“Well, it’s the harvest powwow, and it’s Friday night. I have to do things for it so I can’t pick you up, but if your dad can drive you, I’ll bring you back the next morning.” The next morning? Eden is asking me to sleep over?“Nobody does much sleeping. But bring your sleeping bag!” Eden grinned as she grabbed her towel and shampoo. “You can’t use mine. It’s special!”
“What . . . what should I wear? Do I have to dress up?”
Eden answered, but her words were lost in the rush and shout of the shower. Mallory waited patiently. It was a rank thing that the older girls got to shower first, and the younger ones usually put up with cold water or waited until they got home. Later Eden came outside in a camisole and sweats.
“I didn’t hear you. About what I should wear,” Mally murmured.
“Well, you wear ceremonial clothes, of course. You have ceremonial clothes, right?” Eden asked. Mallory smiled weakly. Eden laughed. “Jeans and a nice shirt, Mally! You goof! And a long coat! Plan on it getting dirty! You’ll be sitting on the ground outside if it’s nice, around a fire.”
“Good deal,” Mallory said.
Tim pulled up then. Mallory made a motion for him to roll down the window and leaned in. “I’m going to . . . I mean, can I go to the powwow at Eden’s house on Friday?” Mally asked.
“I . . . well, I’ll ask Mom, but sure,” Tim said.
“And don’t forget a pillow!” Eden said. “There’s never enough to go around.”
“Why do you need a pillow?” Meredith asked.
“I’m staying over there. I always bring my own pillow.”
“What always? You’ve never stayed—”
“Shut up, Meredith.”
“Don’t talk to your sister that way,” Tim warned her. “Apologize.”
“Sorry, Merry. Sorry that you have a big mouth.”
“My brother Cooper will be home. I haven’t seen him for a year! I’m pumped!” Eden said.
“Where is he?” Mally asked.
“He’s at Boston Flanders.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a prep school,” Tim said admiringly. “Don’t worry. You guys will never go. It’s, like, thirty big ones a year.”
“Not if you’re American Indian. They think so few of us are smart that he gets in free!” Eden said. “You become fluent in a language. You get to travel six weeks every year. Like, to Japan or to Italy.”
“Cool,” Merry said.
“He got a scholarship. He started last year,” Eden said proudly.
“Does he like it?” Tim asked.
“It was really hard for him at first. When you’re from a big family, it’s hard to separate.” Eden began to climb into the truck she called Godzilla, which had replaced her battered blue pickup.
“Okay! Well, I’ll be there!”
As they pulled away, Tim’s phone brrrred with his tone, “Purple Haze.”
Campbell wanted pizza with no cheese and extra onions.
“Blech,” Merry said. “Can we get some normal pizza too? What’s wrong with Mom? Is she on an ulcer diet?”
“Extra onions?” Tim asked. “That wouldn’t be indicative of an ulcer. No, she’s got a little bug. But it’s temporary. Don’t worry.” Into the cell phone, he said, “Yes, Campbell. I will hurry. The girls are already in the car. We were talking to Eden Cardinal about a powwow. Yes, of course her parents will be there. It’s a family thing, Campbell. Even I know that much.” Tim slipped the phone into his pocket. “How old is Eden’s brother?”
“Sixteen,” said Merry from the backseat.
“How do you know?”
“I texted Alli. She remembers him from her class in middle school. He’s really cute. Or he was then. Maybe he’s fat now.”
“Why do you say such things? Can’t you even keep your cell phone mouth shut? This is about my friend, Meredith.”
“Soooorreeeeee,” Meredith said with perfect insincerity. “It’s not like you have that many.”
“No,” Mallory said. “Just the best ones.”
PRINCESS
The night of the powwow was warm and golden—Indian summer for sure, Mally thought, as her father drove her out past the Catholic Church and down the pitted road that led to Eden’s family farm. Tim couldn’t get too close, because there were cars parked across the road for what seemed like a mile—rows of vans and junky souped-up old Buicks teenage boys would have, and here and there a new Lexus that Tim would have liked to test-drive—all lined up every which way.
“I can walk from here, Dad,” Mallory said. “The houses are right up there. It’s probably a couple of blocks.”
“If there wasn’t a moon, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face out here,” Tim said. “It’s eerie. Do you have your cell phone?”
“Dad,” Mallory chided him. “Do you think Eden would let anything bad happen to me?”
“People drink a lot at these things.”
“People drink a lot at your Christmas party.”
“Truer words,” Tim agreed, thinking of his own air-guitar rendition of “Free Bird” at the last Domino Sports holiday bash. “I’m sorry. Just be careful.”
“Dad! Merry sleeps over at six different people’s houses a month! Do you ever give her the third degree? Eden doesn’t live on Pilgrim Street or Cedar or Oak. It’s because she’s different from Merry’s friends.”
“Okay! Okay!” Tim held his hands up in surrender.
“Eden will bring me home in the morning. Actually, we’ll probably drop by just long enough for me to get my gear because we have practice at ten.”
“Have fun.”
“I’m excited.”
“I wonder what they do at a powwow.”
“Dance, I guess. I know they eat a lot. Eden told me there’s a drum circle.”
“I’d like to see that,” Tim admitted.
“I’ll take a picture with my cell phone.”
“Don’t want your dad along, huh? Even for a minute?”
“Nothing personal,” said Mally. Tim kissed her.
Mallory tried to hurry. But though her spirit wanted to go join the festival, her body balked. Every step felt heavier, going toward the place where Eden was loved, where Eden was happy.
Why?
The fat russet moon made the red-dirt road as clear to see as though it were late afternoon. Mally hurried toward the lights. A group of men stood laughing and smoking cigars at the edge of the property. Some wore jeans and T-shirts and sport coats, others long flannel shirts. Some had braided hair longer than Eden’s.
“Hello,” one said. “Are you looking for Ayana?” Ayana was Eden’s cousin, a seventh grader.
“No, I’m Eden’s friend, Mallory Brynn.”
“Mallory!” said a tall man, stepping forward from the group. “I’m Emmett Cardinal, Eden’s dad. She’s told me a lot about you. Welcome to our home.” He put out his huge hand and Mallory took it. Just then, another group of family members arrived, the father carrying a long leather coat in his arms.
“Emmett! What a perfect night! Where is Ahtakahoop? We brought this for him all the way from New York!”
“A full-length leather coat!” said Mallory.
“Don’t be too impressed. That’s my nephew’s business, making leather clothes. It’s for Ahtakahoop, my son who’s home from school in Boston. His birthday is Halloween.”
“Ahtak . . . ?” Mally began.
“Cooper,” said Eden’s father, beginning to lead her toward the back of the property. “That’s what most people outside the family call him. Coop. Ahtakahoop means ‘star blanket.’”
“Eden said that. She meant the sky.”
“Well, yes,” said Eden’s father. “This is the hunter’s moon. What does ‘Mallory’ mean?”
“Some people say it means ‘valiant, brave’. But it also means ‘unlucky’,” Mallory admitted. “It’s a Welsh name.”
“Well, you use it for the first meaning,” Mr. Cardinal said. “Edensau is
right up there, in the long house, helping her mother and aunts lay out the feast. They’re late with it as usual. They work a little and then they talk. I’m lucky! My job was over when my brothers and I built the longhouse!”
The longhouse was set in a stand of birch trees and looked almost like a giant tent. From what Mallory could see, it was made of bent tree limbs in a frame that probably was twenty feet high to form a curved roof, like the bottom of a boat. Birch bark framed the windows and the roof; but the rest of the house was made of some kind of waterproof canvas, like a raincoat big enough to cover a blue whale. Smoke issued from a hole in the exact center of the roof, where a modern tin chimney was built in. Jack-o’-lanterns carved with suns, moons, bears, and birds lined up against the front wall beneath the windows. The effect was of forty delicate party lanterns in the dark.
Mallory stepped inside.
“Tanisi, Mallory!” a voice called.
Eden was pretty; everyone said so. But she usually dressed as plainly as Mally. If she wore makeup, it was a touch of lip gloss. Tonight, Eden’s lashes were thick and black and straight as tiny fans. She had colored her lips with a berry tint. A subtle sweep of blue shadow made her brown eyes bigger and brighter, and her black lashes stood out like thick wings.
What a knockout woman Eden would be. What a knockout woman Eden already was.
She wore a long white sleeveless dress beaded by hand with blue whorls and spirals, which Mally could see represented the outlines of hills and trees and . . . long-legged creatures. Her laced white boots were fitted close to her slim but muscled soccer-jock legs, and a blue shawl was pinned with a gold star. In her hair were tiny plaits, little braids made by fairy fingers, beaded in gold, white, blue, and black.
Mallory cried out, “Edes, you look like . . . like a goddess or something.”
Eden’s smile was so sad. Why?
“Tanisi is Cree for hello, Mal! Come and meet my family.”
Mallory had soon lost track of the number of names and hugs—from at least fifty women and girls to a dozen toddlers, too little to run outside with the bigger ones. Some of the children had ordinary names, like Brian and Hailey. Others were called Samash and Shilah.
“Did someone scare you so much, you stopped growing?” Eden’s aunt Patricia asked.
“Auntie!” Eden reproved a big-shouldered woman with a sweep of silvery hair. Like many of the other women, she wore a floor-length cotton dress that reminded Mallory vaguely of Hawaiian clothing she’d seen in pictures.
Eden’s mother, Wenona, wore a blue dress with long sleeves, patterned with white moons. “She’s teasing, Mally!”
“This is all the taller I get!” Mallory answered, shrugging. “I’m a twin. We come in size small!”
“And every inch of that is muscle,” Eden said. “Mallory is our star midfielder.” All the women and girls murmured and smiled.
“Well, feed her and she’ll grow!” Eden’s mom said. The table was spread with every kind of food Mallory had ever seen and some she hadn’t—berry pies and fried snowflake doughnuts, turkey slices and venison steaks, bread baked in the shapes of foxes, wolves, and bears.
“Our surprise first, Mama,” Eden said. “Come with me.”
Eden led Mallory up the back stairs of her family’s house. Unfolding a sheaf of tissue, she held up a heavy cotton dress, black with silver birds embroidered on each shoulder. She lifted out a pair of black leather moccasins beaded with the same pattern. “I know that Brynn means ‘bird’ or ‘dark wing’. But my grandmother likes silver best. She made these for you to wear tonight.”
“But I can’t. I might spill,” Mallory said. “She made shoes?” People made jam. Aunt Kate and Grandma Gwenny made sweaters and hats and mittens. But shoes? That was like saying Eden’s grandmother had whipped up a little car for Mallory to drive around during the party.
“They’re for you. They’re yours to keep. We made them for you. I helped her bore the holes for the stitching. She won’t use a leather punch from the craft store at the mall. She has to do it the old-fashioned way, each hole punched with a sharpened hook made of shell.”
“I can’t accept these, Eden! These would cost . . . a hundred dollars!”
“More than that. Grandmere sells them to museums. There are three hundred acres out here and thirty kids in the six houses. How do you think they feed them all? It’s not just by selling Christmas trees!”
“And that’s more reason! I just can’t!”
“Mally. White people bring things to people’s houses for a party. We give away. We give a gift to everyone who comes. Yours is special. Try it on.”
Mallory let the dress rustle softly over her head.
“Now close your eyes,” said Eden, taking Mally’s hand and leading her. When Mallory opened her eyes, in front of an ancient mirror, she gasped. She looked like something she had never considered herself to be.
Pretty.
“Oh, Mally. Grandmere was right.”
“Is this what Indian princesses wear?”
“There’s no such thing as an Indian princess!” Eden laughed. “Indians are what’s called matriarchal. At least our tribe is. That means the men bring the fish, but the magic is in the women. When the men drum, they sing about women, strong women with straight backs who bring magic. Magic not like tricks but like good luck. Medicine is . . . good magic. Happiness and fortune. You don’t have to get all the old symbolism. You just have to feel pretty.”
“How did you make the shoes fit me?” Mally asked.
“Remember? Nobody wears size five except Cinderella.”
“You’re a trickster!” Mally said.
“Why did you say that?” Eden asked sharply. The mood in the hall dropped ten degrees.
“I didn’t mean anything wrong,” Mallory told her.
“No, I mean . . . trickster is an Indian term for . . . A trickster is a powerful person in a tribe. I’m sorry. It’s just hearing you say it.”
“What did you call your grandmother?”
“Grandmere?” Eden asked, her face lightening again. “It’s French for ‘Grandma.’”
“I know. I take French. But why would you call her that?”
“In Canada, a lot of Cree speak French.”
“Is ‘Cree’ a French word?”
“Not really. It might be part of one. The Cree word for ‘Cree’ is Iyniwok.”
“What do you mean, the Cree word for ‘Cree’?”
“Well, Cree is the white . . . well, the European way of saying Cree, not the way we say it. Iyniwok just means ‘the people.’ Some people think it was short for Christienne, because so many Cree became Catholic . . . with the French priests, the voyageurs. But it’s probably like a jumble of the two, like the word Chippewa is the English way to say Ojibway. It’s just because that’s how they understood it. They heard it that way. Ojibway. Chippewa.”
“So the French trappers discovered the tribe?”
“Sure, we didn’t exist before then.”
“I don’t mean that! I meant, no one ran into white people before the French came. I meant, you could take a boat and go a long way down the coast and not necessarily see any white people.”
“Or other Indian people. I guess they thought they were the only people, or at least the only normal ones.”
“Imagine how that was,” Mally said. “You’ve got no car and no map, just a horse or a boat. One day, suddenly, you’re like, ‘Hey, there’s a guy with white skin in a long black dress with a Bible!’”
“And another one with a gun,” said Eden. “But a long time ago. Let’s go down now. You can leave your things. No one would ever take anything from my room. I want you to meet Cooper before the drumming. And you haven’t lived until you’ve had my auntie’s fry bread. Pure cholesterol.”
When Mallory appeared, there was another round of exclamations and hugs. Eden’s grandma, Annaisa, shyly accepted Mallory’s thanks.
“You are a good friend to our daughter,” she said simply, i
n a faded soft voice. Soon Mallory, who never spoke to anyone who didn’t speak to her first, was chattering to all of the women. Some of the friends and family, whose Indian genes clearly were far up on the family tree, were pale with freckles. A few boys—she assumed these were the drummers or the dancers—wore long white shirts and leather leggings like Eden’s dress.
The only person everyone treated just a bit differently was Eden.
Even the older women and men seemed almost to bow to her as she swept from group to group, laughing and teasing. Teasing, about everything from a boy’s cowlick to a girl’s new figure, seemed to be the favorite game.
But no one teased Eden. She was just a girl but there was something about her. She was like the hero in the tales Campbell read to them when they were little, but a girl.
Mally wanted to think it over, but the sights and voices in so many tones and languages swirled around her, mesmerizing her like a song. She settled herself on a blanket in one corner of the room where she could watch everyone together and had finished a plate of fry bread and venison when Eden came to find her.
“Mallory, this is Cooper, my brother,” she told Mallory, who looked up and nearly dropped her plate. Cooper’s wide white smile, the cheekbones that seemed to lift his face and deepen his eyes, were the same as Eden’s. He wore the same pale clothing—was it deerskin? It was beaded in a design Mallory recognized as the constellation Ursa Major. Bear Clan. Atakahoop.
Star blanket.
“Hello,” he said.
Could boys be beautiful? Mallory couldn’t speak. She could hear Eden saying, You’ll know.
COOPER
What do you think of your first powwow?” Cooper asked.
I have to talk. He’ll think I’m mentally challenged.
Mallory finally said, after ten seconds or more, “I honestly never ate such good food, and the dress . . .”
He said, “Grandmere has a way of knowing how to make a beautiful woman more beautiful.”