“Mama! Mama!” Malsie bounced in the door, full of six year old energy. “The earth shook today!”
Her mother took this news calmly. “Were you frightened?”
“No.” Her long black braids slid over her quilted jacket as Malsie shook her head. “We went under the tables, just like we practiced. Teacher said we were good. But Sayara was crying because Kurkil said it meant that the mamonts were coming to eat us up!”
“Mammoths, sweetling,” Nimnya said. She knelt to help Malsie take off her reindeer skin boots. “Mamonts is not a civilized word.”
Malsie stuck out her lower lip, wriggling backwards against the pull on her foot. “Mamonths,” she amended, as her older brother came into the entry way.
“Mamonts!” he said. “Have you seen one? They have big teeth, just for scooping up children and carrying them off into the night.” He swooped Malsie up, swinging her around until she screamed with laughter.
Nimnya followed her rambunctious offspring from the mud room into the house. Sal was so tall now, her first baby big enough to carry her second on his shoulders, and little Maliskina already learning to read. Their giggles drifted into the kitchen while Nimnya spoke with the housekeeper about dinner; she hoped she could hold onto them both for a little longer.
In the evening, when the dark was creeping in from the edges of the house, and Nimnya thought Malsie might slip away easily into sleep for once, the little eyelids popped open. “Mama,” she whispered. “Will you watch for the mamonts? I don’t want them to get me.”
“Don’t worry about the mammoths, Maliskina.” Nimnya sat down on the bed beside her, pulling the comforter up around Malsie’s chin. “They’re asleep in the mountains. They’re much too sleepy to come to town for little girls, even ones as sweet as you.”
“Why are they sleeping?” Malsie asked. She sat up and pushed back the comforter. The lamplight caught the silken threads of the bright peonies woven into the cloth and Nimnya sighed. On the other side of the room she could see that Sal was already asleep, worn out from the exercises at Master Erkhan’s training hall. But Malsie—Malsie was wide-eyed, and wide awake.
“Because Isobel sang them to sleep.”
“How did she sing them to sleep? Will you tell me?”
“If you promise to go straight to sleep after,” Nimnya said, gently pressing the little girl back down into bed.
Malsie nodded solemnly. “I promise.”
***
It was a long time ago, when Isobel was very young. It was before she helped Esker to close the mountain gates, and it was even before she had met him, when she was just Sobel, and no one knew she’d be anything more.
She was born among the Salmon People, in a village on the coast just a little north of here. Or perhaps it was a lot north, no one knows anymore. But it was near a good salmon stream, and they had plenty of fish each year, enough to feed themselves, and extra to trade to the Reindeer People, who came every year on their way to the far north.
Sobel lived with her family, and helped her mother take care of her little brothers and sisters. She told them stories at bedtime, and sang them songs while they played during the day.
In the fall, when the Reindeer People came, the village had a big party. Everyone danced and sang, and Sobel danced and sang, too. They ate salmon and fresh roe. There were blueberries, and lingon berries, and fiddlehead ferns preserved from the spring. There was reindeer meat, and seal and whale. Everyone was joyful, and the Salmon People laughed and talked with their Reindeer friends, whom they hadn’t seen since the last year.
