Carol GoldenEagle - Bone Black

Over the past several hours, Wren has been laying on the couch, bundled up in the colourful, woollen afghan that covered her and her husband the night they danced and slept in front of the fireplace in the living room. She has been drifting in and out of restless sleep. Along with Myron, she also burned the pink wig, skirt and sequined, butterfly-adorned top that she wore to Scoundrels. An exhausting ordeal. Wren’s been waiting for the fire to take him, wanting to be sure it all happens over the next couple of days before her husband returns.

During the moments when her conscious mind travelled elsewhere, Wren saw the “jumpers” coming, a term she always used to describe the mythical creatures her kohkum would sometimes talk about. They are nocturnal, about the size of a fox, and they stand upright with strong legs that resemble those of a grasshopper. Their bulging eyes are keener than a cat’s, and maybe like a cat, they can look directly into a person’s soul.

According to Kohkum’s story, the jumpers live underground and prefer a den that’s close to water. Wild cucumbers are their main source of food. They will also eat flesh, though, with their razor-sharp fangs that come out when they sense impure thoughts. Jumpers are like janitors, scrubbing the land of waste and ruin. Their bodies are sleek and opaque like the underbelly of a white fish. The jumpers are covered with scales and have small-but-deadly arms that look like those of a giant praying mantis.

Wren recalls a story about what jumpers will do if they sense danger is present. Kohkum talked about an evil drifter, a Young Dog or Young Dog offspring. His mind was filthy and his hands were dirty. He was hiding in the dark waiting for parents to go to sleep before dousing a ragged cloth with chloroform. His heart raced as he sat waiting, waiting, waiting for his chance to turn back the canvas flap of a tent where two young girls slept in the backyard.

He’d be quiet and those girls would end up raped and dead, except that the jumpers caught wind of him. They knew what was in his heart and in his troubled mind. They knew and they acted. As the drifter slowly approached the tent, the jumpers followed, watching him from their perch atop nearby trees. Three jumpers came that night, silently as they always do, and surrounded that evil man.

He became paralyzed with fear when he saw them. They slashed his wretched body, tearing away limbs, dismembering his guts, all without making a sound, without leaving a trace, and with the precision of skilled hunters. They took the body parts and planted them near their den—food for the roots of the bulrushes as well as for the fish and frogs.

But those jumpers are not to be feared. They don’t harm unless there is need to do so. Wren’s mental wandering takes her back to her own childhood, her own memory. She and Raven had a couple of friends stay for a sleepover. They’d had a big bonfire for a marshmallow and wiener roast. There was no curfew, but Kohkum told them to go to sleep in the big canvas tent when they got tired. They stayed up late, long enough to see the total darkness of the night sky, but not before finishing a whole bag of marshmallows, some of the soft, sweet bits falling to the ground in their gleeful haste.

Sometime before daybreak, Wren had to go to the bathroom, so she quietly crept out from under her sleeping bag, careful not to disturb her sleeping mates. The bonfire had simmered to embers, although still offered a soft light. When Wren opened the tent flap, she saw a jumper sitting near the firepit, eating the marshmallows bits that were left on the ground.

At first she was frightened upon seeing this mysterious creature with shiny white skin, but it looked over at her with big, round eyes and without speaking, told her not to be afraid. He conveyed that he was staying the night to keep watch over the girls, to be sure they were all safe. Then in a flash, the thing vanished into the treetops, leaving the young Wren with a sense of safety, a knowing that she is never alone. She’s sure now that she’s felt that jumper’s energy around her many times since.

In her visions tonight as she lays on the couch, she can see jumpers circling the kiln and dancing, just as she did the last time she turned someone to bone-black ash. The image startles Wren awake, and she goes to the kitchen to splash some cold water on her face. Wren decides to make herself a tea and wait for first light before finishing the job and cleaning up. There was so much blood when she chopped Myron to pieces; forensic evidence all over the place was something she never intended.

As she stares at her latest work of pottery, Wren wonders if she will eventually find her way out of this quagmire in her life. The pottery stares back at her: the fool with a gargoyle’s face. The sculpture shows similar facial features to that of a Neanderthal man, with a sloped chin and forehead. She’s carved Medusa-like snakes in place of hair because the myth surrounding this guardian warns that anyone who might gaze into her eyes will turn to stone.

Myron Salt has turned to stone. Medusa’s hair will keep him in check, even in death, ensuring that he no longer brings harm to women. Once this piece is fired in the kiln, Wren will use Myron’s bone ash to glaze the piece with a black finish. She runs a cutting wire under the wet clay to loosen it from the round piece of wood it’s sitting on. As she carefully lifts it, Wren notices the piece is heavier than she expected, much the same as the night she dragged Myron’s body from the passenger seat of her car.

Wren’s movements are precise and meticulous as she gently lowers the gargoyle into her studio kiln. She’ll fire it to 1800 degrees. Because of its height, twenty inches, it will have to bake for eight hours. It’ll take another day after that to let the kiln cool down enough for her to remove the piece. Not a fast process. Once she glazes it, she’ll need to fire it for another ten hours, then let it cool for two days. She’ll sand the bottom after that.

After setting the kiln’s temperature, Wren shakes her head. She had left Myron’s blood in the snow. She didn’t clean up the blood directly in front of the outdoor kiln either, because she had been too tired, too overwhelmed. The area must have resembled the floor of a slaughterhouse.

Early the following morning though, when she went out to clean the mess at daybreak, everything looked serene. There were no splatter marks or pools of blood, just the pristine white of freshly fallen snow. It was as if by magic. As though someone had been enlisted to come in and take care of the mess. Jumpers?

Wren’s not completely sure. She wonders if she cleaned up herself and simply forgot she’d done it. She’s been tired and disoriented lately, so it’s possible. Her mind has been at war with Kohkum’s teachings, notions of good grace, kindness and forgiveness. She now smudges each day, asking for redemption, clarity and some sort of sign that what she’s been doing is more of a service than a sin.

At this moment, an image of her sister’s pretty face comes to mind. Wren decides to turn on the radio and listen to some morning talk. The breaking story all over the news is that of a young man missing in Regina’s North Central. His family is offering a generous reward for any information that might lead to his whereabouts. Wren scoffs. “There is no evidence and no eyewitnesses,” she mutters.

While her kiln hums away hardening the clay, there is other work to do. Wren has received a custom order from the province’s Office of Protocol. Since her exhibit, word has spread about the uniqueness of her designs. The Office likes to promote its own Saskatchewan artists, so an order was placed for one of her clay cooking pots as a gift for a visiting dignitary. The design Wren has chosen shows a lake scene surrounded by the Qu’Appelle Valley’s rolling hills. It has been glazed in a bone black finish.