Wabi (9 page)

“Great-grandmother,” I said, holding up my hands, “what shall I do now? I have no clothing, and humans always wear clothing. And I do not have human weapons to hunt with, and I . . .”

I stopped, realizing that I was talking far too much. Apparently finding it hard to keep my beak shut was as much a part of my being a human person as it had been when I was an owl.

Great-grandmother nodded her head and lifted up one foot to point with a long talon at a hollow in the base of her tree.

I stood up and walked. Human legs were longer than I had realized, but I got the hang of it quickly. Although they were not useful for grasping things, these human feet were well designed to carry my weight. In no time at all, even faster than I could have hopped as an owl, I reached that hollow and looked inside. My new eyes did not seem to be as good at penetrating the darkness, but there was something in there. I lifted my arms and reached in. My hands proved as good at grasping as my feet had been when I was an owl. I pulled out a long bundle wrapped in deerskin and tied tightly with rawhide.

I put it down on the ground and knelt. And that was extremely weird. Instead of bending backward as legs are supposed to do, my human legs bent forward. I stood and knelt several more times, getting used to the feeling. Then I turned to the bundle again. Those new fingers of mine seemed clever enough to know what to do on their own. Without my telling them, they loosened the rawhide string and unwrapped the bundle.

By now, Malsumsis had returned, a grin on his face and the stick in his mouth. But he dropped it when he saw what I was doing and trotted up to look over my shoulder.

“Hoo-hoo-hoooo,” I said in pleasure as my wolf friend and I looked down at what I had revealed.

There were all the clothes a human man would wear, from the fringed shirt and breechcloth down to moccasins that were, I was pleased to see, decorated with porcupine quill patterns much like those on Dojihla's dress.

It was a bit awkward, but with Great-grandmother's hooted instructions to help me, I got the clothing on. Malsumsis was no help at all. He kept picking up pieces of clothing, running about with them, dropping them, and then waiting for me to come get them. He grabbed one of the moccasins in his mouth, dancing close and then leaping away. There was nothing I could do but chase after him to get it back. I dove at him, grabbed him with my new arms. The two of us went rolling around on the ground, just as I had seen human children do with their puppies.

I enjoyed it, but this was no time for play. I had things to do. I pried the moccasin out of his jaws, stood and brushed leaves and dirt from my new clothing. Malsumsis crouched down again, lowering his head to the ground in anticipation of another round of wrestling. I was tempted. I had never been able to do this when I was an owl, and it was such fun. But I shook my head and raised one arm to point at the forest.

“No, my friend,” I said in a firm voice. “We will play later. Now go and leave me alone for a while.”

Without a whimper of complaint, Malsumsis turned and trotted off into the woods.

I put on the last of the clothing and secured it with its rawhide strings. I held out my arms to show off my clothing, turned around twice, and then looked up at Great-grandmother.

She nodded. “Good, Wabi,” she said.

But there was a far-off look in her eyes as she spoke that made me step closer to her.

“Whose clothes were these?” I asked.

Great-grandmother did not answer. She turned her head away from me and looked toward the place where I had landed in the middle of the circle of stones. I followed her gaze. To my surprise, the human-shaped mound had sunk down and was now a depression in the earth. Right where I had been. That was why I had such a hard time sitting up. I'd been half buried in the earth. No, that wasn't exactly it. I'd felt for a moment as if I was part of that earth, and I'd been right. Had I absorbed that whole mound of earth when my body changed shape? I felt my legs and arms with my hands. I felt like flesh, not earth, but it made sense to me. How else could I have become so large? After all, even the biggest owl is much, much smaller and lighter than a human being.

I looked back at my great-grandmother. It was not easy to do. My neck was so stiff! I could just barely turn it from side to side, rather than being able to turn it way around as an owl can.

“Wabi,” Great-grandmother said, “do not try so hard to turn your neck. Human necks are stiffer than an owl's. But your eyes can move farther on their own.”

That was true, disconcertingly so. My eyes were not acting properly. Instead of moving with my head, they seemed able to float around on their own. Up and down. Back and forth. It made me dizzy. I closed my eyes tightly. Finally, cautiously, I opened them again, trying to keep careful control of them. Turning both my head and my new, wobbly eyes, I looked once more at the deep, man-shaped indentation in the earth where I had lain.

“My great-grandfather?” I said.

“Hoo-hooo,” Great-grandmother replied, bobbing her head. “You have taken back what your great-grandfather left behind.”

“Then my mother was not the first in our family to change shape? My great-grandfather too was a human who changed?”

It may seem silly that I spoke it as a question, but there was so much going through my mind at that moment. On the one wing, I had never been more confused. On the other I felt as if I knew and understood more than I had ever known and understood before.

“His human name was Nadialid. He who hunts,” Great-grandmother hooted in a voice that was both sad and proud. “But I will not tell you his story today. It is
your
time, great-grandson.”

“But I have more questions,” I said. “There are more things I must know. Will I always stay a human now? Can I ever change back into an owl again?”

It was strange how speaking with human lips made words flow so quickly. I had always asked lots of questions, but now I had twice as many to ask and it seemed that I could ask them twice as fast.

Great-grandmother looked amused. “You are who you are,” she said. “It will be your choice, great-grandson. Who you really are will never change. Feel your ears.”

I reached up. To my surprise, the tops of my ears were long and feathery. They stuck up out of my thick black hair just as the two tufts on top of my head had done when I was an owl.

“Oh no,” I moaned. “Now anyone who sees me will know I am different.”

My new ears felt pleasant to the touch, but they were a major problem. If I looked in any way like an owl, the humans would not accept me. They might even suspect me of being a monster in disguise.

“Grandmother,” I pleaded, “this is serious. I have to hide these.”

“Are you sure you want to cover your lovely ears?”

“Yes,” I said. “I am very sure. Tell me what I can do.”

Grandmother did not reply. Instead she just lifted her foot and pointed with her claw at the leather headband that still remained on the ground. I had seen such headbands worn by the men of Dojihla's village. I understood. I picked up the leather and wrapped it tightly around my head. Now my owl's ears were pressed down and concealed by the headband. Now I looked like a proper human being.

THERE ARE MANY GOOD REASONS to listen to stories. That day I learned yet another one. If you have heard many stories told to you, it is easy for you to make up new ones to tell to others.

I sat next to the fire looking around the circle of smiling people. Well, not all of them were smiling. Some of the young men who clearly prided themselves on being the best hunters in their respective villages no longer looked so sure of themselves. They did not look so self-satisfied as they had been before I walked into the circle of light cast by the campfire that burns each night in the center of Wolhanadanak.

Wolhanadanak, Valley Village. That is the name Dojihla and her people call this little town where they live. I learned that and any number of things I had never taken notice of before by listening, listening in a different way.

Just as my eyes were not the same as when I had been an owl, so too were my ears changed. Unlike my owl ears, these human ones were set exactly opposite each other on my head. An owl's ears are placed in a better way, one a little higher than the other. That way it is easier to take a bearing on some hidden tasty little thing rustling in the leaves and burrowing under the snow. As a human I also no longer had a nice movable funnel of feathers around each ear that I could arrange in such a way as to bring any sound to me more effectively.

Luckily, though they were stiff and awkward, these new ears were fairly perceptive. (Much better, I would learn, than those of humans who had not begun their lives as owls.) And by tilting my head to one side or the other and cupping my wingtips—hands, I mean—around one ear or the other, I could focus in on sounds with some effectiveness.

I had been listening and watching from the shadows for some time before making my own entrance. I listened more carefully than I had ever listened before as one young hunter after another arrived at the village, introduced himself, and said pretty much the same thing.

“I have come to win the great contest that will begin tomorrow as soon as Kisos, the great sun, shows his face at the edge of the sky.”

First, though, each new arrival would call out a greeting before he came into sight.

“Kwai kwai, nidobak!”
Hello, my friends.

I noticed how many of those young men arrived with their proud mothers close behind them. Nudging them along, in fact. In one or two cases, it seemed as if their sons were not eager to take part in this contest for Dojihla.

“Kwai kwai, nidoba.”
Hello, my friend.

That is the response that would come back to them from the tall gray-haired man who seemed to have the role of welcoming the visitors. That older man stood with his back to the fire, looking down the dark path where each new arrival appeared.

“Bidhabi,” the man would then say in a voice almost as deep and pleasant as that of an owl.
Enter and sit.

I had listened to humans many times, but never before had I been in a situation where I would actually be talking back to them. I needed to know what to say and how to say it. I needed to observe how a proper human behaved in such circumstances. I needed to avoid behaving in a way that would make people suspicious. Most of all, I needed to learn what had to be done to impress Dojihla.

Unfortunately, none of the young men who arrived ahead of me could offer any guidance at all as far as that last thing went. No matter how they carried themselves, no matter how they were dressed, no matter what they said, Dojihla looked at each of them the way a hunter might eye a badly made arrow that he knows will never fly straight.

I had noticed how all the hopeful young men introduced themselves. When they said who their people were and what they were called, familiar places and names often received nods and sighs of approval from the people of her village. But never from Dojihla. She looked as if she had eaten something that was beginning to disagree with her.

None of the men had brought a gift for Dojihla. I looked at the lovely fat mouse I held cupped in my hand. It wiggled its nose and looked back up at me. Of course I hadn't killed it. It is much more polite among owls for your present to still be alive. Then the recipient can enjoy the delicious pleasure of breaking its little neck.

I shook my head. Perhaps not a good idea? Human tastes were different from owls. Come to think of it, I had never seen a human being eat a mouse. My only uncertainty before had been whether to dangle my little squirming token of affection from my hand or my mouth before passing it to the object of my affection. Now I realized how bad an idea that was. Apparently human suitors fed each other such tidbits as live food only when they were inside their upside-down nests. Not out in full view of everyone else.

I went down on one knee and opened my hand.

“Go and make more of your kind so we owls will always have plenty to eat in the nights to come,” I whispered to the mouse. It hopped off my hand and dug into the leaves, making so much noise that I was shocked none of the humans seemed to notice.

I should probably go into the village now,
I thought.

But still I hesitated, listening. Soon I was glad that I had listened further. What I heard gave me hope.

Dojihla's father had drawn his daughter off to the side and was speaking to her in a voice meant for no one else to hear.

“My daughter,” he was saying, “you must accept this. I am sorry that none of these young men interest you. Your dream of marrying the Village Guardian is a foolish one. He is nothing more than a story.”

None of those young men interested her? Wonderful! It was clearly the moment for me to make my entrance. I stood up, walked to the edge of their circle of light, and spoke in a clear and pleasant voice.

“KWAI KWAI, NIDOBAK.”

In my excitement, my voice boomed out a bit more than I had intended. Everyone, with the exception of Dojihla, leaped so high at the sound of my friendly greeting that it seemed as if the entire village was trying to find wings and take flight. Dojihla, though, just narrowed her eyes and peered in my direction. Was it eagerness to see who this new arrival was or just annoyance at yet another troubling suitor? I hoped for the former, but my heart sank a bit as I realized it was more likely the latter.

But if you don't hop off the branch, you'll never catch anything.

“Kwai kwai, nidobak,” I said again, trying to make my voice as sweet and melodious as possible. And not as loud.