She fidgeted, she squirmed, but she just couldn’t
concentrate. Kelsey wanted to start her new story about
‘It’s too nice to
be inside. Maybe I should just give up and go out.’
“So now you’re a quitter?”
Kelsey spun in her chair to see who had spoken. Frightening really, since she had thought she was alone in the house. “Who the hell are you!?”
A tall, Native woman winked back at her. “You mean you don’t know me? I’m hurt!”
Kelsey was caught between anger at being caught goofing off when she was supposed to be writing, and surprise. She thought for a moment, but only because this woman seemed just a little familiar. “You’re … ummm”
“I’ve been with you since you turned sixteen. I know every secret you keep, from what you write in the margins of your books to what turns you on. I know how badly you lust after …”
“Okay! Okay. I get the idea.” Kelsey interrupted. “But…”
The Native woman shook her head and sat in one of the overstuffed chairs, then slid her body sideways. “I’m your muse, Kelsey. I’m the one who whispers ideas into your ear in your sleep. I’m the one who gives you the ideas you get on the train home after work.”
“Then why the hell can’t I start this story?” The writer spat.
“Tsk. Such language.”
“Give me a break. If you’re my muse, why am I having such a hard time starting?”
“Maybe because I’m on a break.” The muse plucked an imaginary bit of fluff from her legs.”
“A break? NOW you decide to take a break? I get the first book deal of my life and you decide to take a break? And why are you wearing jeans?”
“Did you expect me to go around naked?” A black eyebrow arched.
“I don’t know! I didn’t expect to see you sitting here in my study while I suffered from writer’s block!” Kelsey rose from her desk and went to the window, but she couldn’t resist taking the occasional peek at her muse.
The woman was tall, but then, compared to Kelsey’s five feet, nearly everyone over the age of twelve was tall. She was dressed in a long sleeved white shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and loosely tucked into jeans. She was what Kelsey’s grandmother would have described as ‘a handsome woman’. Kelsey turned and peered closely at her muse. “Why are you wearing my grandmother’s bear claw?”
“This is what you envisioned me like. Remember, when the shrink in school had you do that visualization?”
Kelsey put her hands to the sides of her head in mock pain. “Please, don’t remind me. He was such a pig. I gave you a name too, didn’t I?”
Her muse sat straighter and smiled a beaming, white grin. “You did. You named me after your grandmother. Gunn.”
Kelsey smiled at the memory of her grandmother. She had been an unstoppable woman, even the day before she died.
“You never answered my question. Are you a quitter now?”
“What?” Kelsey resented the interruption in her musings. “What are you talking about?”
“You can’t start, so you want to quit and go outside. Since when are you a quitter?”
“I’m not! But I can’t think of how this thing should start.” Kelsey strode to the desk and rooted around her papers for her cigarettes and lighter. After she had lit one, she exhaled as she said, “I know the story. I know the characters. I know the plot, but damned if I know how I want it to start.”
“Nasty habit, that smoking.”
“Yeah, yeah. So sue me.” Kelsey looked out the window at the setting sun. The purple and red tones shimmered through the darkening forest. “This was her favourite time of day,” she said quietly. “She used to tell me that this was the time when the trees would cradle man closer and guard him from evil, back when we were closer to the land. She taught me to always leave a small offering of food for the spirits of the trees. She bought me the computer so I would use less paper.” Kelsey smiled.
“What do you think she would say now?” Gunn, the muse, asked.
“She would tell me to go inside myself and ask the spirits for direction. She was always true to her spirits, my Nokomis.”
“You are too, aren’t you?”
Kelsey straightened unconsciously at the window. “I suppose I am. Hard not to be, since she raised me. I heard her voice every day, helped her weed that garden ‘till the day before she died. She taught me about the herbs that heal and the ones that kill. She taught me how to keep Trickster from my door and how to honour my dodems. She taught me that the Moon is the grandmother and that the Sun is the Father and the earth has always been our mother.” Kelsey took another drag on her cigarette. “She was the only family I ever knew, and the only family that ever mattered to me.”
Gunn watched Kelsey carefully. Anyone could see the woman’s heritage there on her face. Her tragedies and joys were beginning to etch themselves on the landscape of her face, and Kelsey didn’t care. She had her father’s hands and her mother’s eyes. She had her father’s bad habit, and her grandmother’s unwavering sense of loyalty to the spirits that she had been brought up to believe in. She was a talented writer, a passionate person and a fiercely loyal friend to those she allowed in. She was calm and focused.
Usually.
“So, what are you going to do?” Gunn asked.
Kelsey did not answer right away. She leaned against the window frame and smoked in silence.
“Nokomis would tell me to ask the spirits and then follow my heart. I wish she was here.” Kelsey finally said.
“But she is.” Gunn rose from the chair and approached the aging writer.
Gunn reached out a hand and placed it over Kelsey’s heart. “She is here. Right here. She is in every breath you take, every time you blink, so does she. Every time you say your morning prayers and offer the Great Spirit tobacco, so does she. She hears every prayer; she walks with you and raises her voice every time you sing the Grand Entry song at Pow Wow. She knows every word you write and have not yet written.”
Kelsey looked into her reflection’s eyes at the now-dark window. She could see her grandmother there, gazing back at her.
“Nokomis is here.” She whispered. “I’ll start with her. This will be her story.”
Kelsey crushed out her cigarette and sat at her desk once more. She checked the screen to be sure her curser was she had left it and began to write…
****
dodems