The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales

by Angela Slatter

  “Stay a while, good man, I’m in the mood for a chat,” begins the Devil.

  Reluctantly, the man drops his sack and leans against the bridge for support. “What would you like to discuss, young sir?”

  “What would you like best in life?” The Devil is charming when he chooses, for it’s easier for him to get his own way.

  “I’d like to not be carrying sacks about the place.” He wipes the sweat from his face. “I’d like to be rich, that’s for sure—rich and able to employ a boy to do my carting for me.”

  “Then so it shall be if you agree to a trade.” Lucifer smiles winningly. “Let me have whatever is sitting in your backyard when you return home.”

  The Miller thinks of the apple tree and its reaching limbs, of the discarded barrels lying in the grass, of the fat gray mouser stalking its prey, and he laughs. “Surely, young man, you shall have your way. It’s a deal.”

  He knows the lad is either touched or having a joke at his expense. The sack is not so heavy when he picks it up, as if the joke has lightened all his burdens.

  “Excellent, good fellow! I shall call by tomorrow morning to collect my prize.” He leans back on the struts, well pleased, and watches the Miller, who is convinced he will never see the youth again, stagger away beneath his load.

  Miller is still chuckling when he rounds the corner of his house. His heart contracts to something small and cold. Beneath the arms of the apple tree his daughter, her hair glinting in the sun, breaks into an impromptu jig. She smiles: Jephtha’s daughter dancing for her father’s return.

  The girl watches herself in the mirror.

  Her hair is platinum and her eyes silver as the moon, in a face with the slightest blush of pink in her cheeks. On her wrists are two bracelets, plaited bands of gold and silver that appeared there not half an hour before her father returned home. These are her bride-gifts; they have grown on her like something organic but malevolent.

  Madchen slips the straps of her shift from her shoulders. It pools at her feet as her eyes move across what will soon belong to someone else. Pouting breasts, firm curving hips, pink lips at the apex of her long thighs. She is a prize by any standard.

  Her parents have been yelling for almost an hour. Hilde, fearful of the chests that now overflow with treasure, demands to know what her husband has done. When he told his story, she shrieked and beat him about the head. He defended himself as well as he could until she said, Do you not know who that was? A name slipped from her lips in a whisper and took the fight from him. He dropped his hands to let her do her worst. Madchen went to her room.

  The Devil watches her from the other side of the mirror. He traces her shape with his sharp nails, an artist etching her into mercury, a silver princess to be caught forever. The planes of her face, the curves of her body, the hints of her secret places, all are recorded by his tracing talon. His tongue protrudes as he performs his art in anticipation of the taste of her flesh. He leans forward ...

  Madchen, sensing someone watching, throws a shawl over the mirror, tucking it tightly around so that whatever watches her cannot climb out.

  No matter to the Devil, he will have her soon enough.

  Madchen stands beneath the apple tree, in the center of a chalk circle. Every inch of her skin has been scrubbed until it glows pink.

  Hilde, desperate in her maternal rage, had scoured her memory for knowledge to protect her only child. All she could come up with was the chalk circle and the cleaner-than-clean skin. She knows her daughter’s heart is pure and there is no more she can do to protect the girl. She prays it will be enough.

  The Devil ambles into the yard at the appointed time. He could appear in a flash of fire but does not want to seem ostentatious to his bride. As he approaches, however, Lucifer, the shining one, finds that she hurts his eyes. He stalks toward her and stops short of the chalk circle. He hisses at Madchen; she draws back—his breath smells like brimstone.

  “Come out of that circle at once!”

  “I will not, sir.”

  “Come out! I demand it!”

  “Again, sir, I will not. No bride for you today,” Madchen sings sweetly. Hilde watches her daughter.

  “Stay right there, my dove. He cannot harm you.”

  Lucifer swings around. He sees a mother’s love, a mother’s will, and smoke rises from his skin. Hilde wishes that she had thought of a circle for herself and her foolish husband.

  “She will be mine, woman.” Lucifer turns his gaze on the Miller. “Give her no water with which to wash. I will claim her when she is dirty.”

  “But, sir ...”

  “And as for you, interfering woman.” The Devil points a long finger at Hilde. She gasps and falls, lying horribly still in the dirt.

  Madchen moves to leave the circle.

  “No! Stay there, daughter. I will see to your mother,” sobs Miller as he lifts Hilde’s dead weight. “Your mother would want you safe.”

  The Devil smiles and disappears.

  The night passes with thoughts, and wonders, and dust storms.

  Madchen wonders that her mother had to die when her father caused all the trouble. The dust storms pound her with dirt, and filth clings to her skin as tightly as the bracelets on her wrists. When dawn raises her head, Miller comes out, and Lucifer appears, this time in full flame.

  “My mother?” Madchen asks.

  Miller sobs. “Gone. Hilde is gone.”

  The Devil approaches in a leisurely fashion. He notes the smut adhering to his bride and smiles. Madchen begins to cry. She weeps so much that the tears wash the dirt from her hands. Lucifer screams his frustration.

  “Miller! In the house!”

  Miller follows the fallen angel. Madchen knows without a doubt that she cannot bear to lose both parents, not even her fatally flawed father.

  The Devil stalks into the tiny parlor where Hilde lies quiet and cold. He does not give her a second glance. Miller stands in the heat of Lucifer’s gaze, head bowed, fearing his own death more than the loss of his child.

  “Miller, you will cut her hands off. I cannot take her while any part of her is clean.”

  “No! I will not harm my child further.”

  “You will or I will take you in her place,” says the Devil quite reasonably.

  “I cannot ...”

  “Father, you must.” Madchen has left the chalk circle; her gleaming hands hurt Lucifer’s eyes. He cannot look directly at her, she is too terrible, too clean, too pure. He wants her punished, maimed for slighting a prince of heaven. “Father, do as he says. I cannot bear to lose you, too.”

  There is much weeping and protesting but at last Miller gives in to the combined urgings of his daughter and the Devil. Beneath the apple tree, Madchen places her shining arms on the chopping block, urging her father to strike just above her bridal bracelets, just above the gleaming flesh.

  His axe is sharp and he hits the mark once, twice! Madchen screams and the Devil laughs for glee. The girl begins to cry again and her tears wash the bloody stumps until they cease to bleed. Miraculously they heal and the Devil curses, knowing himself defeated once more.

  “Sacrifice! Stinking self-sacrifice, you bitch!” He screams and throws a bolt of lightning that splits the apple tree in two. Leaning in to Madchen’s face, he whispers with all his venom. “I cannot take you now and you think you’ve escaped me, little maiden, little Madchen, but know this: I will dog your steps. I will put chasms beneath your feet. I will raise mountains in your path. You could have ruled at my side, but you chose this.”

  He disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving his unwilling bride and her father to clear up the remains of her limbs.

  “Stay with me, Madchen,” sobs Miller. “I can look after you—”

  “With the Devil’s wealth, Father?” She shakes her head and clumsily pushes open the door with her stumps. “I will not stay here. It will be too easy for him to find me. And I cannot stay with you, knowing that you’ve caused my mother’s death and my maiming
.”

  Miller weeps. “I beg you ...”

  “A waste of time, a waste of breath. I will go into the world. Strangers cannot treat me any worse than my own father has.”

  Madchen takes neither food nor drink. Random kindness, she thinks, will be her only hope. Her life is not under her control; she has learned this harshly, but having learned the lesson, she will live by it.

  Lucifer watches her progress. His room is limitless, all the mirrors in the world back onto it like windows to the world above. He calls this space his crucible, where he ferments all ill—for the Devil lives behind mirrors. In the centre of the room is a great pool of molten fire in which he watches the world at large—the mirrors he uses to peer into lives and hearts, but the pool is his main informant.

  He becomes bored with the repetition of her days. She walks, she starves. She grows thinner, the flesh melting back until she is bone with a canvas of skin stretched across her frame. She is still beautiful, shining like a saint in the grip of martyrdom. It makes him angrier and angrier but he cannot put his mind to revenge quite yet for he simply does not know what to do to her. After all, he has taken her mother, her hands, her father, all of her illusions. As far as the Devil can see, she is as low as she can get without death.

  When and if she rises again (and he has no real doubt that she will for there is something about this girl that says indomitable), he will raise his hand against her once more.

  For the moment he leaves his mirrors and turns his attention elsewhere. Perhaps for a few months, perhaps for years—time moves differently for him. He turns away, catching sight of the silvered portrait he made of her not many days since; his eyes rake the surface until the mercury bubbles and slides from the back of the mirror. The silvered princess is no more, her place in eternity gone.

  A pear tree, illuminated by the full moon, catches her eye. She has been two weeks without food and it seems as though her belly has crept back to stick to her spine. The pears are perfect, just on the turn from green to gold, and she knows they will be firm to the bite, then yielding and sweet, white flesh filled with juice. Her stomach growls loudly in the darkness.

  Madchen starts forward; surely there will be some pears on the ground fit for eating. After a few steps, her feet sink and she stumbles back. A moat surrounds the orchard, wide and deep and impassable for a girl with no hands. She cannot swim.

  She sits heavily at the edge of the moat, her feet in the water, her head resting on her stumps, and weeps for the first time since leaving home. Her tears are fat; despair makes them heavy as they fall into the water.

  Madchen looks across at the impossible orchard. The water swirls around her ankles, shifts and heaves into the shape of a woman. The undine regards her curiously.

  “You have given of yourself. What will you have in return?”

  Madchen is too surprised to speak and the undine becomes impatient. “You have given your tears. You must ask something in return.”

  “Those pears,” says Madchen. “I must eat and I’ve a notion for those pears.”

  “Those pears are counted,” says the sprite obliquely. Nevertheless, she bows her head and the waters part until Madchen can walk across the damp floor of the moat and struggle up the bank. She turns to offer thanks but the undine has melted back into her element, and the moat is whole once more.

  The pears grow beyond her reach. She leans her head against the trunk of the nearest tree. The dryad who lives within feels the splash of tears against the bark, and her boughs creak. Madchen steps back hastily to find the branches have lowered, and fat, juicy pears are at the perfect height. She stretches her swan’s neck and bites into the flesh of the nearest fruit. She eats until her poor, abused belly protests at this gluttony so soon on the tail of starvation.

  The morning mist melts as the king takes his daily walk in the orchard. He has slipped the eyes of the court and made his way to the clump of reeds where the head gardener hides a small rowboat. The king enjoys this little piece of freedom, the blisters the oars make on his hands, the satisfying splash of the water as he rows across to his orchard with its counted pears.

  He makes his way through the trees, idly numbering the fruits as he passes. His Majesty likes the pear trees, he thinks them elegant with their silvered leaves and green-gold fruit. When he reaches the final tree he frowns and re-counts the pears. Their number has dwindled since yesterday. He will have the culprit found, he vows, and then he sees her.

  She still sleeps, her long body stretched in exhaustion, breathing with the rhythm of a wave. She is silvery like his pear trees, gleaming like a moonbeam. He kneels beside her, his head tilted, and surveys her face, the slow rise and fall of her breasts, and the strangely smooth stumps at the ends of her beautifully-formed arms. She is ever-so-slightly pear-shaped and this pleases him.

  He settles beside her to wait. He has plenty of time. She will be his wife, this little pear-thief. His sensibilities are highly tuned to beauty, to refinement, to grace, and this girl pleases him on all counts. In his way, he’s like Lucifer: sure of himself and certain that no one will gainsay his wishes.

  He will have hands made for her, limbs crafted by his most cunning smiths, silver to match her hair and her sheen. His silver bride. He imagines the coolness of their touch on his skin, of their unyielding firmness, of the ridges made by decorative engravings. He imagines her mouth making up for the shortcomings of her other limbs. He smiles, well-pleased.

  The Queen settles her silver hands on her swollen belly as if she can feel the life stirring inside her.

  The Queen Mother, Constance, watches this movement and her heart flips painfully, as it is wont to do when her daughter-in-law’s handicap pierces her. Pity, sadness, pain, and love all wash over her. Most of all there is love, for the Queen Mother has come to care for Madchen more than she does for her son. It’s something to do with the girl’s helplessness. Sons grow up and no longer need their mothers but daughters always do. Or they always want to needtheir mothers, perhaps that’s why the bond seldom breaks.

  Madchen’s mother, as Constance knows, is gone, murdered most foully. And the girl, maimed by her own father, is still good. This amazes Constance most of all, the girl’s inherent goodness. She is kind, generous to a fault, gentle, graceful, as lovely as the moon, a misplaced gem of a Miller’s daughter. Constance can see why the Devil himself wanted her―for all the perversity of his desire, she is a supremely perfect wife.

  Her silver hands rub her belly. Constance knows she can feel nothing, that she will never be able to feel the warmth of her child beneath her fingertips, nor will she be able to defend that child or herself against harm, for although the silver limbs are beautiful and convincing, they have no purpose beyond a cosmetic one. They have no movement, no malleability, no facility or functionality.

  Constance moves closer to Madchen. She does not touch her for that would be inappropriate in public, but hopes her sympathy will be obvious to her daughter-in-law. They stand on the steps of the palace waiting for the king.

  Beyond the walls his armies are massed: today he goes to war. He has charged his mother with Madchen’s care, and that of his unborn. He does not envisage the battle will last more than a few years.

  The king strides down the stairs and bows farewell to his mother. He holds Madchen tenderly, running his hands over her metallic limbs so he will remember their feel, then up to the fleshy parts of her arms more briefly. Her mouth he tastes as if he already misses it and its skills. Finally, he places one of his gauntleted hands on her belly, where his son turns and kicks in response. The king smiles and finishes his journey to the courtyard, where a warhorse awaits.

  Madchen watches him leave. She cannot imagine her hours and days without this man she has grown to love so. The years before him seem unreal and, now, strange. The place where she stores her grief begins to ache as this loss of her husband makes room for itself there.

  Her face, notes the Devil, has not changed. Luminous, a little fuller,
her eyes the same shimmering grey he remembers. She is now a definite pear-shape, with her little bundle of the king’s joy wiggling inside her.

  He drags a thoughtful nail across his cheek, pondering how best to start.

  “Was his father so handsome?” Madchen’s laughter is limned with hysteria. It is only a few hours since the child pushed his way into the world after a long labor. Her son’s eyes are slitted with newborn’s ecstasy at finding a full breast. He hiccups and his mother wipes the thin dribble of milk from his tiny lips. Soon full, his head slips, lips surrendering their determined hold on her nipple as he begins to snore softly, almost a kitten’s purr. The weight of the child, his smell, seem to dampen the pain Madchen feels at her husband’s absence. Or perhaps it just makes it easier to ignore the ache. Constance smiles down at them.

  “Never so handsome. He looked like a shaved little monkey, all red wrinkles. And yelling! Born yelling.” She runs a gentle finger down her grandson’s downy cheek; when he stirs in his sleep she pulls back. “What will you call him? We must have a name to tell his father.”

  “Hildebrand.” Madchen speaks quickly as if this thought has been hovering at her lips for some time, waiting to be spoken. “For my mother’s memory.”

  Briefly, Constance is bitten by jealousy but it flies as soon as Madchen’s cold hand touches her arm and the girl smiles with the warmth of a hearth-fire, seeking approval.

  “It is good. A strong name, Madchen. I will write this to your husband.” She kisses the girl’s brow and brushes a hand across Hildebrand’s face. “Rest now, my girl. I will visit you this evening.”

  As the Queen Mother departs, waves of ladies-in-waiting cluster about Madchen’s bed to fuss over her and the heir.

  “My Dearest Boy, Madchen has given you a son and your kingdom an heir. She has named him Hildebrand, a fine name. Both are doing well, my son. I pray you will return to us soon. God’s speed. Your Loving Mother, Constance.”