Electric Velocipede 27

by John Klima

  Across the boxing green, shadows twitched at the front door of our cabin.

  My gaze snapped back to the pyre, so small for such a large spirit. She is gone, I told myself, releasing a ragged breath. She is gone.

  Mother’s skull had a porcelain tinge, more blue than cream, and was light as a teacup in my hand.

  Door hinges creaked.

  Thom the butcher-boy passed me a hacksaw, eyebrow raised. He’d spent a lifetime with bones, chopping them to fit into crockpots and stoves. He gauged the size of this one without even touching it. He knew it’d be a squeeze.

  Please, I prayed. Let it fit.

  I pinned Mother’s dried-melon in place. Hand spread over the nasal cavity, fingers plugging earholes. I cringed as the mandible wriggled, certain I was suffocating her. Footsteps thudded on our porch, hinges creaked. The tool slipped from my sweaty palm. ‘Focus,’ Thom said, ever the fighter. Exhaling, I nodded and tried again. Now metal teeth chewed an uneven line across Mother’s forehead, nibbled through the temples, bone dust went flying. Footsteps thudded, frantic as my sawing. Closer. Closer.

  Nearly there, I thought, rotating to get at the back of the cranium. Steady.

  With a snap, the lid broke away. A smattering of applause from the reds as the crown skidded across the table and dinged the regulation bell. My belly fluttered as I picked the thing up—not even a cantaloupe, a half-grapefruit—and ran a finger along its jagged edge. The break could’ve been better, much better. It’d be torture until it wore smooth.

  ‘It’s supposed to hurt,’ Claude had told us, years ago. ‘Being Chanticleer. Speaking for these folks. Watching out for them. Bearing the brunt of their loves, their hates. It’s a right royal pain. And if it isn’t . . . Well. If it isn’t, you’re doing it wrong.’

  Ring-girls shuddered in their dainties as I lifted the crown to my head. One-Shot fixed me with a rheumy glare, sprigs of rosemary bristling from his lips. Fathers lifted kids to give them a better vantage. Armed with enswells and balms, the cornermen crept up behind me, poised to daub. Thom, butcher-boy, boxing champ, judged the first lacerations impassively. Blood trickled warm on my brow.

  Guard up, Mother, I thought. I glanced at our cabin. Shadows danced round the front door.

  Gashing, forcing, I wrenched the flimsy cap on. Deep breath, lungs filling with charred air. Pulse throbbed in my head, footsteps thudded on the porch. Don’t crack. I twisted my fingers slippery, sight sheeting red. On the stoop, shadows wavered. Please don’t crack . . . I scratched and dug long after the crown was secure, my skull near-crushed beneath hers.

  I did it.

  The door slammed shut. Shadows and footsteps stilled.

  It fits.

  Mother parried two beats later—and I didn’t have a puncher’s chance.

  The world doubled, trebled. One-Shot half caught me as I buckled, my mind clobbered by Mother’s memories—bargains wheeled, trades brokered, lovers toyed, walks wiggled, ballads crooned—pummelled by thoughts of Nettie—singing, wooing, struggling against embroidered bonds—and KO’d by visions of me.

  Mother’s little brawler, getting in close. Towering. Looming over the bed. Plying her with tea. Goat-gaze seeing everything in hindsight, Claude lowered her horns and bucked.

  Hail, Regina, she said.

  Head pounding, I staggered upright and shook off the gamekeeper’s grip. Had he heard her? One-Shot squinted, face unreadable. Footsteps thudded on the porch. Boxers shuffled near the ring, sloughing their coats, eager to get on with it. Leaning against the ropes, bookies butted their smokes, subtly giving me and Thom the once-over. Fingers twitched, heads bopped. Odds were accepted and rejected. The butcher’s kid will take the purse, given the shot.

  ‘Hail, Regina,’ said Thom. Mother chortled at this echo, laughing me nauseous as the boy genuflected. Down and up without wobbling, a circle of snow clinging to his bare knee. ‘The floor is yours, Chant.’ Ugly Thom strutted, impatient, flexing every visible muscle. My speech came first, then the champion’s bout. Symbolic gestures, promises before the fight, but necessary to seal the deal. ‘Grace us with a few words. Any bets on who’ll win?’

  All my plain, heartfelt sentiments fled as the crowd livened, out-shouting each other’s wagers. The cabin door creaked, slammed.

  Go on, hen, Mother said, triumphant. Poisoned fingers clawed down my throat, pried at my teeth. Death had stolen Claude’s voice; my coronation offered her a new one. Open up. I’m feeling downright chatty.

  Beside me, Jet stirred the bones, fishing Nan’s red-smoking crown from the brazier. Breathing down my neck, Claude Kilbane rolled his shoulders. The old man hocked up milky phlegm. Cracked his bashed knuckles. One shot and I’d be down, just like Pop-Pop. One shot and my crown would be Nettie’s. Footsteps thudded on the porch, crunched across snow. Closer and closer.

  ‘Speech!’ cried the reds.

  ‘Speech,’ said the brown-and-golds.

  Choking on bile—tansy-flavoured and rue—I stared at them all, and kept my sorry mouth shut.

  END

  Ondine’s Curse

  by Katherine Mankiller

  She knew the signs of drowning; she’d seen it many times. Mouth below the waterline, arms pressing the body up out of the water for a breath. He didn’t cry out for help, but then again, they never did. Breathing took precedence. He didn’t kick, didn’t thrash. He didn’t have the energy to waste.

  She always felt sorry for mortals. So vulnerable, especially in the water. The poor things just couldn’t manage.

  As the ship sailed away, oblivious, she swam over to him and lifted him out of the water. He wrapped his arms around her neck, and she headed easily to the nearest shore, a couple of miles away. She found herself thinking of the mothers she’d spotted on ships, carrying their toddlers who clung for dear life. As she kept swimming, he went limp.

  It was a small island, and as the water became shallow, she transformed her tail into legs and dragged him up on shore. It was so very difficult; she was always surprised by how heavy things were on land. Out of the water, it was hot and dry. It even smelled dry.

  Up on the beach, he coughed up water. She held him and patted his back as he spat seawater onto the shore. He barely seemed aware of her, of anything really, but that was how it was with her previous rescues, too. And then he slept, and she watched over him until the moon was high in the sky. And then she slept, too, on the dry gritty sand.

  When she woke up the next morning, he’d draped his shirt over her. Silly mortals and their nudity taboos. When she met his eye he blushed and looked away, and she pulled the shirt over her head. It was fairly nice material, finely woven.

  “Decent now?” he asked.

  “More or less,” she said.

  He glanced over at her, sidelong, looking up at her under his lashes. “Did you carry me to shore, or did I dream it?”

  She just smiled. “Is there anything to eat?”

  He shrugged and looked around. “I’m more worried about water.”

  She smirked.

  “Drinking water,” he said.

  She cocked her head, then looked around, sniffing. There. She could smell fresh water up the hill. She stood and walked.

  “Where are you going?” he asked. He followed her.

  Water, definitely. Fresh water. Flowing. She could sense it. “I think I hear something.” She scrambled up a rocky sandy hill, the ground hard under her bare feet. How did humans get used to it?

  Behind her, he swore. She glanced back. He was barefoot, too.

  “Do you have a name?” she asked.

  “Lawrence,” he said. “Lawrence Fisher.” He bowed smartly.

  She eyed him up and down, to his obvious discomfort. Black hair, olive skin, dark eyes, British accent. “You don’t look British.”

  “My mother was Italian,” he said.

  “But you’re not.”

  “No, milady,” he said. “I’m as British as brown beer. My father sent me to Eton. I’ve only recently re
turned to Napoli, to seek my fortune.”

  She resisted the urge to snort—look how well that had turned out—and headed back up the hill.

  “What about you, milady? Will you honor me with your name?”

  She turned and cocked her head at him for a moment. Finally, she said, “Ondine.”

  “Is that your Christian or given name?” He cocked his head back at her and smiled a sly, flirtatious little smile.

  She felt her smile broaden. “Yes.”

  He laughed. “As you wish, Milady Ondine.”

  She continued up the hill. There was a stream, and the types of trees and such that grew in fresh water stretching up further past the hill. He rushed towards it, and then stood there, expectant.

  “Ladies first.”

  “I’m not thirsty,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow, and she sighed and drank out of her cupped hands. Then he came forward and drank, over and over. She thought he would never be done of drinking. She would have thought that he’d had enough of water bobbing in the ocean, but apparently not.

  When he’d finally drank his fill, he sat down next to the stream and looked up at her. “I don’t suppose you know where we could find food?”

  She resisted the urge to laugh. She could catch enough food for them both easily in the ocean. “What, you mean like sandwiches and tea? Little cakes, perhaps?”

  He smiled. “You’re quite odd,” he said.

  She just smiled back at him.

  “Where do you come from?” he asked. “You don’t look British, either.”

  “Somewhere far away,” she said.

  “Perhaps you’re the empress of China,” he said. He was teasing, but it was gentle teasing.

  She laughed, but didn’t say anything. She supposed she could tell him that in ancient times she’d been worshipped as a water nymph, that when people stopped believing she moved to the ocean and lived in Greek shipwrecks because the amphorae made her feel at home. She could tell him she was more powerful than any empress. She could tell him anything, but she knew that what he’d believe was that she was a shipwrecked girl, possibly from the Caribbean or someplace equally exotic.

  Well. The ocean would be plenty exotic to the likes of him.

  He shook his head. “Quite odd, indeed. I think I spotted crabs on the beach. We could build a fire, perhaps.”

  They made their way back down the hill, and he started walking up and down the beach lifting rocks. While he was gone, she gathered fallen branches and piled them up on the beach, then whispered, “Exure!” The wood burst into flame.

  Lawrence returned bare-chested with an undershirt full of crabs. He was really quite attractive for a mortal. He said, “How did you do that?”

  “A girl needs to have some secrets,” she said.

  He shrugged and speared a crab on a sharp stick. It kicked and struggled as he thrust it into the fire. If crabs made noise it would have been screaming; its little square mouth opened in agony as it tried to writhe off the stick.

  She felt terribly sorry for it, but not sorry enough to deny Lawrence his dinner. Besides, she was hungry, too. So she pulled a crab out of his undershirt and speared it lengthwise, in hopes of killing it before cooking it. It didn’t struggle, so at the very least she damaged its brain, such as it was.

  He cocked his head at her, but said nothing. They sat in companionable silence cooking their crabs. Then they cracked the shells between rocks and ate. It was a messy dinner, but delicious. Lawrence ate two crabs. She only ate the one.

  After dinner, he lay back and looked up at the sky. “What manner of lady are you, Ondine?”

  She knew what he wanted to hear. What type of people she came from, whether she was a gentlewoman. Whether and where she’d gone to school. How she’d come to end up naked in the ocean.

  Mortals.

  “I’m a good swimmer,” she said. She lay down and looked at the sky, too.

  They lay there in silence until Lawrence started to snore.

  #

  Lawrence had to admit, it wasn’t every day a man woke up on a beach with a nude woman. But he supposed it wasn’t every day that a man woke up alive after being thrown overboard. Estelle had said she was a widow; how was he to know that her husband was not only alive but on the boat with them? He was lucky to be alive.

  It was hardly his fault, either. He blamed his father. His father had withdrawn all support after he graduated Eton, as if that was enough for a young man to make his way in the world. Well, clearly Estelle had been a bad idea. He should have stuck with Vanessa. Vanessa might be older than Estelle, but she was much more respectable. If he’d stuck with Vanessa, he never would have ended up stranded.

  As for Ondine, she was lovely, but he couldn’t place whether she had money or not. In fact, he couldn’t place her at all: her country of origin, whether she was noble or common, what manner of resources she might have off this island. It was a bit disturbing, to tell the truth. A pity, really; he’d much prefer a young pretty fair-haired girl to a lonely widow, but unless she had resources . . .

  Ondine’s hair lay spread out around her on the beach, and her shapely legs were exposed below his shirt. It really wasn’t decent. She didn’t seem embarrassed, either. He wondered briefly if she was a girl who hired out for morally questionable things. She didn’t seem lewd, though. It was more like she was too innocent to realize she should cover her legs. Perhaps she had never been exposed to the more unpleasant side of life.

  She must have realized he was watching her because her eyes met his. He wasn’t used to women who made eye contact. Her eyes were deep blue, and full of intelligence. What was she? Had she been raised by pirates, or something equally lurid?

  “What does your father do?” Lawrence asked.

  Ondine just laughed at him and stood up to walk along the beach. She waded into the water, and sat with the water halfway up her back.

  His shirt would likely be transparent when she got out. He would see everything.

  Embarrassed, he headed back up the hill to the spring and drank some more water. This was a fine mess. Why couldn’t he have been one of his father’s legitimate children? He was the oldest, so he could have been a future baron. Instead, he was reduced to seducing rich widows.

  He supposed he could marry a gentlewoman, if her father was daft enough to let his daughter marry a man without prospects. No, no, he needed a lonely widow. Someone who could make her own foolish decisions without any parental interference.

  Ondine was innocent enough that she must have people looking for her. He wondered if they were frantic. He knew no one was frantic over him, except maybe Vanessa. Aside from her, there would be idle curiosity if he never came back at best. And if he did come back, who knew how long that would take? Would he be so old that no woman would want him?

  He sat and huffed out a loud breath. A depressing line of thought, that. Most sailors were terrified of being stranded. Being stranded was certainly no great joy, but it was far worse to think he might waste his youth out here alone without any prospects or chance of betterment.

  Had Ondine carried him to shore? Maybe she was from the Caribbean. He’d heard that women there were half-wild, swimming in the ocean and such.

  That must be it. Her father was likely the governor of some tiny Caribbean colony. Some place with hardly any Europeans in it, full of Negroes and wild Indians. It wasn’t really the station in life he’d been aiming for, but it was better than he had now.

  Steady there. He didn’t really know anything. He just had a theory that might fit.

  He headed back down the hill to the beach. She was sitting there with sand stuck to her legs. She smiled at him.

  It occurred to him that it didn’t matter whether she had money or not. If she had money and he got her with child, she’d have to marry him. And if she didn’t, well, he could still marry Vanessa.

  He sat beside her, a bit closer than was proper. “Are you from the Caribbean?”

  She smiled,
mysterious, and made no attempt to move away. “I’ve been there.”

  So her father was a captain of a merchant ship, perhaps? No, no, he must be a colonist. Who would take a girl to a wild place if they weren’t going to stay? A high-ranking military officer, perhaps?

  He moved closer, a look of concern on his face. “Do you think your people are worried about you?”

  “Of course,” she said, but there was an undertone to the remark that he didn’t quite follow. “Just as I’m sure there are people worried about you back in England. Your parents, I’m sure.”

  His father’s wife considered him an embarrassment. Proof of his father’s poor moral character and all that. She’d probably be delighted to think he was dead. “I’m sure.”

  He couldn’t tell whether he’d convinced her or not, but he supposed it didn’t matter. “How likely do you think it is that we’ll be rescued?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m not in any hurry, are you?”

  He started laughing. “What, are you engaged to a rich old man or something?”

  She laughed, too. “No. I was just bored where I was.”

  Bored. “What manner of woman are you, Ondine?”

  She gave him a flirtatious sidelong glance. “I rule the seas.”

  He laughed. “So you’re a pirate queen, then?”

  “You’ve figured out my secret.” She giggled. “I’m afraid I lost my sword when I was dragging you to shore. And the parrot got bored and flew back to the ship.”

  He moved closer, conspiratorially. Their shoulders were touching now. “Did your people mutiny?”

  She snorted. “They wouldn’t dare.”

  Lawrence laughed awkwardly.

  “So be glad I don’t have my sword, or I’d be robbing you right now.” She wagged her finger at him.

  “I haven’t anything for you to take, milady,” he said. “I was thrown overboard after being robbed.” It wasn’t completely untrue; Estelle’s husband Roderick had taken his purse before throwing him over, saying that he’d stolen Roderick’s treasure, after all, and Roderick might as well return the favor.