Tender Morsels

by Margo Lanagan

  Oh, she was old, so old, and she had never known much of the ways of the world. That was mudwifery for you—sitting to one side and catching the odd copper fallen out of people’s ill-luck. ‘Let me organise it for you, Annie. Do you want a house built, or would you rather buy the fanciest one extant in town? I can arrange either for you—just you say what you want me to do.’

  She gasped some more and looked around, at the rubbish of her magic-making, the ends and ashes of all the ingredients, the expense of which, I knew, was greater than any she had met before. I held out her pipe-bits to her and she looked at them as if they were challenging her to a punchfight. Then she took them and sat on the grass, and carefully made up the pipe and lit it, and surrounded her head with smoke.

  ‘Just,’ she croaked in the middle of the smoke-cloud, ‘a little cot is all I’ve ever wanted—just something a little better than I have. Not even that! I never thought to want! There was never any hope of such!’

  And then she was weeping into her hands for all her years of hardship, from St Onion’s days to this. And then she had thrown her pipe aside and was up on her knees. She came at me on her knees like a pilgrim—it was alarming to see—and she kissed my hand, clutching its stubbiness in her long grey fingers.

  This was not at all what I had been after when I came to her for aid. I’d been thinking of some brisk and cheerful transaction—as between men, is what I likely had in mind. She were twisting me all up, pouring her emotions out on me. I could see that such wealth was going to be more complicated than I had thought.

  Branza walked a dream-forest, wearing a shift with two pockets. A tiny Urdda chattered in the one, a tiny Mam sewed silently at the bottom of the other, and from their fragility an air of dread spread among the trees, thick as water.

  He was on his way, the littlee-man she had pushed out of her mind this morning. She could feel him coming, though she saw nothing yet: all the birds, sensible birds, had fled; all the leaves hung very still. Branza stood aside from the path.

  Here he came, with his unnatural walk. He was no bigger than when she first saw him, but his very stumpiness terrified her, his child-legs carrying all that intent, his big-baby head with all the hair, with all the beard, sprouted from his harmful intentions.

  He drew level with her and stopped. He could smell her; he could smell how frightened she was, hear her heartbeat. Urdda was silent in her pocket, under her hand, but Mam worked on, and she was knitting now, and her needles gave off tiny, busy clickings.

  The littlee-man’s face worked with delight and hatred. His head slowly turned, macabre on his hidden neck—perhaps he had no neck, but only the hairs tethering the ball of his head to his doll-body.

  She could not even think of running. What would be the point? She stood among the trees—there was something chapped and scabby, something charred about their bark. Her hands, over her pockets, shielded the tiny Urdda, warned the traitorous knitting Mam. The man’s head turned slower and slower, teasing her with its slowness, letting her terror build. He was not smiling, yet he gave off a strong sense of glee.

  Then she was pinned and screaming in the dark, struggling as he muttered in her ear.

  ‘Branza, Branza!’ Mam cried from her pocket, from her shoulder, from outside the dream, and Branza rushed awake and clung to her. Urdda reached out of her sleep beside her, patted her sister heavily as Branza wept, then slipped back away into her own busy dreams.

  Well, I thought I were set for life then, I had so much gold. But then I found that human wants are like an evil fart; they will swell to fill every corner of whatever wealth is available.

  I were sensible, I thought: I did not give to beggars nor splash the money about too wantonly. I bought three fine houses: one for Annie in St Olafred’s, one for myself in Broadharbour, and another for myself near Annie’s so I could visit now and then and instruct her further in how to be wealthy—for she had no more idea of handling money than a slug has of flying. But I did not dress outrageous, only sober and high-class; and I did not squander on parties, or on devilments beyond the odd very fancy fancy-woman; I did not lose my senses and marry or breed up a big puddle of expensive children or nothing; I lent money to no one except those I knew to be trustworthy in meeting my terms and rewarding me later.

  Still, it ran out—well, not completely, but two years on and my pants-seat were looking a bit thin to the wind; I could feel the whistling. And then one of my trustworthies come along and admitted to me that it were, matter of fact, his feckless son’s venture that he had had me backing, not his trustworthy own, and sure and he’d have the sixty crown to me just as soon as he’d earned it off his tin mine, but with the tin mine, see, things were not going so wonderful there as they had done the past many years, and, well . . .

  Which it ended up, very suddenly everything went to shit and there was one, just one, card game involved where I had done all I could to ensure that I would recoup the part of my fortune I needed to meet those hanging off my hems for payment, but even that were not enough. So, as I say, very suddenly I found myself fleeing Broadharbour for the country, with Pinchman Brady and his boys on my tail, and despite my feinting and dodgery, they managed to follow me to St Olafred’s, and before I knew it I was skedaddling down the town with Brady’s boy Canard after me on his great long legs like a spider’s, and me thinking, What the bishop’s knickers am I going to do about this?

  And there must be something after all in bishopry, or at least in godding, for as I were running down that twitchel behind Eelsisters’ convent it comes to me, in a kind of slow flash, if you know what I mean—the kind of very clear thinking a person is capable of in a very tight spot, a more or less ultimate spot. Between one step and the next I seen again Muddy Annie brooding and looking shady as we walk through her town house that I’m about to organise the buying of, our footsteps echoing in the big empty rooms.

  You could always go through a second time, she says, and fetch more money. Now that it have been punchered, the . . . the rind of it, like. I could not exactly advise it, but there is nothing in your way, only my qualms.

  So there I stopped, right in that twitchel. Canard turned in at the top and shouted triumph. And I stamped my foot and I said, ‘Let me through, let me through!’

  ‘You hoping for the nuns to save you?’ says Canard, running down at me.

  Nothing gave underfoot, stamp as I may. ‘Through! Lemme through!’ I danced like a kitten on top of a stove.

  The bugger was laughing, stopped in the lane right before me and laughing, close enough to grab me but now taking his time, enjoying the sight of the little stamping stumpet.

  Then he laughed no more, but stepped back in a fright. I glanced behind me—what was he falling back from? Nothing there. And then I heard it, like the flap of a bird-wing above me, and there it was, the wheeling star, the fold between the worlds. Sproing! I was up there, dived up into it like an arrow with my joined hands, like a prayer darting up to the heavens: Thank you, bishopry and nunnery and goddery! Off I go. And the wheel-thing sucked me up into the water.

  Well, it was just as nasty as last time, the sensations, like being swallered by a very thin and muscular snake. I forced up through the water—not half as deep this time, thank the Pieman in the Sky—and tried to pull my beard after me, but it was all snagged and snaffled in the bottom. I could stand straight, and well out of the water from my tailbone up, but I could not get free of the mud. And there—I just got the one horrible glimpse before the muddy water slopped back over—was my beautiful beard, grasped in Canard’s fingers, which had forced through the star-fold, coming after me.

  The snake’s belly did not want to let him through, though. I pulled and pulled, thinking my entire manhood would be torn out of my chin by the roots, but all that must have happened were, the hairs must have slipped some through his fingers, for he did not come through follering.

  I kept to pulling, wishing, oh, for a stone to whack at Canard’s fingers and make him relinquish me,
whereupon I was sure he would slip back away. I cried out for someone to rescue me—I should not care how much they lectured me the while—but no one came to my calls. So on I fought—’twere like dragging an oxcart by my beard, I tell you, so-o-o slow and hard. The water, bit by bit, grew shallower—ah, but I turned and what did I see but the bobbles of Canard’s knuckles coming up the surface? Gawd, I were pulling him through, though I did not want him here—perhaps I could just get him partway, stand on his head, and drown him?

  I were too panicked to consider if this would help my cause or harm it, if I would manage to get back myself, were he jammed dead in the hole between worlds. I were too busy eyeing that clump o’ daisies there, near the bank. If I reached those and held them, I’d have coin to quiet him—quiet them all. So, all made of leaden pain, I clawed my way up the shallows.

  Well, I had paused to thrash a little in my frustration, and Canard’s force were dragging me back down somewhat, when I saw to my surprise and relief, lifting my hand, several pearls underneath it, smeared with mud. A broken blob of frog-spawn floated at my fingertips also, slipping away as Canard hauled me. I made a snatch at this and lo! the little jellies turned to hard sweet lovely shining pearls in my magic hand. Fast as foxes, I pulled out my pocket and began stowing the things, and reaching for more—maybe pearls would do; maybe pearls would be sufficient to gold! I remembered pearls being a fine price when my fancy-girl’s fancy turned to them that time as I were wooing her. And that were Broadharbour—here in at landlocked St Olafred’s, they’d be thought marvellous indeed.

  I had only a whisker of hope there before Canard, the nuisance, gave a tremendous jerk to my poor beard, and just like a hooked fish I was brought back to the depths, where he wanted me.

  Not as far as his grasping fist, though. Besides, I had seen the pearls, and there is nothing like a gem or precious metal to give a man strength. So up I got, and against all his force and no longer caring should I lose my beard and all my chin-skin with it, I leaped and strove and raged back towards the bank. He were terrible strong, though—Pinchman’s boys were all big, on top of which, all men are bigger than me, and stronger. I were cursing my size and being trapped in a situation where my wiles were bugger-all use to me, and calling out for someone to come: Where are folk ever when you want them? When you don’t, they are always in your face with their prating and whinnying! And my pocket were dropped and all the pearls were rolling out of it, beyond my reach and sinking. I were desperate, I can tell you. I flung myself about like a dying trout on a streambank, only a degree more noisier.

  The sisters were walking home from the town. They had been baking that morning with Wife Wilegoose, and Branza carried in her basket three of the pies they had made, the three very finest and most perfect, still warm and covered with a cloth. Down the hill they went, and along the path that skirted the highest floodmark of the marsh-edge.

  They were about halfway along it when a roar, at once enraged and pleading, chopped through the forest peace. ‘What is that?’ said Branza. ‘Someone’s bull escaped and is trapped somehow?’

  They walked on more slowly. The roar came again. ‘I think it is a person,’ said Urdda, veering off the path towards the sound.

  Branza stopped dead and held her basket to her chest. ‘Urdda, come back!’

  ‘Who can it be?’ Urdda darted off through the trees to find out, then ran out onto bushier, more open ground. Branza made a small, anguished sound. She did not know who it might be; she did not want to know; she was afraid of the sound.

  ‘Come!’ Urdda’s voice was tiny with distance. ‘Branza, look! Come and look!’

  Branza hurried down towards the marsh. She worked her way around the marsh-edge, muttering and stumbling over roots and dead branches to the place where there was a break in the bushes. She looked out across the tussocky waters. Urdda had run far out on the bank, quite unafraid. ‘Come back, you silly girl!’ Branza cried.

  The roaring thing—it was not a bull—was trapped, certainly. The mound of it was so mired, it barely moved when it struggled. It seemed bound to the water with many fine threads, as if the water surface itself were a net and the creature were trying fruitlessly to push up through it.

  With horror, Branza saw the eyes. They seemed the size of ladle bowls, they were so wide with rage and terror, and they were fixed on Urdda through the whitish webbing that held the creature to the marsh-water. The noise came again, bubbling the water under the net, and there was an edge of begging desperation in its horrors, so that Branza, however great her fear, could not quite turn and run from it.

  She stood, panting, and gradually the creature seemed not so large, was not so new and frightening. It had a large head, but it was not far out in the marsh, and judging from the ripples, the body was quite small.

  ‘Come, Branza! We must rescue it!’ Urdda knotted up her shift and stepped out into the marsh.

  ‘No, wait!’ cried Branza weakly.

  But Urdda forged on. Whimpering, Branza found a place to put the pies where they would not be found too soon by ants, and tied up her skirt and waded after her sister. The thing lay quiet under its bindings, its eyes glowing between lids that were like worn leather. It had a short, wide nose hovering just above the water. It was the sort of face Branza did not want to see the mouth of.

  Oh, how hideous: that was its hair, that white web, from its own wide, round head, slicked out across its floating wet shirt.

  ‘It is a person, Branza!’ said Urdda, very pleased. The person muttered as she investigated. ‘His hands are pushing in the mud,’ she said, ‘holding him up to breathe.’

  His great eyes rolled at them, and he bubbled and growled as Urdda felt all down him.

  ‘Oh, it is his chin-hair!’ she cried. ‘A piece of it is caught in the mud!’ And she knelt, shift and all, and took a breath and submerged herself, groping about in the brown water.

  ‘Urdda, come up, come up!’ Branza patted at the water, at the floating cloth of Urdda’s shift, not liking to be left alone with this person’s glaring eyes.

  Urdda bobbed up. ‘There is no log or stone,’ she said. ‘Nothing weighing down the beardy hair. It is growing from the bottom, and my fingers cannot even dent that. It is hard clay.’

  The little man’s eyes danced and rolled, clenched closed and goggled open. His braced arms weakened and shook underneath him.

  Urdda tried to uproot the beard, but the marsh-bottom would not give it up. The man’s face was at her elbow, his furious bubbles bursting against her armpit.

  Urdda took from her belt the little knife she had made herself, of flint bedded in a stout stick. ‘I will cut him free,’ she announced, ‘before he drowns himself in his floundering.’ And she ducked underwater again.

  Both of them exploded up at once. Urdda, though only six, was still a touch taller than this strange man. He was not afraid of her, though. He pushed her hard, back into the water. ‘You great goose!’ Branza heard him say—he had a strange way of speaking. ‘What business have you?’

  Urdda spluttered and rose, and the man launched himself at her. She pushed him away, but his hard little fists beat at her elbows. ‘Cut off my manhood, would you, that I have groomed and grown since I were a bare sprout?’

  ‘It was stuck in the mud!’ cried Urdda.

  ‘She was saving your life, ungrateful man!’ said Branza, hating him, hating him—‘Oh!’ she said suddenly, recognising. ‘It is that littlee-man!’ But of course, Urdda had not seen him that time, from behind the holly-bush.

  The man gasped and sank back a moment, as if Branza had stabbed him in the vitals. Then he was scrambling towards her throat, his voice gone to a shriek. ‘Littlee, you call me? Outrageous orphan! Whore-mouth! You shall never speak again!’

  The two girls fought and dragged the littlee through the water, trying to flee him, trying to detach themselves, until all three of them, mud-slopped and dishevelled, reached the shore.

  ‘Look at the fool you’ve made of me!’ the li
ttlee-man howled. ‘The stunted, chopped thing! I have never met such cruelty, you bold-faced brindle-cow!’

  He sat in the mud and wept, his beard-end in his hands. Branza could just see how it should have been, how it should come to a soft point there instead of being crisply sliced off by Urdda’s knife.

  ‘Surely it will grow again?’ she said gently.

  His eyes blazed at her through his tears. ‘This part, that was the first to protrude from my innocent chin? You ought to be shaven clean yourself, you clumsy offal-bag. All that floss scraped off the top of your clunk-empty head! Then we would see what would grow again. Fur or fine fuzz, mebbe, or mebbe nothing at all! Bald as a doorknob, you might be. You are certainly about as bright!’ Then the chopped end of his beard caught his eye again. He pressed the hairs to his lips and the tears ran down his leathery face.

  ‘But we couldn’t let you stay stuck in the water!’ said Urdda.

  ‘Stupid, stupid . . . ,’ he sobbed.

  ‘Come along, Urdda,’ said Branza. ‘We will go now, seeing as he is in no danger.’

  ‘Just you do that, you lump. Stab a man through the heart and then walk off and leave him bleed.’

  But something in the marsh-edge caught his eye. He dropped his beard, took out his pocket, and went to scrabble in the mud there, snatching up what looked like frog-eggs and pushing them, gleaming, away into the cloth, dropping some in his haste.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Urdda squatted cheerfully beside him and picked up one of the white things. ‘My, that’s pretty—oh!’

  ‘Ha!’ The littlee-man snatched the muddied frog’s egg from her. ‘You ain’t got the magic, have you, you lump? All you get is a bit of jelly. I get this!’ He waved the thing in her face so that she must pull her head back to see it. ‘And these!’ He plucked up several more eggs from where they were floating on the ripples. He rolled them together in his hand, and when he opened it, a white bead the size of a pea sat there. ‘You got a use for this? I thought not, iggerent. No one here knows the worth of money. And no one here has this magic—which stays good on a trade where I come from, whether I give it to merchant or mudwife, woodman or woman-of-the-night, so there!’