Love in the Jungle

All characters represented in this work are wholly fictional, and over the age of eighteen.

As a brief note: this chapter is more story-centric, even if that's not something you read for, please still stick around for Chapter 5 (coming soon)!

Do you know how many psychics work in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul metroplex? It's too many. Astrologers, past-life healers, star-guides, garden-varietypsychicpsychics and the ever-present palm readers. Regardless of what they call themselves, there are hundreds, all seeking to take advantage of you.

The frank issue is how to identify the 'real' psychics from the 'fake' psychics. I admit, 'real' seems a little optimistic. Perhaps 'genuine' would be a more appropriate label, or even 'buying into their own bullshit'. I settled on an easy test: Two lies and a truth- if the psychic is just trying to take your money they'll agree to whatever they think youwantto hear, but if they're legit, they'll pick out the bullshit.

Needless to say, it took some time, but not as much as I anticipated. Every day that passed made me that much more aware of Abigail's slowly-gestating problem.

After emailing, calling, and attending 'consultations' foronlythree dozen psychics over the course of the next two weeks, mom and I found ourselves clambering out of my beat-up old hybrid outside a scruffy, inauspicious strip mall on the western shore of Bde Maka Ska.

"How'd you find this lady?" Dr. Waters looked around, suspiciously, it wasn't exactly scruffy, just a little run down, but I'd never known her to be particularly discerning between the two. I watched my mother groan and stretch her back. She was barely showing at this point, but I could tell that the aches, pains, and hormonal changes were already starting.

"She came very highly recommended- five stars over seventy reviews!" I gestured up towards a sign tacked to the window of an unassuming second-floor office space.

Madame Zuma - Psychic Readings, Spiritual Healing, by Appointment ONLY

"And did she pass yourtest?" She queried. I frowned, pausing with my hand on the roof, detecting slight sarcasm in her tone. I could tell her headspace wasn't quite in the same place as mine. Doubtless still committed to solving our dilemma, but with an undercurrent of annoyance, perhaps even anger. Anger at being made to carry a life inside her, one which she hadn't intended to carry.

"Yes, she passed." I counted off each of the three conditions on my fingers. "I asked her to do a séance with a dead uncle, requested a palm reading, and sent her a picture of the necklace." I shrugged my shoulders. "She didn't even respond to the first two, she just told me to come in and 'bring the other one'." Abigail's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"You didn't even need to tell her there were two of them? Maybe this isn't such a terrible idea after all." She quipped. I snorted, stepping towards the bottom of the stairs.

"Of course it's not a terrible idea-" I bit back my retort, spotting a subtle narrowing of her eyes. I may not be a smart man, but I know to avoid poking a sleeping bear.

Madame Zuma's wasn't what I expected. It was almost painfully normal, lacking any of the kitsch knick-knacks, incense, or elaborate curtains that I normally associated with the mystic arts. It looked a little like a therapist's office, with a trio of chairs separated by a round coffee table, empty save for three water bottles.

Madame Zuma herself was an unassuming middle-aged woman- Venezuelan, or perhaps Colombian, sitting cross-legged in the single setting, facing the door. As we entered, blinking in the relative dimness of the interior, she inclined her head to us.

"Ah, theWaters, welcome." I glanced around, still subconsciously searching for some kind of audacious bead curtain or nativist-adjacent artwork. If anything, the lack of it was slightly off-putting.

"Madame Zuma, I presume?" Abigail quipped, clearly similarly put-out by a psychic who looked closer to an accountant than a mystic. The woman spread her hands, proffering the chairs before her to us.

"You can call me Jodi." She sniffed, as if sensing our unease. "Zuma is more of a stage name, as you can tell I don't offer much of the hocus-pocus theatre common to my profession, so you'll forgive me a little bit of theatricality on the signage." Dr. Waters snorted, and I fought the urge to smack her arm. As a professor, she was a lifelong skeptic, and her pregnancy wasn't helping our current inexplicable situation.

"What is it that youdooffer, if not the trappings of stereotype?" My mother asked, as we both took the seats Jodi had proffered.

"Truth, and nothing but." The woman's eyes crinkled around the edges with mirth as she took us in, with a depth of analysis I have seldom experienced. She was perhaps a few years older than my mother, but spoke with a world-weary tenor that demanded serious consideration "Although some may find it hard to swallow." We sat, awkward for a beat, as if neither side of the coffee table wanted to speak first.

"So," Mom began, clearing her throat. "We've got thesenecklaces-" A smile flickered across Jodi's lips.

"And you're having trouble getting off?" Her eyes glittered mischievously. "Or rather, gettingthe necklacesoff?" Abigail pursed her lips at the double-entendre, realizing that this woman knew what we'd been doing together, and the nature of her pregnancy.

"Yes, and of course there are some side effects, but we were more hoping to discuss a solution specifically for removal." I interjected, trying to draw focus away from the elephant in the room. "And, of course, if you know anything about their historical provenance we'd appreciate it." Jodi nodded sagely, but my mother rolled her eyes, still stinging from the implication she'd fucked her son, despite the fact that she had.

"And nothing about our 'crystal chakras', please, let's stick to the highlights of our current one." Her tone made it clear that she wasn't about to engage with any form of charlatanry. Jodi simply smiled.

"I understand, you're uncomfortable-" Jodi began, but Dr. Waters interrupted her.

"Yes, we're deeply uncomfortable, we're stuck in some sort of sick sex trap! And now I'm-" Her tone was rising, and her voice cracked as she began to get hysterical, only pausing when I placed my hand on her knee.

"Mom, let's just hear her out." I tried to mollify her rage. The tension of our days together evident in her shoulders. She glared at me, then leaned back into the chair, slapping my hand away.

"Discomfort." Jodi cleared her throat. "Comes from a lack of control, the feeling of being out of the driver's seat of your own life." She smiled warmly, and I felt myself relax slightly. "I'm sorry for the joke earlier, I sometimes have trouble with tone- a negative externality of dealing in truth." I tried to return her smile with the same level of warmth.

"It's okay, I'm sure you get this sort of thing a lot." I tried to project more confidence than I felt.

"No, but I know I can help you." I felt my mother stiffen beside me in excitement, but she remained quiet. "It's not really a book-learning sort of thing, but I was able to dig something up in terms of-" She paused, reaching behind her chair to pull out a manilla folder, which she handed across the table. "Documentation, I suppose?"

I pawed through the contents, rough screenshots of 90s-era Web 1.0 websites, pages photocopied from magazines, and a handful of catalogue tags from three different museums as far away as Havana, Lisbon, and Hanoi. They all depicted a pair of necklaces identical (or perhaps just similar, some of the images were extremely grainy) to the ones we were wearing.

"Artifacts like these tend to drift through the world." Jodi sounded almost wistful. "They bump into us, and we're not usually ready to receive them, so they cause something of a stir." She reached out to light a candle on the coffee table. I blinked in surprise. I must've missed seeing it when we came in, but the superstitious part of my brain said she'd conjured it with a spell of some description. Abruptly, Jodi clapped, loudly, startling Abigail and I.

"Sorry." Jodi gave a small smile as the lights began to dim, the shutters doing a surprisingly good job of cutting off the light from outside. "The office came with a clap light installed and I feel obligated to use it." I leaned down, trying to continue to read the snippets she'd provided in the rapidly darkening office.

"So they show up every now and then? Do they always make people... You know..?" I felt myself suddenly flush. I hadn't talked about sex in front of my mother before, and despite having been inside herseveral times, I felt my shyness.

"Yes, they've been seen all over the world- but no, they don't always do the same thing." Jodi saved me from my embarrassment, as she began to light another pair of candles adjacent to the first, much to my continued surprise. "Think of them like a radio. They just broadcast a little bit of god-like power into whomever's wearing them, and it just depends which channel you're on." She made a vague gesture towards the outside. "It's probably just that a few cultures figured out how to make them, and their shamans or religious leaders found out how to contact their deity of choice." I heard a chuckle bubbling out of my mother, dryly.

"So what, you're saying god isreal?" Her voice was sarcastic, causing Jodi to pause, fixing Dr. Waters with a sardonic look.

"If you weren't willing to at least consider that idea, you wouldn't be here." Jodi sat back in her chair, recrossing her legs as mom's mirth died away. "It's not the Christian god, no big white beard and aversion to snakes, it's more like the spirits and ghosts from aboriginal and native cultures, maybe a little like the Kami from shinto beliefs." Jodi waved her hand back and forth. "Regardless of what you believe, nobody really got it right- suffice to say you've got a little piece of power wrapped around your throat, and it wants you to do something specific." I bit my lip, thinking about the specifics.

"Okay, but we'vealready done it." I closed the folder, and set it beside my chair. "We'vedone ita lot!" I saw Jodi's mouth twitch slightly at the corners, but she retained her composure without any more lewd jokes.

"Of that, I have no doubt, but that's probably just a side effect. There are many things that a spirit might want which could induce such anintensereaction." She spread her hands, gesturing towards the three candles arrayed on the coffee table before her. "Luckily, we're allowed to ask some questions to figure it out." I paused, staring down at them.

"So, are we already asking the questions?" I ask, only to watch one of our three candles flicker and die.

YES.Jodi's head was thrown back savagely in the flickering light, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, her mouth wide. I shuddered in my seat. Her voice was deep, loud, and utterly otherworldly. I met eyes with my mother, and fought the urge to ask another question.

We were on the clock.

"How do we remove the necklaces?" Abigail asked, urgently, her hand gripping the armrest of her chair, causing another candle to flicker and die.

FULFILL YOUR NEED, LOVE AND BREED.I blinked, and bit my lip again. Jodi's breath rattled through her throat, and I met mom's eyes again. They were large and terrified, the same terror I could feel gripping my stomach.One more question. Our gazes spoke volumes to one another, we were deep in the jungle again, out ofcontrol.

"Why?" I asked, hesitantly, my voice almost breaking.

TO BUILD YOUR FAMILY, TO RECEIVE YOUR REWARD.This statement was accompanied by a burst of wind, a gust which blew our hair, and almost made me fall from my chair. Much harder than those which had heralded our amorous intent in the past. For an instant, the last candle flickered fitfully, then died, leaving the three of us immersed in shadow.

For a moment, nobody spoke, shocked by what we'd witnessed but unwilling to discuss it. My mother's hand slowly rose to her mouth, an expression of horror and despair coalescing on her face.

"So we have to-" She choked out, not needing to voice the acts in which we'd been engaging. "-Forever?"

"Let's get some light in here." Jodi's voice was gravely, and she lifted a bottle of water to her lips with a grimace. "That always takes it out of me." I clapped, loudly, causing my mother to start, but returning the hum of the electric lights to the office. Jodi chewed her lip as the shadows were dispelled.

"So-" I took a breath. "Maybe a bit more of a warning would've been in order." I glanced at my mother, still covering her mouth with her hand.

"It's not a science." Jodi nodded, acceding to my feedback. "Your spirit was insistent to speak to you, and it jumped the gun a little bit." As Jodi spoke, Abigail pinched the bridge of her nose.

"So, whatdoesthis mean for us?" My mother asked.

"Well you only got two questions, but that seemed pretty definitive." Jodi avoided meeting my eyes. "I guess, go home and think things over?" I fixed her with a stern glare, but she avoided my gaze. "You've gotten your documentation, you've gotten your answers from beyond, pay me." Her tone was short, but shook slightly as she spoke.

"We're going to get a second opinion!" Abigail's voice was shrill as she stalked out of the office, slapping the door open and allowing a shaft of light to penetrate the gloom of the indoors. I never looked away from Jodi.

"Is there something else you need to tell us? What is the reward?" I continued to pry at her, while counting out payment from my wallet. For an instant, she met my eyes with her own.

"If I tell you, you won't receive it." Her voice was low, almost a whisper. She seemed slightly unwell, withdrawn from her previous demeanor. If not outright outgoing before, she was at least less withdrawn. Now, her eyes seemed sunken, tired and wan. She stared out the window, and I took the hint, making an expeditious retreat to the car.

- - -

We needed to have another conversation, but my mother's tense shoulders didn't strike me as being in a very conversant mood. She'd certainly been shaken by the unscientific nature of our investigation, but I knew she was aching to theorize, however much she disliked the prospects.

"So, do you-" I began, keeping my eyes fixed on the road.

"No." Abigail interrupted me, her voice firm. "That was crazy bullshit, and I don't want to talk about it." We both paused for a moment, the silence stretching like taffy between us before she broke it. "So the psychic says we're stuck, the etchings are too vague to really be an instruction manual, where does that leave us?" I chewed my cheek for a moment before answering.

"Well we could try-" I began, but Dr. Waters again interrupted my supposition.

"We could reach out to the museums which had previously cataloged these artifacts, see if any of them have had luck with getting them off." I raised an eyebrow at her, still keeping both hands on the wheel as I avoided the perils of Minneapolis drivers.

"That's assuming any of them have ever put them on." I supposed, receiving a snort of derision from my mother.

"Steven, historians always put shit on, they simply can't help themselves." She tugged her necklace absentmindedly; I shrugged as non-committally as I could.

"We might've missed something in the etchings, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to reach out- do you really want to get a second opinion on the psychic front?" I saw her shake her head from the passenger seat, simultaneously gesturing for me to change lanes (needlessly, I knew where I was going, but that's mothers for you).

"No, I think I've had enough of the mystical arts." She waved her hand dismissively, as if we hadn't both just seen some kind of spirit possessing a woman in a strip mall office. "I'm going to get an abortion, we can't have a baby together." Her voice shook despite the certainty of her words.

"Just- just hold off on that, we'll figure this out!" I tried to make myself sound confident, but I'm not sure I succeeded. Abigail chewed on her lip, and I could see her absentmindedly cradling her abdomen in the passenger's seat.

We lapsed back into the same silence which had pervaded our drive out to Zuma's office. I knew in my heart that the psychic's words had been definitive, a certainty pervaded my body that we didn't have the choice my mother insisted was still available to us. I couldn't quite imagine what a spirit would do if its mystical incest baby was aborted, but probably nothing positive.

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach- would she be able to accept the truth Zuma had provided? Could we continue to live our lives like this at all, caught as we were between social expectation and spiritual power? Only time would tell.

- - -

In terms of alternative sources of information, it didn't actually take that long for them to dry up. Our messages out towards museum curators went unanswered as days blended into weeks. Perhaps unreceived, or perhaps intentionally discounted, but regardless, a firm nail slammed into the coffin of finding a way out of our situation. As if to compensate, we threw ourselves into analysis of the etchings, trying to draw conclusions from fragments and pieces crushed by the wind and sands of time.

Nightly, I'd pause before going to bed, looking longingly down the hallway to my mother's closed door. I could feel my desire building inside me, and I'm sure she did as well. We could only resist for so long, but I knew she'd hate me if I caved to my needs first. Still, I always left my door open, waiting for an entreaty.

A month after our visit to Zuma's, the entreaty came, but not how I'd imagined.

Love in the Jungle Ch. 04

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