Week 9 Storytelling: Timeline of a Love Story

I would never see a living person again.

Looking at the infant before it was ready put a curse on the island and people and resulted in everyone being forbidden to go to the land of the spirits. I had sent for my mother so that she might see the beautiful half human, half spirit child that had been born to my beautiful lover. The only condition was that she wouldn’t look upon the baby until it was 10 days old, or else it would perish. She didn’t listen.

She gave birth to my child. My lover had visited me on the island every night, and every night she danced with me until the first light of day. The voices joined in song and the tom-tom beat of the dance drum could be heard across the river. Our love for each other only deepened with every passing night, and it didn’t matter to her that I wasn’t as I had once been. Her father prepared a boat for her every evening, and every evening she came to me. 

 (Spirits Dancing)

Her father was frightened of what would befall the tribe, yet he couldn’t stop her from coming. Ever since she came to me that first night, he believed that she would bring a curse on the people. She wanted to come again.

She paddled as fast as she could back across the river in an old boat that she had found on the shore. My appearance had changed drastically during the day. The first morning that my lover saw me after a night of dancing, she only saw my smiling remains staring back at her through the hollows where my eyes should have been. Around her were the rest of them that, like me, had come alive under the light of the moon. At night, I was completely different. I was a better, stronger, more beautiful version of myself. It was at night that we danced to the drums and singing and grew closer than we have ever been before.

She came to the island with her father, who dropped her off with four individuals at the edge of the island. Too afraid to come onto the land, he paddled back across the Columbia River, where he felt safe with his tribe. She was greeted by four spirit people, and then she was led to me. That’s when she first saw me since my passing.

She listened to the woman in her vision. She told her father of the vision, and he agreed to take her. The woman in the vision told her to come to Memaloose Island, where I was buried, and she would be able to be with me again.

I died wishing for more time with my dear lover. Our sweet time together was too short. My heart belonged to her, and I couldn’t bear to be apart from her for even an hour. I knew she felt the same love for me.

Author's Note: This week, I chose to read the Pacific Northwest unit. In this unit, the story that struck out to me the most was The Memaloose Islands. The original tells the tale of a young chief that dies suddenly. He is in love with a young maiden, and she sees a vision telling her to go to the island of the dead in order to see her deceased lover. She goes at night and finds him better than before. They end up dancing all night, but when she wakes up in the light of day, she finds her love and all of others on the island to be nothing but corpses and skeletons. She ends up going back, and in time gives birth to a half human, half spirit baby. The young chief sends for his mother so that she might see the child, but she looks at the child before she is allowed to, and as a result curses the island. After that, visitation to the island becomes forbidden. I chose to tell this story backwards and from the chief's point of view. I omitted some details as well because I figured it would be tricky enough keeping track of the plot as it was. I've never written a story like this, so this is my experiment. 
Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, Especially of Washington and Oregon by Katharine Berry Judson (1910). Web source: UN-Textbook