The Kanc

by Steven Porter

  Chapter 3

  Prissy poked the stiff squirrel with a pointed stick.

  "Yup, he's dead." She proclaimed

  "Are you sure?" Abby asked, stroking her chin.

  "Yup, I'm sure." Prissy nodded, with all the cocksure confidence of a seasoned coroner.

  "I don't want him to bite me." Abby crossed her arms and clutched her ribs, fearing the critter would burst back to life.

  "He won't bite you if he's dead."

  "Where did he come from?"

  "I don't know. He looks gray like all the squirrels back at my old house where I used to live in Connecticut."

  "How did he get here? We don't have any squirrels on Manisses."

  "I dunno. Maybe he came over on the ferry. And stop asking so many questions!"

  The two girls squatted over the unfortunate, dead animal in front of a great, large black boulder and continued probing, poking at it, and rolling it over. Its bushy tail fluttered like a flag in the stiff breeze. The girls had no way to know, that thousands of years earlier, a scared, lonely, young native girl named Wequai nursed her newborn son and sang to her gods on the very same spot.

  Prissy was a curious and precocious little girl, with short dark hair and small, round wire-rimmed glasses, shrewd well beyond her ripe old age of nine. She was undersized but athletic, and preferred being outside running around across the rocks on the beach behind her parents' house, chasing gulls and searching for pirate treasure, than inside playing with toys, watching television or even reading a book. Although Prissy had cast off many of the traditional baubles of a more typical modern girl, her constant companion was her ragdoll, Otto. Otto's hands were filthy and his fabric worn through, a victim of months of constant attention, and his blue, marble-like eyes had been re-sewn and re-glued many times by Prissy's mother, and were now well out of alignment. Otto was the only person in the world Prissy would consult when she was in trouble, had a question, or needed advice. Otto was considered neither a toy nor a friend, but instead he was Prissy's spiritual advisor, mentor, and guide -- a cotton and canvas blended Dalai Lama held together with a few bits of thread, yarn and a silver safety pin.

  Do you think we should bury him, Otto?" Prissy asked.

  Otto looked at Prissy and appeared to ponder the question, but as was often the case, he didn't respond.

  "I think we should have a séance." Abby suggested. "Then we can ask the squirrel to tell us why he is here."

  Abby was Prissy's neighbor, classmate and loyal friend, fair and feminine, always donned in the most stylish dress, never a blonde hair out of place, as one would expect from the daughter of such affluent, well-connected parents. Abby cherished all her material things, her salon appointments and the attention, but she reveled in Prissy's friendship, too, as she enjoyed living vicariously through Prissy's more eccentric activities and adventures. Abby knew she could often convince Prissy to try things she was too frightened, or unwilling, to try herself. In many ways, Prissy enjoyed the challenges and dash of hero worship, and though she had no interest in them for herself, she did enjoy listening to Abby brag on about her expensive new boots, the silver brooch her dad gave her, or the hours she spent in the island salon getting pedicures with her mom. Prissy and Abby, opposites in almost every way, held the same tribal instinct, were good friends and knew that they somehow needed each other.

  "OK, then. Let's have a séance. We can ask the squirrel what he thinks he is doing being dead here on our island!"

  To the casual passerby who might be eavesdropping on the girls' conversation, a request from one nine year-old to another for a séance might wrinkle an eyebrow. However, for Prissy, it was not at all unusual. In fact, it was a normal and integral part of her everyday existence.

  Prissy's father, Clement Bradford, was a professional spiritual medium. Just off the docks, across the street from Manisses' bustling ferry landing, Clement had opened a small practice where he could offer his clairvoyant services to the throngs of tourists who disembarked from one of six daily ferries sent overflowing with passengers eager to explore the island's rich splendor. Its convenience just over an hour from the mainland, made Manisses a perfect destination for summer day trippers, bike peddlers, hikers, and adventurers of all ages, including many who preferred to just sit in one of the countless upscale lounges, slurp raw oysters off the half shell, drink white wine, and enjoy the refreshing, cool summer breeze.

  It was here Clement Bradford decided to scrape out a living and support his family.

  Clement and his wife Jessica had moved to the island of Manisses just two years earlier after partaking in a weekend getaway themselves, and they fell in love with the never-ending, spectacular views and the friendly, no-nonsense Yankee islanders. It was a wholesome and beautiful place to raise their two smart and eccentric daughters -- sixteen year-old Lucretia and nine year-old Priscilla, Lucky and Prissy, who they worried about fiercely. Lucky had been performing poorly in school and had fallen in with a tough crowd of teens, making daily calls from the high school vice principal both dreaded and common place. Lucky had twice been escorted home in the back seat of a Hartford Police Department squad car, which had not gone unnoticed by her younger, observant and impressionable little sister.

  So Clement and Jessica left their practice and apartment in the Hartford, Connecticut suburbs, liquidated their meager life savings, rented a small storefront on Water Street, and purchased a dilapidated farmhouse that they couldn't afford on a far point of the island that featured a large but unusual stone outcropping, to raise their children in a healthy New England storybook atmosphere -- and talk to the dead.

  "Let's start." Prissy commanded. "Everyone hold hands."

  So the three of them -- Prissy, Abby and Otto -- sat cross-legged in a circle around the dead squirrel, and held hands.

  "Everybody close your eyes." Prissy commanded again, rocking the three of them side to side. Otto's grubby feet dragged back and forth in the sand on the ground, but he did not complain.

  "Oh mister squirrel... speak to us. We ask for the spirit of mister squirrel to come to us now, on this island of Manisses, and tell us why he is dead." The girls continued to rock side to side, and the squirrel remained quiet. A large white seagull circled overhead, its screech piercing. Abby opened her eyes and looked up, squinting into the bright, hazy blue sky.

  "If he poops on me, I'm going home."

  "Shut up and concentrate. We must have total concentration at all times or we will scare the spirit world away. You stay quiet, too, Otto."

  Otto remained stoic and obedient, and complied with Prissy's request. It was well within his nature to be supportive.

  "Prissy? I have a question. When the squirrel talks to us, what is he going to say? I mean... is he going to speak English, or is he going to talk squirrel? I don't know how to talk squirrel."

  "That's up to the spirit world. My dad says that sometimes, the spirits don't talk. They give you a sign, or a feeling. Sometimes, they communicate with a sound or a noise like a knock on the wall or a creak in the floor. And sometimes they will put a hand on your shoulder, or give you a hug, or even make you feel suddenly hot or cold."

  "That's creepy."

  "And sometimes, the spirit will call out your name or just put an idea right into your head out of nowhere so that even though you don't speak squirrel, the spirit squirrel will talk to you in your own brain."

  "But Prissy, I don't want the squirrel in my brain!"

  "You won't have a squirrel in your brain, you dummy! The squirrel's soul will talk to your soul inside your brain. Souls know how to talk to each other because they are both souls. Now be quiet, close your eyes and concentrate."

  Prissy, Abby and Otto sat in their vigil for several more minutes without uttering a sound. Around them, the sea breeze raked through the tall spartina grasses causing a pleasant, rhythmic hum, and the seagulls shrieked and chattered, flying in perfect circles overhead. The surf had been building all morning, indicating a summer storm
might be moving up the coast from the south, and the waves had become taller and crashed on shore with a bit more force and regularity than before, even showing off an occasional, fluttering white cap.

  A single, sturdy gust of wind blew by them sending sand, salt and a few loose leaves into Abby's face. Abby shrieked and scrunched up her cheek muscles to keep the flying debris out of her eyes and mouth, but some of it did stick in her beautiful, flowing golden hair.

  "Ewww!" She exclaimed. "I got dirt all over me!"

  "Maybe it's the squirrel talking to us." Abby suggested. Otto chose not to share an opinion. "Maybe he's telling us he blew in here from the mainland on a big hurricane!"

  "Why would the squirrel's soul throw dirt in my face? I don't want to do this anymore. I want to go home." Abby broke the circle and stood, brushing dirt and sand from her frilly new dress.

  "You can't go home until we bury him. We have to give him a proper Christian burial like they would do at church."

  Abby waited while Prissy jogged down to the beach, rooted around in the surf and returned with a large, empty quahog shell. She handed Otto off to Abby, dropped to her already dirty knees and began to dig a hole -- a much smaller hole than Wequai had dug for her hero warrior, but a burial pit sufficient for a squirrel none the less. And it didn't take Prissy long to finish. Using the stick she had been digging with to poke the little corpse, she flipped it into the hole and covered it up with the loose sandy, salty soil. The tip of its gray, fluffy tail protruded from the pile.

  "There, now. Let's say a prayer."

  The girls stood together, closed their eyes and bowed their heads, each praying for the lost soul of the anonymous squirrel, together, with a solemnity with which a pastor would have been proud. When the prayers were complete, Prissy took a deep breath and the girls turned toward town.

  Abby paused.

  "Prissy, wait. We forgot something. We need to make a cross to mark the grave. All the graves next to the church either have crosses, headstones, or both!"

  Prissy sighed, considered the request, nodded her agreement, and returned to the diminutive grave site. She retrieved her stick and scratched around in the earth beneath the great boulder until she found another to make the cross. Once she located the second suitable stick, Otto offered one of his shoelaces so she could lash the two sticks together. Abby took the cross from Prissy and planted it firmly into the ground, with a seriousness not expected of such a little girl, at the head of the squirrel's shallow grave.

  Neither girl would ever know that the sticks they used to create the squirrel's handmade cross were artifacts from the leg bones of a heroic, ancient native warrior.

  "That was a waste of time. Nothing interesting ever happens on this boring old island." Abby complained.

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