Arch of Bone by Jane Yolen & Ruth Sanderson

Author:Jane Yolen & Ruth Sanderson [Yolen, Jane & Sanderson, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Action & Adventure, General, Survival Stories, Historical, United States, 19th Century
ISBN: 9781616963507
Google: V8UxzgEACAAJ
Amazon: 1616963506
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2021-11-09T08:00:00+00:00

The arch was farther away than Josiah had guessed, as if it was receding even as they walked toward it. As they got closer, what had seemed to be a reasonably sized church arch suddenly began to look like a great cathedral arch. Only it was not made of stone, like an ordinary church building, but of something shining, like a jewel.

As they got closer still, Josiah realized his mistake. It was not a bejeweled archway, but one made of bone. And not just any bone. A whale’s jawbone.

The jawbone arch reigned over the far side of the island all alone—except for a single small tree that had been twisted into odd, almost beautiful shapes by the prevailing winds and some scrubby bushes down by the waterside that might carry berries later in the season.

Josiah had no idea if the jawbone had come from a beached whale or a hunted whale; whether it had been stripped clean of its shield of skin and internal parts by the wind, by the sea, by birds or men, or by the hand of God himself. He couldn’t tell if it was an old arch of bone or new. He could only see that it was huge.

Leviathan was what the whale was called in the old Hebrew Testament. The beast. The one that had devoured Jonah.

Like all Nantucket boys, Josiah knew that most of the Atlantic whales had been wiped out for their blubber and oil. Whalers like his father and whaling ships like the Pequod now had to hunt in the Pacific, that other ocean far from tidy Nantucket.

He said to Zeke, “Maybe this was the last Atlantic whale? Maybe its jawbone was erected here by sailors as a memorial.”

Zeke gave a small wuff in response.

“Maybe the single fisherman whose shack keeps a lookout over the arch found the bones and set it up by himself.” Though given the size, he thought that highly unlikely.

Another wuff from Zeke.

“Maybe God set it there as a warning.” Josiah did not know what kind of warning it might be. He knew he might never know. That silenced him.

The dog fell silent, too.

Suddenly, Josiah began shaking, for the wind had picked up. And the sun was quickly hidden behind a bank of clouds. Plus, his head was aching again, possibly from hunger, possibly from his labors, possibly still from the blow from the boom. Plus, it had been a long walk up and over the hill.

He thought briefly of turning back, but the thought of doing this walk twice was more than he could bear.

Perhaps there is some shelter in the shadow of that great arch. It was enough of a hope to get him moving again, in a kind of shambling, tumbling manner, till he fetched up against the left-hand part of the arch and sank down with his back resting against the bone.

He felt a kind of hum from the bone arch that seemed to go through his entire body, soothing the ache in his head.

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