The Ozark trilogy

by Suzette Haden Elgin

  “And what happened?”

  “And nothing happened. The only difference between pseudocoma and real coma is that the victim of pseudocoma does not deteriorate physically or mentally. Otherwise, it’s exactly the same—and we did a good job of it. Oh yes; that’s a downright magnificent pseudocoma we put her into. She went right on just as she was.”

  “Do you understand it?” Troublesome asked gravely.

  “No, of course we don’t understand it, curse your insolence for asking! We ought to understand it ... do you have to rub my nose in it? Does that give you pleasure?”

  “That’s my sister,” she reminded him. It was no time to make her ritual speech about having no human feelings.

  “And the hope of the world.”

  To her amazement, she saw that there were tears on his cheeks, running in rivulets down into his beard; it wouldn’t do to let him know she saw that, and she devoted her attention to watching a seabird wheeling above them. It must have gone demented, too, she thought absently.

  “We were so careful,” he mourned beside her. “One thousand years of being so careful. Keeping the population small, so that there was always abundance. Balancing every substance that went into the soil and the water and the air, and every substance that came out, to guard its purity. We made a paradise ... no crime, no war, no disease, no crowding, no hunger, no— “

  “I remember, Veritas Truebreed,” Troublesome cut him off. “I was up on a mountaintop a good deal of the time, but I do remember. And I’d rather hear explanations than memorial services, if you don’t mind.”

  “We have some guesses.”

  “Guesses? What kind of guesses?”

  He didn’t answer her, and she turned to look at him, tears or no tears.

  “I said, what kind of guesses?”

  “They ought, by rights, to be secret ...”

  “Oh, hogwallow, you fool man! Secrets, at a time like this!”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said, “and I’m too tired to care any more ... and nobody’d believe you even if you weren’t too mean to tell, so what does it matter? We assume—just assume, mind you, we’ve no proof—that there was something about Responsible that was essential to the functioning of magic. She had no powers, of course, beyond those of any other female; don’t misunderstand me.”

  “You’re a liar, Veritas—I told you I had the whole story from that poor piece of work at Castle Wommack, and he had a few words to say about Responsible’s powers; seems as how he mightily disliked being subjected to them.”

  “Even on Old Earth,” said the Magician of Rank stiffly, “in the times of utter ignorance of magic, there were rare individuals capable of mindspeech—as there were rare individuals seven feet tall. Your sister is a freak, as those were freaks, with no knowledge or control of her abilities. But she is something else, something ... a catalyst, perhaps? Somehow, whatever she was, taking her out of the system of magic brought it to a full stop. And pseudocoma takes magic—you can’t put someone into it, nor take them out of it, with solar energy or electrical energy or any other kind. By the time we realized what had happened, there was no energy left—without her—for us to use to cancel the coma. So far as I know, that’s the way of it. And if you could get all nine of us together in her bedroom again, which I doubt, since the ships aren’t sailing and the Mules aren’t flying, it would be the same as it was. Just the same as it was ... “

  “You were fools,” said Troublesome. “Plain fools.”

  That long groan again ... it was getting boring, especially since he was in no pain.

  “You were, you know,” she said, happy to twist the knife.

  “We didn’t realize,” he protested. “We had no idea that she mattered that way ...” And if someone had told them, he thought to himself, if they’d been warned, it would have changed nothing. They wouldn’t have believed it. They had hated Responsible of Brightwater so much, and they had so welcomed a legitimate opportunity to punish her for humiliating them, he knew that no amount of warning could have held them back.

  “You do not know the hours,” he said slowly, “the countless hours I have spent standing beside her all by myself ... trying things. Hoping I’d jog something loose, find the right thread accidentally. Because whatever it is that she is for, that is still intact. That’s still there, if I could only get at it.”

  “How do you know that? How can you possibly know?”

  He raised his eyebrows at that, and he admonished her to think. After all, he pointed out, she had a reputation for wisdom as well as wickedness. And, goaded like that and held in the fierceness of his eyes wanting to get back at her for the way she’d spoken to him, she saw it.

  “Ah,” she breathed, “you’re right! Otherwise, if it were otherwise, she’d be like someone in true coma ... she’d be curled tight and wasting away and— “

  “And all the rest of it. Yes. And she’s not. She looks exactly as she looked the hour we did our work, and that can mean only one thing—all that is left of the energy of magic is concentrated there in her, keeping her from ever changing.”

  Something in his tone caught her attention, and she looked at him close, and marveled at the way of the world. Revelation followed upon revelation.

  “You hate her,” she said. “She’s your own kin, grew up here under this roof playing on your knee and riding piggyback on your shoulders—and you hate her worse than sin! Why?”

  Veritas Truebreed squared his shoulders, and he met her eyes, but he said not one word. No one not a Magician of Rank was ever going to know the answer to that question, not from his lips. Not ever.

  “It must have been hard,” murmured Troublesome. “All those years, pretending to be helpful ... playing at being loyal.”

  “It was.”

  Troublesome went back down into the Castle, her breath making little white puffs in the air, and she found Grannys Hazelbide and Gableframe, and told them.

  “It seems,” she wound it up, “that you went through all of this and gave up the last of your treasure things—not to mention a certain amount of discommodance on my part—all for nothing. It’s a shame.”

  “No,” said Granny Gableframe firmly. “It wasn’t for nothing, young woman. In no sense of the word. We traded an ignorance big as this Castle for a whole pot of knowledge, bubbling and simmering this minute. I’d say as it was a fair trade. We’re not out of it, mind you, not by many a mile, but we at least know how we came to be where we are.”

  “Knowledge,” said Granny Hazelbide, “is for using. Now we have some, the problem is how we put it to use. And for that. Troublesome, we don’t need you. No call whatsoever to keep you from your homeplace any longer, and we’re grateful to you for what you’ve done, however much it sticks in my craw to say it. We’re beholden to you.”

  “Hazelbide, you exaggerate,” said Granny Gableframe.

  “You know any other living soul on this earth as would of done what Troublesome did?” demanded Granny Hazelbide. “Gone off in the cold and damp in a leaky boat with a bribed crew, on what was ninety-nine-to-one a wild goose chase? Gone off and chanced being stranded forever in a wilderness, dying all alone in some Kintucky briartangle? Just because we asked her to, and no other compensation offered?”

  “Flumdiddle!” said Gableframe. “The fact you raised Troublesome’s addled your brain—which it can’t tolerate much of, I might add. That’s her own sister as lies in there, and it’s her own people as are suffering. She had as much to gain from this as any of us, and more than some, and I’ll be benastied before I’ll say we’re beholden to Troublesome of Brightwater! The idea!”

  “One more time, Gableframe,” said Granny Hazelbide, tight-lipped. “Just one more time, I’ll tell you ... Troublesome has no natural feelings. Responsible could die this minute, putrify right there on her bed, and her sister’s only complaint’d be the smell. And that goes for every sick baby and hungry tadling and suffering human on the face of this world, you have my word on it. If she he
lped us, we’re beholden. You care to be benastied as well, that’s your choice.”

  Troublesome chuckled, and Granny Hazelbide said: “See there?”

  They were sitting there together, the two old women rocking quick and hard to show their irritation, and Troublesome still grinning, when the Mules began to bray in the stables, and Granny Gableframe said, “There’s somebody coming—listen to that racket!”

  “Probably Lewis Motley Wommack the 33rd,” observed Granny Hazelbide. “Swam all the way here for penance, and crawled the rest of the way when he ran out of water,”

  “For sure it’s a strange Mule to bring all that on,” said Granny Hazelbide. “That’s all we need now, when we should be setting our minds to how to use what we’ve learned—company. Botheration!”

  “Don’t you get awfully tired of that?” asked Troublesome.

  “Tired of what?”

  “The formspeech. Having to go ‘botheration’ and ‘I swan’ and ‘flumdiddle’ and ‘mark my word’ and all the rest of it. Do you keep it up when you’re all by yourselves and nobody around to say, ‘Eek! I heard a Granny talking normal talk like anybody else’?”

  The Grannys drew themselves up in outrage, right together like they’d practiced it, and Troublesome chuckled some more. There was nothing more fun to tease than a Granny.

  “Troublesome of Brightwater,” said Granny Hazelbide stiffly, “just you go and see who’s come—or what’s come, might could be that’s more near the mark! I wish to goodness it would be young Wommack, I’d pull every hair of his beard out one at a time ... but well not be that lucky, it’ll be somebody useless, or worse. You’ve had your thanks, missy, and we’ve had your sass, and now we’re even—make your young bones useful and see what’s come to pass.”

  But Troublesome didn’t have a chance to more than straighten up from her chair before a knock came at the door; and when they called, “Come in!” it was a servingmaid of Brightwater and an Attendant from Castle McDaniels, the latter looking as if he’d fall over if you blew on him.

  “I’m here,” he blurted out, “with a message for Miss Troublesome. Law, but I was scared to death she’d be gone before I got here ... Miss Troublesome, I’m pleasured to see you.”

  “First time in her life she ever heard that!” said the two Grannys together, and Troublesome allowed that it was, and the young man hurried to explain himself.

  “I don’t mean as how I’m happy to see her,” he said hastily, stumbling into the doorframe and causing the servingmaid to put a sturdy hand to his elbow to help him out. “Don’t misunderstand me; it’s that I’m happy to see she’s not gone yet. If you see what I mean.”

  “The distinction’s a mite subtle,” said Granny Gableframe, “But we won’t hold it against you, whatever it might mean, seeing as how it’s clear you’ve had a hard ride and a long one and can scarcely stand on your feet, much less orate and do declamations. What are you after with Troublesome of Brightwater, young man?”

  “Message from Castle McDaniels, ma’am,” he said, bobbing his head. “And it’s urgent.”

  “Then deliver it,” snapped Troublesome, running out of patience. “Before you fall over. It’ll be more practical that way, by a good deal. And don’t mumble. When I get urgent messages brought in to me at a last gasp like this I like them to be turned over with clarity.”

  “Troublesome!” Granny Hazelbide was fairly quivering. “Will you not tease the poor young man, for all our sakes!”

  “Oh, that’s all right. Granny Hazelbide,” said the Attendant from McDaniels, trying not to lean on the servingmaid. “I’ve been warned about her already, at some length. Missus McDaniels, her that was Anne of Brightwater, she talked to me about Miss Troublesome for it must of been a good hour and a half. I expected horns and a tail on her, if you want to know the truth of it.”

  And Troublesome chuckled some more. For a day that had begun with spoiled food and bad water and a crew of sick and surly men on a leaky boat, this one was turning out to have its good parts.

  “Well, then,” she said. “You’ve seen me, and you’re disappointed I don’t live up to your expectations. That’s clear. Now pass on the message, and you can be on your way and get some rest. Just speak right up.”

  “You’re to stay here,” said the Attendant.

  “I’m to stay here? That’s it? That’s your urgent message?”

  “Because Miss Silverweb’s coming,” he told her. “She wasn’t quite ready to leave when I was, and she couldn’t of kept up with me if she had been, I’m sure—I was told to ride hard all the way and not spare the Mule or me either one. But she says you’re to stay right here until she gets here, never mind how anxious you are to leave, and never mind how much there’s people encouraging you on your way.”

  “Miss Silverweb said that?”

  “Yes, miss. And her mother as well.”

  “Hmmmph.”

  Troublesome gnawed on her braid, and the Grannys stopped their rocking, and Granny Hazelbide pointed out that considering the number of days she’d lost already another one couldn’t do much harm. Or another two.

  “Did she say why?” Troublesome asked the Attendant.

  “Miss?”

  “Did either of those women say why I was to wait?” asked Troublesome impatiently. “I can’t see much point to it myself. I don’t even know Silverweb of McDaniels, except that I believe I changed one of her diapers once. She for sure does not know me. Why should I wait for her?”

  “Well,” said the Attendant, “I can’t say as I understand it. But I can tell you what they said to me.”

  “You do that, then,” said Troublesome.

  “Miss Silverweb, she said I was to tell you just this: you stay here, because she knows how to wake up Miss Responsible, but she needs your help to do it. And that’s all.”

  The silence went on and on, and the Attendant leaned more and more obviously on the servingmaid, who fortunately showed no sign of collapsing under the strain, and when Troublesome spoke at last her voice was hesitant.

  “You say that Silverweb of McDaniels knows how to wake my sister ...”

  “So she claims, miss. I’m just passing it on, as I was bid.”

  Troublesome turned to the Grannys.

  “Well?” she asked them. “Is it likely? You know the girl ... any reason she should know what nine Magicians of Rank don’t?”

  “Miss Silverweb’ll be here by morning at the latest,” pleaded the Attendant. “And if I’ve got here and told you, and you’re gone on anyway, I won’t dare go back, I can tell you. Missus Anne was most particular about that. ‘If she doesn’t wait for Miss Silverweb, don’t you bother coming back here,’ she said to me. And I’ve worked there, and done my job right, more’n six years now. Shows where hard work won’t get you.”

  “Troublesome,” said Granny Gableframe, speaking right up, “I can’t say honestly I know any reason why you should stay. Rumor is, Silverweb of McDaniels’ gone some kind of religious lunatic, shut up all the time in an attic praying and carrying on. Not that I don’t hold with prayer, mind you, indeed I do, in its place—but they say Silverweb carries it to and beyond extremes. On the other hand, reason or no, what’s the harm? What’s one more day to you? You’ve got no appointments to keep on your mountain, what’s a few hours more or less at Brightwater?”

  Troublesome gave it a minute or two for real, and a minute or two for tormenting them, and then she nodded slowly, and the Attendant went limp with relief and very nearly did fall down.

  “All right,” said Troublesome. “I don’t suppose it can make any difference; and I don’t mind admitting I’m curious. I’ll wait for the child. Pray with her if need be.”

  “She’s no child. Miss Troublesome,” said the Attendant, very serious in spite of his exhaustion. “You wait till you see her—that’s no child, nor ever will be again. Nor no woman, either.”

  “Well, what is she, then?”

  “You’d best wait and see for yourself,” the At
tendant said, and that appearing to be all he could manage, that Grannys motioned for the servingmaid to take him away. Which she did, murmuring soothing words to him all the way down the corridor.

  “Youall don’t know anything about this?” demanded Troublesome, arms akimbo. “This is no Granny mischief, cooked up between you?”

  “Honestly,” said Gableframe. “How you talk.”

  “Your word on it or off I go this minute,” declared Troublesome.

  “Phooey,” said Granny Gableframe right back at her. “It’ll be a fine day when I give you my word on anything. As soon give my word to my elbow. And who are you to doubt a Granny’s word?”

  “Troublesome,” put in Granny Hazelbide hastily, “I’m with Gableframe on that. But you said you’d stay. And you know this is no scheme we planned for you. We’ve got no heart these days for schemes. Leave off your nonsense, now, and keep your word.”

  “And so I will,” said Troublesome. “I beg your pardon, I forget sometimes the way things have changed in this world. Up on that mountain ... I don’t see it the way youall have to.”

  “Understandable,” said Granny Gableframe. “Not natural; but understandable.”

  “I suppose they’ll make me sleep in the stable,” Troublesome fussed.

  “I’ll put you up in my own room if they try it,” said Granny Hazelbide. “I’m not afraid of you, and that Twelve Gates knows I’m used to you.”