Spindlefish and Stars

by Christiane M. Andrews

  “Oh, where is it?” she pleaded to the empty room.

  She clutched the bedclothes to her. No, she could not feel anything in them. It wasn’t there. She lifted the mattress—nothing. She pushed aside the basin, the bowl. Nothing.

  Clo heard again the old woman talking to herself in the other room. “Sey, feihcsim… hcus a doog ssenekil ti si… sey, eh saw syawla detnelat… syawla gnipahser eht—” Clo threw open the door.

  The little woman was sitting at the table, her back to Clo, the piggish cat visible as flicking ears and tail hanging from either side of her lap. At the sound of the door, the woman jumped, her hands flattening on something in front of her, then clasping the something into the folds of her dress.

  But Clo saw.

  “That’s mine! That’s my father’s!” Her words were sharp.

  The woman stood and clutched the notebook against her bosom. Apple cheeks bright, she backed away from Clo. “Enim,” she whispered. “Ym—”

  Heat prickled all over Clo’s skin. “You can’t have that! You can’t take it! It’s mine. Not yours.” She rushed back into the chamber and pulled the painting off the wall. She tried to hand it to the old woman. “Here! Take this instead! Look at the jewels! The painting! Think how valuable this is! Those are just sketches you’re holding. Here!”

  Glancing only once at the painting, the old woman shook her head and gripped the notebook more tightly. Her jaw worked furiously, a vexed and vacant chewing.

  Flushed with anger, Clo attempted to wrest the book from her. “You cannot have this. It’s my father’s.… He gave it to me to… to hold… to keep safe.” She struggled with the old woman, who bent over the book, twisting her body away from Clo. Her grip was surprisingly strong. Clo tried to fit her fingers more tightly around the cover, to work it out of the woman’s hands. She did not want to hurt her, but she could not let her have her father’s book.

  “On!” the woman shrieked. “On!”

  Startled, Clo let go. The old woman scampered into the corner.

  “On.” Huddling over the book, she flipped open the cover. “Ym…” She slapped at an open page. “Ym… rethguad…” She ripped out the page.

  Clo gasped. “No!”

  The woman pressed the torn leaf against her chest. Through her fingers, Clo could see the sketch of the cloud-figure, the soft lines that carried the uncertain name Mother. The woman held out the leather book now for Clo to take.

  “What did you do?” Clo snatched the book out of the old woman’s hands. “How could you? My father’s work…”

  The old woman shook the paper at Clo, then tucked it into her bodice. “Ym rethguad.” She patted at the hidden page.

  “That’s my mother. I think… I think it’s my mother. My father’s drawing. My mother. Give it back. It’s all I—”

  The woman stretched her knobby fingers toward Clo but made no motion to return the drawing. “O, rethguaddnarg…” Her fingers landed lightly on Clo’s shoulder.

  “No!” Clo stepped away. “No! You’ve taken something from me. Something important. It wasn’t yours to take.” Her voice quivered; her eyes felt hot. After the bitter disappointment of no boat, after the endless gloom of sea and sky that never changed from gray, this loss was too much. “And I don’t know who you are, or what I’m doing here, and I don’t know when my father will come, or if he’ll come, but that drawing wasn’t yours. Isn’t yours.” Her voice hiccuped into a sob. “Give it back. Give it back!”

  The old woman’s face, its gentle folds, turned gradually severe as Clo spoke. She jutted her chin and pointed her finger, first at her bodice where she had tucked the paper, then at Clo. She jabbed and jabbed again, speaking haltingly but carefully a single measured word.

  “Mm… mi—mine.” Jab. The woman’s finger pushed against Clo’s breastbone. Swaying against the force, Clo stepped back in surprise.

  “Mm-mine,” the woman repeated.

  Jab.

  Jab.

  Jab.

  Clo backed first into the piggish cat, which snarled and scratched at her, then into a chair, which toppled behind her, then into the table, which finally blocked her way.

  “M-mine.” The woman put her hands on Clo’s shoulders.

  As the fingers gripped her bones, Clo understood the deep truth of the word. Somehow, in some way, she, Clo, wall-jumper, turnip-eater, water-watcher, belonged to this woman.

  “Mine.”

  CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

  DESCRIBING A DESCENT

  THE DAYS THAT PASSED, IF THEY COULD BE CALLED DAYS—after the woman had jabbed at Clo and called her mine—came to have their own routine. Clo would eat a bite of turnip and a hunk of cheese, then, when the last of the turnips were gone, just a hunk of cheese. She would watch out the window for boats. She would walk down the cliff and stand on the beach and watch for a boat. She would return. She would accept a mug of water from the old woman; she would catch the fish scales with her tongue. She would push the piggish cat from her bed. She would sleep. She would wake. She would eat a bite of cheese. She would watch again for a boat.

  There were certain things that were always. Always the pebbly shore. Its gray sky. Its empty sea. Its stony tidesman. Always gray. Always empty. Always still. But there were other things that were often, and still others that were only sometimes. Sometimes the little woman would bustle around the coals, stirring her shimmering stew. Often she was in her own room, muttering and thumping behind a locked door. Sometimes she would jabber at Clo and try to press a basket of fish or a bowl of the cold-smelling soup into her hands. Often she merely shook her head and let Clo come and go at will. Sometimes the old woman would pull a gem—a ruby or an emerald or a pearl—off the painting she had rehung on the wall and toss it to the cat to play with. Often the cat, overcome by its own gluttony, would swallow the gem and lie on its side, rowling piteously. Sometimes the boat Clo came to know as the fishing boat rounded the rocks beneath her window. Often only the waves lisped against the cliffs. Sometimes the vellum-skin man would come with a basket of fish and and sit slurping his meal at the table. Often no one knocked at the door at all. Sometimes the street would fill with the aged, murmuring villagers, pushing barrows and lugging baskets filled with fish and sea coal; often, only Clo’s footsteps echoed along the cobblestones.

  Sometimes Clo was reconciled to the uncertainty of her life on the island. To the absence of her father. To the necessity of waiting for the boat that would surely come. Most often she was not.

  Sometimes Clo walked to the pebbly shore alone. But sometimes Cary joined her—a mostly quiet but still comforting companion. A comfortable companion. He would sit behind her, humming soft little tunes or playing on his broken flute as she plipped handfuls of pebbles into the water. And because she was often unreconciled, often unhappy, sometimes even on the edge of despair, she found herself hoping—and hoping more and more earnestly—that she would see his moon-cheeked face peering at her from behind the rocks or hear his stuttering call, O-o—C-Clo!

  She had not, now, seen him for several days—or what she had come to think of as days, the time between sleeping and sleeping.

  She had tried looking for him, walking up and down the empty village street, but all the doors were closed, all the windows dark. Occasionally, she saw a lumpish figure peering at her from behind the glass, but none of them was Cary, and no one came to speak to her. She could find no other alley or passage or even corner where Cary might have gone: the street was blind, the cliff path the only exit.

  Finally giving up, she had spent what she might have called the entire morning—if there were times such as mornings here—picking her way up and down the cliff, looking to see if she had missed another set of stairs branching away, another track cut into the rocks, a path leading anywhere else on the island… another harbor, another village, anywhere, but no. Though she clambered onto every ledge and rock she saw, she found no other route: the stairs led nowhere but the beach; they rose nowhere but the town. The isl
and wall was too sheer to traverse.

  “Where is the port?” she muttered as she climbed. “Where is the harbor?” she murmured as she descended. She slapped the soles of her boots against the rocks with each word. “And where did you go?” she added under her breath, thinking of the blue-cheeked boy. There must be more to the island, she thought. There has to be.

  At last, though, as she picked her way up the cliff yet again, she heard a familiar trill echoing against the stones: Cary’s flute. Steps quickening, she followed the sound until she caught sight of him perched on a rock, swinging his feet, waiting for her.

  “Cary!” Despite the relief she felt on seeing him—relief she did not want to admit, even to herself—she spoke to him with anger that surprised even her. “Where have you been? Why haven’t I seen you in all these days… in all this… time? Where do you go? Why do you keep disappearing?”

  Cary’s smile faded in the heat of Clo’s words. He lowered his eyes and the hand he had raised in greeting. He tucked his flute into his pocket. “M—… I’m y-y—… s-sorry. I… th-th-thought you w—… we—… knew.”

  “Knew what?” By now, Clo understood that the more agitated Cary felt, the worse his speech became, and behind her anger, she felt the forming of guilt, but still she glared at him.

  “I p-ple—… h-help with the g-gn—… f-fishing b-boat, n-n… wh-when it sem—… c-comes in.”

  “And when is that, Cary? When do the fishermen come in? What day? Monday mornings? Thursday afternoons? On the full moon? When?”

  Cary’s mouth sputtered emptily. His shoulders slumped.

  “And when does the boat leave? When does it set out?” Clo felt all the uncertainty and frustration she had carried since arriving on the island bubbling up and spilling onto poor, wide-eyed Cary, but she could not stop herself. “I see the boat sometimes… and then I don’t. I see the fish! Oh yes, I see plenty of fish! Always fish! Endless fish! Pots and barrows and baskets of fish! But where’s the boat? Where does it go? Where do you go? Why are you here”—she pushed him lightly—“and then not? Not here.”

  The sound nnn had become stuck in Cary’s mouth. He huffed his lips and tongue around it but could get nothing out.

  Crossing her arms, Clo turned away. Far below, she could see the tidesman, standing as still as he always did, staring at the sea and sky, as empty and gray as they always were. “He’s always there,” she muttered. “Always. Always. Always. But you… just sometimes. You’re a sometimes.”

  “Nnnn—Clo!” The word exploded beside her.

  Cary, his cheeks two sunken moons, held out his palms helplessly. “I’m y—… sorry,” he said at last. “I know you’re gn—… hoping your father… I know how hard…” He trailed off, then added, “I waited for my r—… father for a long time, too. I remember waiting for him to come, and he didn’t. I was alone… and no one de—… helped—”

  Clo glanced at the boy. He was gazing at his feet, his lashes a dark fan against his cheeks. She did not like seeing how distressed he became as he told her how alone he had been. She did not like hearing how long he had waited… or that his father had never come. She did not want to consider that his fate might be her own—that a boat carrying her father might never arrive. But if it doesn’t come? she thought. If it doesn’t come? What then?

  “Can you show me?” Clo said, struck suddenly with an idea. “Can you show me the fishing boat? Do you know where it is?”

  “I…” Cary hesitated. “I don’t think I’m de—… supposed to. I don’t think they will let—”

  “Please, Cary. If I see where the boat is kept, maybe I can see where other boats come in… or learn where it goes.” Or learn how to leave the island, she thought. If her father did not come, she would have to leave to find him.

  “I don’t know.… The ne—… fishermen would be angry if they saw.…”

  “Please.” A note of desperation crept into her voice. “You said no one helped you. But this could help me.”

  Cary rubbed his brow, considering. “Well… there might… yes, I k—… think that could… yes…” He nodded, still unsure but pleased with himself. His chin dimpled with satisfaction. “Yes. Come with me.” He took Clo by the arm, pulling her back toward the town.

  “Shouldn’t we be going to the water?”

  “Yes,” Cary said, still leading them up the path.

  When they reached the opening in the cliff that marked the village entrance, he paused. He dropped Clo’s hand. He put his finger to his lips. “Shh.” He closed his eyes, listening, then, apparently satisfied, pointed. “T—… W-wait here.” He put his finger to his lips again before descending into the gap and stepping out of sight.

  Settling herself against the rocks, Clo listened as Cary’s footsteps grew distant. Then faintly, a door creaked… then silence. And more silence. The island was almost always silent. So little wind—nothing, really, to even make a noise; even the line of waves was too distant for its roaring to carry. The water that edged the island made only the gentlest lapping noise, a cat licking its paws, a sound that carried no farther than the shore.

  It took a long time for Cary’s footsteps to return, but when they did, they were stumbling and rushed. Clo heard his ragged breath before she saw him—a figure struggling under a web of heavy nets.

  Entangled, Cary tripped and tripped again, and as he reached her, he threw his nets down in clear frustration.

  “N—… o-on,” he panted, and tapped his shoulder. “I ev—… h-have to carry you.” Seeing Clo’s eyes widen, he waved his arm as though to pull her toward him. “They can’t see you. Y—… qu-quickly. If you want to see the boat, we dl—… sh-should go now, while the villagers are resting in their homes.”

  Clo looked skeptically over her wheezing companion, whose moony cheeks were lit with damp, but when he patted his shoulder more emphatically, she climbed gingerly up. She felt him steady himself under her piggybacked weight.

  “Now the st—… nets.” He reached and began pulling the nets up and over his back and Clo. “You must stay hidden. I don’t wo—… know what they would do if they saw you at the boat.”

  Clo tugged the nets over her. The ropes and knots weighed heavily. Though she gathered the folds up as best she could to keep them away from Cary’s feet, she could feel him already struggling to stand upright.

  “It’s too much weight,” she said.

  Cary was resolute. “I can carry you.”

  “I don’t… I don’t think this is a good idea. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Shh,” he said, beginning to walk toward the town. “Y—… St-stay quiet.”

  He lurched through the gap and down the street—a jerky step-pause-step-pause motion that threatened to turn to outright stumbling and falling at any moment. Nearing the end of the lane, he turned to one of the smaller structures. “Shh,” he cautioned again as they approached the door.

  It opened at his knock.

  Through the veil of nets, Clo could see one of the town’s crookbacked citizens. The lines across his anvil-shaped forehead lifted in surprise.

  “Yob…? Os ylrae?” came the muffled voice.

  Cary’s head bobbed. “Mmh-mmm.”

  “Retne…” The man stood aside.

  Under the nets, in the dim light, Clo could see almost nothing at first, but then she realized there was nothing to see: they were surrounded by stone. Ahead of them stretched a tunnel of darkness. Around her, only the sensation of damp and cold, a mineral smell.

  “Nretnal?” grunted the voice behind them.

  “On.” Cary shook his head and walked forward, bumping against the walls.

  “Llew, uoy wonk eht yaw…” A grunty laugh.

  As they moved away from the man and entered the tunnel, Cary’s gait grew more erratic; he swayed and lurched and gasped with each step. Clo realized with alarm that they were descending stairs. Every step felt like they were falling, plummeting forward into the darkness. Without meaning to, she gripped Cary more
tightly, and he made a strangled gargling noise under her arms.

  “T—… N-not so t-tight.”

  Clo moved her hands away from Cary’s neck and sank her fingers into his shoulders. Cary continued his unsteady descent, thumping first against one wall, then the other.

  “Only the fishermen come here,” he whispered. “No one de—… showed me until I had been here”—he huffed and panted—“very long… Se—… Ages.”

  “Doesn’t everyone here fish?”

  Cary shook his head. “Most. But some only collect sea coal for the se—… f-fires. Some only repair things—like baskets and swo—… barrows and nets. Everyone has a k—… task.” His words came with difficulty. Beneath her, Clo could feel his legs shaking.

  “Put me down,” she said into his ear.

  “En—… someone might see.”

  Shake. Step. Gasp. Lurch. The farther they descended, the stiller the air became: Clo could almost taste it, damp metal on her tongue. But then, she was sure she felt it, a light breath, a stirring, and with it, a few steps later, the darkness lifting.

  On the last few steps, a figure entered the stairwell. Cary clenched Clo’s legs.

  In the half-light, through the lines of the nets, Clo saw the vellum-skin man standing with a lantern and rope dangling from his hands.

  “Yob.”

  The man moved up the stairs, lifting his lantern at Cary. “Sten os ylrae? Lla deriaper?”

  “Sey,” Cary murmured. He halted, pressing his back against the wall. Clo squeezed his shoulders in complaint.

  The man fingered the nets. Clo held her breath, trying not to move. The man paused, peering at the knots, then held his lantern high, his eyes traveling up and over the net-covered boy. Clo could see the translucent skin that stretched over his nostrils quivering as he sniffed. She regretted now having asked Cary to show her the boat. She did not know what the parchment-skin man’s anger looked like, but she knew she did not want Cary to have to face it because of her.