Power: A Novel

Once again in her boat in the middle of the lake, Omishto feels the thoughts of her family and people blow toward her across the water. Like magic, she is able to enter their heads and witness what they believe. The healer, Annie Hide, believes in the oral tradition of the tribe passed down to her people by the panther at creation. She believes in Ama and in the rightness of her actions because she followed tradition, and she wants to bring her home. On the other hand, Janie Soto believes that tradition has been broken and that Ama must be punished for breaking the laws of nature. She sees Ama’s banishment as a sacrifice that must be made to restore balance and is disappointed in Ama. Joseph Post, an elder of the Turtle Clan, believes in the power of the tribe’s magic and the mystery of human life. While he knows that Ama has violated tribal law, he believes that she is mysterious like nature itself, so what she has done is a part of cyclical history for which she might atone in some future life.

Omishto also sees from her mother’s