Kiss Me, Curse Me - By Kate Shay Page 0,54

door behind them and hung a long, white-feathered arrow over the door knob. She anxiously fidgeted with it till it hung perfectly pointing left. “The wolf spirit.” She led them into the kitchen, through the pantry stocked with jars of food, and down the stairs to their basement. Grandma was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed as if in a deep meditation. Dyani closed the door and the four men turned in circles, gazing in awe at the plethora of drums, all shapes and sizes and phases of development, scattered about the room.

“Is this the party room?” asked Hank.

The old woman on the floor scowled at him and threw words at him in her native tongue.

“I guess not,” said Ed.

“We don’t have to explain ourselves. My husband makes these drums. This is where he works.” Dyani pointed to the table in the corner, littered with knives and wooden statues at various stages of carving.

“You do have to explain the wolf spirit,” said the sheriff. “Where’s everyone in your village? Where is your son?”

Grandma was dressed in a spectacular, multicolored gown, patterned in diamond shapes. . She pointed at Doby and spoke her mind, though they could not understand a word. She was mad. That’s all they could tell. “Dam, dam,” the old woman said lastly.

“I’ll translate for my mother,” Dyani said, taking a seat on the floor beside the old woman, and crossing her legs. She wore a simple, white dress just like the one she wore the day before—hand-sewn. Her hair was tied back neatly in a braid to match her mother’s white braid. “She’s upset. My husband and eldest never came home, and I thought my youngest was with you. We’ve been alone here. We’ve seen no one. She says the wolf spirit is free. He’s awake. He’s going to take all of us till he is full. The village is on orders that if he awakens, we go to the north to take shelter there. We have been unable to leave, as my mother . . . she is too old to make that journey.”

“The north?” Doby asked.

“Yes. We have supplies buried up north in our underground winter homes. Once a year, we go in and rotate old supplies with new supplies. We do it faithfully and it is a ritual that no one questions. The winters have not been too bad lately. We have not needed to go there in some time. We lost many on the wolf’s last awakening. Our elders keep the memories alive in the stories told to our tribe on the eve of every salmon harvest. The salmon are his gift from the water. They give us life just as the wolf gives us life.”

Grandma lowered her head as if in prayer.

Ed took a seat at the worktable, and the other three stood. “I don’t get it. The entire town left on the basis of a myth.”

“No. Someone has seen the wolf, and someone has died,” said Dyani.

Patty closed his eyes, “Two people are dead. My daughter and Doug.”

“Yes, that is only the beginning,” said Dyani. “He will come for us. Here. He finds everyone. He touches every family. Everyone must bleed for him.”

“And you think that arrow up there will stop him?” said Ed, scratching at the table with one of the knives.

“It wards off evil. I don’t know if it will work, but that is all we have,” said Dyani.

Checking that the door to the basement was locked again, Doby knelt down in front of the two women, “I’m not sure about this tale of yours, but I do know that we are being followed.”

Hank interrupted, “I saw a wolf in the woods, and there’s a man too. He followed us from the village.”

The two women looked at each other, taking hands. Grandma muttered a few desperate words.

“Then it is too late for us,” said Dyani.

***

“They’ve all gone mad. He was killing people in the streets, plowing them down like scarecrows. Please, someone take Sammy and Singapore. Get them both cleaned up and dressed. Put them up in that extra room back there when you’re done. The rest of you come with me. Push those tables up against that door, as many as you can muster.” Betty was thanking her lucky stars that her place didn’t have downstairs windows. “The rest of you—I need a few girls to push those extra mattresses in the back up against the backdoor, and I need the rest of you upstairs to