I lowered myself to the seat closest to the door, my knees rising, and I squirmed to find a comfortable position. Aggie seemed fine with the seat, and I copied the pose of her legs, but she was much shorter than my six feet and it wasn't working for me. I stretched out my feet to the fire and waited, palms flat on my thighs, not knowing what was going to happen. No more memories came to enlighten me. I had lost so much of myself, of my past.
Neither of us spoke. Aggie, moving slowly, as if everything she did were choreographed, put a blackened length of wood on the fire, using it to shuffle the coals. Brighter red light seeped out. From a basket, she pulled something tied with twine. It was too dark in the lodge to identify, but it was a foot long, about an inch and a half in diameter, and she held it to the coals. Instantly it lit, throwing bright white light for a few seconds, the flames a greedy whisper as they ate into it. I drew in the scent. Sweetgrass. Sage. Something tart, like lemon camphor. Herbs used in making a smudge stick. I remembered. . . .
I closed my eyes and breathed. Time passed. Aggie added more herbs as the first of them smoldered into ash. My legs seemed to settle and relax. Sweat rose to my skin, beading, puddling, and ran in sluggish rivulets on my hands, along my arms and legs. Thick drops rolled down and plopped against the smooth clay floor beneath me. I sighed, the breath long and slow.
From somewhere came the soft sound of a drum beating a measured, rhythmic four-beat. I chuckled softly, little more than a breath. "A CD? In a sweat lodge, Lisi?"
From some part of my deeper mind, I knew the word li si. Grandmother. Though Aggie wasn't my grandmother, it was a term of respect for an elder. "Yes. Lisi," I said again. "Lisi."
Aggie smiled in the dark. I knew it, though my eyes were closed, my head back, neck stretched out. I breathed in the scented smoke. Her voice like a whisper of a dawn breeze, Aggie said, "It is music from a Cherokee musician. With only the two of us, it would be difficult to call the drums."
"Drums," I said. "I had forgotten about the drums." She lifted my hand and guided it to a handle, pressing it toward my lips. A ladle full of water. I drank. She took the ladle away.
I heard a sizzle, and knew Aggie had spilled water over the hot stones, like an offering. A gift. Steam sputtered into the scented air. As the music and the heat and the cleansing steam surrounded me, I relaxed, letting my body find the shape of the wood beneath me. Beast slept. Perhaps I did too.
Long hours later, I heard a voice in my dreams, softer than the quiet drums. "Aquetsi, ageyutsa." Granddaughter. "Tell me what you remember."
The drums pulled at me, calling, calling. The herbs and the heat pressed down on me. "Aquetsi, ageyutsa, tell me what you remember."
"E lisi." My grandmother. An old, old, old woman, her skin pulled into drooping wrinkles, her hair black and streaked with silver, parted and braided to either side of her head, the plaits hanging down, tied at the ends with leather thongs and the bones and feathers of her beasts. Fire danced over her skin, down her cotton dress, to the drum in her thin hand. The drum she beat, so slowly. Four beats: one firm and three sliding, softer beats.
"E lisi," I said again. "E lisi, e tsi, e doda." My grandmother, my mother, my father. Words that had lost meaning, newly found. "E lisi had eyes like mine. Like my father's. Dalonige i digadoli. Yellow eyes."
From somewhere a flute began to play, the notes rich with sadness. I opened my eyes. Cave walls surrounded me, the roof melting down in drops and spirals, like the white man's candles, the rock magical, soft and puddling, like the sweat from my skin. The cave roof was crying the tears of the world in soft plinks, the sound of tears merging with the drum and flute.
Elisi was speaking, measured and slow. But though I could see her lips move in the flicker of firelight, her words were lost, whispered echoes. Then my father spoke, and his words I could hear. In low, breathy tones he spoke animal names. "We sa. Gvhe. Unodena. Usdia soquili. Gvli. Ugugu. Uwohali. When you are older, bigger, tlvdatsi. Tlvdatsi, like me. Dalonige i Digadoli, aquetsi ageyutsa." Bobcat. Wild cat. Sheep. Pony foal. Raccoon. Owl. Eagle. When you are older, bigger, mountain lion. Panther, like me. Golden Eyes, my daughter.
My father's voice went on, speaking the names of animals I could choose. But I knew already, though my body was too small to find them, that I would call we sa and tlvdatsi. Bobcat and panther. Like my father. Because he had told me so.
Dalonige i Digadoli. Golden Eyes. My name.
"Wake up, Jane. Wake up," a voice murmured. "It's time to go."
I opened my eyes. I was lying on my back, looking up. I was at peace, so calm it was like being a feather on the breeze, floating. Above me, a shaft of sunlight pierced the roof, shining down through swirling smoke. Particles shifted and eddied in the bright light. I turned my head. I was in a dark room. Shadows crouched in the corners. The air was warm and dry, my skin crusted with salt. My hair, which had started out tightly braided, was loose on the clay floor beneath me and across my shoulders. I smiled. "I remember my name."