Before I Wake

In the small town of Belfast, Maine, at a quarter past seven the night of Christmas Eve, an apothecarist was startled awake from her prolonged sleep on the sofa. The hair on the back of her neck stood erect, goosebumps dotted her arms, and a feeling she had long since forgotten returned to her like an old friend – the feeling that an unannounced, important guest was arriving in the coming hours. She urgently wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and went to the elixir cabinet, scanning the glass bottles of various sizes and shapes with her hands. She felt the push towards the oldest elixir in the pantry.

“No, it can’t be,” she thought, fumbling with the dusty glass. She stared at the ceiling and held the elixir to her chest, asking the universe for the guidance it always faithfully appointed. With a slight nod, she set the bottle out on the table along with an empty vial and immediately went to work baking fresh oatmeal cookies.

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They say grief comes in waves and that you have no control over its triggers or the devastation when it finally hits. My grief manifested in the form of nightmares, pulling me into a disrupted slumber back to the depths of the fatal night one year ago before Christmas. My grief took shape as the 2011 Chevrolet Corolla I was driving and carried me down the highway with Amelia and Caroline in the back seat. My grief molded into black ice, then an embankment, then Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” on the shattered radio as the car rested upside down against the concrete barrier. I usually woke up after this and was spared from visions of their bodies - life’s sick joke of mercy despite the debilitating weight carried after sunrise – but if I closed my eyes tight enough, I could still see the two children as I did for the very last time.

The holidays provided little rest as the shackles of guilt never permit furlough. This was my first Christmas alone and I attempted to rally behind the coveted “holiday spirit” with flickering lights, a shoddy Christmas tree, and a homemade gingerbread candle that smelled more of burnt butter. I even baked peanut brittle and delivered them to my next-door neighbors in a penance-style ritual but going through the motions could not fool my sentenced subconscious. On Christmas Eve, after being directed to voicemail by both of my parents, I reluctantly slid on my snow boots and walked downtown to St. Anthony’s Catholic Church where I saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a free Christmas dinner. Last week’s snow lingered in the filthy street gutters and beneath the unkempt bus stops, too naïve to know it was no longer wanted.

As I approached the cathedral, my eyes were drawn to the tarot reader’s shop next door, a humorous nod to the biblical narrative of choosing worldly things over God. I thought of how many souls retreated through the shop’s entrance after being let down by St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, much like myself. A neon sign flashed “OPEN” leading into Mystic Insights: Tarot & Apothecary and, remembering I wasn’t catholic, I decided to place my faith in this New Age religion in hopes of finding either answers regarding my grief or company for the evening.

I opened the front door in synch with a bell announcing my arrival. The aroma of marijuana, cinnamon, and vanilla immediately meshed together in discord.

“Well, hi there, hon. Well to Mystic. How can I help you?” A woman in her sixties - the apothecarist and tarot reader - appeared around the corner.

“I was wondering if I could get a tarot reading tonight.”

“Oh, absolutely, dear. Take a seat and I’ll be with you as soon as I get my drink.”

She pointed towards a loveseat in front of a coffee table to my left. I took off my jacket and sat down. The shop bore a dark brick and mortar interior with Old World accents including hanging floral tapestries and stone-grey flooring. A fireplace grumbled in the southern corner next to a side table adorned with four slender candles reminding me of an Italian church. A dark leather sofa was positioned cockeyed from the loveseat, allowing the sitter to engage in client conversation while also catching the heat from the fire.

The apothecarist returned with a tray of freshly baked cookies and a coffee.

“Do you make those elixirs?” I asked, pointing towards the display shelves of exotic bottles and potions lining the walls.

“Some of them I do, but most of them I purchase from my wholesaler in Virginia. I love those Appalachian mixes. It’s something about that Blue Ridge air.” She smiled and handed me an oatmeal cookie – my favorite kind - on a mistletoe napkin. “So, what’s your name?”

“Aggie DePonte. I’m from here, I’ve just never been in before. It’s beautiful.”

“DePonte. I know that name.” She thought for a moment, then said, “Now tell me why you’re really in here, Aggie.”

I felt my face turn red. “I guess Christmas Eve is an odd time to do this.”

“It’s usually the perfect time.” The apothecarist smiled. “My holiday clients are a lot more vulnerable and willing to work with me. Think of it like your significant other. If you have an emotional wall up, it’s going to affect your understanding of one another, you know? It works the same with us tarot readers.” She set her coffee to the side and bit into a chunk of oatmeal.

“I wouldn’t normally do something like this. I’ve always been a little skeptic of this stuff,” I chuckled. “I’m hitting up the catholic church after this.”

"Oh, hon, everyone’s a skeptic. Do you think the cards care? Their only job is to answer your questions. What you do with the answers is beyond this room.” She slipped the deck from the pack and set them in a pile in front of her. “Now, five dollars will get you two questions. Or you can do five questions for ten, or ten for twenty.”

“I just have two questions, really.”

“Okay, perfect.” She opened the drawer on the coffee table and pulled out a stout red candle. “Now think of your first question – it has to be open-ended, not a simple yes or no - and ask it in your mind. Let me know when you’ve done it.”

I thought for a moment. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“You have it?”

“I have it.”

“Good, now hold it in your mind.” She pushed the cards towards me and told me to shuffle and cut the deck. I did as I was told, and she peeled three from the top of the stack, placing them face down in front of her horizontally. She performed this routine with a sense of unobstructed clarity and I found myself led into her aura mentally and emotionally. Tying her shoulder-length grey hair in a bun, she flipped the cards over one-by-one.

“The Sun reversed. This can represent past setbacks and difficulty finding the positives in tough situations. A time of sadness, pessimism, or dark energy in your past that is affecting your life today.” She flipped over the middle card. “Four of wands reversed. This can represent your present situation, perhaps you are experiencing difficulty with familial relationships and not getting the support you need from home? Either way, this indicates a hinderance to your potential.” The last of the three was the devil reversed. “This is actually a positive thing. The devil reversed signifies freedom and the restoration of control.

“I want to focus on the first card. I’m feeling energy from it being pulled into the other two.” The apothecarist narrowed her eyes. “I usually feel this when someone’s lost an immediate family member or has a personal tragedy that affects all aspects of their current life – when the physical or emotional pain is essentially unbearable.”

“You can tell that from a card?” I asked, sitting back in my chair. “That’s impressive.”

“Does any of that resonate with you?”

“Well, I lost my two younger sisters in a car accident a year ago.”

The apothecarist pushed. “Can you elaborate on ‘lost?’”

“I killed them,” I said, nodding. “Yeah, I killed them. I was speeding to get them home because I was wanted to go to a party, and I hit black ice.” I rubbed my hands on my knees and switched my glance to the bubbling fireplace, shocked at my sudden admission.

The silence in the room was held tenderly amidst the hesitancy. The apothecarist leaned forward.

“Were you injured badly?”

"I broke my femur in two and that was all. Normally, that would be called a miracle.” I mustered a smile. “Not in this case, necessarily.”

“I can’t imagine the weight you carry.” She shook her head. Her mannerisms were attractive and inviting – I felt her energy tap into mine and make the room a safe space. If I was ready, I would have fallen on my knees and burst into tears and told her about my parents not answering my phone calls anymore, about the day I drove two hours to my mom’s office because I was afraid something had happened to her since she was sending me to voicemail, only to find her car parked neatly in the lot. I would have told her about being trapped not only in my guilt but theirs – forever held responsible for ending the life of their two daughters, only for them to forget about mine. If it was a perfect world and if I was ready, I would have indeed told her all those things, but I simply nodded instead and wiped a few stray tears with a tissue.

The apothecarist, reading her guest and holding the melancholic energy that was so heavy it felt tangible, decided no more questions were needed. She knew what was required and knew why she had been called to serve her guest tonight. She took my hand.

“I know what you need, and it isn’t these cards. Let me make you a hot drink. You’re more than welcome to stay here as long as you like on the sofa. I’d love company for Christmas.”

I watched as she ambled into the back section of the building through a set of black curtains and disappeared. Little did I know, but the apothecarist had been waiting on this day for several years – the day when another body needed a potion she herself crafted, one she claimed was the most powerful elixir this side of the Mississippi. She obtained the bottle she set out previously, poured what was left into an empty cannister, and hung it on a rung over the fireplace for heating.

After a while, she returned with a bubbling ceramic mug. “It’s not too hot, the spices just bubble when they’re mixed. It’s a sign it’s ready to drink.”

“What’s all in it?” I asked, staring skeptically at the cup held out to me.

“Rue, rosemary, fennel, hollyhock, lavender, marjoram, a couple others.” She pushed it closer and I accepted, having situated myself on the couch while she was gone. “It’ll help you sleep like a baby.”

“Say no more,” I grunted, sipping on the thickened liquid. She handed me a knit blanket from a crate in the corner of the room and I prepared for another disheveled evening despite the beverage’s warm promise. It went down like milk and honey, nourishing to the bones and sweet to the lips, and I soon found myself drifting to sleep as peacefully as an innocent child in my father’s forgiving arms once again.

The apothecarist watched with anticipation as her guest fell into what she coined “the deep slumber.” She designed the potion to indefinitely reset the nervous system when consumed, providing a sleep as tender and delicate as a newborn baby’s while the internal wiring gently mended itself. After holding the energy from her client, the apothecarist wept from its weight as she wholly understood its burden – perhaps the most important part of the evening. She proceeded with the next step of the deep slumber and used the glass vial to collect one of her own teardrops, wept from the knowledge of the recipient’s pain, and mixed it with a splash of water. She then poured the liquid delicately between her sleeping guest’s lips.

The deep slumber could last anywhere from one to five days depending on the consumer, so the apothecarist prepared to wait. Christmas morning faded into evening like a gust of wind, and the guest remained unstirred. The next three days were the same, and once it had been one week since administering the potion, the apothecarist began to worry. She spent the daytime hours pacing the stone floors and watching the world hem blankets of snow outside only for them to return to the tattered earth. New Year’s Eve was celebrated alone by the fire with the sound of fireworks reverberating downtown. It was not until the second week of January when the guest of the apothecarist began to arise from her sleep, and a sigh of relief was breathed by the grey-haired woman and everything in the tiny shop nestled next to the Catholic church.

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Like a feather floating against the laws of gravity, so I existed in the white room with the white walls and white floors. Everything was, and is, and was yet to be in effortless existence, a state of being between a heartbeat and the eternal where each breath always reaches the deepest part of your lungs and your body feels bliss in the absence of the curse of the world. It was here where I rested for twenty-two days while the apothecarist watched my body sleep from earth – my internal wires undergoing the ultimate reset.

When my stay in the white room was over, I returned to the apothecarist, opening my eyes as if it were the first time. Her gaze rested on mine and it wasn’t until I began to speak when I noticed my chest no longer felt heavy and the dark cloud over my head, usually dictating my internal dialogue and decisions, had departed. On her advice, I sat up slowly and methodically, stretching my limbs and wiggling my fingers and toes. My blanket and clothes were clean despite sleeping for three weeks and I was not stiff.

I took a deep breath and felt the clarity of the air purge through my lungs.

“Take your time,” she said, the smile having yet to disappear from her face. “It probably all feels new.”

Looking around the room, colors reflected back to me with indescribable purity. I was left in awe of how I saw my surroundings, now whole with the removal of the diseased filter between my mind and reality.

“I still remember,” I said aloud, testing the waters of my mental clarity by revisiting the night of my sisters’ death. “But it’s different.”

“It’s pure, just as I designed - to see and understand the human experience without the negative buffer our nature tends to add.” The apothecarist continued. “Of course, bad things will still happen, and you’ll continue to do bad things in your lifetime as we all do. But the ability to process, understand, and change your feelings and circumstances is otherworldly. Forgiveness for yourself and others is the elixir’s ultimate function.”

Tears welled in my eyes but for the first time in over a year, they were not rooted in grief or pain. I would never cry out of guilt for my sisters’ death ever again.

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Christmases came and went through Belfast but the shop of the apothecarist remained the same. Her final guest visited frequently, spending part of every holiday by her side and learning to mix the elixirs and read tarot. The apothecarist herself eventually retired from potion making but remained a vital part of the shop by overseeing its functions and continuing to pass on the secrets of her potions.

One day, many years after her first visit, the apothecarist’s guest found her mentor’s body slowly drifting from consciousness - a sleep not even the strongest elixir would be able to revive. She held the apothecarist’s hand as she said goodbye to the woman who gave her two of the greatest gifts she ever received – the gift of forgiveness from a potion, and the gift of friendship from the heart. As she did for her so long ago, the final guest held the apothecarist’s dying energy, wept, and released her soul into the deepest slumber, never to return to earth again.