The Origin (The Sighting #2)

by Christopher Coleman

  Samuel was speculating about this part, of course, that the woman’s purpose at the water’s edge was the same as his, but he also knew he was right. The prisoners in the ground below were lures for the creature, and Samuel was suddenly curious how she replenished her supply. Or perhaps she didn’t. Perhaps whoever those poor souls were, assuming there were at least two more in the other pits, were kept just at the edge of survival and had been for decades.

  Samuel turned to his right to see Sokwa still standing beside him. She hadn’t run at the sight of the leaping spectral in the distance. He smiled. It appeared she was committed to his quest now, re-energized by thoughts of her missing friend and the possibility of his rescue.

  The shadowy figure took one final stride, descending the last of the rocks before landing nimbly onto the sandy beach. She stared for just a moment at the two strangers who had invaded her domain, and then she walked without concern toward the point in the cliff line raging with fire. In the glow of the orange light on the wall—at what was surely the opening of a cave, Samuel figured, though he couldn’t see it from where he stood—the woman watched them in a stance that was poised and steady.

  The light offered a bit more of the woman’s details now, illuminating the left half of her face, and from what Samuel could see, she looked to be older than the woman he had just found in the pit, at least in posture and the cursory appearances of her face. But she also looked strong, and judging by the way she scaled the boulders, she was as nimble as an ibex.

  “What do we do, Samuel?” Sokwa asked.

  “Wait,” Samuel replied instantly, his tone hushed and hurried.

  The woman stood studying the children for a moment longer, and then she raised a hand to her face and made a gesture like an inviting wave, bringing her palm toward her, before turning toward the cliff and disappearing into the light of the wall.

  Samuel didn’t hesitate to heed the invitation, and within moments, he had lumbered through the sand and dirt and was standing at the mouth of a small opening in the cliff wall.

  He stared in wonder at the enclave of dirt and stone, focusing on the fire that burned about five paces deep inside the cave. It was beginning to wane and in need of more kindling. Samuel couldn’t see the woman anywhere, and he assumed she had slunk off down some hidden catacomb that snaked elaborately throughout the cliffside.

  There was movement beside him, and Samuel almost screamed when Sokwa appeared.

  “I don’t want to die, Samuel.”

  “You won’t die, Sokwa. Not today. We must do this. It is the only way we’ll know if Nootau is here. We’ve found the woman. It’s why we came here. Now we must talk to her.”

  Sokwa looked at Samuel with slitted eyes and then answered, “I know I won’t die today. I just want to announce my intentions to the spirits.”

  Samuel snickered and then took a step inside the cave. He paused and then took another. Then a third. A shuffling sound behind him made him stop and pivot back to the opening. At first, he saw nothing but the darkness of the rocky cave corner, but as his eyes focused in, from the darkness he saw the wild face of a witch lunging toward him.

  Her mouth was wide and toothy, moving up and down in a crazed cackle, creating a louder version of the deranged sound Samuel had heard on the beach moments earlier. Her teeth were bared like a rabid wolf, and saliva fell from the incisors in wide, white strands. In her hands she held a long, thin stick which she held out in front of her face, parallel to the ground, and before Samuel could make a sound, she dropped to her knees and swung the stick like a sword at Samuel’s legs, catching them both just above the foot at the base of his shins.

  The lash of pain on Samuel’s feet was equal to all the pain he’d ever experienced in his life combined, and he fell to the cave floor as quickly as if his legs had been severed. His face was now only inches from the laughing banshee woman who had felled him, and he immediately rolled to his back and screamed, pulling his shins toward him and bringing his knees to his chest.

  The smoke from the fire invaded Samuel’s nostrils, choking him, and he turned to his side so that his back was now to the fire and his face toward the cave opening.

  Samuel cracked opened his eyes, which were now coated in tears of pain and soot, and he saw Sokwa standing still at the cave opening, her mouth as flat as the cave floor. There was no fear in her eyes, no alarm or confusion. “Sokwa,” he uttered, coughing out the last syllable of her name. “Sokwa, help me!”

  Samuel looked now at the twisted face of the woman who had disabled him. She was still in her deadly stoop, the stick still clutched tightly in her hands, her eyes alert and twitchy, as if expecting that Samuel might make another run at her.

  But he was incapacitated. His legs were on fire with pain.

  The woman lifted her chin up slightly and tilted her head back toward Sokwa. And then she spoke in a tongue both foreign and familiar to Samuel.

  “Matta,” Sokwa replied, never taking her eyes from Samuel. The word meant ‘No’ in the language of the natives.

  “Sokwa, help me,” Samuel repeated, making one last desperate attempt for her aide, hoping that perhaps he was misreading something about the situation, and that Sokwa was only stalling, waiting for her moment to act.

  But she looked like a pillar of oak in the doorway to the cave, her eyes those of a hunter. “You killed him, Samuel,” she said plainly, not a drop of emotion in her words. “You killed the boy I loved.”

  Samuel closed his eyes and shook his head. “I didn’t. You’re wrong, Sokwa.”

  The woman turned back to Sokwa again and hissed another question, and this time Sokwa stepped to the woman and put her face so that her forehead was nearly touching the wrinkled brow of the hermit.

  “Matta!” Sokwa screamed in the woman’s face, causing the cave dweller to scurry to the far end of the cave behind the fire. Sokwa then turned back to Samuel. “I didn’t believe it at first. Not of you, Samuel. I saw the way you cared for Nootau, and how he cared for you. You were true friends, unconcerned with differences in your native tongues or shades of skin.”

  Sokwa looked to the roof of the cave and then closed her eyes. She held her face that way for a few beats and then focused back on the boy beneath her.

  “And I loved you, too. In a way different from the way I loved Nootau, but it was love. You were of a different mind than your parents and their ilk, and you gave me, and even some of the elders of my village, hope that we could coexist one day. A day not so far from this one, perhaps, once our guardians relinquished their grip on the land and passed it on to you and me. We would inherit the land and make it our own community.”

  “We can still, Sokwa. We can make the colony and the village as we used to talk about it with Nootau. But you must help me first.” Samuel made a move to get to his feet, but the pain in his left leg was debilitating.

  “Stay where you lie, Samuel, or your death will come sooner than you would like.”

  “I didn’t kill him! Believe me.”

  “Then where is he?”

  Samuel looked down at the ground and then did a cursory search of the cave around him, as if Nootau might be hiding there somewhere.

  “He is not here, Samuel; you know he is not. You were truthful about seeking this woman.” Sokwa nodded toward the woman who sat cowering against the far earthen wall, watching with the same crazed expression, hanging on every word, none of which she could understand. “But you lied about your motives. Nootau is dead, as is Kitchi, and you are responsible for both.”

  Samuel stayed quiet, now intrigued by Sokwa’s words and what she knew.

  “Why have you come all this way? What are you really seeking? This myth of the Croatoan?”

  “Croatoan!” the woman hissed from behind Samuel, and he cringed at the vile, liquid sound of her voice. Sokwa turned and gave what Samuel thought was a disbelieving grin at the woman.

  “How can you know this?” Samuel asked. “How can you know of the Croatoan?”

&n
bsp; “Nadie and Matunaagd, Nootau’s parents. They came to visit my family—to visit me—to find out if I knew of your whereabouts. You had gone missing.” Sokwa raised her eyebrows and scoffed. “As you know. And it was then they told me the myth of this creature. That you have become...enraptured with it.”

  “You said you would keep our meeting secret, Sokwa. You betrayed me.”

  “I did keep it secret!” Sokwa snapped.

  She took three long strides into the cave until she was only a pace from Samuel, who continued to lie in a fetal position on the dirt ground.

  “Until they told me of the tracks they found. Tracks that you left.”

  “Tracks?”

  “Boot prints. Outside the longhouse and on each side of the thin tracks left by a wheelbarrow.”

  Samuel gave a painful scoff. “You can’t believe them. How could they know the tracks were mine? I’m not the only boy in the colony with soled boots.”

  “My people have been tracking animals smaller than tree squirrels for as long as our history extends to the past. We know tracks. We know what they mean and where they lead. It was you, Samuel. You took Kitchi down to the sound. And likely to the Yapam. Somehow, in the wheelbarrow, you took him.”

  Samuel shook his head, trying desperately to keep the lie alive. “No,” he whispered.

  “And besides, your mother confirmed the boots were yours.”

  “My mother?”

  “She came with Nootau’s parents to see me. It would seem the Algonquin are not the only people seeking your head.”

  Samuel looked up at Sokwa with begging eyes. “It was Kitchi’s idea, Sokwa. You must believe me about that. He insisted. He knew the story of the Croatoan. He was the one who told Nootau about it, and he knew—somehow—that Nootau had fallen victim to it. I didn’t take him against his will. He insisted on seeing it.”

  Sokwa studied Samuel’s face as he spoke, a wrinkle of sympathy above her brow. “I don’t disbelieve you on that. I know how he was. Who he was. But that point does not change your fate. You took him, a cripple, and thus he was at your mercy. He was your responsibility to protect. His blood stains your hands, Samuel.”

  Samuel frowned, resigned to his position. He let several beats pass and then asked, “If this is your belief, why did you not tell your people where I was waiting for you? Before we left for this place? You knew where we were meeting. And when. If this was your plan all along, to punish me, why come all this way to do it? Why not just have your people take me and kill me then?”

  “I asked them to allow me this journey. That you had told me the story of Nootau’s taking and...and that he may yet be alive. I could see in their eyes that they knew there was no hope of this, that you were lying, but I couldn’t not make the attempt. You convinced me, and I them. And thus, they allowed it.” Sokwa’s eyes softened. “Was it all a lie, Samuel? Is there any truth about Nootau? And if not, the better question is: why have you brought me here?”

  Samuel couldn’t look at Sokwa’s face. “I needed your help to find the woman behind me. It was for the reason I told you back at your house.”

  “Look at me, Samuel. Where is Nootau? Why have you brought me here?”

  Samuel’s eyes narrowed as he thought again of the sea god, and the familiar surge of confidence began to build in his belly. He raised himself to a sitting position and leaned back on his hands, casually, as if he were taking in the rays of the sun next to the sound on a bright spring morning.

  “That is enough movement, Samuel. No further. She is prepared for another strike and will do so at my command.”

  Samuel turned back to the woman and cocked his head suspiciously. “How is it that you can control her? And speak to her? It’s as if she knew of our arrival. How could she?”

  Sokwa laughed genuinely now, and after the last of her chuckles dissipated, she looked contemptuously at Samuel and said, “You don’t know this land, Samuel. You don’t know my people or any of the people in this world. And it’s why you will never survive here. Why your people are destined for death.” She looked to the woman. “You entered her home without a formal invitation. That is why she attacked you.”

  “She waved us in.”

  “That was not an invitation as much as it was a trap. Why would she want us to come here? For what purpose? You don’t understand our ways.” Sokwa shot a look to the woman. “And I cannot control her. She is old and mad, and this type of woman responds only to authority.”

  Samuel smiled slowly as he listened to Sokwa’s analysis of the situation, impressed by her in a way he had never experienced from any person before. He was breath-taken suddenly, in love, perhaps, though he couldn’t be sure what that feeling meant precisely.

  “And you can speak to her?” he asked. “You can understand her language?”

  Sokwa looked to the woman for a moment and then back to Samuel. “No. But she speaks my tongue.”

  “How? Where did she learn it?”

  “I don’t know. If she has been here for as long as I was told, I don’t know how it could be possible.”

  “Ask her?”

  “You haven’t answered my questions, Samuel! You don’t demand things from me!”

  Sokwa’s patience was running short, and Samuel knew he had only the tiniest of opportunities with which to turn her toward his needs. “Yes, Sokwa, I will answer what you have asked. I will tell you everything. I just need to know if you can speak to her in full conversations. And how she came to know your language.”

  Sokwa seethed for a moment and then called back to the woman in tones loud and harsh. She spoke several words—one or two sentences—and the woman answered in an even longer string of phrases. Sokwa put her hand to her mouth and then turned away, a look of disgust blazing in her eyes. She shook her head frantically, as if trying to rid herself of the words.

  “What did you ask her, Sokwa? What did she say?”

  Sokwa swallowed slowly. “I asked the questions you posed. And about how she came to learn my tongue.”

  “Yes?”

  Sokwa took her hand away from her lips. “It was the prisoners.”

  Samuel looked to the ceiling of the cave. “In the pits. Of course.”

  “She says there are only two left now, and they have been her only company for so many cycles that she cannot remember when it first began.”

  “Who are they? Where did they come from?”

  “Why are we here, Samuel!” Sokwa screamed. “Why have we come to this land of madness! Who is that woman in the hole!”

  Samuel could see Sokwa was losing control of her emotions, panicking. It was a dangerous place for him to be, perhaps, in the midst of Sokwa, whose mind was slipping into a state of anger and fury; but somehow Samuel also knew that anger and fury were necessary to achieve his purposes.

  He grimaced and pushed himself to one knee, and then hopped up to his less damaged foot.

  He could hear the woman rise behind him, and he spun on one leg, keeping his other leg dangling beneath him, almost toppling back into the fire. Sokwa grabbed his arm to keep him from falling, and her assistance gave Samuel a flash of hope.

  He put his hand up and pointed at the woman. “No!” he screamed, and then turned his hand into a fist and punched it forward into the air.

  The woman stopped and then cowered backward, keeping her distrustful eyes on Samuel as she crept back toward the wall.

  Sokwa stepped away from Samuel, leaving him to stand on his own, and she moved to the mouth of the cave.

  “I won’t hurt you, Sokwa. Even if I wanted to, I can’t. I’m hurt.” Samuel could feel the pain steadily diminishing from his leg, and he knew now there was nothing broken, but he played up the injury for the moment. “And if I try, you can tell the woman I am feeble and command her to bash me in the head with her stick.”

  “I can,” she agreed. “I won’t hesitate to do it.”

  “I know.”

  The two children, one white, one brown, stood in silence for a beat,
letting the rules of the situation set in. Finally, Samuel said, “Why do you think they let you come, Sokwa. If they didn’t believe Nootau was alive, why did they let you come with me?”

  “I told you: I insisted.”

  Samuel shook his head. “I don’t think that is it. I think they believe what I know to be true. That the Croatoan is real. And they want to learn the secrets for themselves, to draw it from the Yapam for themselves.”

  Sokwa looked to the ground, a grimace of confusion on her face. “But this woman, why would she know these secrets?”

  “She knows. She is of the tribe that named the beast. It’s the reason for the prisoners buried on the beach. They are there as sacrifices. And why she was out far on the rocks. Surely, she was calling for the god, hoping to lure it from the water.”

  Sokwa shook her head, the confusion of Samuel’s words coming frantically, rattling her. “I thought the legend tells of this monster coming from the Yapam—your Great Western Sea. Why would she be holding prisoners on a beach on the western sound?”

  “She is mad, as you say, and she is desperate for her god. Her will to see it again has never left. She knows it comes from the Yapam, of course, but she cannot resist the urge to summon it, even in waters where it does not dwell.”

  This realization both thrilled and frightened Samuel, and he had a momentary glimpse of his future, naked on a beach by a lake or river, banished somewhere, perhaps on the big lands to the west, biting the heads off of fish to survive, screaming at the water for his god to return.

  “She is as Kitchi described her,” Samuel said to himself now. “The woman who can tell the origin of the Croatoan.”

  The woman repeated the word again, and Sokwa snapped at her in English. “Quiet!”

  Sokwa stared at Samuel and then her pain and confusion suddenly turned to laughter again, but this time the chortle was laced with hysteria and disbelief. “The Croatoan? This story Nootau’s parents told? Of sea monsters rising from the Yapam to feed on human blood? These are tales for children and simpletons. Who can believe such nonsense?”