Chapter 7

“The Great Owl will stand in the middle of the flock but will see itself as the least of those surrounding it. It will tremble with fear and desire to scurry away like a cowardly field rat. The hope of all future will depend on its courage to stand, and the fate of all people will rely on whether or not the Great Owl will open its eyes in time.”

Crying Shadow’s foretelling of the Great Owl

Translated by Eric Livingtree

The Flock

1

Erik sped through the trails with a practiced, skilled ease. “Tell me how you knew my uncle was at the front office.” He asked again. Only the next time he asked, full and complete explanations came without hesitation and without any chance of deception. The waking sleep he put them in made sure of that.

Erik didn’t have a choice but to use it. He could have gotten the information out of them, but Mr. Capable was going to end up demanding they be allowed to go with them to the island. It wasn’t time for that. Eventually they would. Bits and pieces of his grandmother’s vision were slowly coming back to him and he was sure the twins were going to be a big part of what happened in the circle, but it was too soon. Their presence would only complicate what they had to do. He put them into the waking sleep with the powder from his uncle’s medicine bag. He was glad he had it with him.

The danger level was still low. Everybody could stand on the edge of the lake and look into the middle with wonder and no harm would come to them. That was going to change more and more as time went on. It would start at a relatively slow pace, but as time went on, the pace would quicken and campers would go from disappearing one at a time to two and then three. It wouldn’t stop until IT was satisfied and each season of ITs harvest was more deadly than the last. ITs harvest only came every fifteen years or so, but when that time came, IT was hungrier than the previous. How many would IT take this time? Twenty? Forty? There were roughly seventy people at the camp. Would IT want all of them?

The twins ended up telling him quite a bit, but as an afterthought, he realized he knew everything they had told them. He “put it together,” but he still thought it important to hear them say it. Hearing them confirm what he thought, made a difference.

A keiguishimowin is a ceremonial fast. The purpose of it is to meet your spirit guide for the first time. Sometimes you get more than that. Sometimes, as your body’s desire for food increases and your brain starves for nutrients, you begin to suffer from hallucinations. Erik’s people give these hallucinations a lot of credit, but before Erik’s eyes began to open to the truth, he believed his visions were just a result of starvation and nothing more. At least that’s what he hoped, because his visions terrified him.

It took three full days of starvation before he had his first vision. The first was short and simplistic. All he saw in it was a pair of slitted silver eyes—the eyes of a snake, peering at him from the night sky.

The vision of his fourth night gave him nightmares. In that one, he saw his ancestor (Pointed Feathers) and the rest of Pointed Feather’s tribe, gathered in a circle. The circle they formed wasn’t on the island, but in the water next to the island. They were chanting with their eyes closed and their faces pointed toward Father Sky.

There were about thirty of them altogether. In his vision, he could see the bridge in the background, but back then it wasn’t rickety or water rotted. It was strong and sturdy and new. The group continued their chant. They were calling to the underworld. They were calling for a spirit to avenge the wrongs of the white invaders.

He watched his vision as his ancestor’s call was answered, but there was a price for admission his ancestors apparently did not understand. Pointed Feather’s eyes shot open. All color draining from them as if his eyes were a cup of coffee spilled into nothing. They tried desperately to reverse their song and to send the spirit back to where it came from and they succeeded in part. They stopped the spirit from crossing completely, but IT was stuck in between here and the underworld. They all collapsed like dominoes and their only saving grace was the anisgina was too greedy to wait until they completed their song, calling it all the way into this world.

The visions on his fifth night were prophetic. They chilled him more than the ones about his ancestors. He never shared the visions from his time of fasting. They were terrifying and to believe in the tales and to believe in the circle was also to believe that his visions would come true. If that were the case, there would be a lot of death over the next couple of days.

Is this absolute?

He hoped it wasn’t. He had seen nothing of the owls during his vision, which may be a good thing. There was a chance not everything in his vision would happen. At least he hoped so. Sometimes, he still awoke nights in sweats and screams with their memory.

There was no denying the truth anymore. The sun came up on the subject and nighttime could no longer be dark to him. Whatever his uncle planned at the island had a fair chance of working. It had something to do with putting the spirit to sleep. Erik hadn’t known that was possible because no legend mentioned that. If it had, they would have done it every time IT awoke.

Erik came around the last of the corners on the way to the front of the camp and saw his uncle waiting by the trail that cut off toward the obstacle course. He skidded to a stop in front of his uncle and Little John hopped on.

Erik was supposed to keep going when they got to the obstacle course, but there were things that needed saying. He stopped and shut off the machine.

“Erik, we don’t have time for games! The Camp Master thinks I am a superstitious fool. Don’t tell me that is what you think too!”

His uncle’s doubt stung him.

Erik shook his head no and then got off the ATV, walking over to the climbing tower. He looked to the top, remembering the first time he saw it. He was much younger back then. Seeing the height of it, knowing the tower was constructed for climbing, fascinated him. It was overwhelming and monstrous to him back then, but that hadn’t stopped him from climbing it for the first time. His guide was a flying squirrel and that Erik’s heart reflect that spirit. Fear settled in his chest, but he climbed it anyway. He was terrified of the height, but overcame it. The tower he was now facing—the tower the anisgina represented—was just as formidable and terrifying, but he wouldn’t back down from it any more than he backed down from the massive frame standing before him.