New in Town (pt 2)

    Rian’s new friend was just creeping into sight on the edges of his peripheral vision. He continued to sing a few phrases here and there, but he was no longer concentrating on the song. He was trying to perceive who this person approaching him might be.
    When Rian's new friend had finally made their cautious way around the far side of a thicket of huckleberry, through the tiny almond shaped leaves, and the plump red berries that always called to mind the bright salmon eggs to be found in creeks and streams of the foothills, Rian could just make out the figure of a young woman. Her dress, a vibrant woolen weave of red, black, and white, depicted the image of a ring necked duck. She wore a hat of woven cedar with eyes painted around the brim in every direction. Her jet black hair was braided into loops or rings both winding around her crown and swooping down to her shoulders.
    Rian was speechless. She could not have been much more than a high schooler, but her poise and commanding presence pinned Rian in place, and turned his tongue to stone. She was without a doubt the most beautiful human being Rian had ever seen, and clearly still a child. He was embarrassed with himself for being stuck dumb by a highschooler.
    Who was this person? What was she doing here? Why was she dressed like that? Rian's brain raced for an answer, and when he finally put it all together, he finally could breathe again. He tried his best to recover before he spoke to her.
    "I didn't interrupt your photo shoot did I?" he managed to spit out without stuttering.
    Her reply was clear, and she spoke very formally.
    "You are welcome here. You are not an interruption. I am pleased for the company and attention. I gladly welcome the gift of your company, for as long as it lasts. Do you know my name?"
    "I'm sorry, no," Rian replied. "My name is Rian. I don't think we've met before. Should I know you? Are you a model, an influencer? I'm not on social media really."
    The girl laughed, and it sparkled like sunlight on a rippling stream.
    "I am none of those things. I am a human being." She laughed again, and almost lost herself in it.             When the giggling subsided into chuckles, and then a sigh, almost to herself she said, "Of course you don't know my name. No one does. The people call me Grizz, but my name is still a secret."
    "A secret, huh?" Rian was intrigued. He liked the playful nature of this name guessing game. "Is it Bella?" he asked, "Or Ella, or Tiffany? Mallory? Heather? Gwynedd? Astrid?"
    The girl looked at him blankly.
    "No, those are not my name. My name is a secret."
    Rian was slightly abashed. At a loss, he back pedaled a bit.
    "Your name is a secret."
    "Yes."
    "Is your name, A Secret?" Rian asked.
    "Yes, it is," the girl smiled at him quizzically.
    "OK," replied Rian brightly. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Asecret. My name is Rian Fionnbharr Doon, and it is my greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance."
    The girl burst out laughing. She took a breath, and sat down on a large stone, and laughed some more. She had always been of the mind that it was best practice to laugh in a safe and comfortable position in the event that one lost control. When she regained her composure, which took more than a few moments, she caught her breath, stood up, and brushed any moss or detritus from the seat of her skirt.
    "You're funny. My name is not 'Asecret.' The people call me Grizz, which is short for Grizzly Baby, but that is not my name. I'm trying to learn my name right now."
    This was confusing to Rian, who had never been in doubt about his own name. It had been his since birth, and he was quite attached to it. If it were to become lost to him, he would be quite distressed, but this young woman didn't seem the least bit dismayed about her predicament.
    "Have you tried retracing your steps?" Rian offered. "I have never lost my name, but perhaps if you think of the last place you saw it."
    Grizz smiled at him like he was a particularly dim whittled child.
    "I'M ONLY JUST AN ADULT TODAY!" she said emphatically. She was not exasperated yet, but she noticed she was heading that way.
    "I haven't gotten my name yet. I was feasting the spirits to get one when you showed up."
    "Oh," Rian sputtered. He suddenly understood the whole thing. Traditional clothing, alone in a wood, campfire nearby. He had learned of some rites of passage among the People on the Sound from long before the Doons had arrived.
    In childhood, everyone had a nickname. It would be descriptive. It might be inspired by appearance, or behavior, or some unique characteristic, but most importantly, it was temporary. Part of becoming an adult included going out, praying and fasting, and waiting for one of the spirits to offer you a name.
    "OhmygodIamsosorrytointerruptyouduringthisimportanttime!" The words shot out of him like a machine gun. He awkwardly bowed, and waved his arms like some sort of obsequious French Duke, or a floundering duck. He stumbled backwards and nearly stoved-in his head on a stone. Rian leapt up, and landed with one foot on a cruelly placed tree root, and fell once more, this time hop-hop-hopping to and from, trying to maintain his balance, but ultimately failing.
    Grizz sat down again and laughed until her stomach hurt. She had never seen Buster Keaton before, so this was the most hilarious exhibition of physical comedy she had encountered in her young life.

❖    ❖    ❖

    A few minutes of laughing, apologies, some bruised dignity, brushing off of pine needles and dirt, and some socially awkward groveling later, Grizz and Rian were sitting around her fire. It was late, but the sun was still slowly crawling towards to western sky, and Rian realized for the first time that it was summer.
    "Oh my God!" he exclaimed, "Is it June!?" Rian felt he was doing a lot of exclamation, and it was putting him off. He wasn't the excitable sort. More often he was the quietly anxious sort. He thought he might be giving the wrong impression. He calmed himself, and thought about how Conny would react in these circumstances.
    He dropped his voice around an octave, and said, "I guess I'm a little out of sorts. I have traveled a long way, and lost track of the seasons." He thought that sounded cool and aloof enough. He still couldn't help himself sweating, and vibrating with adrenaline. He had never time traveled before, and jumping from April to June wasn't a huge leap, but an inaudible,"Oh boy!" escaped his lips nonetheless.
Grizz looked at him blankly. "Is what June?" she asked.
    "The month. It must be June or early July. The sun is still up, but it's late, yes? I love this time of year. Everything is magical, and the days are finally warm enough and long enough to do all the things we can't do during the eight months of rain."
    "You get eight months of rain too?" Grizz asked.
    "Um, doesn't everyone?" Rian replied.
    "I don't know. This is home, and I've never been anywhere else. Where are you from?"
    For the first time Rian realized he may have traveled a great deal farther than two months forward, and a few miles across town. He hadn't seen any recognizable landmarks since he left the sandy place. He could be anywhere, except the trees, plants, and birds he had seen so far were all familiar. But that didn't mean anything. He had never left Cascadia, except for one trip to Disneyland when he was seven. He honestly had no idea where he was.
    "I'm from Seattle, but not the city part. I grew up where it was all rednecks and dirt bikes."
    "That's a funny name for a town," Grizz chuckled, but not too much in case it would be rude. "Where is that?"
    "You've never heard of Seattle?" Rian was floored. "Nirvana? Pearl Jam? Jimi Hendrix? Bruce Lee?" Grizz continued to look at him like he was speaking a foreign language. "The Seahawks? The Supersonics? The Space Needle? Grey's Anatomy? Mt Tahoma?" At that the girl's eyes popped open wide.
    "OH!" Grizz shouted with delight. "You are a Yakima! I knew you looked different, but I've never met a Yakima before. The people East of the mountains are known to us. We are virtually cousins!"
Rian was suddenly more confused than before. " No, I'm from the west of the mountains. I'm from the salty shores of the Sound. Well, just east of there. I'm from Lake Sammamish."
    "Oh, okay. I've never met Snoqualmie people before. I didn't know you spoke like the Yakima. We call the mountain 'Táq' omáh'. It still means ‘the mother of water,’ but we hit the glottal stop with a 'q' sound."
    Rian sat silent for a few moments putting the pieces together. He was neither Yakima nor Snoqualmie. He wasn't the least bit Indigenous. Being Irish expatriates from a particular era, great-grandpa Malachy had taught every one of his progeny how tragic it was that the Irish had lost their language. A few phrases, a few greetings, and most of the curse words had survived, but great-grandpa Malachy had left Erin while teaching Irish was still a crime, and assimilating into America had meant abandoning most of the things that set the Doons apart from the average White culture of the United States. It was a loss most of the Doon family continued to mourne. Because of this generational wound, Rian, Conny, and the Doons most beloved by Rian all did their best to use Indigenous words for local features of the local environment. The last native speaker of the Saltwater Speech of the Sound had died in 2012. Though the tribes were teaching their language again, and reclaiming their culture, outside the tribes, it was extremely difficult to learn the true names and pronunciations of most places. Amongst the anglos of the Sound, "Tahoma" was accepted as the real Indian word for the big mountain, but still the town sitting under it was "Tacoma" which sounded a lot closer to how Grizz just pronounced it. Rian came to a few conclusions all at once.
    He was right in the first place, and had traveled no more than a few miles from the Sinking Ship where this misadventure had all began.
    He had mot likely traveled not two months in the future, but many, many years, ± a few months, into the past.
This young woman was not reclaiming her culture, but simply living her life, and he had interrupted a very important moment in her life.
    "Grizz, young woman whose name is still a secret, I humbly apologize for interrupting your naming." Rian bowed down on his knees, pressing his forehead onto the ground. "I am lost, and I did not know where to go until my grandmother set me on a path, and I found you and your fire. Please tell me where the town is, and I will leave you alone to let you finish your naming."
    Grizz giggled. He was clearly a full grown adult, and this bowing behavior was completely foreign to her.
    "You know this isn't like, a big deal, right? No one is to say what happens during a naming, yeah? Maybe you are not the spirit who gives me a name, but, maybe you are. Maybe you bring the spirit forward. It isn't like you could mess it up," but as she said that, she remembered her mother and her uncle, and the lifelong punishment a community could inflict on those who came back with the wrong name. Upon reflection it seemed to her that names must be so humble, or self effacing that no one in town would feel threatened. She got hot with anger remembering the toll paid by Timeless Beauty and Deathwolf. Suddenly she wanted a name so audacious that she would dare anyone in town to smirk or quip about her notions of grandeur.
    "What do you think?" Grizz asked. "You have any ideas about what my name should be?"
    "Huh?" Rian replied eloquently.
    "This is my naming. Who is to say that you are not the spirit to name me? If I don't like it, I will simply refuse. Try me."
Rian thought for a while. He was very careful and conscientious. He considered this opportunity to be a great honor, and a profound responsibility. He thought back to all the women who had been a great influence on him. He dismissed Clare outright. He loved his grandmother, and he thought Clare was a fine name, but he didn’t want to burden this girl with the weight of his own grave expectations. He also eliminated the names of any aunts, cousins, classmates or crushes he had had throughout his life.
    “Are names unique?” he asked. If they were, then he could probably pick anything, but if not, he would have to consider historical or traditional names.
    “Not necessarily. Sometimes people are named after their elders, but usually families ask beforehand. You know. If you found out someone got your name without asking, it might be nice, but it might be awkward too.”
    Rian could imagine. No one had ever been named after him, but he had a younger cousin who was named after Conny. Conny’s full name was Connacht, which wasn’t really a proper Irish name so much as the name for the western region of Ireland which was rocky and barren, and largely unsuited for human habitation. His aunt Niamh (Niamh rhymes with shiv) named her third boy after Conny and the family called him ‘Cannot.’ This was partly to differentiate the two, and partly because Connacht the younger encountered a great many things outside of his abilities.
    “How about Macha? She was a warrior, and a queen. She rode the fastest horse in the world, and she represents royalty, fertility, and is the queen of warriors.”
    “Mocca?” Grizz sounded out skeptically. “It doesn’t sound like a woman’s name. It isn’t really a name kind of sound at all.”
    “How about Artemis, or Diana? They both represent the hunt, and the moon. They are the same, but in different languages. They are strong women, who need no husband, take no lovers, and change throughout the month.”
    Grizz guffawed. “You sound like my father! I’m not spending my life without taking a husband or any lovers!” She sat down to laugh some more. “What do you care anyway?”
    Rian blushed. He didn’t care about that. He was a bashful sort, but he wasn’t a prude. He thought people should have all the sex they and their partners wanted. In his particular case, he wanted sex slightly less than he wanted awkward conversation about sex. He had had a couple love affairs, but he had never really figured out the process of negotiating a sexual relationship. The fact that Diana/Artemis were virgin goddesses was something he didn’t really think about when he brought it up. He just thought an independent girl hunting deer with a bow was kind of cool. Chagrined at this rebuttal, he offered his last suggestion.
    “Jerrica Benton!” Rian exclaimed. “She is a figure from folklore. She isn’t real, but she could sing, and dance, and when she needed to fight she would transform into her alter-ego Gem, who was a hologram, and use the power of music to defeat her enemies! Though, her enemies were just a mediocre punk band.” Rian was a gigantic nerd.
    Grizz considered for a bit. Rian scrutinized her face for any signs of success or failure, but she was utterly inscrutable. Despite his best efforts, she remained un-scruted.
    “Is that something you just made up?” Grizz asked. “I feel like half of those words don’t make any sense, and the half I understood sound like the ravings of an eight-year-old who hasn’t slept in a week.”
    Rian visibly deflated. He knew his suggestions weren’t any good, but he hoped against hope that he could be useful. Rian didn’t want to be a hero. He didn’t want to be the protagonist. He just wanted to be a valuable squire, or a helpful nuncle. If he could prepare the way for the hero or heroine, then he felt like that would be enough.
    Rian plumbed the depths of his memories, looking for anything that might be apropos. He rejected most ideas as too lame, too foreign, or too outlandish. There were so many beautiful names that he loved, but none of them seemed truly fitting for a young Salish woman. Riffling through his memory he came upon the memory of a grade school trip.
    In the second grade his class had taken a trip to a museum of anthropology at the university. Burned into his memory was the haunting painting of an old woman. He didn’t know its date, or origin, but it was Indian art from the local area. The face was strong, yet mournful. Deeply pained, but unbroken, the figure was beautiful in form, but worn down from many years, and many more miles. At eight years old, he had probably spent twenty minutes gazing into its eyes, black, white and red painted on cedar. It hypnotized and haunted him. He still saw it in dreams sometimes. It evoked pathos, and gentleness, but also great power. He could see the tile card clearly in his mind’s eye.
    With all of the solemnity he could muster Rian offered, “How about Duu’queb’bah?”
    The change in Rian’s demeanor caught Grizz up short. Her breath caught in her chest.
    “No.” she said pointedly. “You already suggested that once.”
    “I don’t think so,” Rian replied a bit nonplussed.
    “Yes, you did. You said ‘How about Duu’queb’bah, or Duu’queb’bah? They both represent the hunt, and the moon. They are the same, but in different languages. They are strong women, who need no husband, take no lovers, and change throughout the month.’ I don’t want to be named after the moon. The Changer is a man anyway, except for the times he is our grandmother. Duu’queb’bah is grandmother to us all, and will change cruelty into kindness, selfishness transformed into charity. But he will also change people to stone, or into clams to teach them lessons about right and wrong.” Griz had bitter tears in her eyes and continued. “That name is too grandiose, even for someone with ambition. I don’t think you are the one who knows my name after all!”
    Rian deflated. He had the impulse to simply leave, and try his luck on his own, but he had a particular disdain for people who left when things got uncomfortable. He sat down heavily and counted his breaths. Something Grizz had just said just now registered in his consciousness.

    
    “Um, what language are we speaking?” Rian asked.
    Grizz glared at him.
    “Are you speaking Lushootseed? Am I speaking Lushootseed? Because I thought I was speaking English.” Rian sputtered. “Only, my grandmother sent me this way, and she might not have been my actual grandmother. You said Duu’queb’bah is grandmother to us all, so I think maybe it was her, or him, or, well, the Changer as you just said. I think I might have been changed a bit, and I certainly know that my location has been changed, and probably my time.” Rian ran out of breath, and sat down heavily. He felt like he was about to swoon, and found that quite embarrassing. Conny was the one who was meant to have adventures. Rian was just a tag-along, an assistant. He was meant to be the one who waited patiently in Ithaca while the heroes went off on an odyssey.