Spiral

By Margaret C. Murray

Spiral, a novel of magic realism and epic adventure in the ancient American Southwest.
At the end of a culture that built structures as big as the Roman Coliseum when medieval Europe was still in the Dark Ages, on a high desert landscape of brooding wind and dark storm clouds that never drop rain, the Elders threaten to sacrifice an infant boy to placate the sun dagger and thus end the drought.
Meanwhile young Willow waits by the dry, dusty Chaco riverbed for her lover. But when he finally comes, it is to say goodbye. Betrayed and desolate, Willow becomes an expert pot maker, turning for comfort to a gentle hunter of her own Coyote Clan, with whom she has a son. When the Elders kidnap him, Willow has a plan.
Against the backdrop of the Anasazi Southwest, Spiral plunges the reader into a whole gripping, enchanted world spiraling in crisis.
Spiral is a prequel to Margaret C. Murray's acclaimed 2008 novel, Sundagger.net (WriteWords Press, 2008).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret C. Murray
• Release date: Oct 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9780979357367

Margaret C. Murray

Margaret Murray was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University and Hunter College. She attended the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center on an American Federation of the Arts fellowship and the Squaw Valley Screenwriters Conference on a National Endowment for the Arts grant. A writer and teacher, she has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over thirty years, and is the mother of three children and grandmother too.

Book preview

List of Characters

Anakh - orphan found in the ruins

Bear Clan Woman - wife of Water Hunter

Boy with the Blue Stone Headdress - moon runner for the High Ones

Elders - elite class of priests at Chaco Canyon

Grandmother - shaman of the Coyote Clan, mother of Willow and grandmother of RoHnaan

High Ones - elite class of priests at Standing Rocks Mountain

Little Hawk - baby brought by the Bear Clan Woman, adopted by Willow and Owl Watching

Master Pot Maker - shaman of the Parrot Clan, friend of Grandmother

Owl Watching - hunter of the Coyote Clan, father of RoHnaan

Rattle - Little Hawk’s dog

RoHnaan - secret name of Willow and Owl Watching’s child

Thin Nose - leader of the Elders in Chaco Canyon

Tsuqua - younger brother of Willow, son of Grandmother, uncle of RoHnaan

Unspeakables - terrorist marauders shadowing from the South, no clanship, no face

Water Hunter - famed hunter of the Bear Clan from the North

Willow - sister of Tsuqua, mother of RoHnaan, pot maker

Crow, Lizard, Hawk, Coyote

Map of Chaco Culture

1 Center of the World

It was the most special of days, the fall equinox, a time of equal day and night in the canyon, the center of the world, and above the canyon too on the flat mesa tops with their sinkholes, badlands, scarce pinyon and twisted juniper.

Willow waited by Chaco Wash in her best deerskin skirt, biting her lip. She stood very still, small for her age, fourteen, and sturdy, with long shining black hair falling to her waist. Each time Willow bit her lip, the single dimple in her cheek deepened. But what did that matter since Water Hunter was not there to admire it? She threw her sandals at a sage brush tumbling by in the wind.

What if Water Hunter did not come? But he must. She could not bear that possibility and so put it quickly out of her mind. Hoping for any sign of him, Willow squinted on tiptoe in the sunlight, her eyes following the sage, as her mother taught her, until it disappeared into the horizon. Become the rolling sagebrush to find what you are looking for, Mother had counseled.

The soft autumn wind behind her blew her skirt out and away from her strong, taut body, but she didn't feel the pleasure of the wind. Willow was troubled. The tumbling bush reminded her that her mother did not approve of her waiting here at the Great House, Pueblo del Arroyo, for Water Hunter. But more troubling was that the sagebrush had not shown Willow where he was.

Nothing seemed to move in the haze beyond the wash. Willow scanned all the way to the south mesa gap where the People were gathering for the great celebration.

She clasped her hands to her chest to stop them from trembling. Today the powerful and frightening Elders were climbing the Butte, as they did at each turn of the year, to implore the sun to bring rain. At the top where the sun dagger appeared, they made sacrifices so that the sun would bless the People. Soon Willow would hear their ominous shriek-chanting and the beat of their foot drums as they danced and prayed to the sun to return them to that perfect balance of light and darkness that their ancestors saw when they crawled out of the sipapu, a hole in the third world leading to this sacred canyon.

Abandoning the thought of finding the disappearing tumbleweed, Willow focused on thinking like Coyote, scanning east, west, north and south.

Coyote, help me find him! she called.

After all, she was named after a coyote cub. Her secret, never-to-be-spoken name was Srahtzee, meaning Close to the Ground, an attribute of the clever coyote. But Coyote wasn't helping her now. Willow blushed with pleasure and shame, recalling that she had told her secret name to Water Hunter. How then could he have forgotten she was waiting for him? Her heart dropped.

She rubbed her eyes, hoping to see him loping over the desert; she would recognize him by his powerful frame and his uneven gait.

I have made friends with my one short leg, Water Hunter had told her in his slow, quiet way the very day they met. She vowed his lame leg would be her friend too! She loved his one short leg as she loved all the rest of his big hunter's body. Willow shivered with longing. How desperately she desired him this very moment. She ached to have him stand next to her now. Her mother would never understand.

The sun of midday streaming down swallowed Willow's compact shadow along with the shadows of the Fajada Butte and the Great Houses of the canyon. Behind her and across the grassy bottomland, the block-long, five-story complex that the Spanish centuries later would call Pueblo Bonito was marking the sun's trajectory. It had been built to match the path the sun took across the landscape this very day, when all the shadows hid, and day and night were equal.

At this moment everything was perfectly aligned. Every year at this time all the clans from far outliers journeyed to Chaco to see their shadows disappear too. And as always, Willow's own Coyote Clan, and her mother especially, made the preparations for the Elders' supplications on the Butte. Her mother's people were shamans in their own right and once had been favored allies of the Elders, but no more.

Oh, when would he come? Willow gave a little cry and pushed her fists into her eyes to hold back her tears. Carefully she placed her bare feet on the ledge of the gully above the wash and peered across toward the broken south mesa. A great fissure cut through the middle of the mesa, and through it the crowds were coming, chanting, blowing conch shells, and dancing with tinkling footbells. There were so many people! She hoped Water Hunter wouldn't be coming from that direction. He never had before. Besides, he was of the Bear Clan, and everyone knew they came from the North where they served the High Ones on Standing Rocks Mountain.

But he would come! He must. It would be like the first day when they met on the Great North Road, one full moon ago. She had been holding her little brother's hand. Her mother was carrying her best bowl. Behind them traveled the entire Coyote Clan on their way to the Giving Place, laden with offerings to the ancestors in their best jars that they would smash when they reached the great hill of shattered potsherds.

Willow had trusted Water Hunter at first sight when she saw him walking with the Bear Clan. She had heard of this famous diviner who found water where there was none, thus attracting the big game that followed the water. She was amazed when he singled her out, smiling over the crowd at her alone. Even her mother noticed and stopped to introduce her daughter to him, saying that the Coyote Clan welcomed the Bear Clan as cousins. It was the Bear Clan who, before migrating north, had laid the foundation for the newest of the Great Houses, Kin Kletso, where Willow and her mother and brother lived before the Elders forced them to move further away down the canyon.

That day Willow felt so special. She had felt even more special when Water Hunter motioned her to walk beside him. It was midday then too and she could not see her shadow. The sun had been a shining orange ball in the sky, the land bleached and brown from summer drought, and dead stalks of flowering cacti spotted the sandy ground.

They were walking slowly, she following his lead, enjoying the sunlight warm on her shoulders, bare breasts and arms. Facing ahead, her gaze was steady in her deep, dark eyes. Balanced, straight-backed, Willow paced herself to the hunter's slow, up and down gait. I will walk in a way that we will be together, Willow had thought then.

Her unspoken words filled her with satisfaction now as her eyes skimmed the brown rocks, the fissures and outcroppings, twiggy bushes and cacti, the whole landscape in harmony with her and the sun above. She felt her heart sing again. He must come. He promised.

Even though she traveled with her mother and brother to the Giving Place every year at this time, it had seemed different being with him. The way shone with a special light. Were the others watching too? She felt privileged that he allowed her to walk with him. Was he as embarrassed and self-conscious as she was? Willow dared to glance over at him, slowing her pace to his, but Water Hunter appeared oblivious, as if concentrating one step at a time on a lone journey. And then suddenly he looked down and smiled at her, his deep brown eyes crinkling. A rush of happiness burst upon Willow, surrounding her as if the light must have been from the sun dagger itself splitting the spiral on top of the Butte.

Remembering this smile now, Willow felt heartened, less anxious and more hopeful. Was that something moving in the distance? She brushed her hair away from her eyes. Was that a strong-armed, thick-bodied man limping hard and fast toward her from the base of the high mesa? She flicked back her loose straight hair and concentrated on the horizon.

That first day Water Hunter had shared his secret name with her too. Like hers, his name was never to be spoken aloud."Tzleen, he had whispered. It means Lone Tree."

Oh! she gasped, thinking of the sacred lone pine tree, brought so far and so carefully tended to grow in the courtyard of the biggest of the Great Houses, Pueblo Bonito. How honored she felt to be trusted with his secret. He held her hands as he said this while she shivered with excitement. So handsome, so powerful and at least twice the fourteen notches marking her own birth on her mother's ancient wood spear-thrower. From then on, Willow was his flower; My love, he had called her.

Water Hunter was like one of those high, huge trees, its roots always searching for water, of which Willow had only heard about. She herself knew only the small twisted tree stumps of dense juniper growing on the mesa and the straggling willows dropping low over the wash in spring. But the big trees that grew beside a dangerous river beyond the North Road where he came from, she could only imagine. Her people had cut and carried thousands of those trees over distances only the sun and moon ever traveled. Now those trees held up the archways of the Great Houses and the roofs of all the kivas in Chaco Canyon.

Long she waited under her disappearing shadow, the sun streaming down from above. She might have been searching for jackrabbits or vainly searching for her little brother Tsuqua who, since his grave eye injury, appeared bumbling and confused, and often stumbled and fell.

But this was different, after all. This moment of not-knowing when exactly her lover would appear was both frightening and exciting, sweet and seductive. A secret of her own, like his name.

All their meetings thus far were secrets too, so hidden she had kept them even from herself, refusing to remember what happened from day to day as she explored the pleasure of her body with him. This was another of the many new delights she had discovered since Water Hunter came. Such a wonder to know passion, what a great and deep delight. In secret she had become a woman.

A big green lizard with a blue striped back skittered over her bare toe. Willow stood very still. Everyone knew Lizard was the sign. She could hear her mother counseling her to listen carefully. The lizard was telling her something.

Now the reptile froze. Willow watched its tiny limbs and torso heaving. The lizard flicked its slit of a tongue, its soft blue-streaked back going up and down rapidly. It easily could fit in her hand.

Where is he? she wanted to ask. Surely he would not have abandoned her. He had used the word love.

Willow hugged herself, her mind far away from the lizard, hearing the wind whispering. The dry rabbitbrush cracked beneath her feet. The low branches of a lone willow on the wash swished on the bank with the wind. Willow heard chanting coming from the canyon now—the People who traveled here for the week-long ceremony were answering the Elders calling out on the Butte.

Willow crouched down to see better, and the lizard ran into the exposed roots of the dead juniper beside her. Had there ever been a better time to be alive than right now, here, at this very moment?

No, Lizard answered from his hiding place.

Willow laughed aloud, thinking how she would tell Water Hunter what Lizard had said. She knelt, her black hair falling over her knees, the sun warm on her shoulders. Poor lizard, imagining itself camouflaged on the exposed root, whereas she could count every blue stripe on its scaly back, clear as the full moon would be tonight.

Will he come soon? she asked. She sighed. It was so hard to be patient!

Yes, answered Lizard, with a flick of his tongue.

Willow laughed again. She believed Lizard as she believed Water Hunter, who loved her and wanted to be with her for the rest of his life!

Together, he had said. She had laughed then too! Had he really said for the rest of his life? Why, that was so long, forever! But he impressed upon her how important his words were and how seriously he took them. How could she not listen to such a powerful man whom even her mother respected.

Together, she whispered now, biting her lip to show her dimple.

Together, forever, she said to the little lizard, over and over like a sacred chant her mother sang whenever she prepared to enter the great kiva, where no other woman was allowed. Forever meant always, for the rest of their lives. She with him and he with her. How could she be so lucky?

You are young and beautiful, answered Lizard.

Her dimple deepening, Willow blew Lizard a kiss as he rushed away beneath stubby dried saltweed seed pods. She felt so grateful to be alive, favored to be a daughter of her powerful Coyote Clan mother. Feeling the autumn wind, she allowed a soft, slow peace to overtake her as she imagined the rich life ahead of her with Water Hunter, a big tree who did not stand straight. He had been born that way, he said, and needed her to hold him like the earth held a tree. He had told her she would be his earth. He needed her to bury himself deep into, to support him. She laughed at that too. Together, he had said unsmiling; together they would be one.

The warm breeze lulled her, and Willow closed her eyes. How she loved this time of equal day and night. Now it was colder in the mornings and in the evenings, the change in weather a sign of the change happening to her. Holding her sandals, Willow dance-stepped along the dry banks of the river that next spring the People hoped would become a flood too deep for her to cross. Hearing a high-pitched call, she looked up at the flat blue dome of sky. A lone raptor was circling above.

What are you telling me, Hawk?

The bird spiraled, calling down to her.

Where is he?

Hawk did not reply. Willow bowed. I am sorry. I have not honored you enough, she said contritely.

As her clan knew well, Hawk did not like Coyote. Though they hunted the same prey, Coyote was no match for Hawk. Hawk could see better, travel faster, and cover longer distances. Coyote needed Hawk but Hawk didn't need Coyote. When Coyote heard the shriek of the raptor, he knew an animal was close by and he must find it and move quickly before Hawk swooped down and took the prey. Still, Hawk could not take Coyote even though the bird left bloody gashes, pierced eyes, and ragged flesh under his fur. Yet, one on one, Hawk would have to give up and fly off or risk being caught in Coyote's sharp teeth.

All this, Willow was reflecting on when she felt him grab for her from behind. Willow jumped.

Oh! she cried out.

Ah-Ho, small one, my little Close to the Ground! he greeted her.

Resplendent in his ceremonial blanket, rich with colors, Water Hunter was smiling, his eyes glittering. Willow fell into Water Hunter's arms. Her head barely came to his huge chest. She stared up at him.

Enjoying the sunlight? Water Hunter asked, petting her softly.

Willow laid her cheek against his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

I am happy to see you, he said.

Willow arched her back in reply, pushing her small perfect breasts into his chest.

I am happy too, Water Hunter, she whispered. She bit her lip, showing her dimple.

Lifting her head, he encircled her face with both hands, then ran his fingers over her lips, and eyes and through her thick hair. They fitted perfectly together, his hands so big and wide. Leaning into her, he kissed her full on the lips and gave her ear a lick or two. She giggled. Lifting her skirt, he pushed his good leg between her two sturdy short ones.

Ohhh, he groaned, making her giggle and pull away. She could feel his stomach and loins, his stiff member, making her both excited and tremulous.

She slid to the ground onto the dry alkali grass, pulling him down too. Water Hunter grunted, falling easily beside her. His rich red and blue feathered blanket, the one he wore in the kiva with the other men, slipped off. Now he was naked, except for a leather thong. Willow put her face in the blanket, thrilled, embarrassed.

I want to show you a secret, he said, reaching over her to spread out the soft blanket.

Is it another waterfall like the one you showed me last time? she asked, turning away, blushing to see his body.

No, my love.

What is it?

He squeezed her arm. You'll see.

Only a few days ago Water Hunter had taken her to a waterfall between massive outcroppings deep within the north mesa. Hidden by sandstone boulders, the water plunged through a deep crevice into a small pool below ringed with pebbles and sand. Together they had climbed down to the pool and stood beneath the spray. She had drunk from his hand and then he had laid her down and penetrated her for the first time.

I am inside you, he had whispered.

Yes, yes, she had answered. It was her first time with a man, and Willow felt proud, so proud, and grateful too that he would be the one to show her how to be a woman.

Over and over he said the words that day. I am inside you. Over and over she answered, Yes.

Come with me now, Water Hunter said, rising off the blanket, pulling her up too. Willow got up reluctantly, disappointed to have to leave. She wanted to stay here hidden in the brush and make love. She watched as he fastened his blanket over his shoulders.

How is your mother? asked Water Hunter, taking her by the arm.

She is very busy with the equinox ceremony now.

That is good.

Willow nodded, realizing how good it was that her mother was so busy, too busy to pay attention to her. Already she had counseled Willow to be careful with Water Hunter and keep her distance. Didn't Willow understand that he was a great hunter of the Bear Clan, serving the High Ones far away, whom the Elders accused of witchcraft and betrayal? In defiance of the Elders' warnings, they turned their backs on the sun dagger and worshipped the standing-still moon instead. But Willow wasn't listening to her mother.

The Elders are respecting her? he asked.

She shrugged. They made us leave Kin Klezo and move to the small pit houses by the east wall, she said. They accused Mother of poisoning the water, of witchcraft.

They are not to be trusted, he said, nodding. Be careful, little one. He squeezed her hand.

Willow didn't understand why the Elders disliked her mother or the Coyote Clan. She knew her mother was more cautious than before, taking Willow's little brother with her everywhere she went, always looking behind her back. But her mother would not talk about it. It is evil, best buried in the desert, she had said when Willow had asked her why she feared she was being followed.

Water Hunter led her past Pueblo Bonito, its hundreds of kivas resounding with drumming and chanting for the Elders. They then passed Threatening Rock, which loomed behind the Great House where her mother left feathers and prayer sticks to bless the rock and prevent it from falling. Soon the hunters inside would be gorging on the sacred cornmeal and beans her mother was preparing. Willow should be helping her now. She shook off that unpleasant thought. I could walk with Water Hunter forever, she told herself instead, swinging her sandals in her hand.

I promised your brother I'd show him my hunting weapons, said Water Hunter as he skirted the barren path leading toward the Butte.

He saw you coming in with big game, she said, smiling to remember Tsuqua's amazement and glee at the bear Water Hunter brought back the other day.

Yes, the hunting has been good, he said, smiling too.

Willow felt tired and her legs had begun to ache. This morning she'd been filling water jars from the arroyos with the other women. She too had carried heavy jars on her head, jars that would be sealed with beeswax and stored in the windowless rooms of the Great House for the Elders' use. Even as she spoke, she felt proud, thinking how now she had grown into a woman.

I fell—look at this, she said, holding out her strong brown leg to show him her bruise and scratched skin.

Poor, poor leg. Here. Let me kiss it. Water Hunter stopped on the path. Bending down with difficulty, he took her leg in his hand and softly kissed her shinbone. A shiver went up Willow's back.

They went past more Great Houses, round the rim of kivas, passing children playing along the base of the north mesa wall. Willow looked for her little brother but didn't see him. Since Tsuqua's eye accident, he kept to himself, preferring to follow the prayer makers of the Coyote Clan. How he watched as they drew game animals on the mesa walls.

Dogs barked as they went by. Turkeys gobbled, pecking at the sandy ground along the dry arroyos. Young hunters huddled at kiva entrances, old women prayed, some keening silently, some not. The old ones swayed back and forth for the ancestors, for their own deaths, yet to come, when they too would go onto the Inside Road. Willow moved closer to Water Hunter and took his hand.

My love, he said, patting her shoulder.

She smiled up at him. Slowly they walked along the wash past the Butte.

Just before they began to climb the mesa hand-steps, she remembered her drum.

Wait! she cried. I must get something.

The day Water Hunter first showed her the secret stream she did not have her drum either and so could not purify herself before their love-making or cleanse herself afterward. She would not make the same mistake now. Water Hunter and the other men could go to be cleansed in one of the many hundreds of kivas in the canyon, but women, in particular the shaman women of the Coyote Clan, needed their drums to purify themselves.

Wait, please? I will get my drum.

Hurry! he called out, but Willow had already run off, leaving her sandals at his feet and leaving deep footprints in the soft earth.

She sprinted past a Great House known as Una Vida where the prayer makers lived, and hurried up and down the narrow pathways, past boulders and along the sandstone outcropping where she and her small family had been banished by the Elders. Now they lived in one of the outlying small houses where the People camped on their pilgrimages to the Canyon. In her hurry, she scratched her leg on a protruding ledge, tearing her new skirt.

Oh dear, she moaned.

She rushed through the doorway of their one-room dwelling, glad to see her mother and brother were gone. Panting, she searched around. Where had she left her drum? Willow pulled out baskets from under the benches and checked the bladder bags inside her mother's jars. She tossed aside the bundles stacked on the benches and shelves. Finally she spied her elkhide bag with the drum in the alcove next to the window.

She pulled out the elkskin drum, admiring its perfectly round circle; her mother called it a moon drum because of its pure tone. The drumstick was special too. Her brother had whittled one end of the sturdy stick and wrapped it in soft deerhide. Her drum was the first of the many tools Willow needed to be a shaman like her mother, and today she needed it more than she ever had before.

But when she rushed back, Water Hunter wasn't standing by the steps where she had left him. She gazed up to see if he'd climbed to the mesa top. Where could he be? With Coyote eyes, she scanned the wash. Water Hunter! she called, running here and there, up and down the rocks. Willow searched the pit ruins, the hillocks and the nearby rabbitbrush. She found him waiting on a rock below the back north wall.

Ah-ho! he called out. He had been watching her all along. How funny she must have looked darting about like a crazed rabbit! Willow laughed. He slipped off the rock and limped toward her, holding her sandals in one hand. She ran toward him.

I'm ready now! she called, holding out her drum.

Dropping her sandals, Water Hunter grabbed her by the waist. I'm ready too, he said, smoothing his big hands slowly over her hips.

Bending over, she quickly fastened her sandals. She swayed in his arms.

Let's go, he said.

Taking her hand, the hunter led her up the narrow switchback embedded with hand-steps, through shadowy cracked sandstone fissures. What new secret would he have for her? She shivered with excitement. Soon they would be one, together, again. Now she could hear the trickling-down water.

This is the secret? asked Willow.

Did he nod?

But I know about the secret waterfall, she said, pouting, You already showed it to me.

There is another, he said. Or did he?

When they reached the small waterfall, he put his head under it and invited her to do the same. Next he cupped his hands and drank, then offered her a drink of cool water too. Willow bent over and drank from his big, warm hand.

2 Spirit

Water Hunter spread his blanket on a small sandy spot, motioning her to sit. Carefully Willow put down her drum and sandals, and squatted. Her feet sank into the warm soft wooly feathers woven into his blanket.

With difficulty, he sat down across from her, his lame leg straight out between them and began to stroke it. She waited, tingling with desire. He reached over and took her hand.

You got the drum, he said, pressing her palm.

Willow blushed.

I am leaving, he said finally, watching her.

What do you mean? Willow asked. Had she done something wrong?

I am leaving tomorrow for the North, he said more gently, as if noticing for the first time the shock on her face

No! she said.

He must be teasing her.

No! I don't believe it. I don't believe you. Her voice echoed off the walls. Could she be shouting?

Yes I am, he said, nodding with emphasis. Tomorrow.

How can you say that? Her voice sounded shrill, unbelieving, to her ears. Willow jumped up from the blanket.

"I am leaving with the Bear Clan to go back home to

Standing Rocks. Where there are trees, Willow my love, trees and water and animals. I am a water hunter, remember. That is what I do."

Her heart clenched, preventing her from answering. But he would be back, wouldn't he?

I am through with sun-worshiping, said Water Hunter. I am not a builder of Great Houses, my small one. I am not like those Elders or their minions. I do not measure the movements of the sun. I am not a stonemason like the others of the Bear Clan. I do not build kivas. I follow the animals and they follow water.

You are leaving! she gasped, stunned. So this was the secret?

I am giving you this, he said, smoothing the blanket with his big fingers. His mother had given the blanket to him before she went onto the Inside Road he said. It is precious to me. I want you to have it.

Was that the secret? Willow stomped on the robe with her feet. This blanket is not mine! I do not want it. I want only you.

"You are a woman, Srahtzee. Your place is with your clan."

She gasped. He had broken the taboo and spoken her secret name. Nothing would be the same again. Nothing was.

I will come with you, she said, crouching beside him on the blanket. I can get ready quickly. Tonight I must help my mother and uncle with the preparations when the Elders descend the Butte, but tomorrow I can be ready.

No. You will stay behind.

She stared, uncomprehending.

But I can be ready!

He patted her hand. She pulled away. She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. What was he saying? Why was he doing this?

Listen, my love, said Water Hunter. I told you I have a secret for you.

He called her my love. So he was not leaving her? So it was not the blanket.

What is it?

Look. Slowly he