advent calendar 2022

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022 (Now available for pre-order from Amazon)

December 9

Northwind was not the only Arctic wind. Luui knew several, if not all, by name. The katabatic winds common in the mountains rarely stuck around long enough to earn more than a passing comment, usually about their strength, as they rushed down the mountain valleys, rattling the hunters’ cabins, toppling drying racks and scattering dried fish across the beach. Loose sledge dogs hoovered up the fish while the hunters grumbled and cursed, picking up the pieces of the racks and hammering them into place once the wind had exhausted itself further out to sea. Luui rarely made their acquaintance. Which she supposed was all right, as it was equally rare to hear a good wood about them.

Southwind was less of a nuisance than Northwind, and generally took things easy, unless challenged to blow harder than expected when chill air arrived to cool down the more pleasant temperatures the winds from the south enjoyed. Luui knew Southwind, and its cousins, though not by name, as her focus was often on Northwind and Northwind alone.

But there was one cheeky little wind who Luui knew well. Naalanngitsoq, the naughty wind, was Luui’s wind of choice when she was travelling. She – all the interesting winds in Greenland were female –would arrive all of a sudden with an apologetic bluster, swirling a pinch of snow into Luui’s face, or tapping her on the back of the head with an unexpected, but sincere, welcome flurry. The trick, Luui had learned, was to expect Naalanngitsoq to arrive at any time on a journey, and always when she was tired, ready to camp, or even fully exposed when relieving herself in a snowy hollow. Especially then. It didn’t do to curse or complain, as Naalanngitsoq would simply bluster away as if offended. The time and energy required to call upon Naalanngitsoq when Luui needed a little wind to fill a sail or dry her clothes, could be better used on other jobs. So when she sneaked up on her, Luui made sure to laugh, to praise Naalanngitsoq for another prank well played, and then invite her to walk with her for a while.

When Luui started to sweat on the steep climb through deep snow up a side valley in the Svartenhuk Mountains, it was Naalanngitsoq who blew the top layer of surface snow ahead of Luui, clearing a path. When the crust was too thin in places to support Luui, it was Naalanngitsoq who gusted here and there, testing the way, revealing the thicker patches of firm snow and guiding Luui up the valley. Of course, there was the teasing of Luui’s hair, the sudden and unpleasant dump of snow down Luui’s neck as she walked in the shadow of a large boulder, but these things were expected. They were part of the agreement in an unspoken contract based on the principle of if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Naalanngitsoq guided Luui through the mountains, and in return, Luui accepted the naughty winds pranks and peculiarities. They didn’t converse as such, but Luui found Naalanngitsoq to be a good listener, especially when she wanted to talk about the more difficult things she struggled to share with the Qamallarlutik, and even Aunix.

“It’s not like he can’t come,” Luui said, as she picked at the wound that was Tuukula Angakkuarneq, the deceased shaman, and Luui’s father. “I think he chooses not to come. It’s like he’s testing me…” Luui knocked a boulder of ice to one side with a swipe of her ice axe. “Again.”

Naalanngitsoq blew through a narrow channel near the top of the valley and dumped a flurry of snow on Luui’s feet. It was the wind’s equivalent of a Hmm or a Right, perhaps even an I understand, which would be difficult to believe, as Luui didn’t understand why Tuukula chose to remain in the spirit world, without a single visit.

“For a whole year,” she said.

The channel steepened, forcing Luui to cut steps in the ice with the spade-like adze at one end of the ice axe’s head. She worked slowly but surely, letting Naalanngitsoq wick the sweat away from her brow with gentle gusts. Luui put up with the ice socks with which Naalanngitsoq coated the tips of Luui’s hair, resisting the urge to brush them away as they knocked gently against her forehead. Striking a balance between sweating and freezing and freezing because she was sweating was more important. Luui left that part to Naalanngitsoq as she finished each step, climbed it, and cut the next.

“If he wanted to,” Luui said as she neared the top. “I mean, if he just asked, I could always send Âmo to pick him up. You know? If the journey is too hard. If he’s gotten so old that…”

Luui stopped talking as she reached the top of the valley. She held her breath before the sight of cirques and peaks, sharp summits, and swathes of black granite walls chequered with square patches of snow took it away. The Northern Lights drifted across the black sky, teasing the corners of Luui’s mouth into a smile.

“Oh, Ataata,” she said. “See what you’re missing.”

Luui said nothing for several long minutes until Naalanngitsoq brushed her cheek with a handful of snow. Luui shivered and then shook her head to break the spell of the north.

“Right,” she said, as she tugged a jacket from the pack slung across her shoulder. Luui zipped the jacket to her chin, tucked her ice axe into the straps on the pack, and then studied the path along the ridge towards the steep sides of Qaqqaq.

A flicker of something – perhaps a welcome flurry of snow from one of Naalanngitsoq’s cheeky cousins – caught her eye and Luui squinted at it for a better look. She cursed herself for not bringing a telescope, or even a pair of binoculars. But they were too heavy.

“And besides,” she said. “I’ll find out soon enough.”

Naalanngitsoq clutched at Luui’s breath as it steamed in front of her face. And then, the naughty wind slapped at Luui’s body, rocking her off balance, forcing Luui to dig her boots into the snow.

“Hey? What’s gotten into you?”

Naalanngitsoq twisted away, scoring a path of snow from the granite ridge. Luui watched as the wind twisted the snow into a funnel. The funnel – thinner at the bottom with a great, wide mouth at the top –lurched toward Luui, rising up and arcing down like some great beast rippling towards her.

“Oh,” Luui said as she suddenly understood. She turned to stare at the southern slopes of Qaqqaq and swallowed before putting a name to the beast Naalanngitsoq pantomimed before her. “Aassik,” Luui said.

As Aassik, the giant worm, ravaged the southern slopes of the ever-growing mountain, Luui tightened the strap of her pack, and took her first step along the Svartenhuk ridge to meet him.

It was a him, as, unlike the winds, all the giant worms in Greenland were male.

 

To be continued on December 10

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022

Don’t miss tomorrow’s episode!

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022 (Now available for pre-order from Amazon)

December 8

The power alarm beeped, warning Aunix she had just thirty percent of the reserve battery remaining. She had learned – with almost fatal consequences – that whereas the wind had dropped allowing her to take off in her little canary, what wind remained seemed to blow head on, no matter the attitude of the aircraft, always head on.

Head on made for relatively easy flying, but it drained the battery, and it did so quickly, forcing Aunix to search for a suitable stretch of ice – always smoother than rock, but increasingly difficult to find or trust – on which to land. Thirty percent of reserve energy was Aunix’ new normal, but even as she flew south, making progress, the thought of bare knuckling the canary with no power onto unfamiliar and, frankly, treacherous terrain, still made her want to pee.

She gritted her teeth, clenched her muscles, and strained her eyes, searching for somewhere to land.

“And soon,” she whispered, reaching forward to turn off the audible alarm. The warning light flashed. When it turned a solid red Aunix knew she had less than ten percent of battery to power the prop and keep her airborne.

Of course, even if she did land, the problems started anew as she tried to capture the wind with her traps to recharge the battery. She spent most of the time on the ground – night or day, she didn’t know and had long since given up trying to figure it out in the constant black night of an Arctic winter – turning the traps and grumbling at the charge that trickled into the battery. Powering the battery required more of Aunix’ own energy than using it.

Which was problem number two.

Or was it number three?

Aunix needed fuel.

She needed to recharge.

Food and sleep were in short supply, whereas water – even if she had to suck chips of ice to quench her thirst – was, thankfully, still available. It wasn’t as easy to find as one might think, now that there was less precipitation in the Arctic, but it was there, and, fortunately, close at hand when she landed on a tiny lake or a flat stretch of a glacial tongue.

Thankful and fortunate.

That’s what she was.

“Aunix the Thankful,” she whispered. “Like a knight, riding her trusty steed into battle, in the service of the…”

Aunix paused for a beat.

She wasn’t inclined to be in the service of anyone.

“Although whoever convinced the wind to calm down has my eternal thanks.” She grinned. “Thankful, again. But then, I would be even more thankful if you – whoever you are – could ask the wind to blow just a little stronger when I land, because if the wind don’t blow…”

Aunix left the thought unfinished as she spotted a potential patch of ice shining in the moonlight. She dipped the port wing, checked the distance, the power, and then decided to be rash and cut the power, taking the canary in on a wing, and, possibly, a prayer or two, as the wind whistled around the airframe. The creaking of the wings, the shrill whistle of air past the struts, was audible the second the propellers stopped spinning. Aunix used a manual crank to position change the position of the motionless propeller to give her an unobscured view of the ice she intended to land on.

Aunix’ cheeks hurt as she grinned the widest of grins.

“This is flying,” she said as she worked the stick and the flaps, ensuring enough lift under the wings to land, but not too much to stall. The wind was in her favour once more, slowing the aircraft, perhaps a little too much, for which Aunix compensated by changing the attitude, pitching the nose down a little to increase speed, only to level it off a little to retain enough air under the wings for landing.

It reminded her of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and his adventurous exploits in South America when forging a new route for the mail, landing, sometimes crashing, repairing, sometimes defending the aircraft with a rifle, back-to-back with his navigator, before taking off the next day to fly another stretch through the mountains.

Was it the Andes?

Aunix held her breath as the tiny lake turned out to be more of a patch of ice than a strip.

Does it matter?

“It matters,” she said, pulling back on the stick to lift the nose, working the flaps for more lift, closing her eyes for a millisecond at the first kiss of the voluminous tundra tyres as they spun on the ice, and then again, a bump, a thud, and back into the air – briefly – before bumping and thudding onto the ice, dropping the tail wheel quickly but gently to give more drag, lifting the flaps to force the wind to press down on Aunix’ canary, to keep them on the ground, ice – whatever – until the friction of the rubber on the ice finally, fortunately, and thankfully, was sufficient for the plane to stop.

Aunix leaned back in the pilot’s seat. She tipped her head against the headrest and closed her eyes for a second.

“And a second more.”

She didn’t want to think about the trials of setting up the wind traps, putting up the ragged tent – it had seen better days – walking the strip of ice to clear it of substantial obstacles she missed on landing, but wanted to avoid when she took off, and then coffee, a bite of something, and sleep.

Intervals of sleep.

“I know,” she said, wishing she could turn off her brain as easily as she turned off the motor. But the practical checklist she ran through in her mind helped with the order of things, and it made sure things got done. “I’ll sleep for fifteen minutes at a time,” she said, knowing it would be more like thirty. “The power I saved on landing…”

Is the power you need to take off.

“I know,” she said, opening her eyes. “I don’t have to tell me.”

Such conversations kept Aunix sane, although, she knew they could just as easily tip her over the edge, along with the continuous dark that messed with her internal clock, the constant and consistently low temperatures – way below freezing – and the fickle wind that seemed determined to plague her with too much for too long, followed by not enough and shorter than needed.

“No rest for those who want to be wicked,” Aunix said. She fumbled for the handle to open the cockpit and then sighed at the thought of what she needed to do to take off the next day. Aunix looked south, imagining a little cabin tucked into the foothills of the Svartenhuk Mountains. “I’m coming, Luui. I’ll be there – soon. You’ll see.”

The original plan had been for Aunix to fly north and return with five to seven days.

As Aunix set up the first of two wind traps, she hoped she would make it back in time for Christmas.

“Christmas Eve. I’m flying home for Christmas Eve,” she said, remembering when it was the Greenlanders celebrated Christmas as she plugged the traps into the battery.

 

To be continued on December 9

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022

Don’t miss tomorrow’s episode!

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022

December 7

The Qamallarlutik spent the seventh day of December in the corner of Luui’s cabin, heads hidden inside their fur heads, while their big brown eyes followed Luui as she moved around the room – packing this, discarding that, eating when she remembered to eat, making tea when she discovered she was thirsty. Kalaagi might have coughed once or twice when he thought Luui was about to forget something important, and Naaluk might have snapped a spark from her fingers to light a little something or other she felt was indispensable.

“What?” she said, when Kalaagi muttered something under his breath. “Luui is a woman. That kind of thing is indispensable.”

Kalaagi reluctantly agreed that he knew nothing of such things, and the Qamallarlutik returned to their observation of Luui as she prepared to climb the endless mountain known simply as Qaqqaq, the Greenlandic word for mountain.

“It deserves a proper name,” Naaluk said.

“And one day it will have one,” Kalaagi said. “But until it stops growing, it hasn’t earned a name. It is undoubtedly a mountain, but it must settle to give it character.”

“Its character is unsettled,” Naaluk said. She slapped her brother’s arm when she felt he was too slow to respond.

“You’re always hitting me,” he said.

“And you’ll always be my brother. And that’s settled.”

But Luui, like the ever-growing mountain, was not settled.

They had left a lot of equipment at Aurora Station, the tower of converted shipping containers Luui had once called home. Aunix flew as much as she could to Luui’s cabin, but the little plane could only carry so much weight, and they agreed that two trips would have to suffice. And so, wishing she had two ice axes and not one, or lamenting the fact she had but a small slingpack and not a larger backpack gave Luui pause in between, and in each pause the Qamallarlutik held their breath.

“She’s undecided,” Naaluk said.

“Naamik,” Kalaagi replied, ever Luui’s champion. “She’s deciding. She knows what she needs, and she pack it for the journey.”

“Climb, not journey.” Naaluk clasped the edges of her brother’s hood to turn his head. “It’s not a journey, brother. Luui must climb Qaqqaq – all the way to the top.”

“To get the pujoralak.”

“I know,” Naaluk said. “I was there when Northwind said it.”

“But do you know what it is?”

Naaluk let go of Kalaagi’s hood and shrugged. “I might know. I might choose not to know. I’m not sure it’s important.”

“It is important,” Luui said as she turned around. She picked up a three-legged stool and set in front of the Qamallarlutik. “Pujoralak is like dust,” she said. “But lighter.” She sucked her teeth as she wondered how to explain it.”

“Like the skin on something,” Kalaagi said with a helpful smile.

“The skin on dust,” Naaluk said.

“Dust doesn’t have skin.” Kalaagi said, only to pause when Luui nodded at his sister.

“She’s not wrong, from what I know – or what I’ve heard,” Luui said. “Pujoralak gives the dust lift, I think.” She sucked her teeth once more, releasing her tongue with a popping sound that made Naaluk giggle. “It’s like Aunix’ plane.” Luui held one hand flat and then moved her other hand up and over it, as if it was air washing over the wing of Aunix’ plane. “Without the Pujoralak the dust can be blown any which way.” Luui made a fist and demonstrated. “But with an invisible layer, like a skin, the wind is repelled by the pujoralak, and the dust stays in place.”

“It can’t,” Naaluk said, shaking her head. “Dust is too light. It can’t defy the wind.”

“And yet,” Luui said, pointing at a dusty corner of the cabin. Naaluk shrugged and Luui reached out to the wall, drawing the tip of her finger along an uneven plank of wood. She turned her finger to the Qamallarlutik, then blew the dust from it, only to turn it back again to show that not all the dust was gone.

“It’s trapped in the whorls of your skin,” Kalaagi said.

“The whorls of what?” Naaluk said. She raised her hand as if to swipe her brother’s arm, but Luui caught it, holding her arm gently as she transferred some dust onto Naaluk’s tiny fingertips.

“Kalaagi is right, the grooves in my skin trap the dust. But you would think if I blew and blew…” Naaluk giggled again as Luui’s breath tickled her fingers. “You’d think it would all come off, but it doesn’t.”

Naaluk showed her finger to Kalaagi, and the Qamallarlutik siblings nodded, hoods dipping in unison.

“So,” Luui said, leaning back on her stool. She set her hands in her lap and thought for a moment. The Qamallarlutik waited, holding their breath until Luui spoke. “Northwind must be bothered by the pujoralak. Maybe there’s some dust she has been trying to clear, but it is too stubborn…”

“Too strong,” said Naaluk. “Makes her look weak.”

“And she doesn’t like to be weak,” Kalaagi said, agreeing with his sister.

“And Northwind is stubborn, too. She hasn’t given up – she won’t give up. But neither can she get at it. Maybe she thinks the source of the pujoralak is on Qaqqaq’s peak.”

“And she wants you to get it,” Naaluk said, wriggling as she understood.

Luui laughed as Naaluk toppled under so much wriggling. She stopped laughing when she caught the look Kalaagi gave his sister, as if she shouldn’t be wriggling or giggling, as if there was something unsaid, and only Naaluk knew what it was.

“Don’t look at me like that, brother,” Naaluk said as she picked herself up. “Luui is strong. She is brave. She can easily climb to the top of Qaqqaq, no matter how tall it grows.” Naaluk stood up, tucked her hands onto her hips, and gave her brother the raised eyebrow treatment. “Honestly, it could have been much, much worse.”

“It’s worse than you think.” Kalaagi turned to Luui and said, “You know who lives on the ever-growing mountain, don’t you, Luui?”

Luui took a long breath and nodded.

“Aap,” she said. “Sermilissuaq. The bear covered in ice.”

Naaluk clapped a tiny hand over her tiny mouth. Her eyes grew wide, drawing in the orange light flickering through the thick glass in the door of the pot-bellied stove.

“Sermilissuaq?” she said, whispering through splayed fingers.

“Aap,” Kalaagi said. He gave his sister a long, hard look. “And now you understand.”

“She can’t go.” Naaluk scuttled across the dusty blackwood floor to clutch Luui’s heels as she stood up. “It’s too dangerous. You’re brave, Luui, shaman’s daughter, but not brave enough.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Luui said as she gently tugged her heels free of Naaluk’s grip. “But it’s too late. I’ve already agreed.” She looked down at Naaluk, and said, “I might not be brave enough.” Luui shrugged. “I’ll just have to be braver.”

“See what you’ve done,” Kalaagi whispered as Luui continued to sort her gear for the climb.

“I didn’t…”

“Think?” Kalaagi said, as Naaluk slumped onto her bottom. “You rarely do.”

“But Luui needed this…”

“Imaqa,” Kalaagi said. “But it’s not just the ever-growing mountain and Sermilissuaq she has to overcome now, little sister.”

“It’s not?”

“Naamik,” he said. “Sermilissuaq might live on the mountain. But where Sermilissuaq lives, so do others.” Kalaagi looked at Luui as she wrapped the adze of her ice axe in a canvas cap, tightening it with strips of sealskin. “There are other things just as bad.”

“Other things? As bad as Sermilissuaq?”

Kalaagi nodded. He lowered his voice. “Some might say they are even worse.”

Naaluk swallowed. She pushed herself to her feet and took a step towards Luui.

“It’s too late, Naaluk,” Kalaagi said. He gripped the back of Naaluk’s fur. “You can’t stop her now.”

“Then we’ll go with her,” Naaluk said.

“Naamik,” Luui said as she turned to look at the Qamallarlutik. “I must go alone.”

 

To be continued on December 8

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022

Don’t miss tomorrow’s episode!

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022

December 6

The wind tore through the Svartenhuk Mountains through the long, black winter night, rattling the panes of the glass in the cabin windows, tugging at the bitumen roof, and wrenching the stovepipe chimney back and forth as it tied to rip it from the wall. Luui spent the night taping the windows, she spent the early hours of the following morning securing everything inside the cabin, before pulling on the thickest and toughest of her clothes to venture out the following day, securing herself with lines and karabiners as she secured the weaker patches of bitumen on the roof.

Luui paused in between to scowl at the wind.

“Why are you bothering me?” she shouted as a particularly nasty gust of icy breath threatened to blow her off the roof. “Have you no one else to play with?”

Another gust gave Luui her answer, and she slid off the roof, scrabbling for the rope with her hands before falling onto a drift of snow curiously placed as if the fall was anticipated, perhaps even planned.

“Wait, brother,” Naaluk said as Kalaagi started forward to help Luui to her feet. “Wait.”

They waited.

“Urghhhhhhh,” Luui shouted as she slapped the drift with her palms. “Tassa! Enough!”

Naaluk pressed Kalaagi against the cabin wall as Luui pushed herself to her feet, unclipped the karabiner and tossed the useless rope to one side.

“Wait!”

Luui leaned into the wind as she stomped through the snow drifting around the cabin. She marched up the rise with the Qamallarlutik in tow, leaping into Luui’s footsteps as they followed the young Greenlandic woman to the top of the rise. They sheltered behind her legs as Luui leaned into the wind. When she reached forty-five degrees, Luui lifted her chin and glared into the black winter sky. The fringe of Luui’s short hair bristled with sleeves of ice as her breath steamed out of her nose and mouth like barley quenched dragon fire.

“What,” Luui shouted, “do you want?”

The Northwind –Luui gave it a name for the prevailing direction from which it blew – collected a shroud of ice needles and thrust them at Luui. She closed her eyes and stared into it, then reached down to grasp handful of snow, packing it into a fist-sized ball of ice, before pulling her arm back. Naaluk winked at her brother and then snapped her fingers as Luui hurled the solid ball of snow into the wind. The ball expanded to the size of a plate, and then a boulder, catching the wind and Luui by surprise as it hovered for a moment before exploding like an icy supernova, sending splinters of ice in all directions but Luui’s. Naaluk blew the tips of her fingers as if extinguishing the smoke from a gun and then grinned at her brother.

The Northwind settled.

The bluster of snow and ice stopped as suddenly as it began, and the winter tempest blew itself out, and the ice hung in the air like dust, sparkling in the moonlight and the light reflected from the swathes and patches of snow on the mountains.

“What do I want?”

The voice fizzed like charge atoms streaking across the winter sky.

“Aap,” Luui said. She straightened her back to stop herself falling down the tiny saddleback ridge upon which she stood. “Tell me what you want, and stop all this ruckus,” she said.

“Ruckus?”The ‘s’ fizzed like the tail of a firework rocketing past Luui’s head. “What ruckus?”

“The storm,” Luui said. She jabbed her finger down the rise. “My cabin…”

“Your cabin?”

“Aap,” she said. “I live there now.”

“You used to live further north.”

“That’s right,” Luui said. She took a breath, and said, “I had to leave. I…”

Kalaagi held his breath as he waited for Luui to say it, to put words to what he called her consternation. But the shaman’s daughter shook her head instead.

“I had to leave. So I left.”

“You left the north.”

“Aap.”

“It is empty now.”

“It’s emptier,” Luui said, sparing a thought for Aputsiaq, the old hunter, stubbornly eking out a living on increasingly barren wastes, refusing to leave, albeit gently, when Luui pressed him. “But my friend is there.”

“Your friend the hunter?”

“And Aunix…”

“The pilot and her pretty plane.”

“Aap,” Luui said. She paused for a beat, as if choosing her words carefully. “She’s coming home, for Christmas. She’s on her way.”

“She is stuck,” Northwind said, with more fizzing with every ‘sh’ and ‘s’. “I’m keeping her.”

“Naamik!” Luui took a step forward and the Qamallarlutik clutched at her ankles to stop her falling over the edge. “You can’t.”

“Can’t? What is can’t?”

“You mustn’t keep her. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

“And yet.” Northwind whisked a flurry of snow into the air like a lance, or thin finger. She pointed it at Luui. “I can. I have. And I will… Unless,” she said with another firework fizz and shhhhh. “Unless…”

“Wait, brother,” Naaluk whispered as she clutched her brother’s arm. “This is it. This is what she needs,” she said, pointing a tiny finger at Luui’s face.

“Naaluk,” Kalaagi whispered back. “What have you done?”

Naaluk pressed her finger to her lips, and then they turned to face the Northwind as the lance of ice crystals shimmered into a new shape.

“This,” Northwind fizzed, “is Qaqqaq.”

“The mountain,” Luui said. She nodded as she recognised it. “What of it?”

“It grows where it pleases.”

“Aap,” Luui said.

“It grows tall, some say it never stops.”

Kalaagi tugged at his sister’s hood as he guessed what was coming next, but Naaluk refused to look at him. Luui fidgeted in the snow as the Qamallarlutik peeped around her legs to look at the mountain of ice shimmering in the black sky above Svartenhuk.

“You will find it, Luui Angakkuarneq, shaman’s daughter. You will find it and climb it for me.”

“You want me to climb Qaqqaq?”

“Yes.” The mountain shimmered again as Northwind shaped the ice to form a steep and crooked summit. “At the top…” The summit sparkled and flashed in the moonlight. “You will find Pujoralak. Bring it to me, and I will bring your friend home on favourable winds. Fail and so will she.”

Kalaagi gripped his sister, turning her towards him, but she pressed her hand to his lips, sealing his mouth with a crackle of soft magic before he could speak.

“Wait, brother,” she whispered.

Luui shuffled in the snow. She looked north, staring into the black sky as she pictured Aunix’ beloved little plane lurching back and forth in the sky as the wind batted it one way, and then the other, up and down, hard and heeled over to starboard, before wrenching it again to stand on the very tip, like a dagger blade, on its port wind. She saw Aunix on the ice, shivering in a ragged tent alongside the plane upended on the black, snow-swept granite of the far north. She saw another picture, too – the wreck of the plane, its yellow wings splashed with blood.

“Fine,” Luui said, lifting her head to stared down the wind. “I’ll climb Qaqqaq. I’ll bring you a handful of Pujoralak. But you won’t blow, and you won’t bluster.” She jabbed her finger into the night. “You’ll be good. To everyone.”

“I’ll do what I like,” Northwind said. “I’ll do whatever I please, until you climb the mountain and bring me…”

“Not fair,” Naaluk said as she stepped out from behind Luui’s legs. “You’ll honour Luui’s deal, or there’ll be nothing for you. Nothing for you ever.”

“Tiny one…” The ice shimmered as if Northwind laughed. “Tiny one with teeth,” Northwind said as Naaluk snapped her fingers. The air crackled around Naaluk’s hand and the ice mountain Northwind had shaped crumbled into an avalanche and disappeared.

“Honour it,” Naaluk said as she looked up at Luui, peeking out with determined brown eyes from beneath the lip of her fur hood. “Make the deal, and Luui will honour it too.”

Luui frowned down at the tiny Qamallarlutik, wondering, not for the first time, just how powerful the little folk were. But then Northwind bristled, and the snow flurried about their feet, wrapping around Luui’s legs and hiding the Qamallarlutik as Northwind wondered the same thing as Luui.

“You’ll do it alone, or not at all,” Northwind said. “No help from the little ones. Just you, daughter of Tuukula the shaman. No one… No thing else. Agreed?”

“Aap,” Luui said, ignoring the tug of Kalaagi’s hand clenching the cuffs of her wind pants. “Just me, and the mountain,” Luui said.

The snow flurry settled and the Qamallarlutik were visible once more, as was the crooked summit of a lonely mountain, rising tall above the mountains of Svartenhuk to the north of Luui’s cabin.

 

To be continued on December 7

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022

Don’t miss tomorrow’s episode!

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022

December 5

The wind clawed the sides of Aunix’ tent with fistfuls of ice needles, like a wolf gripping the rump of its prey before bringing it down for the final stroke. The ice screws she had drilled into the ice to secure the guys holding her tent to the ice, slashed and whipped back and forth like the heads of Hydra, tearing the outer fly. Aunix pushed the clumps of ice she collected outside the tent to weight down the corners to keep the wind at bay just a little longer – far longer than she had ever experienced in all her time in the Arctic – hoping that sometime, sooner rather than later, the weather fronts would part and the rush of warm air butting the colder, denser pockets would disperse.

“And then I could sleep,” she said in a soft cloud of breath condensing in front of her face. “Just a little. An hour,” she said. “Thirty minutes. Although, I’ll settle for five.”

Aunix braced her right palm against the wall of the tent as the wind thumped it again, and again, and once more until she shouted for it to stop.

“Just stop, already.”

She caught herself, shaking her head at the crackle of her voice, rasping and snapping as the last pinch of energy ebbed out of her body after three fitful days – soon four – with little to no sleep, little food, and no comfort to speak of as the wind harassed and harangued the Canadian pilot trapped on the ice on a tiny lake beneath a pitch-black sky in the barren north of Greenland.

But the wind didn’t let up.

It clawed and scratched the canvas walls of Aunix’ tent.

It thumped the sides and wrenched the guys.

It lifted the corners.

It spun the fly.

And then, with no warning, not a whisper – nothing.

The wind dropped and stopped.

Aunix took a hesitant breath. She let her hand slide down the wall of the tent, letting it rest in her lap. Aunix swallowed and then took a second, longer, but still most careful breath.

In what Aunix guessed might be the eye of the longest, if not the worst storm she had ever experienced, the guy lines tracked the ice screws across the surface of the sea ice in the last whisper of the wind. Aunix reached for the zipper and opened the inner door and then pushed her head out in a cloud of breath. She looked at her plane first, barely daring to believe it was parked where she left it, but years of flying in the Arctic had paid off, as the wires she had drilled into the ice were fast, and the plane – she closed her eyes for a second as she sighed –it was still there.

“Okay,” she said, pausing for another breath. “Okay. One step at a time.”

Aunix crawled out of the tent and then stood, clapping her arms around her chest to pump a little more blood into her veins. Climate change might have taken the sea ice around the north of Greenland, but it was still too cold for naked skin or poor clothes. Aunix fixed her scarf and pulled her hat over her ears as she surveyed the damage the wind had exacted upon her tent.

“What’s left of it,” she said.

But tents could be repaired with a needle and thread. Not so the plane.

Aunix took a careful tour of the canary yellow plane fixed to the ice. She ran her gloved fingers on the bare metal, searching for the nicks and bites she expected the wind had nibbled and carved out of it with gobs of ice and grit. She allowed herself a sigh of relief as a cursory inspection revealed little more than the stripping of paint. She smiled when assessing the damage to the rudder, nodding as she realised it was a quick fix, not an overhaul. She smiled again when she discovered the wind traps she had spent the extra ten finger-blistering minutes to set up before retreating into the tent, were still functioning, with little more than a thick rime of ice sealing the traps to the frozen surface of the lake. The dull blink of a green light revealed that the planes batteries were full, proving the duplicity of the wind – ravaging with one hand, replenishing with the other.

“An hour,” Aunix said. “Maybe two, and then we can leave.” She looked up and then scanned the far shore of the lake. “If this holds.”

Pockets of calm weather, Aunix knew, could be deep or shallow, and should never be taken for granted. She took a breath, tugged a power bar out of her jacket pocket and chewed as she prioritised the necessary steps she needed to take to take off and push south, and the order she must take them.

“Tent first, so it doesn’t blow away.”

Aunix took another bite of the power bar, licking flecks of chocolate from her lips as she considered the next step.

“Coffee. Strong. Lots of it.”

The repairs, she knew, would go smoothly if she was warm, comfortable…

“And rested,” she said. “But that’s going to have to wait.”

Ten minutes here and twelve minutes there would have to suffice, she reasoned as she finished the power bar and packed the remains of her tent. A flicker of wind flirting with the patch of surface snow at her feet gave her pause, and she stopped until the wind settled. Aunix stuffed the tent into the space behind her seat and then pulled out the cooking gear she needed to make coffee.

“Strong,” she said. “Lots.”

Aunix lit the block of fuel and melted flakes and chips of ice from the clumps she had used to weigh down the tent corners. And then, when the water boiled and she lifted the first cup of hot coffee to her parched lips, Aunix stood up and turned south.

“Okay, Luui,” she said. “I know you’re waiting, and I’m sure you’re worried, but I’ll get there. I’ll make it…” She glanced up at the black sky. “Whatever it takes. I’ll be home for Christmas.”

Aunix laughed.

Such a cliché.

It felt good to laugh.

But coffee was better, and she drank lots of it, planning the next steps in her mind, and anticipating where and, more importantly, when she would touch down to recharge, perhaps even repair, on the long journey south to the tiny strip of dirt in the Svartenhuk Mountains.

“Just hang on, Luui. I’m coming.”

Aunix took another sip of coffee and got to work.

 

To be continued on December 6

Northwind © Christoffer Petersen 2022

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