Wabanaki Blues by Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel Read Free Book Online Page A

grandmother comes through with only one word, “Reach.”
    What does she mean? Reach for the stars? Reach inside myself? Reach around me? I’m about to curse her vagueness when my reaching hand touches another flat stone with a sharp straight edge that was clearly cut by some machine. This is definitely a step. My tripping stone is a step, attached to another step. I scramble up them on my muddy hands and knees. There has to be something beyond these steps.
    I remember the tiny flashlight on my keychain. Lizzy gave it to me last September when I freaked out after a hurricane killed our power for a week. I raise my beam of light to reveal a panel of wood covered with a swirl of crimson and gold. I wave the light around and see it’s a door painted with fall leaves. Only Bilki could have created this. I’ve found my grandparents’ cabin!
    I hobble to my feet and tap the door with my good foot. It flies open, which is a sign to call the cops where I come from. My narrow beam of light reveals a room littered with flannel-lined jeans, thick wool socks, leatherwork gloves, rubber fish waders, cotton union suits, and crewneck sweaters, all tossed around like an L.L. Bean showroom in late December. In Hartford, this sort of strewn-about mess would suggest the thieves had already come and gone.
    â€œHey Grumps!” I pull on the nearest sweater. It smells smoky, like firewood.
    There’s no reply.
    I lay Rosalita against the cabin’s log wall and push a torn goose down vest off a rocking chair. A flurry of feathers falls past my tiny flashlight beam like light snow. I collapse on the rocker and gobble my peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich amid this feather snowstorm. I realize I need a bathroom and stand without much trouble, flashing my beam around. This cabin has only two rooms beyond the central living space. One has a pumpkin-colored door with a mushroom painted on it. Bilki loved the color pumpkin. She used to call it the marriage of sunlight and cherries. I walk over and push this door open. The room doesn’t smell bright and fruity. It smells as if Grumps has not changed the sheets since his wife died. I close it, quickly, gagging.
    The other bedroom has a blue door with a spider web painted on it. The wall opposite the bed features a mural depicting deep blue woods with Bilki’s signature vortex at the center. A swirl of leaves, also in blue, covers the floor. In this dim light, everything appears bruised. Mom definitely chose the colors in here. I dump my stuff on the bed, which is covered with flannel sheets and a scratchy wool blanket. At least the room smells okay and the blues complement my personality and musical persuasion. There are a few unexpected drawbacks. I can’t find a light switch, and neither bedroom has a bathroom.
    I return to the main room where my weak flashlight beam glints against something metallic on the rough plank kitchen counter. It’s a jailor’s-style key ring loaded with heavy iron skeleton keys. There are no locks on these bedroom doors or anywhere else in here that I can see. I jingle the keys and think about all the horror movies that use skeleton keys as props. Those movies generally feature half-seen monsters slashing teenagers. I swallow hard. What does Grumps use them for?
    I sit back down on the feather-coated rocker and fold my muddy legs, pretzel-style. With every passing minute, my knees press tighter together. I really need a bathroom. Plus, it’s getting colder by the minute. Apparently summer nights are not always that summery this close to the Canadian border.
    The distant sound of someone singing catches my ear. It’s the old “Indian Hunter’s Song” and it’s definitely Grumps who is singing it because he emphasizes the line: “Oh why does the white man follow my path, like the hounds on the tiger’s track?”
    I wonder if I should tell him my dad keeps a Siberian tiger’s skull