The Orphan's Tales

by Catherynne M. Valente

  Umayma smiled and fluffed her vulture-skin. “A skin is a skin, but if you must know…”

  THE FIRST THING I REMEMBER IS THE EGG. MY feathers were very black.

  Ghassan told me, alone of all his children he confided in me, even when I was so young that yolk still clung to my beak, that he had been born nothing but a bird. A crooked old crow who wanted better for himself, he said.

  The first time he changed skins it was quite a surprise—he wrapped himself up in a snake’s molting and the molting stuck, like a coat grown suddenly too small to take off. His feathers were a shrugged-off pile of soot on the forest floor, and he never looked back.

  After a while he began to seek out skins, and not long after that he developed a reputation—by the time he died he had not had to steal a skin in decades. Rich in skins, my father, which is all the wealth there is. Folk clambered to trade theirs over, and he always ran a brisk business. If a skin was troublesome, he could always get rid of it; if it was rare, he could always procure it. Some thought he was quite wicked, but in truth, he was no more or less than any other crow: enamored of bright new things, and too clever to get them by the usual path.

  He taught me the trade. Most of his children were plain crows, dull as dandelions. But I was like him, he said. My heart was skinless, and therefore I could have any skin I wished. But I had no desire to steal skins, as he did, and which he believed was a vital skill, as vital as reading to a cleric. He chided me, yes, called me weak of will, threatened to teach one of his other crow-children if I could not sneak up behind that possum right this second and split it tail to crown. But I would not. A skin is a sacred thing, more intimate than mother and child, and I wanted to change, of course I wanted to change, to be like Ghassan, but I wanted each of those in whose bodies I nestled to desire the change as much as I did. I searched for a long time, asking this page and that potato farmer whether or not they would like to be a crow, and my father laughed each time they fled in terror or threw stones at me, or politely declined to eat worms and leaves.

  But one day, as days will come, I met a girl in the forest, just the sort of girl black and taloned creatures meet in the forest: young and ruddy-cheeked, bright of eye and too curious to take the usual path.

  “Hello,” I cawed, hopping into her path.

  “Hello, old crow,” she said pleasantly.

  “I’m not old at all, you know. I’m quite young, and my feathers have a lovely sheen.”

  “They certainly do.”

  “How would you like to wear them?” I asked, smoothing my voice into a hushed sweetness, like a pond lapping against its green banks.

  The girl considered for a moment, twisting her brown ringlets in her fingers. “I think I would like that very much,” she said softly. “I think it would be very nice to fly, and the life of a milkmaid is dreadfully dull. One always hopes such opportunities will befall one in the forest, but more often than not, one finds oneself an old grandmother with dragging dugs and a dewlap, her fingers numb from endless udders.”

  I hopped closer. “Would you let me wear your skin in return?”

  She looked down at herself. “Oh, certainly, if you would not find it very plain, and prone to dragging and dewlaps. It is a beastly body in that way. I would not recommend milking cows. It’s terrible for the knuckles.”

  “I shall remember that.” I laughed, and we settled about the usual ceremony of stitching and unstitching, in which she was not at all experienced and I was barely adequate, so I am quite certain we made a mess of the whole procedure, but then, one’s first time is always a bit awkward, is it not?

  She was lovely, and smelled of milk and hay on the inside. She cawed happily and flew off into the pines.

  And I began, each time seeking out accord, agreement, not because I thought it wrong to steal—I am still a crow, after all—but because I do not disdain the usual way. Still, I have fallen into my father’s profession after all, as folk wish to trade and buy and sell, and I accumulated an excess inventory, and began to be sought after. I developed preferences, as Ghassan did—we both prefer a set of skins to one, and to maintain some of our crow shape in the set. I grew to enjoy wearing a boy’s skin, as Ghassan often wore a woman’s. Variety is important, you know, and it always pays to display the skins to best effect.

  For all I know he is still crouching on his island, the island where I was born, the island where he squats and plays siren, but Ghassan has not been seen in the waking world for many years, and I am the only Skin-Peddler anyone speaks of these days, but they still call me Ghassan—who can tell who is who when our faces change with winter and spring?

  “THIS IS THAT FIRST GIRL’S SKIN. I HAVE CARRIED it with me as a kind of souvenir, but I will give it to you, because you are in need, and I would very much like a bear skin.”

  I pawed the snow. “Umayma, I’m scared.”

  “It’s all right,” she said warmly, putting a skeletal hand on my shoulder. “The first time always hurts a little, but it gets easier.”

  “This will be my only time,” I said stiffly.

  Umayma scratched her cloak of feathers. “A pity,” she sighed.

  And then she took me in her boy’s arms. I do not know how to say how it was. I felt myself splitting, like a nut in its shell, a fingernail carving the husk open, sugar-blood spilling out. I felt a star open in my chest, burning and searing, tearing the fur and flesh open as if along a seam, stitches popping and snarling. I cried out and my strong legs buckled beneath me, claws skittering on the ice. I could hear the ripping of my skin, then, a wet, sliding sound that brought with it a pain that clouded my eyes and blackened my brain.

  And then, the Skin-Peddler was extending her hand to me, and wonderingly I extended my own to meet it—and it was not a paw but a slender girl’s hand, with five fingers and dull, ineffective nails in the place of my proud claws. I stood naked before the vulture girl in her boy’s skin, suddenly shivering without my fur. The cold was like a throttling—it clutched my throat and clawed my chest. I could not have imagined such a thing as this cold; I had always had my thick pelt to protect me.

  And so I went home. My mother shrieked and would not speak to me; her despair coated the house like black honey. My sisters did not know me, and ensconced themselves in the Temple to pray for my soul, not believing for a moment that Laakea had bid me do this thing. Gunde called a Versammlung, but even they could not decide what to do with me. They resolved that I could stay—but if I could manage it, they preferred that I go.

  When the wolves came, I went eagerly. There was nothing for me in the North. If I went south with them, surely I would hear word of you, or the Snake-Star. And in a city such as Al-a-Nur, what secret could not be discovered? I could make us both bears again; I could find you wherever you had become lost. Could it hurt if I stole some bit of excitement or adventure for myself while I searched? I set out with a heart high as hearth flame. And when I entered the Tower of St. Sigrid, I told myself, very reasonably, that such knowledge was as likely to be there as anyplace else, such histories, such magic. But in truth, I was enamored of the Saint, and the Dreaming City, and all that had come to pass in the world since you left me. You were already becoming a distant memory, a childhood love. The world had cracked open and shown me wonders—I knew I could not close it again.

  I began to forget you, because I thought it best to forget. Another destiny awaited me, and it was not simply to be a bear-wife fishing through the ice.

  EYVIND STARED, STRICKEN. HIS EYES WERE FULL OF tears, his stained shirt clenched in his enormous hands.

  “So much happened, my love. I wore this skin until it was so accustomed to me I don’t think I could take it off if I wanted to. I searched for years for the Saint, and when I came to Muireann, destitute, in despair, there you were. I knew you in a moment; of course I knew you.”

  “Then how could you keep this from me?” he blurted, tears springing fresh and rolling down his great face. “For years I waited for the change to co
me on me again, so that I could be a bear again, and return to the ice, return to you. All along you’ve been here and said nothing? You are cold, cold and cruel, Ulla.”

  Sigrid passed a hand over her eyes. “Do not call me that. It is not my name, not anymore. This is my name; this is my face. I am not her, I am Saint Sigrid of the Ways, however you may wish it were otherwise. I set out to find you—but it was truly for this I became human. This ship, coursing towards the beast that swallowed my goddess. This was my Quest, not you. When I saw you it only recalled to me all I had failed to do. If I had gone to you then, and tended a tavern with you all those years, perhaps you would have been happy, but it would have put a lie to all my training, all my life since the Skin-Peddler traded my flesh. It would have been the end to my story, and so it would have seemed that I had done all I did only for a husband. It was not the end I wanted. I am not your goal, Eyvind. I am an arrow shot towards Sigrid, and I must find my mark. The wolf led me astray, don’t you see? The wolf led me off the path that wound to you, and into a place of whose jeweled mysteries I could not begin to tell you the first part. I am no longer Ulla—how could I dwell with Eyvind?”

  The tavern-keeper’s body seemed to dwindle, as if all the blood had run out of him. He put his head in his hands, his fingers in his thinning hair.

  “My life has gone so far wrong I can’t see the right for miles around. The Marsh King said I would be a man until a virgin was devoured, the sea turned to gold, and saints went west on the wings of henless birds. I believed the old stork—I thought it’d be a few years, no more. It went so fast; one day I was old and fat and the sea was still gray. I told a boy the story once; it seems like ages ago. I thought it would help, to tell someone. That it might hurry things along. But I couldn’t tell, not one day did I even think on it, that my love was there, swilling beer in a dark corner. You should have told me, Sigrid.” He took a deep, hitching breath. “If you are not my goal, what is?”

  “I’m sorry, Eyvind. I truly am. None of this is how I meant it to be. I wanted to greet my captain young and beautiful; I wanted to be her savior. Now I can barely limp towards her on a leaking ship and hope I have the strength to throw myself in the path of the sea-creature.”

  In the corner of the hold, Snow wept silently, her tears wetting the wood of the softly rocking ship.

  The silence between Sigrid and Eyvind was thick and dark as eel flesh for days upon nights. Snow hated the sound of it, echo of it in her ears. She was relieved as an ox without its yoke when Grog upended the last of her rum barrel into her blue mouth, belched forcefully, and bellowed.

  “Shell off the port side!”

  So it was—Snow could not breathe for her terror as the shell grew in size, black and green and blue and slick as a beetle’s body, black and green and blue as the sea careening off of its dome. Its beady, baleful eyes crested the water, blinking their translucent eyelids in the dim sunlight. Grog put on a face of boredom, but beneath the brine, the pale girl could see her tail trembling. Sigrid’s face was contorted in fear and ecstasy, and she was gripping Eyvind’s hand with all her strength, whether trying to keep him at her side or anchor herself to the ship, Snow could not tell.

  “Grog,” Sigrid called out, her voice high and strong, “sail in! Into the mouth!”

  The Magyr bolted upright in her tub, her violet tail thrashing. “Are you out of your mind, woman? I’ve gone this far, but knives or no, that’s daft as an empty mug!”

  “It’s all right!” Sigrid laughed, throwing her head back, her hair streaming like a young girl’s. “Hand in hand they’ll come whistling home, the maiden, the bear, and the girl in gray!”

  Snow patted the Magyr’s shoulder, which glowed deep turquoise with fear. “I’ll do it, Grog. It really will be all right. Probably. Anyway, the song says it will, and songs are usually right.” She wrapped her slim fingers like candlewax around the wheel, and Grog lay back in her tub, her ample chest heaving.

  “Fanatics!” she muttered, shaking her tattered green head.

  The Echeneis’s mouth yawned open, and the sea rushed in, past the forest of ivory baleen, the tiny ship buoyed on its crest like a toy boat.

  The Witch’s Kiss disappeared into shadow, like a lantern snuffed out.

  In the Garden

  “DON’T STOP!” THE BOY GASPED, HIS BREATH COMING QUICK AND fast as a galloping colt. The girl frowned, creases forming in the inky expanse of her eyelids like constellations. Her glance flitted into the chamber, resting on the sleeping form of Dinarzad, whose hands moved fitfully over the bronze keys.

  “If I am caught here—”

  “I will protect you! I am as brave as any Sigrid! Do you think I can’t?”

  The girl paused tactfully. “I think that’s very brave. But you do not really understand. Have you forgotten that you used to be afraid of me?”

  The boy felt his cheeks burn. “Only a little,” he mumbled, picking at stray pebbles on the windowsill, trying to imagine that they were Lo Shen pieces. The night was black as saddle oil all around, and only their eyes gleamed.

  “She is fast asleep,” the boy cajoled, leaning across the window’s threshold, close to the girl, until he could smell her wildness, the scent of tree and stone which clung to her. “Tell me the end.”

  WHEN THE SHADOW AND SPUME CLEARED FROM THE eyes of the four creatures on board the little ship, the world had changed around them.

  This is to say, they had passed into a new world. The belly of the sea-monster was vast, so vast that they could only see the flank which was near to them, ribs curving upward, taller than cathedrals—the other was lost in mist, and the ceiling arched high above them, like a starless sky. The stomach fluid of the beast made an inland sea, its waves green and brown, noxious and steaming. The schooner drifted through the oily waters, pushing aside flotsam with its prow. The smell was of rotting fish and kelp, and skeletons of unnamable things, things that had never seen the sun on the surface of the ocean, floated by as Snow stared over the edge at the hellish soup.

  Sigrid did not lean over the rail to gawk at the accumulated trash of a life spent roaming the sea. She had taken the wheel and now looked straight ahead, eyes hawk-wide, at the wreckage laid out before them.

  It was a city of skeleton ships, each bobbing in its own rhythm on the bile sea. Some were gray and crumbling with age, bones still gripping the wheel, skulls rolling back and forth over the decks in hypnotic repetition. Others were not so old at all; their paint was still bright in patches, and the figures slumped over the crows’ nests and bowsprits were swollen and putrid, swarmed over with flies. The schooner passed without a sound through this necropolis, her crew agape. Eyvind finally covered his eyes when he could witness no more dead.

  But Sigrid had fixed her eye on a ship, not far distant. Among all these ghost ships, one still had its lanterns lit, and the orange light spilled out over the brackish water, fire dancing on the slick of the monster’s gluttony.

  And voices could be heard—cheerful and raucous, shouts of glee and mirth. Snow’s heart pounded within her. With aching slowness they drew closer to the mystery ship, and she dared to hope that it would be red, red as old dreams. But when they finally came within full sight of the galleon—for a galleon it was, and as beautiful a ship as had ever been built by hand or bough—it was not red, but white.

  The surface of the ship—its beams, its sails and lines, even its figurehead, a woman with the head of a fox, arms extended high into the air to grip the prow in her fists—was caked with barnacles, glutted with them, like a flower in full seed. The living mast was coated in the white miasma, branches choked with it like some foul snowfall. There were not more than patches here and there where the stony shells had not fixed themselves, where the red sheen of the original ship shone through. It was nearly solid, like armor plating on a warhorse, and even Grog looked at the mass of creatures in dismay. Yet, on the deck of the ship many figures could be seen moving about, seemingly perfectly healthy and hale.


  And from the bow, a woman’s head appeared, a figure in leather breeches and a billowing white tunic, with skin the color of myrrh. Her tawny eyes were framed by dark hair which fell to her waist and gleamed like nothing so much as a great store of costly spices—and it was knotted through with gold, strung through ornate braids like beads. Just behind her stood a shadowy woman whose very skin seemed to be aflame, her fiery hand poised on the hilt of an enormous sword. But the dark-headed woman beamed at them, her face open and warm. She put her hand on her girlish hip and grinned at the newcomers.

  “Welcome to the underworld!” she said with a laugh.

  And it was then that Sigrid finally did begin to weep, brought face-to-face with her Saint at last.

  “That is an odd reaction, if I may say so,” Saint Sigrid remarked, and gestured for two of her women to lay a plank across the two ships so that the newcomers could come aboard.

  “The Maidenhead,” Sigrid whispered, in awe as her foot rested on the famed ship’s decks, encased as they were in stony white.

  “Well, isn’t that interesting? You must be one of the Sigrids.” The Saint looked mildly disapproving, as if stepping delicately over a drunken priest slumped over in her path. Sigrid stared.

  “You know about the Tower?” she gasped.

  “Tower? No, I don’t know of any tower, but that little cult was springing up even before I became a permanent passenger in this roving whale-turtle. They’re tiresome, but what can I say to dissuade them? Whenever one does extraordinary things, someone is bound to try to repeat them for themselves. It’s the way of the world.”

  Sigrid looked as though she had been slapped. “I have searched my life over for you, for the Saint of the Griffins, of the Boiling Sea, of the Red Ship. I have never tried to repeat your miracles. I have performed my own. I have only tried to be like you in spirit, to be brave, and noble, and to find my place in the world. To find you.”