by Ila Mercer
‘No.’
‘Why not? How far is it anyway?’
‘I said no, Lita. Not there. And that’s final.’ With that, MaKiki made an abrupt exit, skirts flouncing as she returned to the wheel. She picked up her tools and pounded the twisted metal with renewed vigour.
Lita pursed her lips and nudged a clod of dirt into the fire. She wanted to scream or hit something, have a tantrum, except that MaKiki had cornered the market on storming and scowling. It left Lita’s anger with nowhere to go. She could feel her body grow hot, and her clenched hands trembled with quashed rage. The worst part was being shut out – being given no why or wherefore. It made her think MaKiki didn’t care. That she wasn’t bothered if Lita’s feelings had been hurt. And once again, it raised her suspicions. MaKiki knew things she wasn’t telling. Things that might have something to do with Lita’s past.
Lita stewed all night and much of the following morning, though she managed to be chatty and compliant. It gave her a feeling of control. That she could contain her anger, while MaKiki could not. She knew better than to wait for an apology and gradually over the course of the day, things between them became normal again.
By late afternoon, great grey clouds rumbled across the sky and MaKiki glanced nervously at the horizon. Several times, they heard the distant booming of thunder, but the storm bypassed their camp, heading west. MaKiki gave up on the wheel and paced around the wagon, then up and down the road, kicking the warped rim each time she passed. Eventually, she stood before Lita, arms tightly folded against her chest. Her skirt fluttered where her leg jiggled against the fabric.
‘We can’t afford to be stuck in this region all winter. This is a dangerous place.’
Lita agreed. She’d been thinking about the bandits, wondering if they were the ones who had spooked Old Hodder.
‘If I start at first light,’ MaKiki continued, ‘I can get to Tanglewood before nightfall. Next day I’ll make some sales and then be back before the third evening.’ MaKiki’s expression, her stance, even the tone of her voice made Lita think of sheets being wrung until not a drop of water was left in the weave. ‘But I’ll only go if you promise not to go wandering at night. No Changes. Nothing to cause suspicion.’
A sudden chill raced through Lita’s body. Her words the previous evening had been big, but the heart behind them was not. Suddenly she felt worried about what Tipple might do if she learned of the secret. She tried not to let MaKiki see this, and just nodded and smiled. ‘I’ll be fine. You’ll see.’
And then because she realised that MaKiki was riddled with guilt she dared to ask all the questions that had been brewing in her mind. ‘Kiki?’ she said, ‘When we were in Yawmouth I overheard some merchants talk about Beasts.’
‘And?’
‘Well, it got me thinking after we saw the slaves come off the ship.’
‘Hmm?’ MaKiki had begun to frown.
‘Do you think they were Beasts, the slaves I mean? And how is it, that I am like the Beasts? You know, with the Change. Do you think there’s something wrong with me?’
Lita could not read the fleeting expression that crossed her guardian’s face.
‘Ah Lita, why do you say that? There’s nothing wrong with you.’
‘But why can I Change when others can’t?’ Lita persisted. ‘Doesn’t that make me some sort of freak?’
‘Everything changes. Just look at my hands; you wouldn’t know I once had skin as smooth as a pearl.’ She held out hands, with protruded veins and leathery lines.
Lita screwed up her face. MaKiki was avoiding a proper answer.
‘Alright then,’ MaKiki said. What about this? Back before I can even remember, I was a little baby.’
Lita smiled. It was hard to imagine MaKiki as an infant, with no hair or teeth, wrapped in napkins to catch her mess.
‘If you were to set me next to that infant now,’ MaKiki continued, ‘you would say they were two different beings. The only thing that links us is a chain of moments over time. See. You’re not so special after all. Even boring old Kiki is able to change.’
‘It’s not the same,’ Lita groaned. ‘Because everyone does it. My Change is different – queer.’
‘You’re not queer or a freak,’ MaKiki said sharply, and then softened. ‘Just different in a way most folk are too simple minded to appreciate. Like butterflys.’
Lita frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ MaKiki said. ‘They start their life as caterpillars, don’t they? Then one day, after they’ve grown large and swollen, they spin a cocoon, so no-one will see the magic of their transformation. Inside that cocoon, the caterpillar melts down, like hot wax.’ With a sideway glance back at Lita she added. ‘Not unlike the way you Change.’
Lita was about to object but MaKiki continued, ‘From that caterpillar soup, hidden away inside the cocoon, it rebuilds itself. Except now it makes wings to fly, two antennae, a long thin body and legs. And you don’t hear anybody call a butterfly a freak. Or even give two thoughts to its change. In fact, most folk just take it for granted because they have no imagination.’
‘But it still doesn’t explain what I am.’ Lita felt that MaKiki had failed to give her the answer she was seeking. ‘I’ve heard that the Beasts can Change. Do you think maybe…’ She could not bring herself to say it.
But MaKiki turned away sharply so that all Lita could see was the outline of her cheek and a coil of hair resting against her sinewy neck. ‘You’re not to say that, Lita.’ And then she stalked off and rummaged loudly in the back of the wagon.
Lita stared after MaKiki. Once again, her question had been sidestepped. All the rage that had been tamped down now erupted into her chest and throat. ‘Why won’t you tell me the truth?’ Lita shouted.
‘Are you raising your voice at me?’ MaKiki said, returning with thunder in her stride.
‘Well, you’re always walking off when I’m still trying to talk to you. How would you feel? And why is it you never want to talk about it anyway?’
‘I will. When the time is right.’ MaKiki raised a silencing finger. ‘And not before. When we are far away from here. Somewhere safe. Then maybe we can talk about such things.’
*
From that moment until MaKiki left to find Tipple’s hut, Lita refused to speak another word. But once MaKiki had gone, she regretted her actions, realising that she did not want their parting to be marred by bad feelings. When MaKiki returned with the old woman, Lita rushed to her guardian’s side. ‘I’m sorry I got angry.’
MaKiki drew her aside and spoke in a lowered voice. ‘I understand your frustration Lita. But I don’t want to talk about these things. Not yet anyway. The less you know, the better. You’ll have to trust me on this.’
Lita nodded. It was awkward, and neither could look the other in the eye. A tender glance from MaKiki at that moment and Lita knew her guarded veneer might vanish, and she did not want to cry in front of the odd, rumpled woman.
‘Ah,’ Tipple said, scrambling down from her cart, ‘It’ll be good to have a hand around the place.’ She poked around their camp, picking up objects, nibbling the cache of nuts that Lita had hoped to have for her supper. She did not offer MaKiki any help as she struggled to lift the wheel from the tray of her cart.
‘How did you get this into the cart by yourself?’ MaKiki asked.
‘I have my ways,’ Tipple answered and then turned to Lita. ‘Are you much of a cook? Any good at chopping wood?’
MaKiki released the wheel and turned. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Lita will pull her weight, but not as slave to do your bidding.’
A conciliatory smile slid across the old woman’s face. ‘I was fooling. She’ll be treated like a guest, unless you don’t return.’
‘I’ll be back for her.’ MaKiki grunted as she lost her grip on the wheel. It bounced, sending a fine powder of dust into the air.
Tipple strolled to the back of the wagon and could be heard rattling through their wares. With a furtive motion, MaKiki
signalled Lita to bend close and whispered, ‘For glory sake, don’t let her see the Changing. No Changing at all.’ She captured Lita’s chin in her hand and gave both cheeks a quick squeeze. ‘Understand?’
Lita nodded. As if I need to be told again, she thought to herself. With trembling hands, Lita climbed into Tipple’s cart. And just as Tipple’s nag lurched forward, MaKiki shoved a folded cloth into her hand, and closed Lita’s finger’s around it.
When Lita opened the cloth, she was startled to see it was MaKiki’s locket. Lita’s eyes filled with tears as she watched MaKiki, the wagon, and Old Hodder shrink against the darkness. When they were nearly out of sight, MaKiki lifted her hand, and waved.
As soon as MaKiki and the wagon were out of sight, Tipple leaned forward and fumbled for something under her seat. She drew a big ceramic bottle out and pulled its cork with her teeth. Leaning back, she poured the pungent fluid into her mouth, spilling some of it onto her tunic. She wedged the bottle between her legs and wiped her mouth with the back of his hand. After burping loudly, she said, ‘I’d offer some, but you’re too young for gin. It’ll rot your guts.’
Lita wondered why anyone would drink something so damaging to their health but smiled courteously as a way of reply.
The moon rose through the trees. Usually the sight of it made Lita excited, but tonight it only filled her with dread. She prayed they would arrive at their destination before it rose much higher. She pulled the folds of her cloak close about her, to shield her face from the light of the moon. She could already feel a slow tingle thread its way through her body as Tipple announced, ‘Just ‘round this bend.’
Tipple’s yard stank like her rumpled clothing: sour and rancid. Lita’s nose wrinkled as the cart drew close. Though it was dark and shadowy, she could see that the place was as cluttered as a junkyard.
‘Hope you aren’t hungry,’ Tipple said as she climbed from the cart.
‘I ate earlier,’ Lita lied.
‘Good. Help me with the horse and then you can turn in.’
‘MaKiki said I’ll be sleeping in the barn.’
‘Well, I don’t have a guest room,’ she retorted, as though the comment had been a complaint. ‘You’ll find a cot in the corner. Should do you fine.’ With a snigger she added, ‘Besides you can always curl up to Trubbles for warmth - if you can stand his pong.’
Lita swallowed hard. She hated to think who Trubbles might be.
*
Trubbles, it turned out, was a goat. His matted coat was snagged with twigs and burrs and he rattled his head as though trying to dislodge something. He smelled. But not rangy and vital in the way animals often smelled. He reeked of rot and festering sores.
Lita pulled the cot – a hard wooden pallet – to the far corner of the barn. Tipple had given her a rough wool blanket that had so many moth holes it was a wonder the fabric held together at all. She used this, along with some straw to fashion a mattress for herself. The other blanket- the one MaKiki had given her – she wrapped around her body.
Shortly after she lay down, a draft extinguished her lamp. She had hoped to have its small comfort during the night. Now that it was completely dark, she was aware of every rattle, every windy whistle through the boards, every slow measured chewing of cud. The sounds were all wrong for sleep. Where was the gentle slap of branches against the canvas? The rhythmic breath that eventually turned into a deep rattling snore? Or the various croaks, chirrups, and birdsong muted by well-sealed panels of wood? In Tipple’s barn, the creatures of the night seemed to surround her. She felt she had only to lift her hand from under the cover and it would brush carapace or feather. She burrowed deeper under the blanket.
As she lay there, memories of other disturbing times invaded her thoughts. Such as the time, the previous summer, when she and MaKiki realised they’d set up camp near a bandits’ lair. Not long after midnight, the bandits had returned, whooping and rollicking drunk, boasting to each other about the elegant carriage they’d robbed earlier that evening. They’d laughed about the surprise on the driver’s face as they slit his scrawny neck, and how they’d stripped the Senna and his Sia of their finery, leaving them shivering in their undergarments. Lita remembered how she’d trembled when she heard that.
For several hours after, she and MaKiki had perched on the edge of their beds, praying that Hodder would not snicker or sneeze. Until finally, in the dark hour just before dawn, MaKiki hitched the wagon and lurched off at a cracking pace. They were not followed. Perhaps because of all the liquor the bandits had drunk earlier.
Something hooted from the rafters above, and Lita’s eyes sprang open again. Her heart thumped hard in her chest. What was it? Then it hooted again, and Lita sheepishly realised it was only an owl. She pulled her blanket a little more tightly around her shoulders and told herself to be brave, but more memories popped into her head. She recalled a time shortly after her sixth or seventh summer, when they were accosted by members of the King’s guard. MaKiki had spied their banner before they arrived, and shoved Lita under the voluminous folds of her skirts. Instinctively, Lita had pressed her body against MaKiki’s legs, making herself as small and still as she could, as the guards foraged through the back of their wagon, searching for fugitives.
It was only now, while reflecting on this scene, Lita understood the guards were probably searching for escaped Beasts, but she wondered why MaKiki had made her hide.
Almost like a dream, she thought she remembered another time of hiding too. It was when she was quite small. Someone had pushed her into a dark hole, telling her: ‘We’re playing hide and seek, so you must be quiet.’ After that, she remembered voices. One strange. One familiar. And, as the memory took shape, Lita realised where it was – it was a hollow inside the oak from her dreams.
Now she could not tell if it was a memory, or if it was a dream she’d once had.
If she’d been able to ask MaKiki about it, she was certain her guardian would immediately dismiss it as a dream. But it had a tangible quality. Like something that had truly happened. Yet whenever Lita tried to talk about the oak tree and the hut by the lake, MaKiki had always snorted, telling Lita they’d only ever lived in the wagon.
Something told Lita this wasn’t quite true. Which meant MaKiki had lied about the past and if you could not trust someone to tell you the truth about something as simple as the past, could you trust her at all? Lita squeezed her eyes together tight – as if this might push the thought from her head. It was, she realised, a silly harmful thought, brought on because she was alone in a stranger’s place.
It’s only three nights, she told herself. A small sacrifice to pay for the trouble she had brought. All the same, she did not fall asleep until the early hours of morning.
*
Lita mumbled and rolled over. Something tickled her ear and then a rotten stench blew across her face. Two slitted green eyes gazed intently into hers and a raspy tongue slurped her nose and mouth. She hollered and leapt to her feet, wiping the stream of slime from her face.
‘Get away, you filthy old goat,’ she squawked, pushing Trubbles aside. The old goat bent his head and aimed his horns, but Lita skipped away before he could butt her.
She kicked a path through the straw and pushed the door open, sunlight blinding her. With shielded eyes, she scanned the yard, searching for any sign of a pump, but all she could see was the litter of old tins, smashed pots, food scraps, broken wheels and a rotting cart. She wrinkled her nose as she caught their collective scent on the breeze. There was no sign of Tipple either.
Sidestepping a pile of old bones, Lita picked her way through the yard. Just beyond Tipple’s hut, she heard the burble of running water. Thickly wooded land sloped away, and Lita guessed there must be a stream nearby. She scrambled down a gully and, at the base, found a shallow stream lined with golden pebbles. Further along, it widened, and Lita followed a thin track until she came to a deep pool where the water moved languidly. She stripped to her underwear and waded into the water, skin go
osing with the chill. As she stirred through the silt, something sharp grazed the arch of her foot and she guessed what it was straight away. She clawed through the mud, dislodging the sharp-ridged mussels at their bases with her fingers, finding a nest of them. The water quickly grew muddy as she gathered them up. It would make a good breakfast, she thought, so long as Tipple had kept a small fire going through the night.
When she returned to the shallows, she noted a footprint in the dirt - a pad, as wide as her hand, fanned into four toe depressions with four deep indents beyond. It was the track of a wolf and she wondered how she had missed it before her swim. But there was no sign of a wolf. With a shiver, she pulled on her tunic, bundled the mussels into her shawl and hurried along the track.
Back at the yard, she knocked on Tipple’s door, calling several times however there was no response. Finally, Lita pushed the door open, allowing a flash of sunlight into the hut. Tipple snorted and rolled toward the wall, her blanket slipping to the floor. She was still dressed in her boots and coat and a ceramic pot lay in shattered pieces under the bed. The air in the room reeked of liquor. Lita had thought of waking the old souse – for protection against the wolf – but now thought better of it.
A small lantern sat on the edge of a bench, its flame flickering feebly. Lita tiptoed in and closed her fingers around the handle, careful not to wake the woman, thinking that she might even get away with eating all the mussels. It was wicked, she knew, to be so greedy, but she felt painfully hungry and reasoned that she owed the old woman nothing other than what was agreed.
She built her fire near the barn. Finding enough kindling and wood for the fire was an easy task. Within a very short time, she had a bed of hot coals and her mussels sat suspended above them on a small grill she had salvaged from one of the piles. The juices from the gaping mussels sizzled as they dripped, and the scent, made even more enticing by hunger, filled the air. Her mouth watered in anticipation. It was better than oats, which is what MaKiki would have cooked that morning. Oats, oats, oats, just the same as Old Hodder’s breakfast as if they too were a pair of old draught horses.