“Ga:weh, where am I?” The aberrant tempest whirls around her in this familiar yet strange place. She feels nothing on her skin. “De’tá’gwisdë’, I’m numb!” But external life forces breathe through her lungs, pulses through her heart, water drums in tune to a hypnotic flute nearby. A soft voice disturbs the surreal haze, and she turns to a foreign landscape and a wide-eyed woman. A shrill scream fills Teka’s throat, spilling into the air. She’s puzzled when the woman closes her eyes and covers her ears, but more bewildered by the strange fortress on the hillock where her village had been. The trees… what happened to the forest? The shade, security, and whispers of their brother maples, dogwoods, and pines are missing. Palisade walls, cornfields, and fruit groves vanished, exposing land for m
