The Awakening

by Pierre C. Arseneault

  Chapter 3

  Return to Oakwood Island

  June

  The disheveled looking Detective Burke had given up. He had been struggling against the wind and rain, his large plastic framed glasses accumulating rain drops, which made things even more difficult as he couldn’t see much. He was trying to light his Peter Jackson menthol cigarette but failed every time. His Zippo wouldn’t stay lit against the strong, warm southerly winds of the open water as he rode the ferry to Oakwood Island. His cigarette was nearly soaked by the drops of rain that splashed and dissipated onto it. He had already lost his baseball cap as it was blown off his head with an especially strong gust. While lost in his own thoughts, the cap had gone over the rail and into the bay before he was able to process what was happening. He didn’t really care as it had clashed with his tie, though it had matched his stained shirt, wrinkled pants and disheveled hair. The mandatory leave of absence from the Anchor’s Point Police Department really wasn’t agreeing with him and no matter how much he had insisted, both his doctor and the therapist he had been ordered to see weren’t ready to let him get back to work.

  Between the anxiety brought on by not solving the gruesome island murders five years ago, and the nightmares of a fanged hairy beast stalking him in rooms covered in blood splatter, the detective was a changed man. What had been left of the old sarcastic Burke seemed to be erased when he’d had his heart attack, a little over a year after the death of Officer Ryan McGregor. Once back to work, he was assigned to a desk job. That wasn’t something he handled well, either. Stress leave was in his future, even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself. He had tried drinking and even failed at that. As it turned out, the detective had developed an intolerance to booze, his body not able to break down alcohol efficiently. He felt like a failure and was ready to give up and take an early retirement. At least he thought he’d been ready until the remains of the botanist Danny Nolan were found on a remote part of Oakwood Island. Even though he was still on leave, Burke insisted on being the one to notify Danny’s family and colleagues about the remains found. His psychiatrist agreed, thinking it might bring closure that was needed and may finally be the missing key that would allow Burke to forgive himself for not solving the Oakwood Island cases.

  During the primary investigation, a fellow researcher, Jin Hong, had expressed concern when Danny had not gone back to work. When Danny was officially reported as missing, everyone assumed the worst. When his body didn’t turn up with the others in the old trailer, his disappearance had remained a mystery. Human remains had then been found deep in the forest on Oakwood Island in April, and just a month later the odd pile of bones had been discovered by the Stuarts. The other detectives and forensic experts were content to wait for the DNA test results, but when Burke had learned that both locations had contained traces of the same plant enzymes, fungus, and animal hairs collected from the original murder scenes, Burke knew the remains belonged to Danny. Burke’s obsession returned with a vengeance. It took a lot to convince his friend Harold Randolf, who also happened to be the coroner, to give him a copy of the autopsy report on Danny’s remains. Since plant enzymes and fungus were something Jin Hong was more than familiar with, it didn’t take long for Burke to send him a copy of the report. Jin theorized that the fungus was something Danny had likely brought with him from the rain forest. The question though remained why? It had made no sense to the fellow researcher. The fact that Danny’s body had retained traces of a fungus only previously found in Peru confused Jin enough for him to contact Burke, fueling the fire that had already been reignited with the finding of Danny’s remains. With more animal remains found on the island recently containing fresh traces of the plant enzymes and fungus, Burke could not stay away. He had packed a duffel bag with a few changes of clothes, toiletries and put his own case file folders into a box before catching the first ferry to Oakwood Island that same day.

  Burke adjusted his large, plastic framed glasses, pulled his cell phone from his pocket and saw a notification of a missed call. With the strong winds from the bay, it was no wonder he hadn’t heard his phone ring. With the familiar island in sight, his cell signal was good enough for him to return the call, but first he would need to get out of the wind.

  Once in his messy car, Burke lit his menthol cigarette, inhaled deeply and coughed until tears ran down his face. Once he regained his breath, he took another long drag of his cigarette before hitting the dial button returning the missed call.

  “You called,” Burke said as the call was picked up.

  “Are you serious about this or are you fucking with me,” Jin Hong blurted.

  “Serious about what?”

  “The test results from those dead animals found on Oakwood Island. Are they real?” Jin asked.

  “Of course they’re real,” Burke replied as he took a drag from his cigarette. While cradling his phone between his shoulder and ear, the cigarette now between his lips, he shifted his glasses and dug through the box in his passenger seat until he found the folder he wanted. “I mean they better be real. I had to bribe Randolph with a very expensive bottle of scotch.” He left out the part about him no longer being able to drink said Scotch as it felt unimportant at the moment.

  “The fungus is the same type found on Danny’s remains,” Jin replied. “Well, a mutated version but close enough that it has to be from the same strain.”

  “I know,” Burke replied as he struggled with the folder, the phone and a lit cigarette. “It’s the same shit they found in the animals five years ago, too.”

  “Not really,” Jin replied. “But damned close.”

  Ignoring the comment, Burke continued. “The same shit that Maggie was infested with. Well similar stuff anyways. We know that now.”

  “Who?” Jin asked.

  “Maggie, the waitress who killed herself by jumping off the roof of the hospital.”

  “You lost me,” Jin replied.

  “Never mind that,” Burke said as ashes fell from the cigarette into the folder. Burke shook some of the ashes out of it before flopping it back in the box. “What I want to know is does that have anything to do with the half-eaten bodies I can’t get out of my head? I can’t see how it’s connected but I’ve little else to go on at this point and I’m getting desperate.”

  “Well you said there were traces of the same stuff at those crime scenes too; the same stuff that was found on Danny’s body. It’s too bad the chamber maid of the motel threw out those baggies she said were in his room.”

  “Yeah, well he never came back, so they cleaned the room like they always do. We only know about that because that was the only odd thing she had found in his room when she cleaned it out. That’s why she remembered it.”

  “I’d love to have gotten my hands on those baggies,” Jin replied. “But with those new dead animals they found, I’m coming to Oakwood.”

  “I was hoping you would say that so I wouldn’t actually have to come out and ask you to,” Burke replied as he dropped what was left of his cigarette into an old coffee cup. It made a hissing sound as it dropped into the cold coffee in the bottom of the cup.

  “Maybe you can help me make sense out of all this crap,” Burke said as he spotted a familiar man struggling to keep an old, wide brimmed brown hat from blowing off his head. As Burke watched, Jack Whitefeather made his way across the ferry and got into his old, red 1950 Ford truck. Jack looked older than Burke remembered. Perhaps the island was taking its toll on the old Mi’kmaw man as well. Maybe Burke wasn’t the only one who couldn’t forget those gruesome murders, he thought as he watched Jack.

  “I’ll talk to Randolf about consulting you on all this,” Burke added. “I want it as an official thing, just in case we find something important. I don’t want them to dismiss what you find and this way, my name doesn’t have to be attached to it either.”

  “So I take it you’re still on sick leave then,” Jin sta
ted. “Are you sure you should be doing this?”

  “Just try and stop me,” Burke replied.

  “I’ll be there in a few days at the most.” Jin replied, thinking it wise not to argue with the stubborn off duty detective. The heart attack had turned Burke into a sour man with little to no patience. While Jin felt like some of the residents of Oakwood Island and that the sudden end to the gruesome murders was a good thing, the detective hated the fact that they remained unsolved. They ended the call after agreeing to meet as soon as Jin Hong set foot on Oakwood Island.

  Burke rolled down his window a little bit, adjusted his large glasses and lit another cigarette as he watched Jack with disdain. He wondered how much the mysterious old Mi’kmaw man really knew. What was he not telling the people of Oakwood Island about the events of five years ago?

  Jack sat in his old Ford truck, in complete stillness and peaceful quiet as he waited for the ferry to dock on Oakwood Island. In the distance, he watched the beacon of the small lighthouse which was located at the tip of the island. Jack Whitefeather’s occasional trips off the island had become more frequent since a cousin on the mainland’s First Nations reserve and community had been diagnosed with cancer. Jack would deliver him medicine he grew himself and recommended for the pain. But each time he left, the yearning to return to Oakwood Island grew stronger.

  As he waited for the ferry to dock, an old, black-feathered friend landed on the wet hood of his truck, the bird’s cawing sounds resonating against the metal of the vehicle. Jack’s brow furrowed under the rim of his hat as he spoke.

  “What’s the matter, you ol’ squawker?” Jack asked aloud, knowing full well the bird couldn’t hear his voice through the windshield with such strong winds.

  The crow seemed agitated as it cawed at him twice more and pecked at the hood of the truck. It cocked its head to the side as if questioning something. Jack had never seen his feathered friend exhibit such strange behavior.

  A momentary flash came over Jack as if he was blinded by a bright light. Sensing the crow was trying to tell him something, he locked eyes with the black bird and before he could meditate, the flash came again but this time it lingered, as if latching on. He had spent most of his life looking through the eyes of this crow, but it was always he who initiated the act and not the other way around. This struck Jack as strange.

  When the brightness dissipated, he saw himself sitting in the truck. He recognized right away that he was seeing through the eyes of the bird. He could see his tired eyes looking back at the crow as it cawed loudly. It was like looking in a mirror. A chill went through Jack’s spine and gooseflesh ran up his arms when he noticed the glow in the passenger seat of the truck. The bright glimmer cast a strange glow onto his own dark skin, shimmering like sunlight on a lake, it reflected on the side of his face. He could almost feel that shimmering light dancing on his own cheek. Moving his attention from his own self onto the source of the light, he noticed that it had a human form to it when the outline of an arm and a hand reached over to try and touch his cheek. This was a familiar human form, he sensed. After a few seconds passed, the shimmer died down and clarity washed over him at once. He reached out his hand towards the woman’s form, now clear to him, his voice cracking as he spoke to her.

  “Nukumi,” Jack uttered. A word spoken in a language he had almost forgotten while living among the white man for so long. Grandmother. While the spirit in the truck was of a much younger woman than he had known, he recalled the only picture he had of his grandmother at that age. In the sepia image, her dress was marred by a long scorch mark that started at the lower right bodice and ran up to her left shoulder. Jack had never learned where the strange burn had come from, or why his grandmother wore a dress with such a mark on it. She wore a non-traditional lace ribbon in her hair. This was the exact same image of the spirit with the flickering silver aura he saw sitting next to him in his truck.

  The crow cawed once more, awakening Jack from his trance, the reflected image of him and his grandmother’s spirit dissipated as fast as it had appeared. As the bird took flight, a horn blared from the car behind his truck as he realized the ferry had docked. He was holding up the other passengers from disembarking. His mind still foggy, he drove off the ferry and onto the island he loved. He pulled into a parking space near the wharf and looked up, watching his black feathered friend fly away into the distance, towards the lighthouse. He stepped out of the truck, standing by the open door as he watched the bird disappear behind the tree line near the rugged and rocky coastline. He couldn’t help but feel perplexed by what had just occurred. The bird had initiated sight. Something it had never done. Sure, it had goaded him into paying attention many times. It had done strange things to steer him in directions it thought Jack needed to go, but never had it showed him something using sight without Jack reaching out first.

  Jack removed his hat and peered inside his truck through the open door, wondering if the spirit of his grandmother was still there. He had never seen the spirit of his grandmother Sparrow Whitefeather until just now and there had to be a reason for her to have come from her resting place.

  For the first time in his life, Jack felt a nervous anxiety towards a spirit he saw through the crow. He had befriended the bird a long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that the crow should be long dead as they don’t normally live this long. Jack always assumed his link to the crow somehow added to its longevity. In a vain sort of way, he assumed that the bird would live as long as he was alive. This was a crazy notion, but he had no other explanation as to why this crow had lived so long. It was no ordinary crow, he had always known that. But now, for the first time, he found himself thinking about it, wondering if perhaps there was more to it than he had imagined.

  Chapter 4

  The Birth of a Curse

  Year: 1898

  The scorching sun had set over the small, dusty, one-room log cabin over an hour ago, and the baby still hadn’t come. The screams that echoed in the somber cabin had started in the early morning hours at sunrise. As the soon-to-be mother struggled with the pain, an omen of what was to come shattered the silence time and again with each contraction she endured. The baby was a month early. A Mi’kmaw woman, who often visited the island to trade her services as a medicine woman and seamstress, had offered to come help with the delivery in exchange for vegetables at harvest time. Although the crops were not doing well due to a severe lack of rain, she had kept her promise and still came around to help in any way she could, as often as possible. With the baby coming earlier than expected though, she hadn’t yet been there to offer the help with the delivery she had promised.

  When the contractions had come earlier that day, Henri had sent for the Mi’kmaw woman named Sparrow Whitefeather who was on a neighboring farm tending to an ailing elder. Someone had gone to fetch her, but the horse drawn cart had not yet returned with the young woman. It was taking much more time than it should. Time Martha Masterson didn’t feel she had at this point as she clutched her husband’s hand even harder as she struggled to stand. In the glow of a lantern, Henri Masterson felt his wife’s grip get stronger as she screamed again, struggling to take one more step.

  In perfect timing with Martha’s latest contraction, a woman named Bessie Chapman arrived at the cabin to help the couple. She told Henri that with three children of her own, she would be of assistance to deliver the baby. Henri had not argued. Without Sparrow Whitefeather there to deliver the baby, Henri knew he needed any help he could get. He ushered her in without hesitation.

  Martha braced herself on the table as another contraction began. She screamed in agony as the pain spread down throughout her abdomen and back, the mounting pressure of each contraction more unsupportable than the last one. It was more pain than she could have ever imagined. Her hands grabbed the edges of the rough planks, her skinny fingers grasping them so hard that her fingers whitened with the force. Letting go of the table with one hand, sh
e held her belly, cupping it with the length of her right hand and arm, holding it tight. She moaned as she exhaled a deep, slow breath out as the contraction relapsed temporarily. The room swayed around her. Exhausted and dehydrated, she began swaying to her left. Bessie caught her and pulled her up again and leaned her against the table. She knew she had to act fast.

  “Help her,” the strange woman said to Henri. Her wild eyes saw the pregnant woman’s needs with anticipation. It appeared she knew exactly what to say well in advance of when it was needed, where to go well before the steps were expected. She does know what she is doing, thought Henri, relieved.

  “Help her onto the table,” she snapped at Henri as she spread a thick wool blanket over the wooden planks. The long table was assembled from salvaged planks from an old boat. It sat in the center of the room where Martha would give birth to her first child. Henri didn’t dare ignore what she told him. Helping his pregnant wife, he draped one of her arms over his shoulders and helped her place her sweat soaked body on the table.

  With Henri’s help, Martha struggled onto the hard table and collapsed with exhaustion. Bessie placed a few pillows and blankets to support Martha’s back. She pulled up Martha into a semi-seated position.

  “Come,” Bessie urged. “The baby’s coming,” she stated while helping Martha into a birthing position. She pulled up the folds of Martha’s dress and pushed her legs apart. She heard a gasp coming from Henri who stood behind her.

  She turned, grasped a nearby wooden pail and handed it to Henri.

  “Fetch me some water from the well. Make haste!”

  Henri clutched clumsily at the bucket with a confused expression. He looked at his wife, spread out on the table as if seeking her approval for him to do as the woman had asked.

  His wife screamed from the pain from yet another contraction and paid no attention to Henri.