"Firekeeper's Daughter"

[fiefoe]

A decent murder mystery with hockey and a refresher on Indian tribal law, but the YA part makes it want to spell everything out extra clear. What kept me listening was mostly the emotional tension between the first-person narrator and the undercover agent who poses as her boyfriend, and I wonder if Angeline Boulley has also listened to a This American Life episode with a undercover agent embedded in a high school.

• My Zhaaganaash and Anishinaabe grandmothers could not have been more different. One viewed the world as its surface, while the other saw connections and teachings that run deeper than our known world. Their push and pull on me has been a tug-of-war my entire life.
• When Art kisses Auntie, she relaxes into a softer version of Teddie Firekeeper. With me and the twins, her love has layers—a tender core wrapped in an exoskeleton of tough love. But when she’s wrapped in her husband’s dark amber brown arms, Auntie can drop her guard.
• And the less frequent but more heartbreaking instances when my Firekeeper family sees me as a Fontaine first and one of them second. When they say things about the Zhaaganaash and then, a beat later, remember that I’m in the room too. It’s hard to explain what it’s like being so connected to everyone and everything here … yet feeling that no one ever sees the whole me.
• Daunis the friendly host—that’s all. I’m definitely not trying to be alone with him. Some creeper girl Levi must have invited tags along when we go upstairs. Damn wannabe anglerfish auditioning for the part of Jamie Johnson’s next girlfriend.
  Anglerfish. That’s what I call the hockey girlfriends. A bottom-dweller fish that bites its mate and fuses with it. A parasitic appendage unable to exist separately.
• I brace myself. Previous favors have included me being his best friend Stormy’s date to Shagala last year and providing Anishinaabemowin nicknames for his friends and teammates. One guy kept pestering me for an “Indian name better than everyone else’s,” so I told him that Gichimeme meant the biggest and most powerful bird. He went around for weeks, loudly crowing his new name before a Nishnaab friend finally pulled him aside and explained it meant, “big pileated woodpecker.” In other words, Big Pecker.
• “Now focus on just one dancer—say, a Jingle Dress dancer.” Jamie dutifully fixes his gaze. “Every atom has subatomic parts. Her regalia includes a dress, belt, moccasins, and a lot of other items. Dancers don’t start out with their full regalia; they get it bit by bit. Each piece is a connection to her family, her teachers, and even to ancestors generations back. If you know the story of her regalia—who and where and why each item came to be—then you know her.”
  We all remain standing as the singing is led by drumbeats so powerful they reverberate through the bleachers to my feet, as if pulsing my own heart.
• Even though Jamie is listening without a trace of judgment, I cut myself off. It feels disloyal to say anything more. I’d be revealing the worst parts about someone I love. I never thought about secrets being like a bull’s-eye. The smaller the circle, the bigger the secret.
• I remember once when Lily told me she was her mom’s practice baby. Same with the next kid—a half sister in Lansing. Auntie overheard us talking and sat us down. She talked about the boarding school that Granny June’s daughters had been scooped up and taken to. Years spent marching like soldiers and training to be household domestics.
• I say my morning prayer and ask for gwekowaadiziwin. Honesty. Walking through life with integrity means not deceiving yourself or others. The prayer sticks in my throat. In this Newer New Normal I am living a lie as a confidential informant for the meth investigation connected to the deaths of my uncle and my best friend.
• “The ephedra plant was used in Chinese medicines for over five thousand years, as a tea to help open the lungs and ease breathing. In 1919, a Japanese chemist figured out how to reduce the essence of the ephedra plant, known as ephedrine, into a crystallized form, thereby creating the first crystal meth."
• Gramma Pearl gathered these vivid flowers. She mixed them with melted bear grease as an ointment for my dad’s eczema. I drank tea made from dried petals she kept in a coffee tin. She boiled purple petals to use as a dye for the strips of black ash that would be twisted into the weaving for a colorful accent in her baskets. <> I’ve always liked pansies.
• Maybe I’m sorry for everything too. For agreeing to help the investigation. That sometimes my community disappoints me in ways too complicated to process, but that doesn’t mean the FBI is the solution. That it didn’t take much for me to lean into Jamie. Or maybe I’m sorry for lashing out at him because I like him more than I should. Seeing his cop mask slide into place was a reminder that he will leave after his job is done.
• The final one is black with bumpy white warts on its irregularly shaped cap. It stinks too much to take it from the bag. Once I get a closer look, I realize the white spots aren’t warts. They’re minuscule white fungi growing from the dark mushroom. Like the mushroom equivalent of an anglerfish, completely dependent on its host for nutrients.
• Like everything about the investigation, Leonard Manitou’s story leaves me with more questions than answers. I wake up the next morning no closer to resolving any of yesterday’s questions. What was Travis messing with, and why did he think the Little People were so mad at him? Did he really see something, or was he hallucinating? Do any other Elders have stories about Little People or mushrooms that I could try to learn?
  Is it possible to solve one riddle without tumbling down more rabbit holes?
• I wasn’t comfortable asking participants to assign a number value to something like How Nish are you? Uncle David challenged me to come up with a research question that might work with a Likert rating scale.  I believe smudging (a cultural practice of burning and breathing in smoke) with traditional medicines, such as mashkodewashk (sage) and wiingashk (sweetgrass), will improve my overall physical and mental well-being.
• He began with land owned by Travis’s family on Sugar Island. His entries become a log of his exploration of Duck Island. He foraged for mushrooms in cross sections just like I did, except he started at the north end and worked his way south. He used orange biodegradable seedling pots to mark his boundaries instead of yarn.
• The emptiness inside me is replaced by something far worse.
  Nibwaakaawin. Auntie told me the translation, breaking down each part of the word so it made perfect sense: To be wise is to live with an abundance of sight.
  My whole life I’ve wanted to be like my aunt. The way a person dreams about being a ballerina, but not of broken toes and years of practice. I wanted to be a strong and wise Nish kwe, never considering how that abundance of sight would be earned.
• Wisdom is not bestowed. In its raw state, it is the heartbreak of knowing things you wish you didn’t.
• Mike is pleased with himself. He set up this hat trick—a hockey trifecta where a player scores three goals in one game. Revealing a secret to turn Levi against me. Ruining my relationship with my boyfriend. Showing me that he’s in charge and capable of outsmarting me.
• Inventory your resources. One Elder.
  My eyes plead. Help me. Help me. Help me.
• I have one instant, like when the puck drops, where all is calm and quiet. Enough for one deep breath in and a long, slow release. Then time catches up and sprints ahead.
  Levi swears again at Minnie. I grab the door handle and am outside the truck before he’s finished his sentence. I’m in the back seat of Seeney’s car an instant later.
• --I love my Elders. <> I thought I had no resources on the ferry, except for one lone Elder. But one led to another, and another. A resource I never anticipated during my time of dire need.
• My lips tingle and I cannot make sense of it until I feel the glide of something waxy. It coats my lips. First the upper one, with a dip as she adjusts for the philtrum.
• Then something else occurs to me. “I think Grant Edwards planned to rape me as soon as he heard about my enrollment vote. He knew the resort was on tribal land. He counted on the federal government not wasting resources going after non-Native guys like him. They knew the tribal court couldn’t touch him.”
  I am so tired. The weight of my expendability is crushing.
• I am overcome with a mixture of emotions. Sad that their innocent eyes are open to the trauma that still impacts our community today. Angry they must learn these truths in order to be strong Anishinaabeg in a world where Indians are thought of only in the past tense. Proud that they—smart, sturdy, and loved—are the greatest wish our ancestors had, for our nation to survive and flourish.