It is an exquisite, minutely detailed architectural
Phenomenon, an enlacement of circles and
Spirals and loops and swirling threads of gossamer that
Truly boggle the mind. But there are no spiders.
Was the fantastic web dormant, inert, abandoned and
No longer utilized by arachnids? What a waste, I
Think somewhat perversely, when in fact I
Thoroughly hate and even fear spiders of every size
and description.

But then I notice something from the corner of my
Eye: there in the farthest reaches of the magnificent
Web, is a rather large, plump rat, completely
Encased in silk. I feel a brief stirring of emotion, of
Pity for a creature so helplessly trapped, but I
Soon overcome it, for I hate rats even more
Than I despise spiders!

I’d come to the farm three days ago, with my two
Cousins, Richard and Dean, intrigued as we were
By the online ads touting the old style midwestern
Autumn get-aways. The site didn’t offer much in
The way of entertainment, but as we were all
Serious antiquers we thought that a survey of
Bellows’ Farms and the environs was a good
Way to spend a week, searching for new pieces
And perhaps some primitive artifacts for our
Shops as well as for our own collections…

Now I felt rather foolish. Locked doors have always
Held an allure for me, and when I took a room in old
Bellows’ Bed and Breakfast on what remained of his
Farm, I was instantly intrigued by the small utility
Shack that was kept locked up tight. “What’s in
There?” I asked him as we toured the property on the
First day. “Ah, but that would be telling,” he answered
Cryptically. And we walked on.

“How much you want for that water pump?” asked
Richard, pointing to a pink-painted hand pump lying
Amidst a score of freshly harvested pumpkins, their
Orange, waxy skins shining in the noonday sun.
“Hunnered thousand dollars,” answered Bellows at
Once. Richard blinked, but said nothing. Dean
Laughed out loud. No more offers were tendered
On our tour.

Whenever we paused to admire something old, such
As the 18kth century farming tools or the well-preserved
Hay wagon, a gem in the rough, Bellows would
Nervously tap the end of his cane on the parched
Turf, as if hurrying us along. It was frankly annoying.
And although he didn’t appear to really need it to
Move about, he kept that cane with him at all times.

That night, at dinner, we pumped the old man for
Information on the neighborhood, asked whether
There were any dealers close by, but we could get
Little out of him. There was only one other guest
At the B & B, an old man in his seventies named
Winters, who kept to himself, always wore a
Bright red sweater, didn’t say much. He did say
He would be leaving soon. For whatever reason,
He seemed anxious to get away. The next night
When he didn’t appear for dinner, we supposed
That he had already left. I asked Bellows about
Him and he replied that Winters was “good and
Gone,” but added that he lived nearby.

All Bellows seemed interested in, unaccountably,
Was spiders! He talked of their mating, their
Breeding, what they ate, how they lived, subjects
I frankly was not too keen on. “The mom spider,”
He said with relish, “likes to eat fresh meat, so she
Stalks her prey when pregnant rather than feeding
Off what she has stored in her web.” Ugh, I
Thought. Who cares?” He seemed fond of rats
Too. In fact, he kept an unnamed pet rat with him at
Dinner and fed him from the table. I shook my head
In dismay, my appetite ruined.

Dean and Richard had likewise explored the
Property, looking as I was for antiques, but on their
Own initiative. We were a competitive bunch. In
Fact, I hadn’t seen either one since dinner the
Evening before. Where had they got to? One
Thing for sure, I’d solved at least one mystery on
The old Bellows farm. I wondered how they had
Fared. Smirking, the two of them had vowed that
They would “skin” the old man and get what they
came for. They were keen traders and negotiators.

After several days of searching the property, I’d found in
Another old garden shed an assortment of huge,
Ancient, cast iron skeleton keys. Surely one of them
Would fit the lock on the mysterious building. And it
Did! Now, back at the door to the shed, I smile in
Satisfaction. Wait a minute, what was that, well
Behind the rat and stretching across the floor?
I peer through the fabulous webbing and into the
Gloomy interior and take stock of what’s there.

Oh, no! I gasp. A human body! No, it’s
Only a flesh-colored manikin, likewise encased in silk.
As an antiquer, it always amazes me how such
Improbable junk turned up in the most unlikely places.
Then I think, what if old Bellows should return and
Find me ransacking his shed? But he won’t find
Me here: I’ll lock up, replace the keys, my curiosity
Satisfied, and the old man none the wiser. I wonder
At the mystery of it all: there is literally nothing here,
Not even a spider..And that’s when the lights fade
to black and a streak of lightning flashes before my
Eyes. The last thing I hear is clicking on the floor
Of the shack.

I’ve been here for hours, or at least so it seems. Bellows
Snatched my wristwatch so I can’t tell the time even if I
Could reach it, but, it’s getting dark outside. I can tell
Because I can see through the crack under the door;
Outside I can hear crickets chirping and somewhere
In the distance, a dog is barking. My head still hurts
From where Bellows clobbered me, probably with
His damn cane. I can feel the blood crusting on the
Back of my head.

At least now I know where Dean and Richard disappeared
To; I am crammed between the two of them. There’s not a
Mark on them that I can see but they are both
Dead. But I’m still alive. Why? Straining my neck to see, I
Spot a bright red swatch of cloth. Winters. He got him too.
We must be in the back of the outbuilding, hidden in shadows.
I can feel the webbing dancing around my face.

The silk of the web is tremendously strong; I can’t move a
Muscle. How do I get out of this? And why am I still alive?
Then I feel something crawling across my shoulder, at the
Same time that I remember what Bellows was talking
About our first night here. The female spider, he said,
When breeding, insists on devouring her prey alive.
Alive? I feel a sharp nip at my side. A bite! Then another
One! Finally, I see the spiders. Thousands of them.
Crawling over my face! And the rats. I hear them chirring
And squealing all around my head. My gagged mouth
Struggles in vain to unleash the anguished scream that’s
Been building inside my brain.

consolidated

The just
meek breed
and are not
weak

They
advance
lucid toward

their own

Invincible inheritance.

A power of humans, they

harbor

Time and
grander than
God designs
knowing

Worship, like
slavery, is
foreign

To free
minds.

Just so the strong grow fat with being
Wrong restrained by inordinate wealth
And Zeno’s paradox alogistic
By halves their privative privilege drains
Drains their Humanity away they cry out! the holy
Names, and yet, they know not how or why
The paved progress of their apparent lives remains
Incommensurable.

Our daughter swims toward us, dipping below the surface, and for a minute all we see of her are two small horns slicing the waves. She comes from the shallows and over to the stones where we sit, our feet dangling. We eat persimmons and look out across the water to the towers of the drowned city.  I turn to her father and remember the night I arrived, when I was afraid to look at him as he stepped out of the shadows, and I looked instead up at the trees and the bowl of the sky.

The day after I turned seventeen, my father and I came out of the clouds and I saw the islands. Real islands, thousands of them, dots of bristly green fading to the horizon. I wanted to cup them in my hands. His voice came in, excited to show me each thing, give me this landscape like a gift he’d invented for me. I remember it from the old news clips, he said. These weren’t islands, this wasn’t the sea. Way back when there was nothing but snow here, Barbiedoll, waving his arm at the expanse, snow, slush, black ice. Tractor-trailers jackknifed in the ditch, pile-ups everywhere, probably on that very highway, pointing to a distant spire of asphalt jutting from the water. Pile-ups, Barbiedoll, pile-ups! A fine spray shot from his mouth and hit the helicopter window. Honestly, you would not believe it. Sideways snow, whiteouts. He looked at me to convince himself that I would not believe the whiteouts. Look at it down there, Barbiedoll, he went, feast your eyes, now waving both arms. Fantastic, he said. A tropical paradise, he said. He squeezed my shoulders. Fantastic again,just to drive the point home. This was the arctic circle, and we were in it.

It’s like an oven on these islands, he said happily, as the heat wrapped around me like a tongue. All I’d ever known were the cold breezes of the compound, icy sips of air that drifted through the rooms. Mother’s flinty fingers pulling down the blinds, sun flecking the upper canopy. Don’t touch the front gate or you’ll char your hands, and I didn’t go near the gate ever, although I was a bad daughter in every other way. Mother ticked-off and too tight in her thought-corsets, clacking across the compound in those high-heeled shoes, you, girl, you can’t even put together a decent breakfast or choose the right color wallpaper.

Take her with you, she said to Dad. We were looking at the northern archipelago on his screen. Give me a break.

My father and I passed over a town half-buried in water, over green that flowed like a river below our feet. Look, said Dad, the islands, thousands of them. This is my lab, Barbiedoll. All this. So much to study, you have no idea.

To me, the Arctic Circle didn’t look like a lab. A lab was Dad’s labyrinth of white basement rooms at the far end of the compound. White lights, white coats, people with masks, and those things like turkey basters in their hands, sucking bird flu or the red plague or pale blood from one tray of vials and squirting them into another.

And there were the other things. Better not to think about them in their cages and water-baths that he let me see only I never should have, I was only little then. It’s okay, I remember him saying, they won’t hurt you. Now here he was practically saying it again. The islanders they’re different from us, but don’t worry.

Will we be okay?

Yes, we’ll be okay, he said and laughed. The islanders were harmless, knew their place. They won’t hurt you. Nothing’s gonna happen.

Under the high bowl of stars the helicopter touched down, the bushes and grasses went sideways in its wake, and through the screen of trees I saw a long low house that went on forever. I stepped out, looked up at the sky, heard the sea tonguing the shore.

Our names were called from the doorway. It was Uncle Winch the lab surgeon, Uncle Winch who smelled of mice and electrical currents, Uncle Winch who practically jumped off the wide porch, Brothers in arms, he yelled, Barbiedoll, partners in crime, their arms around each other.

I looked past Uncle Winch and Dad. I saw the people, the not properly human people, standing in the shadows.

The islanders. The harmless islanders.

Nothing’s gonna happen.

They stood there like stone.

Here, Cornelia, said Uncle Winch, show this tired girl to her bed, nudging a woman forward. Beside her, a man held a dog by its collar. This is Galileo, said Uncle Winch, and here’s the night dog. The dog was a tight bristling shadow with yellow teeth.

Galileo came forward to take my suitcase and my gun box, and was his skin really blue, the blue of water, or was it the moonlight, or were my eyes playing tricks on me? He bent to my luggage, and it was then that I saw on his head the two horns. I reached back for Dad’s hand, but he’d taken over the dog. It was whining, belly on the floor, good boy, said Dad, good boy.

ButGalileo’s horns. The low arc of his horns in the air. Galileo’s hands like human hands lifting my cases. The blue fingers on the leather.

Good boy, again.

Cornelia, said Uncle Winch, and Cornelia moved into the light of the porch. I saw her long dress and smeared apron, knife in one hand, Cornelia standing as if interrupted in the kitchen. I didn’t want to look at her head. I looked instead at the animal that was neither snake nor fish that hung from her other hand. I remember trying to look everywhere but at her horns and bluish skin.

There was a boy, too, about my age. I didn’t look at him. I looked everywhere else, at the trees, at the stars cupping the sky.

Dad, I said, but Dad just squeezed my shoulders, everything’s good, he whispered, you’ve seen worse, and I watched him go off with Uncle Winch. Cornelia led me through rooms and gardens and at the far end, she opened a door. This is yours, she said in a voice, a human voice, low as a whisper. Galileo slid my suitcase and the gun box inside. I was alone in the darkness, afraid to lie down, afraid to sleep. The moon cast a shard of light across the white sheets of the bed.

Dad, I called when I heard him, finally, at his door across the hall.

Nothing to worry about, he said lightly, they know their place. He sounded a bit drunk. Oh, he said, I nearly forgot. I’m calling your mother. Their voices came across the hall and into my room.They were arguing about me. Mother’s voice was teary and shaking but it got choked off.

I shut my door and lay on the bed, looking out at the branches that lifted and fell in the wind. I heard Dad release the dog. It went padding through the hallways and through the gardens, and sometimes it snuffled or whined, or seemed to stop and listen, then move on.

Morning.

In the kitchen, Cornelia was skinning the snake-fish. It was as long as my arm.

What’s that?

An eel, she said. The eel-word filled my mouth, slippery, with a sickening taste. I slid past her horns and concentrated instead on her eyes, which shone when the boy came in the door. His skin was a lighter blue than hers, and his horns were young. He had a beautiful smile. I made myself look at his horns and then at hers.

My boy, said Cornelia, showing him off to me, her hand in his hair. He’s come for his traps, she said, putting a piece of bread and a yellow fruit into a worn plastic bag. I watched him go down the path to the shore, juggling the plastic bag and an armful of wire mesh boxes. He climbed into a rowboat and fixed the oars in the locks, rowed along the shoreline till he disappeared.

He came back at night. I didn’t see him but heard the oars slipping through the water and the boat knocking against the stones. Then his footsteps on the path. Mother? Are you there? Cornelia was serving dinner in the dining room and went back into the kitchen when she heard his voice. I listened to them through Uncle Winch talking to Dad. I learned, from my listening, that the boy’s name was ManRay, and that it was eels he caught in the traps that he dropped wetly in the kitchen, and he stayed out all day with nobody looking over his shoulder. Like a boy from the compound, except for the blue skin and the horns. There’s nothing wrong with the horns, I told myself.

Salt fields, Dad was saying.

Uncle Winch picked some gristle from between his teeth. Seawater’s moving in faster than expected. We’ll decide which ones to keep. Then we separate them, move them further out.

Dad put down his knife and fork. And if they resist?

No problem, we need only a few, some good ones off-island, all docile. We have time, said Uncle Winch.

Fantastic, said Dad.

On the second morning, I heard Dad fiddling around in the supply room, shutting the door, locking it, calling, Barbiedoll you up yet? He was in work clothes, his gloves and face shield hanging from his waist. We went down the hallway, through the gardens, to the dining room. Coffee? he said to Uncle Winch. Uncle Winch, too, was dressed for work. They stood at the window, watching for the helicopter, drinking their coffee. Seven gastromorphs on island three, Dad said, frowning at his cellphone, blood-clotting factors normal.

Good, said Uncle Winch.

Wait, still reading from the cellphone, three females, one immature, the shell still soft. Oh. A problem. Blood-borne pathogens, maybe? Let’s get out there and have a look-see. The helicopter landed and sent the grasses sideways. I stood there and watched them leave.

We’ll move them right away, said Uncle Winch as they climbed inside. Island three, he said to the pilot.

I went into the kitchen.

Cornelia was bent over a chopping block on the counter.

Can I sit here?

She put a dish of yellow fruit on the table, mangos, she said, holding one out to me, and went back to her slicing and cutting. I put the mango down, not knowing how to eat it. The kitchen was filled with the sound of her knife against the wood.

Here’s my boy, she said, looking up.

ManRay was in the door with his empty traps. He looked at the floor and spoke. Want to come with me tomorrow, he said, out in my boat? His voice was shy. Too shy to say those words. He put down his traps and stood across from me, leaning against the wall.

I’ve never been in a boat. I could hardly hear myself. I’ve never gone outside. Except to come here. He looked at me, polite. Worse than any mockery. I lived in a compound, I said.

Compound? said ManRay.

I did go out later, with my rifle. I got some empty tin cans from a pile behind one of the sheds and set them up on a half-collapsed roof. I couldn’t concentrate very well because of being in the open air, unprotected. It was dark when Dad and Uncle Winch got back.

Dinner was eels braided on top of onions in a kind of pie, and Dad kept smacking his lips. Fantastic, he said, what a cook, and gave Cornelia a thumbs up. After dinner, we played cards in his room late into the night, and then he called Mother on his screen. More fertile ones than we’d thought, four so far, he said cheerfully, and some of the young just coming out of their shells. Three, though, clotting factors not so good.

Too bad, said Mother about the clotting factors. Her image was blurry. She kept interrupting with her plans for braised 3D pork bellies.

In the morning after the helicopter left, Cornelia went down to the shore. I saw her from the window. She waded into the water, her blue body dipping in and out of the waves. She swam till she was only a speck in the distance, and came back later, up through the mangroves, her skin dripping in the heat. She waved when she saw me.

I met ManRay at the water, and he held the boat steady while I climbed in. He saw how scared I was. I sat down, gripping the seat. He pushed off. We were still by the shore when he said I could put my hand over the side. See how shallow it is.

I can’t, I said. He put his own hand in, grazing the small stones.

We waited. Later, good, he told me, watching my fingers touch themselves to the water. Do you feel it? he said. It’s the skin of the world. I watched the drops fall from my hand. It’s beautiful, he saidand made a splash with his oar. He started to row, slowly. Are you okay?

Yes. I turned to watch our island disappear behind the one we were circling.

Here’s the reef. Look, said ManRay, look down. Under the surface were the roofs of houses. That’s where they put the old people after they moved them here. And the house with the tv antenna, that was my great-grandparents’ house. But there was no tv. They didn’t want us to have a tv.

They? Who are they?

The ones who sent us.

What’s a tv?

Like a screen, he said, but it can’t hear you walking around.

We rowed out toward a further island. I saw, as we grew closer, that it wasn’t an island, but trees, persimmon trees, he said, that grew in the earth along a high mound of pink stones. That was the provincial legislature, he said.

When we got back home I said thank you. I don’t know what made me do it but I reached over to him and touched his arm. I didn’t want to ask what is a provincial legislature, for fear of looking stupid.

I get back early and where are you? Nowhere.

I was sitting down at the mangroves by the water, I lied, and fell asleep.

You’re off the hook this time Barbiedoll, Dad laughing but ticked off underneath, tomorrow we go island-hopping for the rest of the week, you and me, getting away. I thought of getting away with Dad, whatever that looked like. I thought of gliding out over the water with ManRay, of the oars clinking in their locks. Of the houses under the surface, and his arms holding the boat as I stepped back onto shore.

I want to stay here.

Dad laughed. After all my great plans, he said, to show you the islands?

I invented. I’m doing target practice.

Okay. Okay.

We didn’t talk much at dinner. I saw Cornelia move back and forth across the kitchen. ManRay came in the door with his traps full and squirming, and our eyes met. Later in Dad’s room, we called Mother. No, I’m not doing better today, she said between coughs. But you, daughter. She reached out to touch her screen. Mind yourself. Her eyes were swollen and her handkerchief spotted with red. She bent and spat into the bowl on the floor. There, she said. Her blood wasn’t stable, but whose was? I felt so sorry for her.

We rowed out every day past the provincial legislature to where the land ended and the real waters began, with the drowned towers off in the distance.

He taught me to swim, holding his hand under my stomach till the day he took his hand away and I floated like a leaf on the water.

We dived off his boat to graze the tv antenna, swim down over the house, through the slippery green rooms. I found a box stuck under a windowsill. We surfaced and looked inside. ManRay lifted out a peeling photograph, a man and woman without horns. My great-grandparents, he said.

We faced each other, treading water.

Why do you have these? I touched his horns.

They’re from the experiments.

Experiments?

The ones they did on my great-grandparents. They were gestating new strains at the lab, he said, they did that every few years. His great-grandparents were no longer needed. They got shipped out here. I didn’t know what gestating meant. I was confused by his explanation. They really keep you in the dark back at that compound of yours, he said, don’t they.

I thought about the compound. Not dark. Clean white light everywhere. A bright place, too bright to think, but darkness around the edges of everything. We pulled ourselves up over the sides of the boat and slithered in, waving our legs for balance. We rowed together back to the shore, his hands on one oar, mine on the other.

That room, he said. The one with the photograph. My mother was born in that room.

After his island-hopping, which Dad said was really fantastic, he and Uncle Winch stayed home. One night at dinner, which was shrimps with grapefruits and forest honey, he said, Cornelia, you’ve outdone yourself. I raise my glass to you, and he lifted his glass in a salute.After the shrimps came mango ice cream, from mangos picked off the tree behind the shed. I’m in heaven, said Dad. My wife’s gonna be jealous. Cornelia looked at the floor. The nerve he had,following her with his eyes, saying not bad, watching her walk her slow walk into the kitchen. Almost like a real human, if you don’t look at the horns. Later in the living room, he went, I’m just kidding around, what’s the big deal? Somebody like her, it’s okay. She’s just a chimera. His cigar went out and he lit it again. They aren’t like us.

I said: you wouldn’t know.

I’d made him mad, I could tell by the way he turned his back and went quiet. They have their uses, was what he said.

Then I crossed the line. Uses? I said. I’m in heaven? I said. My wife’s gonna be jealous? I said. Like that? He got up from his chair, and out flew his hand. He slapped me. I took my rifle and slammed out of the house. I went down to the mangroves at the shore, shot out over the water. It didn’t matter where I was aiming. Any place would do. He yelled for me to get back inside. I didn’t. I stayed there listening to the waves and then I kept shooting. He came down and found me, yanked the rifle from my hands, pulled me to him and cried. He said things to me, things I forgot as I stood cold and angry inside his arms.

The next day my aim got sharper, everything inside me swimming to my trigger finger, and crack, the ricochet off my shoulder, the rush of the bullet to its target. I went out in the mornings and stayed till nightfall, and even though it was just my grandfather’s old rifle with terrible sights, at the end of the week before dark I brought down a petrel skimming out over the bay.

At dawn, the helicopter angled up away from the house, and I saw Dad’s arm, tiny now, waving at me. Before the sun climbed over the islands, ManRay and I rowed out and lowered the eel traps into shallow water. We ate mangos and swam all day, collecting the traps as the night air gathered. We loaded them into the boat and carried them through the mangroves and up the hill to Cornelia in the kitchen. I didn’t want to touch the eels. You have to get over your initial repulsion, she said, which is nothing more than fear, and she placed a small eel in my palm. The next day she taught me to make a rich broth from the bones, to roll out a crust and fill it with the wild onions, to braid the eels into a lacy shawl, and bake it all in her dish, feeding the cookstove five sticks of wood at a time. We sat around the table, Cornelia, ManRay and Galileo and me, and we devoured the whole pie. Then we played cards and drank some of Galileo’s sugarcane wine.

Cornelia was in the water. She’d taken the rowboat into the bay. I watched her throw down the anchor, a rope tied around a rock. She seemed to be over the houses, then dived. She stayed down for a long time. Later she came up, left the boat anchored there, and headed out in the direction of the provincial legislature. I heard the distant splash at each lift and kick of her feet.

Dad never went into the kitchen, but now there he was. Standing across from Cornelia, facing her, saying something about the next meal. I have a fish here, they gave it to me yesterday at island six. He put the fish on the table.

Cornelia took the fish and turned it over in her hands. I can grill this, she said. With persimmons and sorrel and wild garlic.

Good, said Dad, fantastic. Then he told her: I need to do some tests.

A current of air, a troublesome current, went out from Dad to Cornelia.

Yes? said Dad, looking up and seeing me, frowning, what is it?

The nights got darker and thicker, the bowl of stars lowering itself over the gardens that ran through the house. The sheet stuck to my body in the narrow bed and the air didn’t move. It filled the room like a jelly. Dad grew quiet.

A cage settled over the days. Nothing to eat, Cornelia, only coffee this morning please, and no, Winch, I won’t go out, I’m waiting for messages. Finally, one morning, Dad appeared at breakfast after days of frowning at the screen in his room. He told Uncle Winch the order had come through. We got the go-ahead. We’re on.

Cornelia was heading out from shore. Why didn’t I use my phone to take a picture of her as she swam? Or a movie? You never think of it at the time. Preserve it now, while it’s still here, this moment, so you can look back and back and back and see the lift and fall of her arms, the carving of the water, the picture organized into shapes and colours, into Cornelia flattened on a screen for me to remember.

I woke from the silence. No night dog padding through the gardens. It was inside Dad’s room, whining softly. I opened my door and stepped out into the hall. The moon shone through the pines. Halfway through the dining room, in a pool of shadow, I was stopped by what I saw. Dad in the kitchen, seated at the table. He looked like he was trying to leap out of his body.

Here, he said. Bring it here. The ripest one.

A hand appeared. Cornelia’s hand. I’d never noticed how slender and pointed her fingers were. They held a mango.

Closer, Dad said, give it to me, and Cornelia approached him, put the mango into his hand. Cut it, he said.Her hand lifted the knife from the table, held it over the mango, over his hand holding the mango. She cradled his hand in hers, pushing up to support the cutting, worked the knife around and under the skin, sliced the pieces off the seed bulk, the knife never touching his hand.

He ate till the mango was finished, sat back and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. I could hear him chewing, and then he swallowed, never taking his eyes from Cornelia and the knife. Her hand held it steady. Moved it closer. He spoke. I’m your monster. Aren’t I. Your monster.

He got to his feet and came toward the door. I think he might have been drunk. I couldn’t let him see me. He almost touched me as he passed. I watched him go unevenly through the rooms and the halls, through the gardens and then came the opening and closing of his bedroom door. I watched Cornelia in the kitchen. Back and forth went her hand with the cloth across the table, back and forth. She picked up the kitchen knife and stood looking down at it, running her forefinger along the blade.

In the morning she was in the water, and swam away from me till she disappeared around the curve of the shore. I don’t know when she came back, but when I went to the kitchen, she was sitting at the table. The knife lay on the cutting board. There were no persimmons, no oranges in the bowl. No wild sorrel draining in the sink. No fish laid out ready to scale and clean.

They want to operate on my mother.

What do you mean, operate?

I could hardly hear him. His voice was shaking. They said they want to remove her horns.

How do you know this?

Galileo heard.

Get her out of here, I said.

Yes. We leave in the morning.

Leave tonight.

There was a leak in the boat. Galileo was fixing the leak, but it had to dry. They’d go around dawn.

Dad, I said at his door, why are you taking Cornelia’s horns.

We have to monitor the blood supply, check for clotting factors, possible pathogens. Her horns are key to this.

Did she agree?

She’s an ideal candidate.

Did she agree?

His voice exploded. What do you think I am? he yelled. Yes, she agreed.

How do you know when a person’s lying? There’s nothing specific that they do, you just know. Words spilled out of his mouth. New stage in the research, pathogens in the blood, trauma, genetic considerations. Infinite variables. Bleeders, Barbiedoll, we’re all bleeders, do you want to end up like your mother. Verge of a breakthrough what it means you have no idea. A simple operation, an hour at the most. Horn tissue contains the answer. Then two small bandages where Cornelia’s horns had been. Blood and tissues flown to the lab for testing. Breakthrough, he said again.

I woke when the night was no longer night, waiting for the clink of the oars in the locks, the boat being pushed out into the water. There was nothing but the lapping of the waves. They must have gone. I sank back into my bed. The dog was prowling. I heard its shaggy breath at my door, its feet padding through the halls and through the gardens of the house. Don’t sleep don’t sleep.

No coffee on the dining room table, no smell of oranges or scrambled eggs in the kitchen. Voices somewhere down beyond the mangroves: men and women in their boats crowding along the shore.

What’s going on? There was a rich ugly smell like at the butcher’s and it was coming from the kitchen.

Get out, yelledUncle Winch, who held a sheet blooming with blood. He was trying to stuff it into the kitchen stove, but it wouldn’t fit and made a red trail across the linoleum. And beyond him, Dad with my rifle, yelling into his cellphone, Where is the Goddamn helicopter?

What was this laid out on the floor? On a pool red and sticky as paint? Lift the sheet, lift the sheet but too scared. Lift the sheet. Her head was turned toward me, reddish trails like dried streambeds from her nostrils, ears, eyes, mouth, from the pores of her skin. And bruises on her arms. She must have fought. Eyes wide and staring at nothing. Two black pools in her head where her horns had been.

This wasn’t real. It could never be real. It was one of those made-up horrors they tagged from your compound life and put on the screen to terrify you, get you begging for them to make it go away, make everything tidy, everything quiet and grey again. Here was the helicopter thwack thwack against the trees and the grasses, move, move, Dad shouted, waving the rifle, shoving me out the door, and the men and women from the fishing boats were coming up through the mangroves. Somebody threw a rock and Dad went sideways. As he fell he slid me the rifle. Barbiedoll! Shoot!

My father. My father who’d rocked me on his knee. Who ran the cool cloth across my forehead when I was sick, pushed me on the swing in the compound yard, put me on his shoulders and I was bigger than the sky.

Shoot, he yelled.

My father who took me to work with him and let me pour the yellow liquid into the blue liquid and watch the emerald green smoke burst out like a small volcano. Who showed me the veins of leaves under his microscope, the lace of a fly’s wing, mosquito larvae in a drop of water. Who let me feed the creatures in their cages, even the big ones who looked like people but he said they weren’t, they were more pig than human. Or the ones who were part woman part mouse part scorpion part snail and some kind of blood bacteria and I had no idea at that age what was a bacteria an animal or a plant or something else but I forgot what he told me, rushing me past the blood-harvesting room where they lay, asleep and draining, in rows. Or the little ones in the special place at the back, part child part blue-violet wavelength with virus protein, dolphin dna, notes of snail dna, them with their soft shells and swimmy bodies, and then the shells dropped off and blue legs appeared, and little horns sprouted on their heads, and even though they spoke and said please and thank you they weren’t real people, never think they are real people at all.

Shoot, he yelled again. The women were over Uncle Winch. Cornelia’s kitchen knife lay red at his side. ManRay was there, right in front of me, and Dad yelled pull the goddamn trigger. ManRay was looking at me and trying to say something, and I pulled the trigger.

Somewhere something was burning. It must have been the helicopter because I saw its smoky mangle jutting above the trees.

I’m sorry. Did I actually say that? I’m sorry? What do those words even mean?Where do you find the right words for the thing that pulls you apart from yourself? I looked at the rifle and at him lying there on the ground, and he seemed so quiet, as if nothing had happened at all. Nothing. The fingers of his left hand were moving slightly. I couldn’t stop looking at his fingers. Wake up, I said, and started to shake him, Dad, wake up. Galileo pulled me off. I’m sorry, I said to my father.

Galileo’s arms were around me. ManRay’s arms were around me.

We buried my father in the high ground, covering the grave with palm leaves. There was no ceremony. No words of remembrance. What should I remember? I tried to call Mother but she’d been shut down. Function temporarily deleted, the screen said. I sat there and cried. Not for what was, but for what could have been.

The islanders washed Cornelia’s body. They covered her with the flowers and leaves of the shore, laid her in the water, and we floated her to the deep of the bay above the drowned houses, lowering her to the roof, their old roof with the tv antenna nearly touching the surface, swimming her into the bedroom of her people.

That night ManRay and I rowed out to the pink granite stones of the provincial legislature, slept under the sky, eating eels, shrimps, and persimmons ripened in the shadow of the stones. It was there, a year later, that our girl was born. We called her Cornelia. Her horns were velvety buds, and her shell, before it sloughed off, was tightly bound like transparent ribbons of seaweed.

We come out here all the time to swim. She’s still the deepest blue, our Cornelia, the blue of the saltwater she was born in. Cornelia, swimming toward me, climbs out to the shore and we sit on the stones of the provincial legislature, dangle our feet over the side. We eat persimmons and look across at the towers of the drowned city.

She’d remembered Grandma’s words as she’d tied the scarf around her neck. “You keep this on Rose, all the way to your daddy’s work, all the way home. You don’t take it off. You don’t stop along the way. You go straight there. Leave the lunch pail and you come home, quick. Out after dark is no place for a thirteen-year-old.”

Grandma’s voice carried the heavy Hungarian accent and inflection of her homeland. Daddy’s accent was thinner and Rose’s almost non-existent. It was as though each generation had retained a part of Hungary equal to their time there. Daddy had been ten when he’d boarded the dirty steamer that had carried them to Canada. Rose loved when Daddy told his childhood stories before bedtime, before heading out to work at the coal mine.

Rose slept while Daddy worked. He slept while she was at school. Grandma kept house and everyone on schedule. Grandma kept house because Mommy had died when Rose was born. Rose sometimes wondered if Mommy had a thinner or thicker accent but was scared to ask. What she knew of her mom, she had overheard when Grandma and Daddy talked, when she pretended to be asleep.

It felt strange skipping up the street with darkness pressing in, heavy, like Grandma’s accent. Rose recalled how the old woman had woken her, unusual urgency in her voice. Daddy had forgotten his lunch bucket and he wouldn’t be able to work all night if he didn’t eat. He had the diabetes.

The click of Rose’s hard leather shoes on the rough road echoed and ricocheted off the walls of the buildings that crowded both sides, looming. It sounded as though she was kicking up the stones instead of dancing over them. A lilting sound reached her, and it was a moment before she realized she’d been singing the words of a folksong Grandma often sang. The tune was quiet, halting but comforting. An alley yawned on her right and Rose skipped closer to the center of the road, thwarting the efforts of skeletal arms, or dirty fleshy ones, that might stretch out of that black space. She peered into the dark maw to see if scrabbly fingers were reaching for her.

Rose walked this route to school every day, but it was unfamiliar in the silence and dark shadows of late evening. No clatter of steel-clad wagon wheels, no children’s play sounds, no mothers calling out instructions, just silence and dark, suffocating and alive.

Rose glanced behind her, left, then right. Her hand clutched Grandma’s scarf, and she lifted the lunch bucket, holding it against herself to keep it from knocking. Her tight grip squeezed the blood from her knuckles.

Grandma had surprised her when she pulled the scarf from the sleeve of her coat; the old woman was seldom without it. Rose enjoyed looking at the scarf’s many colours, how its pattern seemed to shift and change as she gazed at it. Of course, it was just the shiny fabric catching the light as it flowed and rippled in Grandma’s hand. How could a pattern change otherwise? It was warm at her throat and Rose knew why Grandma always kept it with her. It would be real comfort from the arthritis that often made the old lady cry out in her sleep.

Rose understood too, why Grandma had been stern when she knotted it at her throat. “You keep this on.” She didn’t want it to get lost. But there was something else in her eyes, or rather, eye. Grandma only had one eye; the other was just a flap of skin folded over an empty socket. “Plucked out by a raven when I asked a nosey question.” She had responded to Rose’s query. And that empty socket wept a lot, as though forever mourning its loss.

That eye also kept people away, made the kids at school say terrible, hurtful things. Evil eye, gypsy, witch woman. Rose had heard them all, seen them finger a V against their noses, against any vexes. But now the scarf that the old, one-eyed woman had given her was keeping her warm, bringing comfort on a cold, dark, hard street. Rose stopped skipping, quiet wrapped around her. Something snagged her shoe.

Rosie’s quiet curse of the darkness that hid pit-falls in her path was absorbed by the tendrils of fog that swirled around her ankles. A puff of cold air ruffled the scarf. “Cemetery air,” Grandma called the rogue chill breeze of early autumn, “Cooled by the dead.”

Something, maybe mud or dung dropped by a passing horse, tugged at her foot. She stepped with the other, quick to catch herself, and found it stuck as well. Rose uttered a single chirp, but sweat iced her bow as the air thickened, pressing in with the hug of a corpse. Rose jerked up her foot. It only lifted an inch. She tugged harder; her mouth pulled into a grimace. The cords of her neck grew taut. Her laces rose above the fog, then her whole foot, but it remained shrouded in white. What sort of mud was this; she wondered, then realized spectral fingers were gripping her. A bony hand jutted from the ground, wrapped around her ankle like a groping tree root. The fingers squeezed but not with flesh and bone, just tendrils of fog.

As though being freed from a dark crypt, the hand was easier to pull the higher Rose raised her foot. When she could lift it no more, she stepped down hard, slamming it into the cobblestones. The hand let go but remained hanging in the air. Rose pulled up her other foot. A hand held it as well. She stomped that foot back down, freeing it from the dead grip, stirring the fog into dancing, twisting swirls.

Rose stepped back to get away from the floating hands, trying to keep herself from falling. She wanted to run, escape, but couldn’t drag her gaze from the ghostly arms.

The hands reached down into the fog, the elbows still visible. Rose knew the specter was struggling to free itself from the ground, pull itself out as she had pulled herself onto the raft at the swimming pond. Wind swirled around her, encircling her legs and creeping up her body, trapping her in a rising vortex. A droning invaded her ears. It grew in intensity as the wind stiffened, rising in volume and pitch. The fog rose with it, licking at her calves, knees, thighs. A thrumming added to the effect, a pulse pounding at her body. The scarf burned her neck, the loose ends slapping her chin in the wind. Rose tugged at it with one hand, but it tightened, restricting her breathing. She raised her other hand to the scarf; her gaze remained on the figure extracting itself from the roadway. The higher the figure pulled its misshapen lump of a head from the mist, the stronger the wind blew, the louder the wail rose, the greater the pulsing.

Rosie’s fingers picked at the knot in the scarf. Grandma had just looped it but now it was a hangman’s noose. Her eyes bulged as fear scorched her throat. Her lungs heaved, gasping. The figure from the ground stood erect as a grey veil drooped over Rose’s vision. The screeching, pounding wind became her whole world. She felt her eyes closing, her body relaxing, welcoming the darkness. Her shoulders softened.

Then fire coursed through her. From the burning scarf at her throat, it flashed to her feet then up to her shoulders. Down her arms, the heat injected energy into every cell, awoke every muscle, flicked her eyes open. Rose barked a quick “No” and her fingers found the knot in the scarf, just a hanging loop again.

The spirit’s eyes flicked open, two bright orbs piercing the dark. They grew wide, round, then narrowed to slits as the shoulders hunched, the arms raised, and the head lowered. The spirit lunged at her.

Rose swept the thin fabric from her throat and swung it in front of her as a barrier, a glowing shield that flared, lit from within by some secret fuel.

The spirit reared back, a wail louder than the screaming wind escaping its yawning mouth as it tried to alter its attack. It struck the scarf, then disappeared as though passing through a door. Its banshee wail cut off with the suddenness of death. The scarf flared brighter, then the inner fire died away, and it was just a scarf, its pattern shifting and dancing in the wake of the wind from Rose’s movement.

The air was motionless around her, the quiet of the night pressed in as though darkness bore a weight of its own. There was no evidence of the chaos that had assaulted her, pounded her only moments ago. That maelstrom had disappeared as completely as the attacking spirit. Rose realized she was still yelling a long, drawn out no. She tightened her lips, cutting off the sound, making the silence perfect.

Above her, shutters slammed open and a tired voice called out, “What’s the ruckus? Working people have to sleep, you know.”

Rose stepped closer to the building, scrunching her shoulders, making herself small. She moved along the wall, casting quick glances around her. She clamped her mouth shut. After a moment, the shutters clapped shut and a quiet rasp signaled them being locked against the night.

The scarf was warm in her hands, but Rose was reluctant to return it to her neck knowing what it contained. Grandma’s words echoed, “You keep this on, keep you safe.” She pulled it into a loose knot at her throat as Grandma had done only a short while ago. A sense of calm washed through her. She felt safe, protected, despite wearing the essence of some dead thing.

Rose forced her feet to move her forward. She wanted to run home and hide under her covers, but Da needed his lunch. Grandma was relying on her. She moved faster, tracing one hand along the wall, keeping her anchored in the real world, away from one of spirits. Soon she was running, ignoring the danger of tripping on the cobblestones. Imagined spirits at her heels urged her on. She didn’t know if the scarf would protect her anymore, if it could contain another spirit.

Five minutes later, she moved beyond the shelter of the town. Cobblestones gave way to the dirt track that led to the coal mine. Deep ruts carved by the wheels of heavy ore carts offered a treacherous path for anyone on foot, but the softer surface seemed to absorb the ground fog and soon, even the wispy remnant that spilled out of the town faded away. The night hid the moon behind thick clouds, challenging Rose to pick her way in full dark. Squishy, boggy ground on both sides of the roadway forced Rose to navigate the grooves by feel. Her only beacon was the yellow flare of the vent flame at the mine entrance. That dim light wasn’t enough to illuminate the way, but it offered a landmark to guide her.

Moving as fast as she dared, Rose stared into the darkness, fearing what hid there, waiting for a foolish teenager to stumble into its grasp. Why had her dad forgotten his lunch, leaving her to the mercies of night?

She stumbled and tripped as she followed the yellow light of the mine flare. Twice her knees scraped when she fell. After the second nasty fall, she moved to the edge of the road, onto the strip of grass there, but the damp ground sucked at her feet and she imagined scrabbly fingers clawing at her. She tugged at the scarf around her neck, and realized the fingers were only in her mind. The squelching muck of the mire helped her to choose the roadway again, despite its unfriendly surface. She turned her ankle hard when a cry from the bog startled her. She fell, twisting onto her back, pain flaring up her leg. She realized the noise was merely an owl calling for a mate. She continued, limping.

By the time the yellow flare was close enough to reveal the ground, Rose’s ankle had a hammering pain. She could hardly take any weight on that foot. The mine clerk’s shack was close, and Rose sighed. Perhaps Kraten, the timekeeper, would have something she could use as a crutch to get her home. She hated to ask him for anything, felt uncomfortable when he looked at her, but it was him she would leave the lunch bucket with. She would make her stop quick, drop the lunch, get a crutch, and be on her way back home. She reached for the door handle.

“What’s this?” A voice behind her caused her to stumble, twisting her ankle again. Her hand missed the door latch and splinters from the rough wood slid under her fingernails. Rose turned toward the voice as she fell back against the door, gripping her injured fingers against her chest. “Here’s a pretty girl knocking up my door.”

It was Kraten. There was no mistaking that voice, like he was talking through his nose. Even though his face was in shadow, Rose felt his eyes on her like hands, rough and eager.

“It’s Rose. I’ve brought my dad’s lunch.” Rose held the bucket out as though it was a shield.

“I knows who you are,” Kraten pulled his torch closer, chasing the shadows from his face. His smile was wide, full of teeth. His eyes bulged. He took the lunch from her, placing his hand over hers on the handle. “For your da? How fortunate,” Kraten squeezed her hand. Rose tried to pull away, but he held it there. “that you could bring it.” Kraten’s eyes bugged out further as he leaned in close to Rose. He blinked. The way his eyelids slid out and over his buggy eyes reminded Rose of a toad. “A man gets a mighty appetite working the mines.” His tongue slithered over his lips.

“You’re hurting me.” Rose tugged again to free her hand and this time he let her go.

“Not safe for a young woman to be out in the dark. All manner of restless things there. Come inside, I’ll make you comfortable.” Kraten licked his lips again.

“I have to get home. Grandma’s waiting for me.” Rose knew she was speaking too fast but couldn’t stop herself.

“At least stay a wee bit. Get warmed up. Loosen your clothes by the stove. Let the heat sink into yer bones.” His mouth was a toothy grin.

“No.” The word came out of her mouth with force enough to make Kraten pull back as though slapped. “I mean, Grandma will be worried.” After a moment she tried to divert his attention, “I’ve twisted my ankle. Do you have something I could use as a crutch to help me home?”

Kraten’s brow furrowed, and he stepped forward again. “Hurt your foot? Lemme see.” He reached toward her. Rose turned away, not wanting those hands touching her again.

“I’ll be alright.” She said, afraid that no matter what she said, he was going to try to get her inside his shack, alone, touch her. She hobbled a few steps toward the distant town.

“Wait.” Kraten said, pulling the door to his shack open. Light spilled out, carving a wide swath across the roadway, framing Rose in its center. “Yer hurt and scared. I have something that’ll help. Your da would be pretty mad if I didn’t help.” He stepped into the shack and reappeared a moment later. He tossed a broom toward her, one with a wide head of bristles.

Rose bent and picked it up. She tested her weight on it, then tucked the head under her arm, leaning on it fully.

“Thank you. I’ll send it back with Da tomorrow.”

“You do that now. Those things don’t come free, you know. Now, get along.” With a dismissive wave of his hand, he disappeared into the shack and the door closed, cutting off the light.

Rose stood still, her night eyes gone, and waited until she could see again. She hobbled along the road.

In a few moments she left even the meager light of the mine flare and ventured blind. There were no lights in the town to guide her, only her memory of the road. She stumbled often, sometimes her feet caught in the ruts, sometimes the broom. Her arm ached where her crutch dug into it. Night sounds crept out of the bog, but she knew those sounds. Now that she had some time away from the spirit incident, she could picture the crickets and frogs and foxes making the sounds instead of stalking ghosts. Then she heard the sloshing, water sucking noise.

The sound was the same as when she had ventured too close to the swamp and it had grabbed at her feet, but it was also the sound a corpse would make as it pulled itself free from a watery grave. Rose’s free hand found its way to the scarf at her neck as her eyes strained into the darkness, toward the sound, searching. She hobbled a little faster, risking a fall, hopping more on her good foot to take longer steps.

Her breath rasped in her throat and blood pounded in her ears as she hurried on, casting glances over her shoulder. She heard the long grass of the marsh rubbing, splashes where something rushed through the bog. She looked toward the town, where she believed it was, for any sign that she was getting close to the cobblestones. That surface wouldn’t be much easier to crutch over but even a little easier would help. Only darkness ahead. She could step off a cliff any moment for all her eyes could tell her. Her ankle flared and she leaned hard onto the crutch to keep from falling.

Hot breath on her neck and hard fingers closed around her arm. Rose gasped and turned and stumbled and fell onto her back, but the hand lost her in the movement.

“Come here, you little ingrate.” It was Kraten’s nasal voice. “You’ll do what I say, or they’ll say it was a tragedy how you wandered into the bog in the dark when they fish yer body from the muck.”

Rose scrambled backward, pushing with her feet to get away from his voice. Fingers closed on her sore ankle and squeezed. She cried out.

“I said come here.” He tugged her leg. The road scraped into her as he pulled her toward him. “I was nice to you, gave you that broom and everything. Now you’ll be nice to me.” His face was inches from her own. She was close enough to see him despite the darkness, could smell his reeking breath as his words puffed into her face.

“No, please, leave me,” Rose pleaded, pushing backward with her hands, but he held her firm.

“You’ll be nice to me and then you’ll forget it, or I’ll make sure your dad’s begging in the street this time tomorrow. I have the ear of the foreman, you know.” His hands pawed at her, on her legs, her arms, her chest. His breath panted, deepened. His fingers slid to the folds of her skirt, began tugging at it.

Rose kicked out with her good foot, but it glanced off Kraten’s arm, allowing him to crawl between her legs. His hands were up her skirt, tearing at her underwear. Rose pushed on his head and he let go with one hand. Pain flared in her face as his free hand smashed into her.

“I said be nice.”

Rose’s head slammed back onto the road, her arm flopped to one side and lay across the broom. She gripped the handle and swung it hard toward him. She kicked out with her sore foot. The handle struck the side of his head and he reared back. Her foot connected with his throat and he gagged and choked. Rose scrambled backward a few feet when his hands lost their grip.

“Oh you little bugger,” Kraten’s voice had lost its nasal sound, “I’ll be sticking yer head into the muck and holding it there til you quit squirming. Won’t be as nice having at yer then, but I’ll be done before you cool off too much.” He lunged toward her.

Rose turned, crawling away just before the crushing weight of Kraten fell on her. He grabbed her by the throat and began dragging her toward the road edge. His squeezing fingers cut off her breath and her hands rose to her throat. She felt the fabric of grandma’s scarf. It came loose into her hand.

Wielding it like a whip, Rose pulled her arm back. She pulled her knee up to get it between herself and Kraten. She pushed with her knee and pulled her shoulders back and flicked the scarf forward all at the same time. The force of her movement pushed space between her and Kraten, and the scarf whipped forward, the edge of it snapping against his face.

The colours of the scarf blazed to life as if a fire inside was struggling to get out. Rose noted that the blues and greens and greys flashing across the scarf were the same shade as Grandma’s remaining eye. Kraten screamed and pulled backward as though struck by leather instead of silk. The scarf tugged at Rose’s hand like her fishing stick did when she had a bite. Rose looked at Kraten and saw skeletal fingers stretching from the scarf, digging into his face. As she pulled the scarf, the spirit, trapped earlier, pulled free. Kraten’s hands were at his own face, trying to tear free from the boney grip on his cheeks. Blood poured from the gaping holes the fingers dug, their grip so fierce.

The spirit pulled free of the scarf and its blazing light died. Darkness enclosed the scene as Rose saw Kraten run toward the bog, the spirit still clinging to him. She lay still for a moment, then, fearing the spirit would return for her, felt around for the broom and got to her feet.

Finding the cobblestones with her crutch, she knew where she was. She hobbled into the dim light of town, Grandma’s scarf dangling from her fingers.

“We’re almost there now, Lady. Just round that jut of rock and I’ll have you safe ashore in no time at all.”

Djaniye nodded at the grizzled old fisherman at the tiller of the small sailboat, and as ragged flutterings of early snow swirled and danced across the water, pulled her fur-lined cloak more tightly around her. She gazed eagerly at the rocky headland that rose before them.

“Tis scarce more than a whistle of a place, Lady,” observed the fisherman.

“Yes,” she replied, “but up over the cliffs…”

His face was turned away from her, eyes fixed upon the crags above them, and the treacherous outcroppings of rock that filled the mouth of the small harbour beyond; yet she sensed the flicker of sudden surprise that ran across his weather-beaten features, felt again the underlying tension in him that were all the unspoken questions he no doubt had wanted to ask from the very first.

“Them that live there call it Journey’s End,” he said.

Djaniye smiled. A flock of grey-streaked gulls dipped and wheeled over them, shrieking welcome.

“It is Journey’s End, master Alvar,” she said quietly. “I was born there.”

And now the fisherman’s eyes did come away from their intent scrutiny of crag and reef and widened in amazement as they lit, for an instant, on the small iron-bound chest upon which she sat. Djaniye laughed, a joyous welling of sound that stirred the gulls overhead into a frenzy of answering cries.

“You’re taking me home, Alvar,” she cried. “Home to my scarce more than a whistle of a place!”

Alvar flushed a deep crimson and hurriedly returned to the task of guiding them through the waters that boiled around the clutching fingers of the reef. They passed into the shadow of the headland and the wind began to roar, the ocean to foam and seethe around the boat…an instant of thunder and chaos until they had slipped between two talons of stone…and then they were through…in a sheltered cove where an errant shaft of late afternoon sunlight, slipping through the wrack of clouds, turned the slate-grey sea to a shimmering expanse of green and gold.

“Your pardon, Lady,” muttered Alvar. His quick hands trimmed the grey sail as the wind rushed from its belly; the gulls shrilled a final welcome and flung themselves away in search of supper.

Djaniye found herself standing in the bow, her heart pounding furiously. She raised gloved hands to brush away the tears from her dark eyes.

“My thanks, Alvar,” she whispered, dizzy with joy and the sight of the wharves tucked in among the crags of the cove.

“You’ve brought me home…to Journey’s End…”

The stone piers at the foot of the escarpments were alive with brightly-clad figures when Alvar brought the boat to rest against one of them, and Djaniye stepped back in time–seven years–to her childhood. The oldsters in their caps and sheepskin coats raised their hands in greeting, and the ragtag children in pale blue and earth-brown woollen tunics came rushing down the dockside with a half dozen mongrels yapping at their heels. She turned back to the old fisherman with a fresh flood of tears in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said again, bowing her head. “Thank you ever so much and forever.”

Alvar paused in his labouring with her sea-chest and looked up at her, his gaze suddenly proud and eagle-bright.

“Thank you, Lady,” he replied. “For the honour of doin’ you service.”

And then there was no more time for speech as they became the centre of an excited frenzy of babbling children and dogs snapping at snowflakes, milling of reaching hands and shy smiles… until the old ones caught up to the children and one of them saw the silver star- patterns embroidered on her cloak. In a moment there was utter silence, no sound save the keening of the wind and the water lapping at the stone supports of the pier.

“Ashtarii..” said an old man hoarsely, as he quickly doffed his cap, and the children stood back from her, wide-eyed and half-fearful, whispering Sea-witch to one another as brother sought sister, and grandfather hands stilled excited grand-daughter questions. Alvar’s voice boomed through the hush.

“Well….” he cried. “Will ye keep her here on the cold dockside until springtime? Who has a cart for the Lady? Who’ll take her to lodging at the inn?”

The oldster who had named her Sea-witch stood forth, twisting his cap in gnarled fingers, his white hair wind-ruffled on his bowed head.

“My house, Lady,” he said softly. “You’re welcome.”

Djaniye smiled to herself, reached to caress the upturned face of a flax-haired girlchild.

“Thank you, Orreth,” she replied, “but I’ll go to the inn.”

The old man’s head jerked up and she saw a half-formed terror swimming in the depths of his age-darkened eyes, felt a pang of regret for her innocent deception.

No one of them knows me, she thought hurtfully. Has it been so long? Have I changed so much?

“Orreth, I am Djaniye,” she said to him, “Danner’s daughter… Djaniye. You dandled me on your knee once, and ever gave me sweets when I scraped my knees.”

Recognition dawned in the fisherman’s eyes, and in those of the others as she named them in turn, yet they all stood unmoving but for the twisting of caps and the shuffling of feet.

“Come, Lady,” said Alvar at her side. “Tis too late for me to even think of goin’ back to Gower-on-Strand tonight. I’ll see you and your sea-chest t’the inn myself.”

“No,” she cried, “I’m enough in debt to your kindness, Alvar–”

But he was striding through the press of children with her sea-chest on one shoulder, and they stood back from her as she followed him. Her pleasure dimmed with the waning of the day; an old emptiness came gnawing at her heart.

They climbed the crags slowly, taking long but careful steps on the spray- and now snow- slicked walks of stone carved from the face of the cliffs, that zig-zagged upwards from one level to the next, with small wooden cottages tucked away in hollows at each landing. Djaniye felt long-forgotten muscles in her legs stretch and strain with the climbing, yet the conflicting emotions that warred in her breast clouded her sight and blinded her to Alvar’s struggle with her chest.

“Leave it, Alvar,” she cried when she was but a step behind him. “Leave it here and I’ll have the innkeeper send someone to fetch it.”

The old fisherman turned heavily to her, his face reddened by exertion and the breath coming in ragged clouds from his lips.

“Is’t true ye’re the innkeeper’s daughter, Lady?” he asked, so softly she scarce could hear him. “The one daughter who ran away from here seven years ago?”

Djaniye’s breath caught in her throat as she nodded to him, and the emptiness became a painful clutching at the workings of her heart.

“Ah, Lady,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Then with all respect, I misdoubt ye’ll find consideration or welcome from Danner, him bein’ your father or no.”

He turned to resume his climb, but Djaniye stayed him with a hand on his shoulder, and a cry almost of anguish.

“But why Alvar?” she said to him. “How can you know that?”

He would not look at her when he answered.

“Because, Lady, I’ve been to the inn four, maybe five times since the day you left. He never spoke of you in the first year, but thereafter he said much…after your mother died…and there was never a kind word in all of it…”

She crept cautiously from the darkened room, her heart like a caged bird fluttering in her chest, steeling herself not to jump at the dancing shadows cast by the small fire on the hearth, and praying silently that the floorboards, this one time only, would forget to creak beneath her bare feet.

She clutched the bundle of soiled linen and towels tightly, daring a single glance at the seated figure limned in the firelight as she moved towards the door. She reached a small hand towards the knotted-cord pull and froze as a harsh voice broke the silence.

“Come here, child,” said the sea-witch.

For an instant Djaniye’s only thought was of flight, to leave the linens and the towels in a heap by the door and run as fast as her sun-browned legs would carry her…anywhere…so long as they took her far from the faceless thing beside the fire.

“I will not hurt you,” said the sea-witch, and Djaniye heard a faint note of amusement in her voice. “Come, sit with me awhile and we will talk. You may leave your washing by the door until we are done.”

Trembling, Djaniye walked slowly toward the forbidding figure in the chair, until she stood blinking in the firelight, eye to eye with a grey-haired woman whose placid hands lay in the lap of a sky-blue robe embroidered with silver stars.

“Ah…such a pretty child…” said the sea-witch, but now the harshness of her voice was softened somewhat by a gentle smile curving her lips. “What is your name, little beauty?”

“Djaniye,” she stammered. “If it please you, Lady.”

The smile broadened and the fire-born shadows fled from the lined face, leaving a visage of immeasurable warmth and light.

“That is no name for a Taratal lass,” said the witch.

“If you please, Lady, my father says he heard a woman called by the name once. In the land of the Lion Kings, Lady.”

The witch was silent.

“He says they prize things of beauty there but know only how to bruise them and spoil them.”

The witch smiled again, though sadly.

“Your father is right, Djaniye,” she said softly. “And I fear me he is oftentimes too much like them…but that is no concern for a Taratal lass, no matter what she is named. Sit, child. Here, at my feet.”

Djaniye gratefully sank to the fleece rug before the chair, tucking her legs cross-wise beneath her shift, and her eyes never left those of the sea-witch–deep peaceful eyes every bit as blue as the robe that fell in soft folds across her knees.

“How old are you, Djaniye?”

“Twelve stormings come Windfala, Lady.”

“Are you afraid of me, Djaniye? The dread sea-witch of Ashtari? Have I and my sisters wrought so much ill that we have earned the fear of a twelve-stormings-come-Windfala lass?

Djaniye felt her face grow very warm.

“No, Lady,” she said quickly. “The sea-witches work only good things…and…I was frightened, Lady…but not anymore…”

“Good, little beauty,” said the sea-witch, nodding, and now smiling a third time with a smile of wondrous radiance.

Djaniye lowered her gaze, awe-stricken by the gift of the smile, and thought a thousand thoughts, no one of them finding the proper words to be given life in speech. She sat quietly, waiting, with a strange certainty growing within her that she would never again be quite the same for having met the woman who sat over her.

“Djaniye,” whispered the witch. “If I ask you a certain question that bears upon a great secret, something you have never told anyone else, will you answer me?”

For a moment Djaniye felt a fluttering of her fear return, yet it was gone just as quickly. Still, she nodded in answer, not trusting her voice to speak clearly.

“Do you know the fox that lives in the ruined cot upon the headland, Djaniye? And the raven that nests in the roof-beams?”

“Yes, Lady.”

“What do they tell you of the summer, Djaniye, and the storming to follow?

All the fear went out of in that instant, replaced by a flood of joy rushing into her soul, a whirling gush of light and laughter, that her secret was discovered and recognised by this strange and wonderful woman.

“The summer will be long and kind, Lady,” she said breathlessly, “but the storming will be angry and cruel when it comes.”

And then they both were silent for what seemed to be a very long time, and Djaniye looked up, expecting to see that the sea-witch had fallen asleep; instead, she found the deep blue eyes staring down at her with a mixture of joy and sorrow in their depths.

“Djaniye,” said the witch finally, “each of us is given a name when we are birthed into the world, but a sea-witch wins a second name known only to herself and, the gods willing, to the one who becomes her pupil.

“When you come to the isle of Ashtari, Djaniye, ask for Tandra, and I will be waiting for you…”

The memory faded and Djaniye found herself alone on the walks of the crag, staring through the swirls and tatters of early snow to the open sea, where the sun shone its last rays upon the foam and the fishing fleet that now made its way through the reef–to home and hearth and reckoning of the day’s catch. She caught the edges of her cloak, secured them with three silver clasps and began to climb again. Alvar awaited her on the next landing, hunched down beside her chest.

“Lady…?” he said, concerned, but still wary of showing overmuch familiarity; and then, “Forgive me. It wasn’t my place to say–”

“No, Alvar,” she said to him. “It is better to know beforehand…and yet…so many things seem so much the same.”

He took up the chest a second time and they resumed their ascent of the cliffs, the old fisherman’s silence in no way concealing his contrition–for having brought sorrow to her homecoming–or his sympathy for her. Djaniye laughed to herself, but found only a bittersweet irony:

I am an Ashtari sea-witch and he pities me. I am young, and may ask, even demand, anything of anyone in all this land…and he grieves for me. Oh Tandra, I begin to understand the sadness in your eyes.

They reached the top of the cliffs in murky twilight and plodded through the wind-hewn archway that led into the sheltered vale beyond–a shallow depression among the spires and dizzying heights of Taratal’s northern coast, where the village became a town and the focal point for the crofters and herders farther inland.

Below them lay scores of cottages, shops, and an open-air market, all in shadow, but marked in increasing numbers by pinpoints of light as windows became fire-lit from within. On the grassy slopes above the town, small herds of sheep moved in pale ghostlike clusters, grazing and seeking nooks and hollows for the night. Djaniye walked as one half in a dream, with a tightness in her throat that made swallowing painful.

“Alvar…” she said, minded now to turn and go back the way they had come, where she might ask shelter for the night from Orreth, who had offered, or one of the cliff-dwelling families. And leave in the morning.

“Aye, Lady?”

“It’s nothing,” she whispered, but she saw the old fisherman nodding to himself, as if he well knew what had passed in her thoughts.

They descended the stone steps cut into the hillside, and Djaniye was overwhelmed by scents and sounds that were as familiar to her as the very act of drawing breath—wood-smoke and the bleating of sheep on the heights, the oily stench of fish and the creaking of cartwheels, the rich smell of grass and dew-drenched hay, mothers calling errant children home for the evening meal… as her mother once had called to her…to Arne…

And then they came to the foot of the stair, and the pebbled track that wound its way through the town, and Djaniye’s slipper-shod feet moved of their own volition, tracing again the path she had taken so many times, so long ago. She walked beside Alvar, through an alleyway, across the garth of a cottager, and forced herself to go more slowly for his sake because even the misgivings in her heart could not slow the pace of homeward-wending.

The inn loomed before them now, all grey stone and sparkling windows of dearly bought glass panes that shone with a warm orange glow from the huge hearth within. She stood in the market square, her breath billowing in cool misted clouds, and never was a door so welcome to her sight–banded with iron, scarred by the childish carvings of boys…and one girl…who sought to live forever in their name-signs.

“Shall I go in before you, Lady?” Alvar offered softly. “Perhaps it will…”

His voice found no words to say what might be, but she put a hand gently to his arm and nodded.

“Yes, do that please, Alvar,” she replied, “only…do not say who I am…that his daughter’s come home to him in the guise of a sea-witch.”

He crossed the square quickly and went in through the door, but not quickly enough that she failed to hear the voices within, or the sound of laughter and heavy earthen mugs on thick wooden trestles…

“You will learn to look and listen to the world in a manner entirely different from those around you, Djaniye.”

“How will it be different, Tandra?”

“Like a well-loved song in the hands of an outlander, little beauty. You will see and hear into the very heart of all living things, yet you will be a stranger to all of it. You will feel the pulse of Life all around you, and you will be alone. And if the gods are well disposed you shall be loved and feared as a recompense for it. Elsewise, only hatred will temper the fear…”

…And these drew her irresistibly forward so that Alvar had scarce put down his burden when she stepped through the door herself, and a half score heads turned, an equal number of voices stilled at the sight of the silver-starred embroidery of her cloak.

“Welcome to you, Lady,” came a voice through that stillness, and a man to match its tenor limped across the common room–tall and broad-shouldered, in rough breeches of earth-brown and a white linen shirt…much worn…washed…mended…

Djaniye drew back the hood of her cloak with a gloved hand and a cascade of midnight curls rustled and fell to her knees. She began to ache with the need to reach out and touch the strong square jaw, run her fingers through the black-shot-with-silver hair, along the old lines of his face and the new ones that seven years had placed there…and somehow find a way to extinguish the smouldering fire of grief and anger that still burned deep in his grey eyes.

“Father,” she said. “Father, I’ve come home.”

Like the others, he failed to recognise her at first. His eyes narrowed in close scrutiny, widened in disbelief, softened for one so small thud of her heart, and then blazed again with the fire she had seen a moment before.

“Why have you come back?” he said harshly. The coldness in his voice went through her like a scaling knife. “We thought you were lost on the cliffs, drowned in the sea…and then came news you were seen takin’ ship in Gower…with never a word…and that was worse than death…”

“Softly, Danner,” said someone at a table, urgently. “By the gods, man, she’s Ashtarii….”

Danner turned on him with a feral snarl.

“And by the gods, she was my daughter ere she was anything else!” he cried angrily. “Twas not enough that half the life went out of her mother when the sea took Arne…no…not enough by half again…so she left without a word and put the killin’ stroke to her!

“Why did you come back?” he asked again, shouting, turning back to her with one massive fist clenched and shaking before her face. “Why, damn you!”

Djaniye shook her head, wordless in the face of his fury, trembling before it, feeling it come crashing against her with such force that it took every ounce of control in her mind and body not to react to it.

The common room whirled in a dizzy haze as his rage flooded her, pounded at every nerve and sinew. Her eyes closed and she swayed on her feet, conscious only of his anger, oblivious to the words themselves that he hurled at her like knives…

After a time her eyes opened painfully to a room where mugs of ale and suppers sat abandoned on the trestles. Only Alvar was there, between her and the sweat-soaked, panting figure of her father.

“Ashtarii or not, Djaniye,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “you’ll have nothing from me. D’you hear? Nothing…!”

Numb and exhausted, she dared one glance at his eyes…raised her head once and lowered it down…slowly…before she turned away and went out into the square.

2

“I should send word to them, shouldn’t I, Tandra?”

The sea-witch looked up from the embroidery in her lap and frowned ever so slightly.

“You have always been free to do so, Djaniye,” she said softly. “We all must make our own choices as to what we shall do and what shall be, little beauty, even as we must accept the consequences of our choosing.”

“But I don’t know what to tell them, Tandra. Why I had to go…come here…”

Djaniye saw the strange sadness in the witch’s eyes for the second time.

“Then you must weigh the difficulty of finding words to make them understand your choice against the consequence of your silence, little one…”

“But I didn’t know why…then…” she cried aloud. “It was there, inside me, but I didn’t understand it enough to explain…and after…when I did understand…I thought it was too late…

“And now it is too late…for my mother…” she breathed, and the hardness of that thought made her shiver…

She wriggled deeper into the hollow beneath the roots of the raven tree and watched the moon rise over the eastern rim of the valley, the stars winking into existence, one by one, in the black vault of the sky. Beneath her, the town slept quietly, and even the late-season lamb who had greeted her earlier in the evening, and startled laughter from her lips with its ungainly frisking, had wandered off to the warmth and sleep-welcoming softness of its dam. There was no lack of weariness in her, but each time her eyes closed she saw her father again, felt the pain of his hurt and anger.

She sought escape in thoughts of her days on Ashtari, the long hours spent wandering alone over its rocky coasts–listening, watching, tasting, feeling the ocean and the wind and the sky, learning to recognise every facet of their combined personality until she knew it as well as the gulls and gannets and eagles whose lives were dependent upon the instinctive knowledge of such things. She remembered her first time upon the southern crag, in the storming of her fifth year among the witches…and it brought her back to her father again, for the fury of that storm had been a kindness next to the storm of her father’s rage. She wondered that she shed no tears, supposed herself beyond simple grieving, and knew that she lied to herself.

“You deserve his anger in greater part than lesser,” she whispered. “And the tears would be for yourself, rather than him.”

And so she sat on the hillside, and listened and watched, learning from a pair of ravens that the night would be chill but clear, the morrow bright with sunshine. Having thus made herself useful, in the way of all sea-witches, the turmoil inside her eased somewhat, and she noticed the tall, slender figure that toiled up the hillside in her direction. She scrambled to her feet, stood with her back to the trunk of the raven tree. The figure stopped a dozen paces from her, face in deep shadow.

“It took no small amount of time,” he said, “but I finally found out what’d so put the wind up me da’s trousers at the inn. And then I had t’rouse up the old sailor’d brought you, hear his tale of your runnin’ off the way you did. And then I thought you just might come back t’the old raven tree t’think things out…”

The figure shrugged, seemingly quite pleased with himself, and moved closer.

“You’re prettier than ever, Djaniye,” he said quietly. “I’m glad you’ve come back.”

He half-turned into the moonlight and she knew him at once.

“Then you’re in small company, Toller,” she said softly, “and like the prettiest of them yourself.”

She saw him frown, though it could have been just a trick of the light.

“I’m not here to fight with you, Djani…or tangle leaves in your hair, either. You can’t be blamin’ yourself for your mother. After Arne died neither of them gave you much reason to stay.”

“I owed them some consideration.”

“But no more than what they owed you, Djaniye, as their daughter,” he countered quickly, fiercely. He sat himself in the grass at her feet, motioned for her to sit beside him. She went to the edge of the hollow instead and sat looking down at him.

“I want to help you, Djaniye,” he said. “We were friends…”

“I’m a sea-witch, Toller,” she said wearily, and to her, it was all the answer necessary. “Ashtarii…a sea-witch…”

“Aye, that you are,” he laughed. “I’ve never known a sea-witch ere this…though I knew one who became a sea-witch, and she was ever worth knowing…”

They were silent, and she, having the advantage of him with the moonlight at her back, studied the lines of his face, seeing traces of the boy she had known in his dark eyes and the handsome lines of his face…and knowing the falseness of his light-hearted manner.

“You’re curious, ” she said to him, “and seeking amusement. You’ve grown, Toller, but have you changed? Is there no one in the town who will let you into her bed tonight?”

She felt his discomfiture then, and oddly, felt regret and shame for being the cause of it.

“I want to help you,” he said again, and she chose to believe him. “What will you do? Will you stay on here?”

His seeming concern gave her pause, to think seriously of that which she had feared to think of at all. And she realised she had made her decisions long ago.

“I will stay,” she said, breathing easier for having said it. “And never lack for things to do, Toller, of that I’m certain.”

His face lightened. “There are others who will welcome you,” he said eagerly. “And a place for you…if you want it…in my house…”

She shook her head and smiled.

“No, thank you, Toller,” she said, looking up at the sky. “There’s a ruined cottage on the headland. That is my place.”

She spent the night in the root cellar of the cottage, with an old grey-muzzled fox for company and a black-feathered raven for sentry in the weatherworn rooftrees. At first dawnlight she was up and about, walking slowly back along the path she and Toller had taken the night before, and gratefully surprised to see Alvar and a handful of children toiling along the track with her sea-chest in tow.

“Good mornin’, Lady!” called the fisherman, waving as they came up to her. “The young lad who came knockin’ at my door last night was at it again an hour ago. Told me where you’d gone, and said y’might have need of your belongings ere the morn was much older.”

Djaniye thanked him warmly, and each of the children in turn, when they had given their names. With her chest safely stowed in the shelter of the east wall, she struck flint and steel to a pile of leaves and twigs, scooped rainwater from the shaded hollow on the craghead, and brewed them tea. Alvar provided a breakfast of corn-cakes and honey from a leather pouch he “just happened t’have with”.

When they were done, and the children off to a somewhat-more-than-subdued game of catch-me-if-you-can, she and the old man shared the last of the tea.

“It was good of you to bring them, Alvar,” she said, hands clasped around the small earthen mug that steamed in the morning chill. “And my chest, as well, “ she added with a smile.

He shrugged, waved a deprecating hand.

“It were no trouble, Lady. I was wantin’ an early start anyways. And then too, I was down t’the pier again last night–just t’make sure my boat was well seen to–and I found your gift, so I could do no less.”

“The silver was no gift, Alvar, but just payment for all you’ve done,” she said sternly.

“Forgive me, Lady,” he said, shaking his head, “but that’s not the proper way of things. What you do for one village is done for all. Ye’ll soon see the workings of it…but I’ll not pretend your gift is unwelcome, and there’s an end to it.”

Djaniye sipped her tea, and mulled over the fisherman’s words until Merya, the cooper’s daughter, ran up to them and presented her with a small blue cornflower.

“Please, Lady,” she said hesitantly, offering the tiny blossom. “I’ve scratched my finner.”

Djaniye accepted the flower, glanced at Alvar’s grinning face, and back to the child, who now stood with her lips pressed tightly together and the injured finger held up for her inspection. Alvar unwound his legs and stood to take his leave.

“Ye’ll soon see the way of it,” he said, still grinning, “and be well along your way quick as you please.”

He strode off down the track, waving.

“Thank you, Alvar,” she called after him. “Fare ye well in all wise.”

She turned back to the little girl.

“Does it hurt, Merya?”

“Just a little bit, Lady,” replied the child. “Was Taddy done it. When I get bigger I’m gonna punch him.”

Djaniye laughed, mussed the little girl’s hair and, after washing the cut and applying a salve from her chest, bound it gently with a scrap of linen. Merya looked at the finger from several angles and ran off.

“Thank you, Lady,” she cried. “I feel much bigger now.”

Wondering what was in store for Taddy, she smiled and shook her head, and looked down the slope to where a small procession of townspeople had appeared, laden with baskets, tools, and pulling what looked to be a small wagon full of quarried stone.

And that was the way of it, and of the days that followed. Her cottage was repaired swiftly, the roof re-thatched, her larder stocked with all manner of grains, smoked fish and common herbs. At first, she was reluctant to accept anything at all; but in a week’s time she came to recognise it as her due, an integral part of her relationship with the town, handsel for the aches and pains she would banish in the days to come, the broken bones she would mend, the odd bits of advice and comfort she would offer from her store of learning…and the one greater service that could be days or years before ever she were called upon to perform it.

“You will be the anchor to which your people may cling in times of travail and sorrow,”

Tandra said to her. “In turn, they will provide you with your reason for being, and all the joys and sorrows of your life. That is the way of it for us, Djaniye, and while you must never doubt the nobility of such sacrifices as you will make in the years to come, at the same time you must be wary of pridefulness in what you do.

“The eagle takes no pride in the swiftness of its flight, beauty, nor in the quick snaring of a fish for its supper. These things are inherent and instinctive to their nature, as other things are natural and instinctive to you. You would not have followed me elsewise…”

Djaniye looked down at the old woman who lay before her, so suddenly frail and fevered and tired with sickness. Only her eyes seemed untouched by the ravages of time, that still shone clear and bright as the sky in high summer.

“Do not cry for me, little beauty. Waste no tears on one who has lived long and well, you will need them for those who have long lives before them…and at whiles, even for yourself…

“But you will do us much credit, Djaniye, I know it will be so, and someday you will find a name for that which brought you to me. Then there will be an end to the sadness in your life…”

As Windfala drew to its close and the time of year called Hallows brought the first true turning of colder weather, Djaniye’s life became a measured round of early morning wanders through the hills in search of herbs and roots and berries for her medicines, days spent in their application, nights in commune with the elements of earth and air and fire and water, and also the wild creatures that came to her from near and far with further tidings of the world and its ways.

Of the townspeople, she saw much…and little…for the ills and mishaps of mankind moved to a pattern of their own; yet Toller was a constant visitor to the crag-head, with his own news of this or that, but always eager to be of some service to her, and always with a curious brightness in his eyes that she viewed with growing concern.

One evening he came earlier than usual, and found her at the very edge of the cliff, a dun-coloured gull perched on an outstretched arm and her head to one side, as if she listened to the harsh clackings and screeches of the bird.

“Well…the squall came just as you said it would,” he said, handing her a small basket that held three loaves of fresh-baked bread. The gull shrilled once as she turned to him, and then it took flight. “D’you really speak with them, Djaniye?” he asked, nodding upwards at the bird.

“How else would I learn all the things I must learn?” she said, questioning him in turn. “How else to know when there will be rain to shorten your day’s work or sun to lengthen it?”

The wind was wet and chill on the crag-head as the sky quickly darkened with night. Djaniye began to shiver in the cold, drew the sodden folds of her cloak about her and moved towards the door of the cottage. Halfway there she turned back to Toller, a small rueful smile on her lips.

“Come inside, you,” she said. “I’ll make tea and we’ll share a loaf of your mother’s bread.”

As always, he needed no second asking but followed her through the door with an eagerness to match the light in his eyes. Once inside, she shook out her cloak, put a clay pot on the hearth, and offered him a stool on the hearthstone while she combed out her hair. Toller stripped off his oiled outer clothing and moved the stool closer to her.

“You’re here much earlier than usual,” she said. “Was anyone hurt today?”

Toller shook his head.

“Iver took a drenching for the extra few minutes he lagged behind the rest of us,” he said, but you did warn us of the squall and…I wanted to talk…”

She looked at him questioningly, taking great care that the strokes of her comb remained smooth, unhurried.

“Don’t you get lonely out here, Djaniye?”

“I have no lack of company, Toller,” she said gently, making a small motion with one hand.

“Reyn is here most times,” she went on, nodding towards the grey-muzzled old fox asleep in the corner, “and the accommodations upstairs are always full…”

He followed her gaze and became aware of the constant rustling in the roof-trees of the cottage, where dozens of birds, great and small, perched above him, stared curiously out of the shadows with bright unwinking eyes. He shuddered, once, looked back at her incredulously.

“But what of your own kind, Djaniye?” he asked heatedly. “Would you not have someone else t’share this place with you?”

She smiled. Sadly. He mistook it for self-pity.

“All things are my own kind, Toller,” she said slowly. “As to someone else…here…with me…it is not unknown among us, the Ashtarii…but the choice is a personal one, Toller, and one I have already made.

“And the days are filled with others of my kind. Sometimes, too full. Just yesterday I spent much of the afternoon listening to all the gossip of the town from Tensi, the chandler’s wife…”

She stopped, wounded by the look of hurt and disappointment on his face, for a brief instant wishing she might offer him more in solace than the hand she reached out, barely touching his cheek.

“I’m sorry, Toller.”

“I knew you’d come back, Djaniye,” he said hoarsely, not looking at her. “And I waited for the day. For lack of anything else, when we were younger, I teased you, tangled your hair–”

“And put eggs in my shoes!”

“Aye! and put eggs in your shoes. And loved you all the while I was waiting on the day I’d go t’your father…I even told Arne once, and he laughed at me…”

“I know, Toller,” she whispered. “I knew it all along, thought of you often all the days and nights I was away on Ashtari. But I chose something else, Toller. A different path than the one I might have taken had I stayed here…for reasons I’m not sure you will ever understand…or I, for that matter…”

Now he raised his head and glared at her.

“But you never gave yourself a chance, Djani…!” he cried. “You always blamed yourself for things you had no hand in crafting–”

“Toller stop!”

“No, Djaniye, can’t you see that all of it was your father’s doing? Arne never wanted t’go out with the fishing boats, but he did because he was Danner’s son, and the sea had crippled Danner so it was up to Arne to take payment for it, even if he was too young t’do the work.

“And your mother never once gave you any thought, Djani! It was Arne she loved. She died mourning him and hating your father for being his death and there was nothing left inside of her for you–”

“Toller stop it!” she shouted at him. “Do you think I don’t know all of it? Do you think I never saw…understood that part of it…? I had years to make it clear to myself, Toller, even if I let it chase me away from here…but I also realised it made no difference to me, that what I was doing and what I wanted to do came from something deeper, something more important than the everyday sorrows of a fisherman’s daughter.”

She flung herself away from him, startling the birds in the rafters, waking the old fox, who glared at the young man with bared teeth. The water boiled in the clay pot on the hearth, yet she could not bring herself to face him again, nor wound him further with thoughts and words that concerned him not at all.

“Fine!” he snarled, kicking the stool out from under him as he stood. “Stay here then with your dried up flowers and the bird-shit and the barn-stink. I won’t beg you for anything. Stay here…”

Long after he had picked up his oilskins and stormed from the cottage, she stood with her back towards where had been, unmoving. The clay pot boiled itself dry and cracked into a dozen pieces. A small dusty house wren fluttered onto her shoulder and cocked one eye up into hers.

She smiled and whispered, “Yes, I will stay…”

3

“…Tis been a rare and fine season, Lady,” crowed Wynder. “I’ll not be cursin’ the ill-luck that brought me here this time. I’ve fair doubled my catch from last year and will welcome the respite now.”

He winced as Djaniye tightened the bindings on his splinted forearm, went back to grinning at what he considered his good fortune. Djaniye fixed him with an admonishing stare.

“Next time leave your celebrating for dry land,” she said sternly. “You’re going to have aches and pains in that arm whenever it’s cold and damp, but it was a clean break, and gods willing you have sense enough not to strain it through the winter, it should be strong as ever it was, come springtide.”

“Aye, Lady, I’ll be a rare caution with it,” promised Wynder, hoisting his oilskins and walking to her door. “And thank ye, Lady, for patchin’ me up and for the luck of this season passed. The wife’s bakin’ a winter’s-worth of cakes; I’ll make sure a good number finds their way t’your cupboard.”

Djaniye grinned back at him.

“Your poor Noni’s sent more than enough my way already, Wynder,” she said. “And it’s the gods alone responsible for the fishing this year so don’t be thanking me.”

“Well…ye’ve kept us out of what weather there was, Lady,” he said gratefully, “and there’s not a one of us doesn’t appreciate it. Be well, Lady, and good evenin’ to ye.”

“And to you, Wynder,” she nodded, smiling…

And she watched him from her doorway, the smile fading from her lips as he grew smaller and smaller on the path down into the town. Hallows had come and gone, Winter Eve was half-spent and then some, and mid-afternoon already bore signs of the swift plunge into night that would follow. She reached back inside her door for her cloak, wrapped it around her as she walked to the edge of the crag-head and looked down into the waves breaking over the rocks below, the almost imperceptible swells of the ocean farther out…

You must be wary of the quiet times, little beauty, and the mixed blessings of too-favourable weather. A falcon stoops to its unsuspecting prey, with no warning but the merest whisper of death-sleeping in the silence. So it can be with wind and water, Djaniye, and a thousandfold more deadly, in the bargain…

For well over a fortnight’s time, her cottage had been empty by day–the birds flown from the rafters, the small creatures gone from the corners and root-cellar, even Reyn the fox from her hearthstone–but ever they returned in the evening with no word of the storming and much in the way of unease. As she stood on the crag-head, Djaniye heard again the warning of her teacher, and, as she waited for the return of her watchers, she trembled with a near-prescient knowledge of what surely must come. In the cold unmoving air, she listened in the silence for a falcon’s whisper…and heard nothing.

Thereafter, what mending or crafting she did was just outside the door of the cottage, with needles, threads, cups and bowls before her on a small wooden table. At dawn she was out on the headland, watching the fishing fleet wend its way from the harbour and out into the open sea; in the evening she watched them return, naming each boat and its crew, counting them until all were safely within the reef and she might breathe easier for it.

“Tandra, I’m frightened,” she would whisper aloud each day, think it a hundred times more…and soon she added “lonely” to it, feeling it truly for the first time, as she realised there was no one else with her in the vigil she kept…that there could never be anyone else in such a time…save another of her kind–Ashtarii…sea-witch…

And the storming was birthed on the fourth day after her mending of Wynder’s arm, when Merya and Taddy and some other children from the town had come to visit her in the chill light of mid-morning, distracting her with their high-pitched prattling, their excitement and curiosity. One moment they were soaring in imagined flight, rapt in a story-circle, and the next they were come rudely to the ground again as the air above them exploded with a frenzy of beating wings and harsh voices.

“IT COMES! IT COMES!”

Through the turmoil and thunder of wingbeats, Djaniye struggled to her feet, disbelieving, yet full with horrible certainty. She fought down her own sudden terror, put it aside when she saw it mirrored in the faces of the children.

“Taddy! Merya! All of you!” she cried, herding them back towards the path to the town.

“Run quickly! You must warn everyone that the storming has come. Tell them to light the signal fires. Quickly now! The birds will not hurt you…GO…!”

Within moments she was alone on the headland, in and out again from the cottage with a brand from her own fire set to the pile of kindling and greenwood on the crag-head–one of a dozen kept ready in the storm season, to summon home the fleet at a moment’s notice. Fifty and seven boats to be summoned homeward, for she had counted them that morning…almost three hundred fishermen…and Toller as well…who had gone away hurting and never come back…

She knew she was dangerously near to complete panic, forced herself to stand for a moment, utterly still, seeking within the fabric of her being for that inviolate core of serenity and calm she had nurtured and made strong through her years with the Ashtarii. Her breathing slowed, became long and measured, her thought patterns untangling themselves from the mindless terror, casting it off so she could think clearly again.

She checked the signal-fire, saw the kindling had ignited the new wood; that a thick column of smoke had begun to rise into the maddeningly still air. Then she turned and walked back to the cottage, unhurriedly, drifting into the first stage of her preparation as the spark of calmness within her began to flare outward.

Inside, she drew off her cloak, exchanged the simple woolen gown she wore beneath it for a richly-dyed robe of indigo blue, silver-stitched with the star-patterns that identified her calling. Hundreds of eyes watched her–from under feathered crowns, over furred muzzles–and charged her with fear-bright intensity. Djaniye fastened the clasps of her robe, drew a deep breath, and walked to the door…turned…gazed back at them…

“I will do the best I can, little ones,” she promised, and went out into the wan sunlight.

“I suppose it had t’end somewhere.”

Toller turned to his father from the near-empty nets and shrugged. “That’s four casts so far this morning with scarce enough to t’feed a starveling gull its supper.”

His father grunted noncommittally, staring farther out to sea, his legs apart to brace himself against the low swell of the ocean.

“They’ve all gone t’bottom,” he pronounced at length, “though only the gods know why.”

He raised a calloused hand to shade his eyes from the sun. “There’s some cloud out there, but nothin’ else t’sign a storm comin’ on…”

The two of them stood awhile, idly, their gazes roving out over the rest of the town’s fleet–almost threescore small boats spread out over the ocean, bobbing on the low swells and, judging from the faint cries that reached them, having no greater luck than their own with the day’s catch.

“I don’t like it, lad,” growled his father. “I’ve spent as many days out here as you been alive and when the fish go t’the bottom like that you’re well-advised t’get yourself home and tie-down anything you can’t afford to lose….There now! There’s the clouds!”

His arm came up, one finger pointing to a dark smudge on the northeast horizon…that broke apart and joined together and finally poured out from the horizon entirely as the massive flock of sea-birds sped southward.

“I’ve never seen anything–” Toller breathed.

“Nor I, lad,” snarled his father. “Get the nets in now!”

Others in the fleet saw the incredible mass of birds sweeping towards them and leapt into a frantic scramble to bring in the nets. Toller looked over his shoulder and saw the western sky broken by a dozen pillars of smoke.

“Remember there must be nothing between you and the storm, little beauty, not even the merest hint of a word or thought. Empty yourself of concern for everything–even those whom you would protect–except the storm, and then seek it out. Reach for it, Djaniye, with every fibre of your being, reach out and join yourself to it…until you are the storming and the storming is you. Then you may bend it and turn it as you will…”

She stood on the crag-head, staring down into the roil of waves breaking over the rocks at the foot of the headland, striving to maintain the delicate balance she had achieved within herself…to think of nothing…no one…not her father or Toller or the children or the fishermen or fifty-seven small boats …

“Tandra I cannot do it…!” she whispered

“You must do it, Djaniye…”

“They will die, Tandra! The sea will swallow them like it swallowed Arne…!

“Nothing between you and the storming, little beauty. You will be the storm, and you will turn it away…”

Her concentration broken, she looked up, saw first the birds that darkened the sky, then the fishing boats on the horizon…and imagined those who manned them–plying the oars madly, for there still was no wind to fill the sails that hung upon the masts–and what would happen to them if she failed in her calling, if she did not become the storm…wherever it was…because it was out there, and she the only one between it and the men, but only if there was nothing between her and the storm…

“I am Ashtarii,” she whispered, closing her eyes, thinking nothing.

“You are Ashtarii,” whispered Tandra, smiling…

…And then she was nothing, save perhaps a questing arrow of her nothingness, in flight over/through a vast ocean of nothingness, in search of a storm, empty and waiting to be filled…

“Seek it out, Djaniye, do not wait for it to find you. You must become the Storming ere ever it becomes Itself, taking the smoulder of its anger at once, so you may fan it back upon the fire of rage that will follow…”

…Sensing…somewhere in the nothingness…a shock…that there would be no slow building of this monster…no gradual burgeoning of strength in wind-teeth and sea-jaws…that she could not …ever…meet such a Storming as this…so far from her self…and then it was too late for even that jewel-sharp atom of thought…

On the headland Djaniye screamed, her outflung arms slashing cross-wise and down to keep herself from coming apart in the awful claws that gripped her, the hammer strokes that threatened to smash her senseless. Somewhere far out to sea, the Storming had leapt into being around her, broken the arrow of her flight and swept her into its seething belly as it rushed shoreward with mindless hunger for anything…everything…in its path…

As her first storm had been nothing before the storm of her father’s rage, the fury of what held her now was like nothing the world had ever imagined. Yet she struggled against it, and on the headland, her teeth ground together and her throat grew raw with soundless howls that spewed themselves through her clenched teeth. Like a man forced to drink faster than he might swallow, the storm poured into her, pounded at her insides even as she spit it out upon itself and swallowed again…interminably…as her body jerked and danced on the crag-head…and the storm rushed on…dragging her back to herself…she saw the fleet now through blind eyes….three quarters of them past the reef…a handful more…but a handful yet to reach shelter, and the storm gibbering with hunger above them…

“NO!” she screamed, wrenching her arms upward, fingers curling and clawing…to take it… imprison it …and it took her instead…coiled itself through her…and carried her away…

4

The common room was full with fisherman, their wives and children, dimly lit with candles, quiet as the grave, but for the agonised whisper of a young man who knelt beside a slender thing in blue and silver and sea-wrack in her long black hair.

“She was on the reef,” Toller said. “We’d fallen back to make sure everyone else got through and we could hear it coming at our backs…waiting for it to come…

“And nothing happened. The water was boiling around us. We should have been smashed against the rocks, and nothing happened. I saw it hit the face of the headland and explode against the cliffsides all around us…but it never touched the harbour and when I looked again she was there on the rocks with the sea as smooth as glass and the wind soft as summer…”

He looked up at the faces blurred by his own tears, scanned them one by one until he came to Danner, who stood with one hand curled over the head of his cane and the other knotted into a fist at his side.

“She tried to turn it away from us,” he said. “Your daughter… she told me once how it was done…before I let my hurt stand between us…sea-witch or no, it was too much for her to turn it away…turn it back upon itself…so she stood before it and took everything that would have crushed us…into herself….”

Dimly and so very far away, where she had fashioned a place for hopes and dreams and the foundation-stones for her own peace and happiness, she listened. She felt nothing. The storm had stolen all such things from her body. Yet she sensed her hand taken up and heard the sound of her father’s voice.

“Djani, why did you come back? I never wanted this for you.”

I know that, papa.

“I never meant for it to be so hard for you. I couldn’t stop blaming myself for what happened to Arne.”

I know that too, papa.

“I was ashamed. I was afraid to look in your eyes. To see you hating me the way your mother hated me…”

I never hated you, papa.

“I never stopped loving you, Djani. I just forgot to show you…”

I never stopped loving you…

She began to sink down into something warm and tideless that held her like the memory of a little girl cradled in the arms of a loving father.

“Please forgive me, Djani…”

Just forgive yourself, papa. It’s good to be home…