Under the Same Sky (25 page)

A smile lit in Peter’s eyes that Andrew hadn’t seen before. The little boy followed Seamus without a moment’s hesitation, leaving Andrew and Janet slightly bemused in his wake. Flora clung to Janet’s hand, but tugged on it, hurrying so she wouldn’t lose sight of her brother.

The
Boyd of Glasgow
carried her passengers for three long months, holding together when massive waves dwarfed the ship and flushed gallons of freezing seawater through her cracks and joints. The wind was often brisk and the evenings sharp. The sky alternated between a gray expanse into nothingness and a blue so vivid it hurt to look into it for too long. At times it was easy to forget there was any land at all, so insular did they become on their floating home.

Andrew adapted easily to the rhythm of the sea, and worked harder than he’d ever worked before. Sometimes, when he took in the vast emptiness around him, he wondered at his decision to leave Scotland for this rocking, stinking craft. At other times he let the wind and surf pound at his body, slicking back his hair, burning his eyes, and he exulted in the fact that he had had enough courage to risk doing it.

It didn’t take long for Andrew to get used to sleeping in his allotted hammock in the crew’s quarters. It was different from curling up on a hard forest floor, but aside from the tight quarters and the stink of the neighbouring sailors, it wasn’t an unpleasant change. On calm nights when it wasn’t too cold, he lay on the deck, lulled by the lapping waves, admiring how the Milky Way smeared its translucent shine throughout the heavens.

One evening, in celebration of a particularly windy day, the crew broke out the whisky and danced to Seamus’s fiddle. Andrew enjoyed the party, but the night was cold and he was tired. He headed down to his wool blanket and hammock, trying to ignore the dancing feet on the deck above his head and the raised voices of tone-deaf sailors. After a while, he rolled onto his side and folded his arm into a pillow, then, still smiling, closed his eyes and sank into sleep.

Maggie was there, waiting. Her blue eyes moved through him, warming his blood with their intensity. The soft line of her smile roused his own, although he still couldn’t see her. He shivered at the hint of the breeze, believing it was her fingers on his ear, tucking the hair back from his face. It wasn’t like the last time, when they spoke, when they actually held each other. This was more like a dream, reality twisted with his subconscious. But it was real all the same.

Then she was gone. The sudden loss awoke him, and he opened his eyes to the water-stained boards over his head. A tickle of sea air teased over his face, whispering through the vents in the cabin walls.

She had been there. The knowledge held him like an embrace.

PART 5: MAGGIE

Healing and Hurting

The Cherokee village revolved around Waw-Li. So did my life. At first I approached cautiously, wary of her flame but needy of its heat. When I drew closer, she brought me in, making me part of her fire.

Waw-Li asked me to call her Grandmother, as the others did. She taught me many things, not least of which was the ability to calm my thoughts and drift into a place where my dreams could find me. She showed me how to ease myself into a trance, allowing me to direct my dreams, to use them and free them. At those moments I felt anything was possible. I lost all sense of time.

Every day for four months I walked from my house to the seven-sided council house, where each wall represented a different Cherokee clan. Waw-Li taught me all she could. One season passed into another, and our connection grew with each lesson. She asked me what I saw in my dreams, and I told her everything: what I heard and saw, how I felt. She interpreted what she could, building bridges
between dreams and reality. She showed me the scars buried within me, and taught me how I could use them to strengthen my life.

She taught me the mysteries of animal totems, explaining to me why the shiny blackness of a raven always brought me comfort, why I always saw my world from a bird’s-eye view.

“You are the raven,” she said, her old woman’s voice clear as spring water. She said shamans among the Cherokee often spoke through ravens. Some could change their human shape into that of the bird itself when it was required. The totem of the raven allowed them to pass between the worlds, between the veils of life and death, waking and dreaming.

“And there is a wolf that I see,” she said. She opened her gnarled hands, palms up, as if accepting a gift. “This wolf is in your blood. He is with you awake or asleep. You must look for the wolf.”

“Grandmother,” I said. “I have found the wolf.”

Waw-Li was the only person I ever told about Andrew. I told her how the mournful howl of a wolf brought me comfort. How I sensed the coarse fur brushing against my fingertips, but when I looked, there was nothing there. I always knew it was Andrew. When I glimpsed his dark shape treading through the night, the wary eyes softened as they met mine. I always felt safe when those eyes looked at me.

The old woman nodded, her eyes partially hidden by the slack skin of her eyelids. “The raven and the wolf,” she said. “Power between the worlds. Strength of body and belief. Loyalty beyond all else.”

A new world was opened to me through Waw-Li’s teaching. For eighteen years of my life, things
happened
. No one ever asked the reasons. My true grandmother, with her many gifts, was an enigma no one in the family discussed. They had no way of understanding her, so they didn’t try. My dreams were kept hidden within a blanket of secrecy, never surfacing until I arrived in the Cherokee village.

Now I lived in a world of magic. A world where animals and
people could exchange forms and powers. Where my gift wasn’t merely accepted, but revered.

“What is it you want, Ma-kee?” Waw-Li asked one day. “What will you do now?”

I had wondered when she would ask me that. The question wasn’t whether I would stay with the Cherokee. It was understood that wherever I chose to live in the future, I would always be one of them. No, this was different. She was asking about a practical use for my gifts. Giving something back as a way to thank the spirits. She was asking me to choose a direction. Once I did that, she would help me find the path.

“Do you have ideas for me?” I asked.

“Ma-kee, you have many gifts. Your ability to communicate with the spirit world will always be with you, and you will be a wise shaman with time and practice.” She shifted on the cushion beneath her, then leaned toward me. “But there is more. The spirits blessed you with another gift. They dipped your soul into the pots of both white men and Cherokee, so you carry the minds of the two peoples. It came to me that your place should be between the two. I have asked Wahyaw to take you to the fort when he goes to trade. You will teach the white men about us, and us about them. If there is knowledge, there can be peace.”

The thought of returning to the domain of white men stopped me. Waw-Li saw me stiffen and reached over to pat my leg.

“Do not let them frighten you, child. You must always be careful, but the men who harmed you and your sisters are no longer a danger.” She brought her hand back onto her lap and smiled easily through missing teeth. “No one will make you go, Ma-kee. It is your decision.”

My decision was to follow her lead, so when Wahyaw said we would leave in a week’s time, I was ready.

Soquili wasn’t coming. He didn’t speak to me anymore. Not since the day I told him I couldn’t marry him. I knew it was a good thing he was out of my life. I only had room for Andrew. But I couldn’t help feeling an emptiness with Soquili gone. I missed him very much.

The day before we went to town, I went to join the other women as they bathed in the river. I laid my tunic on the grass and stepped in gingerly, hesitating as my foot touched the cold water. While I waited for my body to get used to the temperature, I stood still, examining the opposite bank where it rose toward a maple tree, shimmering with newborn green. Ripples of its reflection lapped the shore, ridged by pebbles that seemed to glow. I took a breath and held it as I waded into the deeper end of the pool, staying hidden and keeping quiet while I washed. I didn’t want to interrupt the ritual exchange of gossip.

“Awenasa is with child,” reported one woman.

A chorus of “Again?” danced across the water, followed by giggles and exclamations.

“I pray she receives the gift of a girl this time,” said a small voice, and there were murmured grunts of assent.

“It is said Say-Lew Adsila found a new diversion for herself at the Ceremony. Is this so?” I peeked through the branches of a weeping birch to see Say-Lew’s reaction. She was a jolly young woman with round cheeks and twinkling black eyes. She tossed her head back and laughed out loud.

“Ha!” she said. “The Ceremony is not just for prayers and dancing. Especially not when men like
that
come to our village!”

“There was one who had a sharp eye on our Soquili,” someone said, interrupting the earlier laughter.

A chill tickled through me that had nothing to do with the
temperature of the river. I hardly felt the water as it licked my neck with its icy tongue.

“Yes! I saw that! The chief’s brother’s daughter! He could not do better,” was one jovial opinion.

“Have you not seen? Soquili is already claimed! He loves the
o seronni
girl.”

“Ma-kee has great power indeed,” said a familiar voice, “but she has lost Soquili. He no longer looks her way. I do not think he will go to her again.”

I closed my eyes and felt tears swim behind my lashes. This woman, Salali, would know better than anyone else. Salali was Soquili’s mother. She gazed into the water, regret evident in her words.

“That is sad news for your house, Salali. She would have made a good wife for Soquili,” said one of her friends.

There were quiet comments I couldn’t catch, and a few brighter notes of speculation. I didn’t wait to hear more. I emerged from behind the growth and their conversation ceased. Some of the women looked away, embarrassed to have been caught gossiping. But I smiled and shrugged.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” I said. I looked at Salali. “Don’t be sad, Mother.”

It was her sympathetic gaze that was my undoing. She reached out and I went to her, letting her fold me into her arms. The other women turned away, giving us privacy. I hid my face in her shoulder and wept. Soquili had been my protector and my friend. I had never been loved before. Not in that way.

But the tears I shed that morning were brief. They fell out of disappointment, not despair. The joy I awaited was on a ship somewhere, coming to me.

Wahyaw and five other warriors came for me the next day. Kokila said good-bye and reminded me she wanted stories about our journey when I returned. Adelaide stood beside her, staring at me with such intensity I almost turned back. She had used every argument possible to try and persuade me to stay away from the town and the white men in it. I wondered if she would ever trust another white man again.

The cool spring air roused our horses as they trotted from the village. I was glad of the furs we carried and wrapped a large deerskin around me for warmth, settling in for a long ride. Wahyaw said the journey would take three days if the weather held.

He rode beside me like a guardian for most of the trip. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, though when he did speak, it was obvious the words had been carefully considered beforehand. After an hour of silence, he cleared his throat and I realised he was about to honour me with one of his rare spoken thoughts.

“I am sorry for you and Soquili,” he said, still looking straight ahead. I hadn’t expected to hear a note of regret in his voice. “He had plans to wed you, Ma-kee.”

“I know,” I said. “He will find someone better suited.”

We rode in silence for a while. A small brown bird swooped in low beneath his horse’s chest, and the animal jerked its head up. Wahyaw didn’t seem to notice. He was thinking. He squinted slightly, as if he were trying to look into the future.