Holy Wings

What the old woman knew

The Wakinyan¹ came at dusk, when the lake lay flat as beaten copper. Old Tatanka² watched from his porch, pipe gone and cold between his teeth. He had heard the stories from his unci³, who heard them from hers: holy wings, twice the length of a canoe and the doubled horns and the beak that could split a cedar. The beak that had, in her telling, split men.

He had not believed.

Now the clouds gathered themselves like a closing fist. The first wingbeat shook loose every loon on the water. The second cracked the sky open and lightning poured out. Those bright serpents she had spoken of, coiling between cloud and earth, tasting the air for him.

Tatanka did not move. He understood, with the clarity that comes only at the end of long disbelief, that he was being seen. Truly seen. The way a man sees an ant before he decides.

He had thrown stones at the lake that morning. Cursed the rain. Cursed his unci, dead for forty years, for filling his head with feathers and noise.

The Wakinyan circled once, then lower.

Tatanka set down his pipe. There would be no penance. The serpents of lightning had already chosen him.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

1. The Wakinyan are the sacred Thunder Beings of the Lakota, vast bird-like spirits whose wingbeats roll the thunder and whose gaze hurls the lightning.

2. Tatanka means “bull bison”, a traditional man’s name that bears the strength and dignity of the most sacred animal of the Lakota.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

3. Unci means “grandmother” and refers both to one’s own elder kinswoman and, more broadly, to any older woman who carries stories and wisdom forward.

Author’s note

I’m Sacha, a writer based in Switzerland, currently working on my first full-length novel. Fragments and the Dark is my home for the shorter pieces: stories, fragments, experiments, and a chance to connect with readers who share a taste for the darker corners of fiction.

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Thank you for reading. 🖤