Read Online The Blue Seal of Trinity Cove by Linda Maree Malcolm - Free Book Online

only little because they don’t want the white people to know about it.
    Apparently this worked well for some time, but one year a little white girl found them at the gorge. They didn’t know how she got past their lookouts but she did and before they knew it there was a little girl standing and looking at them, crying. She wore a long night gown which was dirty and torn and she had been crying for a long time.
    She had obviously been lost for a long time but they did not know where she had come from. She was very skinny and hungry. She stared at the rabbits on the fire and said, “Yum, yum.” They gave her food and drink and tried to talk to her but all she would say was, “Mumma, Mumma,” and point to the sky. Then there was big talk about what to do with her. They talked about taking her back – but to where? Could any of them risk their lives to go to where the white man lived? What would become of her if she stayed with them? She watched another child drinking from its mother’s breast and went up to where the woman sat and said, “Mumma,” and waited and when the child moved away she lay down in the woman’s lap and started to nurse. Some of the people were very angry about this. The white man was their enemy after all. “But she is not the white man, she is a little girl,” the nursing woman said and she stroked her hair.
    That was when her spirit guide visited the tribe. A mighty wind blew into the gorge. It was so strong that the fire almost blew out and there were embers blowing everywhere and onto their faces. It was as powerful as a cyclone. It stopped right in front of the little girl. She sat up and talked to the wind in her own baby language and put her hand out to stroke it. Then it became a wolften – a wolf that is as tall as a hut, very big. They had heard of these in dreamtime stories but none of them had ever seen one before, not even the Shaman. She was very beautiful with deep yellow eyes and grey and brown fur. All along her belly were dozens of little teats that were very milky. She had puppies somewhere that was for sure. She lay down in front of the little girl and let the girl pat her nose. They seemed to be communicating without words. The people thought she would take the little girl with her, thinking that was why she had come. But then the Shaman stepped forward and the wolften and she communicated with their minds. Suddenly, there was a mighty howling as if many wolftens were howling together and the wolften sprang up and howled in return. She looked toward their Shaman one last time. Their Shaman said, “As you wish,” and the wolften changed back into the swirling wind and left the gorge and that was the last time they ever saw her. The little girl said, “Bye-bye,” and started to cry again. “Mumma here,” said the woman who had been nursing her, and took her gently by the hand. Her husband came and took the girl’s other hand. That was how they became a family. “She is to stay with you,” said the Shaman, but they already knew.

    The little girl stayed with her new family. The Shaman wove her magic on the little girl as well and they all became a group of trees standing together and holding each other’s hands with their knobbly and knotted branches. They had a lot of time where they could shapeshift into their human form and stay that way because they lived close to the gorge and white men didn’t go there much. But when the white men did come they would go back into their tree form. The little girl, who was called Wanda – because of the fact that she had wandered into their group one day – came to love her new family and home very much. She grew up only knowing the ways of her people and didn’t recognise that she was different from them. She knew her skin was lighter but still felt she was a part of their tribe. All of the other children loved her as well and they played