"A universal sound," Shaman whispered. "They will come. Look!"
     Padre followed Shaman's eyes to the edge of the timothy and lavender, where a sudden stirring teased the meadow grasses. The first to emerge was a large black beetle with yellow stripes. A pair of small green locusts and a slow-moving walking stick followed it. The air in the glen filled with lemon-colored butterflies, dragonflies, and darning needles, which hovered stationary in the humid mists above the spring-filled grotto before flitting away.
     Shaman studied each of the insects, but dismissed them as having been the source of Juan's injury. He ceased spinning the carved wood between his fingers, and almost immediately, the insects that responded returned to invisibility in the glen.
     "The worst here is the wasp," Shaman said. "And even his is little more than a painful sting. Whatever harmed your son was not of their making." Padre nodded, but remained still, as if afraid to speak following Shaman's request for silence. "Juan's attacker was some other creature."
     Bringing the walking stick up from the earth, Shaman turned it on its side. For a moment during which his eyes roamed the carved patterns, he didn't speak. Then he cautioned Padre to remove himself to the edge of the glen in the direction they had come from. Saying no more, he blew into the meticulously-carved groove he'd located. A broken, choppy whistle joined the chorus of chirs and chirps around them.
     Shaman repeated the action. The broken whistle, this time louder, sounded again. It was a surly noise, one that crawled on the exposed skin of Padre's arms, forcing gooseflesh to rise despite the humidity, a noise that touched some secret inner place, primitive, primal.
     Shaman continued. At one point, Padre realized the chirring sounds in the glen had quieted fully. Now, except for the broken whistle of Shaman's breath in the furrows of his walking stick, all that remained were his own heartbeats. They drummed in his ears.
And then, under the trees, a stirring in the pine needles.
     Padre peered over the Shaman's walking stick toward the gentle slope of the forest embankment. A long, undulating movement from beneath the carpet of pine needles slithered toward them. Through breaks in the litter of branches and fallen needles, Padre caught flashes of a shiny orange color. A second broken whistle, almost identical to the one Shaman created each time he blew into the carved grooves of his walking stick, joined in. The mysterious presence slithered closer, to within a yard of where Shaman stood.
     A long, forked tongue poked out from the break in the forest floor. The second broken whistle hissed louder. Horrified, Padre watched as an enormous snake slowly raised its head up and out into open view, a head twice the size of his own hands, a body, he guessed from its impression in the needles, easily the length of a man. The image of it - its orange underbelly, milky-colored spine and striped face - made Padre shudder.
     "Shaman!" Padre huffed.
     The pale eyes of the orange python shifted lazily in Padre's direction, but drifted back to the Shaman, where they stayed.
     "Silence, Padre," Shaman said in a calm voice. He lowered the walking stick slowly, deliberately. The orange python flicked its long tongue at him, its broken hiss unchallenged in the silence of the glen. From where he stood, Padre noticed Shaman's unblinking eyes locked with the snake's. The air in the glen, already tense and hot, grew strangulating.
     But at the moment when Padre was sure the python would strike, it curiously lowered its head and assumed a passive stance. Leaning in, Shaman placed both hands on the sides of its head. He gave the snake a gentle squeeze.
     "There are no venom sacs," Shaman whispered. "This animal is not responsible."
     "Another snake, perhaps?"
     Shaman continued the gentle hand movements along the scales of the orange python's neck. "No. Where these live, there are no others."
     The giant snake, seemingly charmed by the Shaman, lowered its head down even further. In the most unexpected of that day's events, Shaman, too, leaned closer, pressing his lips to the raised crown of the python's skull.
     "Dios, mio," Padre sputtered beneath his breath.
     A moment later, Shaman raised his head and released his grip on the orange python. He backed slowly away from the giant snake. The python held its place for a few seconds longer before turning in the direction it had come from. Padre watched it slowly slither away, back beneath the carpet of needles.
     "If this is not the source of Juan's affliction," Padre asked, eyes still wide in disbelief at what he had just witnessed. "If it was not the snake, or the bird, or the insect, what was it, Shaman?"
     Shaman didn't answer right away. Instead, he tipped his eyes skyward and faced the afternoon sun. Squinting, he wiped fresh sweat from his forehead. "Today is a warm day indeed, Padre. Very warm. A day when a young boy might seek to cool himself from the rays of the sun…"
     Both men faced the trail of firewood that had been dropped on the forest path, a trail leading up to the edge of the grotto. Drawing in a deep breath, Shaman stepped closer to the water.
     "Do you think whatever attacked my son was in the water, Shaman? Some venomous creature?"
     Carefully, Shaman brushed the well-traveled tip of his walking stick across a patch of bent reeds, a disturbance in the grass, a depression the right size for a boy's footprint. "We shall see, Padre," he said, parting the cat-o-nine tails for a better view of the water.
     On the opposite side of the shore, the waterway fanned out in a half-circle. Small tributaries cut fingers through the lush green sedge and meadows. Shaman felt his feet sink into the spongy carpet of grass and steadied himself on the walking stick, which he dipped into the clear, cold water - water that was far too clear, too cold for the long, hot days of summer that had discolored and dried up even the best-protected of fresh springs.

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Water Whispers © 2004 Gregory L. Norris

Illustrations © 2004 Pam Marin-Kingsley