Hannah & the Spindle Whorl (9 page)

My hands grip the spindle whorl, as if they are glued to it. Then I see it start to spin. Is it an optical illusion? It has to be, because my hands aren’t moving; they feel stuck. I see the images of the fish begin to blur and run together as the disc spins faster and faster before my eyes. I feel light as a feather, even though my heart races a mile a minute and my fingertips are pins and needles. I am powerless, yet at the same time, totally dialled in.

“
HANNAH?
” Yisella’s voice breaks the spell. I look up and see her staring at me, her eyes wide as saucers. I reach up with a free hand to wipe the beads of perspiration from my forehead. I’m actually sweating, as if I had been running on the track at school. The whorl is still in my hand and the smooth wood feels warmer to the touch, almost hot.

“Hannah?” Yisella says again. I look at her, slightly dazed. “Hannah … I think you have it. The gift, I mean. I have to tell my mother. She’ll want to know about this.”

“Yisella,” I start, my hands clutching the whorl close to me. My mind is racing with a million different thoughts. This is the same whorl! This has to have something to do with why I’m here. “I’ve seen this before! Your mother’s spindle whorl. I found it in a cave, just a couple of days ago. I mean … I’m going to find it in the future, in about one hundred and fifty years. No, I mean …” I realize that I am babbling, but I can’t stop. Yisella’s eyes open wider and wider as I try to explain. “I found it and I showed it to a man who told me that it belonged to the people who lived near my home. People who lived here before the
huww … hu …
what’s that word again? The word for white people?” My heart is pounding in my chest.

“Hwunitum
,” Yisella says, pronouncing the word clearly for me.

“Yes! The man was talking about your people, Yisella!” I’m trembling now, because at last some pieces of this crazy puzzle are starting to fit together.

“Who is this man?”

“His name is Graham Sullivan. He studies the past. He … he told me stuff about your people, about the villages here. He told me some stories. There was one about Quamichan, a woman with a snake basket. About how …”

“Yes!” Yisella suddenly starts gesturing wildly with her hands. “Quamichan! We tell that story! She will steal children from villages and eat them! She has wings and she can fly from the islands out there in the ocean, over here to Quw’utsun’!”

“Yeah! That’s the one. So … do you see?”

I place the whorl gently on the mat in front of me. “I think I was meant to find this in that cave — so it could bring me to you. I’m sure of it now. Even he was there when I found it!” I point to the raven perched on the corner of the loom. His wings are outstretched, as if he’s about to take off.

“Yes,” Yisella nods. She is watching him, too, with an odd expression on her face.

“Why do you think this has happened?” I ask her.

“I don’t know,” she answers. “But I’m happy that it did.”

A FEW HOURS LATER,
we are still in the longhouse, now sitting together with Yisella’s extended family. There sure are a lot of them! Yisella tells me that many people share the longhouse and that four generations live together in her house. I can’t imagine that ever working with my family. Having all of our crazy relatives living under one roof? I’m pretty sure we’d all go nuts inside of a week. Especially my dad and my Uncle Barry. There hasn’t been a family dinner yet when those two haven’t argued about something. The last time was Grandma’s birthday dinner, when they fought about some old Clint Eastwood movie.

But here, in Tl’ulpalus, I guess there isn’t a choice. And nobody even gets their own room. There’s Skeepla and Nutsa and Yisella’s father, Squwam. There are also two uncles and three aunties, eight cousins, Skeepla’s mother, both of Squwam’s parents, and finally Yisella’s great-grandmother. Somehow, the longhouse doesn’t feel so big anymore!

I think of Dad at home in our puny little houseboat. Is he worried about me? Does he know I’m gone? My watch still says 4:11:26 in the afternoon. It hasn’t moved since I got here. None of this makes any sense at all, and I don’t seem to have any control over what comes next. I’ll just have to wait it out and go with the flow, which isn’t really me at all. I’m not very good at just sitting around, waiting for stuff to happen. Life’s boring that way. But here? Right now? It’s not like I really have any other options.

When Yisella introduces me to the rest of her family, they seem as uncertain of me as her mother and Nutsa were earlier. They don’t say anything, just stare at me for what seems like hours, checking me out from head to toe and then back again. It’s bad enough when Sabrina Webber gives me that look, but try getting that same look from over fifteen people at once.

Yisella waits while I say my name. I forget that she’s the only one who can understand me here and so I keep talking. I go on to explain how I’m this new friend of Yisella’s and that I came here from another time. Then I see how confused they all look, so I stop. When Yisella whispers to me that the magic brought by the raven is only for the two of us, I shut up. Duh.

Yisella’s grandmother steps forward, her eyes bright and alert. When she smiles, I see that she has a tooth missing. She touches my hair and says something to me that, of course, I don’t understand. But I get the feeling that she just made a joke because some of the others cover their mouths to hide their laughter. I know my hair is pretty crazy looking. Why wouldn’t they laugh the first time they saw red corkscrew curls like mine? Gwyneth used to say my hair ended up like this because I stuck my finger in a light socket when I was little. That could be true, but I’m sure my hair would have ended up this way anyway. Mom always said it was ridiculous, that my hair had a mind of its own. So I guess when you add in my freckles and my pale skin, I definitely stand out.

Yisella’s family all start speaking at once, so I look to Yisella hoping she’ll step in if necessary and rescue me. She says that everyone is a little weirded out by me. They don’t really know any white people, except for the occasional trader who comes to the village from time to time for furs.

There was one other time when a group of white men came to Tl’ulpalus and spoke in angry voices to her people. No one knew why these men were angry, but it had something to do with Quw’utsun’, the land that they live on. She tells me that those men wanted to grow their own food on this land, even though the
hwunitum
stay with their own families much farther up near the flats.

“But you …” she says. “No one in our village has ever seen a
hwunitum
child. And … well, they think you’re very skinny and pale.” She giggles.

What did I tell you? Well, they can stare all they want. I’m just grateful that I won’t have to listen to any “ginger” jokes.

Two of the littlest cousins keep coming up to me and touching my hair, then they run away laughing and whispering to each other, making it some sort of game. The third time that they get close, I reach out and tickle the smallest one, a little boy with fat smiling cheeks and black hair falling in front of his eyes. He collapses into my lap, laughing and squealing with excitement. Why is it that little kids are never as suspicious as grown-ups are? These little kids couldn’t care less that I’m different. In a second, the other little guy jumps on me as well, and they both dissolve into fits of giggles. The same little boy fiddles with the zipper on my backpack, and it’s not long before he discovers my lime green iPod Nano. He turns it over and over in his hands and, in no time at all, everybody else is gathered around him, straining to get a better look. Yisella pushes through the crowd and takes the iPod from the little boy.

“What is this?” she asks me, uncurling the tangle of ear-buds plugged into the top. How am I going to explain this? I think for a minute, then I remember what my dad always says. Show, don’t tell. Dad says it’s the most important rule for a writer to obey — okay, so it’s a writer thing. I stand up and carefully put the earbuds into Yisella’s ears. She doesn’t try to take them out, but just stands there patiently, not moving a muscle. I take the iPod out of her hand and scroll through my main playlist. I decide on “Yellow” by Coldplay, set the volume, and then watch as the biggest smile I’ve seen yet from Yisella spreads across her face. Everyone wants to try and it’s hard work organizing a turn for each one of them. They talk excitedly, one to another, and hold their hands over their ears. The little kids jump around in circles. One of the older men looks completely muddled but he still nods his head in time with the music. I can’t help laughing to myself as I watch him. Eventually I’m able to turn it off and put it away.

With the iPod back in my backpack, the children decide that it’s time to chase the little grey cat, or “Poos” as the villagers call it. We all sit down once again on the floor of the longhouse, and I’m relieved to see that pretty much everyone is more at ease with me now.

Soon everyone is busy with something. I’m not sure what to do next, so I decide to, literally, twiddle my thumbs. When Yisella points to a bowl on the mat next to where I’m sitting, I reach down and hand it to her. It’s a shallow burnished dish made from a maple tree burl. I recognize the dark and grainy wood that’s often used to make clocks and stuff, like the ones I’ve seen in souvenir stores. Moments later, Yisella hands it back, only now it’s filled with a wonderful sweet-smelling concoction, made of what looks like dried blackberries, topped with frothy pink creamy stuff. Even though I’m not exactly showing the best table manners, I scoop some up with the end of my finger and then lick it off. It’s surprisingly delicious and kind of like whipped cream! I wonder how they make it? There’s no ice cream here or frozen yogurt. There aren’t any refrigerators or freezers, and no way are there any chocolate bars or candies.

When Yisella looks over, I smile and lick my lips, pointing at my bowl. She laughs and says, “That’s
sxhwesum
berry. Tiny berries that turn into a big frothy foam when they are stirred over and over. We make it for our special celebrations. The children love it the most, especially now that the
hwunitum are
here.”

“Hwunitum
. The white people? Why?” I ask, wondering how their arrival into the wilds of the island could make this treat taste any more delicious!

“The
hwunitum
sometimes bring us sugar. We give them rabbit pelts and they give us sacks of sugar. The sugar mixed with
sxhwesum
berry is especially good!”

“Ohhhh!” Now I understand, and agree. “Yeah, sugar’s the best! I know someone who bakes a lot of delicious stuff with sugar and flour.”

“Yes, flour too! Flour and sugar,” Yisella says enthusiastically “We trade rabbit pelts for both of these things. A while ago, a white woman showed my auntie how to make bannock bread.”

I remembered that my dad made some bannock bread in a heavy cast-iron frying pan over an open fire when we went camping last summer. We poured blueberry syrup all over the warm slabs of bread, and ate about ten pieces each for dinner.

Now that everyone has finished the meal, they gather and sit quietly around a big fire in the corner fire pit, waiting expectantly. The older women settle the smaller children, shushing them while taking the littlest ones onto their laps. I watch as Yisella places a woven cedar mat onto the ground near her mother.

“Yisella,” I whisper, “what’s happening? Why is everyone sitting in a circle?” I sit on the ground next to Yisella, together with Nutsa and their mother, Skeepla, on the cedar mat.

“It’s time for the
Nahnum
, the fire circle.” She explains, “Usually we do this in wintertime, but you are my guest, our guest, and so today is special. The
Nahnum
is when the elders teach us things and we get to hear stories of the old times. It is good for us to have the
Nahnum
now, just before we leave.”

“Leave?” I say. “You’re going somewhere?”

“Oh,” Yisella laughs. “We’ll leave again very soon. Summer is the busiest time, when we make trips across the water to trade with the river people. We only come back to Tl’ulpalus long enough to get ready for the next trip across — in summer that is. And this will be our last trip this summer. During winter we stay here all the time.”

“What do you trade for?” I ask. It seems like things are backwards here. I always thought summer was for sleeping late, for lying around watching
DVD
s, or hanging out with friends and swimming at the beach.

“We give them salmon and they give us other things, but the best thing is the goat’s wool we use to weave blankets. The river people can only collect wool in the springtime, when the mountain goats leave their fleece on the trees and bushes. So we go in the summertime to get as much as we can. It’s the most important trip for Mother.”

Blankets made of goat hair? I think of my cashmere sweater, the one that Aunt Maddie bought for me last Christmas. It’s softer than anything. I can’t imagine what kind of a sweater you could possibly make from a goat! And what about those dogs that Mr. Sullivan said were used for their woolly coats? I ask Yisella about them.

“Oh, I’ve never seen them,” she tells me. “That was before I was born, but Grandmother remembers. There were lots of them then, in the villages up the river, but they aren’t around anymore.”

“We have wool too,” I tell Yisella. “But it comes from sheep and it comes in all different colours. My mother was a really amazing knitter!” I do my best to ignore the lump forming in my throat, the lump that comes out of nowhere every single time I talk or even think about my mother.

“Knitting?” Yisella is confused for a moment, but then she seems to understand. “With the two sticks, right? You work them together on your lap. There was a white woman who came with the man that wanted otter pelts, and she showed Mother how to weave with the sticks. It’s very fast and the weaving is even.”

“Yeah, they’re called knitting needles. Different sizes make different sized stitches. I was just learning how to knit, when my—” I stop.

“You said your mother was a knitter. Doesn’t she knit anymore?” Yisella asks, somewhat puzzled.

It’s so hard to answer questions like this one. Questions that mean I will have to explain. I say the words, “My mother is dead,” and it sounds like someone else talking, so matter-of-factly, like “it’s raining,” or “the earth is round.” But I say the words to Yisella anyway.

“She died in—” and then I realize that Yisella won’t know what I mean when I tell her my mother died in a car accident. There are no cars here, so I just say, “She died in an accident. It was almost two years ago.”

Yisella’s eyes lock with mine for a moment while I struggle with my emotions. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell that she understands about “the lump.” I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask me any more questions, because I’m pretty sure that if she did, I wouldn’t be able to say anything. Not now, not here, where everything seems like a dream and I’m not sure when, or even if, I’m going to wake up. While everyone is very accepting of me, I am still an outsider, and it’s times like this when I feel unsure of myself and get confused, that I really miss my mom. She could always calm me down. Dad can make me laugh most of the time when I get bummed out or mad, but it was always Mom who could put things into proper perspective for me. She made everything make sense.

I feel like I’m drowning in the memories, and I’m going to be swallowed up by them. Instead, I am surrounded with a strong smell of lemons that seems to come out of nowhere. Just like that, a fresh citrus scent fills my senses, but only for a moment before it dissipates as quickly as it came. I smile because I know what — or should I say
who
— it was. There are no lemons here; no fruit like that anywhere in Tl’ulpalus. I’d almost forgotten about Mom’s lemon fragrance. How she would always dab it on my wrists if I was nervous about something I had to do and she couldn’t be with me. “There you go,” she’d say. “Because I can’t be with you today, this is second best.” And I remember how the lemony scent alone would make me feel stronger. How could I have forgotten something so special about Mom?