A Tyranny of Petticoats Read Online Free PDF Page B

He pressed his muzzle gently against the side of my leg and uttered a low, mournful whine.
    “Why did they come?” I whispered, burying my hand in Ataneq’s thick fur. My words disappeared into the void of the tundra.
    Father had never taught me how to get to the next village. Without his guidance, how could I possibly complete the delivery route? How could I find my way there? What if I was caught in a storm?
    My dogs and I would die alone out here, buried in snow, never to be found again.
    Stop trembling.
I pulled my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around my legs. Ataneq’s warm muzzle left my leg, letting the cold seep in. I paused in my thoughts to look at him. He tilted his head and let out a series of low barks. The other dogs stirred.
    I turned my head up to see what had caught his attention.
    It was the red aurora — sheets upon glittering sheets of crimson and scarlet that painted the night sky and hid swaths of stars.
Blood,
some in my village called it.
Good fortune,
my mother insisted.
Perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps I’m not.
All I could think about was the feeling in my stomach as the hunters returned without my father, and the memory of my mother lying in the snow, red spilling across her furs.
    I would not find the village. I would not deliver this
maktak,
and those villagers would be left wondering what had happened. I would join my parents’ spirits in the sky.
    Perhaps I am cursed.
    A flicker of light in the sky drew my attention. There. In the midst of the red aurora, a bright, searing line sliced its way across the sky. It streaked past us, then disappeared beyond the horizon in a glittering trail.
    My heart caught in my throat. My hand buried deeper in Ataneq’s fur, and a dot of excitement lit up my sorrow.
A falling star.
    Never in my life had I seen one as bright as this, like a white-gold fire against the night. I searched the sky, half-expecting another to come. But the rest of the stars stayed where they were, and the tundra fell back into stillness. Wind gusted past me, and I huddled against the thickness of my furs. My eyes lingered on the horizon where the falling star had disappeared.
    Slowly, my thoughts began to flow into a river of calm, and the calm brought me focus. My mother’s voice came to me.
    When hunters are lost at sea,
the Seal King turns them into seals. When sledders are lost in the tundra, Nanuk the Great White Bear takes them in and turns them into her cubs. Their spirits stay protected in the animals’ bodies until the night a falling star comes to take them away into the sky.
    Then, my father’s voice.
    The spirits will guide you, if you take only what you need and respect them in their domain. Even in the darkest night. Remember that, Yakone, and you will never be lost.
    I remembered. I raised one hand and traced the line that my father had traced that evening, connecting the stars of the First Ones to the Caribou. It was the same path that the falling star had followed, as surely as if my father had drawn it himself.
    It would not be an easy journey. Following the coastline would take far too long, so we would have to head into the tundra and rely on the constellations. This was a risk in itself. If a blizzard caught us, it would bury us. With nothing but the same white expanse in all directions and a sky shrouded by clouds, even the greatest tracker could lose himself and freeze to death.
    But Father had taught me what he would have taught a son, and Mother had taught me what a daughter should know. The thought kept me warm, even as I looked to the bleak trek ahead.
    I looked down at Ataneq. “We will follow the falling star and find the village,” I murmured. His ears flicked forward at my voice. “And when we complete the star’s path, my parents’ spirits will be free to rest.”
    I jerked awake, not because of the weak light but because the dogs were barking.
    I scrambled out from the warmth of my furs to see Ataneq facing the way we’d come, his