books 1 - 3

by Ella J. Smyth

  His mom is standing outside with her arms around a sobbing uncle Dave, his body strangely fragile against his mom’s solid bulk. Two EMTs load Miss Mary into the back of the ambulance. With the oxygen mask on her face, she barely looks alive. Her skin is waxy-yellow and she doesn’t move. Miss Mary is obviously very very sick because the two men work frantically to get her into the back of the van. The ambulance tears out of the driveway and as it approaches the crossroads further down the street, the siren howls ominously.

  Uncle Dave’s sister arrives later that morning. Honi’s mom spent all morning next door and when she comes back, she looks tired. “Miss Mary died an hour ago,” she says, sitting down heavily. She looks at her son pleadingly. “Would you be a darling and get me some chocolate cookies from the car? I need a cup of coffee.”

  Honi knows better than to remind her of her diet right now. When he returns, his father is holding his mom tightly. They’ve known the Lightfoots for many years, long before Honi was born. Miss Mary used to babysit Honi when he was little, and still helped out sometimes with his younger brothers. But she had gotten old over the last few years and the noise of three little boys was just too much for her. She never forgot Honi’s birthday though and always gave him some money for mowing their lawn or washing their car. Even when Uncle Dave had already run it through the carwash in town.

  Honi’s eyes starts burning. Uncle Dave is all alone now. Miss Mary would never again bake her award-winning peanut butter butterscotch cookies. Or make hot chocolate for the kids that shoveled her driveway in the winter. A little sob escapes him despite his attempts to keep quiet.

  “Come here,” his father whispers. And with a louder sob, Honi throws himself into his parents’ embrace, soaking up the familiar comfort of his dad’s aftershave and his mom’s vanilla body wash. For another little moment, growing-up can wait.

  Honi wakes up with a bad taste in his mouth. There had been no bad dreams that he remembers. He scrunches up his face and smacks his lips, trying to move some saliva around his mouth. When he looks up, his father is sitting by his bedside. “Morning dad,” he mumbles, rubbing his hands over his eyes.

  His father smiles weakly and with a sudden rush, the memories of last night come flooding back. “It wasn’t a dream then. Miss Mary is dead,” he whispers.

  “Afraid so, son.”

  “You know, when I dreamed about the raven, I knew something bad would happen. And it did.”

  His father sits up a little straighter. “Was it a nightmare?”

  “Yeah, kinda. And you know what?” Honi looks up at his father’s face for his reaction. His dad is looking at him with a strangely intense expression but nods to continue.

  “I saw a big black bird sitting on Miss Mary’s house. And then it flew away, just when Uncle Dave came running up to me.”

  He falls silent for a moment. When his father doesn’t say anything, he turns his head and looks at him. For a brief moment, Honi sees worry in his eyes. Then he visibly shrugs it off and says quietly to himself, “Mary Lightfoot’s maiden name was Blackwing.” He hesitates before turning back to his son. “Are you sure the bird was a raven? I thought the crows had driven them away in these parts. I haven’t seen a large raven in many years.”

  Honi thinks for a moment. “No idea. It was a really large bird though, as large as an eagle nearly.”

  His father chuckles. “Yeah, right. Large as an eagle. Sure not as large as a dragon?”

  “Whatever,” Honi replies grumpily. He hates it when his father pokes fun at him. That black bird had been huge. Not his fault his father never believes him. Then he starts to think. Miss Mary’s gone and there’ll be a funeral. He’s never been to one. What if he makes a fool of himself and cries? That thought makes him sad and tears sting his eyes.

  Then he feels his father’s hand stroke his hair. “It’ll be okay son,” he says before leaving the room. Honi may be nearly grown up but his father’s touch still has the power to soothe him. He closes his eyes and goes back to sleep. No need to get up early today.

  The second time Honi wakes up, he is sick of lying in bed all day. The light paints his desk and book shelf with a bright sheen that reflects back right into his eyes. He groans in protest as his hand flies up to shield his face. Things to do. May as well get a head start on his chores or his parents will be on his case for the rest of the day.

  He glances around his room, taking in dirty plates and discarded clothes. Later, he decides and makes his way down the stairs to grab some cereal. He scratches his head and yawns so hard that he nearly doesn’t hear his father on the phone.

  “John, are you sure?”

  His father has his back to him and sounds anxious. Honi is about to sneak past him when he hears his name. Quickly he retraces his steps up the stairs, confident that his father hasn’t noticed him yet. “No, he’s never before talked about seeing animals or dreaming about them.”

  Why would his father discuss his nightmare with the tribe’s shaman? John often calls to visit but lately he’s been busy with teaching the little kids Mekui’te traditions. Honi hasn’t seen him in weeks so what’s this all about?

  “Isn’t he a bit young for this? He’s only…” - his father interrupts himself and listens, -“I know but…” Then his head drops a little in defeat and he finishes, “Fine. I’ll talk to Rose and Honi this afternoon.”

  When he turns around, he sees Honi sitting on the top of the stairs, eyes wide open, burning with curiosity and questions. He sighs. “Come on son, may as well talk about it now.”

  When they walk into the kitchen, Honi’s mother stands by the sink and cleans the stainless steel with bleach. She does this every weekend like clockwork. Says it makes her happy, keeping the little they have nice and tidy. Where some kids associate the smell of baked bread with home, Honi’s mind jumps to his mom’s big sunny kitchen when he smells chlorine. Go figure. And now that food has crossed his mind, he remembers that he wanted cereal when he woke up.

  “Dad, I’m hungry. Can I eat while you talk to us?”

  “Sure.” His dad smiles indulgently. “Rose, I’ve just come off the phone with John. There’s something you both need to know. Could you sit down while I explain?”

  His mom pulls off her rubber gloves with a snap, then drags a chair out of the sun and sits down. “Okay?” she says with a slightly confused smile.

  Honi grabs the second chair and quickly pours his favorite cocoa cereal and milk into a bowl. Then he sticks his spoon into the brown goo and chews with his mouth open. He mainly does it to gross out his mom and on cue, she glares at him. He closes his mouth and grins at her. After she’s finished rolling her eyes, they both look expectantly at Honi’s father.

  “Right, are you done now?” He looks slightly less amused than usual. Honi feels a tiny quiver of unease. Something’s up. “As I said earlier, I just finished talking to John. I told him about Honi’s nightmares and that he saw a large black bird fly off the Lightfoots’ house when Mary died.”

  He stops and looks at them as if they should know the significance of what he just said.

  “And?” mom prompts him.

  “Mary’s last name was Blackwing.” Still nothing. “Blackwing? Like the black bird flying off the house?”

  “You gotta give us a bit more, Dan. I have no idea what you’re getting at,” his mom voices both their thoughts.

  Dad huffs in irritation. “I forgot you didn’t grow up with the legends. The Mekui’te believe in spirit walkers, members of the tribe who have the ability to walk between this world and the spirit world. Their gift shows itself at an early age when the walker sees spirit animals in our world.”

  Honi’s eyes grow large. Is his Dad saying what he thinks he’s saying?

  His mom interrupts again. “And what does this story have to do with John?”

  “John believes that Honi may have the gift.”

  Honi’s jaw drops. He’s heard of spirit animals, sure. Mainly as stories told by Elders during the an
nual PowWow. Some people were supposed to have seen them, but those were just stories, right?

  “What? Has he gone totally nuts?” Leave it to his mom to get straight to the point.

  His father takes a deep inhale. “That’s what I told him too. But he insists that Honi saw Mary’s spirit animal ascend the night she died. In fact he says he suspected for a while that Honi has the gift. He thinks Honi should do a spirit quest.”

  Honi’s eyes dart to his mother’s face that has grown darker the longer his father spoke. “Okay, let me rephrase. Have YOU gone insane? Honi is thirteen for goodness sake! What’s your plan, drop him into the wilderness and see if he makes it back? What the hell?” Her voice grows louder and louder until she nearly shouts. His father knows better than to argue with her when she’s angry.

  “Honi, please go up to your room. I need to talk to your mother for a moment.” Rose sits back with a scowl, crossing her arms over her chest. Honi takes one more look at his parents. Yeah, he really doesn’t want to be around when they get like that. He quickly grabs a banana from the fruit bowl and runs upstairs.

  Honi sits in his room, trying to listen in to his parents’ conversation. This is taking forever. And they’re mumbling so he can’t hear anything other then the odd word or his name. What did his dad say? A spirit quest?

  He tries to remember what he knows about it. He read that in the olden days, like a hundred years or so, young men would be sent off into the mountains or plains with some water, pemmican, and drugs like peyote. Then they’d meditate and return with stories of weird visions. If they survived and not get killed by wild animals, they’d be warriors of their tribe.

  He giggles. As if his parents would let him go off with drugs. They threw a fit when Sam from down the road was caught with grass in college. Honi had to sit through a lecture about the evil of drugs. Just say no and all that shit. If they knew how many kids in school were high all the time! His father calling him from downstairs interrupts his train of thought. By the time Honi walks back into the kitchen, his mom has left. She only does that when she’s caved and isn’t happy about it.

  “So your mother and I have agreed that you should do a spirit quest.” Apparently his mom isn’t the only one to get straight to it! Honi opens his mouth to ask but his father continues, “Obviously we won’t send you out there with drugs” - well that’s that question answered - “but you will be by yourself. You’ll have a little bit of food and water and you will be quite safe. John’s going to give you more instructions but you can’t come back until you’ve found your spirit animal.”

  He stops and looks expectantly at Honi. The boy’s head is spinning with questions. “How long is that gonna take? You know I’m starting camp next week, right? How will I even know I found…”

  “Stop son. I know this is scary but it’s just like a couple of days camping. I’ll talk to your camp counsellor. You’ll know you found your animal when it happens. Sure you’ll be a bit hungry and bored. And you’ll have to meditate…”

  “Meditate? Are you serious?” Isn’t that what old hippies do? Or those new age tourists that visit the reservation during the summer?

  “Meditation has always been part of our tradition. Do they teach you nothing at school? It’ll help you still your thoughts and time passes a lot faster as well. You’ll get really good at it when you’re out there on the mountain. Trust me.” His father smiles reassuringly at Honi.

  “So did you do a spirit quest when you were young?”

  “I wished I had but in those days we weren’t encouraged to follow our traditions. We couldn’t even speak our own language,” Honi’s father sighs. “There’s been a revival over the last few years and you’ll be the first boy for many years to do it.”

  Honi sits up a little straighter. Once it is over, he’s going to be the only kid in school who has undergone a rite of passage like in the olden days. He’d be a warrior. Legit. Honi can feel a gigantic smile break out on his face. So friggin’ cool!

  The next few days are taken up with a whirlwind of packing and preparation. John comes over and spends a few hours talking to Honi’s parents in the kitchen. He talks to him as well and practices breathing exercises with him. It’s really stupid and boring and Honi can’t wait to get out there.

  Away from all the grownups freaking him out with their advice and ‘what to do if you see a bear’. Run, of course, but then his dad tells him that bears can run faster than humans. And climb up trees. So apparently the only way to survive is to pretend you’re dead. Great. Those breathing exercises are coming in useful right now because Honi’s getting a little nervous.

  Once he’s stopped hyperventilating, his father shows him on a paper map where they’re proposing to drop him off. Seriously, are they trying to get rid of him? Honi stares unbelievingly at the location. It’s in the middle of a friggin’ mountainside. There’s nothing within miles, no hut, no road, no nothing.

  The reality of the situation hits him hard. There’s pressure building up in his head as he continues to stare at the multi-colored paper in front of him. His heart beats hard, so hard that it pounds in his ears. His father says something to him but he can’t really hear him. Eyes still riveted to the map, he holds onto the table to stop himself from running.

  He’s only 13. He’s only been camping a few times and he hated it. He couldn’t bring his Nintendo because ‘camping time is family time’ and he was bored out of his mind. And now he’s supposed to go back out there by himself? What if a cougar found him? Or wolves? Are there wolves in the mountains? Sometimes he can hear coyotes howl their lullaby when he snuggles into his soft bed at night. He swallows hard. Coyotes attack in packs, don’t they? What if…

  Honi jumps when he feels a touch on his arm. He’s so deep in his panicky thoughts, he didn’t see his father move towards him. “It’s okay son, you’ll be fine,” he murmurs while drawing his son into a tight hug. Honi stiffens at first, then relaxes into the embrace. He clings on tightly and crunches up his eyes.

  While his father strokes his hair, the boy pulls himself together. A warrior doesn’t cry, he repeats silently. He swallows down his tears and breathes deeply in and out. If John and his dad have trust in him, he can do it. After all, others have done it before and were fine.

  When his father feels him straighten up, he lets go and steps back. “You okay now?” His eyes are a little shiny and Honi knows that his father is trying to hide his own emotion. Looking at the lined face, he silently swears he’ll do anything to make his dad proud of him.

  “I’m fine,” he replies. And his father’s proud smile makes him even more determined to overcome his fears. That’s what a warrior does after all.

  Well, this is boring. Honi looks up, squinting hard. The sun hasn’t moved one bit since he last checked. The boy sighs and tries to still his mind. Since John and his dad dropped him off a few hours ago, Honi has been busy. He put up his tent, collected fire wood and made sure that his food supplies were safely hung up in a tree.

  He explored a few yards around his camp but the clearing amongst the trees was just that. A dry flat piece of ground on top of a plateau, surrounded by large trees. He even walked a little further up the hill but there was no view, only more trees. John had told him to stay at the camp so he wouldn’t lose his way.

  Honi sighs. Sure, not finding his way back to the camp would suck, but being here sucked too. Within a few hours, his excitement about the quest has given way to boredom. Boring, boring, boring, his mind insists. Close eyes, breathe in through nose, out through mouth, focus on clearing your thoughts.

  Honi remembers his exercises with John yesterday. The Shaman had explained that it takes practice to still the ‘monkey mind’, as some Indian dude called it. Not Native American obviously, some Indian Indian dude. Pretty good image though. Monkeys chattering, jumping from tree to tree, screeching. And there goes his mind again.

  Honi gets up slowly, pushing himself upright with his hands on the ground. His knees are stif
f from sitting still for so long. He had this idea that lotus position is traditional for meditation. Really bad idea in hindsight. He jumps up and down, does a few jumping jacks for good measure, then stomps around to get rid of pins and needles.

  Crack. Honi freezes. He slowly turns towards the noise in the undergrowth. There’s nothing there, only some swaying branches. He chuckles nervously. Good job, now he’s starting to jump at shadows. Wearily training his eyes on the forest in front of him, he sits down again. This time, he stretches his legs out and leans against his backpack. He closes his eyes again and wakes up to total darkness.

  Crap. This isn’t going the way he imagined it. His stomach is cramping with hunger and he’s already eaten the last bit of pemmican and a bar of chocolate he’d smuggled into his bag. A mosquito buzzes around his ear and he growls as he slaps his own head. He drinks a little water. When he shakes the bottle, there’s only about half a cup left. Who came up with this stupid idea anyway? He settles into his tent and tries to go back to sleep. Exhaustion wins out over his empty tummy and he dozes off quickly.

  When he opens his eyes again, it’s still dark. Honi freezes. There’s something out there, something big. In the faint moonlight filtering through the tent wall, he sees the fabric move, as if it were pushed from the outside. Then he hears a snuffle, a low chesty kind of exhale. His hands grab tight onto his sleeping bag. His eyes flit from side to side, trying to penetrate the darkness.

  There’s no way out other than the entrance where whatever is out there moves. He has no weapons, no gun, not even a stick. His heart beats to hard that he wouldn’t be surprised if the thing out there heard it. Then a shadow pushes between the tent wall and the moonlight. It’s huge and suddenly Honi knows what it is.