Out of Alaska--The Shaman's Passage

part 3

Half blind from loss, Candice reached the end of the long school day. She'd dismissed her students to hang black streamers in the gym. People arrived with food and condolences to the potlatch-turned-funeral.

Craggy Jack continued shedding snow, loss promising renewal. The water found its way down his slopes to the sea as twilight gathered at the river mouth. Kids skipped stones, waiting. Elders stood back, singing.

Candice set Oreo's body and the wolf's adrift in her tiny skiff. Steel-gray and black-and-white, they lay like star-crossed lovers in death. Speaking low prayers, she lifted her silver blade over the waters and released a raven feather to the wind. Kerosene lit and the boat blazed.

Smoke rose to the first evening star as Grandmother spoke the familiar tale.

"I am lonely, Mother," cried the white wolf. Mother Earth sent him a vision. "In leaving this trail you take the first step on the next." Lonely Wolf dove under the waves and became a shiny, black whale. Mother painted him with white markings to remind him of his time on the Earth. Transformed, he sings forever the history of the world.

Grandmother fell silent and the people lost sight of the skiff in the sunset.

Jackson broke the spell. "Well, Candice, real pretty, but how're you gonna fish, now you've burned up your boat?"

A kindergartener took Candice's hand, her dark eyes sliding past him. "Your fault teacher's leaving."

Candice squeezed the girl's tiny hand. The little one nodded twice before running off to bring back a shell, or was it a fragment of bone? Candice pulled a leather shoelace from her pocket, tied on the charm, and added it to one hanging around the girl's neck. Short brown fingers rubbed it like a rosary before tucking it inside her shirt.

Candice inhaled sea air and exhaled her pain. Time to leave. Permission granted. At twenty-seven, she felt old. This little one would serve the people well.

******