His patting didn't help her. He felt her skin beneath his hand, but he couldn't seem to touch her. She was leaving him. He tried to sing her the songs she once sang to him. Only he couldn't remember all the words, and his voice was rough, not smooth and gentle like hers could be. If his voice was sweeter, maybe he could have saved her. But she did not want to be saved.
He knew the instant she died. She'd been quiet for a while, so it wasn't her silence that told him. She was there with him one moment, and gone the next. Her body did not droop. He stayed beside her, uncertain what to do. He wondered if she'd come back. She was so powerful. He could not imagine her dead the way fish were dead. He wondered if he should eat her. He did not want to. He was not a crow.
Finally she grew hard and stiff, like wood. Caliban did not like to see her face. Her eyes were empty. He dragged her body out into the open, down to the shore, hoping she would not snap like kindling. He was strong. She always told him he was strong. He knew that she wouldn't want to be left there, in the dark. She never liked the cave, not the way he did. She called it shelter. He called it home.
He watched from his rock as the tide came up and the waves gently slipped around her. Soon they pulled her out and carried her away. It had grown gray and cold, but Caliban did not leave. He stayed until he could no longer see the dark ring of withered flesh that was all the magic had left of his mother. Rain began to fall. He supposed that Setebos was hiding his face now. He must be sad, too.
But no matter how long Caliban sat with his arms wrapped around his chest, the aching would not go away. His throat was tight and air didn't seem to fit into his lungs any more. He gasped a bit, like a fish floundering out of water. He stood on the rock and called to his mother. “Come back!” he said. “Come back! You've gone too far!”
But she didn't come back. He knew she wouldn't. And he didn't know what to do with himself. He was used to spending his days alone, but she'd always been somewhere nearby. He'd see her on the beach, dancing and yelling. Or he'd find her in the woods, arguing with some unlucky tree. She'd wake him up at night, when she came in after one of her moonlit walks, to give his back a quick rub before lying down beside him to sleep. Now she was gone, and his island suddenly felt very big. He felt hollow inside.
After a while he left and went back home, where he sat and ate the fish stew he had made earlier. He would only eat the food that came from the island. He had never liked the magical food his mother had her servants bring them. She would smile as she ate it. It made her happy. She'd tell stories of life in her royal court. It was her pretending, he guessed, just as he would pretend to be a shark when he splashed in the shallows. Caliban couldn't understand why she liked her imaginary place so much. She never did anything there but eat and work magic, just like she did here. And it was full of odd and useless people. “They respected me!” she would say. “They feared me.” Then he knew it was time to leave. She always got angry after the stories.
It had never nourished her, the magical food. He had watched her grow frail and thin, refusing to eat the good island food he made. “You must,” he had said. She had smiled, and ruffled his hair. She had not wanted to live.
Caliban knew why. It lay there, in the corner. The mean stick. It had begun calling to him. It wanted a master.
He looked down at the staff. He knew that it held the island's life. It had held his own. Now it was looking for someone to wield it. “You are the island king,” it said. That was one of his mother's pretend words. King and queen. She always said them together. “Setebos is king,” he told the mean stick. “He doesn't need you.” The mean stick tried to catch him, but he was free of it, freed by his mother's death. He would not be caught by it as she had been. He would not die twisted into a hoop.
At first he tried tossing it into the sea. But his mother was right; it would not float away. No matter how hard and how far he flung it, it would not follow his mother out into the deeps. Time after time it washed up again on the shore. Its voice bothered him. It bothered all the creatures. Birds began to flap about aimlessly in disordered flocks. Pigeons flew with ravens, seagulls swooped by with starlings.
He could burn it in his fire, cook his supper over its coals. But the very idea seemed to make the island shudder. Finally he brought it back into the cave. He scraped together the earth of the floor and buried it, in the corner of the cave. Then he brought in rocks to cover the small mound. Its call was muffled, now. He could ignore it. He would forget it.
He ran out into the falling rain when his task was done.
Caliban had been alone for many years. His language was all but gone. “Fire,” he would say, holding his hands up to the heat. “Fish. Water. Cave. Setebos.” He would turn his words over in his mind, like stones in a stream, polishing them, keeping them bright and alive.
And now he could share them again. He watched, shaking with fear and hope, with wanting, as a man pulled a small boat onto the shore and then, amazingly, lifted out a sleeping child.
The man stumbled. He was tired, he needed help. Caliban crept from his cover of the trees. He approached slowly, his hands empty, to keep the man from fearing him the way the wild creatures often did.
Even so the man stepped back, alarmed. He was tall, his graying beard long, his hair too. His dark robes were weathered, and his face was newly reddened and peeling from exposure to the sun. Caliban guessed he'd been adrift at sea for several days.
The child in his arms stirred and whimpered. The man spoke to it, his words quick and lilting, none of them familiar to Caliban. They made him feel suddenly ashamed, those slippery, lightning words, as though he were only a beast and not the son of a god.
Then the child lifted its head, and Caliban gasped in wonder. It had golden hair that spilled over its shoulders, gleaming in the sunlight. It must be a god-child too, this beautiful creature. The man spoke again, to him this time, his voice rich and deep. Now Caliban could sense his power. Perhaps he was a god. Perhaps he was even Setebos, come again in the form of a man.
Caliban fell to his knees. He tried to speak, to tell the god that he would serve him, help him, here on the island. But the words strangled in his throat and only a guttural croak came out. He blushed with humiliation, hanging his head lower. This was not how he meant to greet his father.
But then the god put a hand on his shoulder, and the words that he spoke were gentle. Caliban felt such a sudden rush of relief and happiness that he laughed and leapt eagerly to his feet. “Home,” he said, gesturing toward the cave. “Home,” he repeated, seeing the man's confusion. Strange that Setebos did not understand his mother's language any longer, but perhaps he was not saying the words properly anymore. Instead, he pretended to be eating. That, the man understood.
Carefully, still carrying the golden child, he followed Caliban. He stumbled even more as he carried her over the rocks. It must be hard to walk like a man when he was used to living in the sky, Caliban thought. Caliban walked slowly, so that the god could be sure of his footing.
The child did not want to go into the cave. It clung to the god's robes and cried, burying its face in his chest. Caliban stirred the stew cooking in the kettle, its rich, savory smell filling the cave. That made the child lift its head. It must be hungry after being at sea.
They ate almost everything in the kettle, the two of them. Caliban kept back only a small portion for himself, just enough to ease the rumblings in his belly. When they'd finished eating the child began to explore the cave, until the god called her back with a few sharp words. He did not look comfortable here, in the smoky darkness. Caliban remembered the homes that his mother described, great structures built of wood and stone that sheltered her from the weather and still let in the light. The god must be used to homes like that when he came to be in flesh. Caliban would build him one here, on the island. He even knew where he would do it.
For Caliban the next few days flew by in a flurry of wonder. He began to build the house and saw that the god was pleased. He taught Caliban his god-words for things, pointing to everything and speaking slowly, waiting for Caliban to repeat it. The child, a girl-child named Miranda, began to teach him too. She soon lost her fear of him and followed him about, pointing to things and then laughing when he tried to imitate her speech. He did not like the laughing. He stopped saying the words to her. The god noticed this and spoke to her sharply again. She became kinder, telling him the words and not laughing anymore.
He worked hard, building the house as the god instructed him. Within a week the roof was on and he'd made beds for each of them. They brought their blankets from the boat and seemed pleased with their new home. Caliban slept on the floor. He liked to be ready to serve the god and his child. He made their fires and brought them food. He carved the girl small animals out of wood. He made her a dolphin and a rabbit. “Make me a dolly,” she said. But he didn't know what that meant. “A little child,” she explained. “Like me.” She pointed to herself, and he understood. She loved the dolly he made her. She was happy.
But the god would walk the shore at times, his face as stormy as the sea. He felt the magic of the island and could not harness it. Caliban knew this, could feel the frustration of his power. He worried about it, shuffling his fear and concern with the desire to please. Finally, he decided that a god, such as the man surely was, would not be tainted by the power.
He went into his cave while the god and the child were sleeping in their new house. Outside it was sunny and warm, and the quiet day had lulled them. But the cave was as cool as ever. It felt odd at first. Something was wrong. Perhaps the cave was cross with him for leaving it. “I have to look after the god,” he explained. There was no answer. Well, the cave never talked. Not really. Only the corner. He felt himself shiver. He should make a fire here. That would make the cave happy again. But no, he had come for another reason. Resolutely, he walked to the back corner and knelt by the mound of earth. Its voice was thin, but it could sense him nearby. It guessed his purpose.
“Take me up, I'm yours, I'm yours,” it insisted.
It grew more excited as he began to dig. But he would not listen to it. He did not want it, but perhaps the god did. And the god would know what to do with it.
And so he brought Prospero the staff.
Caliban liked the way Miranda always tried to follow him everywhere. He called birds from the sky for her. She clapped her hands and had to stifle yelps of excitement when he did that. Sometimes he folded a leaf into a small boat for her to send down the fishstream, which they then chased together along the bank. Once he carved each of them a whistle from a green bough, and they tried to play music.
But her father did not like her to wander off with him. Whatever they were doing together was interrupted by his stern voice calling, “Miranda! Time to attend to your studies!” Then she turned quiet and went back to the hut. Caliban returned to cutting firewood, or mending clothes, or fishing for supper, or cooking, or some other necessary task. But he felt lonely after Miranda and her laughter had left him. He wished they could play more often.
The spirits of the island had started to tease him now. Prospero had freed his mother's servant, Ariel, from the pine tree where she had trapped him. Ariel never seemed to pass up an opportunity to make Caliban miserable. “Look at the island king!” he would jeer as Caliban struggled with a load of wood. Then Ariel would fly down and tug on his ears and pull his hair. Caliban would have to drop the logs to swat him away. Sometimes he did that, and they mashed his toes painfully. Most of the time he just endured the torment, gritting his teeth. “Mudman,” Ariel would snarl, and then wisp away to tell Prospero that Caliban was napping in the woods.
Prospero always believed the spirit's lies.
Caliban shifted uncomfortably, frowning. He now knew Prospero was not a god. A god would not be so blind. A god would not fart and snore and belch like Prospero did, when he thought no one could hear him. A god would know that Caliban was a god's son, and should not always be the one to hunt for mushrooms and dig the latrine and fetch heavy wooden pails full of water for the washing.
Prospero had wanted a wizard's cape for himself, a cape made from cormorant feathers. Caliban had caught the birds and skinned them. Then he cured the skins so they stayed soft and supple, and finally he sewed the cape. When it was done Prospero had taken it from Caliban and thrown it around his shoulders. “Good work, Caliban,” he had said.
But those words didn't warm Caliban the way they used to. Prospero had refused to eat the meat, saying it was unclean. That had horrified Caliban. He had tried to eat it all himself, but he could not do it. Some of the meat went bad. Caliban put it out for the crows to finish.
A god would not be so wasteful.
Caliban pulled the fish trap from the small pool. There were three fat trout inside it. He thanked each of them for being his meal, then he struck them quickly against a rock. It was the same rock he always used for the quick death. He called it the “mercy stone.” A small red smear appeared on it, as it had countless times. The rain would wash it away.
But now Caliban stared at the stain. How many creatures had he killed for Prospero? The three fish lay in his lap, cradled. They would have been plenty for himself, but he needed to catch at least three more to feed Prospero and Miranda as well. Caliban and the island gave Prospero everything he needed, and none of it was ever enough.
Caliban had heard him talking to Miranda. He said the island was a land fit for savages. He said the fine hut that Caliban had built in worship was a hovel. He swore that he would choke to death on fish stew.