Love after the End Read online

  One of the council members, a woman from Eagle Clan, stood up after Shanay’s grandma. Her voice filled the room even without shouting. “Perhaps supplies wouldn’t be so low,” she said, looking straight at Shanay’s grandmother, “if you weren’t treating every single stranger who comes to your door.”

  There were quiet gasps, but just as many people seemed to be nodding. The word she used for stranger was meyaagizid—someone who was not kin.

  Shanay’s grandma looked right back at her and said in her forever-steady voice, “Since it was established, the Miskoziibiing hospital has always made it our policy to treat all who need our services. Whether they are inawemaagan or meyaagizid.”

  The Eagle Clan woman’s face was stormy. “Policy it may be.” Her tone was slow, deliberate, and a little vicious. “But all must still abide by the laws of Kinship within Anishinaabewaki.”

  “Kinship does not exclude kindness toward strangers,” my kookum said loudly, standing up next to Shanay’s grandma. The Eagle Clan woman’s frown deepened. I think she realized she was facing two respected women who were her elders, and that the very Kinship laws she was arguing for insisted she defer to them. She sat down hard and began whispering furiously to the council members next to her.

  My kookum leaned over then and said very low in my ear the instruction that I just shared: Watch those in power carefully. That’s why I wrote this down. And my kookum was right, because writing it down made me remember that Migizi was from Eagle Clan, and the woman who argued with Shanay’s grandma was the one in charge of their fate.

  11. Sometimes, when it’s the apocalypse, you have to just do things for yourself.

  My kookum won’t tell me about what happened to Migizi. When I ask, she gets a very pained expression on her face, and refuses to speak about it. But once I saw the Eagle Clan woman and the way she talked to my kookum and Shanay’s grandma, I knew what I had to do.

  After the council meeting was over, I told Shanay and my kookum that I was going to the bathroom. I followed the Eagle Clan woman out of the council chamber and into a back hallway. I guess I wasn’t great at being sneaky, because as soon as I shut the door (as quietly as I possibly could) she turned around and put her hands on her hips. “Well?”

  My tongue felt thick and knotted. She took this as a sign to start talking. “You want to give me a lecture too, like those relatives of yours?” she snorted, and anger started to get hot inside me at her condescending tone. My fingers pressed into my palms, and I could feel my nails leaving little marks in my flesh. “Please. I have better things to do than listen to a child’s righteousness.” And she started to turn away.

  “Wait,” I finally said. “Wait.” She kept walking. “I just want to know what happened to Migizi!”

  The Eagle Clan woman stopped dead. She turned back around to face me slowly. Then she walked right up to me, and bent down until face was inches from mine. “What did you say?”

  I swallowed the dryness in my throat. “Migizi. My friend. I want to know what happened to them.”

  There was a funny glint to her eyes as she studied my face. “That’s right, they did have a little pet, didn’t they?” She smiled, sweet and slimy. “Migizi is gone, child.”

  “You can’t exile someone just because you don’t like them,” I said hotly. “Kinship—”

  “Kinship is exactly the reason why that freak had to be gotten rid of,” she spat. “Do you even know what they did?” I blinked and the woman’s eerie smile came back. “You don’t, do you? Ah, Migizi, Migizi. They were always trying to pick a fight over the Kinship laws. I wondered for a long time why they were so hostile about that—but then when you’ve murdered your entire family, I guess your only hope is to overthrow the norms of Kinship.”

  I stood there, slack-jawed. “What?”

  The Eagle Clan woman pulled back from me a bit, looking ever more satisfied. “You heard me. Migizi slaughtered their own inawemaaganag. Set their own house on fire, left the entire village to burn. And ran like a coward.”

  There was nothing I wanted in that moment more than to get as far away from the Eagle Clan woman as I could and never see her again. But my entire body had become too heavy to move. “You’re lying!”

  “Look, I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “That grandmother of yours should never have let them come near you. But I promise you, Migizi is gone by now.”

  In Anishinaabemowin, the word maajaa can mean two things. Usually, it means someone has left, gone somewhere else. But other times, it means—

  “They’re dead, child. No one survives long outside the protective network of the Nation.” She grimaced. “Why do you think so many meyaagizijig want to come here, anyway?”

  I was shaking all over by then. My mouth wouldn’t work properly. After a minute of waiting, the Eagle Clan woman shook her head again, muttered to herself, and walked away. I watched her go all the way down the hallway before I felt like I could move again.

  12. I always knew terrible things had happened during the Bakadeng, and before, during the border wars, and even before that, when powerful states ruled the world. My kookum sometimes would go fuzzy when she talked about it, would get tears in her eyes or shaky hands. Especially when I was little, these moods scared me, and I would try to comfort her with rabbit stew or a funny story. It was only as I got older that I realized that there is only so much you can do to help. Shanay had whispered to me once that when she grew up, she wanted to specialize in medicine for people whose minds and hearts were in pain, like my kookum and Migizi. Maybe someday she will invent just the right combination of food and laughter to cure sadness.

  “Hey,” Shanay said when I told her what the Eagle Clan woman had said. “You don’t know what happened. We don’t know the full story. You remember Migizi’s scars. Someone did that to them.”

  I froze, remembering how much of Migizi’s skin was covered by those burns, and Shanay grabbed my hand.

  “Nigig, when I go with my grandma to give people medicine, sometimes they are hurt really bad. And sometimes …” She had a peculiar tender look on her face. “Scars aren’t the only marks that violence leaves behind.”

  “Why wouldn’t they tell us, then?” My voice broke as I half-shouted the words. Shanay pulled me into her arms and I curled into her, tucked my head against her neck, and tried to breathe.

  “Maybe,” she murmured against my hair, “Migizi was just trying to protect us.”

  When I was holding Shanay like that, I didn’t say anything else. But I’m writing the truth down here. And the truth is, when you’re a Native girl living in the apocalypse, there’s only so much anyone can protect you from.

  13. I’m crying as I write this. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have any words of wisdom for you, future Native girl surviving the apocalypse. What is there to say when you’re going to lose yet another person who you love most in the world?

  Back up. Deep breath.

  Early this morning, Shanay came to me in tears, panicking. Her grandma came in close behind her, looking for my kookum. As they talked, Shanay told me what had happened.

  The council said Shanay’s grandma broke the laws of Kinship in her work at the hospital. They say she prioritized meyaagizijig over our inawemaaganag. They said her Kinship ties were always suspect, since her father was not Anishinaabe. They said she and her descendants had forty-eight hours to leave Anishinaabewaki. Forever.

  “It’s not fair,” Shanay sobbed against my shoulder.

  “Shh,” I whispered, stroking her hair lightly. Behind us I heard my kookum’s voice raise as she cursed out the council members one by one. “We’ll figure this out,” I said. I was buzzing, ready to take on the council myself. “You’re not leaving. I promise.”

  I said those things and I meant them, but I don’t know how I can possibly make them true.

  14. Dear Nigig,

  When you find this, I hope you are not too angry with me. We’ve known each other for so long, and there’s so much I st
ill haven’t told you. Not because of you, see, but because I’m still scared. Scared that the wiindigoog have followed me even here.

  I wish I could tell you that what they will say about me isn’t true. It is. But it’s not the whole story. What does it mean to break Kinship with someone who has never regarded you as their kin? I know you and Shanay have seen the burns on my skin (you’re not as subtle as you think, my friend). The people who did that to me should have claimed me, should have treated me with love.

  The night I left they tried to burn me. They were laughing, telling me if I wanted to be a faggot so bad I should burn like one. Nigig, I was so scared. I fought them and I ran and I didn’t look back to see what happened. I didn’t want it to happen like that, but I’m not sorry I got away. Maybe that makes me the monster they think I am. I don’t know anymore.

  They will try to tell you that they exiled me, that there is no way to survive outside the Nation. Don’t believe them, Nigig. Don’t believe that the “strangers” who make their way into our lands are without their own ways to survive.

  You’ve always been so strong, Nigig. Trust yourself. Hold the ones you love close. I know you’ll find your own way.

  53.713287, -114.393061

  15. I guess I lied that day when I promised Shanay she wouldn’t leave. But I didn’t know what I know now. There’s more to the world than what I’ve seen.

  Migizi is out there somewhere. My kookum says she knows how to read the numbers they left me. I’m going to find them, and Shanay is coming with me. We’re stuck together, her and me. I’m not losing her, not ever.

  I told her that this morning as we packed our bags, and her eyes closed but no tears fell.

  When it came time to leave, the four of us—Shanay, her grandma, my kookum, and me—gathered together in the kitchen. My kookum looked at me for a long time.

  “I’ll see you again,” she said at last, not even a waver in her voice. When I started to protest, she held up a hand. “Someone needs to stay here to fight the council. To find a new way to hold our people together.”

  My body was heavy and I felt more tired than I had ever been in my entire life. I thought about every time my kookum had made me lead her through the trails of Anishinaabewaki, the ways she had showed me how to check the trees and stars to find my way. I thought, too, about the ceremonies she taught me and the ways to talk to people in new places, how to make meyaagizijig into inawemaaganag. I didn’t know what world Migizi was living in now, the world outside Anishinaabewaki, but as I saw the steadiness in my kookum’s gaze, I felt like maybe I was ready for this.

  There was no way to say all that, so I just nodded instead. She reached for me and tugged me close. I heard Shanay sniffle and her grandma murmur her reassurance.

  “Giga-waabamin miinawaa,” I said, repeating my kookum’s goodbye back to her. “I mean it.”

  She smiled at me. “I know, my little Nigig. Bring back some good stories for me.”

  16. So here we are, at the edge of Anishinaabewaki. Right where you come in.

  I knew what I had to do the minute I saw you there in the crowd of people protesting the council. I could hear your voice through the singing and slogans. And then you looked at me, and you smiled a little and gave me that nod that says, “I see you.”

  Maybe this, too, is Kinship.

  So I’m passing this on to you. If I know my kookum, there will be a lot of changes happening in the Nation soon. And you might need the help of an instruction guide for a 2spirit girl living in the apocalypse.

  I don’t know if or when I will come home. Or if home will even mean the same thing to me once I’ve left. But I hope that you’ll read what I’ve written here and remember the stories of the people that I love. Shanay, my kookum, Migizi. And when you’ve read it all, you can add stories of your own.

  I don’t know your name. I don’t know who your kin are. But I know you’re worth it, niijiikwe. And I know now that the only way to survive the apocalypse is to make your own world.

  So let’s get started.

  ANDWÀNIKÀDJIGAN

  GABRIEL CASTILLOUX

  CALDERON

  THE ELDERS HAD TOLD HER STORIES ABOUT THE WORLD THAT WAS.

  Stories about a mother who was earth. Stories about how the ones in power killed her. Others said the stories were lies. The world was always grey and concrete, steel and sorrow. They were born into it, so were their children. The only reason elders told stories was in order for the memory markings to appear. No one in the village knew why. However, when someone shared a story and you truly listened, listened with all your heart, by the end, strange red markings would appear on your skin, like tiny scratches that fell into a pattern no one could discern. When you touched one, words would appear in your head, and you would repeat the story back, verbatim, as if you were the one who shared it in the first place.

  No one knew why only the people in the village had the markings, or where they came from, or what they were for—but the people in power did. Therefore, one day, on the most special day, the day when the young ones go through their adulthood ritual and hear the creation story to receive their first markings, the ones in power attacked. They left no one alive.

  Or so they believed.

  A’TUGWEWINU AWOKE STARTLED; her breath coming in short gasps and sweat beading her brow. She quietly got up from her pallet on the floor so as not to disturb the bed’s other resident. A’tugwewinu sat in the adjacent room, on the edge of the wall, where there was a hole in it big enough to fit her comfortably. The air was stiff and hot. No wind from the open wall to soothe her blistering skin. The sky was an orange glow with a dull light emanating from the centre. The sky was always orange. Sometimes the dull light would be brighter, other times gone completely. Regardless, it was always hard to see. She looked down at her arm, skin bronzed and grimy, and softly rubbed the markings there. They were fresh from a merchant telling her about a story his grandfather had passed to him.

  Gently she felt fingers touch her nape and Bèl’s gentle voice murmured in her ear. “When did those marks happen?”

  “This morning.”

  Bèl’s strong hands moved her body around to face their owner. A’tugwewinu looked into warm, immeasurably deep eyes like onyx and smooth, dark lips shaped into a quiet smile.

  “Do you want to hear the story?” A’tugwewinu asked.

  A nod. Bèl’s hand grasped hers, graceful fingers callused from fighting that tugged her away from the harsh sky and the arid air, back to the protection of their little pallet nest.

  “Your turn,” A’tugwewinu whispered, holding her arm out.

  Bèl looked at her solemnly before turning their gaze to the fresh markings with true intent. Those scarred fingers gently pressed on them, putting into the touch the need to listen and learn. The markings triggered, sending a cold snap into A’tugwewinu’s head. Everything was silent, until suddenly, word after word barraged her senses. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth.

  “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

  SHE SAT UNDER the metal overhang near the outskirts of the village. It was her little place, only those closest to her knew it. She fiddled with the hem of her ribbon shirt. The frayed edges wrecked wonders to the nerve endings under her fingernails. Footsteps approached as A’tugwewinu looked up and saw her mother come closer.

  “Hey,” she said as her mother sat next to her.

  “Hey,” her mother replied.

  They both sat silently for a bit, staring out into the brown and dappled grey hills around them.

  “The boys made fun of Kokomis’ shirt. They said I’m a girl and girls shouldn’t wear men’s clothes. They said I’m wrong.”

  Her mother crooned. She gently grasped her face. “When you were born, your Kokomis held you in his arms and he looked at me with tears running down his face because he had been waiting his whole life for another îhkwewak like him, and there you were, I gave birth to you, and I was never m
ore grateful for anything else in my life. You are a gift, Winu. And people are often jealous of gifts that are not for them.”

  A’tugwewinu tossed her arms around her mother and held her tightly. For a moment, it was serene. Then her mother began muttering in a strange language, something she did when visions would consume her. A’tugwewinu withdrew her embrace and looked into the white pupilless eyes of her mother, her mouth moving constantly, strange sounds and gurgles spewing forth. Suddenly, her mother’s hand shot out and grasped her arm, in her mind she was assaulted with images, fire, the faces of people she knew screaming in agony, moving metal machines with weapons that killed thousands. “Run,” her mother demanded. “Run, toward the east, as fast as you can. Hide when you hear anything. Run!” With her final decree, she released her death grip on her child.

  A’tugwewinu gasped as the images stopped. She looked at her mother whose pearl pupilless eyes had returned to a beautiful roasted brown. Tears fell down her face. Her mother nodded at her once. With her final salute, A’tugwewinu turned and ran.

  It wasn’t until a few hours later that she saw the fire rise to the sky with billowing clouds of ash and heat where her village once stood. The roar of hundreds of villagers’ spirits rose from the earth. She loosened her cries of anguish for all that she loved was gone.

  AFTER THE STORY WAS COMPLETE, both lovers fell back into peaceful sleep. In retrospect, the morning could have been serene. It could have been a tender, warm awakening, filled with lengthy kisses and the feeling of skin on skin. In retrospect, it could have been, but as A’tugwewinu lay beaten and bruised, hands tied behind her back, on the floor of an Enforcers vehicle, she knew from that fateful day when the ones in power destroyed her village, that she would never again receive the gift of a serene morning.

  The Enforcers had surrounded them, kicking them awake. Bèl sprung to action, going for the machete they slept on, but it was futile; instead they received a busted lip and cracked ribs for their efforts.