Amarok

by Angela J. Townsend

  The freezing water took hold of her like a skeletal hand closing around her throat. The current wrapped icy fingers around her ankles, pulling her under. She fought to the surface, but just before she reached it, her muscles went numb. She flailed her arms until her fingers raked across a rocky outcropping. Emma lost her grip and sank into the murky depths. So cold. So dark. She spiraled downward, kicking and twisting to get back to the surface. Something tangled around her boots. What’s down there? Her muscles grew heavier, cramping. God, no!

  She burst to the surface. The cold air seized her chest. She sank again, surfaced and saw a man reaching for her, just as she went under again. His face old and leathery, he smiled with piercing brown eyes, stirred the waters beneath her, and sucked her down into the unknown. Her mind embraced one last terrifying thought—how easily the shaman had killed her.

  24

  The fire winked and faded into glowing embers. Chills racked Amarok’s battered frame. His thoughts turned to Emma, alone in the cold. She never should have gone on such a dangerous journey by herself. His spirit ached to go to her, her pull stronger than the drums that continued to haunt him, but his body remained stubbornly unresponsive. He couldn’t even crawl to what remained of the fire to protect himself from the cold. How could he protect her? The instinct was so strong that, if still in wolf form, he would’ve howled his frustration.

  This was all his fault. He should have lied to her, sent to her Ben’s place. The kindly trapper would have seen to her safety. But in his pain and desperation, he hadn’t thought quickly enough. Now, it was too late. He’d put Emma in harm’s way. What if—no! He couldn’t bear the thought of her being transformed into some kind of beast, enslaved forever, her love for him slowly changing to resentment and then hatred with the knowledge that it’d been his fault. Her humanity gradually eaten away as her rage turned her into a monster to be feared, rather than a girl to be loved. Tears, the first he’d shed in longer than he could remember, slid from his eyes. If only he’d been strong enough. He was supposed to protect her, and instead he’d condemned her to the life that had nearly driven him mad.

  He clenched his fists. Everything and everyone he’d ever cared about had fallen victim to Milak’s evil—first his family, and now the girl he’d grown so fond of. He rubbed his feverish forehead and the touch of his own hand soothed him. He remembered how Emma had stroked his fur so gently, and then touched his arm as a man. Amarok smiled, remembering how she had gazed at him. Had he really seen affection in her eyes, or had he simply imagined it? Please, let it be true. He struggled to sit upright. Pain ripped through him. He clutched his sides. What good would love do him now? He’d be dead before she returned. If she did come back. Tears burned his eyes. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. He thought of his father, and what he’d say if he saw his son behaving like this. He bit back his tears and forced himself to allow a faint glimmer of hope into his heart. What if, by some miracle, she found the second totem in time? He would live again! But would she stay with him, out here in the middle of nowhere? Maybe she’d leave him for the city, and perhaps that was the right thing to do. If he left this area, he would age and die in a matter of days. The Ryans had taken sadistic pleasure in reminding him of that. He put all thoughts out of his mind and gazed into the gaping mouth of the hearth. It waited, empty and cold, like his life without Emma.

  A loud tap shattered his sad thoughts. The tap came again and again.

  Coming from the window.

  25

  Can’t breathe! Emma kicked and flailed in the frigid water until she twisted enough to fling the suffocating wool blanket from her body. She jolted awake. Where was she? She spotted an old native sitting across from her, his face a map of wrinkles, dark eyes peering into hers. Every muscle trembled.

  “Who are you?” Emma asked.

  The man smiled and put his hand up. “My name’s Ben, and you’re lucky I checked my trap lines when I did. You darn near froze to death.”

  Emma glanced around the modest cabin, fighting the urge to rush out the door. A small kitchen sat just off the living room. Wooden shelves lined the walls, stocked with plates and napkins. A round table stood in the middle of the room, a deck of playing cards fanned out across the center. It didn’t look like the dwelling of an ice age shaman.

  She quivered uncontrollably, her teeth chattering hard enough to break. Even sitting in front of the man’s fire, Emma shivered.

  The trapper gestured to a flannel shirt and a pair of camouflage pants. “You best get out of those wet clothes. If you hadn’t woken, I was going to strip you down myself before hypothermia set in. Those are my wife’s clothes, but you can have them. She doesn’t like it out here and rarely visits. If you don’t mind me asking… what are you doing out here by yourself?”

  Emma grabbed for the totem and felt the comfortable thump of it against her chest.

  “I have a friend who’s in trouble, and he needs me.”

  The man shook his head. “And you need to find the twin to that totem you wear around your neck to help this friend… right?”

  Emma gasped. “How did you know?”

  “An old legend told in my tribe when I was a kid. I always suspected there was truth to it. I hate that bastard Weasel Tail, and I hate the way he treats his animals even worse. He likes to steal from my trap lines.”

  “He won’t be stealing anything anymore. He’s dead.”

  The man sat bolt upright, his brows arched in surprise. Had she said too much? Would he drag her to the authorities before she could save Amarok?

  “He was mauled by a bear.”

  The trapper’s mouth twisted into a humorless smile and his eyes glinted. “There won’t be anyone to mourn his passing. Lots of folks will breathe easier knowing he’s gone. I know I will.”

  A teakettle whistled. Ben motioned toward the kitchen. “I’ll make you something to drink. It will help warm you up.”

  “No thanks.” Emma forced herself her to her feet. “I really need to get going. I have to get back to my friend.”

  “This friend of yours, is he a wolf?”

  Emma nodded and the man walked to a far closet. He tossed her a heavy parka and handed her the pack she’d been wearing when he dragged her from the water.

  “You’ll need a ride, then,” Ben said. “I can take you where you need to go, but I won’t set foot on that land. I saved your firearm, but I couldn’t save the kayak. I’ll give you one hour to look, and then I’m leaving. We can take my boat.”

  26

  The tapping became more insistent, louder, shaking the window panes. Amarok squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears to block the sound out, but it become so loud he could feel its vibrations.

  “No!” Amarok gritted his teeth. “You’re dead!” He squeezed his eyes tighter and clenched his jaw. How could Weasel Tail have survived? It wasn’t possible! But, if he had…and if he somehow gained his strength back, he’d hunt Emma to the death. Amarok turned his fevered head and stared at the window, the worst possible scenarios jabbing into his brain. He struggled to focus on the source of the noise, but snow fell outside and the brightness, combined with the distorting frost, made it hard to distinguish shapes. A dark shadow loomed and his heart skipped. Maybe it was Emma. His mind grasped at thin shreds of hope, fighting back the fear growing inside him. Maybe she was hurt and needed him! He pulled his way along the floor to lie beneath the window frame, every movement feeling as if he’d ripped open a dozen new wounds. Dragging himself up to look, his breath caught in his throat as he stared into a pair of yellow eyes.

  Amarok frowned, it wasn’t possible. Or was it? He gazed at the thing resting on his windowsill, peering at him through the dusty glass. Was it just his mind, wanting to conjure up some kind of miracle?

  But then a shimmering splinter pierced the darkness and he allowed himself to believe in the impossible. His heart jumped. Could it really be?

  27

  Emma sat in the bow of the motorboat, st
raining to see past the flying snow as they traveled downstream. Even after changing into dry clothes, she still shivered from the bitter wind. She surveyed the gloomy landscape, glad to have a guide to show her the way. Fingering the totem, Emma’s heart twisted with worry for Amarok. Was he still alive? Please, just hang on. Her stomach clenched—she couldn’t handle another death. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t shake the restlessness inside, the horrible fear that made her legs tremble. She’d never been afraid of anything, not until now. If she screwed this up, there’d be no second chances.

  Emma clung to the edge of the boat until her fingers went numb. The undulating rumble of the boat motor slowed as they maneuvered around dead logs and debris clogging the route. Emma glanced at Ben. His brown eyes made uneasy sweeps of the shoreline. The deeper they traveled downriver, the colder it got, dropping at least ten degrees every mile.

  Angry clouds painted the sky a threatening shade of smokestack gray, a dark mirror of the landscape below. Flat slabs of granite lined the riverbank, standing like tombstones over rotten logs floating like corpses in the freezing water. Dead fish echoed the graveyard impression, lying in a spray of guts and bones on the frozen bank.

  They rounded a bend and she spotted the outline of an old cabin on a knoll overlooking the river, exactly as Amarok had described it. Ben eased up on the throttle and edged the vessel toward the bank.

  She turned to Ben. “Wow, I can’t believe the cabin is still standing.”

  He nodded, his voice dropping. “Things don’t seem to age here, like they do in the rest of the world.”

  Emma shivered, cradling the gun in her lap. Maybe that was why the shaman had been able to survive for so many centuries. The boat bumped into the shore, and Emma leaned over and tied it to a limb sticking out of the embankment. She balanced precariously in the belly of the ship and then, summoning up her courage, made a giant leap for the shore. The boat shot out from under her feet and snapped to the end of its tether, but she cleared the shallow water and landed on the mucky edge of the sandbank. She glanced at Ben, who pointed to his watch and waved her onward. Emma barreled into the thick foliage. One hour, that’s all she had before he’d leave her. Adrenaline surged, igniting the blood in her veins. She had to hurry.

  Emma pushed her way through a clump of tall, stiff cattails to a narrow trail made by a large animal with cloven hooves—probably moose or elk. Thorns, under a shield of snow, gored at her exposed face, and shrubs with poking branches stabbed at her legs. She labored ahead, fighting slushy pools of water and muck to a stone footpath leading to the cabin. The structure’s huge, notched logs remained standing, a testament to the quality of their workmanship.

  An unexpected wave of sadness washed over her. Such a lonely spot to build a home. She saw the remains of flower boxes under the windows, rotting into the earth. Two weathered crosses leaned at odd angles behind the house, as if placed by a drunken hand. They stood as the only reminders of the lives of those who lay beneath them—a family destroyed, dreams decomposing into the earth.

  She ducked into the weatherbeaten little house. Rat urine and the stench of musty wood assaulted her nostrils. Emma glanced around the shadowy interior. Three iron bed frames stood pushed against the walls, their mattresses and support ropes having long since fallen victim to time and generations of rodents. Tin plates and dusty cups sat on a board nailed into a log wall.

  Emma crossed the room to a cracked window. Something furry and brown scuttled under her feet. She choked down a scream as a huge rat slid under the crumbling doorframe, making its escape. Using the side of her fist, she cleared a dusty spot away and peered outside. Emma’s gaze swept across the barren terrain to a mountain overlooking the cabin. Her heart jumped. Something about the hillside made her uneasy. It set off an internal instinct telling her to flee, to get away while she still could, before it was too late. Her thoughts returned to Amarok and she squared her shoulders. The last thing she would do was give up. She would not let the darkness win.

  She fingered the totem around her neck, making sure it was still there. She eyed it carefully, memorizing every detail, staring into the center of it, as if she could will it to reveal the hiding place of its twin. Emma frowned. It had to be nearby, but where? Milak would have hidden it well. She chewed her lower lip. If it were buried years ago, how would she be able to find it now, after all this time? Emma’s legs wobbled; she needed to sit down. It all seemed so impossible. She suddenly couldn’t breathe, and her heart threatened to punch through her chest. She felt herself starting to disconnect. No, Em, not this time—not now! She drew in one calming breath after another until her racing pulse returned to normal. Disconnecting didn’t do any good. Cutting solved nothing. She had to face what had to be done. The cool caress of the blade and her dizzying escapes into her own mind only distracted her for a short time. They did nothing to remove those parts of her life she least wanted to face. No matter what, she would find the totem—she refused to let Amarok die.

  Her mind raced. She’d have to hurry; she didn’t have much time. She’d stick to the tree line, keep herself hidden, and check out the hillside and surrounding area.

  She headed out the back but suddenly stopped. At her feet, Emma spotted a faded tobacco tin covered in cobwebs. Something about it drew her to it. Thinking that it might hold some kind of clue, she brushed the sticky webbing away, picked it up and took it to the window for more light. Lifting the lid, she peered inside.

  28

  Amarok studied the creature’s wing and his heart froze. Could it be? Though blurred by the texture of feathers and lacking the intricate detail of the original, the mark was immediately recognizable. The bird flew off and then returned as if silently trying to communicate with him, telling him he was not alone. Amarok knew who the bird was. It explained so much, but if he’d been captive all this time, how had he gotten free? And how long had he been hiding?

  Amarok closed his eyes; his body couldn’t take much more. He struggled to catch his breath and lie still on the hard floor that pressed into his bones. Memories of the owner of the mark came flooding back, and he explored a time in his life before this wretched existence. He’d been eight years old when he’d first met his father’s brother. Uncle Jock had stood over six feet tall, with the length of two axe handles across his broad back. Winter-lean and muscle-bound, he’d been an Adonis to young ladies and an idol to adolescent boys. But no one idolized Jock more than Amarok, and when his family had left Canada, his strapping uncle had promised to follow close behind.

  True to his word, Jock had come to Alaska soon after, but he’d preferred the life of a fisherman to that of a prospector or trapper. While Tok and his family headed to the cursed lands, Jock settled near the ocean and the pubs of town. On one burly bicep, Jock had worn a tattoo of a bird—an owl in flight—so if he were ever lost at sea and his body drifted to shore, he’d be identifiable.

  One golden September day, Amarok had received a letter from his favorite uncle. Jock was coming to get him. He was to spend two glorious months at sea with his idol. The life of a fisherman seemed exciting and mysterious, compared to the tedium of walking trap lines. On the day Jock was to arrive, Amarok had woken early and nearly worn a path in the floor from checking the window for signs of Jock. By nightfall, all hopes of seeing his uncle were dashed. Day after day, he watched and waited, praying for any sign of the big man. But when the autumn leaves fell and snow covered the ground, Amarok gave up hope. As weeks passed with no word from the big man, Amarok’s father grimly concluded his brother was gone, lost to some unnamed danger.

  Now, Amarok knew differently. Somehow, the old shaman had captured Jock and turned him into an owl—the very owl perched on his windowsill, and the same one that had followed him across the tundra. He’d even given the girl a silver feather from its plumage.

  If only he could stand and get to the door, he’d let him in. It would comfort to him to have Jock at his side. Through all the years, everyone he’d known had
died. Now, here was the uncle he’d loved like a father, alive and well. Not in human form, as he would have wanted, but alive nonetheless.

  Amarok thought back to the time the shaman had transformed him, to the days when he’d lain in agony while the transformation had taken place. During those nights, he’d heard the beat of wings against the hut and the screeches of a bird. Could it have been his uncle trying to save him? And, slowly, he recalled seeing an owl on the arm of the old shaman when his first master, Abe, had come for him. More than once, a lonesome hoot had broken the silence of the long, cold nights.

  An arrow of doubt shot through his veins like lead. Had he imagined it all? Had he really seen the mark on the bird’s wing? Was it just his dying mind giving him comfort? Amarok closed his eyes, refusing to not believe in what he had seen. After all the years of needless suffering, this one thing had to be true. Please, let it be so.

  As Amarok struggled to sit up, a sharp pain flashed through his side. He put his hand on his waist, feeling blood seep through his bandages. He made his agonizing way to the cold hearth. With his remaining strength, he stoked the fire into a blaze and collapsed on the bed.

  It’d been years since he’d slept within the shelter of four walls and a warm fire. Amarok soaked in the warmth, staring at the flames licking the wood, devouring it. He thought of all the other people enslaved by Milak, their lives destroyed. Something dreadful occurred to him. If Milak was as old as the ice age, then perhaps there were others who’d lived centuries in slavery. Amarok clamped his eyes shut. He couldn’t imagine such a horrible thing.

  29

  Emma peered into the metal box. Underneath an antique pocket watch and three gold coins, she spotted a hardbound book. On the cracked leather of the spine, the word “Journal” was stamped in gold lettering. She reached inside and gently eased it out. Carefully, Emma leafed through the musty pages. Most were unreadable, smeared with specks of mold. She flipped to the last entry.