Nanye-hi sat on the rocks and watched
the waterfall before her cascading into a shimmering pool below. It was
powerful, that water, and held inside it many rainbows that flickered as the
sun and the clouds chased one another in the sky.
She laid back on the warm rock,
unafraid to be so high up in the air, and watched the fluffy white clouds race
across an infinite expanse of blue. She had always been good at climbing, and
she knew these rocks as well as she knew the back of her own hand. The cliffs
stood twenty feet above the pool where she sometimes swam, and she had never
once lost her sure footing on the way up. She loved it here, loved the feel of
the sun-baked granite on her bare arms and legs and the way the sky seemed so
much closer once she was on top.
Nanye-hi had always felt like she’d
been born upside down-in the world, on Earth rather than in the sky. She had
always wished for wings like those of the blackbird, to carry her up further
than her legs would take her. Often, she had dreams of flying, of standing on
the edge of the cliff and simply jumping into the wind, allowing it to carry
her gently along on a soft current. In the dream, she could see her little
village far down below as she soared along in the company of eagles, and her
stomach never once flipped. She was made to fly, she knew. Even her very name
meant “goes about”, which her mother had settled on when Nanye-hi was still in
the womb and would not keep still.
But no matter how much she admired the
freedom afforded to the winged ones, Nanye-hi knew she must resign herself to a
life lived on two feet. It saddened her so much that she decided to see the
wisest woman in her village to ask for advice.
Mother Ghigau was not really anyone’s
mother, but people young and old in Nanye-hi’s village sought out her advice as
though she were a part of their family. She had become much like a comforting,
wise grandmother to Nanye-hi and the other children, her face lined with years
like a soft and worn piece of leather. She was full of stories, too, and often
could be persuaded to speak of the legends of the Cherokee people and the magic
that lived in their history.
When Nanye-hi arrived, Mother Ghigau
was perched in her ancient wooden rocking chair on the front porch of her
cabin, smoking a pipe and humming to herself. She had a beautiful voice for one
so advanced in years and had taught Nanye-hi many of their people’s songs,
music which always had a purpose: to make the rain come, or go away; to soothe
a sick infant; to ease the pain of losing a loved one. Nanye-hi had learned
that one first and sang it often when her heart ached for her mother, who had
died two years earlier of illness.
“Hello, Nanye-hi,” Mother Ghigau said
kindly as she approached. “What brings you to me on this fine summer day?”
“Father sent me out to fetch
blackberries for a pie and I thought I would come say hello,” Nanye-hi said.
She held an empty basket at her side as proof of her story, and she planned to
pick berries later, but they didn’t matter as much as what she had to ask
Mother Ghigau. Her father, with his work-roughened hands and silver-streaked
hair, hadn’t asked any such chore of her. He was so busy with keeping their
farm in order that he barely had time for Nanye-hi and her sister, and he
certainly had no time for thoughts of something as frivolous as a blackberry
pie. Yet something in her brought out the lie, and she wasn’t sure why.
“Well, it’s always nice to have you,”
Mother Ghigau said. “Would you like some tea?”
But she could see that the girl had
come to get something straightened out and wasn’t ready to talk about it yet;
her eyes had taken on a faraway look which Mother Ghigau associated with being
in very deep thought. She got the feeling that Nanye-hi was there for more than
tea and pleasant conversation.
“No, thank you,” Nanye-hi said. She sat
down on the top step of the porch and looked out over Mother Ghigau’s land, at
the mighty oak trees which surrounded the property and the crooked garden gate
flanked by sweet-smelling lavender. Mother Ghigau was close to the land and
always had a faintly earthy smell about her, as though the dirt she grew her
plants in was always carried in the folds of her dress. Nanye-hi wondered if
the wise woman would understand a person’s desire to leave the soil she herself
held so dear in order to fly like something free.
“Mother Ghigau,” she began. “My friend
and I were talking about dreams, and we wondered...if a person had dreams of
being able to fly, would that person be wrong to want them to come true?”
Mother Ghigau puffed on her pipe.
“Well, I suppose that depends on what that person felt in her heart. Sometimes,
when life seems particularly difficult, it is easy to dream of a way to escape.
To fly with the eagles is the greatest escape I can think of, but though it is
a lovely dream, it is not an answer. We must live the lives we were given and
make the very most of them, even when things seem difficult. Even when we are
dealt losses that seem impossible to recover from.”
Nanye-hi sat quietly for a moment and
thought about Mother Ghigau’s words. Then she said, “But what if it isn’t a
dream of escape? What if it is simply a feeling in one’s heart that it is what
she was meant to do?”
“Well then, that would be different, I
suppose,” Mother Ghigau said. “We all have spirit animals who guide us, after
all. Some of us have closer ties to certain elements than others. My spirit
animal, for instance, is the turtle, which represents Mother Earth. But not all
of us were made to follow our dreams on land. Air, water, fire...these are all
things the Cherokee people are drawn to. Sometimes, we can go about our whole
lives without finding the one thing that makes us truly happy. I think that’s
incredibly sad, don’t you?”
Nanye-hi nodded in agreement.
“But sometimes we are lucky enough to
discover the thing that makes us feel like a whole person. For me, it is being
connected to the earth. Digging in my garden, finding pleasure in a tiny green
shoot of leaves sprouting from the dirt...those things make me feel peaceful. I
am grateful every day for it, because otherwise, I would be a very sad and
grumpy old lady.”
Nanye-hi smiled at Mother Ghigau. “I
cannot imagine you ever being grumpy, Mother.”
Host and guest were silent for a moment
in a comfortable sort of way, and then Mother Ghigau spoke quietly.
“I want to show you something,” she
said.
Mother Ghigau stood slowly from her
rocker, aided as always by the birch cane she had made herself, and climbed
carefully down the porch steps. Nanye-hi watched as she made her way across the
yard, stopping now and then to examine something only she could see. Finally,
she bent and plucked something from the grass. Nanye-hi tried to peer at what
the wise woman held, but she kept it closed up in her fist as she walked back
to the house.
“Hold out your hand,” Mother Ghigau
said when she was at the porch once more.
Nanye-hi did as she was told and
watched as the woman placed a small dandelion in her palm. It was dark yellow
and already beginning to wilt from being picked from its damp home. It stained
her skin the color of the setting sun.
Nanye-hi looked up curiously. “But what
is this for?”
Mother Ghigau sat on the step beside
the girl, taking a handkerchief from the folds of her dress to wipe off her
forehead. After a moment, she said, “Give that to your friend. Tell her to
place it under her pillow. It will give her the answer to her question, and
when she wakes up the flower will be transformed into a little white cloud.
Have her blow the cloud apart to send her dream to the gods in the sky. Only
then will it come true.”
Nanye-hi held the flower reverently, as
though it might fall apart in her hand. This was what she had come for. She
knew Mother Ghigau wouldn’t disappoint her.
She turned to the old woman and smiled
through the prickle of tears that stung her eyes. “Thank you, Mother Ghigau. I
will tell my friend what to do.”
“No thanks are necessary, my young
friend. I hope you find what you are looking for.”
Nanye-hi smiled gratefully at Mother
Ghigau and thanked her for her company, explaining that she still had chores to
do at home.
It was only several minutes later, as
she crossed into the parcel of land which belonged to her family, that she
realized what Mother Ghigau had said. The old woman had known all along that
Nanye-hi was the one with dreams of flying, she thought, and still she had
helped her.
That night, Nanye-hi knelt beside her
bed and carefully placed the dandelion beneath her pillow. Her sister, Ayita,
was already fast asleep on the other side of the room with only the top of her
dark head visible above the blankets. Nanye-hi climbed into bed, keeping the
flower curled in her hand beneath her head, and closed her eyes. She tried to
imagine what it would feel like to leap from the cliffs and glide upon the air
currents as she had done in so many dreams before; after a moment, she began to
drift into the country of sleep, and it seemed she could feel the wind against
her cheeks and in the strands of her long, black hair.
And she dreamed.
She dreamed not just of flying, but of
swooping through the clouds in a great machine the likes of which she had never
seen before. It had wings like a bird and made a good deal of noise, and at
first Nanye-hi was scared. She could feel her heart beating like a drum inside
her chest and her mouth tasted like the metallic water which flowed in the
quarry near her village. She could feel the air buffeting the skin of her face
and arms as she glided close to the cliffs she climbed every day, could feel
the cool spray of the waterfall sting her cheeks.
And then she looked down, and she
discovered she was controlling the machine. It moved when she told it to
move; her hands were wrapped tightly around a rectangle of metal, and when she
changed its direction, so did the machine.
She whooped pure joy, crying out in
uncontrollable happiness as she chased first one eagle, then another with her
winged machine. From her great height, she could see her farm, Mother Ghigau’s
cabin, the schoolhouse. The waters of local lakes and the quarry sparkled like
the jewels in a queen’s crown, throwing little beads of shimmery light up into
the sky. She cautiously let go of the control with one hand and stuck her arm
straight out beside her like a wing, feeling the wind slip through her fingers.
She had never felt so alive.
Nanye-hi came awake very suddenly and
sat up with a gasp, afraid for a moment that she might fall from a very great
distance. But she was only in her bed, and it was morning already, and the
dandelion had given her the answer she wanted.
She pulled her hand from beneath the
pillow and was amazed to find that the flower had gone sometime in the night.
In its place was a tiny puff of white, filled at the center with dozens of tiny
seeds.
“Cloud seeds,” she whispered.
“Father says it’s time to get up,”
Ayita said, sweeping into the room gracefully. Her name, which meant “first to
dance”, was more fitting than any other Nanye-hi could think of. Her little
sister was light on her feet and rarely walked anywhere, choosing instead to
glide or jump or slide. It was one of the many things Nanye-hi loved about
her...but, she realized, she had never told her sister so.
In fact, there were a great many things
she loved about her little family, and as she recalled her conversation with
Mother Ghigau, she realized she’d told the lie about her father sending her on
an errand because at the time she had wished it to be true. But now, to think
of the strong man who ran the farm and raised two girls without a mother asking
her to bake a pie was silly, and not a picture she liked to envision. She liked
her father just the way he was; loving, hard-working, tireless. She pictured
his kind face and thought of all the times he’d held her in his lap for a
story, and the times he’d lifted her up in his strong arms so she could pluck
apples from the trees in the orchard. He had been the first one to show her
what flying was like, she marveled. He had been the one to give her a love of
the sky.
Nanye-hi carefully replaced the cloud
seeds beneath her pillow and hopped out of bed to join her sister in their
morning chores, thinking as she did that there was really nowhere she’d rather
be with both feet firmly planted on the ground. The dream was lovely, but now
was not her time.
She would fly someday, she knew.
And until the time came, she would hold onto those cloud seeds dearly.
They would help her soar. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amanda Crum is a thirty-something writer, artist, wife and mother living in Kentucky. When she's not releasing her creativity in one form or another, she's watching horror films with her husband.
Amanda Crum is a thirty-something writer, artist, wife and mother living in Kentucky. When she's not releasing her creativity in one form or another, she's watching horror films with her husband.
Bay Laurel / Volume 2, Issue 3 / Autumn 2013