Back in the Wilizy, I placed four kitchen chairs in the living room in the shape of a cross. Two chairs were back to back facing east-west, and two were back to back facing north-south. The four of us were all sitting in the chairs, facing outwards. If we turned our heads, we could see each other, but if we stared straight out, it was like being by one-self. Nobody argued with me when I set the chairs up this way, but I did get some questioning looks when they sat down.
"I feel awkward about meeting with the three of you and telling you some things that I have discovered. I don't really want you looking at me when I'm talking and I believe you won't want anyone looking at you either. That's why we are sitting back to back. I got the idea for this kind of discussion setting from Yolanda when she had to have a difficult discussion with me. At least it was difficult for me, not sure about Yolanda. She had brought me into a dark root cellar. I found it easier to talk, and listen, when I didn't feel Yolanda's eyes on me. In the prison, Will and I were sitting back to back when we had an emotional moment; it went a lot better because we didn't have to look at each other. Thought I'd try that here. I don't know how it's going to go. I do know that it's going to be a difficult discussion for all of us, so bear with me please. I owe the three of you an awful lot; I'm trying to repay part of what I owe you this afternoon."
"Once upon a time, there was a single mother and a daughter," I began. "The daughter was in her early teenage years, and she became close to a teenage boy, only he was older than her. This older boy had a bad reputation in the small community. The mother knew this – not only from what her friends told her, but also because she had the ability to sense the boy's personality. She saw nothing but violence in this boy. Violence swirling around him way off into the future. She told her daughter this. She repeatedly warned her. The daughter told her that she sensed something else, something honourable in the boy. They fought about this. They became estranged from each other when the boy left their community and her daughter followed him."
"The mother was deeply hurt by this. She knew that her daughter was living with the boy, and that meant they were having sex. Her daughter had sworn that she wouldn't have sex before marriage, and in the mother's religious upbringing, this vow was taken very seriously. When the mother started hearing tales from her friends in other communities that her daughter was flirting with men in bars in outfits that revealed her to be a prostitute, was drinking, and was staying in hotel rooms with her boy friend, she considered her daughter lost."
"The mother's instincts were completely correct. Her reading of the boy was accurate and she had come to rely heavily on those readings. She had always been right in her assessments before. Indeed, violence was going to follow this young man wherever he went. But she couldn't know that the violence would be directed at the people who would harm her daughter, not at the daughter herself. As for the actions of her daughter, they were just as her friends had told her. Except for a few critical missing pieces of information."
"First, the daughter was not having sex with her boyfriend, and I can prove that."
I sensed Granny stiffen at the point.
"The daughter didn't have sex with her boyfriend until she reached her 18th birthday. As to her questionable behaviour, she and her boyfriend were operating undercover for the RCMP. The mother found out about this some time later, but by this time, the estrangement was unresolvable. As to why the daughter hadn't told her about the undercover work, the girl had a solid reason. Initially she had gone into undercover work with her boyfriend with the sole purpose of protecting him from danger while he rooted out criminals. She couldn't reveal that to her mother afterwards, because she knew that her mother's attitude towards her boy friend would change significantly. Her friends and other acquaintances would notice that change. The only protection that the girl and her boy friend had from the criminals that surrounded them was their own bad reputation. If that bad reputation came into question, their lives would be forfeited."
"A significant event happened to the couple one night while they were operating undercover. The girl was surrounded by bikers and attacked. Their intent was obvious. The boy friend came into the bar and his life also was immediately threatened. The girl found a way to kill four of the bikers; the boy friend handled the fifth. The mother has probably not heard about this event until right now. She wouldn't have known that the attack in the bar wasn't an accidental encounter. Not even the young couple knew that until this minute. Franklin arranged the whole thing with Zzyk. The girl was to be brutally assaulted; the boy would be forced to watch and then he'd be killed. As would she. Franklin didn't want them interfering with his habit of sexually assaulting young women in his community."
I had their full attention now but had to stop for a bit. Both Granny and Yolanda were sniffling; Hank was rigid. My voice was breaking up. I couldn't imagine what that bar would have been like that night.
"From this one terrible event, good things happened. The boy conceived of a plan to attack the bikers, and from there, they discovered the bikers were an armed militia stationed in Alberta. The boy friend's message of defiance to the biker gangs became a rallying call for the formation of the Aboriginal Nation. What wasn't known, until recently, was that the girl had played a much more vital role in this initiative than previously thought. Franklin had attempted to assault her in a prison cell; she fought him off, threatened him with grievous bodily harm, and they made a pact. She'd let Franklin live, but in return, he couldn't block her boy friend's plan. The fact that the daughter found a way to control Franklin, while keeping him in place to advance her boy friend's plan was a master stroke of cunning, but the girl has felt guilty about it ever since, in part because she had kept a secret from her boy friend, now her husband. They have worked that out. But, this will be the first time that her mother has heard of what her daughter did for her husband, and for the Aboriginal Nation."
"The daughter herself is ignorant of something that her mother did for her, her boy friend, and for the Aboriginal Nation as well. All parties involved in this story have kept secrets – all for what they thought at the time were very good reasons. But it's time for all these secrets to be revealed."
"Once the daughter reached her 18th birthday, she and her boyfriend began having sex. But carefully. An unwanted pregnancy would be disastrous because they were in the middle of a war with the bikers. The bikers had sworn to kill both of them, and the couple was not only fighting for their lives, but for the lives of others in the land where Zzyk wanted to occupy. The girl acted as spotter for her boy friend, and as coordinator of all of their activities. When she realized that she was pregnant, she would have been devastated. In part because she had been so careful in obtaining birth control protection, but also because she would soon be a liability in the field. They agreed that she would hide away in a small valley where nobody could find her while her husband carried on with his war. He was a very proficient hunter and the odds were slowly lessening. He would just pick the bikers off individually. Meanwhile, they sent word to the mother that her daughter was pregnant and needed her help. For a brief time, mother and daughter were reunited in an uneasy relationship."
"This changed when the boy friend was almost killed. He escaped with a broken arm and perhaps other injuries. Somehow he got word to the mother that his battle was almost lost. Perhaps he warned her that her daughter would have to be moved soon. Whatever the message he sent, the mother reacted differently than he had expected. She grabbed her giant bow and joined him in his battle. She didn't tell her daughter what she was doing. Telling her that her boy friend was near death? Telling her that she herself would soon be engaged in killing people – something that was absolutely forbidden by her religion? She couldn't do it. It was at that time, that the mother gave up her religion in order to save the daughter and her unborn child. In her own mind, the mother considered herself a sinful woman for the murders she would commit, but she felt she had no other choice."
"The mother and the boy
friend reached an uneasy compromise. He would be sworn to secrecy. The mother didn't want her daughter to know of the sins that she would be committing. In return, she would fight by his side. They became an effective fighting machine. Two hunters, both deadly with a silent bow. Either one of them capable of sending the message of defiance – the arrow through the throat so deep into the trunk of the tree that it could not be extracted. The boy friend's arm healed and the biker numbers diminished quickly after that."
"As the birth of the girl's baby drew closer, I believe that the two hunters made a deliberate mistake that would draw the five remaining bikers into an ambush. It was successful and in a night attack, all five were killed by the silent big bows. But the mother received a grave injury, one that left her unable to walk and which needed more treatment than the first aid that the boy friend could give her. Somehow he moved her to a medical clinic – the records of which I have seen. She was there for several months before being discharged. She was healthy, but she would walk with a limp from that point on. She knew that she was too late to be with her daughter when her first child was born."
"The baby did not make it through the nine months. The girl barely did herself. Everybody blamed himself or herself. The girl friend blamed herself for the death because she had fallen into a depression in mid term, in part because of loneliness and from feeling deserted, and in part, because of not being able to handle the pain she was experiencing from the pregnancy. The mother considered the dead baby as a sign from her God that her sins had been recorded and that she should never have deserted her daughter like she had deserted Him. The boy friend blamed himself for leaving his girl friend alone and taking on the war against the bikers. He should have run away and hidden with her. But he hadn't been able to do that."
"The three people never talked about this event with each other – at least not to reveal their hidden thoughts and the secrets they had been bound to respect by situations outside their control. What the three don't realize is that the girl's difficult pregnancy had nothing to do with angry gods or mistake made by anyone. On this I have absolute proof. Franklin and Zzyk caused that difficult pregnancy in an attempt to murder the girl and get revenge on the boy friend. Franklin sabotaged the condoms by putting a pin through each of them. In addition, he covered each with a poison that Zzyk gave him that would, at the very least, make the girl's pregnancy nearly impossible to bear. If they were lucky, she'd die a long slow death. They were the ones who were responsible for the death of that baby. The three of you were not."
An uncomfortable silence engulfed the living room. I rose to leave. They needed to talk by themselves.
"Hank and I were married before we had sex," Yolanda said as Izzy stepped away. "It was just a personal ceremony; we exchanged vows properly at 12:01 on the morning of my 18th birthday. I believe that I got pregnant that morning. I thought it would be a beautiful baby. What I gave birth to was a monster. I buried it in a place nobody would find and I didn't tell anyone what I had given birth to. I didn't want anyone to know what my body had created."
I noticed that both Granny and Yolanda's hands had found each other behind their chairs. Hank's hands joined them as I left.
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Chapter 45
From Izzy's journals: Tuesday evening, March 13.
I hadn't expected to find the wedding so moving. Hank walked down the aisle in the community hall with Yollie and Yolanda did the same for TG who was carrying Liset. Then Hank, Yolanda and Liset sat down and Doc started. He said that he hadn't been part of an aboriginal wedding ceremony for over 50 years and had forgotten most of what should be said. For their part, Hank, Yolanda and Granny couldn't remember ever being in a formal wedding ceremony at all. For that reason, what followed would be their attempt to recreate an evening that they thought would reflect the family's values.
Doc started with this speech.
"Today we are a large extended family living together in one community and sharing in all of the tasks and chores of a household. Yet each nuclear family is separate. Everybody helps to educate our children so that they understand the important of family and family history. When problems arise, each family participates in determining its solution. This is how the ancients lived – inside what they referred to as the big house. This building we are in tonight is now our big house and this marriage between Yollie and TG will be our first formal ceremony as an extended family. I hope that there will be many more."
After that, Doc spoke in his own language and I couldn't follow much after that. I did understand the significance of Granny's gift to them of two feathers that were tied so tightly together that they could never be separated. Then she spoke.
"I'm proud of Hank and Yolanda for the way they have taught their family how to live a moral life. To make difficult vows and to stick to them in spite of enormous pressures; to stand up for the weak and the oppressed in spite of facing personal danger; to inspire their children to follow the Aboriginal Nation's motto. The Aboriginal Nation protects its own. We fight to the death. We don't run away. Most of you will not know this, but Hank and Yolanda created that motto and made it popular. They were one of the main reasons that the Aboriginal Nation was formed. They are great parents and Yollie and TG will do well to follow their footsteps."
In the hubbub that followed, Granny stepped down from the little stage and Yolanda came up to greet her. They did something that I had never seen before. They hugged each other. Granny put her left hand on Yolanda's cheek and caressed it while she brought her lips to Yolanda's other cheek and kissed that. The exact same way that Yolanda had comforted both Yollie and me. I could see them whispering to each other and Granny kissed her again. I began to tear up but could see enough to know that Hank was next to be embraced, in exactly the same manner. I was looking down wiping my eyes when Yolanda appeared in front of me and pulled me to the front. I was the next to be drawn into the Granny embrace and by this time, tears were streaming down my face. I could feel them on Granny's cheek as she caressed one of my cheeks and kissed the other. "For too long this family has been broken," she whispered to me. "You have brought us together and for that we will be eternally grateful."
The room fell quiet as the family realized what was happening at the front of the room. I felt myself brought into a circle with Granny, Hank, and Yolanda and we hung together for the longest time. Not a further word was said; we were all openly bawling, even Hank's great stone face was slick with tears. I felt a most intense something – I can't describe it. I'd like to believe that it's the feeling that a baby has when it's in its mother's womb. Being surrounded by love and entirely safe within its embrace. Then someone found Hank's makeshift drum and started a beat, and the family joined in with their hands and their feet and the beat quickened and quickened until it was a roar of thunder and then we were all in an embrace.
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Other Novels by David J. Wighton
It would be best to read the novels in the Wilizy series in order.
I Got'cha: Book #1 in the Wilizy Series (July 2081 to October 2081
If you think being a teenager in today's world is tough, try being one in 2081. In Alberta's It's Only Fair society, your brain-band will zap you just for chewing with your mouth open. One boy pried his brain-band off to see what living with emotions would be like. Being chased by the entire Alberta army was bad enough. It became worse when another 15 year old kid offered to help him escape.
The Get-Even Bird: Book #2 in the Wilizy Series (November 2081 to April 2082)
Will and Izzy are forced to flee from Zzyk's army. After months away from Alberta, they fly their sailing ship into B.C. thinking that they would be safe there. Bad mistake! Izzy is captured. All Will has to do to save her life is turn himself in for a free brain-band fitting appointment. That's what happens when you wear a Zorro costume to a dance.
Assassination Day: Book #3 in the Wilizy Series (May 2082 to September 2082)
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A DPS technician offers to defect if the Wilizy will rescue his daughter from The Citadel – some super smart military people who are friends with Zzyk. Izzy thinks that their new recruit is an assassin, but Yollie insists that he's a decent man. Can assassins be decent men? It will take a hair-raising experience to find out.
Hoist the Jolly Lucas: Book #4 in the Wilizy Series (September 2082 to March 2083)
It's bad enough that Zzyk pins the blame for two assassinations on Izzy and launches a full out assault on their home compound. But then, another enemy takes advantage of a security lapse to get revenge for a war that happened 20 years ago. The Wilizy are left reeling with two key members kidnapped and stashed where they can't be found, let alone rescued. For the family to survive, everybody must enter the battle. The story is as much about the past as it is about the present.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Torpedoes: Book #5 in the Wilizy Series (March 2083 to September 2084)
Mac disappears and doesn't want to be found. Will and Wolf use time-travel to search for her and discover secrets she wouldn't want them to know. The Alaskans attack when Will is finding out what happens to a submarine's air when it is lying helpless on the ocean floor. Between the Alaskans' impenetrable fortress and their bubblegum weapons, life is going to get a little sticky for the Wilizy.
Bob, the Invisible Dragon: Book #6 in the Wilizy Series (September 2084 to May 2085)
Raging hormones as well as Raging Gardeners play key roles when young Wilizy warriors are attacked and the Wilizy's scientific marvels offer no protection. The youngsters' future will rely on a different kind of warrior protecting them. Warning: events at the end of the story will move quickly. They certainly won't drag on.