Free The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone

could I know, then, that I was part of a story that began many Moons before I arrived. I’d never heard of Bakar – I knew nothing of the Auk People’s loss.
    So I began: the Year was eight Moons old, and my family were at our Fishing Camp, which lies – lay – at the mouth of a River. Where I come from, the land is low-lying, covered mostly with oaks and birch and hazel, which grow taller than they do here. All along our shores we have sand dunes – we had sand dunes – and long beaches. We don’t have the bird cliffs you have here. That’s why, when Sendoa described White Beach Camp to me, I wanted to come with him at once to try my hand at this new sort of hunting. Anyway, our Camps are bigger than yours. The Lynx People lived quite close to each other, all down the shore and along the Rivers. We have big Rivers in my country. We fish all the Year round, and still the fish keep giving themselves. There are so many fish that many People don’t even bother to go inland to hunt. We young men go, of course, but often some of the family stay at Fishing Camp all the Year round.
    My brother Basajaun and I were at the age when we were often up at Hunting Camp with cousins like ourselves. Away from our families we could move fast across country and go where we liked. Basajaun is older than me, and always very daring. My mother used to say I was the cautious one. Basajaun would get us into trouble, and I’d be the one to find a way out. That’s what she used to say, anyway.
    Basajaun and I had just come back from a hunting trip. We’d killed an aurochs among the high birches, and we’d brought back our share of the meat – as much as we could carry. That got us a good welcome! We’d been back at Fishing Camp two days.
    We were on the shore, Basajaun and I, a little way from our Camp, mending our boat. The hide was no good any more. It leaked. We’d stripped it off, and replaced some of the sinews that bound the hazel wands together. Now we were laying new hide over the frame. We’d already pierced the holes back at Camp, and we’d just started stitching the rawhide over the lip. Our dogs lay at our feet, disappointed because we weren’t going anywhere. There was no hurry. The Year was past its prime, but the Sun wasn’t too tired to burn the chill off the morning. There was no wind. The air was so clear we could hear children’s voices back at the Camp, and the women laughing, and the rhythmic chink of stone on stone. Everything was ordinary, just as it should be.
    But the dogs were growing restless. They whined and padded under our feet. They ran a few steps back to Camp, and whined again. ‘Stop that!’ Basajaun aimed a kick. The dogs cowered. After that they were quiet. When I looked up from my work again they’d gone. If they were bored they’d have headed back to Camp. I thought nothing of it.
    We heard a far-off noise.
    Basajaun stopped stitching and looked up. My hand, holding the needle, was still.
    The noise was like thunder far away, only it never ceased. It was not above our heads. It came from under the Sunless Sky. I put down my needle, and stared out to sea.
    Basajaun grabbed my arm – ‘Look!’
    The sands were growing bigger. I saw that first. No, that was wrong. The sea was shrinking. The tide was coming in – but the sea was going out. We saw, but also we couldn’t see, because it wasn’t possible. Out and further out – beyond the lowest tide. Sand we’d never seen before, pale and gleaming. Ripples like stars, and the frightened crabs scuttling over them. Fish flapping, madly trying to swim in this sudden world that had no water.
    â€˜Kemen! The sea! Look!’
    I saw it then, far off under the Sunless Sky. A grey cliff, white-tipped. A cliff made of water. A noise like a mountain falling. My heart turned cold.
    And the Camp behind us – my mother, my sisters, the children .