Volume I: The Origins of the Olivet Family

-Unseated-

A Quiet Reign

Ringgold, Louisiana 1920

Adamm’s Lake Negro community

August. Late evening.

The heat inside the soggy cabin was unbearable, but the rain, like bars of a prison cell, held the population hostage indoors. The baby was coming, and giving birth outdoors during the most explosive lightning storm in anyone’s recent memory was not an option. Chepi, a widely respected Creek Indian elder, had to exit out for relief, leaving her great aunt, Nahimana the medicine woman, alone with the expecting mother at a most crucial time.

Nahimana could hear Chepi’s earnest voice outside of the tiny shack commanding their young nephew, KaJika, about and offering comfort to Grais’s, the expectant mother, four-year-old child, Ray, waiting outdoors with his older brother, Gale.

The old woman’s ritual motions had seen more flexibility in her day, but the incantations in her native Muskogean language were flawlessly executed, even though Nahimana had never performed this specific ritual. In her lifetime no one had ever seen it done.

Tickling sweat descends Nahimana’s brow, resembling the steady trickle of rainwater streaming down the surface of the bedroom window, but she resisted wiping her face. Instead, she chanted on, sensing an unfamiliar pulse in the earth’s natural energy that hinted at a supernatural interference. She was frightened for Grais, the mother, because she could not predict what the outcome would be. It upset Nahimana to witness Grais writhing in pain below her, burning with fever. Her cobb-filled mattress weighted down by a gallon of human sweat.

Grais began to mutter, but not loud enough to be understood, a conversation with someone, or something to whom only she was privy. The unborn child’s life lingered, defenselessly, between heaven and earth. The old woman feared that whomever, or whatever, Grais was speaking to, due to her weary state of being, could persuade her to forfeit her essence to the other side. She also feared what might accompany Grais back to this world if she returned. Far more harm than physical danger existed.

The noise kept by the aquatic creatures of Adamm’s Lake rivaled the rain, as if they were celebrating their own independence. Their high-pitched language spoken by multitudes was unmistakable. The presence of such an invasion hinted at a mostly forgotten prophecy. It was fortunate the teen boys had come for her when they did. The omens were clear. It was time to decide. She would choose the mother.

Nahimana unsheathed a very old ritual blade, adorned in blue stones and black feathers, and held it purposely about the feverish woman’s abdomen, approximately near the position of the unborn child. Warm tears mingled with perspiration and fell down the side of her face, disguised as sweat. Her muscles had barely intended to pierce Grais’s bulbous belly when the bedroom door flew open, and a soggy Chepi fell inside in wide-eyed horror.

“Wait!” She cried out.

Chepi flew to the bedside of the semiconscious young mother and placed her head in harm’s way.

“<Her husband?>” Nahimana asked in her native tongue.

Chepi shook her head. “<Still not here. Probably drunk in a ditch. This child won’t wait any longer for anyone else. We have everyone it needs, right here!>”

She could still detect the unborn child’s beating heart. She smiled. Chepi worked her head up the body and lingered near the mother’s heart. Her smile faded. Lastly, she put her ear so close to the woman’s lips that they appeared one creature in the shadowy room.

Chepi choked back tears as she spoke softly to the young mother. She said, “Grais? It’s Chepi. Can you hear Chepi? This strain too much. Baby come at heavy price. We save you. You! Yes? You understand?” Her voice was just above a whisper.

Grais began murmuring again, her lips barely moving. Chepi listened closely. When it was done, she lifted her head toward the old Shaman and shook it. Grais was gone.

“<What did she say?>”

Chepi used her hand to close the mother’s eyes one final time.

“<She said… ‘I gift you: life.>’”

The old woman shared a look of grief with her teary relative. With an almost toothless smile she admitted, “<That was kind of her. But she was the one dying. To offer YOU such a gift, she must have been too far gone.>”

“She was not talking to me.” She whispered.

Chepi stared at the lifeless body. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. At the beginning of this day, all had been so normal, or as normal as their poverty-stricken lives had ever been. Every mother on the lake shared in Grais’ excitement of a new child. It turned so quickly. How had it turned so quickly?

The dead woman’s belly wriggled with a living being, drawing the women’s attention back to it. Chepi moved her hands back to the unborn child. The native woman slowly nodded her understanding, and the two of them set about trying to deliver a newborn into a world underneath a crumbling sky.

On the day Auddy Olivet was born, lightning struck the earth with a bolt so large it cracked the sky like an egg. Old Indians living off Bistineau Lake believed an ancient spirit had pierced the barriers of Heaven and rode the lightning back to earth. That the boy was born under those conditions gave authenticity to an old prophecy. That Grais, the mother, did not live was extremely solemn, but no one who knew her doubted she could sacrifice herself for the life of either of her two children. It was not hard to imagine that she had given the beat of her own heart to her unborn son, so that he may live, even if it meant that she would die. Her spirit, though: a flickering flame not easily extinguished.