Up in the North during a time when nothing moved in a winter there was hunger, hunger and more hunger. People talked of a woman who had done something of what her father had disapproved, although no one any longer remembered what it really was. But the said her father had taken her from the house, dragged her to the cliff and thrown her over and into the sea.

And that she sunk down through the water the fish

ate her flesh away and plugged out her eyes and

she drifted down and down and down and down

to the bottom of the sea, where she lay, her

skeleton turning over and over in the currents.

And one day a fisherman came fishing, well in truth many came to this bay once but this fisherman had drifted a long way from his home place and he did not know that the local fishermen stayed away from this bay, saying that indeed it was haunted. And the fisherman's bone hook drifted down through the water and down and down and down and caught, of all places in the bones of skeleton woman’s ribcage.The fisherman thought, "Huh, now I really got a big one, I really got a huge one!" And in his mind he was thinking of how many people this great fish would feed and how long it might last, and how long he might be free of the chore of hunting.

And how he struggled with this great weight at the end of his hook, the sea was stirred to a trusting froth and his kajack bucked and shook, for she, who was beneath, struggled to disentangle herself and the more she struggled, the more she tangled in the line. And no matter what she did, she was inexorably dragged upward tugged by the bones of her very own ribs.

Well, the hunter had turned to scoop up his net to catch this big prize, so he did not see her bold head rise above the waves and he did not see the crustaceans on her old ivory teeth. And so when he turned back with his net, her entire body such as it was had come to the surface and was hanging from the tip of his kayak with her long front teeth. "AHH!", cried the man, and his heart fell into his knees and his eyes hidden in terror and his ears turned blazing red. "AH!", he screamed and he knocked her off the prow and began paddling like a demon towards the shoreline, and not realising she was tangled in his line. He was frightened all the more for she appeared to stand up on her toes chasing him all the way to the shore.

And no matter where he zigged his kayak she

stayed right behind. And her breath rolled over

the water in clouds of steam and her arms flung

out as if to snatch him down into the depths.

"AH", he wailed, as he run aground. In one leap

he was out of his kayak, clutching hid fishing stick

and running and the coral white corpse of

Skeleton woman still snagged in the fishing line

right behind him.

Over the rocks he ran and she followed, and over the frozen tundra he ran and she kept right up, and over the meat laid out to dry he ran cracking it into pieces and throughout it all she kept right up, in fact she grabbed some of the frozen fish when she was dragged behind,

and this she began to eat, for she had not

gorged in a long, long time.

And finally the man reached his snow house,

right into the tunnel and on hands and

knees he scrubbed his way into the interior,

and he lay there in the dark, his heart a drum,

a mighty drum, "OH, safe at last, safe! Oh thank god, oh yes thank the gods, oh safe at last."

Imagine when he lit his whale oil lamp, there she, it lay in a tumble upon his snow floor, one heel over her shoulder and one knee inside her rib cage and one foot over her elbow... and he could not say later what it was but perhaps the fire light softened her features or the fact

that he was a lonely man, but the feeling

of some kindness came into his breathing,

and slowly he reached out his hand and

using words softly like a mother to child

he began to untangle her from the fishing line.

First he untangled her toes and then the ankles,

on and on and on he worked into the night,

until dressing her in furs to keep her warm,

Skeleton Woman's bones were all in the order that

humans should be.

He lighted a little more fire and gazed at her from time to time as he oiled the precious wood from the fishing stick. And he rewound his gut line and she in the furs uttered not a word. She did not dare, less this hunter take her out and throw her down to the rocks and break her bones to pieces at early?

Soon the man became drowsy and he slit down under his sleeping skins and soon he was dreaming... and sometimes when humans sleep, you know a tear escapes from the dreamers eye, and we never know what sort of dream causes this but we know that it is a dream of sadness, or else longing.

The skeleton woman saw the tear glistening in the firelight trembling there in the hollow of his eye, and she suddenly became so thirsty, and so she crawled over to the sleeping man and put her mouth over his tear. The single tear was like a river and she drank and drank and drank until her many years long thirst was stilled.

And then she lay beside him and at the collar bone she reached inside the sleeping man and took out his heart, the mighty drum and she sat up and banged on both sides of it: bong,bong, bong,bong, and as she drummed she started to sing out "flesh...!"... and the more she sang, the more her body filled out with flesh. And she sang for her hair and for good eyes and for nice, fat hands. And she sang the divide between her legs and she sang for breasts, long enough to wrap for warmth, and all the things a woman needs.

And when she was all done she also sang the sleeping man's clothes off and crept into his bed with him. Skin against skin. And oh, what it was like to have flesh once more! Oh what it was like to feel the warmth of another!

And she returned the great drum, his heart to his body. And this is how they awakened, wrapped one around the other tangled from their night, in another way now, a good way. And the people who can not remember how she came to her first ill fortune say that she and the fisherman went away and that they were consistently well fed by the creatures that she had known and loved all of her life under water. And the people say that this is true and this is all they know.