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To the far too many who have been murdered or are still missing.
Let them never be forgotten.
Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
—Black Elk
CHAPTER 1
She built the fire at twilight, and by the time the sky had filled with stars, a welcome blaze lit the campsite. For a long time, the two young women didn’t talk but sat together, staring into the flames.
“Are you sorry you came back?” This woman had long hair, night-sky black, and spoke with the accent of someone whose first language was Spanish.
“No, but it’s going to be rough.” The second woman, the one who’d built the fire, had red hair cut short, and she spoke with a flat Midwest accent. “My life has been about so much that hasn’t included them.”
“This is your home. They are your family.”
The redhead took her companion’s hand and kissed it gently. “You’re my family now. My home.”
“You need to tell them.”
“I will. When the time is right.” She saw that her companion was hugging herself. “Cold?”
“I am used to hot and humid.”
“This is hot for Minnesota. Here, let me help.” She wrapped her arms tenderly around her companion.
“You told them I was coming?” the black-haired woman asked.
“A friend. That’s all I said.”
“What? Not even ‘a good friend’?”
“This isn’t about me. My brother’s getting married. I don’t want to steal his thunder.”
“We could make it a double wedding ceremony.”
“How many times do I have to tell you no?” the red-haired woman said.
“You don’t love me?”
“You know I do. And you know why we can’t marry.”
“I will love you always.”
“And I you.”
Again they were quiet.
“What did you call this place?” the black-haired woman asked.
“Bizaan. It’s an Ojibwe word that means at peace. The white folks call it Still Island. I used to come here whenever I needed to figure things out.”
“And the lake?”
“Iron Lake.”
“When we went swimming today, it didn’t feel like hard water.” The black-haired woman smiled. “When will we go to your family?”
“Tomorrow. I wanted today to be just for us. After this, things could get complicated.”
“They are your family. They will understand.”
“In time.”
As the fire died, they laid out the blankets they’d brought on a bed of soft pine needles. The red-haired young woman stared up at the sky. Although the night was warm, the stars seemed to shiver. She’d known the night skies in Minnesota well as a child. In Guatemala, there were constellations and stars she’d never seen before. In the years since she’d left Tamarack County, Annie O’Connor’s world had expanded in ways she’d never dreamed possible. But now she was back, and although she knew she would be welcomed with open arms, there was something inside her that was alien, that would hurt the people she loved, that would, in its way, come to threaten them all.
CHAPTER 2
“Can I eat some while I fill my bucket?” Waaboo asked.
“A few,” his father, Daniel, said. “But leave some for the rest of us.”
“And for the animals,” his uncle Stephen added.
Waaboo looked confused.
“Always leave plenty of blueberries on the bushes for the other creatures we share the forest with,” Cork, who was his grandfather, explained.
They were driving down an old logging road just south of the Iron Lake Reservation, heading toward the patch that had been the locale of wild blueberry picking for the O’Connor family since before Cork was born. Many families in Tamarack County, Minnesota, had secret places for picking, patches whose locations were passed down as part of the heritage from one generation to the next. This outing was for the men of the O’Connor clan: Cork, the patriarch; Stephen, his twenty-three-old son; Daniel English, Cork’s son-in-law; and Waaboo, Cork’s seven-year-old grandson. The little boy’s real name was Aaron Smalldog O’Connor. It was Stephen who, long ago, had given him the nickname Waaboo, which in the language of the Ojibwe people meant little rabbit.
“What eats blueberries besides us?” Waaboo asked.
“Bears and skunks and deer. And other waaboos,” Daniel said, ruffling his son’s hair.
“And lots of birds,” Stephen said.
