Shake, Rattle, & Roll
CHARMIAN TURNED TO look again at the giant spiders standing in front of her--brown recluses, Thomas had called them--and she and everyone took a collective step back, those in behind pressing against the far wall. The spiders cocked their heads a little and clicked.
Winter Born tilted her own head curiously. "What's a 'black widow'--?"
Charmian started gnawing on her lip. "Are they dangerous--?" she whispered to Thomas, keeping her voice as low as possible and hoping that spiders didn't have exceptional hearing.
Thomas replied through clenched teeth. "If they weren't do you think I'd compare them to black widows?"
"I've never even heard of them before! Do you think--you mean Weavers come in different species--?" She tried not to shudder. "We won't meet a tarantula, will we?! Those things are HUGE!"
He gave her the dirtiest look imaginable. "And these things AREN'T?!"
Winter Born looked even more confused. "What's a tar-ant-choola--?"
Manabozho ducked his head. "TOLD you we couldn't rely on a bunch of spiders!" he hissed.
Charmian gave him the evil eye. "Shut up! What do we do?" she asked Thomas, and Stick-In-The-Dirt, when he crept forward so they stood in a huddle, the Weavers still waiting nearby. "Do we just talk to them like whatever, or leave, or--?"
"I hardly think we can just drag them out of their nests and then LEAVE!" Stick-In-The-Dirt whispered in protest.
"So you would like to bargain with a big poisonous spider--?" Peepaukawiss whispered, shifting from foot to foot. He grimaced. "I think I'd MUCH rather deal with a manitou!"
The lead spider clicked and Charmian almost jumped. She winced and waved her hands at the others. "We have to do something!! We can't just stand here whispering all day!!" She stood up straight. "I'm going to talk to them like any regular Weavers! If that thing tries to bite me or--sting me or--whatever--THEN you guys can think up a plan!"
"Try saying that when your head swells up and falls off!" Manabozho retorted.
"WHAT is swelling up and falling off--?" Singing Cedars, near the back and almost gone from view, whispered over their heads. Charmian heard Walks-On-The-Shore say something, then something let out a very loud thunk, and there was a yelp. "Never mind," Singing Cedars called out. "I answered my own question!"
Charmian made a face, but turned back to the group of spiders just the same. They began waving and clicking; she'd never been able to figure out exactly what they were saying, but the general gist of their speech always seemed understandable. Still, she had to stare at them for a moment before cutting in herself, hoping that brown recluses didn't happen to be testier than...regular...spiders.
"Um...like I said, hi," she said again, waving at them; they each waved right back. "Anyway...like I was saying...we come here from far away--far, FAAARRR away--" she waved in the direction that she assumed was west, and the spiders all did the same thing "--and we were looking for a way to get back there...a quicker way than just going back the way we came...so we decided to go looking for a Weaver tunnel. I've...kind of...spoken with your kind...sort of...before...and, well..."
Winter Born nudged her way forward and beamed up at the spiders. "Are you really very poisonous at all--?"
The spiders' eyes glittered in such a way that it looked almost as if they blinked. Charmian and everyone in her immediate area grimaced; Stick-In-The-Dirt grabbed hold of the girl to haul her back. At that instant the spiders all raised their forelegs and started clacking so loudly that it sounded like the room had suddenly been filled with castanets; everybody jumped and huddled back toward the far wall. Charmian managed to blink--then, before she knew it, she was being nudged aside by the lead recluse, which promptly grasped hold of Stick-In-The-Dirt. Another one grabbed onto Moon Wolf, and Stick-In-The-Dirt let out a panicked yell, his eyes goggling.
Manabozho lifted his hand as if to throw something--thunk!--when Charmian knocked him on the head and he dropped his hands, wincing. "Stop it!!" she hissed. "What are you trying to do?!"
"SAVE them!" he snapped back, baring his teeth at her. "You want to just LET them get bitten and mangled and everything else unpleasant--?!"
Charmian clenched her fists. "I don't want to piss them off any MORE than they already are!!"
"Rather after the fact," Thomas managed to get out, grasping her arm; she whirled back to look at the others. She blinked again when she saw that the spiders didn't seem to be biting the two medicine men, though they were certainly feeling them up, or some such. They patted them all over like police searching suspects, then the lead one took Stick-In-The-Dirt's rattle. He actually gasped and reached out for it, but the Weaver's leg was too long; it held the rattle up and started shaking it madly. The other Weavers waved their legs and began shuffling around behind the lead one. Stick-In-The-Dirt and Moon Wolf immediately stopped struggling and stared at them with their jaws hanging.
"They're distracted!" Charmian whispered, and gestured at those behind her. "Come on! Maybe we can get them now--!"
To her surprise, Stick-In-The-Dirt whirled around and waved frantically at her, shaking his head. "Don't!" he whispered sharply.
"Huh--?" Charmian stared at him in bewilderment. "But--!!"
"Hey," Marten said, perched atop Puka's shoulder and frowning, "is it just me or are they all dancing--?"
"Huh--?" Charmian and Manabozho both said this time; everyone turned to look at the spiders more closely. The lead one, plus the one holding onto Moon Wolf, held their places, the leader shaking the rattle; but all the rest of the spiders in the room behind the wall shuffled back and forth, over and over, and it took Charmian a moment to realize that there was some sort of odd pattern to it all. Her brow furrowed and she fell silent studying them--but nothing about what they were doing made any sense. Why would spiders be dancing--?
Winter Born blinked, then frowned a little; she took a tentative step forward, the others being too dazed to stop her. She too studied the moving Weavers for a few moments, then tilted her head to the side.
"They are dancing," she murmured. "I've seen those steps before!"
"Seen them?" Charmian blurted out.
Winter Born flinched, then peered back over her shoulder at her. She bit her lip. "When I peeked into the Midewiwin lodge," she said meekly.
Charmian's mouth fell open. "Mide lodge--?" She and Thomas both looked at the spiders closely...then, after a few more shuffling steps, they all halted, and the lead one let go of Stick-In-The-Dirt and shook the rattle over his head. He furrowed his brow at it as he rubbed at his arm; he looked to Moon Wolf, who was just being let go himself. The lead Weaver reached out its other foreleg to gently poke at Stick-In-The-Dirt's chest, and he gasped and started to back away.
"Wait a minute!" Charmian exclaimed, and hurried forward. She and the two medicine men stared at the spider as it poked him again--their eyes fell on the Megis shell he wore around his neck. He frowned in confusion as he lifted it; the Weaver poked at it a third time, and shook the rattle. The second Weaver poked at Moon Wolf's shell just the same.
Stick-In-The-Dirt gave Charmian a perplexed look. "Why are--why are they interested in our Megis shells?--AAGHH!!" He jumped when the spider poked a leg into his pouch and started digging around, pulling out the little journal Charmian had gotten him. Charmian scowled and took a step forward, but he held up his hand to halt her, staring up at the spider curiously. It used a third leg to leaf through the journal a little, and from her vantage point Charmian could make out something on its pages. She looked at Stick-In-The-Dirt.
"Stick...?"
"I've been writing in it," he admitted, "whenever we stop to camp! I haven't put very much in it...just a few little things..." He frowned as the spider leafed through the pages, then came to a blank page. The Weaver paused, then looked at him and poked at the blank page with one hairy leg. It shook the rattle; everyone stared at it stupidly.
Winter Born looked at Charmian. "I think it wants him to write more! At least--that's what it seems like it's saying."
Charmian's face screwed up. "Why the hell would a SPIDER want to read more of a book--?"
"It doesn't want to read, it wants to compare songs."
Charmian ran her hands down her face. "Now you've COMPLETELY lost me."
The Weaver shook the rattle again. Stick-In-The-Dirt, brow furrowing again, shook his empty hand at the air; the spider followed suit with the rattle, and they did this a few times, back and forth.
One of Manabozho's feathers twitched. "I believe this is somewhat akin to watching what your people call 'tennis.'"
Charmian watched them exchange rattles for a moment, then threw up her hands, her shout making them both jump. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"
Stick-In-The-Dirt cringed and brushed back his feathers. "It's--I know it sounds mad--but I think it's trying to teach me a song!" he exclaimed. When Charmian just stared at him he gestured at the journal. "I was writing down Mide songs. I thought I would use it to keep track of all I knew, since I don't have my birchbarks on me. Apparently..." He looked mildly confused, then shook his head. "Apparently they know the Midewiwin here too...and they want to exchange songs."
Charmian shook her own head, still confused. "What do you mean, exchange songs? Is this some kind of custom--?"
"Somewhat," Moon Wolf said, making a face and carefully nudging a Weaver's leg away when it poked at his own pouches. "When Mide go traveling among strange camps, they tend to meet with each other, and compare the songs they learned, just as a means of learning more--" He swatted at the Weaver this time, and his hand lit up; the spider prudently backed away.
"So...these spiders...have their own Mide lodge and now they want to trade songs with you guys--?" Charmian asked. She paused, then looked at the lead Weaver, which was now giving Stick-In-The-Dirt back his rattle. A thoughtful look entered her eyes. "You think you'd be against that?"
The two medicine men both blinked at her. "You think--you think we should actually do this--?" Stick-In-The-Dirt asked hesitantly.
"Well..." Charmian took a step forward. "We are going to be asking them for a favor...and if you two have something to exchange, well, maybe that'll be the fee we have to pay to get through? I think they'd like that a lot more than some tobacco...and I was kind of advised to save my tobacco for Kabebonikka." She blushed a little.
Moon Wolf scowled. "I hardly have any songs to exchange with spiders of all things! I left the Midewiwin a long time ago!"
"I...suppose I could teach them a few," Stick-In-The-Dirt mused, frowning a little. "Though I'm not certain how to teach a spider anything..."
"I think they already understand us pretty well," Charmian said. "Though I'm not sure how well you'd understand a spider's...song..." She made a face of her own. "Jeez, this is one of the weirdest meetings I've ever had..."
Thomas nudged her arm. "If you're going to make a deal, don't you think you should lay down the ground rules--?"
"Oh." Charmian blinked. "That's right." She gestured to get the spider's attention, and saw its eyes shift toward her. "Hi! Um...anyway...like I was saying...we were wondering if we could have a favor. You see, we're trying to get back west, toward Gitchi-Gami--the big lake--but we hoped to find a quicker way there because we'd be going against the river otherwise, and we're kind of in a hurry." She gestured now at Stick-In-The-Dirt. "Do you think maybe...if the two of you exchanged songs, you could point us out to a tunnel to take--? Oh--and there's somebody waiting down in the river nearby, who needs a way to get there through the water...a Lynx..." the Weavers began waving their legs and clicking disapprovingly "...but not a bad one! He's just a small one, and really well behaved...there's a demon who'll keep an eye on him...all we ask is a little flooded tunnel so they can go west too. I promise we'll pass straight through and won't hurt anything."
The lead Weaver looked thoughtful, even placing one hairy leg to its "chin," or the closest approximation of what a chin would be. It turned around--nearly bowling them over in the process--and clicked with the other spiders behind it for a moment or two. There was much gesticulating and popping, then it turned back around and waved a leg, clacking. It poked at the book, pointed at Stick-In-The-Dirt, and then at Moon Wolf.
Moon Wolf bristled. "Um--he's not exactly a Mide anymore," Charmian hastened to say. "He's a wabano now--"
Thump. The little journal landed on the floor and the Weavers commenced waving wildly, clack-clack-clacking. Everyone winced and covered their ears a little. "Did I say something wrong?!" Charmian nearly screamed at Winter Born. "I REALLY don't want to piss them off--!!"
"I don't know!" Winter Born cried, covering her own ears and wincing. "I think when you said wabano they got upset!"
"Can't you tell what they're saying--?"
Winter Born lowered her hands a bit, making a face as she listened. "I think--I think they're saying something about some other wabano--but--they're talking so fast I'm not sure!" She paused and listened again. "All I can get is that he got them angry somehow," she added, lamely.
"A wabano--?" Charmian stepped toward the lead Weaver and waved her hands, fearing that it might reach out and chomp off her head. "Hey! This wabano--does he travel like a fireball--? And go around with another wabano, and some mitchi manitous--?"
The lead Weaver made a bobbing motion and started gesturing. When that resulted in more confusion, it reached behind itself with its hind leg. A moment later, it was drawing forth a strand of web; Charmian tried not to grimace at the sight. The Weaver started spinning the web around its forelegs as if it were playing cat's-cradle; as Charmian and the others watched, an image started to form, and they all craned their necks forward, curious.
"Is it...is it writing something...?" Charmian whispered, surprised.
Thomas frowned. "I can't really tell...but it looks at least like it's doing something..."
"Hey, look!" Winter Born exclaimed, hopping up and down and pointing at the forming web. "I see pictures in it!"
Stick-In-The-Dirt seemed to forget his fear and stepped right up to the web, peering at it so closely that the Weaver could have grabbed his nose had it wanted to. "Fireballs," he murmured. "Two of them...and a deerlike shape..." He looked back at Charmian, his eyes troubled. "This is what you saw?"
"Yeah," Charmian said. "That's exactly what I saw." She peered more closely into the web herself. "Two fireballs...one bigger and one smaller...and a mitchi manitou..." She looked up into the Weaver's numerous eyes. "You know them, too--?"
The Weaver bobbed, then removed the web from its arms, handed it to the Weaver beside it, and started spinning another one. Charmian and the others watched in silence as it swiftly but skillfully connected the strands into a picture which grew more and more detailed by the second. It took Charmian a moment to make out the forms of trees...a forest...and then little tiny shapes in the trees.
"Pukwudjininees!" she exclaimed, and as soon as she did, the Weaver removed the web, and again passed it along. It started a third. "That's...that's the tunnel Shore and I went down," she said with a frown. "At least, I think it is..." The web was removed, and a fourth started. "And that's the woods again...but...where are the Pukwudjininees...?" The Weaver began adding little details, and they were so fine that she had to squint just to make them out. As the tiny images of Pukwudjininees and Mizauwabeekum began to appear, their little bodies lying broken on the ground of the web forest, her eyes slowly grew wider and her mouth fell open. A chill settled over her skin, and her eyes began to sting.
She glanced up quickly at the spider. "They're dead--?" She whirled around to look at the others. "They're all DEAD?" Everyone started glancing around at various parts of the tunnel and she clenched her fists. "How come nobody told me--? What HAPPENED--?"
"We didn't want you getting upset over it," Thomas said. "We know you went down that tunnel only because you had to. Winter Born told us."
"I went back to get help," Winter Born said meekly, lowering her head. "But when we got back...they were already gone. That manitou must've killed them all."
Charmian turned back to the Weaver, fists still clenched; the spider gave her a cautious look, its legs now fallen still, as if appraising her carefully. "So they're all dead?" she demanded. "Because of me?"
The Weaver's eyes shifted a little, as if it blinked, and it lifted one leg to hurriedly wave it, as if shaking its head. It gestured at one of the other Weavers, which held up the first web with the image of the fireballs and manitou, displaying it like it was a banner. The lead Weaver pointed at it several times.
"It says the mitchi manitou's the one who killed them," Winter Born said softly. "It isn't blaming you...but it says that when you mentioned a wabano, it thought that was what you meant, because a wabano was controlling the manitou."
Charmian blinked. "A wabano is behind it--?" She looked to the Weavers once more. "Do you know anything about him?" she asked, then started rattling off questions as if there were no tomorrow. "What about the oki? Is that one of the wabanos? Is the leader one of them? Is he named Mishosha? Does he work for Megissogwun? Does the Red Swan have anything to do with any of them--?"
Everyone was staring at her as if she'd gone off the deep end. The lead Weaver just stared at her in the same way, eyes shifting as if in puzzlement, legs slowly lowering. Somebody grasped Charmian's wrist and gently but firmly pulled her back; cutting herself off, she glanced at Stick-In-The-Dirt and saw the confused look on his face. A look at everyone else showed her that they must feel the same way, and immediately she felt a flush rise in her face. She ducked her head meekly when the medicine man stepped ahead of her.
"If I teach you my songs, will you be able to help us through the tunnel, Grandfather Spider...?"
The spider "blinked," then put a leg to its head. The others frowned. Winter Born blinked as well, then turned to Stick-In-The-Dirt. "Oh," she said. "I forgot to tell you, it's Grandmother Spider."
Stick-In-The-Dirt's face went brilliant red. Thomas started snickering behind his hand. "Um...Grand...mother Spider...?" Stick-In-The-Dirt corrected himself with a wince, and started fiddling his fingers. Fortunately, the Weaver apparently didn't take too much offense, and just waved its--her?--leg and pointed at his Megis shell. He nodded, and she picked up the journal, dusted it off, and handed it back to him. The other Weavers began moving aside and she gestured into the room behind her. Stick-In-The-Dirt looked back at the others, blanching a little.
"I guess...I'll go in and speak with them now," he said in a faint voice. "They aren't...meat eaters, are they...?"
"Don't worry," Charmian said. "I've never known a Weaver to hurt anybody." When that resulted in no change, she added, "Geezhigo-Quae says they're nice."
He let out a breath and followed the spiders into the room. Charmian didn't bother suppressing a scowl. "Sure, take her word for it!" she groused under her breath. "What am I, chopped...venison?"
"What are we supposed to do then?" Augwak snapped from the side of the tunnel. "Just SIT here?"
"Basically," Charmian said. "It shouldn't take too long...it didn't look like Stick wrote too much in that book."
Moon Wolf gave her a look as he turned away from the collapsed section of the wall. "You should be aware," he said, "that one sheet of those songs can go on for a half hour or more, and that's just a short one."
Charmian gawked at him. "You mean--THAT little bit of writing is THAT long--?!" She blinked. "How many songs do you guys normally have?"
He shrugged. "I would guess he put at least five or six in that book...and he did say he had written down only a few that he has."
Charmian put her hands up to her face and let out an awful noise. "Come on now," Thomas said coaxingly, "let's just go and sit down until they're all done singing and...rattling...and such. I'm sure the rest of those spiders will be right at work on the tunnels, and we'll be out of here in two..." He rolled his eyes. "Shakes of a turtle's shell."
Augwak grumbled. "Just what I need now...he's out there with my medicine and we're sitting around listening to SPIDERS..."
Charmian glanced up at him, ready to call him some sort of name, but cut herself off when she saw his face. He seemed paler than usual, dark rings under his eyes, and he wheezed a little as if short of breath. He must have noticed the look on her face, for he blinked, then scowled, bared his teeth at her, and whirled away. He shoved Kenu aside as he stalked to the back of the group, making the little Animiki fall over and then start yelling.
Charmian followed Thomas and Winter Born as they went over to join the others. Charmian peered into the other room and saw Stick-In-The-Dirt seated before the great spider, the two of them poring over the markings he'd put in the journal; it looked ridiculously small in the Weaver's grip, but already they seemed perfectly engrossed in what they were doing. As she watched, the spider shook her leg a few times, Stick-In-The-Dirt followed suit with his rattle, and then she completely lost interest in the proceedings and went to sit down near the side of the tunnel.
"This is definitely the weirdest wait I've ever had," she said, and nobody bothered to disagree.
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