The Marrow Thieves

Miig picks up Story where he’d left off the previous night, describing how the world came to the way it is. Due to climate change, “people died in the millions” (86), and those who remained became mentally ill and lost the ability to dream. Losing dreams causes people to kill themselves, kill others, or simply refuse to do anything. Miig describes how “at first, people turned to Indigenous peoples the way the New Agers had, all reverence and curiosity […] And then they changed on us, like the New Agers, looking for ways they could take what we had and administer it themselves” (88). 

First, the government took Native lands, then asked for volunteers for medical trials, followed eventually by prisons when the call for volunteers didn’t work. As Miig explains, “they had found a way to siphon the dreams right out of our bones” (89), ultimately creating the “schools” to systematically capture and murder as many Natives as possible.

Frenchie’s group gets ready to leave Four Winds “before we lost the will and instinct to keep moving altogether” (92). Frenchie tries to make sense of everything that has happened over the last few days. During his contemplation, Frenchie acknowledges that he is “thankful for the gift of dreams more than ever” (93). RiRi has new boots that she found in the resort—though she worries that they may have belonged to a Native girl who the Recruiters captured. Frenchie observes: “Now that she knew what was really going on, her imagination had a dark streak in it” (95). 

While walking into the woods, the group smells fire. Frenchie climbs a tree to see what’s going on. When he comes back down, Miig pulls him aside. After Frenchie tells Miig what he’s seen, Miig suddenly starts telling Frenchie what happened to each of the group members before they joined the group. Frenchie thinks, “I didn’t want to know all of this” (99). Miig mentions that he lost his husband, Isaac, in the schools.

Early in the attacks on Natives, Miig and Isaac escaped to their cottage in the woods. After three months, three strangers—a man and two women—show up at the cottage. Two of the strangers speak Anishinaabe, though not very well, and the man claims to have twisted his ankle. Isaac insists on helping them over Miig’s objections that they may not be friendly. Miig notes, “Isaac was unafraid of the rumors being thrown around about new factories where experiments were held and the danger that was coming” (101). 

Miig notices that the younger woman “was never left alone […] And I couldn’t get a straight answer on how she knew them” (103). During the second night, the younger woman comes to Miig and Isaac’s door and tells Miig, “You and your man gotta run” (104). She shows Miig that she’s wearing an ankle monitor. Miig tells Isaac they must run; Isaac continues to disbelieve that anything bad can happen to them, even as the Recruiters arrive. Miig points out, “Isaac didn’t have memories in his family of the original schools” (106). Miig concludes by saying that if he’d had his gun handy in that moment, and known what was really coming, he would have killed Isaac and himself on the spot.