***
I do not expect to see her again, certainly not a week later when blood covers the moon and casts a curious light upon everything. Moonlight is ordinarily strange enough, but this moon, this night, this light . . . there is both a weird clarity and a distinct gloom, shapes at once sharp and blurred. It is through this odd illumination that I see Kitty slip, nervous as a cat. A leather satchel hangs at her side, the thick strap angling across her chest, dark against her pale dress.
When she reaches the edge of the lake, she kneels down, heedless of grass and dirt stains on her skirts. She removes the satchel and opens it, the metal clasp giving a snick that sounds shockingly loud in the stillness. She takes out a book, its ancient leather cover corrugated like a toad’s skin. I can see gold lettering on the spine, a large elaborate script. Murcianus it reads. Murcianus’ Little-known Lore.
I feel unaccountably excited.
Next she pulls forth a pair of large shears such as you might use to cut a thick or stubborn material. Then a small patchworked hedgehog of a ball stuck full with pins and needles. Finally, a spool of fine thread—it gleams and I know it cannot be mere silk. Oh, there is silk in the mix certainly, but there’s also flax and spider’s web among other things, fused and bound together by sheer dint of sorcery. Someone else has created it—this girl is not that kind. I will be surprised if she manages her task for I don’t sense any great magic in her.
Kitty takes the great scissors and leans out over the water. Tonight it shines like quicksilver. She has propped the Murcianus open on a flat rock and checks over the spell before proceeding to cut as if something lies just above the surface.
I think I can see it, the fabric of night and fluid at which she snips. I can see it ruche and crumple and fray, but I’m not sure how much she can see. Still and all, as her confidence grows and her fingers become steadier, as she begins to believe, the panels take on a dark form, shimmering like rogue satin.
She lays the pieces on the grass beside her as she finishes each one. Next she reaches into the lake and pulls up handfuls of water plant, long ribbons of it, green and slippery with algae. Carefully she washes it off and lines it up next to the water-fabric. At last she begins to sew. It takes her hours but the strange luminescence of the sky remains strong. She refers occasionally to the pages of the book and I wonder idly where she got it.
She hardly seems the type to own such a tome, but they’ve been floating around for years, various volumes and guides to the arcane. I have a vague memory of the author himself, or someone claiming to be him, visiting here and begging me to make myself appear so he could sketch me. Now that I think about it, my quite-passable-likeness graces the frontispiece of Murcianus’ Mythical Creatures. Mythical! How a man who sat there drawing me when I’d very nicely solidified for him could call me mythical is beyond me.
But I digress. I’ve watched her all this time and become so fascinated that I’ve risen out of the water and gradually, very gradually forgotten to concentrate on not being seen. She notices me, but we don’t speak. By the time the dawn is almost here I’m perched on a rock near the bank, avidly willing her to finish, oh yes. She places the last stitch, bites the eldritch thread and holds the dress up for me to inspect.
It has long, long skirts, a scooped neckline, a tight bodice and fitted sleeves to the elbow. It is embroidered with a design of silvery fish and flowers, and bows made of lake-weed decorate the sleeves and waist. It’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen. It is the colour of my eyes, green and black and blue and all shades in between.
I move to the bank and stand still while she slips it over my head, laces the stays tight. The touch of it is cold and damp and it feels like a second skin. It moves ever so slightly, with the same gentle current as the water in my lake.
I’m so happy I could shout. Kitty stands back to survey her handiwork. Her eyes are red and there are dark smudges beneath them. The red-brown lines are vivid against her pallor but she smiles, seeing what she has done. For a time, I do believe she has forgotten her misery.
The sun comes up and strikes us both. She becomes a silhouette against the burning dawn and I a shining patch of liquid and light that must surely hurt my seamstress’s eyes.
The moment passes, the sun lifts and I am as I am. I smile at Kitty.
‘Thank you,’ I say, marvelling that she has succeeded where so many would have failed. Joyful, even though I know that fulfilling my part of the bargain will not be easy on either of us, but that I am obliged to fulfil it.
‘Make him love me. Make him be kind. Make him a better man.’
I am silent for a moment and she seems to stop breathing in that space of time. ‘Bring him here this evening and I will make your life better.’
I turn and dive then wink out of sight just before I hit the glassy face of the lake.
My new dress does not hamper me; it flows and floats, part of the water and yet still separate from it. Not impeding my progress, it’s nothing like those gowns of old. There is no drag, no gentle sluggish sensation of being wrapped in a wet winding sheet and of thinking, ‘So this is how they feel when they drown’.
I dart off into the depths, down to the cave where I keep things that have caught my eye.
I do not sleep here—I prefer any number of rocky shelves, sometimes on the very bottom, cocooned in weeds. But I rest here, with these few things, these trophies.
There is a mirror, demanded long ago for I do-not-remember-what favour. The gilt frame is chipped and peeling, the silver beneath the glass is pitted with black circles as if diseased. A few stacks of bones that belonged once to lovely-looking men. They drowned and I kept them for as long as I could while they still retained a hint of their beauty. I should throw the skeletal refuse out but I like its bright white.
I curl up on a pile of discarded, wetly-crumbling dresses. The smell of mould and dank drifts up from them. I nestle there content in my fine and perfect attire—I feel, however irrationally, that I have conquered this stinking heap of disappointments. I run my hands over the flow of my new skirts and think of how to reward its maker.
***
He’s not a handsome man, but he’s big and strong. Too big to be hitting a woman; too big to be harming a wife who loves him; too big to be treating someone so kind so badly.
How she coaxed him here I’ve no idea. He looks displeased to have been drawn from his home into the deep blue of the evening. How desperate is she that she risks this? Knowing what he has done to her once, and what he has the potential and will to do to her again, still she obeyed me.
‘Go to the edge,’ she urges like a mother trying to get a difficult child to eat. He does so with ill-grace, grunting. I can see his fingers are thick with muscle and he’s clenching his fists as if desirous of hitting something. Before he turns on Kitty, I make myself visible, standing on the water, just a few yards from the bank.
He looks amazed to find me real. So many men simply think me a women’s story, a myth, a jape. In his face: fear, desire, shock, but mostly greed. A tale is told, I believe, of the Mari-Morgan’s treasure and perhaps that’s the hook Kitty used to lure him. How can she, knowing something so venial would bring him, still love him? Still want him? I might shake my head were I so inclined.
I smile, gesture for him to come to me. He does this willingly, heedless of the liquid he splashes through even though it soaks his boots and trousers. He reaches out to take hold of me—as if he will hang on until I tell him where riches lie, as if I should be afraid of him, as if he might do me harm. His hands pass through my body because I do not wish to be touched. My hands, though, are solid enough, strong enough to take a good grip on his shirt.
I pull him down. Kitty’s screams grow softer and softer as we go further into the muddy-green, dulled by the depths.
He struggles for a while, but is no match for my age-old force. He may as well fight against a statue. The bubbles escaping from his mouth at first obscure his face, then he stops trying to breathe, to
live, and simply gives up. Stops moving. The tiny spheres dissipate, heading urgently away as if they might carry his screams and release them into the dry-world. The water turns his face a sickly shade. I let him go, watch as he disappears into the deep dark, rolling and rolling, the white of his shirt like a fish’s belly, until I grow bored.
I float upwards.
Kitty is weeping with all her might. She does not see me for I keep myself hidden. If I leave her here, she will cry her heart out, pouring salty tears into my home. She will put on widowhood and wear it until her dying day, as if the man I drowned deserved her devotion, as if he was such a wondrous husband she could not bear to take another. She will waste the time left to her. I have made her life better, but whether she can recognise it I am doubtful. If I leave her to her own devices, she will curse this place and me and perhaps no one will come anymore. I waver, reach out.
I put my hand on her head, feel her soft thick hair; she starts. Before she can rise and run, I sink into her. She will feel it as a splashing on her skin, cold and momentary. Then I am swimming through the entirety of her: blood, heart, lungs, mind, soul. The soul, oh yes! How fascinating a thing. I do not have one, so I think it most peculiar.
This soul, this heart, this mind all work in concert to create a human and this one is ineffably sweet. She truly believed her husband could be changed, that he could and would be changed. She still loved him no matter what he did to her face. I could have told her he was not sorry for it. That he marred her only so no one else would want her. So she would believe herself worthless and never think to leave him. I cringe away from this cloying need I sense. I push down my contempt—I owe her this much. I can and will give a life of freedom; what she does with it will be her own concern.
Oh my, and the feelings surging through this lovely girl! How they taste! So strong, viscous and bitter as the ooze at the bottom of my lake. The ache of love and longing and of not being loved. The sharp fear and nagging guilt. At last, here at the very base of it is the tiniest, sharpest of all: relief. Hidden deep down, but it is there. And a thrill at the idea of liberty, if only she will allow herself to recognise it and not be so ashamed that she refuses to let it fly.
I walk her to the edge of the lake and jump in.
***
We swim.
We swim for almost a week. I do not let her rest often, but only when I have no choice, when it seems she will drown, that her body will simply give up and sink like a stone through sheer exhaustion. Remaining inside her is tiring for me—being confined by blood instead of my natural element makes me sluggish, but I do not leave her for I know she will run if released of my hold. So I stay cooped up inside the cage of her.
The stream becomes wider, then turns into a tributary, then it spills into a great river. We pass castles and towns, villages and farms, mills and ruins. Sometimes people see us—see her—and they watch until we are out of sight. Kitty looks a strange soaked creature for there’s nothing of the water-sprite about her. She simply appears to be a depleted girl, wet as wet can be, slowly making her way against the current.
At last we come to the cathedral-city and I can take her no further. Neither of us will last: I feel poisoned by my imprisonment and she can barely lift her head. I do believe, though, that she will be far enough away that she won’t think to return to Briarton. And I have spent these days washing through her mind, watering down her memories and her hurt and her painful pointless love, trying to give her a clean slate and a heart that isn’t so spotted with blood. When I leave her, I hope she will be free, that she will not feel the memory of love as a tug in her stomach, as something that will draw her to the past.
She climbs out of the water and I let her go. I pool at her feet and then run back into the river. I do not take up my shape in front of her, for fear she will see me and remember. Back in water, I resume my form with relief. I feel the liquid cleansing me of the reek of humanity. I let the current take me as it wishes. Eventually, it will lead me back home. Until then I am content to drift.
A PORCELAIN SOUL
‘NOW. Slice it thin.’
Mater Lucina’s voice is soft, barely heard in the cool of Tertiary and her tone belies what she’s asking me to do. The gossamer substance floats in a small glass box that’s been carefully placed on the beaten bronze bench top. It is the closest thing in consistency to that of a soul. Pious mothers bring newborns here and donate their babies’ breath, so we students of Tintern Doll Makers’ Academy will have something on which to practice. It doesn’t hurt the babes at all: just a few aspirations into a vial and it’s done, no one even misses it. Harmless enough ’prentice work materials for us, before we start using our own souls.
‘Slice it!’ A sharpness, because I hesitate when I shouldn’t, weighted down by the worry of failure.
So I go at it in a panic, conjure a blade and see it form inside the box. Another part of my mind holds the floss steady and I slide the knife through it, so a thin, thin piece peels off. Thinner than the soup in an orphanage, thinner than the horizon. A sliver so waif-like that for a few moments it doesn’t even know it’s been cut. It wobbles, finds itself unanchored from the clotted mass, shivers and falls with the elegance of a fainting dancer.
Shuddering with relief, I wipe the sweat from my forehead. It was better than I deserved to produce, so much better. Lucina knows it, too, and she tells me as much. Her tiny mouth bunches and puckers in irritation. I cringe, knowing that making her angry won’t help my cause.
‘For that,’ she finishes, ‘for the hesitation and a result you did not warrant, you will clean out Primary tonight.’
I stifle a groan. Primary Workshop means clay, slops, slurry, shards of fired and discarded porcelain, the broken pieces of dolls that did not make it, and all the dust and coughing that goes with it. Then there’s the dryness you cannot get out of your hands for days. But I need to be obedient, I need to be the best.
She smiles at me, not unkindly, but with a certain disappointment that hurts. ‘You have to learn, Bitsy, to be decisive and to earn what you get. You can’t simply rely on your talent to give a good enough outcome. One day your luck may run out. One day very soon you’ll be doing this to your own soul and believe me, you don’t want to make mistakes then.’
I nod, but don’t say anything. My throat feels constricted with the efforts of the afternoon. I start to clear away the tools, but Mater Lucina shakes her head. ‘Selke will clean up in here; her punishment for that mess last Sunday.’
I hide a smile. Selke slipped five homunculi in amongst the church choir. A harmless enough trick and, if anyone had paid attention, they’d have noticed the blankness on the ill-painted faces and known them for the soulless abominations they were. She set them to explode when the hymns were sung. Not all together, mind—they were timed to go off at different pitches, so through the service there were these little explosions of glitter, fabric and false flesh. And the squeaking, the God-awful squeaking they made just before they popped.
The tutors don’t like us playing with homunculi—too inhuman, they say—but Selke and obedience don’t seem to mix well. She is quite brilliant. Her toys are bizarre and dangerous and spectacular. She really shouldn’t be here; she should have gone to one of the Armourers’ Academies where she could set her mind to things that are meant for war. Truly that’s where she’d rather be, but an accident of birth got in her way. So, she’s here instead and it presents a problem for both of us.
***
It’s late when I finish Primary, and I miss dinner. Luckily the kitchen mistress likes me and I find a small basket of food waiting on the steps of the workshop when I step out. I lift the red and green cloth: a hunk of cheese, black bread, two chicken legs, a fat slice of gooseberry pie and a small skin of milk.
I pass by Secondary, its lights already extinguished (no one else required punishment this eve) and then see there is a glow from inside Tertiary.
Selke is still there. She isn’t, however, tidying.
>
A wolf, just a small one, barely beyond a pup, lies where the box of breath was earlier. There’s no rise or fall of its chest. It looks beautiful and sad. Beside the body is a lead coffer, about a foot square, which Selke is opening.
‘What are you—’
‘Sssssssh. Stay out of my way or help,’ she hisses. Her red curls are piled up in a haphazard mess on her head, damp with sweat, and her green eyes look through me like a cat’s.
I put the basket down and lock the door behind me. ‘But Selke, what are you . . .’ I wave my hands in despair.
‘Stand there and watch.’
I look around for something, anything to use in case this goes wrong. She drops back the lid and it gives an angry clang. Up floats a cloud of something that whirls and spins in a tight ball, like chaos barely contained. Animal souls are erratic and volatile; they have none of the calm inertia of a human one. Selke’s mind-knife appears and she takes a slice.
‘Too thick,’ I tell her. ‘Far too thick; too much anima.’
‘Shut up, Bitsy!’ She frowns and sweats as she manœuvres the piece of roiling grey to lie just above the dead beast’s chest. Then she lets it sink into the fur to dig deep into the meat of the animal. The wolf shudders, his entire body shaking as part of it becomes transparent, part of it remains solid, in a kind of incomplete decay that surely must hurt and confuse it. The creature is now half spectre, half rotting corpse, mad and in pain.
There’s no time, really, between this and when it rolls to its feet and begins snarling. Selke is frozen, transfixed by the thing she’s created. It gathers its legs beneath it to spring, every stable muscle straining, but the ephemeral sections shiver and shake as if a strong wind might blow them away.
I bring the hammer down on its head, which has, luckily for us, remained real and stout. It releases a tiny whimper and gives up the ghost one more time. The grey of the soul seeps out and slowly dissipates, freed of the spell that held it.
Sourdough and Other Stories Page 12