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She squeezed her eyes tight, reliving the torture, his scent wafting around her.
Oh Torin, what’s to become of us…our love?
Hearing the door, she glanced up as Makayla stuck her head inside. “Are you up to a visit?”
“Yes, I need you,” Donja blubbered.
Makayla rushed for the bed. They fell together.
~~~
Torin, Larkspur and Makayla snuck away from the house, hours before the scheduled departure back to the Yukon. Makayla led them into the wilderness in search of the old Midewiwin, referred to Donja by Professor Bapttise at the university.
An hour past the Canadian Soo, they drove down the two-lane passage and found the dirt road.
“This is it,” Makayla said, seeing the battered mailbox.
Torin parked the Land Rover and they got out, the heady smell of spruce wafting in the gentle night breeze.
“Are you sure?” Torin questioned.
“Yes, the house is beyond those woods,” Makayla retorted, wishing desperately that she didn’t have to face the old Midewiwin again.
In moonlight, they crossed a babbling brook and topped a sandy hill. The Midewiwin’s dilapidated shack came into view, nestled in the shadows of towering trees. Torin caught the scent of fire and halted their trek. He cocked his head, nostrils flaring. “He’s not alone,” he whispered. “There are three others with him.”
“I can smell them,” Larkspur said with her chin up, testing the air.
Makayla exhaled. “This is spooky and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m scared. He told us to never to come back. Perhaps I should go back and wait in the vehicle.”
“No, you’re not safe alone on a dirt road, fifty miles from nowhere,” Torin said, moving forward with a star-studded dome overhead. Nearing the shack, the sound of mantra-like chants rang the night, and from the side and behind the shack a fiery blaze with tendrils of red breached the darkness. They crossed the yard, past a stone well, the sound of embers popping. Suddenly the chants ceased. Torin stopped, Makayla and Larkspur behind, the hoot of a distant owl chilling.
“They know we’re here, let’s go,” Torin said with a fast pace around the shabby cabin just as an old dog leapt up from the back stoop, howling. He came to them, leery, walking in circles, barking. Torin rolled his lips and snarled, Makayla clinging to Larkspur. The old dog yapped, then tucked his tail and ran. Torin moved toward the fire, not a soul in sight.
Larkspur moved to his side. “They are burning indigenous herbs and sage. It’s a ritualistic ceremony which follows the four cardinal signs, east where life begins, south to youth, west for midlife and north to the elders and afterlife.”
“Why, what does that signify?” Makayla whispered, clinging to her tightly.
“Cleansing,” Larkspur said, the flames lighting her face. “They fear something.”
Torin drew closer to the fire, testing the air. He scanned the thick forest just beyond the rocked fire pit. “I know you’re there!” he shouted. “I can smell you!”
From within the fire, embers popped as Torin took a step. “Show yourselves,” he barked. “I mean you no harm. We seek guidance, not blood.”
From the shadows, an old man, with loose jowls and gray braided hair which hung over his chest to his waist, stepped forward. He stopped short of the fire circle, half of his face silhouetted in darkness.
“I can’t see him clearly, but I think that’s him,” Makayla hissed.
“What do you seek, Descendant?” the old man said in his native tongue.
Torin, fluent in Chippewa, cocked his head. “We need your help to defeat the Seventh Miigis.”
Three other men, dressed in buckskin with braids, older if not more than the Midewiwin, emerged from darkness, taking vigil at his side.
“Immortals can’t match his fury,” one of the older men said, dragging his words in Chippewa.
Larkspur stepped forward, her face reddened by the flames. She bowed. “Great Midewiwin’s. I hear your words, but with combined forces, seven of your kind can create the ‘Veiled, Circle of Fire,’ and with smudging and Mide Mantra, unlock the spirit world and—”
“How would you know of such?” the older man interrupted.