The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone

out. Islands move in closer. Little sounds from far off ring across the water, clear as pebbles in a spring. The sea flattens into a bright path that beckons us into open water, further than anyone would want to take a boat in ordinary Years. Those are the Years when our families know they’ll find each other at White Beach Camp in Auk Moon.
    Day after day my father climbed Look-out Hill. Every day he stood there for a long while. He felt the wind against his cheek. He watched the birds flying over the marshes. He gazed towards the Sunless Sky, looking far-off through the Narrows to the place where our River meets Open Sea.
    My father told us that the sea would soon be ready to let us through. We let the wind speak softly to the sea until the swell went down. The day we left, the sky was the colour of the bluebells under the birches, with swirly streaks of cloud high up, like blown smoke. We covered the hearth at River Mouth Camp with turfs. We left dry firewood inside the winter house. We stretched our arms up to the spirits who’d watched over us at River Mouth Camp. We explained to Bear and Boar that we were going away for a while. We gave our clearing back to the Animals, and told them that if we were still alive we’d like to come back to River Mouth Camp in Yellow Leaf Moon.
    We floated our big boat. We loaded it with hides and birch-bark, furs, baskets of roots, bundles of bone and antler, and meat and water for our journey. Life is usually easy at White Beach Camp, but we take plenty of work with us, and do it outside during the long days when the Sun gives us as much light and warmth as he possibly can. We paddled downriver through reeds and grasses taller than a man. Our boat slipped past the birch that overhangs the stream – the tree with the mossy fishing-place where we lie along the trunk dangling our lines. We glided past our fish traps. The River widened and went mud-coloured. Reeds and bullrushes hid its banks. Moorhens paddled out of range as we slid past.
    We came into open water. Geese grazed in the salt flats. The sea flooded into the estuary, pushing the River backwards as it tried to escape towards the sea. Brown river-water was lost in the flood like smoke in mist. In the Narrows the flood would be too strong for us. We paddled out of the current, between rafts of floating seaweed, towards the Morning Sun shore. It was almost the middle of the day. We laid our paddles across the lip of the boat, and waited for my father to say the word. At last the Sun climbed as high as the young Year would let him. My father stared at the sky. He smelt the wind. He watched the water lapping higher up the shore. Now the tide was wetting the stones four fists below the line of dead leaves and seaweed which marked the height of the spring flood. Three fists . . . nearly two fists . . .
    â€˜Now!’
    In a heartbeat Amets leaped into shallow water and pushed us away from the shore. He scrambled over the stern as the current caught us. The tide still flooded through the Narrows, but it was getting weaker. We paddled as hard as we could. Now we were into the Narrows. The sea ran swift and deep between low cliffs. The rocks on each side rose sheer as if the land had been sliced open with a knife. The tide grew weaker. The River grew stronger. Now the River was helping us against the tide. The Narrows opened out between rocky islets. Through our boat-hide we felt the pulse of the Open Sea.
    Waves lapped our bows. The boat stirred at the familiar taste of salt. Its winter sleep was over; we felt it waken under us.
    The men sat on the bundles of furs to paddle, with the spears and harpoons lashed alongside. Everyone smelt of seal blubber because Alaia had rubbed so much of it into our sea cloaks. She’d made me help her. I’d said I didn’t think we need do all the cloaks every Year. But she was right as usual: we were soaked with spray long before we reached White Beach Camp. The dogs crouched