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Concluding his opening remarks, the Hemlock Creek council began - “To start with the worst of it, you have made it plain, Armitage, that you were a terrible choice of guardian. And now you throw shadows masking your own inattention and poor judgement with fingers pointing at the terrible potential of three teenage girls supposedly able and willing to commit horrific, violent atrocities in the name of vengeance. Well, there is but one way to rebuff your cases, since for all the fearful language you invoke, you and dear Wesley, there has been not one drop of blood spilt. Not one instance of the peace of this confederacy breaking apart.”

At this, Calum stood up and turned to the woman.

“Not one drop? I found my father, covered in blood. Loads of it! Out from where she’d cut his arms, lots of cuts. From, from here,” He pointed to just by his armpit and ran his fingers down to his palms, “to here! And blood from his head from where she’d cut all,” he lost the word ‘scalp’ in the heat of the moment, but the crowd followed him, “cut his head off! And his eyes too,” he was close to hyperventilating now, and Wesley was approaching, “he still had his eyes, I mean, she didn’t cut them out, but they were open, she’d cut off his eyelids too.”

The room fell silent. Calum listened again to the creek, or tried to. As his breaths slowed. He felt Wesley’s huge hand across his back. The woman spoke again -

“Wesley, you should have mentioned this. Why would you leave it to the boy to speak of this?”

“I told you, he’s brave - you see his orenda - no?” Wesley was still smiling his great grin. Calum knew the people loved him. He did too.

“I speak of the warlord because he has always crossed boundaries. He visits me in my dreams. I know he visits you in yours. This is why the room is silent when the boy speaks of how he found his father. This man is my image of Thadodaho. I do not speak with him. Even so, he offers me silent remedies. If only I will give something to him, he will make those things right that I cannot resolve in myself. But this is not so. I know he does nothing but lie. We know this from our stories. The warlord is ever-watchful, ready to undo any and every hard-earned peace. So tell me, the murder of the boy's father, does it not sound like the darkest sacrifice Thadodaho ever asked you to make to him while you lay in your beds?”

“What are you asking of us, Wesley?” the woman asked.

“Only that we use this as an opportunity to return to our stories. To our traditions. Use this as a sign that if we do not that the warlord will come again.”