The Orenda Joseph Boyden (36 page)

“If we move quick,” Fox says, “we can get there and back in three days.”

“Do the elders wish you to take news of the coming charcoal village?”

Fox shakes his head. “The one called Spirit of Thoughts has become very ill. She wishes the Deer’s medicine and for them to put out word to the atirenda from all the communities to come to our aid. She dreamed that hers is the affliction of unfulfilled desires and this is what causes such unhappiness in the community.”

That makes sense to me. She must feel the illness can become much more serious for all of us if she wishes the society of the atirenda to visit.

“I’d come with you,” I say, “but I have to deal with my new son.” I don’t mention that Gosling has been calling to me since my arrival home. I need to pay her a visit.

“What’s wrong with him?” Fox asks.

“I fear I made a big mistake. I sense great trouble in him and believe I’ll have to break it to my daughter that he’s not a good fit.”

“Another sacrifice ceremony, then?” Fox asks.

“At first I thought we could trade him back to his people,” I say. But Fox knows as well as I do that things are so bad between us all that even attempting to begin a barter with them seems impossible.

“That would be far too dangerous,” Fox adds. “With our killing that war party on our travels, they’ll be in no mood for trading.”

He’s right, of course. Although I don’t want to go through with it
again so soon, I will have to announce my intentions. Snow Falls isn’t going to like it. I’ll wait until after the curing ceremony to break the news to her.

—

TWO DAYS AFTER
Fox’s return, I hear drumming and rattling out in the fields. And then the singing starts, many, many voices raised high and strong. People in the village head to the gates of the palisades to answer the song. The atirenda, the practitioners of the medicine dance society, have come in full force, carefully painted and coiffed. Some wear masks of straw or carved wood, and others have created the appearance of physical deformity by stuffing bark or straw under their clothes so that they look like hunchbacks. These medicine people, the atirenda, they don’t just come from the Deer people. They’ve come together from all our villages at the behest of the Deer.

We all sing, so many of us that it’s a startling sound to hear, the village answering the atirenda’s calls in a roar. If any malevolent beings are nearby, they’ve been fully warned.

The atirenda soon come in through the palisades, and the welcoming throng leads them to Spirit of Thoughts’ longhouse. Those who are invited step inside, and I’m surprised to see the Crow there. I don’t understand how he was offered such an honour.

For half the day the atirenda surround her, dancing and singing and shaking their turtle rattles, trying to figure out the source of her illness. They’ve been informed of her dream of an unfulfilled desire, one that she can’t quite make out yet. These atirenda will help her find what it is. This is what they do.

I can tell from their growing pace that the dancers will soon begin their ritual. A group of them surrounds one of their own as if they’re wolves and he is prey. One of the dancers throws something at him and he catches it, holding up in his hand what appears to be a bear claw. Another throws something else that he deftly catches. When he
holds it up, we see it’s the large wolf tooth. Someone else throws dog sinew at him, another a handful of stones, all of which the dancer in the middle catches.

And then he begins to go into convulsions as if he’s been poisoned. The ones surrounding him step back to allow him to flop and squirm on the ground, grasping his stomach and his neck. Blood trickles from his mouth and nose, and soon begins to pour so that it splatters all around him. I look at the Crow. He’s gone very pale. The rest of the crowd, including Spirit of Thoughts beside him on her reed mat, watches with silent fascination. When the bleeding man on the ground goes still, a few of the atirenda shake their turtle rattles and begin to dance again, slowly picking up the pace. The man on the ground is now silent, his head in a pool of blood. Others bend to the nearest hearth and pick up pieces of red-hot charcoal, holding them out to us. Three or four of them then place the charcoal in their mouths, chewing slowly before swallowing. They pick up more and this time after they’ve chewed they bend to Spirit of Thoughts and blow the powder from their mouths onto her body, another dancer following them and sprinkling water on her while still another fans her with the wing of a turkey.

As the dancing slows and Spirit of Thoughts closes her eyes, I look once more at the Crow, who makes the sign on his head and chest and shoulders with one hand, grasping his sparkling charm in the other.

The dancers and singers finally go silent and attend to the man on the ground, reviving him with some powder and forcing water down his throat. Groggy, he opens his eyes and moves his arms. They’ve taken him to that other place and now brought him back. In the morning, Spirit of Thoughts will hopefully see what the desire is that needs to be fulfilled.

WHAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU

I sit today in the fields with my new brother. He told me his name is Hot Cinder, but lately I’ve come to suspect he can’t be trusted. I think his head went wrong when he watched his relations being tortured to death. I can’t blame him for this. He says that whenever he closes his eyes, he dreams about his own torture and he can’t stand it. He constantly puts his swollen fingers in his mouth and claims we’re cousins but I know we come from different clans. He is Turtle and I am Wolf. We’re from distant villages. He has nothing to prove we’re related beyond his words. He swears, though, that he’ll find a way to prove it to me. I think he’s simply trying to ingratiate himself and become a part of this family. It’s a survival instinct. I’m sure of it.

“I’ll protect you,” I tell him. “You need to find a way to sleep without dreaming. You need rest.” I could tell him how I behaved when I first arrived here, contrary to everything and acting like a wild animal and pissing in my father’s bed. He wouldn’t understand, though.

Sleeps Long, now that she’s recovered and her husband, Tall Trees, is home, spends time with us. Her son, Carries an Axe, has decided to ignore me. Sleeps Long freely admits Bird has asked her to watch over me in order to keep an eye on this new boy. I’m fine with it. I saved his life, but I don’t think I like him. He seems weak in the head, and beyond that, is needier than my raccoon. In our first conversations
a few days ago I wanted to believe he knew who you were, Father. I wanted to believe that you’re still alive in the memories of our people. But the more Hot Cinder talks, the less I trust him.

“I come from a family of hereditary chiefs,” he says as Sleeps Long busies herself grinding corn, but I can tell she’s listening. He leans to me and whispers, “I fear they’ll want to take revenge.”

“Of course they will,” I say. “This is the cycle.”

“But it will be against my new father,” he says. “Your father.”

Sleeps Long puts down her pestle and turns to us. “This talk only invites unhappiness,” she says, looking at Hot Cinder. “Maybe it’s best if you listen for a while instead of talking.”

He looks down at his feet. “I’m sorry,” he says, and places some of his fingers back in his mouth.

—

SINCE THE ATIRENDA
came to visit, the people’s mood has become more peaceful. Even Hot Cinder is calmer and doesn’t talk all the time. He’s become fascinated by the raven hanging above my sleeping place and constantly asks about it. “It’s my charm,” I say. He tells me he wants one as well, and though he’s a few seasons older than me, I have to explain that he’ll need to find his own charm.

—

IN THE LONGHOUSE
, my raccoon has gotten into Fox’s pouch and pulled out his tobacco while looking for food. I stuff it back in his hide bag as my raccoon climbs down from the rafters and onto my shoulder. Hearing footsteps and fearing that they’re Fox’s, I turn to see my father in the doorway.

“Come walk with me,” he says. He looks serious, and I worry that he knows I followed him the other night when he awoke very late
and stole over to Gosling’s lodge. I wish the two of them would stop sneaking around and act like a normal couple. I don’t understand why they don’t.

“Daughter,” he says as we stroll through the village, my raccoon playing with my hair, “you know there’s been much unhappiness in the village this last while.”

I nod.

“I think the root of it lies with our bringing the crows here.” We keep walking, heading toward the palisades. “The visit of the atirenda was good for everyone, I think. Spirit of Thoughts is well enough that she can sit up and talk, but she’s still weak.”

We go through the gates toward the three sisters. I can tell there’s something he needs to say, so I stop walking. “Tell me,” I say.

He looks down at me with his head cocked and his eyes narrowed, as if he wants to ask how I know what he’s thinking. Men are so easy to see into.

“Spirit of Thoughts dreamed that in order for the healing to begin,” he says, “she must have a feast.”

I like feasts and tell him as much.

“Her dream told her,” Father continues, “what needs to be consumed at the feast.”

I’m excited to hear.

“Her dream told her that all the animals of the village except the dogs will be consumed.”

The raccoon chatters as if he finds this funny. “I’m letting him go tomorrow,” I say, lying.

“We have to listen to her dream,” he says. “We can’t lie. It won’t do any good.”

“But he …” I look for the word. “He’s my friend.” The raccoon, as if agreeing, pulls my earlobe.

“I’m sorry,” Father says, taking him from my shoulder.

—

SLEEPS LONG EXPLAINS
once more that sometimes the needs of the group are more important than those of the individual. I don’t want to hear it. She rubs sunflower oil into my hair and I cry into my hands as we prepare for tonight’s feast.

“I hate feasts!” I say. “I hate people!” They’ve killed my raccoon and now they expect me to join them in eating him to fulfill the dream of an old woman who clearly hates me.

“Don’t cry, Snow Falls,” she says. “You were soon going to have to release it into the forest anyway.” She hesitates. “I imagine it wouldn’t have lasted long once you’d done that.”

This only makes me cry harder.

—

THE BOY NAMED
He Finds Villages who sits beside Christophe Crow and now goes by the charcoal name Aaron keeps glancing at me as we all sit in Spirit of Thoughts’ longhouse. I refuse to eat. I don’t care. I want to scream at He Finds Villages to stop looking at me. He smiles. I curse him in my head and look away.

The stews, the old woman announces, contain bear and blue jay, snake and squirrel and goose, rabbit and frog and dove, and raccoon. I wish, when she says this, that she’d not gotten better.

“My dream told me,” she says, “that we needed to rid ourselves of our pets. And just look at how many of them we kept!” She points at the many full kettles.

People all around me laugh at this.

“We, in our home, need to rid ourselves of our pets,” she repeats. “This was my dream. We are sick and we need to allow our houses to become clean again. We need to rid ourselves of those guests we once thought were welcome additions to our homes but that have soiled it with their ways that are not ours.”

I look over to He Finds Villages because I know his eyes are still on me. He tries to tell me something with them but I look away, turning
to the face of Christophe Crow instead. Christophe Crow’s face is the colour of blood beneath his charcoal beard as he himself watches Spirit of Thoughts.

My father nods to my untouched bowl. Sleeps Long whispers to me that I need to at least make the effort of pretending. No one else seems to notice, but I imagine they do.

“I can assure you,” Sleeps Long says, “the kettle from which your bowl was served doesn’t contain your raccoon. It’s clearly a bear stew.”

I look at her. “Do you promise?”

She nods. “Have you ever known me to tell an untruth?”

I will trust her, then. I lift my fingers to my mouth and eat a little. Father seems to breathe easier. I eat from my bowl very slowly, so slow that I’m just finishing it by the time the kettles are scraped clean.

Father stands to talk. He thanks Spirit of Thoughts for her hospitality and then says that he has a very important announcement to make. He looks down at Hot Cinder, who immediately places a couple of fingers in his mouth. The swelling has gone down but the nails haven’t started growing back in yet.

“I’ve thought hard about this,” Father says. “And I’ve made a decision about my new son. I’ve decided that more sacrifice is necessary.”

Hot Cinder begs me with wide eyes to once more save him.

“To show the generosity of our people, I’ll send Hot Cinder to live with the charcoal in their new village. I hope he helps lead them to a good place.”

I’m relieved. Clearly, so is Hot Cinder. People turn to each other and discuss this, many of them calling out Ah-ho! Christophe Crow looks pleased. He smiles at the boy, and the boy looks back at him. I’m happy about this decision. The idea of keeping him around had begun to bother me. I much prefer being alone. Fox leans to my father, and I can hear him whisper this was a wise and good decision.

Once the feast has broken, I walk out into the night, lonely for my raccoon. People will be up early tomorrow, as word has come that if the weather holds, the Iron People from far away will be arriving. Soon
we’ll begin harvesting the three sisters and the men will head out into the forests and to the lakes for their hunting and fishing. Christophe Crow and the others will leave us very soon to build their new village before the seasons turn. I realize then I will miss him.

I’m nearly at the palisades when I sense someone following me. I stop and turn, half expecting to see Gosling. Instead, I come face to face with the boy.

“What do you want of me, He Finds Villages?”

“Call me Aaron,” he says.

“What do you want, Aaron?” I like the way the name sounds on my tongue.