The New Path

Chapter Two

⋖~The Return~⋗

25th May, 1610

Slow, fluid gestures moved her arms and hands, the warmth of the sun penetrated the branches of the trees, brushing her copper, soft skin.

The earth is soft, the river flows slowly, the wind caresses the falling leaves.

Her hands opened gently over her dark hair, her body slanted like a swamp rush in following the sweet breath of the Wind Spirit as her brown eyes gracefully closed, leaving the darkness of her mind reign on her vision. She never clasped her hands together, she let them free to touch the energy around her, and she smiled when her fingertips or palms crashed against the rough surface of a tree, without ever getting hurt. Her bare feet gathered from the earth beneath them the force she thought she had lost when, fourteen days earlier, her father, the great paramount chief Powhatan, had sent her away from the village to pass the Rite of Passage. She had spent seven days in the yehakin of Keegsquaw and Nuttah, the shaman women, until they too had pushed her to go out, pointing the thick woods of the Tsenacommacah with their bony fingers.
"Follow the divine within you, child," they had told her, "Go, and come back as a woman."

An unsuspecting smile painted her lips to that memory, her gestures quickened for a moment. The forest around her whispered, watched her with curiosity while she, a stranger, called to herself the Spirits of the Earth to understand if it was really time to go back home.
The first few days on her own had been very scary for her. The darkness had terrified her, the voices of wolves and bears had forced her to find shelter among the leaves of the trees, the nocturnal frost had almost brought her into the desolation of the Land of Death; but then, just two days earlier, she had woken up and had realized that she couldn't have lived in fear. She had begun to indulge Nature in its slow course, had engaged in hunting and purifying water to keep herself alive, and now there she was.
A woman, ready to assume the duties that would soon be poured on her.

The shadow of the tree welcomes the wounded deer, the sun illuminates the old-growing bushes, the rain cools the limbs of the tired wolf.

She slightly leaned forward, felt the presence of the river with her fingers and, after having cupped her hands and filled them with water, she softly bathed her face; she repeated the gesture two, three, four times, until, satisfied, she didn't open her eyes.

Spring bloomed around her, and the happiness with which it glowed was a promise to soon turn into summer. The fragrant flowers would then transform into juicy fruits that she and her sisters would collect in their large baskets of corn fiber, and then they would eat them in front of the bonfire in the company of their father and the rest of the tribe. They would then collect the fallen feathers of eagles and peregrine falcons, weaving crowns for their brothers and braiding the remaining ones in their raven locks; they would paint the arms and chests of the new adults with the painting that Kekata, the shaman, created every day, and they would dance to the rhythm of the drums, holding hands and hugging one another.
But first, she would have had to become a woman.
That evening, at sunset, she would have returned to Werowocomoco, her village, and there she would have been welcomed by all her friends and siblings, receiving her painting and her feather crown. Her deerskin dress was also too tight now, so she would have had to ask for a new one.

Hopefully.

The Wind Spirit gently caressed her cheeks, flushed with the smooth cold of the water, her hair flowed along the airy stream; she shook her head, closing her eyes and smiling at the air around her.
For many days the Spirit had insisted on her, surprising her when she least expected it and, at times, even in the less suitable moments. She had tried to follow It, but when she had noticed It was leading her to the village of the pale people, miles and miles away from Werowocomoco, she had decided to stop walking that way.
She had met a pale one once, when she was about eleven. A tall, strong man with thick, sun-coloured hair and big, sky-coloured eyes, his skin so pale to almost look like snow; he was a warrior, as her brothers were, but hidden in those strange, rigid and gray garments she had often seen on the foreigners, he had seemed more like a divine creature, for those large pieces of stiff cloth reflected the light of the sun and made them look like stars. She had met him by chance, or at least so she had decided to think.