Him Standing (6 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I
'd
never learned to speak Ojibway. By the time I was born, our lives had changed. The old ways were dying out. Most of the people around me when I was a kid spoke English. Anytime I heard someone say something in our language, it always sounded weird to me. Even on the playground and in the games we played as kids, we always yelled at each other in English. So I never got used to it. It was always something I kinda meant to learn when I had the time. I just never found that time.

So carving words into the inside of the mask was hard. But it was hard for two other reasons, as well. The first was that they came while I was in dream time. The second was that there were a lot of them. It took a lot to carve them into the wood. And they weren't what I'd call words at all. They were symbols. They were these little scratchings and hen pecks that looked like things a kid would do.

I lost time. I disappeared. I bent to the wood with my chisel and knives, and the night would vanish. I don't know where I went. All I knew was that when I came out of it, I was tired. I could barely sit up in my chair. Now when I collapsed into my bed and slept, I slept without dreams. I just sank into it.

Most times it was noon or later when I came to. Once I got my feet under me,
I made my way to Amy's. The place of light. The first time she saw me, she was shocked.

“My god, Lucas,” she gasped. “What's happening to you?”

“I'm finishing the mask,” I said.

“But your face. And your body. It looks as though it's eating you up.”

“Feels like it too,” I said. “What have you been doing?”

“Sally's been teaching me,” she said.

“Teaching you what?”

“Stuff about our ceremonies. Things I never knew about how our people understood the universe.”

“Secret stuff?” I asked.

She studied me for a long moment.

“No,” she said finally. “Only stuff that we forget to ask about. I know that, living in the city, I forget about stuff like that.”

“Me too,” I said. “This whole thing's like a big giant puzzle to me, and I feel like somebody stole some of the most important pieces.”

“Me too. It scares me, but it thrills me at the same time.”

“How?” I asked.

“Well, it's kinda like you said—someone stole some of the important pieces. I feel like this is showing me what parts of my own
puzzle I've been missing.”

I looked out the window to think over what she had said. I felt better. I felt real. I felt safe, like the old lady had said I would. I let that feeling wash over me and fill me. When I looked at her again, I smiled.

“I never knew how incomplete I felt,” I said and took her hand. “I dreamt of my grandfather. We sat together just like in the old days. I think he meant to give me those pieces, but he was gone before he had the chance. After that, nothing really seemed to matter anymore, and I left it all and came here. Now I know how much I walked away from.”

“Does it make you sad?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah, “I said. “Angry too.”

“At yourself?”

“Not so much, but some at me for wasting it.”

“You're not wasting it. You're carrying on your grandfather's gift. You're bringing
it to a whole new group of people.”

“I guess,” I said. “But is that enough, you think? Does working without a foundation matter in the end?”

“It does if you bring your heart to it,” Amy said. “You do that. It's what makes you great.”

She smiled. I stood up and walked to her and gave her a hug. We held on to each other for a good long time without speaking.

“There's a secret I need to tell you,” I whispered in her ear.

“Does Sally know?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “She does.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

S
ally found a spot for me to give the mask to Knight. She said it needed to be a place
that held good energy. It had to be a place that
was peaceful. Most important, it had to be a
place that he had never been before. It had to be a place of light that didn't look like one. When I told her I had finished
the mask, she found the spot in less than a day.

I left a note with directions for Knight in my room. The three of us went to the spot to wait for him. It was at a bend in the river about three miles beyond the city limits.

“In the old days this was a gathering place,” Sally said. She was wearing a pale buckskin dress with fringes, a plain red cloth head band and plain moccasins without beadwork. She looked like a grandmother. “The good hearts would gather here for ceremonies. When the city grew, it never seemed able to reach this place. It spread out in other directions but not in this one.”

“No one knew its history?” Amy asked.

“Some could get it sometimes,”
Sally said. “But sacred places tell their story by feeling.”

“Is that how you found this place?”
I asked. “Or have you been here before?”

“It called to me,” she said and smiled. “When I sent out good thoughts for a safe place for you to offer the mask, I felt this place. It was easy to find.”

There were thick bushes around a clearing in the trees. The grass was about knee-high. The wind made a soft whisper as it moved through the leaves and the grass. The river gurgled at the far edge of the clearing. We could hear birdsong and the splashes of fish jumping. It felt like we were in a place that existed beyond time.

Sally directed me to press the grass flat with my feet in a circle in the middle of the clearing. I was carrying the mask in a big canvas sack, and she told me to set it on the ground in the middle of the circle I had made.

“When he comes, make him ask for it,” she said. “He has to make a request for power.”

When I'd finished, Sally and Amy picked out a spot in the bushes where they could not be seen. I was left alone in the clearing to wait for Knight.

It didn't take long.

He just appeared. One minute I was alone, the next he was there. There was the hint of a smile on his face. He wore black denim and cowboy boots. His hat was a neat little black bowler.

“I must admit, Lucas, I like the back-to-nature touch,” he said. “It's fitting. Very noble-savage and all that.”

“Well, after all this work, I need some fresh air,” I said.

He pointed to the sack at my feet.

“That's it then?”

“Yes. I think you'll like the handiwork.”

“Oh, it's more than mere handiwork, Lucas. It's magic.”

“Magic takes a lot of work,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, stroking his chin. “Some-
times it does. May I see it?”

“Excuse me,” I said.

He tilted his head and grinned at me.

“How quaint. The artist struggles to let go of his creation. His baby.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, okay. Lucas, may I have the mask?”

“Sure,” I said, smiling. “It was yours all the time. I made it for you.”

I bent to retrieve the mask from the canvas sack. I caught a glimpse of Amy and Sally staring out at me from a break in the bushes. They were lying flat on the ground, watching. The fact that Knight did not know they were there gave me hope. He was not all-powerful. When I stood up, I held the mask behind my back.

“It didn't turn out the way I thought it would,” I said.

“True art never does, does it?” Knight asked. He took a step closer to me, his hand outstretched.

“I suppose not,” I replied. “But I never figured on carving this.” I pulled the mask out from behind my back and held it out to him. It was a perfect copy of my own face, but I'd painted it black with three red wavy lines down the right side.

Knight's mouth dropped open. He took very slow steps toward me, and his hand shook a little as he neared the mask. I felt the wind stop. Everything went silent. The air grew thicker, heavier. I could hear the rustle of the grass with every step he took.

“The master,” he whispered.

I put the mask in his hands. It was apparent that he had never seen the face of Him Standing and had no idea how the mask was supposed to look in the end. He stood with his head bent, and I thought I heard him sigh. He rubbed the symbols on the inside of the mask with the fingertips of one hand.

“The doorway,” he said. “The words to open the doorway. When I put the mask to my face, they will be given to me.”

“It's what the dreams told me,” I said. “I put them there exactly as they came to me from the dream world.”

“This is what my associates and I have wanted for a very long time,” he said. “They will be pleased when I return with the master.”

“With the mask, you mean?”

Knight raised his head and stared at me. There was a question in his eyes.

“I mean that when I put the mask to my face and open the doorway, the master will emerge,” he said. “It is what is foretold.”

“Maybe in your circles,” I said. “In my circles, in my dreams, in my art, I was told to make this.”

I went down on one knee and rustled about in the canvas sack. I looked up at Knight. He was watching intently. I slowly stood up, my back toward him. When I turned to face him, he was stunned by the second mask I wore on my face.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
here was a sudden roll of thunder. The sky was clear, but I heard the thunder clearly. Knight glared at me. Behind him, the trees and bushes were swaying. But there was
no wind. I smelled something foul in the air.

“You dare to play games with me, Lucas? I have the mask that opens the doorway,” Knight said. He took a few steps toward me, the mask held up to his face. “In a few moments, none of this will matter at all.”

I rubbed the face of the mask I was wearing. It was a man's face. It was an old face.
It was a face built of angles and juts and shadows. It was a face with eyes that squinted behind deep creases and lines. It was the face of a man who had known things—secrets, spells, charms, songs and prayers. It was the face of a shaman.

“You're not the only one with a mask of power, Knight,” I said.

“Really?” he sneered. “Do you think you have what it takes to go against me? You know nothing.”

“I know that you don't have enough juice to get Him Standing through the doorway on your own. If you did, you wouldn't have needed me.”

“I told you. People like you are a dime a dozen. I would have found someone else who knows how to do a trick with a knife.” He eased the mask to the side and smiled at me.

“Maybe,” I said. “But no one who could have gotten the symbols you need. I did that.”

“The symbols, yes. I confess that surprised me. But what surprised me more
is the voice that came from you that day. It
was clearly the master's voice.”

Sally stepped out from behind the bushes. Her hands were behind her back, and she stood straight while the same energy that made the trees sway whipped her hair around.

“He's never heard the voice, Lucas,” she said.

Knight spun around quickly. “Who is this? Another one of your little secrets, Lucas?”

Sally sidestepped carefully around him. Knight turned slowly, following her with his eyes. When Sally stood next to me, she took what she held behind her back and handed it to me. When Knight saw the large turtle-shell rattle, he screamed with anger. A sudden crash of lightning from the sky turned everything blue-white. When I took the rattle and turned to Knight, he was floating inches off the ground.

“I don't know who you are,” he said to Sally. “But you are small and weak like him. Nothing you bring has the power to stop what I have put into motion.”

Sally looked at him squarely. She didn't waver. She gazed at Knight, and I was proud of her courage.

“Raise the rattle,” I heard her say.

I lifted the rattle up above my head. I felt my feet leave the ground. Knight and I now both hovered above the clearing in the trees. He laughed. Then he spun in a slow circle. It was my turn to laugh.

“I've seen that before, Gareth. It doesn't rattle me.” I grinned at the bad pun.

“Maybe this will then,” he said. He held both hands out toward me. Lightning bolts shrieked toward me.

I held the rattle out, and both bolts bounced off it and into the sky. Then I felt the taut strength of invisible hands at my throat. They squeezed. They were crushing. I began to feel the dark edge of unconsciousness. But there was something else. There was the face of the man I'd carved into the mask. He emerged from the darkness. His face hung suspended against nothingness.

“Move the rattle in a circle,” he said calmly. “Shake it lightly in as wide a circle as you can.”

My hands were weak, but I did as he said. As I made the circle in the air, I smelled the burn of lightning, and my feet touched down on the ground again. The grip on my throat was gone.

“Speak the words,” the shaman said.

I began to say the words behind the symbols carved into the mask Knight wore. It was hard. I had never spoken the language. But I had heard them in the dreams while I carved the symbols, and I remembered the
sound of them. I spoke slowly at first,
unsure of myself, and Knight simply
stared, his eyes wide with shock.

When I started to speak with more confidence, his expression turned to panic.

“What are you doing? How did you learn this spell?” he yelled. There was a sudden wind whipping around him.

“Dreams,” I said, breaking off from the stream of words. I shook the rattle at him. “They are Otter Tail's words, and this is Otter Tail's face I wear.”

“No!” he screamed.

He began tugging at the edge of his mask, but it wouldn't budge. He ran about in a circle, pulling at the mask with both hands. He collapsed onto the ground. He rolled about frantically. There was a cloud of dust around him as he wrestled with the painted mask latched to his face. He was screaming in fear.

I shook the rattle in a circle and kept on reciting the words. The wind spun into a tight circle. Knight was lifted off the ground.

Amy and Sally walked slowly toward me. We all watched Knight continue to struggle to get the mask off his face. They stood behind me as I continued speaking the ancient words. The wind grew wilder. Yet it blew only around him. Where we stood, it was calm and cool.

Finally he tired. He hung in the air, limp and wasted.

“How?” he croaked. “How is this possible?”

“You said it yourself, Gareth,” I said.
“I have the gift to open the doorway.”

“But I wear the mask,” he sputtered.

“You wear
a
mask. There are two faces
to everything,” I said. “All things must be in balance. This mask that I wear is the
opposite of yours. When something comes
out of the dream world, something must go back into it.”

“No!”

“Yes. Your wish was to be one with your master. Well, now you can be.” I shook the rattle in a wider, faster circle, and he spun in the air. I shook it faster and he spun faster. When his spinning matched the speed of the wind around him, he vanished like Him Standing had vanished long ago.

The wind died down. I collapsed. I could barely breathe.

I felt Sally removing the mask from my face. The air revived me. I opened my eyes, and Amy was kneeling at my side.

“Lucas,” she said, “why didn't you tell me about Otter Tail when you told me your
grandfather taught you how to fight this?”

“I couldn't risk Knight getting to you. I told you as much as I could and still keep you safe.”

“You spoke the language.”

“He gave it to me in the dreams.”

“Him Standing never knew what you were doing?”

“It wasn't his dream,” I said. “No one owns the dream world, Amy. No one owns dreams. They're for everybody. That's another thing my grandfather gave me.”

“So Otter Tail was there all the time?”

“Yes.”

“Waiting for you?”

“For someone,” I said. “Knight said it best. I'm not the only one who knows how to do a trick with a knife.”