The Cursed Dragon

by Rachal M. Roberts

  The rest of the world, impatient and worried, was starting their day in the distant cities and towns – Annette made sure to live as far away as she could from any one community or train track. Nothing disturbed her world more than man-made noises and odors. She would take the smell of a skunk any day rather than the odor of human filth, and the security lights, every home had one blocking the natural starlight she loved to view. She always marveled at people’s fear of the dark. The dark was part of life, just about half of it the way she figured it.

  Annette was a tribal medicine woman despite being only 42 years old. Sure there were others who claimed the title and they were much older, wiser and deserving great respect, but she was the best. Her medicine seemed to always work, especially when men were making the request. No one could deny her strong connection with the ancestors either, not even the tribal elders. Somehow she always knew things about people’s deceased grandparents that no one could possibly know. Just little things they remembered from their childhood, like grandpa’s favorite fishing hole, or the way granny would cut up her peaches. The only explanation of her knowledge and abilities was that Annette communicated with their deceased kin; it was surprising and comforting to those who came to her for help.

  And they did come, nearly the whole tribe thought of Annette as the one person they could not live without. Annette knew the heartbeat of the tribe, where it had come from and where it was going. The full bloods believed she could walk through time, forward and back, they considered her a living ancestor, a time-walking spirit.

  Pipe smoke curled.

  The air spoke of harvest time, each day the wind stole more of the trees’ fall foliage and within a week the trees would be fully whipped about, changed into dark skeletons of their former green selves. The season represented Annette well for she was wise, experienced, and producing perfection in everything she touched. She was the epitome of late summer-sweetened fruit, those final tomatoes that had bloomed late but still grew to beautiful plump red berries. The passing of time gave Annette perfection, an edge in the world around her.

  She was waiting for Todd to arrive. He was her understudy and helper, but by the time he showed up everyday Annette had most of the chores done. This morning she even had time to go hunt for mushrooms. Annette watched the smoke wickedly rise into the quiet air and dance in a lacy pattern before vanishing.

  Todd wasn’t just a strong back, he was her stepson, she had no children of her own and had never married – though most could argue she received more love than any married woman did. Todd and his sister Jenniffer had been placed in Annette’s care when their mother mysteriously died some 15 years previously. Taking a puff from her pipe and then braiding her long dark hair, Annette reflected on her stepchildren. Todd was her favorite, he was turning out to be a great learner, always listening, never questioning her. His rich heritage obvious in his dark skin and bone features, he looked as though he could be Annette’s biological son. There was no doubt he was a full blood.

  Jenniffer was Todd’s younger sister, his opposite, and Annette’s expression turned foul at the thought of her. Jenniffer had a serious dislike of all medicine – or magic as Jenniffer called it – and always pulled away from Annette’s teachings. She wanted to move away to the city and study architecture of all things. Such a disappointment, Annette should have seen years ago when in puberty Jenniffer’s fair complexion needed sunscreen of all things! Annette didn’t doubt they were brother and sister, for she was there at each of their births, but their differences were quite notable, causing question of their paternity. One day Jenniffer would regret turning her back on her blood and her tribe.

  Todd finally pulled into the driveway. Annette took the basket of mushrooms with their rich, earthy smell into the house and returned to greet Todd in the yard. “How did it go last night?” she asked.

  “We did pretty good. I ran out of those pearl beads you made. We got $148. total.” he said as he hoisted the remainder of their wares out of his truck. As he did his long black braid swung against his back.

  Annette always sent Todd to the pow-wows, he needed the exposure if he was ever going to be her replacement and she didn’t like being out late. “How did it go with Melissa, did she forgive you?”

  Todd showed her a big smile that softened his stern and chiseled face, “No, in fact she broke up with me. But we did have one great last time together after the pow-wow was over.” he paused at the memory, “Good riddance I say, she was too jealous anyways.”

  “You should have tried what I told you, women like that.”

  “I did, kinda. But she didn’t go for it.” He shrugged and passed it off as he retrieved his chainsaw from the bed of his pickup. “Not all women are open like you. But hey, Bill got great news last night, his drum group was asked to be the main drum at the next pow-wow...” Todd was lost in thought for a moment, “Can you believe he asked about Jenniffer again?”

  Annette shook her head, “I don’t know what he sees in her, she won’t even go to pow-wows and we all know how she feels about cockfighting. He’d have to get rid of all his chickens!”

  Todd added “He’s too good for her. He probably just thinks it would be cool to date my sister, it would make us closer, like brothers.”

  Later when they were sawing up a black oak tree that had fallen across a foot path, Todd got into a mess of stretch-berry vines. His legs were snagged and cut up by the vicious little thorns. After the tree was cleaned up and firewood stacked Annette took him inside to clean up the bloodied cuts. Todd watched calmly as Annette began chanting a healing song and took out her jar of salve.

  He loved watching her work, so much so that sometimes he purposely got hurt just to see her heal his wounds, it was amazing. He couldn’t explain how her medicine healed, it had to be supernatural rather than physical because he was the one who made the salve with Annette’s guidance and the ingredients were simple, ground up cat bone, fresh aloe vera gel, dried grass seeds (any variety), the sap of an oak tree, milk of milk weed, and a little whiskey. He didn’t see how any of those things could really heal on their own. The salve didn’t keep very long and he knew the recipe by heart because he had to make it every month. Even as he watched and listened to her droning voice, the deep scratches and snags of skin healed over before his eyes as Annette massaged the salve into them. Her touch was relaxing, he could easily lay back and take a nap, Annette had ways about her that were simply mesmerizing and impossible to put into words.

  In his eyes, Annette was a superwoman and he was attracted to her connection with the spirit world. He was twelve years old when Annette began to care for him and Jenniffer, she was only 14 years older than him. He adored Annette and her ministrations and was attracted to the Native American medicine woman to the point he would get aroused in a certain setting. She was the reason he hadn’t married yet, no other woman could ever match her. He was over eighteen and what did it matter if he liked her, Annette wasn’t his blood relative. He would just wait and see what the Great Spirit called him to do.

  The two of them had sat down to eat when Annette paused and her dark gray eyes got a worried, knowing look.

  “What is it?” Todd asked.

  “Something has happened to Kalara, I feel it in my chest. I think she has finally begun to follow her vision quest. Todd, help me outside, I’ve got to get to the prayer stone.” The pain in her chest was from anxiety, a sudden realization she had missed something important, it wasn’t crippling, just distracting; she needed to know what was going on.

  Annette’s house was more of a cabin, an ancient cabin. No one could remember exactly when it was built; it seemed to have always been there, nestled in the trees. It had undergone several remodels yet none could take out the mold inside the walls. She owned the entire hill and aside from a small shaded lawn, the hill was covered with old-growth black oak forest. In the summer, everything was a rich green color and serenaded by June bugs and cicadas. In the winter, Annette’s hill was brown and dorma
nt with the occasional reverberating crash of tree tops being snapped off from ice storms. At the top of the hill were a few rocky but moss-covered, vine-laced, snake-infested bluffs only to be seen by birds flying directly over them. These stone bluffs were where Annette had sent many a young native to find their vision quest and spirit guide. On certain mornings, foggy patches could be seen rising from the oak forest, a gray mist escaping from the numerous small cave openings found on different parts of the hill. All in all, it was a beautiful hill, part of the foothills of the Ozark mountain range.

  Her small lawn was, for the most part, clean, aside from the brush piles that needed burning, the tool shed / green house combo, the rusty 55-gallon drum where she burned her trash, five ricks of firewood, three overgrown and rocky flower beds, the well house, the storm cellar, the small vegetable garden that was strategically placed in the only sunny (but rocky) spot, the compost pile, the butchering table, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coop, and the bigger discarded items that had been waiting for years to be hauled off and would most likely have to wait a few more.

  The focal point of her outdoor living space was the natural stone altar in her front yard that was not placed there by man; it was part of the hillside that time had weathered and exposed. Todd had helped her position smaller rocks around it for seating.

  In the backyard was her sweat lodge, it was the size of a small shed. The well-thought-out earthen structure allowed for greater concentrations of steam to build up; it was her pride and joy. Her design of the lodge was masterful, near the back wall of it was the sacred fire that was never allowed to burn out, always alive, connecting her and the tribe to the spirits.

  The only way to drive into Annette’s homestead fortress was a long gravel road that winded around the hill, its entrance from the road marked by boulders that originally had been on top of the hill.

  The stone altar in the front yard greeted them as Todd helped Annette kneel down in front of it. He lit the incense sconces that stood at each side of the stone altar and added oil to the flames as Annette instructed. As the flames grew tall he left the sacred circle to stand watch and beat a small ceremonial drum.

  Annette dropped some sage into the flames and dealt fifty peacock feathers in five rows of ten onto the flat prayer stone, she preferred using organic tools rather than cold, lifeless rocks and crystals because things of life always gave better results. The severed “eyes” were roughly the same size as a deck of cards, each one reflected in Annette’s eyes a thousand rainbows.

  The bleached shell of a baby box turtle laid against her chest dangling from a simple leather cord necklace. Annette’s spirit guide, a gray snake, was painted on the shell. She grasped the dangling turtle shell and began to rattle it in rhythm to the drum and chanted a summoning song to awaken the ancestors. When the song ended she raised both hands high, taking in the heady smell of burning sage. With a strong and earnest voice she prayed “Great Spirit, be honored this day, please draw near unto me.” She shook the turtle rattle upside down in her hand to dispense a few tiny pearls and gallstones she had harvested personally. She then blessed the prayer stone with the sacred elements by reverently casting them onto it.

  Smoke billowed unnaturally from the two flames. The medicine woman sat motionless as the smoke filled the air around her, sinking low down to the ground instead of floating up. The Great Spirit thickened the smoke to where Todd had to squint to see her inside the haze. He could see the peacock eyes were no longer fifty feathers but a single watery pool with a rainbow sheen on it, much like how gasoline appears on a mud puddle after a rain shower. He heard Annette commune with the Great Spirit. “Ancestors, Great Spirit, see the woman Kalara. Something has just happened with her. Show her to me.”

  Todd took a few steps forward, not enough to insult, and looked into the oily iridescent pool where he saw Kalara walking in a shopping mall. He looked quickly at Annette who was watching the pool intently, she seemed pissed off and slightly surprised at what she saw.

  Where was his sister Jenniffer? She wasn’t in the pool, she should be right there watching Kalara. Then he saw a man in a blue shirt turn around and walk to Kalara but he disappeared before he could get to her. Todd didn’t recognize the man and wondered who he could be.

  Then the smokey air filled with unseen splinters of ash and Todd had to step away or else be gagged by the abrasive cloud. He wasn’t scared, he knew the Great Spirit when it descended. The ancestors favored Annette, the ash cloud of the Great Spirit never made her cough or gag. It was now so dense he couldn’t see into it at all. He could hear the familiar shattered voice speaking but he couldn’t make out the words. The voice always sounded strange to him, if glass shards could talk, they would sound like that voice. Todd wondered if Annette heard it the same way he did, he knew it wasn’t her talking, no human could make those sounds. It had to be the Great Spirit, because the voice was other-worldly and fragmented.

  Todd was so enamored with Annette and the great power she had tapped into, her house was the only place he ever wanted to be. He wanted to learn everything and be just like her, he wanted to be in that cloud with her, communing with the Great Spirit of Mother Earth.

  Soon the smoke around Annette faded and she made her way out of the sacred stone circle. As she approached Todd, he asked “What did the spirits tell you?”

  Annette didn’t waste time answering him, instead she was moving fast devising a plan, she commanded him “Fetch me a couple of river rocks about yeah-big” - she gestured with her hands - “and that bobcat skull in the round flower bed, then build up an oak fire where I was sitting in front of the prayer stone.”

  With orders given, Annette made her way to the house and the back room where she kept a special chest that held Kalara’s dress; it was the robe Kalara was wearing when Annette had found her. The exquisite cream-colored robe was embossed with runes and adorned with fire opals that had a light all their own, they were unnaturally beautiful. She carefully unfolded the white robe to retrieve an ermine pelt she had nestled into the bodice to absorb Kalara’s residual self. She pulled out the small white fur and went out the door.

  Todd was adding more oak twigs to the smoldering pile when she arrived. Annette waited for the fire to catch and carefully held the ermine pelt in her hands, straightening the strands of Kalara’s dark hair that she had sewn to the head of it. The weather conditions were not cooperating with the meager coals, she finally added some oil to the fire and commenced with chanting a curse.

  Chanting all the while, she punctured the torso of the pelt on the sharp saber teeth of the bleached bobcat skull as Todd held it firm. The holes left behind were jagged when she pulled the skin away. The rhythmic chant of her dark curse continued as Annette took the river rock and broke the back legs of the small bones which had been left in the ermine skin. Lastly, she placed the back feet of the pelt into the flames and watched as the fur singed and skin burned away. The lingering putrid smell of burning hair made Todd want to vomit, but he dared not. She finished the cursing chant with ugly, guttural tones.

  Annette cast Kalara’s Pelt aside and stood up to dust herself off. She collected the peacock eyes off the altar and slipped them back into her medicine bag while Todd quieted the fire. He glanced over at the little white ermine pelt, not wanting to get near it, he asked “What about Kalara’s Pelt?”

  “Put it on the honey locust tree out past your deer stand, you know the one. Stick it on the thorns. Be sure it won’t come off.”

  Using a stick to carry the mangled fur, Todd headed off for the woods knowing exactly where to go. The honey locust tree was something to be avoided. Its old bark was densely covered in woody thorns, each one nearly a foot long. The thorns were tough and could poke right through a rubber-soled boot. There were thorns on top of thorns, the whole tree trunk was a horrible nightmare, protected from any animal who might think to climb it. Todd recalled the time he had to clean one in his childhood, it took him and Jenniffer three days using pliers, buckets
, and ladders to get it free enough for a chainsaw to cut it up. Each thorn had to be carefully disposed of, you sure didn’t want to drop one because they blended in perfectly with the forest floor making walking around the tree very hazardous.

  The awful tree stood gravely before him, a sentinel of the woods. Todd carefully pushed the small pelt onto the pristine thorns, it stuck nicely with a satisfying friction. He spoke under his breath with a quiet reverence, “Take care of Kalara’s Pelt, cause it pain.” Suspended and crucified in the air, Kalara’s dark hair waving in the breeze, the little white ermine fur was now firmly held and decorating a very evil and black tree.

  After Todd left, Annette’s cell phone rang while she was putting away their interrupted meal, Jenniffer was on the other end her worried voice was loud in the quiet kitchen. Annette had been awaiting Jenniffer’s call. She didn’t comfort her step-daughter but upon hearing of Kalara’s disappearance ordered her to come straight to her house. It would be more than an hour before Jenniffer got there so Annette settled down with some rum and her pipe.

  How could Kalara be gone? What was she even doing outside of the apartment? The trapping enchantments she had placed over the apartment only worked if Kalara was in it, the foolish girl knew better than to take Kalara out of there. What would prompt Kalara to run away now, after all this time? Maybe it would have been better to at least let Kalara know that she was Jenniffer’s step-mom, maybe then she would have felt safer in Tulsa. How was it that the magic of Kalara’s Pelt failed to stop her? She should be in tremendous pain, unable to move, and that phone call should have been Kalara asking for medicine to stop the pain. Annette puffed on her pipe, causing tendrils of smoke to search for a way out of the house. She had to try the feathers again to look for Kalara. The late afternoon had brought a thunderhead which Annette would use to her advantage.