“Do not,” Jongren whispered. “Daughter of mine, do not let the Rage consume you.”
Trib opened her eyes. She looked at Jongren, who still gripped her shoulder, and knew that it was true. He had been there the day her family died. Whether he really was her father or not, she felt a strange sense of relief, as if she no longer carried the burden of that day alone.
“I don’t remember all that every time I summon a Rage,” she told him. “All I have to do is think of one thing from that day, and the Rage comes. But that day is all I remember of my ma and sisters. The Scath told me Aoifa did something to the rest of my memories.”
Jongren let go of her shoulder. He was no longer weeping, but he looked tired.
“Did my ma think the Rage was a gift from the Goddess?” she asked him.
“Sarah did not believe that the Goddess she prayed to would use such a tool of pain and destruction. You must see that this tool has been used against you as much as you have used it against others. Aoifa manipulated the horrors of a child to create more horrors.”
Tribulation was silent for a long time, thinking of the terrible things the Rage had enabled her do without feeling any remorse.
“Maybe I’ll remember other things about my ma and sisters, if you remind me…” she said.
“It would be my joy to do so,” Jongren replied. “You will stay and help with my plan to create peace for the Natives?”
“Aye,” Trib said.
“Thank the Goddess,” Jongren sighed and closed his eyes briefly. “We will talk more about it later. For now though, singing and dancing is what is needed.”
“I don’t dance,” Trib said.
“You used to. You loved to dance when you were small.”
Trib snorted in disbelief, and Jongren smiled at her before going to join the singing circle.
Trib wandered back towards the dancing circle, but felt conspicuous standing outside it, watching while everyone else danced. She didn’t dare join in. She didn’t know if she’d be welcome, and more importantly, she couldn’t remember ever dancing a step in her life, regardless of what Jongren had said.
“I don’t reckon today’s the day I’ll take it up again,” she muttered, just as the round-faced girl swung by and grabbed her arm, pulling her into the circle.
“What in Dess’s Name?!” Trib cried. She stumbled through the first few steps and nearly fell, her face burning with embarrassment. She tried to leave the circle, but the round-faced girl had linked arms with her and wouldn’t let go. She found her balance and trotted after the round-faced girl for another few steps. Then she started to hear the rhythm. She watched the round-faced girl’s feet and before she knew it her own feet were moving in the same way. By the time the round-faced girl let go of her arm, Trib was dancing. She was so surprised that it didn’t occur to her to stop. The drumming sped up, and the steps changed. To her amazement she followed the shift easily, throwing herself into leaping twirls that made her giddy. Her leg muscles were burning, and the old wound on her thigh complained, but she didn’t care. She had never felt like this before. Fighting had always felt right to her body. It was the only time she wasn’t clumsy. This felt right to her too, but it was different. Her body felt warm, smooth, and unified—with itself, with the rhythm of the drumming, and with the people around her. There was nothing but joy in her movement.
eyewik sang songs of grief for Chingwe and Old Woman Menukan, and for the village of the Original People, the only home he had ever known. Then he went to the dancing circle and leapt for joy at being a part of Manito’s beautiful world.
At one point he looked up and saw Trib in the circle. She was wearing a beautiful white, beaded dress, and her hair was pinned up in the style of the People. But most astounding was her dancing. The grace that he had only ever seen when she was fighting found a new and greater expression. She moved in complete harmony with the sound of the drums and the chanting and the people around her. Peyewik could hardly believe she was the same awkward, aggressive girl he knew. She looked happy as she danced. As Peyewik watched, he saw her spirit animal clearly, leaping and turning around the fire. It was a lynx, full of pure, joyful energy.
Peyewik couldn’t believe he had once thought Trib a demon or a shape-shifter. Now, watching her dance and feeling her joy, he couldn’t help feeling that having the fate of such a person intertwined with that of the People couldn’t be such a bad thing. He laughed out loud and threw himself into the dancing.
Some time later Peyewik needed a rest and went to sit with Kwineechka, who was still too weak from his wound to do more than watch.
“Are you enjoying yourself even though you can’t dance?” Peyewik asked.
“I am glad to be home,” the storyteller replied. “But it reminds me that your home is gone. I’m sorry, Little Brother.”
“It’s sad and strange that my village is gone,” Peyewik said. “But if I am with friends and family, then I always have a home.”
They sat in silence for awhile, listening to the drums and watching the dancers, and Peyewik noticed that storyteller was distracted, his gaze returning again and again to the flame-haired figure in the white dress.
“I cannot believe she is Jongren’s daughter,” Kwineechka muttered at last. He tore his gaze away to look at Peyewik.
“I have known Jongren most of my life. He took me for walks in the woods when I was a boy and taught me to speak his language. I did not know he was strange among the People until I got older. He is a good man.”
He looked back at Flame Hair, studying her intently. “They cannot be of the same people, much less related.”
“They look alike,” Peyewik pointed out.
“They are both pale-skinned…”
“Tall and thin with flame-colored hair,” Peyewik added more specifically. “Maybe she is a good person too, just like her father.”
Kwineechka shook his head in bewilderment.
“If you think she is bad, why did you help her when the Pure Man attacked?” Peyewik asked.
Kwineechka frowned, as if he wasn’t sure of the answer himself.
“I have seen her spirit animal,” Peyewik said, and smiled at the surprised look on Kwineechka’s face.
“Pale Ones have spirit animals?”
“I do not see them as easily as I see the spirits of the People,” Peyewik said. “I did not see Trib’s until tonight when she began to dance. When she dances, she is free from the anger, the pain, and the violence. If she keeps dancing, Snakebrother will never have power over her the way he has power over Crow Woman.”
The storyteller’s face went pale at the mention of Crow Woman. “Then I pray to Manito she keeps dancing,” he said.
Peyewik was about to reply when a handsome, middle-aged woman approached them.
“You are feeling well, my son?” she asked Kwineechka.
Kwineechka gave her a forced smile. “I am well. Muhkrentharne and Peyewik took good care of me.”
The woman turned to Peyewik. “You are Peyewik, the Seer of the Original People.”
Peyewik had never been given a title before and didn’t quite know how to reply.
“I am Shikiwe, mother of the Storyteller of the People,” the woman introduced herself. “Thank you for helping my son.”
“You are welcome,” Peyewik said, smiling because the woman had given herself a title as well. She was a good-looking woman and he could tell she was accustomed to a certain amount of attention and respect. She turned back to her son.
“You are sure your wound is not bothering you?”
“I feel so well that I think I will dance soon,” Kwineechka teased her. His tone was light, but Peyewik noticed that the mischievous twinkle was missing from his golden eyes.
“You will not!” Shikiwe chided him. “You will watch and that is all, even though there are many who will be disappointed not to see you dance.”
She gave a slight nod over her shoulder at a group of young women who kept looking over at the storytelle
r and giggling. Kwineechka hadn’t looked in their direction once all evening.
“Mother,” he said, embarrassed.
Shikiwe bent down and patted his cheek as though he were a small boy. “You are the Storyteller of the People, and you are old enough to take a wife. All the girls hope you will choose them. This is as it should be.”
She sighed happily and straightened up.
“I must go and find your aunties. No dancing,” she warned him once more. “Save your strength for telling a story at the Prayer Ceremony tomorrow.”
She left then, failing to notice that her son’s face had gone pale in the firelight.
“You do not want to tell a story tomorrow?” Peyewik asked.
“I have not tried since…Crow Woman,” he said. “I do not know what will happen.”
“You did not tell your mother about her.” Peyewik observed.
Kwineechka’s face darkened. “My mother is very proud that her son is the Storyteller of the People. It would shame her to know how I let Crow Woman take the Story of the People from me.”
“You had no choice.”
“No one can know of it!” Kwineechka said forcefully.
Peyewik sat in silence for a moment, then said, “It is for you alone to tell what Crow Woman did to you, but do not forget that I know what it is like to have a shadow cling to your spirit. Only you can release that shadow.”
The storyteller shook his head. His eyes glittered with unshed tears and he couldn’t speak. Peyewik said no more but stayed with him until the singing and dancing ended and the People went to their beds.
Sometime near dawn, Peyewik dreamed. When he woke, his face was wet with tears and there was a deep sense of peace in his heart.
Early the next morning, Peyewik watched as every man, woman, and child of the Away People and the Original People came together in a great circle, many rings deep, around the ashes of the dancing fire. Traditionally, Prayer Ceremonies were held in the Ceremony House, but the combined villages were too many to fit inside. The chiefs of both villages, Okahoki and Mikwin, sat at the center of the circle, looking out at their people, solemn-faced in their ceremonial best. The elders of both villages sat in the first ring of the circle, closest to the chiefs.
Peyewik also sat in the first ring, with Kwineechka on one side, and Muhkrentharne on the other.
“The singing and dancing did the People some good,” Muhkrentharne observed.
Peyewik turned to watch the arriving People and saw that they moved and smiled a little more easily than they had a day earlier. Nonetheless, even the small children knew something important was happening. They set aside their games and sat quietly, looking around wide-eyed.
When all of the People were settled, Mikwin, the chief of the Away People, stood to speak first. Peyewik had met Mikwin the day before and liked him. He was a friendly, generous man who had welcomed the displaced Original People into his village with open arms. He wore his hair in the same hunter’s crest as Okahoki, but it was clear from the size of his belly that it had been a long time since he chased game in the forest.
“Hear us, Manito, Spirit in All Things,” Mikwin sang the opening prayer, “as we come together for the first time in many years to pray for guidance in this time of trouble…”
When the prayer was over, Mikwin signaled for Kwineechka to stand and tell his story.
But the storyteller did not rise. Peyewik turned to him and saw that he was pale and shaking.
“What is wrong?” he asked.
“I cannot do this,” Kwineechka replied. “Not after what Crow Woman did.”
“You are the Storyteller of the People,” Peyewik tried to reassure him. “No one can take that from you.”
The People were silent, waiting for the story to begin. Kwineechka looked at Peyewik, his golden eyes full of fear.
“I cannot feel them,” he said in a low voice. “The ancestors are no longer with me. I cannot tell a story without them.”
Peyewik tried to help him by reaching out once more to the storyteller’s spirit, but this time Carp did not come, and Peyewik could not sense him beyond the growing shadow on Kwineechka’s spirit.
Peyewik turned to Mikwin. “His wounds have tired him. He cannot tell a story right now.”
The chief nodded and gestured for Chief Okahoki of the Original People to continue with the ceremony. The People were disappointed, but no one could complain for Okahoki had already begun speaking.
“Brothers and sisters,” he said, “the Original People have suffered great losses recently. Our village was burned to the ground by the Pure Men. Some of the Original People were killed.”
Peyewik looked closely and saw scars on the chief’s body and streaks of white in his hair that hadn’t been there before. As Okahoki spoke, Peyewik realized that Kwineechka wasn’t the only one who carried a new shadow on his spirit. A darkness now clung to the chief of the Original People as well, and the sight of it made Peyewik sad.
“We sang to their spirits, but the Pure Men would not let us bury them properly,” Okahoki continued. “Our hearts are full of grief, and I fear that this grief will come to the Away People as well. Jongren, friend of the People, will tell us more of the danger we face.”
Jongren stood. “I thank you for letting my daughter and me share in the sacred Prayer Ceremony. We were not born of the People, but you have saved both our lives at different times. We are indebted to you and have vowed to do all that we can to help you in this time of trouble.”
“You will tell us what you know of the intentions of the Pale Ones?” Okahoki asked.
“The Fighting Women and the Pure Men fight each other for power. The People are caught between them. The Pure Men seek others to share in their beliefs,” Jongren said. “They want to destroy the Fighting Women, but they do not want to hurt the People.”
“They destroyed our village!” one of the Original People called out.
“They saw my daughter in your village,” Jongren replied. “They thought the People were friends of the Fighting Women despite evidence to the contrary.
“What do the Fighting Women want?” Mikwin asked.
“The Fighting Women want things they can trade for profit. Land, timber, pelts…They want to be rich. Then they will have power over the Pure Men.”
“They want power over the People?”
“They are not concerned with the People,” Jongren said. “I believe they can still be convinced to leave the People in peace.”
Peyewik didn’t think this was true. He glanced at Kwineechka, who sat hunched in on himself, still shaking slightly. Crow Woman had demonstrated an insatiable appetite for power over all things, not just the Pure Men, and the storyteller was proof.
Jongren continued speaking. “My daughter and I ask that you allow us to go to the Fighting Women and the Pure Men in your name,” he said. “We will tell them the People have no place in their conflict.”
“They will listen to you?” Okahoki asked. Peyewik heard the doubt in his voice. “We already tried to ask the Fighting Women for help once.”
“We must try,” Jongren said. “I pray to Manito for success in this. No matter what you decide today, there are difficult choices and times ahead. This is all I have to say.”
The outcry began before Jongren was off his feet. It went against all tradition and manners, but suddenly everyone had something to say and was saying it at once. Voices grew louder, arguments started, people jumped to their feet.
Peyewik looked at his grandfather anxiously, but Muhkrentharne returned his gaze with absolute trust and confidence.
“Tell them what you dreamed last night,” his grandfather said, barely audible above the din.
Peyewik stood. No one noticed until Okahoki stepped to his side and lifted his arms.
“Silence!” the chief thundered. “Do you hear what I hear? I hear the People fighting amongst themselves. I hear whispering and hissing. I hear Snakebrother’s belly scraping the ground as he crawls among u
s. Now we will listen to this boy instead of Snakebrother. That is all I have to say.”
He gave Peyewik a nod and sat down.
The People gazed up at Peyewik, contrite and anxious.
Peyewik looked back at them and knew he belonged there, and it was his time to speak.
“I dreamed last night,” he said. “Chingwe, who was like a brother to me, was one of those killed by the Pale Men and I grieved deeply for his loss. His spirit has returned to me many times and shown me many things. Last night he came to me in a dream and told me that these bodies of ours are merely clothing for our spirits. When we remove the clothing we see the truth, which is a light brighter than the sun. It is a truth that is always with us, but it is harder to see when we wear our bodies, for we fear the pain they can feel. Chingwe told me that though these bodies can be injured, spirits remain whole. A great injury has been done to the body of the People, and there is more injury to come. Our form has been altered and we will never again appear as we once appeared. This is very sad, but our spirit will remain whole as long as we do not allow fear to poison it. Chingwe spoke these things, and many spirits spoke with him until their voices became one and I knew I heard the voice of Manito. I hear it now in my heart, as we all do. I ask you to listen to this voice, and not be too afraid of the change to come. Approach it with as much love and faith in Manito’s beauty as you can. That is all I have to say.”
He sat down and waited.
“It is just as in the story,” one of the elders said. “Manito has spoken to us through this boy’s dream.”
“What does it mean?” Kwineechka’s father, Nitis, asked.
“The meaning of this boy’s dream is clear,” the elder replied. “If we keep our faith in Manito, all will be well in the end.”
The Rage Page 16