Chapter Twenty Nine

The dark spirit of Perdita lay helplessly on the floor of her palace, lying over the sigil where she had sacrificed hundreds of Lakota spirits. She could see, but she could not move. She sensed her body was far away. Could she reach it on her own? When her Sisters won, they could reunite her with it. She would rise once more. She laid there thinking about how the girl had outsmarted her and she replayed what went wrong in her head, still unbelieving she could be beaten.

Time passed and the sky grew bright through the opening of Crazy Horse's eye. "It cannot be," she whispered. "They cannot have won." A beam of light hit the floor nearby. She could feel the warmth radiate and grow.

Still she refused to accept the truth. The lesser Paleskins might be sacrificed, but her Sisters would survive and rescue her. They were immortal. They had all the time needed to try again.

An unusual noise interrupted her contemplation. She twisted her neck towards the opened doors. Warped forms slid towards her. They were the bodies of the dead spirit trophies they had collected and hung on their walls. The bodies detached themselves and rolled and folded themselves across the floor towards her, hundreds of them. She willed herself to move, but she was completely broken from the White Calf's attack. The black snake, the cursed Zuzeca, reached her first, its long body working in its favor. It struck her face with its fangs. She could still feel pain. The rest surrounded her; crawled over her, burying her in their mass. Their jaws and beaks bit into her. Birds and lizards squeezed with their small talons and they drained her dark spirit into themselves until they were restored. Each flew off, slithered away, ran, scuttled, and scurried to return to their homes. Only one tiny white speck endured. The last remaining good of Perdita, part of her previous life, before she had become a Paleskin.

The spark hovered in the air as the giant white bison calf ran through the palace, shaking the massive monument to its core. It passed by the last spark of Perdita and leaped into the air through the broken eye, a trail of white sparkles following behind. Perdita's spark was swept into the trail and floated behind the flying bison. Then the Sisters' palace, once the Monument to Crazy Horse, but now only the symbol of the Sisters' power and enslavement over the Lakota people, came crashing down, never to stain the spiritlife as a reminder again.

***

Rain steadily fell from the sky for the third day in a row. The parched ground absorbed it slowly. Swaths of land were covered in gathering puddles, and the puddles reached out and formed small rivulets that poured into shallow streams that became deeper. The streams flowed into sunken canyons, creating a river, and the river spread its tendrils into pits, creating lakes. Fish would again appear, along with frogs, dragonflies and shorebirds.

Trees that were brown and leafless absorbed the days of sun and rain, and their roots grew again. It would take seasons, but they would spread their leaves again, creating shade, freshening the air, and shedding their seed until becoming a forest. Squirrels and a multitude of birds would call the forest home and the Ancestors that lived among the trees would have a familiar place to live their days.

New grasses pushed out green shoots. Corn and wheat would grow again, wild. The Earth Mother and The Wind could be seen together planting seeds. Flowers would not be far behind. The hills would live with bright waving colors. Bees would return, along with the insects, to pollinate them. All the other animals that had disappeared would return. Ghost animals had become real again. The bison were first, but wolves, wildcats, and pronghorn also appeared. The true miracle came when horses and donkeys arrived in packs. They were wild but shared kindred understanding with the ancestral dead and they would tame easily enough.

And the Lakota ancestors, the ones that had been turned to servants, who were used as feed, who were made to mine to make the Paleskins into living, walking jewelry; they remembered their stories, their names, their own ancestors, and their progeny. Zintkala woke where she had fallen. What her killer had stolen returned to her when he fell, and her name was still hers. She told the story of the washing tent to anyone who asked, and to many who did not. They rebuilt, and they farmed. Some wandered and hunted. And while the ancestors could survive on nothing, living the old ways brought them happiness. They told stories to one another they had long forgotten, and they created fresh stories of the Storyteller. They spent their days building their lives and their nights were filled with laughter and cheer at the gift that had been delivered to them, a new life. They prayed to the White Buffalo Calf Woman and honored her, and occasionally she would appear to them and grant a boon. The ancestors were finally happy and without strife, pain, or fear.

***

The final time Seal and Javin encountered Ptesáŋwiŋ was brief. She appeared to them as a woman, the way the first two hunters that encountered her in Seal's stories had seen her. They were halfway back to the road that would take them home, and she brought each of them a gift. "Cecile Storyteller, this world owes you. Your ancestors will honor you, but you should also honor them. You have a gift for stories, but you must remember to listen and learn all you can, not just of your people, but all the living world. To you I give a gift from Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery and creator. The great eagle that broke open your sky is his messenger, and it carried this gift to me." The woman gave her the rough carving of a canine, a cross between a wolf and a dog, made from a material she could not identify. "It will guide your path. Keep it safe."

She turned to Javin. "You hide cleverness behind a loud exterior, and a good heart behind both. Use them wisely when you go against the tide. This is a gift from me." She handed him a necklace with colored beads and a long bear claw at the end. "You have proven yourself a true warrior for the Lakota. Wear this with pride." He put the necklace over his damp clothing. "I wish you both well. You have restored us so that what sat below is now above, as it should be." She turned and walked away from them, simultaneously transforming into the Great Buffalo Calf. The spirit animal thundered away through the mud, none of it sticking to her white fur. She disappeared quickly into the haze of falling droplets.

Javin and Seal returned to their escorts, Echo, Papa no Clouds, and George Crow, still recovering from his injuries. The three Elders had traveled ahead, knowing the meeting the two had with their prophet was not theirs to witness. The five of them settled for a warm meal before nightfall. Echo had hunted and killed two rabbits and they enjoyed their first taste of real meat in a long time.

The following day they came across the fort housing Pavel Sted. Seal wanted to tell him he could leave, but more so, she wanted to get a better sense of the mysterious man with one more meeting. Something about him nagged at her. It disappointed her that only the ghostly sergeant major remained in the abandoned fort. This time he gave her no sass, with the three imposing Lakota accompanying her. "My master left, but he told me to give you a message of thanks for removing his mistakes and setting him free. You helped him redeem himself. He is sorry that those he created turned on you. He thought they were his allies. I always warned him they were no good."

"I left something in the room I stayed in, can I go get it?"

The Sergeant nodded, not daring to say no.

She ran off and returned holding the old bag she had hidden weeks ago and handed it to George Crow. He opened it and recognized the faded sepia photo of himself, from when he was younger, and alive. "My medicine bag. I lost it long ago." He silently looked at each of his belongings inside, remembering.

"How long ago did Pavel Sted leave?" Seal asked. Maybe they could still catch up to him. Seal felt it was important to see the man again.

"As soon as the sky turned, he packed and left. He told me this place has changed and it is time to go. The patchwork one came looking for him too late. He gathered what was left of the bandaged one and carried him west on his back. He did not say where he was going. That's all I know." The sergeant scurried back into the depths of the abandoned fort.

"We will come back here and tear it down," Papa No Clouds promised her. Then they turned and left to walk the long road back.

A few miles beyond the fort, Javin and Seal knew things had changed. The road shifted from cracked and long abandoned to pristine and newly painted. The abandoned gas station was gone. Further on poles appeared, with wires strung from them. They branched out, leading away from the road. As they traveled into the night, the telltale glow of towns hung in the distance. Javin wanted to go look. "I bet we can get a good meal and a warm bed." But Seal wanted to head straight home. "We have been gone long enough," she said. "Our parents must miss us as much as we miss them." Javin could not argue that and realized he had been avoiding thinking about his mom and how she might be coping.

The next morning, they continued. More roads appeared and stretched off to the horizon. One appeared like a highway towards a single far-off building that did not exist before. They walked on until the road sloped upwards.

"We cannot go further," Echo said.

"Why not?" Javin asked. "We are not home yet."

"We can feel us being pulled back. We belong here." George Crow said. He pointed. "That is only a path for the living, but we will meet again, I think."

"Well, I guess this is goodbye," Javin said awkwardly.

"We never say goodbye," Papa said. "We say until we meet again."

"Until we meet again," Javin said. "But hopefully not so soon."

"Do not cause too much trouble up there, you two," Echo said.

"Thank you for saving us," Seal replied. "Walk Well."

"We will, Storyteller," Papa said.

Javin turned to Echo. "I learned much from you."

"What's this? You're getting all stiff on me now, boy?" Echo poked his hand towards Javin's ribs. Javin twisted to avoid the poke, but Echo grabbed his wrist firmly and pulled him towards him and embraced him. "Until we meet again." Before he let go, Echo turned Javin's hands over and looked at the fresh calluses on his fingers. Shoots Paleskins and his bow had put them there. "Remember our brother when you use these. He faded so you could stand here."

The Elders turned and left the two friends on their own. Seal and Javin watched on until they disappeared.

"I'll miss those guys," Javin said.

"Me too," Seal agreed. She became close to them during their journey home. "But let's go see our family. We have been away a long time."

"I wonder if I was on an Amber Alert," Javin said.

"Who would miss you?" Seal joked. She pushed off him and he pushed her back playfully and they began an upward trek. A bright white light slowly surrounded them. It felt like they traveled through gelatin. They clasped hands and pulled themselves through the resisting force.

"Keep going," Seal urged. It felt like walking inside of a fluorescent bulb. They could no longer see one another. It became thicker until they could no longer feel themselves and they could not tell if they were alone or near to each other.

Only their ears still worked, and the sound of a loud electric hum gave way to a distant beeping sound. The sound became clearer as Seal pushed on through the white barrier. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.