Jean finished lacing his snowshoes and stood up.

“This is Île Baffin, I think. Part of Nunavut. We sail north of Labrador, n’est-ce pas?”

“That makes sense,” Dana said, thinking about it. “And it explains the Glass Sea and the pillars of ice in Brendan’s legend.”

She had finally managed to strap on her snowshoes and was ready to take her first steps. Moments later she was facedown in the snow.

Jean hurried over to help her up, trying not to laugh.

Her face was caked with powdery snow. She spluttered and spat as she laughed.

“It’s all very well for you,” she said. “You’re used to this. We hardly ever get snow in Ireland. I feel like I’m wearing tennis rackets on my feet.”

“It will get more easy,” he assured her. “But if you walk too much you get mal de raquette. I tell you when to rest. Mais vite, we must hurry.”

Brendan had gone ahead of them, gliding over the snow in his long monk’s cloak like a ragged brown swan. He wore a floppy-brimmed pilgrim’s hat and carried a wooden staff. On his back was a satchel packed with provisions.

They set out after him, tramping across the snowy plain toward the craggy chine of mountains in the distance.

“Does anyone else live here?” Dana asked Jean. “I mean, besides the shaman? Are there Eskimos here?”

“This is the land of the Inuit. Their name mean ‘the People.’ They live here for many thousand of year. ‘Eskimo’ is a name the Montagnais give them that mean ‘Fish-Eater.’”

Dana groaned. “There are so many races here. I’ll never get them right.”

Jean laughed. “This is good about Canada, non? All the peoples.”

They chatted companionably as they hiked through the snow. It was their first chance in a while to really talk together, as the quest had taken up most of their time. Jean asked about her background. Dana told him about her childhood in a small town in Ireland, how she was raised alone by her father till she was twelve.

“That was a big year. Imagine discovering you’re the daughter of a fairy queen!”

“Like I find I am loup-garou,” he said. “At the same time wonderful and terrible.”

“Exactly!” she agreed. “Then we came to Canada. I thought I would like it here. I left everything I knew behind, our house, our street, my school, my friends. Things just got worse and worse. I so wanted to go home. I hated it here.”

Dana looked around at the glittering scene of snow and mountain, the clarity of blue sky and brilliant light. “I thought there was no magic here.”

He stopped to gaze into her eyes that shone with the same blue brilliance as the sky above. “Who whisper this lie to you?”

She caught her breath. “My enemy?”

“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “Or maybe it was you, eh? You tell yourself the lie because you want to believe it?”

She heard the pain behind his words, something to do with himself and not her. “What lie have you told yourself?”

He recoiled in that moment, caught off guard. Then he smiled sadly.

“That grand-père will one day be human again.” They continued chatting as they hiked, but eventually silence fell between them and the only sound was their breath rasping in the thin air. As the hours passed, their fingers and toes began to freeze, despite the thick wrappings. They could feel the chill of the air burning their lungs. The white glare of the snow threatened to blind them. They pulled their hoods down low over their faces. There was nothing to look at but their own feet stepping one in front of the other. The adventure was no longer exciting, but something to endure with every passing minute.

At last they reached the end of the ice field. Before them rose another wall of ice and snow, the end of a glacier that had streamed down the mountain. It was much higher than the one they had scaled in the fjord.

“We can’t climb that,” Dana said, dismayed.

Brendan agreed, and made no effort to ascend. Instead, he walked alongside the icy cirque.

They followed behind him.

“It is enough to write the rough white cradles in the snow,” he murmured to himself.

“That’s lovely,” said Dana. “What does it mean?” The saint’s features were ruddy in the cold. His eyes shone, silver-rimmed.

“It is something I dreamed. But I believe it means that she is somewhere here, cradled within.”

More hours passed in that day of endless light and still they tramped beside the glacier. Dana had long since admitted to herself that she wished they hadn’t come north. If only they had gone in a different direction! She could no longer feel her fingers or toes. Could she have frostbite? She was also beginning to doubt the saint’s wisdom. Had he brought them on a wild-goose chase? Then at last they saw something.

It was like a miracle in that barren land: a branching tree rimed with frost.

“That is the sign,” Brendan said happily, rubbing his hands together. “There is an ancient tree in blossom there, on which the birds call out the hours of life.”

That there was neither blossom nor bird on the tree didn’t matter, for they had spotted the opening in the ice just behind it. The jagged crack in the glacier was large enough for a person to enter.

Removing their snowshoes, they squeezed one by one through the crevice. Inside, they found a chamber with scalloped walls that emitted a cold blue light. Melodious sounds echoed frostily: the crinkling of ice and the chime of falling water. On every side, fissures laced the walls, branching out in snowflake patterns that made tunnels in the glacier.

Brendan chose a passageway and entered boldly.

“We must travel hopefully in the belief that all paths lead to the source.”

Time seemed to stand still inside that translucent passage. From time to time they were startled to spy dark figures frozen in the ice: a woolly mammoth, an arctic fox, and once even a hunter, caught by death with his spear in his hand. Dana let out a cry when she saw him. Would they be trapped in the ice too? That was when Jean took her hand. She steadied herself. Somehow it was easier to accept hardship when he was beside her.

At long last the passageway brought them to what they sought. They knew they had arrived at the angakuk’s cave when they saw her handiwork, the first sign of humanity on the island. The archway into the cave was decorated with pieces of stone and bone in intricate designs that complemented the ice. Stooping to enter, they stepped inside.

It was like being at the heart of a frozen cloud. The cave glimmered with ice draperies and embroidered snow. Ledges in the walls held a profusion of objects—the whorled horn of a narwhal, the tusks of a walrus, stone implements and carved statues, harpoons and knives. The floor was covered with the furs of white seal and polar bear.

The strange beauty of the cave was captivating, but it was the woman who sat inside it that held their instant attention.

Brown and wizened like an autumn leaf, she appeared to be incalculably old. Her eyes were black stones set in Asiatic features. Her grin was toothless. The skins of the caribou hung loosely on her body. An ornate headdress of beads dangled over her face. Across her shoulders fell a mantle of gray-and-white feathers.

As she looked upon the angakuk, Dana felt a wave of terror. The power she could sense in the old woman was alien to her. Not of Faerie. Not of Ireland. Not even of Canada. Here was an ancient one of a different race, a different world. How dare they intrude on her? They had not been invited. They had no right to be here!

As if sensing her fear, the angakuk reached out to Dana. Tiny gnarled hands gripped her like claws. As the shaman spoke, the words echoed around the cave in clicks, whistles, and trills. Dana wanted to explain that she didn’t understand, but her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Brendan addressed the shaman in the same birdlike language.

Cackling to herself, the old woman nodded. The dark eyes flashed behind the strings of beads. She let go of Dana and rummaged through the feathery cloak. Now she drew out two smooth pebbles, handing one each to Jean and Dana. The stones were a bluish-gray color, round, and small.

She spoke to Brendan, a quick command.

“Put them under your tongue,” he translated. “Then you’ll understand her.”

The pebbles had the slight salty taste of the sea. As soon as they put them in their mouths, Dana and Jean understood the shaman.

“Stones are the children of the earth,” she told them. “They have been here since time began. They know all the languages of the world. Tell me why you have come.”

“Wise and noble woman,” Brendan addressed her formally, “before we declare our mission, may I offer you gifts from my people?”

The shaman’s dark eyes lit up. She grinned with delight. “Are they things you found as you voyaged in your umiak?”

“They are.” He smiled.

“Good. They will have power, for your journey is sacred. I have dreamed it.”

Brendan took the gifts from his satchel and placed them before her, naming each and their origin.

“Four rods of yew with prophecies cut in ogham. They come from the branches of the lone tree that grows on Inis Subai, the Island of Joy. And in a land where the mountains glow like fire, these gold-and-silver leaves were forged by giant smiths. And the fruits of summer, toirthe samruid, were gathered on the island that is the Paradise of the Birds.”

As the old woman accepted each gift, she held it to her forehead and bowed toward Brendan. Each time she did, he bowed in return.

When the greeting ritual was completed, the shaman addressed them frankly.

“Why have you come to me? I am the Angakuk of the People. When the Inummariit have a question they want answered—Where is the seal? Where is the polar bear? Where is the caribou?—they come to me. I journey to Adlivun to see the Goddess. She knows where all the animals are. They are her children and her gift to us. She tells me where they are and I, in turn, tell the hunter. What animal do you seek?”

An uncomfortable silence fell in the cave. Jean looked to Dana, his eyebrow raised. She looked toward Brendan, but he didn’t speak. The question was obviously for her alone.

“Must it be an animal?” she asked, uncertainly.

Her voice was barely audible. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. That she didn’t belong here. Though she was awed by the shaman, she was already doubting that the angakuk could help her. The old woman’s magic belonged to the Inuit. Dana was a stranger and not of the People.

“The spirit of an animal is in everything you seek,” the shaman said sternly. “If you cannot see this, you are blind. You will never find what you are looking for.”

Dana blanched at the reprimand. She felt cornered. Apparently the angakuk wasn’t going to let her off easily, stranger or no. Dana thought back over her quest. The angakuk was right, many animals were involved! The wolf that both she and Jean were kin to; the ravens who were Grandfather and Roy; the deer she had chased in the Medicine Lodge; the throng of caribou that showed her the secret language; the Cailleach who was a cormorant and her sister, the crane; the whales in the sea … Were there others? She was still reviewing her mission, when she found herself staring at the shaman’s feathered cloak. Of course! It was like a burst of light in her head. There was one creature who had followed her throughout the quest, whose role eluded her, who seemed to convey some hidden significance she couldn’t fathom.

“The white birds!” she cried. “The soul-birds! They keep showing up, but I don’t know what they mean.”

The angakuk cackled with glee and rubbed her hands. “You are not so blind after all. I will go to Adlivun. I will ask Taluliyuk about your birds. She knows a lot about birds.”

Dana was overwhelmed by the offer. “But I’m not one of your people.”

The old woman’s response was immediate.

“We are all family.”

No sooner had the shaman spoken than the stone lamp in front of her lit up of its own accord.

“It begins,” she announced. “I go.”

Closing her eyes, the angakuk began to shake her head till the long beads of her headdress swayed back and forth. A low humming came from under her breath. With mesmeric slowness, she rose to her feet and began to turn like a spinning top, twirling with ever-increasing speed. As she spun, she chanted. The high-pitched notes sounded like birdsong and the sigh of the sea.

Dana and Jean glanced at each other nervously. Brendan stood as still as a statue.

The air in the cave was dimming quickly till only the lamp shed light. The cave flickered with shadows, the greatest of which was the dancing shaman, cast upon the back wall. She seemed to tower over them. At first her song was unintelligible, arcane speech known only to her; but eventually words took shape to form a story and the story itself took shape in their minds.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman named Taluliyuk, who spurned all the suitors who sought her love. Then one day a handsome young man came over the waters from a land far away. He wore gray and white clothing; his eyes were dark. His voice was as sweet as a bird’s as he wooed her with promises.

O lady, come with me

To the land of my people

There you will dwell

In comfort and light.

It is a land without sorrow

Without sickness or death

A land without hunger

Without darkness or night.

Of course she went with him. He had promised so much. But when she arrived in his land in the North, she discovered his deception. He was not a king of the other world, but a king of the birds. For he was a fulmar who had taken human form in order to court her. He brought her to his tent of fish skins. It was all torn and tattered and the wind blew through it constantly. She was always cold. There was no oil in her lamps. He fed her raw fish. After a year and a day of misery, Taluliyuk sent for her father to take her home.

Aja, her father, came in the season when the ice broke in the water. He grew angry when he saw the plight of his daughter, and he attacked his son-in-law. They fought long with each other till Aja killed the King of the Fulmars.

“You can come home with me now,” he told his daughter.

Taluliyuk and her father were on the sea when the birds discovered the fate of their king. They cried and lamented till they raised a storm to kill Aja.

Afraid for his life, Aja relented. Crying out to the fulmars that they could have his daughter back, he threw her into the sea.

Taluliyuk clung to the side of the boat with all her might. Though Aja cut off the tips of her fingers with his knife, she still held on. The bits of her fingers turned into whales. Now he cut the middle joints of her fingers and they turned into seals. When the fulmars saw the animals in the water, they were appeased and they departed with the storm. The death of their king had been ransomed with new life.

Then the sea opened to swallow Taluliyuk and she sank down into the Underworld.

There she dwells to this very day, in Adlivun that lies under the waves.

• • •

The story ended, but the shaman’s song did not. It seemed the tale was only the prologue, the antechamber to the throne room. Now they entered the dark heart of the matter. The angakuk’s voice rose higher still and she screeched out shrilly.

That woman down there beneath the sea,

She wants to hide the animals from us,

These hunters in the ice house,

They cannot mend matters,

Into the spirit world,

I will go,

Where no humans dwell,

Set matters right will I.

Dana found herself submerged in a heavy darkness at the bottom of the ocean. Around her moved two-dimensional creatures, flat eels and pseudopods and sleeping leviathans. Slowly she grew aware of something else in the depths, magnificent and misshapen, something so old and immense she could hardly comprehend it. At first she thought it was an idol from a giant city long lost underwater. Then came the beginning of terror when she saw it stir. The thing in the deep was alive.

Taluliyuk.

Dana was glad that Brendan and Jean were beside her. It helped to ease her terror. The angakuk was there, too, singing and dancing in the water. With arms outstretched, she spun in the depths like a starfish. Slowly, reverently, the old woman approached the sleeping goddess. Taluliyuk’s green hair swayed like seaweed. The shaman took out a whalebone comb and gently raked the tangles of long hair, all the time singing like a mother to her child.

Close your eyes, here I am,

I’m right beside you,

I’ll close mine and together we’ll dream.

The lips of the goddess murmured with pleasure. Having lost her fingers, she couldn’t comb her own hair. In turn, she would reward any shaman who requested her help in this way. And now, in the strangest moment of that strange journey, Dana found herself with the angakuk inside Taluliyuk’s mind.

Inside her dreaming.

Dana felt she was here and there and everywhere at the same time. She was with every living thing that was upon the earth. She breathed, slept, hunted, and fed with countless numbers of animals. Every fish in the sea, every bird in the air, every creature great and small that walked, crawled, or flew. Wherever an animal was, there was Taluliyuk, living in them and with them and through them all their lives.

Subtly and courteously, the song of the angakuk changed inflection. A question was asked.

Where are the soul-birds?

In a dizzying ascension, like a plummet upward, Dana was hurled into the sky.

There! A great flock like a spread of clouds. A shining vista of white birds, brooding over the country with ah! bright wings.

Dana sensed the ripple of Taluliyuk’s surprise. These were not her children, not of her body. She called out to the strangers.

In a rush of wings and wind, a mellifluous sibilance, the birds answered her call. Dropping out of the skies toward the shaman’s cave, they alighted on the branches of the barren tree outside.

• • •

Even as the birds fell from the sky, so too did the shaman’s three visitors. Back in the cave, they opened their eyes. The angakuk lay on the floor, deep in a trance. Her mouth opened briefly to whistle a word.

“Go.”

It was only when they were in the tunnel and Dana looked back that she discovered the dream wasn’t over.

“Look!” she cried to the others. “Our bodies!”

There they were, the three of them, eyes closed in sleep, still seated near the angakuk.

“Tabernac!” said Jean.

Brendan crossed himself hurriedly. “We are souls alone without their vessels. Another wonder to record! But we must take care. What happens to the soul, happens also to the body.”

The angakuk called out once more. Her tone was urgent.

“Go!”

The three hurried through the tunnel and out onto the ice. There, another marvel awaited them. The branching tree had grown immense, almost touching the sky. Its boughs were laden with birds, hundreds it seemed, all white and shining, of every kind. And all fast asleep, heads tucked under wing.

As she gazed upward into the haze of feathered white, Dana felt a deep thrill inside her. The thrill of recognition. The Faerie blood that enlightened her veins knew the truth. These birds were kin.

“They belong to Faerie!” she said breathlessly. “What are they doing here?”

A single white feather floated down from the tree toward her. She caught it gently, holding it to her cheek. Her face was wet with tears. A longing for home surged through her.

As Brendan regarded the birds, the silver rim of the Second Sight seeped into his eyes.

“The souls of the just in the Mystical Tree,” he murmured. He turned to Dana. “This flock of angel-birds hail from the Land of Promise. They came here for you. Hark to their message.”

It was as if a wind had shaken the great branches of the tree. All the birds began to move, ruffling and rustling as they stretched and preened. As soon as they opened their mouths to sing, Dana remembered. The song she had heard in the Medicine Lodge. The message that tantalized in stray thoughts and dreams. Though she tried to grasp it, to understand, it was too grand, too lofty to be fully taken in. She could only catch phrases, like glimpses, of the Grand Design, the Great Song.

Sleepers awake!

At the heart of the universe, we sing of a life lived in matter.

O nobly born, remember who you are!

She knew they were singing her truth out into the world; the knowledge that was hers from the dawn of time, lost and forgotten at birth. Her heart’s truth. Her soul’s knowledge.

“Do you understand what they’re saying?” Dana cried to the saint. “What are they trying to tell me?”

Brendan had closed his eyes as he listened to the choir of the birds. He was about to answer when Crowley struck.

• • •

In that moment, Dana realized her error. She had relaxed her guard. She had forgotten that her enemy was able to track her. She should have warned Brendan and also the angakuk.

They heard him first, an eerie howling in the wind, then they saw the white tornado that sped toward them. Over the glacier it flew, hoovering up snow, firn, ice, and debris, gaining in bulk as it approached. Before Dana could even attempt to flee, the whirlwind struck her.

Everything went white. The song of the soul-birds ceased abruptly. Dana was sucked into a blizzard of snow and ice. The sensation of cold was so intense, it burned her skin. At the cold heart of the flurry, she sensed her enemy, sensed also his hatred. It was mindless and implacable. It wouldn’t cease until she was dead. The malice itself began to erode her defenses, and she felt the touch of the deadly frost of despair. She, herself, was turning white and cold.

Then she heard it, high up in the air, the chant of the angakuk. The snow that was smothering her melted into water. The crystal flakes became bubbles as Dana sank down,

down,

down into the sea,

where she faced the gargantuan shape of Taluliyuk.

The shaman was still combing the green hair of the goddess. One of Taluliyuk’s great eyelids opened. She stared at Dana.

Mirrored in the dark pupil, Dana saw herself trapped in the whirlwind. She was being dragged across the ice field, alone. Already her body looked frozen. Still standing by the tree, Brendan lifted his arms in prayer. But where was Jean?

Now Dana’s heart was gripped with greater terror as she spied Jean racing across the ice field. His eyes were golden. There was no question about it. He was about to turn. But the wintry sun shone pale and clear.

“NO!” she cried out to him. “No, Jean, you mustn’t!”

She wanted to tell herself it was only a dream. But already she knew the truth. Dreams were never “only.” Brendan’s words echoed in her mind. What happens to the soul, happens also to the body. If Jean became a wolf now, he would be so forever.

“Please!” she begged Taluliyuk. “Please don’t let him do this! I’d rather die!”

Now something huge stalked across the ice field with fantastic speed: a stone giant tromping over the glacier. It bore down on the whirlwind in which Dana was trapped. Head, limbs, and torso were massive rocks. The feet crashed to the ground. With each step it took, the earth shuddered, the ice cracked.

With stony ferocity, the innunguaq attacked the whirlwind. Crowley’s screeches rang through Dana’s ears. Tearing at the innards of swirling snow, the stone giant seized Dana. Now it reached down to snatch Jean, who had yet to turn. In one great movement, the stone giant hurled them both away from the glacier, away from Baffin Island, out of the North.

• • •

With a blur of light and a violent jolt, Dana and Jean landed body and soul on the shore of Ailsa Craig. Nearby, where they had left it, was the flying canoe.

After the white frost of the Arctic, the riot of smell and color was a shock. The landscape dazzled with blues, greens, and grays. The air was vivid with the scent of seaweed and pine.

“Taluliyuk, she save us,” said Jean in a daze, looking around him.

His features were pale. He looked shaken.

Dana couldn’t meet his eyes. Only a short while ago, he had made the same decision his grandfather had made. He had chosen to turn wolf in the daylight in order to save her. It was too much to take in. She clutched a white feather in trembling hands.

“We didn’t get to thank her … or the angakuk … or Brendan …”

She was still stunned by Crowley’s attack. He seemed to be able to follow her anywhere, like a relentless hunter tracking his prey. So far she had been lucky. There was always someone there to help her. Deep inside, she shuddered to think that a time might come when no one would intervene. When she’d have to face him alone. Her fingers closed around the feather.

Jean was studying his watch the way one does after crossing many time zones. It took a while to make sense.

“Monday morning!” he said at last. “Strange how time go, eh? If we leave now, I don’t miss the turkey!”

She managed to laugh, though she was feeling dizzy and light-headed. Too much had happened. She could hardly think straight. There was something she needed to say to Jean, about his decision, but it was too big a thing to broach right now. She was too shy and awed by its significance. It was obvious that he himself wasn’t ready to speak of it. He kept looking away, avoiding her eyes.

“Let’s go home to Thanksgiving,” she agreed.