Dragonfield (26 page)

The Mer was swimming towards her, lazily, as if it had all the time in the world to reach her.

She stopped wasting her strength in fighting the seaweed manacle, and instead cautiously fingered open her pocketbook. All the while she watched the Mer which had already halved the distance between them. Its mouth was opening and closing with terrifying snaps. Its bony fingers, with opaque webbings, seemed to reach out for her. Its monkey face grinned. Behind it was a dark, roiling wake.

The water swirled about Mrs. Stambley, picking at her skirt, flipping the hem to show her slip. Above the swimming Mer, high above, she could see the darker shadows of circling sharks waiting for what the Mer would leave them, but even they feared coming any closer while he was on the hunt.

And then he was close enough so that she could see the hollow of his mouth, the scissored teeth, the black nails, the angry pulsing beat of the webbings. The sound he made was like the groans and creaks of a sinking ship, and came to her through the filtering of the water.

Her hand was inside the pocketbook now, fingers closing on the wallet and into the change purse for the wren feathers she kept there. She grabbed them up and held them before her. They were air magic, stronger than that of the sea, and blessed in church. It was luck against seafolk. Her hand trembled only slightly. She spoke a word of power that was washed from her lips into the troubled water.

For a moment the Mer stopped, holding his gray hands before his face.

The seaweed around Mrs. Stambley’s ankle slithered away. She kicked her foot out and found she was free.

But above, a Great White Shark turned suddenly, sending a wash of new water across Mrs. Stambley’s front. The tiny feathers broke and she had to let them go. They floated past the Mer and were gone.

He put down his hands, made the monkey grin at her again, and resumed swimming. But she knew—as he did—that he was not immune to her knowledge. It gave her some slight hope.

Her hand went back into the purse and found the zippered pocket. She unzipped it and drew out seven small bones, taken from a male horseshoe crab found on the Elizabeth Islands off the coast near Boston. They were strong sea magic and she counted heavily on them. She wrapped her fingers around the seven, held them first to her breast, then to her forehead, then flung them at the Mer.

The bones sailed between them and in the filtered light seemed to dance and grow and change and cling together at last into a maze.

Mrs. Stambley kicked her feet, sending up a trough of bubbles, and holding her hat with one hand, her purse with the other, eeled into the bone-maze. She knew that it would hold for only a minute or two at best.

Behind her she could hear the hunting cry of the Mer as it searched for a way in. She ignored it and kicked her feet in a steady rhythm, propelling herself into the heart of the maze. Going in was always easier than coming out. Her bubble trail would lead the Mer through once he found the entrance. For now she could still hear him knocking against the walls.

Her purse held one last bit of magic. It was a knife that had been given up by the sea, left on a beach on the North Shore, near Rockport. It had a black handle with a guard and she had mounted a silver coin on its shaft.

The sea water laid shifting patterns on the blade that looked now like fire, now like air, the calligraphy of power. Mrs. Stambley knew better than to try and read it. Instead she turned towards the passage where the Mer would have to appear. The knife in her right hand, her hat askew, the purse locked under her left arm, Mrs. Stambley guessed she did not look like a seasoned fighter. But in magic, as any good witch knew,
seeming
was all important. And she was not about to give up.

“Great Lir,” she spoke, and her human tongue added extra urgency to the bubbles which flowered from her mouth. “Bull-roarer Poseidon, spear-thrower Neptune, mighty Njord, shrewish Ran, cleft-tailed Dagon, hold me safe in the green palms of your hands. Bring me safely from the sea. And when I am home, I will gift you and yours.”

From somewhere near an animal called, a bull, a horse, a great sea serpent. It was her answer. In moments she would know what it meant. She put her right hand with the knife behind her and waited.

The water in the maze began to churn angrily and the Mer came around the final turning. Seeing Mrs. Stambley backed against the flimsy wall, he laughed. The laugh cascaded out of his mouth in a torrent of bubbles. Their popping made a peculiar punctuation to his mirth. Then he showed his horrible teeth once again, swung his tail to propel himself forward, and moved in for the kill.

Mrs. Stambley kept the knife hidden until the very last moment. And then, as the Mer’s skeletal arms reached out for her, as the fingers of his hands actually pressed against her neck and his sharp incisors began to bear down on her throat, she whipped her arms around and slashed at his side. He drew back in pain, and then she knifed him again, as expertly as if she were filleting a fish. He arched his back, opened his mouth in a silent scream of bubbles, and rose slowly towards the white light of the surface.

The maze vanished. Mrs. Stambley stuffed the knife back into her purse, then put her hands over her head, and rose too, leaving a trail of bubbles as dark as blood behind.

“Too
bad,” the voice was finishing.

Mrs. Stambley turned around the smiled blandly, patting her hat into place. “Yes, I know,” she said. “It’s too bad it is in such bad condition. For three hundred pounds, I would want something a bit better cared for.”

She stepped aside.

The shopkeeper, a wizened, painted old lady with a webbing between her second and third fingers, breathed in sharply. In the showcase, the mummied Mer had tipped over on its back. Along one side was a deep, slashing wound. The chest cavity was hollow. It stank. Under the body were seven small knobby sticks that looked surprisingly like bones.

“Yes,” Mrs. Stambley continued, not bothering to apologize for her hasty exit, “rather poor condition. Shocking what some folk will try to palm off on tourists. Luckily I know better.” She exited through the front door and was relieved to find that sun lit the small alleyway. She put her hand to her ample bosom and breathed deeply.

“Wait, just wait until I tell the group,” she said aloud. Then she threaded her way back to the main street where the other tourists and their guide were coming down the hill. Mrs. Stambley walked briskly towards them, straightening her hat once again and smiling. Not even the thought of the lost triton map could dampen her spirits. The look of surprise on the face of that old witch of a shopkeeper had been worth the scare. Only what could she give to the gods that would be good enough? It was a thought that she could puzzle over all the way home.

Let us enter the wood.

Take my hand.

I feel your fear

rise on your palm,

a map beneath my fingers.

Can you decipher

the pulsing code

that beats at my wrist?

I do not need to see

dragons

to know there are

dragons here.

The back of my neck knows,

the skin of my inner thighs.

There, among the alders,

between twin beeches,

the gray-white pilasters

twined with wild grape,

stands a pavilion,

inferior Palladian in style.

Who sleeps on the antique couch?

I hear a thin scraping,

a belly through dead leaves,

a long, hollow good-by,

thin, full of scales,

modal, descending sounds.

In the dark

there will be eyes

thick as starshine,

a galaxy of watchers

beneath the trailing vine.

And trillium,

the red of heart’s blood,

spills between rocks

to mark the path.

Do not, for God’s sake,

let my hand go.

Do not, for God’s sake,

speak.

I know what is here

and what is not,

and if we do not

name it aloud

it will do us no harm.

So the spells go,

so the tales go,

and I must believe it so.

T
HERE WAS ONCE A
king who sat all alone in the top of a high tower room. He saw no one all day long except a tiny golden finch who brought him nuts and seeds and berries out of which the king made a thin, bitter wine.

What magic had brought him to the room, what binding curse kept him there, the king did not know. The curving walls of the tower room, the hard-backed throne, the corbeled window, and the bird were all he knew.

He thought he remembered a time when he had ruled a mighty kingdom; when men had fought at his bidding and women came at his call. Past battles, past loves, were played again and again in his dreams. He found scars on his arms and legs and back to prove them. But his memory had no real door to them, just as the tower room had no real door, only a thin line filled in with bricks.

Each morning the king went to the window that stood head-high in the wall. The window was too small for anything but his voice. He called out, his words spattering into the wind.

Little bird, little bird.

Come to my hand.

Sing me of my kingdom,

Tell me of my land.

A sudden whirring in the air, and the bird was there, perched on the stone sill.

“O King,” the bird began, for it was always formal in its address. “O King, what would you know?”

“Is the land green or sere?” asked the king.

The bird put its head to one side as if considering. It opened its broad little beak several times before answering. “It is in its proper season.”

Color suffused the king’s face. He was angry with the evasion. He stuttered his second question. “Is … is the kingdom at peace or is it at war?” he asked.

“The worm is in the apple,” replied the bird, “but the apple is not yet plucked.”

The king clutched the arms of his throne. Every day his questions met with the same kinds of answers. Either this was all a test or a. jest, a dreaming, or an enchantment too complex for his understanding.

“One more question, O King,” said the finch. Under its golden breast a tiny pulse quickened.

The king opened his mouth to speak. “Is … is…” No more words came out. He felt something cracking inside as if, with his heart, his whole world were breaking.

The little bird watched a fissure open beneath the king’s throne. It grew wider, quickly including the king himself. Without a sound, the king and throne cracked into two uneven pieces. The king was torn between his legs and across the right side of his face. From within the broken parts a smell of soured wine arose.

The bird flew down. It pulled a single white hair from the king’s mustache, hovered a moment, then winged out of the window. Round and round the kingdom it flew, looking for a place to nest, a place to build another tower and lay another egg. Perhaps the king that grew from the next egg would be a more solid piece of work.

T
HERE WAS ONCE A
king and queen so in love with one another that they could not bear to be parted, even for a day. To seal their bond, they desperately wanted a child. The king had even made a cradle of oak for the babe with his own hands and placed it by their great canopied bed. But year in and year out the cradle stood empty.

At last one night, when the king was fast asleep, the queen left their bed. She cast one long, lingering glance at her husband, then, disguising herself with a shawl around her head, she crept out of the castle, for the first time alone. She was bound for a nearby forest where she had heard three witch-sisters lived. The queen had been told that they might give her what she most desired by taking from her what she least desired to give.

“But I have so much,” she thought as she ran through the woods. “Gold and jewels beyond counting. Even the diamond which the king himself put on my hand and from which I would hate to be parted. But though it is probably what I would least desire to give, I would give it gladly to have a child.”

The witchs’ hut squatted in the middle of the wood and through its window the queen saw the three old sisters sitting by the fire, chanting a spell as soft as a cradle song:

Needle and scissors,

Scissors and pins,

where one life ends,

Another begins.

And suiting their actions to the words, the three snipped and sewed, snipped and sewed with invisible thread over and over and over again.

The night was so dark and the three slouching sisters
so
strange that the queen was quite terrified. But her need was even greater than her fear. She scratched upon the window and the three looked up from their work.

“Come in,” they called out in a single voice.

So she had to go, pulled into the hut by that invisible thread.

“What do you want, my dear?” said the first old sister to the queen through the pins she held in her mouth.

“I want a child,” said the queen.

“When do you want it?” asked the second sister, who held a needle high above her head.

“As soon as I can get it,” said the queen, more boldly now.

“And what will you give for it?” asked the third, snipping her scissors ominously.

“Whatever is needed,” replied the queen. Nervously, she turned the ring with the diamond around her finger.

The three witches smiled at one another. Then they each held up a hand with the thumb and forefinger touching in a circle.

“Go,” they said. “It is done. All we ask is to be at the birthing to sew the swaddling cloth.”

The queen stood still as stone, a river of feelings washing around her. She had been prepared to gift them a fortune. What they asked was so simple, she agreed at once. Then she turned and ran out of the hut all the way to the castle. She never looked back.

Less than a year later the queen was brought to childbed. But in her great joy she forgot to mention her promise to the king. And then in her great pain, and because it had been such a small promise after all, she forgot it altogether.