Snake Ropes

by Jess Richards

  dun fight if you can’t win, or

  dun argue with someone if you dun want to get stuck with them forever, or

  if you want snow what isn’t cold, dun wash your hair, or

  if your family stink, stay on an island together so no one else can smell you.

  That last moral were always my favourite, as she’d go for me then and we’d knock chairs sliding and rugs flying, chasing after one another. We broke Mam’s mixing bowl, skidding into the kitchen table.

  Mam told Grandmam off, said, ‘You’re acting more like a child than Mary does.’ Me and Grandmam both sat in the corner on the floor, plaiting our hair together so our heads were all joined up.

  When Mam called us for our tea, we played a game where we would only speak if we could both say the same words as each other, loudly, at the same time. We only ate when we raised our spoons together. Soon we were feeding tattie soup into each other’s mouths. Made a right mess.

  I know some of the stories Grandmam told me over and over could be just stories, but all stories have some truth in them. The snow here has always been warm since Grandmam told me it were. And there are other reasons I know this story must be true, because from the north shore, where no one lives, we can see a small rocky island with a mound on the top far away in the distance. A glimmering comes off it, like it shines the sun right back at itself.

  The men dun go to the north of our island to fish, for there’s something in the sea what makes it shine too bright. It looks like stringy seaweed, but we know it’s the Glimmeras’ hair. There’s some kind of poison what fizzes and burrows all the way through it. Whatever it is, the fishes can’t swim, can’t even live, it’s so choked up. It creeps closer when folks step too near the water, so we keep well away.

  If the Glimmeras’ hair crept up from the sea and covered over our island, we’d get deaded, choked in it. It never has happened yet. I think someone cuts it away from the north shore with a knife. Only there’s so much of it, it’d take a boatload of knives to do the job.

  I stand up and stretch. Make a cup of mint tea and stir in a little honey. It’s getting dark outside. The whole day has gone so fast. Remembering makes me feel more tired than anything else. The key’s making me remember things in the time them really took, not like a quick picture memory, or one of the blanks I’ve got where a memory should be. Dun remember Barney being born, but Mam always said I were terrible sick around then and she had to keep me in my bedroom, so I dun make her get sick and hurt Barney when him were still in her

  belly.

  If Grandmam had still been alive, she’d have nursed me, and I might’ve remembered that, for she were never patient when I were sick. She were always prodding at me, saying I had to get better and play with her. And them prods of hers did make me get well faster than any kind of tincture. It’s comfort, like warm snow, remembering Grandmam. Warm snow makes me not mind so much about being alone.

  I take the tea back to the fire, sit down and blank my thoughts. Just think of Grandmam saying ‘warm snow’. Not hard to do. Just blink, make my mind blank. Refuse any other thoughts before them twist in and unravel.

  My thoughts are still. I’m blank enough to listen. I pick up the key. It’s cold in my hands. Not pulling at memories. So I’ve done my part of this trade.

  Now it will speak back.

  Morgan

  My parents are behind some door or another, the twins in their bedroom. My book of blank pages and pen have gone. The paper dolls under my mattress have been taken. But it wasn’t as I thought it might be. I’m still here. And there wasn’t an argument or a fight. It was worse.

  No one has looked at me all day.

  The twins were in their playroom downstairs this morning, and I went in and they were sitting cross-legged on the floor in the corner, tying their four hands together with a red ribbon. They were staring into one another’s eyes. They never hear me when they’re staring like that. I saw them again later, scuttling into their bedroom, just along the corridor from mine. I knocked on their door. They didn’t answer. I tried the handle but they were holding it on the other side so it wouldn’t turn.

  I tried to talk to Dad when he came out of my mother’s workroom, but he kept his eyes on the ceiling as he walked away, murmured ‘Later … later …’ and shut himself away behind another door.

  We’ve eaten three meals together and though our mealtimes are mostly silent anyway, none of them looked at me. Dad didn’t even come to the kitchen for the last meal. Mum, Hazel and Ash ate quickly, I watched their plates till they were empty, and so did they. Then they went away.

  So Mum’s told everyone to ignore me with their eyes, as a punishment.

  If there was a wicked stepmother who lived here with us, she might tell me to sweep the floor and polish the cutlery and do the dishes and clean out the firebox and scrub the range. I could dance with her while I raged and swept, throw ashes at her while she shouted. I could battle with her, disagree, rage and be transformed. We could fight really hard but talk about it afterwards. She’d be wicked, beautiful and have a knife-sharp wit. I’d secretly love her, because when we’d fight, she wouldn’t cry or sulk, she’d match my angry words, and I’d match hers. I wouldn’t have to surrender in order to protect her from how she feels, as I do with Mum. I know from all the storybooks that wicked stepmothers are to be avoided if you wish to remain good or pure or ignorant. I really want one.

  There isn’t a wicked stepmother telling me to punish myself with housework. But I have my real mother, who tells me it’s my job to look after everyone else, thinks that housework will keep my feet on the ground and stop my imagination taking over.

  But if they’re not looking at me, they can’t see me. If they’re not seeing me, they won’t guess what I’m thinking. So for now, I can let my imagination do whatever it likes.

  It’s almost night and this day has made me feel so invisible, the light has moved across the sky outside slowly, slowly.

  My head is full of thoughts and languages and my imagination thinks that all the stories have gone wrong.

  I’ve been dancing in ashes for a hundred years with a frog that has turned from me, kissed a prince and become a toad. I’m meant to have been a much loved daughter made from snow but my parents used icing sugar so I can’t melt and leave them thinking I was always perfect. I’ve developed a fear of enclosed spaces, so I don’t want arms around me or a ring on my finger. I’m not hungry for an oven-baked witch, I’m not laughing at an empress who wears the skin of her fattened emperor as her brand new clothes, I’m in a corner, watching the ice queen who is worried about eating rich foods for a feast in her honour, in case she gets heartburn. I’m so tired, but I don’t want to sleep for decades to give anyone a kiss they’ve wanted for only a moment.

  I need to be lifted out. Picked up, and put down somewhere else. I write on the window:

  ANY LOCAL WITCHES, YOUR PRESENCE (WITH BROOMSTICK) IS STILL MUCH NEEDED. WICKED STEPMOTHERS IN POSSESSION OF AXES OR HACKSAWS OR NON-ELECTRICAL POWER TOOLS MAY ALSO APPLY WITHIN.

  I lie on my bed, close my eyes and think of our own story. All families must have one. Some are spoken of, and some need to be remembered in fragments in order to be pieced together. I think of Mum in the days after she’d built the fence … dressed in magenta overalls and an orange shirt, her hair twisted away under a bright green scarf. She drew roses, sunflowers and violets all over the inside of the fence in coloured chalks. She drew flowers all over the outside of it as well, but I didn’t see them. She said, ‘Now, that shows everyone my talent. And it will wash away in the rain.’

  She put the padlock on the gate to keep everyone who lives on the island out. On her charm bracelet, the key to my freedom still clanks and clunks.

  When she’d locked the islanders out, and us in, she told me, ‘I’ve met some of the women, they’re all mad, they think your father is some kind of deranged man, because who would want to be an undertaker?’ She sobbed, ‘I’m not like the women who live
here and they laugh at my voice because I speak properly. I won’t be laughed at.’

  I said, ‘Are there children I can play with?’ and she said, ‘Where do you keep your loyalty – in your little finger?’

  Mum settled into building our furniture once the chalk flowers had been rained away. We were eating lunch on a picnic blanket spread on the kitchen floor. Mum told Dad that she was going to make all the furniture we needed for our home with her own hands. The beds, chairs, shelves and tables. She told him, ‘It will all belong to me if I make it.’ She glared at him, ‘No one else could ever claim it was theirs.’

  Dad put his radish sandwich down and stared at it for a long time. He doesn’t like us to talk at mealtimes, because he has to concentrate so hard on eating. He didn’t always find it hard to eat; in our house on the mainland, he was a lot wider. He used to go out and eat fine food and drink fine wines. But since we’ve lived here, he chews slowly, never clears his plate and finds it hard to swallow.

  I wipe my bedroom window, breathe another fog on it and write:

  I HAVE TO LEAVE

  If I stay in this locked room for much longer, I’ll destroy all the books – tear out the pages and rearrange the paragraphs. I still have my small nail scissors. Little use when it comes to picking a lock, breaking down a fence or digging a tunnel, but they can cut up the pages of a book and make up a new story.

  I take down some of the storybooks, the atlas, the mythology, psychology and biology books. I pick up the scissors, and put them down again because if I can’t get away from this house, these books could be the only books I ever have. I open them at random pages, move my finger over the words and point at different sentences.

  I say aloud …

  The match girl … danced with … Medusa … her psyche was disturbed by … photosynthesis. Travelling to Atlanta … she married … a wooden spoon. In the snow-capped mountains, carrying … fungicides … she dissected … the Furies. They were diagnosed as … lampyridae. The girl had … a psychotic episode … of the … tentacles. She ran away with the travelling … metatarsals … she wore … a golden fleece … and lived with seven small … ladybirds … in the … barrier reef … she was jilted by her most beloved … bipolar … bear.

  Dad knocks on my door. It’s his quietest knock. He opens it and comes in, says gently, ‘I’m sorry. She was very upset. She’s shut herself away downstairs now. Drawing, I think.’ ‘And I’m not upset?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to be in here alone, angry or tearful.’

  ‘Well, I’m not angry or tearful.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘I’m invisible.’

  ‘You aren’t. I promise.’

  ‘Don’t go. Can I talk to—’

  He shakes his head. ‘I promised her a cup of tea, so I’d better go and make it. Think about something you like, to make you feel more … visible. Collective nouns. You used to like them. How about a symphony of starlings?’

  ‘An unkissablement of toads.’

  ‘That’s good, if nonsensical. A … twilight of candles.’

  ‘Ah. An infestation of rice.’

  ‘Hm.’ His mouth looks stern, but his eyes smile as he closes the door.

  Mary

  Across the palms of my hands the key hums.

  At the touch of it I feel old, because the key is old. I could sit by this fireside for years, holding this key, hearing the memories of the women what’ve touched it; the stories locked inside its metal. I could sit here for the rest of my life … but I need to find the right touch, the right memory, so it’ll show me who knows where Barney is.

  It’s usually the most recent touch metal remembers first. But sometimes it’s not just the most recent touch, but an older one, the one the metal itself remembers the deepest – the moment the person holding it felt something them’re trying to hide and the metal caught the feeling and stored it up inside itself, because all things metal can keep secrets.

  The feeling of the key confuses me; it’s been touched by so many. It shows different colours, different sounds – hammering on metal, a band playing an old tune on fiddles, the sound of the sea, all tangle and tilt around my thoughts. Smells of moss, lavender, seaweed, metal smelting at the smithy, yeast, leather, birdskank, rosemary, sage, burning peat, clover wine, frying onions. It has inside it something of all the hands it’s been through. Like a riddle, where I’ve got to work out who’s left thems imprint the deepest on it.

  The key rings in my hands, is ready to speak. I’ve got a whole list of questions to ask. It hears this thought and rings hard, sends a judder through my palms. It throws my questions into a blank place: I can’t think what them are. The key pulls a picture from me – it rises up through the tangle from other people’s hands, the twists of colours and sounds get dull, the smells fade away.

  A memory of the first time I felt the secrets kept in metal. I’m small, wandering on the beach. A ring glints in the sand. I pick it up. As soon as I ask it who it belongs to it tells me. Valmarie’s wedding ring from Bill. I see her pale face, black eyes, long dark hair, her full lips.

  I take it to Mam, tell her, ‘You can’t have it, it’s Valmarie’s.’ Mam dun believe me, but I tell her over and over that it is. She takes me to Valmarie’s house, says on the way, ‘That’ll show you, you’re wrong,’ for she wants to trade it.

  But Valmarie says, ‘Yes, it’s mine,’ and takes it back. She slips it in her pocket. She’s stood there in her doorway with her arms folded. She’s interested I can hear her voice in it. Asks me sharp questions. Mam wanders off, picks leaves off her bay bushes. I want to follow her, but Valmarie’s talking to me:

  ‘All metal or just rings?’

  ‘I think it’s the metal, if I listen close.’

  ‘Just metal – or can you hear the call of other lost things?’

  ‘Just heard the song of the metal and your voice when I touched it.’

  Mam came back and said to Valmarie, ‘Just let her alone. She’s got the hands of a broiderer, just like her Mam.’

  Valmarie never asked us in.

  When we were home, my hands dun know what to do. Them were restless, like them missed the metal of the ring. My fingers kept twitching and I dropped near on everything I picked up.

  But Mam must have been watching my hands. She said, ‘Set yourself down by me, Mary, and I’ll set them wrong fingers of yours to right.’ She began to teach me to broider, just the two of us, sat by the fire with the flamelight flickering on the threads. And each stitch I made, though to me them seemed wonky, she looked at them close, nodded and told me I were stitching the best stitches she’d ever seen.

  ‘What do you want to tell me?’ I listen to the sound of waves from outside.

  The key hums, comes alive in my hands. This is the question it wants. It picks up the wash of the waves and the salt water is in this room with me, swirls around me in circles, starting at my feet, rising over my belly, up to my shoulders. Grey, blue, dark, drowning in air, then breathing underwater. Plunging down. Twisting. Dark. Cold.

  The waves swash around me.

  ‘Show me.’ My hands frozen. A feeling of gulping for air, of limbs thrashing, of salt water, filling my eyes, my mouth.

  ‘Show me.’ The key pulses in my hands – it’s pushing off the cold with some warm heartbeat deep inside its metal.

  Not pushing – a pull, a twist, longing. The deep ocean surges in the key. It’s a ringing from one of the women’s hands, a yearning the key has locked away. The touch of a woman, weeping for cold. For the taste of salt and the dark of the deep ocean. Transformed, tricked or trapped here. Her secret is here in the key: a woman who used to have a different shape, a Silkie; a seal on the outside, a woman on the inside. The skin of a seal and the heart of a woman. On land, she has the skin of a woman and the heart of a seal. Never content, never at home. A Silkie with a lost pelt is tied to the land in human form, till she can find it and go back to the ocean.

  Her face flashes into the dark pl
ace behind my eyelids, a pale outline growing brighter.

  Valmarie’s voice speaks:

  Dry people live on dry land breathing dry air in dry homes. On land, they love fire. Their homes are full of fire and flakes of dry skin they can’t even feel scratching off. Salt is for jars, for food, for preservative, while fish are sent away to the mainland to be eaten after they have been decayed, rotted, drowned in air.

  The room with a candle lit is where the heart beats in each home. I have seen into the heart of every home on this island and taken the things I want. Called a vision to me, and then the desire comes – to hold whatever I want, and make it mine. I am from the water, so my powers lie in fire. People believe me to be powerful, so I have become powerful.

  Belief is an infectious disease.

  No one would understand if I were to speak of how I miss the pull of the ocean’s currents. They would say I should accept this woman’s body. No one knows how it feels to have been something more instinctive, more vital.

  They can see I am different, so they call me witch, but it is instinct that calls me, even on land. To become powerful, believe it, and others will follow. To fall into love: fall out of yourself. To become the best at anything: be the worst at something else. To feed others: starve. To punish: make some guilt.

  On land, I still have traces on my body of the seal I was. The paleness of the moon reflects in my face. My hair is as black as a thickening of water. This land-mirror-beauty is nothing compared to the beauty in movement, in strength and power, the love and the ache in the wide black eyes of a seal. And yes, power. There’s power in beauty, whether the woman wants to be beautiful, or not. Without my sealskin, I am trapped here being beautiful. Always searching, trying to find something more.

  Something in one of these rooms shimmers at me. I see what I want, I take it. I go to their home when they are sleeping and steal it.