The Merry Spinster

by Mallory Ortberg

  “Luke ten, forty-one and forty-two,” Robin said, but no praise was forthcoming, and she sat back down.

  “The mangler is electric,” Paul said without looking up, “and I know you don’t want us running out the generator.”

  “Let me mind the generator,” the godmother said. “You mind your manners and look at me.”

  Paul did, and grinned a little as she felt the familiar tug against her own mind as she caught her godmother’s hopeful eyes. “Godmother,” she said, and swept a leg slowly behind her.

  “Mind your labor” was all the godmother said, and Paul returned to her laundry.

  “We would not go without your permission,” Gomer said. “That was never our intention.”

  “Remember your baptism and do not lie,” the godmother said. “You mock me in my own home and make plans to leave it. But the journey could be quite difficult, I should think. A journey to the priest’s house could be quite impossible, if it were undertaken without permission and without blessing to guard the walk. Fire, what do you think?”

  The fire went out quite suddenly, throwing the room into blackness and smoke. Robin, who could never manage her response to anything, squealed aloud, and Gomer choked out something that might have, if one were feeling generous, been described as a cough.

  After a moment, a scrap of flame reappeared over the hearth, and the godmother’s face was wreathed in lights. “I am not unreasonable,” she said. “Make an act of contrition, and you can go with my blessing.”

  Gomer and Robin, on both their knees, declared they were heartily sorry for having offended her, and detested all their shortcomings because of her just punishments, but mostly because they had offended her who was deserving of all-love; they firmly resolved, with her help, to err no more and to avoid the near occasion of ingratitude. Paul said nothing. Paul was not allowed to make the same acts of contrition as her sisters; Paul could only ever be forgiven in a manner that was peculiar to herself, which often meant that she went unforgiven altogether.

  “Dress yourselves. Attempt to do so without humiliating me” was all the godmother said in response, and they were dismissed, Gomer flinging her roundest eyes over her shoulder at Paul as she went.

  “And will Paul go tonight?” the godmother asked. “Will Paul turn wife or husband?”

  “I would go,” Paul said, “if for nothing else than to see another family’s house; beyond that I have no thought.”

  “Paul will marry,” the godmother said. “Paul would marry her own pride, if no one else sought her out.”

  There was very little Paul could say to that that would not be called a lie, and Paul would rather be called ungrateful than a liar, as long as she had to choose between the two.

  “To Paul,” the godmother said, drawing herself up from her seat, “who loves her labor above all things, I give an extra gift: more work, and more solitude.” She scattered two handfuls of black lentils over the dying fire, until they were mixed in with the ashes. “Pick them all out in an hour, and I will dress you myself.” There was a touch on Paul’s shoulder. “Mind you do not burn your hands. I could not stand to see them ruined.” Then she was gone.

  Before Paul could move toward the hearth, two gray pigeons alighted on the kitchen window, cocking their heads this way and that, and jumped down onto the floor, strutting smartly and kicking up their red heels. They moved like heartbeats under the table, and were quickly joined by a pair of turtledoves, then two great black crows, shiny as beetles. Then the sky opened up in a great whirring swarm, and the floor came alive with the mumbling and rustling of wings. The pigeons nodded their heads and surged up to the hearth’s edge and began to pick, pick, pick. And the others also began to pick, pick, pick, and Paul could not move for the soft press of feathers against her.

  * * *

  The godmother had said nothing when Paul had pressed a fist-warm bundle of lentils into her hands, merely wiped the ash away tidily and looked over all three of the girls. Gomer, who still had not bathed, made a concession to the public good and wore her best work clothes, and a new coat over them. Robin’s eyes were bright, though it was difficult to tell if this came from anticipation of an unusual event or merely her customary anxiety. They were to keep their eyes to themselves on the walk to the priest’s house. They were to speak to no one before they reached the priest’s gate. They were to eat and speak once inside as they pleased, and Paul was to be home by matins.

  The godmother had kept her word and dressed Paul herself, bringing in three heavily wrapped bundles from the garden and laying them at Paul’s feet. The first she muttered over and tapped at before opening. She pulled out a fine white shirt, and carefully laced Paul’s arms through it, and fastened each button to the throat. “I have made this for only you,” she said in Paul’s ear as she fixed the collar. “I have put such power in it, engendered it with such virtue as could make even a stone heart happy.”

  Paul began to recite the first part of the Invocation to Combat Ungratefulness, but the godmother placed a hand on her chin and searched her face with unsparing eyes. “Not that tonight, love,” she said softly. “The mothering-psalm first, before you go.”

  “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” Paul said, and swayed backward only a very little. “If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me,’ even the night shall be light around me. The night shines as day, the darkness and the light are both alike to you.”

  The godmother pointed at the remaining two bundles, which speedily unwrapped themselves. Two bobbing, jerking figures rose up and danced out the front door to the first gatepost, where they swayed brokenly under the lamplight.

  “Follow them to the priest’s house,” she said. “Let them go first. Do not let them get behind you.”

  * * *

  The priest’s son was attentive—and more than attentive, amiable; and more than amiable, kind. He made Gomer laugh twice and kept Robin awake all through dinner. To Paul, he had spoken of fence repair and drought and how to best tend gospel-trees, and smiled as he spoke in his mild and pleasant voice. She found herself unwilling to abandon his conversation, even as Gomer had displayed increasingly concerned faces from across the room as the night wore on. Once she got up to leave, and he said, “Oh, must you? Only I’d rather you didn’t,” and so she stayed.

  It wasn’t until well after Night Office concluded that she realized Gomer and Robin were nowhere to be found, that dawn was already smearing itself across the sky, that her face was quite flushed, and that she had made a spectacle of herself. “I am sorry,” she said as she dipped her head politely and downed the remaining water in her cup. “I’ll go now. I do like you, priest’s son.”

  “I like you too, Paul, who is twice mothered,” he said, trying to remain grave. “You might consider marrying me, if you have thoughts of marrying.”

  “I might,” she said, and left her chair. “You might be worth marrying.”

  There were no bobbing figures waiting for her by the garden gate, and she tore down the path toward home guideless.

  “You are late, you are late, you are late,” the godmother cried out in a pinched voice as Paul rushed through the door. “I did not fetch up those guides from their sleep to see you come home late.”

  “I am sorry,” Paul said.

  “Your sisters’ feet,” the godmother said, yanking at Paul’s sleeves, “who hobbled them? Their hopes—who trammeled them, that your clumsy hands might be stuffed threefold with gifts? Who wedged their bloody feet in hob-nailed shoes, that you might walk the freer? Who did all this and more for you?”

  “You did,” Paul said. She did not look at her sisters sitting quietly at the kitchen table, hands hidden in their laps.

  “I, I, I,” the godmother crowed, and
smiled, and settled back down onto her heels. “Who has mothered you better? Who has mothered you else?”

  “None have,” Paul said.

  “Who could marry you better? Who has sought your heart, as I have sought it? Not for an evening, not for a conversation—your heart, whole and dangerous.”

  “None,” Paul said.

  The godmother smiled, and pulled again at her sleeves. “Paul does not deserve such fine things to wear,” she said to no one in particular. “Paul should not go about in clothes she is not suited for.” Paul felt the fabric molt and sag into something loathsomely soft; she knew rather than felt the press of dead fur against her, and little dead mice peeled from her skin and dropped onto the floor.

  * * *

  When Paul woke next, she was married and in bed in the priest’s house, now hers and her family’s, too. The window had been left open, and she could see out over the path leading up to the front door.

  She rose up on one elbow and took further stock. The door was open, and the hallway was full of low, earnest voices. Her husband was seated at the desk in the corner and smiled when she looked at him. “You’re awake,” he said. “You’re awake, and you are married to me.”

  Paul smiled back.

  “I’ve got to confess something,” her husband said to her. “I know it’s a bit early to be confessing to you, but I figure I ought to get into the habit. I’ve had your things sent for. I should have waited for you to wake and ask you directly, but I’ve never had occasion to—ah—wake someone after giving them cause for sleep, and I didn’t like to disturb you. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” Paul said, and meant it. “Te absolvo.”

  “A shriving wife,” he said, looking enormously pleased with himself. “Or a shriving husband, if you’d like. I didn’t know if you wanted to be a wife or not, so I guessed, but we can still change it. I’m trained for both, if that helps.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” Paul said again. “I don’t mind anything. God, but it’s nice out today.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said. “Listen, give me five minutes to finish attending to this, and then let’s have a proper fight about which of us gets to be wife. Let’s have a terrible argument. Practice all the names you’re going to call me.”

  “In five minutes, then,” Paul agreed. “Married life certainly is orderly.” She looked out the window and saw a black figure struggling over the horizon, resolving itself more clearly with every step through the haze of the day’s great heat. At first there was only a head visible over a squirming, flickering mass; gradually the torso solidified and was eventually joined by a pair of legs, as it made its way up the main road. It paused briefly under a great cypress tree, nearly vanishing in the blackness below its branches, then resumed its journey under the sunlight to the front door. Paul did not need to see the figure’s face to know it could read, and write a little when the situation called for it; could walk in the noonday sun without fainting; commission deacons; haggle with the grocer; perform minor miracles; turn a dog into a man for upward of three hours; cast out territorial spirits; slaughter a chicken without spilling a drop of blood; initiate mysteries; and name over one thousand neurotoxins. The godmother was terribly useful to any household fortunate enough to hold her. She was going to be a great help to Paul in her new position. Paul was terribly lucky to have her.

  Paul bounded out of bed, her face warm and cold by turns, and pressed her hands against her temples. Her lungs seized at nothing, two empty fists in her chest. There was no air in this room, no air in the world. Her arms bloomed all over in hot pinpricks, the insides of her eyelids exploded into dark stars, and somewhere outside those footsteps came closer to her door. “Ah,” she cried softly, “I shall be sick, I shall be sick, I shall be sick—”

  “What is it?” her husband asked, crouching at her feet, pressing cool hands against hers. “What’s the matter? Can you speak? Can I bring you water?” Someone near the door slipped out and returned with a glass a moment later. He brought it to her lips, and she drank deeply, and then fixed him with her steadiest smile.

  “I’m all right,” she said, catching her breath. “I’m sorry, everyone. I’m quite all right now.”

  THREE

  Fear Not: An Incident Log

  In the beginning, when I was first making appearances to mortals, most of them died before I could speak the first word of truth. Just from the sight of me—they fell right over. Great burly men and women too, not like the kind you see nowadays. I mean, real antediluvian hulks with chests the size of wine barrels and legs like cedar trunks. Their consciences would seize right up; they were that certain I’d come to find them out. And they’d give up the ghost—practically flung the ghost right at me—rather than listen to a word of what I had to say. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and the distribution and installation of wisdom is the task with which all powers and principalities have been charged, not excepting myself. Fear being the operative word, and not panic, which is why most of us have learned to start each incident log with a command like “Fear not,” or “Dread not,” or “Be thou not dismayed,” or some other variation thereof; most people are full of the beginning of wisdom already, and appearing before them without some form of reassurance is liable to result in total system overload, followed shortly by shutdown.

  So I didn’t get much practice speaking for a while. But the helpdesk agreed that this was through no fault of my own, so I kept getting sent out on jobs until I could find someone who was capable of holding up their end of a conversation.

  I didn’t look then like I do now. This was before the great cloud with brightness around it and the fire flashing forth continually, before everyone had settled on having four faces and calf feet and burning coals on their lips. People, I have found, have a very keen eye when it comes to forms that resemble their own, and it’s better to look as different from a person as you possibly can than to try to re-create one of their appearances. You always end up with a little too much of something, or not enough of another, and most people would rather talk to a four-headed chariot than something that looks almost like them but has one too many mouths or eyes that don’t close right.

  I am authorized to perform acts of justice, power, and retribution, to deliver messages of comfort and healing. I am also cleared to open wombs, to test the hospitality of human hosts, to drive the chariot of fire, proclaim portentous births, deliver destinies, blind the unbelievers, test the faithful, record deeds in the book of life, feed prophets in the form of either raven or dove, open seals, pour out bowls of judgment, and blow all twelve of the lesser trumpets. I am not authorized to take communion or to deal out death. All the deaths listed in my incident history have been accidents; you can check the tickets. I never wanted to dismay anybody, but people will die, no matter how careful you are with them.

  The thing about people is that they can only handle a very little amount of communion. A bite of flesh and a mouthful of blood and that’s it, and even that you have to couch in multiple layers of explanation and things like “sacramental union” so they can understand. They live all alone in their own heads, and shudder reflexively at the prospect of God’s imminence. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a man spend all his life praying for union with the divine, only to shrink back and scrabble to return to his own skin once he realizes that the presence of the divine is coming for him, even though there’s nothing to be afraid of, which is why it’s my job to remind them not to be afraid. Everything is ultimately reconciled to God, so there’s no reason to be afraid of anything. Just relax and wait to be reconciled; active participation is not required. Personally, I have never been without the presence of the grace of God.

  I was around for a little while before the world was made, and I liked it fine then. I like it fine now, too. The Spirit of God moved over the waters, and I moved over the waters, too. There was nothing for anybody to be afraid of, because we were all in the dark then. All things invisible and formle
ss moved together, and the heavens were filled with the soft rustling of leathern wings.

  Then came order. First the firmament, with little windows to let in the rain, and then the underworld thrust under the pillars of the deep, and the earth in between, and the terrible winds that blew over it, so that nothing could grow. This was fine too, but the making of the world caused a great noise that has not stopped resounding yet, and all of us have had a ringing in our ears ever since. The Voice of God, once heard, is not easily unheard. The sun burned the sky by day, and the moon spoiled the darkness by night. I don’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t like them, only that it was an adjustment.

  Then came the things that swarm the waters, and the things that creep under the earth. Then came trees. And all of them received blessings. Then came people, most of whom were later drowned. I don’t suppose I’m speaking out of order when I say I think it was right they were drowned. I’m merely agreeing with the official decision. These people were fugitives and wanderers, and they drew marks on their foreheads whenever they had done murder, so that everyone who saw them would know and would leave them alone. They promised seven-fold and seventy-and-seven-fold vengeance, and flung up insane and shivering towers over the plains that threatened to crack Heaven. And they lived so long their hearts grew dizzy within them and their thoughts became thoughts of treachery and deceit, and the earth became a smoking furnace. So we drowned them, and all things were made new, and that was better.

  The first one I spoke to who did anything besides drop dead was this woman Hagar. I had not spoken to the man Abraham, but I spoke to her, and I said, “Fear not,” and for some reason this time it worked, because she only looked at me and waited for me to go on. I was so excited that I could hardly remember what came next, which was that God had heard the cries of her son, and that she ought to get up. I didn’t say anything about the well, but the well was there, and she saw it, so I as good as told her about it. She was very happy, and so was Abraham, and Ishmael too, most likely, and eventually all the promises she was given came to pass.