WOOD CRAFTING: Installment #9:"A puzzle unravels

WOOD CRAFTING

Written by Mokihana Calizar
Copyright, 2009

Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure,
but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.

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The Kalahari Bushmen have said ...

"A story is like the wind. It comes from a far-off place, and we feel it."

A puzzle unravels

My father and mother released one another in the glow that rises from an embrace of destiny. The re-doubled grace of a pair of Grey from opposite ends of the Cosmology opened knowing neither being could contain separately. “Freeilll Noa,” my mother said, “Tell me about your twin.” It seemed a cycle since the two had begun their courtship. In truth no more than a fourth moon rise had passed. My father began but before the telling ended, the latest of unexpected sights filled my parents’ eyes. From the place they stood, the shore was several minutes’ flight away. What seemed like newly rising mountains rose in the waters just beyond the reef. Leviathan, dozens of them linked forehead to tail. There was great excitement and awe from the covey limbs. No one in memory of Wood Crafters had ever seen the whales in this count and so near the shore. Freeilll and Shemaladia were the first to meet the ancestors. “Great mother, great grand mother, great, great father. Welcome you are, welcome you are.” “And to you Freeilll Noa and Shemaladia of Osprey we are thankful for your greeting. There is a promise broken a secret kept that must be mending before it is too late for all coveys throughout Ever. Count the reef outcropping and feel the loss of wind on your feathers. Where both reef and wind be … there is the secret-place. No blame, no wrong. A destiny grown without knowing, two beings one a very small creature, the other grand now need understanding. Seek the twin of Freeilll Noa his agreement needs to be set right.” Without another word the sea filled with the whales and mountainous peaks disappeared as quickly as they had risen.

A very small creature …

A promise broken …

A secret kept …

Count the reef outcroppings

Secret-place…

Missing pieces …

Set to right…

No blame…

No wrong…

“Count the reef outcroppings” was the only clue with no riddle attached. Throughout the telling of Island memory the reef could be counted without error. Each cycle added twelve new outcroppings, one outcropping with each new moon. A thousand cycles could be recalled and throughout the constellation the Seven Sisters actually included 12,000 outcroppings or stars in your vocabulary. To count all the stars Shemaladia and Freeilll enlisted the help of their sidekicks and confidants, Oona of the Song and Somaia of the South. Oona and Somaia listened to the tale and knew they would include the twin fairies Glenda and Glennis in the counting. Among the six star-counters Glenda and Glennis were the only true fairies, they would begin at the stars farthest away leaving a trail of dust to mark the count. Oona and Somaia started mid-way between Northern tip and South Point, and counted away from each other. Freeilll Noa started at the beginning, the Northern tip. Shemaladia of Osprey circled high above hunting the cosmos for the scent of a lost soul.

The counting lasted until the first light of the sun. Physically exhausted from the maneuver, the small band met as agreed at the sands fronting the Black Pool where Honu quietly waited. All but Shemaladia arrived almost simultaneously. Oona served as recorder. The twins counted 3,444 stars. Oona and Somaia counted 4,000 combined. Freeill Noa also counted 4,000 stars. 11,444 stars. 556 reef outcroppings, 556 stars with polyps of times gone and yet to be were missing. The riddle suggested wind and polyps would be found together. Though a distance too far for Osprey to hear, both Freeilll and Somaia tuned to the shrill call from my mother Shemaladia. The two Islanders rose from the sand and followed the shrill call, “Kreeilll …..” In a pocket of the cosmos hidden from view of both Islander and Osprey, Shemaladia had followed a thin trail of darkness visible only to a hunter of lost souls. There in a hollow the size of a pit a giant might have gouged out Shemaladia hovered above a sight that once again stunned the Wood Crafters from North and South. Polyps of colors un-nameable danced in the current blown by the doting winds Makani. Among the stars and polyps were bits of wood embedded into the calcified walls of the reef. Life as tiny as pin tips grew invisible to most eyes. It was the fairies who noticed the very small creatures clinging silently to the bits of wood woven tightly into the calcified walls of the reef. Barnacles, the oceans filtration system destined to survive by clinging. “Could that be the piece missing from this whole adventure?” Freeilll Noa could only guess.

Honu had observed it all from birth to star-counting. From a lip under her shell she pulled bits of small ocean buffed stones, pohaku, bits of limu dried on the sandy shores of the ocean and a bit of wood with a small creature who once clung to it … a creature still living rather than dead. “These are the remains of your birth nest Freeilll, unknown to both your parents, that barnacle is now part of your twin. What could have been grace was a secret; a secret hides from the light and twists rather than soars. Reveal the secret and things change yet again. It is time to make it right.” The old turtle read the thoughts streaming from the team of beings assembled at the edge of the vast hole. “No, it is not my place to do the corrections. Among you the answers will unfold. Include all that each of you knows and dream a future that fills Ever. WHAT Ever is precisely the question.

Oona and her twins huddled against a smooth ledge, the girls tired from their night’s adventure. Somaia joined them and soon Glennis had climbed onto the old red bird’s chest where she fell soundly to sleep. Glenda tried blinking the sleepiness from her eyes until at last her eyes would blink no more. Somaia carefully tucked the little fairy asleep on his lap under one wing. With his free wing he pulled sennit from his chest. Nimble and practiced, his one wing’s feathers worked as fingers to weave net. When the net was hammock size, he found loose rocks large enough to anchor both ends of the net. The twins fit snuggly into the net and slept. Honu disappeared as she had appeared … without effort. Sleep was what all four Wood Crafters needed. Using the two large boulders as perches they tucked in their heads and sank into the deep sleep of weariness vacant of dreams.