by Ray Hudson
“Ever since the announcement,” I started, “Anna has been more and more like a stranger.”
“She’s busy,” he said. “She’s learning all those things that women are supposed to know.”
“Her basketry,” I said, remembering the last time I saw it, “is actually getting worse.”
“Maybe so,” he said.
“Whatever is happening to her,” I said, “goes deeper than I expected.”
“You’re both young,” he said. Saying that didn’t help a bit. “Things are complicated.”
Of course they were. That’s what I had just said. Then there was another one of those long pauses that happened whenever I talked with Ash.
“She’s been saying some pretty horrible things,” I said. She had. The last time I talked with her she had almost bitten my head off. “She said to ask you about the Kagamil people.”
“What about them?”
Anna had accused Ash of being responsible for just about everything that had caused them to disappear, or at least to dwindle down until there was just one old woman and her drunken brother. She had asked me to ask why he didn’t forgive them.
“Nothing,” I said. “She just thinks you’re being unfair.”
I heard him take a deep breath.
“Not me,” I quickly added.
“I can never forgive what they did to my sister,” he said. “They got what they deserved.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about exactly, and I didn’t want to know. I wasn’t about to get in the middle of an argument between him and Anna. Like he said, things were complicated.
“I saw a lemming a couple days ago,” I finally said, starting on a new subject, “and it was talking.”
“That sometimes happens,” he said. “I’ve known foxes that could speak, and sparrows.”
“I was pretty surprised,” I said. I had wondered if the talking animals had anything to do with Anna’s changing into a raven or whatever.
“Usually animals and birds talk only among themselves. When they have something we need to know, they tell us.”
“Maybe he didn’t have time to tell me what I needed to hear,” I said. “Summer-Face-Woman interrupted us.”
“You’re staying out of her way?”
“When I can,” I said, “which isn’t often.”
28. Anna
I thought about what Summer-Face-Woman had said. About Ash saying one thing and doing another. And what was he doing? Not much. Like Booker, not much at all. Here I was going through all these changes, and they were like spectators. Both of them could have done a lot more to help. I got attention from the Moon’s Sister and Summer-Face-Woman. They appreciated what I was experiencing. They were willing to help.
After eating supper by myself, I went down to the storage room filled with small bags sewed from gut and bird skin. I just wanted to look at them, to feel them, to again be amazed at how fine the stitches were and how the delicate design work just flowed naturally to fit the shape. Maybe add another one to my collection. I was about to leave when I heard the Sister-of-the-Moon out in the hall.
“It’s going to be a mad rush, but everything will be perfect,” she said.
I waited a few moments after I heard her and whoever she was with walk past. Then I peeked around the edge. The Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons held two bundles of tied grass. The Sister-of-the-Moon had an armful of towels. If Summer-Face-Woman carried something, I couldn’t see what it was. They passed several rooms before Summer-Face-Woman opened a door and steam escaped as they went inside. I crept down the hall and stood outside that door for a full minute or more. Then I carefully cracked it open. Their naked backsides were just disappearing behind a heavy grass mat and into a cloud of steam.
I slipped inside. Three piles of neatly folded clothes were on a stone bench. There was a wooden box beside them. Inside it was a bundle of rosy-colored feathers tied with a fine piece of braided grass. I left it there, although I really wanted to add it to my collection. I closed the lid and replaced it exactly where it had been. I considered joining them just to see their reaction, but this craving for secrecy took over and I scrunched down behind a tall stack of grass matting to wait. I think even Summer-Face-Woman had relaxed a bit after the steam bath because when she came out she answered the Woman-with-Six Sea-Lion-Sons who wanted to know how things were going with “that girl.”
“Not too well,” she said. That made me feel real good.
“She’s tough,” she said.
That made me feel even better. She appreciated me.
“The potion of compliance,” she said, “should do the trick.”
The what?
“You always were clever with herbs, Sister,” said the Moon’s Sister.
“But isn’t it,” interrupted the mother of the sea lion sons, “I mean, doesn’t it require her to drink it voluntarily?”
“It does,” said Summer-Face-Woman. “At the beginning it does, but once she has, she’s mine.”
I wasn’t about to be hers. I felt the hackles on my neck rise. Her what? No way was I going to be hers. I managed to stay hidden until they left, and then I walked out of the room without a glance around to see if anybody was watching. I could dang well take care of myself. I think that’s when I realized that I was on my own. I had to look out for myself. Nobody would help me. Not those three women, not Booker or Ash or my mother.
My mother? She had abandoned me years ago.
Good riddance.
For two days I drank only what I knew was safe. I avoided Summer-Face-Woman whenever I could, and when I couldn’t I pretended to be happy to see her even if I felt like a mouse being played with by a cat. She was kept busy bossing Booker around. He was pretty horrified when I told him about the potion of compliance. We were in Ash’s workshop where he was working on his mask. It was starting to resemble something like a head. There weren’t any eye sockets or nose or mouth, but it was definitely becoming something. Ash didn’t react at all to my news.
“Have you seen the potion?” Booker asked.
I hadn’t.
Ash removed a fine cord strung with two beads from around his neck. “Why don’t you take these,” he said. I turned the rough amber beads so they caught a little of the light.
“My uncle carved them,” he said. “He was a healer.”
I gave them back. “No thanks.”
“One is for strength; the other is for endurance.”
“No thanks.”
I didn’t need anything from him.
If I want them, I said to myself, I can get them on my own.
The Moon’s Sister was in my room early the next morning, adding another row to the intricate design along the bottom hem of the parka. She was really going overboard with preparations. I watched her fingers as she stitched away. Sometimes she used just a single thread and needle. At other times, she wrapped a second thread around the needle and secured it to the material with a stitch. While she worked away, I wove on my basket, and the morning wore away.
“Are you hungry?”
I looked up. Ash had arrived with freshly cooked salmon surrounded by berries and tender green stems of wild petruski.
I took a small piece of fish and nibbled at it. Summer-Face-Woman came into the room carrying a leather flask and a crystal goblet. She walked over to the sink. She held the goblet under a small stream of water that flowed continuously until it was almost full. Then she sat down beside me.
“Will you hold this?” she handed me the goblet.
I took it reluctantly even though it held only water. She unscrewed the cap on the flask and poured in a beautiful light-blue liquid.
The Moon’s Sister held up the parka. “Almost finished,” she said. It really was a splendid garment.
“Excellent work, Sister,” Summer-Face-Woman said as she took the goblet back and carried it to the wall where she placed it on a shelf. I saw that Ash kept his eyes on her.
“More fish?” he held the plate out to the M
oon’s Sister.
“Wonderful,” she said and took a large piece.
“Your sewing is unparalleled,” he said.
“Too kind! Too kind!” Then she added, “I love the dark iridescence of superior cormorant skins.”
Summer-Face-Woman walked over and stroked the parka. The dark feathers shimmered.
“We are all companions of the Dark Bird,” she said.
“Speak for yourself,” I replied as I helped myself to another piece of salmon.
“In time,” she said and lifted her hand from the feathers. “You will be in time, when this parka replaces your skin.”
I jerked violently, and a fish bone lodged in my throat. I coughed, but I couldn’t get my breath. Ash pounded my back. A cup was thrust in front of me.
“Drink!” somebody ordered.
I swallowed automatically. The bone slid away and my breathing returned to normal.
“That’s better,” Summer-Face-Woman said as she took back the goblet. She nodded for the Sister-of-the-Moon to hold up the parka again. “What do you think?” she asked.
“It’s magnificent,” I heard myself say. “Truly magnificent. Is it really mine?”
“But you’re still here,” Booker said when I went to his room the next morning. I had awakened with a start. But within seconds, it was like everything around me began to diminish. Like I was only half alive, like I could only focus on what was right in front of me. I stumbled into his cell.
“You seem normal enough.”
“It’s early,” I explained what had happened yesterday. “I haven’t had anything to eat or drink yet today.”
I held my hands out to him.
“But I will.”
The dark stains had reached my wrists.
“It’s like I’m losing myself, Booker,” I said. “It’s like I’m disappearing.”
29. Booker
Things soon got even worse. Three days later I delivered a packet of needles to the Moon’s Sister from the Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons. Anna was sitting there trying to weave what looked like little more than a snarl of grass.
“Is that the last you have?” the Sister-of-the-Moon asked as Summer-Face-Woman carried in her leather flask, filled, I suspected, with the potion.
“I can make more.”
“If you say so,” she replied. She looked at me. “It isn’t easy to make. It takes considerable skill and time.”
Summer-Face-Woman emptied the flask into the goblet.
The ground trembled slightly. Earthquakes had been growing in frequency. I tried to remember if quakes were a way that volcanoes had of releasing steam, but before I had decided, Summer-Face-Woman held the goblet out and said, “Haqada!”
You’ve got to be kidding, I said to myself. I wasn’t about to drink it.
“Give this to your friend.”
It’s really quite beautiful, I thought as I looked down into the heavy blue liquid with its peaceful silver strands. I swirled it in a slow circle. So this was the last of it? It rose like a gentle wave to the edge. I held the goblet tightly in both hands as I walked over to Anna. I increased the speed of rotation. The liquid circled faster and faster toward the rim, but not a drop fell over the edge.
I know a little about gravity and momentum.
It’s now or never, I said to myself as I shoved upward and instantly yanked the goblet down with all my strength. The liquid sprang out and burst into a shower of rain. I felt triumphant. Like oil on water, the droplets skidded over Anna. They slid across her lap and cascaded to the floor, perfectly round crystals with blue and silver light drifting through them. They bounced toward each other and strung themselves together. Anna snapped out of her trance with a smile of delight. She caught the string of beads and slipped it over her head. Her smile became immediately and horribly vacant.
What had just happened?
“That will hurry things along,” Summer-Face-Woman said with something even more like triumph. “She will have a constant infusion of the potion.”
I looked from the Moon’s Sister to Summer-Face-Woman in panic.
“It was necessary for Anna to take the first sip of the potion herself,” Summer-Face-woman said. “And it was necessary for someone other than me to create the beads.”
Then she turned to Anna and added, “You’ll thank him later, won’t you, my dear? Won’t you?”
But thanking me was just one of many things Anna couldn’t do even if she wanted to. She couldn’t even think straight. I learned that every morning Summer-Face-Woman removed a bead from the necklace and dissolved it in a pitcher of water to ensure that Anna got a strong dose to start the day. Even when we were by ourselves, I couldn’t have a conversation with her. Words just jutted out here and there like random spikes. For several days she had stayed away from Ash and me. Now she started showing up at his workshop at all times. It was like Summer-Face-Woman had her on an invisible leash and could yank her back if she got out of line.
I studied my mask. I had pegged in what would be a nose after I whittled it down a bit.
“I’m trying to remember what she said.”
“Who, Anna?”
“The Sister-of-the-Moon is always telling me, ‘Try sewing some gut. Try grinding this pigment. Try making thread from this sinew.’”
She did a perfect imitation of the Moon’s Sister’s voice. I was impressed, but I was also a tad worried: ravens were good at imitating voices.
“My mother said something that I’m trying to remember.”
“I’m going down to the kitchen,” Ash said. “Can I bring anything back for you, Anna?”
She didn’t look at him or answer. She shrugged her shoulders a little.
She jerked her head in the direction he had gone. She whispered, “Gram never wove baskets. Mom never wove baskets.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Whenever I got in trouble at school,” she said, “I’d stare at the photo of my mother that Gram kept on her dresser. I’d sit on her bed and stare at it.”
“Did you get in trouble a lot?” I guessed that getting into trouble had been pretty normal for her. Normal was what this conversation needed.
“There was something about failure that brought me back to her photo,” she said. “I got so I carried it inside of me. I could call it up whenever I needed it.”
“Is that what you do now?”
“Now it’s rings on her fingers and a perm in her hair. Weird, right?” she asked, looking up at me. “I think I’m missing her. I think I’ve always missed her. I’m trying to remember what she said.”
She stopped just like that and started twisting the grass in her hands.
“Old crows in his bones,” she said. Her conversation came in jagged spurts. I didn’t even try to follow it.
30. Booker
For somebody who never liked heights, I was getting pretty good at climbing the scaffolding. It reminded me of one of those pencil games where you connected dots with lines until you made a completely closed grid. Only this one had three-dimensions and was not particularly regular. I carried a branch up and had just started to secure it when a tremor, broad and deep, shook the room. I grabbed for anything within reach and watched the branch land inches from old hatchet-head. Summer-Face-Woman hurled it back up. I caught it and got to work lashing it into place. I saw her take a small bundle of reddish feathers out of a pocket. In an instant she was sucked away like dust into a vacuum cleaner.
Off to torment somebody else, I thought as she disappeared. I was now over two-thirds of the way to the top. I climbed up with a long pole and pushed against the hatch covering the opening on the roof. It moved enough to tell me that it was heavily overcast outside. It will be easy to slip away, I thought. While it is dark, while it is silent. I secured a few more branches, but the closer I got to completing the job, the less likely any escape seemed. Like the lemming said later, “Can zombies climb?”
“Anna,” I said after I had carried two plates of food into the works
hop that evening, “I have a plan.”
She was seated and held up her ragged weaving. We were by ourselves.
“Old crows in his bones,” she said.
“Anna,” I took hold of one of her hands to get her to look at me. “Try to concentrate.”
“Gram said there had been no spring at all,” she shook her hand loose. “Patches of snow were anchored in everybody’s yard. Old Lady Mrs. Melovidov went out one morning and found this boy. He had been sleeping outside and woke up stiff, ‘Old crows in his bones,’ she said.”
I gave up and started to eat. Maybe if she talked herself out, she’d come back to being somewhat normal and could listen. Although with Anna, normal didn’t necessarily mean listening.
“Mrs. Melovidov called her sister for tea. Those two women never ever got along, even if they were sisters. They were always bad-mouthing each other. But that’s what she did: she called her sister. Mrs. Melovidov gave the boy her husband’s sweater and a scarf. Her sister offered a pair of wool pants and a watch cap. They fed him toast and smoked silver salmon, warned him not to overdo it. They were afraid the cops might show up, and so, as my gram said, ‘Those old ladies wouldn’t bother anybody about him.’”
She finally stopped talking.
“Those magical feathers Summer-Face-Woman travels with,” I started to explain, “must be something like the bookmark. With the Volcano Woman gone—”
“That’s how she talked,” Anna began again. “‘Those old ladies wouldn’t bother anybody about him.’ I’d love to hear Gram say something like that again.”
“That’s very interesting,” I said, even though it wasn’t.
“A few days later the boy left. Maybe he got on a fishing boat. The valley up past the lake, where he had slept, unfolded with buttercups and cowslips opened like lanterns. The snow recoiled from Mrs. Melovidov’s yard and from her sister’s. Seeds sprouted wherever he had walked. People saw those two old ladies walking arm in arm, first time in ages, laughing and laughing.”