Aliki and Dawn had volunteered to drive Ian back to the make-shift trailer park of forestry trailers that provided a mess and barracks for the summer workers. Ian sat in the back trying to come to terms with the experiences he'd had in the last twenty-four hours. "Do you think Reb's moms will be okay?"
Dawn smiled. "Yes, they will be fine. They are a lucky pair though. It could have been much worse."
Ian nodded. "I'll say."
Aliki frowned and glanced in the rear-view mirror at Ian. "The family would appreciate it if you didn't talk too much about the incident or grant reporters an interview. Publicity is a necessary evil for my sister but we do like to pick and chose what we throw to the ravenous dogs at the door."
Aliki's words were off hand enough but the tone made it clear it was not a request. Ian took the hint. "Yes, Inspector."
Dawn wiggled her eyebrows at Aliki at the title and was amused to see the red of embarrassment climbing up her lover's neck.
Ian, however, was preoccupied with his own thoughts. "Reb is amazing with animals, isn't she? I mean Dufus doesn't just follow commands, he seems to know what Reb wants."
Aliki nodded. "She's got a way with animals. She'll make a good vet."
"Nothing like this happens in my family. I mean, I was never involved in a food fight even at school. It would never happen at home. And the only time we had a family emergency was when dad broke his wrist skiing down the bunny hill at the conservation area."
Dawn laughed and turned to look at Ian. "Amazing as it seems after the last twenty-four hours, the family can manage to go for months on end without creating a sensation or scandal. You haven't necessarily seen us at our best."
Ian nodded. "Yes, Ma'am." Aliki gave Dawn a poke at this title to get even for the face Dawn had pulled at the use of the word Inspector. Dawn chose to ignore it. Ian, unaware of the silent communication, was still talking. "Do you think it would be alright to tell my parents I met you all? We don't know any rich or famous people and I've met a whole bushel of them this weekend."
Aliki snorted. As a scientist and police officer, she was neither rich or famous. Dawn laughed. "The rich and famous are no different from anyone else. They are just fortunate to have more opportunities. Sure, I think it would be okay to tell your parents you met Reb's family. Just be careful what you say and make sure they understand we value our privacy."
Aliki pulled up in front of the forestry complex but kept the engine running. Although she wouldn't admit it, she was anxious to get back and make sure Robbie and Janet were okay.
Ian opened the door and started to get out. Then he hesitated. "Would you let Reb know that I'll phone tomorrow and see if it is okay for her to go to the dance?"
"We'll do that. Thanks for your help today, Ian," Dawn smiled. "Good Night."
They waited until Ian had unlocked the door of the barracks trailer and then headed back to the lodge.
When Aliki and Dawn returned they found that the others had just got back from the clinic and David was already bustling around getting them comfortable on opposite ends of the couch and promising sandwiches, tea and homemade pie as soon as possible. Dufus, the hero of the day, was give loads of attention and extra dog biscuits and Reb smiled with pride. Everyone did their part and once enough food and tea had been consumed to fortify even the most ravenous of appetites they all settled down to sort through the events.
Dawn sat on the floor by her partner, they're backs against the couch that Robbie and Janet shared. "Reb, Ian wanted us to tell you he'll phone tomorrow to make arrangements about going to the dance."
Reb's expressive eyes sparkled with excitement as she carried refills of tea in for her moms. "Yeah? You mean I still have a boyfriend after a weekend exposed to you lot? Wow! This guy's a keeper. He's got nerves of steel and no common sense at all. He should be running for the hills."
Janet took her mug with thanks and gave her daughter a playful swat. "To hear you talk you'd think we were the worst parents in the world. It is amazing that any of your friends have the nerve to come here at all."
Reb handed the second cup to her Obbie and smiled. "I make them draw lots to see who has to come and be exposed to you. It's called Williams' Roulette in town. I try to be caring though. I don't make the ones that are still under intense therapy from their last visit draw."
Robbie snorted. "Funny! See if this household throws any more parties for your motley crew of friends." The parties at the lodge for Reb's teen friends had become something of a tradition enjoyed by all.
Reb dropped a kiss on Obbie's head. "I take it all back then, because I'd really like a graduation party before we all head off to university."
"Mercenary!" grumbled Obbie.
"Takes one to know one," laughed Janet before taking a sip of tea.
Obbie frowned. "I gotta tell you guys this weird dream I had while I was out of it in the cave."
Mac smiled and interrupted. "False Face came to you wearing the red mask. The sacred place had been violated. He was caught one foot still among his people and the other on the path that leads to the spirit world. This made him angry."
Robbie's mouth dropped open and everyone turned to look at Mac. Although none of them yet knew Robbie's story, they could tell that Mac knew what Robbie was going to say before she had said it by the startled look on the actor's face.
Robbie swallowed and her eyes locked with Mac's. "He was going to hit me with an club but then he reached his hand down my throat and tried to rip out my insides."
"He wanted your soul. He needed a way to the other side."
Robbie looked truly uncomfortable. "Shit! I don't believe in stuff like that."
Mac smiled from where she sat beside Ryan. "That's okay. There was a stone stuck in your air pipe and I put my fingers down your throat to dislodge it. That made you throw up."
Janet looked at Mac with curious eyes. "I saw you do that. Is that what really happened?"
"Yes, that is one of the things that happened. While the rest of you were up on the ridge, Ryan and I went over the cliff and found a spirit cave. It has some amazing pictographs and pictoglyphs. It is an excellent site but I think it had been entered by people who did not respect the ways of the people."
"Did you make things right?" Dawn asked, as she gently rubbed Aliki's leg. Her partner still had pain from a terrible beating she had taken some years before.
"Yes. I did a purification ceremony. I think everything should be alright now."
Reb gave herself a shake. "Oh boy! Freak me out! I'm sure glad Ian wasn't here to hear this. He'd go screaming into the night."
Everyone laughed and the tension was broken. Yet, somehow, they all felt in their own way that something out of balance had been made right again. The party broke up sometime later. David and Elizabeth headed back to their cabin, Aliki and Dawn took the boat over to theirs and Ryan and Mac discreetly disappeared to walk hand in hand down to the boathouse.
Satisfied that Ian would be taking her to the community centre dance, Reb headed off to bed with her faithful hero at her side. "Don't you worry, Dufus, Ian said he doesn't mind that you sleep at the end of the bed."
Robbie's eyes got big. "She's joking, right?"
Janet rolled her eyes. "I hope so."
Robbie gave the leg that was wedged down beside her thigh a squeeze and looked into the gentle, green eyes of her lover at the other end of the couch. "You saved my life...again."
"You're worth keeping around for a bit yet," teased Janet.
"I would make passionate love to you but every muscle in my body has seized up and I think I am going to need help just getting off this couch to go to bed."
Janet laughed. "You are such a romantic."
"No regrets?"
"None. You?"
Robbie slowly and stiffly got off the couch and offered her hand to her partner and lover. "None. My life began with you and each passing season makes me deeper in love with you."
Janet stood and kissed Robbie's fingers that were wrapped around her own hand. "They have been seasons of love. Seasons of joy. Come to bed, my Olive. It's late."
There was no awkwardness this night. Mac went willingly to Ryan's arms as soon as she had locked the door. The kiss was long, demanding and needy. It was only after several minutes that they parted long enough to get a fire going and pour two glasses of wine. They lay together by the fire snuggled into a pile of pillows.
Mac reached out and stroked Ryan's tense jaw. "Are you okay, Lover?"
Ryan put down her drink and blue eyes the colour of ice fire turned to look at her. "No, I'm not. My moms could have died today, some of the best people in my program have, and all I can think of is how will those two events influence my chances with you."
Mac lay back on the pillows and stared at the ceiling. She needed to organize her own feelings before she spoke and she couldn't do that with Ryan's intense and intelligent eyes watching the play of emotions cross her own. "I've spent sometime doing some thinking myself over the last twenty-four hours. When that news flash came across the screen, the castle of dreams I was building came tumbling down. I empathized so strongly with the partners and family who were waiting for the shuttle to land and in a split second lost everything. The cold hand of death touching so near made me physically shiver. I thought that could be me in a few years. That could be your flight."
Ryan said nothing. She rolled over in one smooth movement and was on her feet pacing. She needed to move, to do something, anything rather than listen to her heart being rejected. "I told you. If it is too hard, I'll leave the space program."
Mac slipped forward and poked at the fire watching the patterns change and the colours intensify with the heat. "A number of years ago, I went to the hospital with my mom to see Aliki. I hadn't been allowed to go for the first week because she had been in intensive care. She had been beaten so badly I wouldn't have recognized her. I knew mom and Aliki had argued bitterly about Aliki's decision to go undercover. That decision had almost cost her life and it did cause her to have a breakdown. She was a very long time recovering. It almost destroyed our family and my mom. I never heard my mom say a thing about it ever again. She just put her heart and soul into making Aliki better."
Ryan looked with miserable eyes at the small figure curled close to the fire for warmth. "I know it was a bad time."
Mac nodded. "Yes it was. Today, I saw the fear in Aunt Janet's eyes as I worked to help Aunt Robbie. But I saw something else there. The same look I saw in my mom's eyes as she sat by Aliki's bed. It was courage. Not the courage to be brave but the courage to let go and let their partners be the very special people they are."
Mac tossed her stick on the fire and turned to look at Ryan standing tall and proud just on the edge of the ring of light. That's who Ryan was. A person who would always be stepping from the safety of the known into the unknown. "I want you in the space program if that is what you want. And if I lose you it will be to a great cause that you believed in."
Ryan felt dizzy and realized it was because she had been holding her breath. She breathed in raggedly and came to sit beside Mac. "I learned something today as well. I learned that I have in you someone who is my equal in everyway. Who I can trust with the things and people who are the most dear to me. You saved Mom's life. I am not sure I could have. Thank you."
Mac blushed and turned to look at the fire. In profile Ryan could see her Salish heritage and her quiet strength. "I need to finish my degree, Ryan. That is important to me. I think I might want to go on and do my doctorate as well. I want to be a writer like my mom but I don't want to write as she does about the tension between humans and the environment. That is not me. I want to write about the bond that is never far away between us and the spirit of the universe. I want to write about how we have only lost our way."
"Like the spirit in the cave."
"Yes, like the spirit in the cave. That reality is very different from your hard-nosed science."
"Is it? I was talking to Aunt Bethy tonight. You know what she told me? She said that most people are content being surrounded by the familiar and the known. But there are a few who are blessed with the ability to see a little part of the beauty that is God's hand in the universe. She said there is no greater honour or responsibility than to be one of those few who will take us closer to understanding. I think we are after the same thing. We are just searching in very different ways."
Mac looked up into eyes filled with life and passion. "I love you Ryan. Will you marry me?"
Ryan felt herself smiling like an idiot. "Yes"
Mac smiled impishly as she moved closer to kiss the woman she knew was her soul mate. "I'll ask your parents for your hand in marriage first thing in the morning."
Ryan pulled Mac into her arms as she lay back on the cushions. "You are likely to find them still in their pj's."
"That's okay. We are all family."
In the cave, a soft chant mixed with the night wind and whispered to the land. "We are the first people. Our ancestors walk your forests and paddled your lakes. Their souls and hearts free. We are the people of the last age, who have stood as angry witnesses to your taking. We start at last on our journey to the home of our ancestors. We are the first people, the spirit of the land. You are one with us. This season, all seasons - forever."
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