Stories from Klee Wyck: V. Canoe

The big canoe glided forward, her wolf’s head stuck proud and high. Trees overhanging stoney beaches – trees held back by rocky cliffs – pointed fir trees climbing in the dark masses up the mountainsides, moonlight silvering their blackness, silent cuts stirring phosphorous like white fire.

Day was gone, yet it was not night; water was not yet wet nor deep, just smoothness spread with light.

Slowly the canoe drifted away. At the end of her rope she lay an empty thing, floating among the shadows of an inverted forest.