by Tanith Lee
Beyond the wood was a stake, such as men use to burn a witch upon, but no proof of that burning remained now, no dead flesh or black bone.
It is hard to be rid of me, good people.
Tan
All afternoon she lay, her pale body soaking up the sun on the hill. It was July, and hot, and she had always tanned easily – when she could make time for it. Where sunlamps turned her yellow, genuine light dyed her golden.
She had been very careful to select a venue that was utterly private. No one lived inside six miles. The woods began at least one mile below. Here there wasn’t a tree or bush. Only the mat of flattened summer grass to lie in. She knotted up her hair as well, before slipping off her clothes. The tan had to be perfect. Tonight he was taking her to the special club, to drink champagne cocktails and dance. She had had the dress two weeks. It was sheer black, sleeveless yet fairly modest from the front, though fitting her closely. But the back dipped low. She had a good body, and he liked it a lot. When brown, (gold) she would shine.
The place – the hill – she had known about since her youth, all of five years before. She had come up there once or twice, driven in a boyfriend’s car. But others sometimes came there as well, then for different reasons. The hill was a favourite from which to spot UFOs. She herself didn’t believe in flying saucers, or if there were any, why on earth (ha!) would they come near earth? One of her evening companions on the hill did point out a moving light above. But she told him it must be a plane. After she had grown up and gone away to get rich in the city, she heard that on a cloudy November night, a strange fiery object had been seen falling on the hill top. The crash and flash, the local newspapers had reported, had been heard, felt and seen across ten counties. But when police, ambulance and fire crew finally made it up the hill, nothing was to be found. “It was as if,” one agitated witness later announced, “the doomed craft plunged straight through the fabric of the ground, alter-dimensionally leaving barely any evidence of its doubtless terminal descent.”
The hill, now designated the ‘Tomb of Unknown Friends from Another World’, had for a while been much SF-geeked over. But no longer. Indeed, people seemed now to avoid the place.
About two o’clock, satisfied with her frontal tones, she turned over onto her face. She knew that in this position she might fall asleep, so prudently set the alarm on her phone for four. By then she would be the cake that angels baked.
She wasn’t wrong about sleeping. After ten minutes she began to doze. She let go and slid down into a warm oblivion, where only once a peculiar dream half woke her, but afterwards she couldn’t really recall why. It had something to do with crying voices, she thought, when the alarm fully roused her. Voices – and someone reaching out to her. It was not a pleasant dream. It had a sort of edge of panic to it, a weird, ill-defined frisson of resentful anger, and pain.
She shook it off quickly, of course, and by the time she was down the hill and driving back to town, she had thoughts only for the way he was going to look at her when she showed herself to him in the new dress and the new tan.
He arrived a little too early. She liked his eagerness, but would have preferred she had been ready. Even so, a glimpse in the shower, before steam obscured it, had already shown her how beautifully her legs, breasts and arms had toasted. So she donned the dress and came out, and having seen his face, turned slowly around to show him the back of her. Though she hadn’t yet seen herself like this, she could well imagine. She anticipated his speechlessness, or extreme praise, perhaps even an interruption before she could finish her make-up. The one thing she did not expect was –
“Why are you laughing?” she demanded, spinning to confront him, startled and, well, frankly unnerved.
“God, you haven’t seen, have you? What did you do, fall asleep under a tree?”
“What – do you mean?” She stared at him. “Obviously I would never try to tan under a tree –”
Briskly – she had never liked his briskness – he directed her to return into the bedroom. “Get a mirror and take a look at your back. God!” He laughed again. “You’re dumb. Go on, go and see. And then change your bloody dress, for God’s sake.”
She went into the other room and slammed the door. She took off the dress and grabbed a hand mirror. Standing with her back to the long mirror on the wall, she looked to see what he had found fault with. Until that minute she was thinking he had either gone mad, or was winding her up because he secretly disliked her.
In the mirror then. In the mirror.
Her back was a canvas of flawless golden flesh, across which there spread, where the sun had been statically blocked off from her for two solid hours, a lattice-work of white, untanned skin. This clearly depicted a tangle of stretching, clawing, agonized, terrified and pleading, tiny little three-fingered hands.
Thuvia Made of Mars
(Spilt Milk)
I
I think the cat saw her first. Sybil had always been rather psychic.
Since we got together, she and I, Sybil and Alma, Alma and Sybil, then youngish independent bachelor girls, I’d now and then been aware that Sybil would notice something (or other) I couldn’t see at all. They always say it’s a tiny insect, don’t they, but no, it never was, and my own eyesight so far has always been pretty sharp. Actually, anyway, Sybil was unintentionally polite with insects, especially the little ones. Even birds, though they did interest her visually, she never pursued. I’m afraid she was a mouse-enthusiast. But she had her nights on the tiles back then, and so did I. She’d hunt, and also fight with every sparky male cat in the vicinity – always winning, too. And I, well I’d do something a little more male-friendly and relaxing, shall I say. But we both kept all that out of the flat. And then we moved into our Country House.
Sybil, by the time of the move, was getting on a bit. Me too. Years-wise I was in my latest forties, but Sybil, of course, at just over nineteen, was around ninety-eight. Where I’d thickened a little, and become a white-hot-furnace blonde, she had thinned a touch, and her dark tabby fur was a shade darker. Her eyes, which in youth were pale primrose, had intensified to a swarthy, piratical gold. I looked good. But Sybil had stayed stunning.
My unknown, never-met, just-deceased cousin had left me the house, out of the blue. Financially, it was a godsend, and otherwise rather nice, though not very big, (bigger though than the flat). It lay on the edge of a pleasant Kent town, and had an excellent if rather overgrown garden, with hilly woods around, hiding the convenient and not too active by-road that got me into ‘civilisation’ when needed. Also a gardener presented himself about a fortnight after we moved in. He had the illustrious name of Bellringer. An oldish guy, but hale and tanned and strong.
He had worked – if only about five times a year – on my cousin’s garden, and she had recommended him to the solicitor.
Sybil at once came up to give the gardener a check.
He too responded immediately. He bent and stroked her, ably and appreciatively. She gave a purr and winked at him. She only ever fought male cats, (still did if not prevented), not male humans.
The deal was struck, friendly, easy.
I found the grave in the garden after Bellringer’s first efficient mowing and shrub-tidying visit.
“Do you know anything about this?”
Bellringer gazed down at the tiny mound, with its equally miniature moss-greened stone.
“Mmm,” he said.
“Thuvia,” I said. “Was it a pet someone buried? That’s odd. I didn’t think my cousin had any.”
“No,” he said, “she didn’t. But it’s before her time. 1950’s, that is.”
Sybil by then had gone off on her own post-mow forage.
He and I stood mutely, and I had a horrible image – maybe this was the grave of a baby, unlawfully hidden here.
Bellringer seemed abruptly to sense my unease.
“There’s nothing in there,” he said, “that was ever living. A child put it there. A toy she loved.”
&n
bsp; Thuvia. I knew the name, couldn’t think.
Then it came to me.
Whatever had been buried under the rhododendron, was named for a character in one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ science fiction tales. Mostly renowned for his novels of Tarzan, Burroughs also penned some very engaging stuff set on the planet Mars, starring the redoubtable John Carter, and with wonderful female names such as Deja Thoris, or Thuvia, Maid of Mars. When young, in the ‘70’s, I’d read some and liked them a lot. But I’d also later heard the inevitable joke – Made replacing Maid. I’m afraid I laughed. I was a fan of the chocolate bars too.
Bellringer, though he’d seemed to strive to douse my uneasiness, now looked slightly embarrassed. So I changed the subject, asking him if he thought the apple tree might produce new fruit.
I hadn’t seen anything else unusual then. Although, as I say, I’m sure Sybil had.
Then I did see it - her. About two nights later.
In bed early after a really boring doing-the-chores day, I was fast asleep. Then woke up with a start. My alarm-clock showed 1.30 a.m., and Sybil, who generally lay curled up by me most of the nights, (as in fact she always had when both of us were in), was gone. I thought she’d sought the bowl of water on the upper landing, or her indoor ‘emergency’ litter tray. But then –
Oh my. Then.
What had I thought she’d been looking at before, those times in the long through-room downstairs, or the downstairs ‘office’, or cloakroom? Well certainly, something I couldn’t make out. And as I’ve already admitted, I’d never in the past seen whatever it was Sybil had ever stared at, following it with her formerly primrose (now pieces-of-eight-gold) eyes. Yet tonight, in our new hall, just outside the part-open bedroom door, darted a little – something. It was a bit under one and a half feet tall – about half a metre in modern language. For a second I did unsurprisingly perhaps, think it was another cat. But not a cat that moved on four paws. A cat running steadily on its two hind legs –
I’d had an impression of colour, too. White, and also darker, browner, a sort of dense honey shade. And blackness flying, a long banner of thick hair...
“Sybil!” I called, absurdly. Then, when she didn’t come back in, I got up, now wide awake, and went out into the narrow corridor that runs crossways here from the landing, with the four upper rooms and bathroom opening off it. No light was on, why should there be, but a clear, water-ice white three-quarter moon floated in the central back bedroom window, throwing down a shape like a transparent playing-card on the landing. And there sat Sybil, calm and watchful, and looking, her eyes moving to follow what she saw. Which was this small, dare I say elphin figure, with a honey tan and long white dress, and long black woolly curly hair, which apparition was trotting by her, and away into the shadows of my study.
I stood transfixed. As they say. Had I just seen one of the Fey Folk? A faery? Or was it – was it the tiny little Lilliputian ghost of a female being, in a white silky gown and wool hair and finely-textured knitted amber skin?
I wasn’t scared, I remember that. I was – excited. And also somehow a little ashamed, as if I’d just caught sight of a nice old woman as her bloomers fell off – Ridiculous analogy, but I can’t think of another that fits closely and correctly enough.
After another minute or two I pranced (Alma the clown) into the study and clicked on the light. Nothing. Of course.
Outside, on the landing, Sybil gave a chirrup, very like a soft knowing laugh. Then she entered the bathroom and used her litter tray, which as a rule she seldom did, preferring the great outdoors. Maybe her comment on my human crassness. Or just to show me that now the coast was clear.
“It’s good, this,” he said. “Lovely bit of cake. The wife used to make them, then she didn’t. Went over to the shop-bought stuff.”
“Well,” I said, “when I get the time, I like making them. Now and then, you know.”
I’d asked him into the quite roomy kitchen for a pot of proper black leaf tea, (no bags), in my green china pot, and a slice of the chocolate cake I’d baked for the genuine reason given above.
But obviously, I had an ulterior motive.
Meanwhile Sybil was outside, near the just-blossoming apple tree, sunning herself in a suddenly rich spring sun.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, pouring us each our second mug. “It’s about that – er – grave. Thuvia.”
He didn’t touch the new tea, for which he’d been reaching out. He looked at me with his large, intent brown eyes.
“It was a toy, you said,” said I.
“Yes. A doll.”
“A doll that was loved, and so buried. But why? Dolls don’t die.”
He looked down, and touched a crumb of chocolate left on his plate. As if, now, he couldn’t expect seconds, or even to finish the crumbs of the first.
“It did,” he said, “kind of. Die. In its own way.”
“Will you tell me?” I said. “You see she,” pointing out of the window at Madame Sybil asleep below the tree, “she sees it all over the house. And now I do. A little slim brown-skinned doll with long, long black curly wool hair, and a white gown. I hope you don’t think I’m lying.”
No hesitation now: “I don’t. I saw it once, too. Just the once. In the garden there. Thought it was a squirrel. Then I knew it never was.”
“What happened? I mean, to the doll when it was – alive.”
“Oh. What I heard, the kid, little girl, she loved the books, that Mr Burroughs’s Thuvia story. And so an auntie, she made her a Thuvia doll. A Martian Princesss.”
“A Martian doll!” I was a moment rapt with wonder. Well, how imaginative, how wonder-full.
“Kiddy loved her – the doll. And then, a few months after, kid’s in the kitchen, and there’s a big old pan of milk bubbling on the stove, and the darn pan breaks, kind of explodes. Nobody knows why. A great stream of scalding milk comes bursting out and hits the little girl in the face – only it doesn’t, because she’s holding Thuvia up to her face right then, kissing her, and telling her secrets, like they do. It’s the doll that gets boil-soaked and scalded – ruined, can’t repair it. The child just has this little burn on her shoulder, and a little one on her left hand. Marked her for years, but not serious. But if the dolly weren’t there, it had been her face, and blinded.”
A huge, soft, thick, glowing, heavy silence has filled the kitchen. Our tea is cooling in the mugs. The cake smiles mildly at its reflection in the green plate.
I think of what had almost been, and a sort of wrenching comes across my heart. Poor little child. Poor rescuing inadvertent doll...
“So her mum had the dolly buried, to help the kiddy with her grief, and the grave marked, too, and the kiddy used to put flowers on the grave. Till she was grown. And then she married and moved away. By then their father was dead. And the mother went to London to be with her other daughter. And your cousin took the house. She never saw any – well, nothing. But me, just the once – it was way back, just after my missus told me the story, I didn’t work here in those days, just as I was passing, and something made me stop.”
“What did you see, Mr Bellringer?”
“Call me Sid,” he said. And then, “I saw her up a tree by a window. The dolly. It was just on twilight. When the shadows come. And there she was. This little scrap of a thing, golden Martian skin and long dark hair and her white princess dress. And her eyes. I could see them shine, like dark glass.”
“Which window? Where?”
“Upstairs. Bedroom maybe.”
“What else did she – the doll – Thuvia – what else did she...?”
“Nothing. She just seemed a bit sad, well, she’d be lonely. And then, she was gone.”
You could imagine it, I suppose. Her ghost left here all alone. Maybe the child even forgot Thuvia, when grown up, and fallen in love with a real live human being. Not meaning to be cruel. Maybe even she said goodbye to the grave. (I remember the grave of my mother. I hardly went there. I loved her, and for me s
he wasn’t in any grave. But Thuvia –)
I thought of Thuvia wandering through the garden, then getting into the house. And my highly practical cousin thumping about. (I had heard tales of her. I shouldn’t be ungracious, and I’m madly grateful, she left me the house!) But the little ghost doll. All alone. Forever, maybe, because how long does ghostness last? Is it a sort of apprenticeship for the next life, or for another life here – only for a doll – God knows. Poor little doll. At least, as a ghost, she was dollishly still pretty, and well-dressed. Not a hint of the bloody awful exploding milk.
(I asked Sid Bellringer to call me Alma that afternoon. My mother named me after Alma Cogan, a charming and fun singer on the then-Light programme.
After that, Afternoon Tea, and Morning Coffee became a habit between us, depending on the time of day he was there. Before he’d just had tea-bag tea in a mug with some biscuits in the garden. I confess, I didn’t always bake cakes though, only if in the mood.
He was, is, interesting. He knows so much about plants and gardens both obscure and famous, and about people, too. And places, other countries, cities... His wife, who sounds like a woman I’d have got on with, died eight years ago. That’s sad, but it seems they were happy while they could be, and emotionally very close – ‘never apart’. I never had a relationship like that, but I never aimed for one. I’m envious, but relieved.
Except, of course, with Sybil, my feline sister-in-arms. Always together, when not on our own business. Longest relationship in my life, that one.
And Sybil was very keen on Sid. She’d sit on his lap and purr. What a flirt.
But all this is, at least partly, beside the point.)