Hannah & the Spindle Whorl

by Carol Anne Shaw

  I take a couple of deep breaths. Just as I’ve decided to stop walking, the mists lift; enough so I can see that I’m right beside a familiar patch of salal. I see the markers left by Mr. Sullivan and the team, which means I’m only feet from the cave. Even though I’m still anxious, I also feel a pull, a need, to see it again. I argue for and against: it’s getting late; this area is now an official dig site; I’m not supposed to disturb anything; I promised Dad I wouldn’t go near the cave by myself; and blah, blah, blah … I leave the trail and plunge into the thick mass of salal.

  My heart is pounding as I reach the rock face. I drop to the ground and squeeze myself in through the cave opening, all in a matter of seconds. I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness ahead of me. I inch farther and farther into the damp stillness of the cave, leaving behind the only sliver of light coming from the cave opening. Ugh! It’s so dark and I can’t stop thinking about Max’s creepy skeleton guy.

  I inch forward, feeling my way along until I come to the place where I can stand up. Why did I do this? I feel like I’m having a heart attack or something — my pulse is racing and my forehead is beaded with sweat. What’s happening to me? What am I doing here, in the dark? I should just go home. But I can’t. My feet feel stuck to the ground and I can’t move my body. I feel frozen to the spot.

  Then I hear it again. Her voice! She’s calling me: “HAANNNAAAHH!” Now I know for sure — this is no raven. Fear takes over, and I shout into the darkness, “WHO ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME?

  Silence. And then the drumming starts. At first faint, then louder and louder. A steady, rhythmic beat that doesn’t seem to come from any one direction, but feels more like thunder — shaking the air around me. The eerie forlorn voice calls my name; the drums beat a steady boom, boom, boom; a howling wind whistles through the cave entrance, carrying the smell of … smoke! Like in the dream, only this time it really does burn my eyes. I think my chest is going to burst but, as hard as I try, I still can’t move! The cave is spinning, or maybe it’s me; all is chaos! I squeeze my eyes shut against the stinging wind and when I try to open them, I can’t. I can’t open my eyes! I can’t move! My mind screams: “What’s happening to me?” I’ve never been so afraid in my life.

  The drums are faster and louder now, and my body shakes with every beat. The swirling makes me sick and, just when I feel as though my heart is going to jump right out of my body — when I think my legs are going to buckle underneath me — everything stops and all is quiet.

  There is nothing but darkness, and the sound of breathing.

  13

  Tl’ulpalus

  THANK GOODNESS THE breathing inside the cave is my own. All else is quiet. I open my eyes — I can open my eyes — and when I rub them, my face feels cold and wet. Did I faint? I shiver and pull my hoodie tight around my body. Then it hits me: I can move again; but my head is foggy and I’ve lost all track of time. How long have I been in here? Suddenly, all I want to do is get out of this dark hole and go home. It’s gotten way too intense for me, too intense to handle alone. Enough is enough!

  Inching along, back to the opening of the cave, I am desperate to see the light. When I reach the rock face, there’s still no light. The light is gone. Which means the opening is gone. I sweep the flat of my hands back and forth across the rock surface, frantically searching near the ground, but it isn’t there. I try not to lose it altogether; I tell myself that I’m just confused by everything that’s happened. I need to relax and get my bearings. I force myself to breathe deeply and slowly, just like Aunt Maddie taught me, and search again. But it’s no good. The opening is gone.

  Don’t panic! Whatever you do, don’t panic. I know if I panic, I won’t get anywhere, so I slowly and carefully start inching my way along in the opposite direction, hoping desperately for a sliver of light, no matter how small. And just as I feel the hot prickle of a tear sliding down the side of my cheek, I see it. A shaft of watery light coming from around a bend.

  I’m too grateful to be cautious, and within seconds I see an opening. A different opening, but, at least, an opening. It’s a long narrow gap in the rock, and I have to stand sideways and suck in my stomach as much as I can in order to squeeze through it.

  While I’m relieved finally to be outside, in the light, breathing fresh air, I’m completely disoriented. Where am I? I recognize the woods, but where’s the trail? And why is it so quiet? I can’t hear any of the usual noise from the road that goes past the marina, only the sounds of the forest all around me. The trees are taller and wider, and the light is fighting to break through the thick green canopy overhead. Huge sword ferns and tangles of bramble vines surround me in all directions. I check my digital watch. It isn’t working. I tap it a couple of times with my fingernail, but it seems to be stuck at 4:11:26 p.m. That’s weird; it feels like morning. The light is pale and new, and I can hear shore birds in the distance now, calling over the sound of the ocean. How long was I in the cave? I walk around, testing a few steps, on legs stiff from being frozen in the same position for what felt like an eternity. When was that?

  I see a tangle of blackberry vines with ripe — and I mean ripe — blackberries, a few feet away. My stomach growls and I realize that I’m hungry, so I go over and stuff my mouth with berries. The juice is delicious and sweet and my fingers instantly stain a dark purple. Blackberries? I stop eating as it hits me. You don’t get blackberries in June. Blackberries are in August. I always go blackberry picking just before school starts up again. Whoa … just how long has my watch been stopped?

  I look around again to get my bearings. It usually only takes five more minutes to get from here to the road that crosses to Nell’s bakery. Somehow I know that isn’t the case anymore. There isn’t any trail, and I can’t see or hear any road. And if there isn’t any road, then there isn’t any bakery, which means there isn’t any Nell. If there isn’t any Nell, then — worst of all — there isn’t any Dad. There isn’t any … anybody!

  It takes a moment to sink in. But, if that’s true … it means I’m alone.

  “Uy’ skweyul.”

  I whirl around, adrenaline surging through my body. “What … who’s there?” I call out to no one in particular.

  Silence. And then I see her, a girl about my age. She’s standing only fifteen feet away from me. Her arms rest by her sides and she’s staring straight at me. Even though she looks scared, I recognize her immediately. It’s the girl in my dreams.

  “Who are you?” I ask, but she seems confused and doesn’t answer. Instead she looks nervously behind her and then steps to one side to peer behind me. I turn to look. There’s nothing there. Just tall, tall trees and a whole lot of quiet. I turn back to face her.

  “Your name?” I try again. “What’s your name?” I point to her and try to make my face look like I’m asking a question. I raise my eyebrows. She just keeps looking around, as if she’s expecting someone, or something. Sure enough, a big black raven appears and perches on a rock beside her. It’s my raven! I’d recognize him anywhere, even here. He cackles, a low raspy call, and the girl’s eyes light up. She nods, suddenly able to understand my question.

  “Yisella,” she says quickly, watching me nervously, and then turns back to the raven.

  “Yis … what?” I ask, hoping she’ll repeat it.

  “Yisella,” she says again, patting her chest, her eyes darting anxiously in all directions. Now what is she looking for?

  “Yisella,” I say slowly. She nods and then she points to me hurriedly. “Oh, right. I’m Hannah. My name is Hannah.”

  Yisella looks to the raven and he turns his head to one side and makes a funny soft trilling noise.

  “Okay. I thought so. Hannah,” she repeats.

  Yisella is thin. Too thin, I think. Her hair is straight and dark, hanging down her back. Her eyes are also dark, and deep set, and she wears a knee-length skirt made from some sort of shredded bark. It looks heavy and warm. A luminous turquoise and silver crescent of abalone shell
hangs from a thin leather cord around her neck. It shines against her brown skin. I recognize the pendant from my dream.

  She takes a few steps in my direction, her eyes fixed on mine the whole time. I want to ask her so many things! Where am I? Where is the traffic? Where is my family? Who is she? Why have I been dreaming about her? It is all so impossible, I can’t find the words.

  Without warning, a loud snap shakes me out of my mental fog. Before I even look in the direction of the sound, Yisella grabs my arm and yanks me sharply after her.

  “Come on!” She says — in perfect English.

  Soon we’re racing across the ground cover, around bushes, under cedar boughs. There’s no time to ask why we’re running or where we’re going or how this strange girl can now speak my language. Yisella doesn’t notice that I’m tripping and stumbling, or that my face is getting scratched by the blackberry bushes she’s dragging me through.

  “Hey!” I protest. If this is another dream, I want to wake up now.

  Then, just as suddenly as we began running, we stop, and Yisella lets go of my arm. As I massage my wrist, I’m thinking that this girl may be skinny, but she’s strong.

  “Why did you — ”I start.

  “Shhhhhh!” Yisella cuts me off, holding her hand up as if she’s halting a speeding train.

  So, I don’t say anything. I just stand there, my face stinging from the thorns and my feet soggy from the mud. I watch this strange girl turn slowly in a circle, her eyes fixed on the trees that surround us.

  “What are you looking for?” I whisper. When she doesn’t answer, I give up and look through the trees as well. And that’s when I see it. A tall shadowy figure stands about twenty feet away from us. It’s huge! It moves silently through the space between two fir trees and then retreats farther into the woods, until it disappears altogether.

  I gasp. Yisella slaps her hand over my mouth but I shake it away. “Did you see that? Was that a giant bear or what?”

  “No,” Yisella says, “not a bear.”

  “Then, what?”

  Whatever it was, Yisella is clearly relieved that it’s gone. She takes a big slow breath, and then she comes and stands in front of me and touches my shoulder.

  “Hwunitum.”

  “Hwuni-what?”

  “Hwunitum. White man,” she says.

  “White man? Wait a second. How can you speak English? How do you know all these words?”

  She smiles and points to the raven. He’s perched on the rock, his head turning from Yisella and then to me, as we speak. Is it true? Is he really the trickster, a messenger of magic? Strangely — but then everything here is strange — I’m not afraid. I feel as though I’ve been waiting to be in this very spot for a long time. In a funny sort of way, as if I’m meant to be here. How crazy does that sound? Maybe Aunt Maddie was right when she said I’m not eating right and should be taking more B vitamins.

  I stare back at this girl, at Yisella, and it’s nuts because I feel as though I know her. She’s so familiar to me. And then she looks at my mud-streaked orange hoodie and my backpack and my dumb black-and-white basketball sneakers, and raises her eyebrows. It’s pretty obvious that I am as foreign to her as she is to me.

  She turns to go, beckoning me to follow her. There is no trail, so we pick our way through the bracken fern and undergrowth — this time there’s no crazy running through the bushes. Walking along, I see that her feet are wrapped in what looks like cedar bark, and they are quick and quiet on the forest floor. I’m like some clumsy elephant behind her, the way the twigs snap and crack beneath my feet.

  “Yisella? Where are we going?” I ask, as she follows the raven who flies in front, just above her head.

  “Back to my village. I was only out here because of you, waiting for you to come. I had a feeling it might be today.”

  “You’ve been waiting for me? How do you even know me?”

  “I had so many dreams, and I could see your home. It sits on top of the water, right?” Yisella says this matter-of-factly, as though this is not unusual. I’m speechless. She looks at me, expecting me to say something. But my tongue feels tied up in a thousand knots, so I don’t say anything. I just stare at the coil of smoke I see rising above the trees behind her.

  “Come on,” she says, taking hold of my sleeve. “My village is really close now.”

  “Your village?

  “Tl’ulpalus. My village.”

  “Tl’ulpalus!” That’s the name of your village — Tl’ulpalus?” I get chills on the back of my neck. Tl’ulpalus is the name of the village that was near my home long ago. I remember Mr. Sullivan telling us, the day we were at the dig site, that it used to be “just a stone’s throw away” from my houseboat. Which means … this is Cowichan Bay! I’m starting to think that anything is possible now. In the blink of an eye, everything I ever believed about time and space has changed and I have so many questions.

  “Yes. Tl’ulpalus,” she replies, “our home. Soon we will cross the water one more time to trade and then return again.”

  I have no choice but to follow her.

  We step through the last stand of trees and arrive at the edge of Yisella’s village. I stop walking and just stand there and stare. It’s all so familiar, this Tl’ulpalus: the curve of the bay, the towering trees, the ocean birds circling above our heads. I see a row of large plank longhouses, each of them facing out to the bay, their doorways facing the ocean. Massive carved figures stand on either side of the entrances. A couple of the houses have gentle plumes of smoke coiling up through openings in different parts of the roofs, and you can hear an occasional snap or a pop from the firepits that burn inside. I remember the longhouse at the museum in Victoria — how I like to go inside and just sit, not really thinking about anything. This looks kind of the same, only the houses here are way more weather-beaten, kind of a sea-bleached grey.

  People are scattered throughout the village. Most, if not all, appear to be busy doing something. An older man squats nearby, carving large curls of bark from a big cedar log lying on the ground. He’s frowning slightly at the scraping tool in his hands — and he is naked! He sees Yisella and smiles, but when he sees me, his smile disappears. I smile anyway, even though I feel totally awkward.

  Most of the people in the village are wearing clothing, but a few of the older people are like this man: completely naked. The only other naked old people I’ve ever seen were on Hornby Island. I saw them playing badminton on a little beach last summer when Dad and I paddled past them in our kayak. To be honest, they kind of grossed me out.

  Several children race in and out of the houses, shouting and laughing, and running away from an older kid, about sixteen, who roars like a bear and chases them into the woods on the other side of the village. Their laughter echoes above the treetops for a long time.

  But it’s a woman seated outside one of the longhouses that holds my attention. She, too, is wearing a fringed skirt of shredded cedar bark, like Yisella’s, and she has a grey wool blanket with a red stripe draped around her shoulders. The blanket looks a lot like the one my dad has in the back of our Jeep. With long sweeping strokes, the woman combs through the hair of a young girl seated in front of her. The girl is playing with something in her lap. At first I think that it’s a doll or a toy but when it wriggles, I realize that it’s a small grey cat.

  The woman raises her head to scan the beach, and I see that her eyes are soft and kind. Her manner is gentle, somehow familiar. I feel my throat begin to tighten and my eyes begin to sting, just like they did when I saw Max’s mom brushing his sister’s hair while they sat outside on the front step. My heart is filled with emotion and my thoughts are flooded with memories.

  But I shake it off. The last thing I need right now is to be reminded of Mom. I need to be clearheaded and to stay grounded. I need to focus on the here and now, because there’s way more going on than I can understand and now I need to find out why.

  14

  Hannah’s Gift

&
nbsp; “YISELLA!” THE WOMAN stops combing the girl’s hair and looks straight at us. Yisella quits watching the little kids playing in the woods and turns to her. The woman motions for her to come, but Yisella just sighs and seems irritated. I’m pretty sure that this woman is her mother. I can tell Yisella doesn’t really want to go, but she does, and I dutifully follow, trying my best to ignore the wide-eyed stares from the villagers as we walk by. They’re looking at me as if I’m some kind of freak. Pointing at my hair and stuff. Okay … that’s kind of normal.

  The raven hops along beside us, his beady eyes watching our every move. I smile my best Walt-Disney-Perfect-Child smile, hoping it’s enough, and tentatively reach behind to the pocket of my backpack, feeling for my iPod. What would they think of this? What would Yisella think of the 3,047 songs that I have on it? Stuff by Feist, Nickelback, Beyoncé and the Black Eyed Peas? How do I explain downloading? The internet? Cell phones?

  My mind is awhirl again, but I quickly snap out of it when we reach Yisella’s mother. Now that we’re close, I see that the girl with the cat is a little older than Yisella, maybe fourteen? Like Yisella, she has the same inky black hair that reaches all the way down her back. Her eyes, too, are dark and clear, and she stares at me without blinking, which makes me feel totally awkward — that is, even more awkward than I was already. I smile at her and try to look cheerful.

  “Hi,” I chirp, trying to sound confident but my voice comes out way higher than usual, with a little catch in it.

  Yisella and her mother talk in hushed tones and, although they speak in a language that is completely unfamiliar to me, I hear my name in there a couple of times. What are they saying about me? That I just teleported through time? That I just dropped in from the year 2010 for a casual visit and a cup of tea? Yisella’s mother seems to relax a little; the tension in her face recedes, especially when Yisella points to the raven sitting on a post, just a little ways off. Yisella smiles and looks at me. “My mother wants you to know their names. She is Skeepla and my older sister is Nutsa. She’s the number one daughter. Nutsa means number one in our language and Yisella means number two. I’m the number two daughter.”