But I live in these times, times when people find Indians interesting but sort of quaint. Modern-day people claim to be rational—even though they believe in urban legends and their kids all read the Harry Potter books and dream about being wizards. So if you start talking Indian stuff as if you really believe it, they may just look at you as if they pity you for believing crap like that. And if you talk about the past, a lot of people say you should just forget it. Live in the present day. Whatever happened, happened. This is the twenty-first century. Forget about it. But Indians don’t forget. I might listen to Eminem on my Walkman and play video games and send e-mail, but that doesn’t make me a different person. It doesn’t change the beat of my heart. We Indians know what century we are living in, but we also remember how we got here. And we remember the stories created along the way.

“Roger,” I said, “I have to tell you about the Whisperer in the Dark.”

“You mean that old story about the Indian boogeyman,” Roger said. “You told me that one already, Maddy.”

“No,” I said. “Not really.”

“You mean there’s more to it than just some monster that takes away kids who’ve been bad?” Roger said, trying to make light of it. Then he saw the look on my face and stopped. “Sorry, Mad,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“I didn’t tell you the whole story,” I said. “The Whisperer story isn’t just one of those Narragansett tales that is as ancient as our hills. Part of it also comes from the time after the arrival of the Knife Men. Chauquacock. That’s the name my Indian ancestors gave to the English. Some say it was because they admired the Europeans’ blades that were not made of wood or bone or flint like our knives, but fashioned out of some new, hard, and shiny substance with sharp edges. My dad, though, said we also gave the English that name because those newcomers could sometimes be just as hard and cold and dangerous as the weapons they carried.”

Roger settled back against the stone and crossed his arms. He could tell I was in my Maddy the Historian mode and that my story was going to take a while. I took a deep breath.

“Anyhow, the story of the Whisperer is like a lot of things that are Narragansett now but have a kind of English influence to them. Like the way the Narragansetts greeted Roger Williams when he first arrived here to found Providence, way back in 1636. ‘What cheer, netop,’ they said to him. Netop means ‘friend’ in the Narragansett language. But ‘what cheer’ was the way that English people greeted each other back then. Sort of like ‘Whassup?’ now. The Narragansetts had learned those words from the early English traders.”