Free Shadows Cast by Stars by Catherine Knutsson Page B

down beside him, and begin to work. Two stalks, bent in half, for spokes, and a blade to weave with. I’ll make a sun wheel, a Brigid cross.
    “Well, no, but up here, there’s no one to interrupt us.” He casts me a sidelong look. “Being an Eagleson comes with baggage. Everyone talks, no one listens.”
    So, that’s it. I’m his confessor. I should have known. I’m not the type of girl someone like Bran would ever be interested in. I’m too tall. Too thin. Too intense. Still, I hope. My mother was beautiful. Paul resembles her far more than I do, but I can’t help hoping that a sliver of her beauty was passed on to me.
    Bran shifts, moving close enough that the grass bent by his frame tickles my forearm. Bees, fat and laden withpollen, drift around us. A hummingbird hovers overhead before soaring off in a blur of metallic wings. I watch it as my hands weave.
    Bran laughs. “Thought we were flowers, I bet.”
    “Maybe you. Definitely not me.”
    “If you’re not a flower, then what are you?”
    I shrug. “I don’t know.” The conversation is running too close to me. Time to redirect. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what that fight was all about?”
    “For someone like Cedar, there doesn’t need to be a reason.” His voice is flat with anger. “He’s always looking to pick a fight.” He yawns and stretches out onto his back, hands cradling his head. “Like he has something to prove.”
    “Such as?”
    “That he’s better than me because he’s full-blooded Indian. I’m only a half-breed, and some people around here think that makes me less than them. There’s talk, you know, about what happens if my father doesn’t come back, who’ll lead the Band then.”
    “And someone wants to give you the job?”
    “Yeah.” He picks up a spider that’s crawling on his leg and carefully sets it on a leaf. “Some days, I think I might do okay. Most days, I think I’m too young, that I’ve got too much to learn. But, the Elders, you know, I’m not sureabout them, either. They always looked to my father, who looked to the people. Now they look to no one except themselves. See that spot down there? Where the river runs out of the lake?”
    I nod. The water turns murky there, as if the river is leaching life from the lake.
    “That’s where my dad met the bear.”
    “What bear?”
    “A grizzly. The only one ever found on the Island. They can swim here, you know, all the way from the mainland. Pretty long way. Tough animals. That’s how the Elders knew my father was going to be chief, they say. Grizzly sought my father out, and fought him to see if he was strong enough. I guess he was. He used to let me play with the claws when I was little. He was going to give them to me before …” His voice trails off.
    I hold my breath. Before what?
    Bran gazes out toward the lake. “I’m still waiting to find my bear.”
    But Bran’s shade isn’t a bear. It’s a kingfisher, and a stone, and other things too, things I’ve only seen glimpses of. Should I tell him? Would he want to know what I’ve seen?
    No , I decide. What good would that do? Look at Paul. How much help have I been to him? So far, no help at all.More than once, I’ve wished I understood why I see what I do, and in this moment, I wish it more than ever.
    “Do you want to be chief?” I ask, because I don’t know what else to say.
    “I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Maybe. I guess it depends if the Elders want me. Besides, Henry Crawford’s chief until my father comes back.”
    If he comes back . The unspoken words hang between us until Bran says, “But, maybe one day. When I feel I’m half the man my father was. Is.” He looks down at the sun wheel in my hands. “What’s that?”
    “This?” I hold it up and inspect it. “I call it a sun wheel. My mother taught me to make them. She called it a Brigid cross. It’s supposed to protect you from evil.”
    Bran laughs. “Does it work?”
    “I think so. Maybe. Here.” I reach