by Liz Williams
The world was shining now, sunlight turning the calm sea to a mirrored shimmer. There was no sign of the storm. The Hind rode at anchor just beyond Gull Island. The pale reeds that fringed the saltmarsh were still. They rounded a bend and there was the muddy bluff from which Stella had fallen. She pointed.
“There! It’s over there.”
“I can’t see anyone on the shore,” Dark said.
“Neither can I.”
“Take her in gently,” Drake told him. “Follow the reedbeds.”
Stella started as something shot out of the reeds, but it was only a curlew. She saw the long beak and speckled body. As if flew down the river it gave its plaintive cry.
“There!” Bee said suddenly. Here, the oak groves came down almost to the river and a figure was standing on a mossy rock.
“It’s her,” Stella said. “The star.”
“No sign of Tam Stare, though.”
“What’s she doing?” Stella asked. The star’s hands were outstretched. Against the dark green of the oaks, she was surprisingly hidden, given the pallor of her blue skin.
“Be careful,” Drake said. “It could be a snare.”
Dark began to row towards the oaks. Stella waved to the star, trying to attract her attention, not sure if it was the right thing to do. But the star was looking directly at them. As the boat approached, she stepped onto the dappled surface of the water and began to walk.
“Just like Jesus,” Stella remarked, impressed.
It was plain that the star was coming towards the boat. She held her shift out of the way of the river and her feet, moving with careful deliberation as though she walked a tightrope, were bare. For a moment, Stella thought that she was walking on rocks, half submerged, but as Dark rowed them quickly in, she saw that there was nothing beneath the limpid surface, only the banners of waterweed, deep down.
“Get her on board,” said Drake. He rose from his seat in the prow to make room. Just as the star reached the boat, Tam Stare erupted from the oak grove. He was wild eyed and at first Stella thought he’d changed his clothes. He had lost his leather jacket and the white t-shirt was red. But then she realised it was mottled and spotted with blood. Maybe that piece of driftwood had actually connected? Serve him right if it had.
“You cunts!” Stare shouted.
“Charming!” Stella exclaimed. He reached out and took a deep breath. The air seemed to hum. A cold draught brushed the side of Stella’s face: when she put her hand to her cheek, it came back glittering with frost. Bee’s brown curls were silver-dusted. The water between the shore and the boat crackled and glazed. The star took a step and faltered.
“Mistress Fallow,” Drake said, “Your assistance is required.” He helped a visibly startled Bee to her feet.
“What do I do?” Bee cried.
“Close your eyes. See what comes into the eye of your mind.”
“Shall I tell you?”
“Yes, do so.”
“Well – I see our garden. Not like it is now – whenever – in autumn, but in summer. It was really hot this year. We had a lot of bees – I can see them humming in the lavender. And Mars has been bright all summer, too – Dark and I used to lie awake and watched it cross the heavens like a dragon’s eye. Really hot weather,” she repeated, and Stella felt the chill on her face begin to recede. The star lifted her foot with a crack as the ice splintered.
Tam Stare gave a wordless shout and spoke a word that sounded obscene, but Stella did not think it was a curse. It was a spell and a flurry of snow whirled around her – but whatever was happening in Bee’s head was changing things, and Stella could see it now, the snow changing to white rose petals and drifting down onto the water. The oaks flushed a darker green with the heavy leaf of midsummer, not solstice but beyond, lammas-tide when the tides of the land grow slower and the days begin to darken and things begin to ripen and die.
“Come on, madam,” Stella heard Drake say, softly beneath his breath. “Come up –” as though Bee were a mare to be coaxed.
There was a soundless flash. Stella had to jerk backwards, nearly falling out of the boat. Neither Bee nor Dark were there any more. Two comma-swarms of bees hummed up from the boat, loud with warning anger. Stella watched, open mouthed, as they merged. The new swarm gathered itself up, bunched like a coiling whip and shot out across the river. The star did not flinch or blink as it sailed past, but Tam shouted in sudden fear. His arms went up to protect his face, but the bees covered him. To the watching Stella they looked like black oil poured out of the sky. Tam flailed and she heard him cry out in pain and fury. He threw himself from the bank, hitting the river with a tremendous splash, and sank. The bees, buzzing with frustration, zoomed over the surface like starlings in murmuration, moving as one being. Tam did not reappear. Surely, Stella thought, he couldn’t have actually drowned in such a short space of time?
The star had not stopped walking and was now at the boat. Drake’s hand also went up, he spoke a word, the star tumbled into the rowing boat and a great wave of river water and ice, green with weed, surged towards the shore and up. Stella saw a form in the water, rolling like a log. The swarm soared up into the oaks, then turned and came back across the water.
Drake gave an exclamation. “Where is he?”
Bee and Dark were back in the boat, looking a little ruffled and insubstantial about the edges. Stella looked over the side, searching. The wave drew back and subsided, causing the reeds to shiver and whisper. Beneath the surface, she caught sight of the sinuous form of a pike, gliding gold-dappled beneath the boat. With a contemptuous flick of its tail, it was gone out into the channel of the river.
But there was no sign of Tam Stare.
“Absolutely bloody typical,” Stella said, aboard the Hind. “Literally.”
“What is it?” They were in Drake’s own cabin; a generous offer, Bee thought. Through the porthole, she could see towers of cumulus against the blue sky, rising against the island. Fair sailing and sunlit.
“She means, her blood is here,” the star said. She sat on the edge of a bunk with a blanket over her legs, looking somewhat mermaid-like. “I can smell it.”
“Oh!”
“My fucking period’s started. And I haven’t got anything. Or any clean underwear. How did women manage, then? Now?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe they used a wad of linen or something? I think women did go to sea but this seems to be all-male.”
“Isn’t that where ‘son of a gun’ comes from? They gave birth on deck, under the guns.”
“Hardcore.”
The star stared at them uncomprehendingly.
“Do you,” Stella asked, “actually eat? I hope it’s not an inappropriate question. I’m just curious.”
“We eat. But not food.”
“Energy, perhaps,” Bee suggested.
Stella thought that the star gave a very faint smile. Close to, in this enclosed space, she could see that lights pulsed beneath the star’s skin: invisible in strong daylight, but clear to the eye in this shadowy cabin. Now that the star was stronger the inhuman beauty that she shared with her sisters was more evident. Stella felt wan and sticky, and her womb delivered the occasional prodding stab. She wondered if Dark knew any Elizabethan remedies for period pains. Bee was rummaging in a chest.
“Use this.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s just wadded material.”
“Jesus, what if it’s a spare codpiece or something?”
Bee gave a splutter, then laughed so hard at this that she had to sit down. The star watched them curiously.
“Sorry, Cap’n, but I repurposed your crotch padding. At least there’s plenty of salt water to soak it in.”
“Stella!”
“You’ve got to laugh. I’m sure he’s au fait with the filthy ways of unclean women. I imagine the Elizabethans were pretty rank.”
“I’m not sure if that’s true, actually. Anyway, it might do until we get home.”
&nbs
p; Stella went into the head with the material and came out some time later. “It could be worse,” she said. “Though I might have to sling these jeans. Where are we, by the way?”
Bee had been looking out of the porthole. “I think we’re heading down the river. The sun’s to the left and I can see the saltmarshes. I must say, this has been fascinating.”
“All very well for you. You’ve been by the side of your dashing boyfriend and his dodgy magical captain while I’ve struggled through a swamp, been locked in a creepy chapel by a star-capturing maniac and nearly drowned, and now I’m menstruating.”
“I’m sorry you’ve had a rough time. But if Dark gives me the opportunity to do this again, I certainly will. It’s like being Dr Who.”
“I know what you mean. I hope I see otter girl again,” said Stella. Someone knocked on the door.
“Dark? Is that you?”
“Captain says you can come up on deck if you want. Sun’s going down.”
It was hovering over the horizon by the time that Stella and Bee joined Dark by the rail. The inlet mouth of the river was rose and silver and pale blue, limpid in the light. A little boat accompanied the warship on her way down the river.
“Where are we going, Dark?” Bee asked.
“To Agamemnon.”
“Where?”
“The shipyard.”
“Oh, I know – Buckler’s Hard. I didn’t think that was there, then, though. Now. Whenever.”
“It was not yet built in my day. Later. But it is here now.”
“So this time is when, exactly?” Stella frowned.
“My day, and others. Like layers.”
“Sort of like an onion?”
“Not really. Patchwork laid upon patchwork.”
“And it’s only the past, is it?”
“Not only.”
Bee’s eyes widened. “Do you ever visit the future, then?”
“I have not but I have seen things that don’t – belong.”
There was a shout from above and the rattle of the anchor going over the side.
“She’s weighing in for the night,” Dark said. “Captain says we’re to go ashore.”
“Where are we going to stay?”
Dark grinned. “You did say you fancied the Cherub, Mistress Fallow. I think there’s an inn here, too.”
The sun was fading behind the oak groves when the rowing boat set out. Stella looked upriver, to where the water was on fire from the light. A beautiful, quiet place, but she thought she would prefer to look at saltmarshes from a distance from now on. She shifted uncomfortably on the wooden seat of the rowing boat as Dark took a course between smaller boats and the huge hulk of a half-built ship. Ahead, she could see the two brick rows of the village striding up the hill. There were lamps in the windows and it looked welcoming, small and human.
Dark helped them onto the dock, one by one.
“There’s an inn, you said?”
“Yes, and a chapel for mariners.”
“Not so worried about that,” said Stella, with a grunt. “I’ve gone off chapels.”
The inn was a large, solid building on the end of the right hand row of cottages. Stella could see a sign, still in the breezeless air, but not the name: it was by now too dark. She thought it was Georgian; it had that square redbrick appearance. At least her filthy appearance – covered in half-washed off mud, salt, and now blood – hopefully wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows in a dim place with presumably limited washing facilities. Did they have gas lamps yet? She was a little worried about the star, clad in her shift and a blanket, though at least the star was clean. What if people thought they were whores? Did women go into inns in those days if they weren’t looking for trouble? Dark pushed open a creaking oak door and they stepped through.
Into a very up to date and brightly lit bar advertising Prosecco 2Nite, with an impressive range of gins and a clientele who had clearly recently come off boats. But not like the one they’d sailed in on. Stella, in one horrified glance, took in their clothes, assessing Toast, Boden, and the White Company. A waitress strode in with a seafood platter and stopped dead when she saw Stella.
And everyone was staring at them.
Serena
“Can Uncle Ward come with us?” Serena asked her daughter. Bella gave him a narrow look and drew Serena to one side.
“I don’t know, Mum,” she hissed. “I’m not sure he ought to know about this.”
“Oh, not you, too. I’m not quite deaf yet, you know, even if I am entering my dotage.”
Serena felt it was time for a vote of confidence all round. She looked her daughter straight in the eye.
“I’m going to talk to you as if you were another grown up, Bella. You can trust Ward. He knows everything I know about this house. Well, probably. We haven’t gone through all of it yet. But most things. I don’t know if that answers any questions you might have.”
“Sort of.”
“What have you found?”
“I’ll have to show you. I can tell you but I don’t know if it’ll make any sense.” Bella took Serena’s hand and, followed by Ward, they went up the stairs and then to the little door at the end of the passage that led to the attic steps. The steps gave their familiar, dismal creak as they went aloft.
Upstairs, the attics ran along the length of the house and the door opened out into an echoing, dusty space walled by the old painted panels that Serena remembered. It contained all the things that attics usually have: a spare ladder, boxes of old tools that Serena thought must have been Abraham’s, a crate with children’s annuals in it, vaguely remembered. She was tempted to sit down and open one.
“It’s not as filthy as the attic at Uncle Harold’s,” Ward remarked. “Nor do you have his impressive stash of old copies of the Radio Times. I found one dating from the Boer War.”
“You so did not!”
“Well, whenever television was invented. Nineteen twenty something, if I remember correctly from a long ago tour of the bowels of Broadcasting House.”
“I bet the Radio Times is more recent than that. We went through this attic and cleared out a whole lot of stuff when Grandfather died. Swedish death cleaning, it’s called. Or maybe that’s what you do yourself when you think you might be getting on a bit. What have you found, Bells?”
Bella marched to the end of the attic, where there stood a tea chest.
“This,” she said dramatically, flinging a hand at the chest.
“Oh, it’s the dressing up box.” Serena turned to Ward. “We kept a lot of Mum’s hippy gear – you remember she was a model, Ward? She’s got a folder containing some cuttings, and in them she’s even wearing some of the stuff that we used to dress up in. It’s great that you’ve found it, Bella. I used to play with this all the time when I was growing up.”
“No, but Mum, I know that, but I found this.” She dived into the box and pulled something out. She held it up.
“It’s a dress,” Ward said. “Sorry, that was a real Captain Obvious moment there.”
“Oh my God!” said Serena.
“You see!” Bella was triumphant.
“It’s very pretty.” Ward took a closer look. “And rather old, I would say.”
“Right,” Serena said. “Ward, there is a ghost in the garden. She is a young girl, probably Elizabethan, and I used to see her all the time when I was a kid. Some of us see all the ghosts and some of us just see some of them. Not all the time.”
“I get that.”
“Anyway. This girl was one of my ghosts and I saw her again recently. She seemed a bit more – interactive, if you know what I mean. She smiled at me and she’s never done that before.”
“Hopefully displaying my lightning intellect, I’d surmise that this might be what she was wearing when you saw her?”
“Yes, that’s it. Exactly. This is her dress.” Gingerly, Serena took hold of its hem and held it up. The rose silk, pale pinky-grey, was a little thin in places, but otherwise the dress could have been one
of her own creations: sewn with seed pearls and caramel gold, fronds of ferns and tiny five-petalled wild roses.
“It must have cost a fortune back in the day,” said Ward.
“Yes. It’s not as elaborate as some of them, though. I always imagine – well, actually, I don’t have to imagine. I know how much work went into some of those dresses. This wouldn’t have taken quite as long as the ones in some Elizabethan portraits, but it would still have cost a pretty penny. The main thing, however, is that this was not in the dressing up box when I last looked in it.”
“Where was it, then?”
“That’s the thing. I’ve never seen this dress in the flesh, as it were, before. Ever.”
“Shit! Sorry, Bella.”
“No, it’s what I said. I didn’t actually know that, Mum, about the dressing up box and it not being there. I was just looking.”
“So why is it here now?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“So if the ghost pops up again, and she’s in her scanties…”
Bella giggled. “Maybe she’ll have Wonderwoman underwear.”
“Maybe she’ll have a thermal vest. I bet it’s a bit parky, hanging around outside all the time in the ether without a coat.”
“Stop it!” Serena felt genuinely shocked but was not quite sure why.
“Sorry, Mum.”
“Sorry.”
“Mum, could I try it on? It would fit, really.”
“I don’t see why not. It’s very delicate but I know you’ll be careful.”
“Turn your back!” Bella commanded Ward, who complied. She pulled off her sweatshirt and wriggled out of her jeans.
“If I undo these buttons –” Serena did so, marvelling at the fragile silk, which rustled like a rosy wave through her fingers. “Then I can just drop it over your head.”
She gathered up the skirts.
“Mum?”
“Yes, Bella?”
“Mum!” Bella’s voice was very small.
“What’s the matter – oh.” Serena looked up. The ghost of the girl was standing a few feet away. The dresses were identical but the girl’s face was horrified.