Extrait 1

Jewel looks at her hands, a living mirror, and sees her reflection in them. She studies her face, the deep gash, and the blood flowing from it like tears of death. The purple sky blends into the earth, and the earth soaks up the bloody tears. A thousand sisters throng about her now, all identical, each one different. In all this sea of blood and pain, she sees her reflection mirrored. She sees childhood in its cries of joy and tears. She sees a woman in labour and the bitter-sweet pangs of newborn life. She sees shame, the abused body and sullied soul of a whore who is laughing too loud. She hears the screaming of a woman denied, humiliated and tortured. Greedily, Jewel feeds on these images of herself.

And then far off, a long way away, she sees him. Her own shadows shift and change, dissolving back into fluid forgetfulness. She is only aware of that outline in the distance now.

The black Wolf slowly appproaches; nothing seems to be living around him. Jewel is afraid. She cannot feel the ground beneath her. She floats, unable to flee or scream. He comes nearer, his head low, his bright eye determinedly fixed on her, fusing with the very depths of her being. The Wolf reaches her; she can only look away so as not to drown in his bright gaze as the animal brushes against her. The Wolf swims right into her soul, devouring it and infusing it...

Jewel loses all awareness of herself, she no longer exists.

A world of sparkling new images opens suddenly before her. This is the Universe, the womb, she is standing at the dawn of the world. She will drown in this ocean of bright orange red. She is spinning, she is suffocating...

Jewel cried out.

She woke up with a start and sat up on her bed. Shuddering, she put her hand up to her throat as if trying to free herself from some invisible grip. She was bathed in sweat, her chest clenched in a vice, and she had difficulty breathing normally again. She closed her eyes a moment and the dazzling image came back to her like a flash of lightning against a dark sky: violent, sudden and unreal. She did not know if she should be frightened or happy; the two feelings were so intertwined, she could not tell them apart. These strange dreams no longer left her and every night was the same: first the painful awakening, the paralysing panic, and then the strange calm which came over her.

She looked quickly at the little boy sleeping beside her. She carefully stroked his hair, kissed his forehead, covered him up again, placed a few logs on the fire, and went out of the tepee to breathe the night air. She lived there alone with her son; the women of Far-Seeing-Wolf's clan had made it for her and said, simply, "This is your tepee. You will be all right there." Jewel had understood from these simple words that they accepted her and respected her need for privacy. These people had never tried to turn her into something she could not be. She was different, and would always be so. They were aware of this, taking her for what she was and not as they would have liked her to be. They respected her.

The snow was falling in fluttering spirals. She looked up at the sky and watched the flakes swirling down towards her. She shivered and clasped the buffalo hide tighter about her shoulders. There seemed no end to this winter, as if it would last her whole life long. She felt the tears come to her eyes but shook her head and choked back the sob. She did not want it to break out and spread its waves of pain right through her chest.

Everything was so quiet, frozen still. Jewel closed her eyes, her face still lifted towards the heavens. Suddenly the wind rose and swept up her fiery hair like a hand eager to caress. Surprised by this unexpected attack, she let the wind take hold of her numbed body. Playfully, slyly, it surrounded her, crept under her clothes, fondled her shamelessly, then brushed her with feigned gentleness before trying to blow her over. Jewel resisted its sudden assault and soon no longer felt its bite. She listened to its shrieking, the moaning of the trees it assailed, and the rumbling of its frozen breath. She heard its plaintif cry, its distant call. It had come to her from so far, from the very source of its memory. It had travelled across time and vast distance to find her here. Like an abandoned lover, it had that fierce desire for vengeance and reconquest, that desperate strength.

The wind. The wind that made the ocean dance, giving it life and breath. The wind that whipped her face with its sea-salt smell, now invigorating, now cruel; and its sea-salt taste that clung to the skin. Jewel knew it so well. The wind, and its brother the ocean, who knew so well how to play each other off against one another; and with what fury, and what beauty. Both of them were so tightly bound to her childhood.

Jewel let herself be carried away by her memories...

Extrait 2.

The forest ran with water and the trees dripped from every leaf, in the rainfall following the fury of an immense storm.

A large black wolf sat, searching the gloom. Only the keen eye of a predator could pierce the fog that had come up and was blending into the night. Sky and earth were one now. The warm, damp air was filled with scents and sounds imperceptible to man, which only the beast recognised and knew.

The langourous mist blurred into the shadows, and the animal's narrowed eyes did not blink. His furry ears, pricked up, seemed to dance. Motionless, he lifted his muzzle and inhaled for a while the delicious flavours of the drenched earth. How wonderful it was for the wolf, to sit like this, with his head pointing into the infinity of the night, discerning a thousand secret messages meant only for him. Some prey scampering away in the undergrowth, a herd of buffalo galloping across the great plains at full speed, a black grouse flying off heavily, the quivering of small rodent populations hiding in their secret tunnels... The far off smells of an unknown pack, whose females would be willing to receive him but the males ready to kill.

The big black wolf, the solitary messenger, seemed to be dreaming. He knew he had a message to deliver, and that his soul was inhabited by a powerful spirit who had chosen him, and no-one else.

It was not from this earth that the spirit came, this earth swollen with the water of life, with the heavy branches of these trees and with these wonderful scents. The spirit came from elsewhere, much further away, and higher than the moon he liked to howl at when she was round and full, like a vixen about to litter. Like that vixen he had left on the day when he had heard the prayer inside him, felt the humility of one who had been a fierce warrior invade him, without violence, but without gentleness.

The wolf was not like men and did not ask questions, and he had not been afraid. He had just got up, sniffed the nose of the pregnant vixen, and left, without looking back. He did not know why he was leaving his pack, nor what was going to happen. He simply listened to this silent direction which, over the days, became so familiar to him; became, from then on, part of him.

From then on, he had been wandering, alone.

The wolf knew. Since the mists of time it had been like this. Men forgot or never knew; but not so the children of the earth, those with feathers and those with fur. With their powerful instinct, they listened to the wind and to the voices, they respected the Sun and the Earth and became the messengers. They held wisdom.

The wolf knew. It was beyond ideas and words. Death mattered little to him, whether its blow was inflicted or received. His role was inscribed in him; the spirit of the warrior and the spirit of the beast were one and the same, and each was a part of the other...

He was Far-Seeing-Wolf.

Suddenly, he turned to look at the horizon, beyond the trees. Far away, he could hear the vibrations of hooves beating the ground. The one who was waiting for him was approaching...