by Gaie Sebold
“How very interesting,” Madeleine said, struggling not to laugh.
“I have been wondering if it is possible to reproduce the effect by other means, but since it is so difficult to find out how a cat produces a purr in the first place, and I have no desire to dissect my poor darlings, nor to do so to any of their fellows, even if one could do so while maintaining the cat in a sufficiently calm and happy state for it to continue to purr, which seems almost certainly impossible and the mere attempt distressing for all parties...”
“I doubt such extreme measures would be necessary,” Madeleine said. “What one needs is to measure the vibration with as much accuracy as possible, and then find means to reproduce it. If one could record the purring, say, upon something like a phonogram disc...”
Limehouse
“MR STUG, IF you could just see your way...”
“Huntridge, don’t waste my time. Can you or can’t you make your rent? I’ve been patient, Huntridge. Very patient. My patience has limits. I’m a businessman.”
“Yes, Mr Stug. I understand, Mr Stug. I’m just waiting to hear about a job...”
The man was pale and skinny, dark sideburns standing out stark against his pallid skin, his hands long-fingered with large, scarred knuckles. His wife stood behind the room’s one piece of furniture, a battered, age-worn table, as though it were the only thing protecting her from Stug, and clutched her youngest child to her chest. She did not look at Stug, nor at her husband, but stared dully at the bit of ragged cloth that served as a curtain, rocking the baby mindlessly, a motion without care or comfort, only something that she had done so many times, that once a child was in her arms she could no longer stop herself.
The rest of the children huddled on a pile of... something. An unidentifiable heap of what might be clean clothes, or dirty ones, or bedding, or all of them promiscuously piled together. They ranged from a couple of years to about eight and were all as pale and thin as their father and as dull-eyed as their mother, apart from one.
The girl was probably seven or so. She had copper curls that, despite probably never having been washed in her life, were still the brightest colour in the dim, miserable room. She was watching her father and Stug anxiously; her quick, clear eyes going from one to the other, her arms spread protectively in front of the children on either side of her.
“Girl, come here,” Stug said.
She looked at her father.
“Come on, Pearl, it’s all right,” the man said.
The girl got up off the pile, and went to her father’s side and slipped a hand into his. She looked up at Stug, her face still and unreadable. In this light it was hard to tell, but he thought her eyes were green. Would that do? It might. In any case she had something – something he was learning to look for but could not yet, quite, identify.
He felt a deep shudder move through his gut. If he got it wrong too many times... he had seen the Queen’s Harp.
One of the brats mewled and he straightened his spine. Look at them, look at them all, it was unfair, it was wrong. It had to work. And soon, soon, he had been promised – no more of this, he could leave all this behind him.
“Can you speak, girl?”
“Yes.”
“You should say, ‘Yes, Mr Stug,’” her father said.
“Yes, Mr Stug.” Her voice was hoarse, legacy of damp winters in rooms like this. That would mend.
“Can you recite?”
“I know a passage from the Bible, Mr Stug.”
He shuddered. That wouldn’t do at all. “Anything else?”
“I know a story,” she said. “I heard it from a man in the street who told tales. It’s called Death the Sweetheart. But it’s quite sad, perhaps you shouldn’t like to hear it?”
“Death the Sweetheart?” It sounded like the worst kind of nonsense, but perhaps the Queen might like it. “Go on,” he said.
Pearl set her feet and put her hands behind her back. “There was once a pretty young girl,” she said, “who had no father nor mother nor brothers or sisters. She lived all alone and saw no-one. And one day a man came to her door and said he had been travelling far and was very tired. She was a kind person, and let him in...”
The story was, indeed, nonsensical, with the foolish female falling in love with the pale stranger who came to her door, when anyone of sense would have turned him away and no nonsense about it, and she died, of course, as could only have been expected. But the child did the thing without self-consciousness, and with a kind of innocent gravity that perhaps might appeal – dammit, it was so hard to tell.
Stug was overwhelmed with a sense of being hard-done-by. All this. This stinking room, these worthless people, this dance he must go through, never knowing, never being sure – all for something that the merest dog could do, the most wretched flea-bitten cur.
He should never have married Cora. She had had such a delicate, porcelain look, with her tiny waist and fragile hands, like a little figurine, but so it had proved – too delicate, too fragile.
But a divorce was out of the question. Respectable persons did not divorce. And Cora’s family had influence and few scruples.
“I may be able to come to some arrangement,” Stug said. “I know of a couple. They have no children...” He felt his face twist, and fought to still it. “They would take her, perhaps. If she were cleaned up. And behaved herself. I owe them a favour.”
“A couple...” the father said. “I don’t...”
“Let me take the girl and pass her on to them, and I’ll let you off the month’s rent. If they take to her, there’ll be some money in it for you.”
“But...”
“How much?” the woman said. She was not looking at Stug, but still staring at the filthy window-rag as though something terrible would happen should she turn her eyes away. “How much money?”
“Fifty pounds. Perhaps more.”
“No,” the father said, pulling the girl closer to his side. “No, Mr Stug, it’s a generous offer, sir, it is, but...”
“Fifty pounds,” the mother said, still in that flat, dull voice. “When did you last see fifty pounds? Have you ever seen all that money, at once? They none of them have shoes. If I can put Mabel into shoes and an apron, she could get a post in service, we could get a doctor to Joe...” She still did not look at her husband, or her daughter, or Stug, but clutched the sill and addressed the grimy pane. “Pearl’s a good child, they’d like her. You’d be a good girl, wouldn’t you, Pearl, and please these nice people, and send money home to your parents to help them? Wouldn’t you?”
Only then did she turn her gaze to her daughter. Pearl returned her look gravely, then looked up at her father.
“It’s the only offer you’ll get,” Stug said. “Otherwise you’re to leave by tonight. I have plenty of people who want this place. Plenty. The streets are full of feckless sorts like you with nowhere to sleep, and what do you think would happen to her there? That, or a respectable household. It’s up to you.”
“Sir... Mr Stug...”
“Well, man? I haven’t got all day.”
“I can learn some more stories,” Pearl said suddenly, fixing her eyes – yes, they were definitely green, startlingly green – on Stug.
“There, you see, it’s not as though she’s unwilling,” Stug said. “A bright girl like her could go far, given the right opportunities. Can you give them to her?”
The man bit his lip, and frowned. “But what if they... I don’t mean, sir, that they’re not... but we look after them, sir, best we can, it’s not easy, no, but...”
“Let her go!” The wife turned, suddenly animated. It was shocking, like seeing a doll brought to life, or someone you’d thought dead gasp in a breath and sit up. She held the baby, now, like something she might throw – at Stug, at her husband, her other children, at the whole roiling world. “Let her go, what is there for her here, what life, let her go for the love of God, Samuel, or she’ll end where we are. She’s your favourite, I know it, we all kno
w it, is this what you want for her?”
“Martha...”
“Don’t talk to me,” she said. “Leave me be. But let the girl out of here. Whatever she goes to, it can’t be worse than this.”
As though something in the air had snapped, the decision was made.
It was easier this way, Stug thought, satisfied. This way, he didn’t have to involve Simms.
Pearl didn’t cry. Huntridge clenched his jaw and gave a trembling smile as he told her to mind her manners and do as she was told and send to let them know how she was doing. The other children, understanding nothing, but feeling their father’s misery and their mother’s fury, set up a whining and wailing.
The mother tied a ribbon – a pathetic, frayed strip of still almost green ribbon – into the bright curls with jerky movements. “There. You’ll be a good girl,” she said.
“Yes.”
There were no kisses, which was a relief to Stug. He took the small dirty hand in his, grateful for his gloves, and left.
The child was not the babbling sort, which was also a relief. She stared at the steam-car that stood puffing and hissing in the roadway, got in, and sat when directed on the cloth he kept there for the purpose. She asked no questions, only observing everything with those striking green eyes. Unlike some, she did not attempt to smear grubby finger-marks on the fittings or pull at the curtains that covered the window.
Stug sat back. He did not look at the girl again.
The Crepuscular
“NOW REMEMBER, SPEAK only when you are spoken to. Don’t gawp like a simpleton, smile and be pleasant. And for God’s sake don’t scratch or pick your nose or any other urchin tricks, you understand?”
“Yes, Mr Stug.” The girl’s voice came in a hoarse whisper. She was gripping the cloth of her new cloak with both hands, her knuckles white. Her eyes were huge, the green irises all eaten up with black. Her dress too was new – a plain green gown, soft shoes. Her hair was washed and teased into ringlets and glowed like life in the cool, shifting light. He had taken some trouble; though this sort of frivol was beneath him, it would be worth it if this worked. Everything would be worth it.
He understood the girl’s astonishment. He had felt something like it, though of course, unlike this creature, he had had some education and knew a little more of the world than a few stinking square yards of Limehouse.
But then, this wasn’t, quite, the world.
“I bring a gift for the Emerald Queen,” he said.
“Do you?” said the Gate. “Bring it close and let me see.”
Stug pushed the girl forward with a hand on her shoulder and she stumbled a little, staring around with wide, dazed eyes.
“Here she is.”
The Gate was made of wood and metal, bone and flesh, all woven into patterns that changed constantly. Faces – or fragments of faces – appeared and disappeared, mouths opened and gasped, or laughed, or whispered, or sang. Eyes flickered open, moved, winked, wept, shut, disappeared. They slid and climbed around each other, in an obscene dance, a writhing minuet of root and branch and muscle. If he tried to follow the movement it gave him a fierce headache that lasted for hours, so he had learned instead to stare at something else: the pale silvery sky, or the field of grass, dotted with tiny, brilliant flowers, that stretched towards the horizon and the hint of spires in the distance. Behind him the Stream of Blood gurgled quietly through the grass.
A number of eyes opened at once, in pairs, and focussed on the girl. Grey, blue, brown eyes; yellow and bronze eyes, slit-pupilled like cats’ or with oblong pupils like a goat’s. Faceted like the eye of a bee, or round and pupilless as a cabochon jewel. The girl gasped, but did not whimper or sniffle. The eyes blinked, span into a circle, blinked again, and disappeared.
The Gate swung open.
The path to the Queen’s residence wound across the green, lined with ferns. He wondered how long it would be today, and hoped not too long. Though the temperature here seldom varied from the pleasant cool of a summer evening, he was always, inevitably, sweating by the time he arrived.
Not that it mattered. The Queen could smell his fear whether he sweated or not. He hoped the Harp was out of the way, along with all her other little jokes and pleasantries; the girl throwing a fit of screaming hysterics would do nothing for his cause. Or probably not, at least. It was so hard to tell – that was part of what made this business so endlessly frustrating.
He had hopes for this girl, but then, he always had hopes. So far, they had proved without foundation.
Today it seemed the Queen was impatient: they were walking only a few minutes before the Palace was in front of them, the spires having slid up over the horizon, dragging the buildings behind them, in the dreamlike way things moved here.
“How did we get here so quick?” the girl asked.
“Because we were allowed to,” Stug said. “You’ll see some strange people in here. Don’t scream or make a fuss.”
“I won’t.”
She hadn’t fussed over the Gate, he allowed that. He gritted his teeth. So far, so promising, but so much could still go wrong.
The courtiers were already gathering. Some in rags, some in bags, and some in velvet gowns, a strange, high, childish voice sang in his head – but these were no beggars. He felt the girl tremble under his hand.
A tall, attenuated creature in clothing – or skin – that looked like ancient bark bowed and shuddered as though it were a tree in a high wind, waving skinny arms and walking past on backwards-bending legs, turning to watch the girl with eyes like flickering candle-flames. A shimmering-satin exquisite, dressed in the style of a long-gone century, whose wig, at a foot tall, was almost as tall as he, tittered behind a fan made of animal-skins, joined with gold wire. A woman of pure-carved, painful beauty in a night-blue velvet robe looked them over with chilly indifference, and turned around so that the face on the back of her head, which was male, but no less beautiful, could see as well. The face made a mou and the shoulders shrugged as the creature moved away.
A unicorn trotted out of the woods, saw the girl, and tossed its head; she laughed and clapped her hands. The unicorn caracoled, then lowered its horn and came towards them. Close to, it was no larger than a pony; it walked warily around them, looking them up and down, avoiding the girl’s outstretched hand, then stepped away, flirting its purple-smoke tail.
“Is this a fairy-tale?” the girl whispered.
“Something like.” Stug said. He kept moving forward, bowing, bowing, not too deep, one must leave something for the Queen.
The crowd parted to let him climb the steps of silver and glass. Between columns of milky-blue agate lay the doors to the inner palace – at least, so he hoped. Judging by the ease of his walk today she was feeling amenable, but one never knew.
The doors were of brass set with hundreds of jewels, some no bigger than a fingernail, others big enough to buy entire kingdoms; some of astonishing beauty never seen in the other world, some that looked like killing growths taken from dead stomachs. Jewels were currently out of fashion at court, but it had pleased the Queen to allow these to remain.
Stug fixed a smile to his face and said, “Remember what I told you. We are about to see a lady who is a Queen, and if you please her, she will give you many pretty things.”
The doors opened at their approach. Another good sign.
Beyond them was a carpet of flowers, and beyond that, the Queen upon her throne.
The girl stared open-mouthed at the Queen, then remembering who-knew-what half-heard story, lifted the sides of the skirt and attempted a curtsey. For what was probably a first attempt it wasn’t entirely graceless, but a low snickering ran through the Court like a poisoned stream.
“What pretty hair you have,” the Queen said. Stug’s heart pulsed in his chest.
The Queen rose from her throne, and drifted towards the girl with her undersea walk that never quite touched the ground. The first time he had seen her even Stug, who had little appreciation for
beauty and none at all for mystery, had been struck. Now, he just stood with a dry mouth, trying to hide his impatience.
The Queen was all pearl-pale skin and yards of flossy hair that drifted about her like the seeds that float on a summer breeze. Her eyes changed colour with her mood; now storm-grey, now sky-blue, now opalescent and opaque.
The girl reached out a hand – thoroughly scrubbed as Stug had instructed – towards the Queen’s gown, and hesitated. The little hand hovered in mid-air like something trapped in amber. The Queen laughed, and said, “Do you like my gown? Maybe you will have one like it, if it pleases me.”
The gown was of living flowers, each a different shade of yellow. Buttercup and celandine and daffodil and primrose (the Queen might not command the seasons, but she could make flowers bloom out of their time), hawkbit and trefoil and cowslip – though no St John’s Wort. St John’s Wort was not welcome here. Whether it was actually effective against the Folk, Stug did not know, but carrying it was considered an insult.
He had made the mistake of having it with him the first time he had been invited across the Stream of Blood. That visit had not gone well, and he knew, now, how lucky he had been to get away with his skin, and his mind, intact. The Queen had been in a beneficent mood, and it seemed she might be so today.
