Chapter 5

“It is the bitter cold of winter which makes us bundle in fur and blankets, the heat of summer that drives us to swim in a cool lake, and the fear of starvation and death that forces us to wield a bow. The Great Owl is no different. Without fear it grows lazy and careless, but it is through fear that it first learns to spread its wings.”

Crying Shadow’s Teachings of the Great Owl

Translated by Erik Livingtree

Lake Amicolola

1

The beach was Little John’s second favorite place to be in the camp. The obstacle course being his first because it taught the teens values like trust, and courage through challenges and teamwork. He liked the beach too because, as serious as he was, he still liked to see the kids wearing smiles, and the beach always seemed to have a lively rhythm to it. There was laughing, splashing, and the sounds of oars cutting through the water.

The minute they got to the beach, Erik pulled off his shirt and shoes and darted for the water. Little John went straight to work making a repair on a lashing for the lifeguard tower.

There were plenty of other youths making waves in the swimming area and he noted that there were three boats on the lake. Two of them were canoes with campers fishing and one of them was a sailboat tooling back and forth. The lifeguard on duty was Thomas Evert—one of the more vigilant observers.

“It’s about time you got here, Chief! I can see everything much better from up there!” Thomas said nodding toward the top of the tower. Many of the kids called him Chief, which he didn’t mind so much, even though he knew he didn’t deserve that title. He was a craftsman, and he could be a warrior if he had to be, but he didn’t have the wisdom of a chief.

“Don’t worry. I’ll have you back on your perch quicker than a hawk can snatch a prairie dog,” he said with a smile.

Little John looked over the loose lashing and knew they were too frayed to be repaired. He walked over to the supply shed at the west end of the beachfront and pulled his key ring from his pocket.

His walkie chirped and he clicked the receive button opening the line to the sender. “Hey, Chief. Can you come up here? Something we need to chat about.” Margraves said.

His shoulders drooped slightly, but he reached up to his shoulder and hit the send button. “Sure. Give me about thirty minutes. I’m repairing the lifeguard tower.”

He let go of the button and knew that was the end of the conversation. The Camp Master rarely signed on or off. He just said what he wanted and that was it. Wondering what the Camp Master wanted wouldn’t do any good. The man had his rules and had his ways and that was that. As long as you stayed within his guidelines, all was well. Little John may not particularly like the man, but that didn’t mean he didn’t follow his commands. He had to if he wanted to stay on as part of his staff.

Little John cut a length of lash rope with his pocket knife, folded the knife and put it back in his pocket, pulling it back out when he got back to the tower. The lashing that had weakened was on a support strut for the legs. If it had been on a leg itself, repairing it would have been a major task, but the support strut had three other struts attached to it. Each of those struts were lashed tightly so he could cut the lashing off and replace it without any help.

“I wonder what he wants,” Little John mumbled.

“What’s that, Chief?” Thomas asked. He had binoculars firmly attached to his head and was scanning back and forth across the lake.

“Nothing really. I was just thinking aloud. Mr. Margraves just called and asked me to come up to the office. I feel like a school kid,” he chuckled.

“Gee! Hope you don’t get detention!” Thomas chided.

Little John cut the lashing free, unwrapped it and let it drop to the ground. When that was done he put a clove hitch on the support strut and began the wrapping around the strut and then the leg, finishing it off by wrapping the lashing around the strands, cinching them tight to both and then the final clove hitch.

“He ever call you up there?” he asked Thomas.

He tested the lashing to make sure it was tight, by tugging on it. The strut didn’t move an inch. He got down on his knees and added more weight to it and the strut still held tight.

“Thomas? He ever call you up to his office for anything?” he repeated.

Thomas still didn’t answer him.

“Well I think this will hold for a while,” he added. “I guess I’ll go see what the old buzzard wants.” He started to walk away toward the trail that led to main part of the camp.

“Chief! I think you should see this!” Thomas said. It came out like a croak.

2

“The queen of the castle is the evil Princess Penny,” Kat continued. The girl hadn’t stopped talking the entire way down the shadowy path. Everyone else walked in silence as the girl rattled on. Her chatter entertained Whitney. She had never encountered anyone who could talk as much as she did, and Whitney enjoyed the cadence of her voice. When Kat talked, she had a way of emphasizing certain parts of each sentence and the rise and fall gave Whitney the sense of riding a rollercoaster even though she had never actually been on one.

“Wait! Who is Princess Penny?” Tommy asked.

Kat spun around and walked backwards for a second. “One of the orange shirts. Her pencil isn’t sharp, but she’s had more years to let her hair grow, so everybody has to listen to what she says.” She spun back around but continued talking to Tommy over her shoulder. “She carries a magical staff on her shoulder, points her finger with a commanding voice and expects humble servitude. We call per Princess Penny, but she’s a troll with big, green ogre eyes. Don’t you think so, Kam?”

Kam opened his mouth to answer, but Kat kept going.

“You’ll see what I’m talking about. She wears her pants up to her waist and puffs her chest out like a dragon. The fire she breathes will melt your hair. Trust m...”

“Chill out, Kat!” Kam commanded.

Kat spun around and walked backwards again. Her eyebrows crumpled like paper wads and she crossed her hands in front of her.

“Jeesh. You haven’t stopped talking since we started walking.” Kam said.

She spun back around. “I wasn’t twisting your vines. I was picking Whitney’s grapes.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that the person you’re talking to can’t hear a word you’re saying?”

Yes, she can Whitney thought in her frustration. Sometimes keeping up the ruse was such a pain. I can hear every word she says!

“She’s connected with us. Her vibrations rattle my skull and mine shower hers. We grow in the same garden, don’t we Whit?”

“She actually does like being talked to,” Tommy threw in.

“How do you know?” Kam asked with suspicion in his voice.

“Sign language. It’s not like I can’t talk to her at all ever.”

“But she can’t see. How can you sign with her?” again Tommy had the sense that the question was pointed. It felt like he was being interrogated and he knew he had to tread carefully.

“I’ll show you when we get the chance. The gist of it is that she covers her hands with mine and follows my movements. She knows what I’m saying by how I move them and vice versa.”

“Slam that in my brain too, Tommy. Can you?”

Whitney couldn’t help but to feel a little twinge of envy as they made their way down the trail. Kam and Tommy were chit chatting away and Kat was having a full-blown epic conversation with herself. It was easy for them. They could share any thought or idea and all they really had to do was move their lips and force air through their vocal chords. But it wasn’t just talking that was easy. Walking was also a breeze for them. She knew that her slow and careful movements were holding them up and if she had been able to move a little faster, both Kam and Tommy’s moods would be better. They were arguing with Kat, but deep down, she was who they were frustrated with.

She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like the path was level cement. She was used to level floors. There were rises and dips, twigs and stones, twists and turns, but the tree roots snaking across the path like rogue varicose veins were the worst. Those were tripping hazards waiting to catch her unaware—ready to catch one misplaced foot—and more than ready to spill the poor little deaf and blind girl to the ground.

Tommy wasn’t helping matters any either. For the most part, he tried to focus his attention on her feet, so that she could watch her footfalls in progress. Already her brand new, leather hiking boots felt heavy and the unbroken leather felt like it had tiny needles digging into her feet. Every now and then, Tommy would get distracted and his eyes would begin to drift up and over to Kat. Whitney had to give him a mental kick to get him to correct his visual path, only to eventually have him drifting off again.

Tommy! This is hard enough as it is!

Sorry, sis. Tommy thought back to her.

It’s fine! Just stare at her on your own time, you oaf!

Huh? I wasn’t staring at her! I mean she’s pretty and all but...

Uh huh! No, you’re right you weren’t staring, but that’s only because I can’t let you without falling on my... She lost concentration long enough to miss one of the roots and her worst fear became a reality. One second she was traipsing along at her slow pace and the next she was splayed out on the path floor.

None of the others knew what to do. Not even Tommy was sure if he should bend to help. He could sense the fear and anger from her and knew that he was going to get a thrashing. She laid in her silence for a second and didn’t make a move to get up, but that wouldn’t last, because he could feel her anger building like steam in a kettle.

SEE!!! I’ll never know how I even let you drag me into this! How stupid can I be? There were tears in her voice and sniffling noises coming from her from below.

Kam was the first to react. He dropped the suitcases and went to her. He put his hand gently to her back and took one of her hands

Whitney was torn. On the one hand, she wanted him to help her. She liked him and his easy way. At the same time, she knew how pathetic she must seem to him. At that moment, she just wanted to turn, find the nearest bush, and hide behind it. If she could see, she would have.

Instead, she let Kam help her to her feet. She bent and started brushing herself. When she stood back up, she saw Kam holding her sunglasses through Tommy’s eyes. He reached up to her and plucked a few of the remaining leaves from her head.

Whitney turned her blind eyes away from him. She reached up and took the glasses from his hands. At first he protested, gripping the glasses more tightly, but Whitney didn’t back down. He wasn’t going to win this battle so he let them go and Whitney placed them back over her eyes where they belonged.

Kat held her cane toward her. Without thinking about it, Whitney snatched it, spun toward Tommy and smacked it smartly against his arm. “OW!!!” Tommy barked, rubbing his arm. Her movements were swift and her aim was precise. Kat and Kam were more confused than ever.

“KEEP YOUR EYES ON MY FEET!”Whitney screamed aloud. Tommy was still rubbing his arm, but Kam didn’t give him long to get over it. He shot him an angry glance, brushed Kat aside and began to walk away.

“Wait ... Kam!” Tommy hollered after him.

Kam spun around and shot Tommy with another look of severity that made him cringe. “Wait nothing, dude! Did you see that? I mean she was like a damned ninja. Don’t even try to tell me she can’t see and can’t hear! Deaf people can’t talk like that! I’m calling BULLSHIT! With a capital B capital S!” he said. His face was turning beat red and the veins in his strong neck stuck out. “You know it and I know it! And if you’re going to keep bullshitting me then I’m outta here!”

This is my fault Whitney criticized herself. She had only just met Kat and Kam and for the first time in her life, she felt like she had someone that she could think of as friends. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing that so quickly. Kam was scolding Tommy but his eyes never left her. She acted without thinking and his anger was the price.

“Please!” she begged. “I can see in a way, but it’s not what you think,” she said pausing for a second. “Take off my glasses.”

What the hell are you about to do, Whit?

Language! She replied, but didn’t explain herself.

Kam gave Tommy an “I told you so look,” while Kat stood neatly aside with her jaw slackened. Tommy shrugged back at Kam but remained silent. Kam showed his interest in discovering the truth by stepping up to Whitney. He gently pulled her glasses from her eyes. Whitney fought urge to turn away from him, but she knew she couldn’t. As unpleasant as she knew her unfocusing eyes were, letting him see them—get a good look at them—was more important.

He did and she watched from Tommy’s perspective as he looked into them deeply. She wished at that point, more than she had ever wished before in her life, that she could see through her eyes at that moment. To see him staring at her like that made butterflies flutter in her stomach. If she could gaze back into his eyes, it would have made her knees weak.

“I can’t see you, Kam, I can feel your presence. I know that you are there and I know that your sister is standing right behind you and staring at us both and even though I can’t see your faces with my eyes it doesn’t mean that I don’t know where they are.”

“Her roses give scent!” Kat mused. “How?”

“That ... is difficult to explain. It’s taken years of focus and practice for me to be able to form the words properly.”

Kat looked over at Tommy and then back to Whitney. Her eyes brightened and it looked like she was having a Eureka moment. “Your vibrations do fall from the sky, don’t they?”

3

Little John took the looking glasses from his younger associate, and held him to his eyes. He didn’t do it because he needed to. He already knew exactly what he would see before the two circles joined, forming one eye in his vision.

IT was awake. He knew that as well as he knew that there were seven vultures circling the south end of the lake, and as well as he knew the wise old deer that avoided hunters for so many years, roaming the woods surrounding the camp, was beyond his final days. There will be three shades of red in the last harvest. It will begin with red fur... Little John thought as he remembered Crying Shadow’s teachings.

Little John had seen the geyser seven times since his youth. It showed up from time to time as if the thing that made it was rolling over in ITs sleep, belching gases up to the surface, before it hit the snooze on some hidden alarm when it would wake back up for real. Every time he had seen the geyser before, it hadn’t really even qualified as a geyser. It was more of a disturbance in the water.

As he looked through the binoculars, it was a much different story. The water was bubbling up and sending ripples that stretched out in their circular patterns for fifteen or twenty feet before the natural currents in the lake batted them down to nothing. They would get bigger. According to legend that geyser would become a fountain before long.

“Isn’t it amazing Little John? I mean that’s where the camp gets its name! Where the legends and stories you tell come from?”

“It is ... amazing.” Little John conceded. But it wasn’t amazing to him in the same way that it was amazing to Thomas. To Thomas, it was amazing in the same way as seeing a dog with two heads, or if a squirrel hopped in front of him and spoke English. To Little John, it was amazing in the same way as the speed of a rattlesnake as it strikes is amazing, or amazing like a grizzly as its powerful jaws crunch the bones in your leg. Those things are amazing too. Little John handed the looking glasses back to Thomas, turned and started to walk away.

“Aren’t you going to stay and watch it?” Thomas asked.

Little John called back to him over his shoulder. “I’d rather watch the vultures pick the meat from Majestic Red’s bones!”

He started walking over to the A.T.V. and then thought better of it. The Camp Master would probably love him to make quick time of getting up to see him, but he really wasn’t in any big hurry to get there. He turned toward the main path, slid his hands behind him, interlocking his fingers, and tucked his head forward in thought as he made his way north.

Standing in the Circle had a different meaning than it used to. At least it did for his tribe. It was an old tradition used in times of necessity to lure enemies in. The tribe would lure their enemies into a valley or an opening of the forest. Every warrior in the party would hide amongst the hills or surrounding trees except for one of the bravest. That Indian would stand in the middle and wait for the enemy to arrive. When they did, he would taunt them into coming into the trap—into their ‘Circle of Death.’ When their enemies came in, they would be surrounded and hell would be unleashed onto them. Most often, the standing Indian didn’t survive either. It was a necessary sacrifice for the good of the tribe.

Being the Standing Indian hadn’t meant death for his Grandfather, nor had it meant death for his Grandfather’s Grandfather. He had always known that it would mean death for him though (will continue with red eyes). To Little John, the appearance of the tumbling waters, the amicolola—as a sign that IT was awake, and not just sleeping with one eye open, was all the proof he needed.

Maybe the vultures weren’t just for Majestic Red after all.

4

The pastures were a good place where spirits could be free to explore wherever they wanted to. Little John would no longer be tied to these haunted grounds, and he would no longer have to worry of what would happen. He wasn’t afraid of going to the open pastures. If that was his fate—the will of the Great Mother and Father—so be it. He just hoped that’s what Crying Shadow’s foretelling meant, because there were fates worse than death and her prophesy didn’t necessarily condemn him to death. It spoke of Harvesting, but what exactly it meant to be ‘harvested’ wasn’t clear.

That was after. For now, he had to worry. His sacrifice would be necessary but he didn’t want any collateral damage. It was good that the Camp Master wanted to see him, because now it was important. The fool might think he wanted Little John for some reason, but if he had his way, Margraves would have his work cut out for him.

They needed to get the teens out. Whatever was sleeping below them was awake and legend said when it awoke, it awake lonely and hungry. If it would do any good, Little John would go to the island, climb down the well, and feed the beast. That wouldn’t be enough though. Little John’s bones would be enough to clean the beasts teeth and wet ITs appetite, but that was about it. What he had in mind could be worse than feeding himself to IT.

The news of the tumbling waters spread as Little John huffed his way up the side of the hill leading down to the lake. People to headed down to fulfill their curiosities and see the for themselves, the legends of the lake. His heart filled with regret and he saw the foolishness of telling his stories for so many years. Now that the legend was upon them, his stories prompted his charges to the lake, instead of away from it. They came in little groups of two or three and everyone was either walking at a fast pace, or jogging down the hill. Most of them didn’t even seem to notice him heading in the opposite direction.

He rounded the top of the hill and stopped in his tracks. More of the teens headed down the trail to the lakefront, but that wasn’t what stopped him. Something was watching. He could feel it in his bones the way a hunter, or a hunter’s prey can feel it in their bones. Your eyes had to be open to it, and his were.

Little John scanned the surrounding trees looking for the telltale signs of life among life. Horizontal lines of an animal contradicting the vertical lines of the plant life as it reached like groping hands toward the sun.