I was an idiot. I couldn’t touch stars. No one could. I tried though, and something happened.

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

I must have fallen asleep. That was it. I was asleep. That was why I had the dream that didn’t feel like a dream. It was real and there I was in the middle of it. I was staring up at the sky when out of one particularly black corner a shooting star blazed.

It fell for thousands and thousands of feet, leaving behind a trail of wispy plumes that wound around each other like corkscrews. It bathed the whole camp in its light.

When I knew it must surely crash, the star shot skyward again, its glow gentler and softer now, a sort of half-light. It pulsed and brightened, then faded to nothing, leaving the whole sky black and devoid of planets and stars. I blinked my eyes, realizing that all the brightness had rendered my night vision useless. I waited for my eyes to adjust and they did, with the stars and planets in their usual alignment, gazing on The People.

I sat up. The fire was only ember now, so I put a few more chips on the coals, happy to occupy my hands because my brain whirled. I looked at Blue Mountain Woman, asleep. I had to speak of what I had seen, so I knelt by Hawk’s buffalo robe and shook him gently.

He sat up so quickly, completely awake, that we nearly bumped heads. He glanced around then back at me, a question in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, Hawk.” I felt shy then, as if in the early days of our journey together.

“What’s wrong?” He yawned and propped himself up on his elbow.

“I’m not sure.”

I hesitated and he waited. That’s another thing I like about the Nimiipuu: they’ll wait with you without feeling the need to fill space with chatter.

When in Rome… I took a deep breath. “I…I…think I had a vision.”

I cringed inside, waiting for him to laugh at me, but he didn’t

“Tell me about it, Liz,” he whispered, his voice kind.

It took me several starts and stops, and fumbling for words, but I told him about the falling star that swooped around, and the brilliant light. “So…so.. I think my name should be Bright Star,” I finished in a rush of words. I looked sideways at Hawk, too embarrassed to do anything else.

He lay back and propped his hands under his head. I thought he had returned to sleep, so I started to slide over onto my buffalo robe. He took my wrist and pulled me closer.

“Bright Star.” He said it in Nimiipuu and in English. “It is a good name.”

“Then you do think I had a vision?” Oh, me of little faith.