"It was for safety. White may not be right but it sure thinks it is and the closer you are to it, the safer you are."
"That is such bull. The patriarchal society of white supremacy doesn't protect anyone but rich, white, cis, heterosexual, able-bodied, Christian men. Everyone else it'll let be soldiers until it's time to sacrifice them for those assholes. You gotta start mending the fences between you and the supernatural beings that want to help you. You aren't making the world safer for anybody, you are trying to assimilate us thinking that will make us safer and big hint: it will not. You're only tolerated and the instant it doesn't suit someone's fancy, you're out and you're even less safe than you previously seemed like you were because everyone knows you and knows you don't actually belong. It's like you painted a giant target on our backs. We should be fighting to make the world actually safer for everyone, which means making the world include everyone more."
"I didn't say we shouldn't but go awf."
"I think that may be all the reading Shoshanna and Madge has me doing to prepare plus everything I saw while I was inside prison."
"So your big thing is going to be what?"
"I don't even know. I just know it's not the same as your missions. I did that already and now that I've lived my life trying to satisfy everyone but myself, I think it's time for me to work on satisfying me."
"And you don't know what that looks like."
"No I don't. Wait, no that's not right. I do know what it looks like. It looks like winging it for the first hundred years or so. I hate making plans because nothing every goes according to it and then I've spent all this time coming up with a perfect plan for this imperfect world. I'm just going to wing it for a while. Maybe figure out who our ancestors are and work out what my veneration practices should be. Maybe work with Papa Legba and Valkeyrie and all of dem."
"All of dem is trouble."
"Well, maybe it's time I changed my middle name to Trouble. Pass the biscuits, please."
"Well, Eleanora Trouble Pass the Biscuits Please Washington-Smith, I don't know if I look forward to working with you or I worry about the mistakes of yours I'll have to fix."
Winnie never had children but I think she's experiencing the thought I've heard a few parents of toddlers say: I wish gestation was longer. Don't get me wrong these same people who were pregnant couldn't wait to deliver the baby but now that the baby is here and ambulatory and wrecking things like only toddlers can, I've heard some parents wish that they had a gestation period of an elephant because then at least when the baby came out, it'd be less of a messy asshole unable to keep a thought for an extended period of time. Now that she finally has what she wants, it may turn out that she doesn't want it anymore. Of course the one she finds difficult is the one that she's going to be stuck with for the foreseeable future.
Winnie and I talk over basics, like how I know my body is ready to come back and how I get back to my body since I'm apparently not just sucked back into my body. It'd be nice if this shit was sat to automatic while you leaned the ropes. But of course then if it was set to automatic, those presets would become an issue. Ugh, I guess manual it is and I can create shortcuts as I go to make it easier next time.
Next time. I'm never going to stay dead. Am I really never going to stay dead? Would there be a way to keep me dead? Would there be a way that I can stay dead? All of a sudden the enormity of this gift stretches out before me. Maybe when I talk to our ancestors, they'll be a way.
I ask Winnie is she tired. If she's rather just be in one world, like everyone else. Winnie takes the question in and thinks.
"Yea maybe," she says. I can tell she's tired. "But those aren't the cards I drew. Or the ones you drew. So we gotta make the best of it. No sense in not trying."
Yep, I think. These are the cards I drew, guess there's no sense in not trying.