Ivory Carver 02 - My Sister the Moon (25 page)

WOMAN OF THE SKY FOUND HER ON THE BEACH. Kiin was crouched down, clasping her knees, grinding her teeth against the pain. 

"Tugidaq?" Woman of the Sky said, and Kiin felt the woman's hand on her head. "How long have you had the pain?" 

Kiin could not answer, could barely understand Woman of 
the Sky's words, but then the pain passed and Kiin looked up. "Several days. Hard since this morning." 

Woman of the Sky glanced at the haze of light that showed the sun's place in the clouds. "Do you feel the need to push?" 

"No," Kiin said. "Only the pain." 

Another pain came. It drew Kiin back into the darkness at the center of her mind. Then her spirit said, "Samiq." And the name was like an amulet, something to hang on to, something to hold Kiin above the pain. 

"The birthing shelter is ready?" Woman of the Sky asked. 

And when the pain had ended, Kiin said, "Yes." She had spent the last few days building the framework, layering mats over the poles that the Raven had cut from a stand of willow, taller than a man, that grew in a sheltered place in the valley tundra between mountains. He had brought her five willows, dragged them out, three on his right shoulder, two on his left, and Kiin had set them back beyond the village, away from the wind, out of the path of smoke that rose from the roof holes of the ulas. 

She bound the willows at the top as she had seen her mother bind the driftwood poles of the bleeding shelter, then Kiin layered mats over the poles and sewed grass over the mats in an overlapping thatch that would keep out rain or snow. 

Inside, she put the things a mother would need: sealskins, softly napped, to wrap the babies; old mats to soak up the blood of the birth; full water skins; and a seal stomach of dried fish—the humpback fish that Kiin had not tasted until she had come to the Walrus People—a summer fish so that Kiin would not curse hunting by eating flesh of fish or animal that was caught during the time of the birth. 

She had a woman's knife to cut the babies' birth cords and sinew thread to bind the cords so they would not bleed. Woman of the Sun had given her a basket full of soft moss, good to pad a baby's carrying strap and absorb a child's wastes. She had oil to clean and soften the babies' skin, and dried nettle leaves to steep for tea, the leaves something the Raven had bought from traders, the leaves more difficult to 
get than even nettle twine and good to help the afterpains of childbirth. 

Woman of the Sky pulled Kiin to her feet, held her up during the walk to the birthing shelter, and when Kiin was inside, Woman of the Sky went to get Woman of the Sun. 

When the two sisters returned, Kiin had her eyes squeezed shut against a pain. The pain ended, and Kiin saw that the sisters were tying the ends of a thick braided cord of sealskin strips to the shelter's willow poles. Woman of the Sun pulled the cord over to Kiin. "Hold on to it," she said, wrapping Kiin's fingers around the braid. "When a pain comes, pull. Your shelter is strong enough to stand, even against all your strength, and your pulling will help push the babies into the world." 

The pains came again, harder, faster, until Kiin was so tired that it all seemed as though she were living in a world of half-sleep. Dimly she heard Woman of the Sky's chant: pull, breathe, pull, breathe, breathe, breathe, pull. And through the words, through the pain, Samiq's face, Samiq's name, Samiq's voice. In the pain Kiin forgot all else—forgot that she was Amgigh's wife, forgot the Raven, forgot Lemming Tail, forgot Qakan, forgot the Walrus People—remembered only Samiq, Samiq, Samiq. 

The babies came in the night, under the rise of the full moon. Kiin felt the pressure of the first head in her birth canal; then a different kind of pain, this time worse, the tearing of skin, the wideness of the baby as it passed from her body. Then quiet, no pain, the murmurings of the old women. 

At the baby's sudden cry, Kiin called out, "No!" For her first thought was that Woman of the Sun or Woman of the Sky had used their knives against her son. Then Woman of the Sun held the child up, and Kiin saw that the boy was whole and strong. 

"Remember, Tugidaq," said Woman of the Sky, "one is cursed." 

"Listen to the spirits. They will tell you which one," Woman of the Sun said as the baby wailed. 

But Kiin saw no curse, only her son, only the long fingers 

and toes, the fine straight hair, the short wide nose of the baby's father: Amgigh. "No curse," she said. "No curse." 

Then again the pain, this time so sudden that Kiin could not keep from crying out, and so her second son was delivered to his mother's screams, and when Woman of the Sky held the child for Kiin to see, she closed her eyes in sudden joy at the wide shoulders, the thick black hair, the slant of the gull-wing brows. Samiq's son. Samiq's son. No curse. No curse. 

Kiin sat holding her babies. Already she had forgotten her pain. She had forgotten her fear of the curse that had been a part of each day's wait while she carried her sons. She had forgotten her dread when Woman of the Sky first held each of the babies for Kiin to see, her fear that she would see babies with features like the fish that sometimes washed up on the beach, huge and scaley with bellies as white as dead man's skin. 

To calm her dread, Kiin had told herself it would be enough to be alone in the birthing hut, without the Raven's orders, without Lemming Tail slapping her or pinching her. 

Also, since the Raven had seen her whale tooth shell, he demanded that Kiin carve. Each day, he brought in driftwood from the beach, and Kiin, using a small crooked knife, carved. And as she carved she saw that her knife brought forth the same misshapen animals her father had carved. 

And though Kiin held the true image of the animal in her mind, her fingers could not make what she saw come to life. There was always some flaw, one eye larger than the other, one paw too small, flippers turned the wrong way, but the Raven was pleased with her work, grunted his approval, and each night he collected her carvings, wrapped them in soft pieces of furred sealskin and packed them in baskets. He had even brought her a piece of walrus tusk, and Kiin had carved it into an ornament for his hair. 

Lemming Tail hated Kiin's carvings, and she often taunted Kiin about their ugliness. Kiin was ugly also, Lemming Tail said, too ugly to be in Raven's bed. Did Kiin think he would take her as true wife once the babies were born? No. He did 
not want her. He wanted only the two sons Woman of the Sun had said Kiin would bear. But Kiin only smiled and wondered why Lemming Tail should care. Yes, the carvings were ugly. It amazed her that only she and Lemming Tail should be able to see that. 

But though the carvings were ugly, Kiin knew she was not ugly. Men do not give up so many furs for an ugly woman. And Lemming Tail herself should know that the Raven took only beautiful wives. Lemming Tail was beautiful, her eyes not dark, but a golden brown, her hair with flecks of red in its blackness. And what of Yellow-hair? Was she not beautiful, her body as graceful as water falling? So Kiin knew she was not ugly, though as the days passed she had grown clumsy and large-bellied with her two sons. 

But now, in the birth hut, she did not have to carve. Now she was alone and could make up songs, could sing and nurse her sons. But most of her joy came from seeing that one of her sons looked like Samiq and the other like Amgigh, neither at all like Qakan. So in that way, she loved them both, seeing no curse in their perfect arms and hands, in the long fingers and toes of Amgigh's son, his thin straight hair and long legs; in the strong wide shoulders of Samiq's son, in his large hands, his thick hair. 

No curse, she said. No curse. Why should she have worried? Qakan was not strong enough to curse sons given by Amgigh and Samiq. Qakan had given no curse, and if he had not cursed these sons then how could she believe he had cursed her? She would return to her own people, yes, in some way, she would return. When she was strong again, before she had to go back to the Raven's ulaq, she would leave the birth hut in the night, bind the babies under her suk and steal an ik. She would return to the First Men. Yes, it would take her all spring, all summer, but who had paddled most of the way last summer? Not Qakan. 

She would take her babies back to the First Men. Amgigh would be proud to have a son, and when Samiq returned from the Whale Hunters, he, too, would see that Kiin had given him a son. And what greater gift can a woman give? 

THREE DAYS AFTER THE BIRTH, WOMAN OF THE 
Sky came to Kiin's hut. The babies were asleep, each one in a cradle hung from the willow poles. 

The Raven had made the cradles, each a rectangle of wood with a length of sealskin attached to the long sides to form a sling that held the baby in the center of the rectangle. Each wooden side was like one direction of the wind—east the direction of new life; south the direction of the sun; west, death; and north, the place of the Dancing Lights. 

"They sleep?" Woman of the Sky asked while still standing in the door of the hut. 

Kiin nodded, "Yes, Grandmother." 

"Good," the old woman said, but for the first time since Kiin had known her, Woman of the Sky seemed nervous, unsure of what she should say, her hands twisting themselves together, her eyes blinking too rapidly. 

"The spirits have spoken to you?" she asked. 

With a trembling that made Kiin's heart work in short, hard beats, Kiin answered as though she did not know what Woman of the Sky meant. "N-no," she said and tried to smile, tried to act as any woman, mother of two sons, would act. 

Woman of the Sky came into the birth hut and sat cross-legged on the grass mats of the floor. The oil lamp gave out a puff of smoke as the door flap settled into place. 

"Kiin," Woman of the Sky said, her voice firm, her eyes so dark that even the flames of the lamp did not show in their depths, "one of your sons is evil. One has to die." 

"No," Kiin said, her voice loud. "My s-s-sons are not evil. 

You c-can s-s-see that neither belongs to Qakan. If you knew my husband, you would s-see that the first born is his, in all ways he belongs to my husband. If you knew my husband's brother, S-S-Samiq, you would see that the s-second bom belongs to him. In all ways he is Samiq, even in the st-strength of his cry, the thickness of his hair." 

"And why should this second bom belong to Samiq?" Woman of the Sky asked and bent close to Kiin, peering into her eyes. 

"Samiq has n-no wife and was s-sent to the Whale Hunter tribe to learn to hunt... to hunt the whale. My husband Amgigh sh-shared me with Samiq for a n-night as a comfort before he left." 

Woman of the Sky nodded. 

"My s-s-sons are as all m-m-men, with good and evil m-mixed, the choice to be theirs, not s-something decided by s-some spirit before they were bom," Kiin said, and the heat of her words rose and stirred the air near the cradles until Amgigh's son began to cry. 

Kiin stood and pulled the baby from his cradle. The baby's carrying strap was still slung under Kiin's suk, the strap fitting over Kiin's shoulder, across her back and under her other arm. Kiin slipped the baby into the wide section of the strap so it supported the baby's back and head and ran between his legs. Kiin pushed her nipple into his mouth. 

"My sister's dreams are never wrong," Woman of the Sky said. "And she saw this before you came to us. Did she not say you would have two babies? Did she not say they would be sons?" 

But Kiin would not look at the woman, would not lift her eyes to the brown and wrinkled face. 

For a long time Woman of the Sky sat without speaking, but finally, when Samiq's son began to cry and Kiin stood to take him from his cradle, Woman of the Sky stood also, and before Kiin could take the crying infant into her arms, Woman of the Sky picked him up from the cradle. For a time, she stood holding the child, rocking him until he no longer 
cried, then she looked at Kiin, and Kiin saw there were tears on the old woman's face. 

"All my sons except Ice Hunter died when they were babies," she said, her voice a whisper. "Kiin, Woman of the Sun has had no dream on this, but my own spirit tells me that this baby is the evil son, this child with the dark hair is the one who will bring destruction." 

Kiin said nothing, only reached for Samiq's son, held the baby close so the feathers of her suk lay soft against his bare skin. 

"I will leave now," Woman of the Sky said, and she spoke in the Walrus tongue. 

"G-g-go, then," Kiin said, speaking also in the Walrus tongue, but her throat closed so she could not say the rest of the words: Come again to visit. 

Woman of the Sky left, closed the door flap behind her, but Kiin still felt the woman's presence and knew she was standing outside the hut. Finally she called in to Kiin, "Let your spirit speak to you. Let it tell you what is true. Would you curse us, the people who have let you become one of us?" 

Kiin slipped Samiq's son into his carrying strap. No, I would not curse you, she thought. But do not ask me to kill one of my sons. Do not ask me. 

"Wife," someone called. 

Kiin, in her dreams, thought the voice was Amgigh's, and for a moment she was again in Kayugh's ulaq. Then she opened her eyes and when the voice came again, she knew it belonged to the Raven. 

"Husband," she answered, keeping her voice low so she would not awaken the babies, "I am here." 

"Come out," he said. 

And Kiin, surprised that he would ask such a thing, answered, "Take care for your weapons. I st-still bleed." 

She heard him shuffle back from the hut, then she crawled outside and was surprised to see that the night had nearly ended, the sun already red on the horizon. 

"I have spoken to the old women, Grandmother and Aunt," 
he said, and his words brought dread to Kiin's spirit, a heaviness that made her want to hide in the dark shadows near the hut. 

"Your p-power is st-stronger than theirs," Kiin said, spitting out the words in anger. 

And the Raven surprised her by answering, "Yes, my power is stronger. You should not kill your sons. They are my sons also, do not forget. I traded a good woman for you. You must do as I say." 

Kiin lowered her head, did not let herself see what was in her husband's eyes. So, if her husband told her she should not kill her sons, could she disobey? She was wife. She must do as her husband said. 

"T-t-tell the Grandmother I m-must obey my husband. I am wife. Tell the Aunt I m-must d-do as my husband says." 

Low and soft on the wind, Kiin heard the beginning of the Raven's laughter. Low and soft on the wind, she heard the sound as the Raven turned and walked away from the birth hut. 

And though, as she went back into the hut, she heard nothing from her own spirit, heard no voice agreeing or disagreeing, a song came, whispering at her from the peak of the willow poles: 
 will not choose for my children, Which son is evil and which is good. What mother could choose between two sons? What mother could choose? 

Each son will decide for himself. 

Each must choose as every man chooses. 

As Amgigh and Samiq chose. 

Then she heard the murmur of her spirit. The voice, still and small, singing from within: "As the Raven chose."