The Orenda Joseph Boyden by Joseph Boyden Read Free Book Online Page B

beyond my control. To kill this one would simply make those who sent him angry and eager to punish the Wendat. It was better to allow this one to live and to study him, to try and understand him in order to prepare for what was coming. Bird, he listened. Slowly, he stood up, and his stare, as pointed as an arrowhead, warned the Crow never to touch me again.
    I went back into my robe after that, my face warm, my stomach warm, my back feeling like it had the heat of the sun on it. For the first time since my family’s murder, I felt heat, as if a coal that I’d thought had gone cold in the pit of my belly had been fanned and come to life. I wanted to close my eyes and feel this warmth in my sleep, but I couldn’t.I am alive now with the understanding of something important. I have power over this one called Bird. I have power over the Crow. The coal in my belly begins to burn the edges of my deep sadness. This coal licks my pain with fire so that I can feel my pain becoming sharp as the lip of a clamshell. I can feel it turning into something else. Something coloured like blood and charcoal, and these colours ease my pain just a little. I can sense my hurt becoming something else, and in the warmth of my robe I can see what it is. The coal ignited in me creates a weapon, one that I will use against my enemies when the time is right.
    —
    A WIND THAT isn’t very cold blows in from the west. It takes the storm away with it and brings a sun so bright it calls me outside. I don’t ask Bird’s permission. I just rise from my sleeping mat, slow because my body hasn’t moved in so long. My body doesn’t want to listen to me as I try to get down the ladder and my legs feel as if they’re frozen but eventually I’m on the ground again. Children playing in the longhouse stop and stare. I rise up on my toes and stretch, making a sound that begins in my belly and escapes like a loud hiss. The children’s eyes go wide. They go wider when I crouch by the fire and rub soot on my face until it’s dark as night. I stand and glare at them until, one by one, they turn away in fear. A couple of old women who watch over the children study me as they sew, glancing up every few seconds to see what I’ll do next. I find my outside clothing stiffened and hanging, ready. Bird is off somewhere this morning, and I’m sure word will travel to him fast.
    The possibility of spring is in the snow. I walk through it as it softens in the sun, the bright line of it outlining the paths of the village, and it scares me how big this place is. It’s bigger than my own by far. Many, many longhouses with the smoke of the fires of all the families reaching into the air. How will my father’s brothers defeat all of these people? Although not too many are outside yet, I can tell that as many as a great flock of finches live here.
    My darkened face must stand out because people stop and look as I walk by. I growl deep in my throat when a young man laughs. He’d be good-looking if he wasn’t so stupid. I move around the village for a long while, circling its outside twice before exploring the pathways inside. The palisades are three rows deep and tall and thick and the tips are sharply pointed. The longhouses are built well, are built much like our own. A few bored lookouts stare at me as I walk by them. I can feel their eyes on my back. I must learn the place of my enemy.
    When I begin to tire, I sense someone following me. I had no real plan in all of this but to get outside and look around, then imagined I’d walk until I fell to the ground with exhaustion. I’m weak from so little food, but I want my enemies to think I’m even weaker than I am. I want them to pity me. I want them to worry for me.
    I know who it is that follows. Word has reached him. He’ll certainly worry for my head, and this is what I want. I’ll keep him wondering about me until I’ve figured out how I’ll return to my people and he’s so confused by me that he’ll be