Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein Page A

question. She wanted to be sure the woman wasn’t crazy and lost with someone waiting for her somewhere else.
    “My son will pick me up in the morning. I’ll wait here.”
    “I see,” Jenna said. “Well, good night, then.”
    Jenna started to turn to leave, when the old woman spoke again.
    “Where did you get that necklace?”
    Jenna reflexively put her hand to the silver charm around her neck.
    “Some friends of mine gave it to me as a gift.”
    The faceless woman nodded.
    “My son made it.”
    Of course. Jenna realized that this was the strange old woman that Willie and Debbie talked about. They had purchased the necklace from her.
    “It’s very beautiful,” Jenna said. “Could you tell me what it is?”
    The old woman reached for the charm and held it a moment in her thick fingers.
    “The kushtaka.”
    “Yes, that’s what they said. What is the kushtaka? Is it a Tlingit legend?”
    The woman pushed her duffel bags together to make a kind of seat and dropped down onto them, stretching her legs out in front of her.
    “A legend, yes. It’s a story to frighten children and keep them from straying too far from home. Do you have a cigarette?”
    “Sorry, I don’t smoke.” Jenna shrugged. “What about the kushtaka?”
    “The kushtaka? What do you want to know? They are spirits.”
    “What kind?”
    “Otter people. They are very powerful. If you believe in them, that is. They watch over the water and the forests and rescue lost souls. Do you believe in them?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of them.”
    Jenna had heard Tlingit stories from her grandmother, but she didn’t remember a kushtaka. There was one about a man who married a bear, and one about a boy who killed a monster and burned the body and that’s where mosquitoes came from.
    “They take the souls to the kushtaka villages and make them into kushtaka. They are soul-stealers.”
    “Really. Is there a story?”
    “Of course. Lots.”
    “Can you tell me one?”
    “Which one? How they began?”
    “Yes. How they began.”
    “I know it. It was after the flood. Raven had made a flood to kill all the bad people. There were too many of them. He wanted to clean the world. But he couldn’t kill the bad people without killing the good ones, too. So everyone died. Even Raven’s mother, and that made Raven very sad. He loved his mother, and he was very sad.”
    The woman unzipped one of her bags, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. Jenna smiled. Free cigarettes always taste better than ones you pay for.
    “One day, after the flood was gone, Raven was walking on the beach collecting stones and he heard someone singing his name. He followed the singing until he found some land otters playing in the sand.
    “ ‘Who is calling me?’ Raven asked.
    “ ‘Sit on my back,’ one of the otters said, ‘and I will take you to where you are being called.’
    “ ‘But you will drown me,’ Raven said. He was very afraid of the water because he couldn’t swim.
    “ ‘Don’t fear,’ the otter said, ‘you’ll be safe with me.’
    “So Raven sat on the land otter, and, even though he tried to pay attention to where they were going, he became very drowsy and fell asleep. When he awoke, he found himself in a village with many people.
    “Raven walked along the shore of this strange land until he came upon his mother. He was very happy to see her because he thought she had drowned in the flood with everyone else. Raven asked his mother how she had come to this land, and she told him that when the waters rose, the land otters rescued her and took her to this place where she was treated very well.
    “Well, Raven was so happy that the land otters had saved his mother that he gave them a gift. From then on, the land otters could change into any shape they desired, just like Raven could. They could be a person or an otter or a fish or anything they wanted. And with this gift came a job. Raven told the otters that they must watch over the