A Fragile Cup of Witch's Brew

"What?!"

"Eat a whole one of those mushrooms, in about three days, you'll think you've just died and been reborn. You'd have a veritable resurrection. Oh, what colour is a cardinal's robe?"

"Red."

"The pope's?"

"White."

"Funny that, isn't it?"

"Sybil, how do you learn stuff like that living alone in the woods, cut off from society?"

"I'm hardly cut-off, am I? Maybe I'm tuned in better than you."

"Maybe."

"Perhaps the noise that you deal with: television, the people living below you with the loud radio, meaningless conversations, meaningless relationships, sports, fake drama, canned laughter, propaganda posing as news, buy this - sell that, here's the newest trend in sport jacket lapels, spam email, the world wide web, your squeaky left wheel, downtown traffic, a light that just turned red when you're already ten minutes late, jihadists flying planes into buildings, Black Friday, sodium benzoate and 'all natural' preservatives, vote for meeeee, I'll set you freeeeee!"

I turned around and looked at her.

"I couldn't do it anymore Sax and frankly, I don't understand how anyone can do it. It's just not natural...this...," she said holding out her arms with her left holding the paddle which was dragging in the water, "is natural. This body of mine, and I appreciate your kind flattery, is natural. It's the way we're supposed to live."

"Sybil, you really are an amazing woman. Not only that, but you play the flute beautifully."

"I didn't bring it. But that's okay, because I'm going to play your flute later tonight."

"Haahhhh haaa!"

We paddled quietly for a few minutes.

"Sybil, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, go on, ask me anything."

I turned around to look at her, "You said there good spirits and bad spirits."

"Yes."

"Can a person be possessed by a demon, like Linda Blair in The Exorcist?"

"Certainly."

"Hmmm."

"But it depends on the person's character and the spirit's intent. There is a complex interaction that goes on all the time between spiritual influence and the human mind. It's all about our free will, the choices that we make. Both good and bad."

We paddled for a few moments as I pondered what she had just said.

I watched a pair Hooded Mergansers dabbling in the water. The male majestic in his stark black and white, the drab brown female perfectly camouflaged against the background reeds. The tuft on each bird's head would raise and lower seemingly with each emotion.

"Do you remember the opening sequence of that movie, The Exorcist?" Sybil asked, almost shocking me with her voice.

"I saw the movie. It was a great film. I remember Linda Blair's head turning and 'your mother sucks cocks in hell.'" I answered as the pair of mergansers scooted behind some reeds, probably trying to hide from our presence and Sybil's sudden question. I couldn't remember all of the movie's details.

"An elderly Max Von Sydow played an archeologist priest. The film's opening scene was at an excavation site in northern Iraq where they uncovered some demonic artifacts, a statue, and thereby released a demon free. If I remember correctly the background music was a call to prayer."

"That's right. And that demon finds a home in Linda Blair in small town America, New Hampshire or Connecticut or something like that, yeah, I remember."

"Well, basically that's what actually happened." She paused for a moment and then added, "In nineteen sixty three."

She couldn't be serious. "Someone became possessed?"

"No, that happens all the time."

Huhh? "What then? An evil statue was unearthed?"

"No. Worse than that. Much, much worse than that. A whole temple was, and it's still being unearthed as we speak."

"What? What kind of temple?"

"A temple dedicated to evil demonic worship."

"Sybil, get off."

"I'm serious. A temple was unearthed that was built and then later meticulously and systematically backfilled with soil, not just knocked down. Buried, obliterated, eliminated in its entirety from the face of the earth, so that the resident evil would remain locked below ground forever."

"And now a demon has been unleashed?"

"Yes. An evil spirit. A demon. Yes."

Although Sybil Varro was certainly strange and I'd been exposed to what I could only rationalize as 'paranormal' situations. Fireflies, the whole Meyer thing...a raven that seemingly understands English. Whatever she was on about now, was certainly over the top. "In nineteen sixty three?"

"Yes. In nineteen sixty three an American archeologist named Peter Benedict...huh?..Could you have a more Christian name? Anyway Peter Benedict in conjunction with University of Chicago and the University of Istanbul conducted an archeological survey of south east Anatolia, today's southern Turkey. He located and listed in his survey a tell near the Syrian border. A 'tell' in middle east archeological terms describes a mound of collapsed, typically mud brick structures. In nineteen sixty three he scraped the surface of that mound and found cut rectangular stones which clearly didn't belong to the natural geology. Byzantine grave markers he rationalized and noted in his survey. All in all, back then it seemed an unimpressive archeological site."

I turned around to look at her. "And he unleashed a demon?"

"That is correct, the stones were not grave markers. They were from the upper surface of a temple complex," she said, took a deep paddle stroke and then added, "tell me Sax, what else happened in nineteen sixty three?"

"Lots. I don't know."

"JFK was shot. That same archeologist's President."

"Somehow Sybil I don't think it was the archeologist's fault." I turned back around and took a stroke.

"I'm not suggesting it was, and evil certainly existed on this planet before nineteen sixty three. I'm just saying a new, or rather an old demon came back with a vengeance."

"Oh oh Sybil, more woo-woo voodoo stuff."

"Well you did ask."

"I guess I had it coming."

"Well not only did it unleash a nasty demon but everything we thought we knew about pre-historic mankind, was about to be upset because of that inconspicuous tell."

"What are you talking about Sybil? You're making this up."

"I am not."

"Does the place even have a name?"

"It does. Gobekli Tepe." Almost twelve thousand years old. Buried, ten thousand years ago."

After a few paddle strokes I turned around to look at her again and asked Miss Know-it-all, "Okay, how did it upset our pre-historic knowledge?"

She smiled at me, dipped the paddle into the water and said, "The archeological record was quite clear. At the dawn of the pre-pottery Neolithic age where remnants of the first rudimentary human settlements could be found, that is before writing, before the wheel and before basic pottery has been invented. That period in human history in which early man took his first tentative steps from being a nomadic hunter gatherer organized in clans, or tribes to where the very first settlements could be found. Settlements imply, to a degree, farming, animal husbandry or at the very least, more organized hunting and fishing. Sax I'm talking about actual stone age man. Man using chipped flint tools. They hadn't figured out metallurgy at that point. Carefully chipped flint was the extent of the technological innovation for the pre-pottery Neolithic age. Are you following me?"

"Yeah, I think."

"In that part of the world the archeological record shows that that Neolithic transition took place about nine and a half thousand years ago."

"Okay, so how does Golbek...what did you call it?"

"Gobek-li Tepe," she said carefully and then continued. "A German archeologist named Klaus Schmidt in the mid nineties revisited the tell and discovered what is now arguably the most important archeological site in the world. It's not a settlement at all but it's, what can only be called - a temple. Gobekli Tepe pre-dates the earliest human settlements in that part of the world by two thousand years -- that is the same distance in time between us and Jesus. What makes the site," she paused searching for the right word, "incredible, is not only it's age but it's size and complexity. It's complete with massively carved standing stones with precisely formed bas-relief carvings and statues of all kinds of wild animals, undecipherable symbols, depictions of mushrooms and all of that precisely laid out over a terrazzo like floor. And because it was deliberately buried and not left to crumble in the elements, it's perfectly preserved."

"So?"

"Sax. That was six and a half thousand years before the first Stonehenge stones were laid. Five thousand years before the first cuneiform writing arrived in Sumer."

"Okay..."

"Sax. So far no evidence of human habitation has been found at Gobekli Tepe. There is only evidence of cut animal bones. Ritual sacrifice. Gobekli Tepe was a place of worship only. People didn't live there."

"Who did?"

"The demon."

I'm supposed to believe this? I had to consider what she was saying and take it all in.

"How big are the stones?"

"Well, only a small percentage of the site has been excavated to date and I believe the largest stone so far unearthed is about twenty tons."

"Wow. That's forty thousand pounds!" Was she pulling my leg?

"Schmidt recognized that it would take five hundred people to just move that one stone. And if memory serves me correctly, I believe there was a fifty ton stone still in a nearby quarry."

"Wow." I turned back around to look at her. She didn't seem to be joking.

She gestured with her right hand while dragging the paddle with her left. "Did they even have rope? How do you cut and finely carve stone blocks with stone tools? And how do you go about feeding five hundred people when you don't live in a settlement? And where is the archeological precedent evidence that shows how you get to the technological sophistication found at Gobekli Tepe?"

I was dumbfounded.

"And remember Sax, the first proto-settlements, without pottery, with just flint tools, appear in that area, two thousand years later."

"Mmm. How do you know a demon lived there?"

She held up her hands, dragging the paddle through the water.

"Of course, the community." I turned back forward and took a stroke. "Does the demon have a name?"

"I dare not utter the name. It gets stronger every day. Stronger with every shovelful removed from the tell."

"Does it live there?"

"Of course. It's the demon's temple. Where else would it live? But now that it's been set free, it has free reign..."

"And it got backfilled?" I interjected.

"Yes. Ten thousand years ago. The hunter gatherer's on the cusp of becoming pre-pottery Neolithic people, saw the problem, organized themselves and at great risk to themselves I have to surmise, contained the evil demon, they thought, forever."

"Why don't the archeologists just stop the excavation and fill it back in?"

"Ha! Go on then Sax. Convince the world to fill back in the most important archeological site on the planet. Save us all from the resultant evil. I can't, I'm a seer not a teller."

"How do you know it's getting stronger?"

She took a moment before answering. "Sax, although I'm relatively isolated from day to day political news and world events, I want you to think for a moment. Set aside all political and religious considerations and simply think about the middle east that existed in nineteen sixty three and the middle east that exists today. Consider all the wars, the assassinations, bombings, invasions, murders, genocidal killings and all else that has transpired between those two milestone dates. Try to view it through the eyes of an eight year old child. Has evil, hate and suffering increased, decreased or stayed about even over those ensuing fifty plus years?"

"I'd say it has increased dramatically."

"There you go Sax. And all in Gobekli Tepe's back yard."

"So, are you suggesting that it's all the demon's fault?"

"Not at all Sax. It's all people's fault. People who make wrong choice free willed decisions. People who are too easily fooled and influenced by evil demons into making those bad decisions."

"I think you're right Sybil."

"What kind of a life decision is a suicide bomb? How can it be anything but pure evil that would encourage someone to make that decision?"

"You're right Sybil."

"Sax, I know I'm right. It's the result of demonic influence."

After a few more paddle strokes I asked, "So who built Gobeki?"

"Gobekli Tepe. Not stone aged people Sax. Not on their own."

"How do you come up with stuff like this Sybil?"

"Ha! I'm a seer Sax."

I didn't know what to say.

After traversing yet another beaver dam the West Montreal River finally drained into Wasapika Lake. Not huge. We followed a very long bay to the end. The highway was just a few steps away.

Sybil picked her canoe up and flipped it onto her shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking the canoe why?"

"Young Tom told me to just leave the canoe and find a ride into town."

"That's what we're doing, but we're taking the canoes. Come along."

With the red canoe over my shoulders and my life jacket and backpack back on my back we walked up to the shoulder of the highway. I set my canoe down next to Sybil's.

"Now what?"

"We wait."

"We wait."

"Yes."

I felt like an idiot standing on the side of the highway with two canoes and my backpack. I wondered what the odds where of the next vehicle not being a small sedan.

"I must say it's very peaceful out here."

"Just be patient Sax."

No more than five minutes later she said, "Ah, I can hear something coming. From down there. It's coming our way."

It was a blue pick-up truck. It stopped. It didn't pull off on the shoulder, it just stopped on the road.

"Sybil!"

"Joe!"

"How are you Sybil? Who's this?"

"This is Sax Reimer, he's from Toronto. He came to find me."

"Is everything alright Sybil?"

"Yes it is. Sax this is Joe. Joe's from Houston Lake."

"Pleased to meet you Joe."

"Sax is taking me to Toronto. I'm going to donate a kidney to my niece."

"Oh!" Joe reacted strongly.

"If the blood type matches," I added.

"Can I give you guys a ride somewhere?"

"That would be grand, thank you so much. Sax and I and the red canoe need to go to Shining Tree, but my canoe needs to be dropped off at Cryderman."

"No problem."

Both canoes, paddles, my backpack and the life jacket were stuffed into the back of the pickup truck and off we went.

I insisted that my lifejacket stays with her canoe and paddle at Cryderman Lake.

Sybil had to promise Joe that she would meet with his sister who lives a couple of hours away in Elk Lake on her return. More seeing work.

The same thing happened in Shining Tree when I returned the canoe and settled the bill with Ben, including one missing life jacket. A customer in the store named Olive insisted that Sybil come and visit her before she headed back into the bush on her return.

"Is that the same Olive?" I asked her as we walked to my car.

"Yes," she smiled, "see how it works?"

"Wow."

"And then they ask: 'what can I do for you Sybil?' And I answer, 'a box of candles?' or it comes to them in a dream."

"Amazing. Absolutely amazing."

Joe and Ben and Olive stood outside the Quonset hut and waved and shouted good luck to Sybil as we drove away in my Ford Fiesta.

"Wow, you're quite popular. You live like a hermit but everyone seems to know you and love you."

"Well that's not quite true Sax. I suspect that pretty well everyone in these woods knows of me, but a good portion are frightened of me too. Take young Tom for example. I know that I frighten the daylights out of him."

"Why, what have you done to him?"

"Nothing. We've only ever exchanged a few words in all these years."

"So, why is he frightened?"

She smiled at me, "Some people are frightened of dogs and others of fifty eight year old witches." She couldn't wipe the smirk off her face.

I smiled back, "For good reason too, I guess. Better stay clear away from old Sybil Varro unless you want to get all your blood sucked out by a gazillion mosquitoes and then cut up and fed to a giant pike named Meyer."

"Precisely," her brown eyes glistened as she grinned at me, "or get their head chopped off."

"Ooohh...I'm glad that you can make light of that."

When we stopped for lunch, not surprisingly, everyone in the truck stop looked at Sybil and wondered why she was dressed the way she was. I had a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke. Sybil had a grilled piece of fresh fish, two soft boiled eggs, a spinach salad without dressing, two slices of whole wheat toast -- no butter, four little packets of orange marmalade and two apples. She suspiciously drank a bottle of Perrier.

"What could possibly be wrong with the bottle of water?" I asked.

"It's a plastic bottle."

*

"Sybil?" I asked after we resumed our drive south.

"Yes Sax."

"You do recognize that your clothing, your appearance is a little unnerving to..." I hesitated to use the word, "normal people."

She smiled, "Of course I do."

"Can we stop and pick you up some things?"

"I wouldn't want you to spend your hard earned money on me. You've already wasted money on a life jacket."

"Maybe it'll save your life someday."

"Yes, just so that I can die of kidney failure later."

"That's right. I exercised my free will to save your life so that you can die of kidney failure later on. Besides, you asked - who is enforcing the law? Me. Wear the damn lifejacket. Please. Pretty please. With a cherry on top."

We didn't say anything to each other for a few minutes.

"You don't have to spend any more money on me."

"I won't be."

"Good, because I don't need anything really."

"That's not true Sybil. You need a pair of reading glasses. Good ones. Those I will get you and pay for myself."

"Sax, my mission is to donate a kidney to my niece. Let's just stay focused on that."

"I am. I'm totally focused on that." Then I added, "Plus your sweet ass of course."

"That's so nice of you to say."

"That was my little head talking."

We drove along for a few minutes.

"Let's stop on the way and pick you up some clothes, okay?"

"I don't want you spending money on me. I don't want clothes Sax. I don't care what people think of me. I am who I am."

"Sybil. I won't be spending my money on you but I would if I had to. I'm speaking on behalf of Beeston Little here, and on behalf of your niece Dee and Eli Tyana. They would like to ensure that the organ donation goes smoothly. They have put their trust and faith in me, to exercise my judgment and do the right thing, okay?"

"Tyana?"

"Yeah, that's Dee's last name. Don't change the subject."

She stared out the front windshield for a moment.

"What do you suggest I do?"

"Go on a mini-shopping spree. Nothing lavish, nothing expensive. You need to set yourself up with enough clothing choices to give everyone the impression that you're ordinary and just packed a big suitcase to come to the big city for the procedure. Nothing crazy, nothing gaudy and absolutely nothing that hints...witch. Can you do that for me? For us?"

She smiled warmly. "Yes, don't worry Sax."

"Don't worry about the money. Just pick things that you can pretend to be comfortable in. I'll take you to a Walmart or a Sears or something. Or troll the clothing stores, whatever you prefer. Please Sybil, don't try to skimp and save. Just plain normal. I need you to pull this off. Okay?"

"Don't worry Sax. Your wish is my command."

"Good."

We continued south down the long highway bordered with marshy stands of black spruce interspersed with granite mounds sliced open to allow the highway to smoothly follow the land.

"Sybil, I'd like you to stay with me while you're in Toronto. So think of it this way, the money that will be saved by you not staying in a hotel, will be spent on setting you up with clothing. Okay?"