"Tails of the Sea" by Annette Althouse — Our December 2021 Silver Medal Winner

Annette is our second place winner from the contest posted in our December 2021 issue!

What the judges had to say:

“I was wowed by this story. Imaginative, assured. I loved the very specific details that make it come alive. Using two intertwined plots is a bit daring for narrative as short as flash fiction but the final sentence pulls it off, making the whole story ring.”

“Using myth and legend like a master to create a world befitting of both history and the surreal, bridging the old world and the new; this author enthralled and surprised us right to the last word. Excellently done.”

Meet Annette

Much of Annette’s writing is inspired by the eight years she lived in Kugaaruk (formerly Pelly Bay) in Canada’s high Arctic. She worked as a reporter for News/North in Yellowknife and, after moving to the coastal community, freelanced pieces about the Inuit for in-flight magazines. Annette has been mentored, these last 3 years, by Richard Van Camp. A big shout out for RVC.

Tails of the Sea

the unedited story by Annette Althouse

Elijah stamped his feet on the squeaky ice, all the while chiding himself for having worn his sealskin karliik when, clearly, the caribou one—though bulkier—was better suited for November’s wrath. The mid-day sun was perched like a fried egg at the edge of the vast continent of ice, where it goaded him, reminding him of his thrice-failed expedition to lure to surface the sea Goddess, Naliayuk.

In noting the morse code of twinkling lights from the faraway hamlet, each of the 146 homes messaging hope, Elijah’s song grew more feverish. It was his opportunity to redeem the honor of his Ataatatsiaq, who had passed along to his grandson, his intuitive gifts, along with the talisman that brought healing and bounty to his people. He now fondled the bone comb in his fur pouch, its teeth needed to untangle the sea mammals from Naliayuk’s hair. Overhead, a Hawker Sidley parted the weary, half-lidded sky, its cargo of Pepsi, chips, Pampers and cigarettes, appeasements without sustenance, like the communion wafers delivered to wagging tongues by the enviable priest. Father Joseph’s faith having shut the door on that of Elijah’s ancestors.

Lund boats had long since been overturned on the shore before the sea ice finally offered passage for the Skidoos and then—the final betrayal—the staunch refusal of the sea to usurp to them her gifts: her narwhales, her walruses, her natsiaq—rich seal oils to bring sheen to the skin. It was then that the mayor and councillors, the fraternity of perplexed hunters with wind-scorched faces and chiseled brows came to the hall with their sorrowful wives. Babies uncoiled naked from the pouches of their mother’s amautee’s, clawing at handfuls of air—all assembled to at last seek out their angakok, Elijah, their shaman.

The dim hall, filled beyond capacity, was eerily quiet; only the shuffling of kamiks on the peeling linoleum floor and the whoof of air escaping sweaty, encapsulated bodies in caribou hide parkas resounded, before Timothy spoke.

“It is a mystery. The tuktu, they are many,” he said. “Even the wolves are fat from the herds. Yet the sea, she is barren. It is Naliayuk, I tell you. We know this to be true.”

Elijah had listened keenly to the story of the sea goddess. Thrown from the umiak by her own father—his need to temper the Storm God that threatened to capsize his boat—she clung to the gunnels. With his knife, her father severed her plying fingers, the bone handle of it having found a life of its own, plunging in great arcs, the slate blade discovering its kinetic energy. And as she sank into the currents of betrayal, she whirled and swirled in downward spirals. Cellophane wrapped scales morphed along a sleek, diamond-studded tail that lashed about propelling the severed digits of her fingers where they transformed into the mammals of the sea and imbedded themselves in the ropes of her hair.

Elijah’s song, his lure to the mermaid, descended in haunting cascades the depths of the ice hole at his feet. The dignity of his ancestry was at stake, and Elijah vowed to sooner pitch himself into the hole than return to the village without Naliayuk’s promise to release the gifts of the sea.

Sam was at home watching, like thousands of B.C. residents, the news of the catastrophic flooding in the Fraser Valley. Exhausted after many days of rescuing bellowing cows and squealing pigs that the swollen river carried away in pitiless, thrashing currents, he was keenly tuned in to the latest headline: “Fishing Guides rescue monster Sturgeon”.

As Chief Provincial Conservation officer, Sam would be required to check the health of the 300-pound fish, which had been stranded in 20 centimetres of water near Herrling Island, when Tyler and Jay discovered it.

Sam was battle weary. His reports to bureaucrats in Ottawa, linking livestock and wildlife health to climate, were a waste of energy. The terrified, bulging eyes of the thrashing cows colored his dreams and he had taken to swallowing his Trazadone with Vodka before slumping into bed.

This hopeful rescue would trounce his depression and he felt lighter already as the helicopter thwump-thwump-thwumped over the unholy scene of carnage below: mangled cars rammed against crumbling overpasses, islands of rooftops surrounded by flotsam of dead animals and swirling tree trunks, a club-footed bathtub liberated in the eddies. Seventy-five years old, was his estimation of the sturgeon’s age, which already the media had named Lucky.

Sam leapt from the Bell 201 and sprinted across the beach to where the guides had laid the sling, which they had used to transport Lucky some two kilometres overland. In its fold, the beast thrashed violently, its tail urgently attacking the canvas. It seemed to Sam, the fish was moaning, pleading with the guides, who stood beaming like new proud parents, at the foot of the sling. Without introducing himself, Sam leaned to unlash the violently contorting sling. But, before he could do so, the tail of the beast whipped through the fabric. A sudden ray of sunshine pierced the gloom and glinted in blinding sparks off the iridescent tail studded with turquoise cellophane diamonds. Sam gasped. He noted the long, thick braid of hair where creatures of the sea had become ensnared, before an arm uncurled from the body, found the curve of his boot, a plea for mercy.

“Hello, beautiful girl,” Sam said. In lifting her gently, she stilled in his clutching arms, his breast against hers as he pranced towards the mouth of the river and released her to its foaming caps. She blinked at him, gave a fluttering wave before her fin crested the surface and disappeared.

Across and beyond the great body of water, half a continent away, a seal emerged in the hole at Elijah’s feet.

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