The fire crackles, sending sparks spiraling into the dusk. The night smells like cedar smoke and cold river water. Jas turns a small wooden figure over in their hands, the firelight dancing over the smooth grain. A raven in midflight.
“What is it?” Jas asks, though the shape already suggests the answer.
“A raven,” Roman replies, eyes lowered. His thumb rubs along the tiny beak. “It’s...important, I think. To the Haida. Trickster, creator, light-bringer. I don’t know the stories properly.”
Ivy Mae looks up from the battered journal she scavenged weeks ago. “Roman, you carve like you remember something your brain can’t quite find yet.”
Roman snorts quietly. “Stories aren’t invented. They belong to a people. Passed down. Taught.”
His voice lowers, barely louder than the crackling fire.
“My birth family might have told me stories like this. But I was taken young. All I know is what I feel in my hands.”
Jas studies the carving like it might flutter free. “Maybe that’s memory in a different language.”
Roman doesn’t answer right away. His jaw works, teeth pressed tight. Finally, he nods once, like the truth is sharp and he’s still testing its edge.
The raven carving rests in Jas’s open palms, wings poised forever between worlds.
The Pull of Something Older
Over the next days, Roman divides every spare moment between carving and long silences. The others notice the way his gaze lingers on shadows shaped like wings.
While collecting driftwood along the riverbank, Ivy Mae pauses to watch him. “You always know which piece to pick,” she says.
Roman scans the scattered branches like choosing from old friends. “Some wood just calls out,” he says. “I only answer.”
Jas raises an eyebrow. “And you say you don’t believe in stories choosing people.”
Roman doesn’t argue. He just pockets the wood and keeps walking.
Ancient Petroglyphs
Days later, hunger forces the group to explore deeper into the canyon. The walls narrow, towering over them like guardians carved from time itself.
Then Jas spots the markings.
Symbols etched into stone.
Spirals, ravens, eyes, waves.
A language older than any book left untouched by the collapse.
Roman steps closer. His breath catches.
“These remind me of something,” he whispers, tracing lines that feel like déjà vu. “Haida…maybe. Or something connected.”
Ivy Mae touches his arm. “You don’t have to know for sure for it to mean something.”
Roman’s voice cracks like dry bark. “Or maybe I just want them to be…”
That night, he carves the symbols into driftwood by firelight, his knife strokes steady and reverent. Jas sits beside him, quiet for once.
“You don’t have to know everything to belong,” they say.
“You already do.”
Roman doesn’t look up, but a single nod says he heard.