Black phase: a novel of Alaskan alchemy Item Type Other Authors Fannin, Addley C. Download date 03/10/2021 20:28:37 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/11122/7381 BLACK PHASE: A NOVEL OF ALASKAN ALCHEMY By Addley C. Fannin, B.A. A Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts In Northern Studies University of Alaska Fairbanks December 2016 APPROVED: Sine Anahita, Committee Co-Chair Gerri Brightwell, Committee Co-Chair James Ruppert, Committee Member Mary F. Ehrlander, Director Department of Arctic and Northern Studies i ABSTRACT Black Phase is a speculative fiction novel for a young adult audience, set in and around a fictional boarding school in modern-day southeast Alaska. Our protagonist is Mara Edenshaw, an ambitious young artist of Tlingit descent who survives a mysterious illness only to find herself the primary suspect in a string of bizarre vandalisms. Her search to clear her name leads her to Alvis Norling, a shy alchemist’s apprentice living on a nearby island with only his own creation for company: a doll-sized homunculus made from a combination his and Mara’s DNA. Thus Mara’s illness and the vandalisms proved to be linked and, as more clues arise connecting these events to the “sacred science” of alchemy, she and Alvis must work together to uncover the truth, which is intimately tied to the boarding school’s history as an assimilation tool under the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the secret atrocities that happened there in the name of science. Rooted in northern history, Alaska Native culture, traditional folklore and the lives of modern teens in the Last Frontier, Black Phase is appropriate for readers ages thirteen and up. ii AUTHOR’S NOTE Black Phase is a work of fiction, but the atrocities committed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ boarding school assimilation program were unfortunately very real. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, entire generations of Native American and Alaska Native children were removed from their parents, often by force, and made to attend boarding schools designed to “civilize” them through the destruction of the cultural identities. Children at these schools were harshly punished for speaking their native languages, forced to change their appearances, subjected to hard labor, and immersed in European-American culture in an active attempt to - as Captain Richard H. Pratt infamously said - “kill the Indian and save the man.” Later investigations also revealed extensive cases of sexual, physical, and mental abuse throughout these schools, some of which was federally sanctioned. Alaska Native schools in particular were occasionally subjected to government science experiments, such as exposure to the radioactive isotype iodine-131. These abuses and the associated attempts at complete cultural annihilation continue to reverberate through the Native people to this day. The modern-day boarding school featured in this novel is not one of those schools; it’s modeled on the real-life Mount Edgecumbe boarding school in Sitka. However, like MEH, Mount Vilna High has the BIA influence as part of its history, and the intergenerational trauma of the assimilation efforts has a distinct impact on its rural-born, mostly Native student population. The abuse of power, unethical experiments, and mistreatment of the student body that form the long-distant backstory of this adventure are fictional, fantastical exaggerations loosely drawn historical reality. In early drafts, Black Phase acknowledged this history directly, in part through a personal account from one of the now-grown students of the former school. However, as a white author, I soon came to feel that this was inappropriate. This is not my history, my culture, or my trauma, and thus I do not feel comfortable putting words in the mouths of the people to whom it rightfully belongs. It is, quite simply, not my story to tell. The historical influence remains in passing acknowledgements, fantastic metaphor and subtext. It is my belief that critical readers - yes, even teenage ones - should, would proper experience and direction, be able to draw parallels to the real-world events that inspired these elements. With any luck, they may even be inspired to pursue further research and seek out the first-hand accounts written by those to whom the story truly belongs. BLACK PHASE A Novel of Alaskan Alchemy By Addley C. Fannin PART ONE Fannin | BLACK PHASE | 1 CHAPTER ONE Sickbay smelled of vomit and antibacterials. Always. Mara scowled, holding the thermometer in her teeth so she could breathe around it. She ought to be used to this after two weeks, but the stench always seemed worse in exam rooms than in the main ward. The school nurse, Mrs. Elsa, didn't seem to notice. She sat by on her stool, calmly transcribing notes into Mara's file with her eyes nearly hidden in the folds of age. The watch at her wrist ticked on, counting seconds and heartbeats in equal measure. It was maddening. Finally, finally, the thermometer beeped. Mrs. Elsa plucked it from Mara's lips and held it to the fluorescent light as she adjusted her reading glasses. She smiled. "Ninety-eight point two. You're in the clear." "Yes!" Mara leapt from the exam table, the heels of her boots squeaking against the tiled floor. She grabbed for her coat -- denim and warm, covered in homemade formline-style patches held on by rattling safety pins - but Mrs. Elsa caught her arm before she could bolt for the door. Fannin | BLACK PHASE | 2 "Hold on," she said gently, drawing Mara back to her stool. "We need to be sure. Lift your head." Groaning, Mara did as she'd been told and allowed the elder to press driftwood fingers into her throat. Mrs. Elsa smiled, her gaze flickering between eye contact and the once-tender glands beneath her nails. "Have you caught up with your classes?" Mara shrugged, tallying assignments in her mind. Perhaps she'd skimped a bit on the math, but who cared? Pre-cal didn't matter in the long run. Not where she planned to go. "Ms. Applegate came by this morning. She seemed concerned about your latest sketches." Mara's hand twitched. "What about them?" "She says your style's changed. You worked in formline before, but not now." Mrs. Elsa settled back, drew the stethoscope from around her neck, and slipped its cold tip under Mara's shirt. "I remember your paintings from last year. Such a natural style, in the old craft. It would be a shame to lose that." "I'm not." Mara stared at her feet. The urge to go bursting into the world like a firecracker had dulled, leaving only a calm yet anxious quiet. Perhaps that's what Mrs. Elsa had wanted all along. "I'm experimenting, that's all." The nurse hummed, removing her stethoscope and setting it aside. "Well, you're symptom free. Should be safe to return you to the herd." Mara sighed in relief, hoisting on the familiar soft coat to cover her t-shirt and bare arms. Mrs. Elsa turned back to the file. Her bowed, ancient frame reminded Mara of her grandmother, crouched beside a roaring fire. Fannin | BLACK PHASE | 3 "Solomon asked to see you off. Be sure to wait for him." "Yes ma'am." Mara paused at the exam room door. She considered her impulse for a moment, then turned back. "Atigtalik?" Mrs. Elsa stilled, her pen hovering off the page. Atigtalik was her Inupiat name, the one that belonged to her mother's grandmother and her great-grandmother before that, the one that had been passed down through family lines long before white missionaries gave them new names. She'd offered it to Mara and her fellow Native boarders in their first week, to mitigate homesickness. In the two years since, Mara had used it only this once. She turned back, granting Mara another of those warm smiles. "Yes, dear?" "Gunalacheesh." The smile widened. Mrs. Elsa didn’t speak Lingit -- there weren't many left who could, even among Mara’s people -- but twenty years of tending to the Bush-born boarders of every tribe and clan in the state left the old Inuk with enough to get the gist. "Ilaali," she said, in her own language. You're welcome. "Now go on. Don't let me see you back here again." # # # # Mount Vilna High School hadn't always been a high school. It hadn't always been a school. In its first life, during the Second World War, it'd been a military base: a northern outpost of U.S. Navy, ready to defend the Alaskan islands against invasion by the Japanese. Fannin | BLACK PHASE | 4 Nowhere was this more obvious than in Sickbay, which hadn't seen a renovation in seventy-two years. It had cement floors and cinder block walls and exposed iron beams tarnished with rust. A dozen tiny windows -- welded shut and set high out of patients' reach -- let in the slightest light along the two long sides of the rectangular bunker that formed the main ward. Faded curtained dividers offered the illusion of privacy between wheeled metal beds. For two weeks, Mara had lived in the corner farthest from the front doors, unable to move from her bed for risk of infecting the school with an unknown plague. Finally free, she wasted no time. Pajamas and clothes went from a steamer trunk into her duffle bag, with get-well cards and a deflated balloon tucked alongside. The books on her nightstand went into her backpack. The textbooks were rentals, the novels from the library, and the few books that weren't either were still precious to her even though she no longer had to wait two months for a new delivery like she would back home.