poemtry and prose

She entered the room upon hearing the voice of her gran. Kaylee could hear her heart beating in her ears and she hoped that no one else could hear it, especially her gran. She quickly looked around the room. Pelts of various animals hung on the walls, some bearing their teeth and fangs at her. She vaguely recognized the pelt of a racoon and another of a coyote, since they were common between here and Port Riverbend. Strange sigils had been painted on other parts of the wall, curling and sometimes flowing into the next. They seemed to speak in a language that was far more ancient than even Kaylee's ancestors were. The floor creeked as she walked into the room, giving away at her weight. A bearskin rug sat on the floor next to the fireplace, reminding Kaylee of all the years spent sitting on it and gazing into the fire, looking for fire faeries who would dance inside the flames. As hard as she tried, she never really saw any dancing.

"Hi gran," her voice came out all shakey. "I am back."

She rushed over and hugged her gran very carefully. The woman seemed old and fragile and weighed almost nothing in her arms. Her gran smelled of sweat and oldness and sage and lavender and a few other herbs that she fought hard to recall their names but could not at this moment. She fought back a barrage of tears and struggled very hard to keep her composure in front of the others.

"I know dear, I know. And you are right. The important thing is that you are back. And here now," her gran said, stroking Kaylee's hair lightly.

They broke the embrace and her gran turned her head towards Daniel and David, "Thank you David for bringing her to me, you can leave. We have a lot of catching up to do. You can come back tomorrow for Kaylee if you want. Daniel, if you could go prepare the soup for tonight, I would be very grateful."

"Yes ma'am," they both said in unison and left the two ladies in the room. Kaylee heard the two men speak briefly in a language she remebered but could no longer understand. Then she heard the sound of the front door closing and the sputtering sound of David's Jeep start up. She continued to listen for the Jeep until it had gone out of the range of her ears. She was alone with her gran again.

Kaylee shook her head in disbelief, "You knew I was coming, I am sure of it."

"The wind told me. It carried your song through the window. That and raven also came and delivered to me the message that you received Daniel's call. He worked very hard to locate you. It is not easy for us to get ahold of outsiders this day," she said while struggling to sit up.

"I heard. I did not want to believe it at first, but it is true. Is it not?" The words came out of her mouth blurry, she was trying to choke back tears.

"Yes dear. It is true. Do not be sad. For it is the way of life, to be reborn and to die and return back to the soil to be remolded into something new. It happened to your parents, it is happening to me and one day it will happen to you and everyone else."

A lone tear appeared out of the corner of Kaylee's left eye. Her gran reached up and brushed it away from its trail. "But the important thing is that you are here, Kaylee. I have called and you came back. I need you, the tribe needs you and so do the spirits."

Kaylee sat up and turned away from her gran, once more. Her gran watched the young girl, wondering how she was going to react to the news she had so wanted to tell her all those years. Kaylee's long black hair shone almost red in the firelight.

"I do not know what you want of me," Kaylee said, her back still turned. "I have been gone for so long. I am nothing you want me to be. Just a person."

"Oh but you are," her gran began thru a fit of coughing. "You have my strength and the blood of the ancestors coursing through your skin. You cannot deny that. And yes, now that you have returned, you can take over my duties as tribal shaman."

Kaylee whipped her head back around, disbelief shinning wildly in her pale brown eyes, "What did you say Gran?"

"You heard me, no doubt. You always had good hearing. I said, that I talked to the spirits and they want you to take over when I am gone, as the Ser'lapham tribal shaman. There is nothing I can really do at this point. For when the spirits want something, I have to do their will. You know that."

"But gran," she pleaded, "I cannot do what you can do. I know you tried to teach me about the spirits and the animals and seasons and herbs and what not but it was not what I wanted to do. You never asked me what I wanted to do."

Kaylee's heart raced even more. She loved her gran but wondered if she should not have come. She had no idea how to be a successor to her gran. She had no idea what to do or how to react. She never felt the surge of power that her gran did, nor did she ever seem to bond with any animals like her gran did either.

"My little one," her gran said, placing a hand on Kaylee's arm. Hearing the old woman speak the name that she had given her so long ago made Kaylee smirk. She felt more grown up now and no longer like the little one that she was so many years ago. "You are strong. You have always looked into the face of adversity and come out looking the better for it. You strugged for years when you left. Hopping from job to job, trying to make ends meet. You still seem to be struggling. Have you ever thought that the life you so wanted on the outside, was a life that was meant for someone else and not for you?"

Kaylee gasped. "How did you... Nevermind, I really do not know what you did to keep an eye on me all those years. I should have known that you were still watching me, even though I was nowhere nearby to be watched upon. Did you ever once think that I did not want to be spied upon? That I wanted to have my own life and to be able to wander where ever I pleased?"

"It is as I said little one," her gran said, "we share the same blood. I knew it the moment you came to me all those years ago, wild eyed and defiant. It took a long time for you to accept the loss of your parents. And even then you pretended they were with you. And they were, in spirit. Can you not feel it now, now that you are older? The earth and the water and the fire that courses through your blood?"

Kaylee shook her head, "No Gran. I cannot. I know you want me to do this but I just cannot do it. I am not the one you want. I am sure though, that you did not spend all those years with me gone continuing your practice without some other.... apprentice. Who is it gran, who did you groom?"

Her gran reached out for a glass that sat atop the dresser and took a long and deep sip of water that was inside the container. She looked hard at Kaylee before answering.

"Yes, I did have help. But it is not his calling. He has done his best to help me and assist me in guiding our tribe the best way he knew how to but the call is not his. When he came to me, he knew that this day would come. That one day the true successor would arrive and he would have to step down or go on assisting the new shaman. And as I said, that day is now, for it is you that the spirits want. Not him."

"Okay, so who is he? Oh," the answer to her question appeared in Kaylee's mind. It was Daniel, the mystery caller and the one who seemed to live along with her gran in the home. "It is Daniel is it not?"

"You see, you can hear the voices of the spirits when you set your mind to it," her gran said smiling. Kaylee noticed that her gran seemed to grow a bit younger since she walked into the room. It was like her gran had a lot more life in her now than she did almost twenty minutes ago. Her gran's green eyes shown brightly in the firelight and the deep magenta color had returned to her lips. Her hands trembled a bit when she held the cup in her hand but other than that, she seemed strong and vibrant and still very much full of life. Kaylee just could not understand how it could be that her gran was dying. She yawned and stared off into the space just beyond the headboard to her gran's bed.

"Yes little one, Daniel came to me a few days after you had gone. He was always at the rituals the tribe held publically. I saw him then and knew he had taken an interest to what the spirits and the great grandmother had to say. He knew that with you gone that I would need some help and even though the cries and the screams of the great spirits were telling me they were not pleased with this decision, they allowed me to take him in and teach him what I knew."

"I just do not know gran. I am not the person you think I am. There is no way I could do what you ask of me. I barely recall the names of the spirits and have never heard their voices in my head. I have never seen the things you wanted me to see in the fire pits, nor have I enough time to be able to learn all this. There just is too much to do and I am sure you do not have another thirty years to teach me everything again."

Her gran frowned but continued to be strong, "Yes little one. I know that. I have spent a lot of time with the spirits and we have talked things over. This is one thing they will not refuse to back down upon. They have decided that it is you who will be my successor and no one else. Daniel has accepted this calling and he has given me his word that he will do what is necessary. And the spirits have aided me. They say there is one thing that you can do that will prove you are ready and know all there is to know."

"But how," Kaylee said, feeling defeated. She always wanted to believe that she was in control of her own life, her own path. That is the reason she left the reservation lands in the first place. But now, hearing her gran speak, she felt as if she never had a choice in the matter. She felt more worse off than ever.

Her gran took a deep breath and paused. It was as if she was having an internal talk between one of her spirit guardians and was not sure that she wanted to say what they wanted to her to say.

"There is a great ritual. A vision quest. To go deep into the forest with nothing but what you have on you. Seek Vellum Hollow. There you will learn to speak the language of the great earth and the spirits. You will attain knowledge through the connection to the land. And when you come back, your blood will have unlocked all the secrets that I know."

Kaylee snickered, "That is crazy. If I wander out there, to this Vellum Hollow, you know I would die. I do not know how to survive on my own."

She recalled the myths of Vellum Hollow, the spirit realm of her people. It was an acient location on the reservation, found deep in the forests. It was said that this is where her people found rest when their bodies died. It was said that the spirits also lived here and watched over their children the Ser'lapham, as they fought to survive in a world gone crazy. Kaylee believed that these stories were just that, stories. That even if a place like this excisted, then it was only a matter of time before the white man uncovered it and took it out of the treaty lands that gave them this land to live on in the first place.

"But it is the only way," her gran said almost as if she was speaking over the telephone from afar. "I told you that she would not want to do this. I cannot blame her, it is too dangerous," her gran said to someone who was there but unseen.

While the two women were talking in hushed tones, Daniel stood by the doorway unseen by their watchful eyes. He heard everything that his mentor had said. He did not like what was going on and hated that he was going to be ursuped by this tumaluk, a runaway, a traitor to their sacred ways. He worked very hard to please her and their spirits. He fought hard to understand how to bridge the connection between the worlds and chat with his own guardian spirit, the bobcat, who helped him understand more about the human condition. That no matter what happened in life, he had to fend for himself first and then look after the betterment of his peoples. And here, in the flesh was living proof of Bobcat's teachings. For now that Kaylee returned, the old shaman would turn away from him and make the youngling her successor.

No that did not sit well with him at all. And he knew just what to do.