"your brother did not come back properly from his spirit-walk," she told only to the ears of her daughters. "this is a place of much power, as you know, sialuk. rebirth. we must take him to the world of spirits and walk with him back to this place."

moonwoman had brought her skin of lichen now, dried and ground by paw. she slung it over narrow shoulders and now moved upward, up, to where she as a young wife had kept her first altar. the duck knew all paths of moonspear and lingered only a moment beside the place where sialuk had been born, gathering the traces of power into herself.

first: purification of body in the hot springs.

flesh steaming, pelt warm, their family gathered into a small circle of stones.

blood from fresh-killed rabbit, dabbed to foreheads and wrists.

sedna.

tooteega.

lynx.

we ask for you.

we ask for you.

the son of the moon, massaraq, he must be guided again.

we must take him through.

we must take him through.

the heavens wheeled; the trees swam.

her eyes blurred.

three times would she chant this, circled around massaraq between she and his sisters, their voices overlapping, her own sharpening into ululation.

this man's name is massaraq, she breathed out, asserting him as whole and man before the attending spirits.

her breath; humming; thrummed between the stones and their bodies;

this man's spirit name is taliriktuq

ah! by this would sedna know him!

a spirit name was only for women to know, and so women would keep it from this night on.

lichen-powder, mixed with water, offered from her paw, so the dream would wake in them all and so they might lead brother and son from that empty plane of existence.