The Book of Dreams
Page 16
“This place was given to me to make the dance. I have never mocked it. I rely upon it.”
Despite the calm of the Old Man’s voice and movements, Dana felt anxious. Tension crackled in the air around her, as if a storm were brewing. She sensed that what they were about to do was dangerous. But there was no question in her mind of turning back. This was her quest, on behalf of her people, and with great good fortune she had found allies in her cause.
Grandfather called on the spirits of the East, South, West, and North as he shook his rattle in the four directions. Rattling above his head, he called on the spirit of Father Sky. Tapping the rattle on the ground, he called on the spirit of Mother Earth.
Dana could feel the power that was gathering in the tent. Whispers and low murmurs shivered in the air. Invisible presences pressed against her. With every word the Old Man spoke, the feeling intensified.
“All creation flowed out of the mind of the Creator. Not only earth and fire, water and plants, animals and humans, but also the mysteries, those who inhabit the other worlds and those who can walk between the worlds, the spirit helpers, the demons, the dream-speakers, the wind-walkers.”
Now he crouched in front of Dana. His eyes were like an eagle’s, piercing her soul. His hand waved over the deerskin and the sacred objects upon it.
“This is the Medicine Wheel. This is the circle that is life.”
“Roth Mór an tSaoil,” Dana repeated softly, in Irish.
“The Great Wheel of Life.”
The Old Man looked pleased.
“You will journey well. Close your eyes, Sky-woman’s Daughter, and I will drum. Let the beat of the drum be the beat of your heart and the beat of your wings. Let it carry you where you need to go.”
For a moment Dana felt overwhelmed. Poised on the edge of the darkness, she was suddenly afraid. To bolster her resolve she concentrated on why she was here. Two questions rose in her mind. Where is the Book of Dreams? How can I find it? She didn’t speak the words out loud. Her trust in the Old Man was complete. Closing her eyes, she surrendered herself to the spirit of the journey. She knew she would go wherever she needed to go.
The beating of the drum began.
It was strong and steady, like a heartbeat, rapid like a wing beat. Great soft leathery blows reverberated against her eardrums. Softly pounding. Softly pummeling. Softly pulsing. The sounds beat against her skin as if she herself were the drum, thrumming and throbbing. She began to feel drowsy. Her head fell to her chest. There were more drums drumming now. And other sounds too. Wood crackling in a fire. Dogs barking. Wolves howling. Voices singing. Now she heard the high-pitched screech of a bird. Was it a hawk?
An eerie siren wailed overhead as a blast of wind struck the Lodge. The tent shuddered wildly. The poles creaked and snapped as they twisted out of shape. The moose hide flapped as if coming apart.
Though her eyes were still closed, Dana felt an immensity of space open up around her.
Another waft of sage and sweetgrass engulfed her.
Louder and louder came the voices, driven relentlessly by the beat of the drum. The clamor was explosive. The center couldn’t hold.
Oh-oh-oh-whi!
Was that the Old Man calling?
Yei! Yei! Yei! Yei!
She felt weak with terror. Everything seemed to be bursting its seams. She, too, was being pulled apart. Her eyes fluttered, as if to open.
“Do not fear the shaking of the tent.”
Grandfather’s voice came from far away. Dana’s heart leaped as she realized the truth.
Something wonderful was happening.
Her journey had begun.
Splash!
Dana gasped as the icy water struck her face. Those nearest to her laughed and continued to paddle. She was no longer in the dark Lodge. Opening her eyes, she found herself in a canoe, like the spirit boat, but much bigger and crowded with men and supplies. Her companions were burly men, dark-haired and bearded, dressed in buckskin with fur caps on their heads. Some were Native. All had the weathered skin of those who lived outdoors.
Coureurs de bois.
The words flew through Dana’s mind like birds, carrying with them the knowledge of what they signified.
Runners of the woods.
Explorers and adventurers, hunters and fur-traders, these were the intrepid men destined to become folk heroes in the passage of time. Traveling the mighty waterways of North America, from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, they crossed plain and woodland, mountain and prairie. They learned the languages of the Native peoples and adopted their ways to survive. Often they married and lived amongst the tribes. Oh, the fierceness of them! Full of life and vigor, voices raised in song, strong backs to the work, paddling in unison, they guided their canoes over the rush of the river.
Assis sur mon canot d’écorce
Assis à la fraîche du temps
Oui, je brave tous les rapides
Je ne crains pas les bouillons blancs!
Les canayens sont toujours là!
Eh! Eh! les canayens sont toujours là!
(Seated in my bark canoe
Seated in the coolness of the day
Yes, I brave the rapids
I do not fear the white foam!
The Canadiens are here, hurrah!
The Canadiens are here!)
The canoe bounded over the foam, plunging and rising on the crests of white water. Only skilled oarsmen could guide this frenzied movement to avoid the rocks that jutted out like knives. With their oars, they held the bark craft steady, reading the waves and the shapes of the currents and keeping in the best stream to ride the rapids. They were one with each other, one with the canoe, a live thing swifting downriver. Twisting and turning! Shooting round bends! Leaping like a salmon!
On both sides of the river crouched the jungle of black forest. The majestic trees soared to the sky. The air was so fresh and clean, it was like champagne. The aromatic resins of pine and balm of Gilead oiled the breeze. The leafy shadows rang with the cries of birds and animals: the melancholy call of the loon, the screech of the hawk, the roar of a black bear. A moose crashed through the trees. On the riverbank, the brown furry bodies of muskrat and beaver scurried busily. Like the air, the waters too were clear and clean, brimming with whitefish, maskinonge, trout, and bass.
Dana was utterly thrilled. It was all so real and vivid, so unlike any experience she had ever had. She, too, delved the water with mighty strokes. She, too, sang lustily in the raucous tongue of the voyageur canadien.
Je prends mon canot, je le lance
À travers des rapid’s, des bouillons blancs
Et là, à grands sauts, il avance
Je ne crains mêm’pas l’océan.
Les canayens sont toujours là!
Eh! Eh! les canayens sont toujours là!
(I take my canoe and I launch it,
Across the rapids and the white foam,
And then by great leaps it advances,
I am not afraid even of the ocean.
The Canadiens are here, hurrah!
The Canadiens are here!)
• • •
Caught up in the beauty of the scene and her work in the canoe, at first Dana didn’t recognize the man who paddled beside her. With a thick black beard and long hair tied back in a ponytail, he looked very handsome in his buckskin clothes.
“Jean!” she cried out in surprise.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” he shouted back, over the noise of the river and the others singing.
Apparently he didn’t know her, at least not as Dana. Perhaps this wasn’t Jean, but one of his ancestors? After all, she reflected, Jean was Québécois, of an old family from France. The blood of the coureurs de bois surely flowed in his veins. But was she in the past or traversing a dream landscape? Either way, with him beside her, she felt easier in this brave new world.
Vive la Canadienne!
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Et ses jolis yeux doux, doux, doux—
Et ses jolis yeux doux!
(Hurrah for the Canadian girl!
Fly, my heart, fly!
Hurrah for the Canadian girl!
And her gentle, gentle, gentle, sweet eyes.
And her gentle, sweet eyes!)
• • •
They moved swiftly through the vast wilderness. Where the river swirled around jutting rock and cedarcrowned islands, the shores seemed to tremble. Where the river widened, the waters rushed into ink-black pools. A cold steam rose above the rapids. Dana paddled blissfully. The solitude was so profound, she was shocked when an arrow landed with a thwock in the side of the canoe.
“Attention!” Jean shouted.
Dana didn’t duck fast enough. He pushed her down as a hatchet spun past. It sank into a tree on the far side of the river.
The others in the canoe were now shouting and cursing as they paddled faster. There was no question but that they were under attack. Dana looked around wildly. She heard the howl of a wolf. A gray streak ran through the trees on the shore.
Beside her Jean frowned, as if remembering something.
“Grand-père,” Dana whispered.
The other men were tense. Something strange was happening. Many blessed themselves with the Sign of the Cross.
“Que’est-ce que c’est que ça?” they asked each other.
“What is it?” Dana called to the wolf.
The wolf ran along the riverbank to meet up with someone. As the canoe caught up, Dana saw it was Grandfather. He looked younger, more vigorous. His hair was as black as the cloak of raven feathers that fell from his shoulders. He was gazing up at the sky. Now he raised his rattle and shook it like a fist. The jingling sounds rained over the forest. Behind it, like thunder, came the drums.
Following Grandfather’s gaze, Dana saw the clouds roiling in the upper atmosphere. An angry storm was brewing.
The Old Man’s voice boomed through her mind.
“Your enemy. I see his face. The hatred in his eyes is indescribable. This is personal. It is you he hates.”
“What do you mean?” Dana cried.
Yet something inside her understood. She remembered that first day of school when Crowley singled her out. She knew in an instant that his malice wasn’t new. That he already knew her. But how could that be?
Now the storm struck with full force. First the rain lashed down in sheets. Then the air chilled so that the rain turned to hailstones, hitting them like pellets sprayed from a gun. The river rose in spate. The canoe careened. The men needed every bit of skill and strength they had to keep the craft from capsizing.
Grandfather’s voice was urgent as he called to Dana.
“You must name your enemy! It will lessen his power!”
“But I … I don’t know him!” Dana yelled.
Even as she searched the dark sky for any sign of Crowley, she searched her mind for any hint or clue that could answer the question: who was her enemy?
There was more movement on shore. A young man stepped out of the trees, a bare-chested warrior with hide leggings and breechcloth. His hair was tied back in a braid, his skin oiled and painted. As she recognized Roy, Dana saw how like his grandfather he was. He fitted an arrow to his bow and aimed at the sky. With a war cry, he released it. The arrow flew into the clouds and burst into flame.
The storm retreated.
“Name your enemy,” Grandfather insisted again. “You know him.”
The river grew calm. The voyageurs quieted down but were still uneasy. Dana understood that Roy had bought her some time. Yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t grasp what she needed to know.
The drums were beating faster. Or was it her heart pounding?
She let out a cry.
No longer in the canoe with the coureurs de bois, she was airborne in the spirit boat. High above the ground, she was flying like an arrow into the heart of the storm. Below was the rushing torrent of river, above was the tempest.
Kneeling amidships, Dana was the only human aboard and the only one paddling. Behind her, astern, was the gray wolf that was grand-père; ahead, in the bow was the black. He turned around to look at her. His golden gaze was somber.
“Jean,” she whispered, and her heart lifted.
He turned back to stare ahead into the storm.
Dana felt strengthened by the presence of the wolves as well as the two others who had joined them. The great black ravens perched on the gunwales on either side of her. She wasn’t alone as she flew into the darkness to face her enemy.
The attack was sudden and horrific. On the winds of the storm came the most terrifying creatures, screeching and chattering like nightmarish gulls. They appeared to be human skeletons with some organs still intact—the tongues, windpipes, and lungs that allowed them to scream. Their voices were dreadful to hear. Swooping down like vultures, they rushed at the canoe. Dana felt faint. Each time they dove near, it took all her willpower not to jump overboard.
One of the ravens cawed at Dana, then lighted on her shoulder. A familiar voice sounded in her ear as Grandfather spoke.
“They are hungry ghosts. Bag o’ Bones we call them. They live in the clouds. In the fall, when the wild geese leave and the winds and the snows come, you can hear them in the treetops as they chatter and cry. From the northwest they come, out of the lands of Hudson Bay. To the southeast they go, deep into Labrador. Your enemy has called them. Darkness will go to darkness.”
The great raven spread his wings and flew into the sky. The other raven that was Roy followed after. With sharp beaks they pecked at the skeletons, with talons they clawed them, and with strong wings they beat them back. The screeches of the creatures were deafening. The ravens cawed. Black feathers fluttered, white bones rattled.
Dana fought back her horror as she realized what was happening. Once again, Grandfather and Roy were buying her time. She had work to do. She must name her enemy.
“I know the name he goes by,” she thought wildly. “It’s Crowley.”
But she already suspected that the name had been stolen, along with the life of the man who owned it. So this was a new name on an old evil to cloak the truth.
Now the storm clouds parted like a black veil above her. Over the beat of the drums came the sound that Dana had come to dread, even as the metallic smell soured the air. The buzzing noise drilled through her brain. All ability to reason or reflect was lost. Panic choked her.
“Be of good courage,” came Grandfather’s voice. “When all is lost, grab hold of the truth.”
And suddenly she understood. Here, be it dream or other world, nothing could hide. She was about to see her enemy as he really was.
The ragged shape took form in the air, a greenish, writhing mist. Inside the clammy mass wavered Crowley’s tortured features. Then another human face flickered briefly. A slash of red streaked through the green. Shocked, Dana recognized her enemy from the time she had quested in the Irish mountains: the monster who killed her wolfguardian!
“I know who you are!” she cried out, though every part of her reeled with the knowledge. “You’re the shadow of the Destroyer!”
The green cloud exploded, sending out shock waves of air and water.
The spirit canoe was thrown into a tailspin. Capsized in midair, Dana was flung out.
She was falling
falling
into the country far below.
Free of the waspish noise, she could feel her mind expanding with the view.
A great river wound across the land like a cold white serpent scaled with ice. Dehcho. All around the river, the land slept beneath a blanket of snow, frozen muskeg laced with small lakes. The ground bristled with dark fir. As far as the eye could see was a vast terrain of ice, snow, frost, and cold.
• • •
Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver.
(My country is not a country, it’s winter.)
Her free fall was slow and oneiric. A dream of flying, not falling. Slowly she grew aware of a pattern in the flow of ice on the water. Was it deliberate? The ice seemed to speak in the way it moved. Now she sensed the same message in the creep of moss over frost-shattered stone. What could it mean? Who was speaking to her? Something moved in the east. She strained to see it. Like a line of spilled ink it came trailing through the snow. La Foule. The Throng. The mass migration of the caribou, a flowing river of the wild reindeer’s run. They too seemed to say something in the way they ran, their grand movement a cipher inscribed on the earth.
Here was a script far older than any mankind had invented. The secret language of the land. This was the heart of the message in her journey. If only she could read it! What was it telling her?
Now she was falling into a dark rug of land pitted with lakes. She recognized the forest where she and Jean had landed in the spirit boat. The treetops quivered with Bag o’ Bones like ragged crows. When they came flying at her, screeching and chattering, she fell right through them. She could see the clearing where the Medicine Lodge stood. It looked so tiny, like an anthill in life’s forest. She looked for Jean and Roy, but she was falling too fast. Everything was a blur.
With a thump, she landed inside her own body, back in the tent, beside the Medicine Wheel where Grandfather was drumming. Was the journey over? Her heart sank. She had named her enemy but she hadn’t found what she was looking for.
The drum was still beating. She took encouragement from that.
“I won’t leave the wheel till I find the answer!”
As she sent her cry out into the universe, she opened her eyes to gaze on the Medicine Wheel. The deerskin, which she now realized was caribou, bore markings she hadn’t noticed before. She was surprised to see the chevrons and spirals. They were the same designs carved on the ancient stones of Ireland and the portals of Faerie.
Grandfather’s drum was sounding a new beat. Low and chthonic it came from deep in the earth, from the heart’s core. Stronger magic was being made.