Scatterheart

by Lili Wilkinson

  The deck glittered with frost, shining in the moonlight. The stars were bright and crisp. The ocean, still and flat as glass, stretched off into darkness, a great black slab.

  There was no one to be seen. No watchmen, no sailors, no officers. Gooseflesh crept down Hannah’s bare arms and she had never felt anything so wonderful. She inhaled deeply, the sweet, cold air filling her nose and mouth and throat and chest.

  On the quarterdeck, she ran a hand across the glittering rail. The silver frost tinkled and fell to the deck. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. A faint splash made her open them again. She peered out at the black water, and saw a flash of white.

  The moon, she thought. Reflecting on the water. The white splotch was growing larger. She climbed another set of steps up onto the poop deck, the highest deck and a place where she had never been before. She tingled all over. Her hair felt as if it were standing on end. She watched, and waited.

  It was a bear.

  A great, white bear.

  It walked over the surface of the ocean as if it were solid ice. It padded towards the ship. Hannah gripped the rail. More silver frost tinkled to her feet.

  It came closer.

  It was huge, almost a third of the size of the Derby Ram. It had a long, powerful body, elongated neck, and an angular, sloping head. It had small ears that stuck straight up, and small, black eyes that glittered in the moonlight. Its skin hung in loose folds, thick with coarse, white fur. It was nothing like the broken and dirty white bear that had fought the dogs at the Frost Fair.

  As it came up to the stern of the Derby Ram, it reared up on its hind legs. Hannah started back in fear. With its hindquarters planted firmly on the frozen ocean, its head was level with hers.

  She held her breath.

  The bear placed its front paws against the stern and looked into Hannah’s face. The black eyes glittered. Its breath was icy, and smelled of winter. The bear opened its mouth and roared.

  An icy wind whipped Hannah’s hair. She shrank from the sight of the huge yellow teeth, and the wet black mouth. The bear’s muscles tensed, making its fur ripple and shake. Still looking into her eyes, it started to push.

  The ship stirred sluggishly in the water. The bear strained. The timbers groaned, unused to movement. The bear continued to push. Hannah took a step towards it, and reached out a trembling hand. The ship inched forward, just a fraction.

  She touched the bear’s giant paw.

  She felt the hard claws, the coarse, thick fur, the straining muscles. Then, like a creature awaking from a deep sleep, the Derby Ram began to move again, pushing slowly through the still water.

  The bear let go. Hannah felt the fur and claws slip gently from beneath her fingers. The bear dropped back to all fours. Water fanned out from the ship, surrounding the bear with ripples.

  It watched her as the ship slipped slowly out of the doldrums. When it had shrunk to the white splotch she had first seen, it winked out of sight. Hannah finally turned and made her way back to her bunk, where she fell instantly asleep.

  twenty-one

  Inside the castle, a table was set for a grand feast, and at the head of the table sat the most handsome prince imaginable. She sat down and ate the feast, but the food tasted like ashes. The prince’s tongue flickered in and out of his mouth like a snake’s tongue. Scatterheart shook her head. ‘You’re not my white bear,’ she said, and left the castle.

  ***

  Hannah woke to the familiar rocking sensation of the moving ship. Her hand was curled around Thomas’s handkerchief.

  Outside, women and men alike leaned over the railings to let the breeze ruffle their hair. The sails were taut and firm, and the Derby Ram cut through the warm waters like a knife. It was still hot, but the breeze brought relief from the crushing heat of the doldrums, and the general mood was one of festivity. Tam Chaunter brought out his fiddle, and Hopping Giles was singing.

  ‘I dreamed a dream the other night,’

  The other sailors joined in the chorus.

  ‘Lowlands, lowlands away my John.’

  ‘I dreamed a dream the other night,’

  ‘Lowlands, my lowlands away.’

  Hannah wove her way in and out of the crowd of convicts, sailors and officers, looking for Molly. She peered around the thick main mast, and came face-to-face with James.

  ‘Looking for me?’ he asked, smiling.

  Hannah opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She thought of the white bear, and of Thomas’s handkerchief.

  James grabbed her hand and led her to the ship’s railing. Sailors had cast lines over the side, and were hauling up silvery bonito fish. They would have fresh fish for dinner that night.

  ‘I have good news,’ James said. ‘I’ve persuaded Captain Gartside to let me stay in New South Wales. They need more officers to administer the growing colony, and manage the convict labour. I’ll buy us a nice house. You can have pretty new dresses. And after a few years you can apply to have your sentence revoked and we can go back to London.’

  Hannah swallowed. A sailor heaved a wriggling fish onto the deck. It flapped and flailed on the wooden boards. The sailor tried to grab it, but it kept slipping out of his grasp. The sunlight glinted off its scales. The sailor finally caught the fish, and slammed its head against the side of the ship. The fish twitched, then stopped moving.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ said Hannah, not looking at him. The sailor pulled out a knife and slit the fish’s belly open. Red blood and grey-purple twists of entrails spilled out onto the deck.

  ‘Don’t worry, love,’ he said, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her tight. ‘If you want us to be married then we shall. We can figure out something to tell people when we get back to England.’

  Hannah pulled away from him. ‘No,’ she said.

  His blue eyes turned to her, half smiling, half doubtful.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t love you, James.’

  He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  Hannah looked down at the water and said nothing.

  James was silent for a moment. Hannah glanced up at him, and saw genuine hurt on his face. So he did love her, then.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’ said James. ‘You should be grateful. Don’t forget that you’re a criminal. A convict.’

  Hannah bit her lip. What did she have to be grateful for?

  James gripped the rail, his knuckles white.

  Hannah shifted uncomfortably. ‘I’m sorry if I led you to believe … something that wasn’t true.’

  He laughed flatly. ‘You’re no better than that filthy bitch you were so fond of. Perhaps you’d be better off dead, too.’

  Hannah went cold. ‘Don’t speak of Meg like that.’

  ‘Like what? A bitch? A slut? A whore? You’re all the same, you loose women. Crawl all over a man, making eyes and twirling your skirts around. Then you suck him dry, suck out the marrow from his bones and then, when there’s nothing left of him but dry old bones, you spit him out again and move on to the next one. I know what you’re like.’

  The sailors and women close by pretended not to notice, although Hannah could tell they were all listening.

  ‘I think I’ve had enough of this conversation,’ said Hannah. ‘I need to find Molly now.’

  ‘Of course,’ said James. ‘How typical, that you should be drawn to such an ungodly wretch of a creature, an animal that was never touched by God’s hand. Not me. You don’t want me. I’m too polished. Too refined. You want the mutation, cursed to crawl in the darkest, most disgusting corners of the earth.’ He grabbed her wrists, and pulled her against him, breathing heavily into her face. ‘Would you rather spend your days with such a wretched monster, than with me?’

  Hannah tried to free herself, but James’s grip was too tight. She looked him dead in the eye, unflinching. ‘I would rather spend all eternity in her company,’ she said, ‘than another second in yours.’

  James stepped b
ack, letting go of one of her wrists. Hannah wrenched her other wrist free, and was turning away when James struck her on the temple. A flash of light exploded behind her eyes, and Hannah fell to the deck. Her head smacked hard on the wooden boards, and her wrist twisted painfully beneath her. James reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her to her feet. Hannah felt dizzy and sick. Her head had started to throb, and her right eye felt tender and sore.

  James pushed his face up against hers. ‘If this is how you want it, then so be it,’ he hissed. ‘You will not get away with treating me like this. If you want to behave like an animal, you will be treated like one.’

  He dragged her down the stairs to a small, barred enclosure, against the ship’s hull. The brig. James shoved Hannah inside, slammed and bolted it shut.

  ‘You can rot in here, for all I care.’ She heard him spit, then leave.

  Hannah slumped wearily onto the straw-covered floor. The cage stank of animals. She thought of the days that Long Meg had spent down here, and closed her eyes, trying to conjure up Meg’s presence. There was nothing.

  It was her own fault. If only she had listened to Molly from the beginning. If she hadn’t left Meg with Dr Ullathorne. If she hadn’t gone to James for help. If she hadn’t trusted him when he said Meg was all right.

  Long Meg was dead, and it was Hannah’s fault.

  twenty-two

  Scatterheart walked on and on, until she came to the land of the south wind. She asked him if he knew of the land east o’ the sun and west o’ the moon. ‘I have never blown over there,’ said the south wind. ‘But I’ll take you to my brother, the north wind. He is the oldest and most powerful of us all. Climb on my back.’

  ***

  For Hannah’s thirteenth birthday, her father had taken her to Vauxhall Gardens. He had told her she could take a friend, but the only person she could think to bring was Thomas. Arthur Cheshire had not been impressed, but it was Hannah’s birthday, and she had insisted.

  After Arthur Cheshire had paid the three shillings and sixpence each for their admission, they were ushered into the gardens. High green hedges and tall trees towered overhead and stretched off before them in broad avenues.

  Hannah could feel the scrunching of gravel through her thin slippers. The evening air was full of music and bright conversation. They listened to the orchestra play, raised on a pavilion lit up with shining lights. Thomas pointed out the statue of Georg Friedrich Handel, but Hannah was far too excited to be bothered with some long-dead musician.

  They saw panoramas of the Arctic, Indian jugglers and a circus horse performing tricks. They ate slices of ham so thin you could see through them, and chocolate ices. Arthur Cheshire and Thomas drank porter, Hannah had lemonade.

  There was a loud bang, and everyone cried out in excitement. Coloured sparks showered down from the sky, pink and blue. Hannah held her breath as the fireworks soared and sprinkled overhead. It was like magic.

  A tall tower was suddenly illuminated by a blaze of blue flame, and a delicate lady wearing a blue costume that sparkled with sequins and feathers tiptoed down a tightrope stretching from the tower across the gardens.

  Hannah glanced at Thomas. His face was lit up with the pink and blue of the fireworks.

  The bangs and whistles of the fireworks grew louder, as if they were coming closer and closer. A particularly loud one made Hannah jump, and she opened her eyes to the darkness of the orlop deck.

  She had grown accustomed to the stench of the livestock in the week that she had spent in the brig, but she still wasn’t used to the darkness. Even the women’s quarters had a dim half-light that filtered in from the hatches above. Hannah felt disgusting in her filthy dress, and was always thirsty. A deckhand came down every day to feed the cattle and slop some stew into a bowl for Hannah, but he wouldn’t speak to her.

  There was another loud bang from outside, and Hannah heard the wailing of a baby. There were other noises, the flapping of canvas and the scream of rope and metal, and then the whole ship felt as if it were falling over. The floor heaved beneath her, and she was thrown against the iron bars of her cage. She could hear the bosun’s whistle up on deck, and men shouting. Feet pounded against wood. Then, everything was very still.

  The ship had stopped.

  Hannah pressed her face against the bars, straining to hear something that would tell her what was going on. Surely they could not have arrived? In New South Wales? Perhaps she had been locked in the brig for longer than she realised. Or had they returned to the doldrums?

  There was a scraping noise down the side of the ship, and then a splash. More shouted commands. Was a boat being lowered into the water? Hannah felt dizzy and unstable now that the ship had stopped moving. She had grown so used to its constant motion – even in the doldrums it had been constantly rocking, the boards shifting beneath her bare feet. Now it barely moved at all.

  The air became heavy and still. In the animal pens close by, the cow shifted and mooed.

  Hannah wasn’t sure how long she spent pressed up against the bars, listening, but the ship finally grew quiet. She dimly heard the cries of gulls.

  She tried to recite the kings of England to pass the time. She got stuck at Henry the Third. Did Henry the Fourth come straight after? Or was it an Edward? She knew it wasn’t a George or a Charles.

  The day dragged on. Hannah wondered what Long Meg had done to pass time in the brig.

  ‘Oh you know,’ she imagined Meg saying. ‘I hold grand receptions and high teas. And there are so many gentleman callers.’

  Hannah wondered if night had fallen. She thought of the Great Bear winking to life overhead, before remembering that it no longer appeared in these strange skies.

  She was just drifting off to sleep when she heard a rustling in the straw. Probably a rat. The rustling came again, from behind one of the cows. There was a scurrying noise, which came closer and closer to Hannah’s cage. She stiffened. It sounded like a very large rat.

  ‘Hannah!’ hissed a voice.

  Hannah sighed with relief. ‘Molly,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here? Why has the ship stopped?’

  Molly came forward and Hannah felt her cool little fingers on hers.

  ‘We’re in a city. It has spiky hills and houses and people with brown skin and a big rock called the Table with a tablecloth made of clouds and ladies with no tops on.’

  Hannah frowned. ‘Are we in New South Wales?’

  ‘No. Just stopped for new water and new animals.’

  The mention of fresh water made Hannah’s mouth sore. Molly wriggled a little, then pushed something into Hannah’s hand.

  ‘We got these,’ she said. It was quite large, about the size of a large potato. It was smooth and oval shaped, with a rough point at one end. It felt cool and pleasant.

  ‘What is it?’ Hannah asked.

  Molly laughed. ‘It’s heaven,’ she said. ‘Don’t eat the skin.’

  Then she was gone.

  Hannah ran her hands over the smooth shape, wishing it was light so she could see. She lifted the object to her face and sniffed it.

  It smelled like summer, sweet and fresh and fragrant. She dug a fingernail into the surface, and broke through the skin. Juice dribbled down her finger. She lifted the finger cautiously to her lips and tasted.

  Molly was right. It tasted like heaven. Like warm nights and fireworks and lazy, sleepy afternoons in the sun. She peeled back the skin and licked the flesh inside. It was sticky and delicious. She took a bite. Juice dripped from her chin and splashed on her cheeks. Rough fibres stuck between her teeth. She licked and chewed until there was nothing left but the discarded skin and a small, flat oval stone that had lain at the fruit’s centre.

  Late the next afternoon, Hannah heard footsteps. A lantern burned in the darkness, and James emerged. His black hair was tousled, but he was still as beautiful as ever.

  His eyes were unfocussed, his walk unsteady. Hannah hastily hid Thomas’s handkerchief, and the stone and skin
of the strange fruit underneath the straw. James slumped against the bars of the brig and slid to the ground. He reeked of alcohol and sweat. For a while, he said nothing, just stared at the bars of the cage. Then he looked at Hannah.

  ‘We’re in Cape Town,’ he said.

  Hannah said nothing. She wished she’d listened to Thomas’s geography lessons more closely. Cape Town. Was that in Africa or South America?

  ‘They have most excellent entertainment here.’ James’s voice was slurred. ‘Fine food and drink. Friendly women.’ He looked Hannah up and down. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  James laughed. ‘Don’t play coy with me, slattern.’

  Hannah remembered a time when James’s laugh had made her feel warm inside.

  ‘The women here are dark-skinned and bare-bellied. Any one of them would beg for me to take her with me and make her my wife. They would give anything. Anything.’

  Hannah looked away.

  James sighed. ‘What is wrong with you? I acted the gentleman. I brought you toast.’

  James made a choking noise, and Hannah realised he was crying. His mouth hung open, slack and wet. His eyes were watery, and white snot trailed from his nose. He must be very drunk.

  ‘You should be begging me to marry you,’ he said. ‘You should be on your knees.’

  Hannah closed her eyes and saw Thomas disappear into the London fog. Her heart ached. Where was he now? Was he thinking about her, too? Why hadn’t she gone with him? She had been such a fool. James was still talking. Hannah tried not to listen.

  ‘I could have any woman on this ship. Any woman in this town. In any town. But I want you. I hate that you do this to me.’

  She imagined how the voyage would have been if she’d accepted Thomas’s offer. She wondered why she had ever wanted a carriage and a house in Mayfair.

  ‘Here,’ mumbled James. ‘I brought you a present.’

  He held out a firm oval fruit. Its skin was orange, freckled with green and pink.

  ‘It’s a mango,’ he said.

  Hannah took the fruit. It was the same fruit that Molly had given her. She put it down on the straw.

  ‘Go away, James,’ she said.