by Ray Hudson
The bottom hem and the cuffs had semicircular white bands and checkerboards of black-and-red rectangles. These were fringed with dark fur. Ash’s parka was wonderful, but I could have stared at Volcano Woman’s for hours. Wide bands of appliqué framed the upper front, repeating the patterns from the hem. The collar was soft white hide, but I saw deep-brown fur seal on the inside.
Her long black hair shimmered in the evening light. As she turned her head, heat lightning hovered where it brushed her shoulders. She raised her eyebrows with polite wonder. And when she asked, “Who have we here?” it was as though she already knew. I again heard Fevronia’s voice, now layered with the warmth and assurance of centuries. It was disconcerting and comforting at the same time.
All three of us stood like toy soldiers on parade. But even so, I felt strangely alone.
Volcano Woman came no closer.
Ash emerged from the barabara carrying a sea otter pelt that he spread like a blanket on the grass, arranging its surface free of folds or wrinkles. She lifted the hem of her garment and seated herself on the pelt. Despite all her magnificence, she seemed indifferent to her surroundings.
At her nod, Ash shook out a large grass mat and indicated that we should sit down. He uncovered a bentwood container and from it filled four wooden bowls with fresh berries. He placed one before the woman and gave one to each of us. Then he backed away and climbed down into the barabara. We waited until the woman had straightened her bowl slightly.
“Please,” she said softly, “begin.”
She smiled at Booker who had, I thought, rather skillfully already sampled one of the berries. As I crushed a moss berry in my mouth, a swift sweetness flowed into my throat and flooded every corner of my body. I had never tasted anything like it. The light in the west had faded, and when the woman dipped her fingers into her bowl, I glimpsed a flickering beneath her translucent fingernails as though her body ran with fire instead of blood. The moment she withdrew her hand, the tiny lights were extinguished.
“You have come a long way,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Vasilii answered.
“And you are wanting to visit the Kagamil people? They are, you may have surmised, no particular friends of mine.”
I glanced down. I thought she was their protector, but maybe not. Maybe each island had its own guardian. Or maybe they had done something to offend her.
“Nevertheless, I may be able to help.” As she took a few more berries, the circumference of her bowl glowed. “Once I understand your purpose.”
I instinctively knew I had to tell the truth. Bluffing wouldn’t work, and lying was out of the question.
“I have a charm that belongs to the Kagamil people,” I began.
“May I see it?”
I withdrew the cord from around my neck, opened the flap of the pouch, tilted out the carved fox, and handed it to her. She refused to touch it.
“Place it on the otter skin,” she instructed. She had tucked her hands inside her sleeves, and now she inclined her head toward the carving. “Yes. I am familiar with this. The fox has been their guardian spirit. This could belong to them. Where did you get it?”
“It has been in her family,” Booker began, but I interrupted.
“It was stolen.”
“More than once, it seems,” the woman murmured.
“I found it among things a thief had on his ship.”
I paused. Actually, Booker had found it, but the whole crazy story was just too complicated to start explaining. If honesty was demanded here, then why not ask?
“Will you help us return it?”
I did my best to hold the woman’s stare.
“I will do more,” she said as I surrendered and lowered my eyes. “I insist you spend the night. Tomorrow, we will go to the Kagamil people. They are always coming here, sneaking around, looking for my berries.”
I put the charm away.
As if responding to a silent command, Ash returned. “I have prepared three beds,” he said. The woman rose and walked to the framed entrance. Wisps of steam slipped from under her parka.
“Stay outside awhile,” she said. “Enjoy the view and come inside when you are ready. Ash will get whatever you need.” Then she turned and climbed down the entrance pole. Ash collected the bowls, rolled up the sea otter skin, and followed her.
I turned to Booker and Vasilii and whispered, “What now?”
“Let me see the carving,” Booker said.
I handed over the pouch. He removed the fox, and before I could object he had slipped it into a pocket on his backpack and buttoned it securely. He took one of the small irregular stones he had collected along the creek and slid it into the pouch before handing it back. I nodded, not entirely convinced that this was a good plan, but willing to go along until something better came to mind. Ash returned just as I hung the cord around my neck.
The four of us sat, admiring the view. Two sparrows flitted around us before one came to rest when Ash held out his palm. The other bird brushed my hand with its wings. I extended my index finger and then, surprising me as much as the others, it courageously landed. I held my hand perfectly still.
15. Booker
Like the knickknacks at the Elder Cousin’s, I said to myself as I spied a dozen carved figurines on a high shelf. The walls inside the Volcano Woman’s home were like polished obsidian. They probably were obsidian. They magnified the light that came from a few stone lamps. It was super to see one of those things actually in use. Elaborately decorated grass mats suggested passages to other rooms, while shelves held grass baskets and beautiful bentwood containers with ivory handles. I really wanted to hold one of the spears that were arranged on a wall.
Ash served a meal of steamed roots, with more fresh berries and meat that was delicious. It even stayed delicious after I asked, “What is this wonderful stuff?” and was told, “Sea lion heart.”
The woman entered the room. “Entered” is maybe the wrong word. She wasn’t there and then she was. It seemed perfectly natural until I thought about it. She said we should continue eating. She seated herself on a grass mat. I took another bite of meat, and Anna helped herself to a few more berries. The woman looked a long while at Vasilii before she turned to me. Vasilii caught my eye as though to say, Just be yourself. But it was like trying to relax with your feet in the fire. I breathed slower when she focused on Anna who was reaching for a few more berries. She followed Anna’s hand from bowl to mouth and back to the bowl. Then she stood and with a single unbroken movement walked over, lifted Anna’s right hand, and turned it upward so the palm showed its expanding dark stain.
Anna looked terrified as the woman gripped her wrist and rubbed the stain as though she were striking a match. Sparks flew up from her palm. Anna yelped and snatched her hand away.
The woman’s voice was almost guttural.
“Qalngaa!”
For a moment I thought she was cawing. Kàl-ng-áwxh!
I looked at Vasilii, who simply mouthed, Raven.
16. Anna
After that, I was ready for just about anything. I mean, I suspected the stain was serious business, but when Volcano Woman went crazy over it, I almost freaked out. I controlled myself, but all kinds of horrible possibilities went through my mind. It was pretty clear that she had recognized it as something. I didn’t trust her. I felt like I was a target she was aiming at.
When it was time for sleep, she said, “I always sit up late and sew, but you’ve had a long day. You need to rest.”
Ash showed us to three alcoves tucked along one side of the large room and then he left, disappearing behind a grass mat to another part of what was obviously a complex dwelling, part barabara, part palace. With a dungeon of its own, I suspected. I was too keyed up to sleep, but Booker and Vasilii were immediately out. Even in the dim light, there were just too many things to look at, too many amazing things. The sea otter blanket was comfortably heavy and warm. The thick grass matting under me was fragrant and molded to my b
ody. But I was wired. I turned toward the faint light from the stone lamp across the room, past the entrance pole, where the woman was sewing on a bird-skin garment and humming.
I was surprised the ladder had stayed in place and had not been lowered from the opening. But then, I thought, who would dare to come here uninvited?
I touched my neck where the pouch had hung a short time ago. The woman had suggested it be placed on a peg jutting from the entrance pole.
Some suggestion. More like a command.
Sitting within the largest alcove, she concentrated on her sewing. I crunched down and pulled the warm sea otter pelt around me.
I hardly need a blanket, I thought, sleeping inside a volcano.
I watched her hands move with masterful repetition.
If I were closer and could see her fingers, I thought, I might be able to learn something. Something I could take home.
I exhaled a slow, deep breath. Maybe if I pretend to sleep, I said to myself, I’ll actually fall asleep. But one eye invariably sprang open. I scanned the room, concentrating—if such a thing were possible—on one piece of darkness at a time. I heard a faint crying from outside as moonlight slowly framed the rectangular entrance hole high above. Baby fox, I thought at first. But the strains were longer and deeper. Then everything was still and empty. I focused where the pole-ladder and the small pouch that hung on it were dimly illumined. When the crying started again, my right hand seized up in a cramp. I clamped my jaw shut to keep from yelping while I crushed the contorted fist with my good hand until the muscles relaxed and the cramp dissipated.
The woman held the garment out for inspection, smiled slightly, apparently satisfied, and then she tucked the bone needle into a fold before rolling it up. She placed it carefully inside a bentwood container, stood up, and went behind a grass curtain. I slipped deeper into the blanket and waited until the wick burning in her lamp had gone out. A faint cloudiness floated where the flame had been extinguished.
The whiff of dissolving smoke above the stone lamp curled and uncurled, more like steam than smoke. It drifted toward me. It forked and branched and swirled. My heart made an awful racket. It was like the shadow of a flame that stalled in front of the pole where the pouch hung. Whatever breeze had propelled it now evaporated. It held in the still air as two ghostly wings unfolded. They wrapped themselves around the pole, muffling most of it from sight. I squeezed my eyes shut to clear them, and when I opened them the smoky opaque wings, like a film running rapidly in reverse, were sucked across the room and back into the stone lamp where a small flame suddenly flickered. The woman stepped from behind the hanging grass mat and seated herself. She reached into the bentwood container and withdrew the bird-skin garment.
I stared at the pole. The pouch was gone.
The woman resumed her sewing. After a few minutes, she refolded the garment and again put it away. She lifted the lamp, stood, parted the hanging mat, and stepped behind it. I followed her shadow until the lamp was extinguished and the rustle and creak of bedding told me she had lain down. Firelight sprinkled the air as she shifted to get comfortable.
I squeezed both hands into careful fists. I didn’t need another cramp. Then I relaxed and opened them and stretched my fingers as wide apart as I could. I did this two more times, pausing after each repetition and listening. The woman’s breathing became heavy and regular. I folded back the blanket and sat up. I straightened my legs, but my whole body stiffened when a faint light glowed behind the woman’s hanging mat, as when dark coals in a fire bed are stirred to life. I waited.
The light slowly went out.
More quietly than I had ever moved in my life, more quietly than I thought possible, I took four steps to Booker’s alcove and touched his shoulder.
“What’s —?”
“Shh.” I placed my hand over his mouth. “She’s taken the pouch. We need to get out. Wake Vasilii, but be quiet.”
The moon had drifted behind clouds, making the room as black as a cave. I led the way, touching the edges of darkness with my fingertips. I felt the rough notches on the pole and began to climb. I was halfway up when I felt Booker and Vasilii’s weight under me and feared the wooden frame would vibrate like a drum. As I clambered out, fresh air blew into my face, and the moon returned. I gave Booker a hand and he helped Vasilii. As we stepped cautiously off the sloping roof, Vasilii tapped down the air with his palms, cautioning us to walk as lightly as possible.
We slid our feet quickly and silently through the grass, lifting a foot only when a branch or a clump of roots stopped it. Moonlight lit up the side of the volcano, and shadows darkened the trail as we descended twice around it. I paused once to catch my breath and saw the moon in the distance stirring a far corner of the sea with a golden spoon. We were soon on the rocky switchbacks where, risking that our clumping footsteps would give us away, we charged straight down the side of the volcano, like boulders in a landslide. Vasilii aimed for the narrow flats separating the volcano from the eastern side of the island.
We sprang and slid and stumbled. We leapt onto an expanse of shale that funneled into a ravine wedged with snow. I took a wide jump, hit the snow feet first, fell back on my rear and took off. Vasilii followed Booker, and in seconds all three of us were swirling downward on the dense snowpack under the bright moon. I dug my hands into the crust as I saw the end approaching. In moments we were back on rock and tumbling forward. At times I could have sworn my feet left the ground and I coasted through the air itself. Three times shoals of soft moss berry plants, like banks of dry summer snow, provided slippery slopes and soft landings where we plopped down, lifted our legs, leaned back, and slid. Eventually, the increasingly tall shaggy leaves of monkshood and lupine signaled we were almost off the volcano. A short distance more and we were inside a river of high thick grass. I felt like a swimmer as I plowed through. Booker tripped, put his hands out to cushion his fall, and received a needle-thin puncture on his right palm.
“Agh!” he shouted as he rubbed one hand with the other.
Vasilii nodded. “It’s next year’s grass. It grows all wrapped tightly together. It’s sharp.”
“Like a needle!” he said, although it hadn’t drawn blood.
The wide sandy beach spread before us. Booker twirled with his arms held out, but stopped when he caught sight of the volcano. The top third glowed as dawn broke and colored a line of high clouds. I saw Vasilii instinctively raise his hands in greeting. I smiled and he shrugged as though saying, “Not sure why I did that.” But I had read that it was something old-time Unanga routinely did. We skirted the expanse of sandy beach until it folded into the boulder-strewn shoreline at the eastern side of the bay. Light filtered down like a melting creek.
Vasilii located the skiff, or rather he found the end of the rope that had once tied it to the log. He and Booker stared at me. Like I was expected to have a plan.
I looked at Booker. “Do you have the carving?”
He unbuttoned the pocket on his backpack and looked in. “Still here.”
I nodded at Vasilii who said, “Then let’s get it back where it belongs.” He pointed toward a grassy expanse flowing up the embankment.
I wasn’t about to argue. We headed for higher elevation where the grass was shorter. One ridge followed another. At each false summit, the jagged sides of the mountain were outlined again and again, sharper and sharper.
“Wait,” Booker said and collapsed on the grass, out of breath. I looked behind where the pure cone of the volcano glowed with morning light. A sliver of steam rose from its summit. A bank of clouds sat on the horizon like a woolen shawl.
Vasilii pointed east. “We’ll try for the cove where Ash did that weird thing with the wind. If we’re lucky,” he said, “the Kagamil people will be arriving to pick berries.”
“And if we’re not?” Booker asked, but Vasilii and I were already up and walking.
We climbed until a patch of broken shale curved up to a nearly horizontal plateau. Here the rocks were sma
ll, flat flagstones, scattered like a deck of cards. Walking here was easy. Soon Vasilii stepped off and began a slight descent. A scramble down and up another ravine brought us to a new ledge of mountain, providing a partial view of a narrow bay. The breeze that had been at our backs had increased to a steady shove of wind, and the sky had grown darker. I felt the collar of my gut kamleika and wondered if I would need to raise the hood. I looked back. The top of the volcano was obscured under a cloud-heavy sky.
We climbed further out until the shoreline curved below us. We saw people securing their kayaks and baidars above the high water line. Booker wanted to shout, but Vasilii cautioned us to be quiet. Everything was in the open: the mountain slope, the two opposite cusps that formed the valley, the bay and shoreline, and the people preparing for a day of berry picking despite the ominous weather. There were only so many days when the berries would be at their best.
The contours of the mountain again hid us as we descended. We slid on our rear ends into a gully and grabbed at anything growing to keep from landing in the shallow creek at the bottom. Booker scooped a handful of ice water. I think he wanted to follow the creek as it tumbled down the mountain, but Vasilii was already climbing out of the ravine. Booker and I shrugged at each other, and we clutched at the nearest grass to pull ourselves up, hand over hand.
I passed Vasilii and reached the top first. Of course, the top was never really the top, but at last we were able to see the Kagamil people clearly. I started to wave when my feet slipped and I stumbled. Or I thought I had stumbled. My feet hadn’t moved. The hill had shifted. A clamor from under the earth shook us, and a cliff on our right collapsed in a waterfall of stone and dust.
“She knows!” I shouted. “Run!”
And we were off, yelling at the people below. But the Kagamil people had felt the earthquake. They had abandoned their grass baskets and wooden containers and whatever else they had brought ashore as they swarmed into their boats. There seemed to be an unusual number of foxes suddenly dashing in and out among them. None of the people noticed us catapulting down the mountainside. The weather had thickened and passing sheets of rain washed over us as the rumbling increased.