Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

So he went and bought himself another couple of bottles of oblivion.

When Angel found him in the drunk tank this time she had them open his cell so that she could sit beside him on his cot.

“I heard about your father,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She still shamed him, but today he had a voice. This was territory he knew too well.

“I’m not.” he said.

“Every death diminishes us.”

He still couldn’t look at her. “You sound like one of my aunts.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

That drew his gaze to her. “You know them?”

“I’ve met a few of them. Zulema helps me with some of the Native kids.”

He nodded slowly. “So that’s why I’m one of your pet projects.”

He’d often wondered why none of his family had interfered with the mess he’d made of his life. In the first few months that he’d been on his own—and knowing his mother and her sisters—he’d constantly expected them to come drag him back to the rez. Now he knew why they hadn’t had to bother. They’d just deputized Angel to stand in for them.

“Do you really believe that?” Angel asked.

He shrugged and returned to studying the floor.

“I didn’t even know you two were related until a couple of weeks ago.”

“I’m sure.”

“Have I ever lied to you before?” Angel asked.

The unfamiliar edge in her voice pulled his gaze back to her.

“No,” he said.

Angel smiled. “Okay. So long as we have that straight. I’ve talked to the judge and he says they’ll drop charges if you’ll voluntarily check into detox and then, once you’re clean and back at work, you pay off the damages.”

Tommy blinked. “Damages?”

“You don’t remember?”

He shook his head.

As Angel started ticking off the items—plate glass window of a photography shop, glass and frames of photos on display—it began to come back to Tommy. One of the photos had been part of an advertisement for a photographic gallery show featuring the rez. He’d been stumbling by when the image of some fancy dancers at a powwow caught his eye. He’d picked up a garbage can and put it through the window, then to the soundtrack of the store’s alarm, had systematically begun breaking each of the framed photos in the display.

“Why do you keep helping me?” he asked Angel.

She gave him a long serious look that made him want to flinch and look away, but he couldn’t move his head.

“I believe in you,” she said.

He thought of Angel saying those words to him in the drunk tank, how they’d actually pulled him out of the inexplicable anger and despair and set him on the road he walked today. It had been a long, hard struggle, but this time he’d stuck it out. He still had dreams about those days, but he savored the mornings when he woke up, knowing that was all they were. Dreams. The past.

He looked at his Aunt Sunday now, and made a sweeping motion with his hand.

“You’re proud of this?” he asked.

She shook her head. Lifting her hand, she laid her palm against his chest.

“We’re proud of this,” she said. “The heart that beats in this man’s chest. His generosity of spirit and strength of purpose. You have grown into a good man, Thomas Raven.”

Tommy smiled. “Then why are you all so worried?”

“Ah…”

She took the pot from the hot plate and turned the heat off. Dropping the tea bags into the boiling water, she leaned against the kitchen counter and sighed.

This didn’t bode well, Tommy thought. He couldn’t think of a time when one of his aunts had been at a loss for words. They were never hesitant in offering an opinion, passing along a piece of advice, telling a learning story.

“It has to do with manitou” she said finally.

That was the last thing Tommy had expected to hear.

“Manitou,” he repeated.

Sunday nodded. “Ours and theirs.”

“Theirs?”

“The Europeans.”

Now Tommy was really confused. “The Europeans have manitou?”

“Of course. What would you call the spirits that followed them here?”

“I never really thought about it.”

He’d never thought that they might have even brought spirits with them, never mind what they might be called.

“They want our land,” Sunday said.

“People always want our land.”

“No, I mean the spirits. They mean to take the sacred places from our manitou.”

Tommy’s head filled with questions. Was such a thing even possible? All he knew about the spirits he’d learned through stories—stories that took place in some long ago, before the People had been forced to share their world with the Europeans. The stories had always been entertaining, but he’d never considered them to have much relevance to the present world.

“What does any of this have to do with me?” he asked.

Sunday gave him a reluctant shrug. “It’s been seen. The details are less than clear, but you are involved.”

“But manitou… you’re talking campfire stories.”

“Not true, nephew. The manitou are real. And they are dangerous.”

Of course. In the stories, they were always dangerous. But true?

Tommy sighed. He loved his aunts, and trusted their instincts, heeded their advice. But this… it would have been funny if Sunday didn’t seem to be taking it so seriously. And he still felt like laughing all the same. But then he made the fateful mistake of asking, “Who’s seeing me in these stories?”

“JackWhiteduck.”

A great stillness entered Tommy and he felt like he needed to sit down.

There was a certain hierarchy on the rez. The chief and council were elected, but only with the approval of the Aunts—not his aunts, but the elders. On the rez there was no need to differentiate between the two. Everyone knew who you were talking about without the need to explain that you were referring to the elders, or the Creek sisters. In time, his aunts would be counted as elders, too, but that day was still in the future. For now, the Creek sisters answered to the elders, as did everyone on the rez. Everyone, that is, except for one man. Jack Whiteduck. The shaman. He answered to no one except the manitou and the Grandfather Thunders.

“This is… serious,” Tommy said.

Sunday nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. I wish there was something more we could do besides pass on his warning.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Should I talk to him?”

Which was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. Like most of the people on the rez, Tommy had grown up in fearful awe of the old man. No one wanted to come to his attention because when you did, your life changed. For good or bad—it didn’t really matter. Afterwards, you were a different person. The spirits knew your name. They could take you away, anytime.

A few moments ago, Tommy had been laughing about manitou. But now that he knew that Whiteduck was involved…

Sunday shook her head in response to his question. “Wait,” she said. “If he wants to talk to you, he’ll let you know. Just be careful, nephew.”

She turned away, covering up her discomfort with the message she’d brought by fussing with the tea bags steeping in the pot, pouring their tea. She handed Tommy a mug, took the other for herself. Tommy cupped his hands around the china mug, feeling the tea heat the porcelain, but the warmth brought him no ease.

“I already feel changed,” he said.

Sunday nodded sympathetically. “That’s the way it starts.”

And how does it end? he wanted to know, but he didn’t ask the question aloud. He knew his aunt felt bad enough as it was, having had to tell him about Jack Whiteduck’s vision. He took a steadying breath, sipped at the tea.