Shamanka Part 24

The Torresian crow drops Sam on the top of a hill. It's so steep, she can't stop running it's the kind of running that's almost flying and if Kitty hadn't rushed forward and caught her, I think she would have launched herself into the air and flown back to the crow for ever.

HOW TO WALK ON HOT COALS.

A bed of volcanic rock is alight on the ground. The masked magician summons the G.o.ds and walks across it barefoot yet the feet are not burnt. How?

THE SECRET.

Firewalking has nothing to do with faith, willpower or the paranormal.

1. Air has a low heat capacity and our bodies have a high heat capacity, so even if the coals reach 1,000 degrees, a person with normal soles won't get burned if they walk quickly.

2. It's safer to use fuel that has a low heat capacity such as volcanic rock and wood embers.

3. It helps if your feet are insulated with sweat or water.

WARNING: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME. AT THE VERY LEAST, YOU'LL BURN THE CARPET.

UP TO YOUR NECK IN ANTS.

"Am I back, Kitty?"

Kitty holds Sam by the shoulders and waits for her to catch her breath. "You never left."

"I did. Lola came too. I saw my grandfather. He was as real as you are!"

Ruby Featha stops drumming. "Real? Not an illusion then? Not magic? Are you sure, Sam Khaan?"

Did she have the answer to the three questions? Had she visited the Lower World to retrieve the long forgotten truths? No, she hadn't. Sam's elation turns to melancholy. She's confused.

"It is normal to feel that way," says Ruby. "Sometimes it takes a lifetime to understand the questions, let alone find the answers."

"What if I die never knowing?"

"n.o.body dies never knowing," says Ruby. "The dead have all the answers."

Right now that's no comfort to Sam. She'd felt so far from death, so energetic, so happy, after talking to her grandpa. Now all she wants to do is sleep.

Ruby takes her hand. "Your mind is full, your stomach is empty. Let's eat."

It's impossible to feel miserable for long sitting around a campfire with a blanket around you to keep off the night chill. Especially when you're sharing the experience with your totem animal and a woman who can catch fish with her bare hands.

Lola isn't keen on salmon, but she's happy to stuff her cheeks with berries and nuts. Sam leans back and uses her soft belly as a pillow. "Ruby, how did you get to be a midiwiwin?"

"Some inherit the t.i.tle but to inherit is not enough; you must prove your skills." She pauses to poke the fire. "You have to suffer a trauma or an affliction. Suffering provokes your psychic abilities."

Kitty taps her mask to draw attention to herself. "I've suffered! I tripped over a cot on the stars and binged my hat when I was a little grill. Then the wh.o.r.ehouse caught fire and my farce was destroyed by the flans. Then I fell into a wharf and almost drained to death. Then I lost my mammary, didn't I, Sam?"

"Yes, and you muddle up your words, especially when you're tired."

"No, I don't."

"You do. You just said mammary instead of memory."

"I did not. There must be something wrong with your earring, Sam."

Ruby interrupts; it would be a shame for an argument to break out and spoil the evening.

"Kitty, the fact that you have suffered greatly explains your ability to communicate with the spirits. I believe they contact you through automatic writing?"

How Ruby knows this, I don't know. Maybe the spirits wrote and told her. It doesn't matter; at least Kitty feels better for having her skill and her suffering publicly acknowledged.

"I'm glad someone recognizes my pain," she mutters.

Sam feels it's only fair to remind her that she's not the only one who's suffered and reels off a list of dreadful things she's had to endure.

1. Being told that her mother had died in hideous circ.u.mstances.

2. Being told that her father was a no-hoper called Bingo Hall.

3. Not being allowed to perform magic.

4. Not being allowed to bring friends home.

5. Having to wear circus clothes to school.

6. Being threatened with a teapot.

7. Being locked in an attic.

8. Being made to eat sc.r.a.ps.

9. Being forced to cut Aunt Candy's toenails.

10. Having to sleep in a knicker drawer.

11. Having her orang-utan sent to a laboratory.

12. Never having any birthday or Christmas presents.

13. Having frying pans thrown at her.

No matter how dreadful your own life is, at least you've never had to cut Aunt Candy's toenails. It is no doubt true that suffering shapes us. It may even trigger seemingly paranormal abilities. But could you or I ever possess the wisdom of the midiwiwin; a wisdom so powerful it masquerades as magic?

"What would I have to do to be like you, Ruby?" asks Sam.

The medicine woman smiles to herself. "Learn to leave your body at will and travel anywhere on, above, or under, the earth. Then there's the initiation ceremony, of course."

What initiation ceremony? It all depends which tribe you belong to, but here's a selection of tasks you might be asked to attempt. Do not try them at home they are dangerous. By the time the ambulance arrives, it will be too late, which will be an appalling waste: I need you later on.

Initiation ceremonies: 1. Being buried up to your neck in an ant's nest.

2. Walking on hot coals.

3. Diving through a hole in the ice.

4. Spending three days in a smoke-hole.

5. Going out into the snow for a week with a wet sheet around you.

6. Being strung up from hooks threaded through your skin.

7. Climbing a rope and staying at the top for nine days.

8. Sitting in a sweat lodge.

9. Wrestling a tiger.

10. Cutting off your little finger.

Years ago, Ruby had gone for initiation ceremony number ten she only has three fingers on one hand. Much as Sam wants to be like her, she doesn't like the idea of cutting off her own digits.

"It's not the pain," she explains. "But I'm a magician. I need all my fingers to perform."

"So wrestle a tiger," mutters Kitty.

I'm not sure why she's in such a snappy mood. Perhaps she isn't feeling well. She was complaining of chest pains earlier, but then she's always complaining about something.

"There aren't any tigers in Canada," says Ruby. "Choose again, Sam."

Ant's nest. Hot coals. Smoke-hole ... how do you choose between them? Is it worse to be bitten by insects, to have your feet fried or to kipper your lungs? Sam can't make up her mind, so she asks Ruby to decide for her.

Ruby Featha touches her third eye and thinks carefully. "Forget the list. You shall have your own special initiation, Sam Tabuh."

THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC.

Each person is born under one of twelve signs of the zodiac. Each astrological sign is believed to represent a certain colour and stone.

THE EAGLE'S NEST

Here are the details of Sam's initiation ceremony: she must climb the third tree on the third hill at three minutes past three o'clock. There is a bald eagle's nest at the top. She must spend the night in the nest and bring back a feather from its breast.

Kitty is worried. It's not because the tree is tall; Sam is an excellent climber. It's because bald eagles have an eight-foot wingspan, talons like butcher's hooks and deadly beaks. They're flying weapons. She takes Ruby to one side.

"Can't she walk on hot cakes instead?"

"It was hot coals," says Sam. "Stop fussing. I want to do the task Ruby set me. If the eagle turns nasty, I'll defend myself with the divining rod."

She might as well attack a fighter plane with a lolly stick. But it's almost three o'clock. It's too late to back out of it. She remembers Mr Fraye's philosophy and thinks positive.

Lola wants to go with her, but Sam's not allowed to take a friend during this initiation; there are some things you have to do alone. Lola watches anxiously from underneath Kitty's robe as Sam makes her way to the third hill.

She reaches the third tree; it's a pine. It looks easy enough to climb, but as she pulls herself up on the first branch, she feels a sharp pain in her hand; the cones are covered in cruel spines. Blood oozes from her palms. She has no gloves but she does have her witch's cord. She loops it around the branches and uses it to haul herself up that way, she avoids lacerating her skin.

The tree is higher than the top flat in St Peter's Square. If you fell out of Aunt Candy's kitchen window (and once Aunt Candy almost managed to push Sam out) you'd probably break your neck. If Sam slips now, if the cord breaks... But think positive!

There's no sign of the eagle yet. It has lost its only chick. The chick leant over the edge of the nest a dangerous thing to do if you can't fly and fell while searching for its mother.

Sam climbs higher and higher. She hasn't avoided all the cones. Her hands are scratched and blistered but the pain doesn't register. This isn't unusual. In the heat of battle, soldiers are often unaware that they have been shot; it's only when the fighting stops that the pain starts.

Sam has six branches to go. The wind is getting up; the tree is swaying. Breathing deeply to overcome her nausea, she clings to the trunk, looping and knotting the witch's cord with her teeth. Using the movement of the tree as momentum, she la.s.soes the uppermost branch and, keeping the cord taut, inches herself up the trunk with her feet.

The eagle's nest is right above her head an untidy platform of twigs and branches knitted with bleached fish bones, snake spines and the regurgitated skulls of rodents. Sam flops into it, exhausted. She lies on her back and studies her hands. "Ouch." She licks her wounds. Her eyelids are heavy. If she loses consciousness she might fall out of the nest like the chick, so she uses the witch's cord to strap herself in.

The clouds sail by, shape-s.h.i.+fting into stampeding buffalo. She counts them: one buffalo, two buffalo, three ... thirty ... three hundred ... until she falls into a deep sleep. Far away in Covent Garden, she can hear Bart Hayfue singing: "When the wind blows, the cradle will rock, when the bough breaks-"

Sam is woken up by an ear-splitting shriek; the eagle has returned. It glares at her, its beak poised like giant secateurs. She can feel the hot steam escaping through its nostrils. Her immediate thought is that it will rip her nose off and throw her over the side. The mother eagle is shocked to find a strange, featherless creature in her nest and, naturally, her first thought is to get rid of it. Aware that the eagle is still grieving for her baby, Sam protects herself by mimicking the cry of the chick.