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.She ran down, two steps at a time, and got there as the launch was pulling up.Even as the crew was securing the boat to the dock, Elizabeth crawled aboard and tucked the blanket around Kateri’s shoulders.Slowly, Kateri turned her head.She looked as if she’d been beaten, slashed, and mangled.Her swollen, bloody lips were twice their normal size.Her bronze complexion had taken on a bluish cast.She must be suffering from hypothermia, and that perhaps was a good thing, sparing Kateri the worst of her pain.But she saw Elizabeth, and recognized her, for her eyes blazed with unexpected, intense need.Her lips moved, and she whispered … something.Elizabeth knelt beside Kateri and opened the first aid kit.Kateri’s hand latched on to Elizabeth’s wrist.“Not yet.I’m not going to die.Not again.”Elizabeth paused.That voice.It was so changed.Kateri sounded like a longtime smoker, like someone whose voice had been taken by torment and returned in some different, ruined form.The crew slowly climbed out of the launch and up the steps.“Can I give you water?” Elizabeth asked.“They gave me … now I want to tell you … I want to tell you what happened.”But you’re hurt, maybe dying … “Yes.Tell me,” Elizabeth said.For these might be Kateri’s last words.“I … saw the wave cresting.Tried to turn the clipper.Too late.” A shudder shook Kateri.“Then I saw him.”Elizabeth leaned closer.“Who? One of your crewmen?”“The god of below.The giant frog monster who made the earth break apart.”“Oh.” Okay.“The god broke the clipper’s windows, reached in … dragged me out.” Kateri paused to rest.“And flung me into hell.”Elizabeth nodded.In a way, that made sense, that as a Native American, Kateri would see the Pacific Ocean as a god pulling her from the safety of the clipper and into the maw of death.“You were in the water.”“I rolled in the wave, over and over, while the god beat me, broke me, stole the breath from my lungs and drank the blood from my body.” Kateri’s breath rasped in her lungs.“Now.Water.Please.”Elizabeth feared to touch her.But Kateri turned her head to the side and took short sips from the bottle.She swallowed painfully, then closed her eyes as if exhausted.Elizabeth’s heart hurt for her friend.“You don’t have to tell me now.”“Now.It has to be now.” Kateri opened her swollen, bloodshot eyes.“I woke underwater, in the cave of the god.He was green, with hands and feet that wavered in the currents, and a mouth huge and black.I knew … what had happened.I was drowned.My body was worthless, my soul trapped within.The god reached for me and squeezed me, chewed me and swallowed me.” She whimpered, the low, animal sound of pain and anguish.“And I died.”“You’re here,” Elizabeth said in a voice meant to comfort.“You didn’t die.”Kateri was not comforted.“I did.I did.I saw things … a person should never see.Heaven and hell.Eternity and beyond.The pain disappeared … and I saw the light.You know … the light I was supposed to go toward?”“The light that calls you after death.” Elizabeth didn’t believe, but Kateri did.“Yes.Of course.”“I tried to go toward it—and the god snatched me back.He made me return.”Elizabeth didn’t know what to say in the face of such delusion.“We’re glad he did.”“Not me.I’m not glad.Like a candle, the light blew out.Without warning, bubbles, blue seawater, green kelp surrounded me.I was in agony … again.I was rising to the surface.I saw a shark.I knew I was bleeding and I knew he could smell it, and I thought … I thought he would rip me to shreds.” Kateri coughed, and flinched as if that cough caused her a spasm of pain.“The big shark.Came at me, mouth open, pointed teeth … at the last moment, he veered away.” Tears sprang to her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.“Then I knew what I was.”“What are you?”“One who has returned.” Beneath the tears, Kateri’s eyes blazed with that terrible anguish.“The shark did not dare touch me.The god would have punished him.”Elizabeth nodded as if she understood.She did not.“I bobbed to the surface.” Kateri’s voice came easier now.She was talking faster, as if she knew she was out of time.“I took a long, sweet breath.The ocean slid a piece of debris beneath me, and I floated through the night and into the morning.When I woke, the pain was too much, and I pushed myself into the cold water and hoped to die.Elizabeth? Do I still have my legs?”Elizabeth lifted the blankets and looked.“From what I can see, you have all your parts.But you are … battered.” Beyond belief.She didn’t know how anyone could live with so many injuries.“The god gave me back to the earth, but I am changed.I have been reborn … and transformed.I will never be the same Kateri again.” She closed her eyes, as if the effort of speaking had exhausted her … or as if saying good-bye to her former self.“Listen.The god said to tell my people that the might of the earth would free them from the past
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