I have never seen a beaver lodge before. It doesn’t look like it was made by animals as much as very smart children. We’re hunting, so we’ve split up, and I am alone, standing on the bank of a creek with a sharp stick. That’s all I have, no gun, no bow, but it’s enough to make me brave. Because I am eleven years old now, and I am brave, I tell myself. I tell myself this a lot.

I leave my shoes on the bank. Wet feet are too dangerous out here. Catching cold could be the end. I wade in, holding the stick above my head, the water reaching to my ribs. If there’s a beaver in there and I can kill it, we’ll eat well. We don’t trap out here, so it’s hard, but if anyone can do it, it’s me. Minerva will tell me she’s proud of me and call me her boy. I’ll do just about anything to be her boy.

This lodge is small. Probably a young beaver’s first digs. I’ll have to dive to get inside since the doorway is underwater. That makes me nervous. It means my head will pop up in the dark before anything else. It means I’ll be in a vulnerable position. Miig tells us we are already vulnerable out here, so don’t take chances. I circle the structure, listening. The creek is low, and the lodge is sticking up pretty high. On the far side, there’s a crack in the dome. I push the sharp end of the stick into the soft ground around the lodge, pull myself up, hook fingers and toes into the branches, and climb. I get to the crack and stop. I look up; the sky is bright blue, the sun is full and blurry behind a haze. I take a deep breath, like I’m going underwater after all, and look down and inside.

There’s a girl. She’s curled up, her face turned toward the ground, limbs over bones, bones stacked over curved muscles, a dark bud in a streak of sunlight. And then, as I’m watching, she starts to pull apart, stretching until her fingertips hit the muddy wall. She’s on her back, and I can see her entire face, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She’s soft like that, looking up at me, for a few seconds, and then she pulls it all back and in and gets hard, like she can do so quick. She cups one hand over the side of her face and puts the other one on a cleaver by her side. Then she kind of smiles, no fear at all, and says:

“What the fuck is this, now?”

I feel something in my chest start to unravel. It’s a new space, and it opens quick. My heart gets real wide, so big. As big as it can go and still be beating.

✦✦✦ ✦✦✦ ✦✦✦

Chi Boy pushed his lips right up against Wab’s belly so that his words are a tickle over tight skin. “That’s the day I met your mom. The day I started dreaming you into existence. Nothing matters before that. This is where the story really starts.”