Fire in the Sky

  Toklo boosted Ujurak up and then let Kallik help him out of the water. Both brown bears immediately slipped and scrabbled across the ice, crashing into Lusa and ending up in a wet pile of fur. Lusa whoomphed with amusement from underneath Toklo.

  “It’s a little slippery,” Kallik said, realizing she should have warned them.

  “Oh, is it?” Toklo roared.

  “You just have to move slowly at first!” Kallik said. She hurried over to untangle her friends.

  “I can’t even stand up!” Toklo grumbled, thudding onto his side again. He collected his paws underneath him, braced himself, and tried to shove himself upright. Immediately all four paws shot in different directions and he sprawled face-first onto the ice.

  “I’m glad you think this is so funny!” he huffed at Lusa, who was rolling in the snow, chuffing with laughter. “How are we supposed to travel if we can’t even walk?”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Kallik promised. She leaned against him to support him until he was standing upright, looking wobbly. “Here, spread out your paws and slide them one at a time, like this. Focus on keeping your balance lower than your belly, so that you’re almost bending your legs.” She leaned from one side to the other and skated across the ice. It felt so natural to her that for a moment she was a cub again, and she looked back to see if her mother was watching. But there were no white bears here, just three bedraggled heaps of dark fur with huge baleful eyes and dripping muzzles.

  Toklo looked unimpressed. “Hmmph,” he grumbled. “Stupid ice.” He tried to slide forward a step like Kallik had and ended up sprawled on his face again.

  Kallik winced. “It also helps if you find rougher patches of ice to walk on, or fresh snow. Those are less slippery, and you can sink your claws in a bit more.”

  Ujurak skated over to her side, looking only a little unbalanced. Kallik wondered if he could use white bear skills without actually becoming a white bear. He certainly seemed to learn the fastest.

  “We’ll get used to it,” he said, inhaling the cold, sharp air. “We just need to practice. Let’s keep walking while it’s still light.”

  “That’ll warm us up, too,” Lusa said through chattering teeth. She yawned and shivered.

  “Come on, sleepyhead,” said Toklo, nudging her.

  Lusa didn’t move. “But how do we know where to go?” she whispered. She gazed at the vast stretch of white ice that surrounded them on three sides. “There are no paths to follow. I can’t even smell anything, my nose is so cold!”

  “Mine, too!” Toklo snorted. He pawed at his snout. “Or maybe there isn’t anything to smell out here.”

  “Are you serious?” Kallik said. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I can smell the sea, and the scent of snow on its way, and the beating warmth of seals waiting for me to catch them, and somewhere far away, other white bears hunting.” She opened her eyes, but her friends were staring at her blankly. “There are all kinds of signs to read on the ice, just like on land,” she insisted. “Right, Ujurak?”

  “Sure,” he said, a little hesitantly. “I mean…I understand the land signs better, but that’s all right, because we have you to read the ice signs.”

  That made Kallik a little nervous. “But you’ll tell me if we’re going the wrong way, right?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t know where we’re supposed to end up or anything like that.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ujurak reassured her. “Just follow your instincts. Do what you would normally do on the ice. I’m sure our path will become clear as we travel.”

  Kallik wasn’t entirely convinced. She wanted to show her friends the amazing world of the ice…but she didn’t want to be the one responsible for finding whatever it was Ujurak thought they were looking for. She didn’t want it to be her fault if they failed to save the wild.

  Lusa lifted one front paw, then the other, peering at the smooth surface underneath her. “It looks so empty,” she said.

  “It’s not empty at all!” Kallik insisted, pushing aside her worries. “Look more closely. What do you see?”

  All four bears dipped their heads to stare into the ice.

  “I see ice,” Toklo growled after a moment.

  Kallik sighed.

  “Bubbles!” Lusa said suddenly. “And…and shadows, maybe? It’s like something is moving inside the ice.” She edged sideways, looking nervous.

  “Exactly!” Kallik cried. “Those are the spirits of dead bears.”

  Lusa didn’t look reassured.

  “Great,” Toklo snorted. “Dead bubbly bears.”

  “No, you don’t understand. They are there to guide me like your spirits guide you in the trees, Lusa, or you in the water, Toklo,” Kallik persisted. “They’re always there, just under your paws, and they show you where the ice is too thin to walk. Sometimes they guide you to the breathing holes of seals, or warn you about danger ahead.” Kallik licked her lips, her mouth watering with anticipation. “You’ll love the taste of seals. Just wait till I catch one!”

  “All right, enough talk,” Toklo grumbled. “Lead the way.”

  Kallik turned and faced the horizon. She was home! This was her world, and now she could show her friends how wonderful it was. She just had to trust that the ice spirits would guide them to their destination, as Ujurak’s spirits had been guiding him.

  She took a deep breath, searching the air for useful smells. Was the seal smell in this direction? It had been so long since she’d smelled it…but the warm, rich, fatty scent made her hungry, even though she could tell it was far away.

  She looked down at the bubbles, hoping they would guide her the way her mother had taught her they would. It seemed as if there were a lot more spirit-bubbles and shadows than she remembered from her childhood on the ice with Nisa. Was she remembering wrong…or was the ice different here? There was less white around the spirit-bubbles, so the ice looked almost black in places. As if it was hardly there at all…

  A chilly breeze rippled through Kallik’s fur. Did that mean lots of white bears had died since she’d last stood on the ice? She thought of all the white bears at Great Bear Lake, heading back toward the rising sun, like Taqqiq. What if they hadn’t made it back to the Melting Sea? Or what if they had made it back, but it hadn’t frozen? They couldn’t have survived forever eating leaves and twigs.

  What if one of these ice spirits was her own brother? How would she ever know?

  Stop worrying, she told herself, shaking her head. This is where you’re supposed to be! You made it back to the ice!

  Thrumming with excitement, she shoved the anxious thoughts out of her mind and padded toward the seal smell, leading the others out into the icy expanse.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kallik

  As they left the water behind them, the ice became less liquid under their paws, and Kallik found more gritty patches for them to walk on without slipping. White hills of snow surrounded them, piled into whorls and crests by the force of the wind. Some of the snowdrifts were higher than Kallik if she’d been standing upright on her back paws; others were barely squirrel-sized mounds. She kept an eye out for other white bears, but she smelled only one or two in the distance, and the falling snow hid any prints that might have been left behind. Once she thought she scented a dead seal, but when she found it, the carcass had been picked clean of any flesh and there was nothing left to eat.

  More snow began to fall, whirling white powder drifting down from the sky and balancing on the surface of the ice, too light to land properly. Kallik almost imagined she could see her mother and brother walking ahead of her in a swirl of the storm. Right now Nisa would be telling them stories of Silaluk, while Taqqiq tried to wrestle Kallik into the snow.

  “Great Spirits, this is boring,” Toklo announced suddenly.

  Kallik jumped, distracted from her memories. “Boring?” she echoed.

  The brown bear scuffed at the snow under his paws. “There’s nothing to smell, nothing to see, nothing to chase. Nothing but whit
e, white, white in every direction.”

  “I think it’s pretty,” Lusa said loyally.

  “And there’s so much to see!” Kallik said. “Every snowdrift is different. Every block of ice has a unique shape, and it’s not even all white…. Look at this one.” She padded over and tapped a large outcropping of ice with one of her claws. A few sparkling shards broke off and landed in the snow. “Can’t you see all the shades of blue and gray and white in there? It’s like a rainbow, but even more beautiful.”

  “I can see them,” Ujurak agreed, peering over his nose at the ice.

  Toklo looked skeptical. “So that’s what you do out here?” he said. “Stare at the ice? That sounds like fun.”

  “We play games, too!” Kallik protested. “Taqqiq and I played the best games! Watch.” She spun around and saw Lusa still gazing intently at the ice block, looking for blue reflections.

  “WALRUS ATTACK!” Kallik suddenly bellowed, throwing herself into the snow beside Lusa.

  “Where?” Lusa shrieked. She leaped back and whirled around, her eyes wild and terrified. “What’s a walrus? Where is it? Why can’t I see it?”

  “No, no, no,” Kallik said, woofing with laughter. “It’s a game. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Taqqiq and I used to play this all the time.”

  “Oh,” said Lusa. She sounded more bewildered than amused.

  “So one of us is the walrus—let’s say Toklo,” Kallik offered. Toklo tossed his head and made a face that he probably thought was walrus-y. “And then as we’re walking along, all of a sudden he jumps up and yells, ‘Walrus attack!’ and chases one of us. If he catches you, then you’re the next walrus. Make sense?”

  “Um…okay,” Lusa said.

  “It’s fun!” Kallik insisted, scrambling up and shaking snowflakes from her ears. She swiped a pawful of snow at Lusa.

  “Yikes!” Lusa yelped as the snow splattered across her ears. At least it seemed to wake her up. “You’ll be sorry now!” she cried, scooping up her own lump of snow and flinging it at Kallik.

  Kallik dodged and galloped out of reach. A pleased chortle rumbled in her throat. But it died when she looked back at the two brown bears: Ujurak trudging along blinded and deafened by his secret thoughts, and Toklo barely keeping his paws under him and growling at every step.

  “If you keep acting like cubs, we’ll never get anywhere before nightfall,” he grumbled. “I’d rather find food than play a silly game.”

  Kallik swallowed. Toklo was right. This wasn’t like her and Taqqiq playing outside their den. Now she had to be like Nisa, keeping the others safe and alive.

  “All right, we’ll just keep walking,” she said. “I smell seal up ahead.” She looked up at the sky and realized that the snow was falling faster, covering the ice more thickly and adding to the drifts in fragile layers that hadn’t yet been carved by the wind.

  “I don’t smell anything,” Toklo answered petulantly, but he pawed snow out of his eyes and followed her without any more arguing.

  They walked for a long time across a landscape that probably looked unchanging to the others, but to Kallik’s eyes showed clear signs that they were getting farther from the water and nearer the thicker parts of the ice: Their pawsteps made dull thuds on the ground rather than slippery whispers, and the ridges of snow were set like rock at the base, worn down by the wind over uncountable seasons. Some of the snow was so hard that Kallik wondered if it had ever melted. Were the stories about the Everlasting Ice true—that it stayed frozen forever? Kallik’s heart sang. I found it, Nisa, Taqqiq! I had faith, and I found it!

  But only she belonged here. Not her companions, with their different-colored fur. As her paws began to ache, Kallik looked back at Lusa, trudging through the snow at a snail’s pace. Toklo walked beside her, glancing at her anxiously. Ujurak was right behind them. Kallik checked the sky again. The sun was starting to sink below the white horizon. It wasn’t late enough for Kallik to feel tired, but the days were shorter than the nights now, which meant less time for hunting, and longer without the warmth of the sun. Lusa was shivering even more as the air grew colder.

  Kallik stopped, thinking: What would Nisa do now? She could smell the seal not far away, but it would still be a while before they reached it, especially at the pace of the other three bears.

  “The days are getting a lot shorter,” Ujurak observed quietly, catching up to her. “The sun is leaving, and earthsleep is coming.”

  “I’m hungry,” Toklo snapped. His shaggy head turned to Kallik. A dusting of snow through his brown fur made him look strangely mottled. “Do your spirit-bubbles have any thoughts on how much farther it is to this seal?”

  Kallik pressed herself up to Lusa. The little black bear was swaying on her paws, her eyes rolling with exhaustion. “I think it’s more important to find shelter now,” Kallik said. “I’ll hunt first thing tomorrow.”

  “Shelter!” Toklo barked, looking around. “There is no shelter out here!”

  “Maybe not the kind you’re used to,” Kallik said. “But here…this will work.” She led the way over to a tall mound of compacted snow, a few pawlengths higher than her head. She tried to remember how Nisa had built their dens. Working steadily, she scooped out pawfuls of snow, packing down the sides so it didn’t collapse in. Soon she had hollowed out a cave in the snow, just big enough for the four of them.

  Lusa tilted her head doubtfully. “We’re going to sleep inside the snow?” she said. “That sounds…freezing.”

  “No, it’s lovely and warm,” Kallik reassured her. “And you’ll be out of the wind. Trust me.”

  Lusa didn’t argue. She climbed inside the cave and curled up in the center, away from the snowy walls. Kallik followed her in and bundled up beside her, trying to share as much of her warmth as she could. She didn’t feel the cold at all yet. To her, it was a relief not to be hot, not to have dirt clinging to her paws all the time.

  Toklo and Ujurak squeezed in next to them until the small space was full of fur. Kallik scraped snow across the entrance until they were neatly tucked in. The heat from their bodies warmed the air inside the cave quickly.

  “Today was fun,” Lusa murmured sleepily. “I like your ice, Kallik.”

  Kallik had a feeling Lusa was just being kind, but she nuzzled her friend’s side in appreciation.

  “I guess it is warm enough in here,” Toklo snorted, resting his head on Lusa’s back. “Surprisingly.”

  Kallik felt Ujurak’s snout flop across her back paws, and Lusa’s ears flicking next to her chin. As she drifted off to sleep, listening to the storm grow stronger outside, she thought of the bear spirits dancing in the sky above them. Like the spirits under their paws, the ones in the sky would watch over them as well.

  This was right. The ice was where they were meant to be.

  The next morning dawned bright and clear. The snowstorm had passed, leaving drifts of sparkling snow across the ice and a brilliant blue sky overhead. Kallik shouldered her way out of the cave, shaking snow off her paws. She took a deep breath. It was beautiful. How could the others not love it here?

  “I’m still hungry,” Toklo grumbled from inside the makeshift den. “Lusa, would you wake up already?”

  Kallik peeked back in and saw him prodding the sleeping black bear with his paw. Ujurak joined in, nosing her from the other side, until Lusa finally blinked awake and rubbed her snout.

  “Great thistles, you’re like bees in my fur,” she complained to the brown bears. “Can’t I sleep just a bit longer?” She buried her head in her paws again.

  “No!” Toklo barked, shoving her with his muzzle. “I’m hungry! Get up so we can eat!”

  “All right, all right, keep your fur on,” Lusa said with a sigh. She slowly got to her paws and stumbled outside, followed by Ujurak and Toklo. “Brown bears,” Lusa whispered to Kallik, shaking her head. “Remind me why we tried so hard to find them again?”

  Kallik woofed with amusement. “Don’t worry about Toklo,” she said. ?
??I’ll find us a seal today. I know I will!”

  She could smell the scent that she’d been following last night; it seemed much closer now that the storm had passed and the air was clear. Keeping an eye on the spirit-bubbles under her paws, Kallik led the way across the snow. They’d been walking only for a short while when she spotted what she was looking for—a hole in the ice. “Look,” she hissed.

  “What is it?” Toklo asked.

  “A seal hole. Wait here.”

  The others sat down and watched her creep across the ice, putting one paw quietly in front of the next. She remembered watching her mother sneak up on a seal’s breathing hole like this. Nisa had looked so sure, so confident. Kallik hoped she looked that way to her friends, too.

  She settled down next to the hole, rested her nose on her paws, and stared intently. She’d need to move as fast as lightning once a seal’s head popped out. It meant focusing all her attention on the hole and not moving a muscle, no matter how long she had to wait. Even the tiniest twitch would warn the seal that she was there. She couldn’t just crouch on the ice; she had to be part of the ice.

  The wind drifted softly across her back, scattering small showers of snow into the air. Kallik stared into the circle of dark water, still and deep and black like the night sky when it was full of clouds and the ice spirits were hidden. One of her paws itched, but she forced herself to keep still.

  She could feel the weight of the other three bears behind her, waiting expectantly. Every time one of them shifted, Kallik felt it like a tremor in the ice. Their restlessness was like ants crawling over her pelt. Didn’t they understand how long this could take? They couldn’t stalk the seal like a hare or a ground squirrel; they had to wait for the seal to come to them.

  “Maybe you should stick your paw in there and see if you can feel anything,” Toklo called. His claws scraped against the ice with a loud squeak.