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The Gift

Stephanie's Storyline, Chapter 4.2

copyright comidacomida 2018

Poor Kyle was set upon by all sides with Medved trying to get him to translate questions he threw out rapid-fire and then tried to relate back how Anapa was answering, but neither the Bear nor the Jackal would stop talking. To make matters worse, as soon as Tom put together what was going on his voice was added to the mix and, before I knew it, all four Spirits were talking over one another.

I tried for over a minute to figure out what I could out of the jumble of mixed-and-mismatched discussion but to no avail. Finally, when my own questions couldn't wait any longer, I put my abilities as a Seer to the test in an attempt to get the Spirits' attention and find room to get a word in. "Quiet, please."

The two simple words were said at conversation volume but the affect may as well have been a shout as the silence was immediate, even from Anapa, who couldn't really speak English. I was surprised at just how effective the request actually was. All muzzles (and beak) shut and all eyes immediately turned in my direction. Only once I had the floor did I speak the first and arguably most important question on my mind. "Kyle-- please ask Anapa what he wanted to say about my brother and a sacrifice to a Naturae Spirit."

Kyle looked back to Anapa and spent a moment relaying what I'd said. The Jackal responded; he had plenty to say, and did so with far more facial animation and paw gestures than I'd recalled him using in any normal situation. When the Raven looked back to me I could tell that he had a lot to relay to me. "Okay... Anapa said it took him awhile to figure it out, but something about the energy he took from Billy-- he calls it his 'shadow'-- Anapa says that it wasn't complete. I don't really get what he means, but apparently it's missing a part of it that only goes away when someone is sacrificed."

It was a straight forward explanation-- about as straight forward as something like that could be, but it didn't help me to understand. "But my brother fell into the water and hit his head. That's what I saw when Anapa showed me the vision. It was an accident... wasn't it?"

In response to my question Kyle shrugged. "I didn't see any other Spirits there, Stef... I'm just as confused as you are."

Rather than waiting for any further questions, Anapa spoke up again, addressing Kyle while motioning to me. The Raven nodded, looking back to the Jackal and when he responded it sounded as if he were asking for clarification. I waited until they were done with their discussion before I spoke. "What did he say?"

Kyle's feathers ruffled and he wriggled his arms in a half-flapping motion; he looked disturbed. "Anapa has spent the time he's been here with you meditating on what he knows and what he has come to understand about what happened to your brother. I think I know what he's talking about with the sacrifice thing."

Tom went to speak but I saw him wince out of the corner of my eye; the golden nose ring in his septim flashed brightly and it didn't seem to agree with him. FOcusing on the present, I looked at the Rhino. "Are you alright, Tom?"

He shook his head. "No, Nechda. This Jackal is telling us that my Nehed was sacrificed to a spirit of nature. Which spirit? The desert? The river?"

Without waiting for me to answer, Kyle provided the answer. "The third one. The river. It makes sense."

Focusing back on Kyle, I was more than ready amidst my confusion to get whatever information I could. "The river? What do you mean? We went swimming there all the time. Why would there be some kind of sacrifice now? How does that even work? It doesn't make any sense!"

The Raven's feathers puffed up even more. "There is an ancient spirit that was known by many tribes well before the Europeans came to this continent... Mishipeshu: The Water-Panther. He was most active in the long-ago days in the Northeast and the Great Lakes... I met him several times, and it never ended well-- he doesn't like Birds."

There were any number of questions I could have asked but I kept it simple for the sake of my sanity. "What is a Water-Panther, exactly?"

Kyle settled down in a chair, his feathers still puffed up. "Well, he looks more like a Lynx, to be honest... plus an alligator and a bison and a little bit of catfish... and he was-- well... IS very protective of his home. But I've never heard of him being this far west. The last I knew, his home was Michipicoten Island in Lake Superior."

He did a fairly decent job of answering my question but it did nothing to discourage my mind from continuing to try and put together puzzle pieces that didn't seem to match. "Then what would he be doing in Oregon? Why would he have wanted to hurt my brother?"

Rather than getting an answer from Kyle, it was Anapa who spoke. He addressed me directly, having apparently puzzled together what I wanted to know, but he wasn't able to convey his thoughts clearly. "Hemet'netjer-- brother sacrifice to Naturae Spirit."

"Billy was making sacrifices to it? How could he even have--?"

The expression Anapa's face soured as he shook his head, then turned to Kyle and curtly spat out a quick explanation in Coptic. The Raven looked at me. "He says that he thinks Billy was sacrificed TO Mishipeshu."

I understood what was being said yet it still didn't make any sense. "Why would Billy be sacrificed to a Naturae Spirit? WHO would do something like that?"

Kyle shook his head. "I'm sorry, Stef-- I just don't know. The Ojibwe and Potawatomi tribes were the ones I knew the best and some people among them would offer gifts to Mishipeshu... but they didn't do human sacrifice."

Medved snorted. "Maybe they changed their outlook in the past several hundred years. Humans do that."

The Raven clacked his beak several times in frustration. "Yeah? Well I doubt anyone from those tribes would be anywhere around here-- they're all centered around the Great Lakes and if they were still connected to us Spirits they would have stayed in their ancestral homelands rather than transplanting all the way out here."

I interjected, not wanting the discussion to turn into an argument-- not when I was hopefully getting close to an answer. Kyle-- ask Anapa if he has any way of tracking the Spirit that killed Billy."

Kyle turned to the Jackal, but Anapa spoke up quickly. "No, Hem'netjer-- no spirit kill brother. Brother die."

It felt like we were going in circles. "But... but you said-- Kyle-- ask Anapa how someone can be sacrificed to a Spirit without the Spirit killing them. It makes no sense."

The Raven and Jackal exchanged a few more words until Kyle nodded then looked back to me. "Stef-- he said that there must have been a Human who dedicated Billy's death to Mishipeshu. That would allow Mishipeshu to consume the essence that was missing. He said that Mishipeshu didn't kill Billy, but was invited to benefit from his-- uh... from him-- I mean... when he... uh... passed."

The statement caused my brain to freeze as it tried to reason out what I was hearing. "So... someone was there? You mean someone watched Billy die and let it happen?"

Kyle opened his beak. "Well, the--"

My brain started up again, moving at double speed and I couldn't talk fast enough, speaking over him. "Someone watched Billy die and didn't help? Someone wanted him to die so Mishipeshu could get spirit energy? So that means the person we're looking for must be a Seer then. A Seer wanted Billy to die!"

Looking back at it, I know now that it was a leap of logic, but, at the time, it was the most obvious connection. Billy was dead and, suddenly, I had someone I could blame; I had a place I could direct my anger. I wasn't able to save Billy but I had a direction I could work to find closure. Would I bring that Seer to justice? I definitely wanted to confront them. Tom summed up my thoughts the best with a rumbling statement. "If someone was willing to let Billy die then they learn about the error of their ways."

Medved was a little more reserved. "I do not disagree, but we cannot do anything blind. Wemust find out more about the situation. We cannot do anything stupid and we cannot put Stefanika at risk."

Kyle flapped his wings; it was a good attention-getter. "There's still one problem though-- I know enough about Mishipeshu that I would have seen him. He would have to have been near Billy to have taken any essence from him and I was the only spirit there. Mishipeshu doesn't leave the water, so he wouldn't have been able to get anywhere near Billy after the paramedics came to get him."

Anapa commented in Coptic, and Kyle nodded, motioning to the Jackal. "Right. Apana agrees with what I just said too."

Tom's rumbling growl caught my attention as the Rhino stood up. "A Weaver then."

All three other Spirit looked at him with surprise; Medved's muzzle was dripping with disbelief. "A Weaver? I have not heard of a Weaver among Humans in centuries."

Kyle nodded thoughtfully. "Actually... it would make sense... and they aren't extinct, you know... I'm sure they're still out there."

It begged an obvious question. "Okay, so back to that thing again. I'm a Seer, and we're looking for a--"

Anapa motioned to me. "Hem'netjer. You. You Weaver."

There was that word again; Anapa had already told me he wanted me to be a Weaver and the feeling I got from Medved was that he approved of the idea but neither Tom nor Kyle seemed to agree. "No... you WANT me to be a Weaver... there's a difference. I need to figure out what happened with Billy."

Kyle spoke softly, reaching out to me with a wing. "Stef... we already know what happened to Billy. Will this really change anything?"

I slammed both of my hands on the table. "YES!"

All four sets of eyes looked at me: two sets of Amber and two sets of Amethyst, and all of them looked like, in that moment, that they were judging me. It caused my judgment to falter just a little. "No... I... I don't know... I just..."

My excuse fell apart as surely as I did; I was crying before I knew it. Kyle was at my side in an instant, his wings wrapped around me like arms, pulling me into a close hug. We were about the same height so he could rest his beak on my shoulder even as he whispered. "It won't change what happened, Stef... but if it's important to you then I'll help however you want me to. I promise."

I felt a cold sensation when he spoke, a chill like an ice cube being laid against my pinkie finger. My attention was pulled away from that however as a pair of furred black arms enveloped the both of us. Anapa, slightly taller than Kyle had no trouble hugging me from the side even though he had to wrap an arm around the Raven to do so. His word were simple, but specific. "Hem'netjer, I help. As Duty."

The warmth of their joint embraces did nothing to banish the chill that had spread to my ring finger, but it wasn't a sensation that made me fearful; it felt more like air conditioning on a hot day or the cool plunge into a pool during the summer. Medved dwarfed both of the other Spirits as he waded into the group hug, folding his enormous arms around everybody, even going so far as to pick us up. "We will find out what happened to Billy, Lapushka, and we will all find closure."

By the time Medved set us all down and we disengaged, I felt the cold tingle on three fingers and, once I was able to look down at my hand, I saw three distinct rings with gleaming gemstones set into them. Somehow, I could tell that the onyx ring on my pinkie was from Kyle; the black iron ring on my ring finger was from Anapa; Medved's ring was golden with an inset Topaz and it took up my middle finger. After coming to terms with the physical manifestation of my spirits' commitments I looked to Tom, who was making his way over to me.

He rested one of his enormous hands on my shoulder; I felt its weight as a comfort despite it having no weight, and he knelt down so he could look me in the eye without me having to look up. "Nechda... any time a Seer and a Weaver meets the Seer is at a disadvantage. Are you sure this is what you want?"

I let out a breath slowly. "Tom... I don't know what I want yet... but I do want to understand. I'm not going to be stupid about it, but I want to know what happened."

The Rhino let out a thoughtful nod. "I protect you from the unforeseen. If this is what you want then I will be your Sentinel in this as well."

He reached down to take my hand and brought it up to his horn. Even as my fingers brushed across it he closed his eyes and a vibrant, golden light shone around my index finger. When the glow faded an ivory ring inset with a Topaz was added to my collection. I threw my arms around Tom's neck. "Thank you."

Once we disengaged I looked back around to my other companions. "Thank you all."

Looking back, I suppose it seems silly now that I thanked them before any of us had done anything but, at the same time, knowing now what I didn't back then makes me realize just how much I had to be thankful for. I had a feeling the road ahead of us would be difficult, but I didn't know just how much so. What I DID know, however, was that I didn't want to go unprepared, so I realized that I needed to know a lot more about what I might be facing... and I was SO overdue for a talk with my parents.