The Waters Between: A Novel of the Dawn Land (Hardscrabble Books–Fiction of New England)

A suspenseful, deeply atmospheric tale of discovery, spirituality, and survival. The time is ten thousand years ago and the place is the shores of Lake Champlain, a land inhabited by Abenaki communities who hunt, gather, and follow the cycles of their unspoiled natural world in relative harmony. Joseph Bruchac uses this setting not just to spin a compelling adventure yarn but also to re-create the cultural, social, and spiritual systems of these pre-contact Native Americans. In this third novel of his trilogy about the "people of the dawnland," the lake they call Petonbowk - "the waters between" Vermont's Green Mountains and New York's Adirondacks - holds both sustenance and danger, and Young Hunter is called upon to confront a dual menace. A "deepseer" or shaman, he must use his full powers first to comprehend the threats and then to defeat them. The lake, it seems, holds a huge water-snake monster that makes it impossible to reap the waters' bountiful harvest of fish and game. And, worse, a tortured outcast, Watches Darkness, has turned against his tribe and is using his deepseer's knowledge to perpetrate horrible acts of senseless evil: he destroys whole villages out of sheer malevolence; he literally eats his victims' hearts to absorb their powers; he kills his own grandmother without remorse. An Abenaki Warrior Fights A Monster Serpent In Lake Champlain To Save His People From Starvation. It Happens 10,000 Years Ago In What Is Today Vermont At Which Time The Lake Contained Salt Water And People Made Their Living By Fishing. Joseph Bruchac. In a third novel of a trilogy set ten thousand years ago near Lake Champlain, the shaman, Young Hunter, must battle a monster that lives in the lake as well as an outcast who is wreaking havoc on the tribe. UP.