So Taylor,suffling about in the medicine bundle the panther girl had given him before she'd exited the store,found what he was looking for.a old 18th century French pocket watch that on its
brass backing had the engraving of a horned panther on one
side and a dragon on the other side,holding up the image of a
Sun with a face on it.
It didn't take Taylor more then a second to figure out that the
panther was actually a mishi'pishu but the connection to the
dragon engraving escaped Taylor.
However he flipped over the old watch and noticed its
hands weren't moving nor was there any "tick tock" coming
from the things inner works.
It was frozen in time.
there were no obvious buttons or knobs to restart it but
it did had various holes along the rim .So Taylor fished around
in the medicine bundle and fished out a thin thorn,possibly
originally from a tree or bush,that could easily slide into those
holes along the rim.
Sensing that activating the wrong inner switch might bring about some mishi'pishu curse like turning its user into a
murderous horned underwater panther,Taylor was very careful
to examine the ancient cursed timepiece for the next half hour
till he noticed one of the symbols on the dial face in front of a
hole had a hourglass shape,a symbol for time itself.
So holding his breath Taylor inserted the thorn into that
hole till he heart a "klikk" and the whirr of the timepiece
told him it had restarted.
Time itself seemed to be slow to get moving again and in that
sort of limbo period Taylor gathered all his mishi'pishu cast off relics and clothing and hid them in his own duffel bag.
"Bong Bong Bong" went the ancient French timepiece in Taylors
duffelbag and suddenly his mother,three sisters,the World outside and that money suspended in mid fall started moving again.
*******************************
Enrique wasn't answering the doorbell so Kaeden,Taylor and
the third boy headed back to the sidewalk and headed into the
downtown that night.
Taylor kept his secrets to himself but Kaeden and the other boy
were still talking about the strange drowning of the girl swimmer in the school pool earlier that day.
So the last thing the three of them were expecting was for the
old car with the Canadian licence plates,the leaky muffler and the backfiring V8 to screech to a stop beside them and for the
five young toughs in leather jackets to pile out of the beat up old
cars doors and confront them,demanding they hand over the
'Spirit Door Key"
The eight youth argued for half a minute,then Taylor
took a closer look at the letters on that cars licence plate
which read
W3N D1G
and it dawned on Taylor what that really stood for and his face
showed it.
Their secret no longer a secret
the five wendigos shimmered and changed their forms
which were still leather jacket clad male toughs
but with the skull like heads of deer with glowing demon eyes
The five demon toughs pulled out their switchblades and
advanced on Taylor and his two friends.
The three mortal boys screamed and ran for it
knowing that modern wendigos,though not quite in appearance
as depicted in the myths,were probably every bit as fond
of eating fresh human meat as their ancestors.
Taylor soon lost track of his two companions and in the silence of the night
a high pitched scream and gurgling sound told him someone had met their end.
He ran even faster and suddenly in front of him converged
four of the wendigos who were dripping saliva off their bony
deer jaws
Suddenly there came a high pitched yowl of a big cat and Taylor stared in astonishment at the big horned scaley black panther
that had appeared on the roof of the wendigo winterbeater of a
oil leaking car.
The four wendigo toughs spun around to face their car and their
mishi'pishu adversary.
As gaping Taylor looked on the panther shimmered and changed its form,appearing now as the native American girl
he had sold the clothes to earlier that day.
The crouching mishi'pishu stood up and said
"Hello boys,miss me ?" then did a cartwheels as she rolled
off the cursed wendigo car
and engaged in mortal battle with the four
wendigos.