The Awakening

by Pierre C. Arseneault

  “I assure you they’re real,” Jin replied with a frown as he was a big fan of King and his works. He set his fork down, took out a laptop and booted it up. He set it down on the table, on top of the papers and opened a folder of pictures. Jin turned the laptop so Burke could use it.

  Burke ate pie as he scrolled through the images of weird ants with tiny mushroom like things that appeared to be growing on them. The old Burke would have used one of his favorite sarcastic lines, like how he had once seen a fifty foot ape climbing the Empire State Building too. He had often reminded people how easy it was, especially with today’s technology to create fake news. The old Burke would have said this. Although he thought it, he didn’t feel the need to say it this time, for fear of sounding ignorant. He knew Jin was a scientist and so he wouldn’t bring anything to the table unless it was scientifically solid. Besides, he’d seen enough weird happenings on this island to make him doubt his sanity. He had learned to question things before discrediting the idea right off the bat.

  “The thing I don’t understand,” Jin added, talking through a mouthful of pie. “I’ve never seen people get infected by this spore before. There have been other insects found to have fallen prey to such fungus.” Jin swallowed his food and continued. “Certain species of caterpillars too, although our team has only been studying ants. While we take precautions, I’ve never seen anything remotely resembling any kind of infection on people. But this Maggie was riddled with this stuff. And I know you found syringes that had trace amounts, so that’s the only thing that made sense to me. Although traces of the fungus on Danny’s remains I assume got there as he was probably looking for samples or something when he died. And I don’t believe your foolish theory that he was the one injecting Maggie with that crap. Danny wasn’t Victor Frankenstein.”

  Burke paused at a picture as he swallowed a mouthful of pie. He pointed to the screen. “You’re shitting me, right?” he asked.

  “Nope,” Jin replied, closing the laptop as he watched Shelley finally bring the coffees, the newspaper tucked under her arm.

  “Sorry to take so long with the coffee, guys,” Shelley said as she set the cups down and handed the newspaper to Burke.

  “Front page,” she added. “They even mention Peggy Martin’s Pomeranian in the article. You know Peggy, right? She was Ryan’s aunt. Anyway, it talks about her dog and how it was found half eaten. Bijou she called it, poor thing. Grady thinks the mayor and town council are trying to drum up tourism; the kind of people who go to Salem to see the place where they burned witches or to Maine to see Stephen King’s house. Those types.”

  “Murders and gruesome deaths are a tourist attraction here?” Jin asked.

  “Stranger things have happened,” Burke added as he adjusted his glasses again on the rim of his nose.

  “Grady thinks it’s cool,” Shelley added with a frown as she walked away to serve another table.

  “Grady’s an idiot,” Burke chuckled as he replied and began reading the article. Jin sipped his coffee and thought it best to not ask who this Grady fellow was and why they cared so much what Grady thought.

  Chapter 7

  Birds of a Feather

  Jack Whitefeather sat cross-legged on the floor of the small, rustic cabin he called home, tucked neatly away in the thick forest on the center of the island he loved so much. His eyes were closed, his head bowed down with his long grey locks dangling freely, he was in deep meditation as smoke from the fragrant burning sage incense wafted in the air around him. His muffled chant, while barely audible, was the only indication that he wasn’t actually asleep. The meditation was getting harder and harder to achieve. Calming his racing mind had never been an issue in the past but seeing visions that he didn’t bring on himself was worrisome to the old man.

  Connecting to his feathered friend seemed to be difficult now too, compared to before, as if the old crow was resisting him. This was something it had never done before which begged the question, why now, after all these years? Did it have something to do with the vision his crow had showed him when he wasn’t in the process of reaching out to it? He still hadn’t understood if what he’d seen was some sort of vision or if the spirit was real. Did he really see the spirit of his grandmother sitting next to him? If yes, was she here now? Was she in the room with him? Without looking through the bird’s eyes, Jack couldn’t see the spirits that roamed the island. And if she was here, what did she want? Why come to him now?

  His low mumbled chant was labored as he struggled to see through the crow while the bird flew high over the outskirts of town. He struggled to keep up with the bird; his visions were blurred and out of focus. The crow swooped down amidst homes, landing on a branch of a large oak tree overlooking a covered sandbox where a pair of children played.

  Jack recognized the twins right away. He had heard of their birth years before and had spied on some of the staff at the hospital via his feathered friend. The doctors had thought Norah Jenkins was having twin girls, but they’d been wrong. This was due to an ultrasound error by a faulty machine at the hospital. It had been a surprise to everyone, even to Norah. She gave birth to a girl, yes but the other was a boy, a unique boy that was kept secret at first. But secrets are difficult to keep in small towns. Secrets like the boy’s were even harder to keep private.

  The twins lived at the orphanage at first, but Patrick’s uniqueness made it difficult for him to fit in. The only friend he had was his twin sister who wasn’t afraid, tormented or made fun of him. It wasn’t his fault he was born without eyes but it was the reason he became famous. Born without eye sockets in his skull, Jack would later recall a newspaper article mentioning this. They had used scientific lingo Jack didn’t understand but it was as if Patrick’s brain didn’t have the proper wiring for eyes and so his skull had not developed a place for his eyes to be. His forehead seemed normal, but the lack of eyebrows or eyes meant it sloped down to nose and cheeks. This was the reason he would soon find comfort hiding behind a large pair of dark sunglasses gifted to him by a kindhearted janitor at the orphanage. The very sunglasses he now wore while playing in the sandbox.

  Norah Jenkins’ twins lived with Scott and Miriam Cudmore; a couple who knew nothing of the history of the Jenkins family. They knew nothing of a curse born sometime in the 1800’s, which was the story Jack had been told by his late mother. Most of the Jenkins’ descendants knew nothing of a curse; a curse that was kept hidden all too well. Those who Jack tried to tell called him crazy. The hospital and orphanage staff began to think he wasn’t well with his questions about Norah Jenkins and her twins. Soon he learned that if he was to keep an eye on the twins or Norah, it was to be from a distance. That was the only way, as otherwise he might end up at the very place Norah now called home: the psychiatric wing of the Oakwood Island Hospital.

  Jack watched through the crow from a branch in the oak tree as Lily held a large rock in both her hands and was in the process of flattening one of her new Barbie dolls. The dolls clothes were scattered on the ground next to the four-year-old girl as she smashed the doll over and over.

  Patrick knelt in the sandbox, holding a plastic shovel and pail as he cocked his head, listening to the thudding of something he knew was coming from his sister. He didn’t know the thumping sound was of the rock to the doll. Patrick dropped the shovel and started tugging at the crotch of his pants. He stood and cocked his head at different angles listening intently.

  “Samantha? I have to pee,” Patrick said.

  The voices muffled and the vision blurred slightly as if in a haze, but Jack watched on. Next to Patrick, a shimmering glow appeared for a moment before coming into focus. Jack felt a wave of anxiety wash over him. While he was watching the scene unfold through the eyes of the crow, he felt his pulse rising and beads of sweat began to form soon after he realized what he was seeing. He saw what he now knew was the spirit of his grandmother, Sparrow Whitefeather, standing at Patrick’s s
ide. His grandmother wore the same singed dress she had worn in her youth and in the only photo he had ever seen of her from that era. The spirit shone vividly as the vision Jack saw came into focus. Sparrow looked directly at the crow as if peering through it and at Jack himself. She placed her hand on the boy’s head while peering back at him.

  “Who’s there?” Patrick whispered as he felt a strange presence next to him for a brief moment. The hair on his arms and on the back of his neck rose when he didn’t get a response back.

  Samantha, who had been sitting under the oak tree and out of sight for Jack, got up to tend to Patrick. She tucked her book under her arm and reached for the boy’s hand as the spirit stood stock still next to the boy.

  “Come,” Samantha said as she placed her hand in the blind boy’s now outstretched hand. “You too, Lily.”

  “But I don’t gotta pee,” Lily answered, frowning as she gave the battered Barbie doll one last hard smash with the rock.

  “I can’t leave you out here alone and you know that, little lady. Now put down that rock like I told you to, before you hurt yourself and come,” Samantha added.

  Sparrow Whitefeather’s glow intensified until it flashed from a bright silver light into a pure white platinum, waking Jack from his trance to find himself clammy with perspiration.

  Jack wondered if the crow somehow was called to the house while Jack watched through it. Did it somehow know this would happen? Or did the spirit of his grandmother come there because he was watching? Why did she touch the boy? What was she trying to tell him?

  Did this have anything to do with Ben Augustine’s accident? That had to have been caused by one of the twins. Jack still wasn’t sure which one bore the curse. From what he knew, only one child would bear it at a time. He knew his grandmother knew about the curse. He had no reason to doubt the stories his mother told him, not after everything he had seen. Surely his grandmother didn’t want him to kill the twins, he briefly wondered. Doing that would be pointless while Norah still lived.

  Jack had believed that she would be the end of the curse after being confined and having lost her mind. How she had managed to have twins while locked away in a psychiatric ward of a hospital was still a mystery. But Jack was still adamant in his belief that killing the twins would just mean somehow the curse would continue through Norah. The only other living descendants of the Jenkins family were of such distant relation that Jack didn’t fear them being pulled into this. Somehow she would have another set of twins. He couldn’t understand how but he felt this to be true. And sneaking into the hospital to kill Norah wouldn’t help little Patrick and Lily.

  Wiping the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his faded red shirt, Jack took a tin from his kitchen and went outside to sit on his handmade chair made of tree branches. There he cracked open the tin, pulled out a joint and lit it in hopes of it helping to steady his nerves. It’s a spirit, he thought to himself, but why? He had seen many restless spirits on Oakwood Island, but never of his own ancestors. The spirits clung to this island. The spirits he saw with the help of the crow were confused, troubled, lost and sometimes angry. Sparrow Whitefeather was none of those things. At least she wasn’t until now, thought Jack as he inhaled deeply from his joint, closed his eyes and waited for the herbal medicine to take effect.

  Perhaps he needed help, he thought. Maybe he could get help to figure this out. Jack had his own beliefs when it came to spirits. Unlike most people, he had seen them and knew they were real. But this felt like it was beyond his abilities. He knew he had to do something about it. I’ll make a call to get help, he thought, as he took another drag from his joint. It was worth a try.

  Chapter 8

  Conceived from Love, Born in Hate

  Year: 1899

  The drought that had held Oakwood Island in its oppressive grasp was still being felt in 1899. Though not as bad as the year before, most were hopeful that the crops would be better this season. Harvest had been thin in the fall and had produced very little for the families that had settled in the area and had built farms for cattle, livestock and vegetable crops. The fishermen from the mainland were having a lot more luck than the island families that were dependent on their crops and livestock. Some had returned to the mainland, where there was work at least in the fisheries and on the fishing boats. Work meant money to be able to buy food from the ones that had a bit extra to go around. Life on the island was not easy, but those who stayed worked hard to make sure they would have enough to survive, at the very least.

  Henri Masterson no longer cared for farming. He no longer had the patience to tend to it, to watch things grow. He also did not want to spend all his days and nights on a cold and wet fishing boat, surrounded with loud and mostly drunk fishermen, the saltwater beating his face and patience. Instead, he hunted and trapped for meat. He would cut wood for lumber and firewood when he wasn’t hunting, often trading with neighboring families for goods or services they needed, all while Sparrow cared for the children.

  Sparrow Whitefeather spent most of her time helping Henri care for the one year old twins. Henri both loved and hated his children. He wanted to love them with all his heart, like his late wife would have wanted, but he found himself often glaring at them, his heart filled with a hate he could not control. He spent days and weeks in his mind, his thoughts filled with blaming them for his wife’s death, even though she had not died due to giving birth. His wife had bled to death after being cut by Bessie.

  Sparrow recognized his conflicted thoughts, and picked up on the ill feelings towards the children. She tried to talk to Henri, to bring some sense to him in regards to his wife’s death and who had caused it. She speculated that Bessie wanted the child and cared not if the mother had lived. So she had cut her, making the baby come faster in order to take it and run before Henri returned with the water. All that Bessie had wanted was to get to her sacrificial site and kill the baby as planned, to offer it to whatever devil she had made a deal with.

  Sparrow had told Henri that Bessie had been crazy, but she wondered to herself if perhaps there was more to it. Since Sparrow stopped the murder of an innocent child in what looked like some sort of ritual, strange things had started happening. Things Sparrow couldn’t understand nor explain with logic, which lead her to doubt her own sanity at times. This was often due to fatigue though, she told herself. She knew several mothers that often became but shadows of the bright young women they had once been as soon as they delivered a baby. And even though she had not carried them in her body, and given birth to them, taking care of two babies surely had taken its toll on Sparrow, and she concluded that perhaps that was all it was.

  As tired as she may have become over the last twelve full moons, she saw how Henri looked at the children sometimes and didn’t want to leave them in his care. She feared he would hurt them if she did. Now pregnant herself, she felt an even greater need to protect the children. Her husband didn’t understand when she told him that she had to protect the twins. He couldn’t grasp how a father could wish harm on his own children. Sparrow hadn’t yet told her husband that she herself was now with child. She couldn’t as then she knew with certainty he wouldn’t let her care for the Masterson twins. She had to come up with a plan and soon. She loved the baby twin boy and girl too much to let any harm come their way.

  Sparrow Whitefeather had taken to calling the little twin girl Nakuset, which meant Sunshine. She called her this because of the brightness of her spirit. She seemed to glow with life and so Nakuset/Sunshine suited her fine. As she bathed Nakuset, her twin brother lay naked on the bed, kicking and cooing as he finished drying from his bath. She called him Gaqtugwawig, or Gaqtu for short, which meant Thunder. This name she chose for the way he screamed and carried on when he was upset. She had decided to name them as Henri had never named his children. He shunned the subject every time Sparrow brought it up by leaving the cabin and disappearing for hours on end. When Sparrow first
tried to name the girl Martha after their late mother, Henri grew so angry that he threw a chair across the kitchen and it broke several dishes on the countertop. His outburst had frightened her and the babies. Moments later, he had left them alone in the cabin, not returning for several days. Eventually, she decided to give the baby girl the name that meant Sunshine instead of naming her after Martha.

  The one-year-old twins, as much as she loved and cared for them as best she could, had become her burden. She couldn’t leave them with Henri for long anymore. In the beginning, she could leave them for a few days and he would look after them, though he did so with no love, no care in his heart. The last time she had done so, she had found them alone in the cabin when she returned. Henri had gone hunting and left the children, hungry and cold. She decided from that day forward that he could not be trusted with them for much more than a few hours at a time. She made it a point from that day to care for the babies daily.

  Sparrow frowned, lost in her thoughts about Henri’s lack of care, as she placed the little girl on the bed, next to her twin brother. She turned her attention to the potbellied wood stove that warmed the cabin so the children would be comfortable. She placed a new log of wood to the fire, and added more water from a wood pail to a large pot on the stove. Turning her attention to the cooing children, Sparrow smiled. Placing a hand on her small baby bump, she felt the love growing from inside her as much as she loved the twins she had felt forced to care for at first. She wanted to take them with her when she left, unsure when Henri would return from hunting, but her husband wouldn’t understand. She feared for the babies but was unsure how to save them from the life they had been born into.