by P. Z. Walker
"On top of the mountain it's nice," Josy pointed out, "but it's a hell of a climb in the buff. Too many sharp and pointy rocks." She pointed at an ugly scar on her hip. "Souvenir." Sheila thought it best to skip that part of the tour. Then the unspoken, ugly truth hung between them; the fact that they were stranded here.
Sheila put an arm around Josy's skinny shoulders. "At least we're together, right?"
Josy let out a sigh. "Yeah. That helps a bit. Gary will curse you too now."
"Or replace me as well," Sheila shrugged.
"Replace? He replaced me?" Josy sat up and stared at Sheila in wonder. "How does he dare!" Then she sighed again. "Of course he did. Since I'm not there."
"I keep hoping that my guide will find me. He found you too."
"He did? Wow. He'd better hurry then."
Now it was Sheila's turn to sigh. "Time for them is different than for us. Hurrying for him might mean a week for us, or more. Or less. That's what I hope anyway."
"Thanks for cheering me up." Josy grinned. "It's not your fault, I know. It's cool to have you here, someone to talk to and to be with. Although that talk in the head thing was pretty cool too."
"Wasn't it?" Sheila grinned. "That had me scared at first!"
"Me too! Imagine someone talking to you all of a sudden, after weeks of nothing, and that without seeing anyone. I thought I was finally cracking up."
Sheila explained how she had heard Acaraho the first time and how that had spooked her tremendously as well. Josy seemed interested in all that spirit guide stuff, so Sheila had something to talk about. Josy was all the more impressed as she heard that Sheila was a quarter Crow Indian. "Wow, that's cool. The first blond Indian I know," she laughed, messing up Sheila's hair.
They passed the rest of the day talking about every subject they could think of. Josy showed Sheila a few nice places she had found, and by the end of the day Sheila had seen most of Josy's realm. After the evening meal, which wasn't much different from the others, they lay on the rocks that were still warm from the sun.
"So this is where you've lived since you fell through that strange whatever?" Sheila asked, not sure if that was a smart question.
"Yeah. Not much, is it? That's part of why I was going bonkers. It's a lot of space here, but most of it's the same thing all over everywhere you go, except for the river and the waterfalls."
"And your birds."
"Oh, right, I'll show you the big birds tomorrow, they're wild!" Josy sat up. "I hope they're there. They're not always there, no idea where they go then." As she talked a while longer about her birds it became more and more clear that Josy's world had been scarily limited. She'd never linger on such a subject for that long in their own world.
As the sun started to disappear, Josy got up. "We should go inside."
"Why? It's still early."
"Okay, suit yourself, but I'm going in. Don't hit your head when you come - and don't wait too long, Sheila."
As Josy walked off, Sheila wondered if there was something scary here after all, something that Josy hadn't talked about. It would be strange though, as the night before she hadn't mentioned anything either. But they had been in the cave already then. She was determined to sit outside until it was dark and then go inside.
As darkness enveloped everything, Sheila discovered her mistake. It was dark in a way she had never experienced before. She held her hand in front of her eyes but that made no difference. The only thing that was lit were the millions of stars in the sky, but even their combined light left Sheila sitting in the dark. And then fear gripped her. She couldn't see the entrance to the cave!
"Josy? Where are you?"
"I'm inside here. I warned you." Josy's voice sounded further away than Sheila had expected. "It's safe out there, don't worry. Try to sleep, okay?"
"I'll try," Sheila said, but when the silence mixed with the darkness, she shivered even though it wasn't cold. There she was, outside, naked and alone. She now understood exactly how Josy must have felt the first days here.
Sleeping wasn't easy. The grass was too hard, and it was too dark to find a mossy tree. If she could have found one, it would have been impossible to climb it. But sleeping on the hard rock wasn't a grade A option either. Still she tried to curl up and find a somewhat comfortable position.
As she lay there, the silence became oppressive. She even heard her heart beat, and that was enough to keep her awake all night...
*
A tender touch on her shoulder woke Sheila up. As she opened her eyes, she saw the guilty face of Josy. "Ouch," she growled as she unfolded herself on the rock.
"I'm sorry, Sheila," Josy said. "I warned you. It's scary out here at night, and I thought the best way to tell you is to let you feel it."
"Thanks for that," Sheila muttered. "I think I could have done without that." Grumpily she rose and stretched a bit.
"I've made breakfast," Josy offered as a peace token.
"Hmmf." Sheila was ready for proper breakfast, with bread and coffee, although she knew that wasn't an option. "Yeah. Sorry for being the grouch but I hurt everywhere."
Josy still looked guilty, and only seemed to lose the feeling as Sheila pulled her into a hug.
"Maybe I did a stupid, Sheila. Sorry."
"I'll live, but the first coffee we see is mine, okay?"
Josy grinned. "Deal. Come, we have to eat."
After chomping down the greens and washing those away with fresh water from the river, Josy and Sheila set off to the area where the big birds were supposed to be.
"This is further away than you said," Sheila commented after walking for a while. The terrain had grown hilly, the grass was shorter and there were fewer trees here.
"Further than you thought," Josy grinned. "I don't care much about time here as long as I can be in the cave again before dark. Nothing else to do here than walk and look around. It's only a little further." She pointed at a shallow hill ahead. "When we're on top of that, we're there. There are some sweet flowers we can eat too, makes for a nice change."
"Is there something to drink too?" Sheila had grown thirsty and they hadn't seen anything like a river or a well since quite a while.
"Halfway up is something that sometimes holds water." That wasn't a satisfying answer, but when they reached the slight hollow there was indeed some water in it. It looked dirty, but Josy brushed the worst of that aside and drank it anyway. Sheila sighed and followed the example. There was no other option. Apart from the dirt floating in it, nothing was wrong with the water. The young women walked on refreshed, and soon reached the top of the hill. On the other side of it, they looked out over an immense stretch of sand.
"That's like a sea of sand," Sheila gasped. "Do you know what's behind that?"
"No, and I'm not going to find out. Most of it is quicksand. I tried a few places and each time I sank into it." Josy shivered. "The first time I almost couldn't get out."
"Eeps. Sorry, Josems."
"Is okay. I got out." Josy looked at the sky, slowly turning around. "No birds yet. We'll just wait and find the flowers."
It was a strange idea for Sheila that they'd eat flowers, but Josy was confident; she said she'd eaten them plenty of times. They walked along the top of the hill and then went down a little stretch to a large field of blue flowers. It was hidden behind a bump in the hill's surface, so Sheila hadn't seen the flowers until Josy pointed them out.
"Only eat the leaves, the rest will make you puke," Josy warned her friend. She showed her how to do it.
"How did you find out you can eat those?" Sheila asked as she carefully ate one of the blue petals. It tasted very sharp and sour for a moment, then a sudden sweetness filled her mouth.
"Trying very carefully," Josy said. "They smelled nice and I know you can eat certain flowers, so I tried them. They're good, aren't they?" She pulled some of the short grass and ate that too. "Makes the grass better too."
Sheila had to convince herself to eat grass. It was something she'd never c
onsider trying herself, but Josy seemed to know best. Combined with the flowers it wasn't too bad.
"Don't eat too much or you'll have to drink a lot," Josy also warned Sheila. As there wasn't much water around, that was sound advice. Sheila wondered how much Josy had suffered before she'd gotten so smart about things here. She decided she didn't want to know.
After a very odd, sweet lunch the two walked back up the hill and sat down. "I hope they show," Josy said as she lay back and spread her arms out. "And I wish I could fly like them, so I could see more of this place."
Sheila shivered a bit as she saw how she could count Josy's ribs. Her friend had always been thin, but she was really skinny now. She wondered how long it would be until she was thin like Josy.
Suddenly Josy pointed straight up. "There. Birds. Come, lie down here with me, best way to look at them!" Sheila lay down, feeling how all kinds of dirt started to cling to her. The view overhead made her forget all about that. Six enormous shapes sailed through the sky. They were big. It was difficult to guess how big, but wing-tip to wing-tip they had to be forty feet at least!
"Aren't they the oddest shaped birds?" Josy asked.
Sheila agreed with that. There was something about them that was going around in her brain but she couldn't point a finger at it. After a while longer, the knowledge snapped into place. "They're not birds, Josy. They're Petrodactyls or something."
"Oh? They fly, for me that makes them birds."
"Hah, sure, you're like that," Sheila laughed. "For me that makes them dangerous, though."
"They're cute, not dangerous." Josy sat up and looked at Sheila. "They sometimes come down and when you stay away far enough they don't bother you."
"And what if you come too close? They're wild animals, Josems!"
"Hey, I'm not that crazy, they're big enough to bite me in half," Josy grinned. "But there they are. My birdies."
They lay on the ground a while longer and watched the Pterodactyls fly, until the huge animals followed some unknown signal and floated away into the distance.
"Impressive," Sheila said. "I've seen pictures of them on TV, but seeing them for real is something else."
"Maybe we should go back now," Josy then suggested as she looked at the sky. "See back there, the red shades? That means rain is coming."
"Rain? There's not a cloud in the sky!"
"Rain is coming," Josy said as she got up. "We're going."
Sheila trusted her friend, so they started on their way back to the cave.
The rain came faster than Josy had thought, and contrary to the air when the sun was shining, the rain was cold and hard. It beat down on them in waves, and a few times the women had to find shelter beneath a tree.
"I'm cold," Sheila shared.
"I'm too, but at least we'll be clean when we get back." Josy sounded half amused about her remark, half annoyed that they'd been caught in the downpour. "Next break in the rain we're going again; when it rains here it can take a while for it to stop."
After a few dashes and both of them stumbling in potholes beneath the grass, they reached the safety of the cave. They first wiped off as much water from their naked skin as possible, and then they huddled together, shivering. The temperature in the cave however made them feel warm again quickly.
"We have to find a way to make fire," Sheila said. "I've seen them to that on TV, with sticks and a wire or so."
"Good luck, I'll be cheering you on. I tried it, and all it got me was blisters and splinters."
Outside the cave the rain kept falling. The sound made them drowsy, and as there was nothing to eat in the cave they simply curled up and tried to sleep.
A whisper woke Sheila up. It was as if someone tried to pronounce her name but had difficulty opening his mouth. As she opened her eyes, she noticed it was dark. The rain had stopped falling too. Suddenly she realised that she'd been stupid a few nights before: she had entirely forgotten her special sight! As she cursed herself for being such a dumb twit, she activated it. Immediately the shape of the cave became visible, Josy's sleeping shape lay close to her. And there was this tugging at her awareness. That could only mean one thing: Acaraho was trying to find her!
Sheila sat up as comfortably as she could, closed her eyes and tried to slip into the trance, like she'd done so often already. Sleep and the hard ground beneath her made it hard, but after a few attempts her awareness jumped.
Chapter 20.
"Shíile Isshiiá", she heard. The voice was far away and broke up a bit, as if calling over a very unreliable telephone connection.
"Acaraho!" she exclaimed in her head. "I hear you!"
"Shíile Isshiiá" was the only response, as broken up as before.
"If you can hear me, I have found Josy," Sheila slowly said, hoping her words would reach him. "I stepped through the water and suddenly I was here. It's really far into the past and we hope you can find a way to get us out again." Uncertain if he had heard her, Sheila repeated what she'd said.
"Shíile Isshiiá" she then heard again. It was without doubt his voice saying her Crow name, but why only her name? Despite her trance she felt goose bumps all over her skin. He was so close and yet so unreachable!
Her emotions made that she lost the calmness to stay in her meditative trance. The colours of the vision showed her the cave again. Josy had shifted somewhat in her sleep but hadn't noticed Sheila sitting up. She lay down again, stretching her legs and disabling the ability. Everything was dark and silent. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she'd do this again, and then better. This hadn't worked, but it was encouraging. She would get through to Acaraho and he would get them back. Her happiness about that thought didn't last long though. Soon she was once again one of the two naked, scared women in a dark cave...
*
Someone was shaking her. "Get the hell away from me," she growled, too tired to slap at the hands.
"Wake up, Sheila. The rain stopped, the sun is out, time to get warm," Josy said.
"Huh. Huh? Oh." Sheila opened her eyes and immediately noticed the bright light streaming into the cave. "Yeah, good plan. That and breakfast."
As they walked through the wet grass and the soggy underground, Sheila told her friend about the almost contact she'd made.
"Are you for real? Not saying that to make me happy?" Josy said as she kneeled in the grass and started looking for the edible plants.
Sheila kneeled down too, feeling her knees sink into the muddy soil. "No, it's real. Not sure what went wrong, but this is a good thing. Can we eat this?" She held up something.
Josy shook her head. "Only once, I think. Gave me a stomach ache I don't want to repeat. So how are you going to try talking to your Indian again?"
"With a full stomach," Sheila grinned.
"Then look for food instead of talking so much!" Josy took a handful of mud and slapped that on Sheila's back. Sheila shrieked, but laughed after that. After all, it was only mud, and bare skin was easy to clean in the river.
It took a while to find enough food. The wet ground made finding something worthwhile difficult, many edible plants had been flattened in the hard rain. When they finally were chewing on the cold roots, Sheila announced that she was determined to make fire, either today or tomorrow. "Even root soup would be good, as long as it's warm," she said.
"I hope it works, everything's so wet now," Josy shrugged. "What do you think you need?"
Sheila recalled the TV program she'd seen this detailed in. "At least a piece of bendable wood and a piece of string."
Josy laughed. "String? Good luck. The shop nearby that had it just closed!"
Despite Josy's lack of confidence they set off to look for what Sheila thought they'd need for making fire. A sturdy stick that could be bent was the easiest part. Locating something that would function as a string was much harder, until Josy found a long twig of a tree that was very tough. Using a piece of rock Sheila managed to splice off a few strips of the twig. That should do it, according to her. Cutting the twig with the
bit of stone had left her fingers bloody though, so she had to wait a while before she could try what she thought she remembered.
"I will also need two small wooden blocks," she said. As she spoke, she realised that finding actual blocks would be a problem, so they had to improvise. A piece of a branch might do as the bottom part of her fire-making contraption once it had dried, and she found a few bits of tough bark that might work as well. As they walked back to the cave Josy found a few thick twigs that Sheila also approved of. Back at their cave, Sheila wound a spliced-off strip of twig around one end of her stick. She then bent the stick and tied the other end of the strip to it, making the ensemble look like a tiny bow.
"So what's the idea with that?" Josy asked, as she curiously watched Sheila's handiwork.
"Did y'ever see how they made fire by rubbing a stick between their hands? This is a smarter way. You wind the string around the stick a few times and press that stick into this little block of wood. If you move the bow fast enough, the stick turns fast and should heat up the end. At least that's what I saw on TV."
"And the second little block?"
"That's to push the stick down. Doing that with your hand would hurt like crazy," Sheila explained. She got her little contraption together and slowly moved the bow back and forth to make the stick spin. The spliced twig snapped almost immediately. "Crap. That's not strong enough."
"No root soup soon," Josy understood.
"Sorry, Josems. On TV it looked easier," Sheila said as she tossed her broken tool aside.
Josy hugged her for a moment. "No harm done. We can still eat. And you can try to get through to your Indian again too while I invent a TV." That sounded like a better plan than to try and make fire again.
Over the day Sheila sat down several times to focus on Acaraho but he never came into her head. It was frustrating her to no end, and towards the evening she felt like crying and giving up.
"Maybe you have to be in a different place," Josy tried to help. "You said yourself that you had to be among the Five Oaks at the resort."