Ride the Moon: An Anthology by M. L. D. Curelas Page B

eyes.
    Shanaitwasa grew a circle of red ochre around Nawdithi, his arms waving and legs flaying. The efforts were fruitless; the stone weighed nearly as much as him. Yet, he struggled. A hunter’s spirit lived inside her son.
    She forced herself to watch. This was the price of pride, to watch the destruction of a prized possession.
    The firelight danced in Nawdithi’s eyes and Demaswet could see the fear and comprehension in his expression. The herbs and mushrooms did not do enough to cloud his thinking. He knew he was about to die. He knew it was his mother that caused his death.
    His eyes said he knew his mother would not save him. Demaswet stared into her son’s eyes, tears falling down her cheeks. She betrayed her beloved son.
    â€œWe honour your sacrifice, Nawdithi. In your death, we hope to live. We will forever honour you. We pray to the Father to bring us the ice once more. Without the hunt, we cannot live. We have offended the Great Spirits and now we must sacrifice.”
    Around Nawdithi’s kicking body, they placed the sacred hunting tools. A seal harpoon, with its notched head attached to caribou sinew. The knife her brother made for Nawdithi’s first hunting. The bird bone flute that his father made.
    Then, Shanaitwasa pulled the bone pendant from around her neck and placed it on the stone on his back. “This has touched my heart since I was a child. Now, it will touch yours for eternity. Never forget us, as we will never forget you.”
    And with that, several men stepped past the drummers and into the sacred space. They began to return the earth and stones to their rightful resting ground, on top of her son.
    Nawdithi’s wide eyes frantically searched his surroundings, but the herbs had clouded his mind so much that he could not cry out. The pyres continued to burn, the fish continued to bake. Food and tools to tempt his spirit, since it would be bound under the rock, never to be let free.
    As the dirt covered Nawdithi’s face, so too did it bury her. She murdered her beloved child because she failed. It did not matter who lived now, since she would soon follow her son into the next life.
    Present Day
    Endless, unyielding time passed. Demaswet paced around the rock cairn that held her son, as she had done for countless ages. If he could not hunt nor eat, neither would she. She stood guard against time, pacing and wailing and waiting for the day her son would finally join her and the ancestors.
    It was her fault. All of it, square on her shoulders. Time taught her that. She had been such a young mother, so very young. She did not understand how to apologize to Father for a failing in her own character. She had wanted to celebrate life and was too inexperienced to understand how to temper her own pride with selflessness.
    If only she had learned that lesson sooner. Father might not have taken Nawdithi. She would not have taken her life to tend him in the next.
    Though, Father’s opinion seemed to no longer matter. He did not speak to her, no longer taunting her. He’d forgotten about her, leaving her and Nawdithi to linger for eternity. Now, she could only exist for her son.
    She put aside her fear and regret and instead drew hope from the strangers around her, apprehension and excitement waging war within Demaswet’s soul.
    The strangers dug their perfectly square pits on their hands and knees. They used their tiny picks and shovels, and brushed aside the centuries of dirt and rock with hand-held brooms.
    Would these strangers release Nawdithi or would they doom his spirit to oblivion?
    They dug into the earth.
    They dug into her Nawdithi.
    They dug and dug and dug. They found the rock on Nawdithi’s back. They held up black boxes and flashed lights at him.
    Demaswet held a hand to her neck, anticipation rising.
    The strangers lifted the rock and gasps filled the air. They cheered, and smiled, and laughed. Demaswet just stared and waited.
    Her beloved child