My name is Kaheya, daughter of the forgotten tribe of the Yalava. In New York, I am called by my anglicized name, Cathy.

We were mountain-dwellers once—spirit-whisperers, salt-keepers, and fire-bakers. But now, I live in a matchbox apartment in a city that doesn’t sleep, married to a man who speaks in fluent French, but not a word of my mother’s tongue.

I returned to Urma—our ancestral village—after thirteen years. The call came one grey morning. Grandmother was dying. “Come,”...