The Girl with the Peacock Harp

by Michael Eisele

  The small bare cell where she passed the all too brief hours of rest allowed her was her only solace, for from the tiny barred window she could see the waters of the tarn that lay below the Abbey walls. The window was high but by clinging to the freezing iron of the bars she was able to stare down at the surface, still and mirroring the night sky overhead, or restless and wrinkled in the winds that came down from the high peaks. It was on one such night, with the moon nearly full, reflected and broken into a thousand glittering shards, that she saw it. From the exact centre of the tarn a figure emerged, in the shape of a large horse formed entirely of water that in the moonlight glowed as though filled with green fire. She hung watching, entranced, as it paced and leaped over the tarn as though it were a dark meadow spangled with stars.

  In the morning she asked one of the other novices, and was surprised when the girl, a tough redhead from the north, yet shrank away nervously making a peculiar sign with her fingers.

  ‘Ye’ve seen the Kelpie!’ she hissed, ‘ ’Tis mortal bad luck, that. Stay clear awa’ fra me, lassie.’

  Other girls reacted in a similar fashion, all averring that the tarn in front of the Abbey was said to be inhabited by an evil spirit in the shape of a ghostly horse that seduced men to ride it and then drowned them.

  ‘Though ’tis also said,’ murmured one, a dreamy pale blond from Eire, ‘that an innocent maiden with a bridle made of purest crystal could ride the creature to the very ends of the earth. But who indeed would dare such a thing?‘

  For days she pondered this last. She took out and studied the bits of quartz and amethyst she had secreted in her cell, and devised a way that they could be knotted up using a tough cord unravelled from her bedding and so strung together into something like a bridle. As for the rest; she smiled humourlessly to herself. An innocent maiden? She had hardly had time to be anything else, had she?

  Now here she stood, at the edge of the black waters of the tarn, the crude necklace of crystal glittering as the shards caught the pale light reflected from the clouds overhead. Even as she hesitated, her resolve faltering, it happened. Smoothly the spectral horse’s head broke the surface, and as if climbing an invisible slope it rose up until it was standing facing her in the centre of the tarn. Motionless it stood regarding her, its semi-transparent body reflecting the shapes of clouds and the surrounding rocks in a mosaic of moving patterns.

  Dara wondered how to call it nearer, for the Kelpie merely stood, occasionally pawing the water at its feet, and it came to her, she could not have said how, that it was waiting. Waiting for her to do . . . what? It lifted its head in an unmistakable summons, and she heard without sound its voice. ‘Come to me,’ it seemed to say.

  Helplessly she looked down at the water at her feet, at the fragile wavelets lapping at the stones, and back at the shape of the Kelpie that now stamped one glittering foot impatiently. How was she to swim through that icy meltwater and what could she do even if she did?

  It was then she remembered the ducking stool, and the way the water, obedient to her command, bore her up, just as the Kelpie was borne. She closed her eyes and spoke to the water, in fierce desperation: ‘Uphold me, let me walk upon you,’ over and over until she sensed that she was heard and answered, and still with her eyes closed in terror she took one tentative step, and then two, and then after half a dozen she opened her eyes and looked down. Down indeed into the depths of the water, the cold caress which she could feel on the soles of her bare feet, and it was like standing on a mattress made all of water that gave slightly and moved so that she had to concentrate hard to keep her balance. For a moment vertigo threatened and she hastily raised her eyes to the shape of the Kelpie that stood, nodding its head encouragingly. Slowly, concentrating with every step, she drew nearer, until only a few feet separated her from the tall spectral shape. She held out the bridle tentatively, and the Kelpie shook its head in a gesture so like an earthly horse that she smiled in spite of herself, then it lowered its muzzle to the water, raised it and regarded her once more expectantly.

  Slowly, deliberately she bent until her free hand was inches from the surface of the water. Again she closed her eyes and visualised an apple, but this time no ordinary fruit but an apple composed entirely of water, as the Kelpie was. When the image was clear in her mind she lowered the hand, grasped what she felt there and stood up. The sun was just visible over the peaks at the horizon, and as the first beams struck golden highlights throughout the body of the Kelpie, they illuminated also the spherical object in her hand which trembled and glowed with an unearthly light. Slowly she offered it to the Kelpie, which lowered its head just as an earthly horse might and touched its nose to the little sphere, which immediately vanished. The long head came up, the watery mane flashed, and she heard without sound the triumphant trumpet of its call.

  Then the Kelpie came forward, and seizing the offered bridle in its teeth it tossed the free end over that proud neck and stamped its foot again, in an obvious invitation to be off. Without knowing how it happened she found herself on its back, and instead of the icy chill of water she felt the warmth of life and energy, and the Kelpie itself seemed more substantial, more like a mortal horse, and with a sudden wild joy she took up the crude improvised rein and touched the swelling sides of the beast with her heels. At once they were off, across the tarn and down the winding path at a speed hardly to be believed, the speed of water breaking loose from a frozen dam, flowing down the mountainside and away.

  High overhead the Mother Superior, accompanied by Sister Salva and Sister Bernice, watched Dara’s progress from the high tower window until she and her mount were lost to view. The old nun smiled, and her heavy body relaxed in a heartfelt sigh.

  ‘I knew she was the one,’ she said, ‘but it was a near thing whether or not she would find the courage to take the final step.’ She turned to Sister Bernice, gesturing out over the rocky landscape far below. ‘Fly, Sister, follow her, see that she comes to no harm. The Kelpie will return to the tarn at sunset in any case.’ Sister Bernice nodded wordlessly, spread her robes, and leaped into the air, transforming into the shape of a great eagle and soared effortlessly away into the upper air to keep watch from on high.

  The Mother Superior sighed again, longer this time, as at the conclusion of a long, heavy labour in the gardens that were her particular charge. ‘It had to be, you know,’ she addressed her companion. ‘There hasn’t been one for so long. Now the Sisterhood is complete again and we are four, closing the circle.’

  Sister Salva snorted. ‘So long as you keep her out of my kitchens,’ she grumbled, ‘Have you any notion of what effort it takes for Fire to live when that one is about? ‘

  The Mother Superior smiled indulgently. ‘Dara is newly come to her Power,’ she said. ‘Control takes time to learn, as you well know.’ She said the last with a trace of asperity, glancing meaningfully at the burn scars that ringed the other woman’s wrists and continued up her forearms under the concealing robes.

  Sister Salva chuckled without rancour. ‘Truly said,’ she agreed. ‘Time enough for that when she returns to us, to the Sanctuary.

  MONKEY

  On top of everything else she was going to be late. She scowled at her reflection in the bus mirror, and her reflection—dark skinned, brown eyed, hair a short, matt black mass with a blue streak that she’d forgotten (damn!) to wash out last night—stared back, a double frown line appearing between her too-heavy eyebrows. The bus lurched forward another couple of feet in the heavy morning traffic, and she hissed her Uncle’s favourite obscenity under her breath, earning her an angry sniff from the English lady seated next to her.

  Deliberately she hitched her shoulder bag into her lap and rummaged around in one of the large outside pockets, muttering a nursery rhyme in Arabic, hoping she looked like a mad terrorist who had misplaced her detonator, and was rewarded by a gasp of alarm as her neighbour struggled to her feet and clattered down the aisle and out of the (fortunately) open door.

  She sig
hed, her momentary amusement at the game vanishing in a wave of depression. Why was she always doing these things? For two pence that white cow would have told the bus driver, or got hysterical and screamed. Just like now, she berated herself, sentenced to spend the next two months doing God knew what at this bloody hospital or whatever it was, carrying bedpans or something like as not, all for a stupid computer prank that had somehow been traced to her laptop.

  Yet for all that, she mused, it had been an extremely elegant programme, a fact that seemed to have escaped the University authorities, her family, and especially the Judge, sentencing her to two months’ community service in a bored, weary voice, not really even looking at her, his mind probably on his lunch, and completely unable to appreciate in any case the symmetry, the sheer beauty of the algorithm which . . . Crap! Lispenard! She caught sight of the street sign just as the bus pulled away from the stop, bolted out of her seat, yanked the cord and hammered with her free hand on the closed double doors. There was an annoyed sounding hiss from the brakes, a jerk that nearly toppled her and the doors banged open briefly, almost spitting her out onto the hot asphalt.

  She wasted no breath cursing the bus as it lumbered away, farting, into the bright metallic stream of morning traffic. Extracting the slip of paper she’d been given from a damp shirt pocket she checked the street number, and realising she still had at least two blocks to go down Lispenard to St Andrew’s she set off at a dead run, clutching her bag with one hand.

  She noted distantly that the glaring brightness of the busy bus route had been replaced by a narrow, tree shaded side road, and that the few people on the pavement moved with a stately deliberation, as though walking underwater. There was no road traffic, and the pavement was bordered by a high, black-painted iron fence. The hospital grounds? she wondered, just as twin stone pillars and an elaborate entrance gate announced ‘Saint Andrew’s Rest Home’ in curlicue iron letters a foot high.

  She skidded to a stop, panting, ran a hand pointlessly through her tangled hair, and handed the damp, crumpled slip of paper to the guard who emerged from a small shelter to one side. He was middle aged, dark complexioned, with a set, expressionless face, and a plastic name tag reading ‘Watkins’ pinned over the breast pocket of his neat grey uniform. He seemed about to tell her to move along, Miss, it was too early for the cleaning staff to arrive or something, when a familiar voice shouted ‘Nadi!’ and she peered through the bars to see her older brother Salim approaching, looking suitably harassed and professional in a neat white jacket with the requisite stethoscope poking out of a side pocket. ‘It’s all right, Watkins, Miss Marabet has an appointment.’ he told the guard in those superior Oxford vowel sounds she had teased him about when he first came home from University. The guard’s stolid expression did not change as he brought up a small clipboard and ran a pink skinned forefinger down it. ‘Na-di-a Mara-bet’, he intoned in a singsong Island lilt, making no move to open the gate. ‘The appointment was for nine o’clock, Doctor.’

  Her brother took a deep breath before answering. ‘I know, Watkins. Miss Marabet seems to be twenty minutes late.’

  ‘She still got an appointment, then, Doctor?’ asked the guard dubiously. Nadia was suddenly convinced that the man was laughing behind that expressionless exterior, probably had a good idea what the court order on her slip of paper meant. Poor Salim had never had much sense of humour, for all his brilliance. Before he lost his cool, she spoke up. ‘Excuse me, Mr Watkins, I apologise for being late, but if I don’t report here, they’ll probably throw me in jail, so could you just let me in, please?’ her tone of voice deferential and matter of fact. The man’s sudden smile was like a flashbulb going off in that dark face, one gold front tooth catching the sun.

  ‘Why sure, Miss Marabet,’ he said, genially, reaching behind him and actuating a buzzer. The gate responded with a mechanical hum, swinging open a short distance before stopping. ‘You take good care now,’ he said with the hint of a salute, handing her the paper slip. She thanked him with a grin before slipping through the narrow gap. Security must be tight here, she told herself. What kind of a place was St Andrew’s anyway?

  Salim let out his breath in an annoyed rush. ‘Come on, Nadi,’ he said gesturing peremptorily with a cupped hand. ‘I’m in the middle of rounds, I’ll drop you off at reception. I managed to talk them out of calling the court office,’ he added self-righteously. ’Couldn’t you have at least tried to be on time? It wasn’t easy getting the Judge to agree to this, you know.’ Nadia fell into step behind him as he strode away. She wondered why the family had been so insistent that she do her Community Service here, instead of picking up litter in the park or something. Idiot, she told herself, nobody will see you in a place like this. Rest Home? Asylum, more likely. Salim had been very uncommunicative about the nature of his new appointment, except that she gathered it was a kind of honour. She sighed inwardly. It was probably just as well that one of the siblings had made good, considering how she had turned out. In fact, the abrupt contact with the back of Salim’s starched white coat brought her into awareness of her surroundings and he rounded on her, exasperated. They were standing in front of a glazed set of double doors and a discrete sign that announced ‘Reception’.

  ‘Nadi, look—I’ve got to go, Dr Carter is waiting. Just go check in and they’ll tell you what to do. I’ll see you later when I have a break.’ He patted her shoulder with one neatly manicured hand, and she felt a momentary pang for the adored older brother who used to swing her up by her wrists when she was little and pretend to be a flying carpet.

  The woman in reception was tiny and looked as though she had been dusted with powdered ice, an effect heightened by the chill air conditioning, and the overstated politeness of her manner. White hair blended into bleached-looking skin and a pale silk blouse completed the effect. She looked at Nadia’s slip of paper with non-existent eyebrows raised over pale grey eyes in what seemed an habitual expression of distaste, told her to wait, and pressed a button from an array on her desk.

  After a few uncomfortable moments of not knowing what to do with her hands and being completely ignored, an inner door flew open with a protesting hiss and a large woman clad in hospital whites stood looking down at her. ‘This she?’ the woman demanded in the same kind of lilt as the guard at the gate. At the receptionist’s pained nod, she looked Nadia up and down with an irritated frown. ‘What I supposed to do with she?’ the woman demanded, seemingly of the world at large. ‘I tell them, send me some woman can lift and carry things!’

  ‘It’s only temporary, Bertha.’ said the receptionist, her mouth tight. ‘It’s—’ she gestured to the slip of paper on the desk as though it had been dropped by a passing bird. Bertha craned her neck and studied it carefully. ‘Com-mun-ity Ser-vice,’ she intoned. ‘Oh Lord, come on then, darlin’.’

  With one plump hand she ushered Nadia through the inner door and down a softly lit corridor. As the office door closed with a satisfied click, Bertha stopped and regarded her with interest.

  ‘What you done, then, darlin’?’ she inquired bluntly.

  Nadia looked up at the woman, saw the intelligence behind the heavy features and decided to be candid. ‘I wrote a computer programme that kind of messed up the University system,’ she said simply, remembering that glorious day of all grades being reversed, acceptance letters sent out to every applicant, and elevators that seemed to have minds of their own, so that every push of the button was an unwanted adventure.

  Bertha seemed impressed. ‘Com-pu-ters!’ she murmured, then, ‘Why you do that, then?’

  Nadia shrugged. ‘For fun. I was bored.’

  Bertha sniffed. ‘Well, we keep you plenty busy here then, out of trouble, for true, yes?’ Without waiting for an answer she continued, ‘What kind of name Na-di-a? Where you come from?’

  ‘I was born here,’ Nadia answered, beginning to get used to this odd interview. ‘It’s Arabic.’

  Bertha’s light blue eyes, incongruous against her dark sk
in, widened somewhat theatrically. ‘You one of them, so? Why you don’t wear that scarf on you head then?’

  Nadia, used to the heavy handed political correctness of her contemporaries, felt like laughing at the naturalness of the question. ‘My family is Druze,’ she said, ‘We don’t go in for that sort of thing.’

  Bertha accepted this with an interested nod and a grunt. ‘Well, Nadia, let’s us find you something to do, yes? Can’t have you gettin’ bored, no tellin’ what might happen.’ With a wave, she set off down the corridor, Nadia almost trotting to keep up with the woman’s long strides. They rounded a corner to find a sort of nurses’ station, where a younger woman with tightly curled hair of an improbable golden yellow against her warm brown complexion was seated at a large desk piled high with forms and clipboards. ‘Serabi,’ Bertha addressed her, ‘This here Nadia. She be helpin’ out for a bit.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Says she knows about computers an’ stuff. Happen something here needs sorting?’

  Serabi dropped the clipboard she had been holding and raised both arms theatrically to heaven. ‘There is a God!’ she announced to no one in particular. Her accent was clipped, overlaid with a slightly African intonation.