Pins (11)

 

The trees thinned. They stepped into a clearing populated by dome-shaped huts, constructed from a circular willow framework and hung with grass mats. Smoke drifted from the roofs of several of the homes. Emmett saw women in deerskin skirts, but they retreated into their huts as the small group entered the glade, ushering children after them. Boys in deerskin aprons and ill-fitting feather robes lingered and stared. Some of them carried small bows and spears. 

Emmett lowered his head. He could not see any men. He hobbled the horse at the edge of the circle of trees, pulled its saddle off, and strapped its feedbag on. Then he followed Abigail and the Chumash girl into a large hut at the centre of the glade. The Chumash boys parted silently before him as he passed through, and he clasped his hands and nodded awkwardly. He moved past a little mound of pebbles arranged around the entrance, and gazed up at the bent willow poles curving towards the roof. 

The home was partitioned with a hanging reed mat. In the room they had stepped into a woman, two boys and a girl were gathered around a fire lit within in a stone circle. They were eating from wooden bowls. In the corner beyond them there was a row of shelves containing a series of large, round reed baskets, a row of earthen pots, and wooden mortars.

The women spoke briefly with the girl who had guided them through the forest. They spoke in their own tongue, but Emmett felt that the exchange sounded terse. The women's eyes followed him as the girl ushered them over to the partition. Abigail stared mournfully at the children and their wooden bowls.

'You will visit my grandmother, as I am concerned about your sickness, and then you will eat,' the Chumash girl said, drawing back a fold in the reed mat.

'Ace-high,' Abigail nodded, and the girl looked down and smiled at her again.

'Excuse me, ma'am... ' Emmett said, rubbing his hands on his duster jacket.

'Her name's Piru, Emmett,' Abigail said, and tugged at his sleeve. 'He ain't the most sociable,' she muttered, turning back to the girl.

'My apologies, Miss Piru,' Emmett stuttered, 'but I don't rightly know what's wrong with me anyways. I had some cuts and all, but they got better. I sure don't feel sick.'

Piru cocked her head and gazed at him.

'It is your eyes. I have seen this before. My grandmother has much knowledge of this sickness. Some people... some of the people that used to come here, from the mountains, they thought she was a curandero, but she is not. She has just acquired certain skills in time.' 

Emmett blinked. He felt aware of the backpack on his shoulders, and its contents. There were conversations he did not want to have, and he had not had time to run things by Abigail. He ducked through the gap in the partition, behind Piru and his sister.

The room beyond was darker. There was a platform bed in the centre, and on it sat an old woman in a dress strung with tassels, shells and quills. A thick line of white chalk was drawn around her sunken eyes.

They stood in silence before her. The fire crackled in the adjoining room. Abigail's head was bowed. Emmett cast around. There was a stone table next to the bed, and upon it were many clay pots adorned with intricately painted designs, and strange jagged items that looked like bone fragments. A single candle threw shapes upon the grass mats acting as walls.

Piru spoke with the old women. Emmett caught the word nochuza again. The old woman's eyes were deep-set pebbles in her frail face, and she nodded gravely as she listened. Piru broke off, took Emmett by the hand, and guided him to the bedside. His mouth felt dry. Piru placed a hand on his shoulder, and he understood. 

He dropped to his knees until he was level with the old woman as she sat on the bed. The candlelight wavered. Emmett looked into the dusty chalk lines beneath her eyes. She reached out and ran a bony finger under his own left eye. Then she spoke, slowly and monotonously. Piru listened and looked down at him.

'She says that you have changed the tetseebo... the count. She says that you have changed your count, but that you did not use the correct shape so as to protect yourself.'

Abigail's face twisted in confusion. Emmett looked back at the black pebble-eyes, and breathed shakily.

'What d'you mean, my 'count?'' he whispered.

The old woman looked at Piru. The Chumash girl raised her hand. She drew an invisible line from left to right, and then curved up and round in a loop figure.

'This,' she said, 'time. This is a way of counting. To count the changes in something. It is counting change. You number them, also, though maybe differently as to other places. Day, night; day, night.'

Emmett knelt silently. He was aware of everyone watching him. He looked away, and caught his reflection in a mirror decorated with an elaborate annular pictograph. Within the arched traces he saw his eyes, and started. His pupils were snowy drops superimposed upon, and barely distinguishable from, the sclera. Candlelight licked a silken sheen across them. He swallowed and looked back at Piru, avoiding the old woman's gaze.

'I sure don't know what you all are talking about,' he mumbled. He knew it was unconvincing, and felt his head heat up. His right hand bunched into a fist. Piru turned to the old woman and spoke. There was a clanking noise from beyond the partition, and muffled children's whispers. The old woman leaned forward and spoke louder. Her face contorted, and cracks appeared in the chalk lines.

'She says you know of what she speaks,' Piru said.

'He does,' Abigail chimed. 'He's been messin' 'bout with these things he found in a box. I said he shouldn't of, I said it was devilwork - '

Emmett raised his hands abruptly. The old woman shifted on the bed, and Piru sniffed.

'Darn it, Abigail,' he said.

'He don't know what he's got hisself into, that's all I'm tryin' to say,' Abigail sighed. She moved to place her hand on Emmett's shoulder, but he shrugged her off. The old woman was talking again. The candles stippled the room with a trembling glow, as if his own fear was being bodied forth.

'There are shapes you can use to protect yourself,' Piru said, glancing between Emmett and the old woman. 'Shapes that act as seals, that prevent other gates from opening. She says that you did not use the correct shapes...'

She paused and frowned. 

'I am sorry, I am not so familiar with these elements,' she said. 'These are very old things. Much older than the world.'

'Gates?' Emmett breathed. He saw the mist and ash-flakes again, the white roots and obelisks, and a shadow drew down on him. 

A look of worry passed over Piru's face, and her brow furrowed as she spoke.

'Here... here, we believe we were made from seeds. Limuw.  As if from a plant. Everything is a part of nature. This thing, it is also a part of nature, but it is a part of nature in many places.'

Emmett noted her hands were shaking softly. His knees ached. He placed his left hand on the floor.

'Aqiwo,' Piru continued, but she looked troubled, and her voice was distant. 'We live in the cradle between the Evening and Morning stars, but - '

The old woman spoke sharply and abruptly, and it seemed to shake Piru from her reverie. She drew a palm across her forehead and addressed Emmett.

'The point is that it is a potent thing, but a very dangerous thing also. You have changed your count, and in doing so you have changed the way your own seed will grow. You did not use the correct shape, and you have let another seed in.'

'He's made hisself sick, ain't he,' Abigail said. 

'Miipútt,' the old women hissed, looking at her and gesturing. 'Nochuza.'

Emmett stood. He wanted to leave the room, to leave the strange talk behind. He knew he'd messed with something far beyond his knowledge and capabilities, but it felt like there was something sinister here, and he was keen to escape. Piru moved before him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Her words came quickly and intently.

'She is saying it is all dust. You should listen. I know it is troubling. But it is to help you. Our counts are not fixed. You must not take it for granted that they are fixed. What do you think now is? There is no common now. You have changed your count through your actions, and you have shared it.'

Emmett stepped backwards until he was pressed against the stone table. He felt utterly bewildered. 

'I mean that you will become like them,' Piru said. 'A night-bird. Your count is shared now. This is what I mean when I say that you are sick.'

Abigail whimpered. Emmett clutched a hand to his face, as if to check that he was still the same in shape and form. He caught a vision of two lidless, egg-white eyes. Black blood. The echo of an awful, oscillating screech rang in his ears.

'Them bandits?' Abigail said. She pushed past Piru and hugged Emmett. He exhaled and brushed his hands over the mop of hair pressed against his chest. 

'Is that what they all did?' she said. 'Them bandits? Did they mess about with them things too?'

Her eyes welled up, and Emmett felt her pull away. She dropped to her knees at the edge of the bed. The old woman smiled and reached out towards her. 

'They are different,' Piru said. 'And despite the severity of your sickness, you have time yet. But this is not an easy thing to resolve. I do not know if it is possible to rectify your count.'

Emmett swayed against the stone table. His hands brushed against the clay pots. He saw his father's body on the floor of a blood-stained valley. His burned face and his blank eyes beneath a bloody sun, and beyond the tinder-dry plain rows of sharp peaks like teeth glinting and hazy within the sky's fire. 
He was panicking. He knew it. He placed his hand on his belly and tried to feel his breath.

'Huenemu,' the old woman said. She stroked Abigail's face and nodded several times. 'Sxa'min.'

Abigail looked round intently at Piru.

'There's somethin' we can do?' she said.

'Huenemu,' Piru echoed. She clasped her hands together and brought them up to her lips. 

'It is believed that there is a Halfway Place,' she said. Emmett's ghostly eyes followed her. Her head dipped to the side.

'In the ocean... ' she muttered, and trailed off. Abigail stood.

'What d'you mean, halfway?' she said. Piru's lips pursed. She looked terribly uncertain.

'I think it is in the understanding that it would be... A halfway point, in a sense. Halfway between gates. But this is only to speak broadly. In old times they would say it was a... I think you would say farm. I have heard the Mexicans say La Granja, so I suppose this is right, though it sounds strange to say.'

'How can there be a farm in the ocean?' Abigail said 'You mean like an island?'

'Load of high-falutin' horseshit,' Emmett mumbled. Abigail shot him a glare. As a group they were silent for a moment, illuminated by faint light; the old woman on the bed, Abigail kneeling before her, Emmett slumped against the table, and Piru clenching and unclenching her palms near the partition. 

'Sxa'min,' the old woman said, and broke into a harsh cough. Piru looked up slowly, as if from a daze.

'No,' she said, 'beyond a group of islands. An archipelago, off the coast. But not an island itself. She says it is in the ocean. I know this is a lot to take in. It is hard to express these things. They are not common. This is why we speak here, and in quiet. It is a part of nature, but nonetheless it is a part of nature known to few.'

The old woman barked and reached for a painted cup. Emmett and Abigail exchanged looks. He could see the worry and anger etched on her small, scrunched face. The way her bottom lip stuck out. The way her eyes became little moons. He felt stupid and helpless.

'I was just tryin' to protect us, Abi,' he said. 'I told you I thought it could help us. Give us a new life. If all this is true I sure didn't see it comin'. I'm so darn sorry.'

'You shouldn't of cussed,' Abigail said.

Emmett glanced at the old woman, and found himself blushing. There was a rustle by the reed-mat partition. They heard children's voices again. The woman in the adjoining room spoke sharply, and the voices fell to a murmur. 

'We're s'pposed to be guests here,' Abigail said, her eyes lingering on the partition. Emmett moved away from the table, clasped his hands together by his waist, and bowed his head.

'I'm real sorry, Miss Piru. Ma'am,' he said, nodding toward the bed.

Piru smiled at him. She crossed the room, offered her hand to Abigail, and helped her onto her feet.

'Come,' she said. 'You will eat. It is a lot to try and understand. I understand your frustration. You will eat and rest now.'
 

 

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