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Snake Ropes

Page 16

by Jess Richards


  ‘Keep your own voice. Look, you can see my cottage from here. At the edge of the row, nearest the beach.’ I point down the cliff. My cottage looks rickety and worn, but solid. It’s like nothing has happened.

  Only my legs shake and my belly aches, deep inside of it.

  She says, ‘Are you all right?’

  I stare at the empty sea and tell her where I’ve put the cottage latchkey. I tell her about the tall men, tell her to get herself hid in one of thems boats, for that’s the only way she’ll get to the main land.

  Morgan turns to face me. I never seen a face so clear, like she’s never seen anything she dun want to. Her face is like an empty piece of linen what’s yet to be stitched on. No wonder she’s copying the way I talk. Trying to make herself a picture of something, but on her it dun fit.

  She says, ‘I’ll get you close enough so you can crawl to the fence, lie down and stay still. Mum walks around the inside of the fence each dawn to check no one is lurking outside.’

  ‘Who does she—’

  Her eyes shine. ‘No one ever is. This time, you will be.’

  There’s a girl on the top of a hill in the distance spinning around in her white bed dress. We stop, the girl keeps the spin going slow then quick. A stocky man climbs up the hill to her, can’t see him clear, for hims clothes are dark. Him puts hims arms around her and bundles her away over the hill.

  I whisper to Morgan, ‘Them should be asleep.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Could be Fiona, she lives on one of the farms near there, so the man’s likely to be her Da, but it’s too dark to see. Could be she’s getting tangled from not sleeping.’

  ‘What do you mean, tangled?’

  ‘Just from not dreaming, not getting rid.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Her dreamings. If you dun sleep you do get … Dun matter, you’ll understand if you stop sleeping a while. Sends you a bit, you know … Crazed.’

  We stop at a well. I lean on the cold stone ledge, breathing hard.

  Morgan looks down into it and says, ‘There’s a well in our garden. I used to think I could climb down and find my way into a tunnel to get out.’

  ‘You never did climb down?’

  ‘Just once, when I was small.’

  I stare into the well. ‘Wouldn’t want to get stuck down there.’

  ‘It felt as if I was being pulled down even further. Gravity.’

  ‘We’re there in the water.’

  ‘We’re like reflections of each other.’

  Our faces blur on the surface of the water, her hair light and mine dark.

  ‘Morgan.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want to drop the Thrashing House key down the well. Then go down myself after it. See which one, me or the key, hits the bottom first. Dun let me.’

  She grips my hand.

  I squeeze her fingers. ‘Dun know why I said that.’

  ‘Come on. It’s getting lighter.’

  At a crumbling stone wall near her house she lowers me down on the grass. My legs crumple. She stands behind a gorse bush and stretches her back. She says, ‘Don’t move suddenly when Mum sees you. It might be good that you look a mess, but she startles so easily. I can’t make you any kind of real promise.’

  I take her hand. ‘I know. It’s up to her and me now.’

  The lines on her brow disappear. ‘If she does let you in, you haven’t seen me. You’ve never met me, never spoken to me.’

  She looks at my dress and crouches down on the grass. ‘I can’t leave you like this.’ She rummages in my bag and finds the box of broiderie threads and needles. She’s in and out of my bag, getting different coloured threads out, putting them back. Fumbling with her pockets, in my bag, out of my bag.

  I say, ‘You can’t sew, can you?’

  ‘No.’

  We stitch up my dress with me stitching from the top down while she works from the waist up. The light’s not yet bright enough. My hands are too cold to stitch right. There’s a great jagged seam when we’re done, from my belly to my neck, and all the buttons gone. I must look like a broken toy. One what’s been ripped apart and stitched up.

  Like the moppet.

  ‘Give me my bag.’ My voice sounds sharp.

  Morgan sits back, pink in her cheeks.

  ‘Please.’

  She passes it to me. The moppet is curled up tight in the corner, right down the bottom, hiding itself. The first time I met Langward is when I found the shell what’s inside the moppet. What if him put Barney’s voice in there, when him pinched out my fingers … to trick me.

  I want to tear up the moppet, shred the stuffing, throw it into the wind. Cut the shell out of it, scream and yell and cry my own voice into it and stamp it to dust. Only I can’t do any of these things.

  It’s the only thing of Barney I’ve got left.

  Morgan says, ‘I wish I’d met you … before now.’ She kisses my cheek.

  I close the bag. ‘Me as well.’ I nod, ‘I’ll crawl from here to the fence and play dead. Go on, get to mine, quick.’

  She nods.

  ‘If you see a tall man with brown eyes—’ My belly cramps, ‘—then leg it.’

  ‘Was he the man at the graveyard – the shadow man?’ Her voice shakes.

  ‘Just run.’

  A tear rolls down her face. ‘He’s not a rescuing kind of man, is he?’

  ‘No.’

  She squeezes my shoulder and goes.

  Against my spine the ground feels like it’s shaking, only the shakes are trapped in me. Streaks of clouds above me, spun with pale orange threads. The sea will be reflecting this same sky all the way from the horizon, in the waves what could have drowned my brother.

  I close my eyes. The wind blows over me. A gap in the wind. Someone stood right beside me, blocking the wind away. Someone crept up on me so silent.

  ‘Give. It. Back.’ Valmarie’s voice.

  I open my eyes. There’s no one here. Just the sound of the wind. I close my eyes and listen.

  Valmarie’s voice speaks again. ‘Give. It. Back.’

  I open my eyes a slit. Just the sky above me. I close them again.

  I think back loud. Get gone.

  ‘We need it,’ she hisses.

  Did she hear me?

  ‘The bells need to ring.’

  She did hear me.

  I want to scream, Get away from me leave me get out of my head you can’t just walk through folks minds without knocking first …

  She says, ‘I’ll find you … just as soon as I …’ The sound of digging. Digging? I open my eyes a crack. Nothing. Close them.

  ‘Here. It. Is. It did sing back.’

  Her voice is a sob. ‘I thought … you were … lost to me …’ Her voice drifts away – them words are not for me.

  Morgan’s Mam is peering out between the slats in the fence. I’m soaking through with the wet from the grass and a cold wind blows my hair over my face.

  I think about what to say to her …

  Love me for a short while, just because you’re someone’s Mam, though you’re not mine. Or I could pretend she’s my own Mam and say: I’m going to have to make myself believe you’d never have traded me. That though you weren’t always kind, you were good. Because to believe what him said will take so much away, it’ll be like it’s raining inside me, not just rain, but gales and hailstones and fog.

  Tears roll into my ears. I need to give Morgan’s Mam something she wants. Only I dun know what that is.

  She says, ‘I can tell you’re awake.’

  I open my eyes and sit up. Pain shoots through my legs. I look at the pink fence, with her green eye in the narrow space between the slats.

  I say, ‘Were it you what drew the flowers all over this fence?’

  The eye creases up. ‘Years ago. Chalk. The rain washed them away.’

  My voice shakes. ‘Them were pretty, but even real flowers dun stay that way for always.’ A memory comes. A broken ship, wooden
planks as cargo. All strewn along the coast at Wreckers Shore. The planks this fence is made from. Me stood there, feeling small, looking for the deaded crew. Never saw anyone. Just a whole cargo of wooden planks in piles along the shore.

  I say, ‘That’s a good strong fence. Strong planks, from shipwrecked wood. You were clever to get that, to make such a high solid fence.’

  The eye squints.

  ‘You like flowers, then?’ I ask. ‘I could draw one for you in broiderie threads. If you’ve got some linen, I could broider you a flower with my needle.’

  Her eye blinks.

  I get the broiderie threads out of my bag. ‘I could do a purple one, or crimson – a campion, or blue-green? Or sea thrift, the colour of your fence.’ I hold the threads up. Her eye stares at each new colour like she wants it more than the last. ‘If I could get warmer, I could make a pretty one for you. Just need to sit at a table by a window. I’ll use lots of colours if you want. Only the rain won’t wash them off. Them’ll always be bright if you keep the sun off them.’

  ‘I’ve got a bedspread,’ she says, slow. ‘I could bring it out. You could pass it through when you’re finished.’

  ‘Can’t stitch if I’m shaking with cold. If I could come indoors, I’ll stitch it, and when it’s done, I’ll go.’

  Her eye stares at the bright threads in my hand. I can hear her thoughts. Pictures. A bedspread, warm dreaming, under stems, leaves, buds, flower, full bloom. Morgan thought loud as well. Must be this family’s way, as them’ve been so locked away. Thems thoughts have got all loud, for them aren’t getting them out by talking to other folk.

  I say, ‘I dun mean you harm,’ and put the threads in my bag.

  ‘No. I don’t like colours to be in the dark.’

  ‘I’ll get gone now, see if other folks want a bedspread done.’ I push the threads down, deep into the bag. ‘Plenty of folks’d love to sleep under flowers what’ll never die.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you wanting one then?’

  Slow, like each word saws its way out of her, she says, ‘I’ve got a table you can use. And a chair. I think they’ll like you.’

  She’s all off-kilter.

  There’s a rattle of something metal, jewellery or suchlike. She pushes open the gate. She stands fixed, like she’s stuck in a picture. Hand held out, brown hair blown across her face, her bracelet chink clink clunk in the breeze. She’s staring at her bracelet and she yanks the padlock off the gate. She’s wearing a dress with patchwork grey and orange fabrics. It looks like a sunset what’s been stitched all clumsy. The orange is a fine light fabric, the grey is thick. It hangs wrong. She stares all around at the hills with her mouth open a little, like she’s tasting the air for smells.

  I get up, near trip, but catch myself on the fence. I lean on it with my hands and step after step, walk my legs along.

  She’s stood there, eyes not settling on any one thing.

  I ask, ‘Is someone watching?’

  Her words crack out like stones, ‘The padlock wasn’t locked.’

  I hobble past her, into her garden. She smells of honey and sawdust.

  She closes the gate behind me. Frowns at her bracelet, picks at the tangle of broken chains and clunks the padlock shut.

  I’m in.

  She rushes ahead of me, goes up the garden path and indoors.

  A door clacks shut inside the house. I hobble to the door and look inside, but she’s gone. The floorboards creak as I go in. A corridor what smells of fresh sawn wood stretches out in front of me, bigger than my whole cottage. Wooden panels on the walls and two closed doors on each side are painted garish greens with orange and pink dots on them. Another door at the far end is painted with yellow and purple crescent moons. She’s painted the brightest colours she can find, to make a picture of a happy home.

  But the colours all clash.

  I close the front door behind me. No one’s going to get past that fence. No one’ll get past Morgan’s Mam neither, for she’s as locked as that padlock.

  It’s rude to leave me stood here.

  Maybe she’s gone off to talk to her bedspread and friendly furniture. Perhaps them’re all together behind one of them doors, arguing about whether her chair wants to make me feel comfy or not.

  Morgan’s Mam shrieks from upstairs, ‘Morgan!’ A wail, a thud.

  Footsteps cross the floor above me, muffled sobs.

  I lean hard on a dotted door, it swings open too easy and I’m on the floor. Sharp pain hollers through my legs. I rub my bruised knees.

  I’m in a room just for play. Toys scattered over red and blue painted floorboards; toy boats, tiny houses, bright-coloured blocks. A table, stencilled with red and gold stars fills near on half this room. Love hearts are scratched on the tabletop, H and A carved in the middle, HA HA. Love is laughing at me.

  Three tall windows made up of eight panes each let in so much light. Nailed around the wooden walls and between the windows are huge sheets of paper with black and white drawings.

  I dun breathe at the sight of what the drawings are of: Sishee’s dress pegged to the bottom of the sea; Annie’s son, Kieran; Valmarie’s son, Dylan; Valmarie’s sealskin; Kelmar’s son, Jake …

  I pull a picture down, hold it close to my eyes, soak the picture into them, can’t blink in case it goes away, seeing hims face makes my heart thump. I know that even with the tall man for hims Da, the love I have for him hasn’t changed at all.

  Someone has drawn a picture of Barney.

  Hims face looks up at me in black and white. My chest aches, my heart thuds. Someone in this house has seen him close enough to draw him. Barney would’ve had to sit there, so still. Quiet for ages, so this picture were made just right.

  Not like him were at all.

  Barney could have been found washed up at Wreckers Shore or in the poisons at the north shore; at some place the currents dragged him. And him could’ve been brought here, to the deadtaker, by someone what dun know him.

  This could be a drawing of Barney, dead.

  Morgan

  My head is full of Mary, my heart feels stuffed full of feathers, I want to wrap her up. I don’t want to feel like this with everyone I meet. I just feel like this because she’s new. Everyone must feel this ache in their chest when they meet someone. How do people decide who to care about? My heart thuds. The next person I meet, I’m not going to care about them.

  I’ve gone all the wrong ways, staring at every blade of grass, touching the branches of the small trees, avoiding thistles and climbing stone walls. I’ve passed a smokehouse and a farm with three barns, but now I’m nearing the graveyard again and can see the Thrashing House on the highest hill. I know how to get to Mary’s cottage from there. My limbs ache with tiredness, I’m rumbling with hunger, my bare feet walk me forwards. There will be a bed and food in Mary’s cottage, and soon I’ll sleep.

  But the woman with long black hair comes out of the graveyard with her spade over her shoulder. I crouch down behind a twisted blackberry bush. Is she a witch, an alchemist, a dissectionist, gruesome scientist or confused vampire … out in the graveyard all night with a spade?

  She goes towards a small house where a murder of crows squat along the gutter, making croaking sounds at the dawn. The woman carries some kind of worn textured fabric. She reaches the house and leans the spade against the wall. She holds the fabric out. But it’s not fabric, it’s an animal hide. She shakes it out and earth falls in clods.

  She clasps it to her. Holds it, strokes it, smells it and disappears around the back of the house. I want to know what she’s found.

  I knock on the back door.

  No answer.

  I fumble with the catch, which clicks when I push it down. The door opens into a small kitchen, herbs and spices in jars. I pick up a small bottle with a clear liquid inside it. The label reads, ‘Forgetting herb’.

  On the other side of the kitchen a door is ajar.

  ‘Hello?’ My voice is too quiet. ‘Hello?�
��

  I push the door open and can’t speak, because the woman is naked.

  She lies face down on the floor, on top of a decaying animal skin that smells of earth and of death. Her hands wrap what was once the face of the animal around her own face, she holds its earholes against her ears.

  She sobs, her shoulders shake, she cries into the pelt, her body rolls against it, covered in soil, old fur sheds on the floor, almost dust. Her back is so pale, her black hair trails over it. She cries, clasps the skin around her face, her shoulders rise and fall, her shoulder blades clench, unclench, her smooth white skin is covered in goosebumps.

  I can’t stay here and watch, because I want to step in and wrap her up, tell her It will be all right, it will be fine, but I don’t think it will.

  Inside Mary’s cottage I lock the door behind me. The ceiling is low, the smell of damp in the air. A pair of worn brown boots stand behind the door. Coats and shawls hang on hooks.

  My feet want to dance, I spin around, my arms outstretched. Bump into the table by the window, the chair by the fireplace, the cupboard. I feel dizzy, laugh and can’t stop. No one wants anything. No tea to make unless I want some. No floors to sweep unless I need them clean. No moods to understand, to placate, to ignore.

  I can do whatever I want.

  I twirl through each room, this one with a fireplace, a bedroom with two beds, one smaller than the other, another bedroom with a double bed, a kitchen. The furniture is all functional. Tables, a few chairs, cupboards. The only elaborate details are embroideries on every piece of fabric. On the cushions, bedspreads, pillows, curtains, blankets.

  I stop spinning.

  Embroideries are scattered everywhere, a tablecloth embroidered with purple clouds has been hurled over the chair, a large folded piece has been thrown in the fireplace. An empty wooden washtub in the corner of the kitchen is filled with handkerchiefs, embroidered with blue children holding hands.

  A resourcefulness of embroideries.

  I lie on the fabric strewn across the floor and look up at the beams on the ceiling, my arms outstretched, imagine what it would feel like to float up there, light, weightless, like a transformed creature in a storybook, a goose turned thistledown, spider turned moth, hedgehog turned butterfly. I could fly in here, float just underneath the ceiling … So I exhale, and float up to the ceiling. I drift my family and the locked pink fence out of my lungs. I fall asleep, curled next to a spider’s web between two beams.

 

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