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happened.”
    The boy stands up straight, his paper held in both hands in front of him, although Izzy knows that only half of what he will recite will actually be printed on the page. He’ll begin in halting English but quickly switch to Cree. Izzy doesn’t interrupt him; it’s the story that counts.
    “There are these people who are this little” – the boy puts out his arm at waist level. “They live in rocks in lakes and rivers. They especially like waterfalls. They’re called omomik-wesiwak . One summer day – it was very misty – my mosom was out in his canoe tending his nets. He was surprised that they were all tangled and broken, like some huge fish had been in there. But there was no fish. Through the fog he saw a little canoe – it was made of stone – with three little people inside. They saw my grandfather and began singing” – here Angus imitates in a high quivering voice – “‘Pali, Pali, Pali.’ Nobody knows what it means. Then they paddled their canoe right into the rock and were gone. Mosom left some fish right there and it disappeared. They probably ate it.
    “My mosom still has some of their medicine. He keeps it in his trunk. It’s all powdery, in different colours. He got it from the omomikwesiwak who live in Reindeer Lake where the water is very cold and clear. They live on a big island there with a great, steep rock in the middle. If you leave a piece of moose hide about the size of a napkin at a certain place, and say out loud exactly what is bothering you or someone you know – pain in the leg, pain in the backside, pain in the head – you have to say the details. You come back in a few days, and a bundle of medicine will be waiting for you.
    “But the omomikwesiwak don’t like everybody, and if they don’t like you, you’re in big trouble. Last spring a white trader, his partner who’s a half breed, and a Cree guide were trying to find the omomikwesiwak’s island so they could get their hands on the medicine. As they came near, three omomikwesiwak paddled towards them. The Cree guide grabbed hold of the bow of their canoe rough like, and yelled, ‘Where you going, little people?’ The half breed asked, ‘What are you hiding there?’ And the white trader, pulling a dollar bill from his pocket, said, ‘Why don’t you hand over those bundles of medicine? See, here’s real money.’
    “One of the omomikwesiwak looked at the Indian and said, ‘You’ll never see the wild roses bud again.’ A second told the half breed, ‘You’ll never see the leaves turn yellow,’ and a third shouted at the white trader, ‘You’ll never again see snow fall in Pelican Narrows.’ And that is the end of my story.”
    Out of breath, the boy plunks himself down, and the others clap and hoot their approval.
    Izzy is taken aback at Angus’s tale. She’s heard the gossip, and knows exactly to whom he is referring. The Indian guide is George Ballendine who, while out hunting the previous April, fell through the ice and drowned. The half breed is Bibiane Ratt and the trader Arthur Jan, both men still very much alive. But then the leaves are still green and there’s no sign of snow.

Chapter Ten

    The teacher is anything but a tyrant, so when the scholars’ captivity has obviously become unbearable – even Laura Whitegoose pays no attention when asked to recite the eight times table – Izzy dismisses her class an hour before lunch. But she is disturbed by Angus Crane’s story and decides she’ll visit his family to warn them that the child is spreading dangerous rumours.
    As she makes her way along the narrow, wandering path up the hill from Pelican Lake towards the encampment where the Crane clan have pitched wigwams and built a few cabins, she thinks that, even on this lovely day, a dark pall of heartache lies heavy over this place. The story Arthur Jan told last night of the massacre, for example. Izzy’s heard versions of it many times, none more gruesome than that recounted