He creates a bright light that hurts my skin and eyes. I try to push it away, but it angrily bites my hand. I fall backwards. He rushes to my side and looks closely at my fingers. His hot breath stings my palm and I rip it away, letting out a low shriek and baring my teeth. He jumps back. ‘Fire,’ he slowly articulates, holding his hands out in surrender.

‘Fire,’ I mimic.

I don’t like the fire, but he huddles in close to it all night. I wonder how it doesn’t hurt him too. Eventually, he falls asleep, covered in my skin. I am relieved to watch the fire grow smaller overnight; he is swallowing a little more of it with every breath he takes.

He does not smile. He occasionally grimaces from the cold wind, or when chopping wood. He has deep chasms running from his eyes, down his cheeks, that once held passageway to an ocean of tears. He does not show the tears to me.

‘They led me to you, so now they stop,’ he says, his face unmoving.

He is happy to have me by his side. He brings back fish frequently and keeps a fire running day and night. As I begin to learn more of his language, I make protest when he lights the fire, but I soon learn he needs it to stay alive. I see fear in his face when he touches my cold human skin. He beds me next to the fire, and I feel myself grow weaker each night.

I think about my skin throughout the first four seasons above. But we soon have a child together and it leaves my mind. We name him Ooruk and he is the most stunning boy: I am proud of him. He needs the fire too, like his ddwa, and my mind grows used to it, but my body does not.

I paid a price for his birth; I grew very sick after he was born and never recovered. No matter how much food my husband brings, I cannot put weight on. As Ooruk grows, he notices my suffering.

‘Aama, why is your skin so cold and dry,’ he says, as he touches his skin, then mine.

My skin is just different to yours, Ooruk. I am fine.’

In winter I happily tell Ooruk the stories of my family who roam below the land--the whale, walrus, seal and salmon--but I never want him to know who I was. I cannot seem to stop myself from withering away, but holding on to my stories keeps me alive.

My husband grows impatient with me the more afflicted I become. I know he is terrified of one thing: being alone. He blames me for growing ill; he throws pots at me and speaks poorly of me in front of our son. I do my best to hide my suffering.

The seventh summer comes upon us and now, my hair is falling out and my sight is failing. It starts off as a haziness, but soon my entire world is consumed by a grey fog. I can’t see anything unless I hold it right up to my face. Ooruk soon notices I am bumping into things as I walk. One evening, I forget I have heated up some water and put my hand in it and scald it badly.

‘You can’t see, can you?’ Ooruk asks quietly.

I cry as I shake my head.

‘Why can’t you see, Aama?’

I have no words now, only tears. My body shakes. Ooruk pushes a wood stump up close to me and stands on it. He leans in and I feel his small lips rub up against my ear. ‘It will be okay, Aama,’ he whispers.

That night I dream of plunging into the ocean and swimming down...temeqvanek - home. I have not dreamt of my family for many seasons. My ddwa greets me and tells me I must return. We swim deeper and I see my kind again. They move happily around me, their tails gliding along my back. For a moment, I lose myself and dance again with my kind. But the sun shines harshly through the water, and I can’t help but look above, frightened my husband and Ooruk are watching.

I wake up frozen and stiff, my legs glued to the ground. I try to get up, but my legs will not hold me. When my husband returns from his hunt, he is furious.

‘You are not up? We need to eat: where is our fire?’

‘I cannot get up. I cannot walk.’

He leaves abruptly, and comes back at the end of the day with a walking stick that he has carved. He throws it at me. ‘Now you can walk.’