The Medicine Game

The land has begun to forget her own song.

In response, she calls - quietly, the way she calls when she needs to be remembered - and the ones who hear her are not the strongest or the fastest, but the ones whose hearts already have a small crack. A great old bear. A wolf with a tightening pack. A deer whose grace has gone unkind. A snake. A clever raccoon. Two eagles. A hawk. An owl. A small squirrel named Saloli. A bat the others will not yet name. And a boy called Tsigilli,