Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson (ebook voice reader TXT) 📗

“There’s some shovels in the last longhouse,” you said. “A little rusty, but they’ll work.”

She brandished a stick instead, and deftly poked an air hole, pulling up a cockle that had snapped its white shell closed on the end of the stick. She pried the shell open and tipped the cockle down her throat.

“Do you know what happened here?” you said. “Where did my people go?”

“Why would you spend your time as a human if it makes you miserable?” she said, flinging the cockle shell away. “Use the body for digging and leave it.”

What good is memory if it tortures you? What good is love if it ends?

“Have you ever flown?” you said.

She bent and studied the beach, testing cockle air holes. “I don’t have a bird skin. What a ridiculous way of moving through the world.”

“My other form is a raven.”

“I prefer Mother Ocean to the sky.” She shivered. “This human skin. So easily cold.”

“I’ll start a fire.”

“Don’t,” she said. “We want to eat in peace. Fire will attract wolves and other pests.”

Her dress hinted at the firmness of her breasts, the curve of her waist. The other otters ate and left, but she seemed in no hurry to leave.

You were looking to pass the time doing something more pleasant than brooding. “There’s other ways to stay warm.”

She stood and met your eyes.

Words. All these words. Her tongue held secrets. Your breath steamed like a teakettle about to whistle.

“Can you shift into an otter form?” she said.

“Yes,” you said.

“Hmm,” she said, neither yes nor no, but tilted her head and studied you.

When she wandered down the beach, you followed. She dropped her cedar dress, tucking it in the hollow of a tree before she dropped her human skin, slid away from you into the water. Pausing to look back, sleek head bobbing in the waves. Excited splashes and a jaunty slap of her tail on the surface as she dove. Catch me!

Time doesn’t march. Time is an endless ocean. We swim through it, caught in its inescapable tide. All time that has ever existed still exists. She is there, in that distant present, weaving between the kelp trees, breaking the surface to laugh at you. Air slides like silk. The ocean is not the sky, the friction heavy, ponderous; water is a womb.

When Captain Cook landed in a tiny cove in Nootka Sound on March 29, 1778, about 300,000 sea otters lived on the coast of British Columbia. The Cook expedition spent one month as the guests of Chief Maquinna, in Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory, trading and making connections. They left with otter pelts that they later resold in China for an exorbitant price, kicking off the fur trade that wiped out sea otter populations from Alaska to California. As many as 18,000 pelts a year were collected by trading ships. Extirpation is the dry, scientific word for the absolute destruction of a local population. A mini-extinction, if you will.

You wanted her to live.

You would do anything to be there, in that moment, both of you floating on your backs watching the stars. Her paw touched yours. The moment before her family came crashing through the waves in a weaving, swirling mass. Anything to have her look on you again as she did then, amused, curious.

You brought her human skin to Jwasins. Your sister plucked three feathers from your raven body. Her price seemed small compared with saving your Otter Woman from extinction. Such a quiet spell. Once the Otter Woman put on her human skin again, she could never take it off. The last words the Otter Woman hissed at you were a curse. She passed her fury on to her children, and they to their grandchildren, and then to their great-grandchildren. The moment she turned from you freezes like a scratched DVD. You believed you were doing the right thing.

Your son is friends with her descendants. The tall, pretty Otter Woman named Neeka is dating your son’s cousin. When Jared was missing, Neeka and Maggie sat on Mave’s balcony, heads together, plotting.

Forgive me. Please, forgive me.

15

HAIR OF THE DOG

Mave always kept a bottle of vodka in her freezer. It was gone. Also gone were assorted red wines and some token whites that used to be stored in the pantry. Even the bourbon-filled chocolates a grateful poet had given her for editing his chapbook that she’d forgotten in the back of her baking supplies cupboard. Gone. He wasn’t interested in going on a bender, but he did need something to cut the pain, the shakes, the cramping. Dry as the fucking Sahara. Sneaking around in the half-light of early morning, half-awake and already looking for ways not to face the world. Tippytoeing through the tulips.

There were liquor stores all up and down Commercial Drive, the Drive, where he was currently living, at least until the coy wolves came. Mave’s apartment was filled with sleeping people. Sarah in Mave’s room, Mave in his, Justice on the couch. He’d slept in Mave’s bed too, and woke up to Sarah’s back, confused. Wondering if they’d hooked up. Sometime during the night, someone had changed him into Power Ranger pyjamas. Why? Did they think he’d be too embarrassed to go outside with them on? They didn’t understand need. Also, where did they find them in his size?

No one was awake to stop him. He could go out and find himself a party. He’d done it before; he could do it again. He could go through their purses. He could steal some knick-knacks no one would miss and pawn them.

Nausea. Intense, racking nausea. He went and sat on the edge of the tub, waiting for the vomit that never came. He was sweating, even though the apartment was cool.

Things he didn’t want to remember crept back.

Lost it, lost his lunch, so to speak, in the toilet. No organs, at least.

He hung on the toilet seat then slid to the