The Calling

by Ken Altabef

  “I didn’t!”

  “I feel sick,” said Iggy. His eyes went wide with horror and revulsion. He could hardly stand up and his face was pale. He took a shaky step toward Alaana, an angry look on his face such as they had never seen.

  “What have you done to him?” asked Aquppak.

  “He’s joking,” said Alaana.

  “I am not!” Iggy spat the words as if he had a foul taste in his mouth. He staggered forward and vomited into the snow.

  “I didn’t do anything!” Alaana said, stepping back. Or had she? She wasn’t certain and there really was no use in saying the same things over and over. She could tell from their faces. No one believed her.

  As tears blurred their horrible, accusing faces, she ran off.

  Maguan smiled handsomely, extending his foot for all to see. “New boots.”

  Itoriksak and his friend Ipalook both leaned forward to see, nearly butting their heads together. “Pilarqaq made them from scraps of sealskin left over from last winter.”

  “Do they fit right?” asked Itoriksak. The sealskin sole was so crookedly sewn that Maguan had been walking on the side of the boot rather than the flat of the bottom.

  “Sure. It’s a nice piece of work, too. Look at these tassels.” Maguan rotated his foot to better show off the tiny leather tassels, several of which had already been torn off by crusts of ice trampled underfoot.

  “They don’t seem even,” remarked Ipalook.

  “The snow doesn’t mind,” said Maguan.

  “I think they’re fine,” said Alaana.

  “There. You see? Here’s a young woman who appreciates good work.” So saying, Maguan gave his sister a playful little kick with the boot she had just been inspecting so closely. “And someday Alaana you’ll make a pair just as nice as these.”

  “I hope,” said Alaana softly. The young men all laughed, but Alaana remained sour-faced.

  Ipalook sorted through the collection of long bones set out before him. Ipalook was distinguished by a face that was completely ordinary. Straight black hair, small dark eyes, a thin-lipped mouth. He looked like every Anatatook who had gone before and every Anatatook since. His expression was serious, but then again his attitude was always serious, so different from Maguan’s lighthearted demeanor. Maguan was always happy, and seemed especially content since his marriage. Even in her current dark mood, Alaana felt good just to be around her elder brother.

  The four of them were settled in a secretive nook in the shelter of a pair of peaked rocks, free from prying eyes, just outside the camp. There were two groupings of whale bones laid out on the mat — a pile the men had already agreed upon and another pile of cracked and yellowed bones whose usefulness was still under consideration. Ipalook held one up. “We might make a spar out of this.”

  Maguan took the piece and turned it over. He ran his hand along the inside slope.

  “We’d have to shave it down to size,” suggested Ipalook.

  Maguan nodded. He brushed thoughtfully at the thin threads of mustache hanging at the corners of his mouth. “This will be just fine. It’ll be the third rib on the left hand side.” He smiled with a faraway look as if imagining the boat they were planning to construct. “We’ll have the best boat on the water,” he said. “Just you wait and see. We’ll have an even better boat than Tugtutsiak.”

  “If you ever get enough whalebone for the frame,” said Itoriksak.

  “I’ll get it. I’m hoping this season he’ll land another bowhead, and we’ll get a few more pieces.”

  “Scraps left over from Tugtutsiak’s hunts,” muttered Ipalook.

  “I don’t care,” returned Maguan. “I’ll take those scraps and put them together and we’ll have a grand boat. He thinks he’s the only one can bring in a narwhal. He’ll see what we can do.”

  “We’ll show him,” said Itoriksak, shaking his fist in solidarity.

  “You’ll have the best crew,” said Alaana.

  Maguan nodded, smiling.

  “If only we could find someone who knows how to fit the joints together,” said Ipalook, “beside Tugtutsiak.”

  “I’m thinking on it,” Maguan assured them. “Tugtutsiak doesn’t matter. There’s a better way to do it than even he knows. I just haven’t thought of it yet. There’s plenty of time.”

  “Can I be on the crew?” asked Alaana.

  “Of course not,” said Ipalook. “You’ll be sitting on shore, waiting, with the rest of the wives.”

  The mention of marriage brought a scowl to Alaana’s face. Ipalook didn’t know her wedding had been called off.

  Maguan was quick to try and soothe her hurt feelings. “Soon you won’t have time to bother with any of this. You’ll be too important, and whaling’s too dangerous to risk the shaman.”

  “That’s right. You should be playing with your friends now while you can,” said Ipalook, “instead of bothering us.”

  “She’s not bothering us,” said Maguan.

  Alaana kicked absently at the snow. “The boys don’t want to play with me anymore. They’re afraid of me.”

  “Oh, don’t mind them,” said Maguan. “Everyone’s a little scared of the shaman, I guess.”

  “Even Iggy’s turned against me too. They all have.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Maguan. “There comes a time when boys won’t play with the girls any more. It doesn’t matter.”

  It did matter, thought Alaana. The girls avoided her too.

  “Here, look,” said Maguan, holding the whale rib up in front of her face. “It has to have a certain type of curve, but you can’t shave too deep or it becomes too weak there in the center. It takes a long time and it’s hard work, but we’ll get it done.”

  “I can help,” Alaana said. She could see the little flicker of blue within the rib, a tiny spirit — all that remained of the proud soul of the whale from which it had come. The spirit seemed friendly enough. She thought she might get the bone to assume the desired shape with a little nudging of her own.

  “Okay. Sure,” said Maguan. He handed Alaana the shaver, a thin flat piece of hard gray stone attached to a short handle of antler. “I’ll show you how.”

  Maguan demonstrated his technique, taking long firm strokes with the dull blade. Rather than shaving off slivers of the bone, it seemed he was perfectly content to merely wear it down slowly by degrees. He nodded his head and smiled at Alaana. “You give it a try.”

  She took the tool, immediately dismissing the idea of altering the bone’s shape by use of anything outside of good, hard work. There was too much joy in doing it this way, the normal way. The shaver was another matter. There was a dull gray spirit inside the stone blade. She reached out her thoughts and easily convinced it that it desired a sharper edge for itself.

  Alaana worked the bone as Maguan had shown her. “That’s it,” said Maguan, pleased. “You have to lean into it with your shoulder.”

  Suddenly their father called out to them. Maguan stood up. “We’re here.”

  Kigiuna came around the edge of the tall rock.

  “Maguan, what are you doing there? Stop fooling with that silly boat and come and do some real work. Old Manatook just came out of the karigi. He says the caribou will cross the rapids in three days. That’s our last chance for the year. We need to work on the kayaks, not waste time on this foolishness.”

  “Yes, Father,” said Maguan.

  Kigiuna’s eyes alighted on Alaana. “And what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be with Old Manatook?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Then you should be moving your legs in the direction of the camp.” His words were sharp; he meant what he said. But Alaana noticed his fist tensed up before he spoke, as if he were angry at himself.

  Alaana headed back toward the practice tent but had no intention of meeting with Old Manatook. She felt awful. Her brother’s words rang true. Everyone feared the shaman. She had seen the frightened look on Mikisork’s face often enough of late, as he went out of
his way to ignore her. And even the adults all looked at her differently now that she heard their darkest secrets as revealed in the spirit-callings. Seldom did anyone speak to her at all, except for her family. All of this, and she was not even a shaman yet. Far from it. She’d only been studying with Old Manatook for four moons. It was turning out to be the very worst year of her life.

  Alaana turned away from the camp, following a break through the ice which wound its way down toward the river. She sat among the large, rough boulders that framed the bank, once again struck by the incredible natural beauty of the site. The water, as always, sparkled perfectly clear, shimmering as it moved along, weaving its way between the rocks in the center of the stream. Sitting at the water’s edge, she was fascinated by the delicate patterns of ice that gathered around the rim of the stream. They floated on the surface, forming fragile webs with long thin fingers, probing into the water only so far until they broke off with the flow.

  The spirit of the river was vast and mellow and the cool blue color of ice at midnight. Whenever Alaana had a chance she came back to it, a steadfast friend whose babbling waters always had a gentle story to tell. The river didn’t worry about anything. It had no concerns as it rushed along other than that it should wind up where it was headed, a journey that inevitably brought it back around to exactly where it had come from in the first place. Alaana offered a tentative hello, knowing this was the last she would see of it for awhile. The band would be moving to the rapids very soon and after that they would make for the winter camp along the seashore.

  The river said nothing in return. The spirit had grown lazy, its waters sluggish and choked, thick with tiny pieces of ice. The big freeze was coming. Soon the river would be laid to silent rest under a blanket of ice. It was already asleep. Farewell, thought Alaana, until next year.

  “Play?” said Weyahok. “Play?”

  “Not now,” answered Alaana in a low grumble.

  She felt the little piece of soapstone take on weight in her pocket, growing heavier and heavier until she had no choice but to pull it out. “Stop!” said Alaana, “You’ll tear my pocket apart.”

  “See me,” said Weyahok, “See me.”

  Alaana opened her hand. Weyahok wasn’t much to look at, just a small irregular lump of waxy gray stone.

  “Why not make yourself nice and flat,” said Alaana. “That’s the perfect shape to be.”

  Weyahok was eager to oblige, especially if flat really was the best shape to be. Alaana judged the results as adequate for her task, if a bit lopsided. She hefted the little stone, drew her arm back and let fly. Weyahok skipped three times across the surface of the river before it caught a bad hop against the side of an ice-cake and sunk down. Alaana could see her little friend down in the depths of the river, sprouting tiny arms and legs and making its way along the bottom. Eventually it came up the bank and rolled to her feet.

  “Throw Weyahok again? Throw Weyahok again!”

  Alaana did as she was asked.

  “And what are you doing here all by yourself?” asked Nunavik. Alaana’s hand must have brushed against the piece of walrus tusk when she had drawn Weyahok from her pocket, calling Nunavik to her.

  “Thinking,” she replied.

  “Well, you seem to do that quite a lot for a person of such little sense. Keep at it. You must learn to crawl before you can run.”

  Alaana laughed. Certainly the single best thing that had happened to her this year was her friendship with the golden walrus. “Nunavik, have you ever been married?”

  “Ackkk! Certainly not. In my many travels and many years I’ve found out one thing of which I am certain — love may be foolishness, but marriage is madness.”

  Alaana laughed again.

  “Good friends are infinitely better than good lovers,” said Nunavik. “And a lot less trouble. But you shouldn’t be sitting here alone. Old Manatook is at the qaqmaq waiting for you. If you don’t show up he’s bound to be angry.”

  “He’s just my teacher, not my friend.”

  A frown flattened the golden walrus’ already flat face, puffing out his huge round cheeks. “I’ve made a great number of friends along my way. From the smallest of creatures to the greatest. But my best friend was also my teacher. She was a sparrow, and also a great shaman.”

  “I didn’t know the sparrows had shamans.”

  “There were a few. Now there are fewer than ever. I went to her to learn the secrets of the sparrows.”

  “I don’t see how that could be,” said Alaana. “You can’t fly.”

  “Can’t? Don’t be ridiculous. Every soul can fly. We would meet in the Upperworld and she would teach me. I never could do much sparrow-magic, though. Not built for it. Most of it involves feathers.”

  Alaana nodded knowingly, then said, “Don’t souls have feathers, if they want?”

  “Clever girl,” laughed Nunavik. “Not on my glorious golden hide, they don’t! And a beak?” Nunavik tilted his face to show off his profile, which consisted principally of a pair of gigantic cheeks, a flat upper lip and the great hoary tusks. “Some things are beyond imagining.”

  The walrus had a particularly raspy laugh.

  “Beaks,” he continued, “And wings, and talons. Definitely not for me. Still, good things to know about. Be sure and learn as much as you can, Alaana. The world is a much more dangerous place than you care to know.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to know,” said Alaana. “Maybe I only want to laugh and to rest easy and to marry, and not be left out.”

  “Ah, that’s something I know quite a bit about,” returned the Walrus On The Ice, “sitting alone by the seaside.”

  Alaana was reminded of Nunavik’s tale, how because of one mistake the walrus had witnessed the death of everyone he had ever loved. Another life ruined by the spirits.

  “Why must it be that way?” asked Alaana.

  Nunavik grunted softly. “That is what it is to be angatkok. It’s an old word. Angatkok. It means ‘He That Must Walk Alone’”

  “What’s the word for ‘She That Must Walk Alone’?” asked Alaana.

  “There isn’t any.”

  “I don’t want to walk alone,” she said.

  “Who does?” answered Nunavik.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE SEEN AND UNSEEN

  “That girl! She tried to hide from me today! She actually tried to hide from me. Does she think I don’t see her wherever she goes?”

  “I think she knows.” Higilak spoke softly, as counterpoint to her husband’s shouting. She had rarely seen him so upset.

  “She knows?” raged Old Manatook. “What did she think? That I would come running after her? Is that what she wants?”

  “Doubtful. More likely she just wanted some time alone.”

  Old Manatook huffed, pacing back and forth before the ikliq.

  “Come, now,” Higilak said. Their narrow tent was barely tall enough for him to stand, and her husband was flitting about like a trapped moth.

  “Skipping lessons. Keeping me waiting. She’s wasting time, she’s slow to learn and she rebels at every turn.” The leathery skin of Old Manatook’s face reddened with frustration. “She fights me.”

  “Shhh. They’ll all hear you.”

  “I don’t care if they hear,” he said, though in a much quieter tone. “A stubborn child, that’s what she is. I should take control of her mind…”

  “The way you control mine, and make me love you?” She smiled coyly. He didn’t notice.

  “I never tampered with your mind,” he said coldly.

  “You never needed to,” she replied warmly. “At least stop lurching back and forth.” She motioned him toward the platform. “And you shouldn’t have to tamper with Alaana.”

  “I can’t anyway,” he grumbled. “Outside influence on her mind will taint the training. It’s no good. The spirits always know.” He sat wearily on their bed, his anger spent.

  Higilak cast off the sleeping furs. Naked, she felt the sudden chill of the n
ight. She shuffled forward on the platform, putting her arms around her husband’s neck from behind, pressing her breasts against the warmth of his back.

  “So what then am I to do?” he asked. “You spend more time around the children than anyone else. What do you think?”

  “Children rebel,” she said simply. “They can’t always be controlled. Every father knows that. The most important thing is patience.”

  “Sun and Moon, I don’t have the patience for such games. I don’t have the time. Not when I’m needed by the Anatatook and elsewhere also. Before, I could come and go as I pleased but now — and trying to instruct that child on top of everything else — it’s too much.”

  Higilak began to fiddle with the back of Old Manatook’s shirt where the soft fawn skin was laced together, but he drew her hands gently aside.

  “Sometimes I think she’s more trouble than she’s worth,” he said dejectedly.

  “She was always different,” Higilak said.

  “She was?” asked Manatook.

  Higilak suppressed a chuckle. Her husband could see across all seven worlds, yet he missed so much in this one. Most of all where children were concerned.

  “Yes,” she said. “That child asks questions. All the time. She was forever interrupting story time, when she wasn’t sneaking out on some errand of mischief.”

  “Hmmf. Her father should have taught her better.”

  “It’s not the father’s fault. It’s her nature. She’s inquisitive, thoughtful—”

  “Stubborn.”

  “Her stubbornness will take care of itself. In time it will work in your favor, you’ll see. You’ve only to point her in the right direction and watch her go. If you would only calm down and consider what she needs.”

  “She needs a good solid thump on the backside.”

  “Think again.”

  Old Manatook growled softly. “I have no ideas. I was shown the Way a long time ago, in a place very different from this. It was Kritlaq who instructed Civiliaq and Kuanak, not me. Children! Give me an enraged bull walrus. Give me a demon, a handful of demons. With claws the length of my arm! Give me anything but a petulant child. I am no good with them and I don’t know how to teach them.”