Chapter 16
Mateo was dizzy. Traveling this far into the Spirit World took a lot out of him, but now that he was here he could feel his strength returning. “This is where our ancestors have gone,” his grandfather once told him. “Here they bestow their blessings on those who are open to them.” Mateo thought he saw them in the mists, shadows in the corner of his perception with human faces and yellow eyes. Ancestors guide me.
Some of the mists cleared as the Mukua’poan arrived. Tuku’isa and his wolf, Nattusu and her fox, and Natiam with his wolf, eagle, pronghorn, and otter following beside them and inside them. The land behind them was more green than most of what Mateo had seen in their territory.
“That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?” There were few private thoughts here. Such was the na
