Willow Creek

"There is this place called Willow Creek up in Overton County. There may be ten places by that name spread through the flatlands of this area alone. And though there are not really all that many willows there, well, there are enough for the name to stick. But this one place is special in my mind because that's where the old women of my clan used to go to gather wood for brooms and switches and baskets. When I was a little girl, my grandmother would take me up there sometimes and show me the old ways. I thought she was crazy and I was mostly bored except for when a fish would slap the water in an otherwise silent world. I would watch her rough hand trail along a branch as though feeling for gnawing insects inside. She said she was listening to its spirit. Witchcraft, I thought. Well, the Council came to her when they needed a shaman. When her husband died (he was NOT my father) she brought his pipe here and buried it. And when she dies, she has told me more than once, she wants to be brought here for her rites and to feed the willows and become the creek."