The Awakening

by Pierre C. Arseneault

  He now stood before the mirror in the bathroom, examining the redness around his eyes. Grady tried to blink away the blurred vision and it worked at first. His vision cleared and he saw the redness of the contour of his eyes clearly. His eyes became itchy as his vision blurred again.

  His doctor had suggested he could use regular eye drops in between his medication if he needed it as it would help with the itching. Grady put in several drops, hoping for relief.

  Sleep wouldn’t come easy to him that night, but it came nonetheless. In a fitful dream, Grady was standing behind the Old Mill Restaurant again, but this time the rat was as big as a horse. It gave chase and eventually caught him, clawing his eyes out of his head as he tried to fight it off.

  When he woke, the bed was damp with perspiration and his eyes felt like they were on fire. Grady clumsily grabbed his eye drops off his nightstand, stumbled to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. He leaned back, tilting his head and struggled to get drops into his eyes. Annoyed and in pain, he managed to get relief by emptying half the small bottle in the process, most of it running down his face. With his eyes closed, the cooling sensation of the drops took over, giving him a feeling of relief at last. Still seated, he began urinating while thinking he should have thrown the damn bags like he had wanted to in the first place.

  Chapter 10

  Old Friends

  On the mainland, in the kitchen of a small house on a Mi’kmaq reserve sat three men.

  “Is it true?” Ben Augustine asked from the wheelchair he now felt trapped in. “Is it true that you can speak to crows?” Ben had spent time working on Oakwood Island and had heard the rumors about the man that was seated at the table across from him in Chief Paul “Big Bear” Augustine’s home.

  Jack ignored the question and instead asked one of his own.

  “Is it true you might never walk again?”

  Jack had heard that Ben Augustine’s accident had happened across from Scott Cudmore’s house, the foster home where the twins now lived. This was something he felt was not a simple coincidence, but he couldn’t tell this to Ben. At least not directly.

  “Well, my legs started tingling two days ago, but it stopped again,” Ben replied. “The doctor said that was a good sign, but it’s too early to know for sure.” Ben’s eyes cast downwards, and his gaze drifted onto the tabletop. Deep in thought, he closed his eyes as he let out a soft sigh. It had been a very traumatizing ordeal, and he was still trying to understand the full scope of his injuries himself, let alone trying to explain it to someone else. He had hoped that Jack’s visit to the reserve would provide him with a distraction. He was a bit disappointed that the conversation turned towards him, and he tried to hide this by not looking Jack in the eyes.

  Seated at the kitchen table opposite Jack was a much older man known to him, as well as many others, as Big Bear, a man whose face showed his age. Sunken cheeks below large cheekbones, deep wrinkles and long white hair made him look old and wise. With age came wisdom and knowledge and this was why Jack had decided to travel to the mainland to seek his help. Jack ignored what the younger people of the reserve said about Big Bear. Most everyone under thirty said Big Bear was crazy simply because of the stories he recounted from his own childhood that had sounded improbable and far-fetched. Jack knew what that was like, because some Oakwood Island residents said the same about him. Here on the mainland, his feathered friend never followed. The crow would often fly over the ferry as Jack left the island, but it never followed any further. The crow always circled back to the island to await his return. This helped Jack avoid spreading those rumors about himself on the mainland more than they already had.

  As he sat with the man that his friends had suggested he speak to, he wondered if the old man would help him. Seeing as his own grandson, Ben Augustine had already commented about Jack’s ability to “speak” with crows. He knew his friends on the reserve meant well when they had suggested maybe Big Bear could help, as he too had had experiences with spirits trapped on this plane in his own lifetime, a long time ago. Jack wondered though if he could trust him, knowing that the rumors about his own abilities had already reached the old man.

  Big Bear wasn’t the Chief on the reserve anymore. He had long ago been replaced when his health had become frail. He had been replaced by a much younger man who didn’t speak of spirits and great evils. The old ways were forgotten by many of the younger residents of the reserve, but some elders were convinced Big Bear wasn’t lost in his own mind like so many believed. They were confident that if anyone could help Jack, it was him. The pair seemed to be cut from the same cloth, one of his friends had expressed.

  While on Oakwood Island, a few of them had seen Jack interact with the crow and assumed it was a pet of sorts. Many of his friends from the mainland had heard tales of how Jack often knew things he shouldn’t or couldn’t possibly know. It was as if he had a special connection to the island and its people. There was something strange about Jack even if he never spoke about it. That was, he had never spoken about it until now. When he spoke of a spirit coming to him, it didn’t take long for them to send the Crow Whisperer to the Reserve’s own man who claimed he spoke to lost and trapped spirits.

  Big Bear wasn’t a very talkative man. He said only what needed to be said, when he felt the other was listening to what he had to say. When Jack arrived on Big Bear’s stoop the previous night with stories of spirits, Big Bear knew why they had sent Jack to him. He had listened carefully to the stories of cursed twins and restless spirits residing on Oakwood Island. He had listened to Jack explain how he saw the spirits through his link to a special crow and how he had done so since his childhood. Jack had explained how he was always the one to do this. He explained how until now, the crow had never showed him a spirit without him initiating it. His feathered friend had never come to him and showed him a spirit like it had when his grandmother had come to him. Big Bear offered to help him in the only way he knew how, by having a traditional sacred pipe ceremony in order to communicate with the spirits, to make Jack’s need of clarification known and to receive guidance and answers from the ancestors. Ben, a pipe carrier from birth, would guide the sacred ceremony, as he was the only one with this calling and gift in the area.

  When night fell, the trio gathered in the backyard of Big Bear’s home, under the hundreds of stars that speckled the sky.

  “The sky is welcoming us, watching us with its many eyes in anticipation.” Big Bear looked upwards and smiled broadly as he pointed towards the heavens. “Come, let us prepare.”

  He and Jack walked over to the far end of the property, where the lawn ended a few feet away from the river that passed through the land. A small fire was already burning in the fire pit near Ben’s wheelchair. Ben sat with a thick wool blanket covering his legs. Resting on his lap was the oblong leather carrying case, golden yellow with dark brown and red beading designs adorning it. Ben smiled as Jack and Big Bear sat on the dusty straw mats that had been used for several generations in this sacred gathering spot.

  “Let us begin by cleansing ourselves, brothers.” The old man took out a small brown satchel, pulled apart the strings that kept it tied together and removed sage from the bag. He placed the dried sage leaves in a good-sized abalone shell, which served as a bowl. Once he lit the sage with the flame of the fire pit, he smudged himself with the swirling smoke and passed the shell over to Jack, who took his time to smudge himself before passing it to Ben, who did the same.

  Ben removed the pipe from the yellow carrying case and smudged it before repeating the cleansing all over the long instrument, from the bowl to the stem. He loaded the pipe in four parts, offering a pinch of tobacco to each of the four directions, as he addressed the spirits in each and asked them to hear their prayers tonight. Once the circle of offerings to the four directions was complete, he returned his wheelchair to its initial position facing the fire with the help of his grandfather. He brought the
pipe up over his head, thanking the Creator for hearing their prayers and expressing gratitude for the answers to their questions and prayers. An owl hooted nearby. The three men looked at each other, their eyes reflecting the warm glow of the fire, as they acknowledged their presence was now made up of more than three mere mortals. The flames grew larger for a few seconds, yet no wind was felt.

  When the flames died down and the fire returned to its previous crackle, Ben leaned over and placed the tip of a sweet grass braid in the flames. Once ignited, he blew on it a few times until only a red glow remained. He brought the burning braid to the bowl of the pipe and lit the tobacco as he inhaled a few times in the stem of the sacred pipe. As he did so, he sent his prayers up towards the skies, the smoke carrying them up to the spirits who would hear them as they were carried with the sacred smoke. Once completed, he smudged himself with the smoke four times, turning the stem clockwise between each to honor the four directions once more. Once completed, he passed the pipe over to Jack who was seated on the ground to his left.

  Jack repeated the ceremonial process, as it had been taught to him as a young boy so very long ago. He had only ever taken part in a pipe ceremony as a young man, when he had questioned his life direction. As he began sending his prayers and questions to the elder spirits, he had an idea but was unsure if he should attempt it or not. Inhaling and sending another gust of smoke to the heavens above, he heard the owl hoot once more and in the distance a howling made its way to his ears. He took this as a confirmation from the elder spirits that they wanted him to proceed in order to get the answers he sought. He closed his eyes as the smoke swirled above him and called upon his feathered friend who had remained on Oakwood Island. Never before had he been able to communicate with the crow while off the island, but he felt the urge to try and he knew that by doing so, he could possibly find answers.

  Still seated, eyes closed, he felt himself become very light, a floating sensation coming over him. All around him was darkness, but swirls of smoke appeared, engulfing him completely, transporting him somewhere else. Once the smoke cleared, he found himself sitting in a mist covered field, his grandmother sitting directly in front of him. Her face old, wrinkled, as it had been in her final years, how he remembered her well. She looked at him with love in her eyes, a smile that echoed her feelings for him. She held both her hands to her chest, dark and leather-like, then she held them out to him in a slow gesture. He noticed she wore the light brown dress, the one with the singe mark on the chest. The one she had worn in her younger years. Opening his mouth, he realized he could not speak. She sat quietly, looking at him with love in her eyes. Yet with all the love she was sending him, Jack felt an uneasiness overcome him. He could feel something was wrong in this field where the tall grasses hid them from their surroundings. He felt something lurking all around them, almost like an evil presence was watching, waiting to pounce on them both. Looking around, he only saw the tall grass filled with dew as the mist became thicker, cloud-like almost. In an instant, it passed over his grandmother’s face and she was gone.

  In her place sat a woman Jack knew well named Edwina Quartley, dressed in her mail carrier uniform. She too sat unwavering, as silent as Sparrow had been. Jack’s pulse spiked and he felt his mouth go dry. Trying to move, he found himself unable to. Confused, he tried to speak but could not. The air around him felt heavier, the mist seemed to weigh on him with dread. To his right he noticed the tall grass moving, a dark shadow in the corner of his eye seemed to jump behind him. When he returned his gaze to Edwina, he gasped as he saw her eyes spilling blood, running down her face and cheeks and on the front of her uniform where it dripped in a continual flow.

  The mist again and in a flash appeared Ben Augustine, eyes completely black, dark smoke swirled out of his ears, nose and opened mouth. Before Jack could even begin to comprehend what he was seeing, Ben was replaced with old man Ketchum. Mr. Ketchum smiled at Jack, which made him apprehensive, but as he watched the old man open his smiling mouth wide, hundreds of large black flies flew out and headed in all directions in a buzzing cloud. They swirled around Jack’s head, swarming and recollecting until they shot back towards Mr. Ketchum, covering his face completely. Only once they were gone, Officer Ryan McGregor sat in front of Jack. Blood flowed from gashes and wounds; his face was partially missing. The flesh looked ragged as if it had been torn off. Jack tried to scream, to move, but it was no use. He was trapped here, forced to watch the many faces that were coming to him, one by one.

  Officer Ryan pulled on a flap of loose skin that dangled on his cheek and as he pulled harder Jack could see another cheek, smooth and white under the bloody one. Ryan tugged hard until his whole face slid off. Jack blinked, stunned by what he was witnessing. The wind around him grew stronger, the tall grass whipped in every direction, hitting his face. Before him now sat Maggie, in her waitress uniform like Jack remembered her. She was looking to her left, searching the grass for something, perhaps the dark shadow Jack thought he had seen mere moments before. As she turned her stare to face Jack, only half of her face remained. He noticed her entire left side; both face and body looked like it had been crushed. The only thing that remained was a bloody mess.

  Jack’s panic continued to rise. He blinked fast only to see that Maggie was no longer in front of him, but now Norah Jenkins took her place. Her eyes blood red, she smiled to expose pointy teeth, covered in blood as pus dripped in heavy globs down her chin. Mrs. Ketchum soon replaced Norah, her dead corpse rotting, yet alive, maggots and worms wriggling in and out of her nose and ears. When she opened her mouth to talk, several came sliding out instead of words escaping her. Jack could hear his heartbeat thumping in his ears, beating hard in his chest. Behind the dead woman, he sensed the evil again; a dark shadow slithered in the small crevices in between the blades of grass.

  He thought he could hear panting, some kind of an animal nearby, perhaps, waiting to pounce on him. Before he could try to move again, Mrs. Ketchum was gone. In her place sat a very young, small girl. He knew the young girl was Lily. She sat up straight, smiling up at him, her cute little face as normal as he remembered. He began to calm down, until her smile began to turn into a grin, her little lips curling up at the edges into a sly smile, her brow furrowing. He looked at her, unsure what to think. The wind turned violent, whipping the grass all around, sending his hat flying off his head and out into the field beyond, making him close his eyes from fear. When he reopened them, there sat Sparrow, his loving grandmother, just as before, quiet and unwavering. Her calm demeanor brought peace to him once more. She still held her hands to her chest.

  Finally able to move, he reached up both his hands, looked at her and spoke in a soft tone.

  “Nukumi…” he uttered.

  Just as his hands reached hers, two large bloody claws protruded from her chest and through her body. The evil that had lurked in the shadows had snuck up behind her. Jack saw a hairy scalp with dog-like ears and glowing red eyes begin to appear from behind Sparrow, just as all went black.

  Jack Whitefeather woke up from what felt like a long sleep, yet he was still sitting in the same position on the straw mat in the backyard. He had no idea how long he had been sitting there, but he knew it had been many hours, since he could see that the sun would soon rise. Dawn’s arrival had hidden the stars above, the elder spirits long gone, as well as Ben and his wheelchair, which were nowhere to be seen. Big Bear now lay on his side on his mat, his hands tucked in to keep himself warm. Facing the dying embers of the fire from the night before, his snores were long and deep.

  As Jack drifted off to sleep again, he dreamt of Edwina Quartley. A woman he knew but couldn’t fathom how she was tied to this. The rest of the ones he had seen in his mind’s eye he knew were tied to this, but not Edwina. When he awoke again in the morning, the bright July sun shone on his face through the branches of the willow trees near the river. Getting up, he found his body was sore and weak. He was not accustomed to sl
eeping on the ground. He could feel the tension in his stiff muscles that had come in the night following the disturbing visions. He found Big Bear sitting at his kitchen table with Ben seated with him. Big Bear sipped tea while Ben looked outside the window, deep in thought. He suspected he wasn’t the only one that received some sort of messages through visions the night before. Jack joined them at the kitchen table, unsure if he could share what he had seen and felt. He wondered exactly what it was the spirits had tried to communicate. He wondered if it was even the elders that had come or someone else, something else maybe. He knew he didn’t want to trouble the young man more than he needed. He already had enough to deal with. No, Jack thought, best to figure this out on my own.

  Jack sat on the Bayview dock, waiting for the ferry so he could once again return to the place he had always called home. In silence, he watched the steady pulse of the blinking beacon of the Oakwood Island lighthouse. He sat, deep in thought about the previous evening and strange things he had seen.

  Was that a vision he’d experienced, or had he dreamt it? He was certain he had seen it during the pipe ceremony when he had tried to access the crow’s sight, but he didn’t remember if he actually managed to get to the crow. He wondered if maybe the crow itself had initiated this exchange again. It was possible, this he understood since he had experienced it in recent weeks.

  Either way, the things he had seen reminded him of what this was and made him pay attention to the message it carried. As he had suspected for a long time, it was an evil that was affecting many lives. The same evil that had caused so much death and chaos on the island five years earlier, and for decades before that.

  Yet, knowing that it was evil and that it had to be stopped, he didn’t really know what to do. There was only one obvious way to end the curse and that was to kill the ones that carried it on. Norah, but also the twins as well. He remembered how he lost his chance years ago when he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had walked out of Norah’s hospital room, unable to do what he felt had been his responsibility. Regret had started to build up ever since the deaths had started again. Regret that grew greater since the twins were born.