Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [68]
Lionel looked up at the captain. He felt the numbness leave his face. A burning sensation filled his cheeks, soon to be replaced by uncontrollable tears. The captain knelt down and took him into his arms, letting Lionel’s tears roll down the front of his uniform and the ribboned medals.
“I don’t understand. After all that, how she could just die?” Lionel sobbed.
The captain pulled him closer. “She was sick, Lionel, and she has been for some time. I don’t know that she ever fully recovered. I’m not sure how to explain it, but your sister—well, Beatrice’s—her lungs—they were susceptible—” But the captain’s tears stopped him.
It didn’t make sense to Lionel either way. Despite the coughing, she had seemed fine to him. More than fine. She was his hero.
“Is that Beatrice’s medicine bundle?” the captain asked, collecting himself by looking over the articles spread out on the floor.
Lionel glanced at Beatrice’s meager belongings, choking back his tears. “Medicine bundle?”
“Ninaimsskaahkoyinnimaan.” The captain stared, lost, into the fireplace. “It’s a collection of particular items that have a special meaning or power to you. Things you might want to keep with you in life…or to pass along in death.”
The captain rummaged through the various skins and furs that lay scattered on the floor where the children slept.
“Here,” the captain said, clearing his throat. “If you don’t mind.” He located a soft piece of doeskin and returned to where Lionel stood next to Beatrice.
“We’ll check with your grandfather, but if you gathered her things, they could be placed in this skin and sewed shut. That would be Beatrice’s medicine bundle. For someone to hold on to.”
Lionel thought about it. These items were important to Beatrice. They meant something and somehow held some kind of power that she knew while she was still alive. Lionel thought about the bundle and then thought about what Brother Finn had told him about his soul. His soul was like a medicine bundle. It carried the experiences and adventures, good or bad, that he had throughout his life, the adventures and experiences that he had shared with Beatrice. Now, there was this remaining bundle, Beatrice’s bundle. was this an extension of Beatrice’s life and experiences? were these inanimate objects symbolic of the moments that made up some of the tiny pieces of Beatrice’s soul?
Lionel gathered her items and placed them on the doeskin. He added the bow and some of the arrows that they had made with their grandfather. His grandfather returned, and after speaking briefly with the captain, the captain left.
Lionel explained to his grandfather about the medicine bundle, and his grandfather told him that the captain was right. He said that the captain was a smart man.
Lionel’s grandfather took the hawk’s feather from Beatrice’s hair and the Frozen Man’s knife that she had liberated from Jenkins from her belt and laid them next to the rest of the items. Lionel took a blue jay feather and the eagle feather from his hair, but then paused, thinking about the bear claws. Beatrice might need them where she was going. She might see the Frozen Man and want to offer them back to him. He took the Frozen Man’s bear claws from his neck and laid them with the feathers on top of Beatrice’s buttons, coins, and stones. Lionel tucked the tobacco pouch and the Frozen Man’s knife next to Corn Poe’s pinecone, and sat back on his haunches. His grandfather nodded, and after repositioning the bow and arrows, folded the doeskin over, and with a long piece of rawhide string, stitched the opposing ends shut.
“You’ll keep this, Lionel, you understand me?” his grandfather asked, handing him the bundle. “No matter where you go or what you do, you hold it for Beatrice. It’s important for all of us.”
Lionel took the bundle, and it was never too far from his side for the rest of his life.
Grandpa picked Beatrice up in his arms and carried her to the crooked doorframe. She looked small in his arms. Lionel followed, and as they stepped out of the lodge and into the meadow, he saw that Ulysses was standing in front