Lyydia

Lyydia crouched on the icepack alone, eyes closed, her weapon arm hanging limp at her side, and asked the earth to speak of others on her path. The River sang beneath the ice far to her left, and Lyydia spoke softly once — a word of command — to quiet the ice water music so that the ears of her mind could hear the distance.

She thanked Bear for the warmth of his skin on her bones, and for its sight. She visioned her children and grandchildren home in her Saariselkä village, swathed in Bear’s sister skins, safe and fed. She rocked, calling the vision, seeing Bear when it gave its life to her family. Lyydia was Noaidi, and as shaman, she had returned the bones to the den, singing the Bear joik, asking for the skill to use Bear eyes.

With Bear wisdom, Lyydia touched her damaged arm with her other furred hand, sending healing breath from her mind through her blood to the injury. The pain eased. Lyydia let go of her children grandchildren vision from Bear eyes and retuned her mind and sight to her surroundings.

Her eyes walked the dark blue horizon, unbroken waves of snow and ice reflecting the northern lights that wavered overhead. Beyond the great frost-rimed lake, the forest huddled in the distance to her right. Past the forest, another half day’s journey away, her people slept, ate, sewed, hunted and waited.

The reindeer herd snapped attentive. The many hoof sounds ceased, the frozen lake sending tiny drum rim cracks into the dancing light of the night sky.

Something was quietly approaching. Something she could not yet see on the land.

No Bear or Wolf spirit showed itself to her inner sight. The deer would be stamping, snorting, anxious to be away and prone to flight if a big animal was nearby. The animal coming toward them and her was alone and smaller.

Lyydia should not be here. She was a grandmother and her tribe’s shaman, and she had broken the thread of the village garment by following the desire of her selfish heart to journey afar and ask the underworld spirits to send Ringed Seal meat for her people. The crevasse had almost eaten her life, but she had stopped her fall and clambered out with only an injured arm. She had been a fool twice on this quest. A three-time fool seldom returned home.

Now she was a wounded and tired fool. There were many stanzas of her lifesong already told, and she was weary with shame and age. Perhaps Beivve, the sun goddess, was angry with her for being absent on Beivve’s festival night.

“Ah,” Lyydia said aloud. Her mind sight revealed the other animal that followed her trail. Lyydia fingered the tooth on the leather thong attached to the drum on her back. It was hot to her touch. It was one of the molars special to Wolverine. At the back of its upper jaw, on either side, these teeth were turned 90 degrees. The molars allowed the predatory carnivore to tear frozen carrion and to crush bones to extract the marrow.

The reindeer were not in calving season, so there were no young deer. The herd was healthy and no frail old ones would hamper retreat. A wolverine could take down an unprotected adult reindeer that did not run fast enough.

On this night Lyydia was the slowest of the animals on the tundra.

Holding the tooth in one hand over her head, she prayed to the tooth that, if the underworld required another toll for this journey, she alone would make the offering, and that her village would remain healthy and strong; that her children’s lifesongs would be sung long and with joy. Her grandson was a man now; a good hunter. He would take a wife in the spring, and this is what had sent her on the quest to ask for Ringed Seal to come to the people. His wedding cloak might be made from seal skins, bringing seal hunter magic to their home fire.

Her granddaughter had learned much of Noaidi ways from Lyydia, who had witnessed her gifts as a baby. Anu would be a gifted shaman for her village. Whether she would be a mother, Lyydia did not know. She had not found reason to look into that future. The next Noaidi revealed herself to her teacher. That was the way. Lyydia had lost herself in self enough for this day, perhaps enough to end a lifetime.

Face raised to the sky, the old shaman sang her joik and felt her spirit mingle with herd spirit and dance on the breast of the earth. Deer dancing, she rose into the stringed light of the sky, bringing northern light strength into her body until she could move her hurt weapon arm high.

Lyydia unstrung the wolverine tooth from its leather tie and placed it on her drum. She sat flat on the earth, holding the antler drumstick, visualizing her lifesong, and began to chant. She struck the rim of the drum once with the other side of the antler. The tooth would leap on the drum skin among the runes of Lyydia’s life drawn there; revealing her fate when it stopped dancing on the skin.

The club she used to hunt had fallen into the crevasse, along with one of her snowshoes. Slowly she unstrapped the remaining shoe from her foot. Using her teeth to save her arm further hurt, she untied the bindings, separating the long curved edge from the weave in the center. She set the bindings on the earth and the drum on her back. The hot tooth she put into her own mouth. She gripped the antler drummer in her weapon hand and the splintered snowshoe bow in the other.

Lyydia stood. She waited for the wolverine to come.