Snake Ropes

by Jess Richards

Then I don’t want it any more.

  What is a diary, a letter, a child’s toy, a box, a necklace, a coin or a flower when what I really want is my home. What good can come from the theft of someone’s hope, their secrets or their love, someone’s grief, when I can’t get what I need?

  Each night I dig the graveyard as if my hands have claws. How can this be allowed to happen, that dreams die down, rot among the corpses, to nothing? Look underneath the soil, where the roots hang down, tangled in bones. Where earth rains from my spade.

  Out in the graveyard, buried among the dead, is my sealskin.

  I try to move my hands, put down the key. It freezes. Heavy on my palms. I open my eyes, the room is full of seawater. Pebbles are scattered across the floorboards. A herring flicks past my face. In the fireplace, tendrils of seaweed stretch up the chimney. I’m like a rock, fixed, not able to move.

  Valmarie is a thief.

  I ask, ‘Has she got my brother?’

  The key pushes the question away and a bell sound clanks, muffled, underwater.

  My eyes close.

  This is not the end of Valmarie’s story. The air in this room feels dry in my throat, and my feet sink in cold sand.

  Valmarie’s voice speaks low:

  My sealskin was stolen when I was seventeen, washed up in a storm. The man called Bill found me. I fell out of my sealskin, and lay as a woman, trembling and naked on a rock on the shore. My sealskin lay beside me, though I didn’t yet have the strength to climb back into it. He said my eyes were stars, my hair the night, my skin smooth as cream. Some such falseness. He couldn’t see I would have been far more beautiful inside my sealskin, that the light from the sky bounced off the fur, that the curve of my back met the shape of the waves, that the surges and ripples of my muscles inside it could twist and turn my whole body spiralling through currents, into the depths.

  I reached for my sealskin. Bill’s eyes burned me. He picked it up, said he’d take me to his home to recover, said that later he would help to get me back to the ocean again. My sealskin was soft and delicate, its fur dark and silver-tipped like glints on ice. He threw it over his shoulder. It was nothing to him, but when he carried me up the hill to his house, I stroked it on his shoulder with my fingertips.

  I never saw it again.

  My sealskin was my strength. The only way I could get back home. Inside it I was myself.

  The thief Bill carried me home, dosed me with some bitter herbal tea to soothe my drying throat, night after night. Stole my memory. I forgot all of who I was, lost myself in Bill’s words. Hung onto them as if they were ropes thrown from a ship, and I would drown if I let go. Bill and this island claimed me as a possession. He told me his story. I was born on this island, I knew him all my life, loved him and only him. He hid my sealskin and married me. When I stopped drinking the tea, and my memory came back, it was too late.

  I tried everything to get him to speak of it. To tell me where it was. He said he didn’t want to lose me, he couldn’t remember, he was drunk when he hid it. It was stolen, someone tore it up, it was destroyed. I seduced him, flattered him, cried for days, fed him, starved him, shouted, begged, tore at my hair. He’d never say.

  I realised that a part of me still carried it with me – a fragment of it shielded my heart. It kept the coldness safe deep inside me, where it could never be touched. This coldness spread, for the currents of the sea still surge in my blood.

  He followed where I led him. Took favours granted as signs of hope or love, some such gifts. His hope allowed me to lead him into the worst kind of currents – the ones of self-deception. From those currents, sooner or later, there are no ways to journey back.

  I let him believe I loved him, showed him by lying with my body. He got me pregnant. The young nearly tore me apart clawing his way out of me, yet I loved Dylan from the moment I melted into his black eyes. Bill watched me with him, said I spent too much time feeding him. I saw jealousy in his face.

  But at last I had someone to love.

  I stopped speaking to Bill. Stopped dreaming, wouldn’t look at him when he came home, was never in his bed.

  After a time, Bill said, ‘You’re silent like you’re already in your grave. I’ve lost you and no one is mourning but me.’

  After years, he told me, ‘Buried your sealskin somewhere in the graveyard. It’s been there, rotting all these years.’

  Fragments, pieces that were once a part of me.

  Dylan disappeared the day after Bill told me where he’d buried my sealskin, when I finally knew. My Dylan, my young. Not long turned thirteen. I left him lying on his bed in his room, went outside to stare at the graveyard. When I went back inside, he was gone.

  I said to Bill, ‘Another piece of me has been taken.’

  Then I cried.

  This loss is as deep as the loss of my sealskin. All losses open doors into older grief.

  Bill took my hand. He said, ‘Now you’re in tears, showing me this, I feel closer to you than what I ever have.’ I snatched my hand away.

  Naked and stolen all over again.

  I told Bill how much I hated him. Told him I never loved him, and shipwrecked his self-deception as he buried my hope.

  My sealskin’s fate, but not yet mine. I want justice.

  Kelmar’s son gone, then mine. Then Annie’s son, and now Beatrice’s. With Beatrice buried, and Annie devoted to Martyn, it’s down to me and Kelmar to call up the help we need. Take whatever truth it brings.

  Morgan

  Mum unlocks my bedroom door, comes in, folds her arms and says, ‘You haven’t washed up. There’s a stack of dishes left, I can smell them from here.’

  Her voice doesn’t belong here.

  I put down my book. ‘How can I wash up, when you’ve decided I need to be locked in my room and don’t even …’

  She glares at me. Taps a finger on the door. Strokes a whorl in the wood. Waits.

  ‘All right!’ I push past her, stamp down the stairs to the kitchen. There’s a cold cup of tea on the floor in the hall, so I take it into the kitchen.

  The washbowl has dirty plates stacked in it. I go out of the back door to the well in the garden, and like an overworked kitchen girl, I sigh as I fill a bucket with water, bring it in and pour it over the plates till the washbowl is full. I plunge in my hands and it’s freezing cold. I’m a serving girl in a grand castle, seeking something precious to steal that will buy me my freedom.

  On the mainland, our house was full of everything we could ever possibly want, but none of it felt like it belonged to us. I watched Mum pace the rooms while Dad was out, spied on her as she stroked the grand piano that none of us could play; she opened a rosewood trunk and lifted out a beaded wedding dress that she’d never worn and wouldn’t fit her; she fingered the embossed spines of a collection of antique hardback books, printed in a language that none of us could read.

  I pick up a plate gently, run my fingertips over it and pretend it’s made of ivory.

  Mum comes in. She leans against the solid kitchen table; it creaks under her weight. I feel her eyes like a scratch on the back of my neck. ‘Don’t leave the kitchen in such a mess next time.’

  The room fills with her heavy thoughts.

  I’m not a serving girl any more.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  Her eyes watch my back. ‘I saw what you wrote on your window. I have to leave.’

  I wipe another plate clean, turn away from the washbowl and put it on the kitchen table, get a dry cloth and put it next to the plate. I pretend I’m a queen and Mum’s my servant. I announce, ‘You should dry,’ and go back to the washbowl.

  Mum doesn’t notice I’m being a queen. She says, ‘Writing things down doesn’t make them true.’

  ‘Stealing things from under other people’s mattresses doesn’t make them yours.’

  ‘What about me?’ I know she’s squeezing tears up in her eyes.

  ‘I can’t breathe …’

  ‘You’re selfish, Morgan. You kn
ow, there was a time I couldn’t breathe. Giving birth to you – do you think I could breathe then? Your father didn’t have to go through that. You’ve been talking to him, haven’t you? What have you been saying about me?’

  I’m not a queen any more. I say, ‘You chose to give birth to me …’ I put another plate on the table.

  She says, ‘When you talk about leaving here, do you think I can breathe? Who’ll look after the twins? And do this …’ She waves her hand at the clean plates. ‘I’ll shrivel. Is that what you want?’

  I wipe another plate and wonder what shrivelling might feel like. But I say, ‘The twins are fine, they’re so … involved with each other, they don’t need anyone—’

  ‘You’re weedy. I don’t like looking at you.’ She folds her arms and the table creaks.

  The washbowl looks far away. My arms seem really long. I watch my tiny hands scrub at a fork. Three choices: Angry. Silent. Walk away.

  She says, ‘At your age girls think they know everything. You’re wrong. You wouldn’t survive anywhere else. You’re too sensitive, you’d get hurt. You’d have an accident. Someone would kidnap you. They like long blonde hair, they like thin women because they fall over easier than fat ones. Can you imagine how I’d feel, you not here, worrying about you, all the horrendous things that can possibly happen, I’d think of all of them, every single one, I’d never stop worrying, never sleep for caring. It would cripple me. You couldn’t find a job. You’re all book talk and attention-seeking. The only thing you’re good at is reading, and no one gets paid to read. We shouldn’t have taught you. You read too much, all those words have got stuck in your head, making you think you could belong anywhere but where you’re standing. It’s ridiculous.’

  A hammering of words.

  I spin round with the fork in my hand. ‘Mum, the only place I’m ever standing is at this washbowl. I could stand at a washbowl anywhere.’ I gesture through the window at the fence outside. ‘Nothing happens. Nothing but the paint chipping, and the whispers on the other side.’

  ‘Put that down.’ She points at the fork I’m pointing at her. ‘What whispers? There are no whispers! I’m protecting you from them!’ she shouts, her voice is a knife. ‘They wouldn’t understand you – and they’d say hateful things about me to you! I can’t trust you not to listen to them, not when they’re telling you lies about me, and then where would I be? A daughter who hated me, that would be terrible.’

  I put the fork on the stack of clean, dripping plates. I say, ‘They call us three “the hidden daughters”. I’ve heard whispers on the other side of the fence.’ I wash up a handful of spoons.

  ‘When will you stop making up stories about yourself? Hidden daughters. One day I’ll tell you about hearing voices—’

  ‘You have told me about hearing voices! You’ve told me that you don’t, but that you’re special and you’d be the one to hear them if anyone could. There aren’t any voices in this house, not the whisper of a ghost. Even if there were, you wouldn’t hear them, because you don’t listen!’ I crash the spoons on top of the plates.

  Her hands shake. ‘Stupid girl!’ She bangs her fists on the kitchen table and I hear a clank of metal. ‘You belong with us.’

  I turn back to the washbowl. A silver knife gleams under the water. I wash the surface with a cloth, the silver glistens. I say, ‘I don’t belong anywhere,’ and slice my thumb. The scarlet blood seeps out. I put my thumb in my mouth.

  Mum walks out of the kitchen. I run the cloth over the knife and wipe it clean.

  Mary

  I heard women passing by earlier, talking of the Thrashing House key. Annie called round again, said she’ll keep looking in on me. She’s fearful about Valmarie and Kelmar calling up the owl woman. Says them dun know when to stop.

  I lean the moppet on my pillow under a blanket with its face poking out of the top like it’s really Barney. Tell it, ‘Go to sleep, little one. It’s got dark quick. Not long, before the bells ring out for the dreamings.’

  But them can’t.

  The Thrashing House key sings in my hands when I take it out from its hiding place. I wonder whose turn it should be to ring the bells. Camery’s face is there behind my eyelids when I blink. If the dreamings dun get took, folks might just have to hang onto all the dreamings and thoughts them want to get rid of. It might mean that some folks get to talking more.

  I wrap a warm blanket around me and sit on my bed next to the moppet. I hold the key in both hands and close my eyes. The key hums, almost hurts my hands. Like it wants to be held, but it’s full of a cold gale. It wants something what can really touch it, but it could just blow away, for the winds are too strong.

  This key is different to other metal. Other metal just gives up what I want to know, gives me a face or an answer like it’s glad to. But this key is so old, and it’s used to the touch of so many hands, it feels like I should do what it tells me, and not the other way round.

  The next question gets blown into my head: ‘Who’s watching me?’ It’s not what I wanted it to be. I try to change it, to ask about Barney, but the question’s linked itself to me. This is the question the key wants asked. It holds me locked, the gale blows my hands, them clasp on tight, the key grasps my hands back. The question won’t let me go.

  So I ask it.

  ‘Who’s watching me?’ Behind my eyelids, darkness shifts around.

  A feeling spreads out of the key; arms reach up to clasp around me, the arms dun hold me, them pass right through. I try to open my eyes but the key blows a gale over my face. My hands are blown onto the key, the key is blown onto my hands. The wind dies down.

  The face is blurry and faint. Mam’s face, behind my eyelids. Her dark hair like mine, her face pointed, circles under her eyes what stare off to something distant. The key rings out her voice from the past.

  Tears soak my face as I listen:

  I want this child I’m heavy with to come out. Too heavy for my back. It’s funny to think of me being someone’s Mam. Ned as someone’s Da. Him will tell this child stories of the sea …

  It’s my turn on the bell list and I’m so heavy I dun know how I’ll make it up all the steps. Shouldn’t have to go there yet. It should be someone else. I’ve only been of age to go to the Weaving Rooms a week, and it’s my turn already.

  So here is the key around my neck. Them say the list’s always the same rotation, dun matter whether I’m ready for it or not. All this secrecy, and perhaps I’m not seeing it the right way, but what if it’s all just a load of fuss over a matter of bells and sleep?

  If this key were to unlock my belly, that would be something. Unlock me, let the baby come out gentle.

  Ned says him will catch as much fish as him can, and I’ve done so many broideries that the pictures got strange. Some of my mother’s stories crept into my hands.

  Unlock a memory … the north shore. The sun shines. Then it were dark. Too dark.

  I were a child.

  Lost. Couldn’t believe how far back the tunnels in the caves went till I were caught too deep. I found a drawing of this key on a cave wall. I’d never seen this key then, just thought the drawing must mean a door were close by. I got afraid.

  Mam were outside, under a grey sky, looking to the north. ‘Strange winds blow down from the Glimmeras,’ she said, when I finally found my way back to her. She said nothing about me being lost. Like it was only a moment I’d been wandering, far inside the caves. If this baby is a girl, she’ll never let me be so lost. Not like my own Mam did. I need a daughter to love me.

  My eyes flood tears over my cheeks. I want to keep this key forever, so I can call up Mam’s voice, this moment, years ago when she first held this key in her hands and left her imprint in the metal. She’s left a hole in the world what’s Mam-shaped and no one else fits in it. Not even Annie, though she loved Mam so she’s always been good to me. Not Beattie or Nell or any of the women I know. Because Mam brought me into the world and there’s no one can replace someone what’s done th
at.

  Mam sounded like she wanted me to love her more than Grandmam did. Dun think I did that enough. When Grandmam lived with us, Mam often got me to come away from her, wanted me to do something with her instead. But I loved playing with Grandmam, so I were grouchy with Mam when she wanted to teach me how to bake cinnamon biscuits, or to learn a new stitch. I never told her I loved her. Never knew she’d not be here till she weren’t. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. Now I can’t tell her that ever.

  If she were here, I’d say: I loved you because we were belonging people and you made me, cooked me up in your belly, didn’t throw me out cold before I were ready. You made me live when you could have let me die, and babies can die, so easy. But I dun, for you must have kept me warm, loved me even when I screamed you awake.

  Only a week in the Weaving Rooms and her first turn on the bells. Too young to have heard much women’s talk. That tells me why every year on my birthday she looked at me like I’d hurt her. She’d say the right words and give me a gift, a new toy, a coat or a new downy pillow or the wooden box I keep my keys in. Her eyes were telling me how much it hurt her, bringing me out of her and into the world. Only I never knew it then. I’d smile at the gift she gave me, eat the cakes she’d bake, but as soon as I could, I’d get away from her eyes, curl up in bed under my blanket and try to sleep the rest of my birthday away.

  I pull the blanket tight around me. She dun look at me like that the rest of the year. Dun have to remember her eyes like that. I can blank out anything I dun want to think of. It’s easy. I just blink, and think of something else. Mam fed me soup and honey tea when I were sick. She taught me the letters and numbers when I were so little, Annie said I wouldn’t take to it yet, but I did, because Mam believed I would.

  On Barney’s first birthday, Da went off fishing and Mam went off somewhere early that morning. When she came back in, I were sat on my bed, holding Barney. I were gazing in hims eyes and him were staring back, like him wanted a proper look. Mam smiled at us, said she’d been out to pick me some flowers, ‘For you’re always picking flowers for me.’ She gave me a posy of violets and took Barney out of my arms.