The House

By Dawn Natelle

We move the story along a little further. Not many caught the one reference to the House in the first posting, but this one will give a bit more background.

Chapter 3 – Meet Sunflower

Grey tugged and pulled to get the body a few feet from the car. Grey had been strong and athletic before coming to Canada, and the past year in the wilderness had only improved his fitness. But the man in the dress was huge, and dragging nearly 300 pounds was a chore for any 17-year-old boy.

As soon as he was a distance from the car, Red Oak shouted in his head that he had to get the man breathing again. Grey had one First Aid certificate in England, but that was nearly four years ago. He knelt down and gave the man mouth-to-mouth. «Now the heart,» Red Oak said. Grey moved to doing chest compressions. «Back to the mouth,» and Grey moved back. Eventually they had a heartbeat, and shallow breathing.

The man was too big to move easily, Grey realized. «Woman,» Red Oak insisted.

“What?” Grey said as he tried to figure out what to do next.

«She is two spirited, and when she is dressed like this, you must refer to her as a female.»

“I just wish she weighed like a female,” Grey retorted. “Do you have any good ideas how we get her back to camp? I can’t leave her here. This is an old logging road and there may not be anyone down here for years.”

«A travois,» Flint said. «We can make a travois, and you might be able to pull it.»

“And I might die of a heart attack trying,” Grey retorted, but he went to the car and pulled out his axe and made his way to a sapling.

«Too small,» Flint said. «Half as big again. That is a lot of weight.»

He moved to an older sapling, and quickly chopped it down, and then took off all the branches closer than 16 feet to the end. Then he chopped it off at the 16-foot mark before duplicating the feat on another similar sapling.

«Now the crosspieces. They can be smaller. Like that first sapling you were going to use. Ideally we should have six, but I think four will work. I know you are not very good at using twisted branches to join cross woods.»

Grey Wolf then cut six cross pieces, and laid them into position on the longer pieces, about a foot apart. “Screw twisted branches,” he said as he went and fished out a nearly new roll of duct tape from the back seat of the car. “This is better, and faster.”

He had the pieces taped together in five minutes, well under the hour that Flint thought he would take with twisted branches. Then it was a matter of getting her on the travois bed. Grey could roll her: barely. He finally rolled her twice, so that she was on her back on the travois. All the tugging and pulling had an affect. She seemed less pale. In fact Mimiha suggested he give her some water, and she managed to take in two swallows before choking and turning her head aside.

Grey took a long swallow before putting the canteen aside. He gathered up the hose that had been on the exhaust pipe, and discovered that the heat from the pipe had melted the duct tape, and it was loose: only a tenth of the deadly gas got into the car. “Manidoo likes this one,” he grunted as he lifted the other end of the travois.

The ground here was Canadian Shield rock, and he was barely able to pull the travois for a quarter mile before dropping it, exhausted. He was about to slump to the ground himself when Red Oak barked inside his head: «Not yet. There is more to do. Go over into the marshes.»

Grey staggered over, taking another long drink as he walked. That seemed to refresh him a lot. He found the plants that Red Oak wanted him to find, and brought several back to the unconscious woman. First he gave the woman two more swallows of water, and then broke apart the plants, placing two leaves inside her cheeks, and laying the rest on her chest.

«Fix it,» Mimiha said. Grey realized that he was staring at the misplaced breast, which had almost come free of her dress when he was rolling her over. He took it out, finding it to be an old bath towel rolled up into a ball. He rolled it again, neater, and then slid it into the old bra she was wearing. He then made the other match.

Just my luck, Grey thought. My first chance to touch a woman’s breast, and it turns out to be terry cloth.

He then took another swig of water, and started trudging along, towing the travois. He soon got to the end of the rock, about a half-mile from the abandoned car, and knew he could not pull it through the loose soil of the trail, which in many places was narrower than the base rails of the travois. What would he do? Stop every five paces to chop down a sapling?

When he got to the end of the rock, he dropped the travois again, and took another swig of water. His canteen was now half empty. He was proud of it. It was the first cedar canteen that didn’t leak like the earlier five had. It held enough water for a day, although sharing with the girl would reduce its capacity. And running water in the late fall was seldom found. He might be fairly thirsty before he got back to his clean little stream at the campsite.

Red Oak had him going into the bush to look for more, different herbs. There were two types this time, and Red Oak made him look long for ones that were still at least a little green. He took the small handful back to the unconscious girl.

«Big Smiles is doing better,» Mimiha said.

“What did you call her? Big Smiles?”

«Yes, I can reach into her head now. She called herself Dorothy when she was dressed like this, which was rare. That isn’t a proper name for her. I will call her Big Smiles, and hopefully she will like that name. »

“I can’t see her in this world living with Big Smiles as a name. How about Sunflower? They are big, and they seem to smile at you,” Grey was mixing a bit of water with the herbs at Red Oak’s command.

«That is a far better name,» Mimiha said. «We will use that, unless she hates it. No, I spoke to her inside her head, and she said she liked it.»

Grey fished the two leaves out of Sunflower’s mouth, and then spread the paste onto the same parts of her mouth that the leaves had been on. He heard Red Oak start to count. When he got to five, the girl shuddered and opened her eyes, retching and spitting. “That’s fucking horrible,” she said in a voice that was unladylike both in the words she said, and the voice she used. Her voice was nearly as deep as Flint’s.

«Ten,» Red Oak said. «Give her some water now to rinse out the taste.»

Grey handed her the canteen and she filled her mouth, sloshing it like mouthwash, and then spitting it out. She duplicated the process and was going for a third time when Grey suggested she only take a drink. “That is all the water we have,” he noted.

Sunflower took a deep draught of water, nearly emptying the canteen. “Am I in heaven now? That stuff sure didn’t taste very heavenly. But I did hear an angel in my head.”

“Manidoo is looking after you, Sunflower,” Grey said. “She made the duct tape on the end of your tailpipe heat up and melt. Not much gas got into the car. We got there just in time to save you.”

“And what makes you think I wanted to be saved,” she said bitterly. “My entire life is a joke. I am transgendered: a female brain in a male body. And it couldn’t be a nice small body like yours.” She put out a hand and Grey used all his strength to pull her up. And up. And up. When she was standing, she was towering over Grey: nearly a foot taller. And she weighed twice was he did. She fixed the wig on her head with one hand: Grey had just placed it there loosely when she was on the travois.

“No, I had to be 6’5” tall. And they made me play football, and put me on diets that got my weight up to 315 pounds. How the hell could I ever transition into a woman looking like that? A peaceful death by CO2 would have been a blessing. Now what am I to do?”

“You could come with us, Sunflower,” Grey said. “I have a camp a few miles further into the bush. Manidoo wanted you to live, and I will help her make sure you do.”

“Why are you calling me Sunflower? My name is Earl.”

“Even in a dress?”

“No. It is Dorothy then. But I like Sunflower more. The angel in my head told me.”

“That is Mimiha. We also have Flint, and Red Oak. Red Oak is two-spirited like you, so you might hear from him too. I don’t think Flint will talk to you. He is upset that you have a warrior’s body but a woman’s mind.”

Sunflower staggered for a few feet and then slowly started moving normally. Between Red Oak’s potions, and the good clean air she was inhaling deeply, she seemed to be recovering from her ordeal. Grey picked up the empty travois.

“If anyone comes and finds that car, they might notice the scratches we made on the rock. But if we take the travois back to camp, they won’t be able to track us easily. I don’t know if I will ever have need for one again: A travois is a tool the Plains natives used. Our people lived in the forest, and these are definitely not useful here,” Grey said.

“What is your name?” Sunflower said as they walked towards the camp.

“I am Grey. Grey Wolf is my First Nations name. William Grey is my real name. I have been living in the bush for a year now.”

“Wow, don’t you have family worried about you? Wait a second. There was a big thing on TV a year ago about this English Lord who got lost on a school trip. Is that you?”

“It could be. I’m not a Lord though, although my Grandfather and father are. But I am a third son and won’t inherit anything. I got a call from what you are calling the angels in our heads to come back to Canada to right a wrong done 100 years ago. I am the replacement for an infant stolen from the people.”

As they walked Sunflower gave his story. His mother died giving him birth. His father was a truck driver and he lived mostly with his paternal grandmother. Earl Dipsen was his birth name, but he hated being a boy almost from the time he started school and they made him play with boys instead of girls. The fact that he was bigger than boys two years older through school prevented any bullying, but his feminine heart continually cried out for release.

In high school he was a star lineman on the team, and set a record for sacks his first year, and then beat it three times. He received a college scholarship to MacMaster University in Hamilton and bulked up on the diets that the team staff put him on, along with weightlifting training. He finished college, helping Mac win the Canadian championship three times, and was drafted into the CFL by the Ottawa RedBlacks. But finally the straw broke, and Earl decided to dress one last time, and headed into the woods halfway between Hamilton and Ottawa to end it all.

Finally they reached the camp, and both went immediately to the spring stream. “Ladies first,” Grey said and Sunflower refilled the canteen, then drained it.

“That is wonderful stuff,” she said as Grey drank, and then filled the canteen for dinner. “Why do you refer to me as a lady? I know I don’t look like one.”

“You are two-spirited,” Grey said. “That is rare, but understood by our people. I refer to you as a woman because that is what your soul is. I will continue to treat you as a woman as long as you stay here. You are what? Eight years older than me, so it won’t be a romantic relationship. But you can consider yourself my new big sister.”

“Really big sister,” Sunflower said. “I think I will like it here. I can be me, and nobody will be staring at the giant man/woman.”

Grey took some venison jerky and put it into the water. He decided to add rice to the mixture, and a half hour later the meal was cooked. He took the pot off the fire, and dished out a third onto each of the two plates in his camp kit. He ate one third and was only halfway through when Sunflower finished her plate. He took the plate from her big hands, and dished out the rest of the pot for her. She quickly finished that.

“Shit,” she said. “This body is just too damn big. I want to lose weight, but I can’t seem to have the willpower. So I just pig out.”

“You weren’t pigging out,” Grey said. “I made a triple batch of what I normally make. I figured since you are twice my size I needed twice as much for you.”

“But I want to lose weight,” Sunflower whined.

«I can help with that,» Mimiha said to both of them. «But you need to lose slowly and carefully. Not feeding your body enough can result in you getting sick, and there are no doctors making house calls out here. Starting tomorrow I will tell you when and how much to eat. You will get a lot of exercise out here too. I can see you easily losing 100 pounds over the next year.»

“That would be wonderful. If I could get under 200, that would even be better.”

“Yes, but when we get fresh meat we pig out,” Grey said. “The diet comes off so we can use as much of the animals as we can. I hate wasting good food.”

They took the cooking gear to the spring stream and cleaned the dishes. Breakfast tomorrow would only be a strip of jerky each. Then they headed back into the lodge, which was toasty warm from the cook fire. Normally Grey would let the fire run down before popping into his sleeping bag. Tonight he put another log on the fire, and went into his tent and pulled out the sleeping bag. He also had one bearskin and three deer pelts that he hoped would keep Sunflower warm through the night. This was mid-November. He wasn’t sure what would happen in February when it truly got cold.

But this night they sat around the campfire for several hours, chatting.

“This is nice,” Grey said. “I wasn’t lonely before: not with those three chattering through my head. But it is nice to have a real person to talk to. It makes me think of something you said earlier. About my family.”

“You miss them?” Sunflower guessed.

“Not really,” Grey said. “I’ve been going to residential schools since Grade Four. My family are just people I visit two or three times a year. I do love them, especially my Mom, but it isn’t like I’ve been close to them. I guess it is the way for a Lord’s son. Especially a ‘who cares’. But I wonder what my parents think. Do they think I am dead? I should send them a letter.”

“That would be good,” Sunflower said. “Last year they really put a lot of effort into finding you. I think they were mostly looking in the Niagara region though.”

“That’s good,” Grey said. “I’m glad they didn’t realize I was coming to the bush land. But sending a letter would be dangerous. I’m still underage. I’m 16, no 17 now. What is the age of majority in Canada?”

“Nineteen for drinking, but I think you can vote at 18,” Sunflower said.

“I think I will wait till I am 19 before I let them know where I am,” Grey said. “I don’t want them coming back and taking me back to England. But I’d like to let Mom know I am okay. I wonder if I wrote a letter and had Frank Stover mail it from Toronto when he is there. I certainly don’t want an Actinolite post mark on it. Frank runs the store in Actinolite where I sell the canoes and snowshoes I make.”

“You make canoes? And snowshoes?”

“I do. We will need to make a bigger pair of snowshoes for you, or you will be snow bound all winter. I’ll take the canoe down to the store to sell in spring, and we should be able to have several pairs of snowshoes at that time. Perhaps even a second canoe. But I want to take these two smaller pairs down to the store soon. There could be a big storm anytime now, and while I had enough food for winter for one. But with two of us now …”

“Three, really. You should count me double.”

“Two,” Grey said politely. “But I think I will head down there tomorrow. Wanna come?”

“Me? No!” Sunflower recoiled at the idea. “I don’t want anyone to see me.”

“Oh?” Grey said. “I think I will head further on then, down to Tweed. There are a few things I want that the store might not have.”

As the fire died down they both bundled into their sleeping gear, and soon fell deep asleep.

----- ------ -----

When Sunflower awoke and came out of the tent, she found Grey sitting at the edge of the stream with a pot of warmed water on his lap. “Whatcha doing,” she asked.

He turned, and she could see a mass of white on his face.

“Shaving,” he said as he took his knife and slid it down his cheek, taking a lot of the white stuff off. “I’m lucky. I only need to shave once a week, even at my age. Flint says it is my Ojibwe heritage. Braves of our tribe seldom need to shave. I put another pot into the coals to warm up in case you wanted a go.”

Sunflower ran her hand across her cheek and was disgusted to find that she was at the three-day stage of beard growth. She needed to shave daily, with a second shave if she wanted to get rid of the five o’clock shadow.

“You lucky bugger. Short and no beard. Wanna trade bodies?” Sunflower said jokingly. “Where did you get the shaving cream?”

“Actually it is bear fat,” Grey said.

“Yuck.”

“Well maybe, but Mimiha says that native women would put it on their face to keep their skin smooth, so I don’t think it will hurt you to shave with it.”

After Grey finished, and washed the remaining fat away he honed his big knife again. The skill in shaving with a knife is to make sure it is super sharp. The girl spent nearly a half hour shaving while Grey packed up for his trip south. When she finished, Grey checked her over and found a few little spots she had missed. She had also nicked herself twice, and Grey got out one of the salves Red Oak had made for him and quickly stemmed the bleeding once she had washed the fat off her face.

---- ----- -----

Grey came out of the forest near the store, and looked around. He could barely see the big house on the other side of the river. A few steps further and a copse of trees would block it from view. He stared at it for a moment, and then headed to the store.

“Grey,” Frank said when he walked into the store. “With more stock, I hope.”

“Yes, two more pairs. I’d make more, but it is limited by how many deer I take. I use the intestines for the webbing. But I would like cash for this pair. I’m going on down to Tweed today to get some things from the specialty stores. I know you could order what I want, but I need these things right now.”

“No problem,” Frank said. “Three hundred eh? I’ve got that much in the back. You have certainly earned it. I’ve sold everything you made so far, and have a couple people looking for canoes, just based on pictures of the first one.”

“I have made a birch bark canoe,” Grey said. “I will make at least one more cedar strip this winter, perhaps two.” He went through the store and picked up more supplies, putting them into a small pile to be picked up later. He bought two canvas bags for them, since he expected to fill his backpack in Tweed.

“Can you tell me anything about the big house on the other side of the river?” he asked Frank.

“Ridge House?” Frank responded. “Not much to say. It’s a massive old place, built in the 20s, so nearly a hundred years old. At one time there were seven families in the place, but now only Daisy Ridgemark lives there. She’s the last of the family. They ran a pretty big lumber operation here until the early 90s, when her brother died. Since then she had lived in the house alone.”

“She still owns a passel of land,” a bearded man drinking a coffee added. “My name is Dan Smith. Her land runs from the river for a mile up the road. And it runs five miles back, all on this side of the river.”

“Grey Wolf,” Grey shook the man’s hand. “Good to meet you.” He realized that the woman must own the land on the other side of the river from his camp.

“Look,” Dan said. “I’m headed down to Tweed right now. Two minutes in my truck will save you a half hour walk. Interested?”

Frank came back with the cash, and Grey decided to take up the man’s offer. In a big city one might worry about getting into a car with an unknown person, but in the small town hospitality of eastern Ontario this offer not seem sinister. And Frank seemed to know the man, and didn’t warn his new supplier from taking the offer.

As a result Grey was getting out of Dan’s truck in downtown Tweed minutes later. After thanking the man Grey looked around. Tweed is a small town of under 2000 residents. Main Street was two blocks long, with older stores lining both sides. No Walmart, but a large grocery store at one end of the town seemed to be the limit of commercial activities. Grey walked down the street, and found what he thought he wanted. A shop with a hand-painted sign reading ‘Sew Sew Crafts’ looked inviting. He went in and immediately knew he was in the right place.

The back of the store carried bolts of material on shelves. Grey bought 20 yards of heavy blue denim, and eight yards of a nice flowery print that he thought Sunflower would like. Then he bought another eight yards of a nice white material which had a lacy pattern pressed into the fabric. The clerk also helped him get a complete sewing kit. Good scissors, a collection of buttons, clasps and other closures, 16 different colors of thread and a set of needles. The needles in the kit were not large enough for use on deerskin, so Grey also got some specialty needles and thicker thread in white, black and red. He also bought a collection of zippers, including some two feet long.

He continued through the store, and bought two large balls of a pink wool. Then, near the counter he saw kits of colorful beads. He bought all three of the smallest size, which included 12 different colors.

With his goods stuffed into his knapsack, he left the store. There was a woman’s wear store next door, and he went in.

The clerk looked at him quizzically, and Grey said: “I am looking for a dress for a friend. She is rather big …”

“Oh we have several dresses that would fit you,” the clerk said with a smile as she walked to a back corner of the shop.

“No, this would not be for me,” he said. “She is much bigger than me. At least a foot or so larger around the bust.”

The clerk just stared for a second, then said: “The largest we have is triple XL. But that is only an inch or two bigger than your chest. Sorry.”

“No problem,” Grey said as he left. He saw a men’s clothing store across the street and headed to it.

“I need a pair of coveralls for a friend,” Grey said. “Sh … he is about 6’5” and about 300 pounds. Do you have anything of the type?”

“We do sir,” the clerk said. “We have a lot of larger farmers around here. Probably not that tall, but we can definitely find something to fit him. Can he come in for a fitting?”

“No, that won’t be possible,” Grey said. “Maybe you could show me what you have, and I could pick what I think will fit him.”

“Not a problem. And if they don’t fit, bring them back in clean, resalable condition and we can do an exchange. I can even special order something in.”

Grey purchased the coveralls, and then headed back out into the street. He saw a library at the corner and headed in. As he hoped, there were two computer terminals for visitors to use. The librarian helped him get set up on one of them, and then left.

Grey first went to Wikipedia and looked up the page on his father. He found that there was a section on the ‘missing son’ and pored through it. He then went into newspaper archives and read the stories about the search that appeared in both the Toronto and London England newspapers.

Finally, he went to G-Mail and opened the account he had created when he was in the Harrow computer classes. He wrote out a message to his mum, saying that he had spent the last year in Ottawa and was now travelling to Toronto, stopping at a little town along the way to send a message. He said he was well without giving too many details on how he was living, and promised to come visit her after he turned 19, in nearly two years. He said he was unable to respond to any return email for quite some time. Finally, he hit send, hoping that he hadn’t just given himself away.

Grey’s sack was nearly full, but he did stop in at the local bakery to buy a loaf of bread. He hadn’t eaten wheat bread for over a year, and craved it. He then went to a little fruit store and bought apples, carrots, onions, and broccoli. There were still many potatoes from the garden he had planted last year, so he could treat Sun to a feast tonight.

By chance, as he was walking down the road a familiar pickup truck pulled over in front of him. It was Dan, and he offered to drive Grey back to the store on the highway. Grey tried to pay Dan $5 ‘for gas’ but the man refused to accept it, even though he was not planning to go to the store again. Dan had again saved Grey of a walk of over five miles.

The result was that Grey returned to the campsite just after lunch, instead of at dusk. As he approached, he could hear Sunflower talking in the distance. Who was she talking to, Grey wondered?

She heard him eventually, and came back to the camp. “Grey?” she called out.

“Yes, it is me. Who are you talking to?”

“Oh, Mimiha has been teaching me to talk more like a woman,” she said, and then she changed her voice. “Is it working?”

Grey could detect a slight difference. “Oh yes, I can tell the difference.” It still sounded like a man, but not so deep as it had been.

Mimiha just gave me crap for going back to the old voice when I first called out,” Sunflower said. “She’s been making me practice all morning, and Red Oak has had me out searching for various herbs and plants. He says he only needs one more, but won’t say what it is for.”

“Well, we can go searching after lunch. Have you eaten? I have the makings for a feast tonight.”

“I just had a strip of jerky,” Sun said. “It isn’t much, but it does take the hunger off.”

“That’s what I had too, on the way back from the store. I got a few rides, so that saved me some hours of walking.”

“So what did you get?” Sun said excitedly.