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Undertow	By : pronker Category: +M through R > Penguins of Madagascar Views: 11341 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I make no profit from this fanfiction set in Dreamworks' Penguins of Madagascar franchise. I do not own its characters, basic premise or settings.

Chapter List
- 1-1/?
- 2-2/?
- 3-3/?
- 4-4/?
- 5-5/?
- 6-6/?
- 7-7/?
- 8-8/?
- 9-9/?
- 10-10/?
- 11-11/?
- 12-12/?
- 13-13/?
- 14-14/?
- 15-15/?
- 16-16/?
- 17-17/?
- 18-18/?
- 19-19/?
- 20-20/?
- 21-21/?
- 22-22/?
- 23-23/?
- 24-24/?
- 25-25/?
- 26-26/?
- 27-27/?
- 28-28/?
- 29-29/?
- 30-30/?
- 31-31/?
- 32-32/?
- 33-33/?
- 34-34/?
- 35-35/?
- 36-36/?
- 37-37/?
- 38-38/?
- 39-39/?
- 40-40/?
- 41-41/?
- 42-42/?
- 43-43/?
- 44-44/?
- 45-45/?
- 46-46/?
- 47-47/?
- 48-48/?
- 49-49/?
- 50-50/?
- 51-51/?
- 52-52/?
- 53-53/?
- 54-54/?
- 55-55/?
- 56-56/?
- 57-57/?
- 58-58/?
- 59-59/?
- 60-60/?
- 61-61/?
- 62-62/?
- 63-63/?
- 64-64/?
- 65-65/?
- 66-66/?
- 67-67/?
- 68-68/?
- 69-69/?
- 70-70/?
- 71-71/?
- 72-72/?
- 73-73/?
- 74-74/?
- 75-75/?
- 76-76/?
- 77-77/?
- 78-78/?
- 79-79/?
- 80-80/?
- 81-81/?
- 82-82/?
- 83-83/?
- 84-84/?
- 85-85/?
- 86-86/?
- 87-87/?
- 88-88/?
- 89-89/?
- 90-90/?
- 91-91/?
- 92-92/?
- 93-93/?
- 94-94/?
- 95-95/?
- 96-96/?
- 97-97/?
- 98-97/?
- 99-99/?
- 100-100/?
- 101-101/?
- 102-102/?
- 103-103/?
- 104-104/?
- 105-105/?
- 106-106/?
- 107-107/?
- 108-108/?
- 109-109/?
- 110-110/112
- 111-111/112
- 112-112/112
- 40
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- 42
"Frances Lajka Brigid Alberta. Wake up."
The firm voice bounced inside Frances' head from ear to ear and from her cranium to her jawline. She had not told Godmother Felicity, Moley or Jeff her middle names and the only person on this continent who knew them was - "Mom?"
Sweetly sublime as soan papdi, the scent of her mother's Wind Song favorite fragrance filled Frances' being. Frances opened her eyes or maybe thought she did. If this is why the orichas beckoned to her to visit Howe Caverns, then the mystery was solved. She was meant to commune with her dead mother. Even as the thought coalesced, she divined that there was a more hidden reason, as well. In the meantime, Mom was waiting.
The caverns loomed black as sin, Moley big spooned her on their spread blanket to conserve body warmth as his breath riffled her hair and within arm's reach was a Maglite. She could switch it on.
She didn't.
"I am your mother, dear."
Frances couldn't help sobbing. "Mom, Mommy, oh, Mom - "
"It's all right. I am fine, better than fine. Now what is this all about?"
"Wh-What? What is what about?"
"Keep your voice down. You'll awaken your friend."
Moley twitched and rolled over so they lay back to back. He'd removed his belt and shoes to rest and so had she. "Mom, meet my drzhp, Moley. He's a good sort when he's awake."
Frances strained her eyes until they ached. It was no use. She'd never see her mother again this side of the spirit world, but to hear her voice, though ... ahhhhhh, bliss.
"Drzhp? Eh, you always had a gift for languages, Frances. Is he your significant other?" Moley had pulled the blanket off her shoulders when he moved and she tugged it back over her upper arms. The mother-daughter conversation ebbed and flowed as it had when Mom came to her bedroom to tuck her in.
"I guess he is? We've not yet - um - done what it takes to make it official but I can't rule that out for the future."
The future seemed a black hole as she lay on gravel of #5 grade. The Mrsdm protruded like a metallic morel from the gravel some yards distant, its power source turned off so that its paddle-shaped tunnelers did not keep them awake with their glow. She and Moley agreed to keep their days and nights timed as regular as if she worked at Funkytown, though she received the impression that Moley could handle being a night owl. She herself relied on her Samsung's internal clock to chingwheep intervals to eat and sleep. Who says a smartphone is nothing without the internet?
The original original entrance to Howe lay hundreds of yards to the north beyond the anteroom to the quarry where they had camped. The remade hole's small circumference proved a challenge for Moley to squeeze through when they had ranged Thursday evening and today, too, because Friday was Oyá's special day. Throughout the expanse, caving with him excited her sense of exploration, and nobody was better at protecting the both of them from unstable footing or razor sharp crystalline outgrowths in the originally discovered caverns beyond the caverns currently open to the public. She directed Moley to camp in the less scenic quarry anteroom, though, with the originally discovered caverns a buffer between the noise of the mecha and any tourist's hearing. They had explored all morning and napped easily together after a simple lunch.
The future looked less scary than back in January's eviction, but still formidable. Frances felt unsettled at a mother's natural question of her daughter. "I've changed my mind about that issue since I met him. It's hard to explain. My life has been jumbled since you left and he's my anchor, along with Santeria and Funkytown, oh you don't know about that, do you."
Frances basked in the warmth of an unseen smile. "You don't need to explain to me, dear. I can see you are healthy outside and in. That's enough for a parent."
As when Frances was six years old and made progress at the ballet barre, her mother's praise warmed her. "Mom, I'm so glad you're here. I've missed you. You asked me what is this about, what did you mean? Did Oyá summon you from the grave to help me? I'm doing better than at the new year, I can tell you." But wasn't the orichas' power limited underground like her smartphone's, oh wait Oyá used wind to display her power and there was no wind under the earth but Ogún lived underground like Pluto, gads, Frances, don't sprinkle Roman mythology into this spiritual stew -
The loved voice toughened. "I raised you to stay afloat no matter what. You have. That doesn't mean I haven't missed you too, darling, and that I won't treasure this memory when I return to my rest."
Frances spoke her heart. "Don't go yet, please, Mom."
"I have a limited time. It's the same for all of us." The smell of Wind Song thinned and Frances rushed to get out the necessary words, words that she'd not realized she meant to utter.
"Mom, I'm stressed and before you say join the club, I want, um, would like to have your advice on just, well, life in general. It was a horrible shock to be fired, and and could you, um, smooth the waters a little? Like you used to?"
The voice turned dispassionate, and Frances wondered how much of her mother truly remained. Her final illness had seemed to blot out much of her psyche, along with memories of her past. The next words eased Frances' fears; her mother merely analyzed while she came on from strength as she had in life. "It's not because you're afraid of living, is it, dear? You've got a good head on your shoulders underneath that strange colored hair."
Afraid? No, that wasn't it. However, she was more cautious about serious decisions that could erode her bank account. She had tasted destitution and didn't like it. "I don't think I'm afraid. Keeping afloat took a toll after I was fired, though. Will you tell my future?" The voice in Frances' head was Frances' own now and spoke clearly. Frances, Miss Cleo was a talented reader of people, their future, and the tarot. You are not Miss Cleo where it counts. Wearing a turban that matches your caftan and speaking Jamaican patois is your limit unless you call on the orichas.
"No."
Well, Mom could be blunt in life, too. "Oh."
Hold on, her mother fit into a certain hierarchy that really, Frances ought to have thought of before she asked the question. "Can you?"
"No. So why Santeria?"
Ahah, uncomfortable topic switch just like always, Mom. Some things never change. Frances thought a moment before prodding out the words. "It's a faith that lights up my life, Mom, and you'd recognize a lot of the orichas, the, the higher powers in it, I mean, like Oyá, she's the one who's closest to me and kind of like Saint Brigid, and and and the warriors like Ogún who sort of blends with Saint Peter - "
Was that an impatient sniff she heard? "Speak simply, Frances, you never used to babble. I've met Ogún. He chatted up Saint Peter to allow me to visit you. Saint Peter sends greetings and Ogún says to tell you - what's the matter?"
Frances couldn't respond. One world at a time, her Yale literature professor's words came to her, Thoreau on his deathbed said that one world at a time is the way to think and for only the second instance, she doubted her faith could sustain her when science remained clean and simple. Was it possible to toss away faith to return to hard scientific principles that she had used to construct bio-mechanical androids, she wondered, and what would the cost be to her soul? She became dizzy.
So there were unseen worlds that combined and blended like Ogun and Saint Peter, and her own mother had traveled between them, had stood in the presence of a saint and an oricha - and Mom kept most of her personality even in the bowels of the earth well okay the spirits of the dead did that in every faith she'd ever heard of - the next thing you know she'd be asking about her china hutch and her gimcrack collections -
The earth moved beneath Frances and she fainted.
IOIOIOIOIO
Frances awoke alone with tears on her cheeks. She hadn't had a chance to ask if Mom needed anything done for her on this side of the veil.
The scent of Wind Song had dissipated, but stayed on her mind.
Team Rocket was split in two, because Moley no longer warmed her back.
She switched on the Maglite to see a traveling altar not four feet in front of her, her open travel bag beside it. She sat tailor fashion in front of the gathering of objects, still dazed from a visit from the Great Beyond. Ogún and Oshosi deserved her attention. They deserved what she would give them after she calmed.
Thought-feelings were all that was left. When had she set up the altar and summoned her warriors? Merely talk about them with Mom did not bring them, so at some point she must have chanted a moyugbar, saluted Olorun The Almighty Father and then the spirits of her dear personal departed before progressing to invite one or more of the orichas. An oricha did mount her, but which one had it been?
Regrets over not having more time with Mom swamped her before she forged ahead into resolve to do what she needed to do next. She gathered her strength to wrest another proper invocation from the circumstances, and soon she calmed enough to set forth spiritually. She was set on her task as she knelt on the blanket and didn't hear Moley's approach, the stinker.
"Frawnces."
"M-Moley?"
He squatted by her, offering her a mushroom and then brushing off salty tear tracks. "Whash the matter?"
"N-Nothing. I guess the deep caverns made me feel deeper. It's time for me to call upon Oshosi and, and Ogún. My warriors, yes, but not Eleggua, at least not after the beginning, and I'm not proficient enough to deal with Osun." She fingered the mushroom's cap, not eating it just yet.
"More than already did?"
This startled her. "What do you mean?"
Moley aped whirling an iruke. "And Frawnces jumped and rolled."
"I see." She could handle this. An oricha must have taken her over for a longer time as never before, but it couldn't have been Oyá. Never would an oricha allow Santeria happenings without first acknowledging Olorun and then Frances' personal dear departed spirits before acting like an oricha, so really, there wasn't a whole lot to do other than offer specialized thanks. Still, she wanted to conduct the thanks in the correct order by beginning the ceremony over again, because she wanted to do it when she was in her own mind. "Yes, more than that." She nibbled the mushroom to get energy, then popped the whole thing into her mouth. "Gud stuf."
"If Frawnces says so, it must be so. Why more warriors?"
She owed him for carting her here, and for so much more. She bustled in her travel bag past some sox to extract her briefcase, the one gifted by Mom when Frances got her job as zookeeper. "Because I need to thank them in Santeria for my life, for letting me visit with Mom, for Dexter and his family who became friends outside of Santeria, for Funkytown, for my new home and yes, for you. Don't tell me that we aren't important to each other."
Moley made a face she had never seen before. "Frawnces not bring animal to kill, why?"
"No, Godmother Felicity said a sacrifice wasn't necessary for this ebó." She gestured to the offerings in front of them.
"Cmloops, Frawnces." He pecked her cheek.
"Hush and hold the Maglite." By the strong light, Frances arranged her briefcase's content: candles and a lighter, an airline-sized bottle of red wine, a small drum, a broom, a glittery piece of iron pyrite for Ogún, the iruke for Oyá, Elegguá would be pleased by a hutia meat patty wrapped in plastic and Osun generally nibbled a bit of meat, too, and for Oshosi, a generous baggie of Hoppin' John that Godmother Felicity contributed. Felicity certainly knew the best exotic shops to buy hutia and cowpeas for making the two delicious recipes and had promised Frances to teach her how to prepare them in a cramped underground kitchen. Would Moley enjoy with her the edible offerings once the ceremony concluded? Would it be all right with the orichas, since technically the ceremony would be over with and the fact that Moley was not of Santería inconsequential? She hoped so; she trusted the kindness of her faith. "Now keep quiet, Moley."
He petted the white frosted tips of hair above her left ear and rumbled subsonically. Good grief, why was she near tears again at the sound? Mom's visit had shaken her to her roots. Peace, peace, peace, Oyá grant me kincamaché, she breathed.
Frances analyzed her clothing. Barefoot, all right, but she needed her bracelets, eleke, and nine-banded skirt to please Oyá even in her absence. She could pull the skirt on over her jeans and fished it out of her travel bag, to Moley's penetrating gaze. Funny, it felt right to dress in front of him and as she shrugged into her eleke, one of its stones caught on her hair. Moley detached it for her, rubbing her neck as he settled the necklace into place. She shivered a little at the touch. After slipping on her nine copper bracelets and clearing her mind, she knelt and began.
As an aboricha or medio asentado, Frances held the right to summon and be mounted; she did not desire to be mounted at this time. With an open heart and both hands spread to show her ashe, she lit candles and began a moyugbar, drumming and humming. Kneeling beside her, Moley growled accompaniment and when she turned to him, amazed, his little eyes twinkled as his voice slid up and down the scale. He ranged both above and below her hearing as he prodded her to continue. Just like that, her thanksgiving to the orichas turned to a guemilere, a party for them. She halted drumming, still humming along with Moley, and whisked the broom over her body to brush off negative energy. With a wink at her friend, she resumed drumming. He winked back.
Frances drummed faster.
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Undertow