As the Moon rose high in the sky a lone
wolf bounded out of the forest. She
paused at the edge of the trail that lead to the mountains. Panting, she perked her ears and looked back
the way she came. After she was sure
she had lost her pursuer, she laid down to catch her breath. The wrenching in her gut seized her again,
and she struggled not to howl in pain.
After a few minutes she stood back up and began to concentrate. Her hair and maw shortened, her body
contorted and grew. Quickly, the wolf
assumed a human form.
The woman stood and took stock of her
surroundings. A small ring of stones,
with wood lying nearby, was set up to have a fire lit. Next to the fire pit a folded blanket lay at
the ready. She checked the woods again
before sitting. To be safe, she waited
as long as she could before lighting the fire.
Praying as she waited, the wrenching became more and more frequent, and
each time she stifled a yelp of pain.
She looked down at her swollen belly.
Placing her hand on it she said softly, "In quite a hurry to get
out, aren't we now?"
She set about lighting the pine needles
and twigs, slowly building a large fire.
The contractions came closer and stronger. For one of the very few times in her life, the woman grew
afraid. She did not know if the child
was homid or lupus. She had not had any
ultrasounds to find out, in case the child was lupus. In fact, there were no medical records of the pregnancy, and now
there would not be any of the birth.
She did not know whether to deliver the child in homid or lupus
form. Feeling the moment draw near, the
woman made a possible risky decision.
She concentrated as best she was able.
Her body shook from the effort and pain of the labor as she shifted into
a half homid half lupus form.
The time was now. She looked up at the Moon. A big, beautiful Crescent Moon. Shining brightly, it bathed the scene in a
soft glow. Fear swept through her,
alone and unsure. A final contraction
seized her, and allowing the release of pain, she howled. Long and loud, it was one last prayer. Suddenly a sense of calm fell over her. Answering her prayers, a spirit had
come. She felt its presence. Happy and now feeling secure, she began to
push the child out.
A few minutes later, she was again in
homid form. The woman gathered the baby
girl in the blanket and held her tight.
Next to the fire both mother and child rested. Over the next few hours as the baby slept the Spirit kept watch
over her, while the woman gathered food and more wood. She returned with her gatherings exhausted
from the night's events. Just before
the woman fell off to sleep she whispered a thank you prayer to the Spirit.
More than half a dozen Moons later, almost
all the leaves had fallen from the trees.
The woman ran from doorway to doorway.
Huddled in her arms, the baby girl lay confused but quiet. The woman looked around, trying to determine
where she currently was. She shrieked
back into an ally at the sound of her pursuers and held the baby close. Placing an arm against a wall to steady
herself, she glanced at blood running down her arm from the wound on the side
of her head. She realized she would
never make it to her destination like this.
She took a deep breath and began moving again in a new direction. As quickly as she could, she made her way
through the back streets of the small city.
The doorbell's ring was followed by
insistent knocking. At midnight, a
woman rose from her bed wondering who would be calling at this hour. She opened the door to reveal the other woman,
bleeding from the side of her head, breathing heavily, and clutching tightly to
a bundle.
"Come in, come in!" the second
woman said to the first. As the first
entered, the second checked outside her door, left and right, before closing
it. She directed the first to a chair,
but it was refused.
"No... time...," the first woman
said in between breaths. "Being...
hunted..." The second woman looked
alarmed as the first continued, "I won't... make it... to the Caren...
like this."
"I will help you against them,"
the second said to the first. The first
shook her head.
"Not with... my baby... I can't
fight."
"Quickly," the first replied, as
she grabbed her shoes and a gun.
"There are Kinfolk nearby.
She will be safe with them."
The first woman grabbed the second's arm
as she headed for the door. The first
pushed the baby into the second's arms and began to concentrate. Shifting into half homid half lupus form,
the first woman shook herself and growled in anger. The wound on her head closed.
The woman then shifted back to homid form. She took the baby back from the second woman, who nodded with
approval. "Let's go."
Working at a computer next to an open
window, the teenager saw them coming.
She went to the door and opened it before the two women could even
knock. The teenager cocked her head
with a questioning look, "Mom and Dad are asleep." Then she saw the drying blood on one of the
woman's shirts, "but I'll wake them up," she added quickly and began
to turn from the door. All three heard
the noises from far enough down the street that the creators of the sound could
not be seen.
"No time," the second woman
said. The first woman placed her bundle
into the teenager's arms.
"Her name is Lucile Christodolopolis," the
first woman said. "Tell your mother
to take her to the Caren as soon as she safely can. Don't leave the house tonight unless you all have to." The teenager nodded. The two women took off down the street.
The teenager closed the door as the baby
girl began to cry. She was startled to
discover a baby in her arms. She
quickly went to her parents' room.
"Mom! Mom!" she said, waking both her parents.
"What is it?" came the sleepy
question.
"Garou! They were here! And guess
what?!" the teenager said excitedly.
"What?" both parents were
instantly awake, and sat up. "What
did you say?"
"Garou, I'm sure of it. Two of them. And they left a baby for you Mom!" The father looked to the mother, as she motioned the teenager to
hand over the bundle. The baby girl
cried harder.
"What did they say?" the father
asked. The mother began rocking the
baby and trying to calm her as the teenager spoke.
"One was covered in blood. She said the baby's name is Lucile Christodolopolis,
and that you should take her to the Caren as soon as you can. But they we should stay inside the house
tonight, unless we cant." The
teenager began to look concerned as her enthusiasm subsided. "Mom?" she asked slowly. "Why are they in trouble?"
"I don't know yet," the mother
replied. "But I intend to find out
tomorrow."
About a week later the teenager yelled
across the house, "Mom! Come
here! It's another one!" The mother carried the sleeping baby Lucile
into the room where the teenager was watching TV. A news reporter was talking about the gang war that had broken
out five nights ago and was still going on despite the efforts of local and
state police. The reporter noted that
all local officials and law enforcement officers were stunned by the battling
in and near the city since there had been no known gangs operating within the
city beforehand.
The father came in the house just as the
reported warned the viewing public to stay indoors and in well populated
places, and to not venture out at night under any circumstances. The mother turned to him with a questioning
look. He shook his head.
"The Caren is sealed tight. No one can get in or out." As an afterthought he adds, "At least
not in this world."
He placed his coat and hat in their places
and sat next to the teenager in front of the TV before continuing. "From what I could see, the hunters
have the Bawn sealed as tight as the Garou have the Caren sealed. Well... almost as tight," he says with
a sly smile. "but at least the
Garou are safe... for now."
"What do you mean?" asked the
teenager. The father sighed.
"They are at a standstill. All fighting has stopped because no one can
get close enough to the other side without it meaning certain death. But this can't continue forever. I could practically touch the tension that
is building up." He looks to his
wife. "I'd say soon. Something is going to happen very soon. I over heard a couple of them talking. We have a few days at most. Then all Hell is going to break loose... and
if we are still around we are going to end up in the middle of it all as well.
Two days later the family left. That night their house burnt to the ground.
Lucile laughed as the teenage girl through
her in the air and caught her again.
The mother and father looked on.
Even out of hearing range of their conversation the teenager knew a
decision was being made, and she wasn't at all anxious to know its
outcome. It had been one and a half
years since Lucile had been given to the family, but they had been unable to
return to their home city to deliver her to the Caren.
"We can't keep her," the father
said.
"Why not?!" the mother demanded.
"She's not ours. Do we even know if she's Garou or
Kinfolk?"
"No."
"Exactly."
"What's your point?"
"She should be in a Caren, being
raised by those who know how to do so.
If she is Garou we won't be able to handle that. We won't know how to help her through it
all."
"You just don't want to be any more
involved than you already are. You can
tolerate being married to a Kinfolk, but you almost went on a killing spree
when you thought your own daughter might be Garou." The mother was angry. Not only at her husband for being so
unaccepting of Garou, but because he was right. They had no way of knowing if Lucile was Garou or not, not
without someone to perform the ritual to find out. Since their hasty departure they had not come across another
Caren to settle near. If Lucile was
Garou, she should be raised by them.
The father simply waited through his
wife's anger. He had come to understand
it was part of her, all the women in her family had such a temper, even his
daughter was showing signs of one. He
knew his wife was able to keep it under control. She would calm down after fuming a bit. After she did, it was the mother would spoke first.
"I know of a man, from the old Caren. He moved up to Detroit a number of years ago
and joined the Caren there. I don't
know where that one is, but we can find him through information."
"There must be someplace closer we
can take her."
"Not that I know of. My ties were to the old Caren, I know of no
others except one in New York City and one in the mountains of New
Hampshire."
"Which are even further," the
father added.
"Yes."
He sighed and turned his attention back to
the two playing girls. The mother's
gaze shifted as well.
"Then I guess it's settled."
The man sat back and stroked his beard as
he heard the end of the story. Lucile
sat on the mother's lap and watched him intently.
"Can you help us, her?" the
mother concluded.
"We feel she should be raised in a
Caren, or at least taken to one until it's determined if she is Garou or
Kinfolk." the father added. The
older man nodded slowly.
"Yes, yes," he said.
"Thank you," the father replied.
"Here," the mother said, taking
out a pen and paper. She wrote down an
address on it and offered it to the man.
"This is our current address and phone number. If she turns out to be Kinfolk, and there is
no one to take care of her, we would like to volunteer." The man looked from one parent to the other
with a questioning glance. Both
nodded. He took the paper, and then
Lucile. After a round of farewells, the
man and Lucile were left alone in his home.
Lucile had grown quite tall for her
age. It was a result of her having been
very happy and well cared for. The man
was old enough, about eighty, to pull off acting like he had a screw loose due
to old age, and he played it up. He
enjoyed the reactions it brought from others, and that it brought only the
pleasantest people close to him in his life.
But Lucile knew he wasn't truly like that, she knew he was quite sane
and intelligent. What she didn't ever
know was that he was Garou, or that she might be as well. He never told her.
She called him Papa, though she knew his
name was George and he was not her father.
But he did say that he was a member of her family, a not so distant
relative, which was good enough for her.
He had not taken her to his Caren, not even once to find out anything
about her, possibly because he was able to find those things out on his
own. He spent most of their time
teaching Lucile. From the day he got
her, he had begun to read to her and teach her while doing so. For two years he taught her to read, to
reason, and basic math. She took to
them all, for she seemed to want to know anything he had to say and to want to
do anything he asked of her. She also
seemed to love to draw, especially what she saw around her, and Papa encouraged
her to do so. Many times he spoke of
Lucile being special, that she would grow up to do important things, especially
for her family. She did not know what
he meant, but she believed it would happen simply because he told her so. She loved him dearly, and he her in return.
One day the two were drawing pictures of
what they were reading when there was a knock at the door. Child services was at the door and they had
come for Lucile. They said a new
neighbor down the street had seen the two together and felt he was too...
"old" to be raising a child, so she called Child Services to see
about the situation. They asked George
if he was Lucile's father or grandfather.
He said no, but that he was a relative.
They asked if she had any immediate family, and he said none living that
he knew of. After a short inspection of
his home and hearing about his current life and Lucile's history, the veiled
version, Child Services took Lucile away.
George fought, through the courts, to try
and keep Lucile. It was a very short
fight. In the end he was only awarded
visiting rights, due to the easily recognizable bond between the two of them.
Lucile was placed in the system. Since no one knew her age, or if George did
he wasn't saying, Lucile was given a test by the school system and was sent to
doctors for medical testing. It was
quickly discovered that she had never been to any medical facility of any kind
before, she had no medical records, not even a birth certificate. The school exam placed her at second grade
reading level, with the math and mental skills to more than match, which would
make her at least seven years old. The
doctors placed her as being around five years old. Lucile was given the age of six years old in 1986. She was placed in an orphanage to begin
with, and sent to school to first grade.
It had been six years, and five foster
homes, since Lucile was taken from her life with George. She resented authority for it. The only reason she excelled in school was
because she enjoyed learning and had nothing better to do. Moving from home to home meant she had moved
from school to school as well. She was
friendly enough to be able to make friends easily. But good friends took work and time, and after a while Lucile
simply stopped trying since it seemed the effort always ended up being wasted
when she was forced to move again.
She had like her last home. The people there truly wanted her, unlike
some of the previous ones. These people
had worked very hard to earn the right to be a foster home, and as soon as they
were they chose Lucile specifically.
She liked that she had been wanted, she knew how hard they had worked,
and she knew they had done so with the intention to ask for her. She had also felt something when she first
met the family. They were a mismatched
lot, but there was a sense of familiarity about them. She recognized something in each of them that she recognized
George had as well. What she didn't
know was that she was noting the way being Garou had an affect on these people,
as with all Garou, that marked them as not quite normal to any one familiar
enough with the subtle differences to actually notice. The Caren in Detroit had learned of Lucile
through George. They had tried
everything they legally could to try and get Lucile out of the system and back
to her "family."
Now she was being introduced to her sixth
foster family. Her resentment of
authority and the system had grown when she was taken from the Garou family,
the second home she had wanted to stay in but was removed from because
"they" said so. Her
resentment grew to anger when she met the new family. She didn't like them at all.
She didn't want to stay but she was given no choice.
It took less than two months. Lucile had finally had enough. She had tried to go back to her last
family. She had gone to the corner store
and bought a map with money she had saved up from her meager allowance. She used it to find her way to the house of
the Garou family. But when she got
there a strange couple was living there.
Lucile was mad. She hated the
system. She was angry. She despised home and school hopping. She felt rage building. She had had enough of secrets she knew
existed in her life but no one would tell her about. And she had finally had enough of anger, her anger. Lucile went back to her new home, had
dinner, and went to bed. In the middle
of the night she was ready. Lucile ran
away.
A few days later, in a back ally of
Detroit, Lucile was trying to scrounge up anything that might be useful. She was paying too much attention to the
trash she going through to notice the approach of another. She jumped when he spoke.
"You Lucile?" he asked. Surprised first that he was there, and then
that he knew her name, Lucile hadn't quite gotten to the thought that she
should run.
"How do you know my name?" she
asked.
"Wrong answer," a teenage boy
said, crossing his arms. "You
should never tell who you are to someone who doesn’t know ya when you'r on the
run."
"How do you know that?" she
asked. The boy shook his head.
"You really are new at his aren't
ya?" It was a rhetorical
question. "Girl, you gotta lot to
learn." He turned and headed down
the ally towards the main streets.
After a few strides, he looked back over his shoulder. Lucile was standing in silent
confusion. She was tired and dirty, and
very much unaccustomed to life on the streets.
She looked pathetic, the boy said as much before he turned the corner
and left.
Even rationing the food she had brought,
Lucile had run out of things to eat the day before. Now she was scrounging for food as well as places to sleep and
stay warm and dry. Trial by fire. She was learning about the streets, and how
most people treated those on them, as she went along, and usually too late to
save her aggravation or fighting, which she was not at all good at. She was trudging down a street when she
heard a commotion from up ahead.
Looking, she saw someone being chased by two police officers. The person was about her size, and so she
reasoned also about her age. Seeing the
police officers chasing this person caused something in Lucile to snap. She was sick and tired of how people where
treating her, first in the system, and now on the streets. Especially authority, which claimed to know
what was best, but really just didn't care what she wanted and had never done
anything to help her. She was mad, and
without thinking she acted on her anger.
She began running towards the chase.
She passed the person being chased, both of them running full
force. When she got close enough that
the officers were about to move around her, she launched herself towards the
ground in front of them, intentionally wiping out so as to catch their
legs. It worked. The officers were tripped up, and one fell
face first to the sidewalk. Since she
had fallen first, and they over and past her, Lucile was the first of the three
to her feet. She looked down the
street, and saw the other person get out of sight. The police officers were scrambling to their feet and Lucile knew
it was her turn to also get out of sight.
She ran into a super market down the street and hid by moving through
the isles until she found the door to the shipment receiving rooms, and left
the store through the loading bays.
It turned out that the person Lucile
helped escape the police was part of a teenage gang, one that was headed up by
the boy who had approached her a few days before. And now he did so again.
"That was mighty stupid," the
boy said, again surprising Lucile from behind.
"What was?" she asked after a
brief moment of being startled.
"What you did with the police
yesterday."
"If you say so," she replied. "But that kid got away," she said
with defiance.
"Yeah, and now they out looking for
you."
"They've always been looking for
me," she retorted. The boy
regarded her for a moment before responding.
"You've got attitude, girl," he
said and then his face broke into a smile, "I like that." He walked past her as he said, "Come
on, I'll introduce ya to 'that kid' ya helped.
He's one of mine."
"We've been watching you ever since
you showed up in our territory," the boy informed her as they walked. "There's people after ya, you know
that?" Lucile nodded. "You ain't the first to run from the
system, them child service people ain't what they claim to be. You ain't a baby, so no one wants ya, and no
amount of service people able to change that."
"Yeah, I know," she replied.
"Yeah, but what you don't know is
that them service people don't like the bad rap they get when kids like you get
away from them. They been workin harder
to keep it from happenin recently. They
got cops undercover now lookin for runaways." Lucile listened carefully, taking everything in.
"Really?" she asked. She had done well enough avoiding police and
places where her picture had started to appear as a missing child. She hadn't thought they'd go that far.
"Yup, runaways are bad for business
for them, if they ain't competent the state won't give them as much
money."
"Ah."
"Here, let me show ya," he said
as he turned a corner to take her in a new direction. Lucile followed. He led
her across the street from a coffee shop and pointed to it.
"See in there? They got a couple that's staked out in
there. You been sighted a couple times
round this part, so they expect you'll be back soon. They been showin your picture around, hoping someone'll help em
out." Lucile looked and saw two
people watching out the window. She
turned her attention back to the boy when he said, "See! They done saw ya now, here with me. Time to go, they coming!" Lucile turned back to see one of the couple
moving quickly to the door, and opening it. The boy had already begun to take off, but stopped when he saw
Lucile wasn't coming. She was watching
the couple, one of them looked familiar to her, but she wasn't sure. The other had gotten a phone in hand and was
dialing. The boy grabbed her arm then
and began to pull her along. "Come
on! The police are on their
way!" "But…" she began
to protest. "Those two are police,
and ya can bet they be calling their buddies!" he said. As that sensible realization set in, Lucile
turned and ran after the boy. They were
quickly out of sight and began moving down the allies of Detroit. The street gang got to Lucile and took her
in before both the Garou and the police did.
Over the next four years the gang hid and
protected Lucile from the police and the "undercovers" who were
looking for her. She didn't once visit
George, as the gang told her it would be the first place the authorities would
expect her to go and so they would always be watching for her there. The police gave up actively searching for
her rather quickly, the undercovers did not.
The gang figured it was because undercovers weren't as obvious as
officers. Not because the undercovers
were actually Garou, since none of them knew the shifters existed.
Lucile spent her time with the gang learning
as well as helping them in exchange for their protection. They taught her how to survive the streets,
and how to scrounge up whatever she might need and thus learned the art of
improvisation. In exchange, she kept
them safe during their exploits. Lucile
became the gang's lookout and diversion, when necessary. She was the best of any of them at it, as
she had the quickest mind of all of them except for the leader, the teenage boy
that had first approached her. Her
preferred method of raising alarm when trouble was approaching and it was time
for the gang to get out was to whistle.
This quickly earned her the joking name of Piper. It stuck and became her nickname within the
gang.
When she needed cover as lookout or
diversion while waiting for the gang or the right time to act, Lucile took to
rummaging through garbage. It was the
most readily available cover tactic as there were plenty of bums in Detroit
that rummaged through trash and were seldom given any notice for it. To keep herself amused, Lucile would attempt
to piece together facts about a person's life from their trash. What they did for a job, how they lived,
what their family was like, and other things.
One day she came across a library book that had been thrown out,
probably accidentally, with a bunch of magazines and newspapers. After reading it, she decided to return it
to the Detroit Public Library where it came from.
As a thank you for finding and returning
the book, the library gave her a free membership. Intrigued, Lucile entered the library and discovered a wonderful
world. The place was full of books, ten
times more than she had ever seen in one place before. From that day on Lucile spent her spare time
in the DPL. She would walk into a
random isle, pull a book off the shelf, read it, and then repeat. The staff came to know her, they were happy
to see a youngster with so much interest in reading and learning. Soon some of them began recommending books
for her to read, and she happily took their suggestions.
Dinosaurs seemed to be her greatest interest for a while. A couple times she expressed interest as to
how people had figured out so much about dinosaurs from so little
information. The library staff gave her
more books on dinosaurs to try and help her curiosity. Then one of the staff recommended an
anthropology book to help Lucile understand how things had been done. She was hooked. From then on Lucile read all the anthropology, archeology, and
other related books she could find in the DPL.
During this time the gang had grown in
profit due in part to Lucile's watchfulness and dedication to them. Which led to a growth in number, and with it
a growth in the gang's and Lucile's allies on the streets of Detroit. One of the newer members was a hotheaded
young boy who preferred brawn to brains.
But to his advantage, he was an excellent fighter. He obviously had had training, and he
claimed his family was the source. He
seemed to want nothing to do with "Piper," but on more than one
occasion she caught him observing her.
He never told her that he was from the Sept in Detroit, sent by the
elders to keep an eye on her in case she shifted and possibly bring her to the
Caren before she did. But for this
reason, he resented her. He didn't want
to be part of the gang, he didn't want to be Piper's "babysitter," he
wanted to be off fighting the Wyrm and its minions. So he decided not to take her to the Caren. If he couldn't fight, then neither would
she. Not that he thought she even
could. He thought she was too weak and
too human to be of any good to Gaia's cause.
Another reason he never took her to the Caren.
In one of the books Lucile read at the DPL
there was an account of a study of an old Native (South) American tribe that
had long since died out. Copies of the
tribe's language were printed in the book, but without translations. Curious as to what they said, Lucile began
reading and studying books in the DPL on ancient languages, specifically Native
American, from all the Americas. The
librarians helped out by having books from U of M and other college libraries
brought in for Lucile to use, as the DPL's selection of books on ancient
languages was slim compared to those.
After about a year of working on it in the time she was allowed
away from the gang, Lucile finally puzzled together enough of the language to
begin to understand what was printed with no translation in the first
book. Excited, she told her librarian
friends.
One of those friends had had an idea for a
while, and with this show of excitement an interest, she decided to follow up
on it. She called the University of
Michigan, which held monthly lectures of all sorts for the local academic
population and general public to come see, and asked if they would consider
bringing an anthropologist to lecture.
She explained about Lucile's interest and that she had even deciphered
some Native American language by herself that the library did not contain any
translation texts for. She said that as
a reward for Lucile's interest and accomplishment she was hoping she could take
Lucile to a lecture on her favorite subject.
The librarian was lucky in that the lecture organizer thought it was a
fine idea, she liked encouraging youth in academic pursuits. She was able to get a lecturer scheduled for
two months later, and informed the librarian once the plans were set.
Lucile was happy and very excited the day
of the lecture. The librarian drove her
to U of M for it. They both enjoyed the
lecture, the librarian mostly because Lucile thoroughly enjoyed it. During the Q&A part after the lecture
was over, Lucile and a few others asked many questions. Finally, Lucile asked why some
anthropologists and authors left translations out of their publications, citing
the book she had as an example, and added "especially when it takes
interested readers so long to translate on their own." The lecturer recognized the book Lucile
cited, and knew no one had been translated the language yet, not that anyone
was actively trying to do so. Still,
the lecturer's was quite interested and asked Lucile about it. She pulled out the DPL's copy of the book
and her notebook with the over a year's work of research and translations,
which she had brought with her. She let
the lecturer look over her work, as well as a few anthropology professors that
came down from the audience. All were
overly impressed, and a bit shocked when they were told Lucile had no formal or
educational training, that she had done it all on her own.
Word of Lucile's accomplishment spread
quickly throughout the anthropological community. Soon gears were set in motion, and her age and background were
checked into. Her medical and state
records verified her as sixteen years old, and thus legally able to not be in
school and to go to work. Lucile was
offered an internship/apprenticeship with an anthropological team. After speaking with her friends and partners
in the gang, who turn out to be happy that one of them is going to be escaping
the streets, she accepted. The Garou
from the Sept in Detroit did not follow her, as they were beginning to think
she was only kinfolk and not a shifter.
After all, she was supposedly sixteen and had not shifted yet. Perhaps George was wrong, or perhaps she
would never shift, they didn't know, and it seemed now they wouldn't find out.
Lucile was the happiest she's been in her
life since living with George. She
finally was able to get away from all the people that surrounded her every day
and the anger they fueled in her. She
was out and discovered nature for the first time, real large open areas of
wilderness. It seemed to stir something
in her she had never felt before. She
loved the feeling being in the wild brought her. Most of all she enjoyed discovering new things long lost to the
world, and working to decipher the past from what was left of it to be studied.
Four years went by. During
that time Lucile studied hard and learned quickly. She gained respect in the field for being able to work faster
than most and still being thorough and effective at the same time. She took many jobs and had even more
offers. She deciphered and translated
many dead languages, and even learned four well enough to sight read without
the aid of notes or references. She
deciphered dead cultures as well, some on her own and helping other with
some. Lucile grew to call it
"piecing together the past."
However, her work was not without its toll. All the writing and typing she was consistently doing gave her
carpel tunnel syndrome in her right wrist.
But she refused to give up her work or take it easier on her wrist. Instead she got herself a brace for when the
problem flared up. Over the years her
wrist only became worse and the damage permanent. Lucile grew dependant on the brace, wearing it constantly, but
she never let it hold her back or keep her from her work. She even learned to shoot a gun with her
left hand during the job on which it was required all people knew how to defend
themselves in case of wild animal attack, which was known to happen at the site
she was to work at.
In the beginning of her anthropological career, Lucile worked
under specific individuals, or occasionally assisted teams. After a year and a half she was working
together with teams. Soon after she was
given her first project for which she was fully responsible, and a team to work
under her.
It took seven months to complete, with a rocky first month as
Lucile and her team discovered and learned about each other and how to
effectively interact. But they were
done ahead of schedule and under budget due to Lucile's street learned talents
in improvising, scrounging, and wastelessness and her natural desire to work
out the life style and decipher the language.
During that time the team learned a lot about Lucile, which they felt
they could jokingly make fun of her with because she was friendly enough that
when they were not working she seemed to encourage a relaxed and close
environment. Lucile learned many things
about herself from her team, which proved useful in preparing and breaking in
future teams she worked with. They told
her that even though she may be up, moving about, and possibly even talking,
she was not actually awake until BOTH her shoes were tied. Before then it was pointless for anyone to
try to interact with her on any level beyond "breakfast is over
there," or "it's a pretty day" type things. They said she had a very one track mind, and
that she could even be involved enough in what she was doing at times to being
oblivious of her surroundings and unable to hear someone standing next to her. They also said she was very protective of
her work, and along with that she was very serious about her work. When she was working, everyone else had
better be as well, that or out of her sight.
This was what caused the biggest problems at first, but once they
discovered that she was actually a friendly person when she wasn't working, and
that they had to adjust to her seriousness and temper with others who were not
as serious when she was working, things went much smoother. Finally, they all agreed that she worked
better alone. This Lucile had figured
out earlier during jobs she had done, but until this project she had not had
the option very often. In some future
jobs she was able to work alone, in others she wasn't. But she now had a set of guidelines to help
her and the teams work smoothly.
Lucile never set down roots or established
a home of her own. Moving about so
often as a child had left her with a lack of desire for a stable home, replaced
with the feeling that she had to keep moving once she was done, that she had
somewhere else she needed to go, somewhere else she was needed to help,
somewhere else there was something she could puzzle over, piece together, and
solve. In between jobs Lucile worked for
herself, studying and learning more. She
studied Wicca for a while, which sent her on a researching religion kick for a
few months. She learned a few rituals
and practices, but never adopted one for her own use. She never found one she felt was right for her. Some Wiccan and some Native American
beliefs, especially dealing with spirits and Earth as The Great Mother,
resonated with something inside of her.
These things she would learn and use as her own beliefs, as if piecing
together her own religion from a past she had forgotten or had never been
taught.
In June of 2000 an anthropologist friend
of Lucile's told her about the possibility of some interesting sites in the
state parks of Montana, but that people had had problems finding anything,
especially with the local wildlife which was under state protection. Lucile was intrigued, of course. However, she was running very low on money
and needed to find a job, she could not go off on her own again, she simply
didn't have the resources at that time.
So she made some calls, and successfully pitched the idea to a sponsor
for a one person endeavor into the wilderness of Montana's foothill forests.