Dennis stoked up the fire in the parlor stove, forcing winter back out through the gatehouse walls. The rest of the eccentric building remained ice-box cold and hibernating. He could have lived out here on the edge of civilization instead of making a winter den deep inside the old boathouse, but he liked to keep that mile of slogging through the snowdrifts between him and the rest of the human race. He didn’t like the human race.
He shrugged out of his parka and hung it up on the old Victorian coat rack in the hall, all carved leaves and ribbon garlands in dark walnut and equally-dark tarnished brass hooks and an age-spotted mirror to check the angle of your hat before you went out in public. The room felt warm enough for visitors now, hospitality-at-arm’s-length Ghost Point style, dust covers off the chairs and Aladdin kerosene lamps with frosted globes throwing yellow light into the shadowy corners because he’d had the power shut off since October. Power off, water lines drained and antifreeze in the sink traps and the toilets, windows shuttered inside and out. Batten down the hatches for winter.
He shook the steaming kettle again, weighing, enough water there for three, four cups of coffee. Or tea, or cocoa. Whatever, he had the makings, including three or four species of alcohol if the old woman asked for a little kicker in her mug. He didn’t know what his visitors would take, but human protocol said he had to make the offer.
Humans. He didn’t think much of that species, taken as a whole. That Marine lieutenant was a representative sample, riding a power trip that cut him free from common decency and the US Constitution. Searching a home without a warrant, in the name of “security.” And Dennis had heard the news from Rick, scuzz-bag poachers killing Doctor Tranh’s dog as a warning. She might be a royal pain, but that didn’t justify torturing her dog.
Given a free choice, he’d delete at least half the human race. He wasn’t sure at this point which half she’d be in. Two kinds of people in the world—those who make life easier for each other, and those who make it harder. That second group seems to outnumber the first by a large margin, and she’s showing all the earmarks of a card-carrying member of the Harder Party.
On the other hand, she skis like a bird. Someone who moves that well can’t be all bad. And she loves animals. All that crap she handed me, it was about good care for the critters.
Tires crunched the snow outside, the purr of a well-tuned engine died, followed by the groan of rusty car door hinges. Dennis grimaced. It had to be that Naskeag “Aunt,” a big nervous-maker. Even thinking about her made him twitch. Jeanne Haskell, “Aunt Jean” to probably half of Sunrise County, she’d wandered in and out of his childhood but he hadn’t seen her in maybe ten years. Before ’Nam, anyway. He’d heard so many stories . . . .
He wiped the frown off his face and the sweat from his palms and stepped back into the central hall, opening the door before she knocked. Front door, not the kitchen door into the mudroom and garage, Maine country life has a protocol for these things. Side door meant ordinary daily life. The front door meant important—the preacher’s visit, the doctor, the wedding, the funeral.
Or the Naskeag “Aunt.”
She looked placid, short and round, a sagging brown face with a lot of smile wrinkles framed by thinning white hair now rather than the thick glossy black he remembered, the kind of face that handed you gingersnaps so hot from the oven that they scorched your fingertips and tongue, but that façade didn’t fool Dennis. The Naskeags ran a matriarchy. The old women ruled their world, and this old woman reportedly ruled the old women, Boss of Bosses, in the Mafia sense. And rumor said, just that ruthless if she decided she had to be.
She nodded at him, no introduction needed, clumped up the front steps, stomped snow off her boots on the mat, and turned into the parlor as if she’d been here just last week. A kid followed her, brown skin, short, denim pants and jacket totally unsuited to Maine winter, wad of chewing gum in her cheek, transistor radio in hand and headphones still hanging on her neck.
The kid tilted her head to one side, eyes and lips narrowed in perpetual teenaged scowl. “Hoka hey, white man. You wasted your time coming out. We’ll have to walk back in so Aunt Jean can case the joint.”
Aunt Jean turned back, that placid face now frowning and showing steel behind it. “Alice Haskell, you can be a rude teenager on your own time. You are on business now, oui? You are the face of our People. Any stranger deserves honor, until he proves otherwise. This man deserves more than most.”
The girl glared back at her. “More than most? What has he done for our People?”
“Do not waste my time with stupid questions. Vraiment, I grow too old for that. You know the answer—he fought to protect our People. He walks on a plastic foot now, gave flesh and blood and bone guarding you. Bronze Star, Silver Star, Purple Heart, other medals, you know this. You owe him honor. You owe all warriors honor. Show it.”
The old woman turned and nodded to Dennis. “Our People owe you much honor, oui, whether that war was foolishness or not. My ignorant niece must learn many things. Among other things, she must learn that your pride makes you come out to greet us. You refuse to be a cripple. That also deserves honor. Not contempt.”
Dennis remembered her French accent. She came from the New Brunswick side of the Naskeags, the French-speaking backwoods side, rather than the coast. He didn’t know how or why she’d ended up ruling her U.S. cousins. Mysteries—Sunrise County served up too damn many mysteries.
The kid stared at the floor under her feet, shaking her head and mumbling under her breath.
“Speak up, child.”
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t look sorry, but Dennis nodded anyway. Teenagers, you took what you could get and called it good. Came with the territory. He’d probably been just as bad at that age.
“Would you like coffee or tea?”
“Alice may be foolish, but she is correct in one thing. We will have to go in and see the place where Bear danced for you, smell the tracks where the Swimmer of Dark Waters took your deer. We have brought snowshoes, oui. But we will stop and follow ritual with you. Tea would be nice. I see you have the water hot already.”
“Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Jasmine, or I have some Lapsang Souchong?”
“Ahhh. Lapsang Souchong, oui. Strong and smoky, I think we could offer that to the spirits instead of burning tobacco. It is good. I think better with that flavor on my tongue. Alice? Darjeeling?”
The kid nodded.
“You have to tolerate Alice. She is my heir and must learn things, but she is in the middle of discovering whether she likes boys or girls. Hormones turn her brain to mush, and that makes her difficult.”
Aunt Jean paused and cocked her head, studying the girl like some kind of alien specimen. “If she offends you beyond limit, you have my permission to give her a black eye or bloody nose. Do not break anything, please, but she needs to learn that rude behavior has consequences. Painful consequences.”
He stared at the girl, wondering if Aunt Jean was serious. Alice glared back. She reminded him of the three-legged bobcat—still wild and dangerous, tolerating Dennis as an equal who must stay outside that private zone of claws and fangs. The girl had the same feral look in her eyes. He felt his body language change, his stare shifting off her face, his shoulders and hips and hands turning loose and non-threatening, the whole posture he used in calming injured animals.
“Would you like some tea?” He used the same soft comfortable tone, no stress, that he used with the critters.
“Darjeeling, please.”
She’d relaxed enough for that ‘please.’ Dennis didn’t know what he did, but apparently it worked on teenagers as well as other . . . animals. He caught a look from Aunt Jean, studying him, appraising. She nodded, as if she’d checked something off on a mental list.
Honor. The old witch offered me honor. I wonder if she understands what that means to me, what it would mean to all of us who served in that ’Nam FUBAR. We just did what our tribal elders told us to do.
He chewed on that thought while he puttered with the tea, filling tea-balls with the loose Lapsang Souchong, taking out a bag of the Darjeeling, splashing hot water into antique Haviland china cups even in the gatehouse for the servants and visitors. The smoky aroma of the tea blended with wood smoke from the stove to cover the stale must and dust of a house left empty ten months of the year.
She knows how to make people comfortable, as well as uncomfortable. It’s something like what I do with animals.
They settled into chairs, perched on the edges of their seats rather than relaxed because sharp points on the carved mahogany chair-backs punished any lapse from Victorian decorum. And the prickly horsehair stuffing of the seat cushions would discourage guests from lingering beyond their welcome. Victorians knew how to make people uncomfortable. It was another form of social magic.
The old woman breathed in the steam of her tea, sighed, and sipped. “Très bien. And very fresh and strong. I thank you. Do you know of a place to buy this closer than Boston?”
Small talk, the rituals. Dennis shook his head. “My brother mails it up from New York.”
“And your brother, he is well? I remember him from years ago. The rest of your family?”
“They are well. My father has trouble with his arthritis, and his doctor is always after him to stop smoking.”
“Oui. My doctor, also.” She paused, setting her cup and saucer on the low walnut oval of the coffee table between them. “I bring a guest-gift.”
She reached inside her parka and brought out a parcel wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, hand-sized, and unwrapped it with shaking fingers. Parkinson’s? Or just general age? He should have noticed earlier, not filled her cup so full . . . .
And then the object inside the rustling paper caught his eyes and held them. A bear. A carved bear posed standing upright, yellow-brown with age and fine shallow cracks, looked like bone or wood. Old, very old, Naskeag work halfway between realistic and abstraction, but almost alive with bear-ness. He expected it to move on her hand.
“Mammoth ivory,” she said, her words half-heard. “Found by our People long ago, oui, carved by our People long ago. I think he wants to come to you.” She reached across the table, and Dennis found the bear warm in his hands.
Warm as if it was alive. Dennis forced out the words he had to say, much as he wanted to bite them back. “Aunt Jean, this is precious. It belongs in a museum. You shouldn’t give outsiders a treasure of your people.” But he wanted it. His fingers caressed the smooth warm ivory.
“Bear belongs here. Bear should have come to your family years ago. Your family is not ‘outsiders’ to the Naskeag People. You have lived among us for generations, lived on land our People gave to you to guard. Your great-grandmother was a Naskeag, Annie Morningstar. Bear is coming to his own home, not going away from us.”
Annie Morningstar. She’s ‘Morgenstern’ in the family Bible, if I remember right. Was that just translating from the English, or deliberate camouflage?
The old woman caught Alice with her glance. “Pay attention, child. Bear is important, oui. Carlsson is Bear Clan, part of this land, part of our People. Bear Clan is why Carlssons live on Spirit Point. You need to know these things.”
Dennis stared at the Bear figure in his hand, felt the weight of it, ran his fingertips across the smooth surface brown with age and handling. He could feel the ancient fingers that had carved this form with razor-edged flakes of stone. He could feel the warmth of hands holding this thing, down through the centuries, feel the pulse beating in them. Ivory. Ivory had such a living feel to its preciousness. No wonder men coveted it like amber and jade and pearls, soft friendly warm surfaces that welcomed the hand. Not cold and hard and impersonal like diamonds.
“What do you feel?”
Dennis shook himself, a shiver from his butt up to his shoulders. “It feels . . . real.”
He caught a disgusted shrug out of the corner of his eye, the girl, muttering to herself. “Of course it feels real, numbnuts. You’re holding it in your hand.”
The old woman shook her head, sadness twisting her mouth. “Do not be more offensive than you have to be, Alice Haskell. He feels something that would never touch you. He feels Bear in his own blood. That carving could not speak to you or me. I am Turtle, you are Beaver. Vraiment, I draw into myself for safety, while you build and change your world to fit your needs. Our bloods hear different voices. He feels Bear touching his warrior heart. All Carlssons are Bear.”
Dennis blinked. “I am Bear? I’m a member of a Naskeag clan? One great-grandmother, an eighth Naskeag blood at most, and you’d call me part of your tribe?”
The old woman smiled. “Tribe is not the same as race. White people make that mistake. Read history, the fur trade and the long hunters. White people joined tribes, many white people, many different tribes. We welcomed them for their strong spirits, but tribes were never allowed to join white people. Oui, you are Bear. That means you can be Naskeag if you want to be. Even Doctor Tranh could choose to be Naskeag. Eagle speaks to her, a strong spirit, a fierce warrior just like Bear.”
He frowned at the thought, nose wrinkling as if the concept of a Naskeag Doctor Tranh carried a physical stink, devaluing his own welcome into the tribe. There goes the neighborhood.
Aunt Jean shot him a sidelong look. “Eagle and Bear are not enemies. They can make alliance.”
Alliance with her? We’d tear each other to shreds. She makes life harder for people.
And then he remembered her flying across the snow. She cares about the animals. She was dead wrong, going by a rulebook rather than results, but she cares. Even when she slapped me, it was because I said she didn’t care.
He shivered again, shaking off the spell cast by that ivory Bear. He forced himself to put it down on the coffee table and retrieved his teacup. Social rituals. He searched for words, remembering what he knew of the way native peoples regarded gifts.
“Thank you. You called Bear a ‘guest gift,’ but you have brought many gifts. Any one of them would leave me in your debt—this priceless carving, a welcome to your People, honor. That one word, ‘honor,’ that carries a lifetime of weight in itself. I wonder what I can give that wouldn’t shame me in comparison.”
She nodded and then shook her head. “Ah, what our Pacific cousins call the potlatch. Non, I am not placing obligation on you. As I said, Bear belongs in your house. Your family has been Naskeag for generations. And you have already proven honor, paying flesh and blood and bone. I only recognize what already exists. Any burden would be what Bear and honor tell you to do, words that only you can hear, words that no one else may question. I am here to help, not tell you what to do.”
He sat and sipped his tea, hot and pungent, social conventions again, a legal time-out while he studied the old woman. Feints within feints within feints, ingrained in her nature, she was manipulating him. He just didn’t see how. He ran through the words she’d said, sure that each word carried enough baggage, enough impedimenta in the Roman army sense, to sink the granite of Ghost Point into the Gulf of Maine. This wrinkled brown “aunt” wasn’t offering him hot gingersnaps.
“You said that Naskeags gave Ghost Point, Spirit Point, to my family to ‘guard.’ Why are we Bear? What are we guarding?”
“Ghost Point, Spirit Point, the government will not change the maps.” Aunt Jean took a sip of tea as if she also wanted that gap for thinking. “Spirit is a better word, oui, just as ‘Holy Ghost’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ carry different thoughts.” She crossed herself, reminding Dennis that many Naskeags were Catholics. A devout witch?
“But neither ‘ghost’ nor ‘spirit’ mean the same thing as the Naskeag word. English does not have the right word. French does not have the right word.”
She sat for a moment, lips tight, thinking. “The Naskeag word, oui, it carries the flavor of a world apart, not some essence or remainder of a life that follows rules you understand. The spirit world is something different. It is not dead people, it is not God. Call it ‘World-that-might-have-been.’ Many worlds, some like ours, some not. Nokomis is there, Manitou are there—Raven and Bear and Eagle and the one our Southwest cousins call Coyote, The Trickster I will not name in our tongue. They live there, and many others. Many of them bad. They are real.”
The girl, Alice, sat on the edge of her chair, leaning forward, Dennis could almost see her ears perked like a cat at a mouse hole. Hormones might be turning her brain to mush, but she knew this was important. And she was watching Dennis rather than Aunt Jean, looking for his reaction. Witch in training.
“Spirit Point is a place, one of many places, where the spirit worlds rub up against the world we know. You know this. You live there. Vraiment, strange things happen.”
The old woman paused for another sip of tea, more thoughts. She glanced at Alice, making sure the girl was paying attention, proving that this lecture served an audience of two.
“Our Southwest cousins, they know of such places in their own lands. Spirits rise out of holes in the ground. The kiva, the place of sacred ritual, they make such holes, the sippapu. Places for the spirits to pass between worlds, places to draw the spirits. The Aztec, the Maya, they go to sacred caves to talk with the spirits, to give gifts to the spirits. They throw sacrifices into sacred wells.
“Under your old house, under the ruins, a cellar. Under the cellar, a cave. Few caves in granite, oui, a strange thing, different. This is what you guard. This is a doorway to the spirit world. Spirits who do not belong here can feel Bear waiting on this side of the door. They stay where they belong. Spirits are mostly trouble. Our People have felt less trouble since Bear started living on that land. This is good.”
Dennis remembered tales told of a wine-cellar down there under the charred beams and rubble, a locked door, fine vintages from France, cases of single-malt Scotch dating back to the years of Prohibition and rum-runners in the bay, tales told at the Four Corners after the regulars had a good load down the hatch. That didn’t mean he believed this other tale.
“Why us? Why are all Carlssons members of Bear Clan?”
The old woman’s eyes turned dark, as if one of the kerosene lamps had just flickered out. "You may not wish to talk about this, non. Many warriors do not. Your father would not speak about his war, nor would your grandfather. Bad things happen in war, things men would rather not see again, and talking brings your memories to life.”
Things men would rather not see again. The mortars rained out of the hot ’Nam sky, Crump! Crump! Crump! . . . Dennis shivered as the room turned dark around him and he smelled the paddy mud again.
She nodded, seeing that in his face. “The things you did in war, could other men do that? There is a word in your old language, berserkr. Bear shirts. Men frenzied in battle, mighty warriors who could not be hurt. This is in your blood, this is in the blood of your father and grandfather and forefathers back before the Vikings.
“You do not change into Bear like a warrior of legend, not that, but you can draw on Bear’s strength, his speed, his cunning. All men of your blood are mighty warriors, warriors even the spirits fear. Your women also, though they rarely find the need.
“My people saw this, learned this, when they met your people long ago. That is why you guard that cave.”
She glanced down at his foot, at his plastic foot hidden inside a boot. “Most legends tell lies along with truth. You do not change into Bear, non. And you can be hurt. All power comes at a cost. If you are hurt in battle, in your warrior rage, you will not heal well. That is why the doctors could not save your foot.”
Dennis sagged back in his chair, heedless of those carved mahogany points of Victorian protocol. Images played across his closed eyes. She knew. Someone else knew, and cared. Things he couldn’t even talk about in the vets’ group . . . .
He opened his eyes. Aunt Jean nodded to him, to his thoughts, her eyes sad.
She cocked her head to one side, thinking, and then moved away from old pain. “We have not seen The Swimmer of Dark Waters for centuries. It may come from a spirit world, lost and hurt and afraid. Remember this thing.”