The Folly of the World

by Jesse Bullington

  This time Jan wasn’t at the hole. Air, and then back down. She swam much quicker now that she didn’t have the rope to fuck about with, and promptly bashed her shoulder into the doorframe at the end of the hall. She felt the bubbles of her mute cry tickle her cheek as she floated in place, clutching herself in the darkness, and then she pushed the soreness away and propelled herself into the room. It was still black, the smear of light the broken shutter slat admitted only making the rest of the room darker for it. She had a thought, and yanked at another slat until it came away. Then it was back along the passage to the hole, her entire left side throbbing from where she had rammed her shoulder.

  Jan still wasn’t back, and she spent the next three dives working at the window shutters until she had torn open a big enough gap to squeeze through. Then she spent another breath making it even wider, just in case. With the exception of a patch of silt-strained half-light around the window, the room was still dark as a moonless night, but instead of returning to the hall Jo squirmed through the window, out into the meer. She surfaced with a whoop beside the roof-island.

  “Dermo!” Andrei cried, and she saw he and Sander stood in the boat that now floated halfway between the graveyard and the house. Sander held a long pole and Andrei a net, and peering harder at them, she realized they were poised to launch their implements at her.

  “Get yourself spitted, you stupid slut!” shouted Sander.

  “What are you doing?” she called, splashing around and grabbing a handful of rushes to moor herself. On this end of the house the marshy roof sloped down into the water rather than abruptly dropping off, and she hauled herself backward up the muddy incline, feet still dangling in the water.

  “That sturgeon’s around here,” said Jan from over her shoulder, and she saw him gingerly picking his way toward her over the muddy flat. “They went out to try to catch him.”

  “Sturgeon big?” She eyed Sander’s pike. They’d been talking about the fish that bumped the boat when they first came to the cemetery, but she hadn’t seen it herself.

  “Bigger than you,” Jan said but, seeing her expression, added, “they’re not like sharks or anything, they’re bottom dwellers.”

  “Not sturgeon!” Andrei called excitedly. “Catfish! Saw his hairs, big, big catfish!”

  “What’s that?” Jan shouted back. “Catfish?”

  Jo pulled her feet out of the water in what she hoped was a casual fashion.

  “Rivers back home, have big fish with hairs. No, not hairs—mustaches. Big fish with mustaches.”

  “If you’re fucking with me…” she heard Sander grumble from the boat, his head still directed down at the water.

  “What do they eat?” Jo called.

  “Muddy stuff,” answered the Muscovite. “Worms, bugs, river shit.”

  “Bottom dwellers,” said Jan knowingly. “I was worried you’d get turned around down there, but this is it. See?”

  He scraped the moss from a small hillock she had scarcely noticed beside her and revealed black brick underneath the boggy vegetation. A pile of brick meant exactly fuck-all to her, other than—oh. A chimney. And a chimney meant a fireplace. Then his hand was warm on the back of her neck, the damp knuckles kneading her the way she’d kneaded dough on the rare occasions her father brought home flour. She wondered if Jan would have her make bread for him or if they’d have a servant for that, if they’d live in a house half as big as this one. A stupid thing to think, but she closed her eyes and thought it all the same, enjoying the feel of his fingers on her. She’d grown up so much in so little time.

  “Bring it up, then,” he said, nearly panting the words. She looked at him and saw he had a knife in his hand. Her heart quickened, imagining how it would feel if he were to jab her in the back with it—probably no worse than being fucked up the arse, as seemed to be his preference. She’d tried to get a finger back there after watching him go at it with Sander and the result had been less than delightful—it wasn’t the first time she’d been given cause to think her darling might be every bit as gnarled inside as her, just in different ways. “This ought to help get the stone out, but don’t lose it.”

  It was the same thick, dull sort of blade she had used to pry open flat oysters for her father. Before she could look up from the knife, he had pecked her on the cheek, then stood upright, popping his knuckles. She pushed herself off the edge of the roof and sank quickly, before she could hear any taunts from the boat.

  What a life she was having, she thought as the cool tenebrosity thickened around her; it was like sinking into an old soup. There was the window, but just before she ducked inside it, a light shadow at the end of the wall caught her eye amidst all those deeper ones. She paused, trying to make out the blurry silhouette, and then it coalesced, like a shell taking shape as a wave washed it clean. It was a huge fish rounding the corner of the house, and she felt a moment of profound, ancient fear at it, for in the sea few things that large are good to meet without the bottom of a boat between you. Then she remembered that it must be the sturgeon or catfish or what, and that it meant her no harm. She momentarily thought to surface and tell Sander and Andrei, but then remembered what a cuntbitch Sander was. She waved at the fish, which was indeed as big as her, then pulled herself through the window.

  Feeling her way along the wall, she found the uneven stones of the fireplace almost at once and clutched them tight, pulling herself down to the bottom. There was a thick film covering the floorboards and the base of the hearth, the layer of slime making it difficult to tell where one stone ended and another began, but before she had even exhaled, she felt one wiggle a little as she pressed on it, like a loose tooth. The stone was maybe a hand’s width up from the floor, and poking around with the tip of the knife, she finally found the seam and slid the blade into place. She began to rock it free when it occurred to her she must go slow, lest the ring fall out with the hearthstone—blind and deaf as she was, she would neither see it drop nor hear it clink on the ground, and so taking her time to loose the stone seemed wise.

  Leaving the knife embedded, she swam back to the hole, but just before she slipped through the window, it seemed to wink at her. The shadow of the boat falling across it, she thought, but hesitated at the opening, hands on the soft sill, legs floating ceiling-ward behind her, eyes squinting into the gray water. Nothing but the meer.

  Digging her nails into the wood to pull herself out of the house, she felt a draft billow through the window, and again she paused, the breeze of cooler water giving her chills. That was just queer, but, as it shook out, not as queer as what happened next: a massive horror reared up before the window, conjuring another string of bubbles from her mouth as she pushed back from the sill, limbs flailing in the thick gloom. In the act of revealing itself it blotted out the light, but before it was swallowed by its own shadow she made out a bulging eye as big as her fist, and a mouth as wide as she was, edged by waving, fleshy fronds. It seemed to be snuffling at the window like a dog after a turd, and bottom dweller or no, Jo launched herself out of the room and down the black hallway, chest aflame, coming up with a cough at the original hole in the middle of the island.

  “I’m over here!” she cried as she tried to scramble out of the water, but her bruising shoulder and shaking fingers thwarted her attempts and she slipped back down, splashing about in the narrow opening. “Jan!”

  He came dancing over the mud, always watching his feet, and then he had her and hoisted her up, scratching her thigh this time on the lip of the hole. Rather than holding her, as she keenly hoped he would, he set her down in the mud and squatted down beside her. She tried to touch his arm and he pulled back a little, looking at her curiously. She supposed he was trying to keep his clothes dry, the goddamn son of a bitch.

  “Fucking arsehole!”

  “What? What’s happened?”

  “That fish,” she said, pulling her knees up to her chest. Now she felt silly, and tried to laugh it off despite the fear still thundering through her sore
limbs. “That fucking cow of a fish wouldn’t let me out the window.”

  “Ah, I thought I saw him.” He didn’t turn enough to keep her ear from ringing as he shouted, “Oi, Sander! He’s over there! Where Jo came up before!”

  “I found it,” she said, panting, but seeing the excitement on his face, hastened to add, “the stone, like. Got the knife in the crack, but wanted to be full of air when I worked it out.”

  “Clever,” he said appreciatively, then bellowed again, “over there, I said! Quick now!”

  “I’ll be getting it for you, then,” she said, getting up and eyeing the hole with something less than eagerness. She looked hopefully to Jan, wondering if he would steal a kiss or maybe cop another feel now that they were somewhat shielded by the reeds, but his eyes were on the boat drifting back toward the roof.

  “Use this one until they’ve got the beggar or run him off,” said Jan. “And do be—”

  But she didn’t hear what she should be, for she jumped back into the room, this time neatly clearing the edges of both roof and attic hole, then shooting off down the hall. In a breath’s time she would be back up with the ring, she promised herself, and then she’d have a kiss or cast his treasure back into the deep. She stopped stroking as the pale gloom of the bedchamber appeared through the darkness and she let herself drift, arms extended to feel before her and thus avoid bashing into the wall or doorway again.

  Just as she did, her right hand connected with something hard, and though it stung her palm a bit, she smiled at the sensibility that had spared her another battered shoulder or elbow. Whatever it was gave under her momentum, and to her surprise more wan light broke from the side of the hall. She dipped around to inspect the new window, only to realize she had inadvertently shoved ajar a door leading off of the hallway. She leaned against the dark wood, churning the water with her legs to propel herself, and rather than swinging open, it simply fell forward, taking part of the disintegrating frame with it. The light on the other side was dim, but compared to the murk of the initial room and the near blackness of the bedchamber it was positively brilliant.

  The door she had knocked loose fell with the strange slowness that water imbues things that ought to tumble quickly, finally landing on a staircase leading to the ground floor. As she watched, it slid down the steps and bumped to a stop where the stair met the far wall. Swimming down after it, she saw that while the stair followed the wall of the house on her left, to the right it was open, with only a skeletal banister fencing her off from what had to be the kitchen—that flanged lump in one corner must be a hearth like the one in Primm’s shop, only much larger, and there was a long table that shone white as bone when the rest of the place was all browns, grays, and blackish-blues. This room must be as wide as the whole house, for open windows on either end of the kitchen let in moon-pale illumination.

  Then Jo saw the cook, and raced the bubbles of her yelp back up the stairs, cursing herself for not just retrieving the ring and getting out of this doomed place. The woman, for somehow she was sure it had been a woman, was crumpled in a corner, an edge of rusty shadow in one wasted hand, a bowl of black lumps before her, and a barrel to her side. Just a pile of old bones, aye, but Jo had only seen a few corpses in her day and none of them were happy memories—her fever-wasted mother when Jo was but a child, the tide-bloated and eel-gnawed fisherboy Aernt washed ashore after a storm, and, well, that was all up until this anonymous dead person. There had been nothing there but a black shape wreathed in tendrils of corruption that swayed like the eelgrass that grew in the shallows of Snail Bay, but now that she was at the surface Jo was sure she had seen a smiling skull, empty eyes watching her.

  Shit.

  “What is it?” said Jan as she spluttered on the edge of the hole.

  “What?” she gasped. “What?”

  “Was it the fish?”

  “What? No, no,” Jo shook her head, clinging to the roof and forcing herself to stay in the water—if she got out now, she’d never go back in. This stupid goddamn house… “Some old bones is all, gave me a fright.”

  “In his room?” Jan asked quietly, something strange to his expression. “He…”

  “Nay, in the, I guess the kitchen? Down the stairs, next to the room?”

  “Why did you go down there?” he asked, and though his tone was easy as ever, she felt a surge of guilt at disappointing him.

  “I got… the door, it fell. I got turned ’round, was all. Saw someone down there.”

  “Probably just your eye fooling you, Jo, nobody—”

  “I saw her! I’m not like Sander, I see what I see and know it when I do, God’s wounds. Now I’m to get your ring, and leave her where I seen her.”

  Down she went before he could doubt her further, and she forced herself to enter the black passage just as quickly as she had before discovering what lay beneath it. It was much easier to navigate now with the stairwell letting in a little light, and she kept her eyes straight ahead as she kicked past it and entered the bedchamber. It was still like the bottom of a well in here, with the window and now the doorway letting in halos that did fuck-all for her against the rear wall where the fireplace lay. Crossing the room, she became tangled in wet webbing that almost made her die of terror before realizing in the doorway’s trickle of light that she was caught up in old blankets drifting over the large, decaying bed. Freeing herself, she kicked into the deeper dark, resolving to get the ring this time or drown down here.

  When she couldn’t get the stone loose, she considered the window, but lest the fish still be lurking, she went back down the hall and up through the hole. Jan didn’t say anything and neither did she, and then she was back at the hearth.

  Come on, cuntbitch, she thought, and then she had it, pulling the knife out and letting it sink to the bottom as she got one hand around the small stone and basketed the fingers of her other beneath it. The block came easily but still she took it slow, and then it was free. Nothing dropped into her palm, and still clutching the little hearthstone in her other hand, she gingerly slid her fingers into the gap.

  There was something there, something softer than a ring, and larger. Dropping the stone, she now cupped that hand beneath the recess as she withdrew the thin, square object tucked back in there. It felt like lean leather, but squeezing it all over, she detected no hardness in its center, no circle of metal to make her grin in the dark. When it was out and again nothing dropped into her hand, she shoved her fingers back into the gap, desperately now, but nothing met her touch but smooth rock. Christ’s crown…

  Pinching the square tightly in one hand, she slowly patted the slick floor in front of her, her heartbeat picking up like a fast-building squall. It had to be here, it had to be. Before she realized it, bright flashes of light were popping all around her, and then she was drowning. There was no time to use the hall, and she clumsily made for the gap in the window. Tearing herself through it, swimming up, up, up, with the soft square crushed in one fist, her head and chest angrily pulsing, she surfaced with a gasp that was even more painful than the choking had been. Her stomach shuddered as she slammed herself against the muddy bank of the roof, pulling herself up even as the tears came and the sobs cheated her of the air she had freely won.

  Jan was by her side, then, cooing to her, but all she could hear was the pounding of her heart, the crashing of the sea inside her skull. Miserably, she offered him her closed fist and, a look of rapture on his face, he took it in both hands. She sobbed louder, and he tried to pry her fingers apart, but she wouldn’t give it up, wouldn’t let him see that she had failed him, wouldn’t—

  “Jo,” he murmured, and she let him have it, falling away as he felt it, took it, his delight turning to confusion, and she had half a mind to drown herself. The best she could manage was to fall back in the muck, panting and weeping as he examined the square. He unfolded it carefully, and nothing fell out of it because nothing had ever been inside it.

  “Shit,” he said quietly, sweetly, as if the
rectangle of vellum were a small, frightened animal he was trying to calm. He flipped it away and it landed beside Jo. Something had been written on it, once, but even an illiterate of her caliber surmised that the smear of old ink was illegible. He stared down at the mud, his face as unreadable as the vellum.

  “It wasn’t there,” she finally croaked when she was able to sit up and speak without fear of vomiting. “I swear. I looked. I felt. I was so careful, Jan!”

  “You got it!” Sander called from the boat. Jo saw that he and Andrei were floating nearby, pike and net held lazily underarm as they watched the pathetic sight on the shore. Jo hated Sander so much she could taste it, a burning bile in the back of her throat.

  “No, it’s a letter,” said Jan. He was still looking at the mud between his boots, his voice too low to be addressing anyone but himself. “To me. From my father. He must have thought I’d come back, sneak in, and try to steal it. So he left me that, to taunt me. Or maybe apologize. Something.”

  “What?!” shouted Sander, much louder than he needed to. Probably to make a point or something. Jan ignored him.

  “How do you know?” she asked, staring at the ruined sheaf.

  “Because I’m not a complete cretin,” he said tiredly, as though he had been the one to near-drown himself down there. “What else could it be?”

  “Oh,” she rubbed her wrinkly hands together, trying to bring the feeling back to them. At least she was done with—

  “Back down,” he said, a faint smile drifting up the creases of his face like smoke looking for a chink in a ceiling. “If there’s someone in the kitchen, who knows. Maybe.”