by Topher
Chapter Four
That weekend, Emily was finally able to sneak into the garage to see the Chief again. She walked across the back yard, being watchful to make sure no one saw her enter the garage. Once inside, she shut the door. It was very dark in the garage with only a thin shaft of sunlight from the window, and it seemed eerie and cold. But she knew the Chief was not a scary or mean ghost, and he meant her no harm.
She waited for several minutes for the whirlwind of dust to appear, but it did not. She was not sure what triggered the appearance of the Chief.
"Hello?" she whispered. She waited and waited, but nothing happened.
"Chief Floating Cloud?" she spoke in a normal voice, it echoed in the garage. Still, nothing happened. Finally, she grew impatient.
"Hey!" she yelled. "Wake up!"
She heard a long, low groaning wail. It was a very scary noise, and she dove for the door and grabbed the handle. Looking back, the dust on the floor began to whirl and the groaning grew louder and scarier. Was it possible she had made the Chief angry? She began to turn the handle as the dust cloud solidified into the form of the Chief. He stood in the thin beam of sunlight his mouth open, and he groaned hideously.
"Now you've done it," the Chief said. "You scared away my dinner!"
Emily removed her hand from the door handle and giggled. "Sorry, sir, I just wanted to see you."
The Chief blinked at her. He held a bow in one hand with an arrow. He scratched his face and shook his head.
"Well, it's gone now," he said. "What do you want?"
Emily scowled, "I just wanted to say hi."
"Well, you said hi, now why don't you let me get back to my hunt?" the Chief said.
Emily placed her hands on her hips. "Well, I would have stayed away if I had known you were going to be such a grouch! Besides, why does a ghost need to hunt?"
"Ghost?" The Chief looked at her oddly. "I am no ghost. You are the ghost."
"What?" Emily said. "I'm not a ghost. You are."
"I am not," the Chief said. "I am very much alive. It is sad that you do not realize you are a ghost."
Emily folded her arms across her chest and glared back. "Oh yeah? I could say the same for you! You are the ghost living in my garage."
"Garage?" the Chief said. "What is... garage?"
Emily waved her hand around the room. "You are in my garage. Can't you see that?"
The Chief's face wrinkled. "What do you see where you are?"
Emily rolled her eyes. "There is some dusty furniture, cardboard boxes full of old junk, and an old bike with flat tires."
The Chief looked around. "What you speak of is very strange to me. I see the open prairie. There is a grove of trees over that way." He pointed to the back of the garage. "A herd of deer and the teepees of my village lie just visible just beyond the creek."
Emily gazed at the drab walls of the garage. "I think you are confused."
The Chief laughed. "Perhaps we are both confused. You say I am a ghost and we are standing in garage. I say you are a ghost and we are standing on the prairie. So we are both wrong or we are both right. We must find a way to know."
Emily growled, "Well, you are the ghost; I already know this!"
The Chief raised his bow and fired an arrow at Emily. Before she could react, the arrow passed completely through her chest. She placed her hands over where the hole should be and glared at the Chief.
"Hey! What did you do that for?"
"My arrow passed through you without causing injury," the Chief said. "Therefore you are the ghost."
"Oh yeah?" Emily looked around on the floor of the garage, and found an old paperback book lying at her feet. She picked it up and hurled it at the Chief with all her strength. The book flew through the Chief and hit the wall behind him. The chief looked down at his chest where the book passed through and frowned.
"Perhaps we are both ghosts."
"Maybe we are both real," Emily said.
“I think we are both real," the Chief said. "I like that idea better, since I know I am not a ghost, and you insist you are not as well."
"So why are you here?" Emily asked.
"I was hunting a deer when you appeared from a cloud of dust. You yelled and scared the deer away."
Emily squinted. "I appeared? But I've been here for a long time. I didn't just appear."
"And I have been here for a long time," the Chief said. "And when I have seen you before, it has always been upon this spot. This place my people call the dreaming place."
"The dreaming place," Emily said.
"This is where my people come to sleep so they can speak with the spirits. We are shown many wondrous things in our dreams."
"Do you come here to dream?" Emily asked.
"I have, but I have seen nothing so wondrous in my dreams. It is only now, in my waking times, that I see you, a little girl with white skin, who appears before me like a ghost," the Chief said. "At first I thought I must have been sleeping and that I dreamed of you; but now I know I am awake." He rubbed his chin. "Unless I am sleeping now on this ground and I was dreaming of the hunt." He held up his arm and pinched a bit of skin with his other hand. "I think that I am not asleep."
Emily pinched herself as well. "I think I am not asleep either, but somehow, we can see each other."
"It is the dreaming place," the Chief said. "Strange things happen here. But I need to finish my hunt. My family needs meat." The Chief reloaded his bow and began to walk away.
"Wait," Emily said. "Will you come back?"
"If you will be here," the chief replied. "I will come back again."
"Then so will I," Emily said.
The Chief smiled at her as he swirled into dust and drifted to the floor.
