Ivory Carver 02 - My Sister the Moon (3 page)

She had never owned anything. Her suk was one her mother had worn until the birdskins were as brittle as dead leaves. Even Samiq's small gifts of shells or colored stones were taken from her, her father or brother prying them from her hands. 

She had found the whale tooth. It was hers. 

She turned slowly to face her father, and as she turned she carefully placed one foot over the tooth. She listened as her father screamed at her, and she made herself stay still when he raised his stick. She kept her eyes wide and open, and would not let herself wince. 

No, she would not give him the tooth. What more could the spirits do to her than had already been done? She was nothing. How could the spirits hurt nothing? 

She stood there until her father was through yelling, until with one final swing at her head, he set his walking stick in its niche dug into the earth of the ulaq walls. He brushed past her and went into his sleeping place. Then she picked up the tooth and slipped it under her suk, into the waistband of her woven grass apron, and left it there, smooth and warm against her side. 

IT WAS NIGHT AND BLUE SHELL'S DAUGHTER WAS tired. Her mother, brother and father were in their sleeping places, but she enjoyed having the main room of the ulaq to herself, and so had decided to work a little longer on the basket she was weaving. 

Her ribs hurt each time she took a deep breath, and all day she had felt as though she could not get enough air. She dipped her hand into the water basket and closed her eyes as she moistened a strand of grass with her fingertips. 

Each time she wove baskets, smoke from the oil lamps seemed to settle close over her, prickling against her eyes until they were dry and itching. 

She felt her father's presence before she saw him, a sudden heaviness in the air, the oil and fish smell of him. She opened her eyes and saw that he was standing before her, his walking stick held across his body as if he were preparing for an attack. He looked down at the basket she was weaving. 

"I need that basket," he said. "Do not sleep until you finish it." 

Blue Shell's daughter looked up at him but tried to keep the fear from her eyes. It was a storage basket. Good for dried fish, for berries and roots. Her father did not need it. 

She wanted to tell him that it was only a woman's basket, that her mother's baskets were much better than hers. And though she opened her mouth to speak, the words caught at the back of her throat and would not come out. She pushed with all the air in her lungs. Nothing came except the sound of her own breath and a bleating, "A-a-a-a-a. ..." It was the 
sound of the emptiness she held within herself. Others had spirits, others had words. 

"If you have to," Gray Bird said, "you will work all night." 

Blue Shell's daughter took another long breath, would not let herself think of the emptiness she held within her body. She opened her mouth, began slowly, "N-n-no," she said and saw the surprise in her father's eyes. When had she ever told him no? Her father stared at her for a moment but said nothing. He snorted and kicked at the grass on the floor then turned and went into his sleeping place. 

Blue Shell's daughter waited until she heard him settle into his sleeping robes, then again she formed the word in her mouth, felt it round and strong against her tongue. "No," she whispered. "No." She felt the power of the word as it traveled back into her throat and down to the center of her body. 

She stood, and when she bent to pick up her partially woven basket, she felt something trickle down the inside of her thigh. 

Even in the dim light of the ulaq, she knew. Blood. 

She was having her first bleeding. She was a woman. A woman! Even without a spirit, without a soul, she had received the gift of bleeding. How was it possible? 

Perhaps it was that one word, spoken to her father. But what had given her the courage to stand up to him? She smoothed her hands over her suk, over the small mounds that were her breasts. She felt the bulge of the whale tooth against her side. Yes, of course, it was the tooth. 

Samiq bent over the bone hook he was shaping. His mother was nursing his baby sister, Wren, and at the same time smoothing seal oil into her husband's hair. 

Samiq glanced at his brother Amgigh and Amgigh scowled at him. Samiq turned his head and pretended he did not see. I am a hunter, he reminded himself as he felt the familiar anger rise. This spring he had already taken three seals. He did not have to make any reply to his brother's foolishness. 

Samiq had always been able to best Amgigh at any game, whether it required quickness of the mind or strength of the body. Though Amgigh was taller than Samiq, he was very thin and tired quickly. But there was a fierceness in him, a determination that Samiq admired. Even when Samiq beat Amgigh in a race, finishing far ahead, Amgigh did not stop running until he, too, had reached the final line. It was a good thing, that determination, their father said. Important for a boy, even more important for a man. And though Samiq was more skilled with the spear, Amgigh's clever hands knapped the spearhead, and so their father always said that Amgigh's family would never be hungry. 

But there was a part of Amgigh that Samiq did not like, the contrary spirit that made Amgigh take a favorite toy from their sister and hold it high above her head until she cried; the part of him that laughed when Gray Bird derided his lovely daughter in front of other men. 

And looking into his brother's eyes, Samiq knew that it was this contrary spirit that now spoke, as Amgigh, still holding his scowl, said, "Blue Shell's daughter—they say she has finally become woman. Her mother makes a hut for her now back in the hills." 

Their mother looked over at them. "How do you know this?" she asked. 

"I saw it. Do you think because I have no sea lion teeth on a string at my neck that I cannot see?" 

Samiq flushed, looked down at the necklace his mother had strung for him. She had promised one for Amgigh when he brought in his first sea lion. What more could she do than promise? Amgigh had to take the sea lion. 

"Amgigh," their father said, "if you have something good to say to your mother, say it. Otherwise, say nothing." 

Amgigh smiled, holding his lips out wide and clenching his teeth. Wren reached out and yanked her mother's hair and Chagak slapped absently at her hand. The child began to cry. 

"I will oil my ikyak," Samiq said, suddenly ready to be away from his parents and brother, away from the crying of his sister. "Perhaps First Snow needs someone to 
talk to. He is alone in that new ulaq with our ugly sister." 

His father grinned at him. "And if Red Berry hears you, do you think she will be sharing any food or saving you meat from First Snow's seals?" 

Samiq pulled his parka on over his head and climbed out of the ulaq. A sharp wind cut in from the north to sweep across their wide beach. It was night, but not quite dark, the moon full. 

So Blue Shell was making a bleeding hut for her daughter, Samiq thought. Did that mean Gray Bird had finally named the girl, had allowed her a soul? 

Samiq walked down the beach. He stopped now and again to pick up small stones and throw them into the water. He would give the girl a present, something to let her know he was happy for her. She deserved some happiness. 

"You are a hunter," his inside voice said. "Perhaps you could give more than a gift. Perhaps by the end of the summer, you could pay a bride price." His mother wanted him to take a wife from the Whale Hunters, but he did not think she would object to Blue Shell's daughter. Who worked harder, who smiled more, even though her back carried the scars of her father's beatings? He would start saving sealskins. He was ready to be a husband. Did his dreams not tell him he was a man? 

BLUE SHELL'S DAUGHTER LAY BACK ON THE GRASS that softened the floor of her shelter. The hut had no walls, only a peaked roof of driftwood and grass mats that slanted down to the ground and was staked to the earth with bone 

pegs and kelp twine. Her mother had taken all night and part of the morning to build the shelter. She had woven the roof tightly to keep out the wind, and had given her daughter an oil lamp for heat and light. 

The girl had not been allowed to help, only to watch, to wait in the darkness while her mother gathered grasses and driftwood and brought mats from their ulaq. Her mother had said little as she worked, but twice she turned to smile at her daughter and the girl had been surprised. She had seldom seen her mother smile, could never remember hearing her laugh. So, her mother was pleased then, glad that her unnamed daughter had become a woman. 

The girl wondered about her father. She had heard Gray Bird's bellowing when Blue Shell, wakened from her sleep, had shooed her daughter from the ulaq. Gray Bird, Qakan, too, had been wailing about curses. Was there woman's blood on their weapons? Had she been in their sleeping places that day? 

But now perhaps her father would get a bride price for her. Perhaps she would take her place as wife to one of Kayugh's sons. Perhaps Samiq. 

When Blue Shell finished the hut, she told her daughter that she would return with food and water. She would also bring strips of sealskin so the girl could weave hunting belts for the men. 

The first days of being a woman were a time of power. Blue Shell's daughter had heard stories of girls in first bleeding who had cast whales up on the First Men's beaches, but she carried no hope that she could do such a thing. How could a woman without a name have that much power? But if the men sent sealskin to weave into hunting belts, she would make belts, strong and beautiful, to bring them luck in their hunting. 

She took the whale tooth from under her suk and stroked it, studying the dents and scars in its surface. The top of the tooth where it had been broken from its roots was worn almost smooth. The tooth must have lain in the rain and sun for a time, and before that been in the sea. Perhaps it carried the same power as an amulet. 

She had never been allowed an amulet. Once as a child, she had fashioned a small pouch from a scrap of sea lion hide and filled it with pebbles and shells she found on the beach. She hung the pouch from a rawhide thong around her neck, but when her father saw what she had done, he jerked the pouch from her throat, pulling so hard that the thong left a gash at the back of her neck. "No amulet," he had said. "A girl without a soul is nothing to the spirits. They will not protect her. They do not even see her." 

But now she had the tooth. And perhaps the tooth itself had chosen her. Why else would she have found it, she, not her father, not Kayugh or Crooked Nose, not even Samiq? Perhaps it wanted to give her power, as much power as any amulet could give. 

She had worn it only a day and already it had made her a woman. Blue Shell's daughter moved her head so she could see out through the door opening of her hut. 

She listened to the wind, watched as it pushed clouds into the gray curve of the sky. For these days, nine days alone in her bleeding hut, she could forget about her father. She could forget that she had no spirit. She could forget about words, words that flowed smoothly from the mouths of those around her, but that came to her only with effort: each word a new and difficult task, pried from her mouth one at a time like a woman pries chitons from a rock. 

Yes, she could forget. But one thing, one thing she would remember—the reason she was here. She was a woman. Even without a name, without a soul, without the gift of words. Even so, she was a woman. She hummed under her breath, a small tune, a song without words to the whale's tooth. 

ON THE SECOND DAY OF HER BLEEDING, BLUE 
Shell's daughter wove hunting belts for Samiq and Amgigh. 

She cut sealskin into narrow strips and wove it slowly and carefully. She strung in shells she had drilled for beads, and always kept her mind on seals and sea lions as she worked. She laid a sealskin over her grass sleeping mats, so the belts would not touch the grass, and her mother bound the girl's hair into a tight braid at the back of her head. If even a tiny piece of grass or a strand of her hair were woven into the belt, the sea animals would know and would not come near the hunter, or worse, would bite a hole in the bottom of his ikyak so the hunter would drown. 

On the third day, she made belts for Big Teeth and First Snow, and on the fourth day for her father. On the fifth day, Qakan sent his sealskin. With each man's sealskin, Blue Shell's daughter had only had to close her eyes to see a belt, finished and beautifully decorated, but for Qakan she saw nothing. 

It is because he hates me, she thought, and could not help remembering the times he had stolen her food or had lied to their father, accusing her of breaking cooking stones or touching a hunter's weapon. 

Qakan had fourteen summers, but had never taken a seal. He did not even paddle his ikyak well, and their father blamed her for Qakan's poor skills. She was the curse in their family, he often said. She was the reason her mother had been barren since Qakan's birth. She was the one who kept Qakan from slaying seals. 

It was her father's way to blame others for his own shortcomings. But then, Blue Shell's daughter thought, I am also like that, blaming Qakan because I do not want to weave his belt. She warmed her hands over the flame of her oil lamp and thought for a moment, then pulled the whale tooth from her suk. She ran her fingers over the smooth curve of its sides, stroked a furrow that had been eroded into the base of the tooth. Yes, she would make Qakan a belt and use all her good thoughts of seals and sea lions to give it power. 

On the eighth day of Blue Shell's daughter's confinement, Samiq sat at the top of his father's ulaq and watched the sea. He watched for the ruffling of water that would tell of herring, watched for the shimmering darkness that comes before a storm, but sometimes he also turned and stood, stretching to his full height to see the small peak that was the top of Blue Shell's daughter's hut. Tomorrow she would come out, would be given the woman's ceremony. Perhaps, Samiq's mother had said, Gray Bird would allow his daughter, now woman, to have a name. 

The girl had been strong even as a child, taking beatings and scoldings without tears, without pleading. Chagak said that even though Blue Shell's daughter was a woman without a soul, the belts she made would have power. 

Already this spring three hunts had brought Samiq honor. And with the belt, who could say? He might take two and three seals in one hunt as his father sometimes did. 

He turned back toward the sea, watched the high rising of the swells. He flared his nostrils; there was nothing. No smell of seal or whale, not even the lesser scent of cod. 

A good day to oil my chigadax, he thought and stepped down through the roof hole to the top notch of the climbing log. His father sat in a corner of the ulaq's central room. Wren was on his lap; she sucked two of her tiny fingers and her other hand was wrapped in the soft tangle of her hair. 

"Anything?" Kayugh asked. 

"Nothing," Samiq answered. His mother was sitting, her back to them, weaving a grass mat that was suspended on pegs pounded into one wall. Above the weaving was a shelf crowded with the small ivory animals carved years before by her grandfather Shuganan. 

Chagak looked over her shoulder at Kayugh, and he cleared his throat. 

Samiq squatted beside his father. He reached out and smoothed the dark strands of his sister's hair. 

"The last time your grandfather Many Whales came to visit," Kayugh began, "he asked that you be allowed to live with him in the Whale Hunters' village this summer." He paused, glanced first at his wife and then at Samiq. 

Samiq's heart quickened, thumped hard into the veins of his neck. "And you will let me go?" he asked. 

"Long ago I promised such a thing to Many Whales, part of a bride price for your mother." 

"You promised that one of your sons would go live with him, learn to hunt the whale?" 

Kayugh looked at his wife and again back at Samiq. "Yes." 

"And you choose me over Amgigh?" 

Chagak started to speak, but Kayugh interrupted her. "I do not choose either of you above the other, but Amgigh will soon be a husband. He must stay here in this village with his wife." 

The rushing joy that Samiq had felt dropped cold and hard into his belly. "Blue Shell's daughter?" he asked in a whisper. 

"Gray Bird has decided to give her a name, so your father will keep the promise he made when Amgigh was a baby," Chagak said. 

"Amgigh knows?" 

"We will tell him when he and Big Teeth return from their hunt." 

"He has not even taken a sea lion yet," Samiq said and 

realized that he spoke in a high and squeaking voice like a boy. 

"He will," said Kayugh. "Perhaps today." 

"Yes," murmured Samiq, seeing the sternness in his father's eyes. 

"Your father will help Amgigh pay the bride price," Chagak said, then added, "We have decided they will live here, in this ulaq." 

Samiq nodded and tried to keep the surprise from showing in his eyes. Among the First Men, it was customary for a man to live with his wife's family, at least until the first child was born. But, Samiq reminded himself, it was not the custom among the Whale Hunters, and his mother was half Whale Hunter. 

"She will be our daughter, will have our grandchildren," said Chagak, lifting her head so Samiq saw the tight set of her jaw. "She needs to be away from Gray Bird. He beats her." 

Samiq rubbed a hand across his forehead. Yes, who did not know that? But a girl belonged to her father, and he could beat her, kill her, if he wanted. 

"I think she will be safer now, if Gray Bird knows he can get something for her, sealskins or oil," said Kayugh. "I will tell Gray Bird that Amgigh will not take a woman with broken bones." 

"Amgigh will be a good husband," Samiq said, and his voice sounded again like the voice of a man. It would be better for the girl if she were in this lodge, and even though Samiq wanted her for himself, he would rather see her with his brother than given to some hunter who came to their beach with skins and meat to trade. 

Samiq stood. "I will go outside and watch for Amgigh." 

His father nodded but Samiq saw him lift his eyebrows in question to Chagak. Samiq climbed from the ulaq. He squatted in the grass that grew in the sod of the roof. 

To hunt the whale, the greatest of all sea animals. What hunter would not feel his spirit grow large and boasting at the thought of taking such an animal? Yes, he had 
the better share. After all, any man could take a wife, become a husband. Very few could learn to hunt the whale. 

Samiq fixed his eyes on the sea and watched for Amgigh's ikyak. He thought of whales, huge and dark, thought of their breath spouts flowing high, and would not let himself think of Blue Shell's daughter, would not let himself feel the ache in his heart.