Whale Song (5 page)

“
Your friend Sarah,” Nana finished without turning around.

Casting the old woman a nervous look, I sat down at the table. Goldie passed me a plate of oatmeal cookies and I took one.

“
Take another one,” Nana said behind me.

I peeked over my shoulder. She still wasn’t facing us.

How did she know?

Without warning, Nana looked at me and smiled. “Eat. You’re too skinny. I can always make more.”

The rest of that afternoon, I felt her eyes burning into the back of my head. They seemed to follow me everywhere I went.

“
Told you you’d love her,” Goldie said under her breath.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. I thought Nana was a bit spooky.

“
Hey,” my new friend said later. “I’ll walk you home.”

As we strolled along the shore, she told me that Nana was a respected healer. Almost everyone in Bamfield went to her for natural homeopathic remedies. She was knowledgeable about every plant that grew on the island and she could heal cuts and bruises with a few leaves from her garden. Every morning, she made special teas from tree bark and other ingredients that induced sleep or calmed the nerves.

“
And she has a special gift,” Goldie said mysteriously.

“
What?” I asked.

She told me that sometimes Nana would simply look at someone and prescribe them a special remedy―before
they
even knew they were sick.

“
That’s because she sees auras,” Goldie said.

She explained to me that auras were colored lights that her grandmother saw around someone’s head or body. Few people saw those lights. Only those with
‘the gift’
.

Nana was a wise woman―in more ways than I realized.

The following weekend, Goldie invited me to stay for a sleepover. We raced back to my place to get permission from my parents. Then we collected my pajamas, toothbrush and some games.

Back at her house, we unrolled sleeping bags in the loft overlooking the living room. The ceiling was slanted and we had to duck in some areas. Once, I forgot and walked straight into the beam. Goldie spent the rest of the night yelling
“Duck!”
every time I stood up.

That night, we munched on homemade trail mix and buttery popcorn. We told stories and giggled long into the night―until Goldie’s mom yelled at us to go to sleep.

The Dixons were very nice, even when we kept them up until the wee hours of the morning. Mr. Dixon was a commercial fisherman and was often out on his fishing boat. Mrs. Dixon wove beautiful baskets with pictures of animals on them. She sold her baskets in a charming craft shop in town.

Every morning, they left Goldie and her sister Shonda with Nana for most of the day. Shonda was a quiet child. We rarely ever saw her. She spent most of the time with Nana, helping her in the kitchen. The Dixon house always smelled like fresh-baked cookies and warm bread and Nana often gave me treats to take home to my mother.

One day, she taught me how to make bannock―fried bread served warm and dripping with butter and honey. I made a perfect batch, according to her.

“
Are you sure you aren’t Indian?” she teased in her raspy voice.

She would often comment on my dark coloring and my love for nature. She said that I was part Indian, but that I just didn’t know which part yet.

I think she made it her duty to help me find it.

Usually when I slept over, we’d have a bonfire outside. We’d sit around the crackling fire and roast hotdogs and marshmallows on sharpened sticks.

Nana would tell us incredible stories. Sometimes, she’d even act them out. I loved listening to her―especially her old Nootka legends. She would mesmerize us with the adventures of Eagle or Bear. She would scare us with stories of strange and fierce creatures.

Then one night, she told us the legend of Sisiutl.

“
Sisiutl was a great sea monster,” Nana said in her raspy voice. “It roamed the land and sea of the Nootka and Kwakiutl peoples. The monster was huge and ugly, with two great heads. And it could change into different shapes and sizes. Sisiutl could disguise itself, so it could prey upon unsuspecting animals or humans. It was believed that anyone who looked upon this great monster would be turned to stone.”

She turned her back to us for a moment. When she whipped her head around and roared, I shrieked, toppling backward over the log that I was sitting on.

“
It’s a mask,” Goldie said with a giggle as she helped me up.

I stared at Nana, horrified.

Her wrinkled face had been transformed into a terrifying, grotesque creature. The mask was made of wood and painted in dark, bright colors. Spiked black hair sprung from the top, and it had long earlobes and tattoos on its face. But it was the mask’s expression that frightened me most. The creature’s eyes bulged, its mouth a huge gaping hole. A permanent scream.

“
My great, great grandfather once knew a man who met with this monster,” Nana said, her voice muffled by the mask. “His body is still frozen in stone, somewhere in the mountains.”

She hobbled over to a huckleberry bush and picked a handful of the tiny red berries. She crushed them between her hands.

“
It is believed that if a warrior could injure Sisiutl and take some of the monster’s blood and rub it on his skin, the blood would make the warrior’s skin so strong that no enemy’s weapons could pierce it.” She rubbed the juice on my arm. “So many warriors tried in vain to get some of Sisiutl’s blood. And so many men died trying.” She removed the mask and looked at me with kind, caring eyes. “Great warriors never stop trying.”

With her strange hair and knowing eyes, Nana made us believe almost anything. She would often watch me during her storytelling and sometimes I wondered if she was trying to tell me something.

Now I know she was.

One morning in August, I was surprised to find my mother waiting for me outside on the deck. On the picnic table beside her was a basket filled with fruit and muffins that she had made the night before.

“
I’ve decided to come with you today,” she announced. “To meet Goldie’s grandmother.”

Nana had been asking about my mother and I desperately wanted them to meet. My parents had already met Goldie. My mother liked her so much that she often asked my friend if she wanted to stay for a sleepover. Goldie never refused. And she never said no to dinner at my house either. She loved my mother’s Italian cooking.

I pointed at the basket. “Is that for Nana?”

“
I wanted to bring her something,” my mother said, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully. “But I don’t know if she likes lemon muffins. What do you think, Sarah?”

“
I think she’ll love them.”

We set off down the path and followed the beach around the bend. We passed the boat dock where a small outboard was moored, then the Dixon’s house came into view. The house seemed unusually silent, almost abandoned. Outside, some of Shonda’s toys were scattered in the grass and a half-woven basket sat on a table next to a lawn chair. Hanging from a tree, a wind chime tinkled merrily in the soft breeze.

I knocked on the door. “Is anyone here?”

No answer.

I stepped inside.

“
Sarah,” my mother admonished.

“
They told me to walk right in,” I said. “Sometimes they go for walks in the woods.”

I looked around the room. On the floor near the rocking chair sat a laundry basket. It was piled high with freshly laundered clothes, a few folded shirts nearby. In the kitchen, something fragrant was brewing in a pot on top of the stove.

“
Goldie!” I yelled. “Where are you?”

My mother flinched at the sound of my loud voice.

“
Their door is never closed to friends,” I said, grinning. “Nana told me that. Can we wait for them?”

“
I guess so.”

It was obvious that she was more than a little uncomfortable about walking into a stranger’s home before being invited in.

“
It’s an interesting house,” she said, admiring the colorful Indian artwork and black argillite carvings.

The Dixon house was made of cedar, inside and out. It was small compared to our house. There were three bedrooms upstairs. Goldie’s parents had the largest one, Goldie and Shonda shared a room and then there was Nana’s. There was also the small loft area just off the upper hall, where Goldie and I slept when I came over for a sleepover.

The furniture in the living room on the lower floor was old and worn, but very comfortable. A large woven rug in rich amber and forest-green tones covered most of the floor between the couch and the fireplace. There was a simple kitchen with a table and six chairs crammed into one corner. Copper pots and pans decorated the kitchen walls and bunches of freshly picked herbs wrapped with twine hung on hooks to dry.

“
I’m sure they’ll be back soon,” I said anxiously.

My mother glanced at her watch. “We’ll wait just a few more minutes.”

We sat down at the kitchen table and I stared at the clock on the wall.

Ten minutes passed. Then we heard voices and footsteps.

“
Sarah?” Nana called from outside. “Are you in there, child?”

Goldie, Shonda and Nana stepped inside.

“
How’d you know it was me?” I asked Goldie’s grandmother.

The old woman winked. “The birds told me.”

My mother smiled and reached out a hand. “I’m Sarah’s mother. Daniella Richardson.”

Nana did something that shocked me. She brushed away my mother’s offered hand and engulfed her in a hug. My mother didn’t quite know what to do.

I hid my face so that I wouldn’t burst out laughing.

What an odd sight they made―my tall, slim mother gripped in a bear hug by a short, plump Indian woman.

“
Call me Nana,” the old woman said. “Everyone does. I’m so glad you came to visit me.” She smiled. “Daniella. That’s a very pretty name.”

“
Thank you,” my mother replied.

Goldie tugged at my hand. “Let’s go down to the beach.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Nana opening the basket my mother had brought. She pulled out a lemon muffin and bit into it hungrily while they chatted about our move to Canada. Watching the two women, I was happy that my mother had someone she could talk to. I knew that she missed her parents who were vacationing in Italy.

We brought Shonda with us down to the beach and watched the little girl play in the sand at the water’s edge. She found some baby crabs in a small pool of water and brought them over to show us. She was a happy child with big black eyes. Sometimes she would gaze across the bay and I wondered if she was thinking of her brother.

“
Do you miss Robert?” I asked Goldie.

She nodded and stared out toward Fallen Island. “I miss his laughter the most. He was always telling funny jokes. And playing pranks on Nana. One time he hid her herbs and when she went to hang them in the kitchen, she thought she’d never picked them at all. So she went back into the garden and cut some more.”

“
What did Robert do?”

“
He hid those too,” she replied with a wide grin. “When Nana went to hang the second bunch, she thought she was losing her mind because she couldn’t find them either. She walked around the house muttering
‘Now where did I put those darn herbs? I picked them, didn’t I?’
It was hilarious.
”

I laughed at her impression of her grandmother.

“
What was Robert doing?” I asked.

“
He pretended he was asleep on the couch. But when Nana went back out into the garden a third time, he burst out laughing.”

“
Did she catch him?”

Goldie nodded. “You should’ve seen her. She marched back into the house with two buckets full of herbs, caught him laughing and realized right away what he’d done. Then she put the buckets on the floor by the couch and the next thing he knew, Robert was being hauled up by his ear.”

I giggled. “Was he grounded?”

“
No, Nana had a better punishment. She made him sit down at the kitchen table, then gave him a ball of twine and some scissors. She told him he had to divide each kind of herb into three piles, tie them with twine and hang them. It was
so
funny.”

“
I bet he didn’t think so.”

“
Well, first he complained. Said he didn’t want to waste his time hanging
weeds
. Then Nana told him that the three piles represented the three times
she
wasted going out to the garden to pick them.”

“
Did he do it?”

“
What do you think?” she asked wryly. “Can you imagine anyone not doing what Nana tells them to do?”

Her laughter was infectious. I giggled so hard my sides ached. And Goldie laughed until she looked like she was going to cry.