First he sculpted the body, rotund, with a protruding belly. Then he shaped a round head, his thumbs curving up and around the face to reveal a hooked beak between two broadly recessed eyes. With thumb and forefinger he pinched out the ears, pointed and high. Using a fingernail he circled the large eyes—and when he lifted his hand, they blinked at him, bright yellow with gleaming black pupils.
Along either side of the rotund body he shaped the wings, outlining the feathers with his nails. From the bottom of the torso he pulled out the feet, his thumbnail tracing the individual toes and talons.
“You have done well,” the mud sculpture told him. “But you have to learn to fly before you can learn to Dance.”
Mud Puppy stared at the owl, aware that it was changing, that its beak had turned yellow, feathers softening around the ears, but the face, he realized, looked fake. A mask! He’s wearing a mask! “You are Masked Owl!”
“Yes, I am.” Masked Owl chuckled at that. “And what is a mask, boy?”
“A covering.”
“Is it?”
“Of course. Just like at the ceremonies when the deer dancers come in. It’s to make them look like deer.”
Masked Owl cocked his head. “In so many ways you remind me of Bad Belly.”
“Who?”
“A young man I once knew, one carried away by the world. Like you, he saw wonder in everything. It comes of an innocence of the soul. I cannot tell you how precious that is.”
“What happened to him?”
“Oh, he became a hero in spite of himself.”
“He didn’t want to be?”
Owl’s head tilted again. “Have you ever been a hero?”
“No.” Mud Puppy frowned down at his dirty hands. “But my brother is.”
Masked Owl considered this. “Then you do not know what it costs to be a hero. The price is high, as your brother is about to find out.”
“Is he—”
“Why are you called Mud Puppy?”
“I—I had one. A mud puppy, I mean.” He looked down at his hands again. As he picked the silt from his fingers, he rolled it into worms. In the sway of the Dream, they began to wiggle and burrow into the rounded top of the mound upon which they sat. Below him the world seemed to inhale and breathe, the trees, water, soil, and grass alive and vibrant with color.
“What finally happened to your mud puppy?”
“I kept it in a ceramic pot filled with water. I petted it and went out every day and caught it insects.”
“And?”
“It changed. It became a beautiful salamander. It went from an ugly brown color to the most incredible reddish orange. Like sunset in the clouds, with black spots all over it. Its eyes were bright yellow, like yours, but smaller.”
“That’s the Power of Salamander.” Masked Owl’s haunting yellow eyes bored into Mud Puppy’s as if seeing inside to his Life Soul. “People don’t understand how magical Salamander is. They ignore him for the most part.”
“It’s because he’s close to the Monsters Below.”
“He is, but that’s not why people ignore him.”
“It’s not?”
“No.” Masked Owl hesitated. “People usually see the world as a reflection of themselves. Pride, arrogance, and status preoccupy them. Let me ask, would your brother rather have Falcon or Salamander for a Spirit Helper?”
“Falcon,” Mud Puppy replied without hesitation.
“And you? Which would you chose?”
Mud Puppy jabbed his fingers into the dirt. “My mother says I’ll never have a Spirit Helper. She says that I’m too stupid.”
“But if you could have a Spirit Helper?”
Mud Puppy glanced shyly at the owl. “I don’t know much about them, but Spirit Helpers pick the people they go to, don’t they? So I guess I’d want a Spirit Helper that wanted me. If it was Salamander, that would be all right. Everyone wants Falcon. Maybe it would make Salamander happy if someone wanted him.” He paused. “Do Spirit Helpers worry about things like that? About whether people want them or not?”
“Yes, Mud Puppy, they do. And now let me tell you something that most people don’t know. Falcon is indeed powerful, and many people want him for a Spirit Helper, but he has a weakness. He is very fragile. His bones are hollow. His body breaks very easily. He can’t stand any sort of poison because his system is so delicate it will kill him.”
“And Salamander?”
“Ah, Salamander is anything but delicate. He can survive floods, drought, fires, and frost. Not only can he live underwater, but atop the ground, too. His flesh is poisonous to his enemies such as Wolf and Raccoon. Best of all, he stays out of sight most of the time. While the great beasts rip and tear each other’s flesh, Salamander lies under the stones and Dreams the Dance.”