Imaginarium 2013

by Sandra Kasturi

  “How could I,” she says, thinking, with you constantly reminding me, “when you and Aunt Claudette have been so . . . kind.”

  “We wouldn’t want to have to discontinue your apprenticeship, dear niece.” Augustin’s reply sounds as empty to Bella as hers must have to him. They both know he won’t follow through. Claudette has been delicate as long as Bella has known her—as long, she suspects, as the woman has been wed. And Augustin is more than aware of what his ward has been learning at the Widow Paris’s knee. He relies too heavily on the witch’s remedies to keep his wife in reasonable health; when the old lady passes, he’ll need Bella to continue administering Claudette’s treatments.

  To keep her sedate, she thinks. Sedated.

  “No, Uncle. We wouldn’t want that,” she says, lowering her chin, feigning humility though it makes her pride squirm.

  Mollified, Augustin gives unnecessary orders for the morning—her routine hasn’t changed in seven years—and takes his leave. The door clicks shut behind him. She listens for a minute, then two, waiting for him to move off the landing. The floorboards creak; he is still on the other side, listening for her too. She sits on her bed, wincing as the springs squeak loudly. Another moment passes and she blows out the lamp on her bedside table, knowing he has watched for the snuffing of the line of light under the door. At last, footsteps. Self-congratulatory and solid along the hallway. He thinks his point is made, that Bella remains under the thumb.

  She doesn’t move, even after she hears his tread on the stairs, wending their way down to the sitting room, where he will smoke cigars, drink whiskey and read those books he imports from France, the ones with the dirty pictures he thinks his wife knows nothing about. He’ll be there for hours and now his job is done, Uncle Augustin will not stir. To be safe, Bella waits an extra five minutes before setting off. More than enough time to do a cats-eye spell, to help her find her way under the slivered new moon.

  The leap from sill to tree branch feels further, more exciting, more liberating than it actually is—a delusion she’s happy to enjoy. Half a mile to the Widow Paris’s, which Bella covers so quickly and quietly she seems to fly the distance. All the lights in the place are extinguished. A candle flickers to life, briefly, in the round porthole staring out from an attic gable. Eugie’s room. It winks in and out of sight two or three times before being extinguished. The fool never can settle, can she? Fidgeting even when she’s alone. Bella grabs a handful of wild sage from the roadside, some flax and a few black-eyed-susans and crushes them between her palms, scattering the bruised leaves and seeds on her toes, whispering ancient words to make her footfalls petal-soft.

  The path between the house and the fairy hill beyond the wire fence is overrun with weeds and old cotton. Few dare tread across the Widow Paris’s land in broad daylight, much less after dark, but Bella has no such fears. If pressed, she can identify the marks of everyone who’s passed this way. The widow’s stunted shuffle hasn’t flattened the dirt here for years; but a set of Eugenia’s prints, small and wide-spread and deep as a running deer’s, head off to the bushes on her right. Wild blackberries grow there by the bucket-load, Bella remembers, and thinks she might follow the other girl’s path next time. On her left, another series of tracks. Narrow and heavy-heeled, blurred with urgency. With excitement.

  These Bella pursues.

  Her boots make a shhhhhhing sound as she crosses to the field, barely raising a puff of dust. Mist winds through the shrubs, coalescing into sinuous smoke-women that slip around pecan trees along the field’s borders. It seems they smile at her as she hurries to the fence and ducks under, careful not to catch her skirts. The witch-skins applaud her arrival. They shoo her toward the man leaning comfortably against the gentle slope of the fairy hill, as if he belongs there.

  Tancred Carew sits with his long legs outstretched, crossed casually at the ankle. The hessian sack he always carries, with a flute he made and god-knows what else, is propped like a pillow behind his broad back. With her cats-eyes, Bella can see him perfectly—a bewitching sight that enthralls her. Cotton boles glowing white, little stars of the earth, surrounding his rumpled brown curls. Glints of moonlight winking in his blue eyes, glancing off his teeth as he chews his nails, beaming off them as he smiles.

  “Evening, Miz Beaufort,” he says, then wastes no more time talking. When they come up for air, Bella’s lips are tingling. She bites them, savouring, and inhales the salty scent of Tancred’s skin, sweaty underneath his open-collared shirt. He rests his chin on Bella’s head and she can feel his Adam’s apple bob against her temple as he talks.

  “We should bury them,” he says, gesturing at the black scraps caught on the fence. For a second, Bella hears a rustle of wings, loud as a dozen ravens taking flight at once. “It’s not right, having them exposed like that.”

  Bella cranes her neck to look up at him. “We haven’t any shovels.”

  “We’ve got hands, haven’t we?”

  She smirks. “Why, Mr. Carew. I can’t possibly go fossicking in the earth wearing this, my Sunday best.” She pulls away to give him a better view of her faded, ill-fitting gingham. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had a mind to see me digging out of my petticoat.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Tancred grins.

  Bella plays coy only so long, and no longer. Soon her dress, apron, smock and bloomers are tossed like offerings to the fairies. Tancred’s buttons seem to melt beneath her fingers; the drawstring on his pants loosens of its own accord. Together they work up a sweat and when they’re done, they lie on Bella’s clothes like they’re the finest bed in New Orleans. She traces patterns into his chest hair with her nails, resting her cheek on his lean bicep, and watches him soften. When he’s recovered, Tancred looks down the slope to the rusty fence running along its base.

  “We really should give them whatever peace the earth can offer.”

  “All right,” says Bella, loving him for his passion, determination, caring. For keeping a noble thought in his head both before and after he’s spent. Wearing nothing but their unders, they hoist the ragged skins off the wires. Two of them, a leathery jumble of feather and beaks, strands of long hair, boneless faces, and places that shouldn’t have bones. Bella’s stomach clenches—not with sick, with certainty. Her guess, as usual, had been right.

  Witch skins.

  Collapsed, they’re incredibly compact; the pair of them could easily fit inside Tancred’s bag. Instead, he folds them in on themselves, ties each bundle off with its own hair, then passes it to Bella while he gets started on the digging. She stands there a moment, just watching. Admiring the way his muscles strain, the way dirt sticks to his chest, his ribs, his thighs. Almost unconsciously, she plucks at the witch-feathers, tearing at the desiccated flesh, at the matted tresses. . . . And as they strike cartilage, she feels a warmth in her belly, a heat of knowing. Ingredients potent as these can’t go to waste.

  Before she hands Tancred the neatly-tied parcels, she tucks a chunk of salvaged flesh up under her arm, unsure why she takes it, but determined to smuggle it home in the pocket of her apron.

  A lamp, turned low, is burning in her room when Bella returns, stepping lightly over the sill. She doesn’t really pay attention, happy as she is, reeking of Tancred’s sweat, with tender parts tingling as if a charge has been sent through them. She puts her hands to the strings of her apron, the buttons at the back of her dress, doesn’t notice the movement in the shadows, her cats-eye spell now thoroughly worn off. It’s not until a bony hand closes around the hair at the nape of her neck, fingers gouging into the thick locks, that the magic of the night shatters and she realises she’s not alone.

  “Insolent little whore!” Spittle froths from Uncle Augustin’s mouth, spatters her ear. Waves of malt fumes roll off him as he yells. He shakes her, bolstered by a rage that’s simmered since she was a child; unheeded or outright defied by servants who check his orders with a mistress too frail
to fulfil her marital duties, maids who lock their doors at night. Augustin fumbles with his trousers, trying to get them undone while keeping a grip on her. “I won’t be ignored!”

  He hooks a foot around her ankles, jerks hard. There’s a jolt, hair ripping, as she tumbles free of his grasp—just for a second. Her head hits the floor. The blow is cushioned by the thick rug, but it’s hard enough to make stars and suns pinwheel across her vision. Stunned, she scrambles for purchase, goes nowhere. It gives Augustin time to drop down beside her, shrug out of his suspenders. With one hand, he urgently shoves his pants down, while the other is busy loosening his narrow neck-tie, looping the noose over her head—as if he cannot decide which punishment will come first.

  Bella tries to claw forward, but Augustin tightens the garrotte, pins her petticoat with his knees. Fabric tears. He yanks the ribbon tie, tighter, tighter. Bella tries to get words out, but the only sound she can produce is an animal whimper. Augustin’s breath, hot, rank, slides across her cheek. Gagging, she tries to scream, tries to cry. And she flails, she flails, but his fingers jab, her skirts are lifted—

  Her not-uncle, her un-uncle, grunts, then his grip relaxes enough to let her draw in great gusts of air. His hipbones dig into her rear, his ribs slam into her spine before he pushes himself upright again. Bella takes advantage, tries to shove him off, but he holds on. She realises there’s been another noise, a new sound, unexpected. It’s followed by a second, a loud, solid thud. Augustin slumps heavily onto her back; he tilts to the right, and drops, his arm draped across her calves. Bella kicks him aside, shimmies into a crouch. She blinks and blinks and finally looks up. Focuses on the shape looming over the fallen man.

  Aunt Claudette, with shadows and lamplight dancing across her white nightgown, which is now spotted with a spray of wet red blossoms. In her shaking hand, a poker from the fireplace dangles between slackened fingers. The women stare at each without a word. Eventually, Bella heaves herself forward and checks for the pulse in Augustin’s throat. It is slow, sluggish. She knows it won’t be long before it stops, unless something is done.

  She snatches her hand back, wipes it and wipes it on her torn skirt, turns to her Aunt for a cue.

  Claudette is not as tall as Bella, nor as fit. She is thin, a bed-bound woman coddled to within an inch of her life. She stands there, swaying a little, her expression flicking between fear, hope, disbelief. Her glazed eyes meet Bella’s and again her fingers tighten. She hefts the poker—as Bella gathers her wits and leaps up. She is at the casement in a few steps, out it in one bound and scampering down the tree like a squirrel.

  As she hares into the woods, she can hear her name being called. In a small part of her mind—the same part that tells her a fluttering rag is a witch-skin, that interprets voices on the air—she knows it’s not a cry of panic or condemnation; there is no tone of threat or accusation. In that same small part of her mind, she knows she should go back and help her not-aunt. What if he wakes? She’ll be alone. . . . But Bella is running, feet barely touch the ground. Running away from Augustin, from danger. Running to Tancred and safety. Without magic, her stride goes thud, thud, thud in time with her beating heart, and soon she is almost at the fairy hill—he must still be there—soon almost in Tancred’s arms. On the path, she slows, tries to control her panting, the shaking and shuddering her body is committing without her say-so. Bella walks now, quickly, quietly and as she rounds the stand of trees that hid them both not even an hour ago, she sees Tancred’s arms are otherwise engaged.

  “Thanks for clearing those nasty old bird-skins.”

  “Couldn’t have my best lady suffering the creeps, now could I?”

  “I am your best, aren’t I?”

  Naked and gleaming, a girl with white, white hair and smooth bronze skin laughs, riding Bella’s lover as if he’s a steed, bouncing and writhing much as Bella was not so long—now, forever—ago.

  The Widow Paris’s front door is never locked—only the sorriest fool would enter there without permission—and Bella knows where all the fixings are, the ones she requires. In her pocket the pilfered piece of witch-skin weighs heavy; she pulls it out, lays it on the countertop. She places the heavy basalt mortar and pestle beside it, then begins. Collecting and adding ingredients, grinding and stirring them as she goes, making sure the mix is properly combined. There are scarlet rose petals, hyacinth oil, powdered mint leaves and rosemary, dried lavender, a tiny dash of the gold dust the Widow Paris is always so miserly with, a crush of indigo, a smear of marigold, two pansy petals and then half a spoon of imported honey. She spits into the mess and whisks it about, hard and fast, then takes a knife, a small thing, fit for peeling fruit, and pulls it across her right palm. From the shallow cut drips fat jewels of blood to seal the deal—for all dark magic, all curses, all dreadful things dearly wished for, cost something personal. Bella needs no recipe for this potion; this alchemy comes from the deepest knowledge of heart and hurt.

  Soon the paste is thick and dark and red, with a sheen that only hatred can give. So, they want each other, Tancred and Eugenia? They want to be together? Bella will give them what they want. She pours in a flacon of rainwater, takes the shreds of witch-skin and adds them to the admixture, bubbling of its own accord. The thin membranes float into the pestle and disintegrate as soon as they hit the liquid. Without hesitation, Bella whispers over it, feeling heat rise off the surface. “Here’s my wish for you both: to love an ideal of each other without reason, to see an eidolon never a soul. Let your wings be clipped, let your love be a cage, let it trap you both forever.” She murmurs their names across the brew so the spell will know them, so there can be no mistake, no misdirections. So the enchantment will hook its claws into the fabric of their lives and never let them go. Happily ever after.

  When the spell leaves her Bella feels exhilarated and empty, as if a part of her soul has darkened in payment for this wicked wish, for this vengeance. The air seems thick and time still—until the front door creaks and Eugie’s entrance echoes along the corridor. Hastily, Bella decants the potion into a small vial, stoppers it and slips it into her apron pocket. She runs a hand through her hair and waits to hear Eugie pass by the workroom. So, what? I’m to sneak out? Bella snorts. Why should I creep around? She opens the door and steps out into the hallway.

  Halfway up the stairs, Eugenia spins around. “What are you doing here?”

  But before Bella can answer, there is a crash and a thump upstairs, coming from the direction of the widow’s room. Both girls race towards the sound.

  “Mémé!” Eugenia’s cry is heart-wrenching, or would be if Bella hadn’t seen what she’d seen earlier. If her heart hadn’t hardened.

  The Widow Paris is half-on, half-off the bed, the linens caught up around her waist and legs, a knitted shawl ’round her shoulders despite the heat. While they watch, she slides fully to the floor with a thud. Her nightdress is open at the collar, the thin cotton clinging. Curls frizz out of her sleeping-bonnet, sticking to her ashen face, some tipped with droplets of cold sweat. High arched eyebrows, not much more than a few wisps on a shrivelled brow, frame lashless lids, closed on sunken eyes. Until she moans, Bella thinks she’s already dead.

  Death rattles the old woman’s lungs as she blinks awake, her gaze unfocused, searching. “Mémé,” Eugie wails, rushing to her great-grandmother’s side, hugging her close.

  “Get away, child. You’re smothering me.”

  “But we’ve got to get you on up into bed—”

  The Widow Paris waves the girl quiet. “Let me be. We all start low, Eugenia. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, dirt to dirt—no matter what heights you reach in life, in the end it’s all the same. Back to beginnings. I’m just saving y’all the trouble of hauling my old shell down off the bed. No, I said.” Eugenia’s tugging her by the armpits, forcing her upright. She gets the woman into a seated position, then kneels, clings to her hand. The lady extricates her fingers, pushes the girl further away.


  “Just let me be. Save your fussing for after I’m gone; I’ve no use for it.” She coughs, long and sloppy, and Bella thinks, this time, the tide of her life must surely have ebbed for good.

  “You in pain, Miz M?” she asks, mouse-quiet, coming close enough, but no closer.

  “I’d expect more from you, Isabella Beaufort,” the widow replies. “Sure you can guess what state I’m in.” The widow blinks, and this time her eyes stay shut.

  Her lips go slack and a puff of rancid meat air escapes them. Bella finds herself crouched beside Eugie, inhaling that stale gust. Finds her head resting on the old woman’s scarecrow shoulder, ear pressed to her chest. Finds herself counting the seconds between heartbeats, tracing symbols across the desiccated breast, grasping at words, at spells to keep the faltering thing ticking.

  “Take care of this house, Eugenia,” the Widow Paris mumbles at last, eyes searching, unfixed. “I may crumble, but there’s sure as hell no reason it has to follow me into the earth.”

  “Don’t say that, mémé. We’ll get Doc Coffey down here, you’ll be just fine, we’ll—”

  “Hush, now. Mind my house, child, that’s all I ask. You do that for me?”

  Eugie whimpers, tears coursing down her round cheeks, and nods.

  “Good girl,” the widow says, before turning to Bella. “Now, you.” Marie folds her fingers around Bella’s palm. She feels sharp angles, a cold glassy surface, a rough sphere with many facets.

  “You,” says the old woman, “you mind my business. You keep it going, my girl. You keep it going.”

  Bella opens her hand—there is the stone, the single biggest she will ever see. A white diamond the size of a child’s heart.

  “I will,” Bella promises. “I am.”

  There is no moment of silence to honour the dead.

  “She gave it to you! You! You’re nobody! You’re nothing. You’re not even family.” Eugenia’s face boils crimson, and she’s making a sound like a kettle left on the heat too long.