Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  “That was Aisaac’s doing,” thought Alaana. She struggled to move an arm or a leg or even the smallest finger, but couldn’t force even a twitch.

  “So many years,” continued Manatook, “Without food, without drink. Starving, with the taste of seal meat and sweet marrow only a bitter memory. Driven mad by thirst and unable to quench it. The warmth of my wife’s body just beyond my reach, making love with my name on her lips. What do you know of it — still a child and never even bedded a man? Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to feel the cold wet of the snow, the chill wind on my face, even that. As cold as our land is, it’s nothing as to the chill on the far side of death.

  “And so much worse yet to be alive but not alive. Emptiness is a hunger all its own. For years it went on and on, eating away at me until there was nothing left, just a shell, just a coat, worn by a filthy beast. The emptiness consumed me, until my soul was hollow and empty too. But no more. We’re going to set all that to rights now I have your body, little devil.”

  “I set you free,” thought Alaana firmly.

  “Set me free?” raged Manatook’s ghost. “You used me, just as the bear did. I begged you to release me. How long has it been? A year? Ten?”

  “Just a few moons. No more.”

  “Even one day is an eternity in an empty shell! You used me and left me to suffer. Let’s see how you enjoy being trapped helplessly within a cage of flesh, a slave to the will of another!”

  Alaana stood up. But this action was not her doing. She willed herself to stop but it was no use. Step by step, she was making for the village.

  She walked toward the people working by the stream. Alaana was desperate to stop her feet moving, fearful of whatever horror Manatook might act out upon them. And yet any attempt to halt her movements was met with as impenetrable a resistance as a fist pressing against a stone wall.

  Several people were passing gossip but Alaana could not hear them. Instead she was privy only to Manatook’s thoughts, directed at her in taunts and jeers. Manatook was impressed by Aolajut’s pretty face and Nakasuk’s sturdy thighs. Alaana shrank back as Manatook’s ghost imagined the depraved things he wanted to do to them.

  “Alive again! Alive! Oh, the things I’m going to do. But don’t worry, little devil, I won’t leave you out entirely. I’ll let you watch.”

  Ben looked at her strangely, as if he recognized that something might be wrong.

  Silently, Alaana screamed.

  The sound that escaped her lips was only Manatook’s dry chuckle.

  Alaana, adrift in a sea of frustration and panic, fought to regain control. She considered sending her soul outside of her body but feared that if she were to abandon her flesh to Manatook she might never get back in again.

  “These women are interesting enough,” thought Manatook’s ghost, “but they aren’t the one I want. I want the one that was stolen from me. I want my wife.”

  “Where is Higilak?” He forced Alaana to speak.

  Nakasuk turned to answer. Alaana could hear nothing, but her answer was clear from the way her lips moved. “She went to her tent to take some rest.”

  Ben stood up and approached her. “Alaana, you look…”

  He laid his hand on her arm. She was surprised she could feel that gentle pressure where there was no other sensation. Ben’s hand slid along the length of her sleeve to tenderly encircle her wrist. His hand was still cold and wet from the water, but his touch felt warm nonetheless. In all the time she had known him, this was the first time he had ever reached out for her.

  He searched Alaana’s eyes. “Are you—?”

  Alaana sent a vicious backhand slap across his face and Ben flew backward, lost his footing and half fell into the stream.

  The reaction from the others was loud and instantaneous. The women were shocked. The men laughed at Ben’s humiliation. A few jokingly encouraged Alaana to strike him again.

  Alaana turned away. Inside she screamed helplessly at what Manatook had made her do.

  She stepped toward the jumble of summer tents but Manatook’s ghost didn’t know which house belonged to Higilak. As she passed between the tents, lifting entrance flaps and peering inside, Alaana realized that flailing uselessly against a stone wall was the wrong approach. One could not force the wall to move, but the spirit within the wall was a different matter. There was another way. Manatook’s inua had taken up residence inside her body. And Alaana was still inside as well. She need only discover where Manatook’s ghost had hidden.

  The hunt for Higilak drew to a close as Alaana entered the correct tent at last.

  But as Manatook found Higilak, Alaana also found Manatook. For all his bluster Manatook was still only a man. A vicious killer, an angry revenant, but still only a man, and Alaana’s soul had wrestled with demons. The young shaman’s force of will met her opponent squarely as the two began to fight for control.

  “Leave off, little devil,” commanded the ghost.

  Alaana doubled her efforts, desperate to spare Higilak from Manatook’s revenge. The two locked forces, but it seemed neither could make headway against the other.

  Simultaneously Alaana’s body approached the woman on the bed. Higilak lay on her side, facing away. Alaana’s hand touched her shoulder.

  She turned. There was a moment’s hesitation as Manatook saw not the young beauty he might have been expecting, but the old careworn woman time had made of her.

  Higilak, startled awake, sat up on the pallet.

  Alaana continued her fight to regain control, but she could not unseat the other. Manatook was the stronger of the two.

  “Alaana?” asked Higilak, “What is it?”

  Alaana bent to the pallet and, taking Higilak in her arms, pulled her close. Her face buried in Higilak’s bony shoulder, she hugged the old woman. Higilak unflinchingly returned her embrace. The moment stretched. Alaana, trapped within the shell of her body, felt nothing.

  Then all at once, with a heady rush, Alaana felt Manatook’s inua surge away. The roof of the tent ripped clear of its mooring stitches and a huge panel tore free, taking to the air like a brown, leathery bat in flight.

  Alaana recalled what Manatook’s ghost had once told her. Manatook had said, ‘I loved her too, you know.’ She no longer wondered if that was true. As sensation once again returned to her face, Alaana felt warm tears on her cheeks.

  “Alaana?” said Higilak.

  She released the old woman, searching frantically for something to say. She balanced on shaky legs as she took back control of her body.

  “I love you, Old Mother,” she said.

  “I know that,” Higilak returned. “But you needn’t interrupt my sleep to tell me. I was having such a pleasant dream.”

  “About Old Manatook?”

  The old woman looked puzzled for a moment. “Hmm. I can’t remember exactly. Now leave me be. And go get the roof before an old woman catches her death of cold.”

  Outside, the camp was alive with activity. A hunting party had returned with the kayaks and the women had taken leave of their sewing in a noisy rush to meet them. Alaana couldn’t see Ben among the others and the thought that he might have gone off by himself, upset and angry at what she’d done, made her feel terrible.

  Higilak’s roof panel had blown across the gap and caught on one of the neighboring tent poles of Kigiuna’s large enclosure. Alaana climbed atop one of the large stones her father had set to weigh down the skins at the entrance.

  As Alaana strained, reaching up to unhook the snare, Amauraq and Pilarqaq emerged from the tent, nearly toppling her over.

  “Alaana!” exclaimed her mother, but it was too late. The entrance flap caught her flailing foot and she dangled upside down for a moment before plunging headlong into the slush. As she stood up, Pilarqaq giggled.

  “Your face covered in white snow,” she said, “You look like Old Manatook.”

  Alaana didn’t find her joke funny at all, given what she’d just been through.

  As Amauraq helped
brush the snow from Alaana’s face, she couldn’t help but notice her daughter’s deep dismay. “Surely it’s not as bad as all that,” she said. “It’s just a loose roof flap.”

  Alaana put her arms around her mother. A hug had never felt so good.

  CHAPTER 19

  RESTLESS HEART

  After she repaired her tent, Alaana’s brothers asked her help tightening up the skins on their kayaks. The caribou crossing was expected in two days and everyone was rushing to get their boats ready. When she declined, saying he had shaman work to do, Maguan wasn’t upset. Her eldest brother encouraged her to continue with her most important duties.

  Alaana wanted to ask for their advice — both Maguan and Itoriksak were married men after all — perhaps they could tell her what to say to Ben. But souls trapped in skins, revengeful ghosts, and bears that walked as men — what would they know of such things? They would ask why she had slapped him, and she would have no good answer. The Anatatook must never know that a wayward ghost had taken control of their shaman’s body, and so easily at that. She must keep the secret. Their confidence in her must not be lost. Only disaster and ruin could come after that. For everyone.

  No one but Nunavik had ever been able to help her with such matters, and that helper spirit was long gone now. Alaana was alone, and after today’s events she had the sour feeling it would remain that way. Always.

  Itoriksak, whose kayak was in rough shape, was not so easily dismissed. Some starving rodent had discovered his boat during the winter and eaten away at the skins. He insisted on Alaana’s help. Their father was busy readying the weapons for the hunt, and all the other men were busy with their own boats and equipment.

  As usual Maguan came to the rescue, assuring them that he had an extra kayak cover laid by for just such an emergency. He laughed and asked Alaana the number of caribou they might expect for the crossing. Alaana was reluctant to offer a guess. She was certain Maguan would go around the camp promising the men double the number.

  On her most recent visit to the Wild Wood, the great spirit Tekkeitsertok had provided only a glimpse of the approaching herd and the location had not been made exactly clear. Her report of these uncertain results had met with a familiar withering gaze from Tugtutsiak. By now Alaana was used to seeing disappointment in the headman’s eyes. Alaana believed herself to be the absolute worst shaman the Anatatook had ever possessed. She could not properly summon the turgats, nor turn them to her aid. Sedna, that most fearsome of the turgats who controlled the seal and walrus, would not even deign to recognize her at all. She didn’t know if their reluctance to help was due to her female gender or the inadequacies of her training. Old Manatook had disappeared so suddenly, leaving her to feel her way uncertainly through the mysterious world of the spirits, her patron Sila an inconstant friend.

  Tugtutsiak cared little for any of that. The grim headman had no patience for Alaana’s failings. He was only concerned with results, not excuses.

  “I’ll find the herd myself,” he had said angrily, “with or without help from the shaman.” Responsibility fell heavily on his sturdy shoulders and he embraced it. “I’ll find them,” he insisted.

  “I’ll try again,” suggested Alaana.

  “Do that,” Tugtutsiak had said.

  And so Alaana had no clear answer for her brother Maguan. There might be a hundred caribou to hunt, or merely a handful. In Maguan’s case an exact figure wasn’t necessary. He simply nodded and smiled, certain that all would be well in the end.

  With a heavy heart Alaana left her brothers to their work and went away. She sat for a while atop a tall rock at the bend of the river where she could view the entire breadth of the summer camp. The mood of the people was high in advance of the hunt. Everyone had important work to do and seemed quite happy about it. And at the end of the day, for them, there would be a warm meal and the comforts of home.

  Almost without realizing it, she began to regulate her breathing in the special way that invoked the spirit-vision. A series of two inhalations and an exhalation, followed by a deep inspiration and a long release. As she repeated the process, her body growing ever more relaxed, her mind entered the altered state where the spirits of all things were visible to her. The tiny sparkle in the rocks, the dull blue ache of the distant mountains, the enthusiasm of the river as it surged and danced with the thaw, the stoic acceptance of the receding snow cover. Even the tents of the Anatatook glimmered with little lives of their own, tiny fragments of the inua of the animals who had worn the skins in life and of the women who had stitched them. And the people. Their souls lay naked to Alaana, each one a spectacular sight in itself, reflecting all their dreams and hopes of the season in scintillating reds and greens. Yes, the people were happy. She watched their lights flicker and dance. It was a marvelous sight.

  Alaana felt at peace, certain now that all taint of Manatook’s ghost was gone from her own soul. Her medicine bag laid out before her, she tried to devise a chant that would protect her from the same thing happening again, just in case. Could a loving embrace truly have been all Manatook really wanted? After so many years of desolation, to feel his wife’s touch one last time? Alaana didn’t think she’d be that lucky. Probably she would have to face that resentful spirit again, a malicious soul that had already proven itself stronger than her own. She should at least have a chant with which to ward him off, but thoughts of Ben kept intruding and distracting her.

  During all this time she’d sat atop the boulder she hadn’t caught one glimpse of him. She suddenly worried what he would think if he saw her sitting up there. She left the high rock to join the women working by the stream. Maybe some honest work would take her mind off her troubles.

  Kigiuna grunted with exertion. Leaning over the kayak, pulling with all his might, his lower back felt as if it were on fire.

  “Hurry up, Itoriksak!”

  Kigiuna watched his son fumble with the knots. It would be so much easier, he thought, for him just to tie the skin down himself. But it was Itoriksak’s kayak so he should be the one to do it. How else was he going to learn?

  This new sea-lion skin didn’t stretch as well as he would’ve liked. It was almost too thick for this purpose; he had always found the skin of the bearded seal much better for kayak bottoms. Kigiuna pulled hard on his side, but he felt Maguan’s grip falter on the other.

  “Hold it tight!” he said to Maguan, who grunted his own discomfort in return.

  As the skin stretched over the whalebone framework Kigiuna felt the sinew binding the ribs give a little, the longbones bending under the strain. He could pull no harder without changing the shape of either the boat or his own spine.

  His aching spine, of course, was inconsequential but he dare not alter the shape of the kayak. Each craft was made to measure depending on the owner’s size and weight. If the balance of Itoriksak’s boat was thrown off, he might fall off or drown because of it.

  “Keep the tension,” he said. “Lock it down with the knot. Tie it tight! Get your finger out of it. It’s got to be watertight. Shall I go get your mother to do it?”

  “I’ve got it!” said Itoriksak.

  Maguan cocked his head appraisingly at the outline of the boat bottom. “Straight enough,” he said. He, at least, knew something about boats. “Now for the whale fat.”

  “This is hard work,” said Itoriksak, nodding at the basin of whale fat. “Take some rest, father.”

  “This is hard work?” said Kigiuna. “Rubbing whale fat? And stretching the skin is nothing?” He straightened up, quite painfully, and walked a few steps. He sat down.

  “Rest?” Kigiuna scoffed. “It’s not rest, sitting here you know. It’s hard work telling you what to do.”

  His two sons laughed.

  “Correcting all your mistakes,” added Kigiuna. “It’s anything but rest. And I still have to sharpen our spear heads when we’re done.”

  Kigiuna noticed a thin old man shambling toward him. He watched the figure’s slow, painful progress.
The man tried to use a slender tent pole to lean upon the ground but the pole kept slipping out of his hand. Damn, thought Kigiuna, Putuguk’s hands were practically useless, and his legs not much better. As the pole had been secured to his wrist by a thong he would not drop it. But every time he lost his grip Putuguk stumbled. Just when it looked like he was going down, his bandied legs would stutter and then recover.

  “It’s good to see you out of your tent,” said Kigiuna.

  “I wanted to see,” answered Putuguk.

  “Sit down? Share my rock and some talk.”

  Putuguk eyed the ground cautiously as if calculating how difficult he might find it to raise himself up again from such a low position. In the end he sighed, nodded his head slowly and sank down to the ground beside Kigiuna. Despite the invitation to conversation, the two men watched the others work in silence.

  After a time, Putuguk whispered, “They are rubbing it the wrong way.”

  Kigiuna looked again but didn’t catch the old man’s meaning. The two young men were working hard, waterproofing the skin. He cast Putuguk an inquiring look.

  Putuguk said softly, “The bow has to be rubbed to the side, to part the waters, not along the length like the rest.”

  He was right.

  “Heya!” Kigiuna yelled to Maguan. “The bow has to cut the water.” With an irritated scowl he motioned the proper way. “You should know that, Maguan. And use your shoulder. Press hard!”

  Kigiuna leaned toward Putuguk and said, “He should have known that.”

  “He’s good on the water,” replied Putuguk. “Both your sons are grown into fine young men.” A hand with long, pale fingers rubbed absently at the few curly gray hairs decorating his chin.

  “Our children have all grown well,” observed Kigiuna. “I remember Alaana and your Aquppak running around the camp playing together.”

  “Such good friends, yes.”

  “There was a time,” said Kigiuna, “when the other children chose to ignore Alaana. When she first became the shaman.”