Spindlefish and Stars

by Christiane M. Andrews

  Clo opened her mouth to protest again, but the bosun shook his head. “If we delay, I cannot take you. Yer ticket will not matter. You’ll be full passage, and there’s no return for that.”

  Clo glanced from Haros’s light to the the bosun offering his hand to help her into the dinghy. Her mind raced. Her father had given her the ticket. He’d know where to find her. She did not want to go, not a single bone in her body wanted to go, but she would have to.

  Clo, wall-jumper, biscuit-nibbler, father-seeker, now forced herself to clamber over the side of the boat and into the dinghy. It was not the one she had arrived in; it was smaller, with only a single bench for the rower. It swung wildly. Her heart swung with its motion.

  “On th’ floor now, better t’ be on th’ floor, there you go, an’ here’s yer things, hold tight to them, all right, then.” Still holding to the ropes, he heaved himself into the dinghy and settled himself on the bench. “That’s it. Now”—he raised his hand in the direction of the flashing lantern and began lowering the boat into the waves below—“Don’t mind the wet or the waves. A bit of time is all it is an’—ach!” He stopped the dinghy’s descent. “I’d nearly fergot. An’ smashed to bits we’d be! Here!” With one hand pulling hard against the ropes, he reached beneath his jerkin and removed a slip of paper. Clo recognized it as the half paffage. He shoved it at her. “Take it. Take it! Make sure you hold it—don’t let the wind or waves—”

  “What?” cried Clo. There, so close now to the churning water, she could hear only the crashing voice of the sea.

  “Don’t let the wind or waves rip it from yer hand!” the bosun shouted as the little dinghy plunged into the waves. “Hold tight now, hold tight, girly!”

  The little boat, a speck on the surface of the sea, a speck on the waves that rose and crashed beneath and above and around it, was lifted and thrown and tossed and whirled into what Clo thought must surely be oblivion.

  CHAPTER THE SIXTH

  IN WHICH THE PEBBLE-MOUTHED MAN IS SORRIER STILL

  CLINGING TO HER WOOL-WRAPPED WHEEL OF CHEESE AND the slip of half paffage, Clo pressed herself against the bottom of the boat. Waves, cold, a cold so deep it seemed unearthly, broke over the dinghy again and again. Clo felt herself drenched through, and in the stuporous cold and in the violent tossing of the boat, she thought she surely must be already at the bottom of the sea. She must be drowning. How could this not be drowning? But in flashes, she saw they were still in air, upon the waves. The bosun, pulling hard on the oars, rowed them up the gray mountains of water and guided them down their frothing cliffs. Between waves, she thought she glimpsed his line of pebbles open in a wide, delirious grin, thought she heard him howling out a song, but the water crashed again and again, and she could hear nothing but its roaring.

  She was not drowning. Was she breathing? She braced herself against the boards. She clung to her cheese. She shivered and tasted salt. Her eyes were blurred by water and wind. Over and over the boat climbed or was cast up the walls of water and was plunged into its seething ravines.

  And then suddenly, plummeting down one last wave, pitching over a few last breakers, they were through. They had found the edge of the fog, the edge of the storming sea. The calm was immediate. Behind them, the water continued breaking and churning, but ahead of them, the sea stretched into a flat, rippling gray expanse.

  “Ah, there we are. All right, girly? I told you that’s a fearsome thing. Not fit for any man. Now, I’ve not had to row that in a good many ages—not so many half passages—but that, that’s the test of any boatman. And a test of yer nerves, too, eh?” The bosun gave Clo a crooked smile. “The rest is easy going.”

  Clo, still shaken, nodded. She sat up carefully, looking with horror at the waves they had just come through. She felt the word sea in her mouth and understood the depth and violence of water that is full of salt and has no edge.

  The bosun, far from looking weary, appeared younger, reinvigorated. Even his teeth, grinning, looked more like teeth than pebbles. “An’ there, well, there’s yer port.”

  Clo whirled around. Dead ahead was an island. No, not so much an island as a cliff rising straight out of the water—stone, steep, straight cliffs of stone. No trees, no green grew anywhere on its ledges; its gray shape was simply darker than the sea and sky surrounding it.

  “Ach, an’ there’s the same tidesman. Never leaves, that one. See ’im standing there?” He gestured with his chin.

  Following his nod, Clo saw a small figure standing at the edge of a line of stones that extended out into the sea. He was dwarfed by the towering cliffs behind him.

  How could this be her destination? Stomach sinking, Clo scanned the waters. Behind her, the walls of waves. Ahead, the island of cliff and stone. And beyond, nothing. Nothing. The gray water. The gray sky.

  “Do you sing, girly?”

  Clo shook her head, incredulous the bosun could even think of music in this bleak place.

  “A bit o’ music is good for th’ travelin’. Good for passin’ th’ time.”

  The bosun rowed ahead, singing in rhythm with the strokes of the oars:

  Merrily, merrily rowed he on

  across the frothing sea;

  the waves did toss his little boat

  as on and on rowed he.

  He rowed until his back grew stiff

  and his arms could row no more,

  but there at last before the bow

  he saw a distant shore.

  The shore he reached was still and dark,

  as dark as dark might be;

  no light or wind or sound or shade

  could he hear or see.

  “So I’ll sleep,” the man did say,

  “sleep here on this bleak shore,”

  and down he laid his heavy head

  and slept forevermore.

  Clo, shivering, half listening, watched the cliffs draw ever nearer. Approach changed nothing: nothing grew on those jagged walls. Walls, thought Clo. Walls that could not be climbed or jumped. The little figure at the base, the tidesman, did not move. The boat, without waves to jostle it, slipped easily over the water. So smoothly did they glide across the expanse that Clo did not notice when they finally floated to a stop.

  The bosun stopped his song and stared silently at the little wisp of a thing in front of him.

  “Here you are, girly. ’S the end, I’m afraid.”

  “What?” Clo turned her eyes from the cliffs to the bosun. “What do you mean? The shore is far over there. We’re still in the sea.”

  It was true. The bosun had stopped his boat a good distance from land.

  “Wellaway, it’s as far as I can go.” The bosun rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Not permitted to take you farther. And look, ’s not deep here.”

  Clo peered into the water. Under its gray sheen, she thought she could make out a shimmering pebbly bottom.

  “But I can’t swim,” she said, then blushed furiously. Clo, who was comfortable living in the shadows and who was not afraid of the dark, had never, not once in all her years of traipsing mountain and forest and moor and bog, ever immersed herself in water—except to sit in a shallow pool or large bucket to bathe. And this she did only infrequently.

  “Nor I! But here it’s a walk; it’s not above yer head, girly, I promise. Walk right up to the island. Hold yer little parcel there on yer head. Water’s calm; you’ll have nothing to trip yer feet, and you’ll not go under.”

  Clo looked at the bosun with an expression she would not have recognized in herself, but he saw that her eyes were desperate and pleading.

  “Girly,” he said softly, standing in the boat. “I hate to do it. But I can’t take you back. It’s yer half passage. And”—he pulled her, wobbling, to her feet—“I’ve got to row myself back to Haros. Here.” He took the cheese parcel from her arms. “I’ll hold this. Now climb out over the edge—that’s it. I’ve got the balance there.…”

  Clo, without being fully aware what she was doing, allowed herse
lf to be lowered over the edge of the dinghy and into the water.

  A sharp intake of breath. The cold, the cold! The cold was filled with panic and terror. The water came up to her chin, and she rose on her toes, desperate to keep her head above the water.

  “No!” she cried. “No—it’s too deep! Too deep!”

  “Ah, girly. Yer all right, yer all right. Here, hold yer parcel on yer head to keep it dry. That’s right, that’s right. There you are, now just walk ashore, a few minutes in the water is all.” The bosun sat down into the boat and picked up the oars.

  “Don’t leave me!” The words burst from Clo; she had not thought to say them, but now that she had, she felt her entire being behind them. “Don’t leave me!”

  She stared desperately at the man in the boat. His lank hair, his pebble mouth, his arms and chest, everything seemed to sag at once.

  “I’m sorry, girly.” A pull on the oars. “I am.” Another. The boat was moving away. His face was as gray as the sea.

  “My father!” Clo called after the dinghy. “My father!”

  Five, six, seven strokes, the boat moved into the distance.

  “My father!”

  …

  “Please!”

  …

  The sound of the oars died away.

  CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

  OF A PIPING AND A MURMURING

  IN THE WATER, ON HER TOES, LITTLE WAVES SLIPPING AROUND her chin, Clo shivered. She could no longer see the bosun; he had disappeared into the line of roiling waves.

  “Please,” she whispered again to the empty expanse. “Please.”

  This could not be what she was meant to do.

  She looked toward the island. The small figure, the tidesman, was still standing, immobile, at the end of the line of rocks. He seemed a rock himself.

  Willing herself to walk forward, she felt the cold heaviness of the water pushing against her every step. Her feet, seemingly far, far beneath her, seemingly not her own, slipped again and again on the stones below.

  She rose slowly out of the sea: her shoulders, her chest, her waist emerged. She took the cheese bundle from her head and clasped it in her arms. The tidesman—now she could begin to see his features, his leaden face, his craggy nose—stared blankly as she approached. Behind him, Clo saw with some relief, stretched a thin beach, a pebbly bottom to the cliffs that rose ominously above it.

  “Tekcit!” the tidesman cried as she neared his rock. “Tekcit!”

  Clo halted knee-deep in the sea. Frigid as the water was, the air felt even colder on her skin. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably. “Take it?” She looked at the craggy man.

  “Tekcit!” he barked again, his voice flinty and sharp.

  Though Clo saw his mouth move, his face seemed rigid. “I… What…” She shook her head, attempting to clear the confusion of cold. She had to get out of the water. Shivering, numb, she stumbled toward the shore. Collapsing on the dark rocks, she curled into herself for warmth.

  The tidesman strode up to her, gesturing vigorously at her cheese bundle. “Tekcit!” Reaching down, he snatched the slip of half paffage from Clo’s fingers. Until Clo felt it being removed from her hand, she had forgotten she was still clutching it.

  “Oh… but…”

  Unfolding the damp document carefully, he bent his hooked nose above the crease and nodded sharply. He handed the paper back to her and turned away, waving over his shoulder at the cliffs. “O, go. No. No.”

  “What? Go where?” Clo cried in dismay and confusion, but the stony figure was already stalking back to his post on the rocks. Clo looked from the man’s weather-beaten profile to the slip of paffage. “Oh…” The ink on the paper, she saw, had run and smeared. Though the phrase half paffage was still clear, everything else was illegible smudge. Except at the fold. Here the ink had pooled and shaped what looked like new letters. Soporta. Soporta? An inky swirl. It meant nothing.

  Shivering, Clo worked frantically at the knots she had tied in the cloak. It fell from the cheese and the rag-wrapped painting, and she pulled the fabric, its scratchy warmth, tight around her. She sat, teeth still chattering, looking from water to cliff and cliff to water. She could see nowhere she might go, nor could she see the bosun’s boat anywhere in the sea.

  The cloak under which she now huddled smelled faintly like home, faintly like her father. She sniffed deeply. There were the scents of woodsmoke and honey, of stew and bread, of warmth and comfort. And there was the scent of pine. And salt. And dark. And alone. And the awful odor of the cheese. She felt a sob rise in her throat.

  “No,” she whispered fiercely. She stared hard at the wheel of cheese, her sack of turnips, and her father’s notebook crushed beneath them. “Always.” She gathered the things into her arms. “Always.”

  Standing, she took a last look at the tidesman—he kept his face turned to the sea—and made her way across the beach. The wall of rock rose straight and menacing, a sheer gray face of stone. But drawing closer, she saw, hidden in the crags of the cliffs, stairs that rose sharply, crookedly, up and up and up.

  Hugging the cheese, the notebook, the turnips, Clo began to climb. And climb. And climb. The stairs wound into cracks and fissures in the cliffs; the dark stone loomed above her.

  She counted a hundred, then another, and another. The scent of cheese, uncloaked, was everywhere, and at every breath, she tasted its thick scent. Another hundred. She stopped to rest. Far beneath her, she could see the tidesman on his rock, the flat expanse of the gray sea, the distant line of crashing waves. She lifted her head, trying to find where the staircase ended.

  On and up she went, smelling the rank cheese, feeling now fully warm, almost hot, under the wool of her father’s cloak, its hem dragging behind her. From time to time, she thought she heard above her the clattering of stones, the noise another’s step might make. Now and then, she even thought she heard a faint melody, a gentle piping. But each time she stopped to listen, there were only silence and the sound of her own labored breaths. Where was she going? She could see nothing but the cliffs, rising ever higher, and the stairs winding through them.

  Finally, though, perhaps halfway to the top, she began to hear what she was sure were voices—a murmuring through the stones. She strained to make out what they were saying, but it was just a mumbling, almost as though the stones themselves were talking.

  Mrmrmrm. The voices grew louder the higher she climbed. Mrmrmrm. Mrmrmrm.

  Clo climbed on, her chest tight with apprehension and the effort of the ascent.

  Mrmrmrm. Mrmrmrm. Mrmrmrm. The voices now were loud enough to bounce off the cliff walls. Mrmrmrm. Mrmrmrm. Mrmrmrm, they echoed.

  And then the stairs ended. Clo, eyes on her feet, saw suddenly space instead of stone—an opening nearly as wide and tall as a door. She halted. The cliffs stretched up and up and up; she was still far from the top. But the steps ended at this crevice. Kneeling, half holding her breath, Clo peered into the gap. It was not deep. She could see the bottom a few feet below. And the floor—it was not stone. Not just stone. Cobblestone.

  Clo hesitated, then dropped carefully into the fissure. She passed through an arch of stone. The space around her grew larger and brighter. She glanced up. The cliff walls rose straight above her, but now she was on the other side of them, inside them, in some hollowed-out area—almost as though the top half of the core of the island had been scooped out and lifted away. The murmurings grew louder.

  Here was a town. A narrow street. Little stone huts.

  Clo gripped her wheel of cheese, the sack of turnips, the notebook, the painting.

  Mrmrmrm. Here were people, gray-faced and jabbering. Old, old men and women, aged and bent and prattling over baskets and carts. For a moment, on first glimpsing them, Clo saw in their crooked forms her father’s own hunched shape—but no. These people were not like him. Their agedness was such that they seemed more like damp wadded rags or crumpled scraps of paper that had been fashioned into people, and yet, unlike her father, they mov
ed with vigor and ease.

  Seeing her, their chattering grew hushed. They stared and stepped aside as she walked down their narrow street. Mrmrmrm.

  The cliff walls rose straight over the diminutive town and framed a gray circle of sky. The light that reached the street was pale and dim.

  Mrmrmrm. The people pointed and nodded and whispered to one another in tones too low for Clo to hear.

  Walking steadily, Clo cast her eyes desperately over the crowd of ancient people, the baskets, the carts, the huts, the doors. What should she do? Where could she go? She followed the narrow street up its gentle slope, trying and failing to make herself small. Clo, who had lived her whole life in the shadows, found here no shadows in which to hide. There was only the single street hemmed in on all sides by the little shacks, themselves crammed in a motley jumble of doors and walls and windows against one another.

  Her heart pulsed through her feet. Her legs. Her arms. Her head. Her eyes.

  What was she doing here?

  The people followed, pointing, whispering. In the windows of the huts, she saw faces flash and disappear. She clutched the cheese more tightly.

  Mrmrmrm! Mrmrmrm! The whispering grew more urgent. Mrmrmrm!

  Clo felt a hand touch her elbow. She whirled around.

  The eyes that met hers were watery and gentle, but Clo drew back all the same. Touching her elbow again, the figure pointed to a hut at the end of the street and opened wide her palm at the path leading to its door.

  “Here?” Clo asked, the word dry in her mouth.

  All the crowd nodded. More hands pointed. Mrmrmrm, they whispered.

  Apprehensively, Clo approached the little door. She raised her hand to knock. Behind her, she heard the murmurings rise in excitement.