help if they see I’ve claimed you as my own.”
“But my father…”
“That doesn’t change. We’ve actually had this in the works ever since you got hurt. Had to wait for the full moon, though.” She points to the haze of white that’s beginning to rise over the eastern horizon. “So?”
After a deep swallow, I nod. Madda and my father decided. Without even asking me. It’s all predestined, out of my hands, decreed. I want to be angry, I really do, but I’m not. I just don’t have the energy.
It’s then that I notice the monolith is humming. “Couldn’t we have done this back at the camp?” I ask. I have the weirdest feeling that the monolith is looking at me.
“We need its power. We’ve got more to do tonight than your adoption.” She frowns. “Time to figure out your shade, I think. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a sisiutl. It’s rare to have a supernatural as a totem, but not unheard of. Besides, everyone’s special in their own way, you know? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. First things first.” She nods toward the monolith. “Time you know the story of this land. Comfy?”
“Comfy enough.”
“Good.” She dips the needle again, holds it close to my shoulder, and then stabs. At first I feel each pinprick deep in my flesh, as if Madda is burrowing the needle to the bone, but slowly, as it bites into me again and again, the pain fades until it’s little more than a dull ache, like an ember trapped under my skin. Madda sings under her breath as she works, sweat beading on her brow, and all the while, the monolith watches, humming in counterpoint to Madda’s tune.
“There,” she says at last, sitting back to admire her work.
“What is it?” I strain to see, but my skin is angry and swollen, marring the image. All I can make out are grotesque, protruding lips, a squat torso, and huge, swollen breasts.
“Some call her an earth mother, and some the wild woman of the woods. She has other names too,” Madda says as she rubs more alcohol over my skin. “I got her from the medicine woman before me, and she got it from the medicine woman before her. Sort of like our own clan, you know, a clan of women. Lots of power in her, the woman of the woods. Strong medicine. She’ll protect you, watch over you. She looks ugly, but that’s the way she likes it. Ugly demands respect.” She takes a swig from her flask and then hands it to me. “Just a mouthful,” she says when I shake my head. “We have more work to do, and pretty soon that shoulder of yours is going to be hurting bad. Don’t be a martyr. Have a little. Go on. It won’t kill you.”
I pull my shirt over my head and take a swallow. The whiskey burns its way to my gut.
“So.” She puts away her supplies and then shifts around until she’s comfortable. “Part of what comes with being my daughter is learning the stories that were passed on to me by my teacher, so pay attention. You’re going to have to pass this stuff on one day too, because without it, we lose sight of where we came from, and if we’ve lost that, we aren’t anything. These stories are living things, as alive as you and me. Just in a different way, that’s all.” She picks up a pebble and inspects it. “Like this stone. It’s got a soul, and I’ve got a soul, so in that, we’re the same, but what houses the soul, that’s completely different. The stories are like that-alive, just housed in a different body, a body our words give them. And our voices are their food. They need us to keep them alive.”
I nestle myself into the gravel, pull a branch out from under my rump, and nod that I understand, though I don’t, not really.
“Let me explain. In the days before the treaties that formed the territories, people knew what was coming,” Madda says. “They knew there would be a time when the world would be hurt bad, so bad it would actually cry. But knowing isn’t enough. It has to be more.
“So, some of the medicine women back then, they knew that the earth was tired and unhappy, and pretty soon, things would happen that would scare them right down to their bones. They knew that the old creatures, the supernaturals, were fed up with humans. They had taught us everything we knew, and we forgot to be grateful for their gifts. The few of us who remember, who honor their teachings by living the Old Way, well, there’s still hope, right?”
I nod. Yes, there’s always hope.
“Anyhow, those women, they got together and made a big magic. Back then, there were still lots of spirit stones, you know, like the one I wear inside this amulet, like the one Bran’s given you. They had a different name back then, but that’s the thing about time-it transforms everything. Names change, but the essence of something doesn’t. So, the women gathered up the stones, as many as they could find, and brought them here, and when they had finished, they had a pretty big pile. ’Course, all the men were upset that the women took the spirit stones, but the women did it anyhow because it needed to be done.
“They met here and once they placed all the stones on the land, they started to dance and after a while, Raven came to see what was happening. Well, he took one look at all those spirit stones and decided he wanted a few for himself, because everyone knows Raven loves shiny things.”
She pauses to make sure I’m listening, and I am, though my hand has found its way to a stick. My fingers curl around it and I scratch in the dirt. It’s not the same as knotting or weaving, but I need something to hold me here.
Madda clears her throat, and continues.
“Raven, he landed on the pile and watched the women dance for a bit, because he liked their dancing too, the way women sway and all, but he was so interested in the dancing that he didn’t really notice when they started to sing. He just got a big, happy smile on his face and stood on the pile of rocks, watching the pretty women, and then got to thinking about which one might make him a good wife, because it had been a long time since Raven had taken a wife. One of those pretty stones might make a good wedding gift, too. Some of the other supernaturals joined him-Sisiutl and Dzoonokwa, for example. Not Thunderbird. He just watched from high in the sky. Smart, that Thunderbird. The others, what they didn’t notice was that as the women were dancing and singing, they were weaving a web of spirit right over top of those spirit stones, binding them all together, and when Raven picked up a stone and tried to fly off, he couldn’t. He was stuck, bound here on the Island, along with the other supernaturals. Raven started to struggle, and as he struggled, two of the stones fell out of the web and rolled toward the dancing women. One of them is the spirit stone you wear around your neck. I have the other one here in this amulet I wear. The woman who picked them up was the first medicine woman here on the Island, after all the tribes came together and formed the Band and the treaty lands were made.
“Anyhow, the women saw that Raven was trying to steal the stones, so they danced faster and faster until the spirit stones were coated in sticky spirit threads and Raven and his friends were trapped inside. And so Raven swallowed the stones, thinking the spirit threads would dissolve in his gut, but when he swallowed the first stone, his left foot turned to obsidian, and with the second stone, the right. He tried to stop, but a powerful hunger came upon him and he gulped and swallowed and gulped and swallowed until he had eaten all the spirit stones. And here he stands, after all this time, and I imagine he’s pretty mad that he’s still stuck here, but that’s what you get when you go taking things that don’t really belong to you.”
My skin rises into goose flesh. The raven is trapped here. Is that what he’s been after, all this time? He wants me to free him?
Madda rubs her temples. “So now you know, and you’d better not forget. It’s time to get some work done. Close your eyes. I’ll guide you through the rest.”
I do as she asks, though the image of the monolith doesn’t leave my mind. It pulses behind my eyelids, sings to me:
I float between the stars, carried by the currents of the night. The stars smile down at me. Each has a face; each has wings. Behind them I can see a double-headed serpent swimming among them. I only know it’s there because stars disappear when it draws near. It swallows them whole.
“What are you?” I say.
I spiral in the icy cold of nothingness, down and down and down, slipping through the great serpent’s bowels, screaming as it pushes me through its body. I rake it with my fingers; I bite, I claw, I try to grab hold of anything, and then it expels me and I’m falling, falling, falling…
Back into myself.
Above me, the serpent slithers down from the stars to wrap itself around the moon. It tastes the night with its tongue.
I reach for it. My fingers touch its scales as it winds itself around my wrist, twisting my arm. It rears back, and
