Akanto

The first two chapters of my latest attempt at a short story. Any feedback would be really useful, it always helps to get another pair of eyes.

Chapter One

Akanto slipped on raw ice and snatched for a handhold. The void below lunged upwards but the wind urged her on, over the edge into a bed of snow. Her laboured breaths coiled in the air like smoke from a fire.

She did not hear Nanouk approaching to stuff a hot, wet muzzle into her ear.

'Not now, Nanouk!' panted Akanto, batting her away. 'We still have work to do.'
 

Nanouk bounded off, casting for a scent. Akanto gathered herself up and scanned the surrounding crevices, spotting a twisted finger of leaves poking out from beneath the snow. She drew her knife and cut the herb loose from the rock face, depositing it in a pouch beneath her parka before moving on to find more. She had almost filled the pouch when Nanouk whimpered, digging at something beneath the ice. Akanto joined her efforts and soon prized a dark, twisted root from its bed. It soaked the air with its sweet, earthy aroma.
 

'Good girl,' she whispered, resting her forehead on Nanouk's. 'You found a good one!'
 

Akanto brushed the root clean as best she could and took one last smell of it before stowing it in her pack. From this height, her village was nothing but a scattering of shapes below. Resting at the foot of the mountain, it looked as it always had, even before the sickness had struck. Akanto was unsure whether to let herself imagine that things were back to the way they were, that her parents both waited for her; that the village was not diseased. In the old days her mother would have forbidden her to venture out on her own, but then Akanto's father died.
 

'Kinak!' barked Akanto, speaking to the wind. 'We can play again tomorrow but I have to go back now, so no tricks.'
 

The wind made no response.
 

            Akanto made her way down by memory as much as sight. She knew the mountain's character as well as she knew the wind's. She knew which parts would try to trip her and which parts would give her firm footing. Her heart leapt when she made it to her favourite point in the journey; a smooth, sweeping slope curving down towards the village outskirts. She took off her parka and sat on it, curling the hem over her feet. Nanouk waited for Akanto to shuffle herself over the edge before loping along beside her as she began to glide over the snow. She closed her eyes and lent her breath to the wind as the ground fell away beneath her.
 

All too soon she had reached the bottom. She replaced her parka over her head and checked her pack, giving Nanouk a chance to catch up. She had collected a bunch of stemgrass, two pouches of white mushrooms, three sprigs of mountain hair, a fat bundle of everblossom and the biggest snowroot she had seen in some time. It was enough to make a new batch of medicine. This time she knew she would get the ingredients right.
 

The village was silent. Akanto traced a path through the tents of caribou and sealskin, vividly aware of the snow creaking beneath her footsteps. Her mother, Asiaq, turned from lighting the kudlik as Akanto entered their tent. Her face was obscured by a length of material hung about her nose and mouth, leaving only her eyes uncovered.
 

'Put your mask on!' she scolded, as Akanto laid her pack down. Akanto reached down below her chin and drew her mask across her face, muffling the stench of disease within the tent.
 

'How is she? Did you get her to eat anything?'
 

'I'll eat when I'm hungry,' came a rasping voice from the back of the tent, 'or when you give me something worth the trouble of chewing.'
 

'Grandmother, you're awake!' laughed Akanto, rushing towards her. She stopped herself just short. If she touched her, she would catch the disease. A wrinkled face emerged from the pile of furs set by a smouldering fire.
 

'If you wrap your arms around yourself and close your eyes you can imagine it's me hugging you.' There was a shuffling as aching limbs rearranged themselves beneath the furs. 'I will do the same and imagine it's you hugging me.'
 

Akanto knelt, wanting more than anything to dive in beside her grandmother and be next to her. The old woman closed her eyes and sighed, a smile deepening her wrinkles. Akanto shut her own eyes and squeezed herself, trying to remember what her grandmother had smelled like before the sickness caught her. Memories of seal blubber and smoke blossomed in her mind, flickering just out of reach.
 

'I will be your arms, mother,' said Asiaq, gathering her daughter to her. Akanto felt tears prickling the back of her eyes but refused to let them come. There was no reason to cry. Her grandmother would get better.
 

'I have everything I need for more medicine,' said Akanto, as she and her mother separated.
 

'Even snowroot?'
 

'Nanouk found one at the top of the mountain, wait 'til you see how big it is!'
 

'The top of the mountain? Akanto, how many times...'
 

'I know, mother.'
 

'Akanto, you could have been killed! The mountain is not a place to play! I don't want you going that high, I told you that!'
 

'I wasn't playing!'
 

'Promise me you won't climb that high again.'
 

'It's the only place left to look before winter comes! If I don't keep searching then the village will die!'
 

'Don't be so foolish, Akanto!' shouted Asiaq. 'I won't let you get yourself killed for nothing!'
 

They fell silent. Akanto looked away.
 

'The medicine will work,' she whispered.
 

'I know,' replied her mother. 'I know. I'm sorry. You just...you just scared me.'
 

'The stemgrass was strong when I cut it,' continued Akanto, 'and I'll mash the everblossom properly this time.' Her mother reached out and cradled her cheek in her hand.
 

'Well, come on,' croaked her grandmother, 'I want to see this snowroot.'
 

Akanto smiled and retrieved the root from her pack.
 

'Bring it closer, little one,' whispered her grandmother. Akanto held it out to her and watched as the eyes peeking through the furs widened. ‘Bulbous and wrinkled without a sprig of hair to speak of; reminds me of your grandfather.'
 

Akanto burst into laughter. Asiaq smiled, taking the root and placing it in a stone bowl. She filled a smaller bowl with water and gave it to her mother, taking care not to make contact with her hands.
 

'Stay with her, I will visit the others,' said Asiaq, burying the bowl under the snow.
 

'I'll go,' said Akanto. 'I'm already prepared.'
 

'Just...be careful, then,' said Asiaq. 'I've wrapped the fish and the firewood in bundles outside.'
 

Akanto departed and Nanouk followed her as she knocked on the props of each tent in the village with a stick, delivering the supplies at their entrances.
 

'Your heart must be bigger than a whale's, Akanto,' said Meriwa as she accepted her bundle. Her eyes were yellowed and her breathing laboured. 'Please thank your mother, also, you both do so much.'
 

'How is Silla?' asked Akanto. Meriwa gripped her bundle a little tighter.
 

'You know, since taking your medicine he can drink all by himself.' Akanto beamed.
 

'The next batch will be even better!'
 

'I don't doubt it,' wheezed Meriwa.
 

Akanto came to the tent furthest from the others and knocked on the props with her stick, laying the last bundle down. No response came. She knocked again, harder this time, and waited. She tasted the rotting air shambling from the tent and realised there was not going to be an answer. Tulimak had not made it. Akanto slowly retrieved the bundle and trudged back to her tent.

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 Chapter Two

            The sun had been set for some time before Akanto's family lay down to sleep. Her grandmother was soon snoring quietly from deep within her furs.
 

'Tell me what my name means,' said Akanto, settling herself in her sleeping sack against her mother.
 

'You know what it means.'
 

'I don't remember,' lied Akanto.
 

'Move your elbow, it's tickling me.'
 

'Tell me what my name means,' urged Akanto, wiggling her elbow.
 

'Do that again and see what happens,' whispered Asiaq. Akanto laid very still. She felt Asiaq's body tense. The elbow twitched.
 

Asiaq's hands flew to Akanto's ribs, scurrying to and fro, reducing her to fits of giggles.
 

'No!' Akanto whimpered, crying with laughter and kicking at the sack. 'Stop!'
 

'I'll stop tickling when you stop wriggling.'
 

'I've stopped, I've stopped!'
 

'You're still wriggling, so I better keep tickling!'
 

Their laughter ebbed away and they both closed their eyes. Subtle swells of cool air relieved the foulness from time to time as they listened to the wind and drew themselves closer into each other.
 

'I can't sleep...' insisted Akanto. Asiaq sighed.
 

'When you were born, you cried so loudly that you woke the entire village. Meriwa took you in her arms and cleaned you and comforted you and still you cried. She passed you to me and I kissed you and rocked you and still you cried. I remember, Panuk came running to the hut shouting, "what lungs! My son howls like a wolf!" He wanted a boy so badly; to hunt with. But the moment he saw you he knew he had been foolish to ever want anything else. You were so beautiful.'
 

'And my lungs matched any boy's.'
 

'Nanouk didn't know what to make of you. This loud, angry little thing all bundled in fur; I think she wondered why we kept you.'
 

'Get to the naming.'
 

'Eight days later, the day came to name you. Following tradition, we gave you the name of a beloved ancestor. Arnaqjuaq blessed you with the title and invited all to greet you. Still you cried. We offered you the name of our wisest shamans, our strongest forefathers, our most ancient mothers; nothing worked. You would have cried until you had robbed all the breath from the world, I am sure of it.'
 

'Then what?' whispered Akanto.
 

'Then your grandmother sang you to sleep with nonsense words. After asking every ancestor we could recall for assistance, you settled on Akanto; a name of no consequence, or history or meaning. Just a sound your grandmother made to lull you to sleep. It was so embarrassing.'
 

Akanto giggled.
 

'One day, people will be proud to name their new ones Akanto. It will be the best-known name from here to the end of the world.'
 

'I believe you,' said Asiaq. 'Now go to sleep, there is much work to be done tomorrow.'
 

'What does your name mean?'
 

'Mother of all things.'
 

'Father told me once it meant healthy whale blubber.'
 

'Do you want to sleep outside with Nanouk?'
 

When slumber fell upon them, it fell heavily. Memories played about their eyelids as they did on so many nights. What little warmth they offered was welcome, to drown the thoughts of a silent village that might never see sunrise again.
 

Screams tore Akanto into a waking nightmare.
 

Her eyes rocked in their sockets, starved of any light as she scrambled from her sleeping sack. A voice cried out in the blackness, desperate and pleading. Sharp, dizzying pain detonated across her forehead as she collided with one of the props, trying to right herself. The wind rattled across the ice.
 

Akanto burst free from the tent. Nanouk was barking, wrenching at her rope. Asiaq, kneeling far from the edge of the camp, clawed at the ground with her fingers, willing her mother to return to them. Akanto watched as her grandmother swayed gently in the distance, almost dancing, as if mocking her daughter's despair as she stumbled, delirious into the gloom. The disease had reached her mind and she no longer had knowledge of where she was.
 

'Mother!' screamed Akanto. 'Mother, I'm coming!'
 

Asiaq twisted like a snake.
 

'Get away!' she screeched. 'Get back!'
 

Akanto froze. She had never heard that voice from her mother's lips before. The air seemed to still. Akanto met Asiaq's eyes, wild with desperation. Her grandmother trudged ever further into the blackness until she disappeared entirely. Asiaq pressed her fists into her teeth and gave one final sob before rising to her feet. Before Akanto could do anything more, her mother had flung herself into the blackness.
 

Akanto called after her with all the strength in her lungs. Her limbs felt heavy as she dragged them through the snow. She lost herself, scrabbling for sensation, calling for Asiaq. No voice returned to her. Nothing returned to her.
 

Nanouk's barks battered through the dark to guide her home. Akanto followed the sound and with numbing fingers she scraped at the knot securing Nanouk to the tent. It curled taught like the body of the serpent, unrelenting. She threaded her fingers through the fur on Nanouk's chest. Her hands warmed and the dog quieted.
 

She loosed Nanouk into the wind and buried herself in the folds of the tent, gathering the materials she needed. She lit the kudlik and set about preparing the ingredients. What crude tools were available to her she laid out in the dim flickering of the flame.
 

When Nanouk returned through the tent's opening, she was followed quickly by Asiaq, carrying her mother back to the furs. Akanto concentrated on her task, cutting the snowroot into slices so fine they were translucent. Asiaq sang softly, fighting her mother's thrashing limbs to keep them buried beneath the furs. The old woman's laboured howls beat a senseless rhythm over Asiaq's gentle murmurings. When the groans stopped, only the song remained. When that, too, was choked by tears, there was only the sound of Akanto, hard at work.
 

Asiaq turned from her mother to find Akanto kneeling before her. In her outstretched arms she held a bowl of medicine, thicker than honey and darker than pitch. Asiaq stared at it for a long time.
 

'Please,' whispered Akanto.
 

Her mother took the bowl with trembling hands, being sure not to make contact with Akanto’s skin.      

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