Her breathing slowed as she focused on the hole. Her paws itched as if spirits were bubbling up underneath them, bursting to get out of the ice. But she kept perfectly still, watching and waiting…and then suddenly, much sooner than she’d expected, she was rewarded with a flash of movement in the water.
Instantly she leaped forward and sank her claws into the seal’s blubbery flesh. The rubbery body thrashed under her paws, but her jaws snapped on its neck and the seal went limp. Thrilled, she dragged the carcass up onto the ice beside her, shaking it to make sure it was fully dead. Her mouth watered at the taste of the juicy flesh between her teeth.
She’d done it! She’d caught a seal, just like a real white bear!
Her friends scampered down the slope toward her.
“That was brilliant!” Lusa called.
Toklo’s jaw dropped open when he saw the huge seal carcass, which made Kallik feel warm down to her toes.
“Nice work,” he said, managing to sound admiring rather than grudging. He settled down next to the seal and tore off a piece.
“I knew you could do it,” Ujurak said, and in his voice Kallik could hear the echo of Silaluk’s, encouraging her.
Kallik ripped off a chunk of flesh from the seal’s belly and nudged it toward Lusa. “This is my favorite part of the seal,” she said. “You’ll love it. And hopefully it’ll make you feel better so you won’t be pulled by the longsleep today.”
“Thanks, Kallik,” Lusa said, but her short black nose wrinkled as Kallik pawed the newkill toward her. Kallik watched as Lusa bit off a small strip of meat and chewed slowly. The little bear’s face looked pained, as if she were eating porcupine quills instead of delicious seal.
Disappointed, Kallik bumped her in the side. “You really don’t like it?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” Lusa said, coughing and pawing at her nose. “I think it’s amazing you caught that seal, I really do, but when I put it in my mouth I feel sick all over. I’m afraid if I eat it, my belly will only hurt more.” She blinked mournfully.
Kallik looked up and realized that Toklo was standing next to them with a concerned expression. “You can’t eat any of it?” he pressed.
Lusa shook her head and lay down. Kallik had to admit that her friend looked really ill now. She was thin and tired looking, and her fur was constantly damp from the snow, so she looked even skinnier.
“That does it,” Toklo said abruptly.
Ujurak raised his head from the seal he was eating, his attention caught by the determination in Toklo’s voice. Kallik gave him an uneasy glance. That tone of voice usually meant that Toklo was about to do something he knew they wouldn’t like.
“This isn’t going to work,” Toklo said. “I’m sorry about your quest, Ujurak. But Lusa and I must go back to the land…now.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Toklo
A twisted tower of white-blue ice stuck out of the snow to Toklo’s left, nearly twice as tall as he was when he stood up on his back paws. It loomed over him like a warning, as if it was about to crash down on him and his friends.
Toklo didn’t want to tell the others about his dream, which had apparently been very different from theirs. The gruff brown star-bear who’d come to him had been full of dire predictions. Toklo had woken with an oppressive, prickling feeling in his fur, and the strong sensation that it wasn’t safe out here for any of them, least of all Lusa.
He’d tried to ignore it. No sensible brown bear made decisions based on stupid dreams. That was all they were. Just dreams.
But Lusa’s illness wasn’t a dream. If she couldn’t eat out here on the ice, she would starve, even if they could keep her from falling into the longsleep. Every time Toklo looked at her, he remembered another little bear, sleepy and weak and unable to eat enough to fill his belly. Tobi. His brother had died; Toklo would not let the same thing happen to Lusa. Not if he could do something about it.
“Listen,” he said, clearing his throat. “Uh. Maybe you did see your mother, Ujurak. And maybe you are supposed to go that way.” He nodded at the glowing edge of the sky. “But I’m not.”
“What do you mean?” Ujurak looked disbelieving.
“All I see is ice in every direction, for skylengths and skylengths,” Toklo explained. “Only white bears belong out here. It’s no place for black bears, especially ones who can’t stay awake.”
“I am awake,” Lusa mumbled, without much conviction.
“I’m worried about her,” Toklo went on. “Even if we can keep her awake, she’s not eating the right food. She needs to get back to the land.”
“But the star-bear!” Kallik protested. “You saw it, too, didn’t you? It was a sign to all of us! We’re being watched over by a very special bear who wants to keep us safe.”
Toklo snorted. “Really? Do you feel safe? Does Lusa look safe to you?” He nodded at the black bear, who was trying to stand up and was swaying tiredly on her paws. “No, I’m not trusting my fate to the paws of a strange bear from the stars. We have to take care of ourselves. And for black and brown bears, that means going back to the land.” He gave Ujurak a hard look. “You can do what you like, Ujurak, but my part in your journey is over. Kallik will be able to take care of you now. I’m taking Lusa back to the forest, where she belongs.”
“No,” Ujurak said, looking bewildered. “You can’t leave us. Didn’t your dream tell you to stay? Lusa, what did Arcturus say to you?”
Lusa ducked her head and dug her claws into the snow. “He—I don’t know, it was all so strange. I mean…he told me to follow my instincts. He said the wild would speak to me, and I should listen.” She blinked rapidly. “But I don’t know what that means! I thought it meant to go on with you, but now I’m not so sure. What if the wild is telling me to return to the land for the longsleep? What if not being able to eat the seal means that I’m not supposed to be out here at all?”
“You mustn’t think like that,” Ujurak said. “You are meant to be here, with us. I’m sure of it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I think the wild is telling me I need to live like a black bear. I want to go with Toklo.”
Toklo felt a rush of confidence. It was nice to have someone admit he was right, for once. Kallik and Ujurak looked at Lusa with expressions of shock and dismay on their faces.
“But we have to stay together!” Ujurak cried. “We’re so close now! My mother said we were meant to do this together, and she can’t possibly be wrong.”
“What happened to ‘I’m just a brown bear’?” Toklo snarled. “Now it’s all right to be some mysterious kind of star-bear, too? Well, I’m just a brown bear, thanks very much, and there’s nothing special about me, and that’s the way I like it. I don’t want anything to do with star-bears or whatever strange spirit stuff you’ve got us mixed up in.”
“Toklo, please,” Ujurak said. “We can’t do this without you two.”
“Can’t do what?” Toklo exploded. “You don’t even know why we’re out here! Where are we going? Are we just going to keep walking until the sky ends? This journey is flea-brained, and you know it.”
“It is not!” Ujurak yelled. “My mother said—”
“If your mother is anything like mine,” Toklo growled, “then we shouldn’t be following her anywhere.”
He felt a flash of guilt at the hurt look on Ujurak’s face, but it wasn’t enough to change his mind. The warnings from the star-bear echoed in his head, and he wasn’t going to ignore them, even if it meant fighting with Ujurak. Especially if fighting with him was an easier way to split up the group than trying to explain what he’d heard.
“Fine,” Ujurak said with a deep sigh. “Kallik and I will keep going to where the sun rises. Without you.”
“Oh, Lusa, are you sure?” Kallik said, burying her nose in Lusa’s soft black fur. “I’m worried about you, too…but I don’t want to leave you!”
“I don’t want to leave you, either,” Lusa whimpered, “but I think I have to. I’m so
sorry, Kallik. I really tried.”
“I know you did.” The white bear bowed her head, then looked over at Toklo. “The shore is that way,” she said, pointing with her nose. “Just keep walking until you have to swim. It shouldn’t take long to reach land from there.”
“Good luck,” Lusa said, turning to Ujurak. “I know you can save the wild, Ujurak. You don’t need us.”
The brown bear shook his head, but came over to nuzzle her affectionately. “Be well, Lusa. May the spirits guide your paws safely. I know my mother will be watching over you wherever you are.” He glanced at Toklo. “You too, Toklo.”
Toklo nodded, trying to calm himself down. He didn’t want to leave on bad terms. “I hope we’ll see you again one day,” he grunted.
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” Ujurak replied quietly.
As Ujurak and Kallik returned to the half-eaten seal, Toklo turned his back on the rising sun and led Lusa into the endless whiteness. He hoped Kallik was right that the shore was this way; it seemed no different from any other direction to him. Normally his sense of his place in the world was very clear. This disorientation felt muddling and unsettling. It just confirmed what he had thought all along: Brown bears don’t belong here. He glanced at his companion, stumbling beside him up to her belly in snow. Or black bears.
Lusa often turned to look back at their friends as they disappeared into the edge of the sky, but Toklo kept his head resolutely facing forward. He knew that leaving them was the right thing to do, as surely as Ujurak seemed to know where he needed to go.
The sun rose higher in the wide blue sky, burning away the last few strands of clouds and sparkling across the ice and snow.
“I hope I can catch a seal,” Toklo commented after a while. “Kallik’s reactions must be very fast.”
“So are yours,” Lusa said comfortingly.
“In a river, perhaps,” Toklo agreed. “But out here…well, white bears are made for hunting on the ice.”
“That’s true,” Lusa sighed.
Toklo gave her a searching look. Her eyes were half-closed and her paws dragged along the snow. “Stay awake,” he ordered, nudging her. “We’ll be back on land soon, and then we’ll dig you a den and you can sleep as much as you want.”
“That sounds lovely,” Lusa murmured. Another long pause passed, and he saw her eyelids drooping again.
“Lusa!”
“Well, talk to me, then,” she said irritably. “Say something interesting enough to keep me awake.”
Toklo snorted. “I’m not that interesting,” he said.
Lusa bumped his side affectionately. “Tell me about what happened to you last night,” she prompted. “You saw the star-bear, too, didn’t you?”
“It was just a stupid dream,” Toklo muttered.
“What did the star bear say to you?”
Toklo padded a few steps without saying anything. He didn’t believe in star-bears. It was all nonsense. This was what happened when a bear spent too long on the ice. Suddenly he noticed that Lusa wasn’t next to him anymore. He spun around and saw her slowly lowering her hindquarters to the snow.
“Lusa, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to take a nap,” she announced. “Unless you tell me right now what that star-bear said to you.”
Toklo galloped back to her and poked her with his nose until she stood up again, whuffling with annoyance. “You are one troublesome bear,” he said to her.
“Oh, like you should talk!” she said. She tilted her head at him. “Well?”
“All right, all right, just keep walking,” he grumbled. Pleased, she scampered alongside him, kicking up tiny puffs of snow. At least their little squabble seemed to have woken her up. He sighed. “Don’t be afraid, okay?” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything. But—the bear talked about danger ahead.”
“Sure,” Lusa said. It sounded as if she was trying to be brave. “Of course. There’s always danger.”
Toklo took a deep breath. “He told me that one of us was going to die.”
Lusa froze in place. She gazed at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Oh, Toklo!” she breathed. “No wonder you were so scared!”
“I wasn’t scared!” he protested. “Look at you. You’re struggling out here. I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and it simply makes more sense for us to go back to the land. I don’t need an imaginary star-bear to tell me that. So don’t worry about it.”
She bumped his side again. “I’m not worried.” But there was a tremor in her voice that hadn’t been there before. They walked for a while longer in silence.
Suddenly Lusa’s ears perked up, and she squinted into the distance. “What’s that?” she barked.
Toklo followed her gaze, then stood on his hind legs to try to get a better view. It looked like something large and dark and smooth-edged sticking out of the ice. He couldn’t tell how large exactly. In all the white snow, it was impossible to tell even how far away it was.
“Should we check it out?” he suggested. “It might be food…or it might be dangerous.”
Lusa’s stomach growled. “Sounds like my belly thinks it’s worth the risk,” she joked nervously.
They padded toward the dark shape, watching it grow larger as they drew closer. It was much larger than a bear—larger than any animal either of them had seen before. It was even bigger than many of the flat-face dens that they’d seen. Toklo slowed down once they had a clear view of it. The sides of the creature were flat and smooth, swelling out between a pointed nose and a blunt tail. It loomed above them, casting a shadow that reached toward them like a pool of night spilled on the ice.
“It looks like a giant firebeast,” Toklo whispered. “One of the floating ones.”
“But it’s stuck,” Lusa said. She pointed with her nose at the heavy floes of ice that surrounded the firebeast’s underbelly. “It can’t go anywhere.” They stared at it for a long moment. Nothing moved, on or around the firebeast.
“Maybe it’s dead,” Lusa said. “Like the one we saw near Smoke Mountain. Remember?”
Toklo nodded, picturing the decrepit firebeast they had found on a BlackPath. Like that one, this one had misshapen holes in its flanks and it slumped forlornly to one side. But it was much, much bigger than the other firebeast. It was more like a floating flat-face den, especially since it didn’t seem to be alive. Toklo wondered if flat-faces had firebeasts to push around their floating dens, although he couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t just stay in one place if they had a nice, solid den to put there.
“Surely flat-faces don’t live on the ice?” Lusa wondered, echoing his thoughts.
“Bah,” Toklo grumbled. “Flat-faces get everywhere.”
Lusa sniffed the air. “I don’t smell any, though. Or hear anything like a flat-face. Do you?”
He shook his head. “It might be safe to explore it a little bit,” he said reluctantly. He didn’t particularly want to go near anything to do with flat-faces, but maybe there would be food hidden inside—food that Lusa could eat. If they found something that would be better for her than seal, he was willing to make an exception to his no-stealing-from-flat-faces rule.
Lusa clambered up the side of the ship easily, as if it were a tree in the forest, but it took Toklo a while longer, scrambling and grunting and digging his claws into the holes in the side. By the time he reached the top, Lusa had poked her nose into every crevice and was ready to scamper down into the dark interior.
“Careful!” Toklo called after her.
“Look at all this weird flat-face stuff!” Lusa barked.
Toklo hurried down a strange set of flat, shiny rocks, stacked so that it was easy to jump from one to the other. The light inside the floating den was dimmer than outside, but sunshine filtered through the holes in the side, drifting dustily over the empty spaces. It was almost as cold inside as it was outside. Icicles hung from the roof and white frost covered everything, shimmering in the muted light.
Lusa was in a large space
at one end of a narrow tunnel, sitting up on an odd black flat-face thing with a tall back and a flat round seat under her paws. “Look!” she said when she saw him follow her in. She reached out with her paws and whacked the wall beside her. The thing she was sitting on spun around and around in place.
“Whee!” she cried. “How crazy is that! It spins!”
“I don’t like it,” Toklo grunted.
“Aw, you’re just jealous,” Lusa said, stopping herself against the wall. From her seat, she leaned her front paws on a flat brown surface with four skinny legs. Thin white leaves scattered as she nosed through them. They all had little black squiggles on them. Toklo stepped on one as it fluttered past him. Here the black squiggles were long lines, jagged along the edges, with a lot of white space in between. They looked almost like rivers or shorelines if you could look at them from far above—the way Ujurak described what he saw when he was a bird.
Lusa landed on the floor beside him with a thud, making him jump. “Let’s see what’s at the other end of the tunnel!” she suggested, scampering off to the far end of the den.
“How can you get this excited about flat-face things?” Toklo asked, following her. “Why is this what wakes you up?”
“Instead of your fascinating conversation?” Lusa teased. She poked her nose into the big space at the end. More flat surfaces and strange flat-face things. Lusa went over to something that looked like a wall to Toklo, but when she stood up and pawed at something sticking out of it, it popped open, revealing another space behind it.