Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  CHAPTER 20

  SHADOWS OF THE PAST

  Alaana pulled back the entrance flap to her tent, feeling very much like a thief stealing in the night. She had no idea if Ben would be inside. Which would be worse, she wondered, if he were still there or if he had gone away for good?

  Having missed dinner, she snuck into the darkened tent late in the evening. Higilak’s gentle snoring marked her presence, but the old woman’s whereabouts had not been in question. Alaana could not see Ben in the darkness. She went quietly to her bed and removed her parka and trousers, pulling the blankets across her body. She was hungry and tired. Sleep would be welcome this night.

  Sleep would not come. A storm was whipping up outside, the wind rattling the tent poles and shaking the flaps.

  There was a rustling within the tent as well, someone moving around, the gentle snoring of the old woman still unbroken.

  Ben was coming toward her.

  “Alaana?” A whisper in the night, surprisingly soft. It was such a sweet sound when he said her name. But this time it was anything but sweet.

  Alaana was struck speechless. All day sitting on that rock and she hadn’t yet decided what she could say to him. She’d foolishly hoped to avoid the discussion entirely.

  Ben was drawing near to her pallet. Many times she’d dreamt of a moment like this, but circumstance had now twisted her fantasy into a sort of a nightmare.

  “Alaana,” he repeated. He was close, too close, and she felt like she was dying. A cold sweat broke out across her forehead; she hadn’t the strength to move. She wanted to reach out in the darkness and touch his cheek, but the memory of the slap stayed her hand. She wanted to apologize but didn’t know how.

  The truth, of course, would be the best place to start. More than anything else she wanted to tell him the truth. Although she’d be taking a risk by confiding in Ben, she thought she could trust him with her secrets. He wouldn’t tell the others, who had little use for him anyway, nor would he lose faith in the shaman since he had little faith in her to begin with. Ben came from far away, a distant land where the people didn’t believe in shamans.

  But if she told him the truth, Ben might think her simply making excuses, or if he did believe her, she worried she’d appear foolish and weak. She didn’t want him to think of her that way.

  She felt his breath on her face. “I know you’re not asleep.”

  Alaana was paralyzed again, this time by no ghostly spirit.

  “I know you can hear me,” he said softly. “You had no right to strike me in front of the others.” To her surprise, he spoke calmly, not angrily.

  “I… I know,” she managed to say. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t ever hit you…”

  Ben recoiled. “Are you crazy? You struck me this afternoon. Right in the face. Everyone saw.”

  “I’ll never do it again,” she said without hesitation. “I promise. Never.”

  “I’m certain you won’t. I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”

  Alaana was devastated by this news, but to tell the truth she had expected something like it. Everything was ruined. She didn’t want him to go. Whatever fragile friendship they had achieved had been dashed, and what hope did she have for anything more? There was really nothing she could say.

  “Go if you have to,” she said, “but first let me do something for you.”

  “You’ve done enough.” He was retreating back to his side of the tent. Alaana noted that Higilak’s snoring had stopped.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Alaana reached over to the soapstone lamp and politely asked the wick to spark to flame. The amber glow of burning seal-oil lit up the tent. She saw Higilak sitting up in her bed. The warm light lit Ben’s face clearly. He had a fresh new bruise on his right cheek, and this after all the other bruises had finally cleared. Alaana recoiled at the sight.

  “Before you go, let me have a look at your arm. Higilak told me the story. I think I can help.” Her possession by Manatook’s ghost had given her an idea.

  “I don’t think you can.”

  “I can,” she insisted, “but you have to trust me.”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t trust you.”

  “You said you would give her a second chance,” said Higilak, sitting up on her bed.

  “It seems to me she wasted that chance by slapping me. This would be a third chance.”

  Higilak groaned softly. “Do you trust me?”

  He looked at her deeply for a moment then said, “I do, Old Mother. You’re the only one I do trust.”

  “That’s good enough,” said Alaana. She sprang up from her bed and pulled her doeskin nightshirt close against the chill. “Just lie down. All I have to do is look in your eye.”

  She sprinkled some black claw root into the lamp oil. A pungent stench began to waft through the tent.

  Ben lay bare-chested on the sleeping platform, the furs pulled up to his waist. To look into the soul of a waking man she needed a physical connection. Alaana placed both her hands gently on his chest. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. On the other side, Higilak kneeled silently beside the platform. The old woman smiled slightly.

  “For too long you’ve been denied the use of your good left arm,” said Alaana. “If there is a hold on you, let’s break it now.”

  Alaana exchanged a serious look with Ben. He was still leery of her magic, but she saw a flicker of hope in his eye. He did trust her, at least enough for this. It just might work. “It’s time to make things right,” she said in a solemn tone.

  Alaana took a deep breath. She recalled what Old Manatook had once taught her. We treat the man’s soul, the shaman had said, never the body.

  “Are you ready, Ben?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. All you have to do is try and relax. Don’t resist.”

  Bending over Ben’s face, Alaana gently held the lid of his left eye open and gazed within.

  A series of deep breaths brought her to a relaxed state of concentration, and she peered down into the abyss of the dark pupil in search of Ben’s troubled soul. The brown rim of his iris formed a tunnel, a narrow gateway to the soul.

  With three more deep breaths Alaana’s spirit-woman leapt down into the tunnel.

  It was a short tumble, down the vortex of the eye, to where Ben’s soul lay resting beneath.

  She released his lower eyelid and gently touched his face, covering the new bruise with her fingertips.

  Her spirit flowed outward, shaping itself to match the outline of Ben’s soul-light. Ben’s inua was different from others she had touched; it was still bent and twisted from years of trauma and abuse. There were dark places she couldn’t reach. She caught disturbing echoes of the young man’s pain. These images came in flashes, like cuts of the knife, quickly and then hidden away. Memories of Ben’s father, his back raw from the bullwhip. His mother crying. Mister Douglas, hung from the branch of a dwarf pine, his belly slit open. A savage beating from Garagos. The derisive laughter of a circle of men. A savage beating from Verlag. But worst of all, the menacing figure of the Yupikut shaman.

  Beneath all this horror and pain, Ben’s spirit still shone brightly. He had adapted. He had suffered and struggled onward. He had dared to hope. His spirit rose up to meet her, providing a resonance of its own. For a moment their heartbeats aligned, their minds joined.

  Alaana found the place where the Yupikut shaman had left his mark. Within Ben’s soul it appeared as a darkened room with walls made of blackened smoke. Inside that room Alaana felt a terrible repulsion that made her nauseous. Ben was there, on his knees, his head hung low. The shadow of the shaman was there as well, looming large over him. Although that shaman was dead, killed in the same raid as Verlag’s brother, he had left a thought in that room. He had convinced Ben’s soul that his arm was useless.

  “This is a false thought,” she said. “There is nothing wrong with your arm.”

  The kneeling figure of Ben did not respond.

 
; She reached up and took hold of the shaman’s shadow. It was as thin as a piece of the white men’s paper. Alaana crushed it in her spirit-hands and it crumbled away like dust.

  “This is a lie!” she raged.

  Ben’s hunched figure raised its head.

  The entire smoky room fell away and Alaana was set adrift within Ben’s soul. There were more hidden places and others that were accessible to her if she cared to look. There was another room in his soul which contained an echo of her own soul. There she might see how he really felt about her. She was tempted to look. She desperately wanted to know. She could even influence those thoughts herself, leaving her own shadow behind. But she didn’t.

  She withdrew from Ben’s left eye.

  He looked at her strangely. He felt the change immediately.

  “You are free of what that man did to you,” she said.

  Ben was amazed. His raised his left hand slightly off the ledge. His hand closed, the fingers moving weakly.

  “It’s weak,” said Alaana, “from not being used. But I know it will get better. In time.”

  Alaana took a deep breath. The entire procedure had been a strain. To overcome skepticism on the part of the stricken man was difficult and near impossible, but she had forced herself to succeed. For him.

  “I should have trusted you,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Alaana felt dizzy. She needed to lie down to sleep. “Then let me ask you a favor. Don’t leave. Not yet. Just stay a little while longer.”

  Ben nodded. “All right.”

  Alaana fell right off to sleep that night, but her contentment lasted only a short while. The storm gathered strength during the night. Savage gusts whistled down the long line of the Anatatook encampment, making an unearthly sound as they played between the tent skins.

  Alaana sat up on her bed of furs. The entrance to their tent shook forcefully as if someone were at the flap, but there was no one there. Nothing human, anyway. Alaana quickly put on her clothes.

  The sounds outside resembled now a deep lament of anguish and pain magnified along the length of the entire riverbed.

  Higilak moaned in her sleep.

  “Alaana?” asked Ben.

  “Stay here,” she returned.

  One of the nearby tents collapsed with a violent crash, followed by screams of alarm in the night.

  “What’s happening?” Higilak asked, her voice sounding frightened and distant. Alaana didn’t want to imagine what horror from her past she might be remembering.

  “Stay here,” she said to Ben again. “Look after Higilak.”

  People had begun wandering out into the night, drawn from their beds by the commotion and the fevered barking of the dogs. It was Ipalook’s tent which had collapsed and his widow and her father were struggling to set it right.

  The wind gusted again and Alaana noticed it came first from one side and then the opposite direction, then from two places at once, bringing again that mournful sound. Someone screamed, but it was a cry of fright rather than pain. Other people emerged from their houses, confused looks on their faces as they locked eyes with Alaana for the briefest of moments before retreating back inside. Except for those few coming to the aid of Ipalook’s family, none could stand the weird howling of the wind.

  Alaana projected her senses outward, sending her mind questing down the length of the settlement and back again. She sensed a restless spirit riding the gusts, impossible to identify, lost in confusion itself.

  Ipalook’s tent now repaired, the family looked to Alaana for an answer. She had none.

  “Go back inside,” she shouted, and they were quick to do so.

  She stood alone among the row of tents, the wind slapping her face with its chill hands. The spirit-vision remained unclear, but Alaana sensed the slow gathering of a malicious consciousness.

  “Manatook?” she whispered. Only once. It wouldn’t do to utter his name too many times.

  The wind churned even more violently, sweeping down toward the end of the camp where the dogs were tethered. Alaana drew in a deep breath of the chill air and set off toward the kennel.

  She was careful not to show any sign of being afraid. How many pairs of eyes were peering at her from flaps in tents at this very moment? They must not see her waiver. They didn’t know how her heart raced, the blood pulsing in a painful rush up her neck, her mouth dry. They must see their shaman walking unflinchingly down the lane between the tents, even as chaos swirled and raged all around her.

  The kennel was the sturdiest structure in the camp. Its posts were driven deep into the ground. As Alaana watched, the ragged and wildly flapping skin cover flew into the air, ripped by unseen fingers, the pieces scattered on the wind. The poles and framework blew apart in a spray of shattered antler and bone.

  The dogs darted senselessly about, dragging their tethers. Their frenzied barking rose to a deafening clamor. Makaartunghak, Alaana’s gigantic huskie, was loudest among them.

  One of Tugtutsiak’s huskies suddenly lifted up like a puppy taken at the back of the neck by some invisible hand. The dog spun helplessly in the air. The others formed a tight circle, barking their rage at their companion suspended in midair, out of reach. The dog whined pathetically as it spun faster and faster. Flecks of blood sprayed outward, followed by ragged pieces of fur and sinew, muscle and bone. Bloody streamers of muck and shredded innards rained down. In a moment the dog was gone, leaving only the stink of exposed bowels.

  Another dog rose up.

  Alaana stepped forward, heedless whether or not she should be killed herself and began a general invocation designed to repel the spirit. She repeated the chant calmly, having discarded all fear. If she were killed so be it, but fear would only sour the incantation and ruin the spell. There was no good in it. She had no time for it. She chanted fast and furious, adding strength of will to the words. As the second dog was killed right before her eyes, spraying her with hot blood and gore, she did not waver.

  The last remnants of the dog’s carcass, the riven spine and bloody skull, crashed down to earth at Alaana’s feet. The sound of a tremendous thunderclap broke across the camp.

  The spirit was gone.

  The camp lay now in utter silence; not the slightest breeze remained. The last tatters of the kennel’s tarp fluttered to rest. Alaana, her face spattered with blood and fur, stood alone.

  CHAPTER 21

  A FOUL WIND

  First light saw the Anatatook men walking the camp. So much property was wrecked it looked as if a stampede of musk oxen had thundered through the place. People set about their tasks, cleaning up and rebuilding with grim determination. They asked nothing of Alaana as she passed by.

  She found Tugtutsiak circling what was left of the dog pen. Most of the animals seemed to have been accounted for and returned to their places. Makaartunghak sat calmly among the shattered fragments of antler and driftwood, snacking on a comforting meal of dried walrus hide.

  “Look!” shouted the headman as Alaana neared the kennel. “Look at this damage! How are we going to replace these dogs?”

  “How many dogs did we lose?”

  “You didn’t lose any!” said Tugtutsiak bitterly. “A few of mine have run off. My son Mikisork went after them; he’s good with dogs. Not counting the two that…” He was unable to find words to finish the sentence, but waved his hand in a circular motion in the air as a whirlwind.

  “I want to know what caused this, Alaana,” he said. “Did someone here cause this, or is this something you’ve brought back with you from the north, from wherever it was you went?”

  Alaana was forced to admit she didn’t know. She would never think to deceive Tugtutsiak. For as long as she could remember the burly man had been in charge, looming larger than life, directing the movements of their band, steering them toward food and away from trouble. If not for his intimate knowledge of the hunting grounds and the weather, and his uncanny ability to predict the movements of the herds, the Anatatook would have long since starved.
It was no easy task to locate prey that never stopped moving. Tugtutsiak was a sure hand even when Alaana’s inability to sway the game animals left them vulnerable.

  “What was it, Alaana?” asked the headman, “Do you know?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Is it gone? Will it be back?” His eyes bristled with barely restrained fury. He had never been one to tolerate the endangerment of his people.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s a lot you don’t know,” said Tugtutsiak sternly.

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Tugtutsiak grunted softly, then swiveled his head, looking out across the river. He sniffed the air. A thoughtful look crossed his face, but he said nothing about it.

  “I expect you to find the source of this trouble, Alaana. And I expect you to put an end to it.”

  She nodded reassuringly. “I will hold a spirit-calling just as soon as the hunt is finished. I’ll find some way to protect us.”

  Tugtutsiak kicked at the snow, spraying a layer of white powder over the crimson streak that had once been the life’s blood of one of his best dogs.

  Alaana joined her family for breakfast. Sitting between her parents, she cut a bite of salmon trout then passed the filet along the line. Maguan’s wife and children sat to one side and Itoritsak’s to the other. Itoritsak’s little son Pupupuk, who never let Alaana alone for an instant when she was near, was busy tugging at her leggings and climbing in and out of her lap, more often than not jabbing a careless elbow or knee where she wanted them least.

  “How are the boats?” she asked.

  “No damage,” said Itoritsak. “Maguan always ties the spare tent over them at night.”

  “And every night you tell me I’m wasting my time,” returned Maguan coyly, “Because there isn’t going to be a storm.”

  “That was no storm,” said Kigiuna. He turned his incisive gaze toward Alaana. A profound change had come over him since her initiation. He had long been a skeptic when it came to shamans and spirits. But on that day he had witnessed his daughter’s body hovering in the air, held in the violent embrace of Sila’s whirlwind. Since then he had become obsessed with the world of the spirits. A blind believer, he wanted so very much to be able to see. Excitement blazed in his blue eyes, “What was that, Alaana? What did it look like?”