TIMEBACK

Moss had softened everything. In the end it was the perfect agent of change: silent, slow, beautiful, and quite pleasant to be eaten by. Unassumingly unyielding in its softness. And it started between the bricks. In the cracks of sidewalks. Occasionally it heralded forth a flower; a motivational meme about resilience, and demurely surrendered the spotlight to the bright petals and thorny stems. The flowers were accomplices, magicians’ assistants, distractions from the steady work happening in plain sight. By the time government buildings were toppling, the moss and its siblings had eaten most of everything. There simply was no going back; nothing to salvage, so surrender came surprisingly easily. Dissolved like cotton candy dropped into a kiddie pool, the death of institutions suddenly became nothing to mourn. 

The weight of structure was instantly replaced with lightness. Rigid walls were again only found in mountains and canyons. Ceilings were again organic membranes; built in relation to the bodies sheltered by them and never again sized up against fabricated ideas of hoarded resources. Wealth immediately snapped into place as a measure of interrelationality and nothing more or less. Relative’s kinship with spiders was a gauge of success. Relative’s knowledge of river depth spoke volumes about their status in community. Circuit boards offered their copper to the land; moss transmuted them in place to create an interface far surpassing their manmade predecessors. The tiniest hints of perpendicularity echoed in the organic patterns implanted in the earth: a surveillance room might now have appeared as a circular grove with copper woven roots winding outward toward sandy deposits, crushed glass now nurturing cactus fruit. Jail cells were now opalized sets of toothy nubs, useful as gathering spaces with plenty of iridescent seating. Petrified mansions now wolf dens. Fossilized schools, beds for three sisters. Dissolved heaps of skyscrapers were prairies tamped down by ambling buffalo.

One could have extrapolated an implied emptiness in this futurescape—One may have called it idyllic. Some may have called it far-fetched utopia, discarded this reality as toxic idealism. Anishinaabe called it cousin, and offered it tobacco. As before, there was no emptiness here. The error of terra nullius could have once again been a label affixed to this world, and it would have been as erroneous and unimaginative as it had been the first time the idea was abused. And really, was it ever fully believable so much as a feeble excuse to insert, invade, take, desecrate—a stiffly rehearsed, carefully worded agreement between bodies who’d somehow grown to feel defiant victory in muffling the voices of their spirits? This time around, the land chuckled, endeared to this infancy. These were the people the moss ate first. Transmuted from bitter and sour to sweet and grounded; photosynthesized back into relation with spirit and then offered back to community as whole babies, once again equipped with everything they needed. This resurgence unlocked land treaties forgotten for millennia; “ancient” castles inverted to reveal strong medicine no longer abandoned. Species returned to these places that had been acrid for so long; balance claimed its seat and gently parented many wobbly legs here. The celebration for this event was punctuated by earthquakes and lightning.

Tools remained, albeit as differently as the land called for. Lenses now comprised solely rainbow fluorite; all organic chromatic aberration. Cameras were now bundles that held treaties; projections into the future offered to them for safekeeping. Film was rawhide infused with a layer of the same relative’s joints and cartilage, and copper mingled with silver in the emulsion, its own oxidization a hungry moss destined to bloom across these surfaces as well. Every tool of creation and documentation followed this treaty protocol. Sound recordings were now made directly into the wax of abandoned beehives, their longevity determined by the conditions offered them by the elements. Oral literatures again the safekeeping for the stories that briefly inhabited the honeycombs. Growth was organic and uninhibited. Extinct species came back from underground following the cracking of walls and the disintegration of gunpowder.

Landscapes shifted and elevations changed when the land rolled over in its repose, shifting and settling into a more restful posture. With the flex of a sore joint, springs returned and bubbled freely. One crack of a knuckle rekindled woodland languages. A shift of an ear brought back the manoomin beds. A focus on a shoulder knot, followed by a shrug and an exhale, slid peoples back into the cradles of their ancestral lands, like magnets following ley lines into perfectly shaped pockets. After this, a nourishing balm was applied; a regifting of land knowledges and a beseeching to carry this stewardship forward into the future.

Moccasins again massaged the land into a resonant, blissful hum. 

Laws no longer had anything to do with paper, and paper no longer had anything to do with laws. Ink on plant matter did nothing to protect harmful action from the reckoning that immediately followed, and had everything to do with bundling words meant to travel from one relative to another. Beaded hides carried words that had nothing to do with phonemes, and phonemes carried words from beyond earthside. Jingles sang the rainsong. Water was a fluent polyglot that breathed intergenerational memory into every new cycle. 

Time meant nothing and everything. That is to say, time was attuned to spirit, and not the other way around. Yes, seasons passed, and in that way, time passed, but time also dilated in accordance with communal resonance, and it compressed along with the light. Stories, such as this one, wove past present and future into a single braid. Tense had less to do with timeline and more to do with surety. If an event would come to pass, it had already occurred. Spirit time was fluid, and more gentle in elder age. Waking with the sun came easily. There was always time to breathe. Resting time stretched languidly into every cavity of need. Creativity was never superfluous and time danced around it; became kinetic in its expansion. Hours soaked in teachings became minutes. Grandmothers came of age along with grandchildren; namesakes received blessings on both ends. Baby catchers were babies in the infinite wenh’enh spiral; this copper ratio superseding any golden math.

This is the world we were born into, My Girl. In rigid temporality this would be considered a future event. On the braided time spiral, it’s already come to pass.

***

Seventh Fire. Ode’imini Giizis. Waxing Crescent

Ookomisan finished her description, smoothing back Hazel’s baby hairs as she tied off her braids.

“Did that really happen, Nokomis?” The little girl’s eyes peered up at her grandmother, trying to make sense of it all.

“It sure did, because it will,” Ookomisan replied with a smile. This was the part of storytelling where she usually lost her, surrendering the child over to the questions and the wonder that was as much a part of the story as the story itself. This was the part where the magic happened. The story would bloom, drop its seeds, and grow anew, each retelling dancing differently off the tongue. “Remember this one, my girl.” She stood her granddaughter up, squeezing her shoulders before wheeling her around. “Now—go play!” Hazel beamed as she sprinted for the trees.

***

Seventh Fire. Onaabaani Giizis. Waxing Gibbous

Lia rubbed her hands against each other, willing warmth into her body. The half frozen water slurried and milled before her, creaking islands of ice bumping into each other and digging into the shoreline in their aimless wandering. Her throat ached with grief and unreleased tears. This was a place where the water used to flow past, widening as it danced around the land it nourished. A rich bend in the water’s travels; the place where the river was wide. Pakwewaang. Now, the water paced here in suspended restlessness. It had been caged over a century ago, shackled to extract even more for the likes of the people who had already taken far beyond what the land would have ever consented to. Lia scuffed at the thin layer of snow beneath her feet, half-hearted in her frustration. She was long beyond being exhausted, frozen in this state of grief right along with the waters before her, right along with the generations that suffered the fresh loss of the flood; right along with her descendants that would feel its echo—unless she succeeded in what she’d come to do.

She pulled her hood closer around her face as she observed the rigid anatomy of the dam: its shape, its joints, its mechanisms and control centers. Its weaknesses. She had raised her foot to move closer when a voice sent her whole body jolting in opposite directions, hands up, feet out, and hair on end. Her scream caught in her throat as she heard the words: “Boozhoo, Nishiimens.”

She whirled around and found herself nose to whiskers with a being mid-transformation from fox to human. They continued transforming ever so slightly before her eyes, stopping short of full human features. Their eyes zeroed in on the tip of their snout, shortening it a touch but keeping its wetness and whiskers. Satisfied, they looked up at her and beamed. “Planning something?”

She raced inward through her mind, yanking open mental file cabinets of believable explanations and running through them in a hurried search for something related to dam, dam, dam…

The trickster laughed and shifted into a more feline appearance, muzzle shortening and widening; tail becoming longer, less bushy. “Let go of your fear, Nishiimens. I’m here to assist you.” They cast a discerning eye over the dam, leaning back on one hip and resting their tiny chin on a claw curled in concentration. “Should we use fire? I do love it so…or we could knock it down.” Their tail whipped at this idea. They went on, “I suppose we could always make it disappear…”

Still wrapping her head around what was happening, Lia finally spoke. “D-disappear?”

They waved a bored hand, dismissing the idea, “Well, it’s all very theatrical, but you lose a lot of opportunity for growth. And then there’s the cleanup on our end. It doesn’t really disappear, you know. It gets relocated to…a staging area of sorts. There are hoops to dance through, Humanmade Material Protocol, it’s a whole process. I’d be personally volunteering to clean up the mess I’d brought home.” They looked especially pained at this idea. “No, best to get it done here. More fun, too.” They clapped their tiny hands together, the fur between their toes muffling the sound into a gentle puff, “I’ve got it! Are you familiar with the depth of a lodge pole, Nishiimens?”

Lia nodded, having received this teaching as a child. The knowledge that soil generated from everything that lived atop it. Each falling leaf added to the height of the ground, creating an endlessly layered sandwich of seasons within the earth. To remember as far back as the depth of a wigwam pole was to travel back in time many, many seasons. But what could that have to do with the dam? With her? She barely represented a blip in such an exponential timeline.

“Nisayenh,” Lia began, feeling her heart sink a bit, “is this a lesson about patience?” The ache was returning to her throat. She’d been fed the expectation of a quiet and patient demeanor her whole life, and it was funny how from certain mouths, it landed with her as less of a virtuous teaching and more of a bid for complacency. She couldn’t see how letting more time pass with no change would restore balance to her home.

The trickster’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Oh, absolutely not. This may surprise you, but I’m not known for my patience.” They flashed a briefly human grin. “But let’s say I wanted to build a lodge in an empty space. What would I need?”

“Land,” Lia cocked an eyebrow, still lost, but more willing to play along after Niisayenh’s reassurance that they weren’t asking her to return to stagnant grief.

“Yes! And let’s say I couldn’t just shovel it in from somewhere else. Where would it come from?”

She thought of the lodge pole and its layers. “Leaves?”

They were growing more canine with their excitement, tail wagging as they hopped in place. “And the leaves would come from…?”

“Trees?” She could feel them willing her mind farther back along the cycle. Leaves from plants, plants from seeds, seeds from—wait…“—but wouldn’t these all need soil to grow in? And light? And water?” She cut her musing short, seeming to have hit a dead end. “How do we make something from nothing?”

The trickster’s smile widened as she finally asked the question they’d been itching to answer. “Not nothing.” They turned to the dam. “Fortunately for us, we’ve got a whole lot of something to work with here. And,” they added with a wink, “we’re going to ask a Relative for help.”

They pulled a tiny, fibrous, yellowed ball from their pocket and rolled it in their hand like dice. It looked at first like aged wool, but as Lia looked closer, she could see frond-like fractal patterns in its surface. It was a clump of dried moss.

The trickster lifted their hand to nose height, eyes softening with admiration as they gazed upon the little ball. “This Relative is like our frybread recipes. Our languages. Our traditional patterns. The book and the bookmark, Nishiimens. It’s skilled at sleeping until the time is right, keeping culture alive even it’s out of sight. I think we’ll make a good circle, us three.”

Lia looked more closely at the sleeping ball. It didn’t look all that remarkable. It didn’t even look alive. But then, she hadn’t felt particularly noteworthy when she’d decided to come here today. In fact, she’d felt rather unceremonious as she’d shuffled through her morning routine, willing elasticity back into a stretched out hair tie and and weighing whether today could be the day. And she’d felt thoroughly un-special as she’d picked the least yellowed bag of salad, a half-deflated banana, and a dented can of corn from a border town clearance section for her lunch. It’s not like she’d expected a sign to magically appear above her head declaring her a disruptor. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but seeing the brittle dullness of something so stereotypically green somehow made sense to her spirit and put her body at ease. In all the stories of her ancestors doing great things, she could much more easily picture their faces when she imagined them having the occasional groggy, grumbly morning, facepalming over an embarrassing moment, or traipsing through laundry day in their least favorite clothes. This quiet ball held greatness. And, it insisted to her, you do too.

Looking up, she could see the trickster, rabbit-length ears pointed forward, focusing on the dam’s concrete surface. They rubbed the moss clump absently on their downy cheek. “Even with everything this place has suffered, it’s still our home. And to change it, we’ll have to move in for a while, so to speak.” After a moment of deliberation, they nodded. “Right. It’s time for a housewarming.”

With the weight of a solid plan in their eyes, they turned to Lia. “What do you say, Nishiimens? Are you ready to offer your gift?”

Lia felt a rush surge through her. This was what she had come to do, but she was unsure what her role was meant to be in the day’s events. “What was my gift, exactly?”

“Some of my favorite two-leggeds,” Nisayenh began, “talk about making change irresistible. We won’t be building something from nothing today; we never really do.” They gestured toward the dam. “We’re gonna start with this space here, see, and then we’ll try to convince enough of our neighbors to step into this circle with us. They’ll lead the way in transforming it. And I think we can meet this transformation halfway if we keep our Relatives comfortable. After all, healing doesn’t have to taste bitter if you love your life while you work. To begin with, this little one,” they cradled the moss, “loves a warm surface.”

They tucked the moss behind their ear and held a human hand out toward Lia’s. “This is the gift you’ll offer today, Nishiimens. We’ll add a little bit of ourselves into the mix to get this party started, just a little push to get the energy flowing. It’ll be easy! Energy shows up in many ways, and it never really disappears if you know where to look. I’ve learned that you can contribute energy more effectively when you honor where it came from, and remember, little sister: we happen to come from the stars. Would you believe that we hold the warmth of the sun in our bodies? I just need a little bit of yours.”

Lia rolled her shoulders back and exhaled. Giving away energy in her exhausted state sounded like a feat, but a little warmth didn’t sound too hard. Nodding slowly, she took the trickster’s hand and let them lead her to the edge of the dam. Nisayenh knelt on the concrete and pressed both hands down flat in front of them, holding them there for a few seconds until the thin blanket of snow melted away underneath them. They leaned back and set their hands in their lap, a freshly melted set of handprints cut in dark relief on the frosty surface before them. They looked up at Lia and nodded toward the concrete, pointing their lips at the spot next to their handprints.

And so Lia did the same, kneeling and pressing her hands into the dam. The cold bit at her skin, but she kept her hands still. As she did she could feel the crust of snow beneath them turning to water.

The trickster nodded. “Good, Nishiimens! That should work just fine. Now, what do you say we wake up our little friend?” They offered her one hand and pulled her up with it, plucking the moss from behind their ear and offering it to her with the other.

Lia’s hand felt half numb in the trickster’s grasp, and her fingers felt oversized and clumsy after giving their heat to the concrete. She summoned all the warmth her body could muster into them, rubbing and balling them together before blowing her warmest breath into the space between them. She arranged them side by side in a gentle bowl, and Nisayenh tipped the little ball of moss into her hands. It was dry and crunchy.

“Now, watch this.” They cupped their hands into the grey slush of the river and moved to offer their handful to hers. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the icy bite of the water, and opened them in surprise when she felt it pour into her hands at a pleasant, impossibly warm temperature. Within seconds, the mossy ball began to unfurl, stretching tiny fists into the air as if it were yawning after a particularly good nap.

The trickster smiled affectionately. “Boozhoo, niijii.”

The moss warmed and fluffed, greening up and unfolding across Lia’s hands in response.

“We have a favor to ask of you,” the trickster continued. “A redecorating job. Would you help us, friend?”

Lia watched with wonder as the moss in her hands grew denser and more pillowy. Her heart warmed as she realized that she quite liked its personality. “Now what?”

“Now, we give it the chance to answer.” They nodded back down toward the handprints on the dam.

Lia leaned forward, and gently rested the moss on the thawed patch. It began spreading as soon as it touched down, neatly filling in the four handprints right up to their frosty edges.

The trickster broke into a wide grin, the slick beard and springy whiskers of an otter spreading across their face. “Looks like a yes to me.” As their limbs shrank into their whiplike body, they slipped into the water with a muted splash. They swam a short lap out into the expanse, alternating dipping under the surface, bobbing up to leave a short arrow of ripples behind them, and diving down again. Just when Lia had lost track of where they might be, they reemerged at the shore, dripping with water.

They joyfully scampered up onto the land and put some distance between themselves and the river before slowing, doubling back, and racing toward the dam. When they were a few feet from it, they leapt forward with splayed legs and landed with a pat, sliding right onto its slick surface. They left a long, wet bellyprint in their wake before hopping up to propel into another slide. They continued this game, hopping and sliding along the top of the dam, and streaking the mossy handprints like paint atop its surface. Soon, the entire span of concrete was morse-code-graffitied in emerald green.

The trickster bounded toward Lia, chittering enthusiastically and leaving increasingly human footprints as they approached, eventually straightening all the way to standing and jogging up to her. They looked up brightly and smiled. “Now, for some excitement.”

They led Lia toward the trees, weaving a little web of translucent silk between their fingers as they walked. “Okay, Nishiimens. We’re cooking with all our ingredients except one. Now, to find the missing ingredient: time. But it’s not really missing, though, is it?” A glint was growing in their eye. “Energy never really disappears. Sometimes, it gets misplaced. And in this case, it’s been stolen.”

“Stolen?”

“In many ways,” they nodded grimly. “It’s been making us sick. And I think today feels like a great day to restore some balance.” They cast a determined look at the little web in their hands. They seemed to be pulling in new wispy fibers from the air around them. As their fingers worked at it, she could see tiny lines of light flashing around them: it shot along strands of something like spider silk that stretched off into impossible distances. It was beautiful, but she couldn’t tell where any of it was coming from. She wasn’t even sure she was seeing it at all; it seemed to flash in and out of visibility.

“With this,” they brightened and revealed the intricate spiral in their weaving work, “we’re going to reclaim our stolen time. I’ll thread it together like this, knot it up, you know—get the tension just so,” they stopped and turned toward the dam, ”and if it all goes to plan, time should pass on the dam differently than it does where we’re standing.”

Eyes glued to the prismatic sinew in their hands, Lia murmured, “Have you ever done this before?”

“Once,” they answered vaguely, “but it created a much bigger bang.” The corner of their mouth tweaked upward and they elbowed her playfully, “Pay attention and you might learn something huh?”

So the trickster began slowly, pulling the threads of stolen time from the tattered corners of regalia trapped behind museum glass and drawing volumes of it from the vacuous archives hidden beyond institution walls. As their catch grew, they worked hand over hand, pulling time in from every colonial scar within immediate reach, and began weaving a tight bundle before them. The more lines they added, the more tangles of stolen time came along with, until the single threads they’d started with all came rolling in as matted nets, twigs and detritus dragging along, catching on the underbrush and flinging little scratches of dirt up along the way.

Hiccups of untold stories wove pleats into the mispronunciations of traditional names. Beds of drowned wild rice tangled with miles of hair policed off of the heads of little boys. The years removed from the youth of girls who were easier to brutalize as women were knotted tightly with the adultification of toddlers who were more marketable as pre-teens.

Roll books packed with young names spilled across classrooms; outside their windows, baby graves turned the soil in giant masses as they gave up the stolen generations hoarded within. Nisayenh breathed with the labour of their weaving, extra careful to pick the burrs from this tangle, smoothing the fibers straight in a gentle, affectionate way. They worked precisely here; the weight of their grief threatened to leave their skin raw.

Then, they flicked their wrist, aiming their lassos now at perpetrators of time theft. Stolen youth was drained from wealthy faces, leaving round dances of crows’ feet shuffling across them. Every perkily cursed phrasing of the words, “We all have the same twenty-four hours!” was swept from the mouths that uttered them so sharply they left puckered lips and breathless splutters in their wakes.

Labyrinths of ink lifted from dishonored treaties, and shallow roots peeled up like carpets as invasive monocultures lost their footholds in an aching land.

All the sleep lost; all the late shifts worked underneath lightbulbs lit by the water’s stolen energy; all the interrupted cycles and bereft ecosystems and forgotten shorelines came loose with one great heave, leaving a cavity that was quickly filled in with the echo of the people’s response to building the dam in the first place: “NO.”

And all of this reclaimed time was dragged, stacked, shoveled and piled into the structure of the dam, poised in kinetic balance like a roller coaster teetering at its peak. The trickster circled around and around it, swinging a sinewy rope underneath the formation here; wrapping a flyaway ribbon over the top and tying it down there; tucking errant fibers in neatly all over the increasingly patterned surface, until the whole thing was a perfectly round, woven ball; resplendent, shimmery, and pulsing with a synchronous glow.

Some remember this next part as an explosion. Some remember flashes of fire too brief to be real, gone before more than a hint of smoke could linger in the nose. In all the stories told, there never is just one description of it. Only the story Lia passed down includes any of the following:

At the trickster’s exhale, it began. Pursing their muzzle as if to howl, they blew warmth and motion into the space. The giant ball tipped off the edge of the dam, fell with a surprising lightness, and landed with a splash that sent a thin dome arcing up and out to encase the dam in an iridescent filter. The response was slow at first; aside from a lazy rainbow flare tracing across the space, Lia could detect no difference between it and where she stood.

Then, almost imperceptibly, the dome shifted out of sync with the flow of time surrounding it. The minutes in the dome slowly hastened their march, and then loosened into a trot as they broke their first sweat. After keeping pace for a bit, they eased into a loping run, gaining more and more ground and reaching for a farther leap with each step. Before long, they folded into themselves, molecules bound by surface tension as each footfall now became hours, and now days, and now years. As time zoomed here, it carried the moss and the dam along with it. The moss thickened, softened, and spread, like pieces of green velvet stitching themselves together in a brightly embroidered patchwork across the river. Days flickered by like an old film reel, and Lia could almost hear the clicky whir as she imagined the sunlight before her shining through an old projector; imagined the moon illuminating the dark frames with a soft blue-black filter.

Watching the moss pull its relatives in under this blanket of acceleration was fascinating, like watching stone melt to sand through a sieve; an hourglass tuned to Spirit time. Leaves floated onto its bed, clinging to its friction before traveling through it, fragments becoming smaller and smaller as they became the earth. Seeds hopped into the mesh and birds hummed past at hyperspeed, plucking insects as if magnetized to them. Berry bushes sprouting and bearing fruit resembled bronchi, expanding and contracting as they breathed the seasons: Spring-Summer-Inhale…Fall-Winter-Exhale. And as berries grew and shimmered and dropped, more birds and bats joined the party, eating and reciprocating with droppings full of more seeds. Roots felt their way downward through an ever-darkening soil sandwich before hitting the less forgiving concrete; it was easy to forget that this richness was all happening atop a dam. More beings joined this dance, some hovering atop the mossy bed before making their exit, and others finding the shade of a tall grass, or the shelter of a tree, or a growing food source, and staying put, living out their lives and then finding new life in the ever-layering soil below.

A pine tree shot ten, then forty, then seventy feet into the air, its dropping needles melting the softened butter of limestone underneath it. As roots jabbed down along the mossy cracks in the concrete, chunks of it crumbled away, loosing its grip on the tree and caving in further when the tree finally tipped over. Instantly, the log was covered in thicker, cushiony mosses, and it melted away and away and away, deepening the color of soil it generated underneath its resting place.

More of this rising and falling followed: a tree standing up, taking its jabs at the dam’s scarred surface; then falling, and offering its energy back into the growing soil beneath it. Then, more trees. More jabs, and cracks. More moss, and earth. It was a reverse kintsugi: the rich green veins feathering through the concrete coaxed growing piles of dissolved stone to dance away as wispy streams of dust on the wind. The softening dam began to heave with the weight of the rich earth above it, and finally, finally, it began to bulge with the earnestness of the water trapped behind it.

Lia held her breath as she sensed this tipping point, eyes scanning the dam for a hint of a leak. She had scarcely noticed the setting sun as she watched season after season cycle before her on the dam, but as she witnessed the dam begin to weep golden rivers from the mossy web on its face, she registered that it was spotlit by the day’s final rays. The forest around it had backed into shadow, growing hushed and reverent as it beheld the river’s healing ceremony. She felt a sharp little elbow in her side and glanced over.

“Breathe, Nishiimens,” the trickster smiled, shrinking into a muskrat as the day around them slipped into night. “It’s time.”

When it finally gave way, it was with the energy of an exhausted teacher shoving open the exit doors on the last day of school: defeated, ready for collapse, and far departed from the effort of barking any orders to stop running. And the water rushed past with the energy of the children freed from these walls and more.

It rushed home into the grieving arms of its original shorelines, crashing into an embrace and showering tearful kisses on the dry cheeks of the family it was stolen from all those years ago. Like a ripple of sensation running down a spine, the water’s homecoming washed down the river and melted into an easy sense of wellness that carried for miles. And as the noise from the rush fell away and the current began to even out, the compressed time on the dam began to slow its flow.

Beneath their blanket, a council of Beings murmured at their own volume. Fragments of shell and bone countered the hotter argument of the plant matter still in decay. As usual, the slowness of the clay calmed the heat of the debates. Worms pushed politely between the deliberation, receiving gentle pats from the Elders in the group and giggly waves from the younger Relatives. Mycelia sparked with excitement at what was finally coming, dashing off with news for the community.

Richness and mucky water along the river’s edges were revealed, promising a gentle bed into which the sprawling forest would ease its tired feet and wild rice beds would bask and dance before it once again. In the time-flow’s easing back into two-legged pace, this interstice would begin its bloom into a playground for ducks and geese, offering them their favorite food in exchange for their digestion, and eventual contribution to the nutrient levels in the feathery soil swaying below the gentle current.

The trickster leaned back, stopping finally to admire their work. “Here is our prototype, Nishiimens. Remember it. Live it. Weave it in.” They cupped their dainty muskrat paws and scooped up a tiny clod of this new soil. “Remember where we come from,” they murmured as they bounced back over to her. They placed the soil in her hand and reached out their arms, hugging her fingers over it. “It’s our way back home.”

***

Eighth Fire. Manoominike Giizis. New

Frogs and dragonflies feast on mosquitos between blades of wild rice hung heavy with ripe seeds. Peeking from between the grassy waves, sheaves of it sway like rows of polite party-goers bowing at each other as they show off their vibrantly colored ties of fabric and twine.

At the edge of the stand, elk roam between the trees, calling to each other and displaying huge antlers as they hold their yearly competition. Above them, a dazzling crown of leaves sparkles from red to yellow across the canopy as sunbeams lower their way between trunks into a relaxed evening. Water flows past gently, the waves in its mirror display like tiny lapping hills of gold.

And a parting gift from from the trickster has taken hold here, the land finding pleasure in tending to a new, playful interface. Copper filaments tendril through effigies of wood, stone, steam. Some of these little beings dance with the sound of wooden chimes in the breeze, some whirlpool up to boats; some roll rocky joints as they clatter about. Each with its own personality, and each carrying a human voice. Young and old, cranky and jubilant, smooth and gravelly, these effigies speak for the land, sliding across the planes of the two-leggeds as benevolent finger puppets that prop up to full height and dissolve at will.

A man waist deep in water can be heard in conversation with one that has materialized as a column of mist, its sweet buzzing voice saying, “A few more days, little brother. Then come harvest!”

In a different direction, a matriarch effigy booms out, “Gaawiin! Stop! No more.”

It’s been some time since these booms were truly, urgently necessary. Generation upon generation has passed since humans finally agreed to take “no” for an answer, and strengthen inter-species treaties by honoring their edges. But the land still enjoys flexing the power of this gift the trickster left them all those seasons ago; a gentle tool to restore teachings to this young sibling that had once been lost to time.

At the edge of the elks’ territory, a scratched stump with a grandmotherly voice warns children playing nearby, “Not beyond here, Little Ones. It’s not safe today.”

A chorus of voices hoots and retreats, resuming their game closer to the eyes of nearby guardians.

Farther in the distance yet another effigy chirps the word “Yes!” with the voice of a small child, and the sound of fishing lines plopping into the water answers this instruction. Everywhere, the land speaks through these channels, orchestrating a system of consent that allows every being a voice.

Here, there is balance. Joy permeates the air as community embraces every Relative. Fires crackle, pots simmer, food is shared, and jokes are groaned over as needles pull thread and cradleboards bounce. No urgency takes hold; everything happens in its own, honored time. And among the growing pools of firelight, there are pockets of stillness.

A group sits around a chunk of stone that feels strangely bleached compared to its surrounding environment. It looks jagged and brittle, but there is a hint of perpendicularity on its surface, lending it the appearance of a small table. It is pocketed by a thick blanket of moss, almost as if the moss is the only thing holding it together. As the sun sets, the shadows stretching across it reveal soft impressions in the surface: two sets of handprints, side by side, like petroglyphs but too buttery to have been carved by any harsh tools.

Children in the circle gently elbow and tease, lighting the twilight air with the sounds of joyful youth. They giggle and stamp their feet as they collectively ask for a story to be told.

An Elder rests their hands in one set of prints, and motions to the child next to them to fill the other pair. As the chittering in the circle quiets down, the Elder begins to speak:

“Moss had softened everything.”