Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, 28

by Edited by Gavin J. Grant

  Another echo rang through my too-slow mind.

  Damnable drought.

  Clear as curses, my momma’d died from that drought.

  If I weren’t dead, I’d have to hunt him down.

  I looked down at what had to be my corpse. The fire had incinerated my tunic, no surprise, but how odd to see my amber-freckled limbs free of burns. My mouth itched. I shouldn’t be alive, but it seemed I was. Clear as curses, no matter what else, I owed the Quixote my life. Course, even so, once I’d recovered, I’d hunt him down.

  Around me, smoke sputtered and steam rose from an ashy landscape, burnt and black but for a duo shining in the twilight. Midas and Melisande both, shining golden bright—bright as fire embraced, survived—honeyed into a bearable curse.

  The resurrection had worked. Midas shone in his former glory as he cradled my daughter Melisande—her mottling transformed into a beautiful, but harmless, gold filigree, a shade darker than the rest of her golden skin. My gorgeous daughter. Alive. But what a cost. At least Midas would get to hold her skin-to-skin.

  “Petech?” The welcome surprise of my wife’s voice brought new tears to my eyes. I had not yet dared to think if the Quixote had been in time to save her as well.

  Purla was gingerly making her way down the charred disembarkment redwood, her branches singed, only a few leaves and fruit having survived the fire, but thank the curses, alive.

  “Purla! I thought the fire had you, for sure!” Midas stepped clear of the redwood’s trunk, making space for Purla to enter the grove. Two perfect footprints of golden grass showed where he had weathered the fire, and warned how perfectly his curse had returned.

  “The aqueduct broke. Saved us all, thank the waters,” said Purla, reaching for Melisande.

  “No, Purla!” I forced myself to my feet, staggered towards them. “Don’t touch her! She’s a Midas now.”

  “What?”

  “He’s right, Purla. You should keep clear for now. Not for long though, right, Petech? You can kill her Midas curse, just like your momma killed mine.” He danced a quick soft-shoe, turning a patch of ash gold. “Happy for my resurrection, but this little one has another fate, I’m sure.”

  “No, Midas.” I spoke slowly, for all our sakes. “Melisande will have to remain a Midas, or else the mottling will be released again—its strangling curse, killing everything she touches, until it finally kills her. This was the only way I could save her and the watersheds.”

  “I never caught the mottling.” Purla’s bare branches snapped close to my face.

  “Yes, but you’re her mother, and so immune. The rest of the watersheds are not so lucky,” I said.

  “Well, fine then. I’ll become a Midas too.” She reached out.

  “No, Purla!” I staggered between them.

  “If you touch her, you won’t become a Midas.” Midas was the one who spoke, a trail of gold ash marking his retreat to the edge of the burnt grove. “You’ll turn to gold.”

  “Fine then, I’ll be a golden walking tree.”

  “You’d walk no longer.”

  “But . . . I don’t understand.”

  I picked a golden blade of grass from Midas’ footprints, and snapped it in two. “Gold is dead.”

  “Why its kiss is so exquisite,” said Midas.

  “I’m so sorry, Purla. Sorrier than I’ll ever be able to tell you. But not much is immune from the Midas touch besides the waterways and its water. It was the only way, Purla.” I meant it as an apology, but even to my ears it sounded like a defense. “We can . . . we can hold her through silks, right Midas?”

  “That’s right, or cotton, burlap, leaves—really anything, once she turns stuff gold, it’s safe for you to touch. Soon as we get home, we’ll get her swaddled close, then you can hold her. The gold protects you from each other.”

  “Protects us from . . . each other?” Chunks of Purla’s bark buckled.

  “It’ll be okay, Purla. Watch.” I picked another blade of glass, ran the gold along one of Melisande’s golden feet.

  Melisande laughed.

  A strong, joyous laugh that made me—well, I wouldn’t call it happy, but I couldn’t call it sad.

  “You wanna try, Purla?” I offered her the golden blade of grass.

  “No, I—I . . .” Purla’s evergreen eyes clouded, shriveled leaves falling from her eyes. “You should never have come to Tatouage. You should have left us alone!” She whirled, her limbs and roots trembling, burnt bits of bark and fruit cascading as she fled the grove.

  Melisande whimpered.

  I started after Purla, but Melisande’s whimper turned into a howl, stopping me.

  “Petech. Petech, what should I do?” Midas held my bawling daughter on his shoulder, patting her back, trying to calm her down.

  Damn how love played roulette. I loved them all—my golden friend, my newly minted daughter, my fled wife, but mixed up in all that love was so much loss. How to go on?

  “Petech?” Midas asked.

  Melisande screeched louder.

  “Try putting your pinky in her mouth.”

  He reached around her, nuzzling his pinky into her little golden lips, but Melisande was having none of it. I thought her awful howls would surely call Purla back, but as Melisande howled and the sun slipped out of sight, no one joined us in the grove.

  I knelt on the ground, picked up the remains of a burnt fruit fallen from Purla’s boughs, and bit through the blackened skin. A plum or peach, I couldn’t tell, but some juice left. Didn’t know if its taste or comfort would survive the Midas touch, but we had to try something.

  “Give her this.” I tossed Midas the fruit.

  The fruit turned golden the instant it hit his palm, and I thought, well, that was that. But he squeezed the fruit above her wailing, open mouth, and golden juice oozed out from its now golden flesh and, thank the curses, Melisande quieted.

  Her soft suckling filled the grove, and after a moment, Midas spoke. “Never thought I’d be lucky enough to feel gold’s kiss skin-to-skin. Your daughter, she’s, she’s . . .”

  An old tooth itched salt copper fury misspent . . .pricking regret—jealousy gone wrong. Not surprising, really, seeing my dear friend hold Melisande, knowing I would never again be able to touch my daughter skin to skin.

  But at least she was alive, I reminded myself. And so long as I didn’t succumb to the first curse I’d learned to kill, Melisande would have her own chance to count the curses, sneak the peach, win the long shot of being alive.

  This is this.

  My curse-killing sieve whirled, grievance dried sweat blood ill will. . . and three times I pureed that curse, making sure I sifted out every little bitter drop of jealousy gone wrong, before I spoke. Oh it hurt worse than any curse I’d ever learned to kill, but I was strong enough, thank the curses. “I think you mean she’s bee-yoo-ti-ful.”

  Midas almost smiled. “But motherless.”

  “Not for long. Once Purla realizes Melisande doesn’t have to be a curse-killer, she’ll think some good came out of this whole thing, and come back.” I had to hope.

  “What now, Petech?”

  Unsure what to say, I whirled and unwhirled the metal sleeve of my curse-killing mouth. Hints of coconut and fig lingered amidst the smoke. I needed to hunt the Quixote down—cut short his quest and its consequences.

  But first, there was my daughter to think about.

  “We go home. Do the best we can.” I smiled at him and Melisande and, thank the curses, none of my teeth ached.

  My hands caked with wet ash as I climbed the scorched ladder to Tatouage’s aqueduct. Beneath the sooty bark, fresh sap ran, but not a whiff of anise—the mottling had been routed. The grove would come back. Above, the golden light of the rising moon and soft gurgle of the waterways beckoned me hom
e to Loblolly.

  One day I’ll tell Melisande about what happened tonight—who sacrificed what for her golden life, how the watersheds were threatened, and how many curses her grandmomma and I killed. Or maybe I won’t.

  Maybe instead, I’ll spin her a story of being watershed born, and how in every life, no matter where we wander, the moon drenches us in peach-hued beauty—fresh cut and familiar—lighting our way home.

  Prayer to Oatmeal

  John McKernan

  Protect me

  From the morning paper

  Guard me

  From the radio all day

  Especially while walking

  Rescue me

  From every sports channel

  While I am working out

  At the gym

  Guide

  All those campaign phone calls

  To the Senator’s mansion

  The rich one

  Who might do the right thing once

  And kill himself in a bath tub

  Notes from a Pleasant Land Where Broken Hearts Are Like Broken Hands

  Kevin Waltman

  The Cacklers attacked today. With wretched whoops, they flung sacks packed with rabbit scat and deer urine, which splattered across our work. I thought, perhaps, that Manger Wall might turn the hoses on them or even shoot, but he lifted his hand from his holster and merely shook his fist as if chasing off a stray dog.

  Afterward Father asked Manger Wall why he did not retaliate. “It’s like throwing slop at swine,” Manger Wall said. “What is pain to a Cackler? Besides, theirs is a dying way of life.” He paused then and stared west toward the Cackler woods—our project is close to the woods’ edge, and at night we sometimes hear their hideous music. Manger Wall motioned to us. “Proceed,” he said.

  Ours is one of the smaller projects, so it is just us six: Father, Stinch and his homely sister, Vera, Palmetto and her father, and of course myself. The first thing we had to do was clean away the filth, and as we did Manger Wall reminded us of the backwards ways of the Cacklers, how they profess hatred toward him, and even toward the Seeoh, but all they generate is inconvenience for Pleasants. It is a twisted philosophy they have, but what else can one expect of such creatures? I watched Palmetto scrub a particularly thick mound of filth from the base and saw that a swatch of scat had smeared on her forehead. I felt for a moment a strange sentiment, as if it were my own face smattered with turd, and so I descended from my ladder and cleaned Palmetto’s face with my handkerchief.

  Palmetto is quite lovely, I think.

  She thanked me and for a second I thought she might say something more, but soon enough I was back on my ladder, mulling those awful Cacklers. I understand that as a creedless people they do not believe in our ways, and all Pleasant people are raised to respect the beliefs and works of others. Yet here lives this wild tribe bent on defacing the things we make beautiful. It so distracted me that I nearly fell twice, and perhaps it addled Vera as well for she so severely sprained an ankle that Manger Wall called for her to be remedied.

  Not until our break and even then not until I had eaten my dessert did I grow truly calm, remembering that, as we say, Only the Fool What Is Tries to Change, But the Wise and Pleasant Await the Next Stage.

  As we resumed work we heard their sounds—an early ritual to celebrate their small and nasty triumph: their men bellowing and their women blowing dissonant notes through wooden pipes and all of their feet pounding the forest floor arrhythmically. And as always cries of pain and distress from some quarters. Yes, cries. This so befuddles me: that a people would still cry when we last knew Sadness when Father was but my age; that they would refuse work and so live among the scorpions and spiders; that they would refuse desserts but for their juneberry jam, more bitter I am told than the kiss of a snake; that a tribe of men might willy-nilly sire and that a tribe of women might encourage them with their slatternly and often unclad customs.

  Yet these are their ways for these are their choices. Though I should accept that, it irks me. The Cacklers are indeed an idle and ignorant and unpleasant people.

  Today was the pleasantest of days! The work went well, and at this rate the shrine shall shimmer in full glory for weeks before the rainy season arrives. Even Vera was productive and did not once need to be remedied—a good thing, too, because after Stinch broke his rib last week Manger Wall reminded us about the costs of remedies, and though it was Stinch with the remedied bone we all knew his tone, thorny as a rose stem, was meant for clumsy Vera.

  More, Palmetto smiled upon me again, a vision more radiant than even the Seeoh’s palace on the finest July day. After lunch, she sat next to me and as her father squinted into the afternoon sun she briefly put her hand on my knee. Though I know my mother would not approve, I thrilled at the sensation. Palmetto fluttered her eyelids at me and said, “Bolder, what if you took my dessert and I took yours.” So that is precisely what we did, and as I gulped mine down in one swallow I watched her sip slowly, just a few drops of it gathering at the corner of her mouth, a startle of blue against the porcelain of her skin. The sight made my chest feel like someone was pressing on it, and I remembered that I am less than three years from my choosing ceremony, where they still include such sensations among the criteria. If I remain as productive as I’ve been, then surely I will be rewarded with a chance for Palmetto.

  All day the Cacklers were quiet, perhaps still in a stupor from the night’s debauchery, for they are well known to eat of fermented fruit, the unreasoning beasts, to heighten their lusts and spur them toward fisticuffs and harsh words, only to feel the deep and lasting pain of the dullard in the morning. Cacklers elsewhere felt justice, too: upon returning home we learned that a Seeoh vanquished at last every Cackler, for they were each of them jailed or converted to Pleasantry. After the broadcast, even Father seemed settled, and when Mother handed him his cup for dessert he drank willingly. He winked at me afterward and then said, “Bolder was quite the flirt at work today.” Mother raised her eyebrows but sensed this was another one of Father’s attempts at what he believes is levity, and we were all so impressed by the news of the reformed Cacklers nothing more was made of it. We rested then before the fire display, and Father was nothing but pleasant.

  As I write, I anticipate the day when such judgment arrives here as well—I do not, of course, suggest that our Seeoh or any of our Mangers are less than brilliant, and I certainly ignore the vicious rumors about Manger Wall. Though the Seeoh himself was selected by his aging father, everyone knows that you rise to such stations only through great wisdom, a sagacity proved by your words and actions—not as in old days before the Seeohs found the remedies, when working people’s wrists chaffed in the shackles of religions or monarchs or officialdom. So, yes, our Seeoh and Mangers are wise. In fact, given better circumstance, they might have arrived at success long ago, for in that other city the Cacklers were scattered within, confined to alleys and vacant work stations, rather than having run of a forest like our Cacklers do, and so all that needed be done was to set effective traps, just as one rids their home of rodents.

  But that is conjecture, which can lead only to anxiety, that lingering affliction that even desserts do not always correct, as prickly a problem as the spine posed for the remedies. So I shan’t think of such things. Besides, the night grows short, and I require rest. As the Mangers all say: Take Your Rest and Give Your Twenty, Then We Shall All Enjoy the Plenty.

  I worry for Father. He refuses his dessert as often as not. Tonight he simply slid it back across the table at Mother, who slid it toward him again, only for Father to repeat the action. They volleyed the dessert back and forth like a childish taunt. Father retains some of the pigment from his father, and legend lingers that with such blood comes an unbecoming willfulness, a temptation to turn from the clearest and most reasonable courses of action. I disbelieve it, however, as
Mangers come in all colors, their shades almost as varied as the Cacklers’.

  Father pushed the dessert back one last time, so forceful it sloshed onto our old table, and then he rose and leaned against the wall, the soft wood bowing with his weight. Mother flattened her hand on the table, then curled it into a fist. “You set no example for the child,” she said.

  “He is old enough to see a life beyond the next dessert,” said Father.

  “Idle talk ushers children to the wilderness.”

  Other nights when Father refuses dessert he slings his arm around Mother in a suggestive manner and says things unbecoming. Once he attempted song, haltingly and out of tune, a chorus from his childhood and not one of our Pleasant songs in praise of the Seeoh. Those evenings are quite the embarrassment, but tonight his actions—and mother’s retorts—moved me beyond simple shame. No Pleasant child harbors animosity toward their parents, but sitting on my bed across the room and hearing them speak as if I were off on errand, I felt almost as hot as the time I fell from the shrine onto Stinch’s glowing blowtorch.

  I do not want a Manger to come and find surplus dessert, a sign not only of waste but waning morale, and so when he finally drifted to sleep, fitfully snoring in his wicker chair, I tip-toed to the table and noiselessly consumed what father had left—at the least, it helps me focus for that extra hour to write here, an exercise I do not think the Mangers would mind since mine are but notes and chronicling, not fruitless and forbidden flights of verse. With the cold seeping through the cracks at the window, the dessert had congealed. It slid down in a cold lump. Now Father snorts once and almost wakes, then slumps back to an uncomfortable position. His bruised arms are folded across his belly, and he probably suffers nightmares—one of the prices for his refusal.