The Black Squirrel: Chapter sixteen
The story so far: After winning his battle against the Kiwahkwe, Mac has brought the lifeless body of Wesu to the home of the Little People high in the cliffs, where an elderly woman of the Little People reminds him that he still holds the last arrow.
n Chapter SIXTEEN The last arrow
Mac looked at the arrow in his hand. Its tip was glowing again. Not red as when it struck the Kiwahkwe, but a beautiful gentle gold. He touched it to Wesu’s unbreathing lips. The golden color dimmed for a moment and Mac felt a wave of exhaustion pass over him. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Wesu was smiling.
“You’re alive!” Mac said.
“Eagle Boy,” Wesu whispered. He weakly held up his hand.
The shorter of the white-haired old women sat down on the sleeping rack. She held a spoon and a clay bowl.
“Not that medicine again, Grandmother!” Wesu complained. The old woman pinched his nose with one hand and thrust the spoon into his mouth with the other. As Mac tried to keep from laughing, the taller old woman took his elbow, leading him to the next of the Kiwahkwe’s victims.
One by one, Mac touched the golden arrowhead to them, feeling that tiredness come over him, watching each of them come back to life. By the time he revived the last, he was so worn out that he could barely stand.
The two old women guided him toward an empty sleeping rack. Wesu, now on his feet, helped them.
“Time to rest, Eagle Boy,” Wesu said.
Mac tried to keep his eyes open. He remembered something from one of Grandmother Kateri’s stories. If you go into the home of the Little People, don’t fall asleep. When you wake up, a hundred years may have passed.
“Wesu,” Mac mumbled. It was hard to make the words come out. “How long will I sleep?”
Wesu smiled. “Just one night.” He leaned close. “One of our nights,” he whispered. “Things will be different when you wake up.”
Then, though he struggled to keep them open, Mac’s eyes closed.
Mac opened his eyes with a start. He sat up, looking around wildly, expecting to find himself with a long beard and tattered clothing in the middle of the forest.
“Wah-hey!” he shouted. He was home, in his own bed. Not only that, he was big again. He stood up and ran to the window. The sun was high in the sky. He’d slept really late. It had all been a dream.
He pulled on his clothes. It wasn’t easy. His shirt seemed to have shrunk in the night. His jeans had become highwaters.
“Are you finally awake?” his mom shouted up the stairs.
“Gonna sleep all day, Little Eagle?” Uncle Bear called.
“Bear, let him rest,” Grandma Kateri said. “He’s earned it!”
Mac walked into the kitchen. His uncle and his mother and grandmother stared at him.
“Talk about a growth spurt!” Uncle Bear said.
His mother yanked him over to the doorway and stood him against it to measure him against the marks on the wall that charted his growth. “Mac,” she said, “what have you been eating? I can’t believe you’ve grown four inches! I don’t remember you looking this tall at last night’s meeting.”
“No,” Grandma Kateri said, “but he talked tall! They all listened. Even that developer! See?” She held out the paper to Mac. The Sunday paper. Not Saturday. Sunday! On its cover was a headline: Development Fails to Develop. A photograph of the developer was underneath it. Mac recognized that face, those sad, regretful eyes.
“You changed his heart, grandson,” Grandma Kateri said. “Your good words melted the ice. Look,” she said, “he’s deeding the whole forest to the Nature Conservancy. It’ll be protected forever.”
Mac’s head was starting to spin again.
Uncle Bear laughed. “Well, now that you’re up, we can find out what your secret admirer left leaning against the front door this morning.” He held out a roll of birch bark with a rawhide string tied about it. “Magaesosis” was scrawled on it in black letters.
Mac took the birchbark and unrolled it. Shapes had been incised into the bark. A giant squirrel, little people, a tall boy, a hawk with wings spread, tall trees, bulldozers, and a huge monster with an arrow in its heart. From within that birchbark packet, two things fell out onto the table: the gray tail feather of a goshawk and an obsidian arrowhead.
“Look at that!” Uncle Bear said. He was pointing at the open door. “That bird almost flew in here!”
Mac ran to the door. Though it was circling higher now, he could see the goshawk. Did he see a small figure on his back, a hand waving at him? And did he hear, over the whistling cry of the hawk, words called out to him?
“Well done, Eagle Boy! We will meet again.”
THE END
Glossary and Pronunciation of Abenaki Words:
Kiwahkwe (key-wah-KWAY): Cannibal monster whose scream can kill
Magaesosis (mah-gay-sew-SEES): Little Eagle