We cheered. It had really happened. It had seemed impossible, but Wab and Chi Boy had a child. We had a child. Even now, our family was growing.

“Hi, Daddy.” Wab held the tiny baby, downy skin and curled fists, up to the side of their cage. The steel grid couldn’t hide the shock of dark hair, starting to lift as it dried. Couldn’t mask the quiver of her bottom lip. Couldn’t hide her father’s eyes, looking steady across the dim room at the man she’d inherited them from.

Chi Boy opened his eyes and blinked, the first tear escaping. He cried out like a bird, like an animal, like nothing I’d ever heard before, and then he wept, the tears streaking clean marks down his face.

“Ishkode,” he said, his tears striping down his chin like paint.

“Mmmm, a good name for one who’s going to bring change.” Miigwans grinned and spoke a little louder. “I can’t wait until you can tell us who you are, little one, until you can share your coming-to story. Until then, we’ll do our best.”

Wab tried to hold back her own tears, but they came anyway, covering the baby in her water again. “Ishkode,” she repeated, whispering it into her hair. “Ishkode. Like your daddy. Like your family.” Wab placed her on her lap and set about delivering the placenta and severing the cord with her teeth.

“It’s beautiful,” Rania said. “What does it mean?”

Slopper had been studying Anishinaabemowin since Minerva was killed, working to keep us all alive with the words she’d left us, the ones she’d carried forward against all odds, so we could make sure the new kids coming could curve their tongues around those sounds, could rattle the consonants against their baby teeth. He was the one who answered. “Fire. It means fire.”

Miigwans was tired again, his face covered with sweat. “Things are different now.” He closed his eyes, sighing as he lay back. “Sometimes you need fire to clear the path forward.”

“Guys?” It was Zheegwon. “I think I found a way out.”

CHAPTER 36

WHAT’S YOURS

Adelaide

JIMMY WAS ALL PACKED AND PROPPED UP IN HIS wheelchair. Adelaide wheeled him to the front door before she did her final walk-through of their bungalow.

The family portraits were still on the wall. She didn’t need those. They all included Harold, and since he had left them for a woman in Duluth, they would leave him here to fade in the wooden frames. She hadn’t bothered giving their food and linens away. That might draw attention to their departure, and she didn’t need anything coming between her and the north. North was where she was going to find a new home. North was where Jimmy would come back to her. Plus, fuck her neighbors. What had they ever done for her?

She packed their toiletries and a couple changes of clothes and the medicine they soon wouldn’t need. The school lady had told her to bring no more than a duffel bag each and maybe a backpack. There wouldn’t be room for more. She’d been far more helpful than Adelaide had assumed she would be, walking her through the next steps: meeting with the MOMS, loading the cargo, swinging by to pick her and Jimmy up…and she’d assured her that no one would know the identify of the squealer. They’d figure it out when she didn’t show up for the next meeting, but by then, what would it matter?