Mire

by Vivien Leanne Saunders

  I peeked. He smiled at me.

  “Where did you come from?”

  I opened and closed my mouth a few times. I must have looked like a fish. A few frantic words reared up, and I idiotically stepped in front of him to block the way. “N…nowhere!”

  “Nowhere?” he craned his head to look past me, and met my eyes when I wouldn’t budge. “The world just stops, does it?”

  “It has to stop somewhere.”

  “Ah.” he shook his head and knelt down in the dirt. For a moment I thought he had gone insane, and then an apple swam up into my vision. I mumbled some garbled thanks, dropped it in the basket, and then knelt down to help him gather the rest.

  “I’m surprised that these apples actually grow from trees.” he said conversationally as he peeled a caterpillar away. “I was afraid to touch any of the food they offered me! It all looked so beautiful and smelled so good. Nothing that perfect can be real. I wondered if a bite would send me to the afterlife, or bind me to eternal servitude.” he turned a bruised apple over in his hands and sniffed at it. “This will make a good pie, but I don’t think one of your beautiful friends will be offering it to me. Don’t you get sick from eating that rich food?”

  I sat back on my heels and tried to remember all of my lessons. None of Mistress Herry’s pretty words were suitable for peeling worms off apples.

  “Um,” I managed, and after that verbal masterpiece mumbled: “We don’t eat it. It’s all for you.”

  I tried to smile at that, batting my eyelashes a little the way I had practiced with my classmates. The man did not fall in love with me. He laughed loudly.

  “That’s exactly how they do it! What a clever impression!”

  “Impression?” I was mortified. I shudder remembering my behaviour after that, but at the time it seemed quite proper to snap at him. “Don’t make fun of us! Everything here is for you, don’t you know that? If you don’t eat the food and… and like the Siren, then why are you even here?”

  “I do like them.” he grinned lazily and stood up, lowering a hand to help me to my feet. I ignored it and hauled myself up.

  “Then why did you wander off?”

  “I wanted to see the end of the world.”

  “It’s not here. There’s nothing here except… except ugliness, and you’re not allowed to see it. You’re not allowed near anything that is not good.”

  “Why?” he demanded. I stumbled into silence. Seeing that he wouldn’t get another word out of me, the man made a great show of walking back down the path. I did not trust him not to stray, so I followed him.

  “Ugliness is underrated.” he called out, and raised his hand so I could make out the shape of the bruised apple. I ran to catch up, and the man threw the fruit at me. “Keep that. You need the bad ones to make good cider.”

  Finally – finally! – I could see the pier. I escorted the man like a wayward child. He wandered, picked at flowers, pointed out interesting insects, and generally made such a nuisance of himself that I was glad to be rid of him. The other women beckoned to him but he barely seemed to notice them. He looked disgusted, as if he was surrounded by rotting fruit.

  A hand closed on my shoulder, and one of the Siren leaned down to my ear. Her voice was soft, because we were so close to the man, but the words were sharp. “What were you doing?”

  “Picking apples, Mistress.” I replied immediately, “He wandered into the orchard.”

  “And you spoke to him?” she waited for my nod and then her voice grew syrup-sweet. “What did you say?”

  I repeated every word of it, even his idiotic comments about fruit and women. The Siren listened in silence. Her eyes closed and opened with a milky disgust plain in the depths.

  “You stupid brat! How will we get him to trust us, now that he knows we’re hiding things?” she shook me again for good measure until my teeth chattered together, and then she dragged me so close that my nose collided with her forehead. “Why didn’t you ask him to pick apples with you? Why didn’t you pretend to be lost or hurt, so he would help you back to the others? Why did you have to blurt out the truth?”

  I did not answer, and she hissed and dragged me away. I did not recognise the path we took. There were only a four places on the island that I did not know. I was not dying, giving pleasure or giving birth, so I knew this had to be the worst place of them all.

  The green spike of a tower rose above the trail. The stone was so covered in ivy that the building looked like the stump of an ancient tree. I could make out the glass eye which stared at us from the roof and I shuddered. Sweetwater.

  Sweetwater had been named by her mother, a Siren who was too stupid to realise that the lyrical names we invented around the men would sound ridiculous when bellowed at a snot-nosed child. I think the name made Sweetwater bitter long before she started her training. She was so obnoxious that nobody dared to volunteer more than two words in her presence.

  She was assigned to run the kitchens, and then the apprentice wing. When the old High Mistress died Sweetwater took up the position and defied anyone to usurp her. She was a strict and competent leader, and so sharp with numbers that the island had grown impossibly wealthy under her rule. Sweetwater had grown old and ugly sitting comfortably in the tower, scattering lesser women’s dreams before her as she twisted us all into her way of making money.

  I could not imagine the island any other way, but the older women told stories about gentle leaders, about women who would walk among the Siren and speak kindly to them. Sweetwater rarely came down from her tower. She sunburned herself to a wrinkled husk sitting in the roof garden, where she glared around the island through a long spyglass.

  It had been Sweetwater who had ordered Dahra to teach me. If she could browbeat my Mistress, then she must be a formidable woman. I shuddered when we climbed the stairs. I had hoped that I would never give the High Mistress a chance to lay eyes on me. I kept my mouth shut and squeezed my eyes closed when the Siren shoved me through a door. There was darkness, and when I opened my eyes it remained. The room smelled of rich wood and beeswax, but there were no windows. I amused myself by running my hands over the furniture until I could have found my way around in the dark. I heard voices speaking angrily above me, and the clatter of footsteps running up and down the stairs. I started to hope they’d forgotten all about me when the door slammed open and another girl was shoved through. The Mistress followed her in with a lantern, and I recognised the girl: Janine.

  Janine had been paired with me in embroidery class. She ended up doing all of my work because it was less effort than having to constantly untangle my snarls of thread. Before the class was over we detested each other. She was known for her delicate embroidered gowns, which she slaved over every night. She refused to let anyone wear them except herself. She became as sallow as her clothes were beautiful. Her eyes were thin and shadowed from the long hours of candlelight. Now her eyes were red, not dark, and the bright colours of her makeup were smeared across her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she sobbed. “I did not mean to lose him! I only fell asleep for a minute!”

  “He must be very quick-footed, if he made it all the way to the orchards in a single minute!” The dry voice belonged to an old woman, whose arms were folded so tightly her silk sleeves were straining. The draw of my astonished eyes made her look around. A long figure pointed at me. “What is that?”

  “Her name is Clay. She found the man and brought him back.”

  “Do I care? Am I to thank her for doing her job?”

  “No… no ma’am.” the Mistress rocked nervously from foot to foot. “She spoke to him. She told him things about us.”

  “Not real things!” I objected, jumping to my feet, “He wouldn’t turn around without me saying something! I said he wasn’t allowed to go past me. I said it was the end of the world.”

  To my surprise, the old woman cackled. “If he had walked much further it would have been. You’re an altruist, little girl. A very stupid one.
Don’t you understand why we cannot tell these men the truth? We get them to spill their secrets and we lie until our tongues turn blue. It’s never the other way around.”

  I didn’t understand, but I knew I was being scolded. I hung my head and sat back down onto the floor. Sweetwater turned her fire onto Janine, who was still trembling. “You’ll never get the truth out of him after this.”

  “Why not get Clay to try?” Janine raised her head sulkily, pressing her fingers to her swelling cheek. “He already likes her more than me.”

  “Clay?” The old woman repeated the word in an obscene drawl. She looked at me and her voice was immediately dismissive, “She’s a child.”

  Now, she did not mean that I was young. The Siren bowed to many depravities that the Mainlanders would their kill women for, but there were lines they would never cross. No, when we called someone a child we meant that they had not passed their apprenticeship. At the age of eighteen I was plagued by acne and prone to biting my lip until it bled. I was not ugly, but I wasn’t exactly the kind of person a Mainlander would believe was sent by the gods.

  “He didn’t like me. She’s lying.” I growled, blood rushing to my cheeks. “He just laughed at me. That’s not the same.”

  “The same as what? How would you know?” Janine taunted me. I was about to snap something back at her when the old woman snapped her fingers. The harsh sound made us flinch.

  “You let him sneak away while you were snoring like a pig.” Sweetwater narrowed her eyes. “Are you shouting at the child to show me that you’re shrewish as well as lazy?”

  “Lazy?” Janine’s mouth gaped open. The old woman cackled a laugh.

  “And ugly, too! Close your mouth, you’ll catch flies!” she coughed suddenly and spat phlegm into the corner. I was fascinated. I hadn’t seen anyone spitting before, much less an islander. Her foul language and disgusting body made her seem like a mythical beast. Disgust made my stomach churn. I looked away from the corner before I could see if her spitting was a habit.

  When I looked up, Sweetwater’s yellow eyes met mine. I gasped and looked quickly away. Janine’s hand trembled in my line of vision.

  “You’ve been working on the man for weeks. You’re clearly getting nowhere.” The old woman said slowly, and then her voice became thoughtful. “Yes, why not let the child try? If nothing else, she can amuse him enough to stop him wandering off.”

  My eyes flashed open, and I looked up wildly. Sweetwater caught my chin and leaned closer. Her breath smelled of sour milk.

  “Well then, girl. Can you stay awake all night? I doubt he’ll want much more from you.” she turned my head from side to side and then poked me hard in the stomach. I stumbled away from her so quickly that I fell, and the foul old hag slapped her knee in delight. “The girl is a fool! If he wants to laugh at her, he’s welcome to have her. Who is your Mistress, girl?”

  “Dahra.” I wheezed, climbing to my feet. Sweetwater’s eyebrows flew up. It was odd to see a Siren betray herself like that, but I supposed that any woman who spat had forgotten her training. Feigning indifference, Sweetwater fluttered a hand at me.

  “Go and find Dahra, then, and tell her what happened. If she wants to beat you be sure to tell her that you mustn’t be marked. She’ll know what that means. She’ll explain the rest to you.” her eyes grew cold, and she looked at Janine again. “And give her this bitch. The fool can skivvy for your Mistress until I work out how to punish her properly.”

  CHAPTER 14

  An island full of Siren holds secrets about as well as a desert holds fish. For the first time since I had been brought to the island people openly stared at me as I trudged past. Janine dragged her feet and kicked grit into the grass with her soft shoes. I wondered if Sweetwater was actually being rather sly about sending us back to the training wing together. I held my head up high while Janine stared sulkily at the ground. She had put the apprentices in danger; I had prevented it. As I walked I felt a lump of stubborn pride aching in my stomach, and barely flinched when the other women hissed at me.

  Dahra barely glanced at Janine when I passed on Sweetwater’s message. She waved her hand in the same dismissive way the old woman had, and swatted at the girl when she tried to stammer her thanks. She seized my wrist in her slender fingers and opened her mouth to demand an explanation. I squeaked out a moue of pain and tried to pull myself away.

  “She said you’re not to mark me!”

  Dahra froze. “Who told you that?”

  “High Mistress.” I whimpered. My Mistress dropped my hand as if it had burned her. She sat down so gracelessly that her skirts puffed out in an undignified bulb. After a moment she collected herself, and gestured for me to tell her the rest. I took a deep breath and repeated back every word with flawless accuracy. I don’t think Dahra noticed how well her memory-training was paying off; she barely seemed to hear me.

  “No marks.” she repeated softly, “You already know what that means.”

  I gestured to my acne-scarred, sunburned face, “Do you really think it’ll make any difference?”

  I had wanted to be a Siren since before I could read. The new Siren were chosen in order of seniority. I should have been pampered and prepared for weeks already. My skin should be satin-soft, and the knots in my hair ought to be smoothed into a luxurious mane. I should have a new dress with my favourite flowers embroidered into the hem. Even Dahra would have to admit that I looked beautiful as I stepped serenely into my new life.

  A small, freckled and very surly girl was to be thrown at a vagrant idiot who couldn’t keep his eyes to himself. To say that I was sour was an understatement.

  To her credit, Dahra did not try to force me out of my bad mood. She marched me to the bathhouse and scrubbed soap and sand into my hair with a violence which suited me perfectly. While she poured dippers of scalding water over me, she made me recite the layout of the pier to her until she was satisfied that I knew my way around. It almost made me smile. I could tell her where every single peephole on the island was concealed! Thinking of the spyholes made me shiver, and I pulled my knees up to my chest.

  “Don’t do that.” Dahra rapped me with a wooden comb, and then started teasing knots out of my hair. “You’re only making sure he doesn’t run off. Don’t start getting any ideas.”

  “Then why do I have to be… ow!” I flinched away when her hard hands caught hold of a knot. The old woman who was shaping my toenails scowled at me, and I petulantly splashed water at her. “Why do I have to be pretty?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” Miette muttered. “We might manage ‘tolerable’.”

  “Why don’t you seduce him, if I’m so ugly?”

  Dahra caught a handful of my hair and yanked my head back. “That’s enough. Don’t think you can behave badly just because I’m not allowed to mark you. You won’t be untouchable tomorrow, will you?”

  I pulled my head back and bit my lip before reaching out to touch the old woman’s soggy sleeve. “I’m sorry. I’m just nervous.”

  “Is that what you’re going to say to this man after you offend him?” Dahra demanded. I shook my head. If I had admitted to my Mistress what I was really planning then she would have pulled my head under the water until the bubbles stopped. I held my tongue.

  They pampered me, and rubbed lotions onto my skin to hide my freckles and scuffs, and finally admitted that I wouldn’t disgrace them. I wore one of my own dresses – a pink satin shift that I had been saving for my nineteenth birthday. Dahra let me borrow a pair of her silk shoes. They were too big, and so I spent the afternoon sewing a strap over the arch. The familiar chore calmed me down, although my mind still raced. The shoes were yellow, decorated with orange flowers which clashed with the pink dress. I wondered if my Mistress had chosen them on purpose.

  I decided to take the man a basket of food. Rather than filling it with the succulent treats and pastries that the old women slaved over, I trudged over to the apprentice kitchen and raided the larder.

  I t
ook my time. The longer I spent in my costume, the more natural it felt. I did not want to appear beside the man dressed up like a fool. I hated the thought of him rebuffing me a second time. I stomped through puddles and let my dress catch on thorns until it looked well-worn and a little tattered. Janine could fix it, I told myself, biting back guilt when I looked down at the hours of wasted work. Besides, if my plan worked then the Mistresses would not fault me for it.

  The man was lying on the pier completely ignoring the women who were lounging around him. I swear that some of those women could look graceful with their mouths full of bees. The man opened one eye at my approaching footstep, and the Siren stared at me in something close to horror.

  “Come on.” I said to the man, my voice terse rather than inviting, “Do you want to eat, or not?”

  He raised an eyebrow, but his stomach growled and he laughed. He held out his hand, supremely lazy, and I sighed before I helped him to his feet. His skin was dry and coarse, and he gripped my fingers too tightly. I shook him off as soon as he was upright, and stalked away before he could see my cheeks flaring. I blushed far too easily, and I was all too aware of my heart when it thudded in my chest. My training had made me an expert in pretending to be someone else, but I could not help cringing underneath the act.

  “This place is like a fever dream.” The man said as we walked to the orchard. He looked speculatively from the immaculate path to the moss covered rocks around us. “Everyone changes so quickly. It’s like they’re trying to bring my dreams to life. Is that your Siren magic? Can you read my mind?”

  “I don’t want to read your mind. I don’t even want to know your name.” I said bluntly, “They sent me because they want you to be happy, and they saw us talking. Would you rather I took you back to the pier?”

  He rolled his eyes, “I’d die of boredom.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone die from that. People don’t get bored here.”