Chapter 3 ~ The Eagle's Flight

I am soaring. Dipping and playing on the waves of current in the air. Floating to the top of a wave and plunging back over the side of it and into the trough. It is glorious. Below me the desert stretches away to the east and to the west it gradually becomes a forest at the foot of a range of mountains. I’m drawn to the forest. I swoop down closer to it, skimming the tops of the trees until I reach the foot of the mountain. I glide effortlessly through the trees as if I have made this journey thousands of times.

I see her through a break in the trees. I land gracefully on the ground before her. She sits very still at the mouth of a cave. I’m not sure if she is even breathing. Her eyelids flutter momentarily and that is the only way that I know she is alive. She is small in stature, hunched over by time or toil, but powerful. I can feel the age old wisdom and the power that comes with it emanating from her. Her long wiry gray hair falls in braids over her shoulders. She sits serenely, undisturbed by my arrival.

I call to her in the voice of the eagle and she opens her eyes and whispers, “Quauhtli.” Her words are unclear and her language unfamiliar at first, but as she continues I find I can understand her. She speaks in her native tongue, the language of the ancient Aztecs. “Awaken. We have returned and you have just to remember. They will look to you. You must awaken.” She falls back into her trance as if I had never been there and she had never spoken.

I find her words unsettling and raising my wings lift off the ground, calling back to her in the harsh, clear voice of the eagle.

I sit bolt upright in bed, beads of sweat on my forehead. I look around my room confused, lost. I push my hair out of my eyes, drag myself out of bed, and go to the mirror on the closet door. I’m not sure why, but I gather all my hair into two sections and begin to braid it, staring at myself. I look just like the woman in the dream, the seer.

The silence is abruptly broken by the sound of a screech from outside. I rush to the window and pull back the long, wispy curtains. There in the gray light of dawn an eagle soars, circles, and lands in the old oak tree beside the house. My eyes take in the field that the tree stands at the edge of. It's the beginning of an extensive farm that Dad has spent a lifetime building and nurturing. The soft, green buds of the soy bean are pushing up through the earth as far as I can see. My eyes are drawn back to the eagle who sits contentedly in the tree. I watch him preen his feathers and then without warning he is in the air, soaring, searching. The cryptic message of his call lost on me.

“Dawn? Honey, are you ok?” I look blankly down at my mother who stands in the backyard looking up at me. “Dawn?”

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Mom’s soft but weathered hand reaches out and strokes my hair as I sit at my desk lost in thought. She reaches to my dresser for my brush and begins to pull it gently through my hair.

I look around my room to avoid thinking about dreams and eagles and visions. It’s the same room, in the same farmhouse, in basically the same Lignum, Virginia that I’ve been living in for thirty years, minus the four years I spent at Virginia Tech. For fourteen of those years I shared this room with Kate. We fought and cried and dreamed, mostly fought, in this room. Some of the dreams were happier than others. Of course it’s different now; I made it my own long ago. It’s no longer pink, thank God. I painted it a soothing gray-green and there are photos of family and friends all around. It’s cozy and comforting, my safe haven. There are lots of plants, books from school about agricultural science, farmer’s almanacs, all my books for my research on meteorology and a comfy chair to sit and read them in. There’s a computer desk now, where I handle much of the daily business of running a farm.

Kate stays in the guest room when she comes to visit. Actually it’s not so much a guest room as a multipurpose room; Dad’s office, Mom’s sewing room, guest room. We could never convince Mom and Dad to let us use it for a bedroom when we were kids because Dad needed the office for the business end of farming, but since I took that over he doesn’t need it as much now. So it’s finally Kate’s room when she’s here.

There’s not much of Kate left in this house. Sometimes I wonder if there is too much of me here. I’m always second guessing my decision to live here after graduation. Though sometimes I’m not sure it was really a conscious decision as much as a sense of obligation warped over twenty-two years of guilt.

My own thoughts and Mom’s question bring me back to the subject I was trying to avoid, my dreams. “What happened, Dawn? What did you see?” she asks as she brushes.

I’m astounded. Over the past couple months I’ve been having dreams, the kind of dreams I’ve been having and ignoring for years, only now they’re occurring with an alarmingly increased frequency, but I haven’t told a soul. “How did you know?”

“I live in the same house with you. Do you think I can’t hear you calling out in your sleep or see how distracted you are? It’s time we talked about it. I shouldn’t have waited this long.” She stops for just a moment, steadies herself and plunges on. “So what have you seen, Dawn? What are the visions telling you?”

Her matter of fact attitude calms me a little. I ask her the question that’s been burning in my brain since the latest episode started, “How do you know they are visions? How do you know they are anything more than just dreams?”

“I know the same way I knew when you were eight. I can feel it. I can feel it somewhere inside of me.”

“I’m not as sure as you are.”

She ignores my resistance. “What did you see? What was it about?” There is a hint of fear in her eyes when she looks at me, a look I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid ever seeing again.

I’m still not exactly sure what I’ve been seeing or what any of it means but I try to put the one freshest in my mind into words. “I was a bird, soaring over a desert and then I flew to a forest at the edge of the desert and there was an old woman there in a cave. She looked like a very old version of me. I landed in front of her and she spoke to me.”

“What did she say?”

I try to laugh it off, “I guess she was some sort of metaphysical alarm clock for me, she told me it was time to awaken and that I needed to remember something.” The echo of her voice is in my head and I realize that my description may be more right than I know.

Mom absently puts the brush back down on the dresser, lost in her thoughts. “Do you know what kind of bird you were?”

The question seems irrelevant. “An eagle.”

“An eagle?” There is something in her eyes that I can’t identify, though I’m afraid it is skepticism.

“Yes. And then I heard one call outside and thought I was still dreaming. That’s when I saw you.”

She crosses to the window and looks out searching the sky. “He’s been here for weeks now.”

“Who?” Goose bumps spring up on my arms.

“The eagle. Haven’t you seen him?”

“No. I hadn’t noticed.”

She looks back at me surprised. “But he’s been sitting outside your window for weeks.” I feel stupid and I’m not sure why. “Well you’ve seen him now. That’s good.”

“Good? Why?”

She seems far away again and turns and talks more to the sky than to me. “The eagle soars closest to Grandfather Sky. He is said to be a link between the Great Spirit and the two-leggeds. There are many old stories of eagles that my Mother told me as a child. They represent courage, wisdom, and great insight. She said they help us rise up to better see the spiritual connections and truths.” Finally she remembers that I’m here. “It’s a sign, Dawn. You must be alert. You must remember whatever it is that you have forgotten. You must heed the eagle’s call.”

I’m dumbfounded. “Heed the eagle’s call? Wisdom? Courage? I don’t feel wise or brave. I feel confused. What does it all mean?”

“I don’t know exactly, Dawn. Only you can answer that.”

“How? How do I answer it?”

“I don’t know. I do know that you have to learn to trust yourself and your sight.” Then almost absently she says, “Maybe you just aren’t ready yet.”

“When? When will I be ready?” I rise abruptly from the chair. “Ready for what? And if I don’t know what I’m supposed to be prepared for then how do I know when I’m ready?”

Mom looks at her hands and says quietly, “I can’t answer that either honey.” I try to protest but she cuts me off. “I know that is not what you want to hear. But please don’t give up. The one thing I know for sure is that it is a gift you have been given and it would be an insult to Great Spirit for you to throw it away. I don’t know how you are meant to use it or when, but the eagle is calling to you, Dawn. It is your gift and you will finally have to decide what to do with it.”

I can’t help but be skeptical. “I think I proved long ago that I’m not very good at using it. I didn’t know what my dreams about Dad meant either and they weren’t cryptic at all.” I turn away from her.

“You were just a child, Dawn. You didn’t want to talk about it and so you had no one to guide you or explain what you were seeing or how to use your sight. Maybe I should have pushed you, but I could see how scared you were so I didn’t.” She puts her hands on my shoulders, all her seriousness gone with the grin on her lips. “Besides, your Father was fine.” She hesitates only for a moment. “And I never told you but I swear it made him a better lover!”

“Mom!” I spin around laughing and hug her. “I never read about that being a side effect!”

She walks to the door of the bedroom and pauses grinning, “Me neither, but I think it’s finally starting to wear off so let me know when the next storm is coming.”

“Ok, now that’s just more than I needed to know.”

She laughs and turns to leave. “Mom.” She stops in the door, concern and love in her eyes. “I love you Mom. Thanks for trying to understand me even when I don’t.”

“You will understand one day, Dawn. I can feel it. But I’m afraid it will take you away from me.”

“You having visions now?”

“No, I was not blessed in that way. My maternal instincts have been telling me that for a while and now I’m afraid the eagle confirms it.” There is sadness and pride in her voice. “Are you coming down to breakfast?”

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a little while.”

I turn back toward the window. It’s lighter now and the colors are the pastel pinks and oranges of sunrise in the summer. I search the sky but find no signs, no visions.

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Mom stands at the sink. Washing the dishes like always. I see her there every morning after breakfast. I never questioned it, never wondered why.

“Mom? Are you happy?”

“Sure honey”

She just keeps washing. There is something stuck to the frying pan and she is scouring it with vigor. I need to know. I want her to stop. I put my hand on her arm and she looks up.

“No, Mom. Are you really happy? Happy with what you’ve done with your life? With how it turned out? Do you have regrets?”

“My goodness, Dawn.” She opens her mouth to utter some platitude but sees in my eyes the urgency of my questions. Her mouth closes in a smile and she dries her hands and motions to the table. I can’t sit down but I walk towards it. She sits and I lean.

“What’s this about, Dawn?"

“It’s about you. Are you happy with your life?”

Her gaze doesn’t falter. “Yes, I am happy. There are things I haven’t done that I would still like to do, but I’m not quite dead yet. Your father and I have built a good life, a good family. That was important to me. That’s what I wanted. It’s not a life filled with fame and fortune but that’s never what I wanted.”

“What did you want? When you were a kid, what did you dream of becoming?”

“I,” the words stick in her throat.

“What?”

“Before she died I dreamed of being a seer like my mother. I assumed I would live on the reservation and be immersed in our culture, becoming one the elders of the tribe, participating in the rituals of my people. But then Mom died and it just broke Dad’s spirit. He was lost without her.” She is sitting before me but I can tell that she is somewhere else in her thoughts. “But life is different on the reservation now. There are so few left and there is so much poverty. Our people have been ignored and cast aside.” There is a hint of bitterness in her words. “But luckily I met your father and fell in love with him”

“Was that lucky?”

“Dawn! How could you ask that?"

“But by marrying Dad you would never live on the reservation.”

“I knew that. But I met him for a reason. This is where I was meant to be.” There is certainty in her voice but hesitation too. “I do sometimes regret not going back to the home of my people though.”

My sense of urgency increases and I kneel at her feet. “You should go then. Go soon. Bring Dad. Has he ever been?”

“Once, a long time ago.”

I look deeply into her eyes and am lost in them. For a moment I can see something reflected there, my parents in front of a fire. It is some sort of ceremony. There are tears in Mom’s eyes. She stands next to Dad and is holding his hand. There are people, Hopi people all around. Dancing. The atmosphere is somber.

The door slams. Dad’s gruff voice breaks the silence. The connection is broken. “It’s quiet in here.”

“Not anymore, Hal.”

I take Mom’s hands, ignoring my Dad for a moment so as not to lose the thread. “You have to go Mom. Go soon.”

I kiss her lightly on the cheek.

“Go where?”

“It’s a surprise.” I stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. I feel lighter now. I feel like I’m floating as I bound up the stairs.

I pause in the hallway before the line of grade school pictures of me and Kate. Velour shirts. Groovy. I look closely at my face and stop. It seems strange the longer I look at it. Just an image on paper. In all the pictures, though the hair and clothes change, though different teeth are missing, there is one thing that’s the same, something in my eyes. A light? I don’t know if that’s the right word. I never noticed it before. I study each picture in quick succession. It’s there in every one. How could I never have noticed it before? I touch it as if to get closer to her, to understand her and that light. I touch my own face and try to see my reflection in the glass over the picture. Is it still there?

I run to my room and stand in front of my closet door, staring at myself, evaluating the differences and similarities between then and now. Ever since I was ten I’ve worn my hair long. It hasn’t been cut in a while so even in a ponytail it hangs half way down my back. My skin is still smooth and brown and will only grow darker over the summer. I have the same thin, red lips that I’ve always had. They reach into the wide smile that Mom gave me. I still sometimes wish I had gotten my father’s blue eyes rather than my wide set, deep brown ones. Sometimes they are so dark I can’t see the pupils. The longer I stare at myself the more my features blend together becoming strange just like the photo had. I step closer to look myself in the eye. Startled, I touch the mirror where my eyes are reflected. It’s there. It’s still there. How could I have not seen it before?

“Dawn?”

I twirl around disoriented.

“What were you doing? Are you ok?”

I flop onto my bed, staring at the ceiling. “Just going crazy that’s all.”

“It’s a family trait, but it’s usually not too serious so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

She sits next to me. Knowing, in her Mom way, there is more than I’m saying. She just runs her fingers through my hair and waits. Waits for what I’m not sure, because even I don’t know what I was doing.

“What did you see in the mirror?”

“I saw someone I didn’t know. I know that sounds stupid, like some psychiatric mumbo jumbo but I saw something in my eyes I had never seen before. Do you think you know yourself pretty well?”

“Do I know myself pretty well? That’s an unusual question, but yes I think I do.”

“You’ve never felt like there is another part of you that you knew nothing about? Like there could be another person living inside of you that you don’t know.” I have to pace again. “Not like another personality or something. But, but.” I’m in front of the mirror again. “A big part of who you really are that you didn’t see before. Like another part of you just suddenly showed up. But then you see a picture and realize it was there all along. How could I not know myself? How could I not know about this big part of myself? Who does that make me now?”

Through all of this, Mom’s look has been one of concern. Loving concern. I can tell she doesn’t really think I’m going crazy but she has her Mom’s instinct to help. I can see her physically restraining herself from coming to the rescue somehow. She folds her hands in her lap.
“I think you do know yourself, Dawn. You’re the same person you always were.”

“Am I?”

She finally stands, her mind made up. She takes me and turns me toward the mirror, standing behind me. “You have always known who you are. Even as a little girl you knew. Just because you weren’t communicating with that part of yourself for a while doesn’t mean you didn’t know it was there. It’s always been there. Waiting for when you were ready. I think you are ready now.”

I reach up to her hands and lean back against her. “Am I?”

“Only you can know for sure, but I think so.”

She stares at me in the mirror, intently. Her face lights up in that smile we share. “I like her. She is smart and strong. She knows her way. She can see it with those beautiful eyes.”

I can’t see now for the tears. Everything becomes a watery gray and I turn and hug her like my life depends on it. “I just wish someone would say Dawn, this is what you are supposed to do with your life. That would be so much easier.”

Mom just smoothes my hair and holds me, not saying a word.

I pull away grinning through my tears. “I take it from your silence that you want me to figure it out myself? Because in case you missed it, that was your cue to tell me what I should do with my life.”

She smiles back, hands on hips. A little light shines out of her eyes. “Maybe we will call Aunt Meredith tonight. It might be time you two had a long talk. Maybe you should go for a visit. You could go while Dad and I are out West.”

“Out West?”

“Home.”

“What?! Really?”

Her whole face beams. She is practically giggling as she turns and walks out of the room.
I flop back down on the bed staring back up at the unchanging ceiling.

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I must have fallen asleep because when I open my eyes I am no longer looking at the ceiling but at the old Aztec woman again. Only now she stands next to a leaping fire, her eyes closed. I’m not an eagle but am myself. I walk out of the shadows created by the firelight, dressed in the garb of the ancient Aztecs. I stop and face her across the fire. Slowly her eyes open and they penetrate mine making me flinch, but I hold her gaze. After a pause that holds within it an eternity, she reaches above the summit of the flames and takes my hand. She places it over her heart. On my arm I feel the heat of the fire and on my palm the steady, rhythmic beat of her heart. She smiles at me and still holding my hand steps forward into the fire. She is immediately engulfed in flame. I jerk my hand back from the flames as they leap up around her. I watch in horror and awe as she smiles, looks to the sky and disappears in a heap of ashes into the fire.

Instinctively I kneel down close to the fire and look into it. Among the flames I see myself rise from the ashes and walk toward a small adobe house in the midst of a great desert. There is a man standing in the doorway. He knows my name. “Dawn, seer of the Universal Tribe, you have passed through the heat and flame, what have you seen?” I hesitate and the image in the flames begins to disappear. Without thinking I reach into the fire to try to capture the image. The flames sear my skin and I draw back quickly, wincing in pain.

When next I open my eyes I see only the ceiling above my bed, though I’m disoriented and not really sure where I am. I sit up hugging my knees to my chest and rubbing my hand. I search it for burns; there are none but it hurts just the same.

I have not come completely back to my room yet when the phone rings. I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound. Trying to reorient myself, I look to the clock for guidance. It’s only a half hour later than I remember it being. The phone just keeps ringing and I just keep looking at it wondering why it won’t stop making that terrible noise. Finally I force myself back into the present and pick up the receiver. “Hello,” my sleepy, confused voice says.

“Dawn? Is that you sweetie? You sound tired. It’s Aunt Meredith.”

“What?” I rub my face trying to make sense of what she said. “Aunt Meredith? But Mom wasn’t going to call you until tonight.”

“Your Mom didn’t call me, I called you. That’s why your phone rang and not mine.”

I laugh with her and rest my forehead on my free hand. “I’m sorry Aunt Meredith. I was lying down and must have dropped off. I’m just waking up.”

“No problem. I’m sorry to be such a rude awakening for you.”

There is an awkward pause because I feel strange about her calling when we were going to call her that night. Her silence indicates that she is hesitant too.

“You want me to get Mom for you?”

“No. No, Dawn it’s you I wanted to talk to.”

“Me? Talk to me about what?”

“Well, I’m not sure how to say this without you thinking I’m crazy Aunt Meredith,” she laughs unconvincingly.

“I’m feeling a little crazy right now anyway so go for it.”

“I had a dream last night. You were in my dream, Dawn. And it wasn’t the first time I’ve dreamt about you recently.”

“What was it about?”

More silence. Then her words come in a torrent. “I think it’s something we should talk about in person. I think it’s time you came up here for a visit. You haven’t seen Kate in awhile anyway, have you? So you can see her too. But you could stay here with me and we could have long, all night talks.” Her words end as abruptly as they started, as though she wasn’t sure she should say them and now that she had she knew she couldn’t take them back.

“Long talks about what Aunt Meredith? What is this all about? What was the dream about?”

“I told you I’d rather talk to you about it in person. It’s nothing bad though. In fact I think it’s very good.”

“You’re having dreams. I’m having dreams. Mom and Dad are going to the reservation. You want me to come to New York. What’s going on around here?”

I can hear her draw her breath in surprise. “Your Mom is going home? And she is taking Hal? Oh, I didn’t see that coming. That’s good though. I think that could be good.” Her voice trails off, she is no longer talking as much to me as to herself.

“Hello?”

“Oh, Dawn I’m sorry. I was just surprised to hear about your parents’ trip. I wish I could go with her.” There is sadness in her voice now.

“Why don’t you go? I bet she would love that.”

“Yes, it would be good for us to go together but I can’t right now. Though I think I’ll get to go home sometime soon.”

“Why can’t you go now?”

“It’s just not a good time right now.” She pauses, thinking. “So you have been having dreams? That’s a good sign too. We will have to talk about them when you come up.”

Now it’s my turn for the words to flood out of me. “Maybe we can talk about them now. I don’t really understand them but I feel like they are telling me something I should know, or reminding me of something I already know. I don’t know. It’s all very confusing. And then Mom said we should call you to talk about it and then you call totally out of the blue. What does all this mean? And why does this woman keep haunting my dreams?”

She remained silent during my rant but perks up at the end. “A woman? What kind of woman, Dawn?”

“An old Indian woman, Aztec I think, and there’s an eagle too. One time I was the eagle. She could speak to me and I could understand her. She said I needed to remember and that they would look to me.”

“To you?”

“Yes, then when I woke up there was a real eagle outside my window. Mom said it’s been there for weeks. And just before you called I saw her again. Only this time…” I can’t go on as the image of her engulfed in the flames overwhelms me.

“What happened this time, Dawn?”

“It was horrible. She was standing in front of a fire and she took my hand across the fire and put it on her heart and then stepped into the flames and turned into a pile of ashes.” I can hear her draw a sudden breath on her end of the line. I’m immediately afraid that I shouldn’t have told her so much and so decide not to tell her the rest.

“Dawn, I think you need to come to New York as soon as you can. Sooner if possible.”

I have that prickly feeling at the back of my neck. “What’s the hurry? What aren’t you telling me?”

She gives a short laugh, “You’re the seer, you tell me what I’m hiding.”

“You should know better than anyone that it’s nothing to joke about. You have the sight; Mom’s told me about it.”

“I know, she told me you both had a chat about it. But from what I can tell yours is stronger than mine ever was.”

“Mine? If that’s really what it is, can you teach me about it? About how to use it? How to understand it?”

“I can give you some guidance that was given to me but I don’t know what I can do beyond that.”

I feel angry suddenly and my voice rises with my emotions. “I thought I was supposed to have a guide or something. To teach me how to use this supposed gift. What the hell is it for if I don’t know how to interpret it? What’s the point?”

“The point is Dawn, that you can be a light for people to show them the way.”

“What?” I can think of nothing more intelligent to say than that. I’m so surprised by what she has said that I’m speechless.

Her voice is very even now, almost monotone. “A light, Dawn. If your vision is clear you will be able to see things and guide many people.” Then silence.

“Aunt Meredith? Are you ok? You sounded funny. What people are you talking about? Show them the way where? How can I guide anyone else when I can’t figure out my own life? Where is my guide?”

Her voice is distant like she is the one who just woke up this time. “There will be people and spirits to guide you, Dawn. I can help some. But much of it you will have to learn on your own. The world is not like it used to be I’m afraid. We do not live as one. There is not a seer who came before you who will teach you about the sight. There was one, but she is gone. I know you have good instincts though, and you will have to trust them. Trust yourself, Dawn. Often when you cannot see at all, that is the time when you can see most clearly.”

I let her words in sink in and can think of no response. So she continues, “You need to come for a visit. Come as soon as you can. Do you promise?”

“Ok. I promise.”

“Great.” Relief is in her voice, “call me when you’ve made your plans. I’ll talk to you soon. Goodbye, Dawn.”

“Wait, don’t you want to talk to Mom?” There is only a dial tone. She is gone. Just like that. I feel like I’ve just been spinning around in circles like a child to make myself dizzy. I’m left staring at the receiver in my hand, the dial tone ringing in my head.