Free Eye Lake by Tristan Hughes

sign explaining it too: This represents the Northern Spirit. The upward thrust of the sculpture, akin to a new branch growing from a tree, encapsulates the vision, entrepreneurship and endeavour of pioneers like Buddy Bryce .
    I remember when they first showed it. Buddy had invited a bunch of people from town to the Poplars and it was covered in a white sheet. Then the artist – a funny-looking guy with long black hair and glasses – said a few words and pulled off the sheet. Everybody clapped, except for Buddy. He looked like someone had just filled his boots with moose piss.
    Afterwards I heard Buddy and the artist talking. ‘It doesn’t look nothing like me,’ Buddy said. ‘Jesus! It doesn’t look like anything .’
    â€˜It’s figurative,’ the artist said. ‘It symbolizes your achievements.’
    â€˜ Figurative ,’ Buddy hissed. ‘Well, maybe that thousand bucks I’m supposed to be shelling out for it is figurative too. It symbolizes you trying to rip me off with this piece of junk.’
    When I got to the phone I’d started thinking things through and reckoned it was probably going to be Buddy, phoning to sack me. It was going to be a full stop for me too.
    It wasn’t Buddy though.
    At first it sounded like a bad connection, low and raspy and crackling, but it turned out to be Gracie McKenzie and that’s just how she sounds.
    â€˜Eli,’ she said. ‘I think you better come to the museum. They found something … Are you there, Eli?’
    I’d kind of forgotten to say anything, because I wasn’t used to getting calls. ‘I’m here,’ I blurted, and realized I didn’t need to talk so loud. ‘What they find?’
    â€˜Remains,’ she said. There was another long pause when I forgot to speak again.
    â€˜Look, Eli, I’ll tell you everything when you get here. Okay?’
    â€˜Okay,’ I said.
    On the walk into town I found a baby owl sitting under a jack pine. It was covered in white fluff and stared at me with its black eyes, snapping its beak and opening and closing its talons. Up above in the branches I could hear another, louder, snapping noise, and when I looked I found its mother there, staring angrily down at me with the same fierce, black eyes. I thought I could maybe find the nest and put the baby owl back, but the way its mother was staring at me you could tell that wasn’t such a good idea.
    When I arrived at the museum Mr. Haney was standing out side again, with his hands on his hips, shaking his head. The big poster above the door had come off at the corner and was peeling down. ENNIAL , it said. 001 .
    Inside, Gracie was sitting in her glass office. She must have been smoking a lot because you could hardly see her in there, the smoke was so thick; some of it drifted out the window of the office into the museum, making everything look grainy and misty. Clarence peered from the wall as if he was trying to spot me through a fog.
    When Gracie saw me she waved her hand and I went in and sat on a chair opposite her desk. There were piles of old newspapers strewn over it: copies of the Crooked River Progress from years and years back. Here and there you could see a face smiling out from them, some Miss Teen Crooked River or Bass Classic winner from ages ago. Gracie’s skin looked like their newspaper skin – thin and yellowy and brittle, from another time.
    â€˜I tell you, Eli,’ she rasped, ‘it’ll be another hundred years before I finish cataloguing this junk. Now look, I’m sorry for dragging you all the way here but I thought I’d best tell you about what they found.’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜Some fishermen or canoeists or something. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter who.’
    â€˜What they find?’ I asked. My head was beginning to hurt around the temples as though I were wearing a cap that was too small for me. I was hoping she was