Gardens in the Dunes Read Online Free PDF

here!” Indigo stood on her tiptoes but could see nothing. Here and there, a dancer helped others who had fallen to the ground with joy after their loved ones came down the Milky Way to visit them.
    The singers began and the others joined in. “The wind stirs the willows, the wind stirs the willows. How sweet the scent! The wind stirs the sand grass. The wind stirs the sand grass!” the dancers sang. They had to dance; they must dance or the Messiah and the spirits could not come down to them.
    The white clay protected her face and hands from the cold wind; the sacred white clay made the wind feel like a warm breeze. Sister Salt did not feel tired or sleepy. She had never felt so happy. Even the sick woman from their camp and the old Havasupai woman who lived with her were dancing and lively tonight. They were about to see everyone who had passed on to the spirit world—beloved family members and old friends. But that wasn’t all: the gathering of all the spirits meant the arrival of the storm clouds as well.
    The wind calmed and Sister Salt smelled moisture; a warm wet snow began to fall on the dancers. She kept her eyes on the big snowflakes falling into the flames. The voices of the others around her seemed to recede as she entered into the silence of the snow. Each snowflake was luminous and slowly turning as it fell. She saw every crystalline surface, every shimmering corner and bright edge of ice; she was enveloped in the light and then she herself was the light. She felt them all around her, cradling her, loving her; she didn’t see them but she knew all of them—the ancestors’ spirits always loved her; there was no end to their love.
    Later, Sister Salt and Indigo used to talk about the four nights of the dance. So much happened, so many amazing sights. Sister Salt told Indigo about the snowflakes: “They let me know how beautiful we are, how beautiful we will become.” Later she told Indigo she died that night so she wasn’t afraid to die anymore. Indigo was disappointed to learn that no ancestors showed their faces to Sister Salt—only the snowflakes. Grandma Fleet said the family spirits didn’t bother to put themselves in humanforms because Sister Salt would not recognize them anyway—they were all gone or killed off before she was born. Indigo complained that she had seen nothing.
    â€œYou are too young to see such things,” Grandma Fleet said. “When you get to be a young woman like your Sister Salt, you will understand.” The dancers began to rise to their feet. Indigo started to get up to join them but Mama shook her head and smiled while she tucked the quilt around Indigo.
    â€œIt’s getting too cold. Dawn will be freezing. You stay curled up here where it’s warm,” Mama said.
    All the others were sleeping when Indigo awoke. The sun was already climbing high, and Indigo felt too warm under the quilt with Sister Salt and Mama on either side. The fire the dancers circled had burned down to whitish red coals in circles of ash and mud mixed with the sacred red ocher dust. Indigo checked the position of the sun in the sky once more. It was almost time to take the baskets to sell to passengers on the westbound train. She woke Mama, but Mama said the dance was far more important than selling baskets. Indigo needed her rest so she could dance all night again. They all must dance four nights to move the dead, to help them to return.
    While the others slept, Indigo walked around the camp looking at the strangers who had come from all directions for the dance. She heard Grandma Fleet say most of the visitors were Walapai and Havasupai, and of course Paiute; but a few traveled great distances from the north and from the east, because they heard the Messiah was coming. Indigo reached the edge of the encampment and was about to turn back when she heard white people talking. She saw the horses first, hobbled and grazing in a clearing