All the Murmuring Bones

by A. G. Slatter

  They’re sad things, really, but the coachman must see them too, for I hear the slap of the reins and a hard-breathed command to the horses and suddenly we’re flying. All the grasses blend together, the clouds move so fast the earth might be spinning like a top, and we don’t slow down until we reach the forest.

  Here, the trees close in, meet each other above the road and form a canopy. There’s more to fear here, I think, than the marshes: bandits and robber bridegrooms; wolves on four legs and two; trolls come out of the dark places; yellow-eyed boys with cows tails and hollow backs; hind-girls with antlers who dance; bears by day but something else by night; hobgoblins birthed of shadow and spite that will follow you home and steal your sleep for a start. Yet the coachman apparently feels safer here; perhaps it’s the presence of two heavily armed footmen on the rumble seat, and the hefty youth carrying a cudgel sitting beside him. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t know enough to be afraid, not having been raised with all of Maura’s tales of the things that might come for you once the sun has fled.

  I put my hand in my pocket, thinking of the thin bundle of letters, then remember I left it at home, slid beneath the mattress of my bed. The lack feels like an old wound, but I recognise that as no more than unsatisfied curiosity.

  After a while and to my surprise, I fall asleep too.

  * * *

  ‘Five dresses,’ says Aoife in a tone that clearly states no defiance will be brooked. Yet I can’t help myself.

  ‘But, Grandmother,’ I say, then drop the words beneath my breath so no one else in this very expensive modiste’s boutique might hear me, ‘the cost.’

  Cousin Brigid, who is sitting on one of the pretty pink chairs, sipping elderberry tokay, gives me a glance that says I should know better. She didn’t even grow up with Aoife and she knows better. I think of all the coins – whole coins, entire gold coins, not even snapped and split into smaller change – that will be left here all for frippery.

  Yet Aoife merely raises one elegant eyebrow and pats my hand.

  Having no sooner arrived at the five-storey townhouse – which is a narrow building that goes up and back, rather than across but is in an excellent neighbourhood – we were out the door again and into the carriage to go shopping, accompanied by Brigid. Our cases were whisked away by an army of servants too large for those meagre possessions, taken up to bedrooms on the third floor or fourth.

  Aoife’s already pointed to three frocks, those waiting on the carved wooden dressmaker’s mannequins for customers who are in a rush; these are mostly-made, can be swiftly fitted and altered by the three quick-fingered apprentices who wait on the modiste’s word while one has tea or one’s hair done in the establishments nearby. None of these dresses are black, nor grey, nor even that shade of lilac which might be mistaken for a mourning gown in dim light: emerald green, peacock blue, sunshine yellow. Óisín’s not even a week in the ground and she’s ordering these for me.

  ‘Now,’ drawls my grandmother to the modiste, Madame Franziska, who is a tiny woman with red hair teased up to almost half her own height, but attired to perfection in a turquoise shot silk suit of long skirt and fitted jacket with slashed sleeves. There’s a white blouse beneath the jacket on which I can see pintucks and a prim collar trimmed with lace, fastened with a gold coin for a button, the head of a goddess carefully kept upright so she’s facing a particular direction as if it’s important for the Madame’s very existence. The outfit is expensive and beautiful, and even the apprentices are better dressed than I. I should simply shut up and let Aoife order these. I should let her worry about where the money’s coming from. I should let her be the adult. I should just be pleased to have something pretty and new and mine for a change, not hand-me-down clothes and second-hand secrets. Mine. ‘Now, something for the playhouse this evening.’

  The modiste smiles, clicks her fingers and one of the apprentices scurries away as if she knows precisely what her mistress wants. Perhaps she does, perhaps they’ve worked together so long their communication requires no words. Or perhaps this is simply a kind of theatre itself, something agreed upon as standard behaviour whenever someone with too much money and too little sense wanders in off the street.

  I throw another glance at Brigid. But Brigid will soon marshal us to cobblers’ emporiums where we will purchase delicate shoes and evening bags to match. Thence to jewel-smiths for new earrings for me, a necklace, bracelet, brooch, and rings for Aoife, and whatever else she wants I imagine. My grandmother has none of my qualms about spending money as if it’s air.

  But for now: this.

  The apprentice scampers back. The three of them are identical and I cannot tell one from the other as their outfits match. Perhaps with time and study I might be able to distinguish that the eyes of one tilt more than those of the other two, that there’s a star-shaped freckle on one’s cheek, and the third is just that bit plumper than her sisters, but that’s not to be. Besides, I’m mesmerised by the gown.

  It’s red and black, lace and silk with pearls and jet sewn into flowers; it’s slender with a mermaid tail of a skirt, long tight sleeves, high back, and a plunging neckline. It’s exquisite and scandalous, and I want it and I hate it, but I want it more.

  ‘Grandmother,’ I say and it’s barely a breath.

  ‘Try it on.’ Aoife looks at the modiste sternly. ‘We’ll need it delivered for this evening.’

  The modiste nods, her hair swaying dangerously like it might collapse at any moment. She clicks her fingers again – I notice her nails this time, painted gold and decorated with tiny pearls and shining stones – and all three apprentices are stripping me out of my old black frock. We’re the only ones in the store, the doors have been latched, the curtains pulled across; a sure sign that someone more important than anyone else on the street has taken over, and that great amounts of coin are being extracted from their purse.

  And the dress fits.

  It fits so snug that the lace looks like tattoos on my skin. Once, when I was a child, we drove past the port and I saw the women on the street corners, waiting for custom; one of them had artwork all up her arms and across her chest and throat. Colourful and strange, I’d never seen anything like it, so glorious… so defiant. I think I look like her now, but Aoife merely nods as if that’s the desired effect. Brigid’s face is rigid, set in lines of distaste. I’m not sure if she’s thinking what I am or just bitter that she couldn’t fit into a dress like this even if she wanted to: she doesn’t have the height and she doesn’t go in and out in the right places.

  ‘No…’ I start to say, but Aoife talks over me.

  ‘That looks well enough, nothing to adjust. We shall take it with us.’ She smiles, and says, ‘Send the bill to Mr Fitzpatrick.’

  The modiste nods again as if this is only to be expected. And Brigid glares at my grandmother and I think she’s a fool if she lets the old woman see what’s inside her head and heart.

  ‘Now, come along. We’ve got more to do, then we must rest before this evening.’

  And we’re out in the carriage once again and I remember that Aoife had said five dresses, but we’ve only taken four. I’m about to open my mouth but then I think we’ve spent so much already and won’t Aidan be displeased? I seal my lips.

  * * *

  Lying on top of an intricately made maiden’s quilt, in the black and red dress, staring at the ceiling and trying not to vomit. Not that I ate much in the restaurant, the gown wouldn’t allow it. My hair is still up in all those carefully constructed curls Brigid’s lady’s maid created, with strands of jet wound through, and I can feel every single copper pin in it. If I fell into a pond I’d sink straight to the bottom from their sheer weight.

  I can feel, too, the finger marks made by Aidan on my right wrist, like a bracelet I didn’t ask for yet will never be rid of.

  I wonder if all this would have happened if Óisín hadn’t died? Would he have kept me safe or was this something that was always planned? Would he have sat me down and explained
it the way he did maritime law? Made sense of it, made me want to help the family? Made me consider this all a duty?

  The fire in the hearth flickers and flips, throwing shadows around the room, up the walls and across the curtains that hang on this bed, but I’m not really seeing that, I’m seeing the evening over and over in my head.

  6

  The Paragon Theatre has a restaurant in its basement, no tables out in the open, but closed “cabinets” set around the walls in a circle, each with its own door for privacy. Just enough room inside for a table and chairs for four, and a thin servitor. Bookings are hard to get, expensive, exclusive, the food is cleverly arranged to please the eye although the taste is somewhat lacking – bland rather than awful, which is why they get away with it I suppose.

  Aoife and Brigid accompany us: Aoife in a magnificent purple gown with newly acquired amethysts, Brigid looking like a little girl in a pink silk dress that washes her out. I wish Aoife had been kind enough to guide her in dressing; I wish, briefly, that we were still friends and I could have said something without causing offence. But Aoife is not kind unless it gains her an advantage, and she thinks Brigid has nothing to offer. And I remember too well what was done by my cousin.

  ‘Did you like the quilt on the bed?’ Brigid asks quietly as we ride in the carriage.

  ‘Oh. Yes. It’s lovely.’

  ‘I made it,’ she says with a smile.

  ‘Such clever work,’ I reply, wondering at this sudden pleasantry.

  ‘It’s a gift for you. You must take it home when you return to Hob’s Hallow.’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Of course.’

  At dinner, I sit beside Aidan (in blue velvet frock coat, embroidered waistcoat, black silk trousers, highly polished shoes with gold buckles), who speaks mostly to my grandmother, occasionally to his sister, and not at all to me until we’ve finished our meal and it’s time to take our balcony seats for the performance. Then he stands, pulls out my chair and offers his arm with a smile (strange to see such an expression aimed at me). He says ‘Shall we?’ as if it’s the most agreeable idea in the world.

  I hesitate for he should by rights be escorting Aoife; she’s the oldest, the most important, but my grandmother senses my hesitation and gives a curt nod (Go on, girl, don’t be an idiot), and I know better than to question. So I put my hand on his proffered arm, touch the softness of the fabric beneath my fingers (I wear no gloves for they’d cover the long lacy sleeves and ruin the effect), and the muscle beneath the fabric. I feel too close to him and my breath catches.

  And so we leave the restaurant, up the small flight of steps to the foyer, which is a masterful mix of cream and gold paint, statuary and chandeliers, crimson-suited men-staff who check tickets and direct people to the correct doors, and women in low-cut ebony dresses, carrying trays heavy with drinks in crystal glasses. We cross the open space, heading towards the grand staircase.

  ‘Now, Brigid, don’t they look fine together?’ I hear Aoife say and glance over my shoulder at her; something’s lodged in my throat, a formless panic. Aoife’s taken my cousin by the arm and is holding her back so Aidan and I might walk on ahead, across plush red carpet. We garner glances from the other theatre-goers, curious, speculative, judgmental. (Out so soon in public after a funeral! And that dress!) Some just plain stare. I catch sight of our reflection in the mirrored walls as we ascend, and we do look very fine together, tall and well-made, towering over others. I’m caught by my own image: I’ve never been dressed in such a way before, never had make-up on, but Aoife herself painted my features – cleverly, not overdone, just highlighted what’s already there. There are heavy diamond and ruby earrings that brush against my neck, diamond and jet bracelets around each wrist; all bought with Aidan’s coin.

  I’ve been told I’m lovely by my grandmother and Óisín, by Maura, the tenants… but growing up alone and mostly isolated there’s been nothing and no one to reinforce this, so it’s hard to know what it means, really. But here, now, with others watching, all these gazes, male and female, glued to me? I know at last that “lovely” means “visible”, no matter how much I might wish not to be. For a panicked moment I want to scrub the paint from my face, scrub myself out of existence, have no more eyes upon me, trying to pierce me, divine me, to know me, to take a piece of me for themselves.

  But then I draw a deep breath, lift my chin, push back my shoulders. I’m Aoife O’Malley’s granddaughter and that means something, even if it’s only that I’m proud and look like I think everyone’s beneath me. I’ll take what armour I can.

  Aidan sees me to my seat, then attends to Aoife and Brigid. Brigid’s expression is set: stoic, displeased. If we were friends, perhaps it wouldn’t be. Perhaps things would be different. Perhaps I could look to her for help.

  But help from what? That her brother has paid me attention for the first time ever? That I’m here in this theatre, for the first time ever, and there are eyes upon me like mouths licking the flesh from me? That I can only feel my heart thudding in my chest and I think it might be rattling my ribs? I’m being a fool and I know it.

  Another deep breath, and a serving girl steps into our box and offers glasses of champagne with strawberries floating in the liquid. I sip too deeply. This is my second (there was one with dinner), and it goes to my head far too quickly. I’m used to drinking winter-lemon whiskey with Óisín and Aoife, but this stuff is different, strong in another fashion. Aidan sits beside me, doesn’t look at me, but I feel myself observed and glance up.

  Across from us, in another balcony seat in the rarefied air of the theatre, sits a blonde woman. Delicate features, eyes slanted like a cat’s, her dress of green even more scandalously cut than mine, her hair a tremendous confection of curls and gems. In one white-gloved hand is a champagne glass and in the other the mouthpiece of a smoking pipe, one of the exotic sort of coloured glass that bubble and puff out smoke like an intricately-shaped small dragon. She’s looking at me, at Aidan, a long considering gaze; there’s no friendliness in it, only calculation, as if I’m a prize she might sell.

  On the other side of me, Brigid’s lips barely move as she whispers, ‘Bethany Lawrence.’

  Our Queen of Thieves. I’ve never seen her before. She looks younger than I ever thought. Beside her is a tall handsome young man with thick ruddy hair; he’s beautifully dressed and most solicitous to her. Without knowing his function, I can still guess his position in her entourage. But he doesn’t look cheap; doesn’t look hired. So perhaps he is something else?

  Before my mind can pick further at the idea there’s the smell of smoke as candles are snuffed, and the noise from the audience subsides at this signal. The curtains hiding the stage part with a whisper to show a single woman standing on the dusty boards. Her dress is silver as the moon, her hair black as night, lying down her back like a slick of oil. She appears tall from where we sit.

  She opens her lips and begins to sing. I don’t understand the language, but it’s beautiful as it washes over the ears. Her voice is heavenly, and I sit forward in my seat as if to be closer to the notes, as if they might touch me somehow. Maura sang to me when I was a child, but I’ve not been able to convince her to do so for many a year – lullabies have grown as scarce as bedtime tales from Aoife. I could read for myself, sing for myself, but there’s something magical about song and story when they’re given, something unique.

  I feel this woman’s melody is a gift, even though its words are incomprehensible.

  I notice, after a while, that she does not shift from her spot. She does turn, left to right, hands reaching forth in gestures that are simple and repetitive. There’s a stiffness to her; at first I think she stays put because she’s in shoes too high to risk steps, but then I notice the joins in her elbows, at her neck and shoulders, wrists. I lean forward further, almost draping myself over the railing, so I can squint at her, harder and harder. It’s not elegant, and I’m ruining the effect of all Aoife’s make-up, all Brigid’s maid’s hairdressing, and the
dress is growing more and more constricting, but I can’t help myself.

  There! At the corners of her mouth are lines, they run down to her chin, visible as she opens her lips to let the sound out. The stilted motions, the repetition: she’s an automaton! Now I can see the silver patterns running up and down her bare arms are not tattoos, but perhaps decoration, perhaps some part of her functioning.

  There’s a movement beside me, hot breath against my ear and Aidan is whispering, ‘Do you like her?’ and there’s a strange catch in his voice that I don’t understand.

  I barely take my eyes from her to answer. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve never seen the like.’

  He says no more, but sits back in his seat, a smug smile on his lips, and my attention returns to the mechanism on stage. She continues to sing and I cannot tell if it’s a love song, or one of grief, or a call to arms. Perhaps it is all three; perhaps that’s the only thing it can be.

  When she is done, I feel bereft. The curtains close so she can be removed without anyone seeing how she must be carted away like a piece of machinery, as if she’s not a work of art. I have a music box at home that belonged to my mother, or so I’m told. I remember it used to play tunes too, once, but it’s a long while since it’s produced more than a sad weak chime. The way I felt the first time its tune began to die? That’s how I feel now. I lock eyes with Brigid and for a moment it seems we shared something wonderful; then her expression changes as she remembers she doesn’t like me at all.

  The rest of the performance is quite ordinary, or maybe not but merely seems so to me. There are jugglers and dancers, girls who climb ropes into the air which appear to have no anchoring, there are four small plays, a jester who tells filthy jokes that make Aoife snort.

  The automaton does not appear again.