Elk Charm's face lit, enraptured as she stared at the spiral. Little Dancer watched her fingers trace the carving, a curious sense of premonition spreading in his breast.
"Seeing all the trouble, Wise One Above got disgusted with everything," White Calf continued, "and made a new world for himself. Tbrning himself into Crafty Spider, he spun the Starweb—the Second World. He figured that humans, in their physical bodies, couldn't get there and mess it up. Except he was wrong. No sooner had he finished the Second World than all the souls of people who'd died started to rise up and fill the Starweb. They became the stars we see in the sky."
"But that didn't fix the trouble on the First World. It just crowded the Starweb, right?" Elk Charm flashed a hopeful look at White Calf, hanging on each word.
The girl's interest overrode White Calf's suspicions and she launched into the story, animation in her old eyes. "Yes, things were still bad in the First World—everything all split up and men and animals all fussing and fighting. Wise One Above thought about it and he saw a way he might be able to fix it. He created another world, the Third World, and filled it with spirits to help people when they asked for it. Wise One Above made Dreams so that spirits could talk from the Third World to people in the First. For a while things were better, but the First World still had bad things in it."
“And is that where Dreamers come from?" Elk Charm asked.
“You know this story," White Calf chided. “Dreamers are the key to keeping things in balance. They make everything right again, and Dance along the Spiral."
“You are losing your place, old woman," Two Smokes called from the side. “Get on with the story."
White Calf shot him a withering glare. “Yes, well, about that time, the Hero Twins—First Man and his twin brother-were born in the First World. Something happened and their mother died and left the boys all alone. Wise One Above could feel the Power of a Dreamer, but which child would it be? He couldn't just let them die, because a Dreamer might be able to fix the First World and make it right again, so he called out and told Wolf—who is always smart and cunning— to go find the babies. Wolf found the little boys lying alongside a beach next to an ocean and raised them. First Man liked the day and lived in the light. His brother liked the darkness and hid and schemed.
“Meanwhile, Wise One Above decided that he'd start over and make a new world, a Fourth World. When he made it, he thought it was good. So he called to Wolf and told him to find all the good animals and bring them through an underground hole to the new world. Wolf did this and led all the animals into the Fourth World—this world we're in now—and saw how wonderful it was."
"Then what about First Man?" Little Dancer asked. "If Wolf only led animals, then First Man was still on the other side
White Calf studied him for a moment, nodding. "That's right. First Man and his brother were on the other side of the hole between the worlds. But Wolf got lonely because he had to leave his two human children behind. So what he did, he Dreamed the Wolf Dream to First Man and gave him the Wolf Bundle to use as a guide to bring the good people from the First World. First Man did this, leading the good people up from under the earth. Some say the hole was through ice. Others say it was through a tunnel in the sky, and sometimes it's told as being through rock, but no matter how, they came into this world."
"But the bad brother followed?"
"Yes, First Man's brother followed him and brought evil with him.
"When First Man saw what had happened he hit his brother on the head and cut him open. The bad brother ran off into the night, bleeding. That's why, to this day, you can find red chert. That's where his blood went into the ground and turned to rock."
"But that doesn't have anything to do with Spirals," Elk Charm pointed out.
White Calf clapped her hands, a big smile creasing her ancient face. Her eyes gleamed, fired by the enthusiasm of her audience. "Ah! But it does! You see, after he'd killed his brother, First Man drew the Spiral to remind people that everything is One. He hoped that maybe that way he could keep the bad things from happening. So long as people remember that a spiral is a circle within a circle without end, they'll never forget the One. Never allow the world to fragment and break apart and become separated like happened in the First World. That's why we need a Dreamer, to Dance and keep the Spiral whole."
"So that's why it's so Powerful? It reminds the People of the journey from the First World?" Elk Charm's forehead lined as she inspected the Spiral.
White Calf nodded, a loose-lipped smile on her face. "More than that, girl. The Spiral is the most powerful of all symbols. The Spiral is life. It's the whole of creation, everything within itself: unity. Beginning and end and the transition between. It's the circles within circles. The Oneness, the whole of Wise One Above right down to the smallest seed or bit of dust. Everything and nothing. One."