by Harper Lin
I also noticed oddities. As I looked to my right, I saw what could only be a sasquatch. As my eyes scanned the crowd, I was sure I saw a couple of them. Maybe more. Wolves walking on two legs? Giant spider things? Yet none of them stayed in that form. They dissolved into other things until I wasn’t sure if I was seeing anything correctly.
“Bea, are you seeing this, too?” I was always so sure I was hallucinating. My voice was barely audible, but Bea nodded.
The unnerving sight was compounded by the lack of sounds. All we could hear was my aunt repeating her mantra over and over again as she made her way to whatever checkpoint she was looking for on that side of reality. Then the sound of drums shattered the silence. They were slow and steady, crashing in our ears. I saw nothing that looked like anyone playing them, but the shadow figures, the shape-shifters, were becoming more and more obstructive. They were in front of us more than anything, and both Bea and I were struggling to keep an eye on Aunt Astrid.
We could hear her still repeating the chant.
“I’ve come to see Okima by the flight of the crow. Let me pass.”
But we could no longer see her.
White-Skinned Witch
In a bright burst of light, a magnificent fire burst into life in front of all three of us. The flames reached fifteen, maybe twenty feet high, licking and curling in the air. Sparks shot from the dried logs, and I swore I could smell smoke and feel the heat as we drew closer.
That was when the shadows transformed. They were no longer wolves and birds and deer. Instead I saw men with sinewy muscles who glared at us with bottomless eyes. They wore hides and paint on their faces, yet they were not like the pictures drawn in the books I’d read in school as a kid. They were wild, and our rules didn’t apply to them. Even in death, they were untamable.
On the other side of the fire I could see women, too. Their long, dark hair hung around their faces. They wore hides as well. Necklaces with many strands hung around their necks, and they had even more intimidating stares than the men. Some had children at their sides or strapped to their backs.
Leaning over, I was about to say something to Bea, but she had been separated from me. Men who had some feathers in their hair and some beads around their necks had slipped between us unnoticed. They began to sing and chant, too. But it was something other than what my aunt was saying. I had never heard the words before, but in my head I knew what they meant. In a nutshell, we were not welcome.
I thought to push myself through the crowd but changed my mind. This wasn’t my place. I was the intruder. I was the one who didn’t belong, and I was going to remain respectful until the situation called for something different. I could hear Aunt Astrid but couldn’t see her.
With cautious steps I continued to move closer to the fire. Behind the flames, I could just make out the tips of feathers on a massive headdress. A man sat there on what looked like a pile of pelts. I could see his leg and part of an elbow. But I could not see his face. Something told me I didn’t want to. Not yet. But curiosity pulled me even closer until I thought I might take hold of one of the man’s hands and ask who it was behind the fire.
Would they understand me? Would they answer me? Would they chuck me into the fire that, illusion or not, was brighter than the sun on this exceptionally dark night?
Everything stopped. Immediately, I assumed they had read my thoughts and I was done for. Holding my breath, I watched. The shadows as well as the people parted, leaving Aunt Astrid, Bea, and me the only ones close to the fire. My eyes strained to see what was still moving behind the lines of Natives, but I couldn’t get a lock on anything. Instead, I could just see the people scowling at us.
Then, like a crab crawling up on the shore, came what I could only assume was the Enisi. If she weighed eighty pounds, she weighed a lot. Her skin was dark, but I could see in the light of the fire that as bony as she was, she was unnaturally strong.
The drums had stopped, and the only movement was the Enisi coming up to Aunt Astrid. Once in front of her, she slowly stood. Her bent body still cast a shadow from the fire that seemed to engulf my aunt completely.
She spoke in hisses and barks. Again, it was just my guess, but the mystical translator of the afterlife helped me piece together what she was saying.
“White-skinned witch!” Her words were full of hatred. “He will not hear you!”
“Step aside, Enisi,” Aunt Astrid said firmly. “I will speak to your chief.”
“He will not hear you!” The old woman squawked like a wounded starling. Her words became jumbled, and before my aunt could move, three giant gray wolves walked out of the crowd and stood before her, teeth bared and hackles raised.
“Your battle is over!” my aunt cried with her hands raised in surrender. “You can go home! Home!”
The Enisi began to laugh. Her mouth was wide open, and her eyes rolled over to show the whites. She didn’t want to go home. I couldn’t understand why not.
“Home!” she mocked. “This is home! We live in this chaos!” Her white eyes seemed to bore into my aunt. “You have no power here!” The Enisi waved her hand, and the wolves advanced. One snapped at Aunt Astrid’s leg, making her shake and stumble backward.
The old crone laughed sadistically. I watched the faces of the people around her, and they looked unsure—unsure that the right thing was being done and unsure that they wanted to stay in this place. Tired was how they looked, yet too scared to speak up.
Another of the wolves advanced on Aunt Astrid, baring its sharp teeth and crouching low. Couldn’t anyone stop this? What would happen to us if we were torn apart by shape-shifters in another plane of reality? Would someone find our shredded remains in our reality? Would it just be chalked up to a bizarre animal attack?
“We want to help!” Bea shouted. “Please! Let us help you!”
The Enisi screamed out words I didn’t understand, but before I could move, I saw Bea being grabbed and thrown to the ground. Within an instant, one of the wolves bounded with great, terrifying grace around my aunt and towered over Bea, its snout trembling with rage as it revealed its fangs. The creature’s golden eyes sparkled in the light from the fire.
“NO!” I cried in my head.
The wolf instantly looked up at me, its teeth no longer bared.
“She doesn’t want to hurt you! None of us do! We want to help!”
The Enisi couldn’t hear me. She didn’t know I was talking to the wolves.
“We know you’ve come here to punish the people that took your land. You don’t have to anymore. They are all gone. Now it is just innocent people who love your land. No one is going to change it. I know it must’ve been difficult to see so much suffering, but time can heal, and you can be at peace now.”
Slowly and carefully, Bea touched the wolf, and he transformed before our eyes into a young Native American male. His face was stony, but his eyes glowed like those of the animal that he shared his existence with. He spoke in a language I didn’t understand, and the other wolves looked at him.
They yapped and barked, snarling and growling, patting the ground in front of them as if trying to make a point.
The young man turned to Bea and said something to her that I know she didn’t understand. He looked at me again.
“Can you still hear me?” I asked him.
He didn’t speak but nodded slowly.
“Please. Let my cousin talk to your Chief Big Running Fox. Please?”
The man spoke to the Enisi.
Whatever he said made her furious. She began to scream and wail, her bony arms flailing in all directions, and I noticed a collective step back from everyone around the fire. What was her story? Why was she like this? Bea could find out. If she could just touch the old woman, she might be able to find something out that could help us.
As of right now, the chief, who I still couldn’t see, was still sitting behind the fire, watching everything going on. What was he waiting for? Was he in charge or was this crazy old lady?
&n
bsp; I cleared my throat to get Bea’s attention. Of course, it got just about everyone else’s attention, too. Subtle, I knew. But she looked at me. I grabbed my own wrist and pointed at Bea and then the old witch as she hopped around screaming and yelling.
Bea nodded. She got up, dusted herself off, and walked boldly up to her mother’s side.
“Bea! Get back!” Aunt Astrid sizzled. “Are you crazy?”
The crone stopped and glared at her through milky eyes.
“This woman isn’t going to let you pass. I need to find out why.” Without waiting for permission, Bea walked up to the Enisi and grabbed her wrist.
Within seconds, Bea was screaming and crying while the old enchantress laughed. Clutching Bea’s hand, she held her fast as Bea tried to pull away, shaking her head and scratching at the bony talon.
“You like what you see, red-headed devil!” the old woman cried.
The wolves that had not transformed back into people were trained on my aunt. The one that had become a man stood aside as if he no longer had a part in any of this. What was going on? Why was this woman so powerful over everyone?
With trembling legs and pounding heart, I ran around the fire and threw myself in front of the chief. I grabbed at his legs and boots, but my hands closed on nothing! The clothes were empty! I looked up and saw the headdress was perched on a wooden stake.
Where was he? Where was his wife, the daughter of the rival tribe? I was seething with anger and whirled around to face the Enisi. She threw Bea back to the ground. My poor cousin collapsed and sobbed, but she was able to speak.
“She’s insane, Cath! She’s killed so many of them! Her own people and others! Children! She’s killed children!”
Gone
Quickly I spoke to the wolves. They were my only hope. I had to get through to them. Looking into the sky, I saw the glow of an approaching sunrise. My gosh! How long had we been at this? If we didn’t get this settled before the sun came up, they’d kill again in another six years.
Where is your chief? Please tell me. I need to speak to him.
One wolf with a diamond-shaped patch of pale-gray fur on his forehead between his eyes howled, yapped, and snapped at me, his teeth still showing in a menacing grin. The other wolf, which had a broader chest and looked like it was older, also snapped at the air and barked, licking its lips hungrily.
She keeps him in the fire. He is always in the fire.
“Keeps him in the fire? What does that mean?” I whined out loud. But whatever I said was enough to knock the grimace off the Enisi’s face.
“Aunt Astrid. They said she keeps him in the fire. The chief is in the fire. Do you know what that means?”
With wild eyes, my aunt turned to face the blaze.
“I think I do! I think it means she’s keeping him in the dark—misinformed! Misled!”
She pulled a pamphlet from the bag that was still strapped across her body. I squinted to see what it said. It turned out to be the Muskox Spa pamphlet. Tearing it into pieces, my aunt tossed it into the fire then took a step back. It made a tiny burst as the flames turned it into a brown, curling mess before consuming it entirely. She must’ve been trying to show the chief how the land had changed.
The wolves began to whine. The Enisi screamed and tried to retreat to a dark corner, scurrying along the ground like a…well, I was tired of thinking it, but like a spider.
Suddenly the fire billowed outward. I was afraid for my aunt and ran toward her, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her to the ground beside Bea, who was still trembling from whatever madness she had seen inside the Enisi.
Before I could say anything, a breathtaking horse emerged from the flames. Sitting astride him was a fierce-looking man. His hair, completely gray, hung down in braids, and he wore an even more impressive headdress than the empty one sitting atop the stake behind us.
The Enisi ran to the chief, her mouth moving in words we couldn’t understand. Quickly my aunt got to her feet and, holding her hands up, bowed to the chief. From out of the flames stepped a young woman. She was as beautiful as any picture I had ever seen. Her jet-black hair hung well past her waist, and her face looked up at the chief adoringly. His bride, I thought.
The chief grunted, his lips drawn down at the sides in a stern grimace. He studied Aunt Astrid, judging her.
Without saying a word, my aunt spoke with her hands. As she did, she conjured a cloud in front of her. Within the cloud, pictures began to form of wild horses running in open fields, of rushing rivers of crystal-clear water, of the hot springs steaming in the early morning, of tall grass with children running and laughing, and of Chief Big Running Fox’s entire tribe peacefully living on this land as a full moon rose in a purple sky.
The chief watched the pictures, his eyes the only thing moving on his deeply etched face aside from the tears that had started to fall down his cheeks. The young woman standing next to him took his hand. They didn’t speak. They didn’t look at each other. But so much was said between them.
The Enisi began to whine and pointed at Aunt Astrid. But my aunt didn’t move. She didn’t even look at the shriveled-up, whining thing that was inching its way closer to her.
“We will stay!” The Enisi’s voice was cracking.
But the chief was not looking at the Enisi. His eyes were fixed on the picture of his whole tribe together on this quiet, peaceful land.
Aunt Astrid showed him one last view. It was a beautiful grassy path with thick pine trees all around it. Wildflowers peeked from behind small rocks, and a lush, red fox stood proudly on the path. Pointing to the fox, Aunt Astrid urged the chief to follow it. With her ability to see beyond the dimensions, she knew that if he followed the fox, he would lead his people to the other side, to the next life, to peace.
The Enisi screamed. It was enough to make all of us cover our ears except the chief, who snapped his head in her direction, his eyes on fire. The Enisi immediately stopped her bellowing and cowered in front of him. His voice was low and gravelly. I could barely hear him, but what I did hear held so much authority that I was afraid to look up. Swallowing hard, I kept my gaze lowered, just in case.
The Enisi sounded like she was begging. Hysterical gibberish poured out of her, but the chief said nothing more. Instead, he reached down to the young woman at his side and, with one mighty yank, pulled her up onto the back of his horse, where she held on with one arm around his waist.
Then from the flames stepped another girl, younger but just as pretty as the first. She walked along the side of the horse, holding the woman’s other hand.
That’s her sister. They are the siblings that died.
The three began to walk into the picture, and the entire tribe followed, all except the three men that had been the wolves…and the Enisi.
The chief looked back at us. In the split second in which I met his eyes, I did not see his lips move, but I heard his voice in my head.
“So many years I’ve lived with hate and resentment. I blame myself for letting others chain me to my negativity so that I’ve forgotten about peace. If only I’d lived in peace while I was alive. Thank you for helping me remember.”
In the blink of an eye, the chief and the two women vanished.
“Let’s go, girls,” Aunt Astrid said, breathing hard and sweating. She reached down to Bea, helping her to her feet.
“Bea, are you okay?” I asked, stroking her hand as I held it tightly in mine. She nodded, but her eyes still shone with tears.
“We need to hurry,” Aunt Astrid said. “Whatever happens, don’t turn around.”
Bea and I looked at each other and then at Astrid. But we heard the Enisi behind us. She was rambling on in English and in her native tongue, words we didn’t understand all jumbled together. Then we heard the wolves, their growls loud and fierce and merciless. The wind began to blow, and I hoped it would be loud enough to drown out the sounds I knew were coming. I wanted to look behind to make sure that the wolves were not sneaking up on us and that the En
isi hadn’t convinced them to ambush us and rip out our throats.
But when she started screaming, her voice carrying toward us on that sudden breeze, I closed my eyes tightly and stumbled along the grass away from the carnage. Bea covered her ears. Aunt Astrid kept her head held high and her feet moving. Within seconds, we were nearly running back to the path we had followed to get to the clearing.
The screaming and the sound of tearing flesh finally stopped. When at last all was quiet, I turned and looked. I saw nothing. No fire. No wolves. No Enisi.
“Did they get there, Mom?” Bea asked, her voice choking just a little.
“Yes, I can see them there.”
“What about the other things, you know, that were sneaking in and out of the doors the Enisi left open during this lunar hoo-haa thing Bea mentioned?”
“Well, the ritual is over. The Enisi is gone. The chief and his tribe have passed on to the next life. There are a few things that remain here, trapped, until they find another way back to where they came from—or hiding if they have some other plans, good, bad, or indifferent, in mind for themselves.”
“Do you get the feeling anything bad is still around?” I looked around us nervously.
“Not anything we need to worry about just yet,” she said, smiling.
“How about you?” I squeezed Bea’s hand. She still had tears in her eyes.
“That woman had lost her mind. She had fallen into a black pit of evil and liked it. It scares me that our power can be so intoxicating that one day we might just give in to it, to the temptation to use it for ourselves. I just don’t get it.”
“It’s okay, Bea. She’s gone. The door has been closed. I don’t think any of her energy will be coming back any time soon.” My aunt sounded like she had on so many nights when we were kids and a thunderstorm or a scary movie had gotten the best of us.
