Yautja Camp For Troubled Youngbloods

Wolf Totem

Joel

Cutter's Bend, Maine, 2007

The small figurine was hot in my hand, hot from my hand and how I'd held it since it'd been quietly slipped into my fingers a few hours ago. The edges were smooth, rubbed to silkiness by years and years of hands like mine glossing over their surfaces. The shape was a complex weave of knots carved meticulously into the horn to form a wolf. The depths of the carving were dark with age and other things and the exterior soft and pale as old bone.

It was mine now, Seanmháthair said. This trinket I had so seldom been allowed to touch was mine now and I was to guard it.

Hold it tight, Mac Tíre, she'd said, putting the small piece of our family history into my palm and folding my fingers over it. Keep it close, and don't let it away from your skin. The little wolf is yours to protect now.

But how was I to guard it? My hand was sore from gripping it so tight and my face was hot and puffy from the salty tears I kept trying to rub away with my fist. My palm was slippery with sweat and salt water and my legs were tired. We'd been standing here so long now listening to some man in a black dress drone on and on about papa like he'd actually known him.

He hadn't. The man with the black clothes and white collar hadn't known papa any better than he knew Seanmháthair and I. He didn't know anything. I wanted to go home and sit down, but Seanmháthair said we mustn't yet.

Soon, but not yet.

I sniffed and looked down. The deep brown box didn't look anything like papa. It didn't look like something he should be lying in and I wished they'd just cover it with dirt because he wouldn't want all this droning. Papa didn't like preachers or people and now there were a bunch of them all talking about him like he wasn't there. Like he wouldn't have told them all to go away and mind their own business if they hadn't wanted to see him when he was walking then they had no business seeing him now.

My legs felt heavy and I swayed a little into Seanmháthair's side. She put an arm around me and pressed me closer. It was a good feeling and I sagged there until the preacher stopped and the people started to break up. Then Seanmháthair patted my arm and we moved away.

A few people I half knew tried to waylay us with sympathies but Seanmháthair shooed them off with nothing but a flick of her wrist and the sharp cut of her eyes. Unliked. Feared. Seanmháthair was not thought of well. I'd heard people call her a witch, but I knew she wasn't what people whispered about. She was my Seanmháthair and she loved me.

I was crying and I stumbled and then Seanmháthair was there, picking me up, her dry, rasping voice murmuring softly in my ear. "Why do you cry, Mac Tíre? I am here and we will go home now."

The world was big and blurry and all that was real was the strength of the arms holding me and the solidness of the slight figure supporting me like I weighed nothing. My sore hand trembled when I raised it and my fist did little to remove the salty tears from my eyes when I swiped it across them. "Are you going to leave me too, Seanmháthair? I don't want you to go."

"Hush, my Mac Tíre," she said, hand hot between my shoulder blades. "We all go to the Dark Father at some point. It is the reward of all and nothing to be afraid of.

"Do you still have the little wolf?"

I nodded at this, already feeling sleep working its way over me as I opened my hand to show her the carving. "I won't be able to hold onto it forever, though, will I, Seanmháthair?"

"You won't have to, my Mac Tíre. When we get home I'll make you a cord and you'll wear it around your neck."

I nodded into her boney shoulder and felt my eyes close, forcing out more tears, the wolf made of horn hot in my hand.