Nikonha Meets a Vampire, 1870

The wind was cold cut, but the sun was out, so Nikonha braced against it and was warmed by the heat of the light. The two white men that had talked to him for several days had finally left, or so he was told, but he was sure they would be back before too long. Nikonha knew a curious man when he saw one.

A curious man that was scrambling to catalog what little was left of his people. Indeed, Nikonha knew himself to be the last of the Tutelo, and once he passed, there would be none left to speak his old language. He doubted the white man who had talked to him at length about basic vocabulary would try to speak Tutelo; it would be stored away in one of their tomes for all-time, never being spoken again.

Nikonha was happy in the sun, but he was getting old. And he didn’t know if he had the energy to speak to that white man again. His questions didn’t stop at the language, but prodded into Nikonha’s life, untangling the fine braid of memory Nikonha had kept for his entire life. It would take days to re-strand himself together, and until then, glimpses of his youth pooled around him. If the white man’s calculations had been right, it had been a life that stretched over one hundred and six years.

Nikonha’s fingers ached, the bones inside his skin old and brittle. It was a great effort to move them, so Nikonha did not bother anymore, leaving his hands to remain perpetually curled inward. It was as if he had no hands at all. The warm smell of food wafted over to him; roasted corn and fresh sumac came to mind. Nikonha decided to watch the sun drop past the tree line before heading inside to eat with his wife. He didn’t know how many more sunsets he would see, and they were each unique.

Nikonha liked to think each sunset could summarize the events of the day in the swirling clouds it left behind and the blend of colors as it disappeared. He watched the familiar reds and oranges be struck by a foreign purple. The contrast was pleasing to his old eyes, but he noted the invasion of the cool color. It was an intrusion, no matter how beautiful it was. Once the sun was finally gone, the cold was uncontested, and Nikonha wrapped himself in his shaw as he staggered back to his cabin.

A white woman was waiting for him by the steps up to his abode.

To say she was white would paint a picture that was wrong; she did not look like any of the other European women that had settled everywhere. Her skin was pale, like one in death, and the lack of pigment extended to her hair. It was not an old silver like that of Nikonha’s, but of a snow-white that signaled an ill omen. Nikonha would think her a part of a tribe far to the west, a tribe rumored to have strange warriors with pale skin and red eyes, but it was clear that was wrong. Her eyes were a voidless black, and her dress was far too European to be anything but.

What was more curious was that Nikonha had not heard her approach, nor was she accompanied by a guide. As his wife would say, she had high orenda. Nikonha smiled at the woman and waved her over as he continued shambling to his house.

“What brings you to my home?” Nikonha said.

The woman’s voice was as cold as the wind; the loudest whisper Nikonha had ever heard. “I was told you were taking visitors.”

“I was, but the sun has dropped,” Nikonha said.

“I apologize,” said the woman, “but I had to wait until the others were gone.”

Nikonha guessed she meant the white men from earlier. The old man shrugged gently. “I suppose I could make a little more time. I’m at your people’s grace, after all.”

Nikonha inched into his cabin without watching the woman for a reaction. Most of the white men that were confronted with the reality of genocide took a defensive stance. “That wasn’t me,” they’d say, or “If I had any say about it…” But it was all the same complacency. Living for as long as Nikonha, one began to see the similarities outweigh the differences in all of man. When he crossed his threshold, he looked back to see the woman silently waiting at the foot of the steps.

“Are you coming in?” Nikonha said.

“Is that an invitation in?” the woman asked.

 Nikonha smiled. “Ah, I see. Not yet. One moment.” Nikonha turned to his wife, who had poured a third bowl for the guest she heard outside. A few words were exchanged in the language of Cayuga, ending in the couple taking positions on either side of the front door. Satisfied, Nikonha called out to his guest. “You may come in.”

The woman strode up the steps, barely moving her legs as if suspended in air by wire. “Thank you,” she said as she crossed the threshold, and was immediately pulled upwards into the ceiling. Her hair was raised straight up, her clothes desperately trying to rip away from her towards the sky. Her features took on an unearthly character; wild eyes gleaming blood-red, fangs dipped from her upper jaw, serrated tongue lashing out like a goose, fingernails pointed to daggers. The asabikeshiinh had done its job.

Neither Nikonha nor his wife had used asabikeshiinh before moving to the reservation but surviving members of the Mississaugas had given the couple one as a token of shared identity. The white men had called the charms dreamcatchers, greatly infantilizing their multipurpose utility. At least, according to the Mississaugas. Nikonha personally never believed in the thing, but he was about to change his mind on a lot of things that night.

The woman let out a ragged, draining screech that drove the couple to scurry to the opposite side of the cabin, hands over their ears. The strange creature that walked as a woman was ensnared, and like a fly in a web, she was thrashing with all her might to escape. She was no longer speaking English, but some European language Nikonha could not place. One word kept repeating: “madarikatu, madarikatu,” and with this word she looked upon Nikonha. He took it as an insult and smiled.

“Do not think I can’t see through a beast’s disguise, miss,” Nikonha said in English.

The woman strained in pain. “I mean you no harm! Please let me go!”

Nikonha looked to his wife, sharing a silent conversation, the way only a married couple could. “Do we have your bond that you are not here to prey upon us?”

“My word! My word is my bond, and I give it! Release me, I beg you!” the woman screamed. Nikonha reached into the space between the pantry and the wall of the cabin to produce a hunting rifle, but his wife stopped him with a gesture. She had a kitchen knife in her hand. With a well-placed flick, the knife sailed through the air and sliced the strings of the asabikeshiinh, erasing its hold over the beast-woman and dropping her to the ground. Deflated from the trap, the woman now looked like an injured animal pulled from a river. It was almost sad.

“Why have you come to hunt us?” Nikonha asked.

“I was not here to eat you, but if I had not given my word, I might have done just that after this trickery,” the woman said. Her attempts at intimidation, while painfully weakened due to the humiliation she had endured, still put the old man on edge. A wolf cornered was at its most dangerous, after all.

“Then what are you here for?” Nikonha said.

“I…” the woman smoothed back her hair and stood up, regaining her composure. “I heard you were quite old.”

“That I am,” Nikonha said.

The beast-woman stood in the silence, shifting her weight awkwardly. She seemed suddenly unsure if she knew what she was doing. Nikonha’s wife spoke to the beast-woman in Cayuga, and the beast-woman looked at Nikonha for a translation.

“She asked if you wanted something to eat. We just made some food.”

“Thank you but… I’m afraid my diet is very selective,” said the beast-woman.

Nikonha relayed the word to his wife, and she nodded in understanding. Without saying a word more, Nikonha’s wife pricked her finger with a needle and let her blood dribble into a glass. Nikonha inquired after his wife’s actions, but she ignored him. Once the glass was no more than half a centimeter full, she brought the glass over to the beast-woman. The beast-woman held the glass in her hand for a moment, surprised by the generosity, but a fierce hunger overcame her face, and the blood was gulped down with a single upturn.

“I appreciate the drink… but how did you know?” the beast-woman said.

Nikonha asked his wife the same question, and she answered with a shocking story Nikonha had never heard her tell before. A British man who used to be in charge of the reservation would take “guests” into his estate, vanishing more than a dozen of the Cayuga people before enough clamor was made to call attention to what was clearly a series of murders. The British man was expelled from his post, but not before rumors of his nightly seances with Cayuga women circulated the reservation. Of the varied accounts, it was certain that the man feared charms of all types, and was drawn to open wounds, people and animals alike.

After the story finished, Nikonha looked at the beast-woman, now understanding she was uniquely a European creature. He kept his wife’s story to himself, at least for the moment. “My wife is no stranger to the evil things of this world,” Nikonha said.

The beast-woman simply nodded. “Well, thank you anyways for the drink. May I sit down?”

“You may,” Nikonha said. He conferred with his wife a moment longer, asking why they were entertaining this creature if one had haunted this place not long ago. She wants something, clearly, and what else would it be but our own blood? Nikonha said. She gave us her word, Nikonha, said his wife. Then what else could she possibly want? Nikonha asked. Is it not obvious, my love? She wants adaoˀtraˀshǫ́ˀǫh, said his wife. Nikonha looked at the beast-woman again, seeing her vulnerability and hesitance. Of course, Nikonha thought. A family of one is no family at all.

The old man took a seat across from the beast-woman, his bones cracking under the movement. Her black, soot-laden eyes glanced over Nikonha, no longer the combat hue of red they were moments before. If the woman were not European, he could almost envision this meeting to be between father and daughter. He smiled a sad, pitiful smile.

“What is your name, creature of the night?” Nikonha said.

“I have had many. But I am going by Robin as of recently,” the beast-woman said.

“I see. My name, as of recently, is Nikonha,” Nikonha said.

“It is not your birth name? Tell me it is not the name those people gave you?” Robin said.

“Your people, you mean? The Europeans? No, it is my name to the Cayuga people. They have been generous to me as I have stayed among them these last few decades.”

“I would hardly count all Europeans as my people…” Robin began, but dropped that line of conversation, “...but then you are not Cayuga?”

“No, I am not. I am the last of the Tutelo, in both language and culture.” Nikonha saw the frown on Robin’s face and laughed.

“You think that is a terrible thing, do you not?”

“It is a terrible thing,” Robin said. “What happened?”

“My people had been pressured by many other tribes long before the white men came across the water. They only quickened our demise against the larger nations. But now, even those people have been reduced to nothing… such is the way of life, is it not?”

“No, it isn’t,” Robin said. “Genocide is no natural thing. What a dismissal!”

“And what would you have me do, Robin? Carry my old bones to the nearest Indian agent and strike at him with a firearm? Would you have my last action on this world be one of violence? Do you think I have lived for more than a hundred years because I carry bitterness in my heart?”

“But to be so accepting! You are admitting defeat!”

“Because I have been defeated!” Nikonha slammed his gnarled fist on the table, shaking the meal his wife had prepared. The pain webbed inside the marrow of his bones, and Nikonha knew he would regret the small outburst of anger when he woke up the next morning. The cabin became still, and Nikonha breathed a deep sigh. An apology was in order, but from which party remained unknown. Robin picked up the conversation she had endangered.

“When the Romans invaded my people’s land, we fought back with everything we had. But we had ignored attempts by other tribes to unite, because we once saw them as enemies, the same as the Romans. We were divided and conquered. Now I am all that is left.”

“And you carry this bitterness still? For how many years?”

“Almost two thousand,” the young woman said.

Nikonha blinked.

“Yes, two thousand. That is how long I have held this hatred. And from this curse I find myself in, I have watched my people, my culture, my language, die, and then I got to sit by and watch the Romans die, and still it was not enough. Because the Roman half-breeds, spread all across Europe, still sought to divide and conquer. And it never ends! They had to ship themselves across the ocean to keep at it! All this time, I’ve been carrying this pain around, and it’s just been…” Robin held back tears forming in her eyes, dark waters of history welling. “I just thought I would feel better by talking to someone who has seen their reality destroyed as thoroughly as mine. But I see now you have given up.”

Nikonha’s face grew taut with emotions. “You speak to me like a child, Robin.” The beast-woman’s eyebrows narrowed in confusion. “You are several magnitudes my elder, and yet you have the wisdom of a child who has never left their home. You think your culture is gone? How could that be when you are in front of me now? Just so, as long as I live, the Tulteo still live. And when I draw my final breath, still my people will not be gone. For who shaped the valleys before your people came to them? Which people took sides in wars that were not their own, and still fought for them to be won? Who is sitting across from you right now, Robin? Because now, for as long as you live, my people will live. As long as Horatio Hale’s writings live, so too, will I live. So you say I have given up, when the battle is still being fought.”

“Against who, Nikonha? You’re fighting against time, and the memory of the very people who killed you!”

“And it will be a battle that I will win,” Nikonha said.

“We are not even using our real names!” Robin said.

“Waskiteng is my name, given to me by my mother shortly before her death,” Waskiteng said.

Robin’s serrated tongue slithered out in the air for a moment. She was tense. “Gorri,” she said, and a laugh burst from her lungs suddenly.

“Gorri?” Waskiteng said.

“Yes… I’m sorry. I have not heard that name in such a long time… I had almost forgotten…”

“And that is how everything is lost, Gorri. When you no longer remember your name, you have lost. Not death, not life, and certainly not lines in the sand. When you can no longer speak your language, nor remember what song your mother sang to you, then as you say, your reality is gone. That is not something your Romans, nor the Europeans, can take away.”

“To be remembered in another time… is that all this is for, then? What about all your people that have been killed?” Gorri said.

“I mourn them. You can feel sadness, pain, and loss, while also accepting it. It does nothing to rage against a storm,” Waskiteng said.

“This is not a storm,” Gorri said, “these are people.”

The old man sighed. “I am tired of fighting, Gorri. I have fought my entire life and have killed so many people. It is time that I rest, reflect, and pass on when the time comes. But you…”

Gorri sat up straighter, tense.

“You can never rest, can you? Not until you are killed. You have come seeking community, but I am afraid you can never be like me,” Waskiteng said. “You will never know peace.”

Waskiteng, a century of masks and dances stripped away and bare, saw Gorri in a similar way; a circus troupe’s wardrobe of names and roles. She had been a lover, rebel, authority figure, recluse, merchant, servant, queen and serf, man and woman. She was a creature of her own making, and she had outlived herself. Waskiteng took solace in his own life. It was long, hard, and full of grief, but it was ending. Across from him was an eternity that no one should endure.

“I know,” Gorri said. Her dark tears streamed evenly. “What do I do?”

Waskiteng ate his dinner in silence. Gorri looked away, wiping her tears away with her sleeve. The tears stained brown on her clothes like a sick cat. Wood scraped wood as she got up from the table. Waskiteng could offer her no adaoˀtraˀshǫ́ˀǫh. She walked over to his wife, and whispered thanks again for the blood. Gorri put back on the mask of Robin and looked once more to Waskiteng. He had finished the simple dinner, and his bowl laid empty. How many more would he be able to enjoy?

“Wherever you go from here,” Waskiteng began, “it will do you good to be among your people.”

“Most of my people are monsters,” Robin said.

“That is your burden to bear, not mine,” Waskiteng said.

Robin left the cabin, walking down the steps. The night gripped the world in a tight chokehold, and only this beast-woman could walk out into it as a friend. For the next few days Waskiteng would be rebinding his life, weaving Nikonha back into focus. The beast had taken a wide toothed comb to Nikonha, ruining dreads that had taken decades to build.

Waskiteng walked to the door of his home, and watched as Robin trudged away from his community, fading into the woods. Survivors of a destroyed people, remnants of a diaspora that was no longer remembered, could find adaoˀtraˀshǫ́ˀǫh in each other’s suffering. A shared trauma, an anger that was tinged with sorrow, that could not be understood, only experienced. But Waskiteng could not suffer a monster’s wails forever. A being with power and longevity like Robin had could not be the victim for so long. She would have no twilight period, no retirement from life. And Waskiteng could not see how one could waste it like she had.

He turned back into his home, his wife cleaning out her own bowl of food. My love, he said in Cayuga, how long until the next meeting of Nations? His wife looked up, a smirk on her face. In two weeks time, she said. Waskiteng sat back down at the table, bones protesting the movement. I may be done fighting, he said, but perhaps I could help stoke the fire before I pass.

Author’s Biography

Sarah Michael lives in Maryland with her wife and cat. She swore to Sappho that she would go unwillingly. Her work has been previously featured in two issues of Stone of Madness.