Spindlefish and Stars

by Christiane M. Andrews

  “Doog,” the man said at last. “Ylrae. Doog.”

  Clo felt Cary exhale beneath her. For a moment, he waited as the man moved beyond them and up the stairs, the lantern sending shadows careening against the walls. Then Cary rushed down the remaining steps—gasplurchshakestep—practically falling, until they came to the end.

  Bursting into the chamber, dropping Clo and the nets into a bundle on the floor, Cary collapsed in a gasping heap.

  CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

  IN WHICH A STONE STANDS IN PLACE OF A FISH

  UNDER THE VEIL OF NETS, CLO COULD SEE ONLY CARY’S cheeks ballooning and deflating with each heavy breath. The stone beneath her was damp and cold, and she squirmed in discomfort. Cary pressed his hand against her netted form.

  “Shh. Ti—… wa-wait,” he whispered. He stood, resting his hands on his knees, still breathing heavily, then rising tall. He looked around. “Oollah!” he called. His voice echoed oollah, oollah, oollah.

  Silence.

  “Er—… We-we’re alone.” He lifted some of the nets off Clo. “You don’t need to hi-hide.”

  Clo, working to free herself, at first noticed nothing but the tangle of knots that had wrapped around her legs. But when she at last looked up, she gasped, scrabbling backward. A wooden giantess, clutching two wretched wooden babes—naked angry boys—bobbed up and down over Cary’s shoulder.

  The boat! she realized after a moment’s disorientation. It was the boat, the ship she had seen from her window. The woman hanging over her was its artful figurehead. She reached a hand toward the giantess but succeeded only in touching the dangling toe of one of the sour-faced babes.

  The carving adorned an otherwise austere long, slim vessel with a single mast and a row of holes along its side. It was docked and resting… Clo glanced around. Where were they? Here, there was just a narrow path of water—hardly wider than the boat. Above them, the rock walls rose dark and straight and sheer; beyond, following the path of the water, Clo could just see gray light opening up. A cavern, a crack in the island. Yes, that was all it was.

  Cary, bundling the nets onto his back again, nodded at Clo. “See… y-you see? Yl—… Only the fishing boat. Nothing else. No other boats.”

  As the boat bobbed there, gently, almost imperceptibly rising and falling, its sides showed the scuffs and scratches it had received tethered in its rocky port. Clo stared at these marks, listening to the pinched noise of wood rubbing against rock. No boat, no boat, it seemed to squeak, and Clo knew this was true: no other boat could navigate here… or even likely find this narrow inlet.

  Walking to the front of the cavern, she peered out, finding nothing but the same wide, empty expanse that greeted her on the other side of the island. Nothing but gray sky and gray water on and on and on. She leaned as far around the opening as she could and saw only the sheer walls of the cliff and deep water below. Her heart sank. No other port. No other boat. Nowhere to go.

  Clo turned, pretending to examine the toe of one of the wailing wooden infants to hide her disappointment. “Where does this boat go?”

  “I t—… don’t know.”

  “Don’t you sail on it? Don’t you help the fishermen?”

  “Never. Only here. With nets. I help repair them. And with the h—… c-catch—I help unload it. But I am gn—… tr-training to be a net boy. When I’m a net boy, then I’ll go on the boat.”

  “Net boy?”

  Cary smiled—perhaps the widest smile Clo had ever seen on the damp-haired boy. “Yes!” His head gave a happy wobble. “Yes! Em—… come see!” Nets still bundled in his arms, he hurried around the boat, walking quickly along the lip of rock that edged the water. Clo followed.

  The rocks on the other side of the boat were crowded with fishing paraphernalia: nets and baskets and oars and rods were stacked in neat piles by the vessel. Lowering his own armful, Cary searched through a stack of rods and removed one with a wide mesh basket on its end. He held it up triumphantly.

  “This is mine.” He twirled it through the air. “I’m g—… le-learning to use it. The ne—… fishermen say I am nearly ready to join them.”

  Cary swooshed the net above Clo’s head. She watched his maneuvers skeptically.

  “Is there very much to learn?” she asked at last. “Isn’t it… really, I mean, as easy as”—she pointed to the water in front of the boat—“net in water, fish in net, net out of water?”

  Cary halted his acrobatics, his smile fading. “No.” He looked hurt. “No. Fish are heavy and hard to lift. And boats are hard to ec—… ba-balance on. And water… it st—… di-distorts things. Nothing is where you think it is. The others, they’ve always fished. But I haven’t. They say I am the first they’ve ever taught. I must study if I want to n—… j-join them.”

  “What do you mean always? They must have learned, too,” Clo said, but Cary, sorting through one of the piles, shook his head.

  “Always,” he said again. Turning, he handed Clo a pole and net. “Here.” He knelt and lifted a large rock. Moving to the front of the boat, he raised the rock above the water. “N—… c-can you catch this?”

  Clo nodded. “I think so.” Net raised, she took a spot beside Cary.

  “Ready?”

  At Clo’s nod, Cary dropped the rock, its splash echoing through the cave. Swooping with the basket after the stone spinning through the dark water, Clo felt an unexpected drag as the mesh went under. Even so, pulling hard, she thought she had moved the net under its path. When she lifted her pole, though, she had caught nothing.

  Cary took the net from her and handed her another large stone in return. “N-now you.”

  Clo tossed the rock. Cary stood a long moment, watching it pirouette through the darkness. Then, when it had fallen almost entirely out of sight, his net flashed, struck, returned with the dripping stone. He held it above the water, the pole curving under the weight, and expertly flicked the stone behind them. It clattered to the floor.

  Clo nodded. “You are good.” In truth, she wasn’t sure how much skill he had demonstrated, but Cary blushed at her praise and looked pleased. She did not think she had ever seen his cheeks so bright and round: she liked seeing him this happy.

  “I’ve de—… p-practiced a long time. A very long time. I like to see how many I can catch at once—how heavy I can make the net. Or how deep I can let the stone fall before I catch it. I like to come here”—he tossed another rock in the water—“when I’ve f-finished my net repairs. When the fishermen aren’t here… it’s te—… qu-quiet.”

  The whole island is quiet, Clo thought, but she felt she understood. “My garden is quiet,” she said. “When I’ve had a garden. At least, it seems that way. There’s weeds and rocks and the soil is hard, but other voices, the townspeople, they don’t seem so loud there.”

  “Garden…,” Cary mused. “I don’t… I don’t kn—… th-think I remember gardens.”

  Clo watched Cary snap another rescued rock over his shoulder. “Did you ever fish”—she hesitated, not sure how to say the next word—“ before?”

  Cary’s moons drooped so that Clo regretted asking. Still, he tried to answer.

  “I remember, I seem to remember a little, before… I think I used to fish before… with my re—… fa-father. I think I remember… an ocean… and maybe sk—… h-hooks. I think I remember… lines and hooks and pulling up fish one at a time.” Cary swooped to catch another rock from the deep. “The net is harder, I think.”

  “My father can catch fish with his bare hands,” Clo offered.

  “He can?”

  “Yes. Sometimes, when we’re traveling, if we pass a stream, he’ll lie on his belly on the bank and hold his hands in the water until he feels a fish tickle his fingers. And then he’ll grab it, like this”—Clo made a grabbing motion—“and bring it up, and we’ll scale it and gut it and roast it on a spit over the fire.”

  “You traveled with your father?”

  “All over.” Clo nodded. “From village to village t
o village. We never stay long. My father… he cleans things. And sometimes”—Clo hesitated—“sometimes he steals things.” Cheeks burning, she glanced at Cary, but if he was surprised or appalled, he did not show it. “Just food, usually. And sometimes… paintings. I think… I think he used to be an artist,” she added after a moment. “But… something happened.” She shook her head. “He’s not an artist any longer.”

  “Traveling.” Cary sighed and spun his net. “You must ev—… ha-have met so many people.”

  “Well…” Clo paused, realizing her answer would sound strange. “Not people, no. My father… he feels it is safer to keep a bit… apart. To not tempt fate. And he… he does not look well, so people… they keep apart from us, too…” Clo trailed off, surprised at her own last words. This was true. Had she known this? Had she ever admitted this to herself?

  Cary’s eyes widened. “Still, traveling, you must have seen so many things. You must have so many memories. I wish I had memories like these.”

  “Yes, memories.” Clo heard her own voice beginning to tremble. “Traveling.” Closing her eyes, she could see her father tramping beside her through dew-soaked fields and pine-dry forests. She could sense his swaying step beside her own. She could see him sitting next to her, warming their dinner over a fire as the sun sank behind the trees. She could hear his voice—Once, Clo, there was a spider who longed to have wings like a moth—telling stories as the stars came out one by one in the darkening sky and the nightjar churred and trilled in the shadows.

  Her chest felt hot. The boat squeaked again against the rocks, No boat, no boat.

  “You must miss him,” Cary said, watching her.

  “Mm.” Looking away, Clo rubbed her palm over her eyes, then gestured to the net to change the subject. “Why don’t you”—she cleared her throat—“why don’t you practice with fish?”

  “Dead fish?”

  “Live fish.”

  “Da—… in-instead of rocks?”

  Clo nodded. “Here, even. There must be fish in the water here, by the boat. Or at the shore by the tidesman. They don’t just fall or hang like dead weight; they swim, they flop about.”

  “N-no fish.” Cary returned his pole to its pile.

  “They don’t allow you to practice with fish?”

  “There are no fish.”

  Clo laughed, a small surprised ha!, but Cary didn’t laugh with her.

  She gaped at him. “No fish? That’s all there is here! That’s the only thing there is here! There’s fish enough for all the world here! Everywhere I look—baskets and barrows and cauldrons of fish!”

  “No.” Cary shook his head. “To—… n-not here. Think. In all the time ev—… y-you’ve sat on the shore, have you ever seen a fi-fish?”

  “But…,” Clo trailed off, considering. It was true. In all the hours she had spent staring at the water, never had she seen a fish.

  She thought of how her father caught fish barehanded, how on their journeys, they would hear the fish in the water slapping their fins or see them leaping briefly out of their silver pools. How even she, Clo, infrequent and reluctant bather, sitting in the edge of a shallow pool, would find her toes nibbled by little minnows or her legs tickled by the brush of larger fins.

  Fish were not usually so hard to see. She lay down on her stomach, staring into the watery pass. There should be some movement. Some flash. Some life.

  The water was clear. She could see, far, far below, the rocks that shaped the bottom.

  The water was dark and empty.

  Beside her, the boat, with its wooden figurehead and mewling wooden babes, rose and fell, a gentle squeaking.

  No boat, no boat, said the boat against the rocks that hemmed it in.

  No fish, no fish, whispered the rocks that rubbed against the boat.

  “Where are all the fish?” She turned to Cary. “They fill baskets and barrows and cauldrons full of fish—where are the fish?”

  Cary’s mouth opened and closed, an empty gulping that plainly said, I don’t know, I don’t know. “T—… N-not here,” he said at last.

  CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH

  IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SQUISHING, AND THE SQUEAMISH READER IS ADVISED TO LOOK AWAY

  RETURNING, CARY DID NOT TAKE CLO ALL THE WAY UP the dark stairs on his back; only when they approached the top did he have her climb into a basket and drape a net over her. This time, the anvil-faced man had merely grunted “Erom sriaper?” over Cary’s load, and Cary only had needed to nod his assent. Wobbling, weaving, he carried Clo through the village and deposited her just outside.

  During the entire walk, first trudging behind Cary on the stairs, then being knocked about in the basket, Clo had been silent, but now, standing on the cliff path, she felt like a pot beginning to boil: question after bubbling question rising and steaming. She wondered aloud at the whereabouts of the fish—Where do they catch the fish?—and at the vast quantity of fish—Why do they catch so many fish?—for so few island inhabitants. She wondered if the fishermen traded with other islands or with a mainland—Is there a port? Do they sell their catch? She wondered why Cary, the boy who had been fished out of the sea, had been trained to be a net boy and whether he might soon go on the boat, and whether she, Clo, wall-jumper, cheese-eater, father-seeker, might be allowed on the boat as well. She wondered whether, if she was allowed on the boat, she might find her way off this island and back to her father—Can we leave on the boat? Can we leave the island? Can we LEAVE?

  Cary, with damp hair and damper cheeks, listened patiently, catching his breath, as Clo burbled away. When at last she finished, he shook his head, seeing at once that, for Clo, there was really only one question that mattered.

  “Clo, I’m sorry. I don’t know… I don’t know er—… wh-where the boat goes or where the fish are or if they ll—… sell fish somewhere else.… They don’t tell me these things. They don’t say much to me at all—that’s not how they are. But I know they will re—… n-never, never allow you on the boat. You are not a fisherman.”

  Clo felt suddenly as though the sun that never shone through the island’s perpetually gray skies must somehow be inside her, so inflamed was she at the notion that she could not go on the boat, though she had, in truth, no desire to ever, ever spend her days as a fisherman and only wanted the opportunity to go on the boat and find her way off the island and to her father again.

  “I can’t go on the boat because I’m not a fisherman?”

  Cary shrank under her gaze. “No. You t—… c-can’t. They say you’re not.”

  “They say I’m not? Who says I’m not?”

  “The other fishermen.”

  “I can learn as well as you. I’m as strong as you. I can train just like you to go on the boat.”

  “No—”

  “I’ve jumped over walls and walked over mountains and found my way through forests and swamps, but I can’t go on the boat because I’m not a fisherman?”

  “No, you—” Cary began, but Clo, her face hardening, had turned away from him and begun striding back toward the village.

  “Clo!” Cary hurried after her, pulling the basket behind him. “Clo! I think you can. I kn—… th-think you’re stronger and smarter than I am. You’re better than a f-fisherman. But they say… Clo! Clo!”

  Clo had reached the doorway to the old woman’s house. At the far end of the street, Cary was still calling after her.

  “Clo! The fish—all the fish—they’re all for you! Everything, everything on the d—… i-island is for you! Is done for you! For you and the—”

  Clo pulled the door shut on his echoing words. She couldn’t go on the boat? She couldn’t leave the island? The fish—the mounds and baskets and buckets of fish—were for her?

  Inside, the apple-faced woman was, as usual, standing near the coals, stirring her always-simmering pot of soup. Of course. Of course the woman was stirring her fish. Fish, always, always fish.

  Hearing Clo enter, the woman smiled, ladled a bowl, and held it out
to her.

  “No.” Clo shook her head.

  “Sey.” Still smiling.

  “No.”

  “Sey.” The bowl again, but without a smile.

  “No!” Clo nudged the woman’s hand away.

  “Sey!” The bowl in front of Clo’s lips.

  “No! I don’t want it!” Clo knocked the bowl away, a violent push. It flew from the woman’s hand, falling, clattering, the liquid rising in a silver arc across the room, the cat springing into action and crouching, growling, over the spill, licking up the puddles and sucking up the fishy pieces in quick greed.

  “I don’t want any fish. No fish!” Clo stared defiantly at the old woman, who had bent to retrieve the bowl.

  But when the woman rose, the lines on her apple face twisted with anger, Clo knew she had gone too far.

  “Uoy!” the woman bellowed. “Tis!” Taking Clo by the shoulders, she pushed her into a chair. “Tis, lufetargnu dlihc!”

  Clo sat, expecting the bowl of fish stew to appear again in front of her, to perhaps be fed spoon by dreaded spoon as an unhappy baby is fed by its parent. But the woman tossed the bowl aside.

  “Eht gnidrac.” She yanked a large basket of fish next to Clo’s chair. “Ruoy krow.”

  Clo stared at the glittering heap of silver fish, all still and staring at her with their black eyes. Glancing at the old woman, she knew refusal would invite greater fury.

  “Should I scale them? Gut them?” This she knew how to do. Picking up a knife from the table and a fish from the basket, she ran the blade down the center of the fish, tail to head, opening it up to reveal its innards.

  “On, on, on!” the woman cried, removing the knife from Clo’s hand. “Eht gnidrac.” She thrust two spike-riddled wooden paddles at Clo.

  Clo looked from the fish to the paddles to the old woman in confusion. The flat wood paddles with tiny burrlike spikes, Clo knew, were meant for sheep’s wool, for cleaning and combing fiber, for carding it, untangling it, readying it for spinning. Though she had never had a mother to teach her how to work with wool—never known the cloudlike woman her father had sketched spinning for Clothilde, who could have taught her these things—she had seen countless villagers, settled in sunny doorways, wiping such paddles across each other, pulling pale tufts of fiber into finer and finer wisps.