THE GATHERING
NIGHT
a novel
Margaret Elphinstone
For Caroline
CONTENTS
The People
First Night: River Mouth Camp
Second Night: White Beach Camp
Third Night: Gathering Camp
Fourth Night: Salmon Camp
Fifth Night: Loch Island Camp
Sixth Night: Gathering Camp
Seventh Night: Gathering Camp
Eighth Night: River Mouth Camp
Afterword
Haizea said:
Bakar’s disappearance was my first loss. It’s also where this story begins. If my brother Bakar hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t all be sitting here now. And you two boys – listen to me, both of you! If Bakar hadn’t been lost, you two would never have become brothers. You might never even have known each other. And the lives of all us – of all the Auk People – would have unfolded differently. But I can’t even begin to think about that. No one can undo the threads of a story once they’re tied together. Not even the spirits can do that.
I was still a child. But I remember very well that terrible winter my family spent alone at River Mouth Camp.
There were only six of us at River Mouth Camp before Baker went away in Yellow Leaf Moon. We became six again when my sister Alaia gave birth to Esti. After Esti was born we stayed on at River Mouth Camp, even though we’d been hunting there all winter. We were walking further every day to get enough dead wood for our fire. Alaia and I always managed to fill our baskets, but we couldn’t get enough meat. Only Amets could hunt, now that my brother was gone. Amets has never failed us, but you all know it takes more than one man to feed a family well all winter. Once we’d finished the hazelnuts and acorns and lily-seeds, we had to dig for roots more often. We got reed-root from the marshes. Alaia and I pulled lily-roots out of the freezing mud at the bottom of the hill-loch: it’s worst when you have to break the ice before you can wade in.
My mother kept going away. She didn’t seem to want to be with us any more. She wouldn’t tell us where she’d been.
In the Moon of Rushes the rest of us wanted to move on. Winter no longer held us; the wind from the High Sun Sky smelt of the coming spring. But now we were afraid my mother wouldn’t go with us. We still didn’t know what had happened to Bakar. That was the worst winter I ever spent. In the end we stayed at River Mouth Camp until just before Auk Moon. It seemed so long! I thought about running away. I knew how to find my cousins’ Camp. I’d only been there by boat, but I thought if I walked down the shores of the Long Strait I couldn’t possibly get lost. It would only have taken me two or three days … If Esti hadn’t come I think I would have run away. But that winter Esti gave us something to be happy about, in spite of everything.
I think I was angry with my mother for not being there – I don’t know. I certainly never thought of her going Go-Between.
I thought Go-Betweens were terrifying, distant men who spoke to the Animals about the Hunt. How could Go-Betweens be anything to do with my mother? I couldn’t understand what was happening. None of us did. At least – maybe Alaia and Amets guessed, but I never heard them speak about it. My father – I think my father … My father was the wisest man I ever knew. He understood everything. But he knew how to be silent too. He never spoke to me about it.
Alaia said:
And so my mother became Go-Between.
I realise now that it started when Bakar was lost. I didn’t understand at first what was happening. It was only when Esti was born that Nekané really began to change. When my daughter was born I lost my mother – that’s what Nekané becoming Go-Between did to me.
Esti was born in Thaw Moon. We had hardly any meat. Haizea told you how we chopped and ground lily-roots every day, and baked them in the ashes. We were getting mussels and crabs and limpets, wading into the cold sea at slack tide to pick them off the rocks underwater. Two nights before Esti was born the traps were full of lobsters. We roasted them in ashes of oakwood until the blue shells turned red. It was a good enough feast for Thaw Moon, and maybe it gave Esti the strength to come into the world. She took all night to come. Amets and my father – as you know, his name isn’t in the world now – had gone hunting upriver. We were alone in the winter house – just me and my mother and Haizea, and the sound of the River. The River sings many songs at River Mouth Camp, sometimes loud and angry, and sometimes in the gentlest of whispers. On the night of Esti’s birth the River sang with its whole throat. It told of snow melting in the hills, of water under the earth stirring deep roots, of white water filling empty streambeds, of overflowing banks and flooded marshes. In Thaw Moon the River sings of its own strength, and it’s death for People or Animals to meddle with it.
When Esti arrived no one recognised her. I knew who my mother hoped it would be, though she hadn’t said anything about it. My mother didn’t hide her disappointment when she saw that my baby was a girl. Haizea cut the cord with her own knife. It’s good when the youngest does that. It makes a bond, and it’s right for a child to have someone younger than her own mother bonded to her. There were barely ten Years between Haizea and Esti, and see what came of it: they’ve never let anyone part them. Haizea never thought that Esti should be anyone other than who she is.
My little girl lay across my stomach whimpering, taking her first breaths into her new body. I wanted to reach for her, but I knew what had to happen first. Haizea and I waited, and the little one twitched and breathed against my skin. At last my mother took the baby in her hands and turned her over. I watched my mother’s face in the firelight. She looked into my baby’s eyes. A pine log flared in the hearth. Outside the rain fell softly. I could see Nekané didn’t recognise my daughter. All she said was, ‘The child says, “I am not him. I am not him.”’ And so my Esti brought grief with her, because she wasn’t the one my mother had hoped for.
My daughter had no name for two days. You mothers, you’ll know what those two days were like for me. If she hadn’t been recognised on the third day we’d have had to cast her out. Amets and my father had not returned. The wind howled and gusts of sleet blew in from the sea. Between the showers the Sun came out, but it was pale and filled with water. I couldn’t go beyond the threshold because I had my baby in a sling. I dared not take her under the open sky when she had no name. My mother didn’t look into her eyes again.
And then, just before sunset, the men returned. I heard voices outside: my mother’s, Amets’, my father’s, Amets’ again. Then Amets came into the winter house. He handed his wet cloak to Haizea, and looked across at me. I’d been sewing a foxfur into the back
