Somewhere, Over The Arch...
A SHADOWY FORM stepped forward from near the fire, and Charmian glanced up, blinking as soon as she realized that she recognized the face that greeted her.
Her own face paled. "You...you're Laughing Lynx?"
The old man standing before her just stared down at her almost disapprovingly, and crossed his arms. Charmian struggled to get to her feet without tripping again. He was the same elder who had spoken with her when she had been invited to join the Midewiwin! She hadn't had any reason to believe she'd speak with him again, especially so soon. She stared at him so long that he finally frowned.
"You do not find my name fitting?" he said.
Charmian's eyes went wide, then she felt her entire face grow warm. "Um...that isn't it!" She gave her snowshoe one last yank to draw it toward her, and would have fiddled her fingers had she not still been wearing mitts. "It's just...um...I never really..."
He turned away and waved, so she meekly followed him toward the fire. The old woman didn't even look up from her prodding as they approached. Charmian nearly ran into Laughing Lynx, and flushed again when he turned around; he gestured and she promptly sat down opposite the old woman. Charmian stared at her. Her pewter hair was done up in a long braid which trailed over her shoulder, and just like Noko and Old Mother Manitou her face was a map of lines and wrinkles.
"He said that you wished to speak with me," Laughing Lynx said, and Charmian jumped.
"He--?" she blurted out; when he arched a brow and nodded toward the doorway she ducked her head. "Oh--right. Um...kind of. It's kind of complicated..."
"He said it was a matter concerning a vision quest of some sort." Laughing Lynx eased himself to sit down not too far from her. "Which leads me to ask, why you should be seeking a vision."
"Um...it doesn't have anything to do with the Mide," Charmian said; when he looked at her she added, "Yet." She fidgeted. "Actually it has to do with why I'm really here, and the Spirit Road..." She trailed off and peered toward the old woman, then back at Laughing Lynx. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Should we be talking about...?"
"Rest easy," Laughing Lynx said. "She is a Mide too."
Charmian blinked. "Oh." She rubbed her neck. "Okay. Um...anyway, I'm looking for...someone...and I already tried asking in the Spirit Land...kind of...but he didn't know where to find who I'm looking for...so he said I should check out the Spirit Road, and try asking it if it knows..." She noticed the increasing frown on the old man's face and halted. "Um...you can have me back up any time you want..."
He shook his head. "I understand what you say, though it still makes little sense. You have been to the Spirit Land--?"
"Oh--no, not really. I don't think. Yet." Her brow furrowed. "Um...I kind of stepped into it...but it was just from Scott's Cave, which hardly counts, and..."
"Mm," Laughing Lynx said, cutting her off. "The cave below the East Bluff?" When she nodded he nodded also. "There are stories told of that cave, yet people do not venture near it. They say it leads to the bowels of the Island, where light never shines and even the lake demon himself refuses to go."
"Well, actually it leads to the Weavers, and a lot of really confusing tunnels, and out under Lake Huron and back into these caverns and toward this funky wall..." Charmian trailed off again, now that both of them were staring at her. "Um...anyway. Somebody I met there told me to ask the Road for advice."
"You have reason to trust this spirit?" Laughing Lynx asked skeptically.
Charmian nodded. "Oh--yes, plenty of reason. I really don't think he would lie. He said the Spirit Road could guide me in the right direction, if I could just find a way to get to it without dying. He said I had to come close." She made a face. "I don't know what that means and I'm not sure if I want to."
"Rest easy," Laughing Lynx said again. "Those who enter visions come close to death, yet do not die if all goes well. It is a way of leaving the body without dying."
Charmian frowned in puzzlement. "Kind of like a dream?"
"Yes and no. They are similar, though, in that they both come close to the Spirit Land. The boundary between death and sleep, and death and vision, is very thin."
Charmian's frown grew as something started to niggle at the back of her mind. A thin boundary...? That sounds almost like what Yellow Turtle told me! And...and someone else...?
"So I just have to have a vision," she said. He nodded. "But I'm not sure how to do that, either. I mean...I don't know, but you guys make it sound so easy. The last time I tried, I just started seeing leaves walking and stuff like that and I figured I was just tired..."
"You saw the leaves walking--?" Laughing Lynx's already craggy brow furrowed even more, and Charmian felt like shrinking into her clothes.
"Um...I think I was just hallucinating," she clarified, and twirled a finger at her temple. "You know--not enough sleep?"
"Perhaps the Pukwudjininees were talking to you," the old woman said.
Charmian blinked. After a moment she figured this must be their way of telling her she was going nuts, and nodded slowly. "Um...right. Pukwudj...whatevers. Right." She turned back to Laughing Lynx. "Anyway, it didn't seem to work. Stick seems to think I can do it, but I don't think I have the...um...mental resolve you guys have. I mean, sitting and zoning out for week, that just makes me want to crawl up a wall..."
"Visions take discipline," Laughing Lynx almost snapped, and she shrank back again. "How is it that you speak with manitous, and have them do your bidding, yet you cannot even sit still for a single vision? Times like these I wonder if the Island itself has gone crazy."
Charmian flushed. "It's not like I ASKED to be this way!"
Laughing Lynx scowled. "Visiting the Spirit Road will take discipline! You wish to seek an easy way out--? Then you have been hanging about too much with that wabano. He sought the easy way out, and see what became of him."
Charmian's jaw fell open. "He--he feels AWFUL about that!" she exclaimed, and jumped to her feet; the two looked at her and she clenched her fists. "If he'd've known what the price was ahead of time he NEVER would've gone through with it! As it is he's never used his powers even ONCE since then! He's worked a lot harder than a lot of OTHER people here, AND he gave everything he had for the Island! LITERALLY!"
Laughing Lynx arched a brow. "How is it that you know so much about Snow Bear?" he said mildly, and Charmian's face went brilliant red and she sank back to the floor and into her furs so only her eyes peeked out.
"Um...never mind," she said in a tiny voice.
Laughing Lynx poked at the fire this time. "I can hardly stop you if you wish to seek an easy path to reach the Road," he said, "and seeing the luck you have had so far with the manitous, it would not be so hard to believe that an easy path exists for you. But if no such path is open for you then you must be willing to make the effort. Even if you find an easy way now, that may just make it all the more difficult later on."
"I know, I know," Charmian sighed, poking her head out again. "Equal exchange--I have to give as much as I get. I know! That's the first thing I learned about wabanos. I don't think I'll forget that."
He gave her a critical look, then dug in a bag sitting beside him. Charmian held out her hands when he tossed her a pouch, and she looked up at him in curiosity.
"Payment," he said. "Since you do not seem to carry it around."
Charmian's brow furrowed. She uneasily opened the little pouch, peered inside, then made a face and tied it shut again.
"Tobacco," she mumbled. "Should've seen that one coming a mile away." She tucked it in her pocket, and only belatedly remembered to say, "Thank you."
"Take it with you to Arch Rock," Laughing Lynx said, "as the boundary is thinnest here in the living world. The rock and the Road are connected as you probably already know."
"But how do I find a vision?" Charmian exclaimed.
He gave her a pointed look. "You do not find a vision. A vision finds you." He narrowed his eyes. "Two days, or ten, or a moon. However long it takes--if you are as willing as you say to make the effort."
Charmian blinked, then went red. "I am!" she retorted, and got to her feet again. "Watch and see!" She turned and stormed toward the doorway--which was difficult, in her gawky snowshoes--and pulled the flap open, nearly tripping again on her way outside. She stumbled and someone caught her arm; she looked up to see that Stick-In-The-Dirt and Thomas were still there, White Deer having joined them. They all stared at her with wide eyes.
"Well?" Stick-In-The-Dirt asked. "Did he tell you anything--?"
"Are you going on a vision quest?" White Deer asked excitedly.
"You're not going to have to take any wonky pellets again, are you?" Thomas said with concern.
"I can always tell you another story if it'll help!" exclaimed Marten, wiggling under Thomas's arm.
Charmian flushed. "He basically said to figure it out on my own!" she snapped, and pushed her way through them. "Which was a BIG help!"
Stick-In-The-Dirt's brow furrowed and they all turned to follow her. "That was all?" he said with obvious disappointment. "I should have thought he would be more helpful..."
"Old men," White Deer sniffed. "They are always full of themselves!" Her father hushed her and they started to quietly squabble.
"So, what's the plan?" Thomas asked. "To reach this Road or whatever?"
Charmian shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to go to Arch Rock and find out! That's the only thing we all seem clear on--Arch Rock. Like I didn't know THAT already." She rolled her eyes.
"But..." Stick-In-The-Dirt hastened to catch up with her, and waved his hands. "What about the--you know." He gestured toward his wigwam. "--Him?"
"Huh--?" Charmian lifted her head to look at him, then frowned. "Oh. Right. The Singing Trees guy." She pursed her lips. "Well...maybe he could crash at your place for a little while? Just until this all gets cleared up, then we can send him back to wherever he came from."
The medicine man's eyes went wide. "Stay--stay at my place--?" he squawked, and his feathers very nearly stood on end. He waved his arms even more wildly. "But--but--! I do not know how to--what if he--it's too--I can hardly--!"
White Deer caught up with them now. "I think I know where he can stay safely!" she exclaimed with a big smile. "And not cause any trouble at all!"
They all looked at her. "There is such a place--?" asked Charmian.
A short trek and a short while later, Singing Cedars sat upon a stack of folded furs, the fire crackling nearby, his eyes darting from it and to the side of the room every so often. He didn't move a muscle, just kept to his seat, not even bothering to wince at the pain in his shoulder. He couldn't stop peering off to his side.
Crooked Creek sat right over here, Francois's giant gun propped up in her arms and a dark scowl upon her face. She did not take her eyes off of him even once, and by now Singing Cedars was almost positive that she must be some sort of bad spirit. It was best not to make bad spirits angry, especially female ones. And so he kept as still as he possibly could, and didn't even bother to scratch his nose lest she find something more useful to do with that gun.
The small group slowly made their way back toward the camp in the dying daylight. "He shouldn't cause much trouble there!" White Deer said cheerily, though the others looked kind of skeptical.
"Crooked Creek will be fine," Charmian said. "Though I don't know if he'll be in one piece whenever we get back!"
Charmian and Thomas were the only ones to walk out to Arch Rock, nearly wallowing in the heavy snow which covered the entire bluff. Thomas nearly slipped and fell down the cliff itself, as the snow made it difficult to judge where the edge was. Charmian stared at the great Arch glimmering in the dying light, snow frosting its top and making it look bigger than it really was. Great jagged hunks of ice glinted through its fifty-foot span, jammed against the shore of Lake Huron far below.
Charmian and Thomas halted to look down at the frozen lake, then looked up at each other. Charmian rubbed her arms.
"The point I keep getting is I'm supposed to go it alone," she said, then frowned. "But what if I freak out or something? Mani kept me company the last time..."
"And what am I, chopped liver?" Thomas said, mouth twitching. He gestured toward the woods. "How about if I stay nearby, at least? Out of sight, out of mind, unless you go out of mind, then I'll come out of sight."
Charmian rolled her eyes. "Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence!"
Thomas smirked. "You say this only because it's true." He turned and made his way toward the trees.
Charmian cupped her hands to her mouth. "YOU say that only because it really IS true!" she yelled back, then turned to Arch Rock and sighed. She stared at it for a few moments before summoning up her courage and approaching the narrow span which led from the bluff to the Arch, gingerly setting foot upon it. She got onto hands and knees and crept forward several feet before having to stop, unable to keep herself from looking down. Her face went white and she decided to sit.
The cold seeped through her clothes as she stared at her snowy seat and at the shore lying far below. The span of the arch was only about three feet wide--as wide as a bed, she tried to comfort herself, but at least her bed didn't float a hundred and fifty feet over the ground. And her bed was more comfortable, too; at least, she could sleep on it, whereas she didn't feel very tired right about now.
She sighed. "When I get home I'm going to have a nice long study session about good sleeping habits," she murmured, and nudged aside a hunk of snow. It fell from the rock and she winced as it promptly vanished from sight. She shook her head and warily rose to her feet. "Time to get thinking. I can hardly sit here forever."
She made sure her footing was solid before pausing again and looking around herself. She chewed her lip, then snorted. She kicked away another hunk of snow, then another, and a moment later was on hands and knees again, dusting off the Arch. She had to force herself to have tunnel vision so as to keep her balance as she worked from one end to the other, feeling oddly compelled to clear the rock of snow. Once she was done she made her way back to the middle and at last noticed a few halfling spirits beginning to drift about in the air around her. She ignored them at first as she got rid of the last of the snow, having to stop and take off her mitts and breathe on her hands to warm them up; the spirits just continued floating about, peering at her curiously before losing interest and...drifting some more.
Charmian folded her legs underneath her and sighed. "Talk to a road, talk to a rock," she mumbled. "If it didn't feel already like this whole Island has something against me, I'd think everybody's nuts." She peered up at the spirits floating around, and looked around herself to see that several more had appeared. She frowned slightly and stared at them.
What was all that...? I felt almost like I...had to clean it off, for some reason...was that the rock talking to me? Or am I talking to Pukwudjwhatevers again...?
She dug in her pocket to pull out the pouch of tobacco. She held it out toward the halfling spirits but they merely looked at it before drifting on. She watched them as they shifted in and out of visibility, each one of them stranger looking than the last, yet each one of them neutral and nonthreatening in its own way. If the circumstances hadn't been so odd, she probably wouldn't have paid them any attention at all. As it was, they held her interest more than anything now.
I can't even imagine what it's like, just floating around a big rock all the time, she thought, then frowned again.
Lost spirits...they stay around the last place they knew. The last place they knew was the Spirit Road...so they stay here all the time, like they expect to be let through someday. Do they really think that? Or am I just imagining things...?
Chakenapok...what would have been the last place he knew, if not the Spirit Road...?
She felt a pang in her breast and had to shove the feeling down. "You guys," she said, and the spirits turned their heads slightly, looking at her with their large pale eyes as they drifted. "This is the way to the Spirit Road, right...? All of you guys were there once. Any idea how I could get through...?"
The halfling spirits slowly shook their heads and faded, others taking their place. She sighed. Well, at least it had been worth a shot.
She tilted her head to look down at Lake Huron again and after a while lost herself in thought, even though she knew she should have been concentrating instead. Concentration just never seemed to want to come, unless action was following it. Concentrating and then...sitting...had never been her strong suit. She fiddled with her mitts as she stared at the hunks of ice below.
I keep getting stuck in this situation, and it's always the same. Why does Stick have such faith in me? Why do any of them? Even if I did reach the Road, what would I say? It's not like I've ever conversed with a street before. She pressed her hand against the cold rock. I don't think I've ever even addressed the Island as an equal...
She frowned at this thought. A low soft sound started in the woods far off to the side, and she lifted her head in puzzlement. The sound drifted on the icy breeze, growing and fading, and the spirits around her brightened and faded just as the music did. It was only when Charmian's eyelids began to tug downwards and her head began to slump that she recognized the sound, having to jerk her head back up and shake it to rouse herself.
Wabasso's flute. That's right...it puts people to sleep.
Always very quiet and reflective...he loved nothing more than to walk the woods, and peer into the waters, and listen to the sounds of all the animals around him...
Charmian stared at the Arch beneath her before carefully getting to her feet. She turned and looked into the woods, but couldn't make anything out. The sound seemed close, though with the strange wind and cold, she couldn't be sure of how far away it really was.
Wabasso...maybe he knows how to help me.
She cupped her hands to her mouth, still fighting off the feeling of sleep. "'Basso?" she called, trying to keep her voice quiet yet clear enough to carry. She had to stand and wait for a moment, shivering, before the soft sound of feet tramping through the snow came to her ears, and she at last spotted a figure emerging from the woods. Wabasso still held his flute in his hands as he approached, looking up at her in curiosity.
"Why are you atop the Arch?" he asked.
Charmian shrugged. "Just thinking."
His mouth twitched, as if he wished to ask more, yet he refrained. "I am sorry if I bothered you," he said, and held up the flute. "I wasn't aware anyone was nearby...I thought I might get away from the others for a little bit." And he made a face.
Charmian smiled. "I can understand that feeling. Actually, it was the flute I wanted to talk about. Would you mind joining me...?"
Wabasso still seemed puzzled, yet made his way up toward the Arch. He sat down as soon as Charmian did and she gestured at the lake.
"It's freezing already. As soon as I'm able, Augwak's going to pay for this. I know Michigan summers suck, but not this bad."
"What did you wish to know about my flute?" Wabasso asked.
She glanced at it. "It puts people to sleep, and talks to manitous, doesn't it...?" He nodded and she continued. "Noko said that you always liked to go off on your own, to talk to and listen to the animals and such. I wondered if you've ever had a vision or anything."
Wabasso blinked. He looked down at the flute, then frowned slightly.
"I do not know," he admitted after a moment. "I always got so lost in thought, that a fire could have been burning around me, and I never would have noticed."
Charmian's mouth twitched again. "That lost?" He nodded and her smile returned. "I can't even seem to sit still for five minutes, much less get lost in the middle of a fire!"
Wabasso gave a sheepish smile. "It drove Puka and 'Bozho crazy...they always wished to be doing other things, yet this was always what I found I liked to do most." He tilted the flute. "I carved it myself...and made a drum, also...Puka liked to dance to them, and 'Bozho would play with them, but that was not the reason why I made them...when I played them, it made my thoughts quiet. When your thoughts are quiet, you can see and hear things so much more clearly. Noko insisted I spent too much time for a child to be doing that...yet I felt like I was learning things. I do not know what things, but that was the feeling I had. You cannot learn these things from teaching; all you can do is listen."
"That seems to be a problem with me," Charmian murmured, and looked out at the lake again. The unfrozen part of the water splashed choppily against the ice sheet, far in the distance. "I can't ever seem to listen, and so I don't learn the right things. I don't even know how to speak to a road, or to a rock."
Wabasso sat silently for a moment before holding up his flute, pausing, then touching her arm to draw her attention. Charmian looked at him and he held up the instrument again.
"It has always helped me," he said quietly. "Why could it not help you, too?"
Charmian's brow furrowed. "But it keeps putting me to sleep. I don't need sleep, I need something else."
"Then perhaps that is where your own will would come in," he suggested. "If it is too difficult for you to focus upon nothing, then why not focus upon one thing? You didn't fall asleep and fall from the rock, so you must be more willful than you thought."
Charmian couldn't tell whether he was joking or not, so her resulting smile was somewhat skewed. "You think if I think hard enough, it won't put me to sleep?"
He shrugged. "It could not hurt to try, unless you..." He paused, then shrugged again. "Fall."
Charmian rolled her eyes. "That's no problem!" He smiled when he realized that she was joking, and she tucked her feet under her. "Okay, then. Go on and try your worst, but if I doze off, let's hope you can change into a bird again."
He stood and retreated to the mass of land just beyond the Arch, sitting down and putting the flute to his mouth. Charmian took a breath and let it out, closing her eyes and making certain that she was as steady as she was going to be, considering how far down the ground was. After a moment the sound of Wabasso's flute started again, rising and falling just as Augwak's winds did, and she felt herself start to grow drowsy. She had to fight not to shake herself awake, instead biting the inside of her mouth as hard as she dared and trying to focus on the sound. It sounded almost like one long varying note rather than a series of separate notes, and she felt surprise that she'd never noticed that before. She listened to it carefully to see if it ever broke itself but the note remained steady, rising and falling on the wind, and Charmian felt almost like she was rising and falling along with it. At any other time she would have wondered how he managed to keep it up for so long, but any such thoughts drifted from her mind. She floated in a haze, feeling as if she were about to fall asleep, yet somehow suspended from doing so. The note grew faint and distant, but never stopped, curving and weaving sinuously through the chill air.
It's all one. It's all connected to each other, Charmian thought drowsily, and wasn't certain whether she meant the note or the Island, but she didn't really care. Her eyelids hugged her eyes and it felt as if they would never open, though she didn't care much about that, either.
She couldn't even be certain how long she drifted like this--a few moments, an hour, or longer--but it felt as if the note carried her along with it, and she let it do so, giving up the urge to move on her own. It was almost like being swept along in a slow current without any fear of drowning--Charmian wouldn't have been able to say whether she were still breathing or not, either. She felt as if she held her breath yet her lungs didn't protest. The note both pushed and pulled her along, and she didn't even wonder why she no longer felt the cold craggy surface of Arch Rock beneath her.
Arch Rock...
I'm sitting on Arch Rock...
Aren't I...?
Thought at last struggled to make its way into her head, and she first fought against it, then gave up. As soon as she did so the thought faded and the note grew both clearer yet fainter at once--she didn't know how that was possible, but it happened. She felt it gently pushing against her back, and then a sense of gravity returning; her feet would have touched a surface if there had been a surface to touch, but just as in a dream, she didn't wonder. The note let her go and she "stood" where she had been left, looking around herself with closed eyes; she felt and heard and sensed the note drifting past her, then slowly settling to the ground even as it faded away into the distance ahead. As the sound at last faded from her ears, she slowly opened her eyes, blinking the haze away. The dead note still lay before her upon the ground, still winding and sinuous, and she stood right upon it as if she could walk along it to the Spirit Land.
She blinked again, now in surprise, and her eyes grew. She turned her head slightly from side to side. What she stood upon did wind and curve just as the note had, fading away before her, yet it had substance, and she could actually see it.
Charmian sucked in a breath as soon as she realized what she was actually looking at.
"The...the Spirit Road!"
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