Witch Child: Sorceress Part 11

'I have thrown nothing of yours away.'

'Good. Because I reckon I'm going to stay.'

'What happened?'

'I didn't like it. Didn't like how they was with me.'

'Mrs Peterson?'

'Not so much her. Her husband. The Captain.'

'Did he not treat you well?'

'Weren't just that.' He turned from me, his eyes suddenly bright with tears. 'There were other things, too.'

I waited for him to recover and go on.

'When I seen how it was, I changed my mind. I wanted to go back with Wannalancet, but I was held fast. That woman, Mrs Peterson, commenced fussing over me. Had me scrubbed, and none too gently, although I weren't in need of a wash. She put me into boy's clothes. I forgot how wool itches next to the skin, and the boots pinched my feet. I asked for my old clothes back, at least my moccasins, but it was like I asked for something dirty.

'They commenced to pray over me and sermonise. I'd forgot how hard wood benches are, and the minister up there telling lies. Mrs Peterson, I didn't mind her so much, but her husband had set ideas on how a boy should be and they did not sit well with me. He begins speechifying about order and discipline and all the time he has a switch and he's beating the words out into his other hand. I looks at the girls, his daughters. They listen with their heads down, and don't dare catch his eyes, mine neither.

'That night, I'm in bed and I'm weighing one side along another. My pa weren't that way, and it's bin a long time since anyone told me what to do, or ordered me about when I don't see no reason for it. She says I ain't a servant, but that's how it feels to me. So, I creep out dead of night, I can see in the dark and move with no noise. I find my clothes, the ones you made, put on the midden pile. They don't smell so good, but I put 'em on anyways, thinking they will hide my own scent if they send dogs after me. Daylight sees me take the trail north. I'd taken good note of which way we'd come, like Sparks Fire taught me.

'I ain't alone in that. A whole army been on the move. English men on horses. I came across what they'd done. Shot 'em down like dogs. Some were Nashua, I reckon, by the markings on 'em. But some I knew. Been here the whole time, never took the war trail at all, but the soldiers weren't asking, just shooting. They shot some right in the back. That's how much cowards they are. No man would do that. Scalps taken too, what kind of white folks would do that?'

'How do you know it was not another tribe?'

'They was white all right. I seen the hoof prints milled about in the mud and blood and I came across their camp later that night. Sight farther on there's a village all burnt. I pushed on past, leaving myself no time to rest. I feared what I'd find. I feared you'd be gone, I feared ... ' He bit his lip to crescent redness, trying to hold his tears back. 'Glad you ain't, that's all.

'I came back because ... all I got by way of family is right here.' He looked at me. 'You're the nearest I've ever known to a mother. And ... ' He looked at Sparks Fire now, his eyes glittering with unshed tears. 'And I figured, since my own pa's dead now, I figured I could choose my own, and it weren't going to be Captain Peterson.'

Sparks Fire smiled and reached out his hand to touch the boy's stubbly head.

'A man would do well to have such a one as his son. Naugatuck will be proud to call you brother.'

'I too would be proud.' Black Fox had been listening all the while, resting on his sleeping platform. He rose from his place in the shadows and came towards the boy. 'You have shown yourself to be as brave and cunning as any warrior among us. You have suffered much to come back and you are here because you have chosen your people. You are one of us now.'

He took out his scalping knife, testing the thin, finely honed blade as he squatted next to Ephraim. The boy did not even wince as the knife sliced through the flesh at the base of his thumb. Black Fox cut himself in the same manner and clasped their two hands together, binding them round with his head cloth so their two bloods ran together.

'Now we are of one blood. We are brothers, you and I.'

Ephraim opened his mouth, but no words came. Instead tears spilled down his cheeks. Black Fox waited until the storm had stilled, then he lifted the boy and carried him to his sleeping place.

Sparks Fire shook tobacco from his pouch and relit his pipe. 'Our fires in the south have been quenched with blood. We cannot go back.'

'We cannot stay here.' Black Fox came back. Ephraim was now sleeping. 'I know of this Peterson. Ephraim did well to get away from him, but he is ruthless and he does not like to be beaten. He will come after the boy.'

'Wannalancet talks of going north, to the land of the French.'

'To Canada?' I asked.

'Some of his people are already there, at a place the French call St Francois.' He reached forward and took a brand from the fire to light his pipe. 'The French have no love for the English. There can be no peace now.'

'We must join them.' Black Fox squatted down by the fire.

Sparks Fire grimaced. 'The place is full of Blackrobes, they crawl over it like fleas on a dog.'

'Blackrobes?' I had not heard the term before, but I was taken by a sudden coldness, as when a shadow pa.s.ses over the sun.

'Jesuits.' He laughed but there was no mirth in it. 'They make your Puritans look like a bunch of fat partridge.'

'Where will we go then?' Black Fox was finding it hard to contain his impatience.

'It is for each one to decide. It is a hard thing to leave the land of one's birth, of the birth of one's grandfathers and their grandfathers. I thought it would be the land of my children, my children's children, but that is not to be. We are torn up like trees in the forest. It is as if a great wind twists us from our roots.'

His eyes became dull, like chestnuts left from one season to another. He squatted on his heels, elbows on his knees, head resting on his forearms, and stayed that way for a long time. He rose and left us without another word.

Days pa.s.sed and Sparks Fire stayed in his state of melancholy. He shunned company, walking by the lake, or taking his canoe out from first light to night falling. Black Fox was all for leaving, but I argued to stay a while longer. Sparks Fire had been a good friend to me. I would not desert him now.

On the third day, Naugatuck came to me. He was worried about his father.

'He looks to decide what to do. Can't you help him?' the young man asked. 'You are strong in spirit, so Black Fox says.'

'The future is as closed to me as it is to you or anyone. Sparks Fire seeks solitude because he looks for a sign.'

He nodded. The copper discs swinging from his ears and s.p.a.ced round his neck glowed in the firelight.

'So do his people. Other bands are leaving. Let us hope the spirits speak to him soon, or he may find that he is the only one left at the lake.'

g A week went on like this, then Sparks Fire came to me just at sun rising. I knew straight away that something had happened. His step was light, not heavy and dragging, and when he pushed the flap to my wigwam open, his eyes were full of their old fire.

I bid him break fast with us and then sent Ephraim to join the other boys at play.

I could see by his face that he had received the sign he wanted. We sat in silence until he was ready to tell me what he had seen.

'Last night as I walked by the lake, I heard the wild geese calling. Later, I dreamed I stood in the same place and, looking up, I saw the great lines of them flying over me, spread across the sky like broad beaten arrowheads. In the dream I could understand their words to me. They spoke of the lake and the Place of the Flint.'

I frowned and shook my head. Dreams are of the greatest importance in divining what to do; but I was at a loss to know what this one meant.

'What does it mean?'

'We will go to Missisquoi, the place the Abenaki call Mazipskoik, the Place of the Flint. They have a village there on a great water that they call Bitawbagw, the lake the French have named Champlain.'

'Have you told Naugatuck?'

Sparks Fire nodded. 'I have told him my dream and such a plan was in his mind too.'

Black Fox spoke up. 'He and I will spend the winter hunting and trapping, getting furs for trading. To carry on this fight we need powder and muskets, to get them we must go to the French at Mount Royale.'

28.

Alison Ellman Alison loved Montreal. It was doubly foreign, being Canadian and French at the same time, and she liked that. Seemed like she hadn't been out of the Inst.i.tute for months, let alone out of Boston. It was good to get away. She had booked into a hotel in the Latin Quarter. She had to confess to enjoying herself, even if her researches weren't going too well. She was relying on local knowledge and her contact at McGill didn't sound too hopeful. She was meeting him for dinner, by then he might have something for her. In the meantime, she was free to spend the day sightseeing, walking round the old port and Vieux Montreal, reacquainting herself with the city.

'Your girl is an enigma.' That's what her friend Glen told her when she met him in one of the old- town restaurants. 'If she was here, there's no trace of her.'

Alison poured herself a gla.s.s of wine and tried to hide her disappointment.

'But she could have come here?'

'It's entirely possible.' Glen took a bite of his steak. 'Especially if she got caught up in King Philip's War. It was a pretty vicious confrontation. The New England tribes took a pretty good whipping down there and many of them did come north, some of them bringing white captives.'

'But she would not have been a captive.'

'White woman with a native band? She'd have been noticed.'

Glen finished his frites and dabbed his napkin to his lips.

'I'll see if I can find out more for you. I've a colleague at UQAM. He could know something. It's more his field. I checked with his office. He's been at a conference but is expected back in a day or two.'

g There was nothing to do but wait. Alison decided that she might as well go up to Quebec. She had friends in the city and she'd promised herself some time with them. She could stay over and then hit the libraries, searching the archives herself for any reference to Mary.

She returned to Montreal empty-handed and feeling more than a little dispirited. When she got into her room, the message light on the phone was winking. She rang down to the front desk.

'Mademoiselle Ellman? We have a fax for you.'

Alison stood up, then sat down, then stood again. She paced the room, fax in her hand. Mary had been here. Maybe she'd walked the very same streets Alison had been walking. Glen's friend had given him a reference to a white woman, English, travelling with a native band fleeing New England after King Philip's War. He'd even suggested a possible route they might have taken to get here.

Alison stood at the window, trying to conjure Mary's presence. Ordinarily she liked being near the heart of the city, but now the sounds coming up from the streets all around only served to make her agitation worse. Mary was an enigma, Glen was right. What he'd found out just added to that. It asked more questions than it answered. How did she get here? What happened to her along the way? Where did she go after that? The solution to this, to Mary, did not lie in the modern city; neither did it lie in books, museums and libraries. It lay with Agnes.

Alison sat down on the bed, pondering the importance of the girl. Agnes had made no contact; Alison didn't even know where she was for sure, but she would have to find her. It was time their researches came together.

29.

Looking Gla.s.s Lake Agnes woke again with no idea where she was, or even who she was, but she could remember everything. Scenes came back vivid, new-minted. It was like accessing someone else's memory, there was none left of her own.

She knew she had to do something.

Aunt M was sitting at the table by the window. She came over as soon as she saw that Agnes was awake.

'Are you OK? Do you want anything? Can I fix you something?'

Aunt M knew she was fussing like an old hen, but she was so glad to have her niece back again. Several times tears had leaked from Agnes, seeping from the corners of her eyes, as though whatever she was seeing was too much to bear. Aunt M had been strongly tempted to wake her then, even though she knew such intervention would be dangerous.

'I feel fine.'

Aunt M smiled her relief.

'Well, not fine exactly.' Agnes frowned, her mind still clouded, her thoughts woolly. 'There's something I need you to do.'

'Oh, and what's that?'

'I need you to listen.'

Her aunt nodded. She understood. When Agnes spoke again it was to recount the unfolding story, scene after scene. Her aunt listened gravely with the unchanging expression of one long practised in committing the spoken word to memory.

When Agnes had finished, Aunt M reached up for the maps and spread them out.

'They must have started about here.' She pointed with a stubby finger to the ragged-shaped lake on the map. 'And gone along these waterways.'

She got up from the table and fished about in a pot for a magic marker pen. The point squeaked as she made a fat black line on the map's surface. She kept up a running commentary, marking out the route they might have taken. As she spoke, Agnes saw it, half in her own world, half in another.

g They removed at the time of falling leaves. Canoes laden with everything they had, everything they would need for the winter ahead: food, pots, clothing, furs and coverings, mats to build shelters. Men worked to make the birch-bark canoes ready, re-sewing seams with black spruce root and caulking each one with resin to make sure that the craft were proof against the water. They built the sides up to take the extra load and decorated the craft from stern to prow, wetting and sc.r.a.ping the bark, marking on signs to protect and preserve. They painted the paddles with resin mixed with dye, then sc.r.a.ped that back to show the things they had seen in their dreams.

The old, the children, dogs and baggage were placed in the centre of the canoes. Women and men sat to the front and rear of them. One in the prow and one aft, to steer and guide, two in the middle to push the craft on. They plied their craft with great skill, gliding in the slipstream, working the ebb to move against the main flow of the water. As they paddled, they sang, chanting out the stories of the tribe, from the first times to this present removal, and every dip of the paddle told the river of their dreams.

Aunt M told off the names of the rivers and mountain ranges and Agnes saw the water squeezed between great rearing cliffs into white surging torrents, tumbling over rocks and whirled round boulders as big as houses. In some places the rivers became ever narrower and ran ever shallower until they gave out altogether. Then they had to leave the water and carry the canoes and burdens until they found a stream to bear them again.

The journey became a series of flashes: dawn paling the eastern sky, the sun sinking behind the trees marking the glittering water with bars of darkness. Red campfires sparked on some spit jutting into the flowing stream, or by the sh.o.r.es of some lonely lake where the ducks and geese rested on their way down to the south. Men hunted, barely to be seen in the shadows of the forest. Women scoured for berries, nuts, storing the fruits of autumn against the coming winter, just as the squirrel does. Agnes saw medicine plants close up, turned to nod and smile at a young woman she had never seen in life but knew to be White Deer, Naugatuck's young wife. She felt the need to hurry, to collect nuts, seeds, leaves, roots and bark, before the land froze and became covered in snow.

She saw the bobbing flotilla follow the flow of rivers great and small until they reached a place where two great rivers joined. From here the pace hastened. In the north, winter comes early. They travelled under blue skies, but the forests were turning; overhanging trees showered them with gold. They were moving up into new mountains, the rivers rus.h.i.+ng and wild. Frost rimed the ground and whitened the temporary shelters.

'Guess they'd be about here,' Aunt M said quietly, her marker resting at the point on the great divide where one river system gave way to another.

The way was steep and difficult. Everything had to be carried, often taking several journeys, until they reached the head of yet another river. The Winooski. This was the river they sought. It ran downward all the way to the lake.

Aunt M pointed to Lake Champlain, a narrow twisted shape, a blue patch on the map. Agnes felt the swiftness of the river under her. She was taking a gut-wrenching terror ride down to the lake, which was no longer called Champlain but Bitawbagw, the Door to the Country. She felt almost sick as the swell and movement of the waves caused the canoe to tip and yaw.

Then she was no longer in the craft, but soaring up and up, as the sun set, turning the water to a sheet of red. She was looking down now at the thin line of craft turning for the north: frail and tiny, like little leaf boats made by children, on the great expanse of water.

30.