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The Moon of the Longest Dark
On the gurney Norma was all swathed in white sheets and blankets. Her face was ghostly pale. I feared she was dead, but then I recognized the bottle and a tube and a needle in her arm and knew otherwise. What I did know was that she lost her baby. I knew that because I saw Death hovering near. He wore a cloak of winter’s shadows, he moved like a scythe, and he held the black wand. A blink after I saw Death, something hit me in my gut. My stomach chucked acid into my throat. I swallowed at the bitter crud; it went partly back down. My gut chucked again and the acid came out my nose. I wipe the hot snot away with my mittens and spit the undone swallow into the snow. The nurse at the front of the gurney pulled with one hand and held the bottle high with her other hand. The driver pushed from the tail of the gurney and, with my father on one side and Gramma on the other, the four of them plowed the gurney slowly through the snow. The grey silhouette with the black wand shadowed the gurney like a panther. He had acquired the unborn. Was the mother next? My thought froze in the air; then was snapped like an icicle by sudden wailing, keening. Oskee, on the porch in his day clothes, shattered the frigid silence. Oh, my God, he made such a mortal sound … He’s deaf. Does he feel the sounds he makes? Oskee pointed. His wailing turned to sobbing. He wasn’t pointing at his mother. He saw Death too. Haksot came out of the house with a coat for Oskee. The old man looked more care-worn than I had ever seen him. He made no attempt to “shush” Oskee. How do you “shush” a deaf child? Haksot’s eyes, through cold tears, held a plea, “Not now… not again,” even as teardrops struggled from them. One drop rolled to the tip of his nose, then fell. Another took its place. Others dripped on his flushed cheeks. Haksot’s aching voice dragged my mind out from its stupid sidetrack. “I’ll pierce and give flesh! I’ll cut my hair. I’ll sing ‘kano:ta.” The nurse climbed into the ambulance behind the gurney that swaddled Norma. I saw Death right beside the gurney. Still, I had not seen him tap the black wand that sucks away life. Did it have to tap only on the Earth? Would it work inside the ambulance? Was the wand only for the unborn and the innocent? Suddenly Death looked me in the eye; his chilling grin bore into me. The driver slammed shut the back door and hurried for the driver’s seat. “Wait! I need to go with you!” Gramma’s hand was on the passenger door. “It’s not allowed, ma’am,” the driver said as he got into his seat. The door shut, the motor gunned, the lugged rear tires spun momentarily in the snow, and the glinting lights brightened from the revving. Gramma stepped back from the spitting slush. “Norma! Be strong!” Her cry gaveled against the steel walls of the war surplus Red Cross Dodge. The ambulance lurched and swayed in the rutted dirt road, red lights waving good-bye. A minute later, on the snow-packed asphalt, the siren screamed once more, and then crooned into the darkness, fading like a train’s whistle. “There was so much blood.” Gramma looked at my father with anguish. “I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I tried everything.” “Minnie, get what you need. I’ll take you to the hospital. Hunt, get in the backseat,” father abruptly said. “I want him here tonight.” Haksot said suddenly. “What for. It’s Story Night. I’ll drop him at the Quaker House, take Minnie to town, then come back.” “I got my reasons, ceremony reasons.” Haksot muttered, then looked at me. He knows I saw Death. He knows I saw the black wand. He has to do ceremony to clear all the dark matter. All the sudden I was dizzy again. Death, holding the black wand, had appeared from the pitching swirling sky. I fell to my knees. I clawed through the snow to the frozen ground for a handhold. Cold and close he whispered: Of course you can see me. I want you to see me. You are my friend. The black wand has power; it is a medicine, a hollow bone. Twirl it; it spins straw into gold. Blow through it, it weaves songs from the wind. His words hissed from beyond bony teeth and a lipless smile. Take hold of the black wand. It will give you the power of life and death. You already have blood on your hands. Your sister, Norma’s baby - take the wand now and Norma will live. Death wanted me to hold the wand. Death called me to be the angel. I pulled off my gloves and grabbed the wand. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” I gasped. Silence, quiet as a leafless tree, was Death’s response. I opened my eyes. I held a branch from the black walnut tree in my hands. It’s icy grain made my whole being shudder. I felt a skip in my heart. Gramma, my father, Haksot, all stared at me, frightened, worried, stunned. Only Oskee was not upset. He knelt beside me and like a loving puppy put his left arm around my shoulders. Little Oskee, the deaf child, the fetal alcohol child, the retarded child, saw what I saw, somehow heard what I heard. He took the branch from my chapped, bleeding hand. He waved the black stick in the air to all four directions. His voice boomed, “Kahsah!” four times. “Kahsah!” It means “all eaten up.” It was a sound made to placate any evil spirits that were around. Oskee was saying, “go away, there’s nothing here for you.” He must have remembered the word from the time before he caught the scarlet fever that deafened him.
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