Journey to Ninas Twei Book One of The Earth Woman Tree Woman Quartet Read online

  Chapter 4

  Dark Hunter’s Moon

  Jesús continued to visit Yameno after school while the town planned the cougar hunt. By the end of the week he had fashioned his own rough version of a squirrel. On Saturday he carried it with him to his meeting with Enid at their spot by the river.

  “Look.” He shoved the squirrel eagerly at the little girl. “This is the squirrel I carved with Yameno. Do you like it? Do you think it looks like a squirrel?”

  Enid rubbed her hands down the ridges of the rough carved wood and smiled. “It's really nice. It looks like my little squirrels under the bush.”

  “Take it. I mean...” Jesús shrugged his shoulders and looked off to one side. “If you'd like it, you could have it. It's not that great or anything.”

  “Oh, yes,” she smiled broadly. “I really like it.” She brushed the wooden fur with her hand.

  “Well, come on. Let's go to the man's house. You said you wanted to see his cougar statue.” They ran off through the forest toward Yameno’s clearing.

  All that Saturday morning Giselle felt restless as she tried to settle down to her school work, her eyes constantly drawn to the Earth Woman Tree Woman. Later this afternoon the forest would be full of hunters, tramping around with their guns, hoping to find the cougar at dusk when it might be hunting for food. She thought the cat wouldn’t be found. She’d heard it sing. She knew it was something more than a real cougar, but still, no good could come out of all those men out there with guns.

  She went to sit by the wooden woman, the dogs and the cat beside her. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed by some urgency, some need.

  The cat patted her arm and she looked down at him.

  Go. Go now, whispered the voice in her head. Go!

  Giselle took off at a run, the dogs flying at her heels. She slowed, panting, as she climbed up the hill and walked down the ridge to the little meadow and Yameno’s garden. As she came down the path to the clearing, she heard low voices and a child's laugh. She almost turned back, but the dogs ran on into the clearing and she followed, stopping short in surprise when she saw Jesús and Enid sitting cross-legged on the ground beside Yameno as he poured tea into small carved cups in front of them.

  The children jumped up startled, exclaiming, “Ms. Raphael!”

  Yameno paused for a moment, looking up at her, and smiled, and a warm shy joy spread through her. His eyes filled with sweet laughter as he stood and bowed slightly, holding out his hand in welcome. “Please join us, Ms. Raphael.”

  Giselle walked over and sat with them in the circle around the teapot. Yameno slipped into his little house and returned with another carved cup. As he handed it to Giselle, she saw that it was an oak tree, earth-rooted at its base, twining around the cup, and up the handle.

  “Look,” Enid said, thrusting her cup at Giselle. “Mine's a squirrel and Jesús's is a coyote.”

  Giselle admired the cups, adding, “But what are you children doing here?”

  The once shy child began chattering like the squirrel on her cup. The story of meeting Jesús in the forest and the friendship they had formed with each other, and with Yameno, just spilled out of her. Jesús, too, loosened under the influence of the smiling adults and urged Enid to show Giselle the squirrel he had carved. Giselle took the carving in her hands and looked carefully at the workmanship. “You do very fine work, Jesús. Someday you'll be a famous artist or architect.” She returned the carving.

  Enid’s eyes opened wide and she turned to Yameno. “I forgot about the cougar. You told Jesús to tell me about the cougar.” She stood up, looking around until she saw the carved figure emerging from the woods at the other side of the clearing.

  Yameno looked at her, his face as serious as hers, but with a small smile lingering on the edges. “Her name is Luhanada.”

  “It was real, wasn't it?” Enid walked over to the sculpture, running her fingers over the cougar’s head. “There really was a cougar, wasn't there, and she was for me, wasn't she?”

  “Yes. She was for you.”

  “Did you know there's a hunting party looking for that cougar?” interjected Giselle.

  “Yes,” Yameno nodded.

  Giselle leaned forward. “Perhaps we shouldn't be here at all. Perhaps you shouldn't be here.” She wanted to say, they might hunt you instead of the cougar.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “But we have to be here.”

  We have to be here? She looked at him, but didn’t ask the question.

  Enid returned. “Why do you call me Chachuli? What does it mean?”

  “It's the Tuwillian name for squirrel, or tree runner.”

  “Like the squirrel on my cup.”

  Yameno nodded. “Now, my name, Yameno, is also a Tuwillian name.” He raised his cup to her. “I’m the Wolfwind.”

  Giselle reached out her hand to look closer at the wolf cup. Her eyes met Yameno's. She looked away, feeling her face warm as she released the cup and Yameno placed it carefully in front of him.

  Jesús picked up his cup. “You told me coyote was like humans, creative and inventive.”

  “Yes – although sometimes he gets man in a lot of trouble!” replied Yameno. “Kumni is his Tuwillian name.”

  “And the Earth Woman Tree Woman?” Giselle asked.

  “You created her, although there's plenty of mythological precedence for tree women – and for earth goddesses, too. But not in Tuwillian mythology.”

  Giselle became very still. I created her?

  She felt a power like thunder surging through her. What am I?

  Yameno laughed – a quiet, joyful, expectant laugh.

  One of the dogs sat up with a sharp bark. “Someone's coming,” exclaimed Enid, jumping up, and the others hurried to their feet.

  “It's all right. They're expected.” Yameno moved to greet Hazel Fraya and Dan Burroughs as they stepped into the clearing. Giselle looked intently at their faces. The cougar and the hawk, she thought. Of course.

  Hazel flashed a smile at the children, and then walked over to Giselle, taking her hand.

  “Come and sit,” offered Yameno, gesturing toward the circle where he and Giselle and the children had just been sitting, but Enid backed away, moving instinctively to the carving of the cougar for protection.

  Hazel smiled. “Do you look to the cougar – to Luhanada for protection?” Enid tipped her head to the side and looked at her aunt.

  Yameno interrupted. “Come back to the circle, Chachuli.” She nodded and returned to the circle, sitting between her aunt and Jesús. Yameno went into his hut and returned with two more carved cups and a carved pitcher. He handed Enid a cup. “Chachuli, will you give this to your aunt.” It was a cougar, its tail curved to form the handle.

  Enid looked from the cup to her aunt. Luha smiled and nodded as she took the cup from the child's hands.

  Yameno handed a cup carved like a hawk in flight, with its head thrust up in a silent shriek, to Dan. “Do you children know Dan, Tata?”

  Jesús looked at Dan. “The hawk.”

  Tata smiled, his eyes bright and piercing.

  “I don't understand,” whispered Giselle.

  Dan nodded, reaching out to touch her hand. “We don't any of us really understand, but we’ve done this many times before and it’s good – it’s right.”

  “The shape changing?” Giselle asked.

  “Yes. We become our Tla Twei, our ‘one dance/song’ in Tuwillian.”

  “And the Tla Twein travel to Ninas Twei, the place where all life dances,” added Hazel.

  But I still don’t…, thought Giselle.

  Yameno took Enid’s cup, pouring the tea on the ground and washing it out with water from the pitcher. He did the same with Jesús’ cup and then put both cups back in front of them, turning to Giselle. “I promise you, this has to do with good, not evil; life, not death.”

  He held the carved pitcher high over his head, and Giselle felt exultant as she saw it was a carving of the Earth Woman, Tree Woman riding t
he back of the wolf. Yameno leaned down to pour the liquid from it into their cups.

  “Water from the sacred spring,” he intoned. “Water is the most magical thing on earth. My people have been the protectors of this spring for hundreds of years. Now I am the last Tuwillian here in Arundel.”

  “The last Tuwillian!” exclaimed Giselle. “Coffman said your great-aunt died. That’s why you quit school and came back.”

  He nodded. “She was the last of our people here. Someone had to come back and protect the spring.” He sat back and took his cup in both hands, the head of the wolf rising above his fingers, its mouth open as if to sing. Each of them followed suit, holding their cups before them.

  Water of life, he sang, Purify me… and they all repeated:

  Water of life,

  Purify me.

  Water of the soul of earth,

  wash me in your love.

  Hazel raised her cup, “To the journey.”

  Dan responded, “To Ninas Twei.”

  As Giselle drank from the cup, she heard the wolves singing, encircling, coming close, and closer. As they sang, a pale blue mist wove its way around the circle in undulating waves, winding about them, catching each of them in its wispy caress. She felt Yameno's hand on hers, pulling her to him. As she moved, she became the Earth Woman Tree Woman, and he, the Wolfwind.

  “The journey,” she whispered, and as she jumped onto the back of the waiting wolf, she felt a pull like a cord drawing her gently, insistently, linking her to the life force, an umbilical to the mother. They raced away through the mists, the cougar ahead of them, the hawk clinging to her back, her mouth open in a haunting caterwaul, pierced by the hawk's harsh cry. Behind them ran the coyote, the little squirrel riding between his ears.

  The Journey to Ninas Twei

  As they raced through a thickness darker than night, warmer than light, the air vibrated like a taut bow string, singing of many feet thundering, drawn to the One, to the source. On either side of her came the music of the wolves, the cougar, the hawk, singing their songs:

  I am the wild, guardian earth traveler, sang the wolf, followed by the cougar's high pitched chant, I am I!

  High flyer! skirled the hawk.

  We are the lone, the many, the mirror, came the howling chorus of the pack. We bear the songs for those seeking the Dance!

  Suddenly the song surged within her, and her voice sang out into the whirling mists, mingling with theirs.

  I am the fullness. I am the secret, she called.

  My soul singing touches the moon and the sun, joined the wolf.

  I am justice. I am wisdom, sang the cougar.

  For I am the wild wings of the earth, cried the hawk.

  I am the answer, she whispered. The bearer of life.

  We bear the songs for those seeking the One.

  Their voices reached a peak of intensity, shattering the mists, throwing points of glittering light against the whirling blue walls around them, and then there was silence like an explosion.

  Quietly, slipping into the silence like a rabbit into a forbidden garden, the children joined the song:

  I am the writer of poetry, sang the little squirrel.

  Voice of the universe,

  Fluid as the world of dream.

  I see the whole in every part,

  I see the things that aren't seen.

  Click here to listen to song

  And then the coyote’s brassier voice:

  I am the echo of creation.

  I see the earth in her splendor.

  My hands draw the dreams of the universe,

  The human heart at its core,

  So the joy of humanity can soar.

  So the joy of humanity can soar.

  Click here to listen to song

  Then all around them hundreds of voices joined together as one:

  Seas crashing, like thunder rolling, like drums beating,

  a call to the brethren, a cry to the wary,

  The time has come!

  Come! Come! Hammer your feet to the beat of the drum.

  Come! Come! Lift up your voices to answer the One.

  Come! Come! Answer the call of the earth and the sun!

  Suddenly they were swept onto the rim of a swirling vortex and they slid, round and down, pulled ever toward the center, chanting with rolling thundering drums:

  Come! Come! Come!

  They fell into the heart and the heat, and were the heart and the heat and all things, and the Earth Woman Tree Woman, who was all things and one thing, felt an elation, an ecstasy...

  The drum stopped and there was a sudden sharp pain. Unbearable pain.

  She cried out, “What is it? What is the pain?”

  “Danger,” cried the others. “Danger.”

  The pain came again, and it was cold like a knife of ice piercing the heart.

  The voices cried out again, “Danger. Danger.”

  Out of the darkness a voice called in anguish, “The pain!”

  Then the drums began to beat again, a weak fearful beat.

  Life, they whispered. Life, life. Live, live. Come, come...

  The drums strengthened. The mists whirled them around and around and down and down into the center and the song began again:

  Come, come! Hammer your feet to the beat of the drum.

  Come, come! Lift up your voice to answer the One.

  Come, come! Answer the call of the earth and the sun!

  Click here to listen to song

  The voices waxed stronger, the mists began to lighten, and as the world around them stopped spinning, they could see towering walls of rock, and far above them, stars, clear and bright almost as the moon. They were standing in the midst of a vast bowl, a valley of stone surrounded by jagged mountain peaks.

  Carved in the rock cliffs were steps, circling higher and higher on the mountainsides, twisting in and among each other in impossible spirals. As they watched, the steps filled, as if from nowhere, with a multitude of color and movement, leaving some profoundly empty places here and there. The music slowed and slowed. “Where are we?” whispered Earth Woman Tree Woman, feeling her roots cling to the rock beneath her feet.

  Yameno answered, “We’re at Ninas Twei and this is Din Tsin Twei, the place of the Dance of Life.”

  The little coyote leaned against Earth Woman Tree Woman’s trunk, and she felt Chachuli's little squirrel paws climb onto a low hanging branch.

  Tsin Twei

  The music stopped.

  All movement stopped.

  The huge amphitheatre dropped suddenly into silence – deep, hypnotic silence.

  The stars pulsed with a rhythmic brightness that was almost sound, like a deep, deep drum beat and the Tree Woman felt far within her something welling, something rising to the surface. It crept upward into her consciousness and as it flowed to the surface, all of the spirals drew breath as if they were one creature and chanted:

  We are the One and the many.

  We are the life force,

  We are the center,

  We are the all,

  The nameless and the named.

  We are the whole, greater than the parts.

  Click here to listen to song

  Then the chanting divided, and the spirals began to move. Enid jumped up into the Tree Woman’s branches, climbing high to get a good view.

  One spiral, full of quivering greens like light on silk, spotted with reds and blues and yellows, glimmering with purples and pinks, sang:

  We are the kingdom Plantae.

  A second spiral, the brown of velvet flickering in candlelight, shot through with the blues and reds of feathers, the shimmering of silvery scales, and the grays and whites of fur, with large polished areas of lacquered black, returned:

  We are the kingdom Animalia.

  The spirals danced, parading their beauty in front, above, and around the Tla Twein.

  Monera, sang one, Fungi, sang another, and the one flickered with unrecognizable light and dark, while t
he other's browns and greens and yellows began to take shape and divide. Myxomycophyta, called the green, silken flowing of the slime molds, and Eumycophyta, answered the others and began to divide again.

  Chytridionmycetes,

  Oomycetes,

  Zygomycetes,

  Ascomycete,

  Basidiomycetes.

  “Look, mushrooms,” whispered Kumni, jumping up against the Tree Woman to nose Chachuli's fore leg.

  Suddenly a different spiral started to flicker and wind its way in front of them. Protista, they chanted and then they divided and called their names to each other.

  Chrysophyta,

  Pyrrophyta,

  Euglenophyta,

  Flagellata,

  Ciliata,

  Sarcodina,

  Sporozoa.

  They began a graceful dreamy dance, some moving with the swooshing motions of their flagella, and others flowing their shapes out and in and around, in a constant rhythmic pulse. Then the flickering green of the Plantae swirled forward again, and the Tracheophyta twined themselves like vines through the pebbled greens and browns and reds of the Chlorophyta, the Phaeophyta, the Rhodophyta, and the Bryophyta, singing sweetly of the beauty of their colors and scents, and their love of the sun, and the earth, and the waters that feed them.

  “Look,” whispered Chachuli, “Flowers – so many flowers – and so many colors. Like paint dripped on oil and swirled and whirled together.”

  The flowers whispered back, Angiospermae.

  “I’m overwhelmed,” the Tree Woman murmured. “I’m speechless.”

  Luhanada twitched her ears forward and nodded her head. “This isn’t the first time for me, but its beauty and wonder has never lessened.” She shivered, remembering the last time, when they had not made it as far as Ninas Twei. “We’re here,” she whispered to herself, blocking Gunther's hysterical screams about evil and the devil from her memory. “This time we made it. We’re here.”

  “Look,” cried Kumni. “Look at the animals!” and they watched the swirl of Animalia in all its awesome variety.

  Parazoa, cried a small group, fantastically shaped.

  “Can they be animals?” asked Chachuli.

  “They’re the sponges,” answered Yameno. “The line between animals and plants is sometimes smudged.”

  Metazoa, cried the rest. Cnidaria, came a treble song of sea anemones, corals, and jelly fish in bright pastels. Next came twining worms, like ribbons and hair, long and short, round and flat, dancing in undulating waves of luminescent beauty, and their chant was like the whispering of wind through the grass.

  Platyhelminthes,

  Orthonectida,

  Nemertea,

  Acanthocephala,

  Rotifera,

  Gastrotricha,

  Kinoryncha,

  Nematoda,

  Nematomorpha,

  Priapulida.

  Their song slipped off into the edges of the spiral as the sudden trumpeting of the mollusks sang out. Amphineura, boomed the chitons in a deep bass and the others responded in harmonic quaverings.

  Monoplacophora,

  Gastropoda,

  Scaphopoda,

  Bivalvia,

  Cephalopoda.

  They, too, faded into the distance as a high pitched whining flew in, circling above their heads as it reached its ear piercing crescendo. Anthropoda, they buzzed. Above their heads they saw a cloud of bright colors, and lacquered blacks and browns: The Chelicerata, with their spiders and scorpions, and the deep voiced, ancient horse shoe crab, and the Mandibulata, with its Crustacea, and centipedes and millipedes, and the thousands and thousands of insects. “Oh!” whispered Chachuli. “Oh! Oh!” Her little squirrel eyes were round and bright as she stared open mouthed at the multitudinous cloud.

  Again the spirals swirled, and out came the Echinodermata. “Are these the plants again?” asked Kumni.

  “No,” murmured Tata. “They're animals, just like us – we’re still seeing the Metazoa.” He stood with his taloned feet curled around the top of a stone wall behind the other Tla Twein. If only we could have gotten Gunther this far, he thought. He couldn't have thought this was evil.

  “Oh, a starfish!” cried out Chachuli. Tata spread his red tail and the chanting continued:

  Hemichorcata,

  Chordata.

  “That's us,” Tata explained and the swirling creatures divided again.

  Urochordata, called one group. Cephalochordata, called another, and then, Vertebrata.

  “That's us, too,” Kumni called out. “We have back bones. We're vertebrates.” Tree Woman smiled and dropped her branched hand on his furry coyote shoulder.

  Agnatha, called some fish. Chondrichthyes, answered the sharks. Amphibia, rumbled the salamanders, toads and frogs. Reptilia, hissed the snakes and the lizards, and, Aves, aves, aves, whistled and twittered the multicolored birds of the air.

  Last of all came the parade of the larger animals. Mammalia, they cried in unison. Monotremata, intoned the three egg bearing species, as they moved ponderously up the spiral.

  “A duck-billed platypus! I've always wanted to see one,” exclaimed Tree Woman.

  A kangaroo hopped by singing, Marsupialia, Macropodidae, Megaleia rufa, followed by the shrill songs of many other furry creatures singing, Marsupialia, Tarsipes spenserae, and Marsupialia, Phascolarctos cinereus.

  And they came and came – the Insectivora, the Chiroptera, the Edentata, the Rodentia, the Lagomorpha, and the giant whales and playful dolphins of the Cetaceans. The Proboscidea lumbered by, singing their names in their trumpeting voices, followed by the gentle sea cows and manatees of the Sirenian order. The horse of the Perissodactyl galloped and shook his mane at the children while the Artiodactyls calmly chewed their cuds.

  “Oh, my,” exclaimed Enid, as the large Felidae of the Carnivore order proclaimed their names.

  I am Felis yagouaroudi… And I am Felis rufa, they called. And I, roared the largest of all, I am Leo leo, its voice booming through the universe.

  The spiral wound on, and as the next order came on the heels of the roaring lion, Giselle noticed that one of the vacant spots was here.

  Primates, sang out the lemurs and monkeys and apes, but their voices were thin as if some essential harmony were missing.

  We're the ones, thought Giselle. We're missing. Among all this vast multitude of living things, this endless listing of names, this communing of the life force, there is no representative of Homo sapiens.

  The Hunt: Missing Children

  At seven o’clock that night, Coffman’s grandson, Tom, went looking in the forest for his granddad and the rest of the hunters to tell them the little Amundsen girl was missing. The deputy sheriff was gathering people to look for her, afraid she’d been attacked by the cougar. “Mom’s calling everyone. The deputy says we should all meet back by the road where you parked your pickups.”

  The hunters headed back to their trucks as more cars and trucks rumbled down the highway, filling the cleared space at the edge of the road. Men climbed out, their rifles in hand, ready to search for the child, the cougar, and anything else strange to be found in the forest. The deputy’s black and white pulled in with them, and they all gathered around.

  “Amundsen says she goes out in the woods to play every Saturday, but she’s always back by dark,” said the deputy.

  “What’s a little girl like that doing playing in these woods, that's what I'd like to know?” one man asked, shifting his rifle back and forth between his hands. “Didn't his daughter die out in the forest?”

  “No,” said the deputy, “that was his wife. His daughter killed herself.”

  “Anyway,” Coffman added, “he shouldn't of let the girl go out there every Saturday. He's crazy.” The deputy thought so, too. He remembered when Amundsen’d found his wife dead in the forest. He'd thought the man was insane. At first Gunther had yelled all this stuff about the devil and evil and the cougar – mostly he'd yelled about the cougar – and there’d been
cougar prints on the ground all around the woman, but the body hadn't been touched. There were no bite marks or bruises, except where her head hit the rock, and a bruise on her arm. The other strange thing had been the way Gunther had reacted to the feathers. There’d been feathers on the ground near her – just ordinary feathers – and Gunther had mumbled about pulling the feathers out of her wings. But the cougar prints were there, and the whole thing’d been odd.

  He surveyed the crowd. “Looks like almost all the town’s here, but where’s Dan Burroughs? I stopped by his house on the way here. I thought he’d be a help, since he knows the forest so well. His car was there, but he wasn’t.”

  Harding frowned. “He comes into the forest often enough to fish – he says.” He turned to Tom. “Your mom might not have called him.”

  Coffman interrupted. “There’s no way she’d know his number.” He spit on the ground.

  “Maybe he’s with Hazel Fraya,” smirked Dickerson. Some of the men laughed and some frowned.

  “Maybe they’re already in the forest,” muttered Coffman.

  “Maybe they're looking for the child,” suggested Dr. Chase, the historian’s husband.

  “Hah!” exclaimed Dickerson. “You must not of been at the meeting last Monday night, or you'd know those two have something to do with the bad stuff happening here. They're devil worshipers!”

  Dr. Chase frowned at him. Muriel had told him about the meeting and they’d both agreed the devil worship thing was crazy. When Tom’s mother called this evening to tell them about the missing child, he’d headed for the search and Muriel’d called Reverend Clare asking Clare and some of the others from the Robertsville Interfaith Council to join them on the hunt to help defuse any trouble.

  Dickerson waved his old rifle over his head. “But we'll fix 'em. You know what I got? I got a 400 grain mold for this rifle and I cast up some silver bullets last night. I got 'em right here. Melted down some of my wife's silverware she got from her grandmother. That devil's not going to get away from me.”

  “Well, good, Dickerson,” Reverend Tarrant slapped him on the back. “We don't know just what it’ll take, but sometimes these old folk tales have some truth to them.”

  Dr. Chase frowned. “Hazel Fraya’s the little girl’s aunt. She probably is looking for her.”

  Reverend Tarrant shook his head, as he pulled his rifle up close to his chest. “Who would have told them? Not Amundsen. There’s no love lost between them.”

  “And my daughter wouldn’t dare call her, not if she knows what’s good for her,” muttered Coffman.

  Tom looked at the ground and pushed some leaves around with his his foot.

  “Well,” the deputy cleared his throat. “Let’s figure out where to begin.”

  While he was pulling out a map and spreading it across the hood of his car, Gunther Amundsen walked out of the forest, his old 30/30 in his hand, and stood silently, not meeting anyone’s eyes. It was Harding who finally spoke. “Don't worry, Amundsen,” he said. “We'll find your grandkid.”

  Amundsen scowled. If it’s not too late. If Hazel and Dan hadn’t already taken her to that place with the fog and the drumming, losing her body to some animal.

  The deputy nodded at him. “You have any idea where in the forest she hung out?” he asked, pointing to the map with his flashlight. The man shook his head.

  Just then an old pickup drove up and a bearded man jumped out, his eyes scanning the crowd warily until he found the deputy. Harding’s eyes narrowed.

  The man walked quickly to the deputy. “What, McCrae?” the deputy asked curtly.

  “I just heard the girl’s missing. My son’s missing, too. He went fishing in the woods and hasn’t come home.”

  “Is that unusual?” The deputy glared at McCrae.

  McCrae bristled. “He’s usually home by dark.”

  The deputy sighed and turned to the crowd. “So we’re looking for two children.” He raised his voice. “Listen up, everyone. The McCrae kid is missing, too.”

  Harding stepped over next to them, pointedly ignoring Billy McCrae. “They know each other,” he told the deputy. “They’re both in the same class with that new teacher, Giselle Raphael.”

  The deputy nodded his head. “I’ve met her. She lives through the forest over on the coast.”

  “Hey, Amundsen,” Harding called out. “Listen to this.” Gunther Amundsen walked over, his face locked in its stony frown. “Do you know Jesús McCrae?” Harding asked. “He's in Enid's class and he's no good.”

  “Hey,” yelled McCrae, but Harding ignored him.

  “One day I saw them together out on the playground, and they were sneaking around inside the cement pipe out there, and when they came out they were holding hands. I'd have done something about it, but that teacher of theirs, Ms. Raphael, protects that Jesús, and Ms. Nichols…” He drew out the “Ms.” and sneered. “Ms. Nichols backs her up, so I didn't say anything. But it struck me at the time he had your girl under some kind of control. He's a mean one, that Jesús, and your girl is scared as a rabbit of anyone. I'll bet they've been meeting in these woods. I'll bet he makes her meet him, and he's done something to her now. That's what I bet."

  McCrae pushed his long brown hair away from his forehead. “I know my kid's had trouble at school, but he's not like that. He wouldn't hurt the girl. Underneath he's a good kid. A thinking kid – more than a lot of the others, but he just don't fit in school.”

  “Oh, shut up, McCrae. We know what kind you are.” Coffman pushed between McCrae and Harding. “There's something going on here all right. Both these kids are in that Ms. Raphael's class. She came into the store one day asking questions about that Indian, Wellkeeper. He was messing around her property. And Harding here says she protects that Jesús. I'll bet she knows more about this than she's telling.”

  “The Indian?” interjected McCrae. “He’s a nice man. He’s been giving my son art lessons.” Coffman, Harding, and the deputy turned and stared at McCrae.

  “Your son has been messing around with Wellkeeper?” laughed Harding. “Well, well!”

  “My wife saw that teacher talking to Dan Burroughs,” added Dickerson.

  “Well, folks,” Reverend Tarrant stepped in, his lips smiling, but his eyes and his body were tense. “I've heard about this Ms. Raphael. Now, I think she's like the little girl, an innocent being pulled into the whole deal.”

  “Yeah,” mused Harding. “I tried to warn her, but she just couldn't believe this stuff. I think you're right.” He stared out into the woods. “Anyway, we're beginning to figure out who's involved in this. Wellkeeper, of course. We've always known he was up to something up here, and Dan Burroughs...”

  “...with his goddamn eyes that look straight at you, instead of down where they belong,” interjected Coffman.

  “...and if Burroughs is involved, ten to one Hazel Fraya is, too.”

  “Someone should go check Hazel’s house, see if she's home. You go, Tom,” said Coffman waving his grandson toward his pickup.

  “And that Jesús. My wife had him in school last year and said he wasn't human. I'm not surprised he's in it,” added Dickerson.

  “That poor little girl. What do you think they're doing to her?” murmured one of the other hunters.

  “Well, my theory,” answered Harding, “is it's some kind of Satanism cult. God only knows what they're doing to that child.”

  Satanism, thought the deputy. Well maybe that would explain it. He'd thought maybe drugs before, but there wasn't any evidence anywhere. “That Ms. Raphael lives just through the forest here, over on the coast not too far from your place, Amundsen.” He nodded at the older man, who just glared back. Turning back to the map, he traced a route with his finger. “We should follow the river through the forest, and then check in with her and see if she knows anything.”

  “Dickerson, you wait here for Tom,” snapped Coffman, “and then drive around and meet us.” Nodding at the deputy he headed for the forest.

  Ninas
Twei: Singing Swan

  The Earth Woman Tree Woman watched as the spirals of the Tsin Twei settled onto the stone steps of the mountainside until the only movement was a slight shimmering across the surface of the crowd. Finally the life forms seemed to fade away, leaving a mist, and then, empty tiers – a vast empty bowl.

  Behind them a white swan stepped out from where he stood at the side of the rocky valley, his diamond shaped black beak and black webbed feet setting off the pure white of his feathers. “Welcome back,” he said, with a slow bow of his head to Luhanada, Tata, and Yameno, his shiny eyes glittering in the upper point of his beak. “At last, after many years, you’ve returned. I’ve feared for your well being. Yameno, you were just a child the last time I saw you and now you’re a grown man.”

  Yameno nodded and Luha added, “And Tata and I were teenagers.”

  “Your sister’s not here or your parents – or your grandfather, Yameno. Well, perhaps there’ll be time to hear why it’s been so long.” He nodded at the Earth Woman Tree Woman and the two children. “I see you’ve brought others with you.”

  Luha sat on her haunches, curling her tail around her front paws. “Our new companions are the Earth Woman Tree Woman, Kumni, and my grandniece, Chachuli,” she said, nodding at each of them. “This is our good friend, Singing Swan.”

  Singing Swan bowed. “Earth Woman Tree Woman. This Tla Twei does not come from the stories of our people. It’s very interesting.”

  He turned to the children. “Ah, Chachuli the squirrel, messenger to the gods.” His eyes twinkled. “And Coyote who represents both what is good and unique about Homo sapiens, and the source of all our troubles! These two are well linked.”

  Luha laughed. “We’re glad to be here, but sad to lose those who traveled with us before, and to find ourselves still excluded from the Dance – the Tsin Twei."

  “Yes,” exclaimed Giselle, her leaves rustling as she moved. “Why aren’t Homo sapiens a part of this Tsin Twei?”

  “Come to my home and we will discuss this and other things,” said Singing Swan, turning and walking down a winding path that led behind one of the rocky hills that walled Din Tsin Twei. They followed him down the steep path and before long the stone gave way to dirt, the hills fell away, and they found themselves at the edge of a grassy marsh. In the distance they could see the silver shimmer of a river.

  Singing Swan led them down a narrow pathway, between the high grasses and tulles etched in silhouette against the starry night. The tulles got higher and higher, twining together above their heads to form a high arched tunnel that smelled sweet, like fresh mown hay. The tunnel widened into a large oval room, the grasses woven and braided together to form a vaulted ceiling. The floor was carpeted with rushes, and at one end of the room were some soft cushiony mounds made of straw and feathers. In between the soft mounds was a fallen tree that had been split in half, perhaps by lightning. The split side faced upward, like a table.

  “Please, have a seat,” Singing Swan indicated the mounded hay. Tree Woman grinned as Yameno, Kumni, and Chachuli each jumped on one, and circled twice, making a little nest before settling in. Luha reclined on hers wrapping her tail in front of her, while Tata perched on the edge of his. She sat down, wiggling to shape it to fit.

  Singing Swan carefully set out pottery bowls and a basket full of nuts, lifting them in his beak. His mouth closed over the handle of a pitcher, carefully pouring juice in each bowl. Then he climbed into his own nest and looked at the Tree Woman. “You asked why Homo sapiens is not a part of the Tsin Twei.”

  She nodded.

  “There was a time when Homo sapiens was a part of this dance, when every living species was a part of the Tsin Twei.”

  “What happened?” Kumni asked.

  “Man hasn’t always been as different from other animals as he is now. When he first evolved into Homo habilis from Australopithecus, he was still very much a part of Tsin Twei, the dance of the species you just watched. He had become a hunter as well as a seed gatherer, but many species are hunters of flesh, and we all depend on each other for food. Tsin Twei helps us to understand and accept that.”

  “Please,” Chachuli said in a low apologetic voice. “I don't – I mean the dance was beautiful, and I kind of understand, but I don't really know what the dance – this Tsin… what it is?”

  “Ah,” smiled Singing Swan. “That’s a good question little Chachuli.” He rubbed his beak musingly under his wing. “First you need to know who the dancers are. Each one is the grandsoul of a particular species – which should be all the souls of the members of that species living today joined together into one grandsoul – and they usually are. Some species do have individual members who don't remember how to become a part of the grandsoul, but there’re still enough members of the species to have a grandsoul. Tsin Twei is where all the grandsouls of all the species join together in one dance for the continuance of life – the Dance of Life. In the Tsin Twei they become aware of each other, and of each other's needs. It’s this awareness of each other that makes life work.”

  Kumni sat up on his nest and curled his tail tightly around his feet. “But the humans have forgotten how to become a grandsoul?”

  “Well... yes,” answered Singing Swan. “As Homo habilis developed tools and became more able to alter their environment, and Homo erectus built huts, clothed themselves in skins, and built fires, and were able to conquer problems – like how to live with the changes in weather through the ice ages – more and more individuals dropped away from the grandsoul. Finally – not until three or four thousand years ago – too many individuals dropped out, and suddenly there were not enough who remembered how to become a grandsoul. It’s not a coincidence this is about the time some people began to exploit the labor of others. If you’re going to enslave someone it’s not convenient to be able to understand their needs, their pain, as we would if we were joined in a grandsoul. Greed overcame compassion.” He shook his head. “It was the first time since the evolution of Homo sapiens there was a hole in Tsin Twei.”

  “But there were other holes in the dance,” exclaimed Giselle. “I saw them.”

  “Are they when animals go extinct?” asked Chachuli.

  “Oh, no – well, yes, but not in just the ordinary way. Many species have become extinct. Why Homo habilis and Homo erectus are both extinct and they were once a part of Tsin Twei, but their place was gradually taken by Homo sapiens as they evolved, and that's happened to many species. The spaces are where that hasn't taken place. Species like the passenger pigeon who became extinct abruptly because of Homo sapiens.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember them,” Kumni nodded. “They were the ones that people hunted to sell for meat, and the hunters killed all of them.”

  “Yes, and many millions of years ago there were spaces when many of the dinosaurs disappeared, but those spaces have been filled in.”

  “Why did they die off so suddenly?” asked Chachuli.

  Singing Swan ruffled his feathers. “My species wasn't here then. I don't know.”

  “Are you the grandsoul of a species?" asked the Tree Woman, tucking her woody legs up under her chin and folding her arm branches around her knees.

  Singing Swan looked at her. “I'm a human being… like you,” he replied.

  “You're a human being!” exclaimed Kumni. “But you look like a swan!”

  “And you look like a coyote.”

  Yameno laughed. “Singing Swan came here in the same way the rest of us did, only a long time ago.”

  “And you stayed here forever?” Chachuli stood up, alarmed. “Are we going to stay here forever, too?”

  “No, no.” Luha curled her tail around little squirrel, who sat down again, uneasily. “We’ll return. Singing Swan died on earth and came here.”

  “How did you die?” asked Kumni.

  Singing Swan preened his wing feathers for a moment before speaking. “It was when the white men discovered gold in our country. Other white men had come before and enslave
d us, and brought terrible diseases, and my people were already greatly diminished. We wanted only to keep living in our village next to the sacred river and near the sacred spring as we always had, but they wanted the land we lived on. They spread rumors about us. They said we were attacking them, even though we weren’t.”

  He sighed. “One night they came very late with torches and guns. I ran to the dance ground in the middle of our village and danced to Mother Turtle.” He looked at the others. “We were powerless. I didn’t know what else to do.” The feathers on his back stood up as he opened his wings and danced a little on the floor in front of them singing:

  This is our place, our earth,

  our sacred waters.

  This is our place,

  Given to us by you, Great Mother Turtle.

  Help us.

  “And then words came to me. Words for my people.” He began to dance more fiercely.

  This is our place, our earth.

  Go from it.

  This is our place, our earth,

  Our sacred waters.

  Hide from those who would steal it.

  Hide from those who would steal our place, our earth,

  Who would destroy our sacred waters.

  Hide from those who would steal our lives

  Given to us by Great Mother Turtle, who lives in the river.

  Hide now.

  Hide now.

  This is our place, our earth,

  Our sacred waters.

  Great Mother will come again.

  We will live again in this place, our earth,

  This is our place.

  Hide now.

  Hide now.

  Click here to listen to song

  “As I danced, I transformed into the trumpeter swan, the Tla Twei I had always used when we visited Ninas Twei. The white men saw and were frightened. I sang, and I flew up in the air on my mighty wings. They shot me.”

  He sat down again, lowering his head and closing his eyes. Finally he looked up. “They burned our village to the ground, but all of my people managed to escape into the forest while the white men were watching me. I was the only one who died. I died as a swan, so I came here.”

  They were all silent, thinking of the little village. “You were very brave,” whispered Chachuli.

  Singing Swan shook his head. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

  The Tree Woman nodded her head slowly, her branches whispering a chant for the little village as they rubbed together. “You had come before you died – to Ninas Twei, I mean. How do living people get here? How did we get here?”

  “Well…” Singing Swan wiggled himself into a more comfortable position on his mound of grasses. “For my people, it first started about 300 years ago in our small village near the Tuwillian River.”

  “Oh, Yameno’s people who used to live where we live!” Chachuli exclaimed, her tail bouncing with interest.

  “Yes,” nodded Singing Swan. “At that time we thought there was something about those particular woods and the sacred spring that enabled people to visit Ninas Twei, even though Homo sapiens as a species can’t form a grandsoul. Many people of my village visited as their Tla Twei.”

  “And when they died did they all come here?” asked Giselle.

  “No, only a few of us have come here – those of us who died as our Tla Twei.” He looked around at all of them. “Those of us who come here, dead or alive, do have a purpose. We come to help find some way for Homo sapiens to rejoin Tsin Twei.”

  “Our Tla Twei – as a coyote, but why a coyote? What is Tla Twei?” asked Kumni.

  “The shapes we all wear except for the Earth Woman Tree Woman come from the stories of my nation. Over the years other people have worn your forms, but I have always worn mine.”

  “At the meeting at the church,” Giselle asked, “they talked about a cougar being seen many years ago by the people of your village. But Hazel couldn't be...”

  Luha’s whiskers twitched. “No, I took this form after my grandmother died and left me her totem – a small wooden cougar. It was used by a Tuwillian woman and given to my grandmother when the woman died.”

  “So Reverend Tarrant was right when he said he thought your family had all been involved in this.”

  “Yes, Jarvis guessed that correctly.” She looked down at her paws and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Poor Jarvis. When we were children we were friends.”

  Tata added, “Luha’s family – I mean really Hazel’s family – learned about the woods and Ninas Twei from the Tuwillians, so it was natural for them to take on the forms of the Tuwillian pantheon, just as the Tuwillians had. And for me, too.”

  “Yes,” said Singing Swan. “But there are others here from other places in the world who come in the Tla Twein of their own mythology…”

  A deep thunderous rumble interrupted him and all their heads popped up, listening.

  The earth began to shake, moving faster and faster until the woven tules waved frantically above their heads.

  “It hurts!” Chachuli cried out.

  The Tree Woman was tossed off the edge of her cushion to the floor. Tata flew up in the air while the others clung to their nests with their claws. The pottery pitcher bounced on the split log and fell to the floor with a crash.

  Chachuli ran to her aunt's side and burrowed under her fur. “It hurts,” she moaned. “It hurts.”

  Just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

  “What is it?” whispered Giselle. “What is it?”

  The Hunt: The Forest Good or Evil?

  As soon as Reverend Clare got off the phone with Muriel Chase, who was asking her to bring members of the Interfaith group to join the search for the little girl, she called Father Keegan and Rabbi Micah. Now she was waiting for them to pick her up so they could join the search together.

  She shook her head, trying to understand. Muriel had been sure that Hazel Fraya and Dan Burroughs would never hurt the child, so what was going on? After the meeting at the church in Arundel she and Micah had met with Keegan Gilchrist, the Catholic priest who had studied Satanism, to tell him about the meeting. “The demographics are wrong,” he’d said. “I’ve never heard of a Satanist group that crosses cultures – a white woman, a black man, and a Native Uhsean? Not too likely. Mostly people who call themselves Satanists are white men rebelling against the church they were brought up in, and they aren’t really doing evil. The ones who do atrocities are usually teenaged boys. And a cougar as a devil? Probably just a cougar.” He’d smiled. “You know real evil is caused by our own personal ‘demons’ – the things in our childhood, in our culture that cause us to pull in so we can’t see the needs and hurts of others.”

  Later that same day Clare had found time in her busy schedule to ride up to the part of the forest Reverend Tarrant had said was evil. She'd gotten out of her car and walked around a little bit, and then gone down by the river. The woods had felt cool and pleasant and she’d felt tuned in to the vast silences of the forest as if in the presence of Spirit.

  Tarrant had mentioned this forest might be logged. She thought about the logging sites she’d seen, muddy with caterpillar tracks running through where the trees had been. Ugly. That would be true evil. Could this whole thing be a ruse to get the woods for logging? But now a child’s missing, she thought.

  A car horn beeped. She pulled on her jacket and locked the door behind her as she headed for the car and the hunt for the child.

  The three religious leaders discussed the missing child, and the idea that the forest might be evil, in the car on the way to the hunt. Clare pointed out she’d felt close to Spirit in the forest and thought it would be very wrong to allow logging there. The others agreed. Keegan added, “There have been places where I’ve felt some kind of palpable evil. Sometimes in some of our most revered…” He paused. “Money, greed. Jesus spoke of it. It seems to be destroying…”

  “Well, the logging certainly would be greed,” added Micah, “but until we find
both children, we really can't make any decisions about what’s going on."

  The deputy sheriff and the hunters tramped through the forest toward Giselle's place, stopping halfway when they discovered Jesús and Enid's meeting place by the river.

  “Look, someone's had a fire here,” said Reverend Tarrant, panning his flashlight over the depression in the rocks.

  The men spread out around the area looking for clues. Harding poked back into the little crevice where Enid had waited for Jesús. “Hey, I found a pencil here. I think it has a name on it.” He focused his flashlight on the top of the pencil, awkwardly balancing his gun and the pencil in one hand, and the flashlight in the other. “Enid Amundsen. This is the girl’s pencil!”

  Amundsen stalked over to Harding and took the pencil out of his hand. “One of the pencils Hazel gave her.” His eyes smoldered as he stared at it. Suddenly he whirled around and threw it forcefully into the river.

  “Well,” said Harding, looking warily at Amundsen and taking a step backward. “At least we know she was here.”

  “Here's a fish hook, too,” added Coffman, stooping with difficulty to pick it up. “Hey, Amundsen, would your girl be fishing?”

  Amundsen shook his head.

  “So that adds Jesús into it,” said Harding. “It looks like they were both here, and they had a fire too.”

  “But not today,” said the deputy. “This fire was from a week or so ago at least. And the pencil's clearly Enid’s, but the fishhook could be anyone’s. Besides they could have dropped those things at separate times.”

  “But I'll bet they didn't,” muttered Harding.

  Ninas Twei: Pain!

  “What was that pain?” cried the Tree Woman, pulling herself to her feet from where she lay on Singing Swan’s floor.

  Singing Swan leaned down to pick up the pieces of the pitcher with his beak. “I don’t know, but Ninas Twei is in danger! This happened earlier – maybe just as you were coming – but not as bad as this!”

  “Yes, we felt it in the vortex. Has it happened before?” Tata asked.

  “No, but there have been times when I've felt… something.”

  “Something?” Luha prodded.

  “Yes.” He poked at his nest with his beak and finally fluttered back up onto it. “I don't know how to explain it – a vague uneasiness that was on the edge of pain. But this was like an earthquake and there was pain, too.”

  Luha’s tail flicked back and forth, back and forth. “If this place is destroyed, what will happen to the world?”

  “I don’t know,” he shook his head.

  Tata stretched out his wings, the light flickering over his feathers. “I think we’re the ones who need to find out what’s happening.”

  Luha nodded, adding, “Maybe that’s why we felt compelled – drawn to come here now, today.”

  “But where is it coming from? Is it someplace we can go?” Kumni asked.

  Chachuli scampered off her nest and emphatically pointed her nose back toward the entrance to the room. “It was back that way. I felt it. It was in that direction.”

  Luha stood and faced the entrance, her tail lashing back and forth. “How do you know, Chachuli?”

  “I just know.” Her little eyes flashed.

  Luha nodded. “Our messenger.” She turned toward the rest of them. “That's back toward Din Tsin Twei. Let's go and investigate at least.”

  “Wait,” Kumni demanded. “I want to go, but how long have we been here? What about Chachuli's grandfather?”

  “My grandfather will be upset, but it doesn't matter.” Chachuli stood up on her hind legs, her nose lifted quivering in the air. “This is more important. I feel… I feel… I can't explain, but we have to follow the pain.”

  Luha flicked her tail. “Chaculi’s grandfather knows where she is. He’s very frightened, but he knows.”

  “It’s too bad we can’t go back keeping others from knowing we’ve gone,” Tata added, ruffling his feathers. “Especially with that cougar hunt going on, but we need to pursue this pain. We’re the only ones who can.”

  “Please, let's go now!” pressed the little squirrel, running back and forth beween her aunt and the entrance.

  Singing Swan led the way up the steep path from the marsh back to the mountain bowl with Chachuli close on his heels. At Din Tsin Twei, she took over the lead, crossing the middle of the vast empty space. She was headed for a large crack in the rock, wide at the bottom and narrowing, as it led up the rock, to a thin line.

  “This wasn’t here before,” exclaimed Singing Swan, as he looked into the deep crevice. “I can see a lighter spot like an opening at the end. I've never been able to get to the other side of the amphitheatre. When I try to fly over, it just gets higher.”

  The little squirrel started to go through the tunnel created by the open crevice. “Wait, Chachuli, wait.” Giselle, grabbed the squirrel.

  “Can we all fit through there?” Yameno crouched before the opening, his ears laid back on his head.

  “We can try,” Luha replied.

  “But I need to stay here,” Singing Swan said regretfully, “to protect Din Tsin Twei.”

  The Tree Woman let go of Chachuli who darted into the crevice, her fluffy tail straight behind her. The base was wide, but the roof was low. Kumni was able to follow her with only a little uncomfortable crouching through places where the ceiling dipped lower. Luha crawled through after him with Tata gripping her neck, wings outspread and curved down over her back, head tucked low behind hers. Giselle found her form was flexible; like a human she could crawl, and her branches, seeking the light, stretched ahead of her down the tunnel. Yameno followed, creeping on his stomach.

  The squirrel stood silhouetted in the opening at the other end then scampered back to the others to offer encouragement. “On the other side there’s a forest – like our forest. It’s beautiful.”

  As they clambered, not without a little squeezing and grunting, out of the tunnel, they found themselves in a small clearing between a dark, rustling forest, and the steep stone cliffs that rose on this side of Din Tsin Twei. Above their heads the stars twinkled large and clear.

  Yameno lowered his nose and sniffed along the edge of the forest. “There are several old paths here,” he said, raising his head to look into the dark under the trees, his tail wagging encouragement.

  “Which one do you think we should follow?” asked Tata. “Chachuli, do you still feel the direction of the pain?”

  “Yes.” She scurried directly to the faint beginning of one of the paths, and stopped to sit back on her haunches and sniff the air. “It’s down here.”

  The path was old and overgrown, the night dark under the trees where the starlight made only tentative inroads into the shadows, but before long they came to a wide, deep meadow. “What a beautiful place,” whispered Chachuli.

  Giselle looked around her at the meadow, enclosed by yellow-leafed aspens, looking as if hung with drops of silver in the starlight. She heard a gentle susurrus as the light breeze played the leaves like a wind chime, and then continued on to rustle the meadow grasses, sprinkled with the night-closed blossoms of autumn wild flowers. A large upended oak tree sat at the far side of the meadow, its roots a darkness protruding into the night, and its lightning scarred trunk extending up and away from the travelers, resting in the branches of another tree at the far edge of the meadow. At the upper end of the tree, where some of the limbs dragged the ground, and some reached as high toward the star filled sky as many of the surrounding upright trees, the light seemed to gleam off of something that stretched between the branches.

  “Look.” The coyote pointed his nose at a faint separation of the grasses. “The path goes on here out into the meadow.”

  “Toward that tree,” added Tata.

  “It must have been huge when it stood,” Yameno pointed out. “That's not a fresh fall. The wild flowers are growing around the roots as if it's been that way many, many years.”

  Luha sat and moved her
tail slowly through the grasses, sending off a faint, sweet perfume as it gently knocked the closed blossoms of the wild gentians. “Something at the other end is… something different.”

  “It looks like a huge spider web,” Kumni added.

  “Yes.” Yameno’s tail drooped behind him. “But the shape, somehow...”

  “I'll check it out.” Tata leaped forward, moving his wings in large undulations as he pushed himself into the air over the meadow. He circled high over the tree, and then lower and lower, finally landing in front of the unknown webbing. He walked back and forth, turning his head from one side to another. The rest watched anxiously at the top of the meadow until with slow powerful wing beats, he flew back to them.

  “What is it?” Chachuli asked eagerly.

  “A loom.”

  “A loom?” Giselle peered at the tree.

  “Yes, but...” He stopped and shrugged, his shoulders lifting his wings up and back down again. “You need to come see it,” and he turned and flapped off toward the tree again.

  The cougar loped down the path after him, followed by the coyote, the squirrel hanging onto his ruff. The wolf and the Tree Woman came more slowly after, Giselle walking instead of riding, and stepping carefully to avoid crushing the fragile grasses. As they approached the upended roots, they could see the others standing at the other end of the tree looking bemused. “The tree isn't dead,” Yameno pointed out. “It's fall, so the leaves on it are dying, but some are still green.”

  “Yes, and a lot of the roots are still firmly in the ground,” Giselle added. “Come on. Let's go see the loom,” and she half-ran to where the others stood, with the wolf loping beside her.

  It was indeed a loom made of the many huge limbs reaching fifty feet into the air above them. Stretching between the thick limbs, the meadow grasses grew and reached, weaving themselves, and the wild flowers that grew in their midst, in and out, in and out, between the still growing branches of the tree and each other. There was no shuttle, no hand working the loom, and yet the grasses twined and braided themselves through the woof and the warp of each other. The flowers, their colors twinkling in the bright starlight, studded the weaving like jewels.

  “It's... It's...,” whispered Chachuli.

  “Beautiful and strange and wonderful,” Luha whispered back.

  The Tla Twein stood looking at the be-woven oak tree in awed silence. The weaving stretched on different planes from one limb to another and the starlight flickered over it, bringing out a pattern here, a shape there. A face, thought Tree Woman. I saw a face. It glimmered high on one side. She moved in closer. Many faces! A child… She saw:

  Small girl swinging on a wood and rope swing hung from the high branches of a towering old willow tree, singing wordlessly in a high clear baby voice, long straight blonde hair flying behind her. A happy song. A smiling happy child...

  Older now, arguing with perturbed, amused parents, who allow some and forbid some, a teenaged girl with short straight hair that flops on her neck as she nods her head to make her point...

  College – some ecstatic joys, some heartfelt tears. Working, marrying, having children, and grandchildren. Growing old. Dying.

  Tears slid down the Tree Woman’s cheeks. “What's wrong?” Luha caught the Tree Woman’s hand in her mouth.

  Giselle started, turning to look down at Luha. “There was a woman – a child and then a woman. Her whole life is there.”

  The others gathered around her and peered into the weaving. “I can't see anything,” said Yameno, “except how beautiful the flowers and grasses are all woven together.”

  “And patterns – I can see patterns,” Kumni interrupted.

  “Yes,” added Giselle excitedly, “and people's lives add into the patterns. See!” she pointed. “My woman's life’s here where the pattern’s light and simple. I wonder...” She walked over to where the pattern was difficult and uneasy. “Oh, no!” she cried out, as she watched a tiny girl go flying across the floor after the man backhanded her. The child huddled whimpering in the corner, but didn’t cry.

  And she didn’t cry at thirteen when her stepfather hurled her out of the house and told her never to come back. Or when, on the filthy streets of a large, impersonal city, she took her first dope with her first john.

  The tears came later when the young community organizer said, “Yes, you can sleep here. Yes, there is food here. Yes, we can find you a job.” And much later again, as the girl, now a woman, a social worker helping abused children, held a small, beaten boy in her arms, and whispered, “It's all right now. You're safe now. We won't ever let it happen again.”

  “A more complex pattern,” whispered the Tree Woman, “but still a good part of the whole thing.” She turned to look at her companions. “People's whole lives are in this tapestry. There are so many faces, I think there must be billions of lives.”

  Chachuli examined the tapestry. “Do you think everyone's lives are in it? Are our lives in it?” Giselle's eyes widened and she turned back to the woven tree. It was huge. How would you find yourself in such a giant weaving?

  “Yes,” came a rumbling voice, “of course your lives are in the tapestry. All lives – even the torn ones – are in the tapestry.”

  Everyone turned, startled, to face the owner of the strange voice. A turtle large enough for a small child to ride on, the markings on its shell dark lines in the starlight, made its ponderous way around the end of the Weaving Tree toward the travelers.

  “Who are you?” exclaimed Kumni.

  “I’d ask you the same thing,” responded the turtle, “if I didn't already know.” She stopped in front of them, allowed her shell to rest on the ground, and stared at them. Chachuli giggled. The turtle stretched her neck toward her. “Well, my little Chachuli, do you find me amusing?”

  “Well…” The little squirrel sat up on her haunches. “You're looking at us, and we're looking at you. We'd introduce ourselves, but you said you already know who we are. But we don't know who you are, so you should tell us.”

  “So,” the turtle lifted her head up into the air. “Chachuli, the youngest of us, dares to speak of manners to the oldest one of all.”

  “Or Ratatosk.” Luha gave a small laugh.

  “Yes, perhaps it should be the Norse Ratatosk. But then, perhaps you are not Luhanada. Are you either Bygul or Trjegul, Freyja’s blue cats?”

  Luha laughed. “I’m not blue.”

  The turtle nodded her head on her long neck. “Now we have this Earth Woman Tree Woman who isn’t Tuwillian. We need to think beyond our nation to include the whole world. Yes, Chachuli can also be Ratatosk, messenger God of the Norse people.”

  Luha flicked her tail. “Are you Tuwillia, the turtle?”

  The old turtle nodded.

  “Are you one of the Tla Twein of the Tuwillians?” asked Kumni.

  "I took the Tla Twei of Tuwillia the Turtle, the ruler of water, the form chosen by the Nameless One when she created the earth, and the sacred spring. But I came here many years ago, before even Singing Swan.”

  “Singing Swan doesn't know you're here,” added Tata. “How do you know about him? He said he couldn’t get to the other side of the mountains. Can you go there?”

  “I knew when he came. I watch the people of my nation in the tapestry,” rumbled the old turtle. “But I don’t try to find them. It's too hard to walk that far. I guard the tree and protect the tapestry.”

  Giselle stepped forward anxiously. “What is the tapestry?”

  “Perhaps you can guess, Madame Earth Woman Tree Woman,” Tuwillia nodded her head knowingly. “It’s the tree of human life. In its branches is the weaving of the lives of all humans together that should make a grandsoul. It is this weaving into a grandsoul that allows a species to join the dance, the Tsin Twei. But you can see, the tree of Homo sapiens has fallen. At the edges of the weaving are rents that spread.”

  The travelers looked at the edges, and saw the torn places. Giselle looked closely:

  A sm
all black child, wearing only a loin cloth, running happily down a path in a garden is suddenly kicked aside by a large white man, who then pulls him up by the hair and drags him out of the garden.

  “You don't belong in here. Get out.”

  The boy is shoved out into the dry yellow dirt.

  The child grows. The land his ancestors lived on sustainably for centuries has been devastated. The trees have been cut, the water polluted. His baby sister is stillborn. His younger brother, stomach extended with malnutrition, lies still on the cot, large eyes pleading for food. His mother fades away to nothing with a cancer brought about by the polluted water. He has barely enough to eat, and watches hungrily as the white children play in their large gardens, get in and out of their large cars. He carries their heavy suitcases with bent head and shuttered eyes that burn beneath their lids with coals of hate, as the white children leave to attend their foreign schools, and there is no school for him.

  And when the revolution comes he swings a large machete.

  “Oh,” cried Giselle. “Poor child – poor children.”

  “The torn children,” muttered Tuwillia. “Their lives are torn asunder, and they turn and tear the lives of others.”

  “All of their lives were torn – not just the black child,” whispered the Tree Woman.

  “Yes. Racism, oppression, and hatred tear the lives of all who touch it. On the weaving we can trace the rips back and back. But compassion and love can mend the tears. Look here.” She followed a thread from the boy down to his granddaughter as she joins a group of African women planting native trees where they had been destroyed by the oppressors. The leader of the group tells how the fig tree, revered by their people, provides not only fruit, but water, because its roots dig deep into the rock providing a path for the water to come to the surface. She urges the women to listen to the wisdom of their ancestors.

  “I remember reading about this leader on OET – the One Earth Together site,” Giselle smiled. She saw that the threads woven by the women were weaving themselves back into the past, pulling the torn sides together, creating colorful new patterns as they repaired the rips.

  “I saw one whose life should have been destroyed, but she repaired her own life by becoming a counselor for children like herself.”

  “Ah, where one of the community organizers works.” Tuwillia nodded her head knowingly on her long neck. “The torn lives need help or they tear away at the rest of the fabric. Where many of the community organizers work the lives are badly torn, but often they do mend them. That’s why the pattern is so complex.”

  “Look at the rents here,” exclaimed Giselle, pointing to a particularly blighted part of the weaving that grew larger and larger as she looked at it.

  “War,” muttered Tuwillia. “War ravages thousands of lives. It destroys the lives of people who live where the war is fought – innocent men, women and children, not to speak of the land, and the animals and plants that live on the land.”

  “‘Collateral damage’,” muttered Tata.

  “It destroys the lives of the soldiers who fight it. It destroys the lives of the people in the far off lands who are sending the soldiers to fight the wars, even though often they don’t see the lines of connection. But see, here, on the weaving how the rips travel long distances and cause more rents over here where the weaving looks strong?”

  Giselle peered at the weaving. “It’s undermined with rips and destruction. It will fall apart! How can we stop that?” Her eyes traveled over the weaving. “And look at this! This is the source of the rips that lead to the war. Greed, and the oppression that comes from greed. Can you see that? Large corporations making money off of weapons, or worming their way into the armed forces as providers of services, and siphoning off huge amounts of money.” She pointed to a particularly large, almost colorless, pattern that was surrounded by rips. How is it held in place? she wondered. It seems suspended, unconnected.

  She moved in to look closer. Suddenly, she could see clear ropey strands that extended from it out to other almost invisible colorless patches all over the weaving. “What’s this strange pattern?” she murmured, but she couldn’t penetrate past the pattern, as if some screen wavered in front of it blocking her view. She felt a deep chill. Something here was very wrong.

  Yameno peered at the pattern. “How come Giselle can see these lives – these people – and we can't?”

  “Because she’s the tree,” rumbled Tuwillia. “She’s the earth and the tree. She can see the lives of people. She can mend the torn ones, and you, too, will have to learn to mend the torn ones, if we’re ever going to rejoin the Tsin Twei. The fabric rips more every day all over the world.” She moved ponderously over to another side of the weaving. “See how the weaving doesn’t connect from place to place where it has been rent almost from one end to the other?”

  Giselle looked closely. There were the colorless ropes again, not connecting, but separating, strangling the others.

  “Not only is it destroying the fabric of Homo sapiens,” added the turtle, “but it’s destroying the Tsin Twei and the earth. I felt Ninas Twei shake with pain tonight and the center of the pain was here.”

  “We felt it, too,” exclaimed Chachuli. “It opened the tunnel in the mountains that rim Din Tsin Twei. That’s how we got here.”

  “Singing Swan hasn’t been able to find a way over to this side of the cliffs before this,” added Luha.

  Tuwillia nodded. “The trees are protected from discovery.”

  “The trees… There’s more than one tree like this one?” Yameno lifted his muzzle as he looked around at the other trees.

  “Each species has a tree with roots deep in the soil of Ninas Twei,” she said solemnly, pointing her head toward the earth beneath their feet. “But not right here. They have their own special places.”

  Tata looked at the dry roots of the tree. “When did our tree fall over?”

  “The tree fell when Homo sapiens left Tsin Twei, when some people began destroying each other's lives on such a huge scale that we could no longer form a grandsoul. It perpetuates itself. The destroyed becomes a destroyer. The child who is hurt lashes out at other children, at his own children.”

  “Compassion,” whispered Giselle. “They lost the ability to be compassionate.”

  “But lots of people do understand other people's pain,” Yameno insisted his tail sweeping back and forth. “Not everybody is – well – unconnected.”

  “That's true,” answered Tuwillia. “Just look at the weaving. You can see lots of connections. Look at this one.”

  The Tree Woman focused where Tuwillia pointed. The fabric was beautiful here – a myriad of interconnected spirals of wildflowers reaching out to touch upon other spirals and then into the center to gather strength. The center of one was a service group in a small town where the people helped feed members of their community in need. “And here.” Tuwillia pointed to another spiral – a group in a large city that came together to dance, sing, and tell their stories. Paths from this spiral radiated out all over the weaving to other cities and small towns, even other countries, where there were groups doing the same thing.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Giselle. “These folks use the Internet to stay connected with other people all over the world!” The spirals from both the service group and the dancing community connected to other spirals in their own communities where there were schools, religious congregations, hospitals, community centers, and jazz clubs. One had an interfaith group of teenagers painting the walls in an apartment in a tenement building a bright clean color to brighten the lives of the refugee family that lived there. In return the refugee family – part of another spiral that had its center at a temple far away – showed the young workers the precious few things they’d brought from their homeland: a shrine portraying their own much revered ancestors, a fancy comb that had been a grandmother's.

  That same youth group touched other spirals, which were their churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques, and all
of them connected to a food bank, which connected to a mental health advocacy committee, a homeless shelter, and a political protest group. Woven between and in and out of these various spirals, were smaller spirals of folk dancers and soccer players, quilters, and neighbors drinking coffee together.

  Giselle smiled. “Just people,” she said, “doing their thing! And look here! Here’s a radio station creating community by spreading important information. See the spirals moving outward, some going around the world through the Internet. Here’s another one spreading hate. See how the rips move out from it.” She looked closer. One of those clear strands connected here and the pattern was losing its color. She tried to follow the clear strand and found a place where the strand was blocked by a very complex – maybe even chaotic – pattern of color. Here a bank had tried to foreclose on a house belonging to an elderly woman. A mass of people from many different groups – churches, synagogues, mosques and temples; schools; labor unions; political action groups – had come together to stop it. Some had signed a petition on the Internet, others were lawyers and activists making phone calls, but overlaying it all were the people who marched in front of the house, camped out in the front yard, and stood up to the police who came to enforce the eviction. Some were tear-gassed, some were clubbed and dragged away, and still they stood strong. “And they won,” she whispered. “The woman didn’t lose her home!”

  “Here’s one of my favorites.” Tuwillia pointed with her head.

  Giselle laughed. “Making connections beyond humanity!”

  “What is it?” asked Chachuli.

  “A group of people on a small boat interfering with an artic oil expedition – one of those groups out to save the oceans.”

  “Yes,” said Tuwillia, “saving the whales and other endangered species is just as important as saving people.” She moved over to another place on the weaving. “Look here. The spiral this group connects to is huge, and getting larger all the time, reaching out to people and animals all over the world.”

  Giselle followed the pattern as it wove itself in and out of spirals all over the fabric. “It’s OET – One Earth Together. They bring all kinds of groups together.” She looked up at Tuwillia. “They’re all so different, and yet there's the same kind of joy and earnestness in all of them.”

  “You will find that joy anywhere people are reaching out to each other, and the rest of the world,” Tuwillia agreed. “Of course, sometimes people are reaching toward each other, but hate the rest of the world.” She pointed to a place where the weaving stood all by itself and was not connected to the rest at all. It was a church group not too different from the others she had seen, but the faces were cold and stern. “And here,” pointed Tuwillia. “And here.” Tree Woman saw a white supremacist group in Uhs, a fundamentalist Muslim group in Pakistan, a group of Israeli settlers on the West Bank, a Hindu fundamentalist group in India. Even though their clothes, and their skin and hair coloring, were very different, the expressions on their faces were the same. Fearful. Angry. She looked closer. In each case there was a colorless strand worming its way through it. “And the joy isn't there either,” added Tuwillia. “It can't exist with hate.”

  The bright light of the stars dimmed for a moment fading the weaving to black and white. Giselle blinked and looked around her, but the light was back, and the colors.

  “What about the pain we felt?” asked Yameno. “Is that part of the weaving?”

  Tuwillia patted the ground with her right front foot. “I felt it in the earth below the tree – in the roots of the tree.”

  Tata looked toward the upended roots of the tree. “Perhaps when the tree fell over, the roots were damaged.”

  “But if the tree has fallen over and the roots are damaged – we couldn't put it back,” cried Chachuli. “Will we ever be able to rejoin Tsin Twei?”

  The Hunters and the Cat, Reprise

  Clare, Micah, and Keegan drove up to the clearing at the side of the road where the hunters had gathered earlier just as Tom arrived from checking on Hazel Fraya.

  “Well, was she home?” Dickerson yelled at Tom.

  “No, I checked up at Amundsen's, too, and the people waiting there for Enid said she hadn't shown up yet, and Hazel hadn't been there at all.”

  “So that cinches it,” exclaimed Dickerson. “Hazel's involved in this whole thing. How could she do it to her own niece?”

  “Do what?” Keegan interrupted.

  “Well,” sputtered Dickerson, “whatever she's doing to her. Who are you, anyway?”

  Micah stepped forward. “This is Father Gilchrist. He's an authority on Satanism.”

  “Oh, all right!” said Dickerson. “Well, you're just the man we need, 'cause for sure, there's some kind of Satanism going on here.”

  “And what makes you think so?” asked the priest.

  “Where's my Grandfather?” interrupted Tom.

  “Oh, yeah, we need to go join the others up at that teacher's house. You come too, Father. Then you can talk with Reverend Tarrant. He knows all about it. Come on Tom.” Tom left his truck parked with the others and jumped into Dickerson's car. Clare, Micah, and Keegan got back in their car and followed them up the road to Giselle's. When they arrived the hunters had just reached Giselle's place and discovered she wasn't there.

  “Was Hazel at her house?” demanded Coffman, before Tom had a chance to get out of the car.

  “No one’s at Hazel's and her car’s still there,” Tom answered.

  “The teacher's not here either,” added the deputy, “and there's her car.” He pointed to where it stood in the driveway. “Just a cat,” he said, swinging his flashlight to pick up the gray kitty sitting on the porch.

  “Where's that Wellkeeper live?” asked Harding. “I'll bet if we could find it, we'd find them.”

  “Good idea, Harding.” Reverend Tarrant patted Harding's shoulder and walked toward Clare, Keegan, and Micah. “So, Rabbi Levinson, you've come to join us... and Reverend Yates,” he added. “Reverend Yates, I hope you aren’t intending to come with us. This is no place for a woman.”

  Clare raised her eyebrows. “Well, I’m sure you think the pulpit is no place for a woman either, but I’m there.”

  Micah laughed, interrupting before the discussion went any farther. “Reverend Tarrant, I'd like to introduce you to Father Keegan Gilchrist. He's an authority on Satanism.”

  Reverend Tarrant nodded and shook Keegan's hand. “So I understand you haven't found the child yet. Have you seen the cougar?” Keegan asked.

  “No, we haven't found anything very helpful, but there are some people we haven't found that’s been helpful. The children's teacher lives in this house, and as the Deputy here was just pointing out, her car is here – so where is she this time of night? We haven't found Hazel Fraya or Dan Burroughs, and both their cars are at their houses, so where are they? Interesting, isn't it?”

  “Perhaps.” Keegan tucked his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, looking around him.

  “Hey, what’s that?” yelled another man, pointing toward the tall dark shadow of the Earth Woman Tree Woman – tree-like, and yet clearly not a tree – standing black against the starry sky, near the edge of the cliff.

  The men turned to stare. “We should check it out,” muttered the deputy, and they all followed him across the meadow. The small cat padded across the trampled grasses behind them. The men circled to the front of the woman where it faced out over the ocean, muttering, “What is it?” “A carving of a tree…” “Or a woman.”

  “Looks like both,” added the deputy.

  Amundsen’s eyes narrowed as he glared at the tree woman. “The devil,” he whispered. “The devil is here.”

  Keegan frowned as he looked at the man.

  “That Giselle’s a lot weirder than I thought she was,” Harding added.

  The little gray kitty sat watching them, his head cocked to one side. “Look at that cat!” exclaimed Dickerson.

  “Oh, Dickerson, you're getting
a little spooked. It's just a cat.”

  “No, it's not. Look at the way it's looking at us.” He started toward the cat, but the kitten became frightened and turned to run. Suddenly a shot rang out and the cat leapt into the air as a bullet hit the ground next to him. He tore across the yard as two more shots followed, but managed to duck behind the house without being hit.

  Amundsen lowered his gun. The group froze, wide-eyed.

  “I don't think you needed to do that, Amundsen,” said the deputy. “It was just a cat,” but Amundsen didn't seem to hear. Father Gilchrist thrusting one hand behind him, and stroking his chin with the other, looked closely at him, frowning.

  Ninas Twei: The Fall!

  Tree Woman looked back to where the roots of the fallen tree thrust themselves out of the earth that encrusted the trunk. “Are they permanently damaged?” she asked, looking at Tata. He flew back to the bottom of the tree, scratching in the soil with his talons. The others followed.

  “It looks like it’s still growing, but I wonder if there’re enough roots left in the soil to sustain it. Even if we were able to right the tree, Chachuli,” he said, turning and smiling at the little squirrel, “the old roots have dried out. Once they're dried out they can't be brought to life again. But new roots can grow.”

  “Can a tree survive with most of its roots out of the ground?” Giselle asked.

  “For a while, but unless the remaining roots are strong and well connected to the earth, it will eventually die.” He turned to Tuwillia. “Has the tree been growing? Have the branches been sprouting?”

  “Yes. Every spring the branches grow higher and there’s more weaving.” The turtle paused and stretched her neck toward the other end of the tree. “But as the years go on it seems more and more disconnected.”

  Tata nodded. “The root system is not sufficient.”

  “What are we going to do?” Chachuli cried out.

  Tata looked thoughtful. “Well, maybe there needs to be more weaving to support it as it grows so big.”

  “Not more weaving, but more connected weaving,” added Luha.

  “But it goes both ways,” added Tata. “The weaving helps the roots, but the roots also need to be strong to support the weaving.”

  Giselle crouched down by the roots and stuck a branched hand into the hole Tata had made with his talon. She felt a thick, moist root, and encircled it, extending down, down. She seemed to flow in and out of the roots, the myriad thin root hairs caressing her, drawing nutrients, minerals, and water from her. The earth, she thought, I am the earth. Dirt and rock. The roots of the tree drill into me letting the water flow through for the tree and all the others, plants and animals, who need it. Then she became the root, strong and firm, but dry –almost brittle. Why were the roots so dry?

  I am the tree, she thought, and I am dying. But even as she thought of death, she could feel herself flowing and dividing, and dividing again, and drawing the moisture and the minerals from the soil – from herself and from the trees of the other species! She was reaching and growing toward the others whose roots were firmly dug into this soil, this earth.

  I can become the tree. Joy welled up, like the water in the roots of the tree. I can be the tree! And I can be the earth that feeds it. She flowed and divided and felt the myriad tiny hairs sucking and sucking at the soil, touching the apes, the hawks, the songbirds. Mingling, becoming the squirrels, tiny mice, a sea otter. A jelly fish. Such an alien feeling. A worm. Growing rooted. Rooted in the earth and in the life of the earth. Losing, losing the self into the soil, the air…

  Then… touching something else – something hard, impenetrable. Alien.

  Suddenly there was pain and a ripping sensation. Her roots were torn from the soil with a terrible wrenching. Chachuli cried out and Kumni wrapped his front paws around her, pulling her close to his chest. Tata and Luha grasped at each other, and the Tree Woman wrapped her limbs around the Wolfwind’s neck. Tuwillia withdrew within her shell. The ground shook and heaved, bouncing them around, against each other and away again as they screamed with fear. The children clung to each other, and tried to cling to a rock across from the tree as the ground tried to shake them free of it.

  The pain subsided and they all lay panting on the ground. The children leaned back against the rock. Tuwillia stuck her head tentatively out of her shell.

  Suddenly the shaking came again, greater than before. They cried and grabbed at each other as a crevice opened at the base of the rock. With frightened shrieks, the children fell into the abyss.

  Tla Twein Forever

  After finding the sculpture at the edge of the cliff, the hunters continued their search for the children and the missing adults. The men, and Clare Yates, poured up the hillside back of Giselle's house, and just as the morning light was beginning to creep into the sky, they found the path Yameno always took from his hiding place on the hill behind Giselle’s house to his home. “Now I think we're getting somewhere,” mumbled Harding. “You know, I really think Giselle is an innocent victim – hypnotized or something.”

  “Maybe so,” countered Reverend Tarrant. “A young woman living out here alone could easily get caught up in something.”

  “What do you think, Father Gilchrist?” asked Harding. “Don't you think she could have been hypnotized?”

  “Perhaps – if there is indeed something evil going on,” he replied, picking up a large branch to use as a walking stick.

  “Now Hazel's another matter,” added Coffman. “She's always been strange. Look at all those cats she has.”

  “Yes,” agreed Tarrant bitterly. “Hazel has always been strange, even when we were children.”

  Dickerson called out to Amundsen who was walking grimly ahead of the others, who were giving him a wide berth. “What do you think Amundsen? She's your sister-in-law.”

  Amundsen looked out into the dawn. “She’s evil.” The words seemed to spit from his mouth, and everyone took another step away from him.

  “Don't talk to him, Dickerson,” whispered Coffman. “He might do something crazy.”

  “Yes, indeed, he might,” muttered Micah to Keegan, whose only response was a slow nod of his head.

  They came upon Wellkeeper’s vegetable garden first. Amundsen stopped abruptly and stared at the garden. The others flowed around him. “So this is how he managed to live up here,” muttered Coffman. Tarrant found the path down to his hut and the others followed as he lead the way down, half turning and holding up one hand, his other hand gesturing for silence as he reached the edge of the clearing.

  The four missing adults were sitting with bowed heads, holding hands, but Giselle and Dan each had an empty hand extended as if holding the invisible hands of two missing people. Six cups sat on the ground, one in front of each of them and two where the missing people would be.

  “Wow, look at all that strange stuff hanging around on the trees and things,” said Dickerson, in a stage whisper.

  Yameno's head came up, and the travelers all dropped hands looking disorientedly toward the hunters, and then around the clearing.

  “The children,” whispered Hazel, her fearful eyes meeting Dan’s.

  Yameno stood up, taking a step toward the hunters. Coffman raised his gun. “Just hold it where you are.”

  “Hey, what's that they're drinking?” exclaimed Harding. “Some kind of drug?”

  Giselle stood up. “What's going on?”

  “That's what we want to hear from you, young lady,” replied the deputy. “Where are the children? What have you done with Enid, and that kid, Jesús?”

  Oh, my god, the children, thought Giselle. Where are the children? They fell and they didn’t return with us! And these people. How can we go back for the children with them here? Her thoughts raced. Look at all those guns. They won't believe us if we try to tell about Ninas Twei or the Tree. “No. It’s important. You’ve got to let us continue. We need to help the children.”

  “So, you did have something to do with the children,” excl
aimed Harding. “What’ve you done with them?”

  “My son,” cried McCrae, pushing his way into the clearing. “Where’s my son?”

  What can we say? Giselle thought. I don't know what to say. Oh, no! There's Enid's grandfather, and he looks – something – he's going to…

  Amundsen had been standing at the edge of the clearing staring at Hazel and Dan. He raised his gun. “It’s her,” he muttered. “She’s evil and I’m going to kill her.”

  “Wait, Amundsen,” cried the deputy, grabbing his arm.

  Hazel and Dan jumped up. Oh, god, thought Giselle. He'll kill them.

  Suddenly Hazel and Dan were not there. Instead, a cougar was rushing down the path out of the clearing, a hawk, wings stroking cumbrously, above her head. Amundsen shoved the deputy out of the way, knocking him to the ground, and raised his gun. Two shots rang out in rapid succession and two screams rent the air.

  “No,” cried Giselle, “No!”

  “What happened?” whispered Harding.

  “It was the cougar,” said Coffman. “He killed the cougar and a hawk.”

  Jarvis Tarrant froze. Hazel was dead. The bodies were a cougar and a hawk, but it was Hazel – Hazel and Dan. Numbness crept through him – his fingers, his toes. Cold, then a sick churning in his stomach. Amundsen had pulled the trigger, but he, Jarvis, had killed Hazel because he’d brought these people here.

  When we were children she was beautiful, and wild, and different from all the rest of them even then, and I loved her. I loved her. Tears filled his eyes. “I didn’t know,” he whispered, shaking his head, still staring at the dead cougar. “I didn’t know I loved her.”

  She wore pants rolled to her knees – my mother hated that! Girls weren’t supposed to wear pants. And those thick braids of hers! They danced when she ran. He smiled thinking about the curls that would slip out around her face and ears.

  And she loved cats even then. They were constantly on her shoulders, or in her pockets. She was wild – a tomboy – but she was the gentlest person I’ve ever known.

  I remember that day on the beach… One grain of sand. She held one grain of sand between her fingers, holding it up to the sun, squinting and peering at it when it was so small, she couldn't have seen it. She chanted that poem over and over so much I can still remember it. “To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” William Blake. I read it in high school years later. But by then I hated her – and the poem.

  “Why?” he murmured to himself. “Why?”

  His parents had always distrusted her family. When they drove past her house his mother always had something to say. “Those Fraya's ruin the town. The forest is growing right into their yard and they do nothing to stop it! And they spend all their time and their money, too, on books, and not on the right book, either.” She’d tremble all over with anger and smooth her skirt down over her knees over and over again. “Jarvis,” she would shake a finger at him. “Jarvis, you just stay away from that wild girl of theirs. You stay away from her.”

  She knew! She knew and I didn’t know it myself. Did she feed the hate? Love turns to hate easily, he thought. He’d been confused. He wanted to agree with his mother, but he liked Hazel. He’d liked Hazel until... until Dan Burroughs came to town.

  Hazel stopped doing things with the rest of the gang – no, that wasn't true. We stopped doing things with her because she always brought Dan with her. It was one thing letting weird Hazel trail along, but no one was going to have a nigger hanging around with them. Hazel had a choice – and she chose Dan.

  I felt so ugly and strange inside, and I hated her. I hated her, thought Jarvis. He looked over at the bodies of the cougar and the hawk. And now they’re dead – transformed in some unknown way to a cougar and a hawk. He saw it happen. They were dead.

  The deputy stepped over to Amundsen, taking the gun from his hands. Amundsen let go willingly, turned, and walked off down the mountainside. No one went after him.

  Giselle ran to the cougar and the hawk, sobbing as she crouched and stroked the dead animals. Yameno joined her, trying to find some sign of life in the bird and the cat, with no success. “He killed them,” whispered Giselle. “He killed them.’

  Yameno stood up and looked after Gunther. “He should be stopped.”

  “Shut up.” muttered the deputy without much conviction, as he pushed in next to the cougar, placing his hand on the still warm body. Clare moved instinctively to put her arm around Giselle while Coffman, Dickerson, and the other townspeople stood bemused, focused on the dead animals. The deputy stood up slowly. “Well,” he said, “It looks like you got what you came for. You got the cougar.” No one spoke as he moved away from the animals, but there was a visible relaxing of bodies in the crowd – just a cougar and a hawk. “About the hawk, though,” he continued. “It's illegal to kill hawks, so Amundsen's going to have to deal with the Fish and Game on that one.”

  Yameno turned and looked steadily at the deputy. “Is that what you believe? That he killed a cougar and a hawk?”

  “Shut up!” the deputy glared at Wellkeeper. “Just shut up!”

  “No!” Giselle grabbed the deputy's arm. “They weren’t a cougar and a hawk. He killed Hazel and Dan! You saw it. You know! He killed Hazel and Dan.”

  Clare gently pulled Giselle back from the deputy, who, turning a rigid back, carefully surveyed the crowd. He looked quickly away from Father Gilchrist's piercing gaze, noted the anguished look on Reverend Tarrant's face as he continued to stare at the cougar, and the relief on the faces of the rest of the crowd. He dropped his eyes. “He killed a cougar and a hawk. That's what you came for, now let's go.”

  “Hey, wait a minute.” Tom slipped his cell phone into his back pocket as he strode forward from where he'd stood toward the back of the crowd. “What about the girl? Where’s the girl?”

  “And my son,” added McCrae, reaching out to grab the deputy’s arm. The deputy pushed his hand away, glaring at him.

  “Yeah,” added Coffman. “What were these people doing here? Was it Satanism? Aren't we going to arrest them?”

  “Yeah,” echoed Dickerson. “Are those drugs in those cups? Aren't you going to investigate?”

  Yameno leaned across the bodies of the cougar and the hawk and touched Giselle on the arm. “They died as a cougar and a hawk,” he whispered. “That means they're there with Singing Swan and Tuwillia.”

  “Yes,” whispered Giselle. “They’ll look for the children.” But still they’re dead. He killed them. Clare’s eyes narrowed as she listened. The children? The hawk and the cougar were dead, but somehow Wellkeeper and Giselle thought they were alive somewhere looking for the children? Where were the children?

  They were interrupted by the deputy, who took Wellkeeper by the arm and pulled him away from Giselle. “All right, you two are under arrest. Just get away from each other and no more talking. Reverend Yates, you take the woman, please, and Reverend Tarrant, you take Wellkeeper.”

  “No one has to take us,” said Yameno quietly. “We’ll go with you.”

  “All right, but you just stand over there by Reverend Tarrant while I get this all straightened out.”

  Dickerson started to wander over by the place in the clearing where the travelers had sat drinking their spring water. “Hey, Dickerson,” yelled the deputy. “Stay away from that stuff. That's evidence.”

  Giselle looked at Yameno. “Should we tell the truth?” she said in a low voice.

  Yameno shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “Who would believe us?” answered Giselle. “But yes. What else can we do, but tell the truth.”

  The sun rose unseen on the eastern side of the hills as the strange procession wound its way down the mountainside to Giselle's house. The deputy led the way, followed by Jarvis Tarrant and Wellkeeper, side by side wherever the path would allow. After them came Giselle, followed by Clare. The hunters, except fo
r Tom who stayed to guard the clearing, came behind carrying the bodies of the cougar and the hawk hanging from a long tree branch across the shoulders of two of the men. Keegan and Micah came last. The deputy would take the prisoners into the county jail in Robertsville, and then return with the proper equipment to gather the “evidence”.

  Giselle looked out toward the Earth Woman Tree Woman, standing at the edge of the cliff, and tried to remember the magic, but could feel nothing but a cold fear at the pit of her stomach. What was her sister going to say? What would people say when they heard the truth? Would anyone believe it? For sure she’d lose her job. Ninas Twei and the Weaving Tree floated farther and farther away in her mind, like a good book she had once read. All she could feel was the cold frightening reality of now.

  Micah looked over at Keegan, but the older man seemed deep in thought. What did we see? Was it G-d, or something evil? All these people are pretending they didn't see it – but I know I did. And Keegan saw it, too, he thought. The teacher spoke to Wellkeeper about telling the truth and said no one would believe them. Dear G-d, help me know what to do? I feel certain I’ll believe them.

  Jarvis Tarrant moved up next to Yameno again after a narrow place in the path. Why? he thought. Why do I feel this need to be close to this man? He seems so calm. He doesn't feel “evil”. He felt the weight of his gun pulling down on his right arm. What if I had shot the cougar? What if I had shot Hazel?

  That damn Amundsen, thought the deputy. If he hadn't shot them this craziness wouldn't have happened. I wonder how many of those men saw it? No one besides the kidnappers said anything. If nobody else says anything we'll be all right. We'll just pretend Hazel and Dan never were a part of this thing.

  Dickerson, walking toward the end of the line, broke the silence. “Well, what do you think of that, Coffman? Amundsen killed a devil and he didn't even need my silver bullet. It was Hazel, you know. Did you see it? She was a devil all these years, and we didn't even know it. Remember when we were kids and she used to play with us? She was probably a devil even then. I'll bet being devils runs in her family. Wait 'til my wife hears about all this.”

  Well, that will take care of it, thought the deputy. Those who saw it will think that Hazel and Dan were devils. That won't be taken seriously in court. So, the only bodies are of a cougar and a hawk, and that's that. We need to find the children, but a search of the woods should do that.

  Luhanada

  Waves of pain filled the vortex as Luha tumbled through it. Gray – whirling swirls of dark and dirty gray, and so much pain.

  No sound. Time – stretched.

  She floated, aware, unaware, feeling, unfeeling, floating.

  Is this forever? Did I fail? And Dan – Tata? She tried to look, but all she saw was the swirling dark gray.

  Alone. No arms, no legs, no paws – nothing. Nothing but gray.

  She remembered everything: Gunther lifting the gun. Changing. Running. Tata flying down the path ahead of her. Tata screeching and falling. Her cougar voice screaming. And then darkness. Where was he? Where was she? Shouldn’t they be like Singing Swan and Tuwillia? Shouldn’t they be at Ninas Twei if they died as their Tla Twei?

  Did Ninas Twei die, too? All that pain. All that pain at the dance.

  She sank into despair, and time stretched some more.

  Tata

  “Tata, Tata.”

  He could hear her calling, but it was so far away, and her voice seemed to be fading farther and farther from him as he tumbled through the darkness and the pain of the vortex.

  “Tata.”

  He stretched his wings, finding balance. The pain seemed to slip away, and the darkness grew lighter.

  “Tata.”

  Perhaps she lived. Maybe that was why her voice was so distant. Maybe she was alive! He stretched his wings, gliding in ever widening circles. The vortex pulled him. Energy popped around him like fireworks and matter swirled in beautiful spirals of pale color. He thought he heard one last “Tata,” – a whisper, maybe only a thought, and her voice disappeared.

  APPENDIX I

  People, Places, Organizations, and Terminology

  TERMS RELATING TO THE DANCE OF LIFE:

  Tsin Twei – The Dance of Life, where all of earth’s species, except one, dance and sing together to ensure the continuance of life on earth.

  Din Tsin Twei – the mountain valley in Ninas Twei where the Tsin Twei takes place.

  Ninas Twei – the mystical world of the Tsin Twei.

  Tla Twei – the mystical, but corporal form humans must transform to before going to Ninas Twei. Plural is Tla Twein.

  Totem – an object that helps a human get in touch with their Tla Twei. A picture, a carving, stuffed animals, etc.

  Grandsoul – the souls of the members of a species living today joined together into one grandsoul allowing empathetic understanding between the members of that species.

  PLACES AND PEOPLES:

  Uhs – (pronounced “ŭs”) Nation where story takes place.

  Uhsians – (pronounced ŭs-ē-ăn) The people of Uhs.

  Bayomar – A large city which sprawls around a crescent shaped bay on the western coast of Uhs.

  Arundel – Small unincorporated community 200 miles north of Bayomar on the coast road.

  Robertsville – Larger community, county seat, inland from Arundel on the Interstate Highway.

  Tuwillia River – River near Arundel named after the local Indian word for turtle.

  Tuwillian Indians – Indians who used to have a village on the river near Arundel.

  CHARACTERS: (Tla Twei, if applicable is in parenthesis)

  Giselle's family and friends, before leaving Bayomar:

  Giselle Raphael – Teacher. (Earth Woman Tree Woman).

  Monica – Giselle's sister.

  Rod – Monica's husband, a lawyer.

  Samuel – Giselle’s principal in Bayomar.

  Mysterious homeless woman – Sings to Giselle.

  People of Arundel and Robertsville:

  Gabriela “Nicki” Nichols – Principal of the small elementary school in Arundel.

  Yameno (Wolfwind in Tuwillian) Wellkeeper – keeper of the sacred spring. (Wolf)

  Hazel Fraya – Local librarian. (Luhanada Moonmother, cougar in Tuwillian)

  Greta Fraya – Hazel’s grandmother. (also cougar)

  Dan Burroughs – Local gardener and scholar. (Tata Sundancer, Red-tailed Hawk in Tuwillian)

  Enid Amundsen – A student in Giselle’s class and Hazel’s niece. (Chachuli Treerunner, squirrel in Tuwillian) (also called Ratatosk, Norse squirrel messenger to the gods)

  Jesús McCrae – A student in Giselle’s class. (Kumni MakerMan, coyote in Tuwillian)

  Gunther Amundsen – Enid’s grandfather.

  Mary Amundsen – Hazel's sister, Gunther’s wife, Enid’s grandmother. (Tree swallow)

  Emma Amundsen – Enid's mother.

  Bidewells – Former owners of Giselle's house.

  Humphries – Real estate agent.

  Rev. Jarvis Tarrant – Minister at Church of Those Born Again in Jesus

  Muriel Chase – Historian, wife of Mark Chase.

  Mark Chase – Retired doctor, Muriel’s husband.

  Rabbi Micah Levinson – Rabbi from Robertsville Interfaith Peace Council.

  Reverend Clare Yates – Methodist minister from Robertsville Interfaith Peace Council.

  Father Keegan Gilchrist – Catholic priest from Robertsville Interfaith Council, specialist in the study of Satanism.

  Coffman – Owner of local hardware store.

  Tom – Coffman’s grandson.

  Tom’s mother – unnamed

  Harding – Male teacher at Arundel Elementary School.

  Rowena Dickerson – Teacher at Arundel Elementary School.

  Dickerson – Rowena Dickerson’s husband.

  Billy McCrae – Jesus’ father.

  Dorotea McCrae – Billy’s wife, Jesus’ mother.

  Deputy Sheriff – County Sh
eriff. No name.

  Yameno’s great aunt – last of the Tuwillians in Arundel until Yameno comes back. Unnamed.

  Ninas Twei:

  Singing Swan – A Tuwillian who died many years ago. (Trumpeter Swan)

  Tuwillia – A Tuwillian who died many, many, many years ago. (Turtle)

  Organizations:

  One Earth Together (OET) – A social and ecological justice group with members all over world.

  Appendix II

  Ninas Twei and the Tla Twein

  NINAS TWEI:

  Note: When I use the term “mythical” I do not in any way mean to denigrate the deities of any religion. Mythical does not mean “nonexistent,” only that these characters are used to tell the stories of a particular religion or tradition, and usually are more than human.

  TLA TWEI – the mystical, but corporal form humans must transform to before going to Ninas Twei. It can be a mythical character found in some tradition or one created by the human. In many traditions, such as the Tuwillian tradition, the mythical creatures take the form of animals. They are not real animals, but the tradition’s perception of that animal and its powers. Often their names reflect this. In this book the hawk is named Tata Sundancer; the cougar, Luhanada Moonmother. Those humans who choose an animal without associating it with a mythical tradition, give that animal mystical characteristics themselves, making their animal Tla Twei a mythical creature, rather than the “real” animal. Plural is TLA TWEIN.

  When a human’sTla Twei is that of a goddess or god, they have not become the actual goddess, but their own perception of that goddess. They become imbued with the perceived powers of the goddess. This is much like the spiritual practice of Charya Nritya, “a mental process of seeing oneself as having the appearance, ornaments, inner qualities, and awareness of the deity one is envisioning” practiced by the Newar Buddhist priests of Nepal. https://www.dancemandal.com/dance-mandal-offerings/

  TOTEM – an object that helps a human get in touch with their Tla Twei. A picture, a carving, stuffed animals, etc.

  GRANDSOUL – the souls of the members of a species living today joined together into one grandsoul allowing empathetic understanding between the members of that species. The grandsoul is not one member of the species, but most of the members of an entire species in a kind of mind meld. Some may drop out of the grandsoul, but if too many leave, their grandsoul disintegrates. If most humans open themselves to each other empathetically, they can form a grandsoul, even if some do not join.

  Members of the nonhuman species don’t need a Tla Twei to go to Ninas Twei because they are a part of the grandsoul for their species, and therefore part of the Tsin Twei automatically, instantly. They could take a Tla Twei if they wished, but they have no need to. The humans don’t need to take their Tla Twei after they’ve become a grandsoul, but their grandsoul is very tenuous. Using a Tla Twei enhances their ability to be empathetic and will help them stay a grandsoul.

  THE TSIN TWEI is like a grand-grandsoul! In this dance all species have an empathetic understanding of the needs of the other species. It makes possible the grand compromise of life.

  BECOMING YOUR TLA TWEI AT DEATH – if a traveler to Ninas Twei dies in her Tla Twei she finds herself at Ninas Twei in his or her Tla Twei form, a protector of the Tsin Twei.

  Connie Pwll Walck Tyler, activist, teacher, writer, and composer, has a BA and MA in English but received her most important education working in the Civil Rights and Peace movements in the sixties. She taught public school for twenty-one years working with children, pre-school through high school, from every different background imaginable. She earned an MA/MDiv in Theology and the Arts from the Pacific School of Religion where she did her field education in homeless shelters.

  Recent published works:

  Dancing the Deep Hum, one woman’s ideas on how to live in a dancing, singing universe, memoir/self-help.

  Humming on the High Wire, poetry.

  Recent Musical Performances:

  Keke’s Song, first place winner in the MTAC Composers Today State Contest, performed in Oakland, CA at the MTAC convention.

  Brigid, Fiery Arrow and Now the Dove Flies, performed in San Francisco at Fresh Voices.

  Discography:

  A Deep Hum, seven songs of creation, under the direction of Arlene Sagan of the Berkeley Community Chorus.

  Cats and Fools, two suites for piano.

  In Praise of Animals, seven poems about animals, set for voice and piano.

  On YouTube: Disposable People in a Throwaway World, sung by Pauli Amornkul. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUwBFtMg7gw

  Tyler lives in Berkeley, CA with her husband, two dogs, and two cats.

  More information about Tyler’s works, and the Earth Woman Tree Woman Quartet can be found at the Deep Hum Productions website: https://deephum.com/

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