25
It was easy for Mawei to locate the tree dwelling of Ruffer’s human by smell. It was in one of the tallest trees in the forest and she could see the platform, which sat where the tree trunk split into three large branches, thirty or so feet from the ground. It was tied in place with rope and there was an odd chemical smell coming from up there. Mawei put Helena on her back and told her to hang on, and then began to climb.
Mawei would be willing to run off with Ruffer and raise Helena as a yeti if she believed her uncle’s theory, that the child could be yetified, but she didn’t believe it. Whatever human beings’ true origin, living like a yeti was clearly damaging the little bird. If humans had once lived like yetis, that time had long passed and there was no going back. She hoped Ruffer’s human would know what to do.
The chemical smell was coming from a blue dome that took up most of the triangular platform. There was just enough room for Helena to stand while Mawei propped herself up on an elbow and wondered what to do. She knew there was a human inside, but she wasn’t sure how to draw him out of the strange shelter. She poked at it with a claw and thought about ripping a small hole, but before she could decide if it was a good idea, Helena unzipped the tent’s front flap. “Emergency, emergency!” She called out to the person inside. “Call 911!”
Mawei looked over Helena’s shoulder and saw a very frightened and confused human with long hair and a long beard, cowering at the back of the enclosure. “We mean you no harm.” Mawei said in yeti. The human showed no sign of understanding her.
Helena climbed into the tent as the man stared at her in disbelief. “Do you have any real food?” She asked in sound language. “I’m hungry. Will you take me home?”
“Ruffer told us about you.” Mawei said in yeti, looking directly into the human’s confused eyes. “I thought maybe you could help us.” Mawei could see that his heart was beating incredibly fast and hard, and that he felt trapped and wanted to run. “We mean you no harm,” she repeated, and with that the human fainted -slumping onto the floor of the tent with a thud.
“Is he okay?” Helena asked Mawei.
“I think so, here, let me stretch him out.” Mawei pulled herself partway up onto the platform and reached into the little tent. She could only get her arm and head through the entrance, but that was enough to pull the man into a more natural position on his back. He blinked up at Mawei.
Helena stuck her face in front of his and frowned at him. “Whatsa Matter?”
“Little girl, get back!” He said, sitting up quickly and pulling Helena behind him. “Wh-what is this, a joke?” He was speaking in sound language and Mawei couldn’t understand him, but his posture expressed disbelief and confusion.
“Calm down human.” Mawei said.
“How did you say that?” He asked. “Are you in my head?”
“You’ve met a yeti before,” Mawei said, “a night-yeti named Ruffer. Your dwelling is in his wild. He told me you two had a long conversation.”
The human reeled and looked like he was going to faint again, but recovered. “Is he black?” He asked loudly.
“I don’t speak your language.” Mawei told him. “I thought you spoke mine.”
“Yes he’s all black.” Helena said in English. “The monsters don’t know words, they speak eyeball language. It’s easy.”
“The night I spoke with him was a crazy night, I… I thought I had imagined it.”
“She doesn’t understand you.” Helena said to the man, then switching to yeti she told him to say it with his eyeballs.
The man looked at Mawei. “I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid. This is a dream.” He said in yeti.
“I’m glad that you’re not afraid, but I can assure you that this is no dream.”
“You can understand me.” He said, rubbing his beard.
“Yes and you understand me.” Mawei said. “We need your help.”
“Why is this child naked and covered in mud and where did she come from? Who is she?”
“My name is Helena.” She said. “I’m hungry.”
“Do you like chocolate?” The man asked her.
“YES!” She screamed. He opened a box and pulled out a package containing many Hershey bars. He ripped open the plastic, spilling the bars on the floor and told Helena to help herself. She already had the wrapper off of one and was gobbling it down in big chunks.
“We don’t have a lot of time.” Mawei said. “The child is in danger and we have to get her to safety. Can you help us?”
“Where are her parents?” The human asked.
Mawei looked at Helena and saw that she was occupied with her sweet-smelling bean concoction. “Gone,” she said. “Their car slid off the road and they were crushed. The little bird was in the back unharmed, so I took her with me.”
“Her parents are dead?” He asked. “How long ago was this?”
Helena had looked up from her second chocolate bar in time to catch what the man had said. “What?” She said. “You mean mommy and daddy?”
“Don’t worry yourself little one, eat your food.” Mawei said.
“What happened to mommy and daddy?”
“They loved you very much, but they had to leave.”
“Where?”
“No one can answer that.” Mawei said. “It’s a mystery. When you were upside down in the car and I came and got you out, your mother and father were in the front and they were dead. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but they didn’t survive the crash.”
There was chocolate all over Helena’s face and fingers and she let a piece fall from her hands. “But… That’s not true!” She said. “Don’t lie monster! Don’t be mean!” She put her hands up to her face and smeared chocolate on her eyelids. Mawei reached into the tent and pulled one of Helena’s little hands away from her face. She wanted to tell her how sorry she was, but Helena pulled her hand away from Mawei. “Don’t touch me!” She said. She showed her teeth and flared her nostrils. “Chop, chop, chop, that’s what you get!”
The color was draining from Helena’s face and her lips were turning blue. She looked like she was going to cough, but then she vomited all the chocolate she’d eaten onto the floor of the tent. Tears were streaming down her face and she began heaving and coughing and crying all together.
The man put his hand on her back and told her to get it all out. “You need some clothes,” he told her. “You’re half frozen.” He took a rag and wiped Helena’s mouth and nose, cleaning her up a bit. He pulled a shirt over her head and got her arms through the sleeves. She gave him no help and looked as if she were thinking about something far away.
The man lifted little Helena and put her into his sleeping bag, which was on an air mattress that took up almost half the space in the tent. He zipped her into it and then pulled a black wool hat onto her head. Mawei watched all this from her uncomfortable perch, half on the snowy platform with her arm and head inside the tent. The man was very concerned about the child, and she knew she’d made the right decision to bring her there.
Helena seemed to be in pain, but also looked like she might drift off to sleep. “She’s angry with me.” Mawei said to the human when he looked at her.
“She’s in shock.” He said. “I think I am too. I never dreamed that a creature like you even existed, let alone that we would be able to communicate. We’re having a conversation somehow, but I don’t understand. We can see each other’s thoughts.”
“No, you project your thoughts through your eyes, face, and posture. Your inner thoughts are still your own.” Mawei looked at Helena, shivering in the strange smelling cocoon the man had inside the shell of the tent. She remembered her uncle telling her that humans put things inside of other things. “I’m only here because of the child. She’s in danger and I thought you could help.”
“What danger is she in?” He asked.
Mawei told him that contact with humans was forbidden among her kind, and that some yetis had found out about the child a
nd wanted to destroy her. “If they knew I was talking with you they would want to destroy you too.” Mawei said. “I thought it was worth the risk for the sake of the little one. I think Ruffer, the night-yeti you spoke with, has drawn them off our trail but I can’t be sure. I want to get the child to safety as soon as possible.”
“I understand,” he said. “First we need to know more about her. Where and when was this car accident?”
“Seven days ago, far northwest of here.”
“I’ll see if I can find any information about her.” He turned to Helena and asked her in sound language what her last name was.
She stared up at the underside of the blue tent. “I… I forget.” She said. She started crying again.
“It’s okay,” he said, “we’ll figure it out.” He pulled a laptop computer out of a padded bag and began to type.
Mawei nudged his leg and he stopped and looked at her. “What are you doing?” She asked.
“This machine is a way that humans share information. If two people were killed in a car accident seven days ago, information about it will be on here.”
“How does the information get there?” Mawei asked, leaning in and taking a closer look at the flickering screen.
“Through the air.” He said. “This is a special machine that sends a signal up to a satellite in space. It’s powered by rays from the sun that come through cells I placed in the treetops.”
Mawei had no idea what he was talking about but pretended she understood. She thought that humans had created a hive-mind like bees or ants. A shudder went through her body. “Will other humans know that we are with you through this device?”
“No, not unless I tell them,” he said. “And I’m not going to tell them. If I put this on my blog no one would believe me anyway.” He went back to looking at the screen as Mawei thought about how profoundly weird and perplexing humans were. “Here’s something,” he said with his voice, “is your last name Polson?”
“Yes.” Helena said. “Helena Polson is me. Helena Polson, Helena Polson, Helena Polson.” She repeated it to herself as if she might forget.
The human looked at the screen for a while and then at Mawei. “The accident caused quite a stir.” He said. “The investigators assumed that she was eaten by a bear. They said they found claw marks in the back seat and bear tracks in the area. It’s considered a big deal because a human hasn’t been attacked by a bear in this state in years.” He went back to reading his screen. “They quote the child’s grandmother –she’s devastated of course. The poor woman thinks a bear ate her granddaughter. Her name is Linda Banter and it says she lives in Willow Creek.” He spoke the woman’s name and the name of the town in sound language. “They were coming from her house when they had the accident. I’ll see if I can find her address.” He tapped some buttons and stared at the screen. “Yes, here,” he said, “32 Otter Lane, that’s where she lives.”
“You’ll take us there?” Mawei asked.
“No, I don’t have a car.” He said. “I could call a friend who brings me supplies sometimes. He’d take the girl to her grandmother’s house.”
“Nana?” Helena asked in sound language.
“Yes,” he said, “how does that sound?”
“She’s my mommy’s mommy- she’ll give me a bath.”
“She misses you very much.” The man said. He put his laptop down and pulled out a smaller glowing device. He touched it a few times and held it up to his ear. He told the person on the other end that he needed help. “Yeah I know it’s Christmas Eve man, but this is an emergency. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.” It took Mawei a moment to realize he was speaking to someone who was far away. “No I’ll explain when you get here ok? Just come.”