Foxfire, Wolfskin

by Sharon Blackie

  Well, anyway.

  Once we’d done the kitchen she took us outside, and round the back of the house there was this great big contraption that looked for all the world like a mortar – you know – those thick bowl thingies you grind spices in – and next to it, propped up against the wall, was something that looked like a giant pestle. She made us polish it every day, like it was some kind of valuable vintage car or something. Then in the evenings, after dinner, we had a sort of ‘Ask Aunty Babs’ session. She would sit down on her big carved wooden throne at one end of the table and ‘So,’ she would say. ‘Ask me anything.’

  Well, the first evening, I wasn’t sure how that was supposed to work. What if everyone started asking questions all at once? Where was the structure here, anyway? ‘Isn’t there a talking stick?’ I ask, and she stares at me for a minute, gets up out of her chair, walks over to the stove, lifts up the lid of a wooden box which sat next to it, and comes back with a sodding bone. Yes, honestly! – a bone! – which she hands to me with a bow, like she’s presenting me with a precious gift, or something. Oh, very fucking cunning, I thought, and snatched it out of her hand.

  I suppose she imagined that was funny; everyone else did, anyway. Cackled themselves silly. Bitches. I wouldn’t have minded, but it still had meat on it.

  What kind of bone? I don’t know. It was quite big. Big enough to be a human bone – an arm, or something – but of course it must’ve been a goat. Or a cow. Deer? I mean …

  Anyway. Moving rapidly on …

  What did we ask her? Well, you can be sure I wasn’t going to open my mouth till I’d heard what everyone else said. I’d already learned my lesson, thank you very much. I wasn’t going to be shown up again. Made to look like a complete fool. I mean, honestly … So she just sat there like some lunatic agony aunt while everybody asked her about a load of personal stuff. Completely insane. Like she was some kind of oracle or something. Most of the time I couldn’t make head nor tail of her answers. Take that first night. Carol went first, of course. Turned out she was seeing some bloke who lived on the other side of the country – in Lancaster, I think – and he wouldn’t move to Hartlepool for her. (Like, no shit!!) So she’d dumped him, but couldn’t get him out of her head, and now she’s lonely. So she asks Babs whether she should take him back, or move on and find someone who’s more prepared to commit.

  And Babs says something like: ‘Does a snake in the desert gather up shed skins? Perhaps the skin you have just shed was a fine one, but there is no point in looking back at it. That skin is dry now, and dead. And you are growing new skin. It is a young skin, and thin, and does not yet protect flesh beneath. Which catches on corners sometimes and bleeds. But this new skin will grow, and will better fit a body which has shifted and changed. Learn to tend your new skin. Watch each day to see how it is becoming.’

  Okaaaay … So then Lisa pipes up. ‘Baba,’ she says, in that sweet and sickly Russian-tinted little voice of hers. ‘What is my path, and where is it leading me now?’

  ‘Your path is the road you are walking down,’ Babs intones. ‘Learn to walk it well, and it will lead you to the place where you need to go.’ Well, honestly. Ask a silly question and you’ll get a silly answer. At least that one made me smile. It certainly put that stuck-up little princess in her place.

  Debbie – or was it Dora – has a question about her dreams. Seems she keeps having this recurrent dream of getting trapped in a cave with a fire-breathing dragon, and wants to know what it means. I think she’s been watching too much Game of Thrones myself, but Baba, wouldn’t you know it, has other ideas. ‘Dream is itself a cave,’ she says: ‘cave in which the soul of you is stored. Dragon hoards treasure; guards it well against thieves. Sometimes, dragon guards too well. Hides soul-treasure from rightful owner. Look to the guardian of your threshold. What is hidden treasure, and what is it which will not let you pass?’ Well, old Debbie-Dora lights up like a light bulb has gone on inside her head, but it didn’t sound much like proper dream analysis to me. And I’ve read Freud, so I should know.

  Dora – or was it Debbie – wants to know how she’s ever going to finish some novel or other she’s writing. She’s halfway through it, she says, and she’s been working really hard and it’s all going really well. But increasingly she finds herself unable to settle down to work. She finds all kinds of distractions – ‘Like constantly sharpening her pencils,’ Tweedledum says, and they both giggle like teenagers – and now she’s frightened she’ll never get it done.

  ‘Well,’ Babs declares, folding her arms across her latest blue-flocked music-hall frock, ‘it is like this. Here there is a hungry lion, prowling the jungle, searching for big meal to fill the emptiness inside him. There, there is tiny lamb, wanting nothing more than to lie in the warmth of the sun while her growing happens. Then lion sees lamb. Will he eat her? He might. And so lamb runs away and all the energy she should be using for growing is consumed by flight. So find a place lion cannot reach, and let the lamb lie down again in the sun. Lion will leave lamb alone and look elsewhere for its meal. And lamb will do her growing in peace. One day the two may meet again. But the lion will be sated and the lamb will now be fully grown.’

  Er – yeah, right. So there’s this lion, and there’s this lamb – and then what happens, exactly, Babs? Could you maybe … unpick … that a little for those of us who actually speak English? Sheesh. Then, inevitably, she turns to me.

  ‘Well, Beryl,’ she says, ‘and what would you like to ask the Baba tonight?’

  Truth is, I didn’t want to ask the bloody Baba anything, but I supposed I’d better show willing. And then, all of a sudden, it came to me. Well, I tried not to snigger, but I couldn’t wait to see the expression on her face when I said to her, ‘O Baba,’ I says, ‘please can you tell me this: what is the sound of one hand clapping?’

  Well, Lisa looks like her eyes are going to pop out of her head and Carol from Hartlepool positively gasps, but Babs just waves one hand swiftly through the air and then softly lays it to rest on the table. Of course, there was no sound at all. And then she looks at me, and says, ‘Did you hear that, child?’ (Child? And I’m like fifty next month! The cheek of it!) ‘That,’ she says, ‘was the sound of one hand clapping. When you do not understand somesing, when you are out of your depth and wish to look wise, make the sound of one hand clapping. And then turn up volume in your ears.’

  I mean, what was that all about? I don’t think she even knew I was taking the piss.

  Yeah, it’s funny how I remember it all, though, isn’t it? Even though I was determined not to listen. It was all a load of bollocks, of course, but something about the way she spoke – well, it was as if the words lodged themselves inside you, whether you wanted them to or not. Like she’d shot an arrow right into your heart, and you couldn’t shake it loose again. Yeah, like elfshot. That’s it. As if you’d been elfshot. And to tell you the honest truth, like elfshot, sometimes it left a bit of a lingering ache.

  We didn’t get to the proper stuff till Wednesday. Just as well we did, because I was on the point of really freaking out by then. The whole thing was messing with my process. We were all going home on Friday morning, and I hadn’t learned a thing.

  Skindancing, she called it. ‘I’m going to teach you to skindance,’ she says, when we’ve finished our breakfasts and are clearing away the dishes into that man-sized ceramic sink.

  ‘Thank Goddess for that,’ I whisper to Deirdre. ‘We’re finally going to connect with our power animals.’

  ‘Sure, I don’t think that’s quite what she has in mind,’ Deirdre says. ‘I think it’s more about … shapeshifting … ?’ But what did she know? She hadn’t even done her ‘Introduction to Shamanism’ course yet. Didn’t know how to journey, or anything. Besides, shapeshifting’s just another term for connecting with your power animal. Everyone knows that. You’d think Deirdre believed she was actually going to turn us into animals, or something ridiculous like that! Yeah, she was definitely away with the
fairies, that one.

  ‘So,’ Babs says. ‘I will meet with you all one by one, and we will speak of the animal who has found nest in your heart. And then’ – she looks right at me and bares those big old pointy teeth again – ‘we will see what we will see.’

  Well, that seemed like a strange way of doing things, but then everything in this madhouse was strange. She wasn’t much of a one for teaching in circle, that’s for sure. And I could have told her a few things about how to hold a space. But anyway, we were all sent off to wait outside – polishing the mortar and sodding pestle again – until, one at a time, she called us into the kitchen. I was last, of course; wasn’t that a big surprise. I did find myself wondering what had happened to the others, though; no one came out of the front door again once they went in. And it was the only door there was.

  But I had myself to worry about now, and you can be absolutely sure that I was worried. This place was really beginning to get to me. Sometimes, I was seriously spooked. Well, because … well, I don’t know. It just wasn’t … natural, was it? Does any of this sound natural to you? Well, then. Anyway. She gestures at me to sit down like she’s the Queen of sodding Sheba – and then she settles back into her throne and just looks at me. Yeah! That’s all. Stares right at me, for the best part of five minutes. Well, I didn’t know where to put myself. After two minutes – which seems like two hours – I open my mouth to ask what the hell is going on, but she lifts up her hand and the weird thing is, it’s as if she snatches away my voice. Nothing comes out. I close my mouth again; what else can I do? I think of getting up and storming out, but if this is what it takes to FINALLY connect with my power animal, I’d better just grit my teeth and sit tight.

  Three minutes more. And then, very slowly, she begins to smile.

  I feel the smile in my feet first, as my heels begin to hoove. My eyes slip sideways of their own accord, and all of a sudden I topple forward, landing heavy on all fours, horizontal-ed and belly-downed in the forest.

  My skin prickles as if every flea in the taiga has taken up residence in my fur. Birch bark fondles me; I rub and rub till finally my itch eases. I rip roots, lick lichen, spice the forest floor with scented feet. Wild-walk and oh, I am grass-smart now; soon I’m berry-gorged and herb-full. A stream sings sunwise for my water-wallowing. I’m slink-spined, nut-nosed. I lead the world a merry dance; I’m faster than the speed of light. I’m light. I’m free. I’m free of me. I’m cud-coddled; I’m all ears; I hear how everything speaks at once.

  Then ears prick, twig cracks – body shrieks beware! I brown-blend, change cheek. Fix on form.

  Wolf.

  Grey.

  Heart hollers. Turntail. Run.

  Trees taunt me, water warns me, birds bet on me. Wolf gains on me. Hot-haunched, broken-breathed, out-flanked for sure.

  Wolf bears down on me, runs alongside me. Red mouth slavers at me, yellow eyes laugh at me. Cuts right ahead of me, snaps at the feet of me. Fall on my flank; I’m done. Then I’m un-done, un-deered. Teeth bare at me, growl grips at me. I’m unhinged, unhooved, unhinded. I’m refashioned, retongued; I open my mouth and scream.

  Next thing I know, I’ve landed back on the kitchen floor with a thump. And Babs is standing over me, ranting at me in fucking Russian as if it’s all my fault I nearly got ate by a wolf.

  You know, when I look back on it all now, there was a gleam in that wolf’s eye that I swear reminded me of Carol from Hartlepool.

  So anyway: that was the end of that. I gibbered for the best part of an hour. Then I took to my bed, and I didn’t come out again except to pee till it was time for us all to pile back into Igor’s minibus on the Friday morning. Deirdre was nice, though; she didn’t say much, but she brought me cups of tea and the odd plate of food. I didn’t know what had happened to the rest of them, and I didn’t want to know. But they all seemed happy enough when it was time to leave. Milling around Babs adoringly, sucking up to her as if she’d given them the crown jewels. Well, I didn’t. I didn’t say a word to her. What was really irritating is that she didn’t say goodbye to me either. Completely ignored me. Well, I just sailed right out of that place with my chin up high. And I took great pleasure in throwing a quick kick at a lurking Nosferatu on my way out of that ridiculous gate.

  I know. Can you believe it? You’re right, I should’ve sued her for everything she was worth. But can you imagine a lawyer even finding her in that forest? And if one did, what do you think she’d have turned HIM into?

  A shark? Hahahaha! Very funny!

  I did write to Resurgence, though. Complained about the ad, said they really shouldn’t run them any more, that it was a disgrace. Well, they wrote back to me and said they’d never run an ad like that before, not ever. They’d never heard of a bone house, or a woman called the Baba with a speciality in shapeshifting. And sure enough, when I flicked through the old issues I’d stuck on the shelf for safekeeping, I couldn’t find it either. It just gets weirder and weirder.

  Well, yes, I would’ve contacted the others, but when I suggested exchanging email addresses on the way back to the airport, no one bothered to reply. Typical. I’d try to track Deirdre down, but it’s not like there probably wouldn’t be a few other Deirdres in Sligo. And I never did learn anyone’s surname.

  So anyway, bugger it. I’ve had quite enough of shamanism, thank you very much. Baba-the-sodding-Yaga there put me off it for life. I’m doing a Priestess of Avalon training in Glastonbury instead. Seems like it’s going to be a lot more authentic, anyway. It’s run by this woman who’s a yogi as well. She was ordained by a direct disciple of the Yogi Krishknuckle, or some such person. She’s very spiritual. She was one of the most spiritually influential people of 2018, according to an article I read at the Pagan Portal on Pantheos. It’s really helping me to manifest my vision. Except I don’t really have one yet. I’m sure I will soon.

  Well, it’s been lovely talking to you. We must do this again sometime. Are you going to Matthew’s Lakota sweat lodge ceremony on Saturday night? Matthew – you know the one. Struts up and down the high street in a tweed hat and a frock coat. Big grey beard. Looks like Gandalf but fancies himself as a bit of an Aragorn. Yes, that’s him.

  Great. May we all be blessed there with the presence of the Great Spirit!

  See you there. Bye now.

  Namaste.

  THE

  WATER-HORSE

  IT WAS NEVER going to end well for that girl. Not according to the customs of the day. I don’t mean that in an unkind way – not at all. I knew what it was to be different, like her. Knew what it was to be a dreamer. And that girl was a dreamer. She wanted too much, but she didn’t even know how much she wanted. Not till she found what it was that she wanted, and then there was only one thing for her to do.

  I could see it coming. Of course I could. I was the district nurse; it was my job to know. There was no one else here with responsibility; no one to keep an eye on things, to look out for people. We were far too remote a village for that. And I understood that girl, as no one else could. I might be old now, getting on for ancient, with a body that is slowly failing – but once I was young and pretty, like her. My heart burning so brightly in my chest I could have scorched cities with it; my yearning so vast and deep it could have bottomed out the world.

  So make yourself comfortable, young man, and I’ll tell you what really happened to that girl whose story you’re so intent on digging up. It has never been fully told before, for I am the only one who knows the truth of it. I’ll tell you how it began, and I’ll tell you how it ended. I’ll need to remind you how things were here, back in the day. Sixty years ago, or thereabouts. Life was different then; people were different. The world was different. And maybe I’ll slip in another tale or two for your archives, along the way. Because the stories of this island are like the land itself: the interlocking textures of the Llewissian gneiss that bears us now, melted and banded, and all folded in on itself. Metamorphic rock, that’s what this island is made of. Born out of
the most intense heat and pressure. How could our stories not be metamorphic too?

  It was the books that first gave that girl away. I saw what she took out of the rickety old library van each month; we two were always the first to make our way down to it. Hastening down the road from our opposite ends of the township. She lived in the last house down the track that ended at the western headland; I lived in the last house that ended at the southside beach. We both lived on the edges, and converged there uncomfortably in the heart of things. We would meet at its squeaky side doors before Iain the driver had finished opening up the van, and she would nod shyly to me and then look away. I watched her, as she browsed the surprisingly rich selection on the shelves; I was curious about her. Teenage girls in our part of the world did not usually get so excited by books. I saw the books she took out, and I heard her when she asked the librarian to bring her more by this author or that. Yes, it was the books that first gave her away. Folk tales, love stories, poetry. Fairy tales, most of all. Andersen, Grimm, Perrault – she didn’t care; she read them all, old and new. You would know all about them, I suppose, a folklore collector like you. Oh, you don’t really do fairy tales? Well, not many men do. Maybe that’s wise. Some of us do them whether we choose it or not. They choose us; they happen to us. They know their prey. The dreamers.