Hannah & the Spindle Whorl (14 page)

NUTSA BREAKS THE
awkward silence first. She says something to Yisella, her arms dancing wildly at her sides, but Yisella makes a shhhsh-ing sound. Nutsa ignores her and talks excitedly to a woman behind her, pointing at me furiously. Soon everyone is chattering back and forth, but Yisella remains quiet, her eyes going from the spindle whorl, then to me, and then back again. Finally she says, “Hannah. Did you feel that? Did you feel the power take you?”

“Power? Well, I felt something. Kinda like I wasn’t in control of what I was doing. It was super eerie, but really cool at the same time.” I look at my hands as though they’re not attached to my body anymore. No one is more surprised at what just happened than I am.

“Hannah, you have the same gift as my mother. Spinning is not easy and it usually takes a really long time to learn how to do it. But you don’t need any lessons. You have the spinning gift!”

Yisella may be right. How else can you explain what just happened? Why else would I feel so mesmerized every time I look at the spindle whorl? Wasn’t I here because of the whorl in the first place?

I’m excited by the whole thing until I notice the villagers murmuring amongst themselves. They stop talking, look at me suspiciously, and then three move forward to whisper something in Yisella’s ear. She looks at me and says, “Some of the people here don’t understand this. They wonder why a
hwunitum
child would be given this Quw’utsun’ gift?”

She looks at me as though I should have the answer but I don’t. I’m just as confused as she is about everything that’s happened. So again, I don’t say anything. I’m hoping that the villagers are used to me enough by now to believe that I’m just a kid with no idea how she got here or why. Standing by the loom, I smooth out the cedar skirt that Yisella gave me to wear after I ripped my jeans and wait for this moment to pass.

More whispering and then Yisella says, “They think you might have fallen from the sky.”

“What?” Fallen from the sky?

“You didn’t come across the water like the other
hwunitum
or walk a long way to get here. You just appeared. Just like Syalutsa and Stutsun, the first humans. Our first ancestors. They fell from the sky a long, long time ago, and then many others came afterwards.”

“But I’m
hwunitum
,” I protest, “and there have been other white people here before me. What about the men with the big beards and the “moon faces” that you told me about? What about the people up on the flats who give you goods for furs? Or that man — Mr. Harris — with the hotel and the store? I’m pretty sure that there are tons more down the island too. How could I have fallen from the sky?”

“We know other
hwunitum
have sometimes come on the water. But you aren’t like the others. You have the spinning gift. You’re different somehow.”

I’m different. Yeah, I can’t begin to count the number of times that I’ve heard that before. Especially at school. My hair is different. I don’t really dress like the other kids. My shoes are wrong. Hah. If Sabrina Webber could see me right now, dressed in my cedar skirt and cloak, I bet she’d have plenty to say. But I also know that Sabrina Webber wouldn’t last a second here in the village of Tl’ulpalus on the shores of Cowichan Bay. She would hate the clothes girls wear here, and the raccoon fat in the hair — no matter how shiny it makes your hair — would gross her out.

I know that I didn’t just drop out of the sky, but how I did get here remains a mystery. It’s all so vague and foggy. I don’t have the answers for Yisella but I’m sick of saying I don’t know. I think about making something up. Maybe I should say that I’m an alien from the planet Krypton and that my spaceship crash-landed in the middle of the forest. But no, that’s just mean. And anyway, no matter what the story, if I were a villager here, I’d be pretty curious about any stranger who showed up right out of the blue. In the end, I ask Yisella to tell everyone that I’m just as surprised by my arrival and at my ability to spin as they are.

I guess they believe her because they go back to getting the canoes ready for the voyage. Nutsa goes back to filling baskets with items for the trip. She keeps shooting me looks, only now she looks more scared than angry. Like maybe she thinks I really did fall from the sky, and I do have special powers, and just maybe she better be nice to me. I’m still not sure what happened out there by the river; I doubt that I’ll ever know. But I don’t think she’s going to bother me anymore. I smile at her. She doesn’t exactly smile back, but she doesn’t look at me like I’m the enemy either.

The preparation for the last trip across the water goes on and on. All of the villagers seem to move with increased energy, lashing down baskets and storing cedar boxes within the deepest sections of the canoes. Dried salmon, baskets, more planks for making temporary shelters, and all sorts of items for trade go into the canoes. Yisella tells me that they’re late, that most of the other island tribes departed much earlier. The people of Tl’ulpalus stayed behind to watch the bay for a while, to listen and to be aware. For what, I don’t know, but I don’t ask as many questions as I used to. The summer is almost over; there’s time for one last trip before the leaves fall. Time to get ready for the cold wet months ahead. They must be certain that everyone has enough stored for the winter, because they work less then and stay inside their long-houses more. Winter is the time when they listen to stories, learn special dances and celebrate the abundance of food. Today, even Nutsa pulls her weight, helping to look after the smallest children so that the grown-ups can get their work done.

By the time evening falls on the bay, Yisella and the villagers look like they’re ready. Everyone is going to make the journey this time; even Yisella’s great-grandmother wants to go. The more help the better when they reach the big river on the mainland.

I know that Yisella really doesn’t want to leave her mother’s unfinished blanket. She’s worried that it will not be finished in time for the potlatch. Although she can be stubborn, even Yisella must accept that she needs to be with her village. And while I don’t really know what to expect, I feel excited and nervous all at the same time. I’m pretty excited about riding in one of those huge canoes — all the way across the strait, but I sure hope I don’t get seasick. And I sure hope that nothing bad happens on the way over? How long will we be away anyway? What if I’m stuck here forever and I never get back home to my houseboat?

Much later, long after we’ve all gone to bed, I wake up with a start. Something’s wrong. Something is missing. I feel around for Poos but he’s not there. That’s not like him. These days he follows me everywhere, and he sleeps with me at night. He never moves once he goes to sleep. What if he went outside? What if he went outside and met that great big dark shadow in the woods?

“Puss, puss, puss,” I hiss, peering into the darkness. “Come on, kitty. Come on.”

“Why are you still awake?” Yisella’s voice floats over from her sleeping platform.

“I can’t sleep.” I don’t want to say why. She’s just lost her mother, so getting all twisted about a missing kitten doesn’t seem like a legitimate reason for not being able to sleep.

But Yisella notices things, so right away she says, “Where’s Poos?”

“What — how did you know?”

“If you’re calling for him, I’m thinking that maybe he’s not here?”

“Oh, right. What if he’s lost somewhere?” I’m surprised at how intense I sound. “What if he meets that thing outside, in the dark? What if he meets Thumquas!”

“No,” Yisella says calmly, “he’ll be fine. Now go back to sleep. I’m sure Poos will show up in the morning.”

She’s right, of course. Cats love wandering around at night. Chuck often went on little midnight adventures, returning in the morning with a half-chewed mouse or some fishy souvenir for us in his mouth. But I can’t settle. I miss the warmth of Poos’ little body curled up in the space beside my neck, and the sound of his gentle purring in my ear. How can silence be so deafening? What if he’s lost forever? A tear slides down my face. Another surprise. It’s so quiet that I cover my ears with my hands. What if he’s lost in the woods and unable to find his way back to Tl’ulpalus? What if—

“Did you hear that?” Yisella says, suddenly wide awake too.

“Hear what?” I ask.

“I don’t know. A booming noise. The third one tonight. There were two others earlier. I almost woke you up but then they stopped.” I hear her feet padding across the ground as she comes to sit down on the end of my platform. “Something is different. I can sense it. I’m like my father that way.” I can see her dark shape at the end of my bed and even though I can’t see her face, I can feel her staring at me.

“Maybe the noises scared Poos away,” I say, sitting up and wiping my face with my arm. “I really need to find him, Yisella. He might be lost or trapped somewhere.” Like me.

I half expect Yisella to tell me I’m being totally dumb — that it’s ridiculous to go out in the middle of the night in search of a lost kitten. But she doesn’t. She’s dressed and outside in no time, heading down to the beach before I finish getting dressed. I chase after her as quickly as I can, avoiding the bits of driftwood and rocks on my way.

We stand on the sand, side by side, looking out over the flat ocean. The night is calm, the air is still, and the stars twinkle overhead. Jack stands a little farther down the beach, preening his feathers. How does he do that? Just appear out of nowhere whenever Yisella and I go anywhere together.

I try to steer Yisella back toward the longhouse, “I think Poos might have gone into the woods.”

“Okay,” she says, “but first let’s go up the beach and around the point. I’m sure Poos will show up, but I have to find out more about those booming noises.” She disappears into the darkness and I can barely make out her shape as I follow the sound of her feet scrambling over the rocks.

IT’S THE FIRST TIME
during this whole crazy adventure that I feel kind of choked at Yisella. It’s way past the middle of the night, I’m tired, my feet are wet again and I’m traipsing after her on a rocky beach with no idea where I’m going or why I’m going there. I call for her to wait up, but she doesn’t stop. She’s moving about a million miles an hour. Several times, I slip on slimy rocks and fall on my knees. I wince from the pain in my injured knee, still sore from my fall in the river. What’s her hurry, anyway? I thought she was going to help me look for Poos. And what’s this special “sense” that she claims to have? I’m mulling all this over in my head when she appears in front of me and says, “There! Again! The loud boom. Did you hear it?”

I didn’t hear anything. I was too busy being mad, but I can’t tell her that I think she’s delirious from lack of sleep, so I strain my ear in the direction of the ocean and listen. Nothing. Nothing except for the call of a gull or two and the gentle slapping of the waves on the shoreline. It’s the same sound that the water makes when it slaps against our houseboat. I’d give anything to be back there now. Back in my warm bed with my lavender and green striped duvet, with Chuck purring like a little wind-up motor beside me. I blink a couple of times, partly from the salty sting in the air, but mostly from the picture I have in my head of Chuck stretched out with his paw on my cheek, ignoring my pleas to move over. I miss him so much, which makes me almost frantic to find Poos.

“Your ears must be full of seaweed,” Yisella snaps, clearly annoyed with me.

Great. Now I get to be cold, tired
and
have insults hurled at me. Seaweed ears. Nice.

“Yisella … come on. Can’t we just go back to the woods and find Poos? There’s nothing out there. I don’t get why you have to be so intense all the time!”

“Because I listen when something speaks to me!” she yells. “I care about my family and our safety! I don’t want to be afraid anymore and I don’t want to lose anyone else!”

She looks smaller, kind of deflated, and I instantly feel ashamed of myself for whining like that. Me of all people. I remember all the ups and downs that I felt in the days that followed my mom’s funeral. Yisella’s been through so much. I make my mind up, then and there, to be a better friend.

“I’m sorry, Yisella. Of course we’ll keep going. You lead the way and I’ll just follow.” I find the energy somewhere to follow my determined friend up the beach.

Soon we veer off the rocky shore and onto a hardly-there trail skirting the beach. It’s even darker in here, damper, and the roots from the trees are slippery and treacherous. I press the illumination button on my iron-woman watch and it lights up, but it still reads 4:11:26 pm. I shake my head. Really, what difference does it make if I know what time it is? I don’t even know what day it is. But I do know that it’s August, and that the days are already getting shorter. I even heard the crickets the past few evenings, a sound that always comforts me. Until now, that is. Now their sound just makes me anxious, as if I’m running out of time. But time to do what?

I follow Yisella over the dark tangle of roots and across fallen logs. I’m not used to this skirt yet, so it makes me clumsy, and I trip more often than before. Occasionally I hear a rustle in the bushes beside me and then something runs out in front of me and disappears into the salal. It chitters at me from the safety of the undergrowth.

“Raccoon,” I whisper, while my heartbeat returns to normal.

Finally we come to a small clearing on a point, far from Tl’ulpalus village, and stop. Yisella better have a pretty major gut feeling about something to take us this far from our beds. I can see the moonlight reflecting off the calm night ocean and Yisella points to a seal bobbing its head just above the water’s surface.

“Now what do we do?” I ask, wrapping my cloak around my legs.

“Now we just wait, watch and listen.” She stares straight out to the sea.

“For what?” I sound ignorant, but I don’t care.

She answers, talking more to herself than to me, as if she’s trying to justify her reason for coming all this way. “For anything. For something.”

So, that’s what we do. We wait. Yisella watches and listens. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open, and I feel myself nod off several times. I’m jolted awake each time her elbow gives me a little shove.

This time I hear it. Faint, and in the distance: a deep boom. Almost like the fireworks that I watch from Victoria’s inner harbour every Canada Day, only farther away. Yisella hears it, too, and clutches my arm.

“Yes,” I tell her. “Okay. I heard that one!”

“What’s making that sound?” Her fingers squeeze my arm so hard that I think she’s going to cut off my circulation.

“I’m not sure. It almost sounded like an explosion, or maybe—”

“Maybe a big fireball from a
hwunitum
boat.” There’s a solemn tone to her voice.

“A cannon? From a white man’s boat?”

“Yes, it happened before when a boat came, not to Tl’ulpalus, but to other Quw’utsun’ villages. Fireballs flew through the sky from a big boat with many white sails. I heard this story told when all the Quw’utsun’ villages gathered. Twice the fireballs came as a warning from the
hwunitum
.”

“What kind of warning?” I ask Yisella. There’s nothing about this in my textbook at school.

“It was a warning that they’re here. Nothing more, nothing less. It is why we must watch and listen. We need to be ready.”

“Ready for what?” Another one of my lame questions.

“That’s the problem. I don’t know,” Yisella answers. “Just ready.”

I sit there beside my friend, waiting and watching. Exactly what for, I’m not sure. But at least now I’m listening.