Under the Pendulum Sun

by Jeannette Ng

  It was well into the night before Mab allowed me to leave her presence. I was tired beyond thought, mind numb from all the circuitous word games she liked to play. All meaning had been eroded from words, but still sound had significance and my mind tortured me with memories of that keening the woman in black made.

  I was all the more certain now that she was a stolen child, kept as a curio in the Pale Queen’s court.

  My room was as I had left it, except for the door to empty air. Sighing, I bolted the door shut. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve had to do this.

  I splashed lukewarm water onto my face and, as I towelled myself, I noticed the window had been partially frosted over. The ice was like fine lace on the glass. Despite my weariness, I frowned. Something was amiss; Arcadian winter was still months away.

  Something pressed against the pane.

  I shouted in surprise. Heart thumping, I approached the window and peered out. As my sleeve cleared away the mist on the glass, I saw the press of a paintbrush on the pane, avian claws gripping the edge and a wide-eyed, owlish face. I opened the casement, unbalancing the creature. Its beak squawked open and it stretched out wide wings before curling up again.

  “What are you?”

  “On the Pale Queen’s orders.” The creature wore nothing but its feathers and a green waistcoat. It shook its head.

  “But what are you doing?”

  “On the Pale Queen’s orders,” it repeated firmly and closed the window with finality. It scrambled back onto its perch.

  The creature squinted long and hard at the pane before pulling out a pair of spectacles from its pocket and balancing them on its beak. The creature swapped its paintbrush for a quill and dipped it into its pot of shimmering blue ink. With its tongue lolling out in concentration, it began slowly drawing fine, fern-like frost onto the window.

  A knock.

  My door opened to an earnest-looking Mr Benjamin with his battered straw hat in his gnarled hands. He apologised for the disturbance and informed me that he had heard my brother had not left the chapel since services the day before.

  “So I was thinking, Miss Helstone,” said Mr Benjamin in over-articulated tones. “As you brother is otherwise occupied, I could possibly trouble you with my question?”

  “If you wish…” I said. “But you said my brother is occupied.”

  He shrugged. “Important soul business, I am sure. Since yesterday. The Salamander bring him food, probably.” He nodded enthusiastically to himself, causing his spectacles to slip down his nose and having to push them back up again. “Yes, probably.”

  “I see…” I frowned, worry clutching at my throat. “I should go to him.”

  “But my question,” insisted Mr Benjamin. “A sister for a brother. Reflections can answer for the whole. Fair is fair?”

  “Of course. Do ask.”

  “So I want to know, I know to want, I know to know… I want…” His voice trailed off and he mumbled to himself for a moment, hands agitating the brim of his straw hat. “Am I stony ground?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Jesus Christ, Harrower of Hell and Hallowed in Name, said Behold, a sower went forth to sow. The kingdom of heaven sewn in the hearts of those who hear it, but not all ears are good soil. He said that it would fall on stony places and into thorns, that the sun would scorch them dry and the fowls would eat the seed…” His words came out in a jumble and his accent frayed. “So am I a stony place? I feel joy and yet I do not understand. It cannot root within me.”

  “You are quoting Matthew?”

  Fervently, the gnome nodded. In a singsong voice he recited the quotation: “But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the Word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the Word, by and by he is offended.”

  “And you fear that you are not able to understand?”

  “No, no, not that. I simply do not understand. And you know I do not. So since I do not, then is it not meant for me? I have read it over and over and over.” The gnome began pacing, turning on the spot, unable to contain himself. “And he speaks in parables so that only his followers can understand, for they are given the secrets. But not me, not those who do not and cannot understand. And he will take it away from me, what little I have, he say he will.”

  “I- I don’t think he means that.”

  “There are eyes that are blessed because they see and ears that are blessed because they hear, but it is not the seeing and hearing that marks them as blessed, or rather it is and it isn’t… What I mean to say is that they truly see and truly hear. So it is not simply the reaper angels that will separate the wicked from the just. It is not the fishermen that pull from the seas a harvest of souls and cast aside the bad. The act of seeing and hearing is itself a test.”

  “If it is a test, then surely you have passed,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “You heard, did you not?”

  The gnome pressed his lips together and shook his head. “But did I truly hear? I did not understand, after all. I don’t think I’m in the right story. Or I am and I’m not meant to understand.”

  “I don’t think parables work like that.”

  “No, no, but we do. I’m a part of a story, a small part in a big story. The stony ground and the fish that is cast aside. Someone needs to be that, don’t they? So I am the one who doesn’t understand.”

  “Perhaps you should speak to my brother.”

  “Yes, yes. The brother. He will know,” said Mr Benjamin, and nervously clucked his tongue. “You find him. And I will ask him.”

  Chapter 19

  The Eyes in the Garden

  The Devil plagues humanity with changelings. He will lay his fairy children in the cradle and carry off the true child; but such changelings, they say, seldom live more than eighteen or nineteen years. Eight years ago, I, Doctor Martin Luther, did see and touch such a changed child at Dessau. It was twelve years of age, it had its eyes and all members like another child. I told the Prince of Anhalt, if I were lord here, I would have flung the changeling into the Moldau, and would run the risk of homicide. The Prince would not follow my advice. I admonished the people dwelling in that place devoutly to pray to God to take away the devil; the same was done accordingly, and the second year after the changeling died.

  Alfred H. Guernsey, “Luther’s Table Talk”, The Biblical Repository

  and Classical Review, July 1847

  The chapel smelt of richly spiced port.

  Laon was inelegantly squatted on a stool, stirring a pan of negus by the fireplace.

  “She wants a masquerade,” said Laon without looking up. “And she’s decided on a theme for it already. I’m sure you’ve seen her servants decorating.”

  “What is it going to be?” Pulling a cushion from the pews, I folded myself onto the floor next to my brother.

  It was a moment before he answered. Even in the dim firelight I could see his eyes were sunken from a lack of sleep. He reeked of port.

  “Winter,” he said.

  “Seems simple enough.”

  “It never is.” He ceased his stirring and after blowing gently upon the wooden spoon, held it for me to test. “I’ve salted it already.”

  I breathed deep the aroma of the negus before sipping it from the shallow spoon. The sweet notes of vanilla and nutmeg filled my sense before the port caught up with it. My brother had also added slices of apple to the mixture. I could barely taste the salt, so overpowered was it by everything else.

  “A little more sugar,” I said. “And ambergris.”

  My brother shook his head at the old joke between us before spooning more sugar into the pan. When we were little, we had found a recipe for the most excellent negus that called for grating ambergris over each serving and we had laughed at the sheer extravagance of the idea.

  “Do you think sea whales produce ambergris?” I said, thinking of the wicker
whales that had glided through the ground of the moors.

  “Probably,” said Laon, with a half grin. “But it would undoubtedly be even more expensive than normal whale vomit.”

  “Might be easier to find, the ocean’s awfully big.”

  “They say the whales usually swim in the dark, beyond where the pendulum sun could shine.”

  After stirring, he ladled me a cup and passed it to me. He sank back onto his stool and said, “I think the ball and hunt has to do with faerie politics. She has a grudge against the Duke of the North Wind or somesuch. So she needs to hunt something or not invite him to the dance. I don’t really understand it, but she wants it to be winter.”

  I sipped the negus, warming my hands around the vessel. Thinking back to the creature I saw by the windows, I said, “When you said winter, did you mean paper snowflakes and silver tinsel?”

  “She probably intends something more extravagant.” He filled his own cup with negus and fortified it with brandy.

  “It’s already made with port.”

  “Not just port, I threw in some apple.” Laon raised his cup in a half-hearted toast and drained it. There was a tremor in his hand. “It needs a little more kick.”

  I shook my head but did not rebuke him further. “There was a creature painting frost onto the windows. Claimed it was on her orders.”

  Laon snorted a mirthless laugh. “She’s going to actually make it winter.”

  I did not laugh with him. All I could think was how powerful Mab was, and that was a thought that coiled cold fear in my stomach. The Pale Queen had done nothing but toy with us, all veiled threats and escalating demands. She did not seem to be listening. I said, “Do you think this is all working?”

  “What works?”

  “Our entertaining her. Do you think…” I paused. My eyes darted to the door and I remembered the figures I had seen outside. I dropped my voice to a whisper, hoping that it was sufficient subterfuge. “Do you think she’ll keep her end of the bargain? That if we amuse her enough she would grant us passage, access into the rest of Arcadia.”

  “It’s not really a bargain. I don’t know if I would trust her to keep to a deal more than,” he made a vague gesture, “whatever we are doing now.”

  “Begging? Supplicating? Preaching?”

  He laughed bitterly. “Petitioning.”

  I nursed my rapidly cooling wine, turning the cup over and over in my hands. The dark red liquid lapped at the sides of the cup and I allowed myself to be hypnotised by its patterns. There was something unsettling about the way Mab stared at Laon during the sermon and the arch of her smile when she spoke of him. “She’s fascinated with you. In a way.”

  “But of all the ways…” Sighing, he shook his head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as she’s willing to listen to me. She holds so many keys. She was the only one who would allow a missionary to be on fae land. This castle, this foothold… it is all hard won.”

  “Is it enough?”

  “I am not He who judges these things. There are many things that…” his voice trailed off and he shook his head again. “It can only be.”

  “But she asks… what does she ask of you?” I dreaded his answer.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Except that it did. It was an answer that could mean too many things and all of them crowded my imagination. The willow-bordered brook and the secrets in against his ears. I could not bear it.

  “We have her ear,” he said. “She says she will leave after the hunt. We don’t have much longer.”

  The words were stones in my mouth and I felt myself choking on them. “I don’t like what we have to do for her, brother.”

  Laon gave a shrug. “This is hardly the place of choices.”

  “But she’s pushing us. Making us do more.” I swallowed, remembering her red-ribboned hair and encircling arms. “Making you do more. She’s trying to prove something. This isn’t just about her guests.”

  “What’s done is done,” he said, downing his brandy-fortified negus and serving himself another. “And it’s what has to be done.”

  “No, it can be undone.”

  “I think I’ve lost track of the doing, Cathy.”

  “I mean, she has done things. She had made you do things. Their ways are not our own and they are not good.”

  “We all knew that before we came here.” He tried to lighten the tone of his voice, but the weariness remained. I could hear that hoarseness that came with brandy. “What reason would we have to convert them if they were already good? What need there be of missionaries in a land without sin?”

  “It is not the same… I need to show you something.”

  “Cathy, you shouldn’t…” he said. I winced inside at his reprimand.

  “No, please. This is important. I don’t know how to say it, how to beg you. But please, just come with me.”

  Lantern in hand, I led the way. Laon limped behind me.

  In the courtyard, the misty twilight stretched over us. A light breeze toyed with the foliage, surrounding us with soft susurruses.

  I unveiled the door behind the curtain of ivy and tried the handle. To my surprise and relief, it clicked open. I did not think I could retrace my steps of the chase from the night before through the castle and over the shingles.

  The heady perfume of the garden enveloped us the moment we stepped through. The air was ecclesiastically thick with scents of cedar.

  In the corner of my eye, shadows flickered. I told myself that was but night creatures darting in the undergrowth. Still, I could not shake the feeling of being watched.

  “I didn’t know there was a garden here,” said Laon with a note of wonder in his voice. Leaning heavily on his cane, he paused to take in the carefully cultivated scene before him.

  The garden was only more beautiful in the twilight. The white stone glowed with an inner flame. The quartering paths and the lily-filled fountain were luminous. The shadows played over the colonnades and the arches, allowing one to imagine the ruins whole again.

  A hundred eyes were following our every step. For all the seeming stillness around us, the intensity of the gaze was palpable. I dared not turn and ask Laon if he felt the same. A confirmation of my fears would only intensify them and a refutation would exacerbate my keen sense of doubt.

  Perhaps a mind too hounded by questions would be prone to madness.

  “Mint,” murmured Laon, half to himself. “You used to love that smell.”

  I said nothing, fearing the eyes and too uncertain of myself.

  We came to the ivory-white tower. Its door was ajar. I pushed it open.

  The chapel was completely empty. Bare even of furniture.

  There was no woman in black by the fireplace. The pews, the altar, the candlesticks, the altarpiece, they were all simply gone.

  “What did you want to show me?”

  “This was… this was a chapel.”

  “A long time ago, perhaps,” said Laon. “Gethsemane has been many things.”

  “No, it hasn’t. But that doesn’t matter.” I looked about, pacing the length of the chapel in vain hope of finding some trace of the night before. No shred nor shadow remained. There was nothing. Even the fireplace lay empty and cold.

  “So you wanted to show me the old chapel?”

  “No,” I said. “I wanted to show you her… She was here. I saw her.”

  “Who?”

  “A woman in black. She told me she was being kept a prisoner here. She told me she was the original. I thought she might be a stolen child, someone swapped at birth.”

  “Here?”

  I nodded.

  “There’s nothing here. And it doesn’t look like anything has been here for a long time,” he said, holding up his lantern. Spiderwebs sparkled, spanning vast distances from corner to corner. “Judging by that.”

  “But last night…” Coughing from the dust, I pushed a hand through the cobwebs. They clung to my fingers in barely tangible wisps. “I dreamt and I wok
e and I saw that woman. And I followed her.”

  “Dreams are… misleading in Arcadia. They can be vivid and very malleable. You shouldn’t be ashamed if you were deceived by one.”

  “But she was here.”

  “There isn’t a stolen child here,” said Laon, quite gently.

  “We know they summon their changelings to act as emissaries when they’re grown. Have them explain fae manners to humans the way Miss Davenport does. But what do they do with the stolen child?”

  “No one really–”

  “Exactly,” I said. “There is a stolen child here. I’ve seen her. The Pale Queen brought her here and… And the Pale Queen found a pair of steel scissors in her bed.” Saying it all aloud made it click into place. It seemed so obvious now who would desire the queen’s death. What better vengeance than through the weapons that guarded against changelings?

  “That–”

  “It’s how you ward off the faeries from stealing your child, isn’t it? Tessie did that when we were small. A pair of open scissors above the cradle.” I knew I was babbling now, but my heart was racing and my mouth could but match. “And I remember reading it in one of your books. Something by Grimm, perhaps. No, that was throwing the clothing of the father over the cradle… but I do remember this. Open scissors make the sign of the cross.”

  My brother dipped his head. Almost a nod.

  I exhaled in a flood of premature relief. It was but the shadow of agreement. I took it as permission to continue: “I think someone is trying to kill her.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” His face was still as stone.

  “If not kill then at least threaten her. Those scissors have to have come from somewhere. And someone.”

  “Cathy, don’t. I told you, you can’t solve this place. You’re spinning castles out of air.”