Perhaps I am cursed.
A flicker of light in the sky drew my attention. There. In the midst of the red aurora, a bright, searing line sliced its way across the sky. It streaked past us, then disappeared beyond the horizon in a glittering trail.
My heart caught in my throat. My hand buried deeper in Ataneq’s fur, and a dot of excitement lit up my sorrow. A falling star.
Never in my life had I seen one as bright as this, like a white-gold fire against the night. I searched the sky, half-expecting another to come. But the rest of the stars stayed where they were, and the tundra fell back into stillness. Wind gusted past me, and I huddled against the thickness of my furs. My eyes lingered on the horizon where the falling star had disappeared.
Slowly, my thoughts began to flow into a river of calm, and the calm brought me focus. My mother’s voice came to me.
When hunters are lost at sea, the Seal King turns them into seals. When sledders are lost in the tundra, Nanuk the Great White Bear takes them in and turns them into her cubs. Their spirits stay protected in the animals’ bodies until the night a falling star comes to take them away into the sky.
Then, my father’s voice.
The spirits will guide you, if you take only what you need and respect them in their domain. Even in the darkest night. Remember that, Yakone, and you will never be lost.
I remembered. I raised one hand and traced the line that my father had traced that evening, connecting the stars of the First Ones to the Caribou. It was the same path that the falling star had followed, as surely as if my father had drawn it himself.
It would not be an easy journey. Following the coastline would take far too long, so we would have to head into the tundra and rely on the constellations. This was a risk in itself. If a blizzard caught us, it would bury us. With nothing but the same white expanse in all directions and a sky shrouded by clouds, even the greatest tracker could lose himself and freeze to death.
But Father had taught me what he would have taught a son, and Mother had taught me what a daughter should know. The thought kept me warm, even as I looked to the bleak trek ahead.
I looked down at Ataneq. “We will follow the falling star and find the village,” I murmured. His ears flicked forward at my voice. “And when we complete the star’s path, my parents’ spirits will be free to rest.”
I jerked awake, not because of the weak light but because the dogs were barking.
I scrambled out from the warmth of my furs to see Ataneq facing the way we’d come, his hackles up and his bark punctuated by growls. The other dogs, restless because of their leader, did the same. I saw what unsettled them. Far along the horizon, a band of dark clouds crouched . . . and as I looked on, they crept forward, bit by bit, headed in our direction.
Fear jabbed at me. A winter storm, just as I’d feared. If we couldn’t outrace it, it would blot out what little sun we had, it would hide the stars, and it would freeze us where we stood. It would kill us. I whirled to face Ataneq.
“Let’s go,” I murmured.
The sun moved, and we moved. Afternoon lengthened into an early evening, and the sun set a little earlier than it had the day before. We ran through the lengthening darkness, following the stars, until I stopped us in exhaustion. Hurriedly, I gathered what little dried moss I could, then started a fire. The warmth reassured me somewhat as I wiggled my frozen fingers and toes before it. Behind us, the band of dark clouds loomed, closer now than it had been this morning. A part of me wanted to jump up and force the dogs onward — force us on through the entire night. But that was impossible. We needed to rest. I untied one of the maktak packages from the sled, thawed it out before the fire, and sliced it up for the dogs. I kept a piece for myself. My eyes closed as I savored the rich fat. I would have to be careful with our portions. I finished mine, then crawled into my furs. The clouds loomed in the back of my thoughts, haunting me. If we couldn’t beat the storm, all the food supplies in the world wouldn’t save us.
A strange noise woke me this time. It was the sound of a splash.
I opened my eyes and looked over at the dogs, but they did not stir. The fire had burned low, and the embers glowed red in the night. Ice crystals flaked from my lashes. I shivered. Perhaps I had been dreaming.