For a while I forgot my dream.

For a while I was not afraid.

So we built a great feasting fire and readied the pepper pot and yams and cassava bread and fresh fish. For though the strangers were not quite human beings, we would still treat them as such.

Our chief rolled tobacco leaves and showed them how to smoke, but they coughed and snorted and clearly did not know about these simple things.

Then I leaned forward and stared into their chief’s eyes. They were blue and gray like the shifting sea.

Suddenly, I remembered my dream and stared at each of the strangers in turn. Even those with dark human eyes looked away, like dogs before they are driven from the fire.

So I drew back from the feast, which is not what one should do, and I watched how the sky strangers touched our golden nose rings and our golden armbands but not the flesh of our faces or arms. I watched their chief smile. It was the serpent’s smile—no lips and all teeth.

I jumped up, crying, “Do not welcome them.”

But the welcome had already been given.