Kaya Stormchild (14 page)

“
Go on,” said
Kaya. She smiled at the solemn expression on the otter’s face, and
gave him a little nudge. “You’re not scared, are you?” she said,
teasing.

“
Of course
not!” growled the otter. He raised his head just a little to peer
over the edge of the canoe at Kelpie. At the sight of so many
hundreds of bodies crowding close, he shuddered and seemed for a
moment as if he wanted to hide in the bottom of the
boat.

“
I wish you
could come too,” he said quietly, looking longingly at the
girl.

“
I am not
sea-folk like you, Tike,“ said Kaya gently. “I have to stay in the
canoe. But you’ll be fine without me. Kelpie will look after
you.”

“
Oh, all
right.” The otter gave himself a quick shake. Then, with a sudden
leap, he was over the side of the boat and in the water.

“
Don’t go
home without me,” he called before turning to swim towards the
heart of the throng.

Kelpie laughed
merrily. “I’ll keep an eye on him. And I’ll see you soon, Kaya. How
about a swim tomorrow in Moon Cove?”

“
Sure!” said
the girl.

Kelpie dipped
beneath the sea and disappeared.

All around the
canoe the water thickened as more newcomers arrived. Excitement
shimmered in the air. Kaya was reminded of the charged, expectant
feeling in the atmosphere before a big storm. The sky was now
filled with so many wings she could barely see the glitter of the
distant stars. The birds greeted one another with shrill cries that
mingled with the calls of sea creatures below.

Just then
Grandmother swooped low to whisper in Kaya’s ear.

“
Listen. It
begins,” said the old eagle softly. Then she lifted into the sky
once more.

Kaya listened.
The sound she had noticed earlier, faint and delicate below the
chatter and the shrieking, was growing stronger and more resonant
with each second. One by one the gathered creatures fell silent.
Each face close to the canoe bore a look of intense concentration,
as if all were listening entirely to the sound that was both within
and outside of them.

It was the
most beautiful sound Kaya had ever heard. Like the singing of a
thousand voices in harmony, or the ringing of a thousand sweetly
tuned bells. It rose and fell, up and down the scale from
unimaginably deep tones, to notes so high the ear could barely
follow them. And all the while, beneath the harmony, a steady but
insistent pulse vibrated through the water, like the beating of a
great heart far below the waves.

This was not
the disturbing, urgent drumming she had heard that day on the
little island. Now, the beat was deeply soothing, echoing the pulse
of her own heartbeats. The singing and the pulsing grew ever louder
as she waited and listened, until it seemed to encircle her, to be
inside her and all around her at the same time.

The water
began to move. Slowly, in a great clockwise circle, swam all the
folk of the Salish Sea. Fish and otter, dolphin and whale thronged
the waves, while birds wheeled in a slow spiral dance
overhead.

The air
vibrated all around her. Kaya felt her hair lifted and her cheek
brushed as if by invisible fingers. The canoe began to move on its
own, swept up in the vast whirling spiral. Faster and faster went
the boat. The press of bodies was so thick on either side Kaya
could barely see the water. She was being carried by the power of
all those mighty fins and flippers. The singing grew still
stronger.

Then Kaya saw
the very centre of the circle begin to dip downwards, like the
pointed end of a funnel. For a moment it seemed the canoe and all
the swimmers would be sucked below the surface. But they were not
sucked down. Instead, the sea itself began to part, pulling away on
all sides to form a dark central opening, the mouth of a vertical
tunnel leading to the depths far below.

Kaya watched
the opening. She felt no fear. Instead, her heart overflowed with
an extraordinary brightness. There was no longer any distance
between her mind and every other mind present.

They were all
there, inside her: Kelpie, Tike, Grandmother, the dolphin and all
the other creatures. Like separate rays of light in a vast
brilliance. The singing swelled and time spread and loosened, so
that Kaya had no sense of the moments passing. The singing and the
whirling sea seemed to have existed like this forever.

All that was,
all that could ever be, was here, now, spiraling around
her.

Kaya thought
she would burst open for sheer happiness.

Then abruptly,
a profound and utter stillness fell. The pulsing ceased. The
swimmers seemed frozen, motionless, suspended in mid-whirl. A beam
of light shot up through the opening in the sea, sending a column
of radiance upwards towards the stars.

For a second
the scene was thrown into total illumination. Thousands of living
eyes reflected the light, thousands of shiny heads, dark fins and
spread wings were thrown into high relief against the surrounding
dark. Then, just as suddenly, the light was gone. The sea closed.
The great spiral slowed to stillness.

It was
over.

Kaya leaned
forward in the canoe. All around her a great sigh rose, as
thousands of creatures exhaled in unison. For a moment nothing
stirred. A profound hush filled the air. It surrounded Kaya like a
fragrance, like the echo of an exquisite melody.

She didn’t
want the feeling to come to an end. She wished she could stay this
way, adrift in her canoe in the midst of such extraordinary
happiness, unchanging, forever.

But slowly, as
if it grew from the air itself, a murmuring arose. Seals and fish,
otters and dolphins were beginning to drift apart, to swim
homeward. One by one, birds wheeled and left the sky overhead. No
one spoke. Their eyes shone as they nodded farewell to one another
but no one disturbed the hushed calm.

An eagle
landed on the prow of Kaya’s canoe.

“
Oh,
Grandmother,” Kaya murmured. Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them
away.

The eagle
ruffled her breast feathers and turned to gaze, smiling, at the
girl.

“
Yes. I know.
The Turning is so beautiful, it’s hard not to feel sad that it
comes to an end. But we’ll be here again next year,” she said
softly. “And you’ll find that some of it - some of the happiness -
comes home with you.”

They sat in
silence a moment.

“
You must be
tired, dear one,” said Grandmother at last. “Perhaps it’s time to
go. Ah, and here’s Tike.”

The otter’s
head bobbed above the water, just beyond the prow of the
canoe.

“
Wow!” he
sputtered. “I -” But he shook his head, at a loss for
words.

Kaya smiled at
him. “I know just how you feel! Hop in. Let’s go home.”

With a quick,
agile movement, Tike was up and over the side of the boat. He
stretched and yawned, then curled up at Kaya’s feet.

The eagle
lifted off the prow, and winged slowly away over the moonlit
water.

“
Tike?”
murmured Kaya, gazing at the dark silhouette of the distant
mountains against the sky. But the little otter was already
snoring.

Kaya
chuckled.

“
Sweet
dreams,” she whispered. Then, dipping her paddle into the sea, she
turned the canoe towards home.

THE END