Kalico 2: Hypnotized & Naked in Hope Springs

Kalico: Wallflower at the Gate

Kalico: Thursday morning, Johnson Farm gate

This may be more than a little fragmented because I woke up early and, naturally, I wasn't taking notes real closely. For this journal entry, I'll just write each segment as I think of it. Suffice to say, this portion covers only part of the time between waking up and arriving at school with Wallflower for volleyball practice.

– – –

Coyotes howling woke me up early. Or at least I think it was coyotes.

That's one of the fun things about living in a house out in the middle of nowhere. Coyotes are about the size of a German shepherd dog. These wild canines, native to North America, still roam the countryside, lending their special charm to the night sounds.

Their howling penetrated my sleepy dream. I was reasonably sure it wasn't ghosts moaning somewhere inside the house, although it certainly sounded like it. Or maybe one of the Pooka spirits immigrated from Ireland with my red-headed ancestors. Coyote howling evokes a weird feeling, as if one is living in the plot of a surrealistic novel. Or maybe, Edgar Allen Poe or the Hound of the Baskervilles might be involved in the plot of your life, just out of sight over the horizon.

All the spooky racket certainly did not lend therapy to that vague sense of dread that's been growing on me in the days since we moved in with Granny.

My first experience with the middle-of-the-night howling noises occurred several years ago when I was a little girl visiting Granny Johnson. She and I were sitting on the porch that summer evening when we heard it.

"Wolves?" I had asked Granny then. But it was coyotes, not wolves. Since then, I found out that wolves have all but disappeared from most of North America, but coyotes have adapted fairly well to living around people.

"They don't hurt much," Granny had told me. "Except they attack the chickens, if you leave them to wander around loose." That next morning Granny had shown me how she keeps the door to the chicken house secure with the chickens inside, to keep out predators. "Not just coyotes and wolves," she explained. "Foxes and skunks, too."

She explained that the "wolves," or coyotes and foxes, will run away if a human shows up, so we did not have anything to fear about them personally. Just make sure the poultry are in the chicken house and latch their door to keep them safe, she told me.

Since that night long ago, I have always associated coyotes' howling in the distance with my memory-images of Granny's Johnson Grass Farm.

– – –

Back to this morning (Thursday) when the howling woke me up, it sounded as if a pack of coyotes was near the house. Probably they had snuck in close, between the house and the river behind us; sort of in the neighborhood of the chicken house, which I knew was secure.

But the sound of coyote howling can carry for miles at night. Maybe I had been dreaming.

I don't remember exactly what I was dreaming, except it involved Blossom, that Naked Fairy Princess who has invaded my sleep this week. The part I remember is that Blossom was naked and closely surrounded by flowering shrubbery.

She had been lecturing me about feeling wild during the full moon, when suddenly she smiled, and five canine heads emerged from the bushes to back up whatever Blossom had been saying.

Each of the beasts looked at me and grinned evilly. I heard five distinct coyote voices as that wild family communicated. It was an odd juxtaposition, the delicate naked features of Blossom turning more feral by the moment as the coyotes moved closer around her, as if they were her pets.