...And We Will Have Snow

Chapter 3-4: Spirit Guide

Xayna is shy but trusting as she stares in wonder at this new vision. Niño is almost equally shy, and only slowly allows himself to believe that the woman standing before him is not merely part of his shaman dream. She is real, she is young, and she is beautiful. Her long black hair and bright eyes remind him of Aunt Cheryl, but in her youth and presence she outshines any other girl he has ever seen. He was mildly aware of this extra presence when he called up his bear dream and imposed it on these new surroundings. Somehow her human presence seemed so natural here that it had not impeded his transformation. Curiously, she seems to have aided it.

And her words are remarkably accepting. "You are my Spirit Bear." In the moment, he is very willing to become whatever she wishes. Standing there looking at her, drinking in her presence, he realizes that she too is in a shaman dream, a dream so familiar to her that it is innocent of any affectation. And she has spoken from within that dream, from her own hope and expectation.

Niño realizes that his words of affirmation were drawn from him partly by the power of her dream, and he has unwittingly strengthened it. He allows his own shaman dream to blend with hers, and begins to sense how her dream drew her to the mother bear, and to the beach, and to him. Still in the moment, he is willing to believe that her dream drew him to this beach as well, and to his manifestation as the white bear.

He knows without thought that his own white bear familiar is a polar bear he encountered on the shore of Hudson Bay, when he was there to help install a Sun Dome for a village that would otherwise soon be buried beneath the coming snow. But he senses that for her his white bear is just as surely the Spirit Bear known to her people, native to the nearby mainland. He doesn't mind. He doesn't mind at all.

Xayna spoke to him in English, but beneath that in her dream is a wealth of Haida names for things. Her own name, he finds, means "sunshine." He knows that it was given to her because it fit, and he agrees. She has not told it to him, but he speaks it now, "Xayna," just the one word, but he gives it its Haida meaning.

Her eyes were wide already, but they go wider still. "You know me," she says.

"Yes, and you know me."

She looks puzzled, but only for a moment. "You are to be my spirit guide."

"And you are to be mine. We have much to learn from each other."

They stand quietly for a moment in the intense glow of this mutual recognition.

Then he holds out his hand to her. She takes it, and the electric thrill this first touch brings makes her cling to it as if she will never let go. They turn for a moment to face the beach, empty now except for the still forms of two sea lion pups.

He answers her unvoiced thought, saying, "The bears will come for them. Their spirits are already back in the sea with their mother. They will return again next year."

She bows her head in understanding, then turns away to lead him out of the forest, and to her Haida home.