I would never be able to repay them for their protection, for the time they gave me to nurse the bruise inside of me. But I accepted the gift with a healing heart. And there, in the tiny cabin under Akicita’s care, I slept until spring.
A web spread through the darkness. I balanced on a gossamer thread. Gloom rose from the abyss. It licked the bottoms of my feet, teasing. One slip and I would spiral. I stretched out my arms, focused on keeping my feet stuck to the thread. For within the gloom, flickered memories. Memories of my final hours with Joel. Memories I didn’t want.
The abyss surfaced in smoky tendrils. Then it solidified, curled like fingers and plucked the thread. My balance wavered. A laugh erupted, intoned with Arabic notes. It came from everywhere. From nowhere. The thread bounced. My heart pounded in my throat. My feet slipped.
A sweet haze of citrus smoke and minty anodyne caught me, floated me forward. Then a figure appeared. A red shadow. He held out his hand. Sedative humming slowed my pulse. I reached for him.
I woke from the dark. Birds chirped the song of spring. Akicita sat at my side, haloed by dawn’s illumination from the window behind him. I covered a yawn and accepted the hickory coffee he placed in my hands.
“Hihanni waste,” he said.
“Good Morning.”
His dark eyes swept over my face, asking the question he didn’t verbalize.
I shook my head. Another empty dream. Much like my memory of the prior months.
“You fight inner places, Spotted Wing.”
“Maybe.”
He closed his eyes. He wouldn’t belabor what we both knew. I couldn’t control what I saw when I slept. Nor could I fight the sleep that stole most of my winter.
“To rest is to heal.” He turned away to scrape resin from his pipe.
I was tired of resting. And while the nightmares were mild—thanks to his hallucinogenic teas and herbal pipe—I was tired of them too. Akicita believed my dreams were visions. But how could I follow what I didn’t understand? And let’s not forget the vibrations that crawled through my guts every time an aphid neared. Nothing felt familiar. Not my dreams, nor my visions, nor my body.
“No more sleep aids, Akicita.” No more hiding.
His ears twitched under thick silver braids. I couldn’t see his face, but his voice told me the smile was there. “The heart wakes.”
The density of his words soothed me even if I didn’t understand them. Just like his presence. He never left my side through the winter, pushing daily exercise and filling my belly. The others hunted and guarded. But they always checked in, their eyes filled with expectation. What they expected, I didn’t know.
The shuffling of feet slipped under the door and rustled across the cabin floor. Darwin’s nails scraped along the porch.
“They’re waiting for me,” I said.
Akicita didn’t respond.
“What if I can’t fight the nightmares? And I still don’t know what I am.”
Without turning around, he said, “Just be.”
I wiggled fingers and toes, the parts of me still familiar. Several breaths in and out. My worry loosened little by little. Then I gathered my gear and emerged from hibernation.
I recovered my strength in the weeks that passed since my winter slumber. As I bent over a net of springing fish, struggling to stand in the river rapids, I wondered what kind of vitamins Akicita had been putting in my food.
“Naalnish. Hurry. I can’t hold it,” I shouted across the stream. Naalnish bounded through the current with grace. He released me from my burden and I fell with a splash in the shallow bank, laughing.
Badger yanked me out of the cold water. “Evie, when will you learn?”
I wiped wet hair out of my face and snorted.
He pulled me into a hug. “We depend on each other. This is how we survive. It’s a Lakota rule.”
“Mm. I’ll remember that when you remember the Lakota rule on guarding your tongue.” His heart thudded against my cheek, warming me despite my sodden clothes. “Besides, you loafers were still asleep, and I was hungry.”
Akicita emerged from the cabin. Darwin dashed to my side, his tail whipping my leg.
“We’ll see who’s loafing,” Badger said, his lips twitching against my crown, “when you go hunting with us today.”
I stepped back and knew my eyebrows shot up my forehead. “Oh, I finally get to play with the cool kids?”
He grinned and pulled me back to his chest. “Patience is a strength to carry through life. Your mind needed time. Your heart needed healing.” He poked a finger in my rib. “And we were hungry. Your clambering would’ve scared away the quarry.”
“Clambering? Oh, please. I can shoot from—”
“No guns.” He held my arms up, sheathed in blades. “It’s time we see how you use these.”
I let out a dramatic sigh. He ignored it and pushed me toward the cabin.