Witch Child: Sorceress Part 5

To Aunt M, the spirits of those no longer living were perceptible presences, alive to her in the everyday, the world they inhabited as real as ours.

'She's using me to tell the rest of her story?'

'Maybe she wants to tell her story to you.'

Her aunt stood up and beckoned Agnes to follow. They walked out into the waking morning and the clamour of bird call. Agnes had forgotten how beautiful it was here. The sun had risen through a gap in the hills and it was s.h.i.+ning now down the length of the lake, rendering the mist banks luminous, turning the water to chased silver. Trees crowded the sh.o.r.e. Spruce and firs showed in the lake like reflected shadow. Stands of birch, trunks as bright as platinum, slender branches misted with new leaf, dipped towards the surface of the water like girls preparing to wash their hair.

'Take your clothes off. You're going in.'

'What!' That was not what Agnes expected. She looked out at the water. The spring had been exceptionally mild even up here, but there was still ice out there. 'The water will be freezing!'

'Won't kill you. When we was kids we used to have to break the ice to go in. This is not going to be easy, Agnes. If you're going to do it, we gotta toughen you up.'

Agnes did as she was told. She bathed naked, not that a suit would have made any difference. The ice had retreated from the margins of the lake, but the water was so cold that at first it numbed her completely and she thought that she would not stand it. But she was a strong swimmer and when she struck out from the sh.o.r.e the numb feeling left her, to be replaced by exhilaration and a sense of sheer amazement that she was actually doing this.

She swam out as far as the old diving deck and then turned for the sh.o.r.e. She got out when she felt the numbness creeping back. Her aunt was there with a towel. She led her back to the cabin for breakfast. Coffee and pancakes laced with syrup Aunt M had collected herself. Her aunt sat across from her dressed in a man's plaid s.h.i.+rt, cord trousers and work boots. Whenever she came up here, she always dressed practically. She wore her hair in two braids. She'd had a white streak since she was young, like Agnes; now she'd pick a braid off her shoulder and remark that the rest was growing to match it. Her face was tanned from being out in all weathers and although she could look quite severe, she was smiling at Agnes. Even though her aunt wouldn't say it, Agnes knew that she had pa.s.sed some kind of test. Aunt M could be gruff, tough too, but right now her black eyes sparkled. In that moment, Agnes loved her more than she loved any other person, and she knew Aunt M loved her. It felt good to be here with her, better than ever before.

g Agnes was not exactly sure what was going to happen, but she'd figured that they'd get started right away. It was pretty soon clear that was not going to be the case. After breakfast, Aunt M wanted ch.o.r.es done round the cabin. It had been shut up all winter and leaves had sneaked in, along with twigs and dust and the odd mouse leaving droppings about. So floors wanted sweeping, the old hooked rug needed beating, the windows were smeary, and the bedding could do with an airing now that the sun was out.

There were logs to be split for stove kindling and to be carted from the pile and stacked next to the fireplace. The day promised warmth, but Agnes was told to get a fire going to warm the place up after the long cold of winter, and dry out any damp that might have crept in during the spring thaw.

Agnes swept round the rockers which stood either side of the hearth. She wiped down the oil cloth spread on the table under the window and pushed in the straight-backed chairs. A shelf ran the length of one wall. Agnes dusted over and round the battered storage canisters and rearranged the books. A mix of old maps, seed catalogues and mildewed herbals stood next to a selection of well-thumbed paperbacks fat with damp. They were propped up by a pile of stones from the lake, some round, some oval, smooth as eggs.

While Agnes worked, Aunt M buzzed about doing what she called 'a bit of brightening', tacking up pictures out of magazines and bright woollen blankets woven in stripes and zigzag patterns to cover where the whitewashed wall was webbed and meshed with cracks.

'There. That's better!' She stepped back to admire her handiwork and then stepped forward, brus.h.i.+ng her fingers over the flaking surface. 'Needs a fresh coat, but I guess that can wait for another day.'

When they had finished, Aunt M brewed up more coffee. She made it the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, setting a chipped and blackened pot of blue enamel to heat on the wood stove, watching it until the brown liquid splurged through the thick gla.s.s dome on the top.

'Got no milk or creamer,' Aunt M said as she poured out two mugs. Agnes stirred in sugar from the bowl on the table to sweeten the brew.

'Oh, I forgot. I brought you these.' Agnes reached in her pack and laid the carton of cigarettes on the table in front of her aunt. Aunt M took the traditional gift of tobacco, nodding her acceptance.

'Thanks, but I quit.' She turned the red and white box over in her hands. 'Smoking's bad for your health, didn't you know that? Take 'em to Jake over at the fis.h.i.+ng shack. They're his brand. He still uses 'em. Says he's too old to quit.'

'That's clear across the lake! There's still ice out there, I saw it!'

'Won't be a problem if you go careful. You can get me some bait while you're over there and I need some supplies. Here.' She handed Agnes a list. 'If you go now, you'll be back by dark. If you're not, I'll put a light out on the dock just head for that.'

g Agnes dragged the faded orange plastic canoe from under its tarp cover and took it down to the water. She climbed in gingerly, arranged the ap.r.o.n around her and used the paddle to shove herself off against the lapping water. It was a long time since she'd been in one of these. She hoped her stroke had not deserted her. It was a calm blue day with no wind to speak of and she glided over the water, guiding the boat through and around the remaining cakes and plates of melting ice. The stroke, the steering, it came back as natural as cycle riding. She began to revel in her new-remembered skill on the water, even though her back hurt from the cramped position and the handle of the paddle chafed her hand, breaking the blisters raised across her palm by a morning spent chopping wood.

Jake accepted the cigarettes with thanks and sent her off with a couple of cans of worms and coloured maggots.

Agnes went from his bait shack to the small store which supplied the boats and the summer folk, waited for the boy to fill out her order and toted the paper sacks back to the boat, stowing them in the nose and tail. She had to be careful, the extra weight meant the canoe rode lower in the water. Her hands hurt more now, making her progress even slower.

The sun sank in the west, its rays flooding across the lake until it seemed her paddle dipped and dripped liquid gold. She went on working her way towards the farther sh.o.r.e as dusk thickened and the sky's blue deepened above her and white mist came up from the lake, rising around her like wraiths. She guided the boat with care through rafts of ice, feeling the chunks clunk against the sides of the craft before floating away again.

She took the canoe to a patch of clear water. Here stars showed above and below her and the moon shone like a silver coin cast on the rippling surface. She let the canoe float, stilling its movement as far as she was able, so as not to disturb the heavens reflected around her. If she kept motionless in just this way, it was almost impossible to see where the sky ended and the lake began. Above her blazed the Milky Way: the Spirit Path, the Ghost Road, the way taken by the dead on their journey to the west. It opened before her like a diamond highway.

It was getting cold, the creeping mist and the near-freezing water chilled the air around her, but she did not feel it. She lay for a long time rocking in the boat, looking up at the silent intensity of the stars. It was said that each one was a campfire lit by those who made the journey across the sky to the place where the sun sets. How many of her people had gone that way? The number was as countless as the leaves that grow in spring and fall at the end of the year. Was it possible to reverse the journey? For a soul to leave the land of the dead and come back to the living?

The need to know was strong within her. A fish rose near, rippling the water, breaking the spell. She turned, startled by the sudden sound, and halted the boat's drift. Still reluctant to disturb the tranquil surface, she dipped her paddle with careful motion and made for the steady light winking on and off at the distant dock.

12.

Looking Gla.s.s Lake, day two, morning Agnes knew that she was being prepared for a vision quest, but she was beginning to find all the ch.o.r.es just a little tedious. She'd been set them for some reason, but she could not be bothered to figure what the purpose was. Some kind of testing thing, to do with humbling herself to another and discipline.

This morning, she'd been sent to swim in the lake again and it hadn't got any warmer. After that she'd been piled up with plastic canisters and sent to collect water from a cold spring deep in the woods. The water was supposed to have healing qualities and the spring never froze over, no matter how cold the winter, and the water was never stale or brackish. The spring was called the Place of Clear Water. White trappers and hunters call it Witches' Well.

It was past noon by the time Agnes found the place. She filled the two plastic water containers and then bent to bathe her face, cupping her hands to drink. As she leaned over and gazed down into the deep pool, light caught on coins, white pebbles, quartz crystals, even a bead or two. Offerings to the Mother, for the water springs from her and flows free and pure to give us life. People had thought that from the very first times. Agnes had never really believed it herself but she reached in her pocket and threw in a dime, offering her own prayer of thanks as the coin winked once or twice in the sunlight before sinking down to the depths.

Agnes set off, staggering a little from the weight of the full canisters. She was probably supposed to be looking out for medicine signs right now, searching the forest round for arrow heads, special stones, twigs crossed in a certain way, so they'd know whether Agnes was ready to undergo whatever ceremony her aunt had in mind for her.

Agnes refused to do any such thing. She did not want to turn this into some kind of cheesy vision quest, like something her aunt might put on for the city folks who came to her for 'spiritual development'. Anyway, signs had to come unbidden, in Agnes's opinion, or they were not of any value.

Snow still clung here and there, up to a foot in areas of permanent shadow, but it was low and dirty. Now the sun was high, Agnes found herself sweating. The water carriers weighed heavy and to add to her discomfort the little black flies were coming out. Not as many as there would be later in the year, but enough to make her wish she'd packed some bug spray. The little black gnats formed clouds around her head, biting her neck and sticking to her sweating skin. With a water carrier in each hand, she could not even slap them off.

A blue jay called close by, answered by another cry. She s.h.i.+ed instinctively as it broke from cover and swooped above her, and swore as the screw top popped off the canister and water slopped all down her trouser leg.

Her aunt said nothing when she got back to the cabin, just took the carriers from her. Agnes waited to see what ch.o.r.es she should do next. Aunt M set the water down and slowly walked over to where Agnes stood by the door. She reached up and plucked something from the crown of Agnes's head and from her s.h.i.+rt collar. Then she opened her hand to show two blue feathers. She smiled.

'It's time. Come with me.'

13.

Looking Gla.s.s Lake, day two, afternoon A fire burnt on the far side of the yard. Flames leaped transparent in the sunlight, causing the air to waver like a mirage. Flat rocks lay heating at the ashy white centre of the hearth. The heat was intense as Aunt M led Agnes past the fire towards a low dome built half into the hillside.

'Take off your clothes,' Aunt M instructed. 'Go in.'

Agnes did as she was told, stripping down, then she moved the stick that held the skin flap in place and stepped into a dark s.p.a.ce smelling of earth and pungent smoke.

The floor was marked out with white quartz rocks laid in a circle, radiating from a central boulder like the spokes of a wheel. Low wooden platforms, strewn with blankets and animal skins, lined the walls. Agnes seated herself on one of these. She had never taken part in a sweat lodge ceremony before, never been in a sweat lodge. It was rather like a sauna, both in principle and function, but she had a feeling that whatever went on inside was likely to be a little different from anything that happened at the local health club.

Sweat-lodge ceremonies were not traditional to the Haudenosaunee, but Aunt M was not averse to adopting and adapting the practices of the other peoples. The ways to wisdom were many. She did not see one religion, one nation or one people as having a monopoly on the truth. Her own path had led her to different teachers from different traditions. She had brought what she had learned back with her, introduced it into her practice and used her medicine power to help, to serve, to teach those who came to her. If the sweat-lodge ceremony was Lakota, what did it matter?

The flap pushed aside again. Aunt M came in, using a forked stick to push a white-hot ash-flecked rock into the centre of the circle. She manoeuvred it into a depression just below the white quartz boulder. Then she left and returned with another and placed it on the other side, and then others until there were six in all. One for each direction, one for the earth and one for the sky.

She returned for the last time and addressed Agnes.

'In here I am Kanehrat.i.take, Carrying Leaves, and you are Karonhisake, Searching Sky. We left Miriam and Agnes with our clothes at the door. D'you understand me?'

Agnes nodded.

'Good. Now. Speak when I tell you, do as I say, and don't interrupt. Is that clear?'

Agnes nodded again.

'Very well. Let's get started.'

Aunt M unwrapped the sacred pipe and filled it with tobacco from the otter-skin pouch. The pipe was short, the bowl and stem of polished black stone. It was of an unusual type, and very old. Aunt M lit the pipe and offered the smoke to earth and sky and the four directions, then she offered the pipe to Agnes. Agnes took a puff, trying to hold the smoke inside her, but it made her eyes water and she had to try hard not to choke on the thick acrid stuff. Her aunt rested the pipe in the centre of the circle and pinched herbs from the bundles suspended from the ceiling. She cast the leaves on the hot stones where they writhed, curling and withering before igniting in tiny puffs of fragrant smoke.

The lodge was heating up. Aunt M let the door flap down and covered the entrance with a blanket. They were engulfed in a blackness so total that Agnes could not see her hand in front of her. All she could see was the hot stones s.h.i.+ning crimson in the darkness, suffusing the quartz boss at their centre, filling the rock with a deep fluid rose-pink glow.

Aunt M sprinkled water with an eagle feather and the temperature rose still further until Agnes didn't know if she could stand it. Sweat broke out all over, plastering her hair to her scalp, rivuleting down her body, dripping from her eyebrows, pouring like tears all down her face. She sat up, feeling that she would faint, and was. .h.i.t by another wave of heat as Aunt M sprinkled water again.

She was failing the test before it had really started. She wanted to shout into the suffocating steamy blackness, tell her aunt that she could not take it, could not stand it. She was not ready. All this was alien and terrifying in some deep way. She wanted to plead, to be allowed to leave, but the words would not come out. Her throat constricted, pus.h.i.+ng her voice back down to her chest, and her tongue lay heavy in her mouth.

When they started, Aunt M had been as gruff and down-to-earth as she ever was, but now she was different. Agnes had not known her like this before. She was speaking in the old language and she sounded like someone else, someone who would not like being interrupted. Silenced, Agnes stared at the central quartz stone. The pink glow was waxing and deepening; the surface flickered, mothlike shadows playing across it, as if something was moving deep within it, testing for a place to get out.

Her aunt spoke on, intoning and chanting, calling on the spirits until the words seemed to hang in the air, dancing there like dust in sunlight. Behind the words came a drum beat, deep and clear, as constant and near as the beating of blood in the ear. The turtle rattle scattered its sound to the four directions and bare feet thudded on the ground, going round and round in a ritual dance.

Agnes made one last effort to get up and leave, but it was too late for that. She could no longer resist what was about to happen. Any strength that remained was draining from her. She could no longer sit upright or keep her eyes open. She collapsed backwards on the bed, the slippery silk of animal fur and the soft roughness of woollen trade blankets against her skin. She felt at one with the heat and darkness, as if she had become part of it, or it had entered her. It was as if she had no weight. Her limbs felt loose at the joints. At pelvis, hips, spine, the bones, muscles and sinews seemed to be disengaging one from another. There were no limits to her. She was unravelling from the inside, becoming nothing, part of everything.

Agnes closed her eyes in the heat and steam of the sweat lodge. She woke to air that was dry and cold around her. She was no longer Agnes, or even Karonhisake, Searching Sky. She was no longer American or Haudenosaunee. She was English, and her name was Mary, and she woke to find that she was dying, freezing to death.

14.

Mary's story The snow had stopped falling and the wind had dropped to nothing. I woke in an ice coc.o.o.n and lay, still curled, surprised to be waking at all. The sky arched above me, diffused to milky blueness by the thin crystal crust formed by our breath. It was like being inside an egg.

I woke alone and listened for the wolf's return. Where had she gone? Why had she left me? Without her I would die, was surely dying already. I could not move, this ice cave would be my grave. To save me and then desert me the thought struck me cruelly and set tears forming to slide down my cheeks and glaze my face. I was about to give up, consign myself to my fate, when I heard a voice speaking as if in my ear: 'Be of greater faith. Do not doubt that I love you. Just because I cannot be with you, does not mean that I love you less.'

Then I heard something else and not from the realm of the spirit. It was coming towards me. I thought it was her, coming back to me, but then I huddled in my pit, holding my breath as if even breathing could cave the roof of delicate crystal and give me away. No dainty-stepping wolf would make that sound. The snow creaked and creaked again with the steady tread of man. Not many, but more than one. There were no calls and shouts as the tread came nearer. Except for their heavy trudge, they moved in silence. Each step was accompanied by a swis.h.i.+ng sound of powdery surface snow. Not boots. Snowshoes such as the Indians wear.

My ice sh.e.l.l cracked and broke. I looked up, expecting to see the face of a painted stranger, and I saw Jaybird looking down at me. He stood wrapped to the eyes in racc.o.o.n skins. I didn't know how he came to be there, how he found me in all that white wilderness, but I knew that it was him.

My face was a frozen mask. I could not even smile back as his sloe-black eyes widened in gladness. I stared back, thinking that my mind deceived me, that this must be a dream. One last glimpse of the life I wished before the cold claimed me and I went into the final darkness.

The arms that reached down for me were real enough. His white teeth showed in a grin as he dropped the edge of his fur cloak and bent to pull me from my icy sepulchre.

He knelt, brus.h.i.+ng the snow from my face, then he shouted and another figure came up behind him. His grandfather, White Eagle, wrapped in a bearskin. He stepped forward, his lined face cracking into a smile. He bent down, touching my face, my nose and cheeks. Jaybird pulled his fur-lined mittens off with his teeth and tugged at my sodden sheepskin mitts. He held my hands between his own. His grandfather pulled off my boots and examined the flesh of my hands and feet as he had felt my face. He said something and stood. Jaybird tenderly fitted my hands into his warm mittens and rubbed my bare feet, breathing on them and chafing them between his hands.

'What did he say?'

Jaybird smiled, 'He says she cared for you well.'

'How did you find me?'

'Last night Grandfather dreamed he met a she-wolf in the forest. He rose before first light and told me to prepare for a journey, to bring furs and spare moccasins and mittens. We found her waiting in the clearing below the cave. She turned, wis.h.i.+ng us to follow her, and she led us to you.'

'How can that be? She kept me from freezing. She was here with me. I don't understand.'

'There are many things that are hard to understand.'

He continued rubbing my feet until the blood returned. The pain was so acute that I cried out.

Jaybird smiled. 'That is good. The feeling returns like fire and ice together, but it is good. Here. I brought these for you to wear.'

He reached inside his furs and brought out a pair of winter moccasins, with rabbit-fur lining and fitting like boots to the knees. They were warm. He must have carried them tucked next to his skin. He put them on for me, deftly fitting them on my frozen feet.

I had been utterly numb; now returning sensation brought a flood of emotion quite as painful as the burning I felt in fingers and toes. I clung to him and he wrapped his fur mantle about us, lending me the warmth from his body as I sobbed out my relief and joy. He wiped the tears from my face and tucked the racc.o.o.n robe around me, then he turned to build a fire.

'They will see the smoke.' I feared what would happen if fire brought men from the settlement.

'They will not come in this.' He nodded to the drifts all around. 'They would sink to their hips. They do not have shoes for snow.' He set me by the fire. 'Do not get too close. The blood must return slowly.'

He crammed snow into a little iron pot and set it to heat. He reached into a pouch and brought leaves which he crushed and dropped into the heating water. When it was ready, he poured it into a clay beaker.

'Drink that and eat.' He gave me a strip of dried meat pounded with fat, pungent and sweet with juniper and berries. 'Chew it slowly.'

He left me then to help his grandfather cut branches and saplings to weave together into a carrying frame, the kind the French call a travois. When it was ready, they wrapped me in the furs, the racc.o.o.n cloak and the great bearskin, tucking them carefully all about me, and strapped me to the frame. They kicked snow over the hissing fire, burying it and smoothing the ground around. They strapped their shoes back on and White Eagle swept a branch over the clearing so no one would know we had ever been in it. Then Jaybird fixed the burden strap across his forehead and pulled me along.

g I was cold to the very core, even the furs did little to warm me, but the jolting rhythm of the journey soothed me and I must have slept. When I woke it was towards evening. The first stars were appearing and we were at the base of a great cliff face. I recognised it as the place of their winter cave, but I could not see how we would get to the level of it.

'You must leave me here. I'm too weak to climb '

'We cannot do that.'

Jaybird cut me off and he and his grandfather stood, heads c.o.c.ked, listening intently to a sound borne on the wind, one howl answered by another, distant, then near.

I started in fear, thinking the noise might be made by dogs from the settlement.

'We must get you up there.' Jaybird began to undo my strapping. 'Settlers are not all we have to fear. Mohawks have been raiding deep into our territory. They may reach as far as here. Each moon, they grow bolder, even in this time of great cold.'

A yelping howl sounded again, this time very near. I froze as a grey form emerged from the trees at the edge of the clearing. It was a wolf, and a big one. As she came closer, I realised that I knew her. She must have followed us here. She sat on the snow, yellow eyes watching. White Eagle spoke to her, his tone one of deference, humble thanks and reverence. He took a pinch of tobacco from his pouch and threw it up into the air, so that the wind would carry it to her.

'What is he doing?'

'He is thanking her. He offers tobacco to her because she is spirit, manitou, very powerful and special to you. To be chosen by such a one is to be greatly honoured. Grandfather thinks ...'

But I did not need it explaining further.