She watched until he was gone from sight, then turned and set off into the trees to perform the most hateful task in the world.
. . . . .
Fishkill Cavern lay not terribly deep inside the hill—the entrance was barely out of sight behind her before the passage turned and widened into a broad chamber. Close to the outside or not, no matter what the temperature on the island might be, the cavern remained as cold as an iceberg. Water barely dripped from the stalactites; when she was little it had been fun to watch and watch until a single drop fell. Now she felt as if her life was measured out in those drops, slow and icy and suspended for eternity.
Halfway between home and the village, nature had created the perfect repository for the village’s daily catch. A congeries of fish and mussels and other, articulated creatures surrounded Leodora every morning, laid upon reed mats that covered most of the floor. A large table comprising boulders and one flat slab stood close to one wall. That was where she spent her mornings, gutting, cleaning, and filleting; cracking and splitting and deveining. The offal poured, cold and slick, into baskets beside her, most of which would be taken back by the fishermen and thrown into the sea, sometimes as bait for other fish. The product, ready for market, was heaped on other mats and placed inside round wicker panniers with straps.
She didn’t clean all, or even most, of the catch—most of it was sold as it was. Even so there was enough work to keep her busy through the morning.
She wore her ragged clothes in layers. They kept her warm even as they became spotted with gore. Her feet were well wrapped, too. She always made a point of drying them before entering the cavern. If she hadn’t, she could have lost her toes, like the fabled trickster Meersh, against the icy cavern floor. Her hands could not be so protected. Her nimble fingers grew chilled and red, and finally numb. Her greatest fear was that she would lose so much feeling in her hands that she would chop off a finger and not notice it until her own blood was mingling with that of the fish. It was a fear grown into a phobia. Outside the cavern she kept a basket of ocean water placed in the sunlight. When her fingers numbed, she ran out and plunged them in the water. The flesh tingled to life and soon felt as if it were ablaze, the ends of her arms boiling. She did this four or five times a morning, preferring discomfort to dismemberment.
At some point her uncle would arrive, sometimes alone, sometimes with whatever vermin he could hire from Ningle to help tote the fish up onto the span, another half an hour’s walk from there. Gousier’s assistants turned over almost as often as the tide. They tended to ogle her, this young girl whose body was developing its adult shape earlier than some they knew. While they might have been the lowest of creatures on Ningle, down here on the island they were in a place that they could consider below even their station; and she, being of the island, was a pleb at their disposal. At least, so Soter had warned her. He predicted that, sooner or later, one or both assistants would try to grope her. He told her what to watch for—those subtle, vulpine glances being one of the signs. But so far no one had harmed her.
When her uncle had taken the panniers full of fish onto the span, then Leodora was freed from servitude.
Sodden with fish blood, she left the cavern and followed a small path south of the house, past Dymphana’s garden, and up over a few weedy dunes to the far side of a low promontory there. His claim on the land ended with the dunes, where the grass turned quickly into brush too thorny to cut down and the beach beyond narrowed to a footpath. The brush might have been a wall to fend off invaders from the sea—it was that thick. But if one continued along the strip of beach to the far side of them, the shore made an abrupt hook, creating a natural jetty of rock that doubled back upon the promontory like an index finger almost pressing against a thumb. When the tide was out, finger and thumb did close completely, and the small isolated inlet became a lagoon for a while. Even with the tide up and the waves coming across the hook, it remained free of strong currents and riptides, a hidden stillness. The dunes hid the lagoon from view on Gousier’s side, and the rocky hook rose inland like a low wall, as if a failed span had once upon a time attempted to push up out of the island, producing finally nothing but the thorny wildwood. No one had any use for it, and no one else ever went there.
On the sheltered strip of beach she peeled off the foul clothes. Underneath, ruddy patches marked her skin where the blood had soaked through. She immersed the clothes in the shallow water, and like coral smoke the blood swirled lazily out of them.
She left them soaking in the shallows and waded past them into the depths of the lagoon. Untied, her red hair fanned all the way to her waist.
Tiny creatures nipped at her toes, and she yelped and dove in, swimming out to the far rim of rocks, locating in them the gouge through which she could slip into the deeper water. She plunged headlong beneath the waves, kicked back up to the surface, and broke free with a gasp, in imitation of the sea dragons. She liked to play at being a dragon, at wriggling through the water with her feet together like a tail.
She had been born swimming, she thought.
. . . . .
The lagoon had been her private retreat for more than a year. She kept this secret even from Tastion; and, anyway, he was always out fishing or else working the fields on the distant side of the village when she went there, so there was no reason for him to know. She wanted—she needed—something to be hers alone. Even the puppets she had to share with Soter. And with the ghost of her father.
That day as on most days after swimming, she lay sunning herself, warm and muzzy and so nearly asleep that she didn’t hear any approaching footsteps. She had the impression of a sharp intake of breath, and then a voice poked through the membrane of dream with a single word: “Witch!” So loud and so near that she didn’t think it was real at all until she opened one eye and found him standing right beside her. He stepped up and his shadow blocked the sunlight.
She screeched and rolled away across the sand, scrambling for her wet clothing, draping the tunic over her budding figure before she turned to confront the intruder.
No one was there.
She roughly brushed the sand from her face, thinking she’d dreamed it all. But in the sand were his footprints, clear and cautious impressions in approach, wild gouges upon retreat. He’d fled past the wildwood and right up the rocks. She ran to them and climbed up high enough to look over the rise and saw him far away, still running in the shallows, not even daring to look back, his arms flailing ahead of him. A moment later he had disappeared around the curve of the beach.
She’d only glimpsed him for an instant—an impression of tangled, matted gray hair and ragged clothes. And that word—that word lined with horror. Witch.
She dressed in the sandy, sodden clothes then and ran to her uncle’s house. Dymphana was outdoors, digging corms from her garden.
Her aunt’s features pulled tight with concern at the sight of her. She asked, “What’s happened, child?”
Trembling, fidgeting, Leodora told her. A man had appeared, a stranger. He’d seen her and then run away. She clung to her aunt and cried, “But why witch! Why did he call me a witch? Why did he say that?”
Dymphana replied, “Oh, child, it’s not you, it’s your mother used to swim there, too, and I’m—”
Pressed against her, Leodora felt her aunt stiffen as both of them realized what had been said.
“How do you know that?” She pushed away, no longer frightened. “You said you didn’t know anything, that my mother was gone before you came to Bouyan!”
It seemed for a moment that Dymphana might try to bluff her way out of the trap, as if she weighed whether she should compound the denial with another obvious lie. Finally, however, she set down her hoe. “You must promise me never to tell your uncle nothing you hear from me. He’d know in a second where you learned it, because Soter doesn’t know a thing about Leandra’s life on this island. Gousier never told him nothin’, neither.”
“I promise,” she swore.
&n
bsp; “You are so like her, you know that. More each day, to my eye. When I promised your uncle never to speak on your mother, it was when you was so tiny, and it seemed right then not to have you burdened with what we knew. Your uncle said he didn’t want you growing up like her. That seemed good wisdom then. But you are her daughter—and no one who knew her could ever mistake it.
“Your mother thought the ocean belonged to her, same as you—that lagoon especially, same as you. It was hers. Oh, you didn’t think anyone knew?” She smiled with tenderness through her exasperation then. “Dear heart, I keep track of you far more’n you realize. I know perfectly well that you lie about nude in the sand over past them dunes. Just like your mother did.”
A thrill ran through Leodora at the thought of her mother lying in that very same spot, seeing the same sky. The pleasure was followed a moment later by the realization that her private spot was no longer private. Like everything else, she shared it.
“The man you saw, he’d be an Omelune,” said Dymphana, as though that explained everything. “I expect he thought you were your mother.”
“Everyone calls her a witch. Everyone in Tenikemac. Uncle Gousier. Even Soter. He calls her the Red Witch.”
“Oh, does he now? To you he says this? That old fool. He has no right to talk on her at all, even if he does know such things as we don’t.”
“Well, at least he doesn’t lie,” she snapped, and for a moment she thought her aunt was going to weep.
Instead, her expression still pinched, Dymphana explained, “Red Witch is a name from the spans. No one ever called her that here. To be sure, the Omelunes called her worse. I always wondered if she adopted the name on purpose to mock Bouyan. Thumbin’ her nose at everything. That’d be like her.”
“What are Omelunes?”
Dymphana took her by the hand. “Come here and let me sit.” They walked over and sat on a broad stump in the shade. The breeze on her wet clothes quickly chilled Leodora, and she scooted off the stump and onto the ground, where she could face her aunt from within a warm patch of sunlight.
“You understand that I was no part of the household in her younger days. I didn’t meet your uncle till perhaps two years before she’d gone. She would have been a few years older than you are now when I arrived. Whenever I look on you, I can’t help seeing her like she’s a ghost right inside your skin. I’ve almost called you by her name more than once. You have so much of her—her body, her face. Your uncle sees it, too. I know he does. Even your stubbornness is your mother’s, although I’m inclined to think that being stubborn just runs in your family. For that brief while after I came, it was we two women and your grandmother living together in a small wood house all day long—it was smaller then. Your grandfather extended it three times with them extra rooms. He was a great carpenter, a builder.”
“I remember.”
“We all thought it would be filling up soon with more…” She paused, her face pinched, her eyes casting now toward the woods. Leodora knew that her aunt had given birth three times and that none of the babies had survived beyond a few months. She knew where the graves were, and that the final stillbirth had almost killed Dymphana. Her uncle would have no sons.
“Leandra told me all sorts of stories about herself. She didn’t mind telling them on herself, either. Didn’t mind looking the fool if it made for a good story. You might not have guessed, listening to her laugh at herself, make fun of herself, how much iron there was in her backbone. I came down from Ningle to live with your uncle, and I had certain airs when I first arrived here: thinking I was above this place, better than it was, and that I was above everyone born here. I needed to pretend that then. My family on Ningle—they’re all gone now—they were so poor that this life is much better than I could have hoped for there. I’d have been in a gutter or worse. Gousier was so fine and strong. He used to laugh. You wouldn’t know it now. He used to be like your mother that way. Or maybe she let him share some of her joy, so that he seemed happier than he was. All I know is, when she left, she took that joy away with her. I’ve missed it so long, it’s like something I dreamed of once that never really happened.
“It didn’t take me long to learn my limits. Your grandmother straightened me out about who I was and what was expected of me. Your mother, though, wasn’t about to be straightened out. She challenged everything.
“She used to swim out past your lagoon, where she weren’t supposed to—over the rocks and into the deep. One morning she vanished altogether out there. She was missing so long that your grandparents feared she’d drowned. Gousier went out in his esquif, paddling all over, looking everywhere. Even some of Tenikemac came out to hunt for her in sympathy. They’d lost swimmers of their own to the hidden currents and undertows—some was never seen again. And it was no balm to your grandparents’ spirits to have their standoffish neighbors come and console them over their loss. That was like the final proof that she was gone.
“It fell dark. Everyone had returned from the sea. Your grandmother was wailing now. They’d all given up. And in walked your mother. She came in stark naked and exhausted, and not a bit ashamed of her deed or her body. Proud, if barely able to stand on her own feet. Worse, in the eyes of Tenikemac especially, she claimed she’d ridden home on the back of a sea dragon. No one gave her much credence. They thought she was saying it to stir them up more. She didn’t mean to be evil. She didn’t do it to hurt them. She did it to tear down a limit. It was like she had to beat the gods of the ocean themselves. She would have been, I think, just as happy if they had destroyed her for the challenge. It would have meant something had happened, she’d gotten the gods’ attention at last.”
“Did her parents punish her? What did they do?”
“Oh, they forbade her to swim, but you know they never enforced it. They were happy that she wasn’t dead. It’s difficult to be angry when you’re so elated. And then she collapsed right there in front of them, so mostly they were too busy nursing her well to threaten her much. Her task was gutting fish, same as you. There was no worse punishment they could have inflicted on her, and none that would have done anyone any good. Couldn’t keep her from cleaning the fish unless someone else did it, and when you’re all covered in blood and guts, well, who’s going to forbid you to wash? They don’t want the stink of you like that, either.”
“So she went back to swimming?” Leodora rather liked the idea that her mother had bested them all.
“Yes, she did, child. In the end, though, that willfulness of hers boxed her in. No islander would have her. The family was even more cut off from Tenikemac then. It’s only in the past few years Gousier has opened them up a tiny bit again, at least some of the men. The women are harder. If there had been a chance for Leandra before with them, there wasn’t one after that night. Their own men had been out hunting for her, and if she’d drowned, they’d have all mourned her and made sacrifices to the sea in her name, but she weren’t drowned nor even in peril, and after that the women shunned her and made their men shun her. If she’d ever gotten into real trouble after that, they would have lifted nary a finger to help, an’ probably would have hoped the gods destroyed her.”
It was clear from the look her aunt gave her that she was supposed to take instruction from her mother’s folly. She said nothing, and Dymphana seemed to regard this as acquiescence.
“Leandra had already given up on that village anyway. I don’t know exactly when she began to look elsewhere on the island.
“The Weejar people were on the far side of Ningle as they are now, isolated by the legs of that span, and half a day’s walking around the beach unless you can find the paths, what I could never do. But back then there was a third group lived down around the southern tip a good three hours away—”
“The Omelunes,” guessed Leodora.
“That’s right. You’re so clever, you got there ahead of me. The Omelunes were a fishing village, the same as Tenikemac, only they didn’t have the skill with dragons. They used boats. Some of
their people also took their fish up to Ningle, and so Tenikemac would have nothing to do with them. Weejar is more like the Omelunes were—boats for fishing, and rice swamps inland. The rice is the only reason Tenikemac trades with them.
“One day, while the men of Omelune were out fishing or selling fish, Leandra swam all the way around to their village. The women on the beach saw her splashing in the waves, and damn them if they didn’t pick up stones, every one of them, and walk to the edge of the water and start flinging them at your mother to keep her from coming in to land. They knew she didn’t belong to them. They thought she was one of the merfolk that overturn boats and drown the sailors.”
“What merfolk?” asked Leodora, half disbelieving and half curious, wondering if Soter had any figures of merfolk buried in his stacks of puppets.
“Tenikemac knows of them, too, you can ask someone there. It were such a long swim to Omelune, you can well imagine that no one from here had ever tried it before. It’s not like somebody was expecting her. What else were the women of Omelune to think?
“Leandra must have been very tired, but she turned back—they left her no choice. The problem was, the women chased her along the beach, throwing rocks wherever they found them. Finally there was this spit of land, a little peninsula sticking out in the water. Leandra wasn’t watching ahead—she was keeping her eye on them women and diving down when something looked like it would hit her. So then all of a sudden she found the women coming right at her as if across the water itself. They cut the distance in half before she understood what had happened and leapt to swim away. One of the rocks struck her in the head, and she floundered, and she sank. The women must have thought they’d killed her. They left her alone and went marching back home in triumph. They’d killed a merwoman, and wouldn’t that be something to tell the men when the men came back from fishing?
“It was pure instinct kept Leandra afloat. Pretty soon the currents had her. She kicked up her legs when she thought of it. When she was sensible. Blood stung her eyes, and it was about all she could do to keep her head above the surface. She was drifting, she didn’t know where.
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