Chapter Three

She was called Kijik, meaning ‘Sunshine’, by her abductors. Although her disposition was basically sunny, she didn’t always feel that way, especially these days. Sometimes her feelings were so passionate, and her moods so petulant, that she would have been better named Nimiki, meaning “Thunder’.

Today was one of those days: today she was burning with unfulfilled desire, an almost aching despair. Her fifteen years hung heavy on her. She had spurned the men in the village because they were such deadheads.

Having been taken from the Sioux, she had been kept by the Ojibwa as a potential mate for one of their braves. However, that wasn’t likely to happen because, one night as she lay sleeping on her mat, she had had a vision. The man who would win her love someday was not like any man she had ever seen before; he was about a head taller than she, red-haired and pale-skinned; he was like a god-spirit.

No, she thought, he is a god-spirit. And the mere thought made a shudder rush up her spine.

“When is he coming to get me?” she asked aloud, for no one was in her lodge at the time, to overhear. “With this fire raging within me, I don’t think I can wait: I need him now, not later.”

With that, she flopped down on her mat and, turning on her back, looked up through the smoke-hole at the clear blue sky.

“Hurry, my God-Spirit, hurry – I cannot wait forever.”