Oct 1, 2019 7 min read

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The story so far: Things have gotten stranger and stranger for Mac as he has gone from being threatened by a monster right out of his grandmother’s old-time Indian stories to meeting Wesu, one of the magical Little People.

n Chapter THREe Two things

Mac stared at the little man. Even though he thought he knew the answer, he still had to ask the question. No, two questions.

“Who are you?” Mac said. “And what are you?”

The little man smiled up at him. “You can call me Wesu. As far as what I am . . .” Wesu laughed out loud, spun around twice, and then held his arms out. “I think you already know.”

Mac sighed. Then he said what he knew Wesu was waiting for him to say. After all, as if his being less than a foot tall hadn’t been enough to give it away, his name had sealed it.

“You are one of the Mikumwesak, the Little People that my uncle told me about. But why are you here?”

“Little Eagle,” Wesu said, “one of our jobs has always been to watch you big people.”

Mac was getting curious now, but worried too. If this really wasn’t a dream and Wesu really was one of the Little People out of their old-time stories, then trouble was on the way. What was it Grandma Kateri had told him? The Little People are the guardians of nature. Some of them took care of the food and medicine plants, others were entrusted with the responsibility of guarding powerful places. Supposedly, the Little People had all kinds of special powers. They knew things and saw things that human beings didn’t. That was what the stories said. They also said that the Mikumwesak hardly ever let humans see them. When they did, it was often because something big was about to happen. In the past, they had helped human heroes overcome great monsters. If they asked a human being to help them with something, almost anything could happen.

“Is that the reason you’re here?” Mac said in a suspicious voice. “Just to watch me? Don’t you have anything else to do?”

Wesu whistled, shrill as a red-tailed hawk. “Aha,” he said, as if to some hidden listener. “You see why I wanted to choose this one. Even though he doesn’t know, he already knows! Of course I have other things to do. The first job,” Wesu said, holding up the little finger of his right hand, “was to follow that Black One which escaped from the caves, to make sure it didn’t kill you before I could talk to you.” Wesu smiled. He held up the little finger on his left hand. “The second was to tell you that you have been chosen to do something wonderful.”

“What?” Mac asked in a suspicious voice.

“Oh, nothing much,” Wesu said, spinning around on one foot. “Just risk your life to save your world from destruction.”

Mac took four quick steps back from the window. No way was he ready to risk his life. Then he accidentally bumped against something that fell into his grasp. It was long, hard, and wrapped in leather.

“Good idea, Little Eagle,” said Wesu’s voice.

Mac looked at what he held. It was his bow. Not the compound bow with the sight on it that he used in competition. It was his new bow-or rather, his old new bow. Uncle Bear had found it in an antique store and bought it for him. It was a bow that had been made long ago by some Indian craftsman. The smoky smell of the leather wrapping showed that it had been stored in the old way, up in the rafters of a wigwam, where the smoke would help preserve it. There was no way to know how old the bow was. Maybe a hundred years, maybe a lot more. It was smooth to the touch and looked like it was made of ivory or horn. Even bowstring seemed to still be strong. Mac had not tried to string the bow or shoot the four flint-tipped arrows that were wrapped in the leather with it. It had just been something special to look at and inspire him.

But that was not how the Little Person who was standing on the windowsill saw it.

“Unwrap it,” Wesu said. “Let me see who it is.”

Don’t you mean what it is? Mac wanted to ask. But even as the question passed unspoken through his mind, he found himself kneeling down, untying the rawhide cord, and unwrapping the leather. It was as if his hands knew what they were doing even when his mind didn’t tell them what to do. His hands grasped and then held up the gleaming white bow.

“Wah-hey!” Wesu shouted. “It is the old one. It is Striker! We must thank her for coming back again into this world to help us.”

“My uncle found this, I mean her, in an antique store.” Mac said, noticing the way Wesu raised a disapproving eyebrow at him.

“No, no, nooo. No one finds one of the good old ones unless that good old one wants to be found. Striker was looking for you, Eagle Boy!” Wesu smiled. “Good thing too. The Black One you shouted away has gone for help by now. You’ll probably need that.”

“Help?” Mac said. “What kind of help?”

Wesu’s smile vanished as he shook his head. “The worst kind,” he said.

Mac wrapped Striker and her four arrows in the leather again and tied the rawhide firmly. He sat down on the bed, closed his eyes, and tried to regain his balance. The room seemed to be spinning around him.

Maybe when I open my eyes, he will be gone and this will all be over, he thought. No Little People, no monsters, no magic bows.

But instead, when he opened his eyes, his hands were dragging his hiking boots out from under his bed, pulling them onto his feet, and tying them tight. He stood up on feet that were as disobedient as his hands, which reached out and grabbed the wrapped bow from the floor. His feet carried him to the window.

“Guys,” Mac said to his feet, “hey, guys, whoa!”

His feet didn’t listen. They carried him up onto the windowsill. To his relief, there was no sign of Wesu. Maybe the dream was over and he really had imagined everything. But if that was so, what were his feet doing?

“Guys!” Mac said. He was teetering on the windowsill, looking at the ground more than thirty feet below him. He’d done this before, stepped out the window onto the closest limb of Old Maple. But this time he wasn’t facing the limb. He was facing empty space and a long drop into his mom’s rock garden.

“No!” Mac shouted. And then his feet pushed him off the windowsill. He was falling.

NEXT: Falling

Glossary and pronunciation of Abenaki words:

Mikumwesu (Me-koom-way-SUE): One of the Little People, a Native American being much like the leprechauns of Irish stories

Mikumwesak (me-koom-way-SAHK): Little People

Wesu (way-SUE): Abenaki name