poemtry and prose

They spent the afternoon gathering not only Kaylee's car but important supplies from the grocery and trade store in the small town. The grocer looked at Kaylee as if she was staring at a ghost of her ancestors but smiled and grabbed the order for her gran. She even offered to help her and David pack everything into both his Jeep and her tiny Ford. Everywhere Kaylee looked, it seemed that life on the reservation was easier, slower and allowed everyone to enjoy their lives more fully and without complaint.

Complete strangers would wave at her as they moved swifty to their cars with the heavy boxes. Many nodded to her as if they had known her their entire life and some even offered to help carry the hevier of the boxes to her car. No one seemed to hold their personal belongings tightly to their chest. The air of distrust and paranoia that surrounded most of Port Riverbend was no where to be found as well here on the resrvation lands. Everyone seemed to share a common theme, a strong desire to help the community rather than attempt to get ahead and be the best. People laughed as they wandered down the street and always greeted one another with her people's customary greeting. A language that she had completely forgotten had existed and how to speak. A glimmer of shame rose to her throat as she felt shameful and like she had dishonored her connections to the proud tribe.

Kaylee breathed deeply and allowed her usually rigid shoulders to relax. She felt better about who she was and where she had come from than she had felt for years. Her mind mulled over the things her gran had told her only a half a day earlier. About her being the next shaman and about the ritual. While the notion still frightened her deeply, it also had a nice and certain ring to it. Kaylee very badly wanted to please her gran and make her proud of her for once. And if she could do it before her gran passes away then all the better. But she still was unsure what to do. A small part of her was telling her that if she did attepmt to go through with her gran's bidding that she would fall flat on her face and be not only embarrased this time by her own gran but by the whole tribe. It told her that if she did this and failed that it might banish her.

However, there was an ever growing part of her that wanted to go through with the hard ritural and see what she could connect to. Not having connected to her own spirit totem was one of the few last rituals of her people that she had never gotten to do. Usually, in her culture, as children come into age and begin to participate more in the history of the tribe and where the future lies, they go through a small ceremony that helps them uncover a spirit totem. A guardian and guiding force in their light. Kaylee knew that her gran's totem was wolf and that Daniel had one. But since she herself left the tribe only a few months before her ceremony, she went through most of her life not knowing what powerful spirit guardian watched over her. If anything.

When she was a child, Kaylee recalled playing games with her young friends about the spirit totems and their realms. They would run wild into the forest areas, searching for Vellum Hollow and the source of all existence. Pretending they were the full embodiment of the spirits, like Coyote, Wolf or Bear. They would make up stories about what the spirits would do and always get into some sort of small trouble while acting out the stories themselves. It was one of Kaylee's fondest memories of growing up, back whe she still had a mother and a father. Of course, when they died... everything changed. And her love for the great spider and all that existed around her died with it. It was as if she had never really learned to cope with the horror of losing one's parents at such a young age. And now, it seemed that they were willing to give her a second chance at proving that she could belong back in her world. The world of her parents.

Kaylee looked around at the adobe and wood built buildings. She inhaled deep, still amazed at how pure and untainted the air down in the southern part of the state was. She felt as if this world almost did not exist at all with the rest of the white man and the world that she knew about. It was as if the tribe lived on its own lands on the back of a turtle moving the planet from one morning to the next evening and back again. And a large part of her wanted very badly to move back into this fairy tale world of slower exsistence.

"Okay, thanks again Holly. I think that is the last of the deliveries. You go back and mind the store and we will drive all this back to Serena's now," David said. He hugged the slim waisted, pretty faced indain girl before turning back to Kaylee. "You ready to follow me?"

Kaylee nodded, "Yep. Lead the way. And please do not go too fast. I have no idea how my little brown car here is going to do on the gravel. It is used to smoother areas than what this reservation has to offer."

David smiled wide and laughed, "Yeah. Well, I guess that goes without saying. The state refuses to give us much money to actually pave a lot of the backroads on the lands and we just do not see the real value in investing in real pavement when it will just crumble away after the first thaw each spring. Okay, let us get going then. I want to get you home before it gets dark."

They started their cars and headed back to her gran's place. Once again, the roads were clear and no one else seemed to be travelling on the back roads to the reservations. Occasionally, Kaylee saw small poofs of smoke coming up from the trees from some unknown and hidden fireplace were a family were probably enjoying dinner and each other's company for the evening. Kaylee smiled and thought about the propostion her gran gifted her with.

Kaylee bit her lip and looked in the rear view mirror. The sunset was stunning against a cloudy sky. Off in the distance a small storm brewed on the horizon but the dark clouds set the canvas for the spashes of orange, purple and red that spattered across the sky as the two cars steadily made their way back through the pine trees. Jars filled with liquid clinked and clanked in the back of her small car as they felt each and every bump that it went over.

Finally, just as the last streaks of color were getting washed off the dark canvas of the night sky, David and Kaylee rolled into the front lawn of her gran's house. Lights were on again and Daniel had just opened the door.

"There you two are. Miasoa was getting a bit worried about you both. She almost cried, thinking that she had lost you again Kaylee."

Kaylee frowned, "I would not leave without saying good-bye first. ER, this time." She stammered it and then slammed the door to her car. "It took longer to pack all these jars and boxes and things up. Even with the two cars and some random helpers."

She glared at Daniel as she wandered into the house and made her way carefully back into the kitchen to set everything down. She passed the two men as she was leaving to get more boxes and did not bother to look at Daniel again. She had decided that he was a bit too much attached to her gran and did not like the way he treated her as if she was still a child.

It took them twenty minutes more to fully unload all the things and put them away in their own spots inside the house. When they were all done, Kaylee left Daniel and David out by the patio to smoke some fresh tobacco. She went into her gran's room, hoping that she was awake. She had made her decision and wanted to get it over with before she lost her nerve. She smelt the fresh musk of tobacco as she grabbed a candle and closed the back door and made her way silently to her gran's room.

"Gran," she silently but firmly called out. "Are you awake?"

"Come in little one. I am glad you came back," came the soft song voice of her gran. "Thank you for helping the boys get the chores done and unload everything. That was very generous of you. You are a guest here and you realize you did not have to go through and do that."

"I know gran. But I also did not want to sit around and not do anything while others rushed about. I was never one for sitting down and being idle. You know that."

Her gran touched her cheek and nodded, "Yes you were quite the busy body always running around and being very curious. Just like all the little ones born under the sign of the cat. I am sure your parents had their hands full when you were just a baby."

Kaylee smiled and smirked at the old shaman, "Probably. I have no idea. I can barely recall what they looked like. We did not have any pictures and there are some days where I forget that I even had parents. But yeah. Recalling my parents is not what brought me here. Being close to you and helping you is why I am here."

Kaylee took a deep breath and stared directly into her gran's eyes. The wolf blue eyes sparkled a bit and twinkled in the dancing lights of the myrid candles covering almost every flat layer in the warm bedroom. Her gran almost looked the same age as she did in the light and Kaylee fought the tears back. She was not ready to lose her gran just yet, not after all she had been through and it hurt her to think that she could not do anything. Anything at all to help her gran get better and live longer to be with her.

"So, gran," she began, "I wanted to talk to you more about what you asked me to do. Actually, I have an answer for you and I want to say this before I lose my nerve."

Her gran attempted to pull herself up into a sitting position. Kaylee helped move and adjust the pillows to accomidate. "Go ahead, I am listening."

"I think... Yes. Yes, I will attempt this ritual you speek of and see what I can do to find Vellum Hollow and connect with the spirits there. I am terrified that of what will happen to me if I do not find what you think I have within me. But I am even more terrified knowing that I turned down your last request of me. The last thing that you have ever wanted me to do for you. I just do not think I can live with myself if that happened."

"Oh little one," her gran responded, "This pleases me more than anything. And no matter what your decision had been, there was no way you could have disappointed me. We all must learn how to walk our own paths. I am just thankful that you are willing to come back and attempt this. What, can I ask, had changed your mind?"

Kaylee looked over her shoulder and into the dark hallway behind her. She was making sure that Daniel or David were not standing anywhere near the room. She did not want them to ovverhear what she was saying. She felt this was a personal decision and did not want their beliefs or predijuices to color her gran's belief in her.

"Let me just say that for once in my life I would like to be someone you are proud of. Someone who does not run from her problems. Someone who stands and fights and attempts to understand and be apart of something that is bigger than she is. I want to make you happy and if this wish makes you happy then I am willing to attempt it for you."

Kaylee turned her head towards the fire and stared into it. It flickered and danced in her eyes, and helped to fuel the flames of her decision, telling her in its own way that she made the right call and would be by her side to help her out when she needed it.

Silently she spoke to the dancing red and orange flames in her mind, "I am also doing it because I do not trust him. I do not want him to become your successor. I think the tribe might be better off with me than him as the gatekeeper to the realms contained within Vellum Hollow."