This section continues the text’s narrative techniques of repetition and magical realism. Though the story unfolds in a linear format—events occur sequentially—the narrative also contains elements of circular time, with memories, motifs, and even descriptions recurring. Just like the Fur Queen played a pivotal role in Abraham’s life, so does she in Jeremiah’s when she directs his music to Winnipeg. This technique of repetition is typical of oral Cree storytelling. Even the existence of two brothers, twin-like despite being separated by three years and sharing parallel interests in music and dance, constitutes a repetition.

Highway further plays with time by using devices such as the fast-forward in Chapter 11, where he skips six years in the lives of the Okimasis brothers. These time jumps occur often in the text, with variable periods of time having passed between subsequent chapters or sometimes even within chapters. The vignette-like chapters also resemble scenes from a play or film, reflecting techniques from the theatre. All these narrative strategies reinforce the idea of time as potentially looping back, darting forward, or staying still. The flexibility of time in Cree cosmology offers unique opportunities for redemption, reconciliation, and healing after even the bleakest of events.

Another important idea this section explores is the importance of language. To highlight the centrality of language to experience, the text describes the bark of Kiputz as “Miximoo! Miximoo!” rather than woof-woof or bow-wow. This shows that a Cree speaker experiences reality in their own unique way, much like a speaker of Mandarin or Greek. When Jeremiah and Gabriel are robbed of Cree, they are also robbed of their language-specific perceptions of reality. However, Gabriel often reclaims his reality by slipping into Cree at school, even on pain of punishment. Gabriel’s reclamation of his language is similar to Highway’s use of Cree words in an English novel. Significantly, the text does not include the meanings of its Cree words in accompanying translations or footnotes, but in a glossary at the end of the book. The text’s refusal to translate Cree words resists the dominance of English. Highway’s strategy of alternating between Cree and English in the novel is also an example of code-switching, whereby multilingual speakers switch languages depending on context.

An incident in Chapter 10 reveals the growing divergence between Jeremiah and Gabriel’s personalities: Jeremiah asks Gabriel to refrain from disclosing his abuse to Mariesis, firmly believing his parents will not believe the testimony of their children. Jeremiah is becoming the more cynical and pragmatic of the two brothers, his bleak outlook borne out of his own trauma. This Jeremiah is no longer the child who calmly saved his brother’s life in Chapter 3. Just like mainstream Christian culture changes Abraham, it changes his son too.

Finally, an important motif that appears in this section is the mystery-shrouded figure of Chachagathoo, her very name a taboo: “Like all children of Eemanapiteepitat, (Jeremiah and Gabriel) had been told since early childhood that they were never to mention the name of Chachagathoo inside the house” (90). Because of the taboo around Chachagathoo, the children never really learn the details of her bad dream power. By withholding these details, the novel signals that there is more to Chachagathoo than meets the eye and that she may yet have a crucial part to play in the lives of the Okimasis brothers.