Twelvetyde: A Short Mythical Story from Greenland Read online

  “Naalanngitsoq,” Luui said, as she reached for her coffee. “It means naughty.”

  “Because she is?”

  “At times. But now she is strong, getting stronger.”

  “And all this happened…”

  “This December,” Luui said.

  “When you fought with the…” Dave checked his notes. “With a great bear covered in ice?”

  “Actually, Aassik – the worm – fought with the bear. I was knocked out by a lump of ice.” Luui tapped the side of her head. “It hit me right here.”

  “Which is when your friends…”

  “The Qamallarlutik.”

  Dave nodded. “That’s them. They changed into ptarmigan and flew down to save you.”

  “Aap,” Luui said. She grinned as Dave’s moustache flickered as he let out a long sigh. “Is that enough inspiration, Dave?”

  “It’s…” Dave picked up his pencil, and then promptly set it down again. “Well, I think I owe you lunch as well.”

  “Let me finish breakfast first.”

  Luui took a sip of coffee and thought about Aunix. If she could only see me now. Socialising. With people. She took another sip as Dave started to sketch. She recognised the beginnings of Aassik, and guided him with descriptions of the cartilage ribs, the four claws at each point of its petal mouth.

  “Petal mouth?”

  “Aap,” Luui said. “Only thicker. Meaner.” And then, “That’s it. You’ve got it.”

  “I have?” Dave turned the pad in the light. “Yes, I suppose I have.” He looked at Luui and put the pad down as her gaze drifted to the window. “You never said why you came to Nuuk,” he said, offering Luui a smile as she turned to look at him.

  “Because I don’t actually know.” Luui shrugged and then put her mug down. “I received a letter.” She reached inside her jacket and handed the letter to Dave.

  “This is a letter?”

  “Aap.” Luui nodded.

  Dave explored the whale skin and cord, running his fingers over the kidney ink letters.

  “I don’t know what it says,” he said.

  “It doesn’t say much at all. Only that I should come to Nuuk.”

  “And the signature? Does that tell you anything?”

  “Twelvetyde,” Luui said. “I’m guessing it’s Twelvetide.”

  “As in the Twelve Days of Christmas?”

  “Aap,” Luui said. “But we don’t celebrate that in Greenland. Only January sixth.”

  “Twelfth Night?”

  Luui nodded again. “It’s tradition. In Greenland, we visit each other’s houses, wearing traditional masks. The people we visit have to guess who we are. I think we give them sweets if they do, and hit them with sticks if they don’t.”

  “You think?”

  “Aap,” Luui said with a frown. “It’s the sweets part that I can’t remember. It’s been so long.”

  “And the sticks?”

  “Oh definitely.” Luui’s eyes sparkled as she grinned. “I remember wearing a mask and chasing people through the streets when I was a girl.”

  “You did this?”

  “I was a very determined little girl.” Luui’s smile faded as she said, “Although it’s been such a long time…”

  Dave waited for Luui to say more, and when she didn’t, he quietly pulled out his mobile. “You do realise today is January 6th? It’s Twelfth Night.”

  “It is?” Luui paused for a second as she wondered how long she had been in Kisermaaq’s cockpit. “No wonder I’m hungry.”

  “You’re still hungry?”

  Luui shook her head. “It’s not that.” She pointed at Dave’s mobile, and said, “It’s Twelfth Night, you say?”

  “It is.”

  “I wonder…”

  Luui turned her head to look at the other guests in the café. Most of them were tourists, but a young family at the table beside them were local, and Luui twisted in her seat to talk to them. Dave listened to them speak Greenlandic, and then again when Luui talked to the waitress. He heard the same word repeated several times, tried to spell it, then gave up as Luui turned back to talk to him.

  “I asked them about Mitaartut – Twelfth Night,” she said. “But they said no one celebrates it anymore. It’s just a normal night.” Luui shrugged and said, “Which is a shame. Even if you don’t follow the Christian religion, it was a celebration of our past, of Greenland’s traditions.” She reached for her coffee, took a sip, and then whispered, “Such a shame.”

  Dave reached for his pencil, tapped the nib a few times on the page, and then nodded his head when he tapped it so hard the nib broke.

  “That’s it,” he said, smiling at Luui when she shot him a quizzical look. “That’s what Twelvetide wants.”

  “Twelvetyde?”

  “Yes,” Dave said. “I think they – whoever they are – want you to bring Twelfth Night back to Greenland. Or,” he said, with a shake of his head, “to Nuuk, at least.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course. Who else?” Dave gestured at the quick sketch he had made of Aassik. “Your life is full of old Greenland.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “Not just suppose. It is, Luui.” Dave fidgeted on his seat. “Didn’t you say this thing with the worm, and the big bear…”

  “And Qaqqaq, the ever-growing mountain.”

  “Yes, all of it. It happened just a few days ago.”

  “Actually, the last day was Christmas Eve.”

  “And the letter came?”

  “On Christmas Day.”

  “And when did you leave? For Nuuk?”

  “The same day.”

  “It took you thirteen days to get to Nuuk?” Dave shook his head. “How did you get here? By kayak?”

  “Actually…” Luui sucked her front teeth as she thought about it. “I had a little help.”

  “The same kind of help you had on the…” Dave paused. “Erm, the ever-growing mountain?”

  Luui nodded.

  “Then that’s what it’s about. This is it.” He picked up the pencil and then cast it onto the pad as if suddenly unsure of what to do with it. “This is why you’re here.” He lowered his voice as the people sitting at the closest tables turned to look at him. “Whoever summoned you here did so for a reason. But they don’t just want you to put on a mask and hit a few people with a stick…” Dave rocked back in his chair, eyes shining as he thought about it. “No,” he said, continuing before Luui could interrupt his flow. “It has to be big and spectacular.” He raised his arms as if he was suddenly the worm, Aassik, terrorising the streets of Nuuk.

  “Dave,” Luui said, gesturing for him to calm down.

  “Yes,” he said, lowering his arms. “Got a bit carried away there.” He straightened his glasses and said, “I just think… Well, if I had to bring something back to a whole city that had forgotten it, then it would have to be on a huge scale.”

  “Not just me and a stick?”

  “No,” Dave said. “Although your younger self sounds like a bit of terror.”

  “She was,” Luui said. “I mellowed some.”

  “Some?”

  Luui shrugged. “A lot. Imaqa.”

  “Then you agree with me? You know why you’re here?”

  Luui thought for a moment and then nodded. “Aap,” she said. “I have an idea.”

  “Great.” Dave slurped the last of his coffee and then took out his wallet, ready to pay. “When do we start?”

  7

  Luui followed Dave into the city centre, preferring to trust his tourist knowledge of Nuuk, rather than her memories. The city had changed much in the years she had been in the north. But some of the places she knew from her childhood were still in the same place, with little or no change to the original building. The library – sadly, Luui thought – had not grown, but was still in its place of honour at the end of the pedestrian street opposite the bank. Luui stopped when a poster pinned to the notice board beside the door caught her eye.

/>   “Is this where you want to start?” Dave asked as Luui climbed the short flight of steps to take a closer look at the poster. He followed, stuffing his hands into the deep pockets of his long winter jacket as he shivered next to Luui. “Is that a mask?” he asked as Luui studied the poster, running her fingers beneath the lines of text, including the small print at the very bottom.

  “It is a mask,” she said. Her breath condensed in front of her face, and she brushed it away with an urgent wave of her hand. “But not just a mask, this is Kiiappa.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Kiiappa is a huge mask. It has arms and legs but no body. It has no head.” Luui took a closer look at the poster. “There is an open-air concert tonight. The organisers have brought Kiiappa with them.”

  “I see,” Dave said. “So does this mean the people of Nuuk have remembered Twelfth Night, after all?”

  “Naamik,” Luui said, taking a breath. “It means they are in trouble.”

  “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  “Kiiappa,” Luui said, turning to look at Dave. “Is an evil spirit. It will try to possess people. It will make them sick, even kill people. Kiiappa is why I’m here.”

  “Because of an open-air happening?”

  “Because simply by recreating Kiiappa in physical form, Kiiappa will come from the spirit world. I don’t think the organisers know this. I don’t think they know what will happen when it comes.”

  “And what will happen, Luui?”

  “Chaos,” she said. Luui sucked at her teeth, then nodded. “Chaos and death. Twelvetyde, whoever they are, knows this. It’s why they summoned me to Nuuk.”

  “You were summoned? Not invited?”

  “If I was invited, I would have arrived in a shorter time than it took Kisermaaq to bring me here.” Luui nodded again, suddenly convinced. “But I came on the very night Kiiappa will come. That’s why I’m here.”

  “So we should get the organisers to cancel the event?” Dave said, convinced by Luui’s enthusiasm that the danger was real, no matter how difficult it was to accept that a huge effigy of a mask might draw an evil spirit into it and rampage through the city.

  “Naamik,” Luui said. “They won’t listen. And besides, we have to prepare.”

  “We do?”

  “Aap,” Luui said. “I need your help, Dave.”

  8

  The help Luui required was not quite what Dave had imagined, and nor was he prepared for it – neither mentally nor physically.

  “You’re going to summon what?”

  “Ikkiillineqanngeqqissaartoq,” Luui said. “He is the one who never gets blunt.”

  “Okay…”

  “We can call him Ikkiillineq, if it makes it easier.”

  “It does,” Dave said. “Although not by much.”

  “Our only problem is time. Ikkiillineq lives in the crevices of the inland ice sheet. I’ll have to go fetch it.”

  “Just like that?”

  “No, not quite,” Luui said. “I need to prepare, and we’re running out of time. So…” Luui spotted a Nuuk city map peeping out of Dave’s pocket and reached for it. “The event is here,” she said. “I think the mask will be an inflatable one.”

  “Then we turn off the generator and shut it down.”

  “And get picked up by the police when the organisers have us arrested for sabotaging the event.” Luui shook her head. “I’ve been in jail once.”

  “You have?”

  “I don’t want to try it again.”

  “Then…” Dave shook his head. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  “We’re going to find a place to hide, close to the event. It’s down by the sea,” Luui said, pointing to a spot on the map. “There will be rocks. I can travel from there.”

  “Travel?”

  “To the inland ice sheet. I just need you to watch over my body.”

  “Ah… Luui…”

  “Aap?”

  “What’s going to happen to your body?”

  “I’m going to leave it for a while. I just need you to stop anyone interfering with it.” Luui pressed her hand on Dave’s arm as his eyes widened. “I mean, stop someone helping me. If I’m seen just lying on the snow, then someone might call an ambulance.” She shrugged and said, “I don’t much like hospitals either.”

  “Okay.”

  “You can do this.”

  “I’m not sure,” Dave said.

  Luui smiled, patted Dave’s arm, and said, “It wasn’t a question. You can do this. Just keep me safe. And I’ll be back in time to stop Kiiappa.” Luui frowned, adding, “Hopefully.”

  9

  Even in the grip of the dark winter night, and the shadows in the small crevice between the rocks Luui had chosen, the city lights still made it possible to see her. And, no matter how nonchalant Dave tried to appear, there was something odd, and if he was honest, downright suspicious, about a white man in his eighties standing beside the body of a Greenlandic woman stuffed between the rocks.

  “Never felt so awkward in all my life,” Dave muttered, waving and nodding at the few people who turned a questioning eye in his direction.

  Fortunately, most of the people passing Dave and Luui’s body were distracted by the giant Greenlandic mask floating in the sky above them. It was, Dave guessed, as tall and wide as Greenland’s National Bank, but incredibly flat – no wider than the width of a city bus, the same kind the organisers had arranged to bring people to the event. Dave guessed there were at least five hundred people gathered beneath the mask.

  “Five hundred souls for the taking.”

  He glanced at Luui’s body, pleased she had, at least, stopped twitching, but slightly concerned all the same at the drool spilling out of the corner of her mouth. It glistened in the city light, and gave the awful, even more awkward impression she might have been poisoned.

  “All I need now is for the police to turn up.”

  Dave squinted at the rocks as a swirl of blue light drifted over them.

  “Ah,” he said, as he turned around. “Officer… I can explain.”

  10

  Luui picked her way across the rocks at the edge of the ice sheet. She tried to ignore the cold biting her naked skin, the socks of rime ice coating the tips of her hair, or the way her breath settled heavily on her chest, clinging to the tiny hairs on her skin in pearls of opaque ice. If there had been time, she would have collected her furs and skins from her dinghy – the traditional clothes she could spirit travel in – but Ikkiillineqanngeqqissaartoq had always proved tricky to catch, and Luui guessed, even without a watch or timepiece of any kind, she was running out of time.

  And then she caught a shadow of something, darting between two rocks.

  Luui ignored the sticky grip of ice under her feet and chased the shadow.

  She saw it again, and then the Ikkiillineqanngeqqissaartoq revealed itself, like a great fox, glacier-blue, almost invisible upon the ice, were it not for its razor-like spine and tail. The spirit looked at Luui, squinted at her, and then tilted its head to watch as Luui lay face down on the ice, pressing her body flat, stretching her arms and legs, willing herself not to shiver as the spirit took a hesitant step towards her.

  Just a little closer, she thought, pressing her chin into the ice, keeping her eyes closed – listening and seeing with her ears and nose only.

  The feral scent of Ikkiillineqanngeqqissaartoq – part dog shit, part cinnamon – pricked at her nostrils. They flared as the spirit approached. Luui quivered at the first rasp of the spirit’s long, dry tongue upon her back.

  That’s it. Stay there. I won’t move.

  Luui ignored the cold, the spirit’s stink and the rasping of its tongue on her back, her thighs, her shoulders, and then her arms and her….

  “Got you,” Luui said as she grasped the Ikkiillineqanngeqqissaartoq’s tongue in her hand. She pushed off the ice with her free hand, quelled a bout of shivering as the spirit leaped about, swirling snow and freezing air a
round Luui as it tried to slip free of her grasp.

  But Luui had played with enough foxes and sledge dog puppies in her youth to know the limits of a four-legged leap. Of course, what made Ikkiillineqanngeqqissaartoq special was its razor spine and tail, but as long as Luui held onto its tongue, she knew it wouldn’t turn its back on her for fear of cutting its tongue in half.

  “So…” Luui stumbled as the spirit tried harder and harder to free itself. “All we need to do now is…”

  Luui almost laughed.

  It was a classic case of throwing herself into the spirit world without thinking about how to get back.

  And then it occurred to her that Dave could call her back, if only she had told him how.

  “Shaking would work if nothing else did,” she said, wondering just how much shaking she could tolerate as Ikkiillineqanngeqqissaartoq continued to thrash in her grip, and the cold sent her body into bout after bout of uncontrollable shivers.

  11

  “It’s not what it seems, Officer,” Dave said as the taller of the two Greenlandic constables stepped around Dave to take a closer look at Luui.

  “Call an ambulance,” he said, still speaking in English. “It looks like she’s having a seizure. The man’s partner reached for her radio, only to pause as a wave of screaming washed over the rocks from the event and broke upon them. “What’s going on?”

  Dave had an idea, but even as he watched it unfold, he struggled to believe what he was seeing.

  The inflatable mask sprouted a pair of hairy legs and arms. Its feet thumped on the ground, sending Nuuk’s residents to all sides to escape them. But while Kiiappa’s newly grown legs and feet were cumbersome, its arms were lighter and faster to respond to the evil spirit’s desires as it plucked a woman from the crowd in its right hand, and a small boy in its left.

  The constable checking on Luui lifted his head, but as Luui’s body started to jerk more violently, he reached for her arms to pull her out of the crevice, suddenly concerned she might hit her head on the rocks.