With nothing better to do, she resorted to doing what she would if she were at home in the village of Tall Trees. There might be some reeds down along the stream that weren’t yet too far gone to use, and she hadn’t seen a single proper basket in the whole camp. Maybe she’d even find some clay.

There wasn’t really anything useful nearby, she discovered. Not at this time of year. Sam spirit would seem to have chosen this location solely because of the cave and the nearby water supply. She was almost disappointed. She’d been coming to expect wonders from everything it did.

She smelled the wood before she reached the camp. She knew that smell. It was red cedar. She found the piece of tree trunk half again as long as she was tall beside the half house, laying across two smaller pine branches. Of the Sam spirit there was no sign. She deposited the few reeds she’d found that might be suitable inside the half house and set off to see if more could be found.

She supposed that she should be nervous wandering around in a strange forest alone, but somehow the idea that Sam spirit was nearby, even though she didn’t know exactly where, set her at ease. This time she went upstream, looking for whatever she could find. Sometimes the animals missed things even this late into the year. She also wanted to mark out any maples she might find nearby. She would be gone well before they could be tapped again, but she thought she might tell Sam spirit where they were so that it could do so.

The second time she returned, there were two more of the cedar logs beside the first, each thinner than the last. Smaller branches and suckers were piled all around them. When Sam spirit harvested a tree, she thought, it took the whole thing. She supposed that must be the way with nature spirits... not to waste anything.

On the whole, she was glad the Sam spirit wasn’t in the camp anyway. She’d found a grove of chestnut trees and had gathered up a nice hoard of chestnuts. Too many to carry in her arms, so she’d piled them into her cloak for transport. She didn’t really want to have to think about Sam spirit’s reaction to her bare skin just at this moment. Hurrying to the half house, she dumped the chestnuts and went into the cave for her blanket. There were more nuts out there.

She returned near nightfall with the blanket nearly half full. The squirrels had been chastising her mightily for stealing their provender, but she had chattered back at them and kept on gathering nuts. There hadn’t been as many as she’d hoped, and not all of them would still be good, but enough would be so that she and Sam spirit wouldn’t have to subsist solely on dried meat anymore.

She was surprised to see it there in the camp, sitting on a stump with a strange tool in each hand, a section of one of the cedar logs held between its knees. She paused to watch as it placed a long piece of the shiny stuff with a long wooden handle against the end of the log and tapped it with a smaller axe than she’d seen it with before. Or maybe the same one, but it had used its magic to shrink it.

It tapped the long piece of what looked like a very long knife until it was fully sunk into the wood, and then it levered sideways with the handle, which was pointed away from the blade like a bent knee. The log split along the line of the knife for a little ways down, and the Sam spirit tapped some more. In this way, it slowly peeled a flat piece of cedar clear off the log. She looked to the half house and understood how the logs had been flattened.

She moved to deposit the chestnuts with the others and returned to shake out the blanket. It wasn’t comfortable to sleep with crusty nut hulls tangled in the cloth.

The Sam spirit was repeating its previous task, carefully peeling another piece. She couldn’t imagine what it was going to do with these pieces, though. They were very thin — no thicker than her thumb. What could it hope to do with them?

She cooked supper herself, at the Sam spirit’s direction. Or at least, she cooked what Sam spirit showed her there was to eat. There was no fresh meat at all, and she remembered that Tall Trees had recently used the last of the venison it had left for them. Of course, Tall Trees had its own hunters, and more meat had come in since the last gift. Apparently, though, not for Sam spirit.

If she’d been wondering when the time would come for language lessons, her question was answered as she cooked in the shiny pot.

“Cook,” Sam said casually, sitting with his knees up, the tablet hidden behind them. “Sings in Morning cook.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Cook,” she said, pronouncing it not so differently than he had. “Sings in Morning is cooking.”

“Sings in Morning is cooking.” he repeated dutifully.

“Why Sam spirit not talk all day?” she asked then. “Not understand talk all day? Talk now why?”

He hesitated even after he’d found all the words. He didn’t really want to have to start explaining his equipment just yet. Of course, he’d already been down that road, hadn’t he? About getting or not getting what he wanted? She was going to figure it out sooner or later, and hiding it only made things more difficult for no particular reason. He looked up the word, wondering if it was old enough. Huh. Cross-referenced.

“Medicine,” he told her. “Medicine not work when I work.”

She looked dubious. It was telling that she’d grown familiar enough with him already that she didn’t flinch at the notion of magic, or particularly his magic. He’d have thought it would take considerably longer for her to grow comfortable with such things. Come to think of it, Kills Bear had been pretty low key as well.

“Medicine work yesterday,” she said after thinking for awhile. “Medicine work with Kills Bear.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He raised an eyebrow at her boldness. “Sam bring medicine.”

Sings in Morning gave that some thought. Her eyes brightened, and she remembered that Sam spirit had always seemed to speak better when dipping its head into its cloak. It had also stopped talking when it had removed the cloak. She pointed at the garment hanging from the wall. “Medicine?” she asked. “Sam spirit must be close for medicine to work?”

It laughed a little at that, and she flushed with embarrassment.

“No,” it said, its voice soft, taking the sting from the laughter. Then, reluctance obvious, it held up a square thing that wasn’t like any of the other things it had shown her until now. Some of it was shiny like the knife and spear, but some was black like polished horn. There was some sort of marking on it that must be the medicine, or maybe the whole thing was a charm.

“Medicine help Sam spirit talk?”

It smiled and fiddled with the charm for a second or two, and she heard a tiny female voice say “yes.” From inside the box!

“Is person inside?” she rocked back on her heels, all of her confidence vanished in an instant, fear once more dominating her voice.

“No,” Sam spirit said. “Nobody inside. Person who speak... far far... uh... very far away. Put only words in box, to help learn.”

She did not believe it. Of a sudden, all of the wise woman’s warnings were flying through her head, and she was not of a mind to believe anything this scary spirit might tell her.

Seeing his mistake, Sam gave some consideration to his next move, his finger tapping idly against the face of the tablet. An idea struck.

He went through the primer and built a sentence. Then he brought up the record feature. Leaning forward, he tabbed the record button and said, “Sings in Morning no danger. Only voice stay in box.” and hit stop.

She clearly didn’t believe him, but that was okay. He hit play, and his voice came from the speakers, repeating his statement in his voice.

Her eyes were big and round now, staring at the tablet. She looked up from it to him and back, gears clearly turning. He heard the question before she asked it. “Yes, you can... try.”

Sings in Morning was embarrassed that she had been so easily frightened. Silly! Who would Sam spirit have trapped in the box anyway? The voice had spoken no better than Sam spirit. Not so good, even, for Sam spirit was learning, and its words were growing closer to the proper sounds. Well, that word. She had only heard the tiny voice say yes, but it had been a version that Sam spirit had already abandoned.

While these thoughts were going through her mind, she thought about what she wanted to say. “Words last how long?” she asked.

“Long as box last,” it told her.

A wicked smile came to her lips and she had her words. “Sings in Morning is a very smart woman who teaches Sam spirit to speak Agawam very well, yes?”

“Yes,” Sam spirit answered with a chuckle.

It played back the words and she scrunched up her nose at the sounds. That didn’t sound like her at all. She looked to Sam spirit.

“Own voice never sound here,” it pointed to the box. “Like here,” and it pointed to its ear. “You will see. Only Sings in Morning will know this voice not Sings in Morning.”

She was willing to believe because Sam spirit’s voice had sounded exactly correct.

Sam wondered how long it would take her to want a closer look. And how long after that that she’d want him to teach her how to use it.

“What?” she held up the frying pan, interrupting his train of thought.

“Frying pan,” he said in English.

“Fyrng pang”

“Fry-ing.”

“Fry-ing.”

“Pan.”

“Pan,” she repeated. She pointed to the mess kit cup, which she was using in lieu of the larger canteen cup. “Frying pan?”

“Cup,” he corrected.

She squinted her eyes and thought about it. “Is not same?” she asked.

Now it was his turn. Oh. “Frying pan,” he pointed to the pan. “Aluminum.”

She mangled it the first time. Her trouble was, as Kills Bear’s had been, that she wasn’t used to stringing the sounds together, and so wasn’t used to hearing them strung together. He was doing better because he’d been practicing for nearly three months.

He held up his knife. “Is knife,” he said. “For cut. Make from steel,” he clarified, although he used the English word for steel. “Same, cup. Cup is for drink,” he pantomimed tilting a cup. “Made steel. Frying pan made aluminum.”

“Steel,” she said. “Aluminum. Steel?” gesturing with the folder.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Strong steel. Cup,” he checked the tablet. “Weak steel.”

She gestured to the pan. “No steel?”

“Aluminum.” Then, because it was bound to come up. “Wood,” he gestured to the stump beside him. “Seat. Wood,” to the bed frame. “Bed. Wood,” to the shelves “shelf.” And then the pots and boxes. Wood.

Then to the knives and pots. “Metal.”

They went back and forth like that all through the meal, with him telling her the English names for things and her correcting his crappy Algonquin. She was an eager pupil, and by the time they’d cataloged everything in the cave that he was willing to talk about, her eyes were sparkling and she’d long forgotten about any sort of fear.

“What make?” she asked of a sudden, pointing out through the cave mouth.

If there was an Algonquin word for it, he didn’t know it, nor had the guys who put the primers together. He knew that there were people trying to reconstruct Massachusett, but that wasn’t exactly helpful either. “Bathtub,” he told her in English.

“Baftub?” she asked. “What baftub?”

“Bath. Tub,” he enunciated slowly. “Ah... you clean yourself in it. Ah,” he consulted the tablet, “clean you in,” he tried.

“Why?”

Where did he go with that? See, chica, he thought, you reek like an old smokehouse. What he said was, “My... spirit... er... medicine! Yeah, that’s it. Spirit medicine.”

She pointed to the box, pulling a face, but he told her, “no, big medicine. Most big medicine.”

She shook her head. “Too cold. Need grease cover for cold.”

Seriously? Well, he’d heard sillier.

“Bathtub warm,” he pointed out. “Cave warm. Bathtub good for clean...” he checked the tablet. “Sings in Morning, clean Blanket, clean skirt.”

She clearly wasn’t buying it.

“Sam spirit bathtub?”

“Yes.”

“Bathtub together Sings in Morning?” she gave him the fish eye.

“No!”

She gave it some more thought. “Important?”

He looked up the word. Oh, yeah! Vital, even. “Yes, important.”

“How to clean?” she wondered. “Not much plant here. No sand. Bathtub make wet, not make clean.”

“Soap,” he said, ready with the Algonquin word.

“Soap?” she tilted her head. “What soap?”

Okay, clearly that word had come later. He pointed to the misshapen bar of lye soap he’d been using for everything from washing himself to doing the dishes. “Soap.”

“Clean in pot,” she pointed. “No need bathtub.”

Yeah, no. He’d already satisfied himself prior to her advent that using the five gallon pot for a full body wash was more mess than it was worth inside the cave, and colder than it was worth outside.

“Sings in Morning not trust Sam?”

She frowned at him, but held her tongue.

“Strong medicine,” he repeated. “Wash body all over, wash teeth, wash mouth. Much power against sick.”

“Wash teeth?” she asked, eyeing the soap uncertainly.

“Different,” he said. “After eat, I show.” Also, he vowed to himself, all about washing your hands before you handle food.