WITCHES

From Tory's Log ~

When fierce winds rattled the eaves, my mother said it was Gay-oh, the giant imprisoned in the House of the Winds, struggling to break free. But the more he fought, the harder the winds blew and the more entangled he became.

When blue lightning tore open the black sky, Mama said it was only Grandfather Thunderer frightening off the witches before he bestowed the gift of rain on the people of the earth.

"Fortunately, he hasn't run off all the Hotinonshonni witches," Papa teased Mama, "for I was surely bewitched when I met you."

I asked what it meant, that strange, long word, and Mama said, "My family, the People of the Longhouse. The Mohawk."

My mother was small and fine-boned, with a coppery complexion, long, shiny black hair, and laughing eyes. My father was fair-skinned and lanky, his eyes light grey, his high forehead framed by coils of reddish frizz. My brothers were fair and freckled like our Papa. They had all run away from Boston together after Josh and Andy's mama died, for the peaceful countryside of Stockbridge. Papa said Boston was full of savages.

My hair was brown with a rusty sheen, not black, with more than a trace of Papa's unruly curl. But I was dark like Mama.

"Am I ...Hot-a-shonni too?" I asked, mangling the unfamiliar mouthful on my tongue.

"One half," said Papa. "One half Mohawk Indian. But you're also one half Scot. The People of the Loch," he added in a thickly congealed accent that made Mama laugh. "But most important, Victoria," he told me, more seriously, "you must never forget you are American. One-hundred per-cent. Like all of us."