Redemption by Veronique Launier Page A

but I said nothing. I wasn’t sure why I was even here. I could have trailed her to get the answers I wanted. Surely that would have been easier than this interaction.
    “Shall we go?” she asked.
    “Lead the way,” I said to her finally.
    The room used for the event was vast and empty. Normally used for athletic events, it had lines drawn on the floor. A man motioned for us to sit down inside of a green circle in the center of the room. He didn’t look straight at me, his attention on Aude, instead. This was a good thing. I could sense power in him, and most shamans should be able to identify the essence within me. Many would even know me for what I am, a gargoyle. I wouldn’t have come here if I had realized how close it would bring me to an actual medicine man.
    We were late. A group of about twenty people already sat in a semicircle on the floor and once we joined them, the man began his narrative.
    “Our people are the people of the flint. You call us Mohawk, but this is not our name. Our name is Kanien’kéha:ka. We are one of the original members of the six nations that form the Iroquois League. Our history is vast and interesting. I urge you to learn more about it, but today we will be using our drums and talking of our legends. These legends were originally passed on in the Kanien’kéha language, an Iroquois dialect, but I will share it with you in English.” He beamed at the crowd. “Aren’t you relieved?”
    A few people chuckled.
    He spoke of the sacred drums used in ceremonies. The drums we would use were to be very different than those. I nodded, for I expected as much. The Kanien’kéha:ka guarded their rituals closely.
    “I will begin by telling you the story of The Wife of the Thunderer. While I speak, you will notice my trusty sidekicks,” he paused for effect and the crowd laughed again, “will be beating a rhythm on the water drums. This rhythm, along with the timbre of my voice should combine to push against the boundaries of your imagination if everything is working for you as it should in there.” He pointed to his head, to the amusement of the people around me.
    He wove his story in a way only a master of his craft could. This man may recognize me—and the Mohawk were not fond of supernatural creatures, especially not ones of stone—but my deep love of history made coming here worthwhile.
    When he spoke of Ahweyoh, the protagonist of the story, and her trials against her aunt and the man she was to be married to, I remembered another man telling this story in a very different setting. That night there had been a fire and some dancing. The drums beat in my head and reminded me the feeling of life that had courses through my veins when amongst the people of the flint. It reminded me that I was more than just stone. I was alive. The sensation was euphoric, as if new essence trickled within me. I saw pictures in my head, remembering the tribes that were this man’s ancestors during the earlier days of Montreal’s colonization.
    Then I heard the incantations.
    I wasn’t sure if they were part of my memories or of the real word around me. The words came softer than a whisper. When I faced Aude, I saw her lips moving, barely more than a tremble. I shivered.
    Her eyes met mine and what I saw panicked me. A depth I hadn’t noticed before and something else, something I knew couldn’t really be there, a power that had died out some time ago. Essence pooled freely in her, not tightly guarded like usual, essence like I used to see in the de Rouen witches. Like I saw in Marguerite. She blinked a few times and her eyes returned to normal. Still pretty, still expressive, but no longer ageless. I wondered if I had imagined it all. If I sought redemption from Marguerite’s fate so badly that I now saw her in other people. I searched her eyes while the man talked, but what I thought I’d seen never returned.
    A strand of red hair fell into her face and I automatically tucked it back behind her