My mother just shook her head. Already, her eyes seemed more glazed than before. “We’ll go,” she whispered. And even as she clutched my hand, she collapsed in the snow.
The buzzing in my ears turned deafening. It was as if a storm had come, and the snow blew my thoughts away. I refused to leave. I clung there, shaking my mother’s shoulders, even as the sounds of screaming and the crackle of fire roared behind me. The crunch of boots in the snow drew near. Then a hand gripped my shoulder. I let out a yelp, shrank away, and looked up into the face of a young bearded man. He was one of them.
He glanced at the others as they set fire to the village, then looked back at me. I couldn’t understand his words, but his urgent hand gestures were obvious.
Get out of here, child, he was trying to tell me. Then he left my side and ran back to the others.
The world rushed forward again, and I scrambled to my feet and ran for the dogs. I leaned down to secure the harness of the lead dog, Ataneq. He was already panting heavily, and I could see the whites of his eyes. He wants to go, my father would say if he were here. I made sure the harness was set, tugged on the shoulder strap, and stood up on shaking legs.
As the first huts began to go up in flames, I gripped the handlebar and stepped onto the toeboard. I snapped the reins. The dogs lurched forward. Behind us, a couple of men shouted at us in the gusak tongue.
Don’t look back. Still, as the dogs kicked up snow and we fled, I turned one last time. The body of my mother looked like a small, crumpled heap. Flames engulfed the village. Men held torches, going from home to home.
I turned back around on the sled, put my head down, and wept.
We traveled for a long time, until the sounds of destruction faded into the background and the silence of the open ice took over. The sled cut through the snow, and the panting and baying of the dogs echoed ahead of me. I felt numb. Just a few nights ago, I had sat around a fire and laughed with my mother and father. Now they were gone.
We’ll need to stop soon. My first coherent thought since we had fled. Father would have scolded me to keep my wits about me. I pulled back on the reins and whistled — Ataneq slowed to a trot, and the other dogs followed his lead.
The sun was dropping fast, and with it, the temperature. I pulled out heavy furs and set about pitching a tent. I searched for dry moss and branches to build a fire. Frozen droppings clustered here and there. I gathered them together with my mittens, then brought them back to my tent and let them thaw. By the time the sun disappeared completely, I had managed to get a small fire going. I settled, surrounded by my dogs.
Father’s dogs. I glanced up at the sled, where the maktak sat, stacked and neatly bound. We were supposed to make this delivery together. Father would have charted our course, and I would have helped him guide the dogs. We would have hunted and fished together. He would be sitting here with me, telling stories around the fire.
Mother would still be alive.
The memory returned: drops of blood, scarlet against the snow.
I would have washed Mother’s body and braided her hair. I would have wrapped her and Father in sealskins and laid them to rest out in the tundra, buried beneath a mound of stones, so that their spirits could join the lights in the sky.
But Father’s body sank beneath the waves. Mother perished with the village.
My eyes blurred until the fire was a glowing, shapeless mass of gold. The fire’s crackle hid the sounds of my sniffling. Tears ran down my face, freezing at the edges of my cheeks and chin, so that when I reached up to brush them away, I instead found myself flaking away salty ice crystals. Ataneq’s eyes glowed in the night. He pressed his muzzle gently against the side of my leg and uttered a low, mournful whine.
“Why did they come?” I whispered, burying my hand in Ataneq’s thick fur. My words disappeared into the void of the tundra.
Father had never taught me how to get to the next village. Without his guidance, how could I possibly complete the delivery route? How could I find my way there? What if I was caught in a storm?
My dogs and I would die alone out here, buried in snow, never to be found again.
Stop trembling. I pulled my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around my legs. Ataneq’s warm muzzle left my leg, letting the cold seep in. I paused in my thoughts to look at him. He tilted his head and let out a series of low barks. The other dogs stirred.
I turned my head up to see what had caught his attention.
It was the red aurora — sheets upon glittering sheets of crimson and scarlet that painted the night sky and hid swaths of stars. Blood, some in my village called it. Good fortune, my mother insisted. Perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps I’m not. All I could think about was the feeling in my stomach as the hunters returned without my father, and the memory of my mother lying in the snow, red spilling across her furs.
I would not find the village. I would not deliver this maktak, and those villagers would be left wondering what had happened. I would join my parents’ spirits in the sky.