Crown of Stars

by Sophie Jaff

  “Oh, of course.”

  Anna doesn’t seem to hear Ben’s sarcasm. She’s on a roll.

  “It had, or has, massive symbolic ties with the triple goddess.

  “The what?” Katherine swallows hard; her throat feels tight.

  “The Maiden, Mother, and Crone.” Their titles trip off Anna’s tongue. She’s totally in her element.

  “What a way to sum up the female experience!” William tries for a lighter tone, but Jane frowns at him as Anna continues, oblivious.

  “And as Christianity consumed the Celtic culture, it began to represent the Holy Trinity, but obviously this knife dates far earlier. I mean it’s a pervading ornament in the Book of Kells. And then there’s the whole theory that it ties in with the nine months of a woman’s pregnancy.”

  “Ah, Katherine! Now you can feel part of ze action,” Gunther says.

  “I don’t understand.” A tightening sensation closes around Katherine’s throat. Her skin prickles with what feels like tiny ants.

  “Well, there’s a theory that each spiral represents three months as the sun makes its journey . . .” Anna stops. “It’s all a bit complicated.” She takes in the silence of the room. “I didn’t mean to go on like that! It’s stunning. Wherever did you find it, Matthew? It looks like it should be in a museum.”

  “My dealer, would that he dealt in nice normal things, like drugs.”

  Suddenly Katherine can’t breathe. She’s choking. She needs to get out of there, away from the knife, the dirty reddish hue so much like crusted blood. She doesn’t understand why they aren’t all sick to their stomachs.

  Luckily, everyone seems to be admiring it, so she is able to disappear from the room unnoticed. In the corridor, she glances down to the right and heads toward the first door she sees, which opens into a darkened room.

  Once her eyes adjust, it turns out to be Matthew and John’s bedroom. She heaves herself up onto the edge of their four-poster bed, and reaches under her collar to feel the tiny links of the chain on which the ring brooch is strung. She often forgets she’s wearing it, it’s always under her shirts or a scarf anyway, but it seems to have become a part of her even to the extent that she keeps it on in the shower sometimes. If anyone found out they’d think she was crazy, wearing such a valuable antique in the shower. Not that she’s showering as much these days. Katherine must be becoming English, such is her love of baths. Not too hot, Dr. Edwards told her, so she tries to keep them temperate, but baths feel good. Just soaking, floating, zoning out. She’s been putting in lavender, rose water. It smells so beautiful, so strangely familiar.

  Now she lets her fingertips ride over the links, and the tightness loosens, the heat lessens.

  “Are you all right?” Jane peers in through the dimness.

  “Oh yes!” Katherine looks up, feeling guilty. “You gave me a start!

  “Tired?”

  Not tired, she reflects. I’m never tired these days. “Yes, I guess so.” The easiest answer.

  “I remember that when I was pregnant, in my second trimester I would be full of all this energy, and then I would suddenly feel these crashing waves of exhaustion and have to pass out.”

  “That’s about it.” Katherine tries to smile as naturally as possible. Please go away, she prays.

  “Oh! That’s so pretty.” Jane is looking at her necklace.

  “Thanks.” She’s let her scarf slip, and the ring brooch is glittering on her chest in the light coming in through the open door. Katherine desperately wants to shove it back under her shirt, but Jane comes toward her.

  “I didn’t see this before. Is it an antique?”

  “Sael got it for me . . . a while ago.” Back off, she thinks, back off now, you nosy bitch.

  Jane is very close. She reaches out. “Could I see it?”

  She is so near that Katherine can see her eye shadow, a faint bruised mouse color with a tiny sheen of glitter. Her lipstick is a bit smudged at the corners of her mouth, and there’s a tiny speck of it on one of her front teeth. Katherine looks at her pores, which gape wide, her left eyebrow with its two stray hairs below the main brow line. She can smell the wine on Jane’s breath, and the faint chemicals of her perfume. She closes her eyes . . .

  Katherine wakes with a start. I’m in a car. How did I get in a car? she wonders. Outside the window, night stretches out black and smooth and endless. In the front seat, the driver’s shoulders, square and heavy, are silhouetted in the dashboard’s glow.

  “Sael?”

  He looks up, the light from his phone screen briefly illuminating his face. “Yeah?”

  She stares at him, dazed.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “Fine. Yes. Sorry.” She runs her hand along the leather interior, gazes at Sael’s profile, at the darkness speeding by her window. “I guess I fell asleep.”

  “That’s okay, it’s late.”

  “You didn’t want to take the train?”

  He shoots her a puzzled look. “It just seemed easier than the train. I did ask you, and you seemed fine with it.”

  “But isn’t—” She glances toward the driver and lowers her voice. “Isn’t this going to be insanely expensive?”

  Sael snorts, amused. “I’ll manage, don’t worry.” He pauses. “Sorry I had to be on my phone so much tonight.”

  “No worries. Did you have any fun at all?”

  “Sure. They’re nice guys, good people.”

  “Yeah, I had a feeling you’d like them.” Katherine has to admit to feeling pleased—then again, who wouldn’t like Matthew and John?

  “Gunther was kind of a dick, a bit Eurotrash.”

  “Right.”

  “But they were cool.” He goes back to his screen. “Although that woman was kind of weird toward the end.”

  “Which woman?”

  “What’s her name again? Jane?”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “When we were saying good-bye, she seemed kind of, I don’t know, freaked out. Sort of squirrely. She wasn’t making eye contact with anyone. Muttering.”

  “Weird,” Katherine agrees, but she says it mechanically. Jane was super annoying, wouldn’t take the hint to shut up all evening long.

  The car speeds through the darkness. She leans back.

  She doesn’t remember saying good-bye, or leaving, or anything much after they’d all trotted upstairs to check out that rancid dagger. But they’re driving home, so it must have happened. All she knows is that she’s exhausted.

  It will probably come to me tomorrow, she thinks. Then she closes her eyes and is asleep once more.

  23

  Margaret

  I rise before midnight. Thomas and Rudd are asleep, so I must move quietly. It would not do to wake them. I dress and gather up the pouch of herbs I will need. I take the brooch.

  The moon is full and red, a blood moon. It will serve my purpose well. I walk silently, but I am alone. No one will disturb me, no one wants to venture out tonight. No one wishes to look upon a blood moon, lest it bring them ill fortune.

  I slip along the path past the keep, another shadow in the night. I stay close to the stone walls, and the guards do not see me. Soon I reach the castle garden with its great hazelnut tree. My mother taught me about hazelnut trees, old and powerful, their roots drawing wisdom from the earth. I stand under its low sloping branches and take a moment to say farewell to the one who grows within me.

  What could my child have become? My babe, my small one, my sweetling. Never to be rocked and crooned to, cossetted and coddled. This baby will never know what it is to be kissed in plump creases, what it is to grasp a finger with a tiny hand, what it is to suckle, to smile. I will never know what it is to have a person who loves me full in his own right. Who loves me regardless of my rank, or my nature; who loves me because I am his mother. My beautiful child, never to feel the sun upon his face or the wind or the rain, or to talk and laugh and taste and drink, to rise taller than me and care for me when I am old. Never will he
know my love, fierce and tender and all-consuming. Never, never, never.

  I am rocking the empty cloak back and forth and back and forth.

  I, who never weep, am weeping.

  With his knife, he comes for us, but he will never have you. Never, never, never.

  I concentrate upon the cold curl of the ring brooch in my palm. I must place myself, my soul, within it. Safe there I will abide, though it may be forever. I purse my lips, and as I exhale the serpent’s coils unfurl; the head rises; the reptile eyes, tiny jewels, glint at my own. I stab it into the flesh of my thumb. A single drop of blood wells up, slides down its length.

  Take me, take the whole of me, into you, into you.

  Take me, and take all of me, blood and bone and soul.

  The ring brooch pulls, pulses as a heart must do, and something deep inside me lets go. I scream in agony. It glows. It burns and burns like a rod of iron from the fire, and yet I wrap my fingers around it. I do not let go. I sink down upon my knees as something rips away. I feel a trickle of blood between my thighs. Good-bye, my love, good-bye, my own.

  Good-bye to me.

  What am I?

  I am a daughter. I see my mother’s laughing face as she whirls me around, her warm hand clasping mine. The pained eyes of my father, his stammering demands.

  I am an alewife. The smell of the yeast. The fine golden-brown barley. I ache from stirring, a drop of sweat beading down my forehead and nose. The clank of tankards, the first sip, its mellow tang, the foam.

  I am a lover. Close, his lips upon my lips, his hands thrust deep within my hair. “I will have you, I will.”

  I am a savior. Standing, proud, as the wolves come and take their revenge. Thomas, his tears. “I did it for a sister.”

  I am an enemy. Of the jeering boy who threw the stone; of the bandit leader with his useless curses; of my rival, though she knows it not. Her guileless blue eyes look into my own.

  I am this, I am more, I am less . . .

  I am Margaret.

  Would you still be willing if it cost you your soul? Would you?

  I would.

  I grip the brooch tightly, I am hard, I am a diamond, I am silver. I glint bright in the blood moon’s light. I will bear this and any pain, for after this night nothing will hurt me again.

  Hold me, take me, I come willing and true, take me, and make me unto you.

  And then—

  —it is done.

  I stand.

  I am light. I am lighter than air, than a feather, than a hollowed bone. All guilt is gone; gone is my anguish, my doubt, my despair. I could fly. Only my clothes weigh me down. I step out of my dress, which pools around my ankles. Yes, that is better by far.

  The night breeze skims my skin. I bathe in the blood moon’s light. I begin to sway and then to dance. I am free. I am free.

  The captain of the guards struts along the perimeter. So arrogant, so proud of his power. He will serve my purpose well.

  Blood to blood,

  Vein to vein.

  Keep my love

  From fire or flame,

  Or wind or rain,

  Till we are back

  As one

  Again.

  He comes now, the fool. Fearful, but duty-bound. I savor his fear. He is right to be afraid.

  I smile and he stops, struck by my naked skin in the moonlight, my dark and curling hair. Look at him, mustering up the courage to ask me my business.

  He begins to speak.

  “Behold!” I open my palms as the serpent upon the brooch glitters and gleams and writhes.

  He stares and stares. His stupid mouth hangs open. I laugh, for it is a great sport to see. I grasp his rough hand and lead him, dazed but willing, underneath the hazelnut tree. I take pleasure in his fumbling, his hot breath upon my neck, his groping, clumsy hands. I straddle him as easily as my pretty roan mare, and when I see the whites of his eyes I know he has never known such bliss.

  As for me, it is but a diversion. I ride him hard and fast and take my own satisfaction. I do not care if he is sated. And then I rise from him and command him to stand. He does, naked and lumbering, his sex still twitching in hope. He gazes at me, beseeching.

  “Kneel,” I say.

  Now a captain of the guard kneels naked in the dirt before the castle alewife.

  “Kiss my feet,” I croon. “Lick them clean.”

  And he covers my dirty toes with his besotted lips, lapping at each one as if this were a delectable feast. I know full well he would do anything I desire. For a moment I am tempted to tell him to slit his own pathetic throat, but it passes. I need him to deliver my gift.

  “Get up,” I tell him. I hand him the ring brooch, which is now keeper of my soul, my being. “You will return this to Lord August early on the morrow. Easy enough to do in the ensuing chaos of the wedding-day preparations. If he has not noticed its absence, you will return it to his bedchamber and slip away. If he has, and questions you or your men, then you will tell him you found it in a corner of the Great Hall or invent some other story, any story, only make sure he has it back. If I do not see it shining upon his breast tomorrow, it will go ill for you.”

  He nods his head, his eyes begging for another caress.

  “Now be off, fool. And cover yourself.” I am a little regretful to dismiss him thus. It would give me such pleasure to make him further writhe with shame, burn with humiliation, but I need him focused upon his task.

  After he is gone, I lift up my face to the moon, stretch out my arms, and sigh. Reluctantly, I begin to dress. I do wish he could have killed himself, but he’ll be dead soon enough.

  It is almost time.

  24

  Katherine

  They’re surrounded by an ocean of small pink dresses when Niamh gets light-headed.

  “Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t have a reaction sooner,” Katherine says. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine in a moment, just have to sit down.”

  “Come on.” Katherine leads Niamh to one of the rocking chairs and pushes her gently into it. “Here. You know, we’re lucky we’re not in the States at the moment. There would probably be signs up saying, ‘Warning! Excessive cuteness may cause adverse reactions.’” She stops talking and looks down at her friend with concern. “Do you need some water?”

  “That would be grand.”

  “I’ll find some.”

  “I have my water bottle with me.” Niamh motions to her bag on the floor.

  “Okay.” Katherine digs around and passes her the bottle. “Drink up.”

  “Jesus, you’re bossy!”

  “That’s why you like me.”

  Katherine and Niamh have given themselves a day of maternity shopping. Clothes for them and stuff for the babies to come. So far they have tried on some truly hideous dresses.

  “We’ll be just in time for summer!” Niamh had said, practically swimming in yards of loose denim.

  “Good Lord.”

  “Not fetching?” She batted her eyes coquettishly at Katherine and struck a pose.

  “Only a friend can get you through the horror of maternity jeans, though I have a feeling that these suckers are going to come in useful.”

  “And I love the no-fly-or-buttons part, easy access.” Niamh winked. “For a shag or a piss, whip these off in no time!”

  The saleswoman must hate us, Katherine had thought. We’re acting like wise-cracking, loud bitches of the crudest variety. Too bad for her we have money. I used to hate people like us.

  It was her turn in the fitting room. She studied herself in the full-length mirror, an activity she usually avoids these days. Her hair has grown longer. She’s heard that this is normal in pregnancy, but this much longer and this much darker? It doesn’t look bad, just . . . different. Unlike her.

  Her skin looks great, not a blemish, although it’s paler, though that may be because the English sun has yet to make a true appearance. She definitely scores there—even the small mole just above
her right collarbone has disappeared. She stared at the spot it used to be. Where did it go? And it’s not just the mole. She leaned in closer, searched again for the tiny triangle on the left side of her forehead, from when she got chickenpox as an eight-year-old. Reading a book, rubbing at her spotted face absentmindedly—there had been a little plop as the scab fell onto the open page. She had grown used to the scar, even secretly liked it. “You know,” her dad had told her once, “if you get up to heaven and you don’t have enough scars, the angels send you back.” But it has definitely vanished. She’s heard that pregnant women’s skin often glows, helped by the extra blood coursing through their bodies and any amount of amazing hormones, but disappearing moles and scars?

  She stepped back from the mirror. Her belly is rounded, but she hasn’t put on a ton of weight. Her breasts are fuller, and her nipples are a deeper plum color, but that wasn’t the issue. It’s my face, she decided.

  But what is it about her face that looks so different? It is a little less round, more oval, a narrower chin. How could that be? Her hazel eyes seem browner. It’s the light in here, she told herself. They always have the shittiest lighting in fitting rooms. She pressed her palms against her reflection’s palms, cool and smooth. She wondered why she would expect it to feel different. It was a mirror after all. Touching her forehead against the glass, still pushing her palms against it, she imagined the fingers on the other side curling through and taking hold of her own.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  “Katherine?” Niamh was on the other side of the door. “Katherine, you ready?”

  “Five minutes.”

  Katherine pulled on her jeans and bellyband, her bra and shirt and sweater, and stepped into her boots.

  “Good-bye,” she murmured, but she left quickly, just in case anyone decided to wish her good-bye back.

  Outside Niamh was impatiently rubbing the small of her back.

  “Sorry, I guess I was just—”

  “Navel gazing?”

  “Something like that.” She blinked and tried to keep a neutral face as they teetered to the front with armfuls of clothes.