“It had a consequence. The consequence was me.”
“And I’m very glad it was. I’ll just quickly run through my answers to the consent clauses. I’ll probably consent to most of them, since I thought them up in the first place. Then, it’ll be your turn. I’ll repeat the questions to you and you decide whether you want to consent or not.”
“Bel?”
“Yes, love.”
“Bel, what if we just snuggle? Would that be okay? Maybe we can Perform the Conjugal Act another time.”
“Oh! Is there something wrong, Bandy? Aren’t you feeling well?”
“I’m okay. It’s just that I’m … a little tired.”
“Oh.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“Alright. If you say so.”
“Goodnight cousin.”
“Goodnight dear.”
60
The strange, new atmosphere had given the grape vines a jump on low-lying growth on the Island. Grapes hung in curtains and where there weren’t grapes there were cascades of hawthorn berries. But these hardy survivors flourished at the cost of the many various plants and saplings which they smothered. This seemed to be the way nowadays. The ocean far to the west was behaving like one of these opportunistic survivors. Like a hyperactive newcomer in the neighbourhood, it was sweating its heat into the air, and the air, muscling east, was pushing this long summer back so that the trees kept their leaves well into autumn, and autumn, in turn, was pushing winter out of its way. And winter, so vital to the dream-life of animals and trees, was becoming a short period of heavy rain. With this bullying taking over the age-old measures of Earth, was it any surprise that Raccoons chose bullies to be their leaders? Protectors who played to frightened notions of a secure clan hierarchy separate from the rest of raccoon society. At both levels – biological nature and raccoon nature – the world was collapsing into ugliness.
So unlike these Monarch Butterflies who were alighting on the Island in droves. They followed the Milkweed towards a home most of them would never know, laying their eggs on the underside of the thick leaves, then dying to make way for their hatchlings who immediately ate their protective covering. Because of this bequest, a child or even a grandchild would get to discover the original home of its species without ever seeing it before – a lost kingdom on a mountain to the south, near the winter den of the Raccoon Ancestor. Where was home for today’s restlessly moving people? Somewhere in the future. Mindwalker seemed to be seeking it through his walk-abouts. The Island would do for her. For now.
The yellow and purple colours she remembered from her first Fall. Why did Autumn choose those colours for her flowers? Sturdy, forthright colours, they were often found together, for instance in these long-stemmed, daisy-like flowers with gold centres and purple petals. Gold for glory, purple for grief. Autumn was vivid about the matters which concerned her – matters of permanence and passing away.
Touchwit reclined in the lap of the tamarack where she had spent her second night on the Island. Mindwalker lay stretched out facing her. There was himself and, just above him on the branch, the replica of himself he’d made to warn Meatbreath away. Well, the Image had worked, because her father was no more, his hole-shaped existence in her life having been filled by this gentleman-artist.
A balmy end-of-summer breeze brought a giant butterfly to the Island. A black and yellow one with a forked tail.
“I could fly with her wither she’s bound.”
“She’s checking you out. She wonders if you’re a flower.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“If I told you her name, would she still be beautiful?”
“Try me.”
“She’s called a Swallowtail.”
Suddenly the butterfly became an object. She had power over it. How vulgar! To be vulgar is to over-simplify.
“There’s a saying by Procyonides. When the Great Raccoon Ancestor bestowed names on all of the creatures, he cancelled out their true existence as people.”
A Swallowtail. Now she had the butterfly and now she had a name that was assigned to it. The creature wasn’t any less – there she was still dancing in her own whimsical freedom. But she had become in part a creature she was not, namely a Swallow. Just because the Raccoon Ancestor had perceived a resemblance to the tail of one of his other creatures.
She answered Mindwalker: “Yes, she would still be beautiful. Except she’s inside me. I can feel her behind my eyes. She wants to use me as a leaf to leave behind her self-image.”
“No, she’s outside you. You pushed her away by naming her.”
“I’ll bring her closer with a Making. Go where thou wilt, sweet unnameable Someone who flits like a Swallow – you need not linger. I will cherish your image for you, which you have laid in me.”
Mindwalker laughed. “I wish Naming were that easy.”
Which meant a turn in their conversation. The fun of their dialogues was the easy glide from topic to topic. “I named her without naming her by creating a Making. The Making did the naming.”
“Exactly!” Mindwalker said, his enthusiasm rising. “According to Custom we don’t ask for the name of a guest until we’ve made that stranger feel like kin, until they feel comfortable enough to tell a story about themself. A story telling where they’re from, where they’ve travelled, what they’re seeking. Those are all relationships. Relationships with people and places. Like the relationship you imagined that helped me think of a Swallowtail as a person. Someone seeming to stay but meaning to fly. She can’t flit around: she has to be on her way. Do you know, flit means to migrate? Makers create relationships and those relationships do the naming.”
Easy for him. He walked so discreetly among invisible relationships that they practically started naming each other. Then after a whole season of walking around, he produced one consummate Making that sang inside itself. Just one. This gave her an idea. “New topic,” she said. “How did we make a City?”
Mindwalker furrowed his brow and reached for a daisy stem.
“It seems to me raccoon society is full of thousands of relationships it can’t name, and only a few it can name, which then become Customs. Something you can talk about. Something you can measure your expectations against. Society is only capable of holding a few Customs in its mind at one time.”
“How many?”
He put the daisy stem in his mouth and began sucking it. Weird.
“Five.”
Why five?”
