Dead Rote: A Dakota Mystery

CHAPTER 1

A refuge.

Not wanting to leave it, Nikki Solberg idled in her aging Honda Civic that the sun had turned from burgundy to rust—and the past winter had made more rust than metal. Goose bumps rose along her bare arms, a reminder that late September in the Dakotas would all too soon yield to winter. She blinked bloodshot eyes as the first glancing light of dawn hit the bell tower of the old one-room schoolhouse that she’d made into her own little house on the prairie.

She’d haunted the place as a child. Once owned by her grandfather, who’d bought the school and its land for a song when it had gone defunct, it was the one place her younger brothers had never followed her to. They’d had their fill of school as it was. Only Grandpa Stan had understood, and not because he loved book learning, as he called it, but because he was wise enough to know that his likes were not all likes. That she’d loved books, art, and nature, he could only appreciate the last, but while she’d followed her dreams in California, he’d given her this place when he passed.

As a child, she’d fled her parents’ stifling home with a book or a sketchpad or just herself. The old schoolhouse still had abandoned wooden desks and old McGuffey’s readers strewn about the well-worn planked floor, the bindings warped and dust-covered. She’d brought one of the books back with her once to Grandpa Stan, and he’d told her he’d learned from them and been forced to memorize one of the poems and recite it in front of the class.

He’d cheekily picked The Barefoot Boy.

With one long finger sun-spotted from decades of farming, Grandpa Stan used to brush her tanned cheek—something her fair-skinned brothers never had—and quote, Blessings on thee, little man. Barefoot boy with cheek of tan! And she’d giggled and told him she was a little girl. He’d pulled out an old photo of himself in a sack, he’d called it, and said he, too, had been a little girl.

She’d had to fight for her tan since her adopted mother wanted to keep her inside to sew and bake and dress her like a princess with lily-white skin. All Nikki wanted was to dress in T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers like the boys, wander the bluffs, read incessantly, write bad poetry, and sketch what she saw in the native prairie on bluff lands left fallow. In her passive-aggressive way, she’d won that battle. Eventually. But only after her non-adopted surprise brothers started to arrive, one by one, and diverted her mother’s attention. With each one, she’d been ghosted a bit more. Mark had arrived when she was three, Clint when she was six, and Justin when she was eight.

When she was sent off to school, she’d worn dresses for the first couple years. But when winter arrived in the second grade, she’d been sent with pants underneath her skirt because of the subzero temperatures. Her mother gave her strict instructions to strip off the pants as soon as she got to her classroom. Instead, she’d stripped off the skirt. Her teachers either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared. Or perhaps they’d silently egged her on as she’d otherwise been an obedient ghost of a kid, flitting from class to class, an awkward long-haired girl who’d spent her high school prom nights curled up with a book, just as she’d wanted.

She’d loved summers roaming the bluff, but she also loved school and relished being taken off to town, when Reunion had had a general store, to get school supplies every August. Nikki loved the blank lined writing pads just waiting for new words and new worlds, shiny new yellow No. 2 pencils, and the sixty-four colored crayons that Grandpa Stan had paid for as her parents wouldn’t shell out for anything more than the basic twenty-four. She’d had to pay for her own art supplies once she hit high school. She still did now, and given she was a public school teacher, that was not just disheartening but also infuriating.

And it was one of the many reasons she still sat idling in her gravel drive instead of heading to school. This school, the one she’d inherited from Grandpa Stan and had made her home, she wanted to stay in—a refuge for her art with her potter’s wheel and easels and sketchpads, her alone time, her books, and her creations. That school, the K–12 buildings in town that had been built after all the little one-room schoolhouses dotting the prairie had been closed and consolidated, was no longer a refuge.

For once, she and the Forsgrens, her adoptive family, were in complete accord. School was hell. A thing to endure until the bell rang.

That wasn’t how she’d pictured it. How she remembered it. And now to keep her refuge, her beloved schoolhouse with its new slate-blue metal roof with stark-white clapboarding and a dusky-rose Arts and Crafts door—prairie dawn colors—she needed to work for it.

Blowing out her disgruntlement and wishing fervently that it was Friday instead of Thursday, she turned her rust bucket of a car—her salary didn’t pay for anything better at present—and headed toward the hellhole that had once been her other childhood refuge.

Almost reflexively, she glanced over at the back of the bungalow of her nearest neighbor and... what? partner, significant other?... over on Okerlund Road. How she wished summer was back, when her time was at least more her own, even with summer school duties, and she could spend the night with Marek if she wished. He was a solid man in all ways, all six-feet-nine of him, with his gentle Okerlund heart, and his uber-artistic daughter.

If Nikki was the marrying kind, she’d snatch him up. Sometimes, she feared that someone would in her stead, even if he’d told her once that he would take however much she was willing to give. She was an independent soul. A solitary one. Hence, her chosen name of Solberg. Berg being a mountain.

Despite living back in South Dakota for a couple years now, Nikki had yet to socialize with any of her siblings, though she’d seen Mark here and there. Clint and Justin lived farther afield, having married into their fields. As the eldest son, Mark had gotten the entire Stan Forsgren spread. Tradition was big in the Forsgren family. And she didn’t fit the mold for Forsgren women: marrying a farmer and giving him lots of sons. She was not the road not taken but the road barred with barbed-wire fences. She’d followed her art. Not just passive-aggressively, either, and that had ended her relationship with all but Grandpa Stan.

When Nikki pulled into the parking lot at the two-story brick high school with the connected gymnasium, she saw Principal Hageman’s beige Buick Encore and several other cars that she could identify. The shop teacher’s 1970s screaming-red muscle car. A bunch of small sedans mostly in silver and white that rivaled hers for rust. Even the rehabbed 1967 white-and-green Ford pickup with PI4ALL plates of Mason Slocum, the notoriously tardy math teacher.

Uh oh. Was she late? She checked her phone. No, she was exactly on time.

Nikki hurried down the dim hallway under a flickering bank of fluorescent lights and down to the school’s small auditorium, which was even darker, a den of gloom. She slipped into the back row of seats—ones built for midgets and torture to sit in for very long—beside her English colleague. Mentally, she corrected herself to ELA: English language arts. Hurriedly, Nikki looked around and saw no one directing the show. They were supposed to have some kind of professional development that morning before classes. What’s the PD? Anyone know?

Pure drivel, as usual, drawled Rosey Verba, a red-cheeked and roly-poly farmer’s daughter from near Fink who taught the run-of-the-mill English classes. Rosey managed to arm wrestle her male students into submission—or at least into submitting their essays. Nikki taught only seniors. And she knew that she’d only survived that because she’d stood on the sturdy shoulders of Rosey’s successes.

District mandated, growled Hal Gast, the grizzled shop teacher whose classes had barely escaped the chopping block so many times that he regularly cleared out his desk at the end of each school year. Word is, from the Scarecrow herself.

Superintendent Sarah—never call me Sally—Crowe had quickly acquired the nickname Scarecrow not only from her skeletal frame but her old-fashioned dark suits with big lapels that blew up into her face in the ever-present Dakota wind. She’d quickly alienated just about everyone in the district, which to some on the school board was just what she’d been hired to do after the longtime and beloved Superintendent Leland Harelson had died at his desk just two weeks before school started in mid-August.

Hire in haste, repent in leisure. Mason Slocum shoehorned his football-player frame in beside her. Apparently, he’d stopped at his classroom, as he had a sheaf of papers in hand—so, still late. Admin had always forgiven him that flaw, as he was one of the few who could control a classroom with a mere lift of the eyebrow. The gift of brawn. Not that he wasn’t a solid teacher, as well. Those who thought he was a dullard in the classroom since he coached track and field soon found out differently.

Andrew Flue, the new and just-out-of-school chemistry teacher, made a stabby motion with one bitten fingernail. I’m getting a voodoo doll. The Scarecrow had the gall to override my zero grade for a student who just sat with his arms crossed and glared at me during the test. Just because the parents asked ‘nicely.’

A gray-fringed balding head turned in front of them, and they were treated to drooping eyes that had seen too much for too long. Earl Yoerger aka Eeyore to his students. Biology teacher who’d somehow survived a couple decades of teaching sex ed. Everyone who’s eligible for retirement is talking about putting in their papers. I’m there in three years. And many of the new teachers are ready to bail. They thought this was a well-managed district. No longer.

Nikki closed her eyes and saw mushroom clouds on the horizon—an entire system imploding. These were some of the best teachers in the district. And we’re only six weeks in.

Mason asked, Where’s the Hag?

The nickname for Principal Blanche Hageman was, for the most part, affectionate. Rosey shrugged. Probably with the PD leader.

Hal nibbled on his mustache. Saw a state vehicle.

A gusty sigh came from Rosey. Usually, as practical as skis on the beach. Asinine paper pushers.

Mason balled up a Post-It and threw it at her. Now, now. Behave.

Rosey flexed her muscles. I can still take you, Slocum.

He batted his eyes. In your dreams.

She snorted. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

He pouted. You ELA chicks got all the lines.

As the banter petered out, Mason turned his attention to his papers, either grading or prepping or both. Nikki pulled out her phone to check for any texts and found none. Others complained about being made to sit and wait. Everyone was fidgeting. The PE teacher was taking a catnap.

The young German and Spanish teacher down the row rocked back in his seat until it squeaked in protest. When was this thing built? The Dark Ages?

Rosey gave him a horrified look. ’Not the comfy chair!’

No one expects the Inquisition, Nikki said darkly.

Ah, Monty Python mashup, Mason said, not looking up. Extra points for ancient history.

An amused voice, warm and carrying, said from the other side of the row, We sound just like the kids. Can’t wait to get out of class before it’s even started.

A ripple of stifled laughs and groans told Nikki that shot had hit home. She recognized the amused voice as belonging to a new teacher this year: Katie Cansky. Social studies. Not new to teaching, she was a past state teacher of the year and in her fifties, but she’d been transferred from Valeska to Reunion against her will, at least according to the grapevine.

If anyone had a beef with the new superintendent, who had by all reports made that transfer by fiat over the objections of almost everyone in Valeska, it was Katie Cansky. Yet here she was, handling her new colleagues with the expertise of a veteran teacher confronted with a bunch of you-can’t-make-me-learn students.

Nikki herself was fairly new to the game. Not art education, as she’d done it for a number of years in California, but more as a traveling instructor between several high schools within a district where she’d been a free agent. Now she was teaching in her hometown, somewhere she’d sworn to never return to under penalty of death or dismemberment. As her Forsgren relations had said, the only thing art is good for is to teach others to do it. Best to nip it in the bud.

Rosey crossed her arms. This PD better not be another on self-care. As if yoga and meditation will give us more hours in the day to do the impossible, all the while giving us surveys on what they can do to improve the situation. Easy: stop gaslighting us with meaningless PD and let our best teachers like Katie here teach best practices.

Mason lifted his head. "Better yet, leave us alone and let us teach."

A barrage of suggestions followed:

Give consistent and meaningful consequences for bad behavior. Hire a special-ed teacher. Give us back our paras and aides—and our school librarian. Staff fully to need—with all the money they pay the paper pushers. Stop making laws that make us do more with less. Pay commensurate to education and work hours actually put in—or at least so we don’t need a second or third job. Let us work just eight to three with summers off like people think we do. Pay for all school supplies and resources like any other workplace. Have our backs when kids, parents, and district yahoos get stabby...

A choreographed exhale with a chaser of hysterical laughter at the last whooshed out of the teachers at the pie-in-the-sky wish list.

The languages teacher said, You know, I taught in a Catholic school for a couple years. Terrible pay and no benefits, but we got to teach, and they held the line on discipline—and I don’t mean nuns with rulers. I mean, like, if a child was removed from the classroom for behavior, the parents had to pay a fine.

Nikki stared at him. Come again?

Mason said, Maybe I’ll convert.

But they all knew that none of them would flee in that direction. This was their school, this was their home, and it would tear something to leave.

Into that deflated dead air, a petite black-haired woman in a black suit swept onto the stage on leather-soled pumps. No white blouse. All black. It did little for her sallow and puffy face. Her sweeping entrance was marred by her labored breathing as she got to the podium.

She looked like someone about to deliver a eulogy at a funeral. Nikki sank lower in her seat. Not the Scarecrow’s funeral. Theirs.

CHAPTER 2

Funereal black, Rosey confirmed. Planning to bury us, one and all. Double, double, toil and trouble. We toil; she’s trouble.

Nikki gave her fellow ELA teacher a sidelong glance. Sarah Crowe had started her career in education in Valeska. Before school started, the new superintendent had given a glowing acceptance speech at her first assembly, all about returning to her roots to pass on the best practices she’d picked up across the country in her years away.

Unlike Katie, Rosey had not minced words. Like Katie, Rosey had attended Valeska High, as Fink was too small to support a school of its own. Ass-prick of a pick. Rosey Verba had a way with words, and Nikki aspired to learn from her.

A pale six-foot woman in a fluttery white dress followed in the Scarecrow’s wake like a ghost. And she was potentially as scary because she held a box of neatly stapled handouts.

That was never good. Paperwork of any kind, when added to the mountain they already had, was extremely unwelcome. But maybe it was just an anonymous survey that most would accidentally lose in the interests of keeping up with actual classroom work.

A slim blond man in a suit followed on her heels but found a seat in the front row. Perhaps he would speak later? Was he the PD leader? Or, wait—for the first time, she saw the back of a much larger man in the front row, his dark sweater nearly making him invisible. Oops. Had he heard all the complaining about the PD? Well, if he had anything to do with teaching, he would know that PDs were the bane of their existence. Rarely was anything actually useful imparted. Of course, kids and their parents often said the same about Nikki’s subjects.

Sarah Crowe didn’t look up from the notes in front of her. Welcome. I have called this PD to announce a number of professional development initiatives that will make this the premier district in the state. I wanted this time with teachers alone, without admin, so I requested that Principal Hageman not attend this morning.

Well, that explained the Hag’s absence. Some called Hageman old school, but she wasn’t. She was measured in what she brought in as times changed. No need to throw out the tried-and-true for the latest fad. Discipline was a cornerstone. Not the old paddle or switch, which had been long gone before Nikki had gone to school herself, but swift and consistent discipline. There was no doubt as to actions. It was clearly communicated every year to parents and students.

The superintendent droned on. I have spent the last six weeks reviewing all available district data. One of the first things I noted was the inconsistent and incomplete and, shall we say, eclectic curriculum and lesson plans that have been submitted, as required, to the district office. Obviously, this must be corrected at once, or our standardized testing scores will never rise above their current state of mediocrity.

Mediocre? Their district was among the highest in the state. Not that testing ever told the whole story—it was hard to teach students who had no wish to be taught, no matter how engaging they made the material. Way to make every teacher seethe. Even the music teacher, Melvin Strom, hissed out his instinctive reaction, a sibilant sound from a well-trained throat. If Nikki didn’t also teach ELA, she might also be immune from the chaos of days upon days—ten, at last count—of standardized testing taken out of the calendar that took away from teaching said subjects. The results of those tests were largely useless to actually teaching specific students in the classroom.

The Scarecrow either did not hear the dissent or ignored it. To rectify this glaring oversight by a district office mired in the dead pedagogy of a previous century, I have proposed a contract with Roeder Consulting—she nodded at the blond man—to construct very detailed curriculum and lesson plans for all tested subject areas by the next calendar year.

What the hell? That was their job. For some, it was their favorite part of the job.

As Nikki and her colleagues stared at the superintendent in slack-jawed disbelief, a new teacher in the first row clapped until her hands faltered when no one else joined. Nikki got it. Brand-spanking-new teachers often started from scratch without any resources or lesson plans. They would love to have everything done for them when starting out. All by rote. While core subjects had statewide standards, the day-to-day lesson plans and resources were largely left to those experts who actually studied how to convey material effectively: teachers. Students came in many flavors and required on-the-fly adjustments. Differentiation, it was called—not all students at a grade level were truly at grade level. Some were very, very far behind their classmates.

Sarah Crowe droned on. We are going to be concentrating on the core of each subject, hammer it home, and leave off anything that is extraneous or divisive and—

My ass, Rosey Verba said. Not on my watch.

As if she’d heard that, Sarah Crowe looked up and gave them a tight smile. To be as objective as possible, no input will be solicited or desired from staff. There will be no deviation. Any attempt to do so will be considered insubordination. She seemed to take actual pleasure in the appalled faces in front of her. We will concentrate on the 3Rs of reading, writing, and ’rithmatic to meet and exceed standard testing goals and strip out nonessentials.

Like football? Rosey piped up, the first to find her full voice.

That dig got a reaction. Don’t be ridiculous. It teaches team building.

So does band, the music teacher said. The thin, stork-like man had a hunched back from poring over music—and protecting himself from the cacophony of discordant notes of beginners.

The Scarecrow waved one skeletal hand. You can’t play football with one player, but you can play flute by yourself. They can get a tutor. Next?

Melvin Strom paled. The music teacher had been laid off during the worst of the budget cuts and only been reinstated at the same time Nikki had been hired to rejuvenate the stalled art program. The Scarecrow had as much as declared Mel was history. What did that say about the art program?

What about phones? Earl asked. They’ve been a disaster in the classroom.

Parents want them, students want them, so they’re in. If you can’t maintain order, perhaps you’re in the wrong business.

A hum of outrage simmered in the stuffy room. And the big man in the front row seemed to be boiling from within—the back of his neck was turning redder and redder. But he didn’t speak, so she wasn’t sure which side of the argument was pissing him off.

What about suspensions and expulsions? Mason asked. When are you going to reinstate those?

Never. Sarah Crowe blew on the knuckles of one hand and shined them on her lapel. Suspensions and expulsions are sitting at a big fat zero in my first six weeks on the job.

Because you stopped them from happening, Rosey snapped out. That doesn’t mean that disciplinary problems have magically gone away. In fact, they are much worse.

The black eyes flashed. "That’s a you problem. You are trained in behavior management, or so I assume? Perhaps I shouldn’t. Assume, that is. She made a note. I’ll add that to the growing PD list. We need to be a united front for our district to shine. Moving on."

Finally, the big man in the front row stood up, and Nikki let out a breath as she recognized him. He was an imposing figure, not much over six feet but solid, with a salt-and-pepper buzz cut and trim goatee. Nikki knew that look was softened considerably when he was wearing his cheaters to read, as he often did, but right now, he could be mistaken for a football coach.

But that was dispelled with every word that followed.

I can’t believe what I am hearing. Every one of your newly stated policy directions is in direct opposition to a functional district. And this district is one of the best in the state. A well-oiled machine that has consistently scored higher than the state average. What you’re doing will destroy it. His brow lifted in a quirk. "But I think you know that, because it’s not about the district, the teachers, or the students. It’s about you looking good. That’s a you problem."

Nikki gave the superintendent one thing: she didn’t back down. She didn’t even flinch. I don’t know you, but I assume you’re a coach. So I’ll give you a bit of leeway in not knowing a thing about administration or, for that matter, education. If you don’t sit down and shut up right now, you’ll have just taken one for the team.

He remained standing.

You don’t want to get with the program? Fine. You can be the first teacher on the chopping block. Congrats. Your contract will not be renewed.

The grins around Nikki widened as more clued in. Only Mason looked befuddled.

You can’t fire me, the man stated bluntly.

Wanna bet?

I don’t work for you.

You work for the people of this district. They hired me through their elected representatives. So yes, I can hire you and fire you. Insubordination covers many sins.

Nikki felt a laugh tickle her throat, and Mason looked at her oddly.

The man didn’t give an inch. Instead, he took several, with a step forward. The truth is never insubordinate. And the truth is, I don’t work for the district. I am here as an observer, working on a white paper on best practices within the state.

That froze the Scarecrow. For one shining moment, the teachers had a savior. A moment to savor. You’re from the state?

The South Dakota Department of Education. As Rosey would say, asinine paper pushers. Nikki wasn’t so sanguine. They weren’t all bad. But she had to admit that they often pushed a lot of asinine paper onto overloaded teachers, usually at the behest of legislators trying to fix education to whatever the popular agenda happened to be.

The man smiled tightly at the Scarecrow. You requested a meeting with me today to discuss PD options. I am an education professor at USD.

Crowe let out a breath big enough to be picked up by the mic—no doubt out of relief that she hadn’t ticked off the powers that be. Go back to your ivory tower, Professor. You have no power here. And I have decades of administrative experience all over the country. What I am doing will save the district money and raise test scores and graduation rates, which is all that the school board cares about. I am not here to coddle teachers.

Her black gaze whipped back to the teachers. There will be changes. If they affect you personally other than the policies I have already announced and are found on the handout supplied, you will hear directly from me or your principal. I expect full compliance. Anyone who does not comply will have their contract non-renewed. The school board will back me. In fact, it’s on tonight’s agenda, along with approving all the new policies in the handout that you can pick up on the way to class. She grinned like a banshee. Have a nice day.

And she swept offstage, leaving a stink in the fetid air.

The school bell jangled into the shell-shocked silence.

Rosey quoted darkly, ’Ask not for whom the bell tolls.’

’It tolls for thee,’ Earl finished morosely.

And thee, and thee, and thee. Mason pointed to the others nearby. Who was that masked man, by the way?

Nikki answered. Blaise Kubicek. From a Valeska family. And Marek’s mother’s first cousin. The man who had saved Marek from hell.

Too bad he wasn’t from DOE, Mason murmured as he took one of the handouts.

As Katie Cansky got a look at the policies, she slowly got to her feet, looking like death warmed over. Sarah has no idea what she’s doing.

There was charitable, and there was blind. The blind would soon see.

Oh, she knows. She’s on a power trip. Rosey lifted a stubby finger and cocked her thumb. And you, Katie, are first on her hit list. Watch your back. It’s got a big juicy target on it.

We’re done. Earl rose unsteadily to his feet, as if he’d taken a body blow, his entire face drooping in tandem with his eyes. Stick a fork in us.

I quit. I just quit. I am not doing this, Mason said. "Do you see this? Lunch and free periods will be reduced to twenty minutes. All teachers will be required to cover the lunchroom on a rotating basis starting with seniority first."

Rosey ripped the handout in half. She’s trying to starve us to death—or drag us out in straitjackets.

But one by one, they went to class, just as their students did, with dragging steps.

School was hell.

CHAPTER 3

Fuming as she flipped through the typo-riddled handout of moronic policies, Nikki stalked to her art room in the old elementary school. With lower population numbers in Reunion, the single-story red-brick building of her childhood now housed all of kindergarten through eighth grade.

No hugging? Period. For any reason. Yeah, like that would work for elementary grades. What schools had the Scarecrow been working in? Military?

Nikki flicked on the fluorescent lights to her art room—and stopped short in horror. It was as if her fury had unleashed a poltergeist. The handout fell out of her hand, wafting into the room on the blast of air from a dying air conditioner and landing on the sharp jutting shard of what had once been a delicate bud vase in swirls of dawn colors.

All around the room, all of the art that she’d brought and made with her own hands, to inspire her students, lay in ruins.

Oh my god, breathed a voice behind her. Then it sharpened with authority. Children, stay right there. Stay in single file. Not a word.

Only vaguely did Nikki register that voice. It came from far, far away.

But Mrs. Russell, I saw who done it! a boy called out. It was— A thud and a strangled scream came before chaos.

As Nikki whirled to help out the third-grade teacher, she was enveloped in a fierce hug around her hips. Blinking, she looked down into the horrified eyes of her most precocious art student. Nikki schooled her expression and went into teacher mode. Becca. It’s... it’s all right.

No, it’s not, came the solemn answer. Mrs. Russell says not to lie about your feelings.

Out of the mouths of babes. Nikki ran a hand down the dark hair and looked into those spooky winter-blue eyes in that dusky face. That Nikki could, if she wanted, be this girl’s mother, not just her tutor and father’s significant other, made her heart lift. A little. No, it’s not all right.

It is most certainly not all right, Laura Russell said, her red hair flaming from the glancing sun through windows in the hallway that led to the isolated art room. Her six-feet-plus Amazonian frame towered over a dark-haired boy wearing a He-Man sweatshirt. Manning Rayfeld, what do you think you were doing?

The boy didn’t blink. In fact, he gloated. I didn’t do nothing.

Anything was the swift correction. "You didn’t do anything."

He smirked. That’s what I said.

You hit Donny.

The boy twirled in a circle and fluttered his hands. Donny honey bunny, where is your boo-boo? The mimicry was a ringer for Donny’s smothering mother. It might even have been somewhat funny, except that Nikki knew what might well happen next, as did Laura, and braced herself.

Laura used an intentionally patient voice, even though her green eyes blazed. Manning, we’ve talked about this before. You do not hit people. You do not break things. If you are angry, you need to cool off. Because hitting isn’t cool.

The de-escalation tactic didn’t work this time. You can’t tell me what to do! You’re just a girl. Guys rule! And as if a switch turned on, Manning turned into a whirling dervish,