Hannah & the Spindle Whorl

by Carol Anne Shaw

  “Why do you want to put it on your pages?” Yisella asks, sitting up now. “Don’t you remember the important things inside your head?”

  I think about what she says for a minute. “Yeah. I do. But I still like to write it down. I don’t know. It just makes me feel safe.”

  “Safe?”

  “Yeah, like it’s something I do every day, and no matter what happens, I know this habit will never change. I’ll always write in it.”

  “Oh. Right. It’s like my sumshasat necklace.”

  “Your what?”

  “Sumshasat.” She touches the shimmering piece of abalone shell that hangs on the thin cord around her neck. “It’s our word for sun. I made this necklace from the shell that shines like the sun. I wear it all the time. I don’t feel safe without it.”

  I get it. Familiar things are comforting.

  “Maybe one day I won’t need to wear it so much,” Yisella says thoughtfully. “Maybe then I’ll give it to someone else.”

  That’d be a cool thing to do, I think. I wonder if I’ll ever stop writing in my journal. It’s hard to imagine.

  We sit silently for a moment while Poos playfully stalks Jack on the floor by the door. Jack ignores him mostly, but sometimes he lets out a little warning squawk. Jack seems to be a pretty patient bird. He moves away from Poos, stands with his spindly black legs slightly apart, tilts his iridescent blue-black head, and looks from Yisella to me.

  The evening passes slowly, but Yisella and I both agree that it’s best to wait until it’s good and dark before we head away from the village. Eventually, by the light of the moon, with Poos in his basket, Yisella and I venture away from the settlement on the lake and go deeper into the inky, black woods.

  The stillness of the night is broken only twice: once, by the swift flight of a great horned owl as it slices through the trees just over our heads; then again when a doe and her fawn are startled by our footsteps as we round the bend. They spring into the air and, with a few bounds through the foliage, they’re both gone.

  While I’m comfortable now in these deep woods, I’m still really grateful for the light of the moon. I have no idea where we are. Yisella, on the other hand, seems to know exactly where we need to go, stopping now and then to let me catch up.

  When the trees open up and we come to a marshy area, we sit on a fallen log, resting our feet and taking in deep breaths of the warm night air. Then we hear a noise — a snap of a branch and the rustling of leaves. We look at each other and then over to Jack who drops from a nearby branch and soars over the marsh toward the sound. Yisella and I stand up slowly, backing away from the log to the trees behind us. Jack’s cawing becomes frantic. We can’t see him, but we can hear the swoosh of his wings and the commotion he makes in the bushes.

  There’s definitely something, or someone, in there. And then a dark shape moves at the edge of the tree line across the clearing, immediately followed by two more. The dull glow of a lantern comes and goes as the figures weave in and out of the tall tree trunks. I can feel sweat on my forehead and I don’t dare breathe.

  Suddenly a pale light floods the clearing, and its glare shines directly on us. Then a second light appears, and then a third. Yisella and I stand rooted to the spot, clutching each other in a death grip, unable to budge.

  “YOU THERE!” a voice shouts. “HALT RIGHT THERE!”

  There are three of them. Sailors. I can tell by their V-necked jerseys and the hats like squashed muffins on their heads. They have to be off the boat. One man is massive, and I can just make out his mutton chop sideburns and handlebar mustache. All three hold kerosene lamps high over their heads as they jog across the clearing.

  “Oh!” Yisella squeaks, as I grab her elbow and spin her around to face the woods.

  “Come on!” I hiss, and then we fly as fast as we can into the cover of the trees. I hear footsteps from behind and they’re gaining on us. I can hear their voices clearly too.

  “Quick! It’s the little white girl.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Doesn’t matter. The Indian girl’s got her!”

  “Come on, John. I can hear them just up ahead!”

  I’m grateful that I’ve spent so much time in the woods lately. We might have a chance to outrun them. I can hear the big guy coughing and gasping for air.

  Yisella and I run all-out down another deer trail off to the right. We’re almost out of sight when it happens. A strange growl. Poos, who has stayed small and still in the basket, now peeks over the edge, his ears flattened against his head.

  Then there’s a noise so loud and so close that both Yisella and I jump, our hands clutching at each other in the darkness. I can hear the muffled voices of the sailors to our left. They’ve heard it too.

  The cracking of branches continues along the edge of the marsh, loud and constant. Whatever’s moving in there is large and heavy — much more so than those sailors. I gulp and feel my heart beating out of control. Not again.

  Yisella inches backward, taking me with her, and I place my hand on Poos to hold him still inside the basket. When we move, the noise in the bushes stops for a moment and then starts up again with such an intensity it seems as though the trees are being ripped right out of the ground by their roots.

  Neither Yisella nor I can take it another second. We flee, no longer worrying about being silent, or stealthy, or stepping around any plants.

  Then a single high-pitched, echoing cry rises from the bushes behind us, piercing the night. I’ve never heard a sound like it before, and I can’t ever remember being this petrified.

  “Thumquas!” Yisella screams. “RUN!”

  26

  Thumquas

  We run blindly through the woods, ignoring the brambles and branches that scratch our legs and our faces as we go. The adrenaline flows and all I know is that whatever is behind us is catching up. I can hear the lumbering stride, feel the ground shake and then smell the dank, musky smell in the air. I tell myself, “Run, Hannah! Run!”

  We switch back in the other direction, and that’s when we realize the sailors are still following us.

  We bump into each other, and I’m sent hurtling to the ground, smashing my leg against a rock. I can’t yell despite the searing pain in my already sore knee. Yisella holds the basket with the whorl inside as if it is glued to her body. My heart is pounding, my head spinning, and my chest feels like it’s about to explode. I get up and we once again run through the woods, forgetting where we’ve been or where we’re going. We’re just running for our lives. Jack flies up and down and from side to side, avoiding tree trunks, flying under branches, and he doesn’t caw or squawk once. I’m conscious of the heavy sweep of his wings as he brushes past just inches from my face.

  “Hannah! I have to stop,” Yisella wheezes, clutching at her sides, her shoulders heaving. “I … I can’t breathe.”

  The crackling in the trees stops, and at the same time we hear different footsteps. Suddenly the sailors stand right before us. The big man with the mutton chops is not twenty feet away. His dying lamp casts a dull, barely visible glow on the patch of ground between us.

  “Young miss! We’ve found you. You’re going to be all right. Come forward!”

  “No—” I begin, but Yisella pulls me back sharply and I shut my mouth tight.

  “Leave her be, Squaw!” he booms, lunging forward.

  I gasp, not only at his words, but at the sound of other footsteps in the undergrowth beside us. Heavy steps switch direction every few feet. Whatever beast this is, it’s so close that we can hear it breathing! The strange musky smell is overwhelming. Yisella and I are both shaking. I don’t want it to end like this! Not here, in the woods, where strange sailors are threatening to take me away. Not for my friend who is now so special to me. Not for Poos.

  I cover half of my face with my sleeve. I squeeze my eyes shut and then open them again because I know it’s impossible now. I can’t run anymore and I can’t hide. And there, a stone’s throw away, besi
de a straight, tall Douglas fir, is a shape. A huge shadow. The dark shape lunges through the trees, and I swear the earth shakes as it passes. Thumquas?

  “Holy Mother of God!” hisses the big sailor, reaching for his rifle.

  “Is it a bear?” one of the other sailors speaks, his voice cracking with fear as he raises his lantern high in front of him.

  The light bounces against the trees. I don’t think this shadow belongs to a bear. No bear could ever make a shadow this big. No bear could reach above its head and break off a limb from a tree with such ease. Could it? I’m afraid to even blink, and then, as if the shape can hear me holding my breath, it stops moving. Is it watching me? Thumquas? The Sasquatch? Does it really exist?

  The one sailor raises his rifle, carefully taking aim at the shape in the trees, while the other two make a grab for me, their hands squeezing my arm as they yank me toward them.

  “NO!” I scream. “YISELLA!”

  But before Yisella can react, a terrifying cry bursts out of the trees. A split second later, the sailor’s rifle flies out of his hands and he cartwheels onto the ground. Another piercing cry sounds, and the two other sailors are flat on the ground. I run over to where Yisella stands, horrified and sick with fear. Great gasping breaths shake her small frame, and when I reach her, her knees buckle. I summon every last bit of strength I have to drag her back toward the trees, even while my own body shakes like a leaf.

  Looking back over my shoulder, I can barely see the sailors running off in the opposite direction, all three kerosene lamps now lying broken on the ground where we stood just moments before.

  Then a mournful bellow fills the woods. And the shadow begins to move, following in our path. Oh, please! Not again. No more. I can’t take it. Yisella and I run fast, but the shadow cuts in front of us to block our path, sending us careering off in another direction. For a moment we lose it — but then it’s there again, a shape in the willows ahead of us. I am sure I can see its eyes. Yellow eyes. And the smell is back again, too.

  Suddenly, we are face to face with a wall of brambles covering a flat rock surface. We dive around it, not daring to breathe, only to discover that the flat rock face is about fifteen feet high and we’re trapped. Then I see a small dark opening at one end, just wide enough for a small person to squeeze through.

  It’s my cave! I’m absolutely sure of it. I recognize the opening, even in the fuzzy moonlight. It’s like seeing an old friend and my heart nearly bursts with gratitude. We don’t even hesitate as we push our way through, wriggling inside. With Yisella inside the cave, I push the three baskets and my pack through after her. Then it’s my turn to suck in my stomach and slip through sideways with my arms straight at my sides.

  Once inside, we stand clutching each other, feeling the dank heaviness of the air that surrounds us. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath, not letting go of Yisella for a second.

  When I finally open my eyes, I see her peering through a small crack between the rocks in the narrow cave wall. I force myself to look as well. I can see the creature, thanks to the moonlight, standing silently to one side of the cave, and all I can do is hope that it moves on. Hope that I’m not on this strange adventure only to be torn to shreds by a monster I don’t even believe in — didn’t believe in. That just wouldn’t make any sense. I can see the dark shape against a fallen tree trunk and it’s not moving. I nudge Yisella. “Look at it. That thing. That bear. What’s it doing?”

  “Not a bear. Thumquas.”

  It makes another sound, and I feel the hairs go up on the back of my neck — it’s such a creepy sound. But at the same time, sad. I can’t quite describe the noise it makes. A whimper? A moan? It’s so human that I shiver. I strain my eyes in the darkness, willing the creature to come away from the trees, into the moonlight so I can get a better look. Thumquas? Could it be? The shape backs away slowly and then it’s gone.

  Yisella and I stand still as mice, just inside the dark crevice, afraid to move a muscle for fear that whatever was just here will return. It doesn’t. It’s some time before our heartbeats return to normal and we can smell the damp earth and the salt of the sea again instead of the unfamiliar animal smell.

  But the sea and the earth aren’t the only things I smell. Lemons. I’m comforted now, and when my shoulders relax I loosen my grip on Yisella’s arm. My mother. She hasn’t left me for good. I smile in the dark.

  With the creature gone, I wonder about the sailors from the ship. They could be anywhere. They could be hiding in the woods, just waiting to find me again and take me back with them. I have no idea where we are and even Yisella is disoriented. Wherever we were headed in the first place has been pretty much erased from my mind during the wild night chase. Did she even tell me? I can’t remember now.

  “Thumquas is gone, Hannah. I am pretty sure we don’t need to feel scared anymore,” she says softly, and I almost laugh out loud at the matter-of-fact way she says this.

  “How do you know this stuff?” I whisper. “Do you speak Thumquas or something?”

  Yisella stifles a giggle. “No, but that creature was helping us, Hannah.”

  Who’s she kidding? That creature probably wanted to rip us to smithereens, along with the three sailors. Doesn’t she remember the rifle flying through the air? Has she forgotten the way the sailors were mysteriously knocked to the ground? They couldn’t have just fallen, could they?

  “Yisella,” I say calmly, “did you bump your head or something? That thing was not helping us.”

  “It’s true. We were scared at the time, but he actually protected you from those men. He stopped them from taking you, because, well … they would have taken you back to the boat.”

  Maybe she was right. Whatever it was could have easily killed us all. My mind suddenly flashes back to my fall into the river. That log that landed in the water beside me, out of nowhere. Was … was that Thumquas as well? Saving my life?

  “And then afterwards,” she goes on, “he helped us find this cave. A place to hide from those men. Don’t you see? Thumquas didn’t hurt us. He helped us.”

  “You know? You might have something there,” I say thoughtfully. “I was too scared to notice that, but it is kind of weird how we ended up in here.”

  Yisella sighs and even though I can’t really see her inside the cave, I can tell that the tension is disappearing from her as well.

  “Know what else?” I say. “There was one other thing.”

  “What.”

  “Well, remember I told you about the scent that my mother wore? The scent that smells a lot like the lemon balm plant you showed me?”

  “I remember,” Yisella says.

  “Well … it was her. My mother. She was here. And this isn’t the first time that she’s come to me since I came to Tl’ulpalus. There were other times as well. Once, just before the Nahnum circle, I was missing her so much, and then again when I fell in the river. I smelled lemons both those times too.”

  “Well, she’s your mother. She knows you,” Yisella says, apparently not surprised by any of this. She acts like paranormal activity is the most normal thing in the word. “It’ll be okay, now.”

  Just like that? Yisella believes all her troubles are over?

  “But you can’t really mean that?” I say. “You get deserted by your family, your village is now full of strangers, I almost get kidnapped by sailors, and we come face to face with a … I mean, Thumquas. And now you feel like everything’s okay? Are you crazy, Yisella?”

  “Not crazy. I just think that you can change some things, and other things you can’t.” I hear her digging in the basket feeling for the carefully wrapped spindle whorl. “The most important thing is still here. And those men are gone now.”

  I finally remember my own basket. Poos! I reach in, grasping for his little furry body, but there’s nothing there except another blanket and some pieces of dried berry cake.

  “Poos,” I say under my breath. He must have fallen out when we were running from the
creature. He must be so scared, but there’s nothing I can do. Except hope that he escaped and will find his way back to Tl’ulpalus. I think of him lost in the deep woods and — I can’t help it, I feel so rotten inside — I don’t even try to stop the sudden river of tears sliding down my face. Almost since I got here, Poos has been my constant companion, like Chuck back home. And now he’s lost. Probably scared. Maybe even …

  I’m glad it’s dark and that Yisella can’t see me. I lean back against the moist cool slab of rock at my back and let my eyes close. Something shifts near my feet. It’s Jack. I reach down and touch him as he stretches his wings. It’s the first time I’ve ever touched him. He doesn’t flinch as I run a finger along the top of his head. It feels smooth and cool. I’m completely exhausted from our terrifying night. My arms feel as though they’re made of dead wood and its hard to ignore the throbbing in my calves.

  Wiping the tears from my face, I say to Yisella in my most normal voice, “That was absolutely — the scariest thing — that has ever happened to me — in my entire life.”

  “I thought I was going to faint!” she blurts.

  “Faint? I thought we were going to die!” I rearrange my back against the rock, “What do we do now? Where are we supposed to go from here?”

  “It doesn’t matter now and we don’t need to worry so much anymore. Tomorrow, I will go to the lake and bathe in the water,” Yisella tells me. “I’ll face east, and pay respect to the Creator. That’s the way to gain s’yuw wun, a special spirit power.”

  I smile to myself. Don’t worry so much. It seems like a weird thing to say at a time like this, but because she seems so calm and her voice is so soothing, I believe her.

  “Okay. But I wouldn’t go outside just yet,” I warn. “Those men might be hiding and waiting for us.”

  “I don’t think so. Thumquas scared them too much. They will not come into the deep woods again tonight.”