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Mr Armitage looked out at the gathering, making vows to one another to tell their old stories. He considered how it was only the fear of violence that would return them to their role - these fire-keepers. The three sisters finally made their story plain. In the legend, a young man came to the field, found them growing together, took the first sister home with him, returned later for the mourning second sister, and finally for the third. They had all given themselves as a meal for the boy. Not only is the three sisters a message of mutuality, connection, and individuality that enables the thriving of all. At its core, it is a story of consumption.

Onondaga had a rich heritage. They had instituted the Great Law of Peace, resolving cycles of brutal violence with no law courts. What credit did they receive for such an accomplishment? None. The colonisers had made them a joke. Get called primitive enough, and you will end up adopting the same ways as those deemed ‘modern’. That was the issue with these ‘fire-keepers’. Their language was ripped away. The wampum has no Ten Commandments, no written constitution. It is a set of stories. Stories they lost. Stories that were stolen - fine - but they made little effort to reclaim them. They stole their land, too. Gave them tracts like this. Hindered their movements. No more tracking with the buffalo. No longer a people of the longhouse. Look at Onondaga now. It’s just the arse-end of Syracuse, with dirt roads.

The worst of it. The one thing they could keep. The one practice they could hold to they threw away. He stared out across Hemlock Creek at the field fifty metres away. He knew it belonged to Bethany’s father. The rows lay overgrown. They’d need to be ploughed in perhaps six weeks. When they did he would prepare and lay down his seed. And he would grow corn. Just corn. He would use unnatural feed. He would lay down nitrogen-rich fertilizer to account for the missing beans. He would leave the squash, its leaves covering and protecting the feet of the corn. Instead he would opt for herbicides and insecticides. Each head would look the same, and he would care for but two things - size and yield. No one would stop these people from farming in their traditional ways. They could teach their children the lessons their grandmothers had taught them. But they wouldn’t, because they chose to live like everyone else.

He had to stop himself from laughing as he listened to Wesley conjure the warlord as the reason for all this. He brought the sisters to himself so he could train them, grow them, reconnect them with a heritage they would not receive here. The living embodiment of the story. An emblem, an example of a way to live. But they would not stop harping on about their mothers. These women were not leaders, not fire-keepers - just three gossips enjoying a respect in the community they had not earned and upholding none of the responsibilities they ought. This community was sick and wayward. But the girls departed too, so there would be no easy lessons. The girl, Ella, had her own twisted visions, which he’d helped farm and cultivate; she conjured the threat. Detours mattered not, here they were invoking the warlord! The return of an ancient enemy meant the return of ancient practices. Thank you, girls, he thought.