Skeleton Woman

No one remembers why her father threw her over the cliff into the sea where the fishes picked clean her bones.

One day a fisherman far from home snagged the Skeleton Woman’s bones. He thought he’d hooked a big fish. The waves tossed his kayak this way and that as she struggled beneath the water to untangle herself from the fish line.

As he reached for his net, she came to the surface and got caught on the end of the kayak. “Agh!” he wailed when he saw her. His heart sank to his boots, and he covered his eyes in terror. He knocked her off the prow with his paddle and began paddling with a fury for shore. He did not know that she remained tangled in the fishing line, and when he reached the shore, she bumped along behind him still attached to his fishing pole. When he finally reached his snow house, he dove in, safe at last from the horror of it all. In the darkness his heart beat like a mighty drum.

He lit his whale oil lamp and then he saw her! Did the light soften her features or was he lonely? A feeling of some kindness moved him to speak as a mother speaks to a child, and he began to untangle her from the fishing line. He worked into the night and then covered her with furs to keep her warm and lit a fire.

She said not a word lest he throw her back over the cliff. He then fell asleep, and a tear rolled down his cheek maybe from a dream. She was so thirsty and came and drank and drank and drank until her years’ long thirst was quenched by his single tear.

Lying beside him, she reached inside and took out his heart, his mighty drum, and she began to drum the sides - “boom-boom…. boom-boom!” As she drummed, she sang, “ Flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh…!” She began to flesh out, skin, hair, eyes, fat hands.  She sang his clothes off and lay beside him skin-to-skin. She returned his heart, the great drum, to his body and in the morning when they awakened, all tangled together, he woke with a beautiful woman!

It is said they went away and were fed by the many creatures in the sea under the water that she knew so well.

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