The Calling

by Ken Altabef

  Higilak sighed. “Little girls and grown men are not so different, my love. Her problem is the same as yours, I think, and perhaps that’s no coincidence. Your heart is divided. It always has been.”

  “And it always will be,” he said firmly, plunging them into silence. There were certain things that they did not speak about.

  “I know,” she said. “Where you go and what you do is your business. I know your heart, and it always comes back to me.”

  After the destruction of her village Higilak had met Manatook, a stranger who found her wandering alone on the wastes. Soon after they married, the two adopted the Anatatook as their own. She was happy with these people, especially the children. They grew up knowing her voice, her wistful smile, and her love. And, judging by the joyous light in their eyes, all that she gave was returned in kind. Higilak was perfectly content among the Anatatook. But Manatook was a man of frequent travels and long, mysterious absences.

  “You have never fully committed to the Anatatook, my husband, spending so much time away. It’s a whole lifetime we’ve been here—”

  “I can’t spend all my time with the girl. I can’t.” Old Manatook felt the weight of his responsibility smothering him like a fateful shroud. He had obligations elsewhere; for too long he had been neglecting his work to the north. Others depended on him and he would not let them down or see them fall, with important matters left unfinished. Already he was long overdue for a return to his true home. He would have to leave again for an extended period once Alaana was ready, but when would that be?

  “Fathers must accept a certain responsibility,” said Higilak. “The freedom to roam is the first thing that is lost.”

  “I didn’t ask to become her teacher,” said Old Manatook. He was torn in so many directions at once. He felt Higilak tighten her embrace as if she meant to hold him together. He turned to face her. She was the one constant in his life, the one thing he could always depend on. His one true love. For a moment he considered how best to voice these sentiments to her once again, but she interrupted whispering, “You must protect her.”

  “I will see it through,” he said firmly, “but I can only do so much. She has to walk the road herself.”

  “Have you made it clear to her what’s at stake?”

  “That she will die if she doesn’t pass the test? No. It can’t be done that way. She has to want it, not embrace the Way out of fear.”

  “Then ask yourself, what will get her to walk that road? Why do you walk it?”

  ***

  “Wake up! Wake up!”

  Alaana slapped at the amulet.

  “Awwwk!” it squeaked.

  She thrust her hand over Itiqtuq’s furry little beak, even though she knew by now the amulet had no power to disturb her sleeping family. Silenced, the tiny bird-eyes bulged rhythmically for a few moments more, then went dark.

  Stupid thing, thought Alaana. She hadn’t yet even been asleep.

  How could she possibly sleep? It was quiet enough, through the long night on the far side of summer. Her family was abed and asleep, but all she could do was toss and turn and stew in her own misery.

  She had successfully avoided Old Manatook for the entire evening, returning home only at her mother’s call for supper and saying nothing to her family about her exploits of the day. Now she felt badly about it. Surely the old shaman could have found her at any time if he’d wished. And Nunavik had said Old Manatook would be angry. But who would be more angry, Alaana wondered, Old Manatook or her father? She was not looking forward to Kigiuna’s reaction when he learned his order to attend the shaman had been so blatantly disobeyed.

  There was no way to sleep. She kept seeing Iggy’s face, flushed with anger and fear. Iggy had practically wanted to kill her, all for losing a wrestling match. And all the others had fallen right in line, taking Iggy’s side. The more Alaana thought about it, the easier it was to see that aside from her brothers, she had no friends at all. And they weren’t really friends, they were her brothers.

  “Alaana!”

  Alaana nearly jumped out of the sleeping furs. She couldn’t see anyone in the darkened tent. Still, there was no mistaking that gruff voice.

  “Manatook?” she whispered. “Are you in here?”

  “Certainly not!” came the reply. “I’m lying snug in my bed, same as you.”

  “Really?” she said, still casting about for any sign of her teacher in the shadows near the tent flap. “What? Then, how…”

  Old Manatook offered no answer except a moment of silence to let his student figure things out for herself. There was only one possibility. The old shaman did not lie. He must be communicating to her in the secret language of the shamans, from halfway across the camp. It was difficult for Alaana to believe. She’d never received such a message before, despite their rigorous training. She sat up on the ikliq and listened intently.

  There was nothing further. Then she recalled her teacher’s words. The trick was not to try too hard, to just relax and receive. She’d finally learned the lesson, when she had least expected it.

  She blew out a deep breath, lay back on the bunk, and forced herself to relax.

  “Good!” said Old Manatook. “Now let’s have done with all this silliness and begin. You’ve missed your lessons today, girl. And I will have my due, even in the middle of the night. I’m waiting right above you. Rise up.”

  “Where?”

  “Right above you, in the air above the tent. Rise up. Use what Sila has taught.”

  “I don’t want to,” said Alaana. She wondered briefly if her pout and the contentious snap of her head carried across the strands of the air as well as her words.

  “Don’t be foolish, child. You can not turn away from the gifts Sila has given you.”

  “I don’t want them. Sila can take them back.”

  “There is no choice.”

  “I don’t have to use them.”

  “You’ve been called. To deny the spirits is to endanger us all.”

  “I don’t care,” she projected. She squeezed her eyes shut but it was too late. She was crying again.

  “Rise up, girl,” growled Old Manatook, “Or I swear I will rip your inuseq out your body by force!”

  The connection broke, leaving Alaana to the silence and the dark. She was painfully aware of one undeniable fact. The old shaman did not ever lie. She cringed, imagining icy spirit-hands yanking her soul from her body.

  It was better to try and do as he asked. Separating spirit from body was simply a matter of surrender and relaxation. A seemingly impossible task when one was heartbroken and reduced to tears, with the threat of violent dissolution hovering in the air.

  Alaana wiped her face with her hands, took a deep breath and gave herself up to greater forces, letting go all worries and cares. Her soul rose into the air, leaving her body lying motionless on the sleeping ledge as she passed through the tent roof and into the night sky.

  The sky was black, mist-laden and jeweled with stars. A gentle snow was falling. Flakes of white trailed down, growing as they came to meet her but offered no chill kiss as they passed through her spirit-form and continued on their way.

  She felt a sudden rush of exhilaration. Set free from the pull of the earth, her spirit soared. She felt the lure of sweet oblivion, and thought how easy it would be to release herself completely. And fade away.

  Suddenly her spirit-form, untouchable by any earthly force, was shaken by the rough hand of Old Manatook. Alaana paid no attention to her master; the sight of the mysterious stars completely consumed her. Viewed through her spirit-vision they looked brighter and more fantastic than ever before.

  “They do lift one’s spirits, don’t they?” said Old Manatook.

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know,” said Old Manatook.

  “Looking down, do they see the earth? Do they see us?”

  “Who can say? There’s a strange thing about them. You may travel toward them for days or years — you ca
n lose yourself in trying, but go as far as you want, you will never reach them. You get no closer to them at all.”

  Her teacher’s inuseq appeared beside her. Blurred and obscured, it hovered in the night sky like a gossamer shadow in white. Alaana couldn’t help but remember the suspicions Civiliaq had raised.

  “The lesson begins,” added Old Manatook. “Now look down.”

  Alaana turned her gaze away from the stars.

  “Look at the camp,” said Old Manatook.

  Summer was gone. The gentle nightly snows no longer melted during the day, leaving a crust of white clinging to the tents and sod houses, glazing the camp in twinkling starlight. Arranged below them were all the structures that made up the Anatatook camp, but more than that, Alaana found she could see inside the tents as if the skins were inconsequential things made entirely of air. She saw her friends and family, all asleep in their beds.

  “Shamans walk between the worlds,” said Old Manatook. “You see everything in two aspects at once. Look closely.”

  Alaana noticed that the souls of the sleepers had also gone wandering. As she adjusted her gaze, she could see what each of them was doing on the other side of the curtain of sleep, in the world of dreams.

  “In this way your sight is doubled,” said the voice of Old Manatook, “your world divided. This is what it is to be angatkok. Your thoughts must at all times follow two separate tracks at once.”

  Looking down into her tent Alaana saw her dear brother Itoriksak dreaming that he was a seagull, drifting over the frozen ocean. The wind carried him on his way, blissful and carefree, as Sila had once lifted Alaana.

  In Amauraq’s dream, she held a baby. The sight of her so happy, beaming lovingly down at the babe in her arms, warmed Alaana’s heart. Was the dream child Ava or herself? She couldn’t tell. Did it matter?

  Maguan and Pilarqaq, she discovered, did not sleep. They were awake and snuggling, and Alaana looked quickly away.

  Her father mumbled softly; he was troubled in his sleep. Alaana looked deeper. Her father was lost in the dreamlands, battling shadows. Standing alone in the shifting darkness, Kigiuna faced uncertain opponents. He swept his spear in a wide circular arc but could not hit them; they were smoke.

  A yawning chasm opened up before him, intent on taking his family away. From the depths came a sound like the roaring of rapids, a jumble of unintelligible voices, moaning, wailing. Kigiuna stepped back from the brink but it was no use. The land itself began to lift and tilt, threatening to bring them all sliding down into the darkness.

  “Manatook, how can we help him?” asked Alaana in a near panic.

  “I can only offer this,” said the old shaman. He reached out his arm, then quickly pulled his fist closed as if catching a fly. Slowly he uncoiled his spirit-fingers and blew on his palm.

  Kigiuna’s eyes popped open. He sat up in his furs, searching about in the darkness of the tent. Reassured that his family were all still present and unharmed, he sat back on the ikliq, but did not sleep again. He looked over at Alaana, who lay sleeping beside him, and sighed.

  “I can not make his troubles go away,” said Old Manatook. “That is, I think, for you to do.”

  The two of them hovered over the village in the quiet night.

  “There is more to see,” said Old Manatook.

  Alaana cast a wider net, peering into the tents of some of the other families. For Higilak, who lay asleep beside Old Manatook’s earthly body, it was also a dream of children. Sitting amidst a circle of eager faces, each hanging on the very next word of her tale, she pretended they were all her own. As she filled their ears and minds with her story, so they filled her heart with an equal measure of hope and wonder.

  For Tugtutsiak it was the ocean. Alaana supposed it must always be the ocean for him. He stood on the deck of his umiak in heavy sea, eye to eye with an enormous bowhead as it churned the waters. He anticipated an exciting chase and a successful kill, the admiration of the other men, the satisfaction of a well-fed camp and whale oil burning in all the lamps.

  His wife Aolajut sat awake, softly consoling her sister who still wept over the loss of her dear husband Kuanak. In their tent also was Krabvik, the headman’s uncle, also awake. He rolled a pair of small seal skulls across the floor, for Krabvik was old and crazy and held to a mistaken belief that the skulls held the souls of his long-lost children. Alaana chuckled at the sight of him and the endearing way he spoke to the bones at night.

  In his tent Kanak dreamed of the hunt. The scent of caribou thick in his nostrils, the tension in the sinew of the bow and the muscles of his arms and neck sang with anticipation. For his adopted son Iggy, it was the sweet taste of the fruit of such a hunt. Caribou meat, boiled and roasted, liver and loin. Even after Iggy’s betrayal, Alaana couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s mouth-watering delight at the thought of such a meal.

  Up above the settlement, watching all the people she so loved, their dreams and aspirations, their worries and fears all laid bare in their sleep, Alaana was struck with an incredible sense of awe. How she loved them, every one of these people. Each heart held its own world of stunning hidden beauty.

  Old Manatook brought the lesson to an end, saying, “These are the people you will protect. They have no other defense against the spirits, no chance of finding food in a blizzard, no hope of survival traveling alone in this harsh land. You are the guardian of their well-being, maintaining the balance, straddling both the physical and spirit worlds. The shaman is a man — a person — who lives in loneliness. The others know only one place, one reality. You are one of them but apart from them. You transcend them, yet walk among them. But although you travel freely between the seen and unseen worlds, you are here, you must always be here, in your heart.

  “That is what it means to be the shaman.”

  “Wake up! Wake up!”

  Alaana opened her eyes. This time it was not Itiqtuq rousing her from sleep but the firm hand of her father. “The day has already started,” Kigiuna added. “It’s time to eat.”

  Alaana noticed her father did not look any the worse for all his night terrors. His jaw was set, his blue eyes sparkled, and he was ready to begin the work of the day.

  The smell of boiled fish heads was strong in the tent. Mother set the pot on the gravel floor as Alaana pulled on her underclothes and heavy parka. Maguan and Itoriksak, finding the stew still too hot for eating, warmed their hands over the pot. Pilarqaq sat cross-legged near the foot of the sleeping platform, chewing Maguan’s boots to stretch and soften them after a night’s hardening.

  “Aquppak!” said Amauraq. “I didn’t notice you there.”

  The boy had come in while they were making ready for the day, and as was the custom, waited patiently in the doorway for someone to notice him.

  “Do you have anything for Putuguk?” he asked in a low voice. Aquppak hated to beg, but he frequently visited the tents in the early mornings looking for charity.

  When his parents were killed in a snowslide, Aquppak had been adopted by Putuguk who was actually his grandfather. The boy was constantly embarrassed by the old man’s weakness and inability to provide for the family. His sister Tikiquatta had been widowed twice and was left with two young daughters of her own, one from each marriage.

  “I’m certain we do,” said Amauraq. “Kigiuna put something aside just this morning.” She began rummaging among the food stores, half buried in the snow floor near the doorway. Alaana thought it was taking a long time to find something that had been put aside just that morning, but eventually Amauraq held up a fat, fresh trout.

  “Will Tikiquatta have time to flay it, or should I?” asked Amauraq.

  “Oh, she’ll be fine.”

  “And what will you do today, Aquppak?” asked Kigiuna.

  “Setting out a trapline for fox. Want to come along, Alaana?”

  “Can’t,” she replied. “Got to study with Old Manatook.”

  Aquppak said his thanks and scooted out the tent flap, nearly col
liding with Amauraq’s sister Otonia on her way in. “That’s a rich broth I smell,” she said.

  “There’s plenty,” said Kigiuna. “Sit with us.”

  “Aiyah!” shouted Amauraq, who had gone to straighten the now-vacant sleeping furs. “What’s this?”

  She came back holding up what looked like a clump of straight black hair. No sooner had she walked to the center of the tent, she rushed back to search again among the furs. Kigiuna, sipping from the ladle of steaming soup, followed her movements with a curious eye.

  “Liar!” said Amauraq at last. “Cheat!”

  She hurled this accusation at her daughter-in-marriage. The kamik, wet with saliva, dropped from Pilarqaq’s mouth.

  Amauraq charged toward Pilarqaq, then drew up short and ran at Kigiuna. She thrust the hairs under his nose. He interrupted his meal for a tentative sniff.

  “It’s the hair of a musk ox,” Amauraq said sharply, before he had even an opportunity to comment. “From the back of the mane. I was wondering why there was always a stink in here.”

  Amauraq helped herself to another big sniff of the stuff, then waved it in the air above her head. “Oh, such beautiful, wonderful hair you have Pilarqaq! Oh, how long and lustrous and fine, Pilarqaq! Cheat!” She rushed back toward Pilarqaq, leapt at her, took hold of the hair in the middle of her head and began tugging at it. Several strands did come off in her hands but whether they were made of the damning musk ox mane or if they were Pilarqaq’s own, plucked from her scalp, Alaana couldn’t tell. Pilarqaq screamed and swatted her away.

  Kigiuna, one hand clamped over his mouth, was hard pressed to keep from laughing. His face grew redder and redder.

  Maguan found this not funny at all and rushed toward his beleaguered young wife. He wrenched her by the arm and pulled her outside.

  “She’s going to get a beating for this…,” said Itoriksak.

  “He’ll throw her out, I’m sure,” commented Otonia.

  Amauraq said, “He’d better. Oh, my poor Maguan.”

  “A scandal for certain,” returned Otonia. “It’s no wonder she was unmarried among the Tanaina. I can only just imagine what Krittak will say.”