It was the first time Kaya had been to Josh’s place. The cabin consisted of one main room, which served as both living room and kitchen, a small front hall, and a couple of small bedrooms at the top of a narrow flight of stairs. The living space was sparsely furnished. There was a single well-worn couch and a small wooden table and four chairs next to the kitchen. A desk with a large computer monitor stood by the window overlooking the sea, and beside that a long, low bookshelf displayed a great quantity of books. Several large hardbound volumes lay open on the desk next to the computer, as well as a coffee mug and some dirty dishes.
Martin made hot chocolate for everyone, which they drank sitting around the kitchen table. Josh finished his, then leaned on his elbows and yawned widely. The doctor had given him some pain medication that was making him especially drowsy. Kaya, too, was practically asleep in her chair.
“OK you two. Off to bed,” said Martin, rising to clear the cups.
Josh shouldered his crutches and limped up the stairs to his bedroom, while his father found a sleeping bag in a cupboard and spread it out on the couch for Kaya.
Tike was uneasy. He paced restlessly back and forth in front of the glass door that opened from the living room onto a small deck overlooking the sea.
“He doesn’t like being indoors,” explained Kaya.
Martin found a cardboard box, placed a towel in the bottom and put it out on the deck. As soon as the door was open, the otter darted outside, lifting his nose to smell the salty sea air. He explored the deck, then sniffed the cardboard box with suspicion. After a moment, he seemed to decide it would do. With a whisk of his tail, he hopped inside the box, curled up and began to snore.
“A pet otter,” said Martin, chuckling as he closed the door. “I guess he stays outside at your place too. But – oh, I’m forgetting! What about your Grandmother?!” he said, turning anxiously to Kaya. “She must be worried sick about you. You better give her a call and let her know you’re all right.”
Kaya was already snuggled into the sleeping bag.
“Oh,” she muttered sleepily. “We don’t have a phone at home. I’m pretty sure she knows I’m OK. We have a…. way of communicating…”
Chapter 7: The Turning
The next morning Kaya returned Angela’s coat and retrieved the red canoe. Josh and Martin were with her and all three gave the police a detailed account of what had occurred the night before. Jim had walked over too, and told the police what he suspected about the theft of fishing gear from his store earlier that week.
Spencer had already gone that morning by police boat to the Mainland. He was charged not only with trafficking in endangered animal parts, but also assaulting Josh. If the police found Jim’s tackle box in the brothers’ hideout, Spencer would be charged with theft as well. He would likely end up spending at least some time in prison.
Kaya felt a pang of pity for Spencer. She wished there were some way he could be helped, some medicine she could apply to his soul to make him happier and kinder. But there was nothing she could do but imagine him, as Grandmother had taught her to do, surrounded by healing light. She held the image silently in her mind for a moment: his thin, scowling face bathed in a brilliant, shimmering radiance. Perhaps one day he would find peace.
When they had all finished giving their testimony, Kaya, Jim, and Martin carried the red canoe to the dock. Josh lumbered along behind on his crutches, with Tike beside him. They slid the canoe into the water. Then Kaya turned to hug the three others one by one.
“Time to head home, Tike,” she said to the otter, who had already hopped into the little boat and settled in his favorite place.
“Oh - but what about her cats?” Kaya asked suddenly, turning to Jim with an anxious look. “The cats that live with the Duchess? And Jeremiah the parrot? Who will look after them while she’s in the hospital?”
“Beth has already thought of that,” Jim replied. “She went over first thing this morning and fed them all. She said the cats seemed especially upset. They wouldn’t stop pacing by the door and meowing. Beth had this strange impulse to sit down and explain to them exactly what had happened to their mistress. So she did exactly that, and they stood quite still and listened to her. Beth said after that they quieted down right away, as if they could understand every word she said! Strange, eh?”
Jim laughed and shook his head. “But strange things seem to keep happening around here lately. Guess I’d better just get used to it.” He waved goodbye and turned back along the dock towards his store.
“We’d better get moving, Josh,” said Martin. “I want to get this boat back to George right away. He was so generous to lend it to me.”
Martin helped Josh hoist himself aboard, then climbed in after and started the engine. Kaya settled into the canoe and lifted her paddle.
“I won’t be able to go out in the rowboat for weeks, you know, Kaya. Not till I get this darn cast off,” Josh called out, looking across at Kaya with envy in his eyes. “You have to come to Campbell Harbour, OK? Like, often, or I’ll get so bored.”
Kaya grinned. “I promise I’ll come at least every other day, if I can.” She dipped her paddle and turned the canoe out to sea. “You’ll have to take up reading now that you’re an invalid!” she called teasingly over her shoulder. “I saw some pretty interesting books there on the shelf at your place.”
Josh grimaced. The speedboat pulled away from the dock and passed the red canoe. The two children waved at each other.
“See you!” Kaya called.
Soon she was paddling swiftly over the familiar waters of Campbell Harbour. The day was warm and the sea was glassy smooth. All traces of the storm were gone. It was as if the previous night had never happened, or had been only a dream.
Kaya hummed as she paddled. Tike joined in, his small voice a tuneless, cheerful wheezing, interrupted by occasional chirps and whistles. When Moon Cove came in sight Kaya let out a whoop of joy. There it was, safe and sound, and so beautiful. She could just make out the dense green walls of her tree house high in the Maple tree. And there was her driftwood hut and her fire pit on the beach.
Home! She felt a surge of gratitude that she belonged to this place, and that this place belonged to her.
Grandmother was there to greet her, and so was Kelpie. The four friends, eagle, seal, girl and otter sat together at the water’s edge and talked quietly about all the adventures of the previous week.
“The Summer Turning will take place in a few more days,” said Grandmother. “I think it is time, Kaya, that you took part. I had thought that you should wait one more winter. But you have proven yourself brave and wise beyond your years. I believe you are ready.”
Tike had never yet attended the Turning either.
“Can I go, too?” he asked eagerly. “I was brave just like Kaya.”
“You were indeed,” the eagle said. “Yes, you shall both attend the Turning. But in order to do so, you must prepare just like the rest of us. I will show you how.”
For the next three days, they readied themselves. They drank only water and ate very little. For hours each morning they sat at the Window and practiced the “stillness,” as Grandmother called it. Kaya felt her heart filling up with tranquility and silence and a deep waiting.
When at last the sun began to set on the evening of the Turning, Grandmother gave the signal. Kaya and Tike launched the canoe, breathless with excitement. The surface of the sea shimmered in the waning light, like the inside of a shell.
All the world seemed still and expectant. Even the breeze barely stirred the water. Kaya dipped her paddle eagerly, while the eagle flew ahead of them. Grandmother’s wings were dark against the luminous sky, but she flew slowly, so that Kaya could follow. It was the longest day of the year. The sun slipped below the horizon, sending its last ripples of red-gold light over the surface of the sea. Overhead, stars began to appear, and a moon, three-quarters full, rose like a brightening beacon over the distant mountains.
Kaya heard laughte
r nearby, or was it singing? She stopped paddling for a moment and swiveled around in her seat. But she could see nothing.
“Did you hear that, Tike?”
But before he could answer, the sea just ahead of the canoe seemed to burst open. The silver, arching bodies of twelve dolphins breached the water in unison.
“Greetings, little sister. We meet again!”
Kaya craned her head to see who had spoken. Then a brilliant light burst for a moment within her heart and she recognized the presence of the dolphin she had met earlier that week.
“Wait!” called Kaya impulsively. “Wait for us!”
“Follow!” called the voice, seeming farther away now. “Catch us if you can!”
Kaya paddled as hard as she could. The canoe began to speed through the water. It went so fast that the prow lifted right up out of the sea. Tike yelped with surprise and Kaya’s eyes widened with astonishment at the power of her strokes. When had she gotten so strong?! Faster and faster went the boat. Finally, Kaya slumped forward on her paddle, gasping for breath. But the boat didn’t stop!
“What - !”
Then the laughing voice sounded right beside her. She saw the shiny, dark eyes of the dolphin smiling at her from just beyond the stern of the boat.
“You were pushing us!” Kaya said, grinning. “And I thought I was so strong all of a sudden!”
“We would not have you late, little sister,” said the dolphin. “You are the guest of honour this night. You have restored the Omrith to us.”
“What about me?!” Tike frowned irritably over the side of the canoe. “I helped a lot!”
“Of course you did,” said Kaya soothingly. Then her eye was caught by something up ahead.
“Look!” she cried, pointing. “We’re almost there.”
The sky was growing dark. The surface of the sea was as smoky black as a raven’s wing. Kaya paddled steadily. The canoe left a pale wake of phosphorescence in the shadowy water, like a cascade of tiny stars. Up ahead floated what seemed to be a vast kelp bed. She strained her eyes against the dark. Where were the dolphins? And what was that strange humming sound that seemed to swell up out of the sea?
She paddled closer and saw that, instead of a tangle of seaweed, the water was filled with the heads of seals and otters, the fins of dolphins, and the bobbing, quivering forms of ducks and cormorants. More arrived as she watched, coming from every direction. Beneath the canoe she could see that the depths of the sea were crowded with fish, writhing and shimmering, all shapes and sizes. Overhead, birds wheeled, calling softly to one another: eagles, herons, kingfishers, ravens, and all the smaller birds that would normally be asleep in their nests at this time of night.
The fish did not flee from the birds or the seals. And the seals didn’t fear the great Orcas breaching nearby. According to an ancient agreement, the folk of the Salish Sea did not hunt one another on this night of the Turning.
Kaya stopped the canoe just at the edge of the gathering circle of sea folk.
“Kaya!” called a familiar voice. It was Kelpie. The seal’s glistening head disappeared, resurfacing a moment later next to the canoe. Kelpie’s beautiful dark eyes shone at the girl.
“The Turning is about to begin,” the seal said eagerly. “Don’t worry, Kaya. The Folk will look after you and keep you safe. Tike? Are you coming?”
“Go on,” said Kaya. She smiled at the solemn expression on the otter’s face, and gave him a little nudge. “You’re not scared, are you?” she said, teasing.
“Of course not!” growled the otter. He raised his head just a little to peer over the edge of the canoe at Kelpie. At the sight of so many hundreds of bodies crowding close, he shuddered and seemed for a moment as if he wanted to hide in the bottom of the boat.
“I wish you could come too,” he said quietly, looking longingly at the girl.
“I am not sea-folk like you, Tike,“ said Kaya gently. “I have to stay in the canoe. But you’ll be fine without me. Kelpie will look after you.”
“Oh, all right.” The otter gave himself a quick shake. Then, with a sudden leap, he was over the side of the boat and in the water.
“Don’t go home without me,” he called before turning to swim towards the heart of the throng.
Kelpie laughed merrily. “I’ll keep an eye on him. And I’ll see you soon, Kaya. How about a swim tomorrow in Moon Cove?”
“Sure!” said the girl.
Kelpie dipped beneath the sea and disappeared.
All around the canoe the water thickened as more newcomers arrived. Excitement shimmered in the air. Kaya was reminded of the charged, expectant feeling in the atmosphere before a big storm. The sky was now filled with so many wings she could barely see the glitter of the distant stars. The birds greeted one another with shrill cries that mingled with the calls of sea creatures below.
Just then Grandmother swooped low to whisper in Kaya’s ear.
“Listen. It begins,” said the old eagle softly. Then she lifted into the sky once more.
Kaya listened. The sound she had noticed earlier, faint and delicate below the chatter and the shrieking, was growing stronger and more resonant with each second. One by one the gathered creatures fell silent. Each face close to the canoe bore a look of intense concentration, as if all were listening entirely to the sound that was both within and outside of them.
It was the most beautiful sound Kaya had ever heard. Like the singing of a thousand voices in harmony, or the ringing of a thousand sweetly tuned bells. It rose and fell, up and down the scale from unimaginably deep tones, to notes so high the ear could barely follow them. And all the while, beneath the harmony, a steady but insistent pulse vibrated through the water, like the beating of a great heart far below the waves.
This was not the disturbing, urgent drumming she had heard that day on the little island. Now, the beat was deeply soothing, echoing the pulse of her own heartbeats. The singing and the pulsing grew ever louder as she waited and listened, until it seemed to encircle her, to be inside her and all around her at the same time.
The water began to move. Slowly, in a great clockwise circle, swam all the folk of the Salish Sea. Fish and otter, dolphin and whale thronged the waves, while birds wheeled in a slow spiral dance overhead.
The air vibrated all around her. Kaya felt her hair lifted and her cheek brushed as if by invisible fingers. The canoe began to move on its own, swept up in the vast whirling spiral. Faster and faster went the boat. The press of bodies was so thick on either side Kaya could barely see the water. She was being carried by the power of all those mighty fins and flippers. The singing grew still stronger.
Then Kaya saw the very centre of the circle begin to dip downwards, like the pointed end of a funnel. For a moment it seemed the canoe and all the swimmers would be sucked below the surface. But they were not sucked down. Instead, the sea itself began to part, pulling away on all sides to form a dark central opening, the mouth of a vertical tunnel leading to the depths far below.
Kaya watched the opening. She felt no fear. Instead, her heart overflowed with an extraordinary brightness. There was no longer any distance between her mind and every other mind present.
They were all there, inside her: Kelpie, Tike, Grandmother, the dolphin and all the other creatures. Like separate rays of light in a vast brilliance. The singing swelled and time spread and loosened, so that Kaya had no sense of the moments passing. The singing and the whirling sea seemed to have existed like this forever.
All that was, all that could ever be, was here, now, spiraling around her.
Kaya thought she would burst open for sheer happiness.
Then abruptly, a profound and utter stillness fell. The pulsing ceased. The swimmers seemed frozen, motionless, suspended in mid-whirl. A beam of light shot up through the opening in the sea, sending a column of radiance upwards towards the stars.
For a second the scene was thrown into total illumination. Thousands of living eyes reflected the light, thousands of shiny heads, d
ark fins and spread wings were thrown into high relief against the surrounding dark. Then, just as suddenly, the light was gone. The sea closed. The great spiral slowed to stillness.
It was over.
Kaya leaned forward in the canoe. All around her a great sigh rose, as thousands of creatures exhaled in unison. For a moment nothing stirred. A profound hush filled the air. It surrounded Kaya like a fragrance, like the echo of an exquisite melody.
She didn’t want the feeling to come to an end. She wished she could stay this way, adrift in her canoe in the midst of such extraordinary happiness, unchanging, forever.
But slowly, as if it grew from the air itself, a murmuring arose. Seals and fish, otters and dolphins were beginning to drift apart, to swim homeward. One by one, birds wheeled and left the sky overhead. No one spoke. Their eyes shone as they nodded farewell to one another but no one disturbed the hushed calm.
An eagle landed on the prow of Kaya’s canoe.
“Oh, Grandmother,” Kaya murmured. Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away.
The eagle ruffled her breast feathers and turned to gaze, smiling, at the girl.
“Yes. I know. The Turning is so beautiful, it’s hard not to feel sad that it comes to an end. But we’ll be here again next year,” she said softly. “And you’ll find that some of it - some of the happiness - comes home with you.”
They sat in silence a moment.
“You must be tired, dear one,” said Grandmother at last. “Perhaps it’s time to go. Ah, and here’s Tike.”
The otter’s head bobbed above the water, just beyond the prow of the canoe.
“Wow!” he sputtered. “I -” But he shook his head, at a loss for words.
Kaya smiled at him. “I know just how you feel! Hop in. Let’s go home.”
With a quick, agile movement, Tike was up and over the side of the boat. He stretched and yawned, then curled up at Kaya’s feet.
The eagle lifted off the prow, and winged slowly away over the moonlit water.
“Tike?” murmured Kaya, gazing at the dark silhouette of the distant mountains against the sky. But the little otter was already snoring.
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