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  CULLO

  By Murielle Cyr

  License Notes

  Published by Murielle Cyr for Smashwords

  Copyright 2012 Murielle Cyr

  Cover Art by Murielle Cyr

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Details on how to purchase this and other books by Murielle Cyr can be found at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/300512

  Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales or events is entirely coincidental.

  Synopsis

  TALA can’t wait to be thirteen; then no one better tell her what to do. Her nosey neighbour is always checking up on her, and now the Welfare Officer is knocking on her door again and her father isn’t home to answer. Tala only has a few hours to find her missing father before she and her brother, DASON, get placed in a foster home.

  Her quest brings them to secluded woods where they discover that a group of bear poachers are responsible for their father’s disappearance. Can they survive the night alone in woods alive with hungry bears and angry hunters? Will she be able to find her father before the hunters do?

  Her adventures bring her in contact with the legendary woodland characters: the pipe-smoking frog-like people and the giant ferocious black bird. These characters are a vivid part of her Mi’Kmaq ancestry, told and retold from one generation to another. They’ve always existed happily for her in stories, but now, faced with a real-life crisis, they’ve become surreal and grotesque? She must learn to trust the wisdom of her ancestors if she wants to succeed in her quest to reunite her family.

  Dedication

  For Marie-Jeanne, and all the others, also named Marie, who came before her. Without their guiding spirit this book would still be caught in the wind

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tala groped in the bottom drawer of the electric stove where the kitchen utensils were stored and pulled out a small-framed picture.

  “Here you go. I knew I saw it in there.”

  She wiped her younger brother’s tears with the bottom edge of her T-shirt and handed him the picture.

  Dason clutched it close to his chest.

  “I shut my eyes real tight and I still don’t see her face.”

  He wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked up at her.

  “Do you think Anjij still has a picture of us?”

  “She doesn’t need one,” Tala said. “She’s everywhere around us, in the trees, the flowers, the earth, the wind. She sees us all the time.”

  “Susan says she’s way up there in Heaven.”

  “Like she knows everything,” Tala said.

  Susan had been their mother’s good friend before the accident two years ago, and had made it her mission since then to always check up on them. Tala counted the days until her thirteenth birthday next month; no more nagging about being too young to stay by herself. It sure didn’t help that Susan’s kitchen window looked straight into theirs, and that her son Josh was Dason’s best friend. Car tires crunched the loose gravel on their driveway. Tala bolted for the front door.

  “Must be Tom,” she said.

  She’d fallen asleep on the couch waiting for him to come home last night. When she checked his bedroom first thing this morning his blankets were still in the same heap on the floor. He hadn’t picked up any of her text messages; she was forever reminding him to charge that cell phone of his. Maybe he couldn’t use it in the woods, but he might pick up signals on higher ground.

  She parted the slats in the Venetian blind to check if he had picked up a carton of milk, yanked her hand away, and dashed back to the kitchen to switch off the TV. Dason jumped up to protest but she signaled him to be quiet.

  “That woman’s back,” she said. “Don’t make any noise.”

  A sharp rap on the front door; neither of them moved. Dason went to say something but Tala shook her head at him. The blinds were all closed but the front window was still open. All inside noises could be heard from the front porch.

  Must be that busy body Susan who noticed Tom’s pick-up wasn’t in the driveway this morning. Ever since Tom told her Tala was old enough to take care of Dason, she made sure to snoop on them every chance she got. Just last night she called again to say the basement window was left open. No matter how many times Tala tells her she leaves it open for the cat to come in at night, Susan still calls to nag about it. Of course she made sure to ask if Tom was home yet. Tala was convinced Susan still had a thing for Tom; even after he told her there was no woman walking on this earth who could ever take Anjij’s place.

  The knocking came back louder, more insistent. The door. What if the woman tried to come in? Tala prayed she had remembered to lock up. She’d gone out earlier to look for Thunder. The cat was always curled up in a big orange ball in the middle of the kitchen table when they got up in the morning. Angry cat howls had woken Tala up in the middle of the night. Maybe Thunder was too hurt to come home. Both her father and her cat were missing, and there was no way she’d open that door, not without having to answer questions she didn’t have an answer for.

  After a few moments, Tala tiptoed to the front window again. Dason followed clinging to the back of her shirt. From the narrow opening on the side of the blinds, she recognized Officer Scott from Social Services, the same woman who had come to the house last month when Tom was away in the woods. He’d been in a bad accident that night on the road coming home. By the time he was discharged from the hospital, it had been too late to call. Uncle Lou and Tom had swerved into the driveway just as Officer Scott handed her business card to Tala.

  “Make sure you tell your father to call me the minute he comes home.”

  A second visit from Officer Scott in such a short time wasn’t good news. Why did it always have to be on a day that Tom wasn’t at home with them? Susan must be the one squealing on them. Laura, Tala’s best friend, had warned her about Susan blabbing to everyone in the village about how messy the house was and how Tom left his kids on their own a lot.

  “Is she gone?” Dason said, muffling his voice with her shirt.

  “She’s writing something in her notebook,” she whispered in his ear.

  Officer Scott stepped down from the porch and headed towards her car. Just then Susan jogged across the front lawn to talk to her. Tala pressed her ear to the closed blind and strained to hear their conversation.

  “Maybe they’ve gone out with the father,” Officer Scott said.

  Tala inched the slat open a crack. Susan shook her head, “I’ve been home all morning. I’d notice if he drove in.”

  Officer Scott checked her watch, “I’ve got a few cases to take care of.”

  What she said next made Tala’s stomach turn over a few times.

  “If he’s not home in the required seventy-two hours, I’m coming back with the authorities. Meanwhile,” she pulled a thick set of keys from deep inside her purse, “I’ll check into getting emergency custody for tonight.” She plonked herself down behind the wheel of her compact car, “That’s if he doesn’t show up,” she said, as she backed out onto the road.

  Susan trotted towards Tala’s front door, came to an abrupt stop to answer her cell phone, and headed back home.

  Tala fell back into Tom’s old lumpy armchair and stared up at the ceiling.

>   “We’ve got to do something before tonight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember, Susan called yesterday to check up on us five minutes after Tom left. I’m sure she wrote down the exact time he drove out of the driveway.”

  “So what? She’s just being nice,” he said, placing his mother’s picture on the coffee table before reaching for the TV remote.

  Tala sat up straight and stared at Dason, “Do the math kid. If Tom’s not back in the next forty-eight hours, we’re both going into foster care.”

  “Can’t Nannie come get us?” he said in a small voice.

  “She’s still in the hospital. Tom said she’d need to rest for a long time after.”

  He climbed on the arm of her chair and leaned against her shoulder, winding the strands of her long brown hair around his short fingers. “Tom will be back soon.”

  Tala could tell by his voice that he was starting to panic. It wouldn’t help matters if he knew his big sister was scared too.

  “Sure he will,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Let’s clean up the kitchen before going out to find Thunder.”

  Dason led the search for their cat in the empty field behind their house while she forced herself to focus on any unusual movement or disturbance in the tangle of tall grass and multi-coloured wild flowers. Though her heart raced each time she spotted anything that resembled Thunder’s matted orange fur, her heart cried out louder for Tom.

  Being the best trail guide around, his clients had to book his nature outings months ahead of time. His job was to show them the shortest way through the thick forest to the mountain area where they wanted to hike or hunt. He made sure to give them a detailed map to find their own way back. No matter how deep he went into the woods, he always came back home the same day.

  What was keeping him so long? Hunting season was a real busy period but it hadn’t even started yet. She remembered Tom saying something about finding a pile of dead fish last time he was in the woods. Must be bear poachers, he said, they leave bait around to attract hungry animals, and they sure don’t like to have anybody knowing about it.

  “Come on, Dason. We’ve checked all his favourite hiding places. Maybe Thunder went home already.”

  She pushed open the kitchen screen door and glanced right away towards the front room. Tom’s hiking boots weren’t among the mountainous pile of rubber boots and muddy shoes on the mat by the front door. No Thunder snoozing on the kitchen table either. It was way past lunchtime. Tom should be home by this time. Something bad must’ve happened. Calling the police was out of the question; they’d focus more on her and Dason being left alone rather than Tom being missing. It was up to her to try to figure this out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tala pulled her knapsack out from under her bed and brushed off the thick layer of orange fur balls. What to pack wasn’t a problem for her; she’d done this so many times before with Tom and Anjij. She closed her eyes a moment to visualize her mother’s chocolate-brown eyes, the dimples that only appeared when she smiled, her long black hair dancing with the leaves in the autumn wind. She hadn’t said anything to Dason earlier, but she too sometimes had a hard time remembering her mother’s face. She wished Anjij were here, taking care of things, making everything safe for them, sitting behind Tala on her bedroom floor while she braided her hair and sang the old songs.

  The memory of Anjij singing awakened the song in her. The soft drumming started deep inside of her and she let her knapsack slip to the floor, waiting for the sounds to flow out. She wasn’t sure what all the words meant, yet they always felt comforting to her, the same words her mother, her grandmother and all the other great-grandmothers had sung before her. When the song took over like that, Tala always felt Anjij was right there singing with her, that the words echoed their love for each other. At times she could even feel Anjij’s soft hair brush the side of her face.

  “What’s your knapsack doing out?”

  Dason had come into her room without her knowing. It was uncanny the way he moved around without anybody hearing him. Not even Thunder could glide up the creaky steps to the second floor without making a sound. Little Running Deer, Tom sometimes calls him. With his straight brown hair sticking out every which way, and those dark bright eyes always checking things out, Tala preferred to think of him as a pesky muskrat.

  “I wish you’d stop sneaking up on me like that.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Out.”

  She leaned down to grab her knapsack from the floor.

  “I want to come too.”

  “You can stay with Susan since you think she’s so great.”

  She walked towards her closet to root out her hiking bag at the bottom of the pile of old runners, out-grown winter boots, overdue library books and broken hockey sticks.

  “Tell her I’ll be back around supper time.”

  “You’re going to look for Tom, aren’t you?”

  “What makes you say that?” she said, turning to face him.

  The pest always tried to second-guess her. For an eight-year old, he could sure get on her nerves; always butting in on her and Laura, following them around everywhere they went.

  “You never take that old knapsack when you’re with Laura.”

  He pushed her rumpled bed sheets aside to make room to sit. “Susan won’t let you if I tell her.”

  “That’s none of her business.”

  “Tom said never to go to the woods alone.”

  No use trying to argue with him, the pesky rat was right. Susan would be on her case as soon as she found out what she was up to. She’d call the cops again to complain about Tom not taking care of them like he should. Better to drag Dason along although it would take her longer to get there. Thirty-four more days until her birthday, then nobody—just nobody—better try telling her what to do.

  “You’ve got twenty minutes to get ready,” she said. “Put on some long pants and runners with socks. No sandals.”

  He bounced off her bed and bolted out of the room.

  The green canvas bag Tom had given her last time he brought them hiking was stuck underneath last year’s winter boots. She tugged it out but didn’t bother loosening the pull-string. Tom had made her practice packing and unpacking it so often she had memorized what was in it: a folded plastic tarp, string, matches, a nylon hammock, a zip lock bag full of folded toilet paper, first-aid tape, and a flashlight with extra batteries. He always carried an identical bag in his own knapsack when he went on excursions with his clients. You just never know, he told her, when she complained that she didn’t need to carry all that extra stuff. It took up less than half the space in her knapsack, so she shoved in an extra pair of socks and a hooded sweatshirt. Dragging all that with her on a bike ride still seemed like an overkill to her, but the weather could change in a heartbeat close to the mountains and the river.

  While she was filling the water bottles, Dason emptied a full box of granola bars into his bag, trotted to the fridge to grab the last of the apples and went back for a couple of oranges. She noticed a sour smell when he opened the fridge door; that tuna casserole Susan had given Tom last week still hadn’t been touched. She hesitated whether to flush it down the toilet and decided to leave it for Tom to take care of. Susan would be sure to ask him if he had enjoyed eating it. Tala knew he was dead honest about these things.

  “Did you bring a sweater and extra socks?” she said.

  Dason nodded, zipping his knapsack closed.

  “Wait, you still got room left.” She pointed to the water bottles standing by the sink. “Put two of these right-side up in your bag. I’ll bring the other two.”

  Tom’s round wall clock with the hour hand shaped like a hockey stick was going on three; they had to be out before Officer Scott came back. She leaned down, opened the bottom cupboard where the pots and pans were kept, and pulled out the smallest one, a beat-up aluminum pot Anjij always used for hot chocolate, the same one Tala now used to store her most preci
ous belongings. She tugged the lid off and fished around for the headband Nannie had made her out of the softest leather she could find. A small pale-yellow moonstone was attached at one end; the opposite end was decorated with coloured beads and three eagle feathers. Tala tilted her head forward and reached back to tie her hair with it.

  Tucked in the bottom of the pot was a tiny birch canoe wrapped in a small piece of red cloth. The smooth feel of the white birch brought back happy memories of Nannie in her squeaky rocking chair, humming the old songs as she stitched the seams of the miniature canoe. Treat it with respect and it will give you strength, Nannie said, placing it into Tala’s open hand. It smelled as fresh and woodsy as the day Nannie had stripped the small sheet of bark from a branch of the old birch tree in her back yard. Tala slipped it into the small pocket on the side of her knapsack and zipped it closed.

  “What you bringing that for?” Dason said.

  “No reason.”

  “How come Nannie never made me one?”

  “That’s a lot of questions for a pesky muskrat,” she said, swinging the straps of her knapsack onto her shoulders. “Your cap is on top of the TV.”

  “I’m wearing my pirate bandana.”

  The tight black cloth was knotted in the back of his neck; its large white cross-bone design framed the top of his head. “All you need is an eye patch,” she said as she hurried to the front room to lock up.

  A sharp knock at the door stopped her in her tracks. They both turned to look at each other. Tala signaled Dason to be quiet as she tiptoed to the window again to peek out from the side of the blinds. The moment she recognized the blond curly hair, she jerked the blinds halfway up and whispered through the open window, “Hey, Laura. Pretend to knock again. Bet you anything my nosey neighbour is watching. I don’t want her to know I’m here.”

  Laura rapped on the door once more, a puzzled look on her face.