My cloak was green, as well: the colour of forests, with an enveloping hood. I liked the hood, it hid my expression at convenient moments. And I liked the greenness, which matched my eyes.
Watched like a hawk by my aunt, and with Tristan's mother promising to have me safely back by nine, I took his arm demurely and we stepped out onto the heath.
The lights of London blazed beyond and I felt a small strange pull, not to the lights themselves, I thought, but to what they represented: the freedom. If I had my way, I'd run across the heath and down towards the river, and then through the streets and beyond to the northern moors, and—I blinked.
"Are you quite well, Emily?"
"I think so, Tristan. You're right, it is a little chilly."
We weren't the only ones dusking. There were a number of other young couples out with globes, and on the other side of the heath a girl was chasing a little light with a series of squeaks, like an excited mouse. I sighed. I supposed I'd have to behave in a similar fashion.
Tristan's mother parked herself on a nearby seat in a complacent manner. I was slightly surprised by this: I would not have thought that I was all that marvellous a catch, but then there was that rather large inheritance to consider ... My aunt might not have seen fit to point out my shortcomings, hoping as she was to be rid of me.
Tristan showed me how to hold my globe up to the new moon, how to weave it to and fro in order to attract anything that might be passing. I allowed myself to be shown; it was possible, I found, to treat it as a game.
"And don't be frightened if anything comes close,” he instructed me. “They're just—just like butterflies, or moths."
Moths with sharp teeth, I thought, and pointed fingers, but I giggled in a vacuous manner and this seemed to please Tristan. I held up my globe, moving it clumsily from side to side, and permitted Tristan to show me once more how it was done. He looked at me as my gloved hands were enclosed fleetingly within his own, but I affected not to notice. Over on the bench, his mother coughed, and he dropped his hands. I saw the new moon through the green wall of the globe, distorted, like a smile on its side.
And then something huge and bee-like was humming and buzzing around me.
"Look!” Tristan cried, very excited. “You've nearly got one!"
Of course I had. I'd known that I would, without knowing how I knew. Earth and roots and something whistling up into the darkness—the thing that was hissing around the globe sheared away, towards shadow.
"Nearly!” Tristan was still marvelling. “I don't think I've ever seen one so close before."
I'd taken careful note, of the long wings, as lacy as a dragonfly's, the pinched countenance, human-like, but only as far as mockery, the sharp nails, black as thorns.
"There's another one!” Together, briefly united in purpose, we ran across the heath, ignoring the sudden agitation of shuffling from Tristan's mother on the bench. Scarves fluttering, my cloak billowing out behind me, our flying feet—but we could not catch it. The little light, dim as blue gas, danced and tumbled ahead of us, heading for the fringe of woodland that lay at the far end of the heath. It disappeared within and Tristan caught my arm as I was about to go after it.
"Better not go in there, please, Emily,” he said. I pretended to be breathless.
"Why, I hardly knew where I was,” I told him. It was almost true.
"I must not tire you out. Perhaps we should go back..."
I did not want to go back. I wanted to go on, into the black shadowed woods, into the city and slip along the riverside in the light of the smiling moon. But instead, I nodded, feigning exhaustion, and let myself droop. We walked slowly back, with Tristan talking—I think—about his studies, and parted company on the doorstep.
Later that night, I woke. I thought at first that something was tapping on the windowpane, a branch in the rising wind, but then I saw the flickering light. I got out of bed and went to the window. It was perhaps the length of my hand, scratching its nails down the glass. The moon was just visible behind it, low above the city and almost swallowed by a bank of cloud.
I did not hesitate for more than a moment. I was too curious. I opened the window and let it in.
Like moths ... it fluttered around the room, now high, now low, until it came to hover near my face. I did not like having it so close to me. Its eyes were a dim burning gold; I looked for a sign of reason, but found none, or at least, not as we would know the word. Its mouth opened and I saw pointed teeth. It did not speak. Instead, its hand shot out. Too late, I stumbled back, but I felt the minute tear of its nail across my eye. There was a blinding pain, which lasted for a second: I think I cried out and then pressed my hand to my mouth. I did not want my aunt bursting into the room, demanding explanations.
And I could see, as if a little rent had been torn in the fabric of the world. The moon, again sailing through cloud but this time, not coming out again, fading to a circlet of dark above the garden of the house: I knew it was my aunt's garden, because I could see the back wall, the long skeins of ivy. Someone was standing underneath the ivy, statue-still, looking out, as if carved from a block of night.
I knew I had to go to this person. Not now, but when the moon was dark, when you are not supposed to go dusking, when you might meet something you cannot catch. Nor was I to meet it here, but in the patch of woodland on the edge of Blackheath. I bowed my head. Something hot and wet ran down my cheek, like a tear.
The rent closed and the window banged in the wind. I was left with a stinging eye and a memory of a shape in the night, and the knowledge of what it wanted.
* * * *
I feigned illness, sent word to Tristan that I had caught a cold on the heath, was not feeling my best. My aunt watched me, not believing at first, but I let myself droop and drift and grow even paler, and I think she finally allowed herself to acknowledge that there was something wrong with me. It might even have been true. I stayed huddled beneath the covers, listening to the rain on the window and the wind in the trees, dreaming of forests and the endless moor, the stars above me and the world below. I did not know where these dreams came from, only that they were a part of me, and in all of them, I saw those flickering lights.
When I rose, I sat staring out of the window, at the thin sliver of an old moon. It did not look as though it was smiling now.
Next day, I told my aunt that I felt better. I also allowed myself to appear despondent, saying that Tristan must think me terribly foolish. I moped so successfully that my aunt eventually offered to allow me to convey a message to him, via his mother.
I asked him to meet me in the parlour. He came several minutes early; I kept him waiting.
When I went downstairs I apologised as prettily as I could. This time, his mother had not accompanied him: it seemed that she, too, was suffering from a chill.
"I'm afraid I have a dreadfully weak constitution,” I murmured.
"I don't think girls should be too robust,” Tristan declared. “All those women wanting to be nurses, for example—it's not ladylike."
I put a hand to my throat. “I should hate to be a nurse,” I said. Well, that was true enough. “But I do feel much stronger. I was wondering if—?"
"Perhaps just a stroll?” Tristan suggested. “It is not the time for dusking, you see."
He paused expectantly, perhaps anticipating an argument, but I meekly agreed.
"If you wrap up well...” His tone was solicitous, but there was the faintest note of hectoring beneath it and I repressed a smile. So with all marriages, I thought. And surely that was why my mother had run.
My aunt told us that she would be watching from the parlour window. She would be watching, but would she be able to see? The sky was clear now, so a glance through a gap in the curtains told me, but I could smell the rain in the air, seeping under the door and through the cracks in the windowpane, overpowering the musty potpourri scent of the parlour.
"I should not want to be too late,” I faltered.
And that was
true, too.
So we walked out onto the heath, Tristan and I, just as we had done a little while before, but this time I held no globe in my hand. The stars were a burning river across the city sky that mirrored the river below, but of course there was no moon.
I took Tristan's arm, shyly, and pretended to let him guide me across the heath, but it was I who was guiding him: exclaiming over a moth, feigning interest in a dropped glove. Soon we were near the grove of trees that lay at the edge of the heath.
I could feel it waiting. It was very strong and the smell of iron surrounded it. At that moment, I understood why the Others are said to hate iron: it is a blasphemy to them, for it mimics the scent of blood and yet is metal, a made-thing.
A gust of wind scoured across the grass, stirring the trees. Tristan glanced away and at that moment, I snatched at my hat and threw it beyond the bushes.
"Oh!” I clutched my hair. “My hat! The wind caught it, how silly!"
And letting go of his arm, I dashed into the woodland.
"Emily! Come back!"
But I did not. I ran on. I could hear him crashing through the undergrowth behind me.
"I can't find my hat!” I cried over my shoulder.
"Emily, you must come back!"
It was ahead of me. I could feel it, waiting. And then it was as though the hidden moon sailed out and I could see again.
Someone was standing in the glade. It was huge, hunched, a mass of shoulder and neck. I saw the antlers rearing up from its brow and the glitter of a golden eye. It stood upright, much taller than a man, and it wore a cloak of leaves. The iron smell was very strong and the ground was moist beneath my feet.
I began to speak.
"I have brought what you asked for."
But the voice wasn't mine. It drowned mine out. Very slowly, I looked around. Tristan stood behind me, holding out a green glass globe. And from the corner of my bewildered eye, I saw the horned thing step forward.
* * * *
I do not know what they plan to do with me, only that they are pleased. My mother escaped, they explained to me, ran from both the human world and the Other, and that sort of thing will never do. So they have the next best, instead; they have me, her daughter.
I should have remembered that shy girls and stammering boys might, sometimes, be motivated by the same things.
It's comfortable enough here. There is a velvet couch, a small table, rugs. Food is delivered three times a day and it is always the same, sugary, and satisfying for a short while. But when I glance at my surroundings, from the corner of my eye, I see that the velvet couch is really a pile of rushes, and the rugs are leaves. The walls, however, are always the same: green glass, green as the grass upon the heath, or the leaves of the forest, or a watching eye.
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Machrie Moor by Neile Graham
—Arran Island, Western Scotland—
A whole moor full of stones flies in the mist.
I'm alone and happy. It's the right time to be here: three groups leaving and a German couple quickly here and gone. I went first to the Moss Farm circles. I'd forgotten the strange almost crystallized bits of the stones there. Then through the Farm itself, taking some photographs (scaring some sheep) and next to open
moor to the isolated tall stone. My pebble from the
Welsh standing stones visited there, lying for some moments in a notch then rescued safely back into my possession.
Also found someone's sage in a hollow. Its scent unpretentious as the salty wind from Machrie Bay.
Then the three big stones together, a triad of giants whose aspect I try to absorb—-Afterward
I sat on the millstone to eat my honey ham &
coleslaw sandwich. Still sitting here. It's windy and the sun comes and goes. Someone else is here.
The wind sounds in the grass. Distant birds,
Sheep, very distant cars—now I sit deep in the bracken, waiting for more people to leave and ducking out of the wind a bit (it's the kind of sun and mist that creeps onto the numbing flesh like a crackling ice, thin and melting but sharp and cold). It's warmer here. From my hollow
I can see the high circle prodding the light, as the four-stone circle lowers into the ground like numb beasts, and the lone stone, and the trio, and the bump of the circle
I haven't been to yet. I love being here, but it chills me—-It's going to warm up now.
I sit in the second but farthest low circle and the wind's rising. This circle feels so solid
And inside it is a certain space that opens.
I think the farthest ring with its small grey stones is the most humble, the trio the most wizardly the solo most heroic—circle on circle on circle—the whole moor wheeling spinning lifting me into the mist—
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Tornado Juice by Jasmine Hammer
Kaiko has the most beautiful hair in the world. I'm not exaggerating. She's won awards. People are tempted to think that her hair is not real, which, technically, it's not. She doesn't tell anyone that, though, or they would take away her awards.
It shimmers with rainbow colors in the sun and glows like a distant city in the dark. When she sits still, it is deceptively brown.
Each strand of hair is not actually a hair, but is instead a tiny world, containing people and pets and houses. Every one is different.
I had three strands of it. Two she gave me because she was bored with them. I visited them by wrapping a strand around my head and tying it in front of my eyes. In one world the people were squat and hairy. Their hair was so long it dragged on the ground and caught in sticks and rocks, making them lumber along slowly like beasts of burden. In the second strand the world was nearly dead—there were no people, only dry lakebeds and high-jumping deer.
The third strand I found caught in the bathtub drain at my house. She took baths so she could catch a hair if it fell out and place it in the velvet-lined wooden box next to her bed—the box I gave her, the one that was always locked. Maybe this one fell as she leaned over to pull the plug. Lucky I found it, really.
I lifted it from the drain with both hands and held it up to the light. I couldn't help it. I had to know if the world was alive, what it might look like. I locked the bathroom door and sat down on the wet bath mat. I tied the strand around my head.
Wind whipped around me and I couldn't breathe. I was spun off the ground and into the vortex of a tornado, slammed on all sides by beds, houses, clock springs and people. I grabbed a bedpost and pressed myself flat against the mattress, hoping if I was thrown to the ground I wouldn't be killed on impact. Sliding farther toward the sagging center of the bed, I realized that I wasn't alone in it. A middle-aged woman pushed yellowing sheets off her head and struggled to sit up. Her face was chafed and red, though she wore a close-fitting bonnet with a bottom ruff that extended right down over her nightdress, presumably to keep out flying dust particles.
"Kindly take your foot out of my ribs!” I didn't know if she was shouting out of anger or just to be heard over the wind.
I inched as far as I dared towards the edge of the bed. The woman had three straps holding her down and she finally managed to unbuckle the top one to sit up and squint at me.
"Who are you?” She turned to the lump next to her, also strapped to the bed, and poked it. “Murd! We've got a hitchhiker!” The lump, obviously still sleeping, mumbled. She shouted to me again. “'So what,’ he says! What do you want?"
I opted for the most immediate answer. “Not to die."
"Well this bed's been through stronger winds than these.” She retied her bonnet tighter around her face. “Best way to travel, of course! Catch a nap ‘til we land in Erton. There we can catch a north-moving wind. That's what the extra blankets are for!” She re-strapped herself down. “Grab one and settle down. Just keep to that corner and hang on."
I wrapped a blanket around my torso and hooked my ankles through the bars of the bed frame. The winds were whirling fast, but
in wide enough circles that I didn't get too dizzy. Objects pummeled me constantly. I didn't mind the occasional shirt or loose vegetable, but there were teakettles (hot) and garden gates (spiky) flying around too.
I tried to pull another blanket over my head. As I twisted around, my foot slipped through the bars of the footboard, slamming my knee on the top bar. I shrieked and jerked it out. My hips slipped to the edge of the mattress. I scrabbled at the straps holding Murd and the woman down and missed completely. I went sailing back into the winds.
A suitcase slammed into my chest. I couldn't breathe again, and now I was spinning even faster. I decided I'd had enough and untied the knot over my eyes.
Back on the bathroom floor, my pants were soaked through by the wet bathmat and Kaiko was pounding forcefully on the door.
"Are you OK?” she shouted. “I have to brush my teeth!"
Her concern was touching. “Jeez, can't I even go to the bathroom in peace?” My heart thumped. There was no sign of the dust and debris I'd been coated with seconds before, but my skin felt distinctly chafed. Had she noticed the missing hair? Maybe I should just stick it back in the drain like I'd never seen it. Instead I coiled the hair gently, tucked it in my pocket and flushed the toilet.
When I finally let her in, she rushed past me to the sink and brushed furiously. She didn't even glance at the tub.
"I am so late,” she muttered, and ran out of the house without so much as a good-bye.
I had fifteen minutes before I had to leave for work, so I locked the door again and retied the knot. I was immediately hit in the face by a squashy, overripe tomato.
"Sorry!” someone shouted. “Could you pass it on?"
I wiped the tomato off my face and saw a tiny old woman standing in the eye of the tornado, holding a bushel of tomatoes. I was gripped in the wind, being spun in tight, vomit-inducing circles. Moments later I came upon another old woman, this one sailing through the air and holding a jar of liquefied tomatoes. She scooped the rest of the tomato off my face and into the jar.
"Don't want to waste!” she shouted. “I'm Marie and that's my sister Babop!” Babop waved at me cheerily and heaved another tomato into the wind. Marie caught the demolished pieces in one swoop.
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 24 Page 4