The Gracekeepers (14 page)

Then: the thud-thud-thud of Odell's steps as he stamped back out on to his porch.

“Come
in
, I said!” His shout was so loud that his voice cracked. “In!” He spun on his doorstep and disappeared back inside.

Callanish had finished stacking the cages, so she scattered another handful of seeds for the birds and followed Flitch into Odell's house.

It was not as bad as it could have been. There is not much to make a mess with in a gracekeeper's house. There was his bed and his table and his cooking equipment, and it all seemed normal
enough. There was a stack of empty bottles in one corner, and in another was a pile of grace-cages that reached almost to the ceiling. Some of the graces raised their heads as Callanish approached them, but most just lay on the floors of their cages.

“Odell, have you been feeding these graces? Some of them are already dead.”

“Not meant. To feed. The graces,” he pronounced.

“That's after you've used them for a Resting.”

“No! Not meant to feed them. At all.”

Callanish did not correct him, because she was not sure that she was correct. She'd been feeding her graces for so long that she could not remember the exact rules. Perhaps he was right, and these pointless deaths were as it should be.

“I want you to feed mine, Odell. If anyone asks, say that I forced you to.”

“Forced me?” Odell let out a mushy laugh. “How could you force me to do anything? You're a little scrap of nothing and I didn't miss you at all. I never thought about you, and I never watched the horizon for you, and I didn't care a whit whether—whit whether…” He pursed his lips again around the words. “A little bit whether you visited me or not.”

Callanish retreated to the doorway, anxious to leave.

“That's good, Odell. I won't be bothering you again.”

“You won't?” Odell swayed upright and swaggered over to Callanish. “You won't. You will. Will you? You will.”

Callanish shut the door. She did not want to be in this tiny space with two men whom she needed almost as much as she disliked. But she did not want Odell to veer out of the door and tumble into the sea.

“That's what I meant. I will come back, Odell, and very soon. Then I can visit you every evening, and we can listen to
records, and drink together, and cool our feet in the sea. You can say things and I will respond.” She waited until she was sure that Odell was listening. “All I need is for you to look after things until then, okay?”

“You're going with him.” Odell glared at Flitch. “I bet you'll love that, won't you, Callanish? I bet that's why you never came to see me. You had him instead. Well, what's so special about him?”

Callanish bit down a spasm of irritation. Of all the things she'd expected from Odell, jealousy was not on the list.

“It's not like that, Odell. He's helping me to do something, and I am very grateful to him because I know that he is a good man and wants to help me. And soon I'll come back and see you.”

Lies upon lies upon lies. But Odell seemed content enough with them, and that was the best she could ask.

She turned to leave and saw the bird skull hung on the back of the door. She didn't want to touch it, but couldn't help reaching out a hand. The bone was warm and smooth. The bird's beak stuck out like the prow of the rowing boat, and above the thoughtful eye sockets was a dent, an impression, as if someone had pressed a thumb there.

“Why do you have this?” Callanish said.

Odell sighed loudly, as if he was trying to blow a fly off his lips. “Found it.”

“Where?”

“In the water.”

Callanish failed to suppress a shudder. “You went in the water? It's not safe down there, and—look, never mind. Odell, I'm going. We're going.”

She opened the door, ignoring the gentle thud as the bird skull fell back to rest against the metal. The temptation to leap
into the boat and sail away from the dock without Flitch rose, rose, and disappeared. She stepped on to the deck and waited.

The trip might be easier if she could hate Flitch, but that emotion was far too strong. All she could feel was a mix of irritation and regret. She regretted having to ask for his help. She regretted the way he swaggered across the dock, the way he rubbed his hand across his shaved head, the way he threw a glance back at Odell as if he'd won a fight. Most of all she regretted her own nature, and that she had not thought to invite him into her bed and steal his boat as he slept.

But now was not the time for regret. If this was what it took to speak to her mother, then this was what she would do. And if she needed to do more, then she would do that too.

Callanish had had everything, and then she had lost it. Now all she had was this caged bird fluttering inside her: the need for her mother's forgiveness. Soon she would have her answer.

 

F
ourteen islands, fourteen nights, fourteen performances. It did not take long for the Circus Excalibur to slip back into the comfort of routine. Behindcurtains they were individuals, each full of doubts and concerns; on stage they were the circus, with glitter for blood and glass for eyes.

Each night the curtain rose. Ainsel turned cartwheels on horseback, Avalon pranced gloriously around him, Jarrow boomed their introductions and exits. They were the picture of a perfect family, and the revivalist landlockers lapped it up. Every night the circus ate scrapings of baked cabbage and honey and raisins, black pudding and chicken hearts and pig snouts. There was never quite enough, but at least they were not sitting down to empty plates.

With every passing night, Ainsel became more convinced that Jarrow really believed their performance. The old man had
always had a knack for storytelling, and he made best use of this in telling tales to himself that conflicted utterly with the cold facts of his life. Otherwise, Ainsel knew, he'd never have made it through all these years on a leaky, rusting boat when his rightful place was on land. Unfortunately for Ainsel, he had not inherited his father's skill for self-deception. He knew that the
Excalibur
was rotten to its core. He needed to get ashore before the whole thing crumbled. The only good thing in the
Excalibur
was Avalon. But she didn't want him—she wanted a house. And there was only one way for Ainsel to get a house.

At first he'd wanted to call off the wedding too. He'd just been waiting for the right moment. But then his father had taken them ashore and told them about the house, and Ainsel had seen the pieces of his life click perfectly into place.

He had to make sure that North went ahead with the wedding. He waylaid her one evening as she carried three dinner bowls back to her coracle. “Good show tonight, North,” he said, though of course he had not seen her act; what with the horses and Avalon and his father, he had no time to watch a bear dance. “Your bear looks well. Perhaps you could come and see the horses some time. Give me some tips.”

North smiled and nodded, so the words were worth it—but it had hurt him to speak them. His stallions were glossy-coated, bright-eyed, sure-footed: more elegant than that violent beast could ever be. But Ainsel had known North a long time. She scowled at praise for herself, yet glowed if you complimented the bear. If Ainsel didn't know better, he'd say that North and the bear loved each other.

A week passed, and North did not visit his coracle to see the horses, but there was time enough for that—because now, finally, they had reached the North-West archipelago. Soon they'd
be through it and at the North-East archipelago—and that meant North-East 19, and his father's home island meant the wedding, and the wedding meant the house, and the house meant Avalon. She'd refused him so many times, but that would change when he had the house. She would love him then. She would.

That night—after the performance, after the dinner, after the drinking, after the slow slide of the circus into sleep—Ainsel tapped on the side of North's coracle. It was tricky as he was wearing heavy diving boots and held a skin-diver lung under each arm. The thick glass was scratched, and he did not know how much would be visible through the domes underwater, but they would have to do. He'd stopped by the glamours' boat before dinner, allowing them to coo over him as they tied his hair in an elaborate knot and dabbed lilac powder under his eyebrows. It wasn't strictly necessary to look beautiful for North, but it couldn't hurt.

He'd resisted the urge to stop by the
Excalibur
before going to North's coracle. His father would be there, and he wouldn't be able to speak properly to Avalon, but it was enough just to look at her, to hear her voice, to see the growing press of his baby inside her. His need for her was a physical ache, heavy as stones in his belly. But it was fine. They would be together soon.

He tapped on North's coracle a little louder. When Red Gold had first decided on their engagement, Ainsel had not minded the thought of marrying North. He didn't love her, but he liked her, and perhaps that could have been enough. But then Avalon had come to him, and he found what love really tasted like. Everything since then had been an act: shadows and lies, the worst sort of circus fakery. But if he wanted Avalon he needed that house, and so he needed the marriage—and for North to go back to the sea afterward.

He knocked again on the coracle. Still no answer. Through the canvas, he heard the snuffles and snores of North's bear. He unfastened one of the canvas-knots.

“North!” he hissed through the gap. No reply. The bright eye of the moon peered over his shoulder, lighting a blurred circle in North's coracle. Ainsel waited for his eyes to adjust. He leaned further in, tensing his back so that he wouldn't lose his grip on the lungs.

In the silvery moonlight he surveyed the innards of the coracle. There was Melia, her body curled tight as a knot, her turquoise hair ratty and faded. There was North's bear, blacker than a storm cloud and just as unfriendly. There was North's tin chest of clothing, and her dimmed lamp, and her rack of whale-tooth combs, and her neat shelves of thread and oilcloth and tar. But where was North? Ainsel leaned in further.

“North!” he hissed again. The bear shifted, turned, and a finger of moonlight landed on something pale among his dark fur. For a heart-stopping moment Ainsel thought that the bear was dead—that he had been gutted, carved out, and that long white patch was the cage of his ribs. Then he saw how silly that was. The bear was just holding something. A stretched, pale object, one of North's dresses perhaps, though why he would be holding a dress Ainsel could not…

He frowned. He placed the lungs down on the canvas so that he could grip the edge of the coracle and lean further in. Yes, he had been right: that pale thing was North, cradled in the arms of the bear, sleeping as soundly as if the bear was a fur coat. And where were his chains? Why was he not strapped to the bunk?

“North!” said Ainsel, his voice loud in surprise. Quickly, before she could react, he pulled the canvas shut and picked up the lungs. He waited.

A whisper of feet, a crumple of canvas. Up she popped out of the coracle.

“Ainsel? Is that you? What's wrong?” Her voice was thick with sleep.

“Hello, North.” He kept his words honey smooth to hide his shock. “Nothing's wrong. I'm sorry to have woken you.”

“It's fine, I was just—I mean, I wasn't—did you…” She didn't seem to know how to finish the sentence. Ainsel blinked away the image of North curled in the bear's arms, tucking it into his memory. He couldn't worry about it now. Later, maybe, it would come in handy.

“Yes, I saw,” he said. “Melia's hair looks like old seaweed and you need to wash your combs.” North still seemed unsure, so Ainsel followed his words with his finest grin. It took a moment, but her face cracked into the beginnings of a smile.

“Now,” he continued, hefting the lungs. “We're going for a dive. I want to show you something.”

“Ainsel, no. It's late, and it'll be dark down there, and…”

“Go on. For old times' sake.”

From the coracle, the bear gave a wet-sounding snort. Ainsel let his eyes stray toward the sound, his eyebrows raised in a challenge. North hesitated.

“Look.” Ainsel took North's hand and pulled her out of the coracle, then took hold of her hips. He pushed her down so that they were both sitting cross-legged on the taut canvas. “Look up there.”

He examined North's profile as she tilted her head to the sky. In the moonlight she was almost pretty.

She turned back to him and shrugged. “I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at.”

“What do you see?”

“I see the sky. I see stars and the moon.”

“Which star?”

“All of them.”

Ainsel leaned in to North so that their temples touched. Her heart was beating so hard that he could feel the pulse throb. He took hold of her chin, tilting it so that they were both looking in the same direction. “There. That star.”

“The Pole Star?” she said.

“The North Star.” Ainsel paused to let that sink in. “The North Star is the most beautiful because it's always there. It can always show us the way. North—” He took her hands in his, gazing down at them as if he was too shy to meet her eyes. “Do you see what I'm saying?”

North seemed to hold her breath. He could feel the nervous tremor in her hands and the quickening of her heart, thudding in her temples. “I don't—there's something I should tell you, Ainsel. Everyone will know soon enough.”

“Later, North. We have time. That's what I'm trying to tell you. We've seen each other almost every day of our lives. We've always been there for each other. I really think we can make this marriage work. You're my North Star, and I can be yours.”

Before North had time to reply, Ainsel leaned over the side of the coracle and dropped the lungs into the water. They landed with a plimp, cupping air between the water and the glass sphere. He slid into the sea, shivering at the chill.

“North,” he called, but she had already put on her heavy sea-boots and was slipping into the water after him.

He tipped the lungs to refresh the air. He placed one over North's head, making sure that it rested flat on the water's surface, then settled his own lung. When it felt steady, he tied a long red string between his left wrist and North's right wrist.

“Now we can't lose each other,” he said, the words echoing inside the glass sphere of his lung. North smiled uncertainly through the clouded glass. The moon reflected in the water's surface, turning the world monochrome. Ainsel got a grip on his lung. When North was ready, they twisted their bodies in the water and kicked their feet off the outside of the coracle to force the lung underwater.

Black, black, black in every direction. Ainsel's insides shrank, rebelling against this dive down into blindness. It turned his stomach to feel the water close over him. The sea was an endless battlefield, and the deeper you went the worse it got, because everything that died had nowhere to go but down. In its darkest depths, the sea was nothing but an endless rain of bone, teeth, scales and flesh. Ainsel was not surprised that the revival boats preached about hell being at the bottom of the sea.

But still he held on to his lung. Still he kept kicking. He hated the sea, but he knew that North loved it. She'd never settle to a life on land. But that didn't matter—all that mattered was that she married him, and that Red Gold gave them what he'd promised. Then Avalon would come to him. It would be too late for his father to take back the house then, and he could live happily with his love forever. A proper landlocker family, with their proper landlocker baby. Once he had Avalon, everything would fall into place.

He blinked hard, trying to force his eyes to adjust. There was nothing to focus on, no sense of scale; they might as well be in outer space. Vertigo overwhelmed him. His breathing seemed loud and wet in the confines of the lung.

He turned to check on North; the light caught in the scratches on her lung, reflecting it back so that he could not see her expression. But she was still kicking, so he kept going. He knew that
above them ranged the undersides of a dozen boats; that below them, the sea floor spread. He could see none of it, and it seemed that the entire world had fallen away. They were alone.

Ainsel held his breath, trying to hear over the tidal beat of his heart. The sea brought back muted booms and the distant keen of whalesong. He held tight to the red string linking him to North. Finally, from the gloom, came the sound of bells.

He opened his eyes wide, and he could see. Below his feet, moonlight slid off a rooftop. He took hold of his lung and pulled on the string, forcing North deeper. He wanted to tell her not to panic, to soothe her like he did for his horses, but he knew that the words would come out tinny and muffled.

One moment they were floating aimless in the black of the sea; the next, a spotlight of moon appeared, and there was the city.

Dim light bleached the world silver. Ainsel and North swam past mosaics of leering peacocks, enameled carriages shaped like swans, fish flickering through the eye sockets of giant carved skulls. Below them, the sea floor sparkled with shattered glass.

Floating along the flooded streets, they opened their eyes as wide as they could. Together they tiptoed along the top of a tower and caressed the stone faces of gargoyles. Together they slid down the seawater-smoothed gutters of a church roof. Ainsel ducked into the bell tower to show North the enormous bell, whose sound had led them to the city. The clapper inside was too heavy for a person to move; only a strong current could cause it to chime. He led North further on.

A horse's head, huge as a tower block, loomed toward them with its nostrils flaring—but its stone ears had broken off and algae rimmed its eyes. Ainsel led North past the horse and onward through a menagerie of stone animals. He trod water while
she ran her hand along the back of a deer, its antlers tangled with seaweed.

Ainsel closed his eyes and the ruins became his palace. He passed through his burnished gates, the gold curlicues gleaming bright as the sun. He walked through rooms furnished with blue marble fireplaces and green satin carpets. He reached out his hand to his carved birds: at his touch, their enameled beaks opened to let out their clockwork song. Finally, he took his place on his wooden throne. He raised his head to receive his leafy crown.

What more could be said? What could the sea provide that was more glorious, more noble than this drowned kingdom? No matter how wide the sea opened its maw, there would be some land it couldn't swallow, and that land would always be superior. He knew North would not see it that way. She was a child of the sea, and she would never leave it. She would never understand his true place as lord of the land.