by Betsy Tobin
The painter raises himself up on one elbow. “I have no wish to drift forever,” he says earnestly. “But I’ve not yet found a place where I belong.”
I stop dressing and turn to him. His naked chest glistens in the light of the taper.
“Perhaps it is not a place you seek, but a person.”
He looks at me and I feel the heat rise in my face. I turn away and pick up his tunic, but as I do the miniature tumbles forth from the bedclothes and drops to the floor. I stoop to retrieve it and see at once that the glass has shattered: a neat web of lines now encases her. I glance up at him anxiously; feel that we have transgressed her. The painter reaches over and gingerly closes the frame, protecting her from further danger.
“It will be safe in the chest,” he says.
I cross the room and lift the chest onto the table. I feel for the secret latch along the side, and once again, as if by magic, the top springs open. And there beneath the lid, I find the answer to our questions, for the swaddling clothes have disappeared.
And all at once I know where I will find the boy.
* * *
We finish dressing quickly, the painter eyeing me curiously when I tell him we must hurry. I grab my cloak and he follows me out the door, just as dusk begins to close in upon us. Without thinking I take his hand, pull him along through the forest behind her cottage, along a path just barely visible through the trees. We do not speak and there is little noise other than the sound of our feet upon the frozen snow.
At length the path disappears but we continue through the forest. Once or twice I pause to check my bearings, for I have not been this way since I was a child, but memory and instinct guide me like an unseen beacon. The painter looks back anxiously once or twice, for night is falling, and we have brought nothing to light our safe return.
As the last rays of daylight disappear, we reach the creek where Dora died. The moon is nearly full and casts an eerie light upon us, reflecting off the snow. We move along the icy creekbed, slowly picking our way through rocks and twisted roots and frozen mud, tracing its serpentine course for some minutes. At length the walls of the bed begin to climb more steeply, until we find ourselves within a deep ravine, bounded on all sides by lichen-covered granite. I stop and hold a hand up to the painter, pointing across the stream to a series of sheer rock walls that rise steeply from the bed. Further along, a few of them form openings: giant crevasses where the force of nature has split the rockface asunder.
We stand staring up at it, our breath forming icy jets of fog that vanish almost instantly in the cold night air. The painter stoops down, cupping water from the stream in his hands, and drinks deeply of it. At length he rises, wiping his hands on his tunic.
“What is this place?” he says in a hushed voice.
I point toward the crevasse.
“This is where they found her body,” I explain. “Up there, in the caves along the rockface. I used to come here in the summer as a child. In my day it was a secret place. But now the village children all come here to play.”
The painter looks around in wonder, for it is hauntingly beautiful.
“It is a magical place,” I say. “A place for children.”
He turns to me then, divines my meaning.
“The boy is here?” he says, his eyes wide.
I nod and raise a finger to my lips. I motion him to follow and slowly, quietly, we move along the streambed, choosing a narrow place where we can ford the icy water, picking our way across the stones. When we reach the base of the rock wall, I stop and stare up at the crevasses. Something catches my eye in the largest: a movement, and I point to it and begin to climb along the giant plates of stone. The moss has made it treacherous, and twice I slip, the painter raising a hand from behind to prevent my fall. Eventually we find a crack that is deep enough to move along, and we cross it carefully, mindful of the drop beneath us.
As we reach the largest opening, we pull ourselves inside, stooping to avoid the ceiling. It takes only a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness within, and there, crouched in the furthest reach, is the shivering figure of the boy. He holds a bundle closely to his chest, a tightly wrapped blanket, one of those from the trunk, and watches us, wild-eyed. I take a step forward, instinctively hold out a hand.
“Long Boy, you are cold,” I say. He shifts sideways like a crab in an effort to retreat. But there is nowhere for him to go. I take another step, crouch down, my fingers resting lightly on the damp stone.
“You must come home,” I say gently. “You cannot stay the night here.”
“Do not take him from me,” he says urgently. I stare at the bundle.
“He needs warmth,” I say. “He belongs with his mother. She will warm him.” Long Boy eyes me distrustfully, shakes his head no.
“He is mine,” he says.
“We will bring him with us then,” I say coaxingly. “My mother waits for you. For both of you.” He considers my words, and as he does I ease myself forward. I pause just in front of him and hold my arms out for the bundle. He stares down at my hands. Slowly I take the bundle from him, feel its stiffness. He does not resist. I cradle the bundle in my arms, peel back the frozen blanket, and inside it is immaculate in its woolen tomb. Its features are tiny and perfectly formed, and its arms are pulled up, fists frozen tightly against its chest. He must have wiped the blood away, for its skin is flat and white like just-made pastry. I pull the blanket away to reveal the sex: a baby boy. Long Boy stares at the dead child in my arms.
“We will take the baby with us,” I say. “And return him to your mother.” Long Boy raises his head to look at me, his eyes filled with pain.
“She would not have me,” he says searchingly. “She would have the others. But not me.” Long Boy looks once more at the tiny infant and swallows. I hold my breath, glance behind me to the painter, who raises his eyebrows. I turn back to the boy.
“Long Boy, did you push her?” I ask gently.
He continues staring at the infant, his chest heaving from the memory.
“She ran from me,” he says. “She ran and ran . . . and then she fell.” He looks up at me, tears in his eyes. “She did not want me anymore.”
And then his meaning dawns on me, for in my arms I hold the devil’s child, and it is both his brother and his son.
The painter gathers up the bedclothes and the remaining food and, with me still carrying the infant, we begin our descent. Long Boy follows soundlessly behind us. Slowly we edge our way back along the crevasse with the painter in the lead and Long Boy bringing up the rear, his face impassive, as if in a trance. As we near the bottom I pause and turn to see that he has stopped several yards behind. He turns back and begins climbing toward the cave and I call to him, but he is moving swiftly, purposefully, and does not respond. The painter, too, pauses and we exchange a worried glance. Perhaps Long Boy has forgotten something, though the cave appeared empty when we left it.
He reaches the opening and does not stop, but continues past it, clambering along the crack in the rockface. From there it narrows until it provides barely more than a handhold, but he moves easily, hauling his giant frame across the rockface like an oversized insect. The rock rises another twenty feet from the level of the cave entrance, and we watch helplessly as he reaches the top and hauls himself up over the edge, disappearing from view.
I shout his name from down below, and my cries bounce against the sheer rockfaces, mocking me. We wait in silence for a moment, hoping he will reappear, knowing that it is pointless to follow. Even if we were to find him, he is far too strong for us to restrain. We wait in silence, can hear nothing now but the trickle of the stream below, and the deathly silence of the forest.
And then he reappears atop the ridge some distance downstream, where the rock reaches its highest point, perhaps a hundred feet above the streambed. He moves forward to the edge of the cliff and I watch in knowing horror as he contemplates the water far below. I call to him one last time and he does not appear to hear,
does not even glance in our direction. And then I see him raise his arms and cast himself forward, as if he were a giant bird, soaring down across the rockface, plummeting toward his mother far below.
He lands facedown on a bed of jagged rocks that line the water’s edge, and we watch in horror as his blood slowly mingles with the icy waters of the stream. The painter slowly edges back toward me, reaches out a hand and pulls me to him, for I stand frozen in the crevasse, unable to tear my eyes from Long Boy’s lifeless body. I clutch the infant tightly to my chest, as if by doing so, I can still preserve its life. But they are all dead now, the mother and her sons, and there is nothing I can do.
Later, I sit upon the bank and watch as the painter drags his body from the rocks onto the snowy shore, laying him facedown. I no longer feel the cold, feel only the weight of the tiny child in my arms. Somehow she must have known it was the boy’s. I can only wonder what must have gone between them: the mother with the body of a thousand women, the child with that of a fully grown man.
Chapter Nineteen
We leave him there facedown upon the icy banks and return to the village with the dead child still locked in my arms. This time it is the painter who leads me through the forest, for I have no more consciousness than a sleepwalker. He takes me straight to the alehouse, and I stand by the kitchen fire unable to speak while Mary gently pries the infant from my grasp. The painter then knocks upon the magistrate’s door, and spills forth the story of the boy and his mother and the terrible fate that claimed them both.
I wait by the fire while they speak, a tankard of untouched ale between my palms, and Mary by my side. Try as I might, I cannot banish the image of the boy in flight from my mind, his arms spread wide to catch the earth.
At length the painter reappears, his face grim but relieved. He kneels in front of me and takes the tankard from my hands, presses his palms against my own. I look into his eyes, try to lose myself in them, and feel an overwhelming tiredness, as if I have lived a lifetime in the course of a day. He draws me slowly to my feet, urging me to return with him to the Great House. But I shake my head and silence him, for there is something I must do.
Together we walk to my mother’s cottage, and at her door I leave him, insisting that he return alone to the Great House. Once he is gone, I enter quietly and find her dozing in a chair beside the fire, her fingers clutching a skein of half-wound wool. A low-burning taper flickers in an iron holder upon the table, casting a muted circle of light around it. My mother does not wake when I enter, and I stand for a moment watching her while she sleeps, her head lolling gently to one side.
She is no longer the woman who inhabits my childhood memories, but another person altogether: a woman who is privy to dark secrets, and one who has been preyed upon by her own people. Such things come to bear upon a person, make their mark: and she will carry it with her always, just as I will. I look for it now in the line of her sagging jaw or the fleshy folds of her neck, or the wrinkles upon the backs of her hands. Her life has held much toil and sadness. And yet I have no doubt that when she wakes she will not harbor bitterness against her accusers, for it is not in her nature to dwell upon the past, any more than it is to dream of the future. She is like the river salmon bent upon its homecoming: she will only seek to repossess her former life.
I lay a hand gently upon her shoulder and she wakens with a start. “It is only me,” I say softly. Her eyes drift over to the taper.
“I did not mean to sleep,” she says, drawing herself up in the chair. I pull a stool across to face her and seat myself, not quite sure how to begin.
“The boy is dead,” I say finally, starting at the end. And then I tell the tale in its entirety, while she listens, close-lipped, her knuckles white against the chair. When I am finished she gives an enormous sigh and we both turn our faces to the dying embers of the fire. I sense no malice from her, no trace of blame as I had feared, and for that I am grateful. Indeed she appears more calm than I have seen her in some days, as if the truth has stilled her.
“Did you know of this?” I ask her finally. She looks at me and shakes her head.
“No.” She gives another sigh. “Perhaps a part of me knew.” She squints at the memory. “She wanted me to understand. She gave me clues. Toward the end, there was a great longing in her to repeat the past, to undo what she had done. She needed to atone . . . but most of all she needed sympathy . . . and absolution.” My mother looks at me. “The latter was not mine to give.” Her voice trails off in sadness. “The day before she died, she told me that she had not chosen fate, but rather had created it. I did not understand her meaning until now.
“I told her that our fate was in God’s hands. And she said that his judgment had been harsh and terrible.” My mother looks at me. “As always, she was right.” We sit in silence for a moment.
“I am sorry about the boy,” I say finally.
“I thought that I could save him from her sins,” replies my mother. “But I did not know that they were his sins too. They are both in God’s hands now.”
“We have been to see the magistrate,” I say. “You are free now.” She nods then, frowning into the flames.
“It will be hard to carry on without them,” she says. “At least with the boy, I had a piece of her.” I reach for her hand and take it in mine, a gesture only Dora’s death has allowed me. I think of my master and my mother, and the private battles they will have to wage before they are set free. For grief is like a mountain to be climbed: only from its highest point can we see beyond.
I leave her staring into the fire, her hands newly tangled in the wool. Even my mother is not alone, for we are all strung together in our longing.
When I reach the Great House it is late, but I do not climb the stairs to my tiny chamber, and go instead to the tower. As I pass the library, a feeble light shows beneath the door, a sign that my master remains restless within. I glide past his door without a sound until I reach the painter’s chamber, which I enter without knocking, surprised at my own boldness. He is reading in bed and looks up when I enter, his eyes anxious in the half-light of the candle beside him. I lock the door and move across the room without a word, and he closes the book and moves over in his bed. I lie down next to him, place my head upon his chest, and close my eyes to all that I have seen and heard. The painter strokes my hair for a moment, then leans over and extinguishes the candle, and before I know it sleep has taken me.
I wake in the light of predawn, still fully clothed, my back aching from the rigors of my corset. The painter sleeps and I take care not to disturb him as I rise. I need to undress, to release my body from its cage of whalebone stays and cotton ties, even if only for a few minutes, so I steal out of the room and return to the privacy of my bedchamber. Once there I quickly remove everything and slip beneath the bedclothes, shivering in the morning cold. I close my eyes and once again fall into sleep, but though my bed is empty I am not alone.
She comes to me in my dreams, and this time she is no longer troubled but strangely calm. She stands in the cave entrance, her white dress billowing in the wind, and there is an air of poignant resignation about her, as if the worst has happened and been overcome. I call to her from down below and slowly her eyes swivel round to find me. I try to scramble up the crevasse but my hands and feet cannot find their hold, and when I look again she has disappeared from view. I stand there searching the cave openings, desperate for one last glimpse of her, and after a moment she reappears atop the ridge in the same spot where the boy jumped to his death. This time Long Boy is at her side, nearly a head taller than herself, but clutching her hand boyishly like the man-child he is. I raise my arm to wave at them but this time she does not respond, does not even look in my direction. They stand there together for several moments, and then she turns and leads him away from the cliff edge, away forever from my view. I turn and look along the creekbed to the spot where Long Boy landed and his carcass is still there, facedown upon the banks, but I know that it is empty for his soul
has flown.
And then I look upon my hands, and they are not my own but hers: large and strong and scratched and bloody from the fall that claimed her. I stare at them, wonder whether she has bequeathed them to me, and if so, what purpose they will serve. And in the next instant they are gone, for suddenly I am wide awake, looking out upon the cold light of winter in my chamber.
It is only a matter of hours before news of Long Boy’s death spreads through the village, as do the details of the events which preceded it. A posse of men retrieve his body during the course of the morning, and by dusk he has been laid to rest alongside his mother in the graveyard, the boy infant in her arms. We all attend the burial, just as we had done not ten days earlier, but so much has happened in the interim that there is little to recall that earlier scene. My mother draws a few glances from the villagers, but by and large they keep their tongues and their wits about them. And when the burial is over, my master shuffles slowly across the frozen earth and clasps my mother’s hand in both of his, a gesture which surprises both of them. Only my mistress is conspicuous in her absence, for she lies dying in her bed.
She has refused to speak to me since yesterday, and waits patiently, almost longingly, for death to claim her. When I went to see her in the morning, she closed her eyes and turned her face away, a gesture of repudiation which, oddly, left me unmoved. Perhaps she simply acknowledges with her actions what we both know to be true: that the ground has shifted beneath our feet, and nothing remains as it was.
For once, the people of the village are struck dumb by the truth. Though many are horrified by Long Boy’s crimes, he was her son, and she was sacred to them. When the burial is over they purse their lips, draw their cloaks more tightly round their shoulders, and slowly return to the numbing silence of their work.