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I’m positioning the cloth on his forehead when I hear loud voices outside. It seems to be about Bren and me, at least I hear our names—Josephine and Henry. Other words follow, some in Navapaki, some in English.
Maybe help has arrived!
Maybe Darrow’s father has returned and has antibiotics with him! Immediately, my heart beats faster. I jump up and run outside to find out what’s going on.
I spot a group of men around the large campfire that is the village’s general meeting area. Darrow and Nashashuk are there and another younger Indian of whom I only know that his name is Coven. He’s speaking but his sentences sound cold. I hastily search for strange faces in the group but I only see the men I met in the camp during the day.
My courage leaves me and the paralyzing blackness returns, covering me like a cloak of iron. I’m about to return to Bren when I hear Darrow yell, “Josephine!” He comes toward me with a serious look. “Your friend is in a very bad way.” I feel like bursting into tears right then and there. As Darrow says it out loud, it only becomes more of an inevitable certainty. “Remember what I told you about Nashashuk? That he can see into the other world with his sight?”
I can’t even nod, I just stand in a daze in the tall grass.
“Nashashuk wants to perform a healing ritual for Henry,” he explains. “But not everyone agrees he should use his special powers on a white man.”
Tears pour down my cheeks again. An Indian healing ritual cannot kill bacteria, so the spirits can whisper whatever they want. But Darrow seems to believe in it and it’s currently the only way to do anything for Bren. And I’ll die if all I can do is sit around and change his cloths! “Let me talk to them! I can change their minds,” I say more vehemently than I meant. And what’s their point of not wanting him to use his powers on a white man anyway?
Darrow shakes his head. “You’ll just make the situation worse if you join them now. You’re too upset, we only make decisions with a calm mind.”
“Tell me if Henry were a Navapaki right now, nobody would object to the ritual, would they?”
Darrow sighs. “You don’t understand.”
I could shake him. “You can’t let him die simply because he’s the wrong race or color! I love him! Maybe you don’t understand!” I yell at him.
“Josephine, calm down!”
“I don’t want to calm down. He’s dying! If Nashashuk can help him, he has to, he has to at least try! Anything else is denying help!” I clench my hands and feel my heart pounding in my throat. The men around the campfire have stopped their discussion and are looking over at me. Everyone is staring at me and, startled, I realize Darrow might be right. Maybe they won’t help me if I yell, it might have the opposite effect. I press my lips tightly together and breathe deeply through my nose to control my emotions. Then I say more quietly, “Darrow, please. You have to change their minds. Please try! Tell them I’ll do whatever if it gives Henry a chance to heal.” I’m crying again.
Darrow nods to me. “I’ll try, but I can’t make any promises.”
Numb and in a daze, I return to the teepee as the discussion continues. I’ll die if I lose Bren. That’s how it seems to me. When he stops breathing, my heart will stop beating. I don’t think about my brothers or my home, nothing exists but Bren and me. It’s like there’s nothing here but life and death.
As I sit next to Bren and beg him not to give up, the voices outside die down. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad sign, but moments later, Darrow peeks into the teepee and gives me a thumbs-up—a strange gesture for him—and I jump up and throw my arms around his neck. “Nashashuk did it, not me,” he says modestly, but I don’t give a damn right now.
Bren will get his chance, probably his last. The thought brings back the fear in full force. Hocus pocus, the fearful voice inside me whispers, but I push it back. I can’t think about what will happen if the ritual doesn’t work.
The moon is barely visible in the teepee’s smoke vent when Darrow and Nashashuk return and clean the inside of the tent with feathers and the smoke from burning sage leaves. Of course, I immediately thank Nashashuk, but as always, he takes note without reacting. Darrow says Nashashuk feels an intense connection between Bren and me and sees healing in that alone. “You have to be present, he needs you for the ritual.” I nod at Darrow. If there’s even a tiny chance I can help Bren, I’ll do anything, even dance naked around their fire and speak to the spirits myself. But apparently, I don’t have to.
Once Darrow has left the tent, Nashashuk crouches down next to Bren and puts a hand on his forehead. “Many shadows are chasing your friend,” he states seriously and cryptically. “Many parts of his soul have been lost.”
I know what he means by shadows, but I don’t get the soul part. Maybe it has something to do with their beliefs or he is referring to Bren’s memories that he has suppressed. Only—how can he know about them? If he’s able to see that, maybe he does have special powers.
“You’ll have to talk to him when the time comes,” he says as he helps me refresh Bren’s damp compress. “Keep him in our world because once he’s on the threshold of the spirit realm, you won’t be able to hold him.”
His words scare me even more. So Bren is about to cross death’s threshold? Is that what he’s telling me?
I gently take his hand while Nashashuk opens a box at the edge of the teepee and pulls out a rattle, a tambourine, and some dried herbs. He burns a handful of the latter in a bowl, cleans the objects with smoke, and then puts the Indian rattle in my hand. It has a leather-covered handle and its bulbous end seems to be made of animal skin that is filled with natural materials. A pair of brown feathers and beaded leather straps adorn the shaft.
I feel as awkward as a toddler who doesn’t know what to do with their new toy. “When should I talk to him?” I ask Nashashuk, who doesn’t seem to hear me.
He rhythmically hits the tambourine with his flat hand, which reminds me of a dream catcher, and falls into a monotonous singsong. It is beautiful and ghostly at the same time, very different from Darrow’s singing on the lake. There is no consolation in this song, but a request like a call, possibly addressed to spirits in the afterlife. I don’t know if I should talk to Bren right now, but somehow, I feel it’s not the right moment.
I shake the rattle with clumsy hands, listening to the unfamiliar words and the steady beats of the tambourine. The rattle handle is nestled softly in my fingers, and with every shake, it clatters like nuts and the leather straps with the beads tap my wrist. I glance at the shaman furtively. Nashashuk’s eyes are closed and yet I feel him everywhere in this teepee, like he’s opened his mind and sees everything. I remember what Darrow said: he has the sight, which means he can see into the eternal. He’s still singing his haunting song, his upper body rocking back and forth, his arms shaking and beating the tambourine—it’s like seated dancing. As if from far away, the tart scent of the herbs penetrates my consciousness, fills me, and at some point, my thoughts seem to expand with the smoke, grow out of me, and float through the tent. It’s growing darker, but at the same time, there’s light—like the moonlight that draws out all the shadows at night and makes them visible. Black shapes scurry with the singsong across the tarpaulin, and maybe I also see the words in the form of shadow plays. For a split second, I believe I sense the presence of a wolf. Very close, like Grey is breathing next to me.
Bren’s fingers squeeze my hand, but I don’t know why right at this moment. It still feels like I’m suddenly able to see with an additional eye. Sounds rise up from inside me, songs from my childhood days, lightning moments, Dad’s funeral, word-thoughts with no recognizable meaning, I read letter cookies on our porch, L-U-I-S-A, a spinning spiral full of images from the past, last summer in a snow globe, and finally, the Indian teepees like tall lanterns in the night. Suddenly, there’s a lake and lots of tears, my brother Jayden’s face. Shadows open and close like birth canals, and then I’m standing at the edge of a wheat field, crouching, arms outstretched. “Fynn,” I call out and a small dark-haired boy runs toward me, squealing with joy, straight into my outstretched arms. I catch him and spin him in circles, exuberant and happy. I suddenly feel like someone is standing next to me, watching me, and when I turn, I see Bren. But it’s not really him, just his black silhouette. He seems like a wanderer on a long journey and has come to say goodbye. He looks at me silently and I mentally reach out my hand to his silhouette. Now I’m no longer happy, I’m crying. “Stay here!” I beg silently. “Stay here with me! I need you. I’ve seen how it could be.”
His silhouette is still staring at me, and several heartbeats later, I know that it’s actually Bren. Maybe his mind, his consciousness, his soul, something. As if he stepped from his feverish dream into my waking dream and is sharing the images with me.
As soon as I think that, I’m catapulted out of my hazy intoxication and find myself sitting on the floor of the teepee, rattling clumsily as tears stream down my cheeks.
