Under the Pendulum Sun

by Jeannette Ng

  For the first time in a very long time, I simply looked at my brother’s face. It was strange, as I had thought it so familiar, but it was to his moods and changes, the subtle quirk of his mouth or flash of his eyes.

  And so, I tried to see him through the lens of a stranger. How would another judge his large blue eyes and long brown lashes, the proud curve of his mouth?

  His face riveted the eye, certainly. He had a pure, clear outline that called to mind classical statues, the strong line of his jaw and straightness of his nose, his wide forehead colourless and still as marble. Readily did I see myself echoed there, but whereas my own copy bore a certain unflattering irregularity, he possessed those lineaments in perfect harmony. Those were my muddy eyes but clearer and more blue, my curls but softer, my lips but fuller.

  Would she think him as beautiful as I did?

  Would she notice that something about his nostril, his brow, his mouth, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within restless and eager?

  “Beauty is of little consequence, brother. It hardly matters,” I said, forcing myself to look away.

  “Indeed and you have not just itemised within your mind my many failings.” He snorted a laugh and I stole another glance. “I know your piercing gaze, Cathy.”

  “Then you will know not to press me further,” I said. “I can disown my first answer, if you prefer. But you will not get another.”

  The chiming of bells signalled the arrival of the actual guests.

  Laon and I wandered to the grand doors, wondering aloud between us whom the Pale Queen had invited. Leaves of silver and gold crackled underfoot, crushed into the lush oriental carpets. Barely an inch of the long gallery’s damask wallpaper could be seen through the portraits and the mirrors. The grand fireplace cracked merrily, the fire high and hot. It was what completed the illusion of winter.

  It was Laon who saw it first.

  He pointed and I followed his finger to a tear that had appeared in the wallpaper, between one of the portraits and a jewelled mirror.

  Suddenly, a knife was thrust in and jaggedly sawed downward. Even from here I could see that the torn paper revealed but naked brickwork and not some other place.

  And yet there streamed from the gash in the wallpaper a flurry of dragonflies that each bore in the long dip of their tails an iridescent darkness.

  An antlered crone stepped through and she dragged in with her a triad of laughing spectres, figures traced from curling smoke. Pink, writhing earthworms festooned her branching antlers. The spectres threw off their hoods to reveal solid human-seeming faces and untied from their shoulders the obscuring mist.

  Then the portraits began to move.

  The paintings, by and large, depicted very human faces in very human garb, but as they got up and climbed from their frames it became evident that they were anything but. The Tudor lady with the gable hood revealed herself to be half serpent, heaving her long, shining tail through the window of the portrait. The men unfolded into centaurs, backing away from the edge of the painting before galloping towards us and leaping through into the gallery. The velvet robes of the lady fell open as she climbed and I could see that her robes – and her dress, her jewellery, her flesh – were made of pink marble.

  As each stepped through into the long gallery, they surveyed the room through their painted faces. The uneven oils, the fingerprints of the artist, the brush strokes were all still visible on those unmoving expressions.

  The faces then came off, each of them to be masks atop ribboned rods. For many, there was simply no face underneath, only a strange hollowness. The stone woman was an exception to this as hers was of the same marble as her body. Her featureless eyes were empty of expression. Weatherworn and crumbling, she was missing the nose and half the chin.

  A glowing scrawl cut through the leaves that littered the gallery. It was impossible to make out what it said, but the text arced until it formed a circle. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a red-capped man stood in the centre. He waved at another of the fae and I saw that he had eyes in the middle of his palms and that those eyes were weeping blood. As he entered the ballroom, his companion gave him one of the portrait masks.

  “It seems she’s invited everyone,” I murmured. The sheer strangeness and diversity struck me all over again and I realised how foolishly shallow and limiting the Paracelsian theory was in understanding fae. “Except Paracelsus. I don’t believe he was ever invited to any parties.”

  Laon glanced over, his brow furrowing in confusion.

  “If he was, he’d have met half of these fae,” I said. “Then he’d revise his theory about the elements.”

  “I don’t know, the eye-blood-hand fae could be water aligned,” said Laon dryly.

  Smoke plumed from the fireplace. There was a heavy thud and crack of firewood.

  Something – or someone – had fallen down the chimney.

  A figure unfolded from the still-burning fire. They were of imposing height. They scowled as they took in the gallery, regarding Laon and me with coal-black eyes. White scars crisscrossed their face. What flesh wasn’t white was the bright, shiny red of freshly burnt skin. That flesh rippled and seeped blood as they lumbered from the fire. Black soot and white ash billowed and clung to their singed clothes.

  Dark figures no more than a smudge the size of a fingernail appeared within a mirror. The figures grew larger, walking along the long gallery behind the glass. As they drew nearer, I could see that it was a couple with tawny brown skin. Antelope horns stretched from their temples and brown feathers wreathed their faces like the mane of a lion. They wore matching russet tailcoats.

  They were soon right against the mirror. The glassy surface rippled and the shorter of the two stepped through before reaching in an arm to help her comrade.

  The slightly taller fae smiled at me as they entered the ballroom. Their long, serpentine tails thrashed behind them.

  “Are they manticores?” said Laon. “Some sort of chimera?”

  I didn’t know and I didn’t know how to answer him.

  Further guests arrived. The portraits emptied and more poured in from the looking glasses. They appeared at first as reflection, a reflection that was not replicated across any other mirror.

  A woman danced through. Her hair haloed behind her like the cascading folds of a goldfish’s tail and when she laughed there was but a bubbling noise. Strange symbols were burnt onto the hem of her dress, and knotted into her skin by red, angry scars. I recognised the symbols immediately. They were Enochian.

  I stared at her, at first thinking that I would suddenly learn to read that language of angels that had eluded my many nights of study, but I did not. I glanced at my brother and knowing I would be unable to excuse myself now, I resolved to seek that stranger out later.

  None of the guests had reflections within any of the mirrors.

  Chapter 23

  The Truth at Midnight

  Sometimes this cross is heavy beyond endurance. I carry it in repentance for the sins of my heart, for that is the same as the sins of the flesh. To look upon a woman in lust is to have committed adultery with her already. I know this and I bear it. I feel that I shall bear it for all my days.

  My heart is worn out and bruised beyond repair, and in my deep loneliness I often wish to be gone, but God knows best, and I want to do every ounce of work He wants me to do.

  I only pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been.

  Laon Helstone, private journals, dated December 1846

  Mab’s servants had filled the great hall with silver willow trees that wept shining leaves. Breezes tinkled musically through the trailing fronds. Ivy wound around a trellis that arched over the long tables. Crystalline grapes dangled from the ivy, each with a bright blue flame burning inside. Light danced from these icy orbs, dappling us in blue.

  “You should eat one,” whispered a voice by my ear.

  “Eat?” I said.

  “These.” The stranger with the go
ldfish-tail hair plucked a shining grape from the ivy. She held it in her gloved hand, twisting it to catch the light. I could see now the scars down her arm and across her shoulder. Enochian scarred into her flesh.

  She ate the grape and took another which she gave to me.

  The grape was cold to the touch. I sprinkled salt from the shaker I kept in my reticule and rubbed it onto the frozen fruit. Despite the salt, it burst sweet and bright in my mouth.

  “Oh,” said the stranger, fluttering the fan she held in her gloved hand. “I didn’t realise you are human.”

  The stranger was dressed in the dark red of old, dried blood, calling to mind the scabbed-over cuts that itched and itched. At the hem of her dress were row upon row of shimmering Enochian.

  “Her dress is simply divine, isn’t it?” said another stranger, stepping into the conversation as he noticed my staring. He wore the front of a charred skull on his face, covering his coal-black features. A purple toga coiled loosely around him. I blushed to see the vast expanse of skin he bared but could not help glancing back when I realised the golden sigils embedded in deep scars were Enochian.

  “You shouldn’t tease her so, brother,” said the stranger with the goldfish-tail hair, placing a possessive hand upon her companion’s naked shoulder. “Especially when neither of us have introduced ourselves.”

  “How remiss of us!” he exclaimed. “And we had promised Mab that we would be on our best behaviour, sister.”

  I cringed at the utterance of the Pale Queen’s name, but did not correct them. I realised that they did not fear to speak her name.

  “Mab won’t notice, brother. She’s far too busy starting up that feud again with the Abyssal Lords. The winter Masquerade out of season, the fox hunt tomorrow.”

  “It is all very old fashioned.” He paused and savoured a crystal grape from the ivy. “Still, she could be trying to snub the Green King or the Lady of Iron. She hates a lot of people. Comes from being quite so old.”

  “We both remember when the sun was lashed to a chariot, brother.”

  “You wound me,” he said. “Though I do concede that this could all be her trying to stake a claim on winter. It must have cost quite a lot, none of this snow is imported.”

  “Hunts are so boring in the snow,” said his sister, wrinkling her nose. “And I hear the thundersnow that is to come later will be from Finland. There simply aren’t enough hands to make that much snow.”

  At that, it thundered.

  I jumped at the sound and, glancing over to the windows, I saw that a snowstorm had struck up outside. White snow flurried against the black sky.

  “How timely of it!” said the stranger with the skull, as strong winds threw a clattering of hail onto the glass doors, punctuating his remark.

  “Quite the opposite, brother,” said the stranger with the goldfish-tail hair, adjusting her brother’s unravelling toga. She breathed out and the skin of her cheeks fluttered open like gills. “I haven’t had time to admire the artisanal snow or the latest work of Jack. And now it will be buried under all that natural hail.”

  “It will be much like last year. I rather do prefer it when we buy summer.”

  “It has been decades, hasn’t it? We were such gluttons for summer that year.” Another breath and the gills on the stranger’s neck opened into eyes that blinked green and gold.

  Light suddenly flooded the windows, filling the ballroom. Lightning.

  “We were going to introduce ourselves,” said the stranger with the skull, turning his attention back to me. “I am Penemue, known as That Within, and this is my sister, Kasdaye, known as the Covered Hand and the Blood Astrologer.”

  “I didn’t think we were using those names, brother.”

  “Hold any name up to the light of truth and you can make rainbows from their sounds. It doesn’t mean anything. And they are as good as any other,” drawled Penemue, picking up a flute of wine from a passing servant. “We don’t need to hide them the way Mab does. We aren’t famous. No one reads the book of the watchers.”

  “But I was hoping to title myself a slattern, dear brother. In the Pale Queen’s example.”

  “I suspect the human would consider it rather improper if I simply introduced you as Strumpet.” By his voice he was grinning.

  “I am…” I hesitated, suddenly afraid of the importance and power of names. Penemue took a step closer to me and leaned in to study my face. I could see behind the edges of his mask, white veins under his skin, ever shifting, an endless scrawl of almost words. His breath smelt like the glue on the spines of new books and the rich ink of old ones.

  I felt cornered.

  “I am Catherine Helstone, sister to the Reverend Helstone.”

  “The missionary, of course,” said Kasdaye. She took the wine from her brother’s hands and sipped it. “You should have known.”

  “T-the words on your skin, your clothes. Do they mean anything?”

  Penemue smiled, his grin reflecting that of the skull. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I was curious. It is not of a language I recognise.”

  “Our Unbegotten Father and his Misbegotten Son may claim it, but it is not theirs alone. You have as much a right to learn it as any other, though I do not think you will understand its secrets. Ink and paper can defy even death.”

  Laughter bubbled from his sister’s throat behind him. “Always so dramatic. She won’t be easily impressed like the other, brother.”

  “But dust can learn, just as clay can. And I don’t like teaching those who aren’t a little impressed,” he said with a pout in his voice. He stepped aside, taking his glass from her, and she stepped forward. They flowed around each other with an enviable familiarity.

  “This one isn’t so simple,” said Kasdaye, pinning me with her gaze. Her eyes were fixed on me. “I can cast your fate in blood, little one, if you want to know. The stars will speak for me.”

  Her brother gave a sharp laugh.

  “Pay him no heed.” Kasdaye pulled my hand into hers. “Have you not wanted to speak to me all your life?”

  “H-have I?”

  “You’re human. And humanity loves us.” She was stroking my hand as though it were a lapdog. “So desperate are you to speak to us that you see us everywhere. You look across your borders, your walls, and instead of your neighbours, you see us. As your ships sail further and countries and continents discover each other, you see not each other. You see us. You want to see us.”

  Again, the music struck up from the minstrel gallery. The birds trilled in a three-beat.

  “Though for now, you will have to excuse us,” said Penemue, reaching a hand out to his sister. “We simply must dance.”

  She coiled her arms around him and he pulled her into an indecently close hold. To the unbalanced rhythm of the waltz, they clung to each other and circled the room with dizzying grace. Kasdaye’s halo of golden frills fanned out behind her like the trailing wing-like fins of a goldfish. Its fronds drifted as though she were underwater.

  The strange siblings waltzed and waltzed, and for all my efforts I lost sight of them. Dance after dance reeled across the room, the clockwork dancers mingling with the fae guests.

  I found Laon again, standing uncomfortably by the tall glass doors that opened into the illuminated courtyard. Lightning crackled outside to the soft cooing of the fae.

  “Aren’t you cold, brother?” I said. There were snowflakes in his dark hair and I wanted to brush them away.

  “Quite, but I have a drink and I would rather be here than in there.” At that, he took a long pull from his hip flask. I could smell the brandy on his breath.

  “I thought you would revel in meeting this many fae,” I said.

  He shook his head and took another long drink. “If only things were that simple.”

  The birds in the gallery fell silent and the mechanical guests stilled, each frozen halfway through a gesture. Everyone turned to look towards the Pale Queen who stood at the far end of the room on a r
aised dais.

  “Welcome again, good friends, my children and my family,” came the voice of the Pale Queen. She wore her wooden crown that accentuated the owlishness in her features. Woven through the layer upon layer of her dress’s brown feathers were scaled, serpentine coils. Light glittered off the long, trailing snakes as they undulated, their colours shining poisonously bright. “I am delighted to see so many here and I trust my entertainments have been delighting you too.”

  The guests nodded and whispered amongst themselves, a roiling, amorphous sound.

  “But I grow rather bored with illusion,” said Mab. “I think I have had enough of magic making everyone see different.”

  A murmuring rippled through the guests as they spoke.

  “So let us do away with glamour,” she said, her voice reverberating through the ballroom and ringing out into the courtyard and the gardens. She took a deep breath, and I felt a rush as light and dust spiralled towards her. Anticipation crackled and even the rumbling thunder silenced at the wave of her hand.

  I dared not breathe. I waited.

  “Wake!”

  At her pronouncement, the scales on her serpents opened like eyes, each mottled gold and staring out through a black vertical slit of a pupil.

  Everything changed.

  The fae who were dancing around us were no longer human in shape. A fox was tangled with a snow white rabbit. A lion stood on its hind legs, its front paws clinging to a skinless clockwork doll. The porcelain faces of Mr Warner’s automatons shattered and they stood naked, baring their brass cogs and copper joints for all to see.

  A menagerie of creatures looked at one another, shock written upon their animal features. Ears flexed in surprise, noses twitched and tails lashed. Claws were unsheathed and they fell upon each other as the music began.

  But it was not birdsong that we heard.

  The birds in the minstrel gallery above were no longer birds. They were naked humans with scarred throats and their feet shackled to the gallery.

  “Cathy…” My brother choked out my name.