by Mindy Klasky
She opened her mouth. He raised a warning finger. “Anything save vengeance.”
“Give me a life as fine as what you took,” she snapped. “A life among my people. In my own village.”
She meant it as a challenge—a demand he could not fulfill, which would put the lie to his sincerity. It was only when she looked up and saw the numb contemplation on his face that she even imagined her request might be possible to grant. Abruptly she sat back down on the log.
“What you ask…” He blanched. “To have any hope, you must take great risks. Are you willing to do what is necessary?”
Her breath had vanished so fully she could hardly get the words out. “Do you toy with my hopes? To have that? I will do whatever I must.”
He rubbed his neck like a man facing the ordeal of his life. “If after I have told you the whole of it, your answer is the same, then our bargain is sealed.”
The first thing Aerise was aware of was the dustiness in her throat. She coughed.
Someone lifted her head up. The rim of an earthenware cup was pressed to her lips. She drank without opening her eyes, without truly coming awake. The second cup smelled of honey, anise, and something fiery. No sooner had she gulped it down than her bid for consciousness failed.
And so it went, how many occasions she could not say. Eventually she awoke fully. For the first time she managed to open her eyes and knew where she was. The stone vault of the cavern loomed over her. Light seeped in where the boulder sealing the entrance had been removed.
Morel leaned near, supported her head again, and served another draught of his potion. Gradually her eyes were able to focus. His countenance had changed. Fine lines had deepened where the skin had formerly been smooth.
“How…long?” she coughed.
“Sixty years. It will have to serve. I dared not leave you longer.”
“Let me see,” she said as she grasped the meaning of his statement.
He gently lifted her arm in front of her face. Where a plump hand and generous forearm had been, what she saw now was a crone’s—no, a mummy’s—desiccated appendage, looking as crusted and gray as she felt inside.
“The rest,” she insisted.
He hesitated, seemed about to argue, but gradually he peeled back the blanket, unveiling her body. She tried to lift her head to view it, but could not until he assisted her.
She was speechless at the sight. When she had been lowered to the slab, her milk-laden breasts had perched heavily on her ribcage. Now they were empty, nippled flaps of skin. Her belly dipped lower than she could see from her angle, the hipbones rising like mountain peaks on the other side. Her legs seemed to be little more than bones overlaid with dried skin. She suspected the odd nest of coils by her feet were the remains of toenails Morel had recently trimmed away.
Aerise fought to contain her horror. He had told her it would be this way when he sealed her in this subterranean chamber. He had also said that, as long as she did not perish altogether, her body would ultimately have suffered no lasting harm.
“Drink,” he said. “Drink and drink, then drink again. This will all change, and seem but a dream.”
Surely he was a liar. But she did as he said.
On the day Aerise and Morel journeyed to Nine Vineyards, her muscles were strong enough to help load the sacks of feed for the oxen. Her complexion had deepened from pallid to lightly tanned. She did not fill her new clothes as amply as she had her old ones, and she still craved twice as much water per day as normal, but as the shadow man had promised, her health was sound. She no longer doubted she would finish the recovery as he indicated—in a year or two, she would have her curves back, her cheeks would be rosy, and her hair would reclaim its bounce. In six decades of hibernation, she had in fact aged only three years.
She inhaled sharply as they rounded a bend and she caught her first glimpse of the village. Nine Vineyards had grown during her time away. The headman’s house was now a stone manse three stories high, with a watchtower. A ferry sat at anchorage on the river bank where the smokehouse had been, and a newer, larger smokehouse stood a hundred paces upstream. A huge warehouse had been recently built beside the winery. The latter improvement provided the means to their goal. More wine and more storage space mean more barrels were needed, and someone had to construct those barrels.
“You are the new cooper?” asked the head vintner as Morel tugged back on the reins and brought his wagon and team to a halt.
Morel gestured at the piles of staves and strap in the rear of the wagon. “At your service.”
“Let me show you your workshop,” the vintner said.
Morel held up a hand. “If you please, my wife would like to see the quarters you’ve arranged. We took the long road getting here. She is very tired.”
“Ah. Of course. Follow me.”
Aerise’s heart was beating fast as Morel helped her down from the wagon, but her spirits were high. Morel’s command of modern vernacular, in which he had schooled himself these past decades, had not failed him. When he broadened a vowel or two to capture the accent of a denizen of Baymouth, the listener had believed him to be who he said he was.
The vintner led them to a cottage behind the winery. He opened the door for her. “I hope you will find this adequate.”
When she reached the center of the main room, she turned in a slow circle, letting her eyes adjust. Fresh, tight thatch lay above the rafters. The floor showed no gouges and only a few stains. The dwelling was perhaps ten years old, not yet spoiled by the touches of those who had inhabited it thus far.
It smelled of home. Of wine vats stored near. Of the river. Of tilled soil. All the smells she had been deprived of in the Cursed Folk enclave.
She smiled. “Yes. Yes, it is adequate.” She moved quickly to the larder, checked a crock to confirm it held cured olives, then began arranging space on the shelves for the goods from the wagon. She blew air to clear away dust and cobwebs—though in truth, the place showed every sign it had been well cleaned in anticipation of their arrival.
The vintner chuckled. “I will check back anon.” He paused at the door. “Mind you don’t exhaust yourself. Tomorrow night we will have festivities in the great lodge to welcome you. The whole village will be there.”
She and Morel both caught their breaths.
“Is anything wrong?” the vintner asked.
Morel shrugged, appearing to make light of it. “My wife is somewhat shy. She was raised on a very small farm. But of course, we will be there.”
“Good,” the man said. He winked at Aerise. “I am sure you will enjoy yourself.”
She smiled weakly. “I am sure I will.”
After the man let himself out, Aerise went to the water basin, moistened her scarf, and wiped her suddenly hot face.
“If it would put you at ease, we could concoct an excuse,” Morel suggested. “I could go alone.”
She steadied herself. “No. That would only raise suspicions. We must both be there.”
The great lodge was the same building in which Aerise’s banishment had taken place. A nave had been added to increase its capacity, but the main chamber assaulted her with memories. It took all her will not to tremble as she moved about beneath familiar soot-stained beams, awash in scents known to her from babyhood.
Morel endeavored to be the center of attention, laughing, telling stories, cheerfully greeting one and all. Aerise gravitated to the periphery, avoiding the full light, speaking only enough to observe good manners. She and Morel had rehearsed her feigned background as a daughter of a recently-deceased dairyman near Baymouth, but she uttered only the dull outline of this tale when asked about her origin, for fear her listeners would take an interest and gather around her to listen. It was not in her nature to be reticent; she had to still her tongue more than once when she found herself about to carry on.
Whenever possible, she avoided the elders. Sixty years was a long time, but not as long as she and Morel had aimed for when they made their pact. So s
hort a span meant not all of the people she had known were dead. In the first few minutes she recognized three individuals whom she had known. She had last seen them as children who had flung stems and spoiled grapes at her to drive her from the village. Much as she wished to avoid it, she knew she must put their memories to the test. She let herself be introduced to each, and exchanged a few sentences. They showed no sign that they made any connection between the cooper’s bony, reserved wife and the plump, boisterous Aerise of Nine Vineyards they had known. Gradually the tension in her lower gut began to ease.
At one point, revelers parted in such a way that Aerise could glance right across the room. She spotted a white-haired, wrinkled matron on a bench against the wall.
The old woman lacked teeth. Her jowls hung low. Her eyes—one of them clouded over with white—could scarcely be made out amid the puffiness of her face. But by the time the crowd shifted again and hid her from view, Aerise had identified her as Zana.
“Excuse me,” Aerise told her nearest companions, and rushed out to the privy. She barely managed to shut herself in before she began sobbing. She managed to suppress the noise, but not the shuddering and tears.
When she was able to control herself, she wiped her face dry and reentered the lodge. Spine stiff as a wagon yoke, she continued to mingle. She did not go to the side of the room where Zana sat until several of the oldest folk, worn out early, made their exit—Zana among them, a pair of adolescent girls assisting her.
Aerise longed to follow. The desire tightened her throat so much she spoke in rasps for the rest of the evening.
That night Aerise tossed and turned. The bed, which had been so reassuring the night before, provided no comfort now.
“I cannot do it,” she murmured aloud to herself. The pretense, the knowledge she would be dwelling near her favorite kinswoman and be forced to avoid her at every turn—it seemed too impossible, despite all she had gone through to get to this point. She had been a fool to ask for it. Had only done so because she wanted to punish Morel by asking for the impossible.
Enough. She would tell the shadow man, and make an end to it.
She rose and went into the main room of the cottage, where she had left him sleeping near the hearth. She had not been able to bring herself to let him share the bedroom, though to do otherwise carried the risk that some neighbor might notice clues and question whether they were truly husband and wife. Three steps within, she halted so quickly she nearly keeled over forward.
Morel was not simply lying there. He was writhing. His body twisted and bent, caught in paroxysms that distorted his shape in ways that would be impossible while he was in his solid form. Whether he was conscious or slumbering was unclear. While he thrashed, sometimes the glow of the embers fell on his face, and what she saw was a rictus, eyes squeezed shut, teeth showing. Muscles were bulging unnaturally all over his body.
“Morel!” she called. “Morel! Wake up!”
His eyes blinked open. All at once he shifted from misty to solid. As soon as he had completed the transition, he sucked in a desperate chestful of air. The breath seemed to quell the throes. The rictus subsided. Trembling, sweating, moaning, he tucked himself in a curl like a newborn.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
He coughed. She brought him a dipper of water. He tried to hold it, but his hand quivered too much. She took it back and tipped the serving into his mouth. He was calmer after he had swallowed.
“It happens most nights,” he replied, voice sluggish and toneless. “All of my folk suffer unless they divide their existence between this realm and the other, never biding too long in either. Today, among so many witnesses, I tarried too many hours in only one.”
“I had no inkling.”
“It is not your concern. Do not trouble yourself. I endured much worse in Baymouth.”
He referred to the period he had spent an apprentice cooper, learning the craft, establishing a history that would stand up to scrutiny if investigated by anyone from Nine Vineyards. He had dwelled in Baymouth four years.
“Worse than what I saw just now?” she asked.
“Yes. I had no one such as you to stand guard. An apprentice works long hours, with little privacy.”
Aerise said nothing. She fetched another dipper of water.
He drank. “Did you come in for a reason? My struggles surely produced no clamor.”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, I couldn’t sleep. I was simply…pacing. Pay me no mind.” She retreated quickly into the bedroom and shut the door.
She lay back on her bed. Everything seemed so different than when she had been lying there minutes earlier. She could not say she was sorry that Morel endured such agony. In some ways, he could never experience enough to satisfy her. But if he could keep to the plan despite all that, if he had somehow found the fortitude not to break his vow and leave her in the cavern for eternity, then she would have to find the means to cope with her own anguish. To do otherwise would be to let him shame her all over again.
The next week was the worst of it. Aerise’s heart would trip each time she glimpsed Zana or anyone similarly old. She limited the occasions she went out in public, using the excuse that she wanted to arrange the cottage to her liking. She accepted an invitation to a barrel tasting of the upcoming vintage, but only after determining that the attendees would only be workers and their spouses, all too young to have known her in the past.
Only on the seventh day did she dare to go to the one part of the village she had dreaded as much as craved to see. Checking regularly to be sure she was not observed, she approached the little house that she and Duran had shared. By now, having made a few careful, tangential queries, she had confirmed that Duran himself was dead, and she had learned what he had done with his life, once she had been erased from it.
The house had changed less than some in the village. Rather than expanding it as his family grew, Duran had built a second, larger structure that shared the same yard, and then expanded the latter, because he had fathered six children with his second wife, and in middle age served as stepfather to the three that came with the widow he married next.
The maple that had been a sapling cast thick shade over his grave. She did not go near it—someone might look out a window and see her—but she let her glance linger on the marker.
“Were you happy?” she asked the air. “Tell me my going did not steal your smile forever.”
A beam of light glinted through a gap in the leaves and touched the gravestone. Yes, he had been happy, the omen said. He had been happy, said the fineness of the workmanship of the second house, the orderly nature of the yard, the number of descendants residing in the community. Whatever anguish had lingered—Aerise could not find enough generousness of spirit to hope he had known no regrets at all—had healed in time. It gave her a model to follow, if she could manage.
She could not have said, after the fact, just when she began to believe the scheme would succeed. Maybe it was as early as the first few weeks, when she ceased pretending to have a Baymouth accent—a part of the act that had never come easy—and spoke in her normal voice, and everyone accepted she simply had a good ear and had learned to mimic those around her. Maybe it occurred during the harvest, when she unconsciously joined in the singing of the classic village work chant, and no one thought it odd that a girl from a farm near Baymouth knew it, but just assumed she had heard it at some point in the months she had lived among them. Perhaps it happened in the winter, during the long sessions of storytelling in the great lodge, when one of her own nephews, now a wizened elder of seventy years, told the story of her banishment—never mentioning her by name, for that was forbidden, and never revealing the harlot had been someone he personally knew—and not one person in the circle glanced her way.
Then came the evening at the sweatlodge. She felt a hand fall on her shoulder. Startled, she turned. A crone was leaning near to peer closely at her face.
It was Zana.
Aerise’s
throat went dry. She had encountered her sister many times since the evening of the welcoming feast. Widowed for a fourth time, Zana lived behind the weaver’s house, cared for by a loving clan of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and Aerise had seen her taking daily walks to the river. They had both attended village funerals, weddings, and storytelling circles. However, in all instances Aerise had endeavored to stay outside the range of Zana’s compromised vision. They had never before been in the sweat lodge at the same time. Like most of the elderly women of Nine Vineyards, Zana typically visited the place in the early evening, and Aerise always arrived late.
But at last, it had happened. Zana’s good eye had settled upon her while she was unaware. In the past six months, Aerise’s body had filled out again, becoming replete with the abundance and comeliness that Zana had often said she wished she had more of.
Zana stared. Blinked. Stared again. And finally a tear crept down her face.
Aerise began to cry as well.
Zana sat on the bench beside her. “Throw a little more water on the rocks,” she said.
Aerise scooped the dipper into the barrel and splashed the hot cobblestones, sending a new dose of steam into the lodge’s interior. Zana inhaled deeply.
“Do you miss your old home, cooper’s wife?” Zana asked.
“This is my home,” Aerise replied softly. “This is the place where my happiness lies.”
Zana nodded. A short time later the other women in the lodge happened to leave. When they were alone, Zana reached out and grasped her sister’s hand.
They sat together, the sweat of their palms mingling.
Morel was waiting by the hearth when Aerise returned. She could tell he had assumed solid form a moment before, when he had heard her footsteps approaching. He wore only the blanket he had thrown over himself.
“I expected you ere now,” he said.
“All is well,” she said. “I believe the end of your service is nigh.”
A brightness came into his eyes. It reminded Aerise of the emotion he displayed whenever he bounced his daughter in his arms. She had not seen that gleam in all the three seasons they had dwelt in Nine Vineyards.