The Muskrats gathered around Brett.
“It’s okay, Brett.” Chickadee squeezed his arm.
Otter slapped him on the back.
“You almost had it, man.” Sam softly punched Brett in the shoulder.
Atim had been hard hit by the loss. He looked Brett in the eyes and shook his head.
“You had it, Brett!” Atim shook his head. “We’ll figure something out.”
Brett looked around the circle of friends. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I messed up. I thought I had him!”
“Ahh, well. I didn’t need to go to the Exhibition anyway.” Chickadee’s laugh was tinged with disappointment.
“C’mon, let’s get out of this hole!” Samuel smiled. He looked over at the collection of pinball and video games as he turned to leave.
The youth from Windy Lake left The Crystal Palace and walked back to the mall.
Chapter 6
Backspin Blues
Brett said few words as they all walked back to the business district. The Muskrats did their best to cheer him up about the loss. They all agreed that the Exhibition Fair was an annual event and they could all go another year. Brett didn’t respond. A cloud of disappointment surrounded their little cluster as they made their way to the food court.
They were quiet as they slid into seats that were bolted to the floor. Atim leaned heavily on the table. “I’m so sad, I’m not even hungry.”
“Really?” Samuel looked incredulous.
“Well, having no money helps.” Atim’s smile had a touch of chagrin.
“Hey!” Brett said angrily. “I tried.”
Atim looked shocked. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Brett. Just sayin’,” he stammered, sincerely.
“Well, you guys still have a hundred bucks. Why don’t you spend that?” Brett still sounded defensive.
Samuel leaned in. “That’s Otter’s money. Don’t feel bad about losing, Brett. We knew the risks and we have to accept the results.”
“We’re not mad at you.” Chickadee touched Brett’s arm. Otter nodded.
The Muskrats attempts to make Brett feel better seemed to do the opposite.
He stood up angrily.
“Maybe you should forget the tickets and just, like, buy some new clothes. O-M-G! You look like you just, like, walked off the rez.” Brett didn’t look any of them in the eye.
“Brett?” Chickadee tried to draw his eye.
He shied away, then he looked down at her. “You’re just a bunch of kids….”
Chickadee’s heart was punctured.
Brett watched the look on her face change. “You’re not old enough to be walking around the city.” He turned to leave but yelled over his shoulder, “Maybe you should just go back to your auntie’s!”
Incredulous, the Muskrats watched him walk away.
“What was that about?” Samuel blinked.
“He’s upset that he lost,” Atim said.
“He’s upset he let us down, probably,” Otter added.
“Could be. Or…I don’t know, something else.” Chickadee tried to sound like an adult, but she felt an ache on the inside.
“Well…” Atim said slyly, “we really should get back to Auntie’s.”
“What are we going to tell her about our Ex money?” Chickadee raised her eyebrows at the boys.
“What are we going to tell Auntie? Why do we need to tell her anything?” Atim tried to sound casual.
“We just lost all our money!” Chickadee wailed.
“It’s only forty bucks,” Atim said.
Chickadee threw her hands up, leaned back against her seat, and crossed her arms.
“Well, we’ll keep it quiet for now. If we have to tell her, we will. But if we don’t, we won’t,” Samuel said, trying to be a peacemaker.
Chickadee glanced at Otter. He had other places to look. She shook her head. “And what about Great-Auntie Charlotte?”
The boys were silent.
Eventually, Samuel stood up. “Let’s just head back to Auntie Sadie’s now. We’ll figure things out in the morning.”
“Sounds good.” Atim pushed himself aloft using the table and chair. He then let his legs down to the floor. Otter and Chickadee followed the brothers.
Nobody said a word on the bus ride back to their Auntie Sadie’s.
Chapter 7
Chickadee Takes Flight
Chickadee ran. Fingers of pine needles clawed her face. Thorns and brambles entangled her legs as she crashed through the trees. Was it behind her? Was she running toward it? Her leg muscles screamed as they thrust her forward. Where was she going? Fear tightened her chest. A ghostly fog filtered through the evergreens.
The bush was thick. Chickadee tried to protect her face as the branches slapped her like angry hands. She staggered as the ground dipped and rose again. Almost on her knees, Chickadee caught herself and resumed running.
“I’m here!”
Who was that? Did she hear that? She gauged her fear. What was she running from? Was it closer? Farther?
“I need your help!”
That wasn’t a thought. Someone was there with her. She stopped. Her breath was ragged.
Chickadee dared to whisper, “Where are you? Are you lost?”
A wave of sadness hit her. She was so alone. Was that her emotion or someone else’s? Something was left unfinished.
“I am here! Help me.”
The sorrow was overwhelming. It was a weight Chickadee carried as she picked through the bush and fog toward the voice.
“I am coming!” She gasped under the load of despair.
“I want to help you!”
As the heartfelt desire to help surged within her, Chickadee was suddenly pulled forward through the bush, the trees fading behind her.
In a blur, she was at the edge of a small dell. The sorrow and loneliness had intensified. She looked across the tiny clearing within the evergreen witnesses. The mist seemed to suck the color from the air. Then the vapor parted, and something slowly emerged—a small girl. Her skin was pale, strands of long, black hair obscured her face, a gray smock hung from thin shoulders.
Chickadee’s fear rose inside her. She wanted to run, but the girl’s hand beckoned.
“Who are…” Chickadee stepped back.
“My circle is broken. Please, don’t be afraid. Help me!”
The girl faded into the fog.
ó
Chickadee woke with a start. Her heart felt like it pumped sadness with every beat. The pain ebbed as she caught her breath and her heartbeat slowed. When she was feeling normal again, she laid her head back on the pillow and hoped she would remember the dream in the morning.
She didn’t.
ó
Hours later, Chickadee awoke to sunlight shining through the basement windows. She looked around at the piles of clothes and bags, and the furniture pushed against the walls. On the floor, Otter and Samuel slept head-to-foot on a queen-sized mattress. Close by, Atim was snoring loudly on a smaller air mattress.
Chickadee watched her cousins sleeping for a moment. She sighed, shook her head, and quietly got out of bed. After brushing her teeth in the downstairs bathroom, she dressed and went upstairs. Looking out the windows by the back-door landing, she saw that the sun had just pulled its bottom over the horizon. She climbed the last few steps to the first floor, past the kitchen, and down the hallway that led away from the living room. Her aunt had told her there was a study with a computer on the other side of the bathroom.
Chickadee had never seen so much carpet and her feet were delighted by its softness. She knew her Auntie Sadie and her uncle were not rich, but they both had careers, and their house was nicer than any back at Windy Lake.
Chickadee found the computer and turned it on. Once it whirred to life, she began to search t
he Internet for information on adoptions. The search engine came up with the provincial adoption agency. Opening that website, Chickadee began to search the archives. After a few minutes, she realized that older records had not been uploaded to the web. Her auntie Charlotte’s records were too far back to access online. The website advised the searcher to visit the Provincial Archive building for hard copies of the files. It also recommended that an appointment be made to access a staff member. Chickadee wrote down the address and began to search for the bus number that would take her there. Armed with new information, she headed back through the still-quiet house.
As she passed the door to the kitchen, she saw her cousin Harold eating breakfast at the kitchen table. Chickadee smiled. “Hey, Freaky.”
Harold looked over the cereal box in front of him. “Hey, little cuz. It’s so nice to see you.” He waved at her happily. “I’ve been so busy with work and school that I’m hardly here. I heard you were in. We’ll have go to the mall or something.”
Chickadee jogged over and gave him a hug.
“Grab a bowl and some cereal.” He pushed the box at her. “Let’s talk.”
Over their breakfast bowls, the two gossiped about family and Windy Lake for a while. Harold was older than the Muskrats and he had babysat Chickadee and his younger cousins many times. He knew them well. After a time, their conversation moved on from just family, friends, and back home.
“So, what have you thought of the city so far?” Harold asked.
“It’s big, but then…it’s full of little caves, small places where people are closed off. I don’t know….” Chickadee scowled.
“I know. It’s got so much, but then it’s so empty too,” Harold said. “For me, it’s good, because of the way I am.” He flipped his hair with a flick of his wrist. “I’m a little loud and I like to be different, so the city is better for that than small-town Windy Lake.”
They both laughed.
“But then, coming from the rez, I know there is a different life. I know what the bush sounds like. And everything in the city is so…city-centered. Why do we have a mine polluting Windy Lake? Because it feeds the city. Everyone wants to get more of everything so that their lives are easier. Time moves faster here it seems.” Harold picked up the cereal box and offered Chickadee a second helping, but she shook her head.
“The craziest part is…” Harold continued, “city people don’t seem to know there is a different life out there. It’s like the city mouse killed the country mouse and forgot he ever existed. Our people can get lost in the city.”
“Harold, did you know about Auntie Charlotte?” Chickadee drank the last of the cereal milk directly from the bowl and then joined her cousin as he put his dishes in the dishwasher.
“Not until last night when my mom told me. Pretty interesting. And pretty cool that Grandpa trusted you with it.” Harold closed the dishwasher.
“Well, I was on the computer, and the provincial website says I should go check out the archives and ask for hard copies if I want to find out more. What’s a hard copy?”
Harold laughed. “Just a printed copy. Maybe the files are stored on microfilm or something. I don’t know. But do you have to go down there?”
“Yeah.” Chickadee sighed and shook her head.
“What’s the problem, little one?” Harold gently placed his hand on her shoulder.
“If this was Windy Lake, I’d just walk over.”
“Well, Atim has to get up…eventually. He’s a growing…bonehead, you know.” Harold giggled.
“They’re all boneheads!” Chickadee said, exasperated. She told Harold that the boys had been more interested in getting tickets for Wovoka’s Wail than finding Auntie Charlotte. She was just tired of boys.
“Girls mature faster than boys, most times. I feel for you.” Harold squeezed her shoulder. “You know, the archives are on the way to the university. It’s just one bus there. You cross the street and catch the same bus to come back home. If I go there with you, do you think you could make it home?”
Chickadee nodded enthusiastically.
“Okay, but you better be able to. You’re underage, and Mom and the aunties would kill me if you got lost. Still…I think you can do it.”
“I’ll be able to babysit other kids in a year…-ish. And I’ve taken the bus before. No problem,” Chickadee assured him.
“Okay. Get your stuff.” Harold smiled and they both got ready to go.
Chapter 8
A View of the City
“So, when you said you were tired of boys, it seemed like you were speaking about more than your cousins.” Harold smiled at Chickadee.
Her cheeks suddenly took on a reddish glow. She looked out the bus window and watched the buildings go by.
Harold poked further. “Must have been someone you knew from before. You’ve only been in town for a few days.”
“Brett!” Chickadee sighed. “He seems different. I don’t know, I would’ve trusted him with anything before, but now…I’m not sure.”
“Brett? Musky’s little brother?” Harold scrunched his face as he thought.
“Yeah. We’ve hung out with him since we’ve been here, and yesterday he took us to this place called The Crystal Palace.”
“The Crystal Palace? That place is a dive! He shouldn’t have taken you there.”
Chickadee wondered if she should tell her older cousin the whole story, but she’d promised the other Muskrats she would keep quiet about losing their Exhibition money.
“Anyway, that’s why I wonder about Brett now.” She looked at her older cousin and shrugged.
Harold gazed out the window for a while before he spoke. “It’s funny. There are more rules and less rules all at the same time—more options and more competition and more pressure. It makes people…change.”
Chickadee felt he wanted to say more, so she kept quiet.
“You know, I’m different here too. It sounds silly, but my city friends call me McKenzie. They say it suits me more than Harold. And…I think it does too.”
“McKenzie does suit you,” Chickadee said softly.
“Doesn’t it?” Harold snapped his fingers. “In the city, I can be…more myself. More me!” He threw up his hands and laughed. “But at the same time, I feel I’m more myself when I’m home in Windy Lake. It’s weird…back home, there’s a…it’s like a play. Everyone has an assigned role that was given to them as they grew up. It’s hard to leave those roles, even though you may be a different person in high school than you were as a kid, and later, maybe a different kind of adult altogether. But then, in the city, when those roles are taken away, some people get lost in all the options.”
“Do you think that’s what is happening to Brett?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. Brett’s older brother, Musky, hangs out with some pretty sketchy people. And his family has always been poor.”
“What does poor have to do with it?”
Harold scoffed. “You pay more money, you get better seats for the concert, better lawyers for better justice. A better neighborhood often means better health care. Nobody questions it. In a lot of ways, it’s harder to be poor in the city than it is in Windy Lake.”
Chickadee thought about all that she had seen in the urban environment. So much stuff just hanging in the malls, picking up change off the bus floor, homeless people mixed with business people.
Harold continued as though he just remembered something. “You know, that’s one of the reasons I volunteer.”
“Volunteer? To do what?”
“Just help out mostly. I volunteer for a couple of groups, but my favorite is the Indigenous Arts and Music Board. We put on street fests and concerts in poor neighborhoods. I was supposed to work one later this week, but Mom wants me to take you guys to the Exhibition.”
“Sorry.” Chickadee was upset that she couldn’t tell
her cousin the truth about their Exhibition money.
“No worries, there’s a bunch I can still go to.” Harold shrugged and then pointed toward the front of the bus. “Hey, we’re coming up on your stop.” He suddenly went into older-cousin mode. “Okay. Remember to take a look around when you get off the bus. Remember what you see because you’ll have to find it again. As soon as you get off, look across the street, find the bus stop that will get you back to my mom’s house.”
“You sound like Grandpa….” Chickadee deepened her voice and tried to sound like her Elder. “Make sure you always look back along the trail you’ve walked, so you know what the way home looks like.”
“Well, Grandpa always has good advice. And looking back at where you’ve walked is good to do in the city as well as in the bush.”
They shared a laugh. An older lady in front of them turned around to look. This just made them giggle more, but they tried hard to suppress it.
“Pull the stop dinger.” Harold gave his little cousin a push. Still chuckling, Chickadee stood, pulled the bell, and walked toward the door as the bus slowed down. Harold waved at her enthusiastically. Chickadee smiled and gave a little wave back. She was grateful for the talk they’d had.
Chapter 9
Into the Stone Sphinx
As soon as the bus left, Chickadee took a look around. Across the street was a big park. At its far end, an old building stood, looking very important, behind a small squad of statues. Official-looking buildings rimmed the road on the other side of the park. There wasn’t a structure in sight that resembled anything on the Windy Lake First Nation. She smiled as she remembered the mining company’s dirty warehouse. It was the biggest building in her traditional territory. She took a moment to find the bus stop across the street where she’d take the bus back to Auntie Sadie’s.
When she turned around, she was immediately struck by the structure behind her. It was constructed out of huge blocks of limestone that were just a bit taller than she was. Chickadee’s gaze floated upward. This building looked like a great-great-granddaughter of the pyramids. It wasn’t as tall as the buildings of the business area, but it seemed like it was from a different age. On each floor above the first, rows of little square windows broke up the limestone face. The wings of the building spread forward from the center. As she walked toward the front doors, she felt like she was walking between the paws of a giant, resting sphinx.
The Case of the Missing Auntie Page 4
