by James Comins
Chapter Seven
Waking
or, You Never Knew My Husband
Light was filmy and sound was plush and muted as Lenna opened her eyes. A few crusted tracks of tears stuck to her nose, and her mouth tasted bitter and sour. Lifting her numb hand to her face, she scrubbed gunk from her cheeks and smacked her lips. Aches chewed at her arms and shoulders. She blinked cracklily and looked around.
The hard, round surface of a cobblestone formed her horizon. She was on the floor, sprawled. Kaldi knelt beside her, tending her, sturdy and close and worried. The only light came from the door, which Brugda held open. No one spoke. They were waiting for her.
She pushed her fingers outward, stretching them, and her hands shook involuntarily. A faint darkness covered her vision, a smoky haze which was not at all natural.
“Mm.” Lenna felt like going to sleep. “Izzere an inn? Did you get a room?”
She addressed Kaldi vaguely, pushing herself up to a sea lion position and pulling her knees underneath her.
“Yes, of course.” His little brown beard and kind eyes both pointed to Lenna with concern. He laid a hand along her elbow, drew her up and steadied her as she stumbled out the crooked wooden door. She hugged Brugda’s waist blindly and bumbled over, over, over until they reached the settlement, then up three gemstone steps, over, over, up some more, along a shiny silver handrail, up, up, through, and into a silver bed with fluffy blood-red sheets.
She dreamed of a perfect world without Brugda.
Lenna woke immobile, caught in a tight red tomb dangling near the floor. She was cradled alongside the bed in a mummified wrap of twisted sheets. Her legs were squished together and her arm was pinned behind her. It felt like she had been caught by a colorful spider. Untangling herself, she landed on the floor, flump, and stood.
The light was dark. The world was dim. Over the blue-bright sunlight filtering through the shutters was a darkness blotting the world out a little, like a funeral veil drawn over her eyes. The hotel room was hidden under a dark haze. It felt like someone was watching her.
It was a chilly, stiff-legged morning. She felt drained, like the servants’ rain-powered washbasin after it had been cleaned, emptied, and had just begun to refill. She had fallen asleep fully dressed. Binnan Darnan’s woven crystal was jabbing into her side, buried in the twisted-up yellow cummerbund. She untwisted it; the sash hadn’t creased or wrinkled. She also found she could wipe the soft stamped leather of her dress clean with a brush of her hand. Under it, her slip was as clean and soft as the day before yesterday. No crusties, no soggies, no BO. She liked this world a little.
Pacing the hotel room, trying out all the fancy indoor plumbing, poking the roses in the ceramic vase to see if they were real (no), staring at a splotchily painted picture of some Italian porch covered with climbing flowers, she managed to keep herself from thinking about the, the two people in her creepy dream, managed to ignore the eerie layer of darkness that had spread over her vision, shadowing the world around her like evil sunglasses. And that feeling, like someone was standing right behind her--she spun, and the room was empty.
Taking off the dress and laying it on the bed, she stood beside it in her slip and examined the new green dress that had appeared on her during the Change. It was the color of tourmaline, a bluey green color that was not from the ocean or the grass or the sky. It was the color of crystals. Four criscrossing straps went around each shoulder; there was a little U in the front; and it came down just above her knees. The sash that went around her waist was canary-colored, hemmed with gold edging. The red and purple crystal that Binnan Darnan had apparently made for her hung down from the hip of the cummerbund from a yellow loop. It was all very pretty, but it occurred to her that she would have only, only this dress until they bought her another one. Maybe she would get tired of the colors. Hm. But half-memories of wearing servants’ crummy brown lingered in her mind. Maybe she would ask for a new stripy ribbon to tie her hair.
She washed her face in the sink, splashing water, looking over her shoulder at the empty room around her. After a long shower, the feeling of being watched passed, but the darkness remained.
A knocking at the door arrived as she was using the facilities. “Hold on,” she called.
When she finally dressed and opened the door, it was Kaldi.
“I thought we could talk about what happened,” he said.
“ ‘Kay.”
He came in and sat on the edge of the bed. “You’ve been gone for three days.”
She took a step back. Three days with those angel people?
“What? It was only afternoon.”
“Afternoon, Tuesday. Lenna. Tell me what happened.” Kaldi folded a foot over his knee and rested his hands on the foot. She pushed herself up onto the rumpled red covers to sit beside him.
“Um um I just fell asleep.” The words were soaked in shiny black as she said them, and everything in the world dimmed further, as if she had put on extra sunglasses.
“We’ve been looking for you all across Nupsstaður.”
“I just found a church and went in.”
“You were on the ground behind the altar. Cold as ice. I couldn’t wake you up.” He exhaled, and she looked up at him and saw that he was scared. She didn’t like scared grown-ups.
“I was dreaming, Kaldi.”
“What did you dream about?” he asked seriously.
Lenna’s lip wiggled. “I dreamed of a perfect world without Brugda,” she blurted. She looked down and knew she was a liar. Darker went the world. “That’s what I dream every night.”
“Oh.” He thought for a moment, slid off the bed, paced. “There’s breakfast downstairs. Golden raisin bread and fresh skyr, with strawberry safi. Yum?”
Lenna pushed herself to the floor and headed down ahead of him. She felt ashamed.
Talvi and Aitta were talking, but they looked up when Lenna came down to the dark wooden booths of the inn’s restaurant. The central room was tall, spacious, with windows showing the slowly-melting snow covering the black plains to the west. The windows would have been bright if the world hadn’t gotten dimmed by the creepy darkness that surrounded Lenna’s eyes. She went to the window. The giant jokull-glacier was a white-blue line strung with fairy bridges on the distant horizon. The sight of the frozen cottonballs made the roaring heat of the fireplace feel even warmer. Everything was rosewood in this restaurant room: the roof beams, the walls, the floor. It was like a log cabin in America, maybe. The inn was busy with the last of the winter tourists. In one woman’s arms a baby in a polka-dot parka was screaming. Lenna patted the baby’s head. It hushed, then began screaming again.
Lenna hugged Talvi, who smelled like his pipe, like mincemeat pie. She hugged Aitta, who smelled like powdery makeup. The raisin bread was hot and fresh on a sideboard nearby. She took the big, blunt knife on the table and pressed it deep into the bread. A wisp trailed up from the division, allspice and nutmeg. The skyr was a white circle on a blue and white porcelain dish decorated with a blue Staffordshire picture of the new Eiffel tower, French curves and trailing balconies beneath a spiral spire. Lenna stuck the knife into the thick skyr and squished the white yogurt across the raisin bread, which crumbed and flaked butterily.
Binnan Darnan came in. There was something around her head, something thin and dark, like a bad halo. Without catching Lenna’s eye she poured some safi out from its big crystal pitcher into a cup and sipped it. The little girl had a hard look, but she didn’t leave as Lenna stood beside her with her plate and bit into the bread.
After a time, Lenna set the plate down and kissed Binnan Darnan on the cheek. “I’m sorry that we fought, Binnan Darnan,” she said. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. You may call me anything you want. Just Lenna is best, though. And I will always talk to you about everything, if I can.” She wiped her eye with a fist and took a jagged breath. “Is this okay?”
Binnan Darnan set down the juice and put her hands decisively on Lenna’s shoul
ders. “Yes it is. Sometimes I forget you’re little. I believe you have once been old. Like me!” Binnan Darnan poked her pointy nose into Lenna’s.
“I’ll tell you things,” said Lenna. “But later, okay?”
“Okay. Oh!” Binnan Darnan removed her hands, shocked. “I put axle grease on you!”
Her mouth open, Lenna wiped her shoulder and received a few slimy splotches of yellow. She grabbed Binnan Darnan’s lace, grinning impishly. Lowering her eyebrows, the blackhaired girl smeared Lenna’s arm, then ran out through the door of the inn. Lenna sprinted after. Talvi smiled and suggested finding the antiseptic now, rather than later. Kaldi simply leaned his head past the stairwell to watch over them.