Hannah & the Spindle Whorl

by Carol Anne Shaw

  Behind me is the grizzly bear, his huge claws made to look as though he is ripping apart a rotted stump in search of grubs. Each claw must be about four inches long. I hope I never get the chance to meet claws like those up close for real! There’s also an elk standing among the maple saplings. He’s almost twice as high as I am.

  I’ve seen elk before, not too far from Cowichan Bay, up behind Shawnigan Lake. They’re usually tagged because they’re Roosevelt Elk, protected on Vancouver Island; it’s illegal to hunt them, but sometimes people do it anyway. Not far from the elk there’s this little red Douglas squirrel, like the one that chattered at me so angrily on the trail before I found the spindle whorl. It looks like he’s running down the trunk of a big cedar, and his tail is sticking straight up like a sail.

  7

  Mr. Sullivan

  “COME ON, GUYS, time to go,” my dad whispers from the red velvet rope in front of the white-tailed deer exhibit.

  We follow him out to the escalators and ride down to the foyer. The offices for the museum staff are in an adjoining building. Mr. Sullivan’s door is open, but Dad still knocks before sticking his head in. Mr. Sullivan is sitting by a huge stack of books; he has a big beard and wears small round glasses. He’s dressed in a turquoise T-shirt with a picture of a big Komodo dragon climbing up one side of it, faded jeans, and some seriously worn hiking sandals on his feet. All around his office are posters and photographs of dig sites, ancient tools, fossils, and artifacts and stuff. On the window ledge sits a sculpture of a South American native pan flute player and there’s also a bunch of woven baskets on another shelf across the room.

  “Ah, the Anderson clan!” Mr. Sullivan says as he gets up to shake our hands. “Glad you could make it. It’s great to meet you.”

  His hand is warm and big and on his finger he has a silver ring with a bear carved into it. He sees me staring at it.

  “Like it?” he asks me.

  I nod.

  “Tlingit. From the southern Yukon, up north,” he tells me.

  “Tling … I could never pronounce that,” I tell him, and he laughs as we all sit down. Mr. Sullivan looks really excited, and keeps smoothing out his jeans over his knees.

  “Well, let’s have a look at what you’ve got there,” he says, drumming his fingers rapidly on his desk. I reach into my backpack, pull out the green towel and carefully unwrap the spindle whorl. When I place it into his hands, he holds it without saying anything. Mr. Sullivan looks more serious now, as if he’s looking up a really difficult word in the dictionary. Pulling a magnifying glass out of his desk drawer, he holds it up to the whorl, right in front of his nose. It takes forever before he says anything, and I try not to squirm in my chair.

  “Well, Miss Anderson, what you’ve found here is something that many archaeologists could search for over their whole careers.”

  “Were we right?” I ask. “Is it a spindle whorl?”

  “It certainly is. And you were also correct about it being Coast Salish.”

  “How old do you think it might be?” Dad asks Mr. Sullivan.

  “Well, I can’t tell you that right off the bat, but I would say that it could be close to one hundred and fifty years old.”

  “That’s so cool!” Max says. “When can you tell us for sure?”

  “Not until we’ve done further analysis,” he says.

  “Radiocarbon dating?” I ask, secretly pleased that I have a chance to use the term, even though I don’t really know what it means.

  “No,” Mr. Sullivan explains. “Not this time. We only use that method on things that are much older.”

  “Just what is radiocarbon dating, anyway?” I can’t help asking. I want to know. It just seems amazing to be able to find out that something you stumble on might be thousands of years old.

  Mr. Sullivan explains, “Well … here’s a simplified version. Scientists have been using this method for about sixty years. Radiocarbon dating measures the amount of carbon-14 in a fossil or artifact. Carbon-14 occurs naturally in particles in the atmosphere. As plants and animals use the air, their tissues absorb some of the carbon-14. After they die, they no longer absorb the carbon-14 and their tissues begin to decay. So, measuring the amount of carbon-14 left in a fossil tells us its age. The results are fairly accurate.”

  Max and I look at each other. I notice that one of his eyebrows is raised. He does that a lot, I’ve discovered.

  “So is it true that there have been people living on Vancouver Island for, like a gazillion years?” I ask Mr. Sullivan, who is leaning forward over his desk and staring intently at the carved images on the face of the whorl.

  “Well, human occupation of the east coast of the island goes back several thousand years,” he tells us. “Archaeologists have found evidence of shell middens, what you might call mounds, as well as stone tools which prove that there have been people here for a long time.”

  “And radiocarbon dating was used to find out the age of that stuff?” Max asks, his eyes glued on a big stuffed owl that’s sitting on the end of a bookshelf. I notice that it has the same kind of out-of-focus marble eyes as the cougar in the museum.

  “That’s right,” Mr. Sullivan says.

  “So were the first people here on the island spinning and knitting wool hundreds of years ago? Where’d they get the sheep?” I ask.

  “Not sheep. Dogs,” says Mr. Sullivan.

  “Dogs?” I think of Quincy, Nell’s dog, who is wiry, smelly and oily, and is constantly scratching himself. I can’t imagine knitting a sweater out of his hair. I mean … I like dogs, and I like Quincy, but … gross!

  “Not regular dogs. Little woolly white dogs. The Salish kept them specifically for their coats and sheared them like sheep. They’re not around anymore; they became extinct long ago.”

  “And they knit sweaters from that dog hair?” I ask, wrinkling up my nose.

  “Mmmm … it was weaving back then. On looms. The knitting didn’t start until settlers showed them how,” Mr. Sullivan says.

  “The Cowichan sweaters!” I exclaim. Aunt Maddie has one, a gift from when she was at university.

  “Yes. The Coast Salish were — are — great weavers, so it’s only natural that they would take to knitting as well.”

  Max looks at me and grins. I know what I’m doing for my BC history report.

  8

  An Afternoon Downtown

  WE STAY FOR ANOTHER half an hour, and I leave the whorl with Mr. Sullivan at the museum. It’s an important find, and I wouldn’t feel right keeping it all to myself. Discovering it was exciting enough. And what’s just as exciting is that Mr. Sullivan and some other museum people want me to take them to the cave on Tuesday so they can do their own exploring. I ask if Max and I can come and hang out with them, and Mr. Sullivan insists that we be a part of the whole adventure. I can’t wait. What makes it even better is that Max and I get to miss a whole day of school when we go.

  We leave the museum and Dad suggests that Max and I grab a bite from Market Square and then hang out in Chinatown while he goes to meet with Ian.

  “I’ll only be fifteen minutes or so,” he assures us. But I know that he’ll be at least an hour. The only person who talks more than Dad is Ian, his editor. I remind him of this, so we agree to meet in one hour by the stone lions at the entrance to Chinatown, on Fisgard Street.

  Max and I head to Market Square, following the smells that drift over from Howie’s Bagels. His bagels aren’t as good as Nell’s but, because we’re starving, we order three: one each and one to split between us. We sit out on the top stair in the courtyard and watch a couple of little kids chasing a bunch of pigeons around in circles. There’s a tall woman playing a familiar song on a twelve-stringed guitar outside the bookstore. She has a puppy tied to the railing beside her, and his ears flop over when he cocks his head to one side. It’s like he’s really listening to every word of the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song she’s singing: “Teach Your Children” — one of my dad’s favourite songs.<
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  “Do you think there’s more stuff in that cave?” Max asks suddenly.

  “Well, I don’t think there’s that much room in there. I wonder why the whorl was in there anyway. It seems like kind of a weird place for it to be, you know?”

  “Maybe there’s a skeleton in there as well,” Max says eagerly.

  “Oh gross, Miller.”

  “Why? That’d be way cool.”

  “I was crawling around in there, that’s why! I can think of better things to find in the dark than some old skull.”

  “You just don’t have any sense of adventure,” he kids.

  “You’re definitely twisted,” I kid back.

  We finish our bagels and cross the road to Fisgard Street, the start of Victoria’s Chinatown. We both want to go into the famous never-ending store — a narrow shop full of twists and turns and strange and interesting angles. But not before we check out the grocery store with the pigs hanging in the front window.

  “Now that’s gross!” Max says to me.

  At least we agree on one thing.

  We spend about half an hour in the never-ending store. I buy a hinged wooden snake … I never get tired of them, even though I’m twelve. Max buys a deep blue silk wallet, the one with the peacock embroidered on the front. It’s for his mom, for her birthday.

  There are so many cool things in this place — you can easily spend two hours looking around and still not see everything. But we only have twenty minutes left so it isn’t long before we’re walking back up Fisgard Street to the concrete lions where we’re supposed to meet Dad. Of course, he isn’t there yet, but I’m surprised we only have to wait ten minutes before we see him loping up the street. From this distance, I notice that his jeans are too short. Flood pants. He’s also mostly looking up at the sky. My dad’s like that. Most people look straight ahead, or at the ground when they walk, but Dad looks up all the time. He says you miss a lot if you always have your eyes fixed on every step. Well, he might see more stuff than the rest of us, but he also has more accidents. One time he walked straight into a telephone pole and had a black eye for two weeks.

  “Hi, Dad!” I call to him. “How was Ian?”

  Dad doesn’t say anything, just grumbles under his breath, muttering something about integrity and not selling out. I’m not quite sure what happened at Ian’s office, but I’m pretty sure that Dad thinks Ian is wrong and he’s right.

  “You guys finished in Chinatown? Spend all your allowance, kiddo?” he asks me.

  “Wait till Christmas and see,” I tease him.

  Dad wants to stroll up Fort Street and snoop in some old bookstores along Antique Row. His favourite bookstore is the one that smells like old cigars and wilting geraniums. Max is cool with that, especially when I tell him the owner’s name is Arthur McNish and he’s about two hundred years old. He usually offers me one of the partially unwrapped caramels he carries in his pocket. I’m pretty sure they’ve been in his pocket for at least twenty years because they’re kind of sticky and covered with lint. I always take one, but I never eat it.

  He never remembers my name, either. He calls me “Hilary” or “Helen,” or some other “H” name. I used to correct him every time, but he always forgets, so now I don’t bother. I figure that’s okay. Anyone who has lived for two hundred years should be allowed to forget stuff like somebody’s name. He sure knows his authors though. He’s read almost every book ever written on the planet, and always has a copy of some strange unknown title that Dad is hankering after.

  Dad tells me that Mr. McNish used to teach English at a fancy university, and that he’s got millions of dollars and two castles in northern Scotland, but he chooses to live in a seedy apartment over a drycleaner. I think that’s pretty cool. He’s also worn the same black Oxford shoes for eleven years. I bet he keeps all his money hidden in old cookie tins or under his mattress. I know this because I heard him say once how he hated bankers. He called them crooks. Dad says Mr. McNish has been writing a book about the history of his family, Clan McNish, for most of his life. It must be a pretty big book. Or a pretty big family.

  While he and Dad talk about Scottish clans, Max and I explore the back of the store. No one can see us there so first we draw stupid faces in the dust on the shelves next to the fishbowl. In the history section, I find a book about Coast Salish culture. There’s a picture on the front cover of a woman weaving a basket. Her hair is long and black and she’s wearing a cape that looks like it’s woven from the same grass as the basket she’s weaving. I open the cover and a small spider runs out across my hand and disappears between two leather-bound books about railways. The book isn’t in very good shape but it only costs three dollars. I check in my wallet and decide that it might be a good buy for my school report. Maybe it will even have something about spindle whorls too.

  I hand Mr. McNish my money, and he puts my book in a brown paper bag with a grease stain on the front of it.

  “There you are, Holly,” he says, handing me the bag and my change. I smile and Dad winks at me. Max isn’t even listening. He’s got his face stuck in a book about graveyards and haunted houses.

  “Thanks, Mr. McNish,” I say, scratching the fat cat sleeping by the cash register. The cat opens one eye and mews faintly. I’m pretty sure it must be nearly as old as Mr. McNish.

  After Dad buys three books, we head out onto Fort Street and back in the direction of the Jeep. I have to yank on Dad’s arm halfway down the street to keep him from walking into a garbage can. He’s too busy looking up at the crows watching us from the roof of the hobby store. Typical.

  On the way home, Dad and Max talk about engines and houseboats, and the best way to eat crab. When Max says to my dad that he loves crabbing, Dad tells him he can catch a lot of them right off the Cow Bay docks. I let them do all the talking. I’m too busy thinking about Tuesday, when we’re meeting Mr. Sullivan at the cave site, and wondering how I’m going to get through tomorrow and Monday. It’s going to be the longest two days of my life.

  Monday, June 15, 2010

  Dear Diary:

  Okay, now this is kinda creepy. More weird dreams about the woods again. Three nights in a row – with the drumming and the staring out to the ocean and stuff, only this time it was like I was watching someone else. Not me, but this strange girl, about the same age as me. On Saturday night, I dreamed I was kind of hiding in the trees, and I see this girl scurrying along through the underbrush. She keeps stopping to look through the trees, out to the sea and … it’s like she’s worried. She has something in her hands, but I can’t tell what it is. And this big black raven, the same one as before, is flying above her head, just ahead of her. Is she following it, or is it following her?

  I call out to her, to see if she’s okay, but she can’t hear or see me. It’s like I’m invisible. I sort of follow her as she heads for this clearing beyond the trees. I feel like I know these woods, but somehow they’re different. Darker, quieter, more still. Then, just before she gets to the clearing, I wake up. And, it’s the same as last time: I can remember every single detail, like the sound of the quiet – if that makes any sense. So who is this girl? I can still see her face, and her black hair – the way it hangs down her back.

  Then last night, after spending the day with Dad, scraping old paint off the deck, I had another one. This one was sharper and clearer than any dream I’ve had before. It’s almost as though this dream picked up where the other one left off. It goes like this: I follow the girl into the clearing. I recognize it immediately, the shape of the beach and the stretch of mudflats where the tide has gone out. It’s Cowichan Bay. But there’s a village there. A Native village. Right near the beach. There aren’t any boats in the marina. There’s no marina. But I know that’s where I am. I follow the girl to one of the village houses. It’s made of planks. There are two poles outside the door, painted with dull red and black paint.

  The girl goes inside, and over to a woman who is lying under some blankets at one end of the house. I can
see that the woman is ill. There are beads of sweat on her forehead and she’s talking very quietly to the girl, in some language I’ve never heard before. The girl keeps twisting this beautiful turquoise and silver shell which shimmers like a rainbow on a cord around her neck.

  A fire burns in the corner in a shallow pit on the dirt floor, and I see another girl, maybe a year or two older than me. She has a bowl of something beside her. Another older woman sits to one side of the sick woman. Her eyes are closed and it’s like she’s chanting to herself. She makes these strange gestures with her hands, and she picks up a cedar bough and sweeps at the air over and around the sick woman. And even though they don’t know I’m in the room, watching, I don’t move. I don’t make a sound. I barely breathe. But I feel so sad inside, because somehow I know that the sick woman is the girl’s mother. And I know that she is dying.

  9

  Adrenaline

  I MANAGE TO GET through Monday, which is pretty boring, except for when Sabrina Webber gets into trouble for writing something mean on Gemma Taylor’s locker, and has to go see the principal. When she comes back into the classroom, she isn’t smiling, but Gemma sure is. Other than that, it’s pretty uneventful.

  During last period, Mrs. Elford gives up trying to teach us about conjunctions and pronouns. Instead, we watch a DVD about the endangered marmots of Vancouver Island. She tries hard all day to keep everyone in line, but most of us are just too excited. Summer holidays are almost here.

  “Dad,” I say, just before I climb up the stairs to the loft on Monday evening.

  “Mmmm?” he half answers. He’s got a pencil stuck over his ear and there’s an open bag of sour cream and onion potato chips on the paperwork in front of him.