“Oh, come on! That’s not true! I’m not that bad!”
“Oh, yes, you are!” He put out his hand. “Come here, bro.”
I stepped up to him and gave him a gentle hug.
He pulled back with a grimace, shaking his arms and hands. “Sheesh, homie! What did you do? Fall in a pool of sweat?”
I matched his smirk. “Just marking my territory.”
“Now that’s just nasty.”
I grinned even harder as a weight lifted from my soul. This was the most normal conversation I had had with him since Jen’s collapse.
Before he left, he asked, “So, what’s with the basket of acorns?”
I told him.
He shook his head when I mentioned supercharged squirrels and bunnies. “Holy crap, Finn, get back out there!” He paused and then said, “On second thought, leave a few. A couple of giant man-eating squirrels might just convince my dad that I’m not crazy.”
We exchanged huge smiles.
One look at his condition and I had to add, “You really wobbled all the way over here on a broken leg, with a broken arm and one crutch?”
The swelling made his smile lopsided, but it was a smile. “Hey, bro, some things have to be said face-to-face.”
I watched Gregg limp away and thought about what he had said. He was right. We had to understand exactly what had happened and come up with a plan. We’d stumbled into a new world with new rules.
Footloose
After Gregg left, I headed up to my temporary bedroom to change into some drier clothes. Seeing the haphazard piles of my stuff still lumped into the guestroom (after the tree had fallen through my old room) felt like a metaphor for my life. Nearly everything was still there, but nothing was the same.
I grabbed a handful of clothes from the floor and found some that passed the sniff test. I put them on and gazed at the mess. It made me tired to think about, so I put off sorting through the chaos, and returned downstairs. I passed by the little home office my parents shared, said “Hi” to my mom, and headed to the family room.
I flopped on the couch and turned on the tube. We only had basic cable, so there weren’t many choices. The ‘80s film Valley Girl came up first. It was fluff and required no brain. Perfect for my mood, but, of course, watching a brainless film wasn’t that straightforward anymore.
This One, why do you laugh when they talk?
It’s just funny.
Why?
Well, uh… It just is.
… Is Hollywood a tree?
No, it’s a city.
Well, why don’t those kids like Hollywood…?
Look, Spring, if you want answers to all these questions, then find them yourself. You are using my brain, after all.
She paused and then chirped, I will!
Watching the rest of the movie was a strange experience, with every scene bringing a flurry of different memories and images to my mind. If the movie had been any less fluffy, I couldn’t have followed it. When it finished, I raided the kitchen and Spring talked.
So, I think Julie should have stayed with Tommy. He looks much stronger than Randy.
But she didn’t like Tommy. He was a jerk. He didn’t treat her very nicely.
Spring considered this. Well, why wasn’t Tommy nice to her? Since Julie was obviously desirable for breeding, wouldn’t he want to do everything he could to impregnate her?
Spring, life isn’t just about sex and making babies.
Yes, it is!
No, it’s also about food, and I’m hungry. Now shush.
I called from the refrigerator, “Hey, Mom, do you want a fried bologna sandwich for dinner?”
“No, I’m all right, Finn. Sorry I didn’t get anything out for us.”
“No problemo, Mamma Mia.”
I made myself a couple of fried bologna and cheese sandwiches. As usual, food was ambrosia to my newly enhanced hunger. I grabbed a two-pound bag of nacho Doritos, a two liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, and sank back into the couch to watch more meaningless drivel.
Next up, an old dancing movie fascinated Spring. I guess the idea of moving around would be kind of special if you had spent your life locked in a tree. After Footloose, we kept going. Sometime during my brain-draining marathon, my mom came in and kissed me goodnight. Long after the food was gone, normal sleepiness caught up with me.
Okay, Spring, time for bed.
But I want to watch more!
Well, I need to get some sleep. I’m going to be getting up early tomorrow to go visit my dad before he tries to eat someone else.
Okay, you sleep, I’ll watch.
Spring, I won’t be able to sleep while I’m watching TV.
Sure you will. Nighty night, This One!
A wave of sleepiness was the last thing I remembered before being awakened by my mom shouting at me.
“Finn, What are you doing?”
I blinked and tried to get my bearings. The music from Footloose pounded away on the television, and I stood in the middle of the family room, tired, sweating, and lost.
My mom hopped to the couch, grabbed the remote, and hit the mute, leaving a silence which echoed with the memory of the noise. Her face creased in concern. “Are you okay, Finn?”
I had a tough time putting any coherent thoughts together. “I, uh… yeah, I think so. I was…asleep?”
She gave me the evil eye. “Sleep-dancing?”
I shrugged, not knowing what else to say.
She turned off the television, and through the darkness, I heard the exhaustion in her voice. “Go to bed, Finn.”
I followed her up the stairs. Spring, what the hell was that?
I felt her cringe. Sorry.I just got carried away.
So, you can get up and move around while I’m asleep?
Yes, but I’m not terribly good at it, yet.
That last bit sounded ominous, but I couldn’t imagine what to say about that. Did you have to put the music on so loud?
No… but I really like it loud.
Her enthusiasm went a long way to calm my annoyance. Well, you can’t put it that loud when people are sleeping.
Okay. I want to go dancing. Can we go dancing?
Not tonight, Spring.
A memory of her batting her eyes at me hit me hard, and I felt how badly she wanted to go. Pllllleeeeeeeaaaaasssse?
No. Hey, when did you ever bat your eyes at me like that?
Just now.
It was going to take me some time to get used to this brain-on-brain thing. It would be hard to deny her anything if she kept it up.
She heard that. So, can we go dancing now?
No.
Oh, pooh. You’re no fun.
Nope, not at four o’clock in the morning.
She started radiating mischief. That’s not what I remember.
I recalled our passionate nights together. I miss you, Spring.
I know.
Good Friends
Back from my morning visit to the hospital, secure in the knowledge that Dad hadn’t snacked on anyone else, I sat at the kitchen table, trying to fight off sleep and depression. They were taking my dad out to the Shady Oaks Mental Hospital that afternoon, and my mom had sent me home so she could be alone with him.
Shady Oaks was the same place where they had taken Jen. Now two people I loved were going to be in the clutches of the evil Doctor…Eyeball? Stare? Gaze o’ Doom? Whatever. Anderson. I told Gregg we should try to game our problems, try to understand what was happening, but once again, found myself too tired and too overwhelmed to get any kind of handle on the problem. Spring had slept in all morning after her all-night movie-and-dance marathon, and I had just decided to follow her example when the doorbell rang.
I pushed myself up. When I opened the door, I faced three people who amply demonstrated the mutability of the human form. One was skinny, over six feet tall with a cloud of curly brown hair. The other two were average size, one a thick pale square with short shocking blond hair, and the other, slender with Me
diterranean skin, Roman nose, and straight black locks. They were three of my best friends, Alan, Dave, and Jeff, respectively. All three had smiles on their faces. Alan, towering over the other two, carried a hefty grocery bag, and Dave, the blond, had two large Frankies pizza boxes balanced in his hands.
Dave pushed his way into the house. “Surprise!”
I arched my eyebrows and stood aside. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Dave laughed. “Didn’t plan to.” He led the way back to the kitchen, trailing Alan, Jeff, and the mouthwatering aroma.
Jeff looked embarrassed as he walked by and nodded to me. “Hi, Finn.”
“Hey, Jeff.”
I closed the door and padded after them. “What are you guys doing here?”
Dave plopped the pizza boxes on the table and said, “We’re here to say welcome home, ply you with food and drink—”
Alan completed the sentence. “—And make you tell us all the sordid details of your story.”
“You are, huh?”
Dave beamed. “Yup, we know your secret weakness!”
I tried to look severe, even though my round face wasn’t built for it. “Do you really think that I would spill my guts for a measly pizza?”
Jeff unpacked the bag. “And nacho Doritos… Dr. Pepper… and for dessert, mint chocolate chip ice cream.”
“And not just any pizza…” Dave opened the top box and waved his upturned hand over it as if he were some game show bimbo. “No, Finn, this is a double cheese, double pepperoni, thick-crust pizza from the famous Frankies Pizzeria, filled with gooey, greasy, cheesy goodness. Frankies, the place with the goofy name where discerning people go to pig out.”
My friends knew me well. When it comes down to it, I am a man of simple pleasures. Dave and I pulled out glasses, ice, and plates while Alan and Jeff settled in at the kitchen table.
I sat down, and Dave poured me an ice-filled glass of the fizzy amber nectar.
“Where’s Gregg?” I asked.
“He’s visiting with his sister. He told us you’d fill us in on everything.”
My mom was not going to like it if I told these guys what happened, but Gregg was right. We had to get a handle on this and the three pairs of eyes watching me fed three keen and imaginative brains.
I let a deep breath out through my mouth, then grinned wickedly. “Let me warn you guys. Once I tell you what’s been going on, your world will never be the same. You can never go back to your old carefree life. Once you hear what I have to say, you will start down a path—”
“Hit him, Alan.” Dave rolled his eyes.
“I’m not going to hit him. Hit him, Jeff.”
“No way. You hit him, Dave.”
I lifted my hands in surrender and laughed. “Okay, okay. But really, prepare yourself for some weird-ass stuff. I mean really bat-shit crazy. This is stuff that I wouldn’t—”
Dave rolled his eyes again. “You’re killing me, Finn.”
“Calm down, Dave. Okay, remember when I came back from the mound with the bear whistle?”
Jeff bobbed his head. “Yeah, the one you wore on a string around your neck. What happened to it? I haven’t seen it for a while.”
“My Uncle Mark borrowed it to let some academic types check it out.”
“Oh, sure. You wouldn’t even let me touch it,” Alan said.
“Well, you’ll see why if you let me tell you about it.”
Alan, the only one who could eat more pizza than me, shrugged and grabbed a slice, trailing a long string of melty temptation across the table. “My lips are sealed.” He took a big bite with apparent contentment.
I sucked back the flood of saliva, then reached for a slice of my own, but Dave slapped my hand away. “No pizza till you spill your guts.”
I glared at him. “Okay, then you guys can’t have any either, and you have to shut up.”
Dave gave the contentedly-munching Alan the old fish-eye. Alan grimaced, but he put the half-finished slice down.
“Remember how I told you about the ghost I saw on the mound?” I waited for the wave of bobbling heads. “I think the ghost was real. It was the spirit of a warrior buried there to protect the mound and guard the remains of a giant monster they called Wendigota and its black heart.”
I held up my finger to stop the comments or questions. “That first trip to the mound, I came back with the bear totem the warrior wore. When I got home, the bear woke up a dryad that lived in my oak tree. Her name is Spring, and she started visiting me in my dreams.”
“I remember you telling us—”
Dave cut him off. “Shut up, Jeff.”
Jeff scowled at Dave, crossed his arms, and slumped in his chair.
“After that, I got jumped by Erik and his gang. They messed me up good, and when I stumbled home that night, I was half-blind, cut up, and bleeding. It felt like I had broken a couple of ribs, too. For some reason, I climbed up into my tree. After I collapsed, I had a dream, or a vision, of the fight to kill Wendigota, and I woke up mostly healed. Later, I figured out that it was Spring and the bear totem that healed me.”
Dave bit his lip in his effort not to comment.
“I didn’t remember that vision till we were at the mound again and we uncovered the spiked skull. When I saw it, I knew it was the skeleton of Wendigota, and I freaked.
“In my vision, we fought it. And damn, it was scary. You never get a feel for eight feet till you see a monster that tall looming over you. It looked like a cross between a leper, a troll, and a demon. It was hideously strong, covered in spikes and growths, and its skin was gray and ulcerous. You were all there, and you all had animal totems, whistles, that allowed you to call upon those animals for power.” I tapped my fingers on the table.
“Jeff, you were the shaman leading the fight. Gregg was Cougar, Alan was Rattlesnake, Dave was Eagle, and I was Bear. Dave was ripped in half, Gregg was crushed, Alan’s venom had some effect, but he kept getting smacked away. Between all of us, we were finally able to take it down and rip off its head.”
The sensation of its tendons ripping and vertebrae popping as I removed his head with one blow from my paw sent goose bumps along my arms. I could feel the triumphant invincibility that followed the monster’s gory, bouncing head.
I swallowed down the memory. “After that, Jeff died binding the spirit of the monster into its skull—”
“I was a shaman huh? That’s pretty—”
“Shut up, Jeff,” said Dave.
“You shut up, Dave.”
“Okay guys, ” I interrupted. “But, yeah, Jeff , you were the shaman. Before the fight, you told me to bury the heart of Wendigota with it. You said it was powerful, but the wrong hands could use it to free Wendigota’s black spirit and that it would attract other spirits. I didn’t really understand what you meant till I held it in my dream.
“In the end, I ripped out the monster’s heart and held it, still pulsing, in my hand. It was a glistening black, and it sang to me.” I paused and eyed the intent faces of my friends. “I almost kept it. Dropping it and watching it buried was the hardest thing I had ever done. Well, the hardest thing that the warrior giving me the vision ever did.”
I took a drink of my pop and eyed the pizza before pulling myself back to the story.
Jeff eyes twinkled. “Do you think maybe we are all reincarnations of those guys in your vision and we’re destined to fight Wendigota again?”
“Shut up, Jeff.”
“You shut up, Dave.”
I scowled. “What are you two, five-year-old sisters? Never mind. I don’t know about reincarnation or anything, but that day at the dig, I found the heart, and this time I kept it.”
I pulled the heart out from under my shirt and waved it at them.
Dave raised an eyebrow. “Uh, Finn, that’s a stick.”
I raised my eyebrows back. “Really? Gosh, I never would have guessed that. Shut up, Dave. Anyway, the minute I pulled this thing from the skeleton’s ribs, it sang to me again.”
Jeff said, “At first?”
“Yeah, now it’s keeping my dad and Spring alive. As you said in my dream, Jeff, it’s very powerful.”
“What’s wrong with your dad?” asked Alan.
I waved him off. I so didn’t want to go there. “Nothing, never mind.”
Dave raised one blond eyebrow. “So you’re telling me that the skeleton we dug up was this monster that took a shaman and four magic fighters to kill, and that stick, which has you enthralled, is its heart, and can free the monster? You expect us to believe this?”
“Shut up, Dave.” Jeff punched Dave in the arm.
“Ow!”
Jeff added to me, “But he does have a point.”
I grimaced. “Yup, goofy as it sounds, that seems to be about right. I think the spirit at the mound the first night was the bear warrior I saw in the dream. He wanted me to find the heart. That was why I kept digging in that one place for most of the day. I think the guardian spirit was tired and didn’t want to be responsible for it anymore. Especially after we desecrated the mound.”
I let them think about that, gave into temptation, and grabbed a slice of pizza before Dave could slap my hand away again. I bit into it, and the flavors of the spicy pepperoni, oily cheese, and tangy sauce exploded in my mouth. The crust was thick, crunchy on the bottom and chewy on the top. It was heaven and helped overcome the recurring guilt I felt over keeping the Heart. I took another couple of bites and sadly put the rest of the piece back down. A quick glance around the table showed me the doubt in my friends’ faces. They were trying to decide if I was dangerous—or just crazy.
“For some reason, the bear totem and the heart don’t get along, and I couldn’t keep them both, so when Mark asked to borrow the bear whistle for some academic types, it worked out. When I came home with the heart, Spring was able to physically leave her tree and visit me at night.”
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