Part III of Fiddlesticks

Trials

There is a glossary, and an index for this serial.

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1. Chekaubaewiss Goes White Watering

Chekaubaewiss proceeded into the cave. He traveled by feel and sound, holding his hands out before him and stepping heavy so his footsteps echoed through the cavern. It would be folly to wait for his eyes to adjust, better to keep them shut as much as possible, sending them the message to relax and stop straining. The eyes were only one sense organ out of six.

His progress in the caverns was being monitored. Chekaubaewiss could sense them around him. Yet when he first saw the glow, or rather felt it through his closed eyelids, he was inclined to discount it as a trick of the mind. Then it returned ahead of him, stationary and brighter than ever. Chekaubaewiss stopped and opened his eyes.

Before him stood a shining metallic being, tall and slender, such a lustrous silver it was almost white. Without a doubt, this was a sentry of the Mizauwabeekum.

“Greetings,” Chekaubaewiss spoke in the old tongue, holding up his right hand, palm out, to demonstrate his peaceful intentions. He had never dealt with the Mizauwabeekum before, though he knew they could be very mercurial and should be entreated with care.

The silver sentry pulsed when he spoke his salutation, otherwise it neither moved not made a sound.

“I am looking for a friend who came this way,” Chekaubaewiss tried again, “a young girl.”

The silver Manitou’s light wavered at his words, like speaking over a candle flame.

“Can you understand me?” Chekaubaewiss took a step toward the creature in the least threatening manner possible.

The silver Mizauwabeekum turned and raced down a side passage. Chekaubaewiss followed after, calling, “Wait!”

The silver runner was fast, but it could not escape from Chekaubaewiss. He managed to stay within ten paces of it as it raced down the winding tunnel.

The thing ran by spinning its legs like treads. In this fashion, it moved silently. Its head seemed to draw into its body, while its arms wagged around it helping it to keep balance as it increased its speed.

Over his own footfalls, Chekaubaewiss could hear dripping water. The air in the side cavern grew damp, and he felt moisture on a wall as he brushed past. The dripping gave way to the gurgling of moving water.

Chekaubaewiss stepped up his pace as the silver runner ducked out of sight around a sharp curve. The glow of the metal Manitou winked out as Chekaubaewiss made the turn. It lasted just long enough for him to see he had reached a dead end. But for the glow, which seemed to fade into the wall ahead of him, there was no sign of the one he pursued.

Stopping to catch his breath, Chekaubaewiss readjusted to total darkness. In the fading glow, he thought he had seen the shine of metallic veins in the wall ahead of him. Hands out, he approached the cave face and felt along it. The sound of moving waters entered the cavern to his right. Water dripped on him from the ceiling, and the walls around him were wet and dark.

He turned toward the sound of running water. A spray splashed over him and he sought its source. His hands found another passage in the wall, little more than a crack really, no more than a foot wide. The sound of water came from this crack, as did the mist.

It seemed unlikely that the silver Mizauwabeekum passed this way. No doubt it could draw itself out enough to fit through the crack, but its glow had not disappeared down this side shaft. It had faded directly into the wall. Chekaubaewiss felt his way back. He had glimpsed some sort of metal veins here before the light faded. His hands felt only cold wet stone. Then a light shone over his shoulder, showing the metal veins that ran through the wall.

Turning, Chekaubaewiss found the passage behind him was occupied by a squad of Mizauwabeekum. Stocky iron blue Manitou stood two abreast blocking the way back. Though their faces bore no readable features, they radiated their militant intent in their cold blue auras.

Chekaubaewiss might be able to crash through the first couple rows, but he could not tell how many were beyond them, as the curve in the tunnel hid their number. There might be a score or more. In these close quarters, ten would be too many. Once they had a hold of him it would be over.

“I don’t suppose you could direct me to my friend?”

The front pair of Mizauwabeekum moved toward him.

“I thought so,” Chekaubaewiss spoke to himself.

In their light, he saw the crack in the wall. It was very narrow, but he might be able to do it.

As the Mizauwabeekum approached, Chekaubaewiss threw himself at the gap in the wall. It was tight. He doubted his head and chest would make it, but the walls were slick with water. Turning his head to squeeze through, he saw the hostile Mizauwabeekum reaching out to apprehend him as they drew near. That gave him the impetus he needed. He squeezed through the crack, scraping the side of his head as he did so.

Then he was sliding down some chute. The next thing he knew, he was in water and the whole dark world had gone topsy-turvy. The waters around him churned, tumbling him about. Choking, he tried to find the surface. He flailed in the turbulent waters, unable to tell which way was up. A current pulled at him and he fought, uncertain where it was trying to draw him, but sure it would not bring him to the surface.

The waters picked up their pace as they settled upon a direction. He was borne along as he struggled to find air. In the darkness he collided with a rock, banging his head so hard he nearly lost consciousness. For a moment his head bobbed in open air, though he hardly realized it for the roaring pain of his collision.

Fighting back to the surface, he coughed up great gouts of water, hacking in the effort to empty his lungs and take in oxygen. He bumped a rock overhead and was dunked under again, though he resurfaced quickly, fighting for breath. Throwing out his arms, he felt stone overhead and to his right. Then he laid hold of a stone spire jutting down from overhead. Possibly it was a large stalactite that had not been eroded by the current. He managed to hold onto it and pull himself partway out of the raging waters.

Though his arms trembled from the effort of holding onto the stone spire and resisting the relentless current, the stalactite offered him some respite from the tumbling waters. He caught his breath and fought to clear his head and orient himself.

He was in an underground river. The current was fast and furious. It took him a moment to realize the roaring was not in his head. The noise was coming from all around him. It was a sound never to be mistaken; he was near the edge of a waterfall.

Chekaubaewiss felt about to see if he could find some way out of the river, but there was nothing. Shifting, he nearly slipped free of the pillar. Scrambling on the slick rock, he sought a secure grip and clung on for dear life. In his efforts, he thought he felt the pillar giving way.

Keeping as still as possible, he hugged the rock as his only sanctuary from the maelstrom. Though his fingers went numb and his arms ached from holding on, he rested for a time.

There was no way out of this stream. Eventually his arms would tire and he would lose his grip, or his extra weight would cause the pillar to collapse. If he waited for the inevitable, it was likely he would be in no shape to withstand what would come. But if he acted soon, there was a chance.

Chekaubaewiss hyperventilated until his head was spinning. Then he took a deep breath and let go of the pillar. The current had him and he was tumbling about again, trying to keep from losing his breath.

The current accelerated, the water churning in a frenzy. For a moment he was poised on the surface of the stream as on a seat. Then he was tumbling in free fall. He and the waters rained downward. As they fell there was no battering; they moved together in answer to gravity’s call. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, everything hung in suspension. Then the roaring reached up to swallow him.

He hit some surface — water undoubtedly, though it felt like the hardest stone. He was slammed down and driven through the surface. Water pounded at him with hundreds of pounds of pressure. His breath was gone, but that was the least of his worries.

The falling waters were driving him to the bottom of the pool, where they would either crush him or pin him against the stone floor. Chekaubaewiss fought to escape the assault. He struggled to keep his feet beneath him and swim free of the pounding waters.

His lungs aching for breath, he at last broke free. Finding himself in calmer waters, he surfaced and filled his lungs with air.

While not as forceful as above, the current drew him away from the waterfall. The roaring receded into the distance. Having no place else to go nor the energy to get there, he floated on the surface of the stream, allowing the current to carry him along.

Chekaubaewiss had never ached so much. And he was tired with an age-old weariness. He floated along, feeling all the many years passing by him. There were the short years of his youth, the long centuries of imprisonment in stone, and the idle years spent living as a fugitive in a world that was not his home. Too many years — enough to overwhelm and drown a man.

Yet at least these last few years he had a purpose: to look after the girl. And now she had slipped away. Wherever she had gone, Chekaubaewiss could not follow. It was time for her to find her destiny, a destiny in which he did not share. It was time for him to step aside.

He thought about his sister, hoping she found peace even if it was the peace of oblivion. Chekaubaewiss recalled the last time he visited her. There was nothing left of her, not even the mindless awareness of stone. She had been fading, but that sorcerer drained her to power his own conversion. He drained her, crying out in mindless pain, until at last she fell silent.

Of all Chekaubaewiss endured over the ages, the abuse of that sorcerer was the most horrendous. The man had stolen a part of Chekaubaewiss’ life and a part of his soul as he stole his sister entirely. What he did to them was unforgivable.

Over the many years, Chekaubaewiss often wished he had stuck around to deal with the sorcerer. At the time, so intent was he upon escape that he left the sorcerer to the muse. The sorcerer was very powerful and Chekaubaewiss could never be certain who prevailed. Both man and muse disappeared.

A decade after his escape, Chekaubaewiss returned to the site of his imprisonment in an effort to learn what befell the sorcerer. The trail had long grown cold, and there was no one who could tell him what happened after his flight. Maybe his sister witnessed the confrontation between man and Manitou, but the rock she had become said nothing. Chekaubaewiss doubted she had a mind left to hold the memory of those events.

Since that day, he had tried to tell himself the muse prevailed, but there was always a doubt. Down deep, some part of him believed the sorcerer had survived, and he would have to face him again. Now that he had released his ward to make her own life, that doubt became a certainty: the sorcerer survived and was now stronger than ever.

He was ready to act. Chekaubaewiss could feel it. And his actions would threaten the universe. Floating in the stream, Chekaubaewiss knew his ward would soon cross paths with the sorcerer; she would thwart him. Because he, Chekaubaewiss, had not made sure of the sorcerer’s end long ago, Rene would have to face him now.

It was up to her and her brother to stop him, but they were not yet equal to the task. Chekaubaewiss had one service yet to perform for the brother and sister: he had to stand between them and the sorcerer, keeping him from them as they thwarted his current plans. He would have to ensure the sorcerer was indisposed, at least until the brother and sister were ready to face him on their own.

Chekaubaewiss lost track of everything floating in the stream, resting and contemplating. He did not notice when the river exited the cavern to flow beneath the night sky, flanked by dark forests on either bank.

He was so lost in somnolent reverie he did not hear the nature spirits calling out to him as he drifted along. He did not notice when muskrats laid hold of him and paddled to the shore, nor when the nature spirits lifted him and bore him through the forest. He felt nothing as they laid him in a soft bier and tended him with herbs and prayers.

He knew nothing until his own thoughts called him forth, rested and ready for action. He awoke knowing he must go up against the most powerful sorcerer that ever lived. And he knew where to find this man, if man he still was. He would have known even without this new call to duty. His giant radar would have told him. This sorcerer had amassed an army of giants and trolls, and other infernal creatures. The Corrupted Horde was gathering not too far distant, and this sorcerer stood in command of them all. And for a certainty, he would throw this whole army at Rene and Stephen, if Chekaubaewiss did not stand in his way.

Next Chapter: Henry Faces a Dragon Cat

Fiddlesticks

There is a glossary, and an index for this serial.

Subscribers can download the present chapter either as a pdf, or as a Kindle file in a zip archive.

PDF ~ Kindle

Interlude

The white wolf loped cross the yard. It paused to look up at Grandma Rena before disappearing around the corner of the cabin. Her granddaughter had arrived. She would be wondering where her daughter was.

Rena would have to steer this conversation just right. Her granddaughter, Judy DeClaire, was an odd mixture of wisdom and ignorance. She respected the old ways and she fought against injustice. But she was entrenched within the world where those injustices were bred. She was not so different from many other goodhearted people who sought to make this a better world, while the majority of their actions only served to reinforce the ignorance that was the root cause of so many ills.

They could see various problems and they strove to resolve them, but they could not see these problems were endemic to the world in which they lived. They were so absorbed by this world, so impressed by its necessity, they could not see beyond it. Nor could they understand that this entire world of theirs was based upon ignorance, and as such was doomed. And the time was soon coming when they must either wake up and step out of this world, or doom themselves with it.

Rena Twoshadows had helped her great grandchildren set their feet on the good path. Stephen and Rene had important roles to fulfill as the ignorant world of the dominant civilization came crashing down. This was part of Rena Twoshadow’s vision, the fulfillment of which had kept her going for so long. Now that she had set both children on the good path, it was time to do likewise with their mother.

***

Judy DeClaire stepped out of the woods to find her grandmother waiting for her on the porch, sitting in her rocking chair. Grandma Rena always knew when she was coming. Judy thought it had something to do with the animals around here. Particularly the wolf and the raven, one of which was always keeping watch by the end of the two-track that led most of the way to Grandma Rena’s cabin.

Judy knew her grandmother had supernatural powers. While she lived without the modern technological comforts and conveniences, Grandma Rena inhabited an ancient world full of wonder and vitality. In Grandma Rena’s presence, Judy had witnessed miracles great and small since the time she was a child. She knew all of the magic that surrounded her grandmother was imbued by the goodness of her heart. Yet certain things, such as her grandmother’s prescience, still creeped her out just a little.

Grandma Rena helped to raise Judy after her own mother died. Judy had spent much time in this cabin, living in the ways of her people. Grandma Rena had provided her with a rich heritage that was important to her. Yet she had also spent much time in Marquette, living with her father, where she had learned to adapt to the ways of the dominant culture.

Her father, Marlin Twoshadows, had never fully made this adjustment, and in the end it led him to an early grave. She could see a lot of him in both of her children, and she worried they would suffer for it as he did. Stephen retreated into the wilderness and Rene into the fiddle. Marlin had done both. Fortunately, so far neither of her children repeated his ultimate retreat into the bottle. She prayed they never would.

Judy knew there was something vital in the old ways that was missing from the modern world. It was her hope the two could somehow become compounded into one, though the older she grew the more doubtful she became.

As a young woman she could see that, powerful as her grandmother was and vital as the old ways were, they had been eclipsed. The old ways were dying, and the modern ways, the ways of this technological civilization, were in ascendance. Her husband, Herman DeClaire, was a man of this world. Herman was of French Canadian and Norwegian descent, with some Blackfoot thrown in.

At first they had loved each other very much. They settled down to raise a family. Herman worked as a guard at the state prison outside of Marquette. It was a comfortable living, though not extravagant. Herman did not like grandmother, nor did Grandma Rena approve of him. So for the first years of the marriage, Judy saw little of her grandmother. When Stephen was born, Judy insisted on taking him to visit Grandma Rena often. She wanted her children to know their great grandmother, and the old ways.

That was the beginning of the end. Herman insisted Stephen, and then Rena, should know his family as well. While Judy agreed, she found Herman’s family to be dysfunctional and downright hateful. The only consolation was that they lived some distance away, in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada.

Herman and Judy made occasional visits. If Grandma Rena did not approve of Herman, at least she tolerated him. During their visits to Herman’s family, Judy was a target for general abuse. To a lesser extent, so were their children. Herman’s father called her Herman’s squaw. And Stephen was always getting into fights with his older and bigger cousins.

What was worse, Herman brought this abusive attitude back home with him. And he seemed to hold onto it for longer and longer periods of time. He took to drinking, and Judy often sought refuge at her grandmother’s cabin. Grandma Rena counseled her to leave her husband.

While he would never admit it, Herman was afraid of Grandma Rena. No matter how long Judy stayed at the cabin, Herman would not go there looking for her. He would wait and take it out on her when she returned. And she did return, at least until the day Herman announced they were moving to Sault Ste. Marie.

He had been laid off from the prison, and saw no reason to remain in Marquette. His dad promised there were jobs waiting in Canada at a nearby strip mining operation. There was a big fight when Judy refused to move. Herman beat her into submission. Then he left her cowering on the floor, with both children crying in the next room. He went out to the bar, and when he returned later that night Judy and the children were gone.

They fled to Grandma Rena’s, and Judy had not spoken a word to Herman since. He headed back to Canada without them. Neither she nor the kids had seen or heard from him since. When she filed for divorce, he did not even put in an appearance. When the judge asked about child support, Judy said she wanted nothing from him.

Though Grandma Rena offered to let them stay with her, Judy moved back to town. It was too cramped in the cabin; besides, Stephen was old enough to begin school. And Judy wanted the conveniences of society. She took a job at Wal-Mart — knowing she was working for the enemy. After a year living in a shabby apartment, she found a house she could rent to own in a decent enough neighborhood. There she stayed, providing stability and nurturing her children as they grew up.

Now Judy was unsure. As the dominant culture gained world dominion, its failings became obvious, and they appeared fatal. Maybe her grandmother had been right all along: there was no way to reform this system.

Judy was glad both of her children took such a strong interest in the old ways. She had worried about them — particularly Stephen when he followed his friend into the army. The old ways would help to keep them safe through the hard times that were already upon them. She did, however, wish they would not completely turn their backs on technological civilization. It felt too much like they were turning their backs on her.

For her part, while she valued the old ways, Judy did not see how she could live without the comforts and conveniences of technological civilization. She was ready to leave Wal-Mart, but how would she live without any income? She could not simply move into the wilderness as her son had done.

***

“Hello Judy,” Grandma Rena greeted her.

“How ya doin?”

“Never better.”

Judy stepped onto the porch. Grandma Rena did look as fit as ever. How did she do it? In her late thirties, Judy already felt herself growing short of breath and weaker. Her chest seemed to ache constantly from those damned cigarettes. And she was gaining pounds she could not get rid of. She worried her good looks were fleeing with her health. Yet there was Grandma Rena, unchanged from the time when Judy was a child.

“You’re looking for Rene,” Grandma Rena stated rather than asked.

“I ain’t heard from her in t’ree days, eh.”

“She’s gone on a journey,” Grandma Rena told her. When her granddaughter greeted these words with alarm, Grandma Rena added, “Stephen is looking after her.”

“Where’d dey go?”

“Not too far.” Grandma Rena looked off to the north.

Judy followed her gaze. “Out in da Hurons; what for?” Now she worried they would run afoul of the armed security guards that patrolled the territory of the Huron Mountain Club.

“She’s seekin her way.”

“Grandma, I’m glad yer teachin da kids da old ways. Stephen is on his own now, and certainly needs all da help ya can give him, eh. But Rene’s a minor yet. You two need to let me know what yer up to.”

Grandma Rena gave a twist to the corner of her mouth, but said nothing.

“I’m afraid Rene isn’t gonna have as much free time to spend wit’cha dis summer.” Judy sought to establish her role as the parent. Why did she always feel Grandma Rena superceded her authority? “She’s gonna have to get a job if she wants a driver’s license. I t’ink I can get her in at Wal-Mart, eh.”

“Rene does not want to work at Wal-Mart,” Grandma Rena spoke in Ojibwa, all but the name of the store, which she spit out contemptuously.

“She’s gonna have to start workin to pay her own way.” Judy spoke in English.

“Rene will be a medaewaewin, and a powerful one,” Grandma Rena insisted on speaking in the old tongue. “She is already a daebaujimoot. If she needs to earn money, she can do so with her fiddle.”

“And what kind a future is dat gonna be for her, eh?” Judy erupted.

“What kind of future would she have in your world?” Rena threw back at her. “She will spend the next few years helping someone else make a profit from raping the Earth. And then when the whole thing falls apart, what?”

Judy was stricken. She had no answer for this. It echoed too closely her own thoughts of late.

“Better our ancestors had resisted to the last, rather than we should defile their memory and ours own spirit like this.”

Judy felt the tears welling in her eyes, and fought to hold them back.

“Stephen and Rene have important roles to play in saving this world from the ignorance that would destroy it. Do not ask them to give up their destiny by willfully taking up the ignorance that would be their doom.”

Judy felt despair. She knew how corrupt and self-destructive this world was. For years she had been following the news, writing to her congressmen to protest global warming, ozone depletion, rainforest destruction, military aid to despots who sought to exterminate the few remaining indigenous peoples of the planet. Her efforts helped to win small victories; but overall the dominant culture marched relentlessly toward destruction.

“What can we do?” she asked in the old tongue.

“You have a destiny too. It is time to leave the White Man’s world, before it drags you down with it.”

“How will I live?”

“As we have always lived. You will help to teach our people the old ways. Many will come to you in the next few years. Start with the children. They are our future.”

“Yes,” Judy brightened as though she had been thrown a lifeline. “The children need to learn the old ways.”

“Soon you will have a great many people turning to you for help. In time, many non-Indians will turn to you as well.”

Judy had thought about establishing a foster home for troubled Indian children once her kids had grown up. She even drafted a grant proposal to seek funding. But the goal of the foster care program was to help children become useful members of society. It was unlikely they would accept a proposal to establish a program designed to teach children to reject society.

“How will I find funding?”

“You are still thinking like a white person,” Grandma Rena chided. “Just do it. If you stay on the good path, the means will be provided.”

Judy took a seat next to her grandmother. “The tribe owns land they may allow me to use.”

“Be careful of the tribal council,” Grandma Rena advised. “They are corrupt. There may be a few good people on there, but too many want to be successful white men. Go to the people; they will see the need. With the tribe backing you, the council will not be able to resist.”

“They took some of the casino money and established a heritage fund,” Judy recalled. “Perhaps I can apply for some of that.”

“That is an idea.” Rena cautioned her, “But do not get hung up on money. That is not what this is about. Be careful not to become dependent on the casinos.”

“Well, I’m gonna need some money to start out, eh,” Judy said in English. “If nothin else, we’re gonna need some property, and dat means we’ll have to pay taxes.” She thought a moment as she lit a cigarette. “Unless we file to become a tax exempt organization.”

“You need to give those up,” Grandma Rena pointed at the cigarette. “We used tobacco only on occasion, to aid our prayers. It is the white man’s way to abuse it, just like everything else.”

Judy looked at the cigarette in her hand as she exhaled. She knew her grandmother was right. Besides, the cigarettes were killing her. She rose from her seat, tamped the cigarette out on the porch rail and prepared to flick it across the yard.

“You must honor the tobacco.”

Judy stopped and thought about it a moment. She stepped down off the porch and stripped the paper from the remainder of the cigarette, dumping the loose tobacco in the palm of her hand. A breeze blew up and she let it take the tobacco, sending her prayers for success with it. Climbing back up on the porch, she took out her pack of cigarettes and set them on the rail. She had tried to quit smoking so many times; she hoped this time she would succeed.

Grandma Rena said, “That is the trouble with the white way: it has no honor.”

They talked a while longer about the project Judy was undertaking. When they had exhausted the topic, they sat in silence.

After a time, Grandma Rena spoke up. “I must be honest with you. I am concerned for Rene.”

“Oh?” Judy pulled out of her own reverie.

“She made her first journey to the spirit world two nights ago. It was supposed to be a short visit, but she hasn’t returned.”

“What do you mean?” Judy asked with growing apprehension. She did not understand. She knew that when most shamans made journeys they were mental or spiritual undertakings, and their physical bodies stayed where they were. But her grandmother was not like most shamans.

Judy had seen her grandmother do many things normal people could not do. Since she was a child, Judy had grown used to her grandmother’s occasional disappearances. She had never seen her vanish, but she had been as near as the next room when her grandmother was suddenly gone. And even now that she was well over one hundred, she could pop up where you least expected, many miles from her cabin, with no visible means of traveling other than her feet.

Likewise, from early childhood Judy had grown up with stories of the spirit world. Yet she had not believed it was a real place since she was a teenager. She thought it was an imaginary fairytale world where many of the old stories were set.

“The White Man’s World ignores more than just it’s own welfare. There are many worlds. And out here among these ancient ridges there are pathways that lead to these other worlds. Rene traveled through one such pathway, but she did not return as she was supposed to.”

Judy recalled her grandmother’s warnings to be careful about the pathways in the Huron Mountains. And she remembered the strange tale her friend Connie Hillman told her of such a passageway that was opened to the world of the Weendigo, and the deaths that resulted.

As if reading her thoughts, Grandma Rena assured her, “The path Rene traveled did not lead to the Weendigo. But there are other dangers in the spirit worlds.”

“We must find her!” Judy was ready to bolt out of her chair and begin the search.
“Her brother and Chekaubaewiss have gone to do just that.”

“Chekaubaewiss?” There was another name from fairytales.

“You have seen him around town as a homeless dwarf who goes by the name of Jack.”

“Jack….” Now that Grandma Rena mentioned it, Judy did know of this dwarf. He had been wandering around Marquette for as long as she could remember. It occurred to her that he had not changed a bit in all of those years. “…the giant killer?”

“He has been watching over Rene since she was old enough to walk.”

Judy remembered that as a young child, Rene had been fascinated with the homeless man.

“Rene should also have her spirit guide with her,” Rena added, naming the Ojibwa word for butterfly. “Maemaegawauhnse.”

Maemae. That was the name of Rene’s imaginary friend when she was a young child. “Let me guess, Maemaegawauhnse has also been watching over Rene since she was a baby.”

“It is quite likely,” Grandma Rena  nodded her head.

This was all so fantastic; Judy wondered why she did not have more trouble accepting it. Perhaps it was because she had grown up in this cabin.

“Rene has ample help,” Grandma Rena assured her granddaughter, “and she has a very good head on her shoulders. That is not why I am concerned.”

As was her way, Rena paused to compose her words and decide just what she wanted to say. “I am afraid I have taken too long in guiding Rene to this stage of her development. Time is running out. Now that she has entered the spirit world, she is coming into her own, maybe too quickly. There is nothing I can do for her but make sure she and Stephen return safely when the time comes.

“I have kept a vigil by the pathway where they departed. But I know they will not come back that way. I can feel them. Rene is growing stronger with each passing moment. When they are united, I can go to them and send them home, but I need your help.”

“How?” Judy would do anything for her children.

“I can send them on their way.” Grandma Rena had never asked for help before, not for any reason. “But they need a focus to make sure they reach home. You are their mother. You can draw them here.”

Grandma Rena sounded tired. It was quite unlike her. Judy became concerned for her grandmother. “Are you sure you are up to this?”

“Do not worry about me.” Any trace of feebleness left her voice as she barked. “When the time comes, you just focus on bringing your children home.”

“I will,” Judy vowed.

“Now,” Grandma Rena’s voice grew sweeter as she rose from her rocking chair, “as we wait, I have a few old mementos I would like to share with you.” She led her granddaughter into the cabin.

Next Chapter: Chekaubaewiss Goes White Watering

This is another piece from a volume of my collected poems.

Part II of Fiddlesticks
In the Next World, You’re on Your Own
There is a glossary, and an index for this serial.
Subscribers can download the present chapter either as a pdf, or as a Kindle file in a zip archive.
PDF ~ Kindle
9. Stephen and Gramliche Share Perspectives
Evening gave way to night. Stephen DeClaire and Gramliche continued to haul rocks out of the cave mouth. When Chekaubaewiss did not return from his explorations into the [Continued]

Review of The Cruiserweight
by Suzanne Burke
The Cruiserweight, by L Anne Carrington

Due out later this year, from Night Publishing.
Lori Carrington has taken on a topic many readers of popular culture will not be familiar with. The world of wrestling is about as far as it gets from what would ‘normally’ be considered a topic for a “Romance “ genre novel. Yet a romance it is. It touches on the gentle side of a rugged sport.
The grit and substance remain, the wrestling scenes are gripping, and clearly well understood by the author. The world of the high paid sportsman and the back-stabbing [Continued]

The following poem has been scanned from a printed collection of my poetry. I’m sorry about the quality, but this is the best I can do with the equipment with which I currently have to work.

Here are three short reviews for a trio of excellent indie books.
The Wedding Gift, by Kathleen McKenna
Review by L. Anne Carrington

Kathleen McKenna’s The Wedding Gift is a story that will make the reader become addicted early in the book with its spine-tingling story of a Southern States mansion occupied by of the most terrifying, violent and psychopathic ghosts any town experienced.
The Wedding Gift, however, isn’t the average horror tale. Yes, there is plenty of chilling scenes that keeps one turning the pages, yet there’s also amazing humor nobody would expect to read in such a story.
Readers will also be intrigued [Continued]

Suzanna Burke has started a Promotional Assistance Group through Goodreads. On her blog, Soooz Says… Stuff, she is posting reviews of exceptional works by indie authors. Soooz encourages participating authors to cross-post reviews and other tidbits.
Here is the first review on her blog. This is for the book Tulagi Hotel, by the talented Heikki Heitala. Though Heikki is a Fin, you would never know it from his writing. He uses the English language as a pallet, from which to paint his masterpieces.
Review of Tulagi Hotel
By Suzanna Burke
From Soooz Says… Stuff

Heikki Hietala has crafted a place to hide in Tulagi Hotel. [Continued]

I am honored to receive the following review from an author of Marion’s calibre. It is clear that a great deal of thought and effort went into writing this review. For that alone, it deserves a wider audience.
Thanks Marion.
This is the 6th 5 star review for Blood Moon; Tales of da Yoopernatural.
Creating a World Like Our Own But with Myth and Magic
By Marion Stein
PD Allen’s Blood Moon is volume I of PD Allen’s “Tales of the Yoopernatural” a series of books and stories taking place in the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula though it’s not exactly Michigan’s, it’s Allen’s.
In these tales the [Continued]

Just a little note to let you know that I hope to resume the serialization of Fiddlesticks within the next week or so. I will pick up right where I left off. At this point, however, it looks doubtful that I will be able to post kindle versions of each installment.