Island of Shadows Read online

  We traveled all that way together! Did I really bring him here so that he could gallop up into the sky and become a pattern of stars? Does that mean he wasn’t really a brown bear at all?

  Toklo had never felt so alone, not even when his mother, Oka, had driven him away and he’d had to learn to survive on his own in the forest. Back then he hadn’t known what it meant to have a friend. Only a brother who had died and a mother who had seemed to hate the sight of him.

  The night before, he had looked up at the stars and found the shining outline that was Ujurak, but that hadn’t helped, either. It only made him realize how far away Ujurak was: skylength after skylength, much, much farther than any bear could travel.

  I’d give anything to reach up into the stars and pull Ujurak back down.

  Every night Toklo could look up and see his friend in the stars, but he could never hunt with him or talk to him. He couldn’t pad alongside Ujurak anymore, or roll him over in a playful wrestling match, or watch his eyes light up when Toklo brought a plump goose or a juicy hare for them to share.

  It won’t ever be that way again.

  The bears traveled on through the gray half-light of snow-sky, but the dark hump on the horizon never seemed to come any closer. A few light flakes of snow began to drift down, growing steadily thicker until they blotted out the island altogether. Plodding after the other bears through the swirling blizzard, Toklo slipped into a half dream. He imagined that he could see Ujurak just ahead of him, a small brown shape slipping easily through the dense whiteness. Although Toklo quickened his pace, Ujurak was always too far ahead. At last Toklo lost sight of him in the spiraling white flakes. His heart quickened as the snowfall started to ease and he could see more clearly ahead of him. He searched for a small brown shape against the new snow, for a trail of pawprints leading confidently on. But Ujurak wasn’t there. He had never been there.

  I just imagined it. Because I want to see him again, so much.

  The snow stopped and the sky cleared as the brief day drew to an end. The island was noticeably closer now, with craggy hills rising dark out of the flat expanse of ice. In the thick snow they had veered away from it; as they turned to head directly for it again, Toklo became aware of his freezing cold paws and the lumps of snow clinging to his pelt. His muscles ached with weariness. Intent on following Ujurak, he hadn’t noticed how hard it was to struggle through the blizzard.

  “Can we rest for a bit?” Lusa whimpered. “My paws feel like they’re about to fall off.”

  “We may as well stop for the night,” Toklo responded, without giving Yakone the chance to reply. “We won’t reach the island before it’s completely dark.” He braced himself for an argument with Yakone, but the white bear just nodded.

  “There’s nowhere to dig out a den,” Kallik warned. “But you’re right, Toklo. The island is too far away to make it there in time to find better shelter. Come on, Lusa, you can lie down next to me—but be careful that you don’t fall into the longsleep again.”

  Kallik and Yakone settled down side by side on the ice, and Lusa curled up beside them. After a moment’s hesitation Toklo joined them, checking the wind direction and positioning himself to shelter the small black bear from the worst of the blast. She gave him a grateful look, pushing her muzzle into his shoulder, and the tiny acknowledgment made Toklo feel a little better. Then he spotted Yakone over the top of Lusa’s head, and his jealousy came flooding back.

  There might be hare or deer on that island, he thought. Then I’ll show that white bear how to hunt!

  In spite of the cold, Toklo was beginning to sink into sleep when Kallik’s voice suddenly roused him. “Look!”

  Raising his head, Toklo glanced around warily, half expecting to see an enemy approaching—another white bear, or a full-grown walrus. Then he realized that Kallik was staring up at the sky. Over the island, faint streaks of color were stretching upward: gold and ice blue and the green of forest trees. Lusa scrambled to her paws with a squeal of excitement.

  “The spirits are here!”

  As Toklo and the others stood watching, the colors strengthened and became like shining rivers flowing across the sky from horizon to horizon, brighter even than the twinkling stars. The light billowed into huge clouds, reflecting on the bears’ fur, bathing them in brightness. Green, blue, gold, orange, red, and then back to green again: Over and over the streams of light rippled through the sky, dancing to a silent heartbeat.

  “The Iqniq.” Yakone’s voice was hushed, awestruck. “We thought they had left us forever.”

  “So beautiful…” Kallik rested her head against Yakone’s shoulder. “Nisa is with them; I have to believe that. My mother is watching over me, dancing through the sky with her pelt full of colors.”

  “Arcturus!” Lusa spoke happily, as if she were greeting an old friend, her head tilted upward and her jaws parted as if she could drink in the sky-fire like clean, clear water.

  Toklo felt as though the spirits were swirling around him, swooping down to the ice before rushing back into the sky, trying to draw him into their dance. Are you here, Ujurak? he asked silently. If you are, let me see you. Please.

  But there was no response, only the shining fire that lapped around him. Toklo didn’t know how long he stood there as the rivers of light played across the sky. He stared into the depths until his eyes ached, straining to make out the shape of a little brown bear running toward him. At last the colors faded and the sky turned black once more. Sighing, Toklo let himself sink down onto the ice again, huddled beside his companions. Sleep overwhelmed him like the crashing of a black wave.

  Toklo paused at the mouth of a narrow cove that led between dark rocky cliffs so steep that scarcely any snow clung to them. Gulls wheeled overhead, letting out their raucous cries, but nothing else moved in the landscape.

  Toklo had taken the lead when they had set out that morning across the stretch of frozen sea that still separated them from the island. Now its black cliffs loomed above them, impossible to climb. They would have to follow the cove, but Toklo didn’t like the feeling of being closed in by those sharp rocks. They reminded him too much of the gully where Ujurak had been killed by the avalanche. What if another one came? Would he have to watch all his friends die under an ocean of snow?

  “Come on!” Lusa exclaimed from behind him. “What are we waiting for?”

  “We need to make sure there’s no danger,” Toklo retorted. “Wait here.”

  His claws clicked on the ice as he paced forward. For a moment, he had almost forgotten Ujurak wasn’t with them anymore; he had almost asked his friend to change into the shape of a bird and fly up to check out the land ahead. Ujurak’s ability to take on the appearance of other birds and animals—sometimes at will, sometimes by accident—had gone from being an unnerving, startling incident to something all the bears were accustomed to. At times like this, when a seagull could see much farther than a bear stuck on the ground, Toklo missed Ujurak even more fiercely.

  Have you got cloudfluff in your brain? he asked, furious with himself. We have to manage without Ujurak now.

  There was still no sound as he moved farther into the cove, so he jerked his head as a signal for the others to follow. At first the ice was smooth, a narrow arm of the sea. But soon the cove grew narrower still, until Toklo’s fur brushed the cliff face on either side. At its head, a cascade of ice was poised over jagged rocks, frozen mid-waterfall as it plunged over the cliff. There was no other way out of the cove.

  “Follow me!” Toklo called. “And for the spirits’ sake, watch where you’re putting your paws!”

  He scrambled upward, trying to dig his claws into the slippery ice. This will be a river when the sun comes back, he thought, trying to imagine climbing against the force of water pouring down. We’d never make it.

  At last, grunting with effort, he hauled himself onto the cliff top, and turned to help Lusa up the last few pawsteps, bending over to fasten his teeth in her scruff and drag her.

&nbs
p; “Thanks, Toklo,” Lusa panted as she flopped down beside him.

  As they waited for Kallik and Yakone to scramble up, Toklo gazed out across a bare plateau, flat and featureless except where it was veined by frozen streams that had gouged down into the soil in warmer weather. A few scrubby bushes grew along their banks, their trunks twisted by the wind, and a ridge of hills rose in the distance. There was no sign of any animals they could hunt, and no prey-scent in the air.

  “We need to cross those hills,” Yakone announced as he reached the cliff top. “The bears who visited here said that there’s a gentler slope to the sea on the other side.”

  Toklo grunted, then stiffened as he spotted a cluster of flat-face dens farther along the cliff. “You never said there were flat-faces here,” he accused Yakone, swinging around to fix him with a glare.

  What use is he if he doesn’t bother telling us important stuff like that?

  “I didn’t know,” Yakone retorted, sounding defensive. “None of the bears who visited said anything about them.”

  “Maybe the flat-faces haven’t been here long,” Kallik suggested, coming to stand at Yakone’s side. “Anyway, we can easily avoid them.”

  Lusa had scraped away some snow from the rocks at the edge of the cliff and was sniffing at the lichen underneath. Tasting it, she made a face. “There’s not much here,” she commented. “And I don’t see any prey for you to catch. I think we should go and check out the flat-face dens. There might be food there.”

  “No-claw food?” Yakone said, surprised. “I thought you were all wild bears.”

  “We are,” Toklo growled. “The less we see of flat-faces the better.”

  To his annoyance, Lusa turned away from the lichen-covered rocks to contradict him. “You’ve been glad enough of flat-face food before now, Toklo.”

  Before Toklo could reply, Yakone padded up to the small black bear. “Back on Star Island, I remember you telling us that we shouldn’t eat the food the no-claws threw out. You said if we did that we’d forget how to be wild bears and catch our own prey.”

  “I know.” Lusa scrabbled awkwardly in the snow with her forepaws. “But that was different. There wasn’t enough flat-face food there to feed all of you. And there was other prey for you to catch. But when you’re on a journey, you have to eat what’s available.”

  “Lusa’s right.” Toklo took her side for the satisfaction of arguing with Yakone. “I think we should check out the flat-face dens. But we’ll wait until it gets dark.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Kallik reassured Yakone. “We’ve done this before.”

  Yakone still looked doubtful, but he didn’t protest anymore.

  Under cover of darkness Toklo led his companions across the plateau toward the cluster of flat-face dens. They were built in rows beside narrow BlackPaths, and a wider BlackPath led away on the far side. Several firebeasts crouched outside the dens.

  “I think they’re asleep,” Lusa murmured, crouching at Toklo’s shoulder behind a rock. “I’m pretty sure they haven’t seen us.”

  Toklo nodded. Excitement began to course through him from ears to paws now that they were committed to the raid. This is better than trekking across bare rocks looking for prey that isn’t there!

  Here and there the gaps in the den walls glowed golden, throwing slabs of light onto the ground. Toklo could hear a high, tinny sound coming from the nearest den. But he couldn’t hear the sound of flat-face voices or the thump of their pawsteps. He rose from his crouch, only to shrink back behind the rock at the sound of a door opening and slamming shut. Two male flat-faces appeared around the corner of one of the dens and climbed into the nearest firebeast. It woke up with a throaty growl, its eyes blazed out in two streams of light, and it drew smoothly away on round black paws.

  “That was close,” Toklo breathed, enjoying the tingle of danger.

  “Those no-claws were wearing the same green pelts,” Kallik pointed out, peering around the rock after the vanishing firebeast. “Just like the ones on Star Island. Why are they all alike?”

  Toklo shrugged. “Who cares? They’re gone now. Let’s go.”

  He padded across the stretch of open ground between the rock and the first of the dens, with Lusa beside him and Kallik and Yakone a bearlength behind. He could sense Yakone’s tension.

  “Good,” he muttered to himself. “He’s going to learn something tonight.”

  “We need to go around to the back of the dens,” Lusa whispered into Toklo’s ear. “That’s where the flat-faces keep their silver cans.”

  Toklo nodded. “I remember.”

  Glancing cautiously from side to side, he led the way across a BlackPath and through a narrow gap between two of the dens. As they emerged on the other side, he spotted three of the large silver cans clustered together near the door of the den.

  Lusa gave a little bounce of excitement. “There!”

  The scent of rotting flat-face food hung in the air, and Toklo felt the gush of water in his mouth. His belly rumbled as he paused to listen for the sound of flat-faces. The dens on either side were dark and silent. “Okay,” he said to Yakone in a low voice, “we have to be really quiet. Dashing in and knocking the cans over will just bring the flat-faces out. Follow me and watch what I do.”

  Setting his paws down carefully, Toklo crept up on the cans as if he were stalking prey. He pushed at the nearest can until it tilted; Kallik slipped into place to support it as it tipped over, and together they lowered it to the ground. Lusa set her paws against the lid, not letting it come off until the can lay on its side.

  “You’ve done this before,” Yakone murmured admiringly.

  Pride surged through Toklo. “Let’s see what’s inside. Yakone, you keep watch and let me know if any flat-faces turn up.”

  “Toklo, let me—” Lusa began, but Toklo ignored her.

  This is my raid!

  He plunged his head and shoulders inside the can, thrusting his nose into the mass of flat-face waste. His own body was blocking what little light there was, so he couldn’t see anything, but the scent of meat was very strong. His muzzle nudged up against something smooth, and he sank his teeth into bone.

  Great! Let’s see what I’ve got.

  But when Toklo tried to draw back into the open, he found that his shoulders were jammed against the smooth sides of the can. He scrabbled with his forepaws and dislodged more of the waste. The stinking scraps tumbled over his head, and he felt something sticky soaking into his fur. The air was foul, and it was getting harder to breathe.

  From outside the can he heard Yakone’s voice. “I think he’s stuck.”

  Striking out with his hindpaws, Toklo felt his claws churning up the ground, but his efforts only drove him farther into the can. He fought down panic.

  I’m going to be stuck in this thing forever! Or until the flat-faces find me in the morning.

  “Toklo, keep still.” That was Kallik’s voice. “Yakone and I are going to try to pull the can off you.”

  Toklo stopped struggling. He knew that Kallik was being sensible, but humiliation flooded over him at the thought of being rescued by Yakone, when he had been so proud of taking the lead and teaching the white male something new. He could hear scratching from the outside of the can, and then it suddenly slid off him. He was still gripping the meaty bone in his jaws, and he dropped it to take in huge lungfuls of the cold night air. All kinds of disgusting debris clung to his fur. He stood up and shook himself, sending scraps flying all around him.

  Lusa jumped back out of range. “Yuck!” she exclaimed.

  Toklo took a deep breath. He wanted to stomp off and hide his shame, but there was nowhere to go in the middle of these flat-face dens. “Thanks,” he grunted reluctantly to the white bears.

  “Hey, that’s okay.” Yakone dipped his head toward the bone Toklo had dropped. “Looks like you got something, anyway.”

  Thick scraps of meat clung to the bone. Toklo’s mouth watered again, but he stepped back, gesturing for the white
bears to eat.

  “If you’re sure….” Kallik murmured. “Thanks, Toklo.”

  Meanwhile, Lusa was poking about in the tipped-over can. “Hey!” she said. “There are potato sticks! They’re the best. And fruit!”

  “You’d better have those, Lusa,” Toklo said. “Is there any more meat?”

  “Hang on a moment.” Lusa disappeared inside the can, and Toklo heard her rooting around. Then she backed out again. “There you go. Meat.”

  She dropped a crumpled paper sack at Toklo’s paws. Inside, the meat looked as if something had chewed it into little pieces, and there were scraps of tough white stuff holding it together. Toklo buried his snout in the sack and wolfed down meat and white stuff all at once.

  “Great, Lusa,” he mumbled between gulps. “Thanks.”

  Yakone raised his head from the bone. “Lusa, this is a really neat trick,” he commented. “And you’re not scared of no-claws at all.”

  Lusa ducked her head, looking embarrassed. “Flat-faces are mostly okay. They don’t understand about bears, though.”

  “Lusa’s right.” Toklo swallowed the last mouthful of meat. “They don’t like us near their dens. So we need to get out of here.”

  With a quick glance around to check for firebeasts, he headed back the way they had come. The others followed. Toklo felt better to be in the lead again, though he couldn’t forget the shame of getting stuck inside the can.

  And it’ll take forever to get the stink out of my fur!

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kallik

  Kallik suppressed a sigh as she followed Toklo out of the no-claw denning area. Why does he have to be so pushy, and want to lead all the time? What does it matter?

  Toklo had been difficult ever since they left Star Island. Kallik knew that he was grieving for Ujurak, and she had tried to be understanding.

  But we all lost Ujurak. We’re all grieving. It’s not just about Toklo.

  Padding in Toklo’s pawsteps across the plateau and toward the distant hills, Kallik tried to focus on the good things. They had been faced with so many problems on Star Island: the poisoned seals that were making the white bears sick, and the oil rig that was endangering the wild and cutting the connection with the ancestral spirits.