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Title Page

Dedication

TO THE NATIVE PEOPLE OF NEW ENGLAND—
WHOSE LIVES AND STORIES
REMAIN ROOTED IN THIS LAND

—J.B.

PROLOGUE

I’M WAITING HERE in the dark. It’s the kind of dark that only exists deep underground. It’s so quiet that all I can hear is my own breathing. I’m trying to find the courage, the courage that, as my dad told me, runs in our family.

I’m not afraid of the dark. But I am afraid of what may be in it. I’m afraid of what I might hear. The scratch of sharp claws against stone and then . . . a whisper.

I usually like scary stories. But not right now. So I’ve been trying not to think of any, but without any luck. One in particular keeps forcing its way into my mind. It’s one of our old Narragansett stories, a legend from long ago. Yet as long ago as it was told, I know now that tale is true. I’ve become part of it, but I’m not sure yet what role I am going to play, heroine or victim.

I lean back against the stone wall of the tunnel and try to regain my composure. I can’t give in to fear. I try to think of something else, but all that comes into my mind is the first time I heard the tale. I’m a little girl. Grama Delia’s voice is telling me how the monster came to be, that one called the Whisperer in the Dark.

It happened this way. There was a person whose mind became twisted. He was a pawwaw, one of our old-time medicine people who could speak with the manittoos, the spirits. A pawwaw is supposed to help people with his power, but this man became selfish. All that one could think of was himself, about gaining more power. So he turned to the dark manittoos. He gave them something. He gave up the daylight, and in return they gave him the power to live and keep living.

Life feeds on life. It is that way. The plant feeds on the soil and the light of the sun. The deer feeds on the plant. The wolf and the Narragansett feed on the flesh of the deer. But we must always remember the sun, look up to it and give thanks for its gift of life. If we do not do this, then we may become twisted. We may begin to believe as that one with the twisted mind believed. We may dream that we can live forever, that we never have to die.