Inside the ice house the darkness is tinged with dreams. They float in shapeless splashes of ethereal light and drift above the flickering eyelids of the dreamers. Up and down to match the in and out of their breath. The eruption of a sudden kannguik, a snoring, triggers the occasional quivering back and forth. Sometimes, an animal takes form within one of the little clouds, or a person, or even a landscape—places away from the harsh expanse of white, somewhere not covered in a perpetual blanket of snow.
There are five sleepers on the ground. Huddled together for warmth, there are three kitunngalik whose young bodies are intertwined in a plait of arms and legs. There is the atâtak, the father, from whose flattened nostrils sound the loudest snores. And then, in the middle, there is the mother, the anânak. Her face is stretched in an expression of concern and her lips whisper worries into the night. Her name is Uki, which means ‘survivor’, and it is her who wakes up at the absence. Gasping for air, she prays that what she has dreamt has not yet come to pass. But she knows in an instant that someone is missing.
Panuk is her eldest. Born in the wake of his grandfather’s passing, the baby inherited his ancestor’s name so that the dead man’s spirit could live on inside of him. He is an island, independent and self-reliant just like his departed namesake was. He has a habit of wandering off on his own. At mealtimes, he sits apart and allows himself to become lost in the puzzle of his thoughts.
Everything is always imminik, by himself. Imminik annugâk, dressing himself. Imminik upvak, washing himself. Imminik pisuk, walking by himself. He is already a lone-wolf even though he is only as old as eleven turns of the seasons.
Without waking the others, Uki disentangles herself and carefully wriggles out from beneath the furs. She pulls her mukluk up over her knee length stockings and slips her hands into her mittens. It is hard to clamber inside her amauti parka without making any noise. Luckily, though, none of the others are disturbed by her movement. Outside, she tugs at the large hood so that it falls down over her careworn forehead. When Panuk was just a nutagak, she thinks, she used to carry him wrapped in the hood.
Quietly, she calls his name. Perhaps, he is just relieving himself in the snow trench. Or perhaps, he is itivliruk, sleepwalking. But there is no response. She calls again and her voice dies in the vast expanse of the heavens—the sky which is restless in billowing waves of green and gold. There are dark spirits weaving amongst the aurora and the thought of Panuk being out alone on such a night fills her with misgiving. As loudly as she dares, then, she calls his name a third time. “Panuk!” The shout dies in her mouth, because, quite clearly stamped into the snow in front of her, there is a trail of footsteps leading away from the camp.
The snow is heavy as lead, a fresh fall on top of the compacted under-layer. Her feet sink into it and the effort of lifting and planting is tiring. She trudges uphill with all the speed that she can muster. She invokes the spirit of the arctic hare and asks for her limbs to be strengthened as she makes her way into the night.
Every twenty paces, she looks ahead and hopes to see the silhouette of her fledgling son. But each time, she is disappointed. She asks herself how long Panuk has been out there in the bitter cold. She wonders what madness can have persuaded him to stray from the safety of the igloo when there might be a pack of wolves prowling or a hungry polar bear looking for a kill. There is the worry that the moon god, Igaluk, has gripped him in a waking dream to test his inner strength. There is the dread that he has been possessed by an evil spirit who is taking revenge for an impudence of action or of thought.
She reaches the inukshuk, which is a stone cairn of balanced rocks built as a marker to guide hunters back home. It is a high point amongst the squally ice sheets, and from there she can look out in all directions. There is still no sign of him, but, placing the palm of her hand flat against the structure, she senses the trace of Panuk’s spirit lingering on its southern face. It is not long since he was standing there himself, she thinks, although there is a splinter in the memory of him—something that is uyumiksuk, indistinct and cloudy.
Further on, she thinks she hears movement up ahead. It is the crunching sound of a boot in the snow which surely must be Panuk at last. So she calls his name once more—nothing. “Panuk!’ Her voice trembles with the panic that has been rising inside of her ever since her stumbled journey began. There is the shadow of something to her left. Slithery like a seal slipping back inside the water, it is only ever in the corner of her eye, and when she looks at it directly, nothing can be seen but the colourful wraiths in the night-time sky. Clasping her hands together, she intones a charm to ward off Anguta, the gatherer of the dead.
The dawn is still hours ahead of her. The daylight at this time of year is just a sliver amongst the perpetual black. Dusk follows so quickly that they learn to operate in the dark whilst in the summer, everything is opposite. Back in the igloo there will soon be the stirrings that follow the fading dreams of night. The minds that paint pictures in the air above the slumberers will be returning to the physical world. The eyes, flickering open, will see that their mother is missing. Panuk also will not be amongst them. It is a pity, she thinks, that it didn’t occur to her to wake Toklo before she left.
A while later, the path ahead splits in an impossible branching of east and west. Footprints head in both directions as if there are now two little boys named Panuk meandering across the ice. She sinks to her knees and inspects the ground for a clue that might help her decide which set of marks she should follow. The one side is more definite. The other is but an echo of an anirniq half-floating across the white. There is another inukshuk just ahead of her formed in the shape of an eagle. Since it is her spirit animal, she reaches out to it and asks for guidance. The wind whispers its response that she should follow the tracks that lead back home.
Soon enough, Uki has come full circle. From a distance, the people are nothing but smudges shuffling in amongst the seven igloos that make up their camp, and it is impossible to tell if Panuk is among them. She imagines that the morning routine of washing and dressing will already be completed. A fire has been lit and the women will be preparing the caribou meat from yesterday’s hunt. Kallik will be grizzling at her absence, no doubt. Her temper is a flare of lightning. Her tongue is sharp as a flint knife. Mostly, their little community is peaceful. But sometimes disagreements bubble up from below the surface.
Closer in, she can make out the shape of Jissika lumbering unsteadily out of her doorway. Her belly is swollen from the child growing within her. The angakkuq, their spirit leader, has declared that the baby will be a girl and she will take on the essence of an arctic tern. Even so, Jissika’s husband, Nukilik, is certain that it will be a boy, big and strong like his father. He claims that the essence of his loins will grow to be a great leader, a fierce hunter of polar bears and narwhals. It is Nukilik who is on guard duty watching her approach. She sees him shout something to the others. They gather quickly. Each of them wants the story of why Uki has been trekking through the wilderness alone.
“Ullaakuut!” they clamour as she gets in closer. “Good morning, silatuanguak.” They mock her as worldly wise. They use the word aullaumak which means ‘to go away without letting anyone know your purpose.’
Trembling, she explains that she woke to find Panuk was missing. “I followed his tracks in the snow,” she says. “They lead me round in a circle. Back to here. Where is he? Did he not come home?”
“Hush,’ says Toklo as he greets her by rubbing his nose against her own. “He is safe. He was itivliruk, that is all. The night is nothing but a dream for him. And although he is cold and shivering, he is well and safe. So, there is no need to worry.”
Over breakfast, Uki tells the others about the disturbance in the aurora, the shadow she half-saw from the corner of her eye. “It was a tuurngaq,’ she says, “a demon who was out to cause mischief and despair. I felt Anguta’s presence in the darkness. I felt the tremor of malice through the ice.”
Across from her, the angakkuq listens intently while she talks. “There is a schism in the air,” he says. “I can feel the oncoming storm. The gathering of a blizzard up in the atmosphere.” He asks her to close her eyes and describe the shadow demon once more. Cross-legged, she finds the inner sanctuary inside herself and recalls the memory as if she is back there, stumbling through the knee-high drift.
When it is done, she can wait no longer. She needs to see Panuk with her own eyes in order to assure herself that truly, he has no scars from his night-time excursion. Inside the igloo, she removes her mittens and places a hand across his forehead. He is stone cold. She wills her lifeblood to pass into his. He doesn’t stir at her touch. The rise and fall of his breathing is shallow like a puddle of seal pup’s blood. Everything about him is still, as if he is made of stone rather than human flesh and gristle.
“Leave him,” says Toklo, walking up behind her. “He will not join the hunt today. And you have already missed the morning labours. The other wives will grumble if you shirk from any more.”
So from there, the day is spent in sewing and mending, washing and cleaning. Every part of the previous day’s caribou kill is used for something. The hide makes the layers of an amauti parka. The fibre from the intestines provides good insulation for an undershirt. The antlers are useful in the construction of snow goggles. And the meat, of course, is cut up and cured to feed the community through the hard months ahead. Kallik has found some Arctic grasses and Uki helps her weave the base of a basket that they might sell when summer comes.
Through all of it, though, she is restless. Something in Panuk’s expression was not quite right. Something in the way he just lay there, cold and unresponsive, sends a chill up through the segments of her spine. They have a word maKaik which describes the state when the spirit wanders far away from the corporeal container of the body. Sometimes, it is a gift of the gods. Sometimes, it is a curse.
The brief splinter of daylight comes and goes. “It is getting colder,” Jissica remarks as the wind whips up and the shards of ice pellets flick against the exposed skin of their cheeks and lips. Winter on the ice plains is a scuffle against the elements. It is wrestling with a walrus and clashing antlers with a reindeer all at once. There are always deaths during the long, drawn-out expanse of it. When the raw and piercing cold burrows down inside your soul, there is no escape except to take Anguta’s bony hand and drift with him down into Adlivun, the underworld beneath the sea.
At twilight, Uki goes to check on Panuk again. He is stirring when she enters the igloo and, his eyes flickering open, she pulls him into a tight embrace. There is so little to him. Saluttuk, skinny like an underfed outcast, each one of his ribs juts out from his chest and his arms are as brittle as spindly icicles hanging from a ledge. She smothers him with kisses. “I was so worried,” she says. “I thought we had lost you.” And then the dread of the night before shatters into shards of anger. “It was foolish of you to go stumbling off into the darkness like that. Your father says you were just sleep-walking. Were you? Or was this another case of Panuk wanting to do things by himself?”
Dumbfounded, her son just stares at her. No words of apology tumble from his mouth. His lips don’t tremble with regret. And there is no hint of kuvvik at his tear ducts. In fact, his eyes are deadened. Lifeless like hail stones, their colouring has faded since the last time she studied them. They are grey where they were once the fiercest blue. Or perhaps, it is just a trick of the light. Perhaps, it is just because she is still on edge that she imagines there is something not quite right in this unspeaking puppet who has taken the place of her son.
When the hunt returns, they are empty-handed. It happens often at this time of year but still it is a disappointment. The men’s faces are etched with frustration. They are weary as they trudge through the snow. Toklo has a tear in the outer layer of his amauti. “What happened?” Uki asks. “I slipped and fell,” he grumbles in return. Inside the igloo, she sews the amauti back up for him and, only when she is done, does she broach the subject of Panuk’s listlessness.
“You worry too much,” he tells her.
“I am his mother. That is my job.”
“Well, there is nothing wrong with him that time, and tomorrow’s hunt, won’t heal.”
“We should talk to the angakkuq.” She continues to needle him until he says yes.
There is a proverb amongst the Inuit that the wolf and the shaman are of one nest. And there is certainly something wolf-like about the angakkuq. To begin with, his eyes are flecked with a bristling yellow. Like the sun or a captive star, they can bore a hole into the centre of your being and he sees the truth of your spirit even if others cannot. His hair is straggly and grey in the manner of lupine fur, and his nose twitches in a way that sniffs out deceit. His yellowing teeth are sharp and fang-like. When angered, his face tightens into a snarl.
Once Uki has explained why they have come to see him, the angakkuq tells them to sit whilst he prepares for the ceremony. It is named qilaneq after the qila, the spirits. It is a ritual that tells fortunes and other facts, a way of convening with the future as well as with the past. First, a glove is placed on the ground. It is central and will capture the qila when the time comes. Next, the shaman removes his belt and winds it around his staff. They are the implements through which he conducts his power. Raising them above the central space, he intones a message that sends tremors around the ice stones. A crackle of electricity seethes in the air. Breathless, Uki watches as the glove twitches with sudden life.
The first question confirms that Panuk is in danger. The message is muddled as it makes its way through the ether but there is enough meaning in it to understand that Panuk’s anirniq has been stolen away from him. Uki’s sob is stifled. She is remembering the impossible splintering of the footprints on the night before; the faint outline of a second set of tracks leading in the opposite direction to the soulless body that lumbered its way back home. The shaman asks why Panuk has been riven in this way. The spirits answer that the rituals of the hunt were not properly carried out.
Uki pummels Toklo with her fists. “What does he mean that the rites of last agony were not performed?”
“I thought he would do as I said.”
“You watched him?”
“Yes… and no. I was distracted.”
When a seal is killed, a fist of snow must be held above its open mouth to drip water inside and quench its dying spirit. When a caribou is felled, the hunters kneel and sing to it to ease its passing. And after a large hunt, the dance of nakaksuk must be performed. The bladder of the dead animal contains the soul, and in order for the dying spirit to find peace, the bladder must be returned to the sea so that Sedna can reclaim it. If the traditions are not respected, a tuurngaq is created, an evil spirit that circles until it can find revenge.
“There is a way to save him,” the angakkuq tells them, once he has surfaced from the depths of his trance. “The journey will be difficult and long, but I have faith that you can do what must be done, Uki.” He chooses her because she is the one who has already encountered the tuurngaq. She is the one whose heart bleeds for her half-lost son.
The angakkuq thrusts an amulet towards her. The dried feathers of an eagle’s wings point outwards from the gemstone at its centre. There are talons that rattle as she loops it over her head.
“You need to connect with your spirit animal,” the shaman says. “At the inukshuk where the tracks split in two, let yourself soar above the clouds. You have been niviuk, sitting on eggs, for your whole life. But now you must be tingik.” She must learn how to fly.
After a troubled night of broken dreams, Uki sets off with a bag of provisions slung over her shoulder and the incantations of the settlement ringing in her ears. They imbue her legs as she struggles through the snow. They saturate her beating heart and give her courage in the darkness. And they provide an extra layer of protection as a flurry of white drifts down from the sky. It is the first tentative incursion of the oncoming blizzard and she knows that everyone else will be sheltering within their igloos until it passes. She, on the other hand, has no choice but to bow her head and make her way into the void.
At the eagle inukshuk, she does as the angakkuq has instructed her. Clearing her thoughts of everything else, she pictures the image of the bird in her mind’s eye and imagines the ruffle of its feathers, the twisting of its neck as it surveys the landscape from its perch. It feels strange to slip inside the body of another creature, but the eagle does not fight her. Instead, its spirit moves aside at her request and, blinking, she sees the world from its eyes, hears the screech of other birds not far away through the twitching slits of its ears.
Flight comes with a sense of dizziness. It is unsettling to lurch forwards into the expanse of air with the long drop of nothingness spiralling down below. And even when she doesn’t tumble earthwards, a sense of nausea billows all around her. The scent of it is strong and it takes time before she becomes accustomed to her new perspective. Only then does an unexpected joy trickle upwards through her spine. She finds that she wants to swoop and dive. The temptation to go hunting almost overcomes her.
But she is not an eagle, she reminds herself. She is merely borrowing its body so that she can search the ice plains for the tuurngaq. Somewhere out there, he is roaming with the stolen wisp of her little boy’s soul. It is for her to find him. It is for her to bring him back.
Methodically, she spirals outwards. There are swathes of snow in flat sheets of white. There are babbling stretches where great slabs of ice are scattered in jagged edges and angled slopes. There are mounds and hillocks and mountains that she has only ever encountered in her dreams. And there are the fringes of the ocean where the ice is brittle and breaks off into floating chunks. The eagle’s eyesight is a deadly spear darting through clouds and atmosphere. Using it, she can make out a scurrying fox even though its coat blends almost perfectly against the snowy carpet of the ground. She can see each inukshuk as clearly as if she were standing right in front of it.
It isn’t until the hour of daylight that she discovers what she is looking for. Footprints, almost invisible now that a new flurry of snow is settling on top of them, a trail that leads perilously close to the water’s edge. Her heart is pounding in her human chest. A shard of flint is plunging into the depths of her brain as she urges the eagle’s body downwards. The tuurngaq has taken the shape of a qalupalik with green skin and long, grizzly hair. He sees her in the eagle’s eyes and smiles a wicked grin as she swoops towards him. Panuk’s spirit is struggling by his side, clasped in a vice-like grip. The tuurngaq taunts her. He tells her that Panuk doesn’t have long until he is plunged forever into the depths.
Returning to her own body, she is fretful and agitated. Her breathing is ragged and it takes all of her self-control to stop herself descending into a whirlwind of hysteria. Instead, she swallows her emotions in one determined gulp and sets off as fast as her legs will carry her. Over the first ridge, the snow flurry becomes wilder, swirling in the air and sweeping against her face in whichever direction she turns. The sky is stacked with clouded menace in a way that she has never seen before. The whispers on the wind are a dissonant chorus of the dead.
When the darkness pulls in once more, she makes herself ignore the chattering of rattled bones. They are sounds that exist only within her mind. She must not pay them any heed since she cannot afford to be kutsalâk, frightened of every echo that resonates around. But then, she sees the outline of one of them floundering in towards her. It has the shape of a human. The right height and build but none of the flesh and blood. Just a skeleton, they call them ahkiyyini. They are dangerous, demented beings who have defied the natural order of things. They have refused to give up their souls at the point of death, and, drifting around in a lamentable army, they are galvanised by the attention of the living. Uki tries not to look at them. Their feeble frames are not built for a long pursuit and, if she is careful, she should outrun them. Even so, she feels the clutch of cadaverous fingers at her parka and has to wriggle herself free. Out of a snow drift, another hand snatches and grasps around her ankle. The touch of it is like a torrent of poison gushing through her veins. She almost falls from the bilious repugnance of it, but her determination guides her from its clutch.
Onwards, the ahkiyyini stay on her tail for an hour, or maybe two, before giving up and collapsing back into unthreatening piles of bone that become invisible beneath the snow. The fear of them stays with her a little while longer. And when that eventually passes, she is dog tired. In need of rest, she digs herself a snow trench. She wraps herself in a blanket from her satchel and she descends into a troubled sleep. She is the eagle again. She is a walrus watching a little boy’s soul dangling over the precipice. A warning grumble from the real world snakes inside the dream.
When she wakes, the blizzard is in a full burgeoning of white pellets that make it impossible to know which way is east or west, which way is up or down. It is madness to venture out, but it is also madness to remain. Within the grip of the downdepths, those are the hardest steps. Her feet are made of boulders. Her back is stiff and unforgiving from the cold that has coiled around it in a strangling chokehold.
Apart from her, no living spirit is crazy enough to be roaming through the storm. No polar bears, no caribou, no wolf packs looking for an easy kill. It is just her who is sufficiently ilisimaik to be out there amongst it. She will probably die for her stupidity. But if she hadn’t taken the chance, she would have died of a broken heart.
The edge is hidden by the elements. Her feet have gone past it before she knows what she has done. And from there, she is sliding downwards. Plunging, tumbling, hurling seawards in a jumble of battered limbs. If it weren’t for the layers of padding and the protective charms of the angakkuq, she would probably have a broken leg or a shattered pelvis. But as it is, when she eventually skids to a stop, there is nothing but ripped fabric and a few nascent bruises to show for her misadventure.
She can smell the water close at hand. She hears the lapping waves and instinct tells her that she is close. This is the place that the eagle saw from high up in the clouds. This is the spot where she must confront the tuurngaq. Bargain with him. Try to outwit him. Offer herself as a sacrifice if all else fails.
The ice below her is slick and she has to be careful not to lose her footing. After a hundred paces, she makes out the faint outline of something spectral. It is the tuurngaq in the shape of the qalupalik and he lets out a sinister chortle as she draws in close. He doesn’t have the power of speech, but she understands him nonetheless. He says, “You have arrived at last. We have been waiting for you.” Panuk’s spirit is almost spent, writhing on the ground in front of him.
“I beg you to release him.” Uki’s voice has a tremor in it that gives away her fear. “He is only a child. He did not mean to show you disrespect.”
The tuurngaq laughs again. His teeth are rotten fangs. His skin sags in bulbous lumps.
“Please, he does not understand the wrong that he has done you in your death. He was too young to be out on the hunt. I should never have let him go.”
The tuurngaq just eyes her with a look of sniggering derision.
“The bladder of your former body is safe,” she says. “We can perform the dance of nakaksuk and bring you peace from your torment.”
If anything, the demon’s laugh becomes harder at that, barbed like the spikes of a hunter’s snare.
“You will take an exchange.’ This is her last hope. “My spirit for his. And since I am a woman of many years, my soul will sustain you much better than his ever could.”
At this, the tuurngaq falters. Behind his cruel eyes, the offer is being weighed.
“I have the flight of the eagle,” she tells him. “Imagine what it would be like to soar in the heavens rather than plunging into the ice-cold sea.”
When he reaches out, she gives herself willingly. The bargain struck, she stands with her arms apart and waits for the splintering. The tuurngaq’s bony fingers are not so different from those of the ahkiyyini. There is a shock at their touch. Her insides clench as he tries to take what she has promised.
From the corner of her eye, Panuk’s spirit solidifies and then shatters into a thousand pieces like the embers of a fire. At peace, she knows that her mission has been successful. Committed to her fate, she waits for the separation of body and soul. She hopes it will not be too painful.
But nothing happens.
The tuurngaq looks at her with hatred as if she has played a trick. He sees the amulet around her neck and lets out a piercing scream. His legs are melting into the ice below. The shape of his torso is twisting and contorting in a writhing mass. His face is crossed by a look of understanding. And Uki understands, too. By willingly sacrificing herself, she has appeased the anirniq in the sky. Her mother’s love was strong enough to win back Panuk’s soul without losing herself in the bargain. That is why the angakkuq told them it must be her.
The return journey takes several days. She can hardly hold herself upright when, finally, she reaches the camp. But there is Panuk waiting for her, a full beam of welcome on his lips, the warrior blue returned to his eyes. And in that moment, she is the eagle once more, gliding above the clouds.