Amygdala: The Dark Side Of Venus

Magdala Cummins was not a person that people chose to see. So when she had seen the old beat up Dodge pick up driving along her lane, that led out to her home in the wood near the swamp; she gave a curious gaze up into the morning sky as she drew up the cob pipe and puffed idly from the burning tobacco it contained.

The morning star shone brilliantly o'er the western sky as the sun gradually rose in the east. When folk claimed that the last place that the sun chose to hit was her little cabin weren't entirely so much about their reverence toward her as that she had never taken to allotting much space for herself amid the trees. Some most folk 'round here didn't seem to recognize that the morning star weren't no star at all, as they had more earthly things to bother their soul wit' than to wonder much at what laid beyond their own sense of things.

She called Venus Lucy, as to the Biblical account in the book of Isaiah had made strong foreboddin's about the Lady of the Morn. Most of what confusion ran rampant took to considerin' that the Divil had sum'tin into it all as well. Pretty much everything had at least two sides, from the moon on down through the ages to the present. It was sort of the same as for how folk felt about the swamp, which fer what harm it could do also kept it to its place.

There were just some so many things that you really couldn't stop from being, whuther it was out or up inside. Such as in how she had taken note that the snakes were coming up out of the swamp. She didn't know why that was, but she did know what happened when people and snakes were attempting a share of a smaller space. One, or t'uther was going to wind up dead. She had ought-might do something about that, but the first trick was to find out why it were't happenin' at all.

Profanius, the old black-bird crow sqwacked from his perch above. Most folk thought there was some of the Divil in him as well. Magdala hadn't tooken to callin' him by name on account of there was something wrong wit' it, as to what it ette. You couldn't really hold anything to much account fer its own nature, and crows were like buzzards. They'd ette dang near anything, but they had a certain taste for the dead.

"Whut you want up in 'ere, Anthony Jarvis?" She called out to him as he sat in his car, obviously debating whether he wanted to speak to the old woman at all. It regularly took a powerful callin' to convince them to come out to the swamps to ask't her 'bowt anything, that she might just know something about. Most were convinced that she knew everything that what folk shouldn't ought to know about, but that weren't true, none at all.

"I didn't really want to have to pester on you again Miss Maggie," the man said, as he kept his distance. He had been born here in this place, and grew on up into this place. He had come on by here once before, askin' for a potion or sump'tin to give his heart whut it wanted. Fer awl the damned-fool notions of things that other people thought, that was the most foolish and damndest of them all. D'ere was price fer interfering on folk's natural freewill. She had helped, d'ough she weren't the one that had committed the deed itself. She were't fair certain that Anthony Jarvis was more'n ready to give back what he had taken.

"And so, just the same, I ask't you again 'bowt whut you want 'round here Ant'ony Jarvis. Make me ask't you again, and I'll send you off wit'owt so much a concern ta whut you really want." She asked cantankerously. She was finding that her patience was not near so tolerant as it once had been.

"I think something might be up in me Miss Maggie," he said as he walked as close as the edge of her front stoop.

"Querisome thing for a man to say," Magdala said, and then took another couple of quick puffs from her pipe. "Mayhaps you should ask't your wife whut a woman knows..."

"I can't!" He interjected nervously.

"But ya can ask't me?" Magdala scowled at him. "Have owt wit' it d'en. The sooner ya do is the sooner you leave me ta whut needs doing."

"There's this uh... new girl that moved into our neighborhood Miss Maggie. I think something is wrong with her."

"A'yeh, pro'ly her neighbors takin' too much concern't of her own affairs fer one thing," Magdala was still aggravated with him about their last meeting, near seven years back.

"No... I mean, I'm dreaming about her." Anthony Jarvis scratched at the back of his neck. He had come here as if he had only intended to go on into work, in his fine clothes and not so much as a speck of dirt under his nails. That sort of thing always made Magdala suspicious of a man, as honest labor kept nearer a man to his own pure nature. Jus' like ol' Profanius, it wasn't about right or wrong so much as folk seemed a li't too ready to put away what made them such a blessed, and misbegotten creature. Magdala waited, as she had't nothing more to say from where't he'd left the conversation dangling off. "I mean, I am not trying... I hadn't even really taken much note of her until the dreams all started."

"Bring me an apple from d'at there tree o'er yonder, Ant'ony Jarvis." Magdala said, as she beat the cob pipe against the arm of an old chair that she had taken up from where't it had been left to its own, and so she had made it her own. It didn't really look like much, but ni'der did she for that matter.

"Is this going to help?" Anthony Jarvis asked, as he looked down at it in his hand as if he expected it do something.

"A'yeh, I'm hungry." Magdala said as she grabbed the apple from his hand and bit into it. "I am half a'fear't to ask whut yer'a wanting me to do about j'er dreams, Ant'ony Jarvis. I 'spect yer going to ask, all the same."

"I don't want them... er-uh, at least not anymore. I'm trying not to do anything wrong here Miss Maggie."

"If thine eye offends thee, pluck it owt." She said, and then took another bite of her apple.

"Pluck out my eye?" Anthony Jarvis shivered.

"I know't you a li'l better than yer prone to 'fess Ant'ony Jarvis. Only t'ing I don't know't is why yer wanting to be shed of these dreams." Magdala continued to chew at the apple as she spoke. "I don't owe you nu'tin more'n the time to lis'en. How's that last t'ing you ask't fer workin' owt?"

"I don't rightly known Miss Maggie," he said. Shame-faced was not a particularly common expression for a man like Anthony Jarvis.

"Make it raight, and I s'pect the dreams maight likely cure themselves." She said with some finality in her tone.

"She's... it's difficult." Anthony said, and then ducked his head as a half eaten apple near hit him in the face.

"A'course it is, ya damn fool! Ya subverted her will, and now yer payin' fer it!" She shouted him down. There was not really much hope of anyone hearing her out here, but she really didn't give a dang if'n they did hear her. "Ya thought all ye was gonna have't to do was buy her a place ta keep 'er, and all would be well and good. Fer all that is good and holy, Ant'ony Jarvis, I am tellin' ya to tend af'er yer own house! You made it that ways, now live in it!"

"I didn't know!" Anthony actually did seem incredulous as to what had happened.

"I tole you whut would happen."

"But you helped me!"

"I helped myself," Magdala's tone was much more subdued. "You had no raight to ask't me fer not'ing like that Ant'ony Jarvis, but I took yer money all the same.

"Do you want more money Miss Maggie?"

"I want to be left alone!" she snapped back at him. "I've done some more sinnin' than that, Antony Jarvis. The diff'rence ah'tween it all on this account was what I knew a'fore it all began."

"But this is nothing like that Miss Maggie."

"You opened the door Ant'ony Jarvis. You don't get to pick and choose what maight step inside."

"But I loved her... Love her," he amended, and Magdala sighed.

"Ya loved the woman that ya knew a'fore you did whut ya did. Af'erwerds, ya sucked up on her passion, and disturbed her natural way and flow. I heard ya had to take her on up ta that head doctor up in Williamton. He fix anything up fer ya?" She asked, and the cackled a little bit after Anthony shook his head.

"He said she's depressed... Bi-polar."

"Strange how it is two wants cannot co-exist in one heart. You should brought her on up to me, Ant'ony Jarvis. I'd do whut I maight fer her... I owe her that." Magdala sat back in her chair, and her eye naturally sat on the fading light of the last star to leave the night to day. "I'm done wit' ya Ant'ony Jarvis. I ne'er claimed whut I know't to be easy. I jus' know whut I know."

"I'm sorry to have troubled you Miss Maggie," Anthony Jarvis said, quite obvious in his manner that he was not sorry about that at all.

As for what he was truly sorry for could not be changed. It was not as to what he had done to Helen Connelly, leaving her helpless and near mindless to what powers proceed. Love spells came from the dark side of Venus. It was ne'er really about love at all.