One Hundred Years: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

A Cold Wind Blows

It was dark inside Cooper's brain- because Cooper was certain that was where he was at the moment. He could see the light of brain impulses at the edge of his vision. He could see the cerebellum in the dim illumination provides by the brain impulses. He could hear the blood pumping into the skull and feel the rhythm of his body all around him. He did not know what peyote was, but he had chewed on it. Mister Poe had given him some of it and when Cooper had chewed it, he wound up in his brain.

It was dark.

Cooper wasn't claustrophobic and it wasn't the enclosed space, but something was making him feel uneasy. Was he supposed to be inside his head?

"This doesn't seem right. How can I be in my head. I'd have to kind of inside out to do that."

His voice sounded odd and kind of swallowed up by the sounds of blood pumping. Dark red pulses thrumming at the bottom of his vision, caused by his synesthesia, or maybe not if Mister Poe was right. Cooper was not certain that he believed old Mister Poe when the Ghost Dealer told Cooper that the colors he saw were signs of possession by spirits. The Redwing tribe was not terribly superstitious- especially not compared to other tribes.

Cooper didn't really believe in ghosts, but he maybe believed in spirits- although he did not really understand the difference, but there seemed to be one. Aunt Koko would laugh to hear him think things like this. She would laugh about him wondering about the aurora borealis as well, whether it was a piece of the sun or a dancing spirit or the mark of dragons in flight.

"She would probably laugh about me thinking I was in my head as well."

Cooper looked around again at the inside of his head.

"this can't be my head. I'm touching my head- so I can't be inside it. It's still attached to me. This means that I'm imagining this, but this is really real looking."

In the darkness ahead, Cooper saw something moving. Cooper walked in the direction of the movement, his feet sinking into the soft warm skin beneath his feet. He had the sense that walking towards movement in a dark and unfamiliar place was a very bad idea, but wasn't certain what else to do under the circumstances. He hadn't been trapped in his own head before, so he was on unfamiliar ground literally and figuratively.

As he closed distance with the movement he began to make out some shape and color. It was mostly black with a tiny bit of red and an even smaller stripe of yellow. There was also something reflective on the shape. The shape itself was small, about the size of his head- maybe smaller. It was moving in a way that Cooper now recognised as the movements of an animal, a bird in fact. Cooper was training to be a warrior scout and he was familiar with the movements of different animals so that he could spot them and notice their mood and especially the extent to which they were calm and nervous. He was also familiar with the movements of animals as they compared to the movements of humans. This was a blackbird- a red-winged blackbird from the swatches of color. It was perching on a protruding lump of flesh that Cooper decided was a nerve ending. His uncle was named after this bird: Redwing-Lives-Forever. As a result of this connection, Cooper felt confident that the bird was not a bad omen or a threat.

The blackbird cocked its head to look Cooper in the eye and then its beak opened.

"I see that nobody can knock on your skull and claim that nobody is home. But I wonder about your reasons for having your windows so tightly shut." The Blackbird spoke with a rich red voice that rolled around Cooper like smoke from a pipe.

Cooper froze. He had to be imagining this, birds didn't talk- except in the stories. Was he in a story? Was he dreaming? Cooper considered this option carefully, this certainly could be a dream- it had all the markings of a dream. The scenery was unbelievable and Cooper could not remember how he arrived. Things were happening that did not happen in the waking world.

"Peyote," Cooper said, "I was talking to Mister Poe and he told me to chew something called peyote. That's right! What is peyote?" Cooper looked at the blackbird for guidance.

"Peyote is a type of cactus that, when dried, causes hallucinations and draws the user inward. Quite literally in your case."

Cooper considered this carefully, studying the colors left by the blackbirds explanation.

"So I'm on drugs and none of this is real?"

"No, you are on drugs and your mind is constructing this based on the drug's interaction with your mind. It is real, although it is not necessarily physical."

"So I'm creating this dream out of drugged cactus biscuits, and you're just me talking to myself ?"

"If you like. But keep in mind that peyote tends to force introspection and in your case there are many things you wish to pretend that you do not know."

"What does that mean?"

"Its means that not everything that your mind creates from the mescaline will be as helpful and benign as I am."

As it finished speaking the red smoke that coiled off it continued to coil and the blackbird itself dissolved into the coils of red until there was nothing left. Cooper stared in horror, his colors had never done anything like that before. And even though he was fairly sure that the blackbird was telling the truth about the whole experience being a dream caused by drugs, the sight of his colors affecting something physical. Cooper had come to think of the colors as something akin to a sixth sense- even if they were something he saw with his eyes. It was like seeing two worlds at once, but seeing those two world overlaying each other was one thing and seeing them interact was another thing altogether. Cooper almost cried out in alarm at the sight of it.

The setting shifted before his eyes, there was a deep red rumble rising up from the bottom of his vision with the harsh blue tones of high pitched sound punching across his vision. And then the colors ran into the world around Cooper like dye leeching into water. The world before him swam like wet paint as sound and sight intermingled and then sorted themselves out again.

The world before Cooper was now an old building that looked like a city hall or a library. It was almost entirely grey stone with huge glass windows. The build looked old, and had probably been built in the twentieth century. The windows had been replaced with stain glass windows, probably because transporting large plate glass was difficult and expensive and only a few places still made such luxury items. The windows depicted scenes of war and violence- always between people in blue, depicted in large heroic forms, and people in red, depicted as small and always in retreat. Cooper looked around. He seemed to be in the town square, but it was an odd town square- empty of people and hustle and bustle that typified such community centers.

There was a blue, high pitched whistle to Cooper's left. The sound had been like a winter wind or the whistle of an arrow, both had a similar look to Cooper. He turned before the sound had faded from his vision, just in time to see something white or light blue passing behind two buildings. The blue whistle of another arrow passed on his right and Cooper turned to catch the same flash of white or blue disappearing behind another building. Then he heard and saw more whistling, to his left and his right, in front and behind him, things moving like a cold blast of winter air- too fast for Cooper to see clearly. He saw white, maybe blue, fur.

Cooper had heard his Uncle Redwing's stories, he was fairly sure that these were wendigo, spirits of winter, cannibal spirits, fast and hungry and almost impossible to see. And whether or not this was all happening in Cooper's head, Cooper was terrified at the thought of meeting one wendigo- let alone a dozen. There were at least a dozen, darting from building to building, with their whistling bursts of blue speed. Then strange blue green spines began to sprout from the ground as the wendigo began to speak, to call to Cooper in whispers.

"The orphan should come home."

"The orphan should eat his people and grow strong."

"The orphan is one of us."

"The orphan is a spirit of cold."

"The orphan will kill when hungry."

"The orphan is one of the wendigo."

"Wait for the cold of December, wait for the solstice and then the orphan will know its own nature."

The wendigo began to close in, flashing blue from building to building as the closed a net around Cooper. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't talk. He was too scared to do anything.Cooper was trapped in a net of blue and he could see no way out.

"The orphan should come home."

"The orphan should know its place."

"The orphan should show his fangs."

"The orphan is hungry."

The wendigo were so close that Cooper should have been able to see them, but somehow he couldn't. When they moved he could see the trails that the sound of their passage left, but he couldn't see them. They were all around him, less than ten feet away and their taunting whispers were bubbling green and blue around him.

"The orphan will remember."

"The orphan will eat fish and fowl."

"The orphan is hungry."

"No!" Cooper cried out in desperation, "The orphan is not hungry! The orphan has a home and the orphan will not eat his people!"

Cooper ran, barreling straight through the wall of green and the net of blue and charged headlong down the streets of the deserted town. There were guard towers and walls everywhere. Cooper had been mistaken when he described the area as a town, it was a fort. Cooper ran down streets and alleys with a speed borne of fear, but the blue whistles that marked the wendigo were always around him.

"The orphan knows what it knows."

"The orphan can't run from its own truth."

"The orphan can't outrun its past."

"The orphan can't outrun who it is."

"The orphan knows where it belongs."

Cooper rounded a corner and came skidding to a stop. He was looking at a dead end alleyway. He looked around desperately as the blue streaks of wind closed in on him. To his left was a door, slightly ajar- although Cooper was certain that the door had not been there when he first looked down the alley. He yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind him. The door had a dead bolt. Cooper slammed it into place as the blue hit the door like crossbow bolts- leaving sharp holes punched in the oak door- but the door held.

There was a yellow puff of air as somebody gasped behind him. Cooper turned and looked to see a woman crouched behind him. She was faceless, terrifying and beautiful at the same time, with a line for a mouth and two black almond shaped holes for eyes.

She was chained to the stone floor by a huge collar around her neck and dressed in a blue robe, though her features were a sunshine yellow.

She was crying.

Blue and red mixed as the wendigo beat an irregular beat against the oak door. Cooper walked cautiously up to the strange yellow woman.

"Who are you?" He asked carefully.

"I am a memory, not fully remembered by you because you were too young. I am your mother." Her voice was forest green leaves dancing on the wind.

The voices of the wendigo began to seep through the oak door and hung at the edges of Cooper's vision like a toxic vapor.

"Hunger."

"Outsider."

"Freak."

"Killer."

"Monster."

"Orphan."

"Orphan."

Cooper shook his head and looked at the woman before him.

"What else do I remember about you?" He asked.

"I am sad all of the time. I am afraid all of the time."

"Why are you afraid? Why are you sad?"

The pounding on the door was hitting every color in the spectrum now, with waves of color hitting like the beginnings of a great storm and knives of color shooting past Cooper's vision like birds of prey.

"I am sad because everything I love is being taken from me. I cannot hold anything I value, everything is stolen from me."

"Did that include me?"

"I valued you so very much."

"Why are you afraid?"

The door broke in, splinters flying everywhere, blue blasts of cold wind swarmed around him. The wendigos moved so fast that could not see them even as they were directly in front of him. Instead they were a whirlwind of blue that engulfed him.

"Why are you afraid!?" Cooper called as the frigid tornado pulled him into the air.

"I am afraid of the people I love!"

"But you love me!"

The tornado drew him up and engulfed him in bright loud blue and indigo sound so loud he couldn't see or hear anything. Finally everything when white and then stone quiet, and in the quiet Cooper heard his mother's voice, in deadly quiet yellow butterflies that moved across the middle of his vision.

"I do love you."

Cooper closed his eyes.

"But you're afraid of me. Everyone is afraid of me. What is there to fear?"

* * *

Cooper opened his eyes. He was laying on his back in middle of the village. He distinctly remembered being standing when the whole drama had begun.

"Why am I on the ground?"

"You fell, I caught you." Pike said from his left.

"I'm not afraid of you Coop." Malika said from his right.

"What?" Cooper said in alarm.

"You were really quiet, then you fell over and Pike caught you, and then you started asking what we were afraid of and saying that we were afraid of you. I'm not scared of you. You'd never hurt me. I know that Coop." Malika looked at Cooper earnestly, eyes wide with concern.

"You did not free yourself from the spirit haunting you, young hawk." Mister Poe said, suddenly looming above Cooper. "I suspect that you want this spirit."

Booker Freeman looked at Mister Poe, "You can keep your hands Poe," Booker said.

Charon the wolfhound walked up to Cooper and sniffed him over, then gave a mournful howl that started deep orange and ranged up to green at the end. Then the big dog looked back at Cooper and licked the boy's face thee times and sat down beside Cooper like a watch dog. Cooper was quiet for a moment, then finally he spoke again.

"I think the spirit was my mother, or the memory of my mother. I don't remember much of her and it wasn't clear, but I think it was my mother."

Pike looked at Cooper sharply, "What do you remember?"

Cooper thought carefully, "Her voice. I remember her voice and what it looked like. I remember that she was scared and sad. I remember that she lived somewhere with stained glass windows of some war. I remember that there was a lot of stone buildings. I can't remember what she looked like."

"What about our father- do you remember anything about our father?" Pike asked.

"No, I only met my mother in the... dream? Is that the right word for what I did? You gave me drugs right? It was in my head wasn't it? Just my own memories?"

Mister Poe looked at Cooper, and then around at the village. It seemed every tribe member in the village was gathered around Cooper.

"Peyote opens a gateway in your soul to the spirit world. It may have only needed your memories to show you what you needed to see, but you may have actually been talking to your mother just now."

Aunt Koko interjected loudly into the conversation, "Don't fill the boy's head with nonsense. Cooper, peyote works because it contains mescaline that creates hallucinations. Everything you experienced was created by your mind and was something you already knew on some level. You may have been remembering your mother, but you were not in contact with her."

"But Aunt Koko, I was a baby when we had to come here. How could I remember anything when I was that little."

"How indeed?" Poe said with a smile.

"The brain is an impressive organ, it doesn't need hoodoo or mumbo jumbo to explain the things it can do." Koko said firmly.

"And the spirit world does not need the world of the flesh to believe in it in order for it to exist. It does not matter if you believe in the gods, because the gods certainly believe in you."

Cooper was quiet as Poe and Aunt Koko stared at each other, neither pleased with the other's continued presence.

"If it was real," Cooper said slowly ,"then something is hunting me."

Koko and Uncle Redwing turned sharply to look at Cooper, while Poe simply looked at Uncle Redwing with a cold smile.

"What do you mean sweetie?" Koko said carefully.

"When I was in my head, I was hunted by wendigo who said I was an orphan who should come back. They said that I was hungry. It was scary."


The crowd of tribes folk broke into a mass of jumbled muttering. Uncle Redwing and Mister Poe just stared at each other. Pike looked at Cooper and finally whispered to him, "Coop, don't tell them anything more. Keep it to yourself. We'll deal with this together later."

"Why won't they tell me what's going on?" Cooper whispered back.

Pike said something, but Cooper couldn't hear it, instead the whispers of the wendigo massed around him for a moment again.

"They fear you. They fear your destiny, your heritage, your lineage, who you must become, will become."

"They fear your hunger, for you will devour them. The prey should never raise the predator as their own."