Sitka From Brother: Bear

Now, the spirits whispered. Now you may act.

He was falling upward, through a roof of stars. The pain of his body—the broken ribs, the river rocks—peeled away like birch bark. He felt the vastness of the Great Spirits, a chorus of wind and fire and ancient memory. When he opened his eyes, he had no eyes. He had a horizon.

Sitka descended. He did not come as a ghost or a memory. He came as light—a swirling column of aurora and snow, a shape with broad shoulders and an eagle’s wings unfolding from his back. He landed on the glacier between the two living brothers. sitka from brother bear

The water was not cold. It was the silence of the womb. Light fractured above him like sunlight through amber. He thought of Denahi’s laughter, of Kenai’s small hand gripping his fur vest during a winter storm. I am not finished, he thought. But his lungs filled with river, and the light began to fade.

For days—or was it years? Time flows like sap in the spirit world—Sitka circled above the mortal realm. He saw Kenai stumble, starving and lost. He saw the little cub, Koda, bump his nose against Kenai’s flank, demanding stories. He saw the slow, painful thaw in Kenai’s heart: the first time he shared salmon without eating it all, the first time he shielded Koda from a wolf pack. Now, the spirits whispered

He did not shove Kenai out of the way. He became the way.

The transformation was not Sitka’s doing. It was Kenai’s choice. When Kenai stood, shaking the blood from his fur, he did not ask to be human again. He asked, in a raw, broken growl, “Can I stay with him?”—meaning Koda. The pain of his body—the broken ribs, the

Sitka’s spirit did not weep. Eagles do not weep. But a tremor passed through the northern lights, a flicker of sorrow that made the wolves look up.