Ee-ew! I must’ve overslept,
or the rays wouldn’t’ve caught my eyes.

Fire logs downstairs have wizened to lukewarm ash, so the warmth has long since escaped the loft. Raven steps barefoot on cold alder floorboards and reaches the narrow window where she squints out. The outside glass is smeared with watermarks and bits of fiber that have been plastered here and there by wet gusts of wind. The window needs cleaning—a chore assigned to her by Headma who’s proud of the store-bought glass, which cost him two yellow-cedar carvings. Raven hopes he won’t see the dirt till she finds time to clean it, which won’t be this morning. Crows outside are rummaging on spruce litter beneath the fern shoots. She hears the distant voices of band members already about their chores. It’s proof enough that breakfast has come and gone.

Caressing upper arms, she feels goose bumps on bare limbs. She feels heart beats quicken to stave off the morning chill. Her clothes are lying across the cedar shelves of the open dresser. Its upper shelf double-functions as a tabletop whereon lies a water basin, comb and hairbrush.

She tosses cool water over facial skin and greets her image in the mirror—familiar chestnut skin that glimmers around dark-brown eyes. Raven hikes her nightshirt overhead and lays neatly it on the bottom shelf. Wielding a wooden comb, she pulls snarls from sleep-tangled hair. She eyes unblemished skin glowing with youthful sheen and doughy adolescent curves.

Her breasts have grown out this past winter. Women in the sweat lodge no longer have cause to tease her about little-girl buds. She recalls last evening when Jade admired her jet-black hair and gaped at her proud bulbs of womanhood, until he acted more awkward than usual. She reckons it should be easy to arrest her young buck and reshape his goals. Easy as fanning the flames of his ardor.

She has to admit he’s attractive: strong arms, large hands and dark piercing eyes. The only comedown is the odor of dead fish and seaweed that sluffs about him. She hates the fisher stink. The odor reminds her of everything about Kung, a seaside village in the middle of nowhere. She hopes to study in the megadome—to take a special course as Goodma did 15 years ago. She wants to talk with folks who speak English fulltime, ’cuz she’s fascinated with its brisk vowels and crisp cadences, so unlike the whoosh and hiss of Haida vocals from the deep and treacherous sea. But she has yet to convince Goodma and Headpa to let her to go. If she gets Jade to come along, the elders will feel better knowing he’ll be around as watchdog and minder. Last evening she almost sold him on taking the astronomy course. She played on his fondness for gazing at the night sky. Hopefully he’ll lose his fisher stink after a month inside the megadome. Who knows? She may find a way to like him more than she does now. It’ll certainly help since their eventual marriage is all but carved in stone.

Her headpa is the village’s chief carver, whereas Jade’s headpa supervises the building of war canoes, and is the head fisher of the village. They’re responsible for the most of the band’s food and trading income. Goodma plays a lead role in the warriors society—a shadow assembly of the men’s council. Goodma handles the village garden where she nurtures berries, foodstuffs, fibrous plants and herbs that yield healing medicines. With Jade being the lone son of his family and Raven being the only child of hers, they’re fated to couple and maintain the status quo. Other band members have already marked them as future partners. Nobody seems to care about what she wants. Her parents dangle her like bait while Jade has been pushed just as hard by his folks. Trouble is she dreads being shackled to the band’s future head fisher and living the rest of her life in Kung. Not that Jade is a bad catch, but she’d rather experience life the megadome. Some nights before falling asleep, Raven dreams of living in orbit among the spacer colonists.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

She fastens her Indian hemp pants. They fit snuggly at the waist and fall loosely around her legs. She bends down and grabs a long-sleeved tunic, which is checkerboarded with down-filled squares. The tunic looks bulky and does nothing to show off her emergent breasts. But it’s the best thing to wear for a jaunt in the woods.

To protect against the cuts of underbrush, she fastens upper flaps on her deerskin footwear well above her ankles. Then she dons her cone hat, which is stiff-brimmed to ward off sunlight or the more likely raindrops.

She bounds down steep steps, traversing from the loft to main floor. Her bowls crying for attention, she lopes to the outhouse. It’s the simplest solution for a low-tech society. Dig a deep hole—over it, spread a wooden-platform and chisel-out a circular opening. People straddle the opening and drop their crap down the hole. Every week, fragrances are added to mask the stench. Without much effect.

She finishes business and reaches for the small clump of dried peat-moss. Yesterday’s pile has dwindled to a smatter on the wooden shelf. After she salvages what remains, the peatmoss is reduced to nothing, so it falls on her shoulders to bring new supplies from the longhouse.

The village longhouse resembles a gigantic lean-to with its flat roof canted to receive noonday sunlight. Over the cedar shakes lie rectangles of solar cells. Trimmed redcedar logs form the walls, which are separated by long strips of tree bark keeping the peatmoss between the planks dry. A tall mast rises to support the windmill whose feather-light blades whirl quietly in the morning breeze. At the top-center of the roof, a cistern stands on a flat wooden ledge. Most of the huts in the villager have water on tap, so long as nobody uses too much.

The longhouse is big enough to hold the everyone in the village. It has a communal kitchen for feasts and meetings. It also serves as the nursery and clothing manufactory. It gobbles most of the electricity used by the village, for its windmill and solar cells are sole source of electric power.

Inside, a long florescent bulb spans overhead sheds light for the operators of sewing machines, of spindle and loom. Ingrid hunches over the needle bobber. Resigned sadness bleeds from her face like slab of granite deluged by torrents of rain. Ingrid lost her husband last winter to a hunting accident. Ingrid aims a broad cloth with pursed fingers as her foot toggles the drive pedal. Behind her are rows of drying wood-fibers hanging in hanks and loose strands. On some rainy afternoon, elder women will stretch and weave the fibers into baskets or clothes.

At room center a computer terminal sits on a small table. It’s cluttered with plastic reference cards. Granny Warm Bear squats cross-legged on a floor cushion. She’s knitting the 2nd-sleeve of a Cowichan sweater. Beside Granny in an ornate basket, Crying Loud slumbers with uncharacteristic serenity.

Granny hasn’t missed Raven’s late arrival and can’t resist a venomous gibe. “Wonders never cease! The sleeping princess has awakened.”

Raven cringes, knowing she deserves the gibe. Granny has a whole basket of retorts for slackers. Granny’s quips can be sharp as fish hooks, but they’re seldom mean-spirited. Granny treats every kid in the village like a favorite grandchild. The deep laugh lines that frame her nose and mouth betray a constant sense of humor.

Ingrid glances from her sewing machine, offers a blank stare, then returns to her work. Her son Edgar peers from around the computer monitor and gives Raven a smirking grin. She returns his smirk with a frown of censure that sends him scurrying for cover behind the screen.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Raven hasn’t forgotten Edgar’s cowardly escape from their online misadventures. He’s the reason she has lost computer privileges for two weeks. She remembers Edgar boasting about his gift for sneaking into illicit websites without being caught. She believed him when fantasy games appeared on the flatview. She felt ten years older, and her pulse quickened. She matched wits with him across exotic terrains. They spent late nights contesting the virtual universe before their footprints were noticed. It turned out that Edgar used her name and password when he logged on, so Raven bore the public censure and punishment. Her headpa came down hard without a twig of favoritism. Meanwhile Edgar got nothing but a mild warning.

She knows why Edgar got off Scott free. He has better computer skills than most of the adults. Without Edgar the band would have no one qualified to keep an accurate count of the wildlife sightings. The census report is the only obligation the village owes to the metics of Tsawwassen. Even her headpa, a strict traditionalist, approves of keeping a tab on the available resources. There’s no sense hunting or fishing a species to extinction. The band of Kung may be self-reliant and free to pursue traditional lifestyles, but the village would enjoy few comforts without gestures of support from beyond the village. Every band member benefits from the metics’ system of fair prices for common staples. The injured and elderly benefit from emergency response teams and hospital care. Tho he seldom admits it, Headpa benefits from the generous credits he gets for jade carvings. Raven loves to explore the online educational offerings. She delves head over heels into any subject that tickles her fancy. Ever since the computer fiasco, she has been reduced to passive mode, watching other kids choose which courses to study.

All thanks to Edgar and Headpa.

Two years ago Headpa put locks on suspect websites according to user age and status. Then Edgar finagled ways to open forbidden doors, and Raven jumped on his bandwagon without a qualm. Trouble was Edgar never let on he’d used her signature, not his. That’s why she has her nose full of rotten fish guts while Edgar walks in springbank clover.

Raven glares for two heartbeats until it’s obvious Edgar doesn’t have the guts to meet her eyes. After two more steps, she recalls why she entered the longhouse. “The outhouse needs more peatmoss,” says Raven to Granny.

The old woman looks up from her knitting. “Ha! About time you got caught with the dregs. Well, y’know where to find it.”

Raven walks over to the drying shelves. She scoops out two handfuls of peatmoss and dumps them inside a bentwood box. She can see the reserve supplies are running low, but she isn’t about to mention this fact. She has plenty of gathering to do as it is. She lifts the box and starts for the outhouse. Granny halts her in midstep.

“Wait, Princess.” The old woman rises from a cushion of cedar boughs, her knee joints cracking. “You forgot to add clubmoss spores.”

Granny walks stiffly to the wall cabinet and chooses a yellow-cedar urn. She approaches Raven’s basket, tilts the urn and sprinkles powdered spores atop the peatmoss. “Don’t wanna give folks a dose of fanny rash, do we?”

Raven smiles at the thought. “Not on my watch.”