Unable to resist any longer, Jett relaxed his mind, ignored the shrieks of the Wendigo and, as he lay in what he hoped wouldn’t become his grave, turned his senses inward. He could feel a thrum throughout his entire body as the Earth continued to slowly pull the dark energy out of him, but he knew it would be some time before he would fully recover. Would the Wendigo find him after he lost consciousness? Would the Bakaak? He didn’t know. What he did know was the more he struggled, the slower the Earth would be able to heal him.
Knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it, Jett chose to accept the unconsciousness and surrendered to it as darkness and silence surrounded him. The earthen walls around him faded from his mind and left Jett with a sense of his body afloat in a bottomless nothing, as though he was being carried along and moved along within an underwater current. The darkness and silence were all encompassing, but Jett sensed nothing malicious in the oblivion.
Then something sounded in Jett’s ears like a gentle hum that resonated in three quick vibrations, before it quieted, then repeated itself. It also seemed to be coming from a certain direction, but Jett had no idea if that direction was up, down, left or right. He was floating in a soft state of vertigo, not dissimilar to how those in zero gravity are depicted in the movies, free of all earthly burdens and at the mercy of the universe.
The hum repeated in his ears, over and over again, before Jett realized the simple vibrations were actually words. Too quiet at first to be understood, the volume increased until Jett could clearly hear, “Come to me.”
The voice, comforting and melodious, was familiar even though Jett couldn’t place where he had heard it before. It was a woman’s voice, but it certainly wasn’t Ursula’s.
“Who’s there?” Jett asked and was startled at the way his voice was magnified in the silence. It was almost as if he had shouted the words.
Jett called out again, but this time he whispered, “Hello? Who’s there?”
“Come to me.” The voice called to him again and Jett’s body felt as though it was floating in the direction the sound had come.
“Where are you?” Jett whispered, “Can you see me?”
“I have been watching you your whole life child, but especially in recent times.”
“Recent times?” he asked.
“Of course,” the voice sounded pleased with itself, “you only recently set foot in my forest.”
“Your forest?” Understanding came quickly and, like the time he had been called by Pinga, he knew he was talking with a Spirit, although he was pretty sure it wasn’t Pinga this time. With Pinga there was a subtle, yet overwhelming sensation of power that instinctively made him wary. Now he felt completely at ease, almost serene, as he floated gracefully through the void. He told himself that he had to be careful as there were as many malicious spirits in the Native folklore as there were benevolent ones.
“Indeed, it is my forest,” the voice said happily. “Let me show you.”
Jett felt his muscles stiffen and tighten under the weight of re-established gravity, before he felt himself float to a stop. His feet felt the pressure of the ground beneath them and the darkness faded away as light began to illuminate from above him. Jett turned his eyes upward and took in the bluest sky above him, followed by the green of the treetops until, lastly, the entire landscape became visible, all in hyper-realistic details. The colors were too vibrant, the air too sweet and clean to be real, all of which confirmed to Jett that he was walking in a Spirit world.
Then the voice came from behind him, “You are welcome here, Shaman.”
Jett turned slowly and lowered his head to the old woman who appeared behind him, “Thank you, Grandmother.”
The old woman returned the greeting with a nod of her own. She was wearing buckskin clothing adorned with intricate patterns of seed beads, as well as a collection of feathers that hung from a thatch around her neck.
Jett was compelled to ask again, “Forgive me but who honors me with this audience?”
The old woman smiled, “I am called Waagoshii-Mindimooye, but that is only one of many of my names.”
Jett repeated the name in his head until memory clicked and Jett smiled warmly, “Fox Woman.”
The old woman’s smile widened, “I see you remembered at least some of your grandfather’s lessons.”
Jett did indeed. The Fox-Woman was a benevolent, minor animal spirit that usually took its guise as a wise elder in Anishinabe and Cree folklore. She is storied to have adopted the epic hero “Ayas” and guided him through his trials.
“This place,” Jett marveled as he studied his surroundings, “it’s breathtaking.”
Fox-Woman seemed to approve of his observation, but then she lost her smile, “Come. There is something you must see.”
Jett watched as Fox-Woman shuffled around to circle one side of a tree, before emerging from the other as a Red Fox. The little canine looked back at Jett once before trotting off into the forest and Jett had to break into a run to keep up. To his surprise he never tired or felt any kind of need in his legs or lungs as he chased after the little fox, which led him over logs, streams and vast open fields before stopping in a clearing of grass at the forest’s edge.
Beyond the tree line in front of them the forest grew very dark and, unlike the space that Jett had drifted through to get to this point, malevolent. Jett found himself staring into the dark beyond the trees, when the Fox-Woman’s voice brought his attention back.
“It is from there that the infection spreads,” she said as she stood next to him, again in her human form.
Jett peered into the darkness before he turned back to Fox-Woman and noticed she was looking at him in expectation.
Understanding, Jett had to hold in the words he wanted to curse as he realized he was going to have to go into the darkened area if he wanted answers.
“Couldn’t you just tell me?” Jett said in what he hoped would be a humorous tone.
Fox-Woman smiled and caressed his cheek with one shaky, withered hand before reaching down taking his right hand in both of hers, “There is more inside than just answers to your questions.”
Jett sighed and nodded before turning back to the opening in the tree line. When Fox-Woman released his hand, he was surprised to feel something inside his curled fingers. He opened his hand and saw a small chunk of silver ore that shined with a metallic luster against the pinkish skin of his palm.
“Silver is an anathema to dark magic,” Fox-Woman explained before adding, “just in case.”
Jett nodded as he headed into the dark opening of the tree line, “Well, that just made me feel much better about this,” he thought wryly.
Chapter 17
Jett stopped almost immediately upon entering the tree line, startled by the way the woods lost all color as soon as he entered. It was almost as if he had stepped into an Ansel Adams black and white photograph, where everything despite the loss of color had the hyper-realistic details that had made the artist/photographer so famous many years ago. Jett suppressed a shiver as he turned and looked back the way he had come, only to find more of the ever expanding black and white forest. The opening back to Fox-Woman’s forest had vanished and Jett found himself in the center of this new and rather creepy landscape, with no break in the trees in any direction.
“Ah, hell.”
The expanse left him with no sense of direction or any indication which way he should go, so he just closed his eyes and tried to open his mind to sense a path within the Spirit world. When it didn’t work he remembered his consciousness was already in the Spirit realm and he felt a little foolish. Here he was subject to the wishes of whatever Spirit was dominant, just as it was the case of Fox-Woman’s realm previously, and the Spirit would guide him in whatever direction he was supposed to take.
He was a spectator along for the ride, so he announced into the distance before him, “Guess I’ll just start walking,” just in case someone or something was listening. Besides, Jett thought, walking would m
ake him feel as if he were doing something, which was preferable to just standing around and waiting.
He didn’t have to walk far.
Jett sensed that he had only walked for about five minutes when the weather began to get colder and the winds began to swirl around him. Wrapping his arms around himself Jett was surprised when his foot landed with on something solid and flat as opposed to the soft, leaf strewn, forest floor. Looking down at his foot Jett could see the flat stone he had stepped on and thought it to be too properly placed to have occurred naturally. Jett glanced at the ground ahead of him and found a collection of similar stones lined up to create a kind of path that Jett was sure had not been there a moment ago.
Stepping from stone to stone Jett walked the path, only stopping once when the smell of smoke filled his nostrils. The scent was inviting and even comforting, which was out of place within the given surroundings and, therefore, made it even more ominous. He felt the pleasant and familiar scent was meant to lure him in. Fortunately, Jett was very aware of how Dark Spirits liked to entice, even seduce their victims by drawing them in with pleasantries before striking them down. His guard was up and his fists clenched as he continued down the path.
Another fifty or so paces and Jett found himself at the edge of a very small clearing, in which sat a small wigwam with the smoke that had perfumed the forest pluming from the hole in its roof that passed for a chimney.
Jett stared at the wigwam and marveled at the way its woven mats and birch bark coverings were intertwined between the thin poles of the dwelling’s wooden frame. The structure was something right out of a museum display, and it made Jett nostalgic for his grandfather. His Grandpa George, a curator of Native Artifacts for the Royal BC Museum, would have loved to have seen this.
Jett was so lost in that thought that he almost didn’t notice when one of the woven mats was flipped open by the wind and revealed the sole ingress provided to the home. Jett couldn’t see anyone inside from his current vantage point, but the smoke coming from the roof and the light inside the structure gave him the distinct impression that the dwelling wasn’t vacant.
Jett looked around but only saw an otherwise empty forest.
“Well, I’ve come this far,” he sighed.
Jett ducked his head as he entered the wigwam, saying, “Hello?”
A quick scan of the interior revealed a bundle of what appeared to be buckskins piled in one corner and a fire in the center of the space. Atop the fire was a small clay pot that had been set atop a makeshift pile of sticks serving as a supporting grill above the flames.
Jett retreated from the space and looked around the forest again, seeing no one.
He ducked his head back into the opening of the wigwam, “Sorry if I am intruding?” The words came out more as a question, as he said them into the empty space. “Anyone here?”
Jett waited another few seconds before walking into the single room of the ancient home. Once inside he could straighten to his full height and he held his hands toward the fire, but felt no heat coming from it despite the actively smoldering coals.
Confusion overwhelmed him as he moved to the only other thing inside the wigwam, the unruly pile of buckskins. The scent of the fire and smoke gave way to something more cloying as he approached the buckskins and turned to a foulness that grew in intensity the closer he got to the pile. One more step and the sound of buzzing of flies made him wave a hand in front of his face as if to shoo away the annoying insects.
Jett clenched his fists again as the reek of death and decay was too much to be coming from simple ruined hides. It was a scent that not only repulsed but served as a warning to get out and away, but despite every instinct in his body and mind screaming at him to turn around and leave, Jett found himself drawing closer and closer to the pile. He had to breathe through his mouth and pinch his nose when he reached the pile in order to examine it and had a sickening feeling that, instead of being a multitude of hides stacked one on top of another, there was a good chance there were only a few hides covering something that lay hidden beneath.
Reluctantly he extended a hand toward the closest hide in the pile of buckskins and tried to quickly flip it aside. The skin flapped wetly and Jett jumped back as an assortment of maggots flowed out from the newly exposed portion.
Jett felt his stomach roil and knew he desperately needed to get a breath of outside air, free from the foulness that currently overwhelmed him. He started to turn away when the undulating mass of maggots shifted slightly, as if something had moved beneath the collection of larvae.
“Oh, come on!” he cursed out loud and threw his hands into the air at the sight of movement.
Only the cracking of the fire made a reply. In exasperation, Jett pushed his still clenched fists onto his hips and the movement caused the chunk of silver ore Fox Woman had given him to push painfully into his palm. The discomfort caused Jett to open his fist and peer at the small silver object when, just like that, he got an idea.
Holding the silver ingot outstretched toward the fetid hides, he moved closer to the pile and carefully extended his hand with the silver ore pinched between his index finger and thumb down into the writhing mass of maggots.
The instant the silver touched the fly larvae there was a plume of noxious smoke and the pile of skins dropped unceremoniously to the floor, as if they had been filled with air and suddenly became deflated.
Jett stared at the flattened skins on the earthen floor, nudging them with the toe of his boot and stated to the walls, “Well, that was weird.”
After he had spoken a quick swirl of air caused the fire to flare, and Jett could feel the unseen presence within the wigwam roiling angrily.
Jett whirled, ready to face whatever was coming for him, but just found empty space. Confused, he started to relax and was about to laugh at his own agitation when his feet were suddenly pulled from beneath him sending his body to crash, belly-first, onto the earthen ground. He felt something travel up his back to grab onto his shoulders, and Jett yelped in surprise when he felt himself being pulled into the corner where the buckskins were at rest.
His fingers desperately groped for purchase on the barren ground for anything that might prevent his body from being dragged into the corner, but found nothing to grab. As he looked down to what had grabbed him he saw rotted, once-human arms had extended out from under buckskins.
Jett kicked the ground and spun his body so he was on his side and then he fought back against the pair of arms that had grasped the fabric of his shirt.
He felt for his silver ingot, only to realize that he had lost it in the struggle and he scanned the floor. A sound came from under the skins, which began to rise as a pair of eyes, glazed over in death, looked at him from under the pile.
Jett screamed, before the arms that held him spun his body backward and wrenched him into the corner. The hands released the fabric of his shirt it had grasped, but the arms entwined around his waist and held him fast.
Jett struggled in a desperate effort to pry himself free, yet he paused when a sound filled his head more than his ears.
“Shush, child,” It said.
At first Jett wasn’t going to do anything of the sort, but the voice repeated, “Shush. Watch.”
“Watch?” he said out loud, surprised by his own voice and the high-pitched noise it had become.
“Watch,” the voice said again.
It took all of Jett’s will to force his body to relax and, in response, the tightness around his waist eased ever so slightly.
Jett had to concentrate in order to take his attention from the decaying hands that held him to finally notice the way the smoke had stopped rising from the fire to exit the hole in the wigwam’s ceiling. Instead, that same smoke began to swirl unnaturally around in the space just above the flames. The hands that held him eased their grip even more as Jett watched, wide-eyed, and instinctively knew that something terrible, something unthinkably evil had happened inside this wigwam. He remembered Fox-Woman’s w
ords. The infection, the thing that had allowed the Dark Spirits of the Forest to come into being, had come from here and now Jett was now going to bear witness to that event.
Jett felt the trepidation fill him as the woven mats that served as the door fall closed and left the room in an unnatural silence. No sounds of the forest, the fire or even the air could be heard within that pause, but Jett’s heart was beating so hard that the thrumming in his ears was nearly deafening.
Then the door burst apart as something exploded through the opening. Jett cried out in surprise, at both the sudden appearance and the violent manner in which a body had come through the door. It was almost as if the person had been thrown in, crashed to a stop and struggled to recover as he or she crawled to the back of the wigwam.
As the body struggled to rise it was instantly apparent that it was a young woman dressed in buckskins and covered in blood that flowed from an awful gaping wound in her side.
She was moaning, but the sound was one of terror rather than pain. She seemed to realize she wouldn’t be able to get to her feet and instead began to crawl toward the fire. Jett’s instinct was to help and he tried to rise, only to feel the rotted hands tighten around his waist and prevent his interference.
He wanted to cry out to the woman but, almost as soon as he thought it, another fetid hand slapped across his mouth, preventing his cries from escaping. The young woman dragged her body a few more feet into the wigwam when the remnants of the door were torn away from the outside and revealed another figure who stood in the opening. This one was larger, taller and clearly male. Jett could say what it was specifically, but something was “off’ about the figure in the doorway. The only thing that Jett could think by way of comparison were the pictures of the starving and tortured victims of Auschwitz he had seen in history books. The difference was that this man didn’t shuffle weakly as if he were half starved and dying, but instead moved with a fluidity and power that could only be unnatural. The man just stood in the doorway and glared down at the woman, with a maddened frenzy in his expression.
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