Spindlefish and Stars

by Christiane M. Andrews

  Could she?

  Without giving herself a chance to reconsider, Clo lifted herself onto the ledge and swung out her body. Clinging to the window frame, tiny shards of glass pressing into her belly and arms, she lowered herself out. She shivered against the coldness of the stone and the height of the drop below. Her arms burned against the weight they were being asked to hold. Trying to keep her eyes only on the stone around her and not on the water below, she scanned the wall for ledges, outcroppings, cracks. Any place to hold, to rest, any place for her fingers, toes.

  There. And there.

  Her feet found a fissure.

  And there—a place to grab.

  Another.

  Another.

  Slowly, slowly, slowly, Clo moved away from the window, down the cliff.

  Step, grab. Step, grab.

  She kept her eyes on the wall around her. A universe of rock.

  Reach. Grab. Step. Hold.

  Over and over.

  Reach, grab, step, hold.

  Over and over and over.

  More than once, as she stepped into a small gap, the rock crumbled beneath her foot, and she felt herself begin to fall. She grabbed desperately; she clung to the rock, feet scrabbling for a hold. Then, rebalanced, she began again: reach, reach, reach.

  Slowly, slowly, still not looking down, not looking up, aware only of the immensity of the cliff, Clo made her way. She felt her leggings, her tunic, her boots begin to fray and rip as they scraped against the rock. Far below, under her own ragged breaths, she could hear the gentle splash of the water. It grew steadily as she descended.

  Reach.

  Slosh.

  Reach.

  Slosh.

  It was not a comforting sound. Clo had had no other thought but escaping the old woman and her fish-wool, no other thought but finding her way to the inlet, the cavern, the boat. She had not considered the water.

  Cannot swim, splashed the water.

  Cannot swim.

  Cannot. Swim.

  Body pressed against the rock, fingers hot against the stone, Clo thought of the morning this had all begun. How she had sat beneath the trees and waited for her father, how he had not come, how she had listened for the tower bells, how she had watched an emerald beetle climb into the leafy canopy overhead, how leaf and green and father now seemed so far away that a sob burst from her, echoed once against the cliff, and fell away.

  Her fingers ached with holding. She ached with holding.

  Reach.

  Grab.

  Step.

  Hold.

  Hold.

  Hold.

  Gray wall. Gray water.

  Clo pressed her cheek against the stone.

  There was nowhere to go.

  She closed her eyes. Resting against the rock, she listened to her breath slowing. Her heart beat in time to the water that awaited her.

  Little splashes, steady sloshings. Cannot. Swim. Cannot. Swim.

  Then she heard it.

  Something thrummed beneath the sibilant slip of water against rock. A cavernous sound, something vast and deep and rolling.

  Clo craned her neck trying to see. Below, she could just begin to make out the faint ripples, gray wrinkles, that marked the soft movements of the water. The slosh, slosh, slosh. She looked back up at the face of the cliff, the monolith that towered over her, its height stark and silent. No. She listened again for the deeper sound.

  Where was it?

  It was gone.

  As she leaned back into the cliff, the bass thrumming rose again to meet her. There! She pressed her ear against the rock. Yes, she could hear it, she could feel it; it was in the stones, beneath the stones. The cavern, she must be near it.

  She cast about, looking for a way into the rock: there must be a way in.

  She crept down, listening carefully for the heavier thrumming. She wondered if it was the echoing noise of the boat rubbing as it had before against the stones.

  Reach.

  Grab.

  Step.

  Hold.

  Listen.

  Reach.

  Grab.

  Step.

  Hold.

  Listen.

  The sound grew louder. She was moving crablike now across the face of the cliff, sideways above the splashing lip of water. All at once, as she reached, looking for another place to hold, her hand touched empty air, air heavier and cooler than what surrounded her. She scuttled, scuttled again.

  She had found the cavern opening.

  CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH

  IN WHICH OUR HERO DIES

  CAREFULLY, CAREFULLY, CLO LOWERED HERSELF NEXT to the opening of the cavern. There, at the edge, she found a small lip of stone, just wide enough to stand on.

  For a long while, she simply rested on this ledge gratefully, all the muscles in her arms and legs and hands shaking from the strain they had been asked to bear. Next to her, the deep thrumming sounded from the opening.

  When she had at last caught her breath and felt she could again control her arms and legs, she pressed herself against the wall and began to edge herself into the opening.

  Darkness. A colder, damper air.

  The gray light over the ocean vanished as soon as it entered the gloom of the cave. She could see nothing, but she knew if she could maneuver deep enough into the cavern, there would be room to walk. And light, too, she thought. Before, there was light enough to see. She thought of the boat rubbing against its stony mooring. She thought of how she would sneak onto the deck and hide herself away under a basket or barrel, how she would spring free the moment the boat made port somewhere. She thought of Cary, practicing with his net, tossing stones, catching stones.

  Net boy.

  She almost smiled.

  In the darkness, beneath the gentle slap-slap of the water on the rocks, she heard the thrumming again. It did not sound like the boat scraping against the rocks.

  It felt like music… was it music?

  A deep and ancient humming.

  Or something rolling. Spinning.

  She made her way, shuffling into the deeper blackness, searching with her feet along the wet ledge. Where was the boat? Where were the baskets, the nets? Where was Cary, practicing with his rocks?

  This was not, she began to realize, the cavern where the fishing boat was moored.

  She clambered, groping in the dark, over a sharp tumble of stones. Hand on the wall, she felt her way farther into the darkness.

  Where was she?

  Just darkness. And cold. The slapping of waves against the walls.

  And the music again. Droning.

  And…

  No, it could not be.

  It was.

  Blinding… suddenly…

  beneath her.

  Clo felt for the stones around her. Was she standing? Falling?

  She could scarcely breathe. The droning. The turning.

  It was…

  light…

  light and…

  … Ah!

  The universe had opened beneath her.

  Stars, thousands upon thousands upon millions of stars, in the water below. Galaxies, their white arms open, spinning, burning. Lights sparking, gleaming, exploding, extinguishing, and clouds frothing and spilling out into the darkness, growing dim, glowing brighter, growing dim, glowing brighter, again and again and again. The whole brilliant cosmos, hemmed in by the rocks of the grotto now washed in milky light, groaned and hummed and turned, and the little waves lapped at the edges of the stones.

  Clo pressed herself into the rocks behind her. She could not catch her breath.

  It was beautiful. And terrible.

  Beautiful.

  How long she stood marveling, she could not say. Aeons were unfolding in the watery cosmos below. Above her, beside her, on the walls and ceiling of the cave, the stars flickered and cast their own shadows.

  Mesmerized by the motion, the slow groaning revolution of the whole, the churning of its smaller forms, she knelt o
ver the starry pool watching stars and galaxies flare into life, burn, and die away. She felt she herself might be falling through this darkness and its unspooling threads of light. Pinpricks rose to the surface, glinted, sank again. A star burbled up right beneath her. Without thinking, she reached: her hand darted into the water—Cold! Blistering cold!—and she had it.

  A star. A little orb of light.

  It burned in her palm.

  It was not a star.

  Surprised, Clo grasped, but too late: it slipped through her fingers, flickered in the water, and was gone.

  She grabbed again at the surface—The cold! The cold!—but now that she was trying, she could not catch one, and her motions roiled the water and the clouds of billowing light.

  She sat back on her heels, forcing herself to wait. The stars rose, sparked, disappeared.

  And there!

  She had it.

  Clo closed her palms around it, and the light glowed through her fingers.

  It was wiggling, desperately flapping, trying to free itself.

  It was a star.

  It was not a star.

  It was a fish.

  Little silver black-eyed fish.

  Fish!

  Fish!

  Fish!

  Clo stared at the creature. Its black eyes stared back at her. It breathed erratically in her hand, its gills shivering open. Its scales shimmered with its own silver light and the light of the stars burning and flickering in the pool beneath it. Clo opened her palm.

  The fish splashed into the water, a little orb of light once again, and sank, falling into the motion of the galaxies.

  Cary’s words came back to her. The fish—all the fish—they’re all for you!

  The cosmos turned and groaned in the grotto.

  Fish-spinner?

  Clo stood, dizzy.

  Star-spinner?

  With the noise of the universe spinning beneath her and the fearful roaring happening in her own mind, she almost did not hear the boat arriving. But over the din, she suddenly became aware of a regular splashing: sails down, oars out, the fishing boat was entering the grotto.

  Half lit by stars, it rounded the corner into the chamber.

  The vellum-skin man was standing in the prow. “Sten tuo!” he cried.

  The boat was moving past her, almost close enough for her to touch. Clo pressed herself into the rocks, desperate not to be seen, but the fishermen on the deck were readying their long-poled nets. Eyes on the star-filled waters, they did not notice her in the shadows.

  “Ydaer sevlesruoy!” the vellum-skin man called again.

  The poles swung out over the edge of the boat.

  “Dna won!” the man cried. The men swooped their nets into the grotto pool. The water roiled with the motion, and the cave echoed with splashing and the shouts of the fishermen. Clo watched, mesmerized, as they lifted nets bulging and blazing with stars and tossed piles of silvery fish onto the deck of the ship. Over and over, the nets swooped and lifted light and flung and emptied fish.

  “Niaga!” the vellum-skin man commanded from the prow, but Clo heard only “Nia—” before a net, sweeping down into the water, caught her and knocked her into the deep.

  For a second, an instant underwater, Clo’s hand grazed the rocks that marked the edge, and she grabbed frantically, thinking she could pull herself out. But she was dragged away… away and under… the water swept and closed over her.

  She was sinking. Falling. Not breathing. The cold, the cold! The cold pressed into her bones, was as cold and white and hard as bones, and airless, airless, she was sinking, falling… she flailed, still falling… stars, galaxies, gleaming clouds slipped past her… so far from her… she reached, flailed, still falling… airless…

  Far, far above, stars flickered and spun and burned and dimmed. Far, far above, she saw the boat, its silhouette dark against the milky light. The nets and oars churned the surface, sweeping away the bright pinpoints.

  She was still falling, now into darkness. Here it was dark and still and cold.

  Perhaps her eyes were closed.

  Perhaps she was sleeping.

  So cold.

  Quiet.

  She breathed, gasping, without meaning to, and the cold—heavy and dark—rushed into her lungs.

  She flailed, once, then grew still.

  She was still falling.

  Airless.

  Heavy.

  “Girly.”

  She heard it again.

  “Girly.”

  Beneath her, somehow, was the bosun in his little dinghy. His oars stroked against the darkness. Coming up beside her, he leaned over the edge of the boat, his pebble mouth twisted in concern.

  “Wellaway, girly, yer a half passage, you are. Half passage only. You shouldn’t be here. Too far beyond. Get on wit’ you.” He prodded her with the oar, and she drifted away from him into the blackness.

  The stars were very far away. Pinpricks. And so dim.

  How tired she was.

  Perhaps she should sleep.

  Darkness. And nothingness.

  Nothingness.

  The body of Clo, turnip-picker, window-breaker, star-spinner, drifted in the void. She was a collection of limbs and joints—skinny arms and legs and knees and elbows—floating at unnatural angles in the dark.

  There was nothing left—nothing left that was Clo, Clo of the wall-jumping and forest-trekking and shadow-braving. She was full of the dark and the cold, full of the emptiness of the void.

  The form of Clo drifted deeper into the darkness. In the distance, stars and galaxies spun quietly.

  She was slipping into something like mist, something soft and indistinct, something like a smudge of chalk against the blackness. A pale cloud.

  “Daughter.”

  Something was cradling Clo’s form.

  “Daughter.”

  The mist wreathed and swaddled Clo’s form. She was a shadow held within the pale cloud.

  “Clothilde.”

  Clo felt her lungs fill with air—no, light—her lungs had filled with light, with fire—and she gasped, her chest rising and burning.

  “How have you come here, daughter?”

  Clo opened her mouth to speak, but only flames curled against her tongue.

  “You should not be here, daughter. You should not travel here.” The voice was delicate, the words lilting between sorrow and joy.

  Soft as fingertips, the mist pressed against Clo’s cheeks, her palms, her forehead. It was cool against the blaze consuming her. “Yet how I have missed you.”

  The cloud breathed and closed around her, rocking her in its chalky form.

  “How I long to keep you.”

  The mist encircled her like arms.

  “Always…”

  The pale cloud, soft light in the dark, swayed around her.

  “Oh, daughter, do not let my mistakes become your own. Had I known what I could not change…”

  Very far away, through the veils of mist, Clo could see the shape of the boat and the churning of the nets capturing the stars around it.

  “Be brave enough to accept what I could not.… Light and life are fleeting.…”

  The cloud billowed and stretched, eddying out and bearing Clo across the void. Galaxies pinwheeled past. Stars flashed, blazed, died away.

  “Even here, daughter, stars give way to darkness.… Even here, always only flickers and is gone.…”

  Above them, the water was turbulent with the commotion of light and oars and nets.

  “Be brave enough to let go of always, my love.”

  Clo felt herself released, the cloud now ebbing away, a chalky smudge curling back into the darkness, and she was again sinking, falling, drifting… airless among the stars…

  Then a something struck her, heavy and hard and sharp, and she herself became heavy and hard and sharp… and the form of her, sagging, dripping, was lifted and borne and raised and tossed, expertly tossed, like a net full of stars, like a net full of fish, o
nto the deck of the boat, among the stars, among the piles and piles of fish.

  “O-o… C-clo!”

  CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

  IN WHICH OUR HERO IS A CLAY POT

  IN DARKNESS, CLO TRIED TO LOCATE HER ARMS, HER LEGS, her limbs, herself, but all she felt was the heaviness of ice. Of cold. She could not move; she could not breathe. Something was shaking her, some sharp rattling, like a cough, over and over, but she could not find herself within the shaking. She could not lift whatever had enshrouded her.

  Very far away, there was a tapping, a patting. Hands were moving over what must be her body, but she was not within it—it could not be hers. The tapping continued. It was a knocking on a clay pot. “Shh…,” she wanted to say, but her mouth, if she had a mouth, could not be found to form the noise. This tapping was trying to wake her.

  Would the tapping not stop? Cracks were forming in the clay. Shhh.…

  “C-Clo… Are you gn—… b-breathing? Clo?”

  The world was wet. And dark. And cold.

  Full of murmuring. Stomping.

  Cracking clay.

  “Ohw deucser reh? Eht yob? Ten yob? Ni sih ten?”

  Someone was holding her. She felt breath rise and fall beneath her.

  “Eht rethguaddnarg… gnirb reh emoh…”

  “Yob, ten yob, si ehs gnihtaerb?”

  Darkness again. A pot.

  “Clo, can you r-ra—… h-hear me?”

  Someone was touching the walls of the pot. It had the same shape as her cheeks, her hair, her forehead.

  Someone was whispering over it.

  “Clo, n-ne—… wh-when they fished me out of the sea… I remember how cold I was. For so long. O—… s-so cold.”

  Someone was wrapping something over the clay. Something dry. Scratchy.