by Ray Hudson
I waited to see if she was done. Dinner had been delicious as usual. Anna hadn’t touched her food.
“Okay,” I said. “What I need to do is to get those feathers. You said you saw them in a small box? Right?”
“Booker?” She looked at me like I’d just walked into the room. Now she grabbed my wrist with surprising strength, “I think it will happen all at once.”
I didn’t try to shake my arm free.
“Summer-Face-Woman told the Moon’s Sister that once I reached a certain point it was like gravity would take over and everything would fall into place.”
Her thoughts were fragments, real enough, but just bits and pieces, words that didn’t make anything like a complete thought.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
I started to tell her that even if the feathers wouldn’t work for us, Summer-Face-Woman would be a lot less dangerous without them, but just then Ash stepped into the room. Had he been listening out in the hall? He just looked at me and then he looked at Anna. Carefully he pried her fingers from my arm.
“You’re tired, Anna,” he said.
She gave a vacant look in his direction and began moving her fingers as though she were weaving.
“Let me take you to your room,” he said and helped her to her feet.
I said I’d take the plates back to the kitchen. I put my mask into my pack, picked up the plates, and was about to leave when Summer-Face-Woman stormed in. Ash gestured for me to continue on my way, and as I stepped into the hall I heard her shouting that he was interfering, that she had been put in charge, that he needed to go back where he came from, and other things that made me blush. If Ash answered, I didn’t hear him. But just as I started down the steps to the kitchen, I felt her flash past me, propelled no doubt with her magic feathers.
“You need a distraction,” the lemming said when I finally returned to my cell. He crawled out from under a blanket on my bed. What I didn’t need was to sleep with a rodent. I’d given up trying to make sense of the world and resigned myself to talking to animals.
“If you’re going to steal that woman’s feathers,” he continued. Apparently, I had mentioned this to him.
I was tired, and I really didn’t want to talk to anybody.
“It’s become complicated,” I said. “The changes are accelerating. Anna’s mind is almost totally darkened. Summer-Face-Woman—”
“Horrible creature,” he said. “She doesn’t just eat mice, she regurgitates them.”
“You offered to help,” I said.
“I do remember that. I make a lot of promises.”
“Maybe you could stand guard.”
He wrinkled his button of a nose.
“Just long enough for Anna and me to climb the scaffold and get outside. Then we’ll use the magical feathers and—” I swept my hands wide to suggest escape. Or maybe I swept them apart to suggest the whole idea was hopeless.
“Can zombies climb?”
There it was. I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to think about getting Anna up the scaffolding and through the hatch. He saw the mask I had removed from my pack.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a mask I’m making. It’s a person.”
“It looks like a duck.”
He was right, of course. The nose was too long and too pointed.
“Just shut up, okay?”
The lemming fluffed up a bit. “Touchy, touchy.”
“Sorry,” I said. Arguments with lemmings always end badly.
31. Booker
I spent the morning lashing branches together, expecting to finish the scaffolding before the day was done. However, it was like Summer-Face-Woman didn’t trust me to finish it without her being present. After lunch she sent me to help the Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons in the kitchen. The room was full of delicious scents: sweet and sharp, crisp and fragrant. The cook put me to work at the sink. I shuffled kettles and pans around with thumps and scuds and scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. But I enjoyed working for her. If the results were not always what she expected, she just laughed her wheezy laugh and delivered a scolding that sounded like praise.
About three in the afternoon, she called me over where she was stirring a large pot of some kind of soup.
“Do you know petruski? I need petruski.”
“You want me to get him for you?”
She snorted a good-natured laugh and held up a few wilted leaves. “Like these,” she said. “You’ll find them down the slopes a bit.”
The slopes? With that, she handed me a satchel with a long shoulder strap and went back to adding ingredients to the pot. I wasn’t surprised that she trusted me to go out on an errand because, apart from Summer-Face-Woman who treated me like her private slave, I was pretty much invisible to everybody. I didn’t mind.
The world outside was shrouded in mist with just the top of a rocky outcropping visible below. She said I’d find the plants on the slopes, so I headed down toward the jagged rock. If I needed to go farther and if the fog got really dense, I figured I could use it as a guidepost for getting back. The mist dissolved as I moved into it, but thickened again just a few feet away. It was like walking into a constantly shifting cave of air. When I arrived at the outcropping, I saw the gray rock was etched with colored lichen and scabs of what looked like stiff black roses. The ground in front was littered with rocks, not a plant in sight except for a few tufts of grass. A gentle breeze swept away the mist and uncovered green plants farther down.
They were green, all right, but mostly just low-growing plants of some kind. Nothing like the leaves I’d been asked to find. I continued down the mountain until the mist disappeared, and I was under a roof of clouds. A vast stretch of the island was visible before me. A few hundred yards farther down, I found a trail.
Perfect, I said. When Anna and I escape, we’ll use this. I hurried along it as it descended until the plants became leafy and luxuriant. Next to a heavy growth of the long grass that I recognized, I found what I was looking for. The Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons hadn’t said how much she needed, so I tore loose several clumps and filled the satchel. For the next ten or fifteen minutes, I did a little exploring. It felt so good being away from the viper-eyed woman, from the constant work, and, to be honest, from Anna. Eventually, my conscience got the best of me and I started back. The volcano was under a solid bank of clouds. I knew where I needed to go: up. And up and up. I started to climb into the raggedy clouds just as a gust of wind sprayed a fine mist into my face. Before long, the hard climb became impossible when the wind delivered a full body blow that sent me stumbling back. But I plowed on, step by step, my head lowered and my eyes focused right in front of my feet until the familiar base of the rocky outcropping crept out from under the fog. I crouched down between two large boulders and drew my knees up to my chest to get tucked in and out of the wind.
I sat there just listening as the wind swirled over me. It was like I was on an island. A very small island. Beyond the short distance that held a few rocks and a few stunted plants, there was nothing but cloudy whiteness. I focused my eyes in and out, in and then out, hoping to latch onto something. I let my eyes drift like I was watching waves on an endless sea. A brief black pebble dipped in the distance. I snapped to attention. I concentrated and saw it lift its wings as it glided out of view. Some large bird was riding the wind currents below me. I stood and started up again, keeping my hand on the edge of the rocky outcropping. I turned around for one more view. The eagle angled upward on the air, steeper and steeper before banking as an upward swell of the wind caught it, and it dove into the mist below.
I had once done something like that, came into my mind. I’ve pushed against the wind with nothing under me except the wind.
Nuts, I said to myself. I’m going nuts.
The temperature had dropped. I tried to close the cuffs of my raincoat when the wind blew in and filled it like a balloon. I locked my arms in front and continued climbing. The chill in the air became icy as the w
ind hurled itself at me. I climbed and climbed until I figured I had gone high enough. I turned away from the wind, thankful to have it at my side. Thankful to be able to take a few steps without fighting. I took three steps and the ground opened under me.
“Grab my arm, lakaaya! Booker, grab my arm!”
I heard the voice and tried to do what it said. But where was the arm? And who was lakaaya?
“Grab my arm, boy! That’s it. That’s it.”
Then I was being lifted into the air, and then I was looking into Ash’s face.
He carried me for quite a distance. I must have really been lost. When we came in sight of the roof to the Volcano Woman’s house, he put me down.
“The Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons didn’t tell me she had sent you out until dinner when she said the fish soup needed petruski. You’d been gone a long time by then.”
“I got them,” I said and showed him the satchel. I was a little wobbly. He just laughed a bit and helped me through the entrance hatch and down the ladder. Inside, I couldn’t stop shivering. I followed him to his workshop where he had me crawl onto a shallow stone bench lined with soft furs. The woman from the kitchen brought me a bowl of soup that was even more delicious after she tore apart a few leaves of petruski and sprinkled them on it. I ate, but I was so tired I could hardly swallow.
“I should get back to my cell,” I said and started to get up. Ash touched my shoulder.
“It’s warmer here,” he said. “Just stay here and sleep.”
I handed him the empty bowl before I wrapped the sea otter blanket around my shoulders and snuggled down.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said and left.
I saw my mask on the floor near the bench. I had reduced the nose. Maybe it’s part reptile, I thought. Prehistoric reptile. Are there reptiles in Alaska? Then I tried to remember if reptiles had evolved into birds or birds into reptiles. It was the sort of thing I should have known.
Then, without wondering why, I wondered just how old the Volcano Woman was. Old enough, I supposed. Older than eagles, older than crows.
I must have slept. Slept hard. For how long, I don’t know, but when I awoke the temperature in the room had increased.
“Oh,” I said, startled. I tried to sit up. “I thought you were somebody else.”
Volcano Woman placed a warm hand on my chest, and I relaxed back down.
“I’m almost always myself,” she said. “I can’t seem to help it.”
She looked at me and asked, “Where have you come from?”
What could I say?
Then she answered her question as though she had directed it toward herself.
“I had errands to attend to. Pressure has been building, and so I have been visiting my cousins. Besides, sometimes I miss speaking my own language.”
“Your cousins?” I asked.
“Okmok Caldera, a bit of a bully, is nearby, as is Makushin Volcano and that upstart Bogoslof. They have been making some minor disturbances. My younger cousin is on Atka, and more distant relatives are, well, of course, more distant.”
“And you talk with them?”
“Of course. Don’t you talk with your relatives?”
I nodded. “What language do you use?”
Everything grew silent as stillness dusted the room. The stone bench, every tool and woven basket, the mat on which I had been resting, all were suspended as a chord from somewhere deep inside the volcano washed over me. It was richer and deeper than anything I had ever experienced. I thought of thunder uncoiling in the distance, of a phrase Mrs. Bainbridge was fond of muttering: God be praised, only she said it in Latin: Te Deum laudamus, and of the pause that had once surprised me at the end of a concert just before the audience burst into applause.
That was her answer.
“And what language is used,” the woman asked softly, “when you visit your relatives?”
“English,” I said. “Although sometimes the Elder Cousin speaks Norwegian.”
“No,” she said. “What language do you use?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” I thought it best to be polite. I had already answered her. “I don’t understand.”
“Among the world’s languages there is one that will cure grief,” she said. “There is one that can dispel anger. Among the languages that people speak, there is one that diminishes greed. All different usages.”
“I think you must be mistaken,” I said and immediately the temperature in the room rose.
“Or not,” I added quickly. “Probably not. Definitely, not.”
She saw the mask beside me. I blushed when she picked it up and turned it back and forth as though trying to figure out what it represented.
“It’s supposed to be a bird,” I said. “At first it wasn’t.”
I hoped she wouldn’t laugh too loudly.
“Of course it’s a bird,” she agreed. I might have been mistaken, but it looked like she used her fingers to smooth the nose into a perfect beak. There was no mistake when she turned it over and blew gently on the back, hollowing it out so it would fit my face exactly.
“Are you ready?” she asked. “It is almost time.”
SEVEN
GRAVITY
32. Booker
I lashed the last of the branches in place late that afternoon under the hawkish gaze of Summer-Face-Woman. She inspected the grid row by row, and then she let me go.
“Tomorrow,” she said.
Tomorrow what? But I knew. The time had arrived. Volcano Woman was back. Anna was bonkers. There was no way she could climb the scaffolding. There was no way she would do anything I said. Totally depressed, I stopped by the workroom. Anna was there, along with Ash. I saw her finger the bluish-silver beads around her neck and say to him, “Soon you’ll be hunting sea lions.”
“Yes,” he answered with a slight smile. “It won’t be my first hunt.”
“I have something for you,” she said. She saw me at the doorway and made a wide arc away. She handed him a tangled knot of grass. And then, as though to explain what it was, she said, “I’ve been weaving.”
He took it and laughed. It looked like a bird’s nest. She fingered the pale-blue beads around her neck.
“I’ll accept whatever you give me,” he said, “and treasure it.”
Of course you will, I said to myself, after she’s dead and gone.
“YOU!” screeched Summer-Face-Woman. I whirled and dropped to the floor to avoid a swift cuffing, but the doorway was empty.
Anna let out a laugh. “Caw-aught yaw!” she crowed.
Ash gave me a hand up.
“Caw-aught yaw! Caw-aught yaw!” she chanted softly as she walked over. She was pointing at me with her nose. She cocked her head and pinned me with her eyes. Then her face relaxed. Her eyes faded. She frowned at her sleeve. She held perfectly still. I noticed dark hairs had started growing on her wrists. Revolting. Then with a jerk of her arm and a snap of her tongue she caught some kind of bug and—yuck!—ate it.
I picked up my mask, selected a small scraper, and went to my room, leaving them together. I sat on my bed and turned the mask in my hands from side to side. It was perfectly symmetrical. Very lightly, I pulled the scraper down one side. The finest amount of wood dust came off under the blade. I blew it away. It disappeared in the air. Like feathers, I said to myself, and again I had the oddest sense of flying. I held the mask up to my face. Whatever Volcano Woman had done, it now fit perfectly.
I heard the three women outside in the hall. Putting the mask on the bed, I walked to the door as they went past without noticing me. They were congratulating themselves on how well everything had turned out. The Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons asked, “Will you be staying here after tomorrow’s ceremony, sister?”
The Sister-of-the-Moon answered, “It’s time I took my son to visit his uncle.”
I hadn’t realized she had a son. They were heading for their evening steam bath. The Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons held a bundle of tied grass. The Sister-of-
the-Moon had an armful of towels. I crept after them and heard her say that her son had been pestering to visit his uncle for a long time.
“And you?” the cook asked Summer-Face-Woman as they passed the workshop.
“I’ll be taking the girl with me,” she replied, “until Real Raven calls for her.”
I flattened myself against the wall when Ash stepped out. He watched them until they began to descend the steps to the storage rooms, the kitchen, and steam bath. He went back inside, and I hurried past and down the steps. I found the door with steam seeping under it, cracked it open, and listened before stepping inside. The women were laughing behind a grass curtain. On a long bench, beside their folded clothes, just as Anna had described, was a box. Feathers or box? I thought. If I take the box, she’ll know immediately that the feathers are gone.
Just the feathers, then.
I lifted the lid. The rosy-tinted feathers were tied with a beautifully braided grass band. They were lighter than air. I closed the lid and tiptoed to the door. Just as I reached it, a tremor threaded itself across the floor and up the legs of the bench. The bench quivered and the box shimmied to the edge where it paused for a millisecond and then toppled off. I dove and somehow, miraculously, caught it before it hit the floor.
I don’t know how, but the feathers had worked!
“I’ll check it out!” bellowed the Woman-with-Six-Sea-Lion-Sons. I returned the box and ran into the hallway. I held the feathers out in front as I skidded around the corner and up the stairs at incredible speed.
“YOU!” I heard a screech from the base of the steps. This time it was Summer-Face-Woman’s voice.
The workshop was empty.
“Anna!” I yelled and sprinted for her room at amazing speed.
Her room was also empty. I glimpsed Summer-Face-Woman at the end of the hallway and heard her shout an order, “Come to me!”
Not a chance, I said to myself, but the feathers quivered in my hand. She was calling them. I tightened my fist and ran.