Apocryphal Family Tree: The Rough Draft

Glenny Mae has Friends

Glenny Mae wanted to summon the Gatecrashers but knew she couldn't because they took care of Winnie on that side while she took care of Winnie on this side. Winnie's life side friends were mostly other Death-related beings, chief among them a person whose nickname is Sasquatch and George, a saint of dragon slaying fame. She did summon these two. Lenny watched what she did to summon them and mentally took notes which she went over and over agin in her head so often that by the time she could write them down she thought of the notes as smooth river pebbles. This was the best she would get to a direct lesson since she felt like she couldn't asked Glenny Mae for hell since it would come out that Winnie didn't want her summoning anyone and the jig would be up. Glenny also called a woman about a decade older than Lenny who called herself Hopper. At first Lenny thought it was weird she didn't summon Hopper but quickly learned that ah yep, this woman didn't need any help getting here quickly.
Lenny recognizes Hopper as a part of an elite crew of just shy of being criminals experts that run Boston. Supposedly they are the reason there isn't a super villain problem in Boston the way there are super villain problems in other large, well known cities. They are also the reason there aren't any superheroes claiming sovereignty over Boston. New Orleans didn't have those problems because no one fucks with a city that deities and other supernaturals definitely fuck with. No one smart enough to be a super villain wants that kind of trouble.
These people took care of Winnie's body while it healed. They did it in shifts and over the weeks I saw the change. Eventually it looked like Winnie's body was inhabitable, but Winnie didn't show up.
Glenny Mae said sometimes she be like this, won't show up to her own party because she's too cool. Unlike psychopomps that have always been psychopomps, the being difference between them and Glenny Mae is that since Glenny Mae was human, she finds staying too long in the death realms uncomfortable and eventually painful. She found this out hanging with Winnie, who was comfortable corporeal or incorporeal, and loved working with the Gatecrashers when she was incorporeal. Once Winnie asked Glenny Mae to stick along after she'd made her delivery. Glenny Mae didn't usually deliver souls anywhere but she liked Winnie and so she'd always walk with Winnie a while. Glenny figured she ain't doing nothing else better and Winnie's body was somewhere safe where it would be able to heal. After what felt like an hour Glenny started to feel sick. Glenny returned to the land of the living and started to feel better. A week on Earth had passed. Before Glenny left she told the Gatecrashers if they ever made it back to the Earthly realm to look her up. They seemed like lovely people and Winnie said such nice things about them. Glenny Mae knee that would never happen. The Gatecrashers has all been human and although they could return, none had the interest to. Their people were the dead and they found the frameworks of death to be far more equitable than anything humans had figured out.
Glenny Mae always took care of Winnie. She'd taken care of as many lynching victims as she could during the bumper crop years and thank all things holy and unholy that time in America the number of lynchings had gone down significantly, although any amount of lynchings were too many. And now they are so varied and so many people disagree on what it is. Police shootings. The disappearing Native American women. The ICE detainees. The murders of trans people. They are all lynchings as far as Glenny Mae was concerned. Looks like a lynching, feels like a lynching, guess what‽ Glenny didn't seem super upset over this, more like she was tired.
"I can't be everywhere," Glenny Mae said with a sigh. "But I try to be where I know I'm needed."
What not failed to mention is that Glenny Mae specifically takes care of lynching victims.
"They need a special care and tenderness. Sometimes they aren't ready to cross and I don't force 'em. Sometimes they want to see things finished and I do what I can. Sometimes they are too scared to push forward and I help them accept what has happened and move forward."
"That's why Winnie introduced me to Hopper. She helps me get to the people in need when that bad shit happens."
They were all around for weeks and after the house feeling cavernous it suddenly felt cozy and just right. Each member of the house cooked and cleaned. Night time was for stories since they'd spent most of their lives with radio or TV it was a novelty kind of entertainment. It's not cold in the house or outside but the fire crackles in the fireplace and everything feels right. This is also a fantastic opportunity to talk to all the old heads in the room. Get their stories and takes. Even though I'm supposed to be finding the story of our family, there's nothing saying we definitely aren't related to these people. Even though we likely aren't related to these people.
Hopper's story is one I'm most interested in. She's the superhero version of Damone or Letters to Cleo or possibly the Dropkicks before that Scorecese film. I'm not sure about that last one because I definitely have a bias because I sharply follow the news about her and the rest of the elite hit crew. Rumor has it they are based outta MIT. She also is the only one here that grew up on TV, things like Reading Rainbow and Sesame Street like me. Not that I remember much from those years or those TV shows.
Hopper's dreads are as thick as pencils and they reach to her waist. I've thought about dreads a few times but I lack the commitment to hair styles to do that. I still haven't cut my hair since my mom convinced me to cut my hair at 19. It's only 3 years ago but since it's supposed to be every 6 weeks, I'm overdue but only my stylist would know. My curls can't beat the weight of my hair so it mostly stays down. My hair is more afraid of gravity than I'd like it to be and straighter than it would be if it were shorter and I wasn't brushing it into submission regularly.
Hopper is about my height but a slighter build. Where I'm thick and curvy, she's slender and curved. I like her style. A soft gray T shirt and black pants she rolls up to make a cuff. She doesn't wear a bra or shave her armpits, both of which makes Lenny uncomfortable, even though she knows it shouldn't.
Hopper also has a tendency to swear like Lenny. Glenny Mae doesn't cuss and neither do the other used to be humans but definitely aren't anymore crowd. Lenny's main goal is to not fangirl out. She's made it this far without it so she's hoping that eventually she'll maybe even be able to act like a regular gonna be dead soon human around her. Lenny was hoping that if she kept reminding herself of her own impending doom that she'd become braver and also somehow more able to keep her shit together when necessary.
That night after dinner when they were sitting in the parlor cozied by the fireplace, Lenny surprised the shit outta herself and asked Hopper what her real name was. Hopper looked at her and smiled.
"Only people that know my name are dead," she said.
"Bologna," Glenny Mae said. "Everyone in that mob of yours knows it. You went to school with 'em. Plus we ain't dead, we's dead adjacent, you turkey."
Hopper crosses her arms and huffed. "Way to kill my air of mystery you jerk face."
"Jerk turkey would make an excellent meal for tomorrow night," Sasquatch said to no one in particular. He was reclining on the couch, smoking a pipe with sweet tobacco in it.
"Name's Vaughn Jackson," she said as she held out her hand.
"Pleasure to meet you," Lenny said. "If it makes you feel any better I'm likely going to die in the next several months."
Vaughn's face at first said haha funny joke but quickly changed as she noted the shift in the room's mood. The room was quiet before but now it felt silent and like everyone was looking at Lenny.
"No one talks about the curse of the apprentice but I know that they all die within a year of becoming Winnie's apprentice." Lenny said with a shrug. "I've been apprentice for three months."
"That's not exactly how it happens," Glenny Mae says.
"It's not a curse," George adds, "it's just that the apprentices don't turn like Winnie did."
"None of the deaths were on purpose but calling the deaths accidents also felt wrong," Sasquatch said.
Lenny day there tying to figure out if eventually she'd have to ask them questions for them to go where she wanted to our if they'd find their own way.
Vaughn was the only other person in the room who didn't know. She'd come of age and linked up with them since the last apprentice died about nineteen years ago. They both sat and listened. Vaughn had no idea about any of this. It hadn't come up. She felt like maybe she'd somehow missed something at first because this family apparently participated in human sacrifice. But that wasn't it at all. The three elders explained that all of the other apprentices eventually want to try and help Winnie or they want to be like Winnie and we all know the story. But none of them have figured out the special formula that made Winnie who she is. And they all get this reckless within a year because something happens to a mortal who hangs out with so many who are unmoved by death. Winnie does seem a little more cavalier on the years when she has an apprentice, so that probably don't help either.