He’d point out the totem poles that spotted the coast. “Our memory,” he would say. He’d talk some in the old language. He didn’t speak but a very little of it; I never learned even that much. I wish now that I’d paid more attention and kept the old ways alive for one more lifetime. Maybe that seems pointless, at the end of all things, but it isn’t. If I remembered all the things he tried to teach me, that would have meaning. Even if they die with me. Because they might die with me. I could say I was like my grandpa, the keeper of a proud tradition. I can’t. I don’t remember his traditions, his ways, or his people.
I remember him, though. In the end, when it all came crashing down, I came back to his place. Maybe that’s enough.
“If one voice knows the song, the whole world knows the song,” Grandpa told me. I told him to put a video on the Internet. I didn’t understand.
April 20
Still sailing, rounded the cape on the north edge of Graham Island this morning.
A long time ago, I read that when the first peoples came across the land bridge, the islands of Haida Gwaii were one of the first places they made permanent villages. I don’t know if that’s a fact or just a might have been.
I suppose it makes sense these islands would be the first stop for those migrations back in the old, old days. My ancestors, those on my mother’s side at least, would have come down across the great glaciers of Alaska, or else in boats around the icy waters. Here were the islands, waiting for them, a place to fish and hunt dwarf caribou. That’s something else the island does: it shrinks things. The deer around Masset don’t grow much larger than dogs. The world closes in, surrounded on all sides by water. For me, the world shrank until only I remained.
Odd what settles on the mind, isn’t it?
So, the place where my ancestors first set up camp, all those thousands of years ago, and now it will be the place the last of my line survives. I can fool myself and think that some made it off the islands in the early days. I can pretend the refugee camps survived. I know better. I’m the last. The Haida Gwaii islands will see the last leave just as they saw the first arrive. I wonder if they’ll miss me when I’m gone.
I’ll make it to Masset in the morning.
April 21
I saw a pod of grey whales off to the north. Their kind has no reason to miss humanity.
April 22
I’ve found less than I’d hoped. A few gallons of fuel that might have enough kick to run my genny. Some food that hasn’t turned, but not much. I hit up the old hospital, but found nothing. The Haida brothers, Tommy and Christopher, had cleared out the pharmacy years back. I know; I traded a good hunting knife to them for antibiotics. I found a roll of duct tape, hidden behind a rusty filing cabinet like treasure. I took it and felt almost guilty.
Tommy died three years back. I think three years. You lose track of time after a while. I know it was summer and the brothers had gone out fishing. Tommy ripped his hand open on a line, and infection set in overnight. They tried all kinds of medicine, but none of it worked. I heard from Chris less and less after that. Last time I saw him, he was in Port Clements, scrounging around for motor oil. I don’t remember ho Lloyd had talked me into that trip, but I remember the wild look in Chris’s eyes. Feral. Broken. Never saw him again. Later, Lloyd said he was gone. I didn’t ask how he knew. I didn’t want to know.
April 24
I sailed back a ways, anchored the Hannah Marie near Tow Hill, and rowed to the beach. The abutment runs out into the ocean. It looks north. My grandpa told me that if you had a good set of binoculars you could see Alaska. He was pulling my leg, I’m sure of it. Still, you can’t beat the view. Up on the side of the hill, I could still hear the waves crashing below while salt foam sprayed around the rocks at the base.
The old timers used to call these islands “the place where two worlds meet.” I understand about that place. I left my father’s world for my mother’s. I watched one world die. I watched another world be born. In a thousand thousand years, maybe another people will come and find this place. They will set foot on these islands and tell legends about those who went before.
In the cold winds above me, a raven flies. I watch him for a while before making my way back down to the beach. I wonder what will remain when I am gone. Impermanent as fading memory. Flowers on a grave. Footprints on stone. Above me, the raven warbles. Perhaps he tells his own legends. Perhaps he remembers.
I have begun to think about those voices that no longer call out on the radio. About saying goodbye. Lloyd once swore that the Hannah Marie would make it across the Pacific. I hoisted the Maple Leaf on the flagpole and I set sail for the west. If nothing else, the rocking of the boat will help me find my dreams.
OF THE DYING LIGHT
Arun Jiwa
Zara walked through the suburbs as the sun disappeared behind the empty shells of houses. She glanced at the streetlights as she passed. The light bulbs were all removed. She paused at an intersection, adjusting her pack. Sid walked ahead huddled in his jacket. She had entered the city on the highway north from Calgary, and had yet to see a single person.
Zara didn’t notice the seasons anymore – it always felt like the shortest day in winter – but the trees sensed the change. Fallen leaves in shades of golden fire crackled under her feet. In her last visit to Edmonton, birds had been in the trees, but they had faded away like everything else.
It felt like the neighbourhood was holding its breath. The trees were stripped of their lower branches and others were cut down. Zara couldn’t afford the delay, but the hoarding of light meant that people still lived here, and their desperation meant they would trade.
Zara walked up to the parking lot, startling a group of kids. They ran by in unsettlingly bright clothes, pointing.
A girl stopped to look. Zara knew that look. How gangs and civilians alike sized up an outsider. Zara carried candles and lanterns in her backpack – slow burners – solar cells sewn into her jacket, and her shotgun was visible as well. The girl appraised Zara a moment longer before running off.
Zara looked at the row of empty houses; a night out of the cold and away from the shadows. But not tonight. The parking lot would attract the crowd she needed.
The kids had retreated to a gas station at the corner of the lot, watching her. Zara got the sign out of her pack and propped it against a lamppost. Sid sat on the curb, watching them. Since the accident, he rarely spoke, rarely slept. Some part of him had never come back from the shadows after that night. Ever since the accident he had walked north, and Zara followed him.
She would eventually follow him to the end of the world. He knew where the darkness lived, and he would lead her to it. She’d stayed with him through dark hours on the lightless roads north from Calgary, the days fading as they travelled north – even the light had abandoned this place.
She sat down with Sid. “Game,” he said.
The kids were playing Shadows. The largest group were the shadows, who had to turn the other players into shadows. Ordinary people were the second group – always outnumbered by the shadows. The last player, the light carrier, had to burn as many shadows as possible. Once burned, the shadows wouldn’t come back.
Zara watched a girl dispatch the shadows, wielding her white stone and stick. The game ended when the shadows turned all of the people or when the light carrier burned all the shadows. In the game, the shadows never won.
A drum sounded from near the gas station and the kids disbanded toward the houses. The sun had nearly set when Zara’s customers began to arrive. Normally they traded light bulbs, solar panels, car batteries, lamp oil, or tallow candles. Slow burners and fast burners. Tonight was different.
Zara traded for as much food as she could carry. Edmonton was the last surviving city in Northern Canada with food to spare, and there would be hungry nights on the path ahead.
After trading a sack of harvest apples for his wards, one of her customers introduced himself as the mayor. “Not the mayor of Edmonton,�
� he added. “Only of this neighbourhood. I wanted to thank you for stopping by and looking out for us.”
There were only two other light carriers in Western Canada. One patrolled through B.C., the other worked in the rural areas in southern Alberta. They stayed away from the northern communities, which meant this group probably hadn’t seen a light carrier in a year. She nodded.
He stood a moment longer, fidgeting with his cap. “I know you’ve other places to be, but if you’re looking to settle down I could make you a reasonable offer.” He stared at the ward Zara had traded to him. Her symbols were carved into the branch, and she had tied the light-infused glass shards to one end.
“Even if it’s only for a week or a month. You could educate us, and help us build a stronger defence.” He glanced at Sid. “We take care of our children.”
In another life, she and Sid would have lived here, helping them. But her son walked a different path, toward the eternal night, and till her eyes failed, Zara would follow him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t afford the time.”
The man nodded, put his hat on, and rejoined the waiting group.
Another customer who visited her that night was pregnant. Zara gave her a ward for her unborn child, to protect it from the shadows. She turned away the woman’s payment.
The light-carrier’s trade was criminal, she often thought; the people who came to her paid with hope and only got false reassurance.
She carved the wards into pieces of wood and added pieces of glass that would glow at night to deter the shadows. But the wards felt too fragile and her heart broke at seeing the hope of these families. They might not see another year.
She couldn’t make wards as quickly as she used to; her eyes were failing and the charms lacked potency. She busied herself for the night ahead, marking the tarmac with her symbols and wards, estimating space needed for the rituals, positioning candles before darkness reclaimed its territory.
Shortly after Zara finished, a grandmother arrived with her grandson. Zara equipped both of them with wards. The child didn’t question the need for the wards and the protection, but the grandmother looked at her ward, turning it over. “Don’t worry, Mother,” Zara told her. “When you go, the shadows will leave you in peace.”
“Shadow” wasn’t the right name for the creatures, but that was where they hid. They crawled into the empty space left by the soul exiting the body, stopping death, and reclaiming the once-human for the night.
The workers from the fields returned home in groups, carrying lanterns tied to poles. A girl and her mother visited Zara at last light. The girl waited while her mother bought wards from Zara.
When her mother was finished, the girl showed Zara a calendar. “The days have been getting shorter,” she said. “We’ve been tracking the shadows, and it seems like they’re getting stronger, coming out earlier every night. We’ve told the council and they’ve promised to build up stores and defences.”
“We?” asked Zara.
“Me and the other kids,” said the girl. “Our parents are too busy, working in the fields, trying to meet their quotas, and they don’t have time to do this. So we do it instead and compare notes.”
“How old are you?”
“Eleven,” replied the girl.
Sid was 11. Zara looked back at him. He hadn’t moved from his position on the curb, his attention fixed on a line of ants marching across the concrete.
“Be vigilant,” Zara said to her. “It’ll save your life one day. Be vigilant, and protect your family. They’re all you have at the end of the world.” The girl nodded and put the calendar away.
“What are they, really? We’re taught to be afraid, but none of the adults really know why.” The girl’s mother had already started walking away and stopped to call the girl.
Zara wished she could tell her that the shadows could be defeated and life would be set right. But she couldn’t tell her about the greater horror that lived in the North, where it was always night, and humans hadn’t been able to keep their homes. She couldn’t encourage their hope, but if Zara didn’t survive this trip, people like her would need to hold back the shadows.
Zara took the jar with the shadow from her backpack. “This is what I hunt,” she said. “They only have shape in the absence of strong light.” The shadow thrashed in the bottle.
“Is it alive? Is this what the shadows are made of?” The girl touched her finger to the jar. The shadow slammed the side of the jar.
The girl flinched, but didn’t step back. “Where are they from?”
Zara waved to the girl’s mother, telling her it was ok. “They’re from the North. Somewhere beyond Fort McMurray. But they’re all over the world now. Back in the early days, before the War, before all this, someone summoned a being that shouldn’t have ever been on Earth. They’re parasites. They live inside us.”
“What will you do when you find it?”
Zara took out her lighter and flicked it on. The shadow in the jar writhed when the light touched the jar.
“Burn it.”
◄ ►
Zara wrapped herself in her jacket and waited. Few people would come now, unwilling to risk being outside after sunset. The lights in the nearby houses turned on, flickering like stars.
Evening’s last light had faded, turning to the hour when the world shifted from hope and the warmth of the sun to the lightless shadow-space that Zara haunted.
A woman approached Zara, lantern blazing against the darkness.
“Shadows won’t surface for another hour,” Zara said. “You’re early.”
“I’ve brought food,” the woman said. “You must be hungry.” The light deepened the lines on her face, hiding her in shadows.
Her lantern joined the light cast by Zara’s candles. Zara relaxed as soon as the woman passed the wards. She glanced back to the curb. Sid sat in the darkness, watching them.
“Hello there,” the woman said to Sid.
“You came alone?” Zara asked.
The woman nodded.
“Put out your light,” Zara said.
◄ ►
Mira had brought soup and bread. She supervised the community farm operation, and her monthly grain allowance made the bread possible. She’d brought additional provisions as payment, which Zara, ignoring her hunger, packed away.
The soup and bread stirred up memories of her old life: a house in the suburbs on fall days like this one, before the shadows, before everything fell apart. Zara fed Sid and made minimal conversation with Mira, so they shared the uncomfortable silence together. Mira told her what she required and took out another parcel.
Zara unwrapped a corner of it and slipped it back.
“I saw your son,” said Mira. “And you travel a lot. I thought this would help on the long nights.”
“Thanks,” she said, and watched Mira relax slightly.
“He doesn’t come every night,” she said. “Maybe once a month.”
Zara poured the remaining soup into a jar and wrapped the last slice of bread. She carefully placed both of them into her bag.
“Has he attempted to communicate?” asked Zara.
“No,” said Mira. She fiddled with the handle of her lantern. “I see him sometimes, if I look out our window. I intend to talk to him. It’s just that if the kids see him, I’m afraid they’ll go out after him, and…”
“You’re right,” Zara said. She unpacked three thick candles. She had carved wards for summoning on them.
Mira looked out into the darkness. “Miguel died in the early days. He was up at Fort Mac, working on the rigs when they attacked.”
Zara took out the lighter and lit the candles. Zara remembered the War. Sid had been an infant. In the chaos, Zara had learned to channel the gift the light carrier had passed on to her.
“The last thing I remember saying to him was that I wished we’d never met. I should’ve stopped him.”
Zara had starved in the early years. She watched as the shadows took the weak and d
ying, the young and old. Protecting Sid and feeding him were the first lessons she learned when they attacked.
“Will he be able to understand after all this time? Will he know that I’m sorry?”
Zara looked up at the stars. By the time their light reached anyone close enough to see, the star was already dying, swallowed by the darkness.
“Pay attention,” Zara said. “When you see your husband, talk to him, but don’t give him anything. Don’t let him touch you, don’t touch him in return. And don’t cross the wards.”
Mira nodded and looked out at the street.
The shadows had begun to gather, but none of them would be visible yet to Mira.
Zara placed three candles in front of her and Mira. The lights from the houses dimmed to pinpricks as the shadows arrived.
◄ ►
They came soundlessly, as a wave of darkness and cold that swept away colour and shadows cast by the feeble lights surrounding them. To Zara, they appeared as forms. Children, their bodies forever at the moment of death, and their parents walked alongside them. All the colour of their clothes had been washed out, their faces clear of expression.
Mira stood in front of Zara at the edge of the circle, holding a candle. She would only see the formless darkness until her fears made the shadows coalesce into something real.
The smell of sulphur that accompanied the shadows pervaded their circle, and a sudden chill cut through Zara’s jacket. Sid sat with his back to the empty storefront. He had seen this too many times. Zara checked her pockets again to ensure that the empty jar was there and ready. She had wound rags tightly around her hands in preparation for the worst.
“Call him,” Zara said.
“Miguel,” she called. “Miguel, it’s me, Mira. There’s something I need to tell you.”
Fractured Page 17