When he came out he sat down beside me, not quite touching but close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him, like a small furnace―the way kids are after they’ve run around the playground. And he was solid now, he was flesh. We sat for a bit, until I thought we should move along in case one of his mother’s boyfriends should happen by and find the mess.
I like having him around. I might take him to see Swoozie some time soon, when they tell me she can have visitors. When she starts to recognise the people who love her. When she forgets what she’s done.
* * *
The Hummingbird Heart
The tiny bird lies quiet in my hands; not tranquil, but quiet. I can feel it vibrate against my palms and I think this is good, will be good for my purpose. I keep the fingers of one hand over its sharp, black eyes, and, with the other feel the detail of its feathers, the infinite intricacies of its design. I pray to the gods that this will work.
I gently place the bird into the cavity in my daughter’s chest, into the metal chamber Philotas constructed for me. He procured the bird for me, too; I didn’t ask where from, it’s like no bird I’ve ever seen before. He called it a hummingbird, crimson-throated, beautiful, like a flying gem when it’s in the sun; it is not native to Greece. There are many things not to ask Philotas; this is just one of them.
I quickly close the thin metal door to the chamber, the door engraved with my family seal and Philotas’ initials as maker. I turn the key and hear the miniature locks clutching at each other, closing and sealing; then there is the sound of the hummingbird, fluttering in the chamber, in eternal night. It will not like the darkness.
I sit back to watch my child, lying pale on the marble slab. The flesh of her chest closes over, meshes before my eyes. I wonder how long it will take, for the bewitched bird’s beating wings to move the blood around her small body. Philotas said it would take “some time”; “some time,” he said as I lay beside him, my body covered in sweat and the scent of him. It was part of the price for this sacred service, the return of my daughter. It was not unpleasant, and I would do—have done—far more and worse to get my child back.
Nectar, he whispered to me in the darkness, a lover’s secret. I fed it on nectar, so it will never sleep, never die.
So my child will never again die? I whispered, hopeful, yearning.
I don’t know, he confessed. Perchance the body will wear out and the heart continue to beat when all flesh rots; perhaps when the body is gone, the metal chamber will rust and the bird fly out, back into the light.
The idea of the little bird trapped in darkness forever lies heavily on me. But to wish for its release would be to hope for my child’s end, and I cannot do that.
I lean forward, rest my head on the fragile chest, ear hot against cool skin, and listen. There is the whirring of frantic wings, and the slow, sluggish thud of blood. My daughter spasms, her torso rising, her head still angled on the slab, her toes pointing in pain. I fall back onto the floor. Breath explodes from her mouth, and a black substance, thick as tar, is expelled, glistening, serpentine as it rises into the air, hangs for a moment, then dissipates like smoke.
Antiope turns her small head and fixes me with a wondering gaze. She chirps: “Mama?”
I gather her up and hold her tight, feeling her tiny bones. The odour of death weakens with each passing second. Her arms wrap around my neck and I can feel her breath on my skin. “It was so dark there, Mama.”
“You’re back now, you’re here now, my love, back in the light with me.” I don’t think I will be able to let her go from my sight for a second.
She is my child, loving as always, smiling and sweet, but somehow not quite right. Her hair, dark as ever, seems to knit itself into a pattern each night, weaving closer to her head, down her neck, like braids but more complex, more infinite than any braid could be. I do not look too closely, merely run my hand across the filaments, wondering at their strangeness, at their familiarity. Her eyes were green before she left me, now they are black. Philotas, who still shares my bed, tells me this happens sometimes—that the time a soul spends in the Underworld can seep into their eyes, which are never quite the same again. But Antiope, he says, is young, very young, and it will not much affect her.
He gave me back my jewellery today. In payment, I had given him my dower jewels and my marriage gems, the bracelets, rings and necklaces my husband gave me in the years before he died. In the years we were in love, before he began to speak of spirits following him, urging him to unspeakable acts, before he took our daughter and jumped from the cliff tops into the Aegean. He hit the rocks and broke apart like an urn dropped on a marble floor. Antiope went into the water, fortuitously drowning, but otherwise intact. Fishermen brought me her body.
I am a young widow, beautiful still, my charms undimmed by grief; perhaps illuminated by it. Philotas is older than he looks but younger than I thought he would be. He is not unhandsome but few women will have truck with a man of his ... talents ... my need for him over-rode any qualms I may have had. He is a kind lover, a gentle man; I do not mind that he has my body as a playground. I take pleasure there, too, and he, it seems, is coming to care for me, in his own way. He is kind to the daughter he returned to me.
Antiope watches the world with a bright gaze, her head tilts to the side to follow whatever object catches her interest; she has an intense stare. For weeks she refused most things I put before her at the table and I feared she would starve until I found her in the kitchen one morning, eating crumbled bread, digging her hands into the great urn of honey in the corner and licking them with glee. Sunflower seeds, too, these she eats by the handful. She drinks water with tiny, careful sips, using her tongue when she thinks I do not see, to lap at the liquid in her cup. She loves the light: her days are spent sitting in the sunshine of the courtyard, or at the windows, she soaks up the last rays for as long as she can, then races in to me and begs me to light as many torches as I can, give her as much light as possible, for she is afraid of the dark.
I did not fear until today. Until I found her perched in the olive tree, which is ancient, gnarled, with branches that stretch high enough for my eight year old to fall and injure herself. I still fear for her body, even knowing what Philotas told me. I went into the garden, calling for her, and she answered me with a laugh.
“Mama! Mama, I’m up here.”
She clung to the branches, her toes curled around the wood, her hands waving at me, her dress torn, dirt smudges on her face. Excitement poured from her and I was terrified. I yelled at her; she refused to come down until I was so afraid I became calm again, thinking I have lived through the worst.
When she came down I held her, rubbing my hands across her skin to make sure she was real, alive, there. On her back, I found nubs, bumps where none should be, the beginning of bone structures where her flesh should be smooth. I ran my hands over them before I looked. Lumpy little spots below her shoulder blades, one on either side of her spine, stared back at me. I sent her inside then walked through the cool corridors of my home until I found Philotas.
I stand before him now and tell him about my daughter, about the vestigial things on her back and wait for him to explain, for him to put my mind at rest.
“Ismene,” he says helplessly. “Ismene, sometimes things happen that cannot be controlled. You took your daughter back, you defied the will of the gods. But the gods will have their wish, my love, one way or another.”
“You promised me!” I scream at him. “You promised I should have her back.”
“And you have, my love, but I am a mere mage. If the gods choose, my magic will come undone.” His voice is gentle and I hate him for it. I rage at him and throw things until I have no energy to walk to my bed. He lifts and carries me. I weep until I sleep. He stays but does not share my bed—I wake in the night to find him slumped in a chair beside a guttering lantern, sleeping a wounded sleep.
I wonder, for a moment, what woke me, then hear again the humming noise. It�
��s so loud it might come from a giant bee. My naked feet pad silently over the tiles, the noise becoming louder and louder until I can barely hear.
In my daughter’s room the noise is unbearable, but it has not woken her. I kneel beside her bed and listen, my eardrums throbbing in time with the sound. Reaching out, I touch her chest and feel the thundering vibration of her heart, of the strange melding of metal and avian. I caress the purple line where the flesh is joined and find her bright, dark eyes watching me. She smiles and the heartbeat quietens until I can no longer hear it.
“Mama,” she says. “Mama, I dreamt I was flying.”
I cannot bear to be alone again.
I cannot bear a child-shaped hole in my life.
I take her walking along the cliffs.
The Aegean is the blue of hope. The sky burns. I have to squint to see my way along the path. Antiope’s hand is warm in mine, sweet childish sweat drips from our palms, but I will not let her go.
We come to the bluff; the grass is soft beneath my feet, the air is salty-sharp. I sit on a rock and pull my daughter onto my lap. She holds me tight, her head pressed against my chest, and I look down at her hair. The feathers are obvious now, black with a crimson tint, her hair neatly morphed into rows of tight, tiny feathers. She looks up at me, trusting. Her small hands seek out my belly and gently knead.
“My sister comes,” she tells me happily. “And I must go, Mama.”
My tears are salt and she kisses them away, my love, my baby, my child. Our hands hold, part, stretch toward each other.
Then Antiope is standing at the edge of the cliff, facing the sea and the sky. Wings sprout from her back, wide, black span of feathers and sinews and bones. She throws me one last look then sets her face forward. The wings beat down, once, twice, then she is gone.
I watch until the figure of my daughter is no more than the size of the hummingbird. Hands pressed to my belly, I retrace my steps, and head for home.
* * *
Words
She was a writer, once, before the words got out of hand.
She would read aloud what she’d written that day, dropping sounds into the night, into the sometimes balmy, sometimes frosty air. After a while, she noticed that the words seemed to warm her no matter what the season.
Her voice became stronger, so soon she could read for longer. The sentences took on a life of their own, prancing and weaving themselves into the shapes of the things they described. She was always busy concentrating on those words that stayed obediently on the page, but one night, something caught her eye. A flowing diphthong movement, the graceful pivot of an elision as they wrapped themselves around each other and turned into a small, pale pink dragon, which then disappeared with a slight pop.
She knew, then, that she’d become something other than a writer. The word ‘wordsmith’ had hidden itself away in protest against misuse about three hundred years ago and refused to come out. The word ‘witch’ appeared but she ignored it, thinking it best.
Her house and the house next door were quite close—you could look out the window of one almost into the window of the other. Three children lived there, two little girls and a boy. They knew about the words before she did, had been watching nightly for some time. Their parents had been pleased—indeed so relieved as to not be pricked by suspicion—when they started going to bed at the prescribed hour without protest.
It gave the children time to brush their teeth, struggle into their pyjamas, get tucked in by their parents, and for George to sneak out of his room, across the hallway into his sisters’ and for them all to take their places on the edge of Sally’s bed just before the writer settled down on the old green velvet couch in her living room. Rose would hand out the hard sweets, the fruity ones that could be sucked on for almost an hour before they dissolved into a sugary puddle in the mouth. Unless Sally crunched down on hers (which she frequently did); then, she would chew noisily on the friable shards and beg Rose for another, promising not to do it again.
It may have gone on for years, until the children grew sick of enchantment or the writer died or someone moved away. It might have gone on forever if it hadn’t been for the wolf. The writer rewrote Little Red Riding Hood, which was Rose’s favourite story and the one that frightened Sally the most, so when the wolf swirled into being in the middle of the sitting room, grey and shaggy and rather larger than the word-creatures usually were, Sally screamed.
It still could have been okay had their parents not been walking past the bedroom. Their father flung open the door before the children had a chance to get away from the window, before George could duck under a bed, and before the word-wolf had time to dissipate with a half-hearted snarl.
The parents put their children to bed, all in George’s room on the other side of the house. They held a discussion. They went next door and knocked.
“We don’t like it,” said the mother.
“We don’t like what you do,” the father said.
“They’re fairytales,” explained the writer.
“They’re not ...” hissed the mother, “not normal! Stop or we’ll tell.”
“Tell whom?” asked the writer. “And what would they do? It’s a long time since the age of torches and pitchforks.”
The parents didn’t think this was funny at all. The mother rang the Neighbourhood Watch chairman, Mrs Finnerty, who was also on a Committee for Moral Hygiene (though no one seemed to know what that was).
The mother told Mrs Finnerty what they’d seen; she also said that the writer walked around naked a lot. Mrs Finnerty (whose husband had run away with a young nudist) found her doubts about the word-creatures overcome when she heard about the nakedness.
Letters began to arrive for the writer, insisting she desist. She read the first two; tore up the rest as soon as she drew them out of the letterbox, recognised the stiff, off-white envelopes, ripped them up right in her front yard so the whole neighbourhood could see. She threw the pieces into the air and even if it were a still day, a breeze would start up and carry the pieces of torn envelope and letter into the gardens of her neighbours. The ones that wafted to Mrs Finnerty’s always managed to land on her doormat and spell out rude words. In spite of herself, Mrs Finnerty started yelling some of those rude words back, coupling them with ‘witch’.
The writer kept reading out her stories, the word-creatures becoming more and more realistic, staying longer before the inevitable pop. She started concentrating on landscapes, too, and buildings, so small villages would spring up on the carpet in her living room, with tiny people wandering the cobbled streets, carts pulled by donkeys, vendors arguing with customers in the markets; and all making a tremendous noise for their size until they disappeared.
The police were called but they weren’t sure what they could do. They (a fat sergeant and two thin young constables) spoke with the writer and she smiled and laughed and refused to stop. She wasn’t disturbing the peace, she was in her own home, and as far as they were aware, there was no legislation against writing this way. To the disappointment of his companions, the sergeant reluctantly refused her offer of coffee and cake and went next door.
They watched from Sally and Rose’s bedroom window, with the neighbourhood parents and Mrs Finnerty all crowded in behind them. One of the young policemen found the discarded bag of candy under Sally’s pillow (where Rose had stuffed it on that fateful night), surreptitiously put one in his mouth, and sucked at it.
As they watched, the clock clicked over to eight-thirty and a chime sounded, deep and sonorous. The writer came into her living room, gave the audience a small smile and shuffled the papers in her hands, rather like someone preparing to give a speech at a hostile debating society. She wore a long dress, green and flowing—the young policeman sucking on his sweet rather hoped it was a bathrobe that she would discard fairly soon—and her hair was caught up and covered by a scarf.
She turned her back to the window and began to murmur; this evening she did not use her clear reader’s v
oice to project the story, but the word-creatures came all the same. Fairies, dragons, wolves, striped sheep and tuxedoed bears, candy-covered trees, men made of tin and women of cloud, and finally, a door.
It was a perfectly normal door if a little ornate, dark-wooded and banded with iron engraved with stylised holly. It was stout and it stayed. The neighbours and police saw her reach for the handle and turn it. The door opened and they could all see hills, sky, apple trees, and a cottage with many windows, many rooms. The writer turned and smiled and as she did so they saw their children, twenty-seven in all from teenagers to babies, with Sally and Rose and George in the forefront.
The children waved to their parents and stepped through the door, one by one until only the writer remained. Parents screamed.
Soon, police and parents were battering at the writer’s house. She heard the windows break, the wood tear as men as angry as bears broke through the door. She saw the young policeman still sitting on the edge of Sally’s bed, his mouth slightly open, the candy wet and just visible between his lips. She stepped through the door and closed it just as the first parent staggered into the room.
In their rage, they burned the house, but some nights you can see shades and shadows dance around the big tree in the yard. And the young policeman comes by sometimes, to sit beside the blackened ruins and watch in hope of a door.
* * *
The Little Match Girl
The walls are a hard patchwork of rough stones. In some places, there’s the dark green of moss, birthed by moisture and the breath of fear. In others, there’s nothing but black. Soot from the torches is so thick on the stone that I could scratch my name into it, if I knew how to write. The floor wears scattered straw for a coat, stinking and old. No natural light comes into this place; there’s not even a window, the opening bricked up long ago so no one might flee. And it stinks; the waste bucket sits festering in the corner.
The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales Page 6