Anna, Like Thunder

CHAPTER SEVEN

Poets describe vividly the sensation of the falling heart, but I’ve never experienced it. I know it’s irrational—as if a heart could plummet from heaven, spinning end over end, toward the hard earth and an inevitable, tragic destiny. Only children and the superstitious would believe such fancy. But when the koliuzhi focus their attention on us on the riverbank, I wonder if the poets might be right.

One of the men speaks to us, hard consonants thrown in our faces. Without Timofei Osipovich, we don’t know what he wants. The man’s voice becomes louder, and his lips twist and contort around his words. Does he think we can’t hear? Doesn’t he know that we don’t understand?

Finally, the man growls. He nudges stout Kotelnikov with his knee, then again, and when the apprentice glares at him, the man pulls him roughly to his feet. Kotelnikov cries out, writhes, and tries to get away, but the man won’t let go. “^wόpatichásalas siwáchal, ichaí ax^wó kadídoťsa!”[7] he screams.

Guessing, we rise and stumble into a line behind Kotelnikov—Yakov, Maria, then me. We are led down a rugged path that skirts the river. The paddler from the canoe taps his paddle on the backs of my legs, herding me like I’m a goat.

From the battlefield, there’s neither movement nor sound. Where is everyone? I haven’t seen my husband since the wall of water struck his canoe in the river. Did he drown? Has he been shot and killed? I strain to hear the smallest sound, to see the slightest movement, but it’s as still as a painting across the river Nothing, not even a bird, dares to disturb the calm.

As we advance along the riverbank, we’re also drawing near the sea. I begin to hear its murmur. Its voice grows louder and more insistent the closer we get. Then, beneath it, there’s something else. A faint sound rises, then disappears. Then it’s back. It goes away again. The wind plays games with it, with us, until at last the rhythmic sound swells so that nothing can blow it away. We round a bend in the river and the sound erupts like exploding cannon. What beats like a hundred drums? Roars like a thousand thunder claps? The noise rises through the soles of my feet. It fills my head until I can think of nothing else, then my heart until I believe it’ll burst.

We reach the clearing with the five houses, the one we gazed upon from the opposite shore only a short while ago.

Koliuzhi, perhaps a hundred or more, ring the houses. Everyone strikes the walls with staves, pounding as if intent on demolishing their own homes. Even atop the houses, people lash out with batons violently enough to break the very roofs they stand on. The houses quiver, as if constructed of nothing more than a scrap of cloth or hide stretched over a wooden frame.

Is this their victory celebration?

Across the river, we’d been safe together such a short time ago. Now, in the tall trees and shadows that stretch as far as I can see, there’s no sign of anybody. There’s nothing I wouldn’t expect to see in this overgrown forest—except for some of the sailcloth bundles, white as shells, scattered across the earth, many torn open—is one mine?—and a grey-brown mound collapsed at the foot of a tall tree. I can’t take my eyes away from it. I look for movement, any movement at all. But it’s lifeless.

“That’s not him,” Maria says, leaning near my ear to be heard.

“How do you know?”

“He led the men away. I saw him.”

“Quiet,” Kotelnikov snaps. “You’ll provoke the koliuzhi.”

The drumming stops suddenly, and everyone rushes to the doorway of one of the five houses. They squeeze through the yawning opening, men, women, children, even babies in arms.

We ought to escape. Run. But to where? All directions are the same when you’re doomed.

Finally, Kotelnikov’s captor pulls him toward the same door. The koliuzhi man strains against the apprentice’s weight, but he’s muscular. With a look at the man who herded me up the path, I say, “Come,” to Maria and Yakov.

Like the little house we stole the salmon from, this one is made from wide, wooden planks that run the entire length of the building. Unlike that little house, this one is enormous, as big as a Petersburg mansion, perhaps bigger. There are no windows. The broad door lets two or three people enter at once.

Inside, darkness blinds me. All I see is the harsh glow of a fire, which verifies its presence with smoke scented like a Christmas feast. I sense movement all around. When my vision begins to adjust, I start to notice faces emerging from the gloom. They’re lit partly by the fire and partly by the outdoor light creeping in through the door, chinks in the walls, and a hole in the roof, the purpose of which must be to release smoke.

Novo-Arkhangelsk and the hills that surround it were filled with koliuzhi. They lived there. They worked, traded, fished, and who knows what else? Others knew, no doubt, but not me. I didn’t speak with them. I didn’t enter their homes. I didn’t ask after their mothers and fathers, their brothers and sisters, their children. I didn’t seek their advice, nor did I offer my opinions. It’s not that I didn’t wonder about them. But I was uncertain how such overtures could have been made. I lived in a cloud of not knowing.

What is to be made of our situation? Will I die today? Will we all? None of us moves. We stand for what seems like an eternity with no one speaking. I strain to read the faces of the koliuzhi. I expect anger, but they keep their distance and watch. I remember those two koliuzhi men surrounded by our crew on the brig on the day we traded for the halibut. How long we forced them to stand before us in silence! Now, the table has turned.

“Híli Chabachíťa, ib ťisík^w όki Chalaťilo ťsiáti,”[8] says a man from deep in the shadows of the house. It’s difficult at first to locate who’s speaking. When I do, I see a man opposite us, dressed in a cape unlike any I’ve seen on this voyage. This cape catches the firelight and glows soft gold. It’s not fur. It’s made of bark, just like mine was, though the gold is natural, not paint. Glossy black fur trims its edges. The cape is tied at his waist with a wide belt into which is tucked a dagger. He stands in a manner that reminds me of the towering trees firmly planted in the spongy soil of this forest.

He thrusts out a strange cylinder, then shakes it. It rattles like a cart running over a rutted road. What is it? It’s shorter than a telescope, and I think it’s made of wood. Huge eyes, ringed in red, and the pointed beak of a bird have been carved into it.

“Hakόtalax^w sisáwa boyόk^wa hόtsk^wať,”[9] he continues. His voice rumbles and reverberates off the plank walls. I try to understand, to identify any familiar word, but there’s none. He continues to speak, directing his words at everyone in the house, not at us alone.

Before long, a woman steps forward. I think she’s about to speak, too, but instead she kneels and tends the fire. My eyes shift from her to the speaker and back again. It’s hard to know where to look. A second woman bends near the fire and lifts the lid of a wooden box, one of several scattered about like toy blocks, unnaturally large versions of the ones I played with so long ago when my father was teaching me about gravity and the physical properties of objects in relation to one another.

When the lid is lifted, this wooden box releases a plume of steam and the aroma of stewing fish. The woman dips a big spoon—it’s a seashell lashed to a handle—into the box and stirs. She’s cooking. In a box? A box can hold water? Steaming water? A third, then a fourth woman soon join them, and together they fuss with the fire and the contents of the boxes with sticks and spoons and stones. With long wooden tongs, they move stones from the fire into the boxes. The stones sizzle when they hit the water and more steam billows to the rafters and spreads among the grasses, stalks, coils of cord, baskets, and skewered objects hanging up there.

The speaker’s voice drones in the background while the women cook. One woman rises slowly from her fireside tasks, wipes her hands on her skirt, and walks behind us. The hair on the back of my neck prickles, but she just slips out the door. Immediately, the children become restless. They fidget, whisper, and giggle, drawing my attention away from the women. A boy makes faces while two girls pretend not to notice him and smother their laughter with their hands. One of those girls cradles a sleeping baby in her lap and curls a tendril of the baby’s hair around her finger.

After a long time and a short time, the speaker finally stops. I’d like to sit down. I catch Maria’s eye—she must be tired, too. But she only shrugs, shifts, and looks away.

It’s not over yet. Another man steps into the ring of firelight. He’s as wrinkled as Yakov, with eyes that glitter like stars in the night sky. His voice sounds much younger; its pitch and rhythm rise and fall, much like the river outside clambering over the rocks.

“Wáalax^w chaáalosalas hiítxli x^wa didídal atslá,” he says. “Histilόsalas ish híat ishatash tial. ^wíx^wa álita. X^wok^wόdis.”[10]

Yakov tilts his cap back and squints and frowns as he listens to the old man, but it’s clear from his face that he understands nothing. Kotelnikov is alternately sullen and defiant as he huffs, shakes his head, and puffs out his burly chest. No one interrupts the old man who continues as though he’s telling a long story. However, two or three men slide along the walls to the doorway and leave the house.

I try to concentrate but my feet ache and soon my attention also drifts.

There’s a heavy pillar in the corner, not far behind the head of the man who’s speaking. Just like the rattle, it’s carved, but with designs and images that look as though they’ve been plucked from a madman’s feverish dreams. They’re creatures. That much I can tell. Eyes, yes, hands, yes, mouths upturned or deeply frowning—but horns and claws and pointed teeth and tongues, too—and too many of everything, not attached where they should be, all encased in ovals. What these creatures represent is impossible to say. I look around me. Every pillar in the house—there are eight altogether—is similarly carved, but all the designs differ. In the firelight, though I know they’re only blocks of wood, I expect the eyes to shift, the lips to part, and the tongues to unfurl as they come to life.

Maria nudges me, and I shift my attention back to the man and try again to concentrate. After a long time and a short time, the old man’s story or speech finishes. Surely, the talking is over.

But no. Here’s another man coming forward. Younger than the first two, this man has enormous half-moon eyebrows. At first I think he’s painted them on, but then I realize they’re real. Tangled and dark, they hood his eyes and resemble the eyebrows of the carved figures on the posts. The rest of his body—his face, arms, and legs—are smooth. His legs are muscular, thick like tree trunks.

As with the first speaker, he addresses us. He starts with Yakov, who nods at him but says nothing. Maria won’t meet his eye, and so he turns to Kotelnikov, who scowls and opens his mouth as if to say something but thinks better of it. Kotelnikov’s lost a brass button and his black-green jacket gapes open, his big belly straining against the fabric, the white of his linen shirt like a feather easing its way out of a pillow.

Then, the man with the eyebrows turns to me. He says, “X^wa wípaťot i ćhía, chi titsíya, halakitkatasalax^w hikástoli.”[11] Then he waits.

I look away, but he continues to watch me. “Wacush,” I finally say. It’s Timofei Osipovich’s word and I don’t know exactly what it means—it didn’t work when I gave the ukha to Koliuzhi Klara—but the koliuzhi seem to respond to it.

The man with the eyebrows startles. Smothered laughter ripples through the house. My hands tremble.

Kotelnikov turns on me. “Madame Bulygina! You will provoke him!”

This eyebrow man is most certainly not provoked. The corners of his mouth twitch. Is he, too, about to laugh?

“Yakov? Help me, Yakov,” I say softly.

Yakov looks down and shakes his head.

The eyes of the eyebrow man flit like dragonflies from me to the others, and eventually come to rest on me. Then he begins to speak again. He’s not angry—of this I’m certain—but equally he’s not happy. He’s telling me something. When he finally pauses again, I have no choice.

“Wacush. We can’t understand you. Do you understand me? We come from Russia. We’re stranded here. We didn’t mean to…” I think of the battle. What word is right for what happened? “…disturb you. We have no way to get back home, except if we can get to another Russian ship—it’s waiting about sixty miles away. If you’ll just let us go, please, in the name of God, we’ll go and leave you alone.

“We’re very tired and hungry, and we left everything on the ship. Keep it all. We have no use for it now.” They don’t need to know we’ve jettisoned so much. “We carry only what we need for our journey—a few things to eat, our muskets—”

“Madame Bulygina! Stop!” Kotelnikov snaps.

“They don’t know what she’s saying,” Yakov chides softly. And he’s right—I can tell by their puzzled looks that while they may have understood “wacush,” that’s all.

The gathering then, inexplicably, breaks up. Where’s everyone going? I can’t understand anything. All the signposts I possess have been torn from the ground and thrown in a river; they float away beyond reach.

We don’t move, we four, until finally two little boys take Yakov by the arms and pull him to the other side of the fire. Old Yakov looks down at them with surprise and bemusement, and does not struggle. The boys giggle and offer the big, toothy smiles of children whose milk teeth have fallen out, but whose faces have not grown big enough to accommodate their new adult teeth.

When they arrive at the side of the man with the golden cape and the rattle, who’s seated, the boys gesture to Yakov to sit down. The man with the golden cape looks up at Yakov and gives a short nod. Yakov sits and removes his cap. The young boys then come back for the rest of us. We sit on a cedar mat. The earthen floor is dry and slightly warm from the fire.

Then, Koliuzhi Klara sets before us a long tray.

She pushes it forward until it presses against my knees. “Wacush,” she says mischievously, looking pointedly at me. She smiles when I blush.

The tray contains a mound of unidentifiable pink-brown mush. Maria cries, “Kizhuch!” I take a closer look—she’s right. It’s salmon again. Chunks of fish swim in a shiny broth. Steam rises from the tray. Why are they feeding us? Is this a trick? I look to Kotelinikov, Yakov, and Maria; they’ve already plunged their fingers into the food. Kotelnikov is gobbling like a half-starved pig at a trough.

Is this entire tray meant for us? Or are we to help ourselves and then pass it to others? I’m starving, too, but I don’t know what to do.

A woman sitting on the opposite side of the fire has noted my hesitation. She was cooking earlier; clamping tongs around the hot stones and sliding them into the boxes of water. Does she think I don’t want her food? That I don’t find it good enough? I hear my mother’s voice chastising my manners—so I pinch a scrap of fish between my fingers.

Once the food touches my tongue, I can’t stop. I cram handful after handful of fish into my mouth. The wiry bones slow me down a bit, but with my tongue, I push them from between my lips. Having nowhere to put them, I hold them in my other hand.

The hunger I’ve been staving off for so long raises its head to ask: where have you been, Anna Petrovna Bulygina? I feed it, feed myself, eat and eat until there’s nothing left on our tray, every little drop of oil has been licked from my fingertips, and my hand is full of small bones.

That night, I lie on a coarse cedar mat on the smooth earthen floor. Broad wooden benches rim the walls, but they’re occupied by others.

Cedar mats, propped upright, divide some of the sleeping areas and provide a little privacy. But I can still see into most of them. People in these compartments sleep in clusters looking like bumps along a treacherous road. Men, women, and children are heaped alongside one another. Are they families? Are they random groupings?

I’m quite far from the fire and I’m cold. Maria shares the cedar mat and a soft cedar cover that’s far too small for two people. I’m fatigued but too chilly to sleep. I listen to Maria’s breathing. I can tell she’s awake.

“Maria?”

“What is it?”

The dark and the cold and my exhaustion feed one another. Questions form, and the answers are shadows in my mind. I try to suppress them but they’re hardy and insistent. Finally, I say, “What are they going to do to us?”

She doesn’t respond for a long time. Then she says, “That is written with a pitchfork on flowing water.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t know. And neither do you. Now go to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“Your worrying won’t change a thing.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Well, I can. I’m tired. Good night.”

Though it’s not like me, I pray—something I haven’t done before bed since I was a little girl—and ask God to grant us our prayers, if they are good, and bring us all back together again in Novo-Arkhangelsk. But it’s futile, and I’m no closer to sleep.

Long after Maria has succumbed, I lie on my back, my eyes wide open, recreating the night sky on the ceiling. Polaris is overhead. Is my head pointing east? I think so. Cassiopeia would be over there near the post. Orion would be there, where the bundles of dried grass stir in the fire’s rising heat. Pegasus would be over there, near the door, which has been covered with some sort of screen for the night. I worry about my telescope and star log—was my bundle saved? Are my things safe and dry?

It’s not just my thoughts that keep me awake—the night noises also disturb me. I’ve never slept in a room with so many people. There’s coughing and throat clearing. Some people snore. Some call out in their sleep. One child laughs, caught in a dream.

And then, after I’ve lain awake for a long time and a short time, a certain rustling begins. Right away, I know what it is, and I’m not surprised when, before much time passes, it progresses to shameless grunts and moans. I put my fists over my ears but it’s fruitless—my imagination furnishes the imagery.

I don’t know what to do with the fish bones from our supper. My fist closed, I squeeze them lightly in my palms, feel their bend. If there were a way to reassemble them, to put the flesh back on the fish, to turn the clock back, how far back could I go? Could I identify the one miscalculation that brought me to this place—and undo it?

The next morning, I wake with empty hands. The bones slipped away in the night and they’re now woven into the cedar mat and half-buried in the thin layer of dust that coats the earthen floor. I very badly need to relieve myself. What is the koliuzhi way? Do they have some kind of gutter or a cesspit? If not, where should I go, or does it matter? I ask Maria what I should do, and she tells me to find a private place outdoors.

“Are you sure?”

The corners of her mouth turn down, and she studies me like I’m a child who ought to know better.

“Then come with me. Please.”

She shrugs. “I may as well.”

We slowly cross the floor toward the door, taking small, tentative steps. Many people watch. Then a man around my age with hair longer than mine springs to his feet. He remains right behind us as we pass through the doorway, and stays only a step back as we begin a search for a secluded spot. He must know what we’re doing; he makes no effort to prevent us from wandering away from the house. I look around the sodden forest. Drops of water as big as pearls slip one by one from the boughs overhead and plop as they hit the ground. The ground sucks at our feet. Humps of moss that look like velvet pincushions dot the forest floor.

“Should we stop here?” I say. The dripping water and the cool air aren’t helping. I can’t wait much longer.

Maria nods and says, “He thinks so.” The young man looks uneasy. He glances from us, to the house we just left, barely visible through the tree trunks, then back at us.

Before I lose my courage, I step to the side of a small shrub, turn my back, and pull up my skirt.

The long-haired young man scurries away and waits from a distance. Everywhere it’s the same: even the most courageous men are scared of ladies’ business. Maria squats on the other side of the shrub.

I try to release my water quietly, but it resounds as it hits the earth. Steam rises through my legs. Relieving myself takes forever. And when I’ve no more water to release, I wipe my hands on the moss, and then on my apron because I don’t know what else to do.

“Ready?” I ask Maria. She nods.

The long-haired young man follows in silence and leaves us only when we’re back in our corner.

We don’t have breakfast. Instead, we again assemble for speeches. Because I didn’t sleep well, I struggle to pay attention. A meal is prepared while the talking progresses. We eat fish once again and when it’s finished, there are more speeches.

The treatment we’re receiving from the koliuzhi is most unexpected. It tempers my anxiety and leads me to what I believe is the only rational conclusion. If they’ve not harmed us, and continue to feed us, they must intend to release us. I just can’t comprehend why they haven’t done so yet.

The house is warmer on our second night. Tired from my poor sleep the previous night, I easily drift off. But I wake suddenly at a much later hour to the sound of rain pounding on the roof. The din inside is as loud as the house-drumming that we witnessed the day of our capture. At least I’m dry and warm. I wonder where the crew is and how they’re managing. The tents would be useless in a deluge this heavy.

Oh, Kolya, what are you doing right now? Are you awake and wondering what’s happened to me? You’re not out in this storm looking for me, are you?

Dear Kolya. I’m all right. I’m safe.

Are you?

That day and the next and the one after are no different from the two we survived. More talking, so much talking—and not just from the three men who spoke that first day. Others also present speeches and stories long and short that unravel in the house, spin themselves around the listeners, the fires, and the things hanging from the rafters—but can’t find their way to me, Maria, Yakov, and Kotelnikov. Even after so many days, we understand so little of what is happening.

People come and go, bringing firewood, water, and food. In a corner, some women weave on queer little looms that sit on the floor. They aren’t weaving with wool; but I can’t tell what fibre they’re using. They each have baskets at their feet. Every once in a while, a woman withdraws a stick or a tool with teeth that she uses on her work.

One woman is making a basket. Her hands ripple like flowing water as she weaves thin branches together. She has a cord attached to her ankle. It leads to the head of a cradle suspended from an overhanging bough. Two babies nestle inside like fledglings. When the basket weaver moves her leg, the cradle rocks. The babies sleep on.

Older children play and whisper during most of the speeches, and we eat twice a day—more fish, and then clams and mussels, and after that, a tangle of small starchy roots, and then a hard, dried cake of berries I don’t recognize. The cakes are tough to chew, and drenched in that same fishy grease. During the long speeches that follow, I dislodge the gummy bits stuck to my teeth.

I miss Nikolai Isaakovich terribly. I miss the way he stands behind me on the deck of the brig and keeps me warm while I look through my telescope. I miss our long talks in the evening, poring over his charts, discussing the places we’d seen and the places that lay just ahead.

Why hasn’t he come for me yet? There has to be a good reason. I won’t accept that he might have been killed. I also won’t accept that he’s given up and headed south without us. What am I supposed to think? Everything I imagine is unbearable.

The days unfold in the same strange routine. Koliuzhi Klara gives Maria and I each a cedar cape. I thank her, knowing she won’t understand. The cape will keep me warm, but it will also serve as a blanket at night. Never again will the cold keep me awake.

Maria and I continue to relieve ourselves together, always under the watchful eye of the same long-haired koliuzhi man. Our trips together to these private places remind me how mortifying it will be when my monthlies arrive. I plan to tear my apron into strips, but I can’t begin to consider how and where I will wash and dry them.

Each time I go out, my eye is drawn to the grey-brown mound on the other side of the river. The crows are equally preoccupied with it. Black shadows, they flutter over it, pick at it, tear bits off it, and squabble and screech over the shreds. Before long, the scent of death hangs in the air. I can’t understand why the koliuzhi seem not to notice.

One evening, just before the meal is ready, I say, “I wonder what’s keeping them.”

Yakov and Maria look sideways at one another. Kotelnikov, who’s cleaning his nails with a twig, wipes it on his sleeve and says with confidence, “They’re planning a surprise attack. They’re going to settle the score with these koliuzhi and shoot them all.”

“Shhh,” says Maria and blesses herself.

“Why would you say such a cruel thing? They’re feeding us and treating us kindly,” says Yakov.

“But that won’t go on forever, will it?” I ask. “It can’t.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t,” says Kotelnikov. “The crew might come back anytime. Any minute now, they could charge through that door…”

“Be patient. There are many things we can’t understand,” says Yakov. “Everything will become clear soon.”

“Maybe they’re waiting for us,” I say. “Maybe they want us to try to escape.”

“Give it time, Madame Bulygina. Rest and eat well. Take these days to build up strength,” Yakov says. “When they come, we’ll have a difficult voyage ahead of us.”

“No,” says Kotelnikov. “She might be right. We should go.”

“I don’t think so,” ventures Yakov.

“Well, I do,” says Kotelnikov. “They can’t stop us.”

Yakov looks at him, his expression in shadows. “If you must, then go,” he finally says. “I’m staying.”

“You’re too trusting, old man. They mean to kill you first.”

“If you flee, you’ll be killed first.”

I decide that instant Yakov is right. At least we aren’t hungry. Our lodgings aren’t luxurious, but they’re a great improvement over a tent. The blisters on my feet have begun to dry and harden. We need to remain patient and wait for answers.

As each day unfolds, I pay more attention to the koliuzhi. This place has been carved out of a Baba Yaga story, with its dense forest, the gloom, the impossible houses in the middle of nowhere, the burbling river, and always the way that fire draws us together in the dark.

Koliuzhi Klara appears and disappears throughout the day. Once I see her with a large, open-weave basket, but it’s empty. Next, I see her with her arms full of small sticks. Then I see her with a basket that has the image of a bird woven into it and I wonder what might be inside. Koliuzhi Klara is thinner than many other women, and her hair is less well-kempt. Her clothing is adequate but plain. If we were in Petersburg, I would assume she comes from a family that, while not exactly poor, had fallen into difficult circumstances. In society, she wouldn’t be highly regarded, though some would take pity upon her.

But they don’t treat her like that here. She talks often with a woman with a round, stern face, who, I notice, is much better dressed than many of the other women. Most remarkably, her hair is pinned back with a comb of fine, filigreed silver. Where did she get it? Other women wear combs in their hair, but they’re carved of wood or bone, maybe antler. No woman has anything so sophisticated. Is this woman Koliuzhi Klara’s mother or aunt? I think not—their ages are too similar. However, they’re most certainly not friends. They speak frequently and courteously, but without the warmth of close friends.

The man with the rattle and the golden cape is the toyon. He’s often at the centre of a group of men who listen respectfully as he speaks. He’s not the only man treated this way, but there’s something that elevates him above them all. In my mind, I call him the Tsar.

The long-haired young man who follows me outside when I need to relieve myself is often away, and he returns after dark. I was wrong about his age. He’s older than I first believed, closer perhaps to my husband’s age. It’s not just Maria and me that make him skittish and nervous. The slightest sounds, even the shadows on the wall distract him, as though he were a kitten. I call him the Murzik for he behaves like a kitten in many ways.

“What do you think that Murzik does all day?” I idly ask Maria one day. She laughs. She knows of whom I speak.

“He’s playing with his mouse,” Maria says and gestures crudely. I redden and ignore her.

I start thinking. What is he doing? Hunting? Could he be hunting the crew? We hear nothing, not a single gunshot, not a cry to indicate the crew is anywhere nearby. Yet I feel uneasy with the Murzik’s frequent absence.

There is so much about the koliuzhi we don’t understand. The way they live is beyond imagination. Some things I admire—like being able to cook in wooden boxes, the versatile bark mats that serve as skirts and tunics and capes and bedding and walls and tables and yet are quite soft and beautiful, the houses’ rafters festooned with so much salmon it’s easy to believe the structures are made of fish. They aren’t—but they’re no less miraculous, constructed with logs so thick three men hand-in-hand couldn’t encircle them. How do they stand them in the ground? How do they fall them in the first place? I start to make a list and try to remember these novelties, so I can tell Nikolai Isaakovich and perhaps even my parents one day when we finally get back to Novo-Arkhangelsk and I can write them a letter.

But other things are less pleasing—how I feel damp even when I’m not outdoors, how the smoke backs up into the house when the rain is heavy and the clouds are low, the lack of privacy when I must relieve myself, the way fish is served at every meal, no matter what time of day or night. The indecent sounds at night—the children must hear them. What do they make of those sounds?

I wonder whether the koliuzhi would like to see how we live in Novo-Arkhangelsk, or even in Petersburg. I wonder what they’d make of private bedchambers. Steaming bathtubs. Feather beds. Silk. Butchers and bakeries. Letter writing. While we think these the pinnacle of civilization, I wonder whether the koliuzhi would find them novel at first sight, and then tiresome. Such things seem meaningless here. A man who does not eat bread has no need of a bakery. A cathedral is useless to a man who does not worship. And a man who does not read and write has no use for a letter, no matter how beautiful its penmanship.

What would they think of the hours I spend marking the position and measuring the brightness of the stars, writing it all down for others who will do exactly the same thing?

This reflection on our differences reminds me of our inability to communicate. It’s language, yes, but the gap stretches beyond simple words. I’m beginning to believe certain elements of my world are so fundamentally different from theirs that I couldn’t begin to describe our odd customs and ways even if anybody were to ask. As they go about their lives, they could never imagine ours. The converse is equally true. They have and do things for which we have no words. The pool into which we must plunge to understand one another is infinitely deep and, as irrational as it seems, perhaps for all of us, immersion would be impossible.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Six days after the battle, we wake to heavy, steady rain. It traps us inside with fellow prisoners, darkness, and dreariness; time slows in this confined space. The children fare best with our imprisonment. They bound around as though catapulted from wall to wall, gamboling like they have learned their play from lambs. What fun Zhuchka would have with them, chasing them, yelping to get their attention, and then running from them while they chase her. I half expect a reprimand from the Tsar and the men deep in conference in the corner or from the women tending the fires and handling hot rocks as they prepare the food, but no one speaks a harsh word or lays a corrective hand on them.

In Russia, there’s no such lenience. Though we love children, we believe they’ll be spoiled if not taught to be good. My own parents always tried to be fair but firm because they knew proper discipline would determine my future, and, like all parents in Russia, they aspired to raise a responsible adult. I feel ambivalent about how the koliuzhi children are behaving. Part of me is enchanted by the purity of their joy and I feel nostalgic for the times in my childhood when I felt so free. Another part of me is more cautious and I wonder if this lack of discipline will harm them.

Though the children play, the rain is no excuse for idleness among the adults. Several women are once again crouched before their looms, weaving slowly and purposefully in this dull light. Talk and laughter wrap around them like a transparent shawl. The looms are decorated with stones or shells, maybe even teeth—I don’t know which—that are set into the upright posts like jewels. Some women work on looms of three sticks lashed together at the top with their legs spread wide like the tripods my father uses in his turret observatory. After some study of their work, I realize the tubes they’re weaving will be skirts.

Other women sew, their white needles small fish that dart up and down and flash when they catch the firelight. One of the women is plump-faced and thick around the waist. She’s expecting a child. She pulls her needle aloft, then lowers it, draws a bead onto its point and once more lifts it. The bead slides down the thread. An instant later, she does it again. She barely looks because she’s engrossed in the words of the woman with the silver comb in her hair. Her previously stern face has relaxed. She’s making a basket as she speaks. Her hands are swift, and she, too, never looks at her work. Suddenly, all the women burst into shrieking laughter and the beading woman drops her needle in her lap.

I recall the day on the brig when we were becalmed for so long that I turned to my embroidery project with the napkins to pass the time. How easily I let my patience fade and allowed myself to give up. After six long days of waiting here with nothing to occupy my time, I would relinquish my supper to have that napkin and needle back in my hands today, and if it could be instead my telescope and star log, I might give up a week’s worth of suppers.

The beading woman wipes tears from her eyes, finds her needle, and resumes her work. What’s she making? It’s too dark and I can’t tell. I sit up on my knees and lean to the side.

“Korolki,” I cry. “Maria—they have korolki!”

The blue Russian trading beads are piled on the mat where the women work. There are heaps and heaps—more than what we brought on the Sviatoi Nikolai. They have the ones as small as a baby’s fingertip and the big tubular ones that are nearly black. Their facets glitter.

Maria opens her eyes and I point. “Look! Korolki!”

“Korolki,” repeats the beading woman. She says something to the other women and they laugh. The woman with the silver comb in her hair turns and looks at me expectantly. Her fingers rhythmically work the basket fibres. As she watches me, a slight smile on her lips, she doesn’t once look down at her work.

Again, I will disappoint them. I have nothing else to say. I’m as helpless and unable to express myself as an infant. I flush but contemplate this: though neither is destined to get us very far, there are now two words we share.

The rain persists through the night and into the next morning. Kotelnikov dozes off, snoring, and Yakov brushes his cap while he and Maria talk about an Aleut they haven’t seen in a long time. Yakov thinks he’s left the Russian-American Company and gone home, but Maria heard he died in Hawaii. Around midday, I can no longer bear the boredom. I take advantage of a lull in the storm and leave the house. Ostensibly, I’m going to relieve myself, but I plan to go far from the house, and return slowly, cutting downstream if the guard will allow me, and stopping to watch the river empty into the sea.

The trees are dripping. The leaves of the bushes are luxuriant with beads of moisture. The air is a misty veil and the earth is covered in puddles. I avoid the trail—it’s all mud—and pick my way around mossy, decomposing logs and boggy hollows.

Despite the rain, the Murzik is out somewhere. I’m followed instead by a child. He’s small, with wrists as thin and knobby as the legs of a bird. It looks like a wind could blow him away. How old is he? His face is as smooth as a baby’s, and he behaves nervously—walking too closely behind me, lurching to my side with his arms raised when I jump over a puddle as if to prevent me from fleeing.

High in the trees where lacy crowns caress the clouds, a fragment of blue sky emerges. It’s the colour of hope itself. I know my Polaris is up there, invisible in the sunlight, and that when night falls, she will again reveal herself. I wonder for an instant if I could escape. I’m alone with the boy. I’d only have to outrun him. If I couldn’t? Then, I’d have to knock him unconscious with a stone. I look around—are there any stones nearby? Once he’s knocked out, I’m sure I could go far before anybody notices.

I’d have to look for Nikolai Isaakovich and the others. How? Where could they be in this forest? Which stars would lead me to them? How long would it take me to find them—and what would happen to me, alone in this vast forest, while I was searching?

When have I ever knocked anybody unconscious with a stone?

My eyes fill. I’m trapped here until they come to rescue us. What’s taking so long? Has Nikolai Isaakovich forgotten me? I need my husband. I need to see him, to be near him, to breathe in the scent of him in his damp greatcoat, his breath warm against my neck as he whispers, “Anya,” because he needs me, too.

A boom resounds through the forest.

Gunfire.

My thoughts slip from my fingers like a crystal goblet that shatters when it strikes the floor.

Another shot. There’s another. Then another.

They’re coming from far upriver.

My husband is near. My heart floods with hope and dread.

The boy looks sideways upriver, staring hard, as though he could bend the course of the water and fell all the trees with his thoughts. He shouts at me. He hammers and twists his skinny fists in my direction. No words are needed. I know what he wants. Without relieving myself, I run back to the house.

At the doorway, I’m engulfed in chaos. People push in and out of the house, nearly knocking me down as I try to squeeze inside. The looms have all been tipped over. The contents of the baskets of tools are scattered among the spilled beads. A baby shrieks. Men carrying spears and bows and arrows push their way outside.

I can’t see Maria. Then I spot her, huddled on one of the benches behind me. I go and crouch beside her.

“What happened?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t see anything.”

Across the house, a man strikes Kotelnikov across his back. He howls. He and Yakov are pushed toward the bench on which Maria and I cower. Kotelnikov’s pushed against me, and I feel the force of his weight as he half-lands on me. I can’t breathe. I shove him away. Yakov’s knees ram the bench and he cries out. He turns until he’s squeezed between me and Maria. He bends, holds his knees, and rocks.

The gunfire continues. The women and children alongside us scream with each shot as though they’ve been hit. An old woman crushes a wrapped baby to her chest. The baby’s hysterical shriek rises above the din and the old woman tightens her embrace. Koliuzhi Klara’s back is pressed up against one of the carved posts. She’s frozen, her gaze pinned to the doorway. A carved figure with an open mouth and sharp teeth looms over her head, whether to attack or protect her, who can say. The Tsar shakes his rattle and shouts, but his booming voice cannot pierce through the chaos.

The shots become less frequent. Then they stop altogether. Outside, there’s not a sound. Inside, children sob. A few women try to comfort them, and the rest wait.

Is the crew getting closer? Are we finally going to be rescued? Yakov, Maria, Kotelnikov, and I watch the door.

Then I hear a voice outside. The footfall of a person running. The woman with the silver comb rushes to the door. She calls out. Somebody outside replies. Voices join in. The woman with the silver comb veers away from the entrance. A cluster of people bursts into the house. The light from outside is too bright and I can’t distinguish their faces. Is that us? Is that Nikolai Isaakovich?

“Kolya!” I scream and wave. “Over here!”

The bodies swarm together like clouds in a storm. Everyone’s talking, yelling, and some are shrieking. I climb up on the bench.

As they move away from the harsh daylight, I see it’s not Nikolai Isaakovich. It’s not even our crew. It’s koliuzhi men. They’re dragging a body.

The man, limp as a fallen petal, groans. His head hangs, and his arms drape over the shoulders of two men. There’s blood, dark and glossy, on his leg. He’s been shot in the thigh. His wound is the size of the small celestial sphere my father keeps on his desk. The blood drips all the way down his naked leg and onto his foot. It leaves a trail on the floor.

The koliuzhi hoist him onto the bench. He’s flat on his back.

He’s the eyebrow man, the one I said “wacush” to on our first day. His eyes are shut. His mouth gapes as he struggles to breathe. The koliuzhi close in around him. I can’t see what they’re doing. He bellows.

I collapse down on the bench. I can’t bear to look. Yakov has put his hand over his mouth, and pulled his cap down. He, too, has turned away from the injured man.

The sound of a man singing rises through the tumult. He wails, long ays and ohs, and cries out. As his voice grows louder, the people quiet. Then somebody begins to beat a drum. The chaos around the injured eyebrow man transforms into order, governed by the beat of the drum. The house itself joins in, its planks and beams coaxed into vibration. I stand up and the rhythm rises through my feet until my heart is no longer only a part of my flesh, but a part of something large that demands compliance. Near the door, four men with sticks as long as their arms pound the wooden bench that, I realize, is hollow and empty as a drum.

Then a rattling begins, sounding similar to the Tsar’s wooden cylinder carved with the bird’s head, but harsher and more clattery, like the wheels of a coach. Wood is not making that sound. I can’t see who or what is.

I look to Maria, then Kotelnikov, then Yakov. Where is Yakov? He’s no longer beside us. Across the house, I spot his cap. Surrounded by koliuzhi men who grip his arms, he’s beside the injured eyebrow man. The koliuzhi speak urgently.

Through the drumming and rattling and singing, Yakov cries loudly, “No!” Kotelnikov and Maria turn toward his voice. “I told you—I don’t know what you want!” He’s flustered and confused. The more he objects, the more they insist.

The singing, drumming, and rattling add to his confusion. He tries to twist away, but they push him back toward the injured man. What do they want? How is Yakov supposed to know?

“Take the musket ball out,” Maria shouts.

Yakov squirms and recoils from the men who nudge him forward. He doesn’t hear her. So she shouts more loudly, “The musket ball! Yakov! You have to take out the musket ball.”

Yakov hears this time. His face crumples. “How? I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“For Lord’s sake, Yakov, just do it. It can’t be hard.”

“No!” he shouts. “I can’t.”

The singing soars, the beat of the drum grows more urgent. With a shake of her head, Maria pushes forward. She slips sideways between two koliuzhi. She nudges another with her shoulder. She steps around a woman older than she is. Eventually, the koliuzhi crowd divides and allows her to pass until she reaches Yakov and the injured man.

I strain to hear their conversation. It’s almost impossible with the drumming and singing, but the words eventually rise above the clamour.

“Poor boy,” Maria says. “He’s not awake, is he?”

“He won’t live,” Yakov says. “How could he? The blood…”

“Shhh! Are you mad?”

“They can’t understand me.”

“Don’t summon the devil.”

“Not even the devil would dare to come here.”

“Then go ahead. Call him. Perhaps you’ll be next.”

This silences Yakov. Under Maria’s oversight, he bends and examines the wound. His head shakes.

“Oh, you old fool.” Maria bends, and I lose sight of her.

“Maria!” Yakov gasps. “Maria, no!”

The eyebrow man bellows so loudly I expect the walls to fall. Others wail. A man near me shouts and tears at his hair.

Maria’s turned to the crowd. Her arm is raised, her hand bloody to the wrist like a midwife’s. Pinched between her fingers is the flattened musket ball.

“Maria!” Kotelnikov cries. For once, there’s no sharpness and impatience in his face. He’s shocked.

Silence falls throughout the house. The eyebrow man must have fainted from the pain and no one knows what to say about the sight of Maria with her raised, bloody hand, holding the musket ball as though it’s a baby she has just delivered or perhaps an amulet she’s conjured up like she’s a sorceress.

“Bring some water,” Maria says firmly. “Warm, if you can. We need to get cleaned up.”

The mood changes from that moment, as though having stumbled upon a crossroads, we blindly chose a path and through a miracle it turned out to be the right one. The eyebrow man is alive, and if he survives the night, perhaps we will, too. If she’s saved his life, perhaps Maria will also have to her credit saving ours.

When it’s late, the fire is stoked and most of the koliuzhi drift to their sleeping places. Only a few remain at the side of the eyebrow man. One is the singer. Even after most people have retired for the night, he sings in bursts, and sometimes, he shakes a staff decorated with feathers and black bones or shells that dangle from cords and rattle together.

The door is heavily guarded, though I doubt the Russians will come back so soon after today’s battle. The fierce rain that’s started to pound the roof will also keep them away.

From my place on the mat beside Maria, my mind clambers over tonight’s events and weighs the possible outcomes. I try to think rationally but it’s hard to fight the terrible ideas as they occur to me, one after the other. I try to think instead about what I love. Nikolai Isaakovich. My mother and father. Zhuchka, dear little Zhuchka with her paintbrush tail and her simple joy. My telescope on a clear night, the searing feeling of the cold brass against my fingers. The comfort of a feather bed and a warm cover. A book. I miss reading a book. Dancing in a room so full of people the ceiling swirls and you think it will lift at any moment.

I’m not the only one who can’t sleep. There’s rustling everywhere. Whispering. Sighs. Babies’ cries as they try to settle, parents’ reassurances as they try to hush them. Any sleep tonight, if it comes, will be troubled.

I am half asleep when I feel our cedar blanket shift. I think it’s just Maria turning in her sleep but when I look, I see a koliuzhi man. He’s kneeling beside Maria and gently shaking her shoulder. She turns her head, looks, and freezes.

“Baliya,” he whispers.

She doesn’t move and neither do I. What does he want?

“Baliya,” he whispers again, [12]

Baliya. That’s how he pronounces Maria’s name. There’s silence and it’s evident that most of the koliuzhi are asleep. No one’s listening. Nobody is going to help us understand what he wants.

“ Chiali^wáyolilo lobáa,”[13] he says. Assured she’s awake, he rises and waves his hand as though he wants her to also get up.

She and I sit up. On the other side of the fire, across the house, two women and several men who’ve gathered around the eyebrow man call out and gesture when they see us. “Baliya!” they cry.

They want Maria. The watchmen around the door shift nervously and glance back and forth between the eyebrow man and our corner.

“The koliuzhi want you,” I say. “They’re calling you over there.”

The man standing beside our bed continues speaking with some urgency. The man with the staff of feather and bones, who’s still posted next to the injured man, shakes his staff as if she might understand that instead of the spoken words.

Maria’s eyes flit back and forth among the koliuzhi, but she remains next to me, her fingers curled around the edge of the blanket, refusing to let go.

“You better go find out what they want,” I say, “before they get angry.”

Stiffly, Maria rises to her feet and lumbers across the floor. When she reaches the bench, she bends. I can’t see her anymore. The fire in the house is burning low and there’s almost no light.

Finally, she comes back to our sleeping place.

I hold up her cedar bedclothes so she can slide in more easily. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I think they just wanted me to look at that man.”

“Is he dead?”

She shakes her head. “He’s asleep now. But his wound is terrible.”

“Is he bleeding?”

“No. It’s stopped—but it’s black. They put medicine in it.” She pauses. “And he needs a splint.”

“Is he going to live?”

Silence answers. Lightly I touch my silver cross.

“They know your name.”

Maria grunts.

“They called your name. Baliya, they said. Now they know your name.”

“Go to sleep.”

As soon as I awaken the next morning and sit up, the koliuzhi call out. “Baliya! Hák^woti ak^w!”[14] They want her back again.

She rolls over right away, and pushes herself up until she’s sitting on the mat. She must have been awake. “You come with me this time,” she says.

“They’re asking for you.”

“You have to come,” she insists. “Come and see. You have to help me.”

“There’s nothing I can do.” I’m afraid to see the terrible wound up close, but I feel sorry for Maria. The eyes of the watchmen at the door follow us across the floor.

Sweat is beaded on the eyebrow man’s forehead and upper lip. His eyes are red and filmy, and they don’t shift toward us. His eyebrows look lifeless. The wound is covered loosely with a small hide. A woman rolls it back. Maria is right. Something black has been crammed into it. The surrounding flesh is white and swollen, and water oozes from its lip. Maria places her hand on his forehead, drags it down to his cheek, and tenderly cups his face for a few moments. “He’s feverish.”

“You already took out the musket ball. Isn’t he getting better?”

She shrugs. “He needs medicine.”

I point to the black substance that fills the hole. “He has medicine. Their medicine. Isn’t it working?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what medicine it is.”

The peasants use rustic medicine. Onions. Old bread. Concoctions made of wild plants and roots they harvest from the meadow and the forest. Even magic spells and pagan chants. My father believed these were foolish—the ways of the superstitious—and he would always rather call the doctor, just as any adherent to the Enlightenment would. The doctor’s ways and the elixirs and powders he compounded in his chambers seemed just as mysterious to me, but they were, of course, based on science.

“Can you do anything for him?”

“He needs a splint.”

“Then give him one.”

“After that—I don’t know where to start.”

“You have to save him,” I insist. “You have to try. Or they might kill us. Give him some medicine. Some herbs or something. Some roots.”

“Where am I supposed to get medicine?”

Her iron stubbornness is impenetrable. “Where you usually get it.”

She waves a hand dismissively. “I don’t know anything about what grows here. Or about their medicine.”

“Lamestin,” says the koliuzhi woman. “Baliya lamestin?”

I’m not really listening—I think it just more words that we can’t understand. Then the face of an old tutor flits to mind—long, dreadful French lessons, conjugating verbs and struggling to wrap my tongue around a language that never fit.

“Maria,” I say. “It’s French. I think she’s speaking French.”

“How would she know French?”

I ignore her question. Instead, I turn to the old woman—she’s silver-haired and wearing a belted cedar dress that covers her neck to ankle but leaves her arms free and bare. She has a ring in her nose and a long necklace of feathers, beads, and shells that rattles as she moves. I point to the black tar in the wound. “Le médicament?” I exaggerate my lips the way the tutor showed me.

“Lamestin,” she says and smiles, showing gaps in her teeth. She lisps a bit because of the missing teeth, but I’m sure I heard correctly. It’s not exactly French, but it’s close.

What is this lamestin? Did they make it? Where did it come from?

“Maria, it is French. I think she’s trying to say medicine.”

“D’où est-ce que vous avez trouvé lamestin?” I ask the koliuzhi. Where did you find this medicine?

“Lamestin,” she repeats. She has no idea what I’ve just said. If she knows French, it’s maybe just this single word.

“If you could find the right herbs and roots, could you help her?” I ask Maria. She furrows her brow, presses her lips firmly together. “Would you at least try?”

“Don’t get hopeful. This isn’t my home and I don’t know anything about this place or their ways.”

It takes gestures, pointing, and repeating this single word, but finally the old woman leads Maria and me into the forest. A koliuizhi man, armed with bow and arrow, accompanies us. He may be here to ensure we don’t flee or harm the old woman, but it’s more likely he’s here to protect us all.

The lamestin woman has a knife with an iron blade tucked into her belt. She also has a small, soft-sided basket of tools made of stone or shell or bone—impossible to tell without examination. Our watchman has a breechclout of hide and a cedar mantle, but it’s ragged and short and barely reaches his waist. I wonder that no one has given him a new one or even a simple shirt to keep him warm outdoors. The lamestin woman leads us along a path that skirts the river.

Maria and this old woman know what we’re looking for. I don’t. Plants, even the ones in our garden in Petersburg, are strangers to me. When I look at them, they blur into a swathe of green, and if they’re flowering, blotches of red, purple, pink, yellow—whatever the colour of the blossoms. To me, plants are pretty, and sometimes sweetly scented, and that’s all.

Across the river, the grey-brown mound still lies waiting for somebody other than the crows to pay it heed. Today, it gets its wish; a gull battles for its share. The reek of death has grown heavier. It’s spreading to our side of the river. Again, I turn away.

The sky’s heavy and promises rain before long. The lamestin woman stops before a cluster of tall plants with jagged leaves. “T’όpit,”[15] she says. Many of the stems are brown and bent and the remains of the huge flower heads are dried. Some still contain seeds.

“Putchki?” Maria says. “Is it?” She very gently fingers the leaves and kneels. She digs out earth from around the stem. The lamestin woman passes her a knife that’s a shell with a sharpened edge and she cuts two stalks. The lamestin woman picks a broad leaf growing on a nearby plant and wraps it around the stalks before picking them up. Then she looks at me.

“Is that enough?” I ask Maria.

“No,” she replies. “Let’s keep going.”

“Lamestin,” I say to the old woman. “On y va?” Let’s go.

She leads us until we come across a little creek emptying into the river. We follow the little creek until it vanishes into a bog. A black bird squawks and springs sideways from a tall reed as soon as we appear. The reed sways long after the bird is gone. The spongy bog is hungry and sucks at my shoes. The heels slip off with each step, slowing me.

“It’s hamidux.” From far ahead, Maria says the word as though she doesn’t expect to find it here.

“,”[16] says the old woman. She and Maria kneel next to one another. In a low voice, the old woman continues to speak to Maria.

By the time I approach, Maria’s dug out a couple of plants, roots and all. The leaves are round with a jagged edge that’s turned reddish-brown. Mud clings to the roots.

“I have enough,” Maria says. “We can return if we need any more. Let’s go back.”

“Lamestin,” I say to the old woman and I point to Maria’s hands. “Baliya a fini lamestin. On y va.” Maria is finished with the medicine. Let’s go.

The old woman looks confused. She walks away, leading us around the marsh area. On the other side is a small grassy meadow. “Sisibátswa,”[17] she says.

Maria kneels almost immediately before a plant with fringed leaves. “Look! Cingatudax. It looks different but—” She rubs the leaves between her fingers and smells them. “This might help close the wound.” Then she snaps off all the leaves that show a hint of green. “That’s enough. We should go back now.”

“How fortunate you found everything you need,” I say, and then I chide her. “And you said you didn’t know anything about the koliuzhi plants and their ways.”

Maria looks at me like I’m mad. “I didn’t find anything. She led us here,” she says. “She brought us right to the plants I need. Didn’t you notice? She knows.”

The lamestin woman smiles, showing the gaps in her teeth, then turns down the trail. I’ve lost my sense of direction so I’m not sure where she’s going. After a few minutes, the trail mysteriously twists, and we approach the houses from the back, bypassing the grey-brown mound. Thankfully, I don’t need to see it, though the stench reminds me it’s gone nowhere.

Inside, the koliuzhi women bring utensils to Maria. There are knives like the one Maria used to cut the putchki—sharpened shells, and also rocks whose edges have been honed thin as the paper of my husband’s charts. There are scoops and spoons and ladles with differing lengths of handle, some carved out of wood and bone, some made of large seashells. Koliuzhi Klara brings a mortar and pestle of heavy grey stone. She can hardly lift them. Maria tells me to grind up some of the leaves we collected. I press down and twist the pestle, bruising and shredding the leaves and stems until they turn into a mash. As I grind, Koliuzhi Klara fills the cooking box with water and puts hot rocks into it.

While the medicine cooks, Maria applies the splint. Somehow, she makes the koliuzhi understand what she needs, or perhaps, as it was with the plants, they already know what’s needed. I can’t see what she’s doing but I hear the eyebrow man groan. I hear the rattle of the singing man’s feathered wand and his voice rising in song.

When the medicine is ready, the koliuzhi sit the eyebrow man up and hold him while Maria brings a small ladle to his lip and makes him sip the broth she’s made. After four sips, some of it running out of the corners of his mouth, he’s laid back down. The lamestin woman watches that they’re careful not to hurt him. Maria and the lamestin woman then wash the wound, removing the black medicine. I hold a small woven bowl into which they fling the ooze to be discarded. He groans when Maria must go deep into the wound. The splint holds his leg steady as they work. Finally, Maria replaces the black medicine with a warm green poultice. The lamestin woman holds the sides of the gash while Maria packs it in. They leave the wound uncovered.

When they’ve finished, the singing man with the staff begins again, this time accompanied by drums. During his song, the eyebrow man suddenly goes limp. At first, I think he’s died; then I realize he’s fallen asleep or perhaps simply passed out.

The eyebrow man is our Lazarus. He makes it through another night. Maria tells me his fever is no longer raging. She feeds him more broth. Again, I hold the little woven bowl—a basket, but the weave is so tight it doesn’t leak—while she and the lamestin woman clean out the wound and press more warm poultice into the opening. The wound is less swollen and inflamed. The Tsar with the golden cape looks less worried. The singer waits until we’re done before he rattles his staff and begins another song.

We’re nine days into our trial and finally have found a way to start communicating. Yakov decides we should introduce ourselves. He lines us up before the Tsar and begins by pointing to Maria and saying just as they would, “Baliya. Baliya.”

Several people notice and, curious, they approach. The Tsar says, “Baliya,” and others echo him. “Baliya. Baliya.” I’m certain Yakov’s been understood.

Yakov then points at me. “This is our dear navigator’s wife, Madame Anna Petrovna Bulygina.” Silence. He tries again. “Madame Anna Petrovna Bulygina.” This time, the Tsar frowns and others mutter, but no one tries my name. So Yakov makes another attempt. “Madame Bulygina,” he says with exaggerated pronunciation. People smile, then look at one another, and a few of them laugh. Perhaps my name doesn’t translate appropriately.

Yakov looks uncomfortable. He must address me in a much less formal way. In Russia, that’s never done. That name is reserved for use by family and closest friends. But we’re not in Russia, are we?

“Go ahead,” I say. He says nervously, “Anna Petrovna.”

There’s still nothing more than a broken murmur. His only recourse is to cross a final social boundary and speak to me like a husband or parent. I nod my consent.

“Anna. Anna.” Kotelnikov flinches when he hears Yakov. The name sounds unnatural and disrespectful coming from this Aleut.

“Ahda,” says the Tsar. Then I hear others repeat it. “Ahda. Ahda.” I feel my face redden. The woman with the silver comb in her hair smiles at me.

Yakov then lays his hand on his chest and says, “Yakov. Yakov.”

“Hálas ‘Ya op?’”[18] says a woman. Muffled laughter spreads through the house. “Ishkida! Bayílo ťísik^wo.”[19]

The koliuzhi laugh loudly. Kotelnikov hesitates for a moment, then a smile spreads across his face and he joins in. He points at the old Aleut and says, “Yah-kop. Yah-kop. May I introduce Monsieur Yah-kop?” He has no idea what he’s saying; only that it amuses the koliuzhi and annoys Yakov.

Yakov doesn’t wait for the laughter to die down completely. As soon as he can be heard, he points to chubby Kotelnikov’s stomach and says, “Kotel.”

The koliuzhi stop and look disbelieving. The Tsar is wide-eyed. Then the koliuzhi screech with laughter that’s magnitudes greater than how they laughed at Yakov’s name.

A laugh dies on Kotelnikov’s lips and his face twists with anger. “No!” He straightens and thumps his sturdy chest. “Kotelnikov! Kotel-NIKOV! Don’t forget the Nikov part.”

It’s too late. The koliuzhi repeat, “K^wόx^wal. K^wόx^wal.”[20] And with each repetition, the laughter grows.

I have no great affinity for Kotelnikov, and I share my husband’s belief that his impatience and ambition cloud his judgment. But I try not to laugh because he’s so offended and no one will listen to him. The koliuzhi cannot possibly know they have called him a cooking pot, a name that cruelly draws attention to his stoutness, and yet they’ve made sense of his name, sense that they find amusing. Many koliuzhi wipe tears from their eyes, they laugh so hard.

It’s impossible to resist. His overreaction is as funny as his new name. I give in and laugh, too.

“Listen! Kotelnikov! It’s Kotel-NIKOV!” He stomps around, gestures wildly, and looks for anybody who’ll listen.

He circles back and turns on Yakov. “Tell them! Tell them my proper name!”

“You tell them yourself,” Yakov says dismissively and frowns. He turns away from the apprentice and smiles slyly. The laughter explodes anew.

Then Kotelnikov grabs Yakov’s arm, and pulls so hard that Yakov, caught off guard, falls.

He lands hard, cries out, and reaches for his knee. “What are you doing?” he shouts at Kotelnikov. “Stop it!”

Kotelnikov kicks Yakov’s backside.

The laughter dissolves. The koliuzhi descend. Several men pull Kotelnikov away from Yakov. They lift Kotelnikov onto their shoulders. They struggle a bit with his girth. They carry him toward the door while the singer with the staff helps Yakov up.

“Where are they taking him?” I ask Maria.

“I don’t know,” says Maria. “Come on.”

Kotelnikov jerks with all his strength, but outside there’s more room, causing other men to join the effort. They hold him high as they head toward the river. They immobilize his kicking legs and swinging arms. “Put me down, you savages!” cries Kotelnikov.

When they get to the river’s edge, they launch Kotelnikov like he’s a sack being thrown from the deck of a ship.

His body lifts. His arms and legs thrash. Then he changes direction and plummets. The river cracks when he hits the surface and swallows him whole. Huge waves ripple out.

The river’s not very deep, and he’s up in a second. He stands. Water streams down his body.

“I’m going to kill you all!” Except for Maria and I, no one understands him, but translation isn’t necessary. He spits out a string of curses, most of which I’ve never heard.

“That fucking goat will pay for this! He’s going to regret what he did! You tell him,” he cries when he notices Maria and me, “Filip Kotelnikov is going to get even.”

Many of the koliuzhi walk away. Surprisingly, two men don’t. They enter the river and wait at its edge. Perhaps they want to make sure he neither hurts anybody else nor escapes.

“Let’s go see how Yakov is doing,” Maria says, and we head back to the house, followed closely by the watchmen.

CHAPTER NINE

In the misty afternoon, the Murzik follows me when I venture out to relieve myself. Before we reach a secluded spot, he shows me a startlingly white handkerchief.

“Where did you get that?” My voice squeaks, raspy as a rusty gate. I reach for it.

The Murzik grows uneasy and pulls the handkerchief closer. Its folds lie stark against his dark, worn hands. He starts to crumple it into his fingers.

“Let me see. Please.” Before he can put it away completely, I snatch it.

He protests, but I turn my back on him and examine it against my apron front. This cheap Russian trading handkerchief, fresh and undamaged, is white as new snow against my filthy clothing. However the Murzik managed to get it, it hasn’t been with him long.

He snatches it back.

“No,” I cry. “Give it back. Just for a moment. I promise I’ll return it. Please.” I hold out my hands. “Wacush. Korolki. Lamestin. Please.” He laughs. Then he dangles the handkerchief before me, flicking it beyond reach. After a minute he releases it and the tiny white scrap flutters back into my hands.

I pull it to my nose. It reeks of smoke and fish. “How did you get this?”

“Híli hílils kíwa kiyáli ti’l x^wa hόtsk^wať,” he says. “Óas x^woό yix ichaa^wόwa.”[21]

He points and gestures, but I understand nothing. Has he stolen it? Killed somebody and taken it? Has he been given it? His story is long, and he mimes many things—one moment, he’s carrying something burdensome, the next, it’s vanished, then he’s embracing himself and rocking back and forth. Sometimes he laughs. Other times he frowns as if annoyed.

“Kiyáli x^wa hόtsk^wať ‘at hidáťot histáalach i icháat,”[22] he says.

“Come,” I say, and I turn back toward the house. He reaches for the handkerchief. “No,” I say. “Come with me.” I crumple the handkerchief in one hand and gesture with the other to urge him along.

The crows lift from the grey-brown mound on the opposite side of the river as we run past, cawing their annoyance at the disruption. When I enter the house, I find Maria and Yakov. There’s no sign of Kotelnikov.

“Look!” I cry. “The Murzik has a handkerchief.”

Yakov takes the crumpled handkerchief and inspects it.

“How did he get it?” asks Maria.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Yakov ponders. Of the many ways that this handkerchief might have come to the Murzik, some are frightening, while others bring hope.

“He’s stolen it,” says Maria, eyeing the Murzik suspiciously.

“Maybe,” says Yakov. “Perhaps it was given to him.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why would they give something to the Murzik? A few days ago, we were shooting at them.”

“Maybe it was given in trade.” Yakov passes the handkerchief back to the Murzik.

This pristine handkerchief is a sign our crew is alive and not far away. If the handkerchief has been acquired in trade, then they’d have to be talking amicably to the koliuzhi. Are they talking about us? If they can trade a handkerchief, what else might they be able to do? Perhaps we won’t have to wait much longer for our rescue.

The handkerchief tucked away, the Murzik extends his closed fist. Slowly he opens his fingers to reveal korolki of varying shapes and sizes. He cups them like seeds. The faceted surfaces catch the light as he rolls them around with his thumb. He also has some silver beads. He watches our faces.

Yakov frowns, puzzled. “It must have been a trade. I wonder what he gave in return.”

“Are they coming for us?” I look to the door.

“More likely they needed something to eat.”

Of course. Though I understand, I’m disappointed.

Very early the next morning, before we eat, we’re brought before the Tsar. The Murzik is already here. The handkerchief, less pristine than it was yesterday, droops from the Tsar’s hand

The Tsar questions the Murzik. The Murzik fidgets and replies in bursts, his eyes darting around the house, as though he might scoot away like a startled cat. There’s no doubt—he’s come into possession of this handkerchief through mischief, and now he’d do anything to be rid of it.

Then a woman with a baby on her hip shows a second handkerchief to the Tsar. He’s surprised. He speaks sharply to the woman. She shifts the baby to her other hip and gives him the handkerchief. The Tsar clutches both handkerchiefs in his fists, shakes them toward the woman and raises his voice.

The baby cries. The Murzik hangs his head. The woman shouts back. When she does, the baby wails. The Tsar glowers and says nothing. From behind us, a man yells and the woman with the baby bellows back at him.

Suddenly, somebody pushes me down. I fall hard. My chin strikes the floor. I bite my lip and taste blood.

I try to get up, but I can’t. My skirt is tangled in my legs. Everyone’s shouting now. “Yakov?” I plead.

I come up on my hands and knees, and look up over my shoulder. Who is this furious man glaring down at me?

The Tsar cries, “Wa ťaak^wόla x^wόx^wa!”[23] He directs these angry words not at the man who pushed me, not at the woman who produced the handkerchief, not at the Murzik—but at me. He shouts at me a long time and a short time, and when he finishes, he gives back the handkerchiefs—one to the Murzik, and the other to the woman with the baby who’s now screeching and bucking against her grip.

A hand closes around my arm and heaves me up like I’m weightless. I cry out and my sleeve tears. The furious man pulls me toward the door.

“Let go of her,” cries Kotelnikov. He leaps over and reaches for my captor’s hands. Another koliuzhi man pulls Kotelnikov away and pins his arms behind his back. “Get your shit-covered hands off me!” Kotelnikov twists.

“Be careful, Madame Bulygina! Don’t fight! You won’t win!” cries Yakov.

What he doesn’t realize is that even if I wanted to fight, I couldn’t. Every part of my body has turned to jelly.

We paddle upriver in a small canoe. I sit on the frigid keel, my hands clutching the gunwales. The blood on my lip is drying, tightening the swollen skin. The man who pushed me down is in front of me, pulling hard against the current. As our vessel slices through it, water rises up and folds over in a voluptuous, glistening lip.

We’re accompanied by two other canoes and six more koliuzhi. Why has the Tsar sent so many men? Where are we going, and why?

The river bends gently. The canoe tilts a little as they steer through the curve. Ahead, a fallen tree, half-submerged, pokes its many branches through the surface. Should I jump in? If I could reach the tree, maybe it would help me to pull myself to shore. Would they kill me first? Before I can decide, we pass the tree and it’s too late.

The river has a stony bottom that reveals itself where there’s no light reflecting off the water’s surface. A feather twirls by. Rushes lining the riverbanks bend as though bowing their heads for a passing funeral procession. Beyond, the forest is black in all directions. If this is to be my end, let it be quick and free of pain. I close my eyes. The canoe lurches forward against the current.

Then I hear a crunch, followed by another. I open my eyes. The canoes have come to shore. Ours squeaks against the reeds as it, too, stops.

From the opposite bank, a man’s voice says, “Over here!” I turn, and I can’t believe what I see.

Nikolai Isaakovich. The American. Timofei Osipovich and his loyal Kozma Ovchinnikov. Everyone is here. Everyone. Timofei Osipovich pushes through the reeds and stands at the river’s edge.

“Madame Bulygina, are you hurt?” he calls.

His voice is strong and, for once, addressing me he’s serious. I look at my husband. He stands behind the reeds and stares. His face is rutted with pain. He looks shrunken and, with his untrimmed beard, almost beastly. Where is his overcoat? His eyes are too shiny—is he about to cry?

“Fine,” I shout finally. “I’m fine. Kolya?” I begin to cry.

“Anya!” he shouts, his voice breaking. “Oh, Anya!” He stumbles to the edge of the riverbank and leans so far out I think for a moment he intends to jump in.

The entire crew looks filthy and exhausted. They all have sunken cheeks and black circles under their eyes. Their clothing is worn and ripped in new places. The Aleuts are barefoot.

I rise to my knees in the canoe and force myself to stop crying. “Nikolai Isaakovich, I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.”

“You’re bleeding!”

I touch the newly formed crust. “It’s nothing,” I say.

“What have they done to you? Who did it? I’ll kill him.”

“It was an accident,” I say. “It doesn’t hurt.” I fear for the outcome of this meeting if he doesn’t calm himself. “Everything is fine.” I manage a small smile.

“Are the others all right?” says Timofei Osipovich.

“They’re fine. They’re back at the house. We’ve been waiting.”

Everything makes sense now. The koliuzhi are letting us go. I’m to go first, and though I don’t know why, it doesn’t matter. “Let’s go. We still have time to get to the Kad’iak. Timofei Osipovich, please tell them to bring me to shore.”

The crew begins to fidget. Something’s amiss, something that’s been set in motion by my words. And then I notice.

“Where’s Khariton Sobachnikov? And where’s Zhuchka? Zhuchka!” I call. She does not bound forward, but before I call her again, Timofei Osipovich shouts.

“Madame Bulygina, remain quiet now while we negotiate your release.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have to negotiate your release. Be patient. They’re asking a lot, but I might be able to talk them out of it.”

“Kolya?” I try to control my tone. “What’s he talking about?”

“Be quiet now, Anya.”

At the edge of the riverbank, Timofei Osipovich says, “Makuk.” I recognize this word—he used it when trading for the halibut. A man in one of the other canoes answers. Our prikashchik responds.

John Williams steps forward. His shock of red hair is plastered to his head and his cap most certainly is gone now. In his arms he cradles a fold of nankeen cotton. A string of beads is curled on top of it. He glances nervously at my husband.

Timofei Osipovich continues to speak, his hands moving to give emphasis to his words. The koliuzhi are silent. Finally, the man in the other canoe shouts something.

Timofei Osipovich shrugs and then nods to the carpenter Ivan Kurmachev. He steps up beside John Williams. Folded in his arms is a black-green greatcoat. It’s Kolya’s.

Timofei Osipovich addresses the koliuzhi again but whatever he says is useless. The koliuzhi remain unconvinced. Finally, the koliuzhi in the other canoe snaps at him. Timofei Osipovich sighs heavily and orders Ovchinnikov, “Get the broken one. They won’t know any better.”

Ovchinnikov fusses in his bundle and pulls out a musket. Nothing would indicate it’s broken. He lays the musket in his extended arms and takes his place beside John Williams and Ivan Kurmachev.

The koliuzhi exchange glances, then lift their paddles. Our canoe pushes away from the bank and turns into the current.

“Stop,” cries my husband.

“Stop!” I cry. “No!”

We stop. The canoes are pulled back to the riverbank. But we’re a sazhen or two farther downstream on the opposite bank.

Don’t they want what we have to offer? Why not? They can’t possibly know the musket is broken, so it must be something else.

“Let me go!” I plead. I point back upstream to where my husband stands with the others. “Paddle! Come on, paddle.” I mime for them, an invisible paddle in my hands. “Please!” But we remain where we are.

“Give them the muskets,” my husband screams. “I command you. Now!”

“That would be foolish,” says Timofei Osipovich.

“I want my wife released. Give them the four muskets,” he insists.

“My dear navigator, as you well know, we have only one good musket for each man. We’ve not one single tool to repair them if anything should break. They’re all we have to save us.”

“We have plenty of guns,” shouts my husband. “We don’t need one for every single man.”

“Maybe you’re right,” says Timofei Osipovich coolly. “But if we give them four guns, they’ll use them against us. Maybe even tonight. Who would you like to see killed first by our own weapons? Him?” He points to the carpenter Kurmachev. “Or him?” He points to John Williams whose face turns even paler.

“Stop!” cries my husband. “You go too far.”

“Forgive me. I will disobey your order.”

My husband runs and plants himself before Kurmachev. “Give me your musket. Give it to me.” Kurmachev squeezes his musket to his chest. His old face is knotted in despair.

“If any man follows our navigator’s commands,” says Timofei Osipovich, “I’ll leave. I’ll get in the canoe with Madame Bulygina and join the koliuzhi. You can fend for yourselves until you find the Kad’iak.”

Kurmachev doesn’t move.

Nikolai Isaakovich faces John Williams. “Give me your musket. I command you.” His voice is hoarse with the threat of tears. But the American is defiant. He looks at Timofei Osipovich and waits.

“A person’s life and liberty are the most precious things on earth,” says Timofei Osipovich. “We have no wish to lose them. We have spoken.”

Four muskets stand between me and freedom. Four. How many muskets did we senselessly destroy and toss into the ocean when we abandoned the brig—while we packed another fold of cotton and another string of beads? “Give them what they want! Please!” I shout.

“Be quiet, Madame Bulygina. Your words only make things worse,” says Timofei Osipovich. My husband buries his face in his hands. My heart breaks, but his tears are worthless to me right now. Why doesn’t he do something? Not a single word passes his lips. No reprimand for the crew who cling to their muskets, nor for the prikashchik whose insolence would earn him severe punishment from the chief manager if he knew. I’m not worth four muskets. My life and liberty are much less precious than any of theirs.

A crow calls out twice from downstream. Its squawking voice carries through the trees.

Timofei Osipovich speaks to the koliuzhi, but they don’t let him finish. They twist their paddles and the canoes respond. The current pulls us downriver, back toward the houses and the ocean.

My voice is as loud as thunder as I wail into the trees. If I survive now, I’ll never let them forget this betrayal. They’ll never forget this day, how they chose their freedom over mine and how they abandoned me for the sake of four muskets.

I jump from the canoe when it touches shore. “Maria! Yakov!” I call as I run, my skirt tangled in my legs. “Yakov!”

They’re standing when I burst through the doorway.

“What happened to you?” Maria cries.

“I thought we’d never see you again,” says Kotelnikov.

“We’re never getting out of here! Never!” I sob. “I hate them all!”

Yakov nudges Maria, and she puts her arm around me. She awkwardly pats my back, and then, with her fingers, pinches the edges of my torn sleeve together and holds it closed. I fold in to her, and put my arms around her shoulders. She’s so tiny but I let her support me like a mother would support her daughter.

“What happened, Madame Bulygina?” Yakov says.

I tell them everything—from the canoes, to the arrival at the riverbank, to the nankeen cotton, Nikolai Isaakovich’s greatcoat, and the four muskets. From Timofei Osipovich’s defiance, to the crew’s submission. From the koliuzhi’s refusal to bend from their demands, to my husband’s relinquishment of his command. When I finish, I press my face into the crook of Maria’s arm. My shoulders shudder. I know I should show more courage, but I can’t restrain my despair any longer.

We’re offered food, but I can’t eat. Maria tends to the eyebrow man, while I lie on the mat and cry until I fall asleep, exhausted. Late in the afternoon, Kotelnikov calls us over to a bench in the corner. The koliuzhi watchmen turn their heads from the doorway as we cross the house to him, but no one stops us.

“We need a plan,” Kotelnikov starts.

“What for?” says Maria.

“We need a plan to get back with the others. Before they leave.”

“They won’t leave! They have to wait for us,” Maria cries. “Don’t say such foolish things!”

When they hear her raised voice, the koliuzhi watchmen peer at us.

“I think the negotiations are not finished yet,” Yakov says. “The crew shouldn’t move until they are—or until the worst of winter has passed. It would make no sense.”

“But Yakov,” I say, “it’s no longer a matter of sense or no sense. Timofei Osipovich won’t give them any muskets—and no one has the courage to confront him.” It saddens me to think how quickly the others aligned themselves with Timofei Osipovich and against my husband, and how easily my husband then capitulated. “What kind of negotiation is that?”

“The kind that takes a long time,” Yakov says.

“We’re fools to think these negotiations will come to an agreeable conclusion, let alone any conclusion,” says Kotelnikov. “The koliuzhi are playing games. If we were to give them four muskets, they’d turn around and demand four more. They’re unreasonable.”

“What’s unreasonable is offering them less than what we were willing to give for a sea otter pelt—and expecting them to hand over the commander’s wife,” says Maria.

“No. Circumstances are different,” counters Kotelnikov. “The rules have all changed. We must act while we’re strong and the snow’s not deep.”

“You’re wrong,” says Yakov. “Now, more than ever, we need to be patient. Let the negotiation continue. I predict that in one or two days, we’ll be released, and then we can be on our way—less perhaps a musket or two.”

“If you want to take your chances, you go ahead. I’m leaving. At the first opportunity,” says Kotelnikov. “And I’ll take anybody who wants to come. Maria? Madame Bulygina?”

How can I? If I go with him, we may wander the forest for days before we find the crew—days during which we’re pursued by the koliuzhi, days in which we’ll need to fend for ourselves with no food, no shelter, and no firearms. It’s the middle of winter. The cold alone could decide our fate.

Besides, I don’t want to see our crew. I hate Timofei Osipovich. My husband is a coward. How can I forgive them so easily? I know these are the vengeful thoughts of a little girl who imagines she’s been betrayed, and not an eighteen-year-old married woman, but I don’t care. I don’t.

“They don’t want us,” I say. “There’s no point.”

“That’s not true,” says Kotelnikov. “Be rational. We can’t stay here. They’re going to kill us eventually.”

“They’re not going to kill anybody,” Yakov points out.

I agree with Yakov. The koliuzhi have shown no inclination toward murdering us. If Kotelnikov were to go and the rest of us were to stay, would that change? And if I decided to go with him, leaving Yakov and Maria behind, what would the koliuzhi do to them? I can’t leave them to the mercy of the koliuzhi.

“I’m not going,” I decide, “and I don’t think you should either, Filip Kotelnikov. We should stay together.”

“Then come with me. All of you. There’s no other way.”

“We wouldn’t even get to the river,” Yakov says.

“Please, Filip Kotelnikov,” I beg. “Please don’t go. At least wait a few days before deciding. Maybe Yakov is right.”

“Two days then,” he says. “I’ll give you two days to make up your mind. Then I’m leaving, and you will too if you have any sense.”

The dense forest repels the rain but traps us in its twilight. We left mid-morning and except for one break to eat, we haven’t stopped. We’ve been walking for hours at a brisk pace, so I’m sure we’re a long way from the Tsar’s house. I haven’t walked this distance since the days after we abandoned the brig, before we were captured. My feet have blistered in the same places. Though it’s not raining, we’re walking through mist. My clothes are soaked, and my hair is so wet and straggly I don’t even bother to push it from my eyes.

I have no idea where we’re being taken, or why, or what’s happening with Maria and Kotelnikov, or where Nikolai Isaakovich and the rest of the crew are.

Except to urge us on, no one speaks to Yakov and me.

Kotelnikov’s two-day deadline proved meaningless. Early this morning, before we were offered food, he was pulled to the door by three men.

“Let go,” he cried. He tore one arm from their grip and struck one of the men. The man wrenched Kotelnikov’s arm back and Kotelnikov screamed.

“Let go! I told you to let me go!”

I looked at Maria, then Yakov. The koliuzhi dragged Kotelnikov through the doorway. Perhaps they intended to try and negotiate his release with the crew. But I knew that made no sense. Eventually his shouting faded in the distance.

I waited for them to come for the rest of us. Instead, the morning routine resumed. Koliuzhi Klara offered us fish and grease that she scooped from a round, shallow dish shaped like a bear or wolf, its tail the handle. I could barely eat.

Once we finished, Yakov was pulled to his feet and nudged toward the door. When halfway there, a man pulled me up as well. “Ahda,” he said, and I yielded. I didn’t know what was happening, but it gave me shaky confidence that Yakov was to be part of whatever it was.

I turned when I reached the doorway. “Maria?”

She’d stood but the man who’d pushed me down held her forearm. The lamestin woman was beside them. “Baliya,” she said, followed by an incomprehensible chain of words.

“She can’t stay here by herself!” I cried. “Yakov! Do something!”

“The eye can see it, but the tooth cannot bite it,” he said. “What can an old man do?”

Yakov and I were led to a small canoe on the riverbank and nudged into its bowl. I sat backward, facing the house. I looked for Maria, but the doorway was blocked with koliuzhi. I saw the woman with the silver comb. I saw Koliuzhi Klara and the Murzik. From the distance that stretched between us, I couldn’t guess what any of them were thinking.

We landed on the north side of the river. I gagged. The reek of the grey-brown mound was stronger on this riverbank, and the squabbles of the crows much louder. But the decomposing corpse itself seemed to have disappeared. I didn’t want to look but it puzzled me, and so, I did, and when I couldn’t locate it, I concluded it was my perspective. I just couldn’t see it from where I stood.

The koliuzhi led us into the gloomy forest.

“This is the wrong way,” I said to Yakov. “Nikolai Isaakovich and the crew are upriver.”

Yakov shook his head and said nothing.

The trees thin out a little and allow the silver light to reach us. The forest floor here is covered with crisp leaves, yellow, orange, and brown, which rustle as we walk through them. The trees are neither as tall nor as imposing as the conifers. A few have silvery bark that reminds me of the birch forests I’d visited often with my parents.

My father liked to wander in the forest. He’d see something—an unusual fork in a branch or an abandoned nest or freshly dug earth that suggested an animal might have had a den nearby—and he’d wander off the path. My mother preferred to stay on the trails and insisted always that I stay with her.

“I knew this girl,” she began one day when my father had disappeared on one of his diversions. “She lived in a certain village—not far, not near, not high, not low. She was walking in a forest just like this when she came across a necklace lying on the path.”

“Where did it come from?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said dismissively, and continued. “The necklace was extraordinarly beautiful. So beautiful that she forgot about the incantation.”

“What incantation?”

“I will tell you. I will teach it to you. But you must promise me that you’ll never forget it.” She waited. “Well? Do you promise?”

Warily I said, “I promise.” I hoped my father was too far away to hear.

“Good,” my mother said. “Now repeat what I say:

Earth, earth, close the door.

One necklace, nothing more.

Earth, earth, I command,

One necklace, in my hand.”

When I was able to recite the whole thing by myself—it was easy—she continued. “Without the incantation, she took the necklace. She put it in the box with her other jewellery. That night, when she was asleep, a voice woke her up. ‘Give me back what is mine,’ the voice said.”

“Who was it?” I asked. “Voices have to come from somebody.”

“Ah, you sound like your father. Listen. I will tell you,” she said. “There was a man beside her bed. It was his voice. She was terrified, so she said yes, she would give it back. When she opened her box to get it, the necklace was gone.”

“The man took it?”

“I don’t know who took it.”

“This is not a real story. It’s not possible.”

“It is a real story. It happened to my friend,” she said. “Don’t you want to know how it turned out?” I nodded.

“The man was very angry. He said, ‘You’ve taken what belongs to me. Now I will take you.’” I was old enough to know what she meant, but I still didn’t believe it. “He told her never to tell anybody or she would die.

“Every night, it was the same thing. I know it sounds crazy but—my friend said he would show up as a flying serpent. He’d transform into a man and then—take my friend as though she was his wife. Until finally one day, after a long time and a short time, she couldn’t take it anymore and she told me.”

“And? What happened?”

“Anya—she died the very next day.”

My mother wrapped her arm around me and pulled me close. “That’s what the leshii does if you’re not careful when you go to the woods,” she whispered.

I knew my mother’s story was untrue. It was absurd. Even when I was young, I knew there were no flying serpents. I knew men didn’t appear in women’s bedchambers unless invited. I knew jewellery didn’t disappear. There were no magic incantations. And there was no leshii. As we continued along the path, her arm tight around my shoulders, I heard sounds, and when something lying on the ground ahead of us glittered, I fought the compulsion to grasp my silver cross through the thin fabric of my dress and apron and cry out, “Earth, earth…” as she’d taught me. I refused to give in to my mother’s irrational fear. The sparkle was probably just dew on the leaves where the sun struck. The sounds were probably just my father rustling around with the object that had caught his fancy that day.

Probably.

This part of the forest is just like that forest, and I feel the same sense of uncertainty as I did after my mother told her story. This time, I readily touch my silver cross, trying to bring her closer, trying to keep the leshii, in case there is one, away.

I trudge on, following Yakov, unable to elude my fears. They swarm around my head and refuse to abandon me. Much later, we emerge into a flat valley. We follow a smooth, wide trail that, if our crew had found it, might have cut our travel time by days. Mountains command the land as far as we can see; their tops disappear in the cloud.

It’s very late in the day when we finally emerge at the edge of a river too wide and deep to cross. The sky is brighter toward the west, but it won’t be long before it’s too dark to see where we’re going. The koliuzhi walk downstream toward the light until the shape of a few houses emerges.

“Where are we?” I ask.

Our koliuzhi draw close to the houses and call out, “Yiátsal chi íial xόx^wa.”[24] A person appears in a doorway, and then another, and another, until many people are watching us.

We are led toward the doorway of one of the houses. Just before we enter, I look straight up into the darkening sky. Through an opening in the trees, I see Polaris valiantly trying to shine; she’ll be bright and sharp as crystal in a few more hours. I follow the others inside.

Yakov and I face a row of old men, a crowd of curious koliuzhi, and a routine whose rhythms we know well.

“X^wasáka, hόtsk^wa·ť,”[25] says a man with a moustache and a sea otter cape that has a hem fringed with plump fur tails.

It’s not the flickering light.

“Yakov,” I say. “It’s the toyon. The man who’s speaking. We know him.”

“Who is he?” he whispers.

“He’s from the tent. When we were on the beach. Just after we ran aground. Remember? Timofei Osipovich took Maria and me into a tent to talk with him—and then there was that battle.”

Yakov peers. “I don’t remember him.”

“That’s because he was in the tent and you were outside. Timofei Osipovich and I saw him again, later, on the beach. None of you were there. That’s him. I know it.”

We’ve returned to where we abandoned the brig. It’s only been a handful of days, but it feels like years since we were here. Was Timofei Osipovich right about it having been burnt to ash, or is there a chance it has survived? I’d like to go aboard. Would they let me? Could I sleep in my own bed? Change my clothes, comb my hair? Maybe I’d discover my missing shawl pin, fallen between the planks of the deck. What else might be left, what other precious objects escaped our frenzied destruction, and how could it be that I’d never understood how precious they were?

The toyon begins to speak. Undoubtedly, he knows who we are. How angry is he about the battle? I watch for signs.

Yakov and I are separated. We sleep at opposite ends of the moustached toyon’s house.

After we eat the next morning, movement suggests this house is not our destination. We must have farther to walk.

“Where are they taking us now?” I ask Yakov.

He shakes his head. He’s weary. Another day on the trail will not do such an old man any good.

One of the koliuzhi who travelled with us yesterday stands before me. “Ahda,” he says, and gestures.

We follow a path down to the river. Its mouth seems narrower than it did when we ferried ourselves across with our bundles and released our skiff to the mercy of the sea. Two canoes beaded with moisture from last night’s rain rest on the stony beach.

These canoes are much bigger than the other tiny canoes I’ve been in. I climb into one. It’s the schooner of canoes. When I sit, unless I stretch I can’t see over the gunwales, which are dotted with bits of luminous shell that have been polished and set into the wood. I don’t know how it will float—the river is too shallow for its size.

The moustached toyon is already seated in front of me. His sea otter cape falls in folds before my face, the hair furrowing and bristling as he shifts. Our canoe is boarded until it fills. I’m the only woman.

The canoe enters the stream, followed by a second canoe. The paddlers flick their pointed paddles as if they’re hens scratching the earth. The sea looks calm, though it still roars and crashes against the beach. The humped island plugs this river’s mouth; the trees are a jagged-edged shadow atop it.

The bow of our canoe turns toward the island. I thought we were crossing the river. We reach the turbulent place where the river and sea meet. The waves and currents slam into one another; peaks of white water form, merge, and disappear. The paddlers fight against it. Their paddles plunge in unison and they efficiently move us beyond the tumult.

The canoe turns parallel to the shore and heads north. We’re in deep water, and I feel nervous. A flock of birds rises from the ocean’s surface. After only a few minutes, I’m positive this is the place we ran aground. I recognize the stumps and stacks. But where’s the Sviatoi Nikolai? There’s nothing here. Not a mast, a plank—nothing. Not even debris washed up on the beach. Did the tides push it against the rocks until it broke apart and then pull its remains out to sea? Perhaps Timofei Osipovich was right after all when he said the koliuzhi would have burned it to ashes.

“Yakov?” I turn my head, wondering what he thinks. But he isn’t here.

I look to the other canoe. He’s not there either. Is he still on the riverbank?

No. He’s not there either. He’s gone.

“Yakov!” I shout. But no one pays any heed to my cry. The paddlers maintain their rhythm.

The canoe’s bow slices through a cresting wave. Seawater cold as a winter night sprays my cheek.

CHAPTER TEN

The sea lifts and tosses us, while the wind whistles and buffets our canoes. The paddlers struggle to find a rhythm. In each boat, the men slide long, smooth poles from the bow where they were held in place in a notch that looks like the pointed ears of a dog. They fix the poles in slots midship, and attach sails made of cedar bark—another use for the woven mats—and rigging made of bark rope. The sails swell in the gusts, just as though they were canvas, and send us careening over the choppy surface.

On one side, the ocean opens to infinity. On the other, vague features of the shore are shrouded in mist: the beaches, arced like half-open eyes, delimited by rocky headlands, and the velvet black forest outlining the land, dark as kohl on a dancer’s eyelid. We’re heading north.

We’re going away from Yakov, Maria, and Kotelnikov. Away from Nikolai Isaakovich and the rest of the crew. Away from the Kad’iak. We’ve been divided as if we were a measure of wheat or a bushel of apples.

We’re returning along a shore we passed so long ago when we were aboard the Sviatoi Nikolai. We sailed around this headland and past that white beach. We saw this tiny cluster of stacks topped with scraggy growth against which the sea now throws itself in a tantrum.

Ahead lies a foam-capped ocean. We’ll drown if the canoe should capsize. We slide up a wave several times the height of the boat and slam down on the other side. Water splashes into the canoe. I have no cape—it was left behind. But there’s no time to dwell on my wet clothes. Looming ahead is another monstrous wave.

We surge to its crest and plunge down the other side with a thud. Another fan of water sprays me. It’s so cold, it bites.

Water begins to accumulate in the boat. Around my feet, rivulets stream back and forth along the length of the canoe as we climb and descend the mountainous waves. From behind, I hear the rhythmic scrape of somebody bailing.

Then a paddler starts to sing. “Wála hiiiiiii!”[26] he cries.

Without hesitation, others join in. “Wála hiiiiiiii! Tik^wotsláli.”

Music slides into the bowl of our vessel, then curls up the other side, and is pushed overhead where it hangs for an instant before the wind takes it away. But the “wála hi” refills the boat again and again, and eventually it seems like the canoe itself is singing. The voices of the koliuzhi in the other canoe rise faintly above the sound of the storm as they, too, join in. The men match their paddling with the cadence of the music.

Abruptly, the canoes are steered out to sea. The bow of the canoe is pointed directly into the waves and it slices through them, opening a path for us. The men continue to sing and dig deep with their paddles, taking us farther and farther away from land. When we’re directly across from a distant headland that resembles a fortress, the paddlers pull the nose of the canoe sharply toward shore. Within two strokes, everything smoothens. The waves flatten. Instead of fighting us, the wind pushes us along. The singing ends as suddenly as it began. The paddlers drive us, like an arrow, toward the shelter of a long and shallow bay.

On shore, four totem poles overlook the cove. Like the ones outside Novo-Arkhangelsk, they’re immense. The silhouette of one pole, with open wings near its top, resembles the Holy Cross. Dwarfed by the line of poles and nearly lost in the trees, a dozen low buildings squat. They’re well above the sand, well away from the sea, merging with shadow.

As we draw closer, I see people gathered on the beach. Are they expecting us? The wind shifts and carries music out to us. The people on the beach are singing us onto their shore. Are they celebrating? The other canoe heads toward them, but we stay at sea beyond the line where the surf breaks, and bob in the water like a dry leaf.

A basket-laden man from the landed canoe follows a line of koliuzhi into one of the houses. The rest of the men from the canoe remain on the beach with two watchmen, one holding a bow and arrow, the other a spear. Despite their appearance, their weapons are at rest and they converse with their visitors. After a long time and a short time, a crowd emerges from the house and returns to shore. The basket-laden man is among them, but he’s left behind whatever he was carrying. My canoe is beckoned to the beach.

“Wacush! Wacush!” I hear the koliuzhi shout as the canoe scrapes against the beach.

After I disembark, I follow everyone up the sand and over the rocks. We pass between two of the totem poles. They’re each as high as six men, and, astonishingly, for I’ve never before seen any totem pole closely, each is made of a single piece of wood. Carved by whom? Erected how? The eyes, hands, and feet, the paws, claws, toothy mouths, and nubs of rounded ears or peaks of pointy ones, all flowing into one another, follow the grain of the wood. Why are they here, facing the sea? What do they represent? Everyone enters the shadowy doorway of a house, and I have no choice but to follow.

Upon entering, I’m again blinded by darkness. A fire burns in the centre of a sunken floor. When my eyes start to adjust and my surroundings emerge, I see how similar this house is to the Tsar’s house: wooden plank walls that stretch between heavy, carved posts; the entire perimeter ringed with imposing benches; the rafters garlanded with fish, skeins of dried grass, ribbons of bark, coils of rope, and bulging baskets. The only difference is in scale. There are ten carved posts and the ceiling soars like in a great hall in a royal palace. This house is mammoth.

I hear giggles and whispers in the shadows. When my eyes have finished adjusting, I see the people. There might be two hundred of them.

The man who must be the toyon stands beside the fire. He has a rattle in his hand. But everything else about him is unlike any koliuzhi I’ve ever seen.

Shaven and short-haired, he’s groomed like an Englishman. A fashionable beaver hat is perched atop his head, tipped back, exposing his young face. His shoulders are covered by a sea otter cape that reaches to his knees. Through its opening, the rest of his clothing is visible: a red broadcloth jacket, double-breasted, with long tails. And trousers. He wears trousers.

“Good day,” he says, in English.

I don’t know English, but I recognize these words. In the mansions of Petersburg, I’ve heard them often enough, mostly in the funny anecdotes meant to contrast the fine breeding of the French with the coarse manners of the English. “Good day,” I reply awkwardly.

I look down. His boots are made of soft hide, just like the Tsar’s, and seem out of place with the rest of his clothing.

He speaks to me in English, the way the English do, barely opening their mouths and slurring together all their words, softening the consonants until they all sound the same, so unlike my language. He arrives at a question, asks it, and waits for my response.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t understand.” Is there any point? “Russian,” I say, though I know it useless. Our conversation is finished. “I speak Russian.”

“You speak Russian?” he says in Russian. “Fine,” he continues. “My Russian is tolerable. However, you must pardon me when I make an error.”

He speaks with an accent just like Yakov’s, but he appears more like an English nobleman than a worker for the Russian-American Company. I shouldn’t be so surprised. The koliuzhi who gave us the halibut knew the Russian word for fish. And what about the lamestin woman speaking French? Still, I never would have imagined hearing my language spoken here. “How could you know Russian?”

He laughs. “I like different languages,” he says. “They interest me. But your people—I think you do not. Long ago, I decided it would be best if I learned some words.”

Some words? He makes mistakes but he’s conversant.

“Who taught you?”

“Do you know of the Peacock? There were some good-humoured men on board. Right after that, it was the O’Cain. I cannot imagine why your Tsar thought it wise to get mixed up with the Americans, but who am I to say so? Your men were good enough teachers of your language.”

“I’ve never heard of those ships. I come from the Sviatoi Nikolai.”

“Yes, Captain Slobodchikov said there would be more ships—Russian ships—but we haven’t seen any yet. Mostly it’s the English and the Americans.”

“Our brig passed this coast about two weeks ago.”

He smiles. “We have much to discuss. Welcome to Tsoo-yess.”

He has a complicated name crowded with hard consonants and long vowels. I attempt it, but he laughs and tells me to call him Makee. Now I want to laugh—poppy seed!—but it would be unkind and rude to laugh at his name. He mangles Anna Petrovna Bulygina—such a simple name!—and we end with agreement that he’ll just call me Anna, like the others. He pronounces it “Anna,” in the Russian way.

He invites me to sit beside him on a bench and lays his rattle between us. His is carved in the shape of a fish and there’s a person clutched in its jaws. Four men, including the moustached toyon who came here with me, sit alongside us. Others—including women and children—either sit or stand in a semicircle before us. A baby nearby fusses until its mother pulls it to her breast. I can hear the sucking, gulping, and a happy chirping sound coming from the baby.

“I wish I could offer you tea,” Makee says. “Your people are quite obsessed with it, aren’t you? But this will have to do.” A woman with her hair tightly tied back offers me a small wooden bowl of warm liquid that smells like tree needles. There’s a white, crescent-shaped scar on the back of her right hand. I sip the drink—it’s hot and bitter—and cradle the bowl to my chest. After the journey, the drink and the hospitality are comforting.

“Thank you,” I say to Makee. “That’s very kind. Now—if you would allow me to speak bluntly for a moment—where am I?”

He smiles sympathetically. “You’re in Tsoo-yess.”

“And why am I here?”

“The Chalats have brought you.” He points with his chin toward the men who were in my canoe.

“But why? The others—the people I’m with—they’ll be wondering where I am.”

Makee smiles again. “The people you’re with, so I am told, are quite hopelessly lost in the forest.”

“We’re not lost. We’re trying to get down the coast to meet a ship that’s expecting us. But… we’ve run into some… unfortunate difficulties.”

Makee peers at me, his brow furrowed. “If you will now allow me to speak bluntly—what are you doing in our territory? What do you want?”

“We’re on a mission—with the Russian-American Company. We’re here to trade with you; we’re also looking for an empty place where we might be able to build a settlement.”

“I see.” Makee’s smile disappears.

“We’re here in the name of the Tsar.”

Makee turns to the four men sitting around him and speaks to them in his language. They look at me, then him, then back at me again.

When he finishes, Makee turns to me once more and says, “Did your Tsar tell you to take all their salmon?”

It takes me a moment to figure out what he means. He means the dried slabs of fish we took from the little abandoned hut we discovered that day on the riverbank. “We didn’t.” It wasn’t all the salmon. “We were hungry. We didn’t know it belonged to anybody.”

“They were going to eat that fish this winter. Do you understand what will happen to them now?”

“I’m sorry. We didn’t know,” I stammer. “We left them some beads. And a robe. Didn’t they tell you about the beads?” I remember the inadequate piles we left behind. How I said nothing.

“Did your Tsar also tell you to shoot at them with your muskets? And before that, what you did to the Quileutes on the beach?” He doesn’t allow me to respond. He speaks again to the four men and while he does, everyone listens.

I think again about the dead boy with the ragged hole that opened his chest. Sand lay on his cheek and in his hair like dust. We left him there so the koliuzhi could come back for him.

Makee finally turns back to me. “There have been so many problems since your ship arrived.”

I open my hands and plead to Makee. “Then let us go. If you let me go, I’ll tell the others what you said, and we’ll leave. We won’t cause you any more difficulties if you’ll just take me back to the others.”

“But Anna—I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“The Chalats need food for the winter. To replace what you took.”

“We have no food!” I cry. “We have nothing to eat ourselves!”

“They know that. They’ve come to us for food.”

“Then why can’t you tell them to take me back?”

“You’ve misunderstood.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“You’re staying here now. This is a trade. You’re what they’ve brought in exchange for this food.”

Makee explains the terms of the trade. The Chalat Tsar has two problems: he needs food for his people, and he wants to stop the stealing and the attacks. He thought the easiest way would be to trade us back to our own people, and to encourage us to leave. So, starting with me, the Tsar tried to exchange us for muskets and powder. According to Makee, the muskets would solve both the Tsar’s problems. They’d make it easier to hunt through the winter—and help the Chalats to protect themselves from any further attacks we might launch.

When the crew refused to trade, Makee says, the Tsar had no choice.

“The lady doctor is staying with the Chalats. One man has gone to the Cathlamets and the other will stay with the Quileutes. And you’re here.”

By dividing us up, Makee says, the Tsar ensures no village is the sole subject of endless attacks. And no single village will have to trade away much of its winter supplies to make up for what we stole.

“You can’t do this!” I say. “It’s wrong.”

Makee turns to the four men and speaks. An old man whose sunken, bony chest is visible from beneath his cedar vest says something and pauses. Makee replies at length.

When he finishes, he says, “Anna, it’s better you stay here. Besides—I’ll get you home. Maybe even Russia, if that’s what you want.”

“How?”

“The next time we see a ship,” he says, “we’ll go out to meet it. If they’re willing, I’ll trade you and they’ll take you to your home.”

Home. Maybe even Russia. There might be a way out of here that doesn’t depend on the Kad’iak. I’d never dreamed such a thing could be possible. But at what cost? Trading in human life is wrong. People are born free and equal. Our Tsar has embraced this and many other principles of enlightened thought. Slavery was abolished before my parents were born. And though the condition of serfs has improved with reforms for the state’s peasants and the free agriculturalists, I’ve heard my father’s friends arguing long and hard over how much further the Tsar must go.

Even Timofei Osipovich knows about egalitarianism, though he’d use a simpler word for it. He said on the riverbank that a person’s freedom is the most precious thing on earth.

Still, regardless of the lofty principles debated around my parents’ dinner table, Makee offers what may be the only realistic way out of this horrible predicament. My father would see the practicality of the arguments right away. I think I know what he would say.

“I want to go home,” I say, “but…”

Makee bristles. “You have no choice. Anyway, you wouldn’t be the first stranger whose passage home I arranged. Too-te-yoo-hannis Yoo-ett—you must have heard about him.”

I can hardly understand. “Who?”

“Too-te-yoo-hannis Yoo-ett. He was with the Mowachahts for many years. Mokwinna wouldn’t allow him to leave. But I helped him.”

Makee speaks to one of the four men and the man disappears. When he returns a moment later, he hands something to Makee. Makee holds it out to me.

It’s one of the blunt, horn-shaped tools that I’ve seen hanging from the neck and shoulders of koliuzhi men. The dead boy on the beach had one attached to a sinew. But this one is different. It’s made of burnished metal, engraved with the same eyes, mouths, and hands that are found on the totem poles, house posts, and wooden boxes.

I take it from Makee. It’s heavy, but its weight is balanced along its length. It curves with exquisite gracefulness. Other than the silver hair ornament worn by that woman in the Tsar’s village, I’ve never seen anything like it here. Only the finest metalsmiths in Petersburg, the ones who make the samovars and tea trays for princes and princesses, could have crafted it.

“What is this?”

“It’s a . It’s a war club.”

“Cheetoolth? Did you make it?”

“No, not me. Too-te-yoo-hannis Yoo-ett made it for me. He was going to make me a harpoon too, but Mokwinna wouldn’t let him.”

“Who was this man—this Too-te-yoo—” I hesitate.

“Too-te-yoo-hannis. He’s American. He was captured by Mokwinna long ago. He spent several years with the Mowachahts. Mokwinna wouldn’t let him go because he made so many nice metal things. Mokwinna became quite rich trading them.

“But the American wasn’t happy. He wanted to go home. And when I was visiting Yuquot, he secretly asked me to help him escape. He wrote a letter and begged me to give it to any sea captain I met. Mokwinna would have been furious if he’d known. I gave it to the captain of the Lydia. I heard later that he convinced Mokwinna to release Too-te-yoo-hannis Yoo-ett.”

I turn the object over. I believe Makee’s story.

“When could we expect the next ship?”

“It’s hard to say. There aren’t any ships in winter. The sea is too stormy; later, in the spring, they’ll be back.”

“And what about the others? My husband—and the rest of the crew.”

“Your husband is with you?”

“Of course. Could you arrange his rescue as well? Could you arrange for us all to be released?”

“I can try. If I’m not successful, perhaps you’ll be able to arrange it yourself once you’re free.”

He speaks to the four men, and then the people who’ve been watching and listening. When he finishes, they all get up—Makee included—and leave me on the bench with my now-cold bowl of tea and a feeling that everything might work out after all.

When it’s time to eat that evening, I’m ushered to Makee’s side. The moustached toyon sits on his other side. A woman with two plaits as thick as the rope on the brig sets a tray of food before me.

Makee says, “This is my wife.” She’s older than me but not as old as my mother. She has a broad and certain face, lips that turn up at the corners even when she’s not smiling, and she wears a cedar dress that covers her to her ankles. There are round shells in her earlobes and bracelets on both her wrists.

“Wacush,” I say, and she looks to Makee. He says something briefly to her, and she smiles before she returns to the cooking boxes.

The tray contains fish and grease. There’s also something brown that looks like a crooked finger. I find another, and another, barely concealed by the grease. They appear to be roots. I cautiously squeeze one. The skin opens and something dry, flaky, and white appears through the crack.

Potato. It’s roasted potato.

When I look up, Makee’s smiling.

“You may also have onion and cabbage—but you’ll have to cook it yourself. We don’t like them, and no one knows what to do with them.”

“Where do you get these vegetables?”

“We take them from the Spanish garden. They left our coast many years ago, but their garden still grows. I’ll take you there soon.”

The idea of a garden of vegetables seems as strange and wonderful as boarding a ship bound for Russia. “Thank you.”

Makee’s wife returns, then sits beside me. We start to eat, sharing the food in the tray. I watch her from the corner of my eye, aware that she’s also watching me.

Later, the young woman with the crescent-shaped scar on her hand gives me a woven mat and a soft animal skin. It’s thin and frayed at the edges. The bristly brown hair has worn off in patches and it’s too small to cover me and my legs. She indicates where I’m to make my bed. When I go outside to relieve myself, no one follows, but it’s so dark, and the sea, so much closer here, roars. I take care of my business, then locate my Polaris. She’s extra bright tonight, as if all the stars she’s made of have aligned. I bid her a good night before I run back inside.

When I wake in the morning, I notice that the moustached toyon is nowhere to be seen, and when I go outside to relieve myself, I see the canoes that brought me here have gone. They’ll carry back my news to share with the others. I only regret that they have no way to tell Maria what good fortune I’ve stumbled upon. I wish there was some way to tell Nikolai Isaakovich, too. Perhaps he’d be more resolute if he knew there was hope.

“Anna?” Makee calls me to the bench later in the morning. He flicks back his coattails before he sits and tips his hat back so his eyes are no longer hidden in the brim’s shadow. “Did you sleep comfortably?”

I nod, thinking about how Maria and I had shared bedclothes when I was with the Chalats, and how even though my covering here is so thin and small, the space I had last night was unexpectedly large.

“Good. As I said yesterday, it could be some time before a ship appears, and I can’t predict whether the captain will be willing to trade. So your rescue could take longer than any of us expect.”

“I understand the situation,” I murmur. “I’m content to wait until the circumstances are right.”

Makee smiles. “You will be treated well here and though it may not meet the expectations of a Russian noblewoman, perhaps you will be comfortable enough. You may find our ways odd. Nonetheless, you will feel better if you do as we do.”

Not far from the bench where we sit, the woman with the crescent-shaped scar on her hand watches us. She’s dressed differently than she was yesterday. Her cedar bark cape is wrapped tightly around her neck, and a cord holds it around her waist. Her skirt reaches her ankles. Her feet are bare. Her hands are folded around some coils of cords.

“Go,” Makee says, indicating the woman. “Go with—” And he says a name that sounds like Inessa.

“Go where?” I ask.

He says something to the woman and she replies briefly.

“She’ll show you where we collect wood for the fire. And after you come back, you’ll go out with her for water.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Anna, you have work to do. Today, you will gather firewood and bring water with—.” And he says the name again, but I can’t quite catch it. It still sounds like Inessa.

“But—I can’t do that. I don’t know how.”

His face looks like my father’s when he’s disappointed in me. “Even a child could do such simple tasks,” he admonishes. “But she will show you, if necessary.” He frowns when he sees my expression. “You did not expect to be idle here, did you?”

“No,” I say, aware that I sound peevish but unable to stop myself. “Isn’t there other work I could do?”

“Like what?” He waits, but I’ve seen enough of the koliuzhi way to know that my accomplishments have little meaning here. Nobody is clamouring to keep a log of the stars. Nobody is embroidering dinner napkins. Nobody is conjugating French verbs or learning the steps to the mazurka.

“If you are going to stay with us, you will have to work with us.” He rises. “Everyone here has responsibilities. You will need to do your share. Now, go with her. Go, and do whatever she does.” He heads for the door and his form disappears into the daylight.

I follow the woman I now think of as Inessa. She doesn’t even look to see if I’m behind. Her hair is freshly combed, and again, very tightly tied back. Her single plait bounces against her cape. The cords swing from her left hand as she walks down a trail that leads into the forest. Just like Koliuzhi Klara, her movement through the trees is easy, even with bare feet.

There’s wood all around us, but for reasons I don’t comprehend, she walks right by it.

As we go deeper into the forest, the ground becomes spongier, and the light dims. We tread past lofty trees and drooping moss. The sound of the sea disappears, replaced by the sighs of the wind in the canopy far overhead.

Inessa leaves the trail. I follow, climbing over rotting logs and roots that buckle up out of the soil. Ahead, she stops and drops the cords. She leans over a fallen tree. With one foot planted squarely on the trunk, she twists a thin branch until it snaps. She throws it down, then wrenches off another, and throws it onto the pile of wood she’s started.

There are so many sticks everywhere. They’re probably wet, but they’ll dry soon enough. This should be easy. I choose one—it’s not heavy—and I add it to Inessa’s pile. The next one is slightly thicker and dappled with curls of pale lichen. I untangle it from the thatch and place it on our pile.

Inessa looks at the thick branch, then me, and laughs. She kicks the branch.

“What are you doing?” I cry.

My branch shatters, flaky as pastry. It’s rotten. It could never burn.

I wander away looking for better wood. I try to find a tree like the one Inessa is working on. As I search, I hear snap after snap of breaking branches as she builds her pile. The snaps grow distant, but I still can’t find a fallen tree that’s not completely rotten. I pick up a small stick that looks good. Then Inessa calls.

“Šuuk!”[27]

I have only one stick, but I start to head toward the sound of her voice.

She calls out again. “Hitak^waše·isid! wa·saqi·k?”[28]

When I get back, she’s standing beside two huge bundles of sticks that have been wrapped in the cords she brought. She looks at my single stick in disbelief, grabs it from my hand, then throws it into the bushes. She swings one bundle of wood onto her back and slips a band that I hadn’t noticed around her head. The band’s attached to the bundle of wood.

She leaves the other bundle for me.

Before she gets too far away, I lift my bundle and try to roll it onto my back just as she did. But when I finally do, I can’t reach the headband. How did she do it? I can’t remember which step comes first, which hand goes where, and I also can’t take the time to figure it out or I’ll lose her.

I lift the bundle of sticks into my arms and crush it against my chest. I can hardly see over it. But if I lose sight of Inessa’s back, I will have much greater trouble.

Inessa and I make several visits to the same grove in the forest. Each time, she collects and carries back most of the wood; each time, I also manage a little better. I’m very slow compared to her, but she doesn’t stomp on, or throw away, any more of the sticks I gather either. I watch her and figure out the series of moves it takes to successfully get the sticks onto my back.

When we’re done, Inessa gives me a basket as big as a coal scuttle, takes one for herself, and leads me along a path in a different direction.

We stop beside a small pond. A flock of ducks takes flight as soon as it sees us, calling krya-krya as the ducks disappear over the trees. Inessa walks into the water, bends, dips her basket in, and as she pulls it up, in a fluid motion, she rolls it along her shoulder and onto her back while slipping the band over her head.

“You can’t put water in a basket,” I say. I laugh in disbelief. “What are you doing?”

It’s the basket, not Inessa, that responds. Water runs down its sides and stops. From the way she walks, I can see the weight of her load. When she passes me, standing by the side of the pond, I look inside her basket. It’s full.

I brush my fingertips over the surface of my tightly woven basket. It seems illogical, but then I think of the woven bowls we used in the Tsar’s village. They were watertight. I just didn’t think you could make such a large basket that wouldn’t leak. I wade into the cold water, just as she did, soaking my skirt to the knees. I fill it, heave it onto my back, and slip the band around my head, all the while trying to imitate Inessa’s movements.

The full basket pulls at my neck muscles and seems to grow heavier as we get closer to the house. My wet skirt tangles in my legs, forcing me to take tiny steps that slow me down. Back at the house, we pour the water into square wooden buckets, the same size and shape as the cooking boxes. It seems all fresh water is stored in these containers. Then we go back to the pond, once, twice, and after that, I lose count.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My days fill with wood and water, water and wood. Whether it pours, or tendrils of mist wrap themselves around the trees, or the sky clears and sunlight mottles the moss cushions scattered on the forest floor, Inessa takes me out, and we return, as reliably as the tide, with water and wood, wood and water.

We need firewood all the time. The fires here don’t rage as they do in the stone hearths of Petersburg, but still it takes much wood to maintain the intense flames that produce enough heat to warm the stones to cook, as well as to make a modest difference to the temperature inside. The need for water is similar. The women use basket after basket of water to wash for and feed these many people. A near-empty storage box is a disheartening sign that Inessa and I need to make another trip to the pond.

I’ve never worked so hard, so physically, in all my life. I’m weary at the end of every day, fatigued in a way that’s completely unfamiliar. Responsibilities I understand. I have duties to my husband, as he does to me, to the crew, to the company. Even when I was a girl in Petersburg, my parents would never have allowed me to be idle while they were themselves busy. But I lack the natural inclination needed for this kind of heavy labour. My mind has always been stronger than my body. Perhaps Makee could give me more suitable duties. “Like what?” he’d asked. I still can’t imagine what.

I’m a prisoner—and I have been since the day of the battle on the river with the Chalat Tsar’s people. I cannot go where I please. I’ve been traded in exchange for food. And now I’m compelled to work. Hard labour.

This is slavery, or, at best, some koliuzhi version of serfdom.

But then, like my father’s friends in debate, I argue with myself. I’m a prisoner—but I’m not locked up in a cell. I cannot go where I please—but where would I go? I only want to go home and Makee said he’ll arrange it. No one torments me, mistreats me, or withholds food. The work is hard—but who around here is not working hard? I see no idle man or woman, not even an idle child.

I think that whatever I am here—slave, serf, or a working guest, like a girl hired to be an old woman’s companion—there is no word in Russian to describe it.

I spend my days with Inessa and yet know so little about her—not even her real name. In the evenings, after our work is done, she eats her meal in a corner with other young women and children. They talk and laugh—who are her friends? What amuses them? Is she married? I think not, but surely she favours somebody. I watch to see if there’s a young man she gazes at, or who gazes at her with that kind of longing.

Where is Nikolai Isaakovich? Did he get his coat back? Is he missing me, looking for me? I pass the hours walking to and from the forest thinking about the last time I saw him, his beastly beard, without his coat, his thin shirt no shield from the cold, and the way he hung his head, impotent before the men who, only a few weeks before, had obeyed his every command. I am so disappointed for him, and, frankly, disappointed in him. But I know he’s not a coward—not really. Something’s happened with the crew to influence him, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t imagine what it might have been.

I picture his face when we meet again. How surprised he’ll be if the next time he sees me I’m hailing him from the ship that’s come to rescue all of us. How tightly we’ll embrace one another and how sweet his kisses will be when we’re finally alone again.

One grey morning, before Inessa and I head into the forest again, Makee calls me.

“I will show you the garden today,” he says. “Come.”

We head out along a path that leads away from the sea. Two men, one carrying bow and arrows, the other a spear, accompany us. The path is narrow and muddy, so we walk single file. After a long time and a short time, the sound of the surf vanishes beneath the twittering of birds and the soft breath of the wind in the trees.

It’s a relief to be in the forest with a purpose other than searching for firewood. I can nearly imagine my parents here, my father off wandering in the underbrush, my mother beginning one of her cautionary tales about the leshii. This forest is so different from the one in the hills that surround Petersburg. I wonder if she’d sense the leshii’s presence here, too.

At a bend in the path, two tiny birds flutter away when they see us. Startled, the man with the spear lifts his weapon, then lowers it when he sees there’s no danger. Around the corner, right beside the trail, grows a strange tree with a short trunk that splits into many branches that all grow straight into the sky. Together, the branches form a bowl; the tree resembles a chalice.

“How long did the Spanish live here?” I ask.

Makee shrugs. “Not long—in the end. But they intended to stay much longer than they did. They constructed houses, sheds for their cattle, and even a building where they made metal things—a whole village. After it was built, they surrounded it with cannon. I was a young boy then, but I remember there were six. All facing outward and pointed at us.”

“Why? Were you at war?”

“We should have been. They built it all on top of our houses.”

“On top? How?”

“They came when the people were away. It was summer and naturally everyone was in the forest and up in the hills. When the people came back, their village was occupied. The Spanish men didn’t care, and they even insisted the people stop trading with everyone else. But the Spanish had almost nothing anybody wanted. No one wished to restrict trading like that.”

“So what did the people do?”

“There was no choice. They had to find somewhere else to live. Some of them came to Tsoo-yess—the rest to other villages. That winter, the Spanish suffered a lot and eventually they went back to their country. And when they did, they left everything. So, the people came back to their community. They tore down the Spanish houses. They burnt what they didn’t want, or threw it in the river. The garden is all that’s left.”

We walk until, in the distance, the horizon brightens, and the sound of the sea returns. Gradually, through the trees, the ocean emerges once again. The men with us hold their weapons more casually, and the hard readiness of their arms melts away.

“This is it,” Makee says, and we stop before a tangle of vines and overgrown plants that bolted long ago. It’s hardly a garden. It lies just outside the edge of the forest, a short distance from the sea, at one end of a huge bay that’s empty except for a floating flock of black birds. A lone gull glides overhead.

I kneel and pull aside a desiccated mesh of stalks and vines. Beneath them, life is taking its course: many small plants huddle together. Their stunted leaves are dark but green, so I know they’re alive. Makee squats beside me and pulls the debris even farther back. There, nestled in pale, oversized leaves, is a tiny emerald jewel.

“Cabbage?”

“You take it. Nobody wants it—only the insects.”

The outer leaves have been nibbled at the edges. I fold them back, exposing the core, which the beetles and caterpillars haven’t yet found. I pull it out of the earth, root and all. It smells sweet, like most cabbages when just picked, but a bit sharp, too, like it’s been left in the ground too long.

Makee shows me where the onions grow. Using a pointed stick, I gouge the earth in a circle around a bulb hoping to make it easier to pull up. Makee and the two men watch.

When I rise, I fold over my apron and sling into it one cabbage and three onions with their spiky tops bent over. My cheeks feel warm from the wind and the exertion.

Makee looks overhead to the darkening sky. “Come. The clouds are aching. We should go back.”

We pass the tree that looks like a chalice, and head along the trail that crosses the forest. The wind picks up and, indeed, each minute, the sky grows darker. The air is heavy with the promise of rain. I pull my vegetable-laden apron a little closer and try to keep up with Makee.

“I’ll be giving a big feast soon,” Makee says, over his shoulder. “I’m inviting people from the nearby villages but also some people who live much farther away on the coast.”

“Will there be many guests?”

“There always are. We’re known to be generous with food, and some even call us by that name: ‘Makah,’ is how they say it. But that word comes from another language, not ours.”

“So what do you call yourselves?”

“Q^widiččaa·t.”

“Kwee-dashch-awt?” I say, trying my best to make the sounds.

“Kwih-dihch-chuh-aht,” he says, emphasizing the syllables, and gives a short nod.

“Does it have a meaning?”

“It means that we are the People of the Cape. That we live among the gulls on this rocky land that extends into the ocean.” He stretches out an arm to take it all in. Many more words are needed to say it in Russian than in Makee’s language.

“Will I be at the feast?”

“I insist upon it! My guests will want to see you,” Makee says. “Some have seen a babaid before, but almost no one’s ever seen a babaid woman.”

“What’s a babathid?”

“It means you—your people. The Russians and the Spanish and the Americans and all the rest of you. Who only have houses on the water and who float to different places with no particular origin or destination.” Once again, it takes many words to express in Russian. Even still, the idea is mistaken.

“I have a home,” I say. “In Russia. And another one in Novo-Arkhangelsk. And I am going back.”

“Of course you are,” Makee says.

The rain starts to fall while we’re still in the forest. My hair quickly becomes wet but my shoulders, under the cedar cape they gave me, stay dry.

When we get back to the house, I’m offered a place near the fire to prepare my vegetables. The heat helps dry my hair and the damp hem of my skirt. The women give me a sharp shell knife just like the one Maria used preparing the medicine. I use it awkwardly to cut the cabbage and onion into smaller pieces to hasten the cooking. Then, the women give me a cooking box containing water. They move rocks in and out of it until the water’s steaming. It takes many rotations until the vegetables are soft. I ladle everything into a small tray on top of a chunk of dried white fish and I shake my head, no, when they offer me the usual dollop of grease.

I eat slowly, alone, thinking of the Spanish and their six cannons, and the taste of my mother’s shchi cabbage soup.

I’m unprepared for a feast, especially one where people will want to see me. My clothes are dirty and torn; my shoes are disintegrating. My hair needs grooming. Makee tells me his wife will assist. So, when she comes for me one morning, I’m equally relieved to get a reprieve from collecting wood and water, and curious about how she’ll help me prepare for the feast.

Makee’s wife and three other women take me to a sediment-filled pond. At its soggy edge, they demonstrate that I will have to, for the first time since the ship ran aground, wash my clothes. The youngest woman gives me a short cedar robe to wear while I’m laundering my skirt and blouse. I keep my chemise on. The robes gape and I feel ashamed that these women might be able to see me unclothed. The women stifle smiles when they see my strange costume, my stained and wrinkled chemise drooping from below the hem of the robe, but Makee’s wife shushes them.

The oldest woman, who has thin greying hair that falls to her shoulders, shows me some coarse reeds I should use to scrub my clothes. I rub so vigorously, I chafe my fingers, and I worry that my skirt and blouse will come apart. Despite my efforts, some stains won’t wash out.

After my clothes are as clean as I can get them and have been draped over bushes to dry, I discover that I ought not to have fretted about my modesty. My body is next. The old woman tugs at my cedar robe and then at my chemise.

[29] she says loudly.

Reluctantly, I turn away and slowly drag each one over my head.

I’ve never been outdoors and completely unclothed. I fold my arms but there’s no way to hide, no way to stay warm. I enter the pond. My feet sink into the mucky bottom and tiny bubbles creep up my legs. Cold rises over my womanly parts, and then my bosom, until only my shoulders and head remain dry.

The old peasants fear the rusalki who live in ponds in Russia just like this one, waiting for young men to approach. The rusalki know who’s weak and easily lured by a pretty face, and those young men are never seen again. What if I see a lock of hair, a billowing sleeve, a fingertip through the murk? I’m not a young man but would they want me anyway, want me to become one of them? I know it’s foolish but the muddy water I’ve stirred up makes my imaginings more real.

I splash a bit of water on my face, and wonder how, with so much sediment, I’ll achieve what they wish. I’ll come out dirtier than I already am. After a long time and a short time of watching my half-hearted effort, the old woman cries out and throws off her robe. She scoops up the coarse reeds I’d been using to scrub my clothes and enters the water. Her breasts are two empty sacks hanging to her waist. I’ve never seen the bare breasts of an old woman before.

“Da·uk^wa·čisubaqa·k?”[30] she asks as she draws close. Her tone is coaxing. “Šuuk, ti·ti·yayikdi·cu.”[31] She takes me by the arm and scrubs my skin with the reeds. Then she turns me and scrubs my other arm. The reeds bite. I feel like a bride being washed for her wedding.

She splashes water on my back and then I begin to clean other parts of my own body. Finally, she tugs my head back and washes my hair. Her fingers are fierce, and she kneads my scalp like it’s bread. When that’s finished, she leads me by the hand out of the pond.

We stand dripping before the other women, and she still doesn’t release my hand. With the sweat and dirt washed away at last, my skin tingles. The youngest woman wraps me in the cedar dress again and I begin to warm up.

Back at the house, I’m given a bone needle threaded with a coarse fibre. I’ll be able to mend the sleeve that was torn so many weeks ago. Being along a seam, the repair is easy. I also sew the hem where it’s coming loose. The faint rusty bloom of a stain remains, my husband’s blood from the day of our battle on the beach.

Finally, on a clear afternoon when the clouds and mist have vanished, and the blue stretches lazily from one end of the sky to the other, I go to the beach with a bowl of fresh water. There’s one more step to take to prepare for the feast. I must do something about my tarnished silver cross.

I unclasp the long chain. I hold the cross out and let it twirl in the breeze and sparkle in the sun. Even though it’s badly in need of a polish, it still glitters like a star. I consider that other cross in the sky, Cygnus the Swan, and how she spans the expanse of the Milky Way, and how Mademoiselle Caroline Herschel and her brother counted the stars there, drew the first diagram of our galaxy, and marked our tiny sun’s place among the others. Unlike the pink tourmaline on my cross, we’re not in the centre. My father always reminded me of this and of the ancient men who argued that we were until, one by one, science proved them wrong. “Only a fool knows everything,” he said.

I rinse my silver cross in the bowl of water, then rub it in the fine, warm sand. I rinse it once more, then hold it out before me again, letting it dry. Without the tarnish, it’s even more brilliant, as shiny as the day my mother gave it to me, and fit for a feast.

I fasten it around my neck once again.

A dancing man who wears a mask bounds out from behind a wooden screen that’s as big as the front of a mansion and carved and painted with koliuzhi figures. The creature in the centre has eyes on its face but also eyes on its hands and knees and feet. On either side of the figure there are more eyes, and also ears and mouths and snubbed noses, all encased in ovals, all floating away from one another as if they were bubbles. The pointy shape that looks like a wave or maybe even the fin that rides on the back of a fish repeats itself inside and around the creatures. Each half of the screen is a mirror image of the other. Firelight casts rippling shadows that make the figures come alive.

The dancing man dips close to me and freezes. His head swivels and the carved and painted eyes of his mask bore into me. He dances away, turns his head, and again, the mask’s eyes turn to me. Then with a leap he spins around and though I expect to be released from his gaze, I’m not. There are eyes on the back of his mask, too.

Makee has a tall chair like a throne with a carved back and arms. It’s so tall, he needs to climb up to sit down. But right now, he’s standing and blowing into a funny little pipe that plays a single squeaky note, keeping time for the dancer.

When I think I won’t be able to bear the dancer’s gaze any longer, he moves to the other side of the house. Like the first snow, down that’s scattered on the floor floats and settles behind him, marking a white path across the house.

Makee’s skin sparkles. His face, arms, and legs are painted and powdered with something reflective. His lower arms are ringed with bracelets that dance and rattle as he moves. The bracelets are made of leather and a shiny orange metal that appears to be copper. Could it be? Where would Makee get it from?

All the men have painted their bodies, some in red and black squares that bring to mind the harlequins and jesters who sometimes entertained us in Petersburg. Some have adorned their faces with oversized black eyebrows in the shape of half-moons or triangles, just like the injured eyebrow man. Their hair, greased and piled atop their heads, is decorated with cedar boughs and sprinkled with white down. The best sea otter capes, black as coal, are draped over the shoulders of the most regal-looking men.

The women’s bodies and their clothing are also covered with adornments, every one of which eclipses my silver cross with its single jewel. Korolki are stitched onto the fronts and hems of their skirts, often strung next to long, white beads that look like skinny bird’s bones. These white bones dangle in rows and rattle as the women move. Though most women are wearing dresses of cedar bark, there are many with clothing made of fringed animal hide with fur trim. Their skirts are white and painted with designs of fish and animals and red and black patterns that run along the hems and look like my cross-stitch.

Even Inessa wears a hide skirt; hers is painted with a repeating pattern of birds with outstretched wings that seem to fly along the hem. She also wears a beaded necklace and many bracelets. Her hair, for once, is not tightly tied back, but spills over her shoulders like a glossy waterfall.

I’ve never seen such robes, furs, and jewellery. I don’t even know where they came from—I never knew the Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts had such things in the house. The sight of them is no less majestic then anything that would be seen in the grandest ballrooms of Petersburg. I would never have imagined there could be such lavish clothing in a place so remote.

When the circling man finishes his dance, some little children take his place. They are five or six years old and so their older sisters or maybe their mothers lead them in a circle while they sing, their voices nearly lost in the big, noisy house. One of the little girls wears a headdress made of the same skinny white beads that look like bird bones. The children are just like pretty, garlanded girls dancing a khorovod in the spring. My mother would get tears in her eyes watching them, and she’d always applaud wildly when they finished, sweaty and panting, for the dizzying dance is much harder than it looks.

Conversation dies down as the children attract more attention. The people watching call out, and the children pick up their pace. Just when I think they must be dizzy and about to fall, they stop. They remain in a circle, facing one another. The older women start a song, and the children join in, moving their hands up and down, their mouths Os of surprise, their eyes wide and serious. I think they might be telling a story.

As Makee had promised, some of the guests came to look at me. There was no formal ceremony. Most just passed in front of me, their eyes lowered, their glances furtive. I smiled, wanting them to meet my eye. After all, I’d prepared for this. A few stopped and stared in disbelief before saying something to one another and moving on. One woman laughed; a baby, thrust up before my face, cried.

Two men paused before me. Their faces were painted red and black and their hair, tied atop their heads, was garlanded with cedar boughs. I smiled and lowered my eyes. But not before I saw something that drew my gaze right back to them. Recognition. They had seen me before.

They spoke in low voices to one another. I studied them. They weren’t from Makee’s village. Had I seen them before? Where? Were they from the Tsar’s house?

One of the men shifted and the cedar vest he wore opened a little. His chest was slashed with a long, white scar. He adjusted his vest and when he did, I saw a missing finger and I remembered.

I remembered how, many weeks ago, he’d fondled a shackle onboard the brig. I remembered how the man beside him had hooked a long leg over the bulwark before descending to the waiting canoes. And I remembered how surprised Timofei Osipovich had been with their sudden departure and his failure to get the sea otter cape that my husband had said was ratty.

We stood for some moments staring at one another. Were they surprised to see me here? Or had they expected it? When they heard about the babathid woman, did they think it might be me? How much had changed, and yet the very unconnected threads of our lives had once again wound around each other.

“Wacush,” I said, and smiled tentatively.

The scarred man furrowed his brow and after a short pause said, “e·e·, k^wisasiakituc! babaqiyuu·k?”[32] I nodded but had no idea what he was saying. “u·šu·bisdakpi·dic,”[33] he continued, with a look of concern.

Finally, the tall, muscular man nudged him, and he stopped.

“I’m sorry,” I said and flushed.

They walked away, their necks bent together in conversation, the cedar boughs in their hair interlacing.

Later, I saw the scarred man speaking to Inessa, whose eyes were averted, whose brow was deeply furrowed. But it didn’t stop him from leaning in and continuing to speak to her.

For two days, the singing and dancing continued with only a brief pause at night when most people slept. There were playful dances that delighted the audience as much as the dancers themselves. There were men in masks who whirled in dark dances in which they pretended to kidnap and kill others. The Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts cried out. The stories—I concluded that’s what they were—unfolded as in an opera, and just like in an opera, I could hardly understand the narrative.

For two days, we ate all we could: trays of sour caviar, dried salmon, roasted roots, steamed leaves and stems, some bitter, some sharp like onion, and cakes of sweet, dried berries. Everything was, as usual, served with grease ladled from ornate wooden serving dishes. They were shaped like fish and four-legged animals just like the everyday serving dishes I’d been seeing in Makee’s house, but these were far larger and more decorative. Empty trays were refilled immediately, refusal being, as it is in Russia, out of the question.

Late in the afternoon of the second day, everything stops. Makee installs me beside him and a heap of objects. Attendants hover, waiting for instructions. Makee begins. He speaks and when he stops, the attendants move. One man extracts a basket from the heap. Another man takes it and lifts it above his head. He parades in a small circle, turning slowly to give everyone a look at the basket.

It’s a medium-sized basket with four red canoes woven into it as though they’re chasing one another in a circle. Around the base, a pattern that might represent waves has also been woven in. There’s a tight-fitting lid with a knobby handle. The attendant locates an older man whose sea otter robe skims the ground and hands the basket to him.

Makee speaks again. This time, the attendant pulls out a bladder filled with grease. The same man who held up the basket raises the bladder, his arms straining under the weight. Once again, a recipient is located—this time, it’s an old man with a cedar robe who accepts the gift.

Makee gives away more baskets, more bladders. Cedar mats, capes, and dresses. Beads and necklaces. Elaborately woven hats. Sea otter pelts and other animal furs and hides. Mirrors, which I’m startled to see. Several caskets of gunpowder, which I’m even more shocked to see. He gives away slabs of dried fish and roe wrapped in cedar boughs and ferns. Each item is lifted high for everyone to behold before being given to a guest.

When the pile has all but disappeared—there’s only a box, a basket, and a thick coil of rope remaining—dancers take to the floor once more. A drummer and singers join them. The attention of Makee’s attendants is drawn to the music.

Makee watches for a minute and then, without taking his eyes from the dancers, he says, “I have something for you, too.”

From a wooden box at his feet, he draws a pair of floppy boots.

They’re made of brown hide, stitched together with sinew. They haven’t been dyed and decorated, they have no heels or silver buckles, but to me they’re the most beautiful pair of shoes in the world.

“Thank you. I didn’t think anybody noticed.”

“We say: ušu·yakšalic.”

“Oo-shoo-yaw—” I stop, shake my head. “I can’t.”

“Yuksh-uhlits. Go ahead.”

“Yuksh-uhlits.” I smile apologetically.

“I hope you’ll be more comfortable outdoors.”

They slide on. My feet feel warmer and drier than any time since we abandoned the brig.

There’s a hush over the house that night. I go to bed believing I’ll sleep deeply. Instead my slumber is broken, coloured by outrageous dreams of a ball in Petersburg that transforms into a shipwreck and then into the crazy, whirling dance of a disembodied mask that sees and speaks.

It snows two days later, huge feathery clumps that thrill the children and melt as soon as they hit the ground. It falls furiously for a few minutes, then is followed by an abrupt downpour of cold rain. Christmas is coming—soon. But when? I lost track of time long ago. I have missed my own name day and Nikolai Isaakovich’s too. Unless I make a plan to mark Christmas Day, I’ll miss it as well. So, I randomly choose a day to have my own Christmas feast.

That day, I harvest one potato and pick the last cabbage. It’s smaller than my fist. I prepare them as always, struggling with the curve of the shell knife, uncertain still of where it’s supposed to fit in my hand, nervous about cutting myself. When the food is ready, I bless myself and remember the clatter of forks and knives, the clinking of glasses, and the irresistible aromas that would signal that start of the Christmas feast in my parents’ home.

I bow my head. It feels wrong to eat alone and I want to share my food with Makee and his family, with Inessa, but I have so little, I’m ashamed. It’s nothing compared to their feasts. I tell myself they wouldn’t like my food anyway, but that argument is a thin veil and I’m pretending when I say I can’t see past it.

I miss my husband. I miss everyone.

Salmon spill from a barrel-sized open-weave basket onto the ground and slither over one another, forming an ever-expanding heap. The women cry out in dismay and call the children to help keep the fish in a more orderly pile.

This week, I’m with the women, deep in the forest on the bank of a stream. It ripples over rocks and gurgles, then turns a corner not far from where we’re working. There’s a hut where we’re hanging salmon to smoke, and there’s a small house where we sleep. Wooden vats as big and round as cabinets squat in a row at the edge of the clearing. A scaffold of thick, straight branches lashed together looms over the vats. This is our camp.

On the first day, Inessa and I naturally fetched many bundles of wood. Late in the morning, when we’d apparently brought back enough, I was given a new job.

Inessa started by indicating that I must choose a fish from the heap. She showed me how to scrub it with ferns, until the coarse leaves removed the slime and scales.

She then gave me a shell knife. It was much larger than any I’d used so far. My whole hand could not cover it. The cutting edge was shiny and freshly sharpened. I wondered if a knife like this had given Inessa the scar on her hand.

Inessa cut into the fish just behind its gills, slicing off its head. Next, she slit open the belly, crooked her finger deep into the cavity, and pulled out shiny entrails.

She then filleted the fish. I could hardly see around her elbows and hunched back. In an instant, she unfolded two boneless halves that remained attached at the tail. She picked it up to show me. Her fish resembled a drooping reticule.

She trimmed the fins and fatty pieces, and then tossed all the scraps into one of the large vats. She called one of the children. He took the fillet from her, scrambled up the drying rack, and threw it over the highest crossbar.

At the end of the process, Inessa said, “aa·al, wa·su·qa·k čabu q^wisi·u·?”[34]

My first fish ended up ragged. The edges were rough, the tail that was supposed to hold the halves together had almost been severed, and there were strings of skin and flesh hanging loose. My second was better, and my third fish contained skeins of glossy roe. Inessa showed me how to pull them out without breaking them. She tossed them into a different vat.

Over the days, the fish on the rack accumulate, and they begin to dry. When the women decide they’re dry enough, the fish are slung over the rafters in the small hut. Fires inside the hut are fed green branches that Inessa and I gathered especially for this purpose. The branches create acrid, slow-rising smoke. We attend to the hanging fish, turning it, moving it farther away or closer to the smoke to ensure everything will be ready at the same time.

Whenever it’s my turn to work in the smokehouse, the harsh air irritates my eyes. But the sweet scent of the salmon is comforting, like an old memory.

The women and I work hard, but we are rewarded—some fresh salmon is set aside for our meals. These fish are cut differently, opened like butterfly wings and skewered flat with cedar splints, then propped before a very hot fire until they bake. The taste of the cedar enters right into the flesh.

There was a ceremony for our first meal of baked fish. When it was ready, it was laid on fresh cedar boughs on a mat and sprinkled with down. The women sang a song. After we finished eating, the bones and all the small scraps were gathered, paraded down to the river, and thrown in the water, just like the offerings fishermen make to the vodyanoy.

I try to remember how many days have passed since we came to the smokehouse and how many days since I arrived in Makee’s village and how many days since the brig ran aground. I can’t. I think it’s nearly two months since the wreck, but the passage of time feels fluid here, as fluid as the flow of the little stream we’re working alongside. Two months reminds me that it’s been a long time since my monthlies. I haven’t had one since I was onboard the brig. I pray they won’t return until we’re rescued.

Every day I see Makee. He’s busy speaking with the other men, or joking around with the children. Sometimes I see him outside, down on the beach by the canoes, and other times, he comes out of the forest carrying a bow and arrow. He’s busy but he often speaks with me, asking after my health or telling me about fish they’ve caught or a herd of seals nearby or any other piece of news from the house that he thinks I should know about.

But then a day passes, and I don’t see him. I wonder if he’s gone away—no one seems disturbed. Then, there’s a second day when I don’t see him, and a third, fourth, and fifth. He must have gone to another village up the coast, though I have no one to ask. His wife has stayed in bed since he’s disappeared. She barely moves under her cedar blanket, and no one disturbs her. What if Makee’s dead? No one would be able to tell me. But I refuse to believe it. Wherever he’s gone, he’s coming back.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Anna!” Inessa shouts from far ahead. “Anna!”

I drop the firewood I’m carrying. It clatters to the earth. I hurry down the path that leads back to the houses as fast as I can, heading for her voice.

As I draw near the village, I see people streaming through the doors, going in and out, some stopping to embrace one another. Where’s Inessa? Young men on the rooftops lean over and pull their friends up beside them. Once up, they pound the roofs with staves, and with so many young men on the rooftops, it’s not long before the rumble of their enormous drums thunders through the whole bay.

A crowd has gathered on the beach; Inessa must be there. They’re gazing toward the rocky headland. Out on the headland, a smaller group waits, their faces turned to the sea. When they begin to cheer and cry out, the crowd on the beach joins in. I head down to where celebrations unfold.

A canoe glides into sight. Everyone on board sings. The paddlers take two strokes then strike the gunwales. Two strokes again, then thud. When their paddles are lifted, I see how they’re as narrow as sticks, and how they end in a long point. They’re not like other paddles I’ve seen.

Another two canoes appear. A cheer swells up while the pounding on the houses grows even more frenzied. Laughing children chase one another along the beach nearly knocking me over. Gulls spiral overhead and shriek.

“Anna!” I turn. Inessa beams. [35]

She laughs and hugs me, then pushes me away and runs off.

At the front of the fourth canoe, Makee sits. Instead of his beaver hat, he’s wearing the kind of woven hat he gave away at the feast. It has a wide brim and a jaunty knob on top that makes it look like the lid of a basket. A rope stretches behind his canoe. Whatever they’re towing is surrounded by pale floats that bob in the water and keep the towed object just below the surface. It traces a broad wake in the grey sea.

Slowly the canoes near the shore, and men on the beach hurl themselves into the ocean. Some reach for Makee and his canoe, while others pull the tow rope and, as soon as they can, push the towed object toward land. The surf crashes around them, and the water rushes back out, each time revealing a little more of the towed object until finally it’s so close that when a wave recedes, I see.

A whale.

They’ve captured a whale.

The way the men work with the force of the sea makes me think of the day the brig ran aground and Timofei Osipovich guided us to do the same as we shuttled our belongings to shore. With each wave, they advance the animal in tiny increments, straining to prevent it from sliding back with the retreating water. Finally, a powerful wave coupled with a forceful push brings the whale up onto the beach. When the sea subsides this time, rattling the stones on its way out, the whale’s grey body is exposed.

Like a rock, the whale is speckled with barnacles. In colour and texture, it blends into the gravel beach. It’s dotted with wounds—it’s been stabbed many times. Its eye is open and glazed. Its long beak of a mouth has been sutured shut with thick cord that’s been looped around the tow rope. An incision circles the whale’s tail. There remains not a twitch of muscle. This animal has been dead a long time.

White down is scattered from baskets over the whale’s back. An older but agile man from Makee’s house hoists himself upon the carcass. With both hands, he raises a spear above his head and plunges it into the animal. The blade sinks in while blood and clear liquid dribble out. He saws through the flesh making a rectangle across the back and down the sides of the body toward the sand. Once he completes three sides of the rectangle, he abandons the spear for a much smaller knife with a wide blade, which he inserts into one of the slits. He cuts beneath, pulling away and rolling a slab of cream-coloured flesh down the animal’s side. The warm scent of fresh slaughter rises.

At the whale’s side, a man opens his hands and reaches for the roll of flesh. He guides it down, and when it’s reached the beach, he cuts the slab free and it sags to the ground in folds.

Several men heave the chunk onto a pole that rests on the shoulders of four men. The pole bows as it receives the weight. They carry the pole up to the house, navigating slowly along the path. The agile man with the spear follows them. Makee watches and I know he’s satisfied, even a little proud.

Now that he’s close, I see the pattern woven into Makee’s hat. There’s a whale, and when he twists his neck, I see the men chasing it, their canoe floating atop waves that encircle the brim. Makee calls out and another man climbs onto the whale’s back. That man also cuts off a slab of flesh, and then follows the procession as it’s carried to the houses. There’s a third man, and a fourth, and so on. Each slab disappears into a different house. When eventually the skeleton is visible and then the organs spill, the stench is powerful. It draws flocks of crows and gulls, even white-headed eagles. Overwhelmed, I leave the beach.

Outside Makee’s house, four fires blaze. Each is filled with the smooth stones used for cooking. Rosy-cheeked women laugh and joke with one another as they tend the fire and, with their tongs, move the stones around in the flames and hot coals.

Other women are helping one another carry dripping containers of water that they lift and pour into four huge vats that stand like stout men on guard. A woman with a knife calls out to Inessa, who says to me, “Šuuk. usubi au· atkse·i· au.”[36]

She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the forest.

We set out along the path heading for the place where I dropped the firewood. The trail is a bit drier—it hasn’t rained since the day before yesterday. Everything is cast in a green hue as light reflects off the soft moss that coats the trees and nests in the forest floor. Just ahead, something rustles in the bushes. A russet-coloured squirrel whose fur looks like Zhuchka’s scampers across the path ahead. It leaps onto a tree trunk and scrambles up, chattering and scolding us.

When we reach the dropped wood, Inessa and I work together to divide it into two piles. As we distribute the sticks, I ask, “What does whale meat taste like?” I know she won’t understand. Even if she could, is there a comparison that would make sense?

Her eyes slide over and she waits.

“Is it good?” I point back to the beach. I pull my fingers to my lips and pretend to chew. “Does it taste nice?”

Her eyes flicker with recognition. Has she understood?

“Čabasaps. Čabueyiks hauk ti·kaa· du·bačeya iš wi·y u-sakši hauk ti·kaa,”[37] she says, her eyes enormous, one hand near her mouth, the other on her stomach. She smiles. Then she takes the larger of the piles of wood and we head back to the house.

By the time we return, steam is rising from the vats. After we drop our wood, I peek into a tub: the surface glistens. I look into the next one. It’s also shiny. I check the third. It’s no different. A woman with a shallow basket skims the surface of one vat and pours it into a different vat. I think I understand: all that grease we eat, the bladders and boxes and dishes full every single meal—how else could they get so much? It’s from the whales. We’re going to render every drop from the carcass and store it away for the months ahead. I had no notion of it, but I’ve probably been eating whale every day ever since I was captured on the river so long ago.

In the evening, the Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts celebrate, and we feast. There are strips and chunks of whale meat, roasted and boiled, in soup, wrapped in leaves, covered in grease, all laid out on the best wooden dishes. There’s one dish with carved handles that resemble wings, its rim inlaid with a row of pearly teeth that twinkle when they catch the firelight. There’s a big bowl in the shape of a man lying on his back, a braid of hair dangling from the crown of his head.

The slab of whale flesh that had been draped over the pole and carried to Makee’s house is on display inside near the fire. The pole is suspended between two notched timbers, and the meat is decorated with feathers, cedar boughs, and the whale’s eyeballs, still attached by the sinew that held them together. A shallow wooden tray collects drippings.

Though I’ve eaten plenty of whale grease, I’ve not tried the flesh. I take a small bite. It’s both strange and familiar. It resembles venison but smells and tastes like brined herring, and I take a second, larger bite. As I’m chewing and trying to decide whether I like it, I notice Inessa watching me. When I catch her eye, she smiles and, just as she did on the trail, she lays her hand on her stomach.

A man beside her nudges her, and she looks away and raises her smiling face to him. He takes something out of the tray and puts it in front of her. It’s the man with the scar on his chest—who came aboard the brig, who came to the last feast. She rises and walks slowly toward the cooking boxes. Her hips sway. The man’s eyes follow her.

There’s no koliuzhi celebration without singing and dancing, and this one is no exception. Makee, in his whale hat, and his wife, in a resplendent cape with two whales painted on the back, dance. To the slow beat of a drum, the two turn toward one another and circle, taking big steps. As the beat of the drum picks up, their circles grow smaller and they move closer together. When they reach the centre, they whirl around one another like they’re dancing the Polish mazurka that everyone was learning when I left Petersburg. Makee and his wife send white down spinning in all directions. When they finish, they each drink deeply from a water box that’s been decorated with feathers.

A number of women gather in the centre of the floor. Many of the cooks are among them, their faces still flushed from their labour, wisps of their hair flying loose. When the drumming starts, they circle, shuffling their feet, their hands open before them, palms up, their arms pumping in time to the beat of the drum. It seems as though they’re lifting the sky.

Next, four men carry a thick, heavy plank into the centre of the floor. The people must move to let them pass and many cry out gleefully when they notice the arrival of the plank. Drumming begins, the beat urgent and aligned with the drumming of the benches.

The four men raise the plank. Then, they let one end plummet. They tilt it, twist it, and then raise it again in big slow circles like they’re drawing figure eights in the smoky air. They move slowly, trying not to strike any of the people at the front who are watching.

Sweat glitters on the foreheads of the four men. When the plank is held at a certain angle, I notice a flash of colour. There’s a small red dot painted on it, no bigger than the size of a berry.

Makee steps into the circle. He carries a stiff white feather. People cry out.

He stops, raises the feather, and examines it. He strokes it, pressing flat its vanes. Then he begins to dance alongside the plank.

He follows it. When it rises, so does his arm. When it turns, he follows. When it falls, nearly to the floor, he drops and creeps along behind it.

The plank, I understand, is the whale. The feather is his harpoon.

With no warning, Makee aims, snaps his fingers, and throws. His aim is true. The feather hits the red dot on his first try, and bounces off the plank, fluttering to the floor. Cheers rumble off the walls like thunder.

When I go outside later to relieve myself, the sky is clear. Though I wish I had my telescope, the constellations are brilliant enough tonight. It seems proper that I look for Cetus the Whale. Her big belly is turned, as always, to Orion the Hunter. I think Makee would be pleased to know that tonight the entire sky is a mirror for his successful hunt. I say good night to my beloved Polaris before I head back along the path to the house.

This period of gruelling work and fervent celebrations lasts four days. On the morning of that last day, when there’s nothing left on the beach but the skeleton, it, too, is dismantled. Men saw apart the huge bones. The largest are laid in shallow trenches that surround the houses. Makee tells me they direct the flow of heavy rain away, while keeping leaves and needles from clogging the gutters. The big scapula that look like wings are set aside, and Makee says he’ll use them next time there’s a crack in one of the walls of his house.

“All the outside bones of the skeleton are solid, but the inside ones are quite porous. We need them, too. We can make combs and ornaments from them. And they’re good for certain tools. Spindle whorls need to be light and strong. We also use them to make a tool we need to turn the cedar bark into threads.”

“Aren’t they too fragile for tools?”

“Not really. The pores are what makes them so sturdy. They’re harder to carve than wood, and so, usually the carver decides what to make only after he sees the bone he’s working with.”

When the four days are over, everyone is full. I can hardly imagine being hungry ever again. We’ve produced many bladders plump with whale oil that are stored away in the house. At night, the foot of each building is lit up by moonlight reflected off gleaming new bones. But it’s not just tangible gifts the whale’s left behind. There’s also a mood of contentment that continues for many days.

“Anna, drop your wood,” Makee orders. His face is pale, his voice strained. He’s wearing his red jacket, his trousers, and his beaver hat. He’s come into the forest, partway along the path, to meet me. “We have to leave.” I release the bundle of wood from my arms. “Hurry.”

He strides ahead, and I scramble to follow. “What’s wrong? Where are we going?” Either he doesn’t hear or he’s ignoring me.

After a short time and a long time, we arrive at the beach where men are boarding two canoes. “Makee—excuse me—is there a ship?” Hope swells in my heart, and a powerful longing for my husband pushes every thought from my head. If there’s a ship, I’ll see him very soon.

Makee looks at me distractedly. “No. Get in. Please.”

I climb into the canoe he indicates, but he gets into the other one. There are many other men coming with us. They steer the canoes out to sea and turn south.

The ocean offers little resistance; we’re aided by a current that hurries us along. I’m less nervous than I was on my last canoe voyage. The men sing as they dig into the water, paddles plunging deeply to the song’s rhythm. We pass the same jagged-edged coastline, the same kelp-strewn beaches, the same defining headlands, the same wide-open sea that bleeds into the sky. The light on the horizon is almost gone when the canoes steer for shore. We’ll have to weave through rocky stacks lined up like chimneys along our path. There’s a flat-topped island, and behind it, the yawning mouth of a river.

I’ve returned to where the Sviatoi Nikolai ran aground—to where the moustached toyon lives. I’m like Zhuchka chasing her tail around and around.

We land just beyond the river’s mouth. These koliuzhi—I remember Makee told me they’re the Quileutes—welcome us and lead us by foot up the river to the place just inside the edge of the forest where their settlement lies.

This is where I left Yakov. He should still be here.

Makee joins the moustached toyon on the bench. I can barely see them through the crowd that mills about and presses forward. No one’s smiling or laughing. We’re not here for a celebration. I scour the heads, looking for Yakov’s cap.

Then I see Maria.

No one pays attention as I approach her. She starts when she sees me. “What are you doing here?” she whispers. She pulls me close and holds me for a long time. I kiss her cheeks.

“I came with him,” I whisper back, indicating Makee with my chin. “What are you doing here?”

“Those people we were with—that wounded boy and the old woman who makes the medicine and the others—they brought me here.”

“Where’s Yakov?”

She shrugs. “They took him away when they left. I think he went back with them.”

“Do you know what’s happening?”

Again, she shrugs. “Everyone’s been upset for days but I don’t know why. Where have you been?”

Softly I tell her how I live now. How hard I work with Inessa. The things I’ve had to learn to do. “I’m nearly a slave now,” I say and give a short, wry laugh. A quick glance at Maria makes me realize I’ve said something wrong. She looks at me sharply. I redden.

I change the subject. “I have other news. Their toyon speaks Russian.”

“What?” Maria cries. A woman peers at us. “How?” she says more softly.

“He learned it a long time ago from some Russian sailors.”

Maria frowns at Makee. She’s assessing his jacket, trousers, beaver hat—and his boots. “He looks very strange,” she finally says, “as if he’s walked out of a house from far away.”

“He’s very kind, in spite of how odd he appears.”

Makee speaks and he’s even more distressed than he was before we left Tsoo-yess. He’s angry, too. The moustached toyon responds with irritation. Is he unhappy with Makee? I can’t be certain. I turn back to Maria.

“What about you? Do they treat you kindly?”

Maria nods. “I also work every day—just as you do. Sometimes I help the woman who does the medicine here. But it’s fine—maybe even a little better. There’s much less work than on the ship, and what they ask me to do—it’s not as wearying.”

Nikolai Isaakovich told me that the Russian-American Company was very generous with Aleuts like Maria. It offered them a way out of their remote villages where eking out a living was almost impossible. It gave them food, clothing, medicine, and good jobs. Once they paid back their debts to the company, many went on to live very comfortable lives. I didn’t argue, but I knew from the discussion among my father’s friends that it wasn’t quite like that.

Until now, I never thought Maria aware of these abstract debates. I thought her willing to perform her duties until she earned her freedom, and maybe even a little grateful for the opportunity. My work with Inessa has changed the way I see the things my father’s friends debated night after night. I peer at Maria.

“Where are the others? Have you heard news?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I haven’t seen anybody. You’re the first.”

In the morning, Makee seeks me out. He looks like he didn’t sleep all night. “Anna, I need your help,” he says. “Something terrible has happened.”

“What is it?”

“It’s my sister. She’s been taken by your people.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your people have captured my sister. Her husband is frantic.”

So—this is the source of Makee’s distress, of the moustached toyon’s irritation, of the upset that Maria said had plagued the Quileutes for days. But is it possible? It makes no sense. “Are you certain?”

“She was seized a few days ago. Everyone’s tried to negotiate her release, but your people won’t let her go.”

What’s come over the crew? Why are they still battling the koliuzhi? I’d have thought they’d be trying to get to the Kad’iak, or at least settling in for the winter until fairer weather made the voyage south possible.

“What can I do?”

“They wish to exchange her freedom for yours. Yours—and all the Russians’. Once you’re released, they’ll free my sister and the other prisoners.”

“Others? How many are there?”

“Three. My sister, a young woman, and the man guarding them. Anna—the life of my sister is more valuable to me than anything I own. Please help me.”

My rescue is within reach. Before the end of the day, I could be back with Nikolai Isaakovich, with my beloved Zhuchka. I could hold my telescope up to my eye once again, turn the pages of my star log, and go over the sightings I made from the brig’s deck. No more long days spent scouring the forest for firewood. No more struggling under the weight of basket after basket of fresh water.

Could we make it to our destination? We’re as far away from the Kad’iak as we were on the day the brig ran aground. Conditions have become worse. It’s colder, rainier, we have nothing to eat, and, most importantly, we do not know where we’re going. I’m almost certain we’re neither strong nor well-equipped enough to make it. Or, even if we were to make it, would the Kad’iak still be waiting for us? So much time has passed.

“I have other news—I’ve been told there are two European ships sailing the coast right now,” Makee says.

“Isn’t it too early?”

“It’s earlier than ever before but it’s possible.”

Ships! Two! And from Europe!

“I’ve asked the Chalats to give you some food and show you the trail. Everyone’s been informed—if they see those two ships, they will tell them where to find you. If you see the ships first, then you can arrange your own passage. No one will disturb you for the rest of your journey. Anna—please.”

I nod my head slowly, considering my release and how, at last, it’s so close to being within my grasp. “Then take me to my husband.”

Maria and I and about twenty koliuzhi—Kwih-dihch-chuh-ahts and Quileutes—follow a trail that winds through the forest. We meet countless streams; some we follow for a time, while others we cross by balancing along narrow, fallen trees that span the water’s width or by leaping to the opposite bank. Maria is slow and falls behind. I stay with her. I offer her my hand when there is no choice other than to jump. She’s as light as a child and shockingly easy to pull across.

Eventually, we ascend along a steep, slippery path that leads partway up a slope. It levels out and we follow it as it skirts a mountainside. The trail here is dry and clear of foliage. An expansive valley widens below us, with a river snaking through it.

This is the route I took in the opposite direction with Yakov when I was sent to Tsoo-yess.

We descend into the valley and start to walk its length.

Just ahead on the trail, I see that the others, including Makee, have stopped. Maria and I catch up. What’s drawn their attention is a ring of charred wood and several planks leaning against a clump of scrubby trees.

The foliage in this grove has been flattened as though the planks had lain on top of it. The broken stalks of dried grass are folded over in layers that lie atop one another. All the small sticks are gone, too, probably for the fire. The men are disturbed by what they’ve found, and I feel it, too. There’s something haunted about this place, and if my mother were here, she’d say the leshii was nearby.

I try to catch Makee’s eye but he’s deep in conversation with one of the other men. So I look to Maria but she’s staring wide-eyed at the edge of the charred ring.

There’s a vivid white bone pressed into the earth. Against the black cinders, it glows. Farther away, scattered at the men’s feet, there are tufts of russet-coloured fur. Something struggled and died here. I look down at my own feet. There’s a big clump of that same russet fur attached to skin that’s attached to a curl of white fur.

Zhuchka?

I fall to my knees. I touch it. It’s her tail. It’s cold and damp. The edge of the skin is straight and clean. It’s been cut with a knife.

Somebody used a knife.

“Makee,” I cry. I point to the remains of my beloved Zhuchka. “This was my dog.”

Makee looks at me with pity in his eyes and the instant he opens his mouth to reply, before he even speaks the words, I understand what happened. “Your people must have been very hungry,” he says softly and lowers his eyes.

I cover my face and bend until I’m folded over my knees and just a small ball, another layer atop the trampled grass. I wish the earth would swallow me. I want everyone to go away and leave me alone. I want this nightmare to be over.

I know none of them cared for her. None of them even looked at her other than as an tool that helped them do their work, or as something to torment when they were bored. Couldn’t they see that it was not like that for me? When I held her head in my hands, when her eyes met mine and her tail thumped on the deck, I knew she was much more than that.

What is the sense of being released? We’re never going to make it out of here on our own.

I won’t trade my new life in Tsoo-yess with the certainty of rescue for some meaningless freedom that ensures nothing except that I’ll be lost in the wilderness with those brutes until we all die.

Across the river, Timofei Osipovich shouts, “Madame Bulygina!”

Like shadows, the men emerge from the trees. Brooding Kozma Ovchinnikov is hunched over, his hair stragglier than ever. Everything about him that once scared me has diminished, and he seems pathetic now. The carpenter Kurmachev is barefoot, his cheeks so sunken he looks like an old man with no teeth. Has he still got his flask? I doubt it. He must be faring poorly without his rum. The American John Williams has stringy hair that now reaches his shoulders and a pale beard that’s growing in patches. His greatcoat is missing all its buttons. Everyone is shockingly filthy and spiritless, and for a moment, I pity them so much I almost forgive them for eating Zhuchka.

Then I catch my breath. “Where’s Kolya?” I cry.

“He’s upriver—at our camp. Not more than a versta from here,” replies Timofei Osipovich. “He’s fine.”

“Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s coming. Don’t worry.” But the men shift uneasily, and I begin to sense something is wrong. Others are missing, too. Where’s the main rigger, Khariton Sobachnikov? He’s so tall, I should be able to spot him among the men, if he’s here.

“Where is my sister?” Makee says. He’s right beside me on the riverbank. Two canoes rest on our shore, waiting for the exchange to take place. “Ask them where my sister is.”

I turn back to Timofei Osipovich. “I’ve been informed that you’ve captured three koliuzhi. Where are they?”

The prikashchik nods at his loyal Ovchinnikov. He slips behind some bushes and when he comes out, he’s pulling a cord attached to the wrists of Koliuzhi Klara, the woman who wore the silver comb in her hair, and the Murzik.

Koliuzhi Klara has a black eye.

I cry out and cover my mouth. I look to Makee. “That’s her,” he says. “She’s alive.”

I know instantly who he means. Her silver comb. His metal cheetoolth. Of course, that’s his sister.

“Anna—tell them,” Makee urges.

The captives stare dully across the river. Ovchinnikov jerks the end of the rope and they stumble together.

“Anna!” Makee cries out.

“Timofei Osipovich,” I shout. “One of those women is the sister of this toyon.” I gesture toward Makee. “His name is Makee, and he’s a fine man, a gentleman as you can see.” I point to his groomed hair, his red jacket, his trousers. “I’m living with his family, and he’s been taking good care of me. He’s a virtuous man known everywhere for his generosity and kindness and I have no doubt his sister possesses the same qualities. You must release her—and the others as well.”

“Let’s shoot them,” says Ovchinnikov. “All of them.”

Makee yelps. All the koliuzhi rush to the edge of the river and nock their arrows.

“Kozma Ovchinnikov! This toyon speaks Russian! He understands everything you say,” I cry.

“Shut up, you nattering magpie!” Timofei Osipovich slaps Ovchinnikov, who cries out, as shocked as the rest of us to see his master turn against him. He claps the hand with which he’s holding the cord over his ear. Koliuzhi Klara’s wrists are jerked up to her chin.

Timofei Osipovich slides into the language I don’t understand, his eyes fastened on Makee. Makee listens, then says something to the koliuzhi, and they lower their bows.

Timofei Osipovich reverts to Russian. “We’ll free the prisoners once the koliuzhi release you. Your husband insists that you be released first.”

“Tell him we accept,” Makee says in a low voice.

“In the name of the Emperor, I vow to finish our mission,” cries Timofei Osipovich, “and it will not be over until we get you, Madame Bulygina, home. Come now—rejoin our expedition.”

“No,” I cry. “I will not.” Ovchinnikov’s mouth gapes, opening up his bushy beard. He looks like I just kicked his shins. “I’m satisfied living with these koliuzhi,” I continue. “They’ve given me a warm place to sleep and plenty to eat. This toyon is arranging my rescue.”

I know with certainty the Kad’iak is gone. Even if it were still there waiting, there’s no chance the crew will ever reach it. A sixty-five-mile walk down this coast is not a summer stroll down Nevsky Prospekt. They’ll never survive the rest of the winter.

Tsoo-yess is not Petersburg, and I’m not a free woman while I’m there, but I’ll be comfortable enough until I can go home. If anybody can guarantee that I’ll get home, it will be Makee, and not these fools. They’re lost in many ways, some of which they can’t even fathom.

“There are two European ships travelling on this coast right now. As soon as we see them, this toyon will release me into their care, and I’ll make my way back home. So I won’t join you—and if you have sense, instead you’ll join me and these koliuzhi.

“Surrender. And release your prisoners. It’s for the best.”

The river gurgles in the silence that follows. No one dares move.

“Anna, what are you doing?” Makee says.

“Madame Bulygina, you don’t know what you’re doing!” shouts Timofei Osipovich.

“I’ve made up my mind,” I call back across the river.

“But your husband—he’s a madman ranting day and night about you. You wouldn’t speak so callously if you could see him—is this not the truth?” The others nod and grunt in agreement. “You must come. You have no choice.”

“I’ve made my choice. Now you release the prisoners.”

“Come to your senses!”

“You come to yours. Release the prisoners. And give up the delusion that you’re going to survive without the koliuzhi.”

“This—negotiation—is—not—finished,” Timofei Osipovich declares. He stomps into the forest. The others follow, pulling the prisoners behind.

“Anna, what have you done?” Makee cries.

“I’m sorry. I’m not going with them. They’re fools.”

“But you said you would. Now they won’t release my sister.”

“Don’t be so certain. They’ll release her. I know they will.”

Makee speaks to the koliuzhi men. Four of them launch the canoes and cross the river. They follow Timofei Osipovich and the others into the forest.

Makee and I stand in uncomfortable silence. The shadows are lengthening, and the birds have started their evening song. He turns on me. “Why didn’t you go? You said you would.”

“I said I’m sorry. They’ll release her. Don’t worry.” I cast aside doubt. I’m an eighteen-year-old woman and I know them all. I know exactly how they’ll respond.

Just then we hear voices from the opposite side of the river. Timofei Osipovich bursts onto the river bank, followed by the crew and the koliuzhi. Nikolai Isaakovich is still not with them. Neither are the prisoners.

“Anna Petrovna Bulygina,” Timofei Osipovich begins, “I beg you to take pity upon your husband! He was so distraught, he wept! He wept so severely, he decided—God help him—to take your life. I had to stop him. I pried his musket from his grasp. I held him down until the others came to my aid. We tied him up so he wouldn’t come here and murder you.”

“Your threats are hollow! Nikolai Isaakovich has no intention of murdering me.”

“Your husband has lost everything. And when a man loses everything, he can no longer be held responsible for his actions.”

“I scorn all threats.”

“Anna—please—” Makee says hoarsely. “Please go.”

“By orders of this toyon, release your prisoners now!” I add.

“You will force his hand Madame Bulygina if I convey your words,” calls Timofei Osipovich.

“And you will force this toyon’s if you don’t release the prisoners now!”

“As you wish then,” Timofei Osipovich says coldly, and heads back into the forest with the rest of the crew. Makee’s men follow him and I wonder if they’ll return with the prisoners in tow. I think they will.

Evening is upon us and I’m chilled through when the koliuzhi return—alone. Timofei Osipovich isn’t with them, nor is Nikolai Isaakovich and his musket. Nor are the prisoners. Makee asks them several questions. Then they board the canoes and return to our shore.

As we begin the long trek back to the village where we spent last night, Makee again turns on me, his voice raised. “I trusted you, Anna. You said you would go. They’ll never release my sister now.”

“Maybe they’ll release her tomorrow,” I say timidly. I’m cowed by the anger I’ve never seen in him before, and confused by the crew’s failure to release their prisoners.

“I don’t believe that.”

The damp night air settles on us. The sky is black, and the few stars strewn overhead that we glimpse through the trees twinkle distantly. I don’t have the heart to look for my Polaris. The moon was full only a few days ago, so there remains enough light that we can follow the trail easily enough.

When we reach the village, Maria and I are directed to separate houses. I’ll go to bed alone, but will I sleep at all? I’ve let Makee and his sister down. The Murzik and Koliuzhi Klara, too. The image of her black eye is burned into my heart.

They’ll release everyone tomorrow. They must. And if they’re smart, they’ll join Makee at the same time.

The next morning, Makee and the koliuzhi men from yesterday disappear down the trail. I’m not asked to accompany them. No one tells me what they intend to do once they see the crew.

I’m confined to the house all day. I don’t see Maria. With nothing to do, I scrape dried mud from my boots and my dress and watch the familiar routines of this house. A woman leaves with a basket—she’s going to collect kindling. Another pours water into the cooking boxes—she’s preparing a meal. There’s a baby strapped into a cradle suspended in a quiet corner of the house. Some women in a circle play a game with curved dice that look like they’re made of teeth. Children play their own game with paddles and a twig with feathers they knock back and forth until the twig lands in a cooking box and they’re sent outdoors.

Nothing breaks the day’s dullness except the thoughts that hound me.

Late in the afternoon, there’s a disturbance outside. A cluster of people bursts through the door. It’s Makee and his men. People rise to their feet. Some rush to the door, calling out. Makee beams. I don’t see his sister, Koliuzhi Klara, or the Murzik. Makee pushes through the crowd and inserts himself before the moustached toyon. They embrace. The crowd and the news flow around the house and one by one, I see faces light up with joy.

Then, entering the house: Timofei Osipovich. Grinning.

Brooding Ovchinnikov and two Aleuts.

And, right behind them, there’s Nikolai Isaakovich. Glowering.

As they approach, my feelings fall like Tarot cards one on top of the other, each fortune cancelling out the one beneath it. When Kolya draws near, despite all that’s passed these last few weeks, there’s an involuntary tug at my heart.

“Good evening, Madame Bulygina,” blusters Timofei Osipovich. “How soon we get the pleasure of your company once again.” His hands open in a gesture of welcome incongruous with his mocking tone.

“I’m not going with you,” I say. “I told you yesterday.”

Timofei Osipovich laughs. “Yes, you made that perfectly clear. But don’t worry. You’re not going anywhere. No one is.”

Nikolai Isaakovich cuts him off. “Anna Petrovna, you’ve made a mess of everything. Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Nikolai Isaakovich, I don’t understand. Why are you here?”

“Madame Bulygina, we’ve taken your advice,” says Timofei Osipovich. “We’ve released our prisoners. They’re back where they belong. As for us—we’ve come to join your toyon.”

“You have?”

“You said we should. We decided to listen to you. Why are you so surprised?”

“Where is the rest of the crew?”

“They’ve decided not to join us. They want to try to get to the Kad’iak. Their fate will be wrought by their own hands.”

Nikolai Isaakovich looks as though he really would murder me now. But whatever misgivings he may have, their change of heart is for the best. Eventually my husband will understand. We’re on the right path now. In the end, we’ll all get back home.