Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars (16 page)

“I’d like a pretty willow tree just like this one,” the she-cub said. “And I’d swish my branches to say hello to any bears who came by.”

“
I
want to be the tallest tree in the forest, an oak or a pine, overlooking all the other trees. When the wind blows, my branches will
roar
!” King said.

He reared up and waved his forepaws in the air and nearly lost his balance, staggering around to stop himself from toppling over.

“Watch out!” his mother exclaimed, with a huff of amusement. “There’s a big, big tree falling down!”

Lusa wondered whether her father’s spirit had made it into a tall tree. She hated the thought of him being stuck forever in the Bear Bowl.
He needs more trees to look at, not just walls and flat-faces.

The two cubs were chasing each other around the clearing, while their mother looked on. Lusa bunched her muscles, ready to spring out and join in the fun, but before she could move, a warm shoulder brushed against her.

“Wait, little one,” a voice murmured. “One day you will go home, but not yet.”

Lusa turned her head and saw Arcturus, the giant starry bear who had visited her in her dreams before. Stars sifted through his pelt, and his eyes burned with soft fire.

Gently Arcturus nudged Lusa away from the edge of the clearing and back into the woods. The sunlight vanished, and shadows gathered thickly under the trees, while a cold breeze sprang up, sending icy claws deep into Lusa’s fur.

“Where are we going?” she wailed.

“You will find out,” Arcturus promised.

His voice faded, and Lusa woke to find herself in the dark scoop in the snow, pressed up against Ujurak and Toklo. Arcturus’s wild, starry scent clung to her fur, and the happy voices of King and his sister still rang in her ears.

Lusa let out a sigh. She was sad to be wrenched away from the dream forest, but she felt better knowing that Arcturus was always watching over her.

I’ll live in a forest again one day,
she comforted herself.
Arcturus said so.

Chapter Seventeen

Kallik

Kallik woke with her body curled
around Kissimi; the little cub had snuggled deep into her fur, his snuffly breath warming her belly. Stars still shone above her head, though on the horizon she could just make out the first faint glimmer that heralded the dawn.

Is one of those stars my mother, watching me?
she wondered, gazing at the glittering points of light.
If you’re there, why can’t I see your spirit dancing?

But Kallik soon dismissed thoughts of her mother, looking down instead at the cub pressed so closely against her. The spirit lights weren’t as important to her now that she had Kissimi. Nothing mattered more than keeping him safe and alive.

“Those white bears mustn’t find you,” she murmured, burrowing into his fur with her snout. “I saved you. You belong to me now.”

Even while she was speaking, Kallik realized how thin and weak the cub was.
I’ll hunt for him later,
she thought.
He needs meat, not plants. That’s the right food for white bears.

A few bearlengths away she could hear sounds from the hollow den where the other bears were waking up. Nudging Kissimi onto her shoulders, she rose to her paws and headed in that direction. Her cub barely roused, just letting out a whimper and lapsing into sleep again.

Her three friends raised their heads to gaze at her as she padded up; the air was heavy with tension, as if a storm were about to break.
I don’t care,
Kallik told herself firmly, bracing herself for their hostility.
It doesn’t matter if they’re not my friends anymore. I have Kissimi.

“I’m going to hunt,” she announced.

“And I’ll check that we haven’t been followed,” Toklo added. “The wind has covered our pawprints, but our scent is still in the air,” he finished, wriggling out of the den and heading back in the direction they had come the night before, his snout raised to sniff the air.

Kallik thought that he looked more anxious than usual, however much he tried to hide it.
He feels responsible for us,
she realized.
And I can smell fear-scent on him.
A pang of guilt shook her, that she had put Toklo in the position of having to protect her from the other white bears.

But I had no choice,
she protested inwardly.
I
won’t
let them have Kissimi!

Lusa and Ujurak scrambled out after Toklo and stood on the edge of the hollow, casting uneasy glances at Kallik.

A heavy weight settled in Kallik’s belly, and she faced Ujurak. “I had to run away with Kissimi!” she defended herself. “Unalaq might have eaten him! That’s what happens with male bears, sometimes.”

Ujurak just gazed at her with limpid eyes, waiting for her to finish. Kallik’s hot defiance faltered, and she had to look away.

“You think I’m wrong, don’t you?” she asked shakily. “You think I should have given Kissimi back.”

“You have made him part of your destiny,” Ujurak said, still with the same serious gaze. “You cannot change that now.”

Kallik felt a stab of alarm. “But what about our destiny? Have I reached the end of my journey?”

Ujurak didn’t reply to her directly, swinging his head around to include Lusa as he spoke. “The end is close. I feel it like a storm building inside me. Something is going to happen.”

“What?” Kallik took a couple of pawsteps forward, bringing her within a muzzlelength of Ujurak. “What will happen? Is it about the spirits in the sky? Will they come back?”

Ujurak was silent for a long time. “I’ll hunt with you,” he said at last. “We’ll find some food for Kissimi and ourselves.”

“And I’m going to look for plants. You can leave Kissimi in the den,” Lusa added, with a return to something of her old friendliness. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Kallik blinked at her gratefully, feeling guilty for the way that her love for Kissimi was straining her friendship with the others. “Thanks, Lusa.”

Relief that her friends were still supporting her filled Kallik as she and Ujurak set out across the bleak landscape. A few tufty bushes appeared, stretching their twigs above the snow, and they sniffed around them for traces of hare.

“Musk oxen have been here,” Ujurak murmured, and pointed with his snout at the faint traces of hoofprints still visible in the snow.

“Yes. But we’d never bring one down when it’s just us,” Kallik said regretfully. She prodded hopefully at the snow, but there was no sign of prey. “Why don’t you turn into a hare?” she suggested. “Then you’ll be able to track down their burrows under the snow.”

Ujurak shook his head. “Today I want to hunt as a bear,” he told her, with no explanation.

Kallik was opening her jaws to complain when a flicker of movement caught her attention. “A hare!” she exclaimed, making out the shape of its white body and the black tips of its ears, which bobbed up and down as it ran.

Ujurak launched himself after it, and Kallik followed, veering away in a wide circle to come at the hare from a different direction. The chase led them into a valley with low ridges on either side, the ground uneven with snow-covered rocks and clumps of thorns growing among them.

The hare was fleeing from Ujurak, but it hadn’t noticed Kallik, who began to home in on it. Ujurak let out a roar, panicking the hare still further. It dodged around a thornbush and raced straight for Kallik.

But just as Kallik was bracing herself to spring on it, something zipped past her head. The hare let out a squeal and fell, jerking, to the ground. A moment later it went limp; Kallik saw a stick poking out of its body, sending a trickle of blood into its white pelt.

“What happened?” she asked, bewildered.

As Ujurak skidded to a halt nearby, Kallik raised her snout to sniff the air, and froze at the scent she picked up. “No-claws!” she exclaimed. “We should get out of here.”

Both bears backed off from the hare lying still in the snow. Something moved in the corner of Kallik’s eye, and she spotted a no-claw in white pelts emerge from behind a snowy rock. He let out a shout and waved his forelegs as if he was trying to chase the bears away.

At the same moment a harsh caw sounded behind Kallik. She turned her head to see a raven fly up from a bush and circle over their heads; she guessed the noisy no-claw had startled it.

And he’s wearing the pelt of a white bear,
she thought, drawing her lips back in a snarl of outrage.

“Kallik, come on,” Ujurak called to her. “Let the flat-face have his prey.”

“That was
our
prey,” Kallik retorted. “Are you starting to favor no-claws since you became one?”

Ujurak shook his head. “Don’t be cloud-brained,” he said mildly. “We can find another hare just as easily.”

Still grumbling under her breath, Kallik headed farther along the valley, only to halt as Ujurak called to her again.

“Wait a moment. I want to see where that white-pelted flat-face came from.”

Kallik turned to see Ujurak climbing the ridge at the side of the valley where the no-claw had appeared. With an annoyed shrug she headed toward him and caught up at the top of the ridge.

“Look at that!” he exclaimed.

Peering down, Kallik spotted a collection of small snowy humps with tunnels leading into the side. Some of the humps were linked by more tunnels. The smell of no-claws and burning meat drifted up to her. “What are those?” she asked, baffled. “Hills?”

Ujurak didn’t reply; his gaze was rapt, fixed on the scene below as if he was completely fascinated by it.

Then Kallik saw a no-claw emerging from one of the tunnels.
Those humps must be no-claw dens,
she realized,
but I’ve never seen anything like them before.
“I guess they build their dens out of snow here,” she muttered. “Just like us.”

Ujurak still didn’t respond. Above their heads the raven let out another harsh caw, then swooped down to the cluster of snow-dens. Ujurak’s gaze followed its flight.

“We should go.” Kallik shifted her paws restlessly. “What if the no-claws see us? They obviously hunt bears as well as hares. I don’t want to end up as a no-claw’s pelt!”

Ujurak didn’t move; it was as if Kallik hadn’t spoken.

“We haven’t finished hunting, remember?” she said impatiently, giving the brown bear a prod in the side.

Huffing in annoyance, she realized that she wasn’t getting through to Ujurak.
Fine! If he wants to stand there staring at birds and little snowy hills, he can do it by himself!

She stomped off down the hillside into the valley and began casting about for the scent of hare. Soon she spotted tiny pawprints in the snow and started to follow them, her snout close to the snowy surface of the ground.

Then a little way ahead Kallik saw a tiny dark blob.
A hare’s nose! Yes!
As she hurtled forward, the hare sprang up and fled, but frustration gave Kallik extra speed. The hare swerved around an outcrop of rock; Kallik caught up with it and killed it quickly with a paw slamming into the back of its head.

The scent of fresh prey made her belly growl, but Kallik knew that she had to save the hare for Kissimi. She glanced around, thinking that she knew the right direction, and headed back to the den.

But the valley didn’t open up into the flatter area where they had dug the den, as she had expected. Instead Kallik found herself trekking deeper into the gently undulating terrain, with no landmarks or trails to follow. Turning, she began to retrace her pawsteps, still carrying the hare. Its scent and taste flooded her jaws with water; all her instincts were telling her to stop and eat, but she forced herself to go on, keeping the prey for her cub.

There was still no sign of the makeshift den, or any familiar shapes in the snow-covered ground. Kallik tried a different direction, feeling foolish and angry and tired all at once.

If I just gave up and lay down,
would I turn into a tiny hill of snow like those no-claw dens? But then, what would happen to Kissimi?
she wondered.

Suddenly panic stabbed through Kallik, tearing at her like huge claws.
Maybe I can’t find the den because the white bears found them and killed them all!

She began to run, faster and faster, even though she had no idea where she was going. Her panting breath billowed out in clouds, which thickened around her until she was running through mist. Soon she couldn’t see a single pawstep in front of her, and she felt the presence of another bear, keeping pace beside her through the fog.

“Ujurak?” she asked nervously. “Yakone?”

“Don’t be afraid, little one,” a voice whispered. “You are not lost. I am here.”

Kallik halted, taking a huge shuddering breath as she recognized the voice of her mother. Turning to face Nisa, she could just make out a white shape, barely visible through the mist.

The one question Kallik wanted to ask tumbled from her mouth. “Did I make a terrible mistake, taking Kissimi?”

Nisa’s voice was gentle as she replied in the words Ujurak had used. “You have made him part of your destiny. Every step you take is one you have chosen; remember that.”

“But I couldn’t leave him!” Kallik wailed. “Not without his mother!”

Nisa’s warm eyes gleamed in the mist. “Ah, you were thinking of me, weren’t you? But you and Taqqiq had no one to take care of you. Kissimi has other bears.”

“But I don’t,” Kallik whispered, feeling a terrible loneliness opening up inside her. “Not white bears, not you, and not my brother.” Longing to be with others of her kind washed over Kallik and mingled with guilt as she remembered how she had left Taqqiq behind.

“Taqqiq chose his own path,” Nisa told her; her warm breath drifted over Kallik, bringing her comfort. “Just as you chose yours. And you still have a choice about Kissimi. . . .”

Nisa’s voice began to fade on the last words. Kallik realized she could no longer see the white shape through the mist. Then a wind rose, swirling the mist away, revealing a bare hillside, where Kallik stood with the hare in her jaws. Above her the sky was white and empty, with no sign of the spirits.

Was my mother really with me just now?
Kallik wondered.
Or did I dream her?

As she stood still in confusion, she felt a tug on her fur and recognized her bond with Kissimi, calling her back. A swell in the land in front of her looked familiar. Lowering her head against the wind, Kallik began trudging back to the den.