Chapter Text
"Lady Silence?" the dead man said from behind Silna.
She whirled around. Nothing had been there a moment ago, when she'd turned away from the endless southern horizon to adjust the straps of her sled. But when she jerked her head towards the voice, she saw him nonetheless, not ten paces away.
"Lady Silence?" Harry Goodsir said again. Uncertainty filled his voice.
Silna simply looked at him. Her eyes took him in much the way she had when she'd last seen him, stretched out naked and cold on the table - and why not, she was still in the presence of a dead man.
"I'm... I'm not certain of what is happening." He was walking towards her. Silna took one slow deliberate step back. Goodsir stopped immediately; the stones did not shift under his weight, no clouds of breath formed in front of his face as he waited, watching.
Silna was not scared of this phantom purporting to be Mr. Goodsir, just wary.
Goodsir was not quite as she'd ever seen him in life. His beard was trimmed shorter, as was the hair on the top of his head. His face was fuller, and the lines of worry around his mouth didn't seem so deep.
He was dressed in the blue clothes that all the men from the ships had worn. The cloth, though, was more brilliant than when she had known him, and he wore a stiff round hat with a little brim that was completely unfamiliar to her. His curly beard still crept down the edges of his jaw, but the edges had been shaved to a straight crispness.
As always, he terribly under-dressed for the weather. This time, though, he didn't appear cold. No shivers wracked his frame, and his exposed ears were not reddening with the early stages of frostbite.
Silna was glad. Real or not, she would not wish Goodsir to be cold.
But she had paid the apparition too much attention already. It was nothing but self-cruelty to indulge too long in the false ghosts that the spirits sent forth now and again. Silna turned away from him, hearing nothing from behind her but the scrape of her sled along the rocks. When her will finally failed, many paces on, she turned around to look.
Only solitude stared back.
It was only several days later that Silna saw him again. Silna was making for the sea at the south end of Qikiqtaq. It was likely that there was a safe path to the mainland there; and even possible that Silna could make it across before a storm struck or winter gripped too hard or she starved.
Silna was pondering these possibilities when her eyes caught that particular shade of navy blue again. The ghost of Goodsir was standing on a very slight rise off to her left, where she knew nothing had been moments ago. He was turned towards Silna, but not hailing her as before. He was just looking at her; his face held that soft, hesitant look that she'd seen on him often at the beginning of their acquaintance -- and once, sorrowfully, at the end.
Silna continued to walk her path. Goodsir continued to watch.
I didn't take long before Silna slowed, then sighed, then turned to face Goodsir.
Announce yourself, Silna said. The words did not come from her mouth, but from somewhere else. And they weren't composed of sound, exactly, but Goodsir's expression made it clear that he'd heard her.
She has never spoken this way before, but she is not entirely surprised; the spirit of her tongue is still with her, and he is in the realm where ghosts walk. Only memories, the both of them.
Though, Goodsir seemed quite solid for a mere memory. He took a few slow steps towards her, looking confused. "I am Mr. Goodsir. Harry Goodsir." He searched her face. "Do you recognize me? Is there another you were expecting?"
A demon. A false spirit. An animal in disguise. Silna circled him slowly and looked over him from head to toe. She reached out to him with all her senses, physical and spiritual, as Goodsir stood there, fingers fidgeting. A shadow of a smile flickered over Silna's face. But I'm starting to believe it's you.
"Oh, thank god." His voice and expression were shot through with relief. As Goodsir spoke more, Silna realized there was something different about his speech as well: his words were unaccented and free flowing. There were no more stutterings and pauses between his Inuktitut words, no more garbled sentences. But Goodsir wasn't speaking English either; his words were as clear to her as the air she breathed, and just as familiar. They were communicating in a language beyond the ones they knew.
It pleased her. She was hearing Goodsir as his friends and family heard him. And, if she wished, she could attempt to explain ideas that he would not have understood before.
Though Silna was now convinced that this apparition was indeed Goodsir and not some malevolent spirit, she still could not call him alive. As before, the outfit he wore could only have kept him tolerably warm in the height of summer; he didn't seem to feel the bite of the early-autumn cold. He was here in the land of the living, but his essential matter must all be of the realm of the dead.
Silna half-wondered why it wasn't her father that came to her now. Why this man, for as much as she had come to like him? But her father was too experienced in the ways of spirits to be forced to linger in an in-between realm. Still, it would have eased her heart to see his face again.
Goodsir wasn't such a bad consolation prize. Part of her was glad to see him once more, despite what his presence might mean for his ability to move on to the next world. He had been a friend to her, and she hadn't liked how they had parted. And then... there had been no time after.
The image of Goodsir on the table, cut and carved, flashed through her mind again. She pushed it away. What do you remember?, she asked him.
"Of what?"
Of when you died.
"Oh. Yes. I do remember it, after a fashion, though I'm not sure it amounts to much."�He paused. "I was in a camp, with Mr. Hickey. It was a horrible place. Then I was... dying, I believe, and dreaming. Dreaming for a long time. Everything was calm and bright and white. Then there was nothing at all."
Oh, Harry, she said without quite meaning to. The line between her own private thoughts and her speech had apparently blurred when communication bypassed the physical.
"Then I saw you. It was as if my vantage point was from a location high and far away. But I could still see you walking with strength and serenity across the ice, and I thought... well, I suppose that I thought it would be nice to be near you again. And then, quite quickly, I was."
Then gone again.
"Yes. Then gone again, back to the numb brightness that really was not so bad. Still, I am glad that whatever forces are at work here brought me to you once more."
Silna was glad as well, but sometimes words seemed as nothing in the scheme of things, so a soft squeeze of his forearm was how Silna could best express herself. It seemed enough for Goodsir. They shared a moment of quiet stillness, and Silna spent it enjoying the sweet presence of Goodsir, which had been gone from the world too long.
"You're alone?" Goodsir asked after a few moments, as if finally taking in the emptiness around her. "Are you traveling somewhere?"
She didn't answer. It was sometimes very painful to think on her life; what it was, and what it was now. Now was one of those times. It was something like shame that kept even her other tongue silent. In his ignorance, he couldn't know what it meant for a shaman to live alone, and she preferred it that way.
Goodsir frowned, knowing there was a problem, but not exactly what. Instead, Silna took up the strap to her sled and asked: Would you like to walk with me awhile?
"I would love to." Goodsir fell into step beside her. It was long, lovely hours until he disappeared again.
A day later, Silna pulled her sled around a low-lying hill, and there Goodsir was on the other side, examining a small fossil embedded in a rock. Pleased, and not so surprised to see him, Silna waved him over without hesitation.
After that, he stayed with the persistence of a flesh and blood man.
She'd never heard of this happening, but then, many things had happened the last few years that she never would have imagined before. These foreign men had strange ways, perhaps their ghosts were strange as well.
Again they walked for miles, falling into steady rhythm. That afternoon, Goodsir asked the question that must have been on his mind from the beginning.
"Have you encountered any others out on the ice?" he asked softly. His countenance was hesitant. "Any of the men from either ship? They may still be in camps, as you remember, or perhaps boats now?"
No. She tried to be gentle, but she always felt so clumsy at it. Not alive.
"Ah." He paused. "So, I'm the only... well, I suppose I can't call myself a survivor, can I?" Another pause. "Am I the only one who is still around?"
Here, she had news that would please Goodsir, though she couldn't say whether it truly pleased the man concerned. Your leader, Crozier, is alive.
Goodsir let out a pleased half-laugh through his nose, and the corners of his eyes crinkled from his smile. "Oh, that's wonderful. I had hoped..." His hands came up to hover a bit in front of his middle, but he didn't reach for hers like she might have expected. She would have allowed it, if it had happened.
"I know you must have had much to do with that." His eyes held something in between admiration and pride. "Where is Captain Crozier now?"
With my people. If he wants to leave, he can go next year. He has an injury, and it's the wrong season, now.
"Your people..." Goodsir scanned the horizon, as if he would see her friends' tents somewhere in the distance.
Silna figured she might as well tell him, despite the pain and humiliation. Without the Tuunbaq, it is my lot to walk in solitude. I cannot be with others of my village. She tried to explain it neutrally. She was glad she couldn't see her own face.
"You are in exile, then, because of us?"
Silna nodded, because it was true. Then she added, Because of many things, because that was true as well.
"I wish we had never come," Goodsir said simply. "I have wished this many times -- countless times -- in the last two years, for my own sake, and the sake of the crew. Now I wish it for your sake, and your people's. I find that strikes deeper than all that came before."
Goodsir's steps were slowing down beside her, his eyes, too ashamed to meet hers, were fixed on some distant point on the horizon.
Come, Silna said, motioning him towards her. Come. Let us walk now. Things are not how they should be, but we must go. She didn't stop until Goodsir sped up to catch pace with her again. It's not that these things he mourned were unimportant -- indeed, they were horrors that would never leave her -- but memories could not stop Silna from moving her feet. This may very well be her last season on this earth, but she wanted it. She wanted Goodsir's company too, as long as she could have it.
But life was full of denials. When Goodsir had almost reached her side, Silna blinked, and in that split-second she was once again alone with the stones and the sky.
The next time Goodsir came for a visit, he had still not disappeared by the time the long dusk that preceded the very short night began, so she began to set up her tent. Goodsir offered to help, and she directed him in setting up the interior support structure and how to drape the skins over top to seal the inside from the elements. Because Goodsir seemed to be interested, Silna explained the crafting process as they worked; how they cured the skins for use, how to carve a bone needle, the way the gut must be treated to hold the whole structure together.
Before she knew it, the tent was up. It really was much faster with two people. However, Goodsir hesitated when it was time to follow Silna through the entrance.
"Such as I am, I am no longer affected by the cold. I'll just pass the night outside."
She shot him a look. Even if he could no longer die of exposure as a man would, surely he would want a change of scenery for at least a little while. What's wrong? she asked.
He opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. He seemed to choose his next words carefully. "Many of my people would consider a man and woman -- not bound by wedlock, that is -- sleeping in the same bed to be... improper."
Silna could understand that. However: Do your people apply the same rules for a woman and a ghost?
He huffed out a breath, not quite a laugh. "No, I suppose not."
He crawled in through the tent flap to join her, but still retained a certain shyness around her physical space. He busied himself setting up the furs that would serve as their bedroll. It didn't take long.
If it were winter, Silna might consider lighting a lamp, but there was still some muted light finding its way into the structure through the thin areas of the skins, and the luxury of lamp oil was not something she could afford, these days. She was just able to see the vague outline of Goodsir's face in the gloom.
Goodsir was settling in among the furs. He'd left almost all his clothes on. That wasn't the right way to sleep, but she figured he was making strides just by coming in and laying down next to her, so she left well enough alone. "Oh!" he said with some surprise. "It's quite warm in here. More so than on the ships, for some decks."
Yes, it was so cold there. It had been the coldest winter she had ever passed in her life.
Goodsir started to weep then, softly. Silna was alarmed, and started to reach for him (for all the good that would do), but he waved her off. "I'm all right, I'm all right, thank you. It's only -- we were all so cold for so long. All those men suffering -- and for what?" he said through his tears; calm, and infinitely sad.
Silna could not say, and the only answer she offered was the regular rhythm of her breath and the press of her hand as she reached out again.
Now that the dam had burst, it seemed that everything Goodsir had been keeping inside was ready to come out. "There's more to the circumstances of my death than I let on earlier. I think... I think you were right about us. About all of it. I can hardly remember the reason our ship was here now. I remember the explanation I gave you, but it's as if the words make no sense at all. Trade? The economy? It's all so far away now."
"Why did we even undertake this voyage?" Goodsir's voice was hollow. "It turned us all into monsters. Or, perhaps it simply revealed the monsters we already were inside, which is infinitely worse."
There was a pause. "And myself along with them, in the end. I wanted to stop Hickey, wanted to hurt all of them. Fellow human beings, and I poisoned them anyways. I'm only relieved that you weren't there at the camp then to witness my actions. Or after, when they'd had their way."
Silna was silent.
"Oh," he said. "Oh... you saw me?" he asked quietly. He must have read the truth in her eyes.
Yes, she said. It did not please her to say this.
"Ah. Well." He paused in the dark. "I'm sorry that was something you had to see."
He apologized for too many things that weren't his fault. It should not have happened to you.
"I knew it was going to happen." The words came out in a rush. Was this a secret he'd been carrying along inside him? "I poisoned myself and cut the veins in my wrists so they would butcher me. So, you see, there is no use in feeling sorry, because I knew what would happen." The light tone he tried for was as painful as a scrape.
She reached over in the darkness and laid a hand on his forearm. She had never been especially adroit in her physical affection, but it was easy enough with Goodsir -- he seemed thankful for what little she could give.
Goodsir gave a watery smile through his tears when he felt her stubborn touch. "Please excuse me, everything is just catching up to me at the moment. Again." Goodsir wiped at his eyes. "It really is a lovely home."
Thank you, she said, absurdly. Distant amusement was beginning to cut through her sadness as well.
"It seems that you are always comforting me," Goodsir said. The words were softer, but he didn't seem embarrassed about it. Silna liked that about him. Had always liked that about him.
They laid in silence then, for a while. She listened to his breathing even out, felt it under the hand on his chest. His still-open eyes glinted in the dark, and she could just barely make out a slight flush still on his cheeks leftover from the crying and the warmth.
My name is Silna, she said. There, it was done. Revealed. She'd been wanting to tell him for awhile now. You can call me that, if you would like.
"Silna," Goodsir repeated. He took a breath. "Thank you."
He appreciated, then, the import of what she was sharing with him. Silna felt a pang of sadness -- she wished she had told him in life.
You're welcome, Harry. Silna had never once called Goodsir by his name -- any name -- either. At first it had been out of anger and bitterness. Her father had been dead and cold and callously mishandled, and this curly-haired man had wanted to play at being soft, wanted to demand her attention while she was grieving. Then, after they had made that tentative progress towards communication, when she had finally forgiven him, the whole thing crashed and burned. Her tongue was gone and she was a failure. She would not be saying anyone's name ever again.
Except... now she had a second chance. Harry, she said again. His gaze when their eyes met again was some wonderful mixture of happiness and relief.
They were face to face in the darkness.
In life, Goodsir had never really touched, or been touched by, Silna except in moments of extreme emotion. She remembered being supported by him as she staggered into their strange large tent, weak with blood-loss and failure; holding his shaking shoulder while he fought with something panicked inside him; and then their final mortal parting with just her hand on his chest.
This was different. There was no desperation, or despair. Just him lying next to her, smelling mostly of the wool in his clothing. Hair from an animal, he had explained to her once, though the material resembled no animal she had ever known.
Silna shifted closer. Goodsir didn't move away. Their foreheads were so close as to be nearly touching. They breathed the same breath.
His warmth, his smell, his touch -- these things came from his spirit, not his body. But for a shaman, one was as real as the other. Silna laid arm across his belly, firm and present. Feeling warm and near-content for the first time in a long time, Silna started to drift into a dreamless sleep. Just before she went under, Goodsir's hand lightly came to rest over hers.