The Equinox

by M J Preston

  The warriors were ruthless in dispatching the woman.

  Time raced and slowed down as fever took hold on Chocktee and began to spread. There were screams, madness, murder, and Igasho’s warrior clan was saddled with killing the infected. Between each incident, Blackbird watched and listened as the landscape before him continued to morph into Grandfather’s calm narrative.

  “The Elder named Jackanoob listened to the shrieking accusations beyond the village in the Spirit Woods where the source of the madness resided in the blowing cold of the snow. They had awakened it. He was responsible.”

  Time shifted again. Darkness engulfed him.

  2

  The world slowly focused, the sounds of terror and mayhem gone, giving way to the solitude of spirit woods and a crackling fire. He was sitting on a log across from Jackanoob, happy to be away from the chaos of the longhouse. They were alone, the snow had stopped, but the biting cold still turned the old man’s breath to ice.

  He watched with fascination while Jackanoob spoke in the ancient Chocktee and realized that he could no longer understand the dialect. The village elder chanted as the liquid green glow in the sky above danced with the spirits of the dead. He was in a trance, calling to the spirits. That much Blackbird knew.

  Overhead the aurora began to swirl and descend from the sky down into the woods. At first, it fell like raindrops solidifying, then evaporated into a green mist just beyond the fire.

  He’s making contact.

  Blackbird reached across the fire and waved his hand, but the old man could not see him.

  Behind the Elder, the mist glowed brighter, became dense and began to flow from the woods toward them. White lights shifted, moved to and fro just below its surface as it came. The old man increased the cadence of his chant and the mist pulsed and rippled as glowing green liquid began to drip upward like water droplets in reverse. As they did a sphere began to form just above the haze. It hovered four feet above the snow and a pulse of light emanating from its center. At first, it was about the size of a softball, but as each drop flowed upward, the sphere’s volume tripled.

  Then behind it, another began to form, then there were two, then four, then six. As they grew they spread, forming a semi-circle around the old man and the fire, each humming at different pitches, like tuning forks.

  The fire itself became green, and Jackanoob’s face was saturated by the afterglow as he continued to chant and rock rhythmically. Simultaneously each orb settled in front of him and hummed explicitly in its own tone. Blackbird understood that they were conversing.

  “He is seeking their counsel,” Grandfather whispered.

  Blackbird was in awe. The old Indian could not see or hear him as he sat openly crying because he knew that the stories his Grandfather told of the Northern lights and how they held the souls of the dead were true.

  The sixth orb before Jackanoob shone brightly and hummed loudly. Its exterior liquid washed over it, reflecting the snow and woods, but Daniel could not see himself in its reflective glaze. Jackanoob chanted louder, and the humming grew with him.

  Together they counseled him on what to do about the madness.

  Blackbird wondered if the old man could see the orbs or if he only heard their voices.

  Each of the orbs began to grow brighter at once – then they dimmed and surrounded the old Indian and Blackbird. The green mist that clung low to the ground started to flicker electrically with light. As it did the orbs began to descend into the mist and melt away like so much gas.

  The humming faded and then they were gone. The old man was statuesque and comatose as the mist began to roll back into the woods, taking with it the flickering lights. Only embers remained of the fire.

  Still, Jackanoob sat motionless.

  “Old man. Wake up,” Blackbird said; though he knew the Elder could not hear him.

  Time shifted again.

  3

  There was daylight, and the old Indian trudged through the snow deeper into the woods. Blackbird walked at his side. The snow had stopped, the sky was clearing, but the breath of the old man gave no illusion the biting cold had relented.

  “Where are we going, old man?” There was no response. “Let me guess –”

  Daniel stopped mid-sentence. He heard a sound, a sound that he recognized, a sound that had terrified and changed the course of his own life.

  It was a high shriek.

  “I don’t think you want to go this way, old man,” he called after the village Elder.

  Jackanoob kept walking, his head hung low and determined.

  The old man muttered something in Chocktee. Blackbird did not recognize this word, but he understood that the Elder was calling the creature out, summoning it. It was becoming clear what he intended to do.

  In a blur the creature shot past him, sending up a flurry of snow. The Elder was no match for its speed or ferocity. Instead, he muttered that same beckoning call. The creature stopped suddenly, attached itself to a tree.

  This creature was similar to Skin. Its eyes were also bulbous and reflective, but it was larger – almost nine feet tall, in fact. On its hands were four talon-like fingers, and its feet stretched out nearly ten inches. Its mouth was riddled with shards of broken teeth that fell back row after row, and between those rapturous shards were black-grey gums that bled an ooze of infection and disease. Its body was long and lanky, its skin tattered with sores that spread over its starved ribcage.

  This was not a Skinwalker, but a wendigo brought on by the sins of the man.

  Clinging to its perch, it stared down on him hungrily.

  “What do you want of me, human?’ It snarled. A gob of black saliva dripped from its large incisors.

  The old Indian turned to look at the creature. Apparently, it did not like this as it shot past him, sending up another flurry of snow. This creature was much bigger and even more frightening than Skin.

  It let out a shriek.

  “I come with offerings,” the Elder said.

  “What could you possibly offer me?” It shot past him again, knocked him into the snow, and took hold on the same tree it had first faced him from. “Do not look at me or I will tear out your eyes and feed them to you!”

  The old man stared down into the snow and kept talking. “I am here to atone for the sins of my people.”

  “I’m listening,” the creature said.

  “We have angered the spirits of this land by feasting upon the flesh of our dead. It was I, Jackanoob, who allowed my people to do so. I am the oldest and most respected member of my people, and I offer myself as a sacrifice if you lift the madness that now plagues them.”

  The creature swooped down from the tree, and for the first time, Jackanoob was standing face to face with the aberration of his peoples’ sins. It towered over him, its hollow black sockets reflecting the sins of the Chocktee as they feasted on the dead.

  “It is an interesting proposition, but hardly penance for bringing me forth.” It let out another shriek. A thin runner of blood trickled from one of Jackanoob’s ears: the cry burst one of his eardrums. “It is not enough, old man.”

  “We are a people who recognize when night and day are equal, and on that day in spring and fall, we celebrate the renewal and harvest of the earth. In addition to myself, I offer you these two days of sacrifice and service.”

  “I could take you now and then tear your people apart for summoning me. If I take you in exchange, what lesson will they have learned? What burden will they have carried?”

  “I offer myself, and if you take me, you can set forth a curse on my people, that on those two days they will serve you. That the blood of animals will be left in the woods as a sacrifice.”

  The creature considered this, then: “I will take your offering, old man.”

  Then in a blur, it shot down, scooped him up with a single talon and pulled him
in close, like a mother cradling a child.

  “I will lift the sickness that plagues your people, and in return, you will give of yourself to me. In my world, you will serve me and on the two days a year when night are day are equal you’ll roam these woods and feed.”

  Its hollow sockets became windows showing a future in which the people of Chocktee gathered in the woods. “They will be your caretaker on these two days.”

  “Oh my God,” Blackbird muttered while the Elder named Jackanoob stared into the empty caverns and saw the ritual of the Equinox. He would be damning his people for generations to come.

  “You will change, old man. You will have no love. You will only hunger, and you will kill anyone to feed that hunger. Do you understand?” the creature asked.

  Jackanoob nodded.

  “I could kill them all now, and it will be done. They will die but once,” the creature offered.

  The Elder shook his head. Then, in one swift, razor motion, the creature slashed Jackanoob’s cheek open and spat black ick into the wound. The old Indian cried out. The wound began to glow blue – then sealed itself, becoming frostbitten and hard.

  “Oh my God,” Blackbird muttered again, realizing what he was really seeing.

  The creature shot a glance toward Blackbird as if it had heard him and shrieked.

  Jackanoob’s eyes flooded with mercury as the black ick pulsed through his veins infected him. He shuddered in pain, a moan of agony escaping him while it worked into his marrow. All of this happened in seconds.

  Then he began to come back.

  “It is done. You may return to your people and prepare them. On the first day of Spring Equinox, you will return to these woods, and the cycle will begin.”

  The giant creature set him down.

  It took a minute for the old man to come to his senses. He stared up at the wendigo understanding that it was different, more powerful and its kingdom not of this world.

  The Elder reached up and gently, tentatively touched his fingers to the place his wound had been. Blackbird could see on his face that he now realized the extent of his sacrifice to spare his people the madness and mayhem which had forsaken them.

  Jackanoob said nothing to the giant monster: he just turned and headed back for his village.

  “Old man!” it called after him. He turned and looked back, and it was like staring at a carbon copy of himself. “We are one now, Jackanoob. When the snow is gone, I will be waiting. If you try to stay amongst your people, the hunger will overtake you, and you will slaughter them all.”

  The old man nodded.

  He would keep his end of the bargain, although he had begun to think that death would have been a better alternative.

  “Prepare them,” it warned its voice and appearance a perfect mimic of the old man.

  Then it shrieked again.

  An orb, not unlike those Blackbird had seen earlier, coalesced in the air – but this was black, its haze blue, and Blackbird could feel the darkness coming off it in waves. The orb punched through the air, spread out, opening a portal. Around it, the trees froze solid and bark cracked and split.

  Jackanoob walked off. His head low, his heart drained, his soul damned.

  Blackbird started to follow the old man, but the forest trembled. As the world about him began to twist and distort he watched the old man walk back toward his village to prepare his people for the burden he had brought them.

  Time shifted again.

  4

  “Come to me, Daniel. The equinox has passed,” his grandfather beckoned.

  Blackbird was now watching himself in the Spirit Woods where this whole misadventure had begun. He had been sleeping; something had anesthetized him as he stood sentry in the ancient circle. This was his first involvement in the ritual since returning from college, and it was at his grandfather’s insistence that he take part.

  “Come now, sleepyhead. We will go back to your mother’s house for blackberry tea and some much-needed rest.”

  Grandfather was inside the ancient circle where the Skinwalker roamed.

  “You already know what is going to happen,” Blackbird the witness said, and he felt the hot sting of tears forming in his eyes.

  “What time is it, Grandfather?” Vision Daniel asked.

  “My watch had stopped,” Blackbird remembered. He started to cry.

  The old man smiled, lines etched deep into his once brown skin, now weathered and grey. “It’s time to go home. Come now; take my arm and help me; these old bones are brittle.”

  “Why must I watch this?” Blackbird cried, but he did not look away.

  “There is a lesson in this,” he heard again from inside his head.

  Vision Daniel stepped forward and into the ancient circle to support the old man. He was ready to go home and spend time with his mother.

  He had had enough rituals.

  “Daniel! No!” The Daniel in the vision spun. His grandfather cried, “Jackanoob!” and then spat something in Chocktee.

  Blackbird watched vision Daniel turn forward, back – and then the skinwalker was on him, knocking to the ground. He remembered its clutch was cold and breath stank of rotten meat, and from its lips dripped the black ick. For a moment it held him, and then it slit open his cheek, preparing to infect him with its curse.

  Grandfather moved quickly, yelling in the ancient language, raising his diamond willow stick. He swung it with all his might. It connected with the creatures head – and snapped. First, the creature scowled, then it shrieked, before dropping Daniel and turning its attention on the old man.

  They stood there, recognizing the other, exchanging words in the old language.

  Grandfather dropped the broken diamond willow stick he had carried for as long as Daniel had known him. He looked to his grandson and smiled. “I will see you in the next world, Young Daniel.”

  The beast pounced on the old man and tore his weathered skin apart like tissue paper. Then, with one final swipe, its hooked toe ripped out the man’s innards. In a millisecond the man, who Daniel Blackbird loved more than life itself, lay dead on the ground as the beast he called Jackanoob shot out of the ancient circle, free of the ritual which had held it captive for a century and a half.

  Blackbird watched himself running to the old man’s side as the lights of other Chocktee people began to close in. For a second the creature stopped to gobble down the old man’s insides and locked eyes with Daniel. It smiled at him, its mouth smeared with blood.

  Daniel sprang to give chase, and the creature darted off, scaling a large fir tree as the change began. It dropped its food and climbed, becoming a shadow in the night, contorting and changing into a giant raven. Then, the transformation complete, it shot upward into the darkness.

  Vision Daniel looked up into the night and screamed. “I pledge my life to hunting you! I will not stop: I will track you until there is no breath in my body! Do you hear me! Do you hear me!”

  Blood from the wound ran down his face, mixed with rain he didn’t even realize had started. He looked crazed, his long slick black hair in tatters, his eyes filled with hate and every muscle and tendon on his body pulled tight. His knees buckled, and he began to sob.

  “What have I done? Grandfather.”

  Blackbird could watch no more, having relived this night over and over enough in the waking world. Like the Daniel in his vision, he fell to his knees, overcome by the grief. He’d seen enough and broke into a fit of mournful sobs.

  “Please. Let me wake up. I don’t want to see this. Please,” he begged. “Take me from this place.”

  There was a long and lonely silence then, filled only with sounds of Daniel Blackbird’s despair. Time did not shift but faded, and with it, he hoped this would be the end. He no longer cared if this was a dream or a vision or if he had finally gone crazy. In real life, he had tortured himself ever
y night with this for fifteen years. He did not want to relive this again. He just wanted it to be over.

  But it wasn’t.

  And time shifted again.

  5

  There was a purring growl of something mechanical. Darkness gave way to grey, and suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder and smelled the sweetness of Grandfather’s skin splashed with Old Spice aftershave.

  “We have much to discuss, Young Daniel.” Grandfather removed his hand from his shoulder and smiled. “Come, let us palaver.”

  He almost fell over. They were in the Spirit Woods where he, Johnny and Grandfather had spent so much time. It was where the old man had counseled him on becoming a man, where he had heard so many stories.

  Is this real?

  In the center of a clearing, a fire burned brightly, and Grandfather took Daniel by the arm and led him toward it. The touch was reassuring, comforting.

  He was no longer a witness to this vision, but a participant.

  “That is the place, Young Daniel. We will go and make palaver and discuss what you will need to complete your quest.”

  “Is it really you?” Blackbird’s voice cracked.

  “Ah, Young Daniel, it is me, and you need to be strong. Follow me now, and we will have one last palaver.” The old man smiled, the moon lighting his eyes and creating an aura about him that bled only kindness.

  Blackbird walked to the fire with his grandfather and sat down across from him.

  Carefully placed on an old blanket were the old man’s things. A medicine bag, a long wooden pipe, a satchel of tobacco – but the diamond willow stick he had carried his whole life was not among these things.

  Daniel used to joke with his grandfather that the tobacco was really devil weed and in turn, the old man used to reply often with a wink, “I’ve used it to seduce many squaws, Young Daniel, but that is our secret.”

  “I have missed you so much, Grandfather,” Blackbird started.

  The old man picked up the long wooden pipe and raised a finger to his lips. “There are things I must tell you. Things that you must know so that your judgment is not clouded.” He was lighting his pipe, readying it for palaver.