Book Title: Islands of the Gulf Vol. 2
ISBN
978-0-9866369-2-9
Part of Series: The Herbert
West Trilogy
Author: AudreyDriscoll
Available at: Smashwords
Price: $2.99
Number of words (approximately):
123316
Star Rating (of five): 5
Summary: The Herbert
West / Francis Dexter Trilogy continues. This
book covers principally the years at Bellefleur
Island
Extract:
- “I didn’t decide,” she said. “I was picked. There
were lots of medicine folks in my family, so I wasn’t surprised. When I was the
same age as Mary Henry, I started having dreams. I told my uncle about them,
and he started to teach me. When he thought I was ready, he took me away to a
secret place. Then he made me like to die, and when I came back I knew about
the other world. After that I could see the dead people sometimes, and I could
talk to the spirits. And fly, sometimes.”
“He made you die?” I asked.
“He gave me medicine made from plants. Secret plants
that we use only for magic. It made me dizzy and sick. I fell asleep and went
away from my body. Uncle said I was like dead for three days.”
“So he made you into a medicine woman. He decided.”
Her account had been so matter-of-fact, but the things she had said had shocked
me.
“Nobody decided,” she said. “I was given those first
dreams. Then I knew, and so did my Uncle. We just did what we were supposed to
do.” She gave me a long look. “I figured you’d know about that.”
“Why?”
“Because it was the same for you, wasn’t it?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I became a doctor because I
wanted to know more about how people’s bodies work. What makes them live and
what makes them die.”
“And what makes them happy too, you said. So did you
find out?”
“I thought I did, once. But… something happened to me,
nearly ten years ago. I… died too. And a friend brought me back to life, like
your uncle did you. After that I found out that I don’t know as much as I
thought I did. I had to run away from the place I lived before and ended up
here. As a doctor, I use what I know to help people, but sometimes… sometimes
they get well without my doing anything, and other times they die no matter
what I do.
“And now, there’s someone I want to help. But it’s not
like Mary Henry. I was able to clean out the sickness in her leg and she’s
going to be all right. But I don’t know what to do when the sickness is inside
someone’s mind.”
The fire had burned low. I could see only the outline
of her face in the dim glow, and the gleam of her eyes.
“Sometimes you don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes you
have to ask for help.”
“But I don’t know whom to ask. Not in Victoria, and
maybe nowhere.” A thought struck me. “You mean I should pray, I suppose. But
I’m not a Christian, Mrs. Peter. I don’t pray.”
“Sometimes,” Dorothy Peter said, “you can be a prayer.
That’s what I learned. The medicine person can make himself or herself into an
animal, or part of the air. You have to let go of yourself and go outside. Then
the big spirits use you to make their medicine.”
“I am sorry, Mrs. Peter. I don’t know how to do that.”
“Maybe not. But if that’s what you’re supposed to do,
you will do it. Can’t be any other way. I’m going to make some tea now, and
then we’ll go to sleep. Maybe we’ll dream together.”
“Dream together?”
“Yes. Happens sometimes.” She laughed and poked the
fire into a blaze.
I do not know what Mrs. Peter dreamed that
night. But I dreamed this: I was outside the house at the river’s mouth. The
moon was very bright, and it seemed to me that the figures carved on the
door-posts and standing poles were nearly sentient, their eyes alive and
watching me. Almost I could hear them whispering, telling each other things in
some unknown language. To get away from them, and also because I felt that I
had to look for something, I followed a faint path that led upriver, behind the
house. It was darker among the trees, but soon I came to a place white with
discarded shells of oysters and clams – a shell midden. Dorothy Peter was
standing there, and beside her grew a thicket of Hilaria plants. Not the dried
specimens I knew so well, but fully alive. They were nearly three feet tall,
the leaves glossy and pointed, the flowers a glowing blue in the cold light. I
began to pick them, saying, “Mrs. Peter, this is what I wanted. Thank you for
showing me where to find them.” The sharp scent of the plant rose around me,
stronger than I had ever known it, like incense. But she put her hand on my arm
and spoke, her voice urgent.
“No, Doctor. Not those. Don’t pick those. They aren’t
medicine.”
I straightened up and looked at her. Her face, which I
had come to think of as a laughing one, was serious and full of pain. She
gestured around the place where we stood. “This is a place of dead people,” she
said. “This is where they buried the dead slaves. These plants grow from dead people.
You never find them any other place. They’re no good. They look pretty, smell
good, but they have death inside.”
“But what else can I do?” I asked. “I don’t know any
other way.”
“There are many ways,” she said. Suddenly, we weren’t
by the midden any more, but in sunshine outside a cave. A cave on the eastern shore of Bellefleur Island
Reviewer’s Comments:
Structure: Very good,
complying with the standards for easy eBook reading.
Content: In this book,
Francis Dexter relives his childhood and his years on Bellefleur Island
Reviewer’s Comments: This book is
written in a beautiful style, as all of Audrey Driscoll’s books. It is a gem.
The story progresses through the book, with explanations to satisfy many
of the unanswered questions from the previous books in the series, and raising
other questions to be answered in the final book of the series, Hunting the Phoenix
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