Sanhinga

By James O'Leary

Isaak is a fifteen year old Native Alaskan student from the Sanhinga Tribe who has recently moved from his village in Alaska to Denmark after winning a scholarship to attend a private school there. All is well until another student at the school frames Isaak for a crime and he is imprisoned. This sets off a conflict among mortal men and in the spirit world. A great battle will ensue after which nothing will be the same for Isaak or his people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098308179

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Copyright © 2020 by James O’Leary

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2020

ISBN 978-1-09830-816-2 eBook 978-1-09830-817-9

www.bookbaby.com

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this novel are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to persons alive or deceased are coincidental.

For Tanya

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1.

Isaak sat in the office, waiting for his second session to begin. His first session had been short and mostly covered the therapist getting to know him and vice versa. They also talked in-depth about what the objective of the therapy was. The room was dimly lit, with comfortable leather furniture. Books lined one wall, and abstract art covered another. Nothing here to make a crazy person upset, Isaak thought. But Isaak wasn’t crazy, and his therapist knew it. Isaak had experienced things that could later manifest themselves as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, or some other mental affliction if not hashed out now, or so was the theory.

He had been seized, drugged, and tormented. He had seen many people killed, some in especially gruesome ways. Isaak had never killed anyone unless you count killing someone who was already dead. He felt he was responsible for the deaths none the less. For them, he felt no guilt or shame, only sadness. Isaak also loved a girl so completely that he felt love, fear, joy, and pain all at the same time by merely thinking of her. Even today, it seemed incomprehensible to him how deep these feelings were, are, and he thought, always will be.

In his first session, he was asked if he could have done anything different to change the circumstances that resulted in all this tumult. Isaak had always been a quiet and non-confrontational person who would most times take the path of least resistance. A year ago, he would have crafted an answer that would have had him avoiding all of the unpleasantness. Now he was a warrior, and would battle a thousand times more if necessary. If he had taken an easier path, he would not have met the girl, which was unspeakable, unthinkable. His poor mother had always implored him to find a direction to take in his life. Well, now he knew how he would live the rest of his life, and he was only fifteen years old.

2.

The therapist, Ms. Tonya, entered the room. She was a heavyset Black woman with a big smile, not too old, but older than his mother was, forty years old, he guessed. She was chosen because she had experience counseling young gang members who had witnessed violence and death up close. Isaak promised Willie that he would cooperate fully with the therapy. Willie well knew about Isaak’s predilection to agree to go somewhere or do something new only to sit like a boulder looking at his iPhone when he got there. Isaak did want to participate because of many sleepless nights and nightmares he’d been having. He hoped the therapy could help him. He’d read a book at school about child soldiers in Africa and how their experiences had messed them up for life. He didn’t want to end up like them.

Ms. Tonya asked him to tell her his story, what happened, that had him sitting in her office. She asked him to start at the beginning, but whenever he began, she would ask if he could remember further back than that. After a few interruptions, Isaak was exasperated and snapped at her asking if she wanted to hear about when he was a baby. She said she did and seemed genuinely interested. Isaak was sorry he was curt with her. So, he began to tell his story as he knew it.

Isaak was born in Elk Horn, a small village in Alaska, a full-blooded native Alaskan from the Sanhinga Tribe. His father left his Mom when he was very young, and Isaak has no recollection of him. He and his Mom, Mary, were almost always happy. His mother was in a long-term relationship with Peter, another Sanhinga from their village. They had lived in Peter’s home for as long as he could remember. Isaak liked Peter and thought of him as his stepfather, although Peter and his Mom were never married. Peter was sober and had a good job working in the village’s water plant. Peter was also really into Sanhinga culture and heritage. Isaak shared that interest until recently when he began to think that grown men dancing around in costumes wasn’t cool. Isaak also started to doubt a lot of the Sanhinga teachings because much of it was magical and improbable. Now he understood things quite differently.

Peter, who was an officer at the Sanhinga Cultural Guild, had gotten correspondence from their sister city in Greenland. Peter said that there were Sanhinga in Greenland who were originally from Alaska and could even be related to the Sanhinga in their village. Greenland was a territory that was part of Denmark the same way Alaska was part of the United States Isaak surmised. A private school in Denmark was offering a scholarship to a Sanhinga as part of their diversity program. No one in the Greenland village was interested, nor was anyone in Isaak’s community. Moving away from home and friends is not something an average kid would find appealing. Peter and Isaak’s Mom thought it would be an excellent opportunity for Isaak. Isaak was smart and tested in the highest quartile in school, but in the classroom, he was less than ambitious. Isaak had no interest in going to school in Denmark. But after much prodding, he started working on the application. He did not think he would have a chance at winning the scholarship, and completing the application made both his Mom and Peter happy. As it turned out, Isaak won the scholarship. Isaak thought that no one else could have applied because his application wasn’t all that great. His mother filled out most of it. He just had to write an essay that he put no particular effort into.

3.

A few months later, Isaak was in Copenhagen at Lund Skole, which is a co-ed International Baccalaureate school from the sixth grade through the sixth form, which is the American equivalent of sixth grade to a senior in high school. The classes would be taught in English and Danish, and the school had other international students besides him, although the vast majority were Danish nationals. Isaak tried to rebel and get out of going, but both Peter and his Mom were persuasive. They told him If he didn’t like it, he could always return home. Peter also raised some good points. He knew many of Isaak’s friends, some of whom were already smoking weed, and huffing paint. He had spoken to Isaak about distancing himself from these boys as they developed bad habits. Isaak agreed with Peter but thought four thousand miles away was a little extreme. Isaak knew he someday wanted to leave his village, but for California or Texas, not Europe.

After Isaak got settled into his dorm room, he had to go to orientation for a few days before classes started. The school had live-in students, and more than half of the students were day students who lived somewhere in the area and went home after school every day. The day before school began, Isaak met his roommate Felix. Felix didn’t have to attend orientation because he was a student there last year, orientation was only for newbies. Felix was a short boy with dark hair and fair skin. He seemed even shorter Isaak noticed because the Danish students were taller on average than students in the US. Isaak was five-foot-eight inches tall, which made him one of the taller students in his class in Alaska. Here he was only average height. Felix was quiet and stoic but very polite and seemed to put an extra effort to make sure Isaak was getting along in his new surroundings.

The school campus was beautiful and seemed very old. The buildings were made of stone or masonry and looked like they were built in stages. As the school grew, the campus grew along with it, Isaak thought. There were lush lawns and athletic fields. The school was also close to town, about a half-mile he guessed, and the live-in students could walk to town or use one of the community bicycles the school provided. There was a lot of freedom. Students could do practically anything they wanted after school. They just needed to be back on campus by nine PM on school nights and eleven PM on Friday and Saturday.

School started well, and while the studies were harder than what he was used to, he was able to keep up. He at first didn’t like the uniform of dark-colored slacks and a light-colored collared shirt covered by a blue sport coat with the Lund Skole logo on the right breast of the jacket. He soon grew to like the uniform because what to wear to school was one less thing to worry about. The dress for the girls was the same, although they could wear a dark skirt if they wanted, and their uniform was topped off with a blue Lund Skole sweater. Being surrounded by students who had good study habits helped him keep on track. He would hang out with Felix, and when Felix studied, he would also. The food was good there too. While he was unfamiliar with some of the dishes, they seemed to be of good quality, and not being a particularly fussy eater helped as well. When someone asked if Isaak wanted to try something, he would usually say yes unless it didn’t smell right. As a consequence, he began gaining some weight, which was a good thing because even after gaining a few pounds, Isaak was still pretty thin.

Isaak missed his Mom and Peter and life in Alaska but was pretty happy at his new school. He liked his new friends and gained some respect when their teacher Mr. Jepsen had heard that some of the boys in his class were calling Isaak an Eskimo and a whale killer. Isaak and most Sanhinga think the term Eskimo is derogatory. Not quite as bad as calling a black person the N-word, but not nice either. Isaak told Mr. Jepsen that he didn’t hear these insults, although he did, and said he thought if they were said, they weren’t said with malice. Mr. Jepsen was disappointed. It seemed that he wanted to have an investigation and bring the students up on charges for violating the school code. Isaak assured him that he didn’t hear anything. It seemed crazy to start trouble over something a ninth-grader would say because, at that age, kids will say just about anything to get a laugh or a reaction. None the less he made a mental note to watch what he said in the future.

4.

Of course, when things were going great, better than he could have dreamed, a load of garbage was about to be dumped on him. Isaak had a girlfriend, Liva Meller. She was tall and beautiful with short blonde hair and a crooked smile. Liva lived off-campus with her family. Isaak would often hang out with Liva after school, and they would hold hands and sometimes make out when no one was looking. They studied together and couldn’t be with each other enough. Both her parents seemed nice. Her brother Carl was a year older but shorter with a muscular build. He also had recently grudgingly accepted Isaak’s presence around his sister. Isaak had been worried about him. In the past, he gave Isaak dirty looks. Isaak was pretty sure Carl could beat his ass if it came down to it. Carl now just treated him with indifference, which was an improvement.

Peter had schooled Isaak on the Sanhinga legends and philosophy. One of the main lessons was about balance. When things are going great, prepare yourself for bad times. When times are bleak, keep hope that the weather will break and the sun will shine. The Sanhinga legends were usually about the weather, their sled dogs, and the animals they depended on for survival. The stories used those things as symbols to show a greater meaning. Isaak would often joke with Peter when he told another story about how the sun never shines on the same dog for long or some such thing. Peter would say to him that the stories were hundreds, sometimes thousands of years old, and were about what the people had at that time. The stories weren’t fatalist, though. Men had the power to change their outcomes through preparation. You could survive, even thrive, in the coldest Winter if you had correctly prepared. If you told the truth, were kind and fair with all others, good luck would follow you. If you ignored the Sanhinga ways, you invited misfortune.

One day in science class, Mr. Jepsen was lecturing about climate change and how Polar Bears would become extinct in Scandinavia if humans didn’t begin curtailing their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. One of Isaak’s classmates, Magnus, said that Isaak might have an opinion on this being that he was from an area where Polar Bears lived. Magnus was the kind of person who thought he was smarter than everyone else and would try to put other people down, often surreptitiously. In Isaak’s opinion, Magnus was a complete dick, and he knew that Magnus thought he would mumble and stammer when called on. Isaak decided to disappoint him. Isaak knew quite a bit about the Polar Bears and all other things Alaska, thanks to Peter. Mr. Jepsen then called on Isaak to see if he had anything to add. Isaak nodded in the affirmative and stood behind his desk, which was the custom for students when they were addressing the class.

Isaak began: It is silly to think that the Polar Bears will become extinct if it becomes warmer. They have been in the North long before humans were here. They have survived when the weather was much warmer than now and much colder than now. Sanhinga history shows that one thousand years ago, it was much warmer than it is now. It was called the time of the Caribou. Much of the ground that was usually covered with ice and snow almost all year was now uncovered. The Caribou could graze without having to travel hundreds of miles to find open land to feed upon. The Caribou herds became huge, and hunting them was easier for the Sanhinga. This time period was also sometimes