Intervals of bright sun were giving way to an overcast sky. I was in no particular hurry to get back to Vancouver and the next building project I reasoned, was Steve’s responsibility. He could take care of the business for a while. Rose had a good head for numbers and could keep him focused while I took some much needed R&R. One chore that I needed to complete was to develop the film in my old camera; I’d hoped it had not been ruined during my escapades; an unpleasant thought especially when my digital worked as well, if not better. I would need my darkroom in Vancouver for that.
Just as I was ready to leave, a group of young schoolgirls strolled by in their uniforms, giggling and carefree as only young teens can be. One of them was a native girl, as pretty and vibrant as her youth could reflect. She impressed me, and I found my thoughts drifting back to Shawna and the predicament that had caused our meeting and intimacy. It was at that point that I knew there would be no way to go on with my life, in peace, without the knowledge of where she was and whether she would be safe. There was only one way in which that was going to happen, ‘I had to find her’! The possibilities may have been slim and hopefully, the clues were somewhere in Vincent’s papers. I needed to go back.
As I re-entered the drive and approached the picturesque oak door at June’s front stoop, Lilly growled and yapped from behind. In a friendly way, as if she already knew who was approaching the door from the other side, she whined and waited patiently. I had hardly dropped my hand from the knocker when June eased the door open slightly, to peek from the space.
“Brian, what a pleasant surprise! Come in. Come in.”
I gently closed the door behind me and gave her a grin.
“I decided to reconsider your offer, and would again like to spend some time looking over Vincent’s papers.”
She smiled back at me, and grabbed me by the arm, “Would you like a tea Brian?”
“Actually, June, if you don’t mind, I’d like to start right away.
“That would be fine,” she replied, leaving me at the door of the study and continuing down to the family room.
I entered the room and took a deep breath. ”Shawna, you are in here somewhere.”
Sitting behind the desk again, I started to review the reams of material that Vincent had compiled. As I looked around the room I began to realize the extent of the research involved. There were materials here from everywhere. The American North West; the American South West; from Northern Canada stretching all the way down to Central America and Peru, some were even labeled Europe. It would take weeks to glean all the material, and it was fruitless to assume I would find information that would point me in the direction of Shawna.
Tapping my nails on the desk, I began to hear a strange clicking noise that echoed the pattern I tapped. I tried to take no notice, but, as I continued to peruse the literary material, the clicking persisted and became noticeably louder and louder. In a small way it reminded me of the tremendous buzzing in my ears whenever I was to experience one of the vision episodes of the last week. I did not feel that was the case now, but it did start me thinking of the circumstances surrounding the bowl; my last memory of it, somewhere in the desert as the man with the jaguar ring interrogating me, was prying it open. At a loss as to know how to process the thought, I began to leaf through the files before me. A footnote in one of the papers in the Belmopan file referred to the jade bowl being of the same crystalline formation and color as the infamous Jade Skull that had been found in one of the temple ruins at Altun Ha, near Belize City. Could this be a clue to where Shawna and the elders of her tribe were taking the bowl?
The more intent I became on trying to resolve the riddle, the more unbearable the clicking noise became. Getting up from the desk, I scoured the study in search of its origin; lifting boxes filled with papers, behind pictures, under chairs but found nothing. It would start again, and then stop with no warning, then start once again. It was if the clicking’s intent was just to aggravate.
Giving up on finding it, I returned to the desk and to my studies trying to ignore the intrusion. A short and almost inaudible snicker teased the air as I prepared to continue. To my surprise, in the reflection of one of the glass-encased pictures adorning the huge desk was the image of a small shaggy, half-naked doll in a loincloth. Atop the shelving unit that covered the wall behind the desk, the nine-inch, masked figurine peered down like an overseer. Swiveling the chair around to the rear, I gazed up at the little doll, wondering at its prominence. The more I stared at the little guy, the more the notion that his conspicuous bandit mask covering his eyes was the same as I remembered of the mythical Kuwatsi, the orphan Makah boy.
As I sat and pondered the possibility, ghostly scenes, which I had forgotten of the strange little boy running through the woods as he followed us near Ossette; the theft of the bowl and bag, at the fire in the dream circle; the strange dream I’d had as I slept at Shawna's family’s cabin, of a little boys’ smiling face before me as I lay at the bottom of the inlet near Cape Flattery, they all haunted me. My vision of the Old man and the pillars of light ascending up into the sky before the totems in Stanley Park all pointed to a story yet to unfold. It was becoming more and more evident that all that happened, since that fateful day at the Museum of Archeology in Vancouver was for a reason. The great mystery was yet to be revealed, but where was it to end?
And now, several months later, sitting in the parking lot, overlooking English Bay, I was anticipating my travels down to Belize. It would be hot and steamy; but now was the time to go, before the rains set in. I had found that Shawna had worked at the Museum of Natural Sciences, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and had an ongoing relationship with a group of archeologists working throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. Finding her would be a chore, but with the leads I had acquired, I was more than confident that she would be found. The bowl, with its mystery, would be less obliging.
From the papers Vincent had left me, I was able to ascertain, that bowls of this nature, with similar hieroglyphs, were used in sacred ceremonies and were greatly sought-after by less than desirable members of the occult. Bent on re-establishing the greatness of the ancient Mesoamerica of thousands of years ago, these groups have searched far and wide, to recover the lost artifacts of these civilizations, hoping to rebuild their glorious past. Whether this old ideology has a place in our modern society is yet to be determined. With its cast system of social structure, and the unrelenting desire for bloodletting, I highly think not.
Pillars of the Moon Page 22