The Calling Page 6

  “Do they frighten you?” asked the old man again.

  “A little,” answered Alaana.

  “Did they frighten you when they were alive?”

  That was an easy question. “Of course not.”

  “So? Ghosts are all right so long as they aren’t angry. Look again. They’re only curious about the fishing, or drinking in the faces of their loved ones one last time. After another day or so they’ll make their peace.”

  “Will we ever see them again?” asked Alaana. She was thinking of her sister.

  “Their names will come upon us again. Someday soon someone will be born with powerful urine and they will name him Kukkook, and women will wash their hair and remember Old Kukkook. We must assure them that they will be remembered. This is important. In the end, that’s all they really want.”

  “But these…,” said Alaana, noting her question had not been answered. “When they go, wherever they go, will I see them again?”

  “Perhaps. The journey to the land of the dead is a far one but a shaman’s work carries him that way now and again.”

  This answer was somewhat less enlightening than Alaana had hoped. Old Manatook offered a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Alaana nearly cringed. All this newfound attention from the old shaman still made her nervous.

  “There are many worlds and many great spirits,” continued Old Manatook. “The Moon Man in the sky. Sedna tending her gardens of kelp at the bottom of the sea. Quammaixiqsuq, the lord of the lightning and his thunder sister Kallularuq. The many turgats that rule and represent the powers of the animals.”

  “And Sila,” said Alaana.

  “Ah yes, Sila,” returned Old Manatook. “The mysterious Walker In The Wind. In the south they call him Silarssuk, the spirit of justice, though I hardly know why. I must confess to knowing but little of that one. I’ve encountered him only once.”

  Old Manatook paused as if unwilling to say more.

  “Well, aren’t you going to tell me?” asked Alaana.

  “If you insist,” said the shaman, a little smile curling the ends of his mouth.

  “I was called to answer a plea from the far side of Big Basin. Many were sick and dying there. I went to do whatever I could. On my return, I crossed the sea ice alone in the dark of winter. I became lost in a storm of hail and snow.

  “From the depths of the blizzard I called on Sila for aid. I called on him and he came to me. What I saw was this: although he was made of air, Sila had the form of a wizened old man, thin and much wrinkled, with long hair and a pointed beard the color of gray stone. He did not smile as his eyes came upon me, eyes that shone like stars, distant and cold. He puffed thoughtfully on a long-stemmed pipe, exhaling white clouds into the breeze. And little bits of things swirled all around him — stray feathers, dry leaves and spirals of snow.

  “He seemed not nearly as impatient or uncontrollable as he’s so often made out to be. He said I had saved lives on my journey, many of them children whom he loved best of all things, and he thought it unfair that I should perish in the attempt. With that, he blew the blizzard away from my path, creating a safe tunnel through the raging storm. He showed me the way home. And he was gone.”

  “A tunnel through the storm,” repeated Alaana thoughtfully. She didn’t doubt it. The old shaman was nearly as accomplished at telling a tale as his wife Higilak.

  “So it went,” replied Old Manatook forcefully. “But it’s possible you may know more of Sila than I do.” A little smile played out on his face, as if to remark at what a wonderful world it must be for a young girl to encounter a spirit with which even an old shaman was not familiar. “I don’t completely understand what happened to you. When you first saw this spirit, you told me he had a voice that was all voices, a face that was all faces.”

  “I didn’t see him, exactly,” said Alaana. “He was like a gigantic spider’s web, stretching out as far as I could think, touching everything, connecting everything.”

  “Hmmf,” remarked Old Manatook. “That’s strange. One’s guardian spirit almost always appears human at first.”

  “He spoke as if he knew me. He told me, ‘Though you had not the calling before, you will rise to it, Alaana.’ ” Alaana repeated the words with careful reverence. In them she had glimpsed a hint of destiny that thrilled her young heart.

  “Called you by name?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is very curious.” Old Manatook turned to his left shoulder, where the strange creature of light had once again appeared. “On her first soul flight? Only one with enormous potential, I should think,” said the shaman to his familiar. The creature responded with an indignant flutter of wings and a snap of its beak. “Sila is a potent spirit,” replied Old Manatook cautiously. The shaman bent an ear to the creature, then slowly nodded his head. “I know. And she had shown no hint of it before. Very unusual. I don’t understand it.”

  “If you don’t, then how can I?” asked Alaana.

  For a moment Old Manatook cut a more sympathetic figure. The winged creature went missing from his shoulder, and the pair of gentle eyes in his wide face glowed with kindness.

  “Life is a long song,” he said. “Sometimes it seems the more we learn, the less we actually know. Don’t worry, little one. It is a mystery that needs unraveling. Perhaps we’ll see the other side of it together.”

  With that, Old Manatook stretched his long legs and strode over to the river. At the weir he placed his hand on Old Kukkook’s shoulder. Kukkook’s wife had laughed at something another woman had said. It was a tiny laugh but it had upset the ghost. Alaana watched the old shaman whisper comfortingly into the ghost’s ear.

  Kuanak remained kneeling before the karigi, his hands held behind his back as if still bound by the sealskin thongs. He was quite motionless now, the only sign of life being the movements of his lips as he muttered unintelligible words in low tones. His wife rocked him slowly from side to side. Her embrace made no impression on the shaman. Kuanak stared blankly ahead; he was far beyond seeing anything in this world.

  Kuanak’s eyes bulged suddenly, and a single unearthly word bubbled from his lips. Kuanak fell. Without a sound, he went face first in the snow. The end had come. His widow shrieked.

  “She’s gone,” said Alaana.

  Her sister’s ghost had finally departed, surrendering herself into the embrace of the ancestors, headed for parts unknown. Alaana’s gaze trailed after her to the hole in the top of the tent that marked her passage.

  “Gone,” repeated Kigiuna. His voice trembled slightly as he spat out the word.

  He stepped toward his daughter’s body where it lay wrapped in skins on the pallet. His steps were unsteady and Alaana wondered for a moment if he had not the strength to do what needed to be done. But there was no use doubting her father; Kigiuna had never failed them before.

  Kigiuna peeled back the flap in the rear of their family tent, an opening which had been cut the day before in preparation of this moment. A dead body must be removed from the house by way of a hole cut in a wall, never taken through the doorway or it would linger and haunt the tent forever.

  Kigiuna took Ava into his arms and carried her out of the tent. He lay the body atop the little sled Ava had often used to carry broken slabs of ice up from the lake for water.

  “Break it down,” he said to Maguan, indicating their tent with a snap of his head, “and pack it up.”

  Kigiuna stepped over to where the rest of the family had been packing up their sled, but found their possessions scattered about the ground, in and out of the snow. Amauraq had thrown herself weeping down on the sled. She cradled Itoriksak in her arms.

  “Stand up,” he said. “Stand up!”

  When she did not respond, Kigiuna kicked her. Amauraq turned around, still crying. She looked at her husband with a face tortured by extreme sadness.

  “Get up,” he said.

  “How can we leave her here?” she sobbed. “How can we leave her?”

  “What are you goin
g to eat?” barked Kigiuna. “The snow?”

  “I don’t care,” she wailed.

  “Stand up!”

  He was so strong and determined, he made Alaana believe everything would once again be all right. They would leave as planned, and there would be another day without Avalaaqiaq, and after that another and another. They would eat. They would sleep. And in time they would laugh again. All of this, clearly written in the hard lines of her father’s face, an unlimited fountain of strength. And sure enough her mother saw it too. Amauraq stopped crying only for a moment, but it was time enough to stand up and see to the loose flaps on her parka. Her hair had come loose from its bun. She straightened it.

  Kigiuna gestured at the sled. “Maguan, sort out these straps. Then help your mother get these things in their proper places.”

  Maguan nodded, putting on as brave a face as his father, and shoved a bundle of skins at Itoriksak.

  “Come, Alaana,” said Kigiuna.

  Alaana took hold of the rawhide braces at the front of Ava’s sled and helped her father pull, though it seemed to her she was actually doing most of the work. They passed the last of the others, gathering their things up and making their dogs ready for the trip to the next fishing area further inland. The happy bustle which usually accompanied such a move was absent, the quick tempo of excitement dulled to silence. The quiet was broken only by the yammering of the dogs as they milled about under the burden of backpacks, tent poles and cooking pots. A few of the men offered sad waves at them as they passed; all of the women averted their gaze.

  It was a short pull to the little flat area, sheltered by a high rise of stone that made up a small cliff where the Anatatook buried their dead.

  As they walked her father said, “Old Manatook tells me you are to learn to be a shaman.”

  Alaana didn’t know how to answer. She knew her father was against it, and truth be told she was frightened of the old shaman and the glimpses into the spirit world that she’d already experienced. “I see things,” she said.

  “I know,” said Kigiuna. “I know that you’re scared.” Her father let go the sled, turned and looked down at her. There was a cool panic in his eyes. “I can’t help you.”

  Alaana was quick to reassure him. “It’s not all bad. Ava…”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s good I was able to say good-bye to her, to keep her company for the five days. She went off to a better place, I think.”

  Kigiuna grunted and took up the reins again. It was slow going along the melted trail and the toy sled creaked noisily. It was never meant to carry such a burden.

  “Your father Ulruk was there.”

  “My father?” Kigiuna stopped the sled again. His face betrayed a series of deep emotions, going from sadness to happy recollection, then to a grim resolve. “We needn’t worry about Ava then. She’s in good strong hands.”

  Alaana returned her father’s gloomy half-smile.

  “When we get to the new camp, you’ll be seeing a lot of Old Manatook. Do what he says. Try your hardest to please him.”

  Alaana nodded dumbly, aware that her father was ordering her to do something which he steadfastly opposed. She hadn’t thought it possible anyone could convince her father to do anything against his wishes. Was this sudden change of heart genuine, Alaana wondered, or just meant for her protection against the threat of death?

  Kigiuna took the body from the sled and placed it on the ground. The earth was frozen too hard for digging but there was a pile of large flat stones nearby. Alaana realized these had been prepared by her father ahead of time. They began to pile the stones carefully over the body. Kigiuna’s face hardened to keep tears from coming down, but Alaana no longer felt an urge to cry. She no longer felt as if she were burying her sister. Having witnessed its passage, she knew Ava’s spirit had already flown away, leaving the abandoned body behind.

  The hillside was strewn with fresh graves. The Anatatook had lost many this spring. Their cairns mingled among the older resting places, memorials that stretched back to generations long gone. Alaana saw Old Manatook not far away, finishing off a grave of his own. She realized the old shaman was burying his friend, Kuanak.

  Old Manatook did not notice her. He was busy with his own thoughts and grief. Alaana saw that Manatook was not alone. There were other things around him, shadowy shapes that glimmered and billowed in ethereal shades of light and darkness. She couldn’t make them out clearly and thought better of staring too long at them.

  When Ava’s cairn was completed Kigiuna removed his mittens and put them among the stones. “Set your mittens here,” he said to Alaana. “They touched her—”

  Kigiuna choked back a sob. “They touched her. Leave them.”

  Then they left, careful to wipe away their footprints behind them so that death should not follow them back to the camp.

  CHAPTER 7

  A BRIDE FOR MAGUAN

  “Can you feel the snow?” asked Old Manatook.

  “Of course. It’s cold and wet.”

  “Forget about that. That’s just the water. Feel the snow. It’s all around us. Feel it.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Relax. Reach out with your thoughts. Breathe this way.” The old shaman demonstrated the pattern, a series of five sharp puffs followed by two extended exhalations, repeated endlessly.

  They sat on a woven prayer mat in front of a small makeshift tent. A ragged sealskin tarp thrown over a few whalebone posts, it could hardly be called a tent at all. Old Manatook had put up two of these about twenty paces apart. They had come a long way to this bleak and desolate spot, far from the distractions of the river and the Anatatook camp. Trudging through slush and snow where there was no natural path, they had maintained absolute silence. The implication was clear; Alaana must leave her past and all family concerns behind, to come to a new place, somewhere she had never been before.

  Mindful of what her father had told her, Alaana set about following Old Manatook’s careful instructions. She would at least try to please him, although it was practically impossible to imagine what might make the crusty old shaman happy. His dour face seemed always weighed down by secret concerns and far-away troubles.

  “Open your mind. Close your eyes. Breath this way.” Old Manatook urged the tempo even faster, slapping the beat out on his thigh.

  As she worked her lungs to the rapid pace, Alaana was seized with a profound sense of melancholy. She didn’t want to be here, doing this; she wanted to be with the other children, with her friends. She wondered what they were up to right now. Last spring they had discovered a cleft not far from camp that made for a fun time sledding with a frozen rag of caribou hide. She could almost hear Mikisork’s peals of delighted laughter. Or perhaps they had gone to the hollow beneath the bluff where lemmings nested this time of year. With her eyes closed she could easily envision Aquppak and Iggy gleefully chasing the little animals from their stony burrows with sticks and well-aimed stones. Or who knew what new excitement they might discover? So different from the close confines of dreary winter, spring offered a time for roaming and adventure.

  Alaana’s eyes began to burn and water but she didn’t let the tears fall.

  “Breathe!” urged Old Manatook. “Breathe the way I have shown you.”

  The extreme rhythm made Alaana feel lightheaded and dizzy, but she kept to the beat.

  And then for no reason at all, everything suddenly changed. Alaana was seized by the overwhelming sensation that all was well, and even more than that, a feeling of unbridled joy. All cares were forgotten in the absolute pleasure of drawing in breath after breath of cool, dry air. It was strange to feel so happy without knowing why. She had no clue except a wisp of familiar musky odor, the mark of the old shaman. What had Old Manatook done to her? Altered her mind by force of will?

  “The snow!” Old Manatook reminded.

  And snow there was. All around her, everywhere, extending inexorably from horizon to horizon, nestled snugly beneath her bottom, a
nd yes, even misting the air all around her. Even with her eyes closed she began to see it, the darkness of shut lids giving way to a panorama of blinding white.

  The snow was ancient. Alaana realized this now for the first time. It had belonged to the world since its very beginnings, timeless and unchanging, distant yet ever close at hand. And, like all things of this world, it was alive. The snow was all of a piece, the embodiment of a single spirit that stretched on and on along the icy plains, across the river, atop the mountain, even blanketing the frozen shelf at the border of the sea.

  The spirit of the snow was vast and unknowable, a venerable patriarch that watched over the land and all its creatures with a kind eye and a gentle embrace. Impossible to move or sway, it was possessed of a deep wisdom, having seen everything that had ever existed and ever happened, for all time. Every fall from grace, every flounder and lurch of progress, every triumph and catastrophe, through times of war and tranquility. If one could only get the snow to talk, what wonderful things one might learn.

  The snow was ever asleep now, having seen so much, as an old man who was beyond having to work and sits proudly observing the activities of all his children and grandchildren, puffing thoughtfully at his pipe as he watches them, laughing slyly at their jests, and gratified at their triumphs. No force of this world could rouse that vast spirit to action nor break its profound patience as it draped itself over the land, a cherished companion, a beloved protector.

  “Do you still think it cold?” asked Old Manatook.

  “No,” answered Alaana softly, “It’s warm.”

  “Hmmf. And that’s something the others can never appreciate. To them it is cold, and nothing but cold. But when you are out in the wild, on the long stretches, you need never be cold. Not while Brother Snow is close at hand.”