Free Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes Page B

you know we’re in Ontario?’
    â€˜The train stopped last night and I was talking to some Native woman from Sioux Lookout.’
    â€˜What? Where?’
    â€˜Just some old Native woman. I traded her some cookies for water,’ said the Rat showing me the bottle of water. ‘She said we would find Uncle Jerome, but that we were in great danger. But I could have told you that.’
    I couldn’t believe I had slept through the Rat talking to some Native woman. I must have been really tired.
    The train moved faster and the Rat, having eaten, got up to brush her teeth. She spat the water out as far as it would go and then she sat down with her bare feet dangling out the doorway. I looked at the wheels spinning below her and I got an uneasy feeling.
    â€˜Bring your feet in,’ I told her.
    â€˜We’re not in danger yet, Bob. Besides, the boxcar has a good spirit. It’s glad we’re riding with it.’ She took a comb from her pocket and combed her hair. ‘I’m having so many dreams now that I’m without my big dream-catcher. I’ve brought a small one but it’s not doing much good. I dreamt I was on the top floor of a tall building. I go to sit down in a chair but I fall. It’s like I’m falling from a great height. All of a sudden I’m being carried upward by three angels. They put me on top of a skyscraper where there are hundreds more angels bathing in a silver sun. When I look around me there are hundreds of skyscrapers with hundreds of angels on top of them. They’re all sunbathing or playing or gliding from one skyscraper to another. They tell me I’ll stay with them until I’m better. But the funny thing is I don’t feel unwell. I dreamt about the Windigo as well.’
    â€˜Windigos aren’t real.’
    â€˜Of course they are!’
    â€˜Have you ever seen one?’
    â€˜No, but there are lots of things you can’t see that are real.’
    â€˜Such as?’
    The Rat had a think. ‘Angels!’ she said. ‘Sometimes a person can come up and talk to you in the street. And you think they’re human, but really they’re an angel. There are angels everywhere. Sometimes a human being can have an angel inside them and all they do is good. They can have a demon inside them as well. Then they become Windigos or paedophiles and all they want to do is hurt people. Do you know how to spot the difference between a Windigo and a paedophile?’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜Well, paedophiles hiss when they talk. But you have to listen real hard. And they pretend to be nice, especially to children. Whereas Windigos are never nice to anyone, but they are harder to spot. They’re not cowardly like paedophiles but they’re more violent, and their heads are full of crazy voices that make them growl. Windigos are big growlers. That’s how you can spot them.
    â€˜Sometimes a human being can have an angel anda demon inside them and they fight for his soul. But the angel always wins in the end because one angel is more powerful than ten demons.’
    The Rat bewildered me sometimes! She really did! ‘Where do you get this stuff from?’
    â€˜It just comes to me,’ she said in a matter-of-fact sort of way.
    Looks like the Windigo wasn’t the only one with crazy voices in his head. I don’t know why, but I never liked to talk to the Rat about her freaky ways. But now I was intrigued.
    â€˜So … How do you know things are going to happen? Does a voice tell you?’
    â€˜No, silly. Sometimes I see things in a dream or I get dreamlike images when I’m awake. But mostly I get a feeling that something will happen and the feeling gets stronger, that’s all.’
    â€˜But you can see ghosts, right?’
    The Rat laughed.
    â€˜That’s it! I’m never asking you anything again!’
    â€˜You’ve been watching too many movies, Bob.’
    â€˜Wait a minute! You