Dana Stabenow - Dead in the Water

Something in the scene wrung her heart. One woman, old, alone, practicing a craft that had almost died out, that might have had it not been for her. She was the last of her race, and yet there were those six young girls, making their spending money at a skill as old as recorded time. There was something for everyone in the picture, Kate thought, optimist and pessimist alike. A traditionalist might be appalled that basket weaving went on only to fulfill an urgent need for the latest from Run D.M.C., but at least it went on. Andy would approve wholeheartedly.

A movement caught the corner of her eye and she turned her head toward the beach. Sasha sat hunched over at the water's edge, alone, her back to Kate. Kate looked from daughter to mother and back again, and after a brief tussle with her conscience went to squat next to the daughter. When Sasha said nothing, she said,

"Hello, Sasha."

Sasha didn't look up. " 'Lo, Kate," she said in her slow, thick voice.

"How did you know it was me?"

The hand holding the storyknife didn't pause in its deft, swooping, graceful strokes. "Hear footsteps. Know footsteps. Know you."

Kate smiled a little. "You hear like a fox."

Magically, a fox appeared in front of her in the sand, all ears and tail and pointed, inquiring nose. Sasha looked up and smiled. The smile was crooked, a little unfocused, but the gleam in the brown eyes, half-hidden by drooping lids, was alert and intelligent. "Move like fox. When want."

"I'm sure you do," Kate said, and pointed to a figure off to one side. "More thunderbirds?"

"Thunderbird," Sasha corrected. Both fox and thunderbird disappeared, to be replaced by another thunderbird closer to center stage.

"And kayaks."

"Kayak. Big kayak."

"With men on it," Kate said, watching the tip of the storyknife. "Five men."

Five Y's with legs appeared, to be encompassed with the thunderbird and the kayak inside two concentric circles.

"Home."

"Home," Kate repeated. "Where is home, Sasha? Is your island home? Is Anua home?"

"Home," Sasha said firmly, drawing a set of concentric rings, the first just inside the second, to enclose the other figures in two perfect circles. She paused, elbows resting on her knees. A ray of sun gleamed briefly through cloud and fog, shining off the wet sand, throwing the figures drawn there into stark relief. A boat passed by offshore, sending a wavelet to taste the edge of Sasha's drawings.

Kate held her hand out, palm up. "May I try? Please?

I've never told a story."

Sasha considered the matter with a thoughtful frown.

She must eventually have reached the conclusion Kate was a trustworthy person because she extended her two hands, the storyknife balanced between them like a ceremonial offering. Kate accepted the rich weight of the thing with care. "How do I hold it? Just like a knife?

Like this. I see."

"Wipe.

"Wipe?" Kate echoed her teacher. "Oh, I see. Wipe the sand smooth for my story. Okay." With a broad stroke of the blade she swept the sand clear and began to draw. "Thunderbird."

Sasha watched intently. "Longer."

Kate extended the thunderbird's wing. Next to it she drew a crude hull shape. "Kayak."

Sasha made a face. "Everybody's a critic," Kate muttered, and made the three wavy lines beneath the kayak symbol, indicating the ocean. The stick figures were easier, if not as clear or as spirited as Sasha's. "Men come on the kayak." She paused. "Did men come with the thunderbird, too, Sasha?" She made the male figure next to the thunderbird.

"No." Sasha shook her head violently. "No no no no."

Snatching for the storyknife, she erased the man figure.

Oh," Kate said, disappointed but not really surprised.

It had been only a guess, after all.

Sasha was drawing in the sand, next to Kate's shaky thunderbird. She drew a male figure. She drew a second.

"Mans," she said, sounding like a not very patient schoolteacher trying to impart valuable information to a not very bright student. "Mans."

"Oh," Kate said, light breaking. "Not one man with the thunderbird. Two men with the thunderbird."

"Mans," Sasha repeated, satisfied. She handed back the knife and waited expectantly.

"Okay." Kate hunkered down, shoulder to shoulder with Sasha, both of them absorbed in the drama unfolding in stick figures on the sand before them. "Five men on the kayak, two men with the thunderbird, all home."

She paused. "Then what happened?" She balanced the storyknife on her palms and held it out. "What happened after the thunderbird and the kayak came home?"

Slowly, reluctantly, Sasha took the knife and began to draw. It was the man figure again, but twice the size of the others and with eight arms and what looked like horns and fangs and maybe even a tail. "A monster?"

Kate guessed.

Sasha looked grave. "Bad. Kill mans."

"The monster killed the men," Kate said, her voice calm although her heart rate had picked up. "All of them? Did the monster kill all the men?"

The storyknife wiped out two of the male figures.

"Bad kill mans."

"The monster killed two of the men," Kate agreed.

"Did the rest run away?"

Sasha, obviously pleased at this display of intelligence by her backward pupil, gave a firm nod. "Rest run away.

"Sasha," Kate said. "Did the monster kill the men, or did the men kill each other?"

"Bad kill mans," Sasha repeated. "Rest run away."

Kate sat back on her heels and regarded Sasha thoughtfully.

"Is home an island, Sasha?" she asked gently. "Is home Anua?"

"Bad kill mans," Sasha said stubbornly. "Rest run away. That's all."

Kate reached for the storyknife again and held it poised, hesitating. There wasn't much point in further questioning. Sasha was no kind of credible witness, and besides, if she had gone home the previous year, she had not gone home alone.

She made as if to sweep the sand smooth once again.

"No," Sasha said, gripping her hand and removing the storyknife from it. "Let water take."

Kate relinquished the storyknife with a reluctance she only dimly recognized. The smooth, worn ivory was so warm to the touch, the weight perfectly balanced. It fit so well into her hand. Olga was right. The storyknife was a living thing, with its own spirit. Kate felt privileged to have been permitted to speak through it and she was glad that, as before, she had been judged and not found wanting.

Kate let herself into Olga's house and walked down the hallway to the kitchen.

The old woman looked up from her weaving and smiled. "Hello, Kate."

"Hello, Auntie."

Olga indicated the table. "Did you come for another lesson?"

Kate sat down. "Why not?"

"I kept your basket for you."

Olga handed it over and Kate eyed it. "This looks like the cat's been chewing on it."

"It's exactly as you left it," Olga said mildly.

"I'm sure it is," Kate said with a sigh.

Olga made tea and put a plate filled with round, golden sugar cookies on the table. The tea was strong and hot and sweet, the cookies crunchy and flavored with lemon.

Kate, chilled from the half hour of squatting half in and half out of Iliuliuk Bay and probably still from her swim in the survival suit as well, ate and drank everything she was offered.

Putting her cup down, she said, "I saw Sasha on the beach."

"Oh?"

"Yes. She was drawing with the storyknife. The story about the thunderbird and the kayak and the men."

Olga squinted down at her basket, working out an intricate stitch with intent care.

"This time, she told me about a monster with eight arms. It was bad, she said."

"The kelet," Olga said, nodding. "An evil spirit."

"The kelet," Kate said, testing the word on her tongue.

"Sasha says this kelet, this evil spirit, killed two of the men."