The Gracekeepers (24 page)

 

T
hings were serious. The
Excalibur
's crew huddled around the mess-boat table, but there were no dinner plates and no cups of fire. Everyone kept their gaze lowered—except for Jarrow. He looked at North. She kept her eyes down, the same as everyone else, but she could not help her expression. If her outside was anything like her inside, it was shifting between fear and anger.

“Thank you,” Jarrow said, “for your time. You know why I have asked you here. You heard the cries of my poor wife—you heard the bear try to—you heard it.”

North bit back her protests.

“I do not blame North for this,” continued Jarrow. “As the bear's trainer, she did more than could have been expected. Her bear performed beautifully every night, and we all know that her dance is of huge appeal to the landlockers. I wouldn't say that
it's the only thing keeping the Circus Excalibur going, but it's certainly—”

Avalon flinched and sucked in a breath, tucking her bandaged left arm close to her body as if she'd had a flash of pain. North resisted the urge to launch herself across the table and snap Avalon's arm right off her body.

“But,” said Jarrow, “a beast is still a beast.”

He rested his heavy hand on his wife's shoulder and she tilted her tear-blurred face up to him.

“We cannot let this incident pass,” he said. “There must be consequences.”

“No! You can't!” North was shocked at her own outburst. “That is, I—Jarrow, please. He didn't really—he didn't mean to hurt Avalon. And why was she even in my—”

“Yes, North?” asked Jarrow with raised eyebrows. “Are you asking why the mistress of this circus cannot go wherever she chooses, whenever she chooses?”

“No. Nothing. I just—he's never hurt anyone before, Jarrow. You know that.”

“He is a beast. And he will always be wild. I cannot risk anyone else being harmed.” Jarrow squeezed Avalon's shoulder, as if seeking strength. “Tonight he will stay in your coracle. Chain him tightly. Tie his mouth shut. Drug him if you can.”

North clenched her hands white on the tabletop. “Yes,” she said.

“And as you will not be able to perform with your bear, you will be a part of the maypole instead. We must all earn our dinner.”

North glanced up at him. She couldn't, he knew she couldn't, her bump was far too big now to be bandaged down.

“Jarrow, please. I can't. I'm—it won't…” North trailed off. She hunched her body, trying to make Red Gold aware of her bump without pointing it out to the rest of the crew.

“No excuses. You will do what I say. And after the maypole you can join the clown military. That will be the main act tonight, and tomorrow night, and every night until I say otherwise.”

“Ah—” Cash coughed from the end of the table. “Ah, boss. You said we weren't to do the military act in this archipelago. You said it would make the clams nervous. You said the military like to lurk around here. You said it might be dangerous. Remember? We haven't prepped, boss, not at all.”

“Then do your prep now. You have the whole day. Everyone will help you. Everyone will do what I say. No questions. In fact—” And here Jarrow glared around the room at each person in turn. “The next person to question an order will have a reduction in their rations. Another question means another reduction, and three questions means no food at all.”

The reaction of the crew was immediate and negative: backs straightened, eyebrows lowered, jaws clenched. Even through her grief, North felt a bright burst of surprise. The crew often went against orders—the clowns in particular—but there had never been food restrictions before. There was little enough as it was.

“You have your orders, crew. Go, now, and work on your acts. All the things you wanted to do that I said you could not—now you will do them. Tonight, we must upend this island. We must.” Jarrow raised his hands, as if to rest his head in them, then restrained himself. “Do you understand? We must shock. My wife is injured and Melia is not coming back—that means
we're down a horse-performer and we have no acrobats. And without the bear to please the crowd, this is the only way we will eat tonight. Now go.”

He slumped at the head of the table. The crew filed out of the mess boat to prepare for that night's performance.

 

T
he trees were dense, but Callanish barely slowed as she crossed from the fields to the woods. Beneath the oak canopy dead leaves carpeted the ground, hiding sharp twigs and dents in the earth. Within ten steps Callanish's bare feet were scratched to bleeding, her ankles jolted and throbbing. Branches clawed at her hair, grabbing fingerfuls from the roots; she glanced back, distracted by the blond strands gleaming among the leaves. At least, she thought as she ran, she would be able to find her way out again: all she had to do was follow the stolen parts of her body.

Thwick
went a twig under her foot, and
soosh
went the fallen leaves, and
cwit
went a branch as it snapped off against her shoulder—and oh, the fear of the gods was rising up in her now. She hesitated, but it was too late. She couldn't put the branch back on, so she might as well keep going. She picked up her feet and kept running. The trees were still ripping out her hair and
the ground was still tearing at her feet but she was almost at the World Tree.

“Mother!” she called, and the trees threw her voice right back. As she ran she bunched up her hair and tucked it into the neck of her dress. It wasn't enough, so she raised her arms over her head to protect it, surrendering her skin to the sharpness of the branches. They stabbed, and they snapped, and the gods were angry with her: already she felt a constellation of splinters in her forearms.

“Mother!” she called again—and with a gasp she broke through to the clearing, and there she was: her mother, Veryan Sand, standing naked and barefoot in the woods with her arms stretched around the wide, rough trunk of the World Tree. She turned and looked at Callanish. Dew from the leaves glittered a silver fishing net on her hair.

“Hello,” she said. “I'm going to have a baby. Are you here to help me?”

Callanish knew what she would see, but could not help glancing down at her mother's belly. It was pale and puckered and completely flat.

“Mother.” It was all that she could think to say.

Veryan's face split into a grin. “Yes!” she said. “I will be a mother. But not yet. First I must have this baby. And you must help me. It'll come at any moment now, so we must be ready.”

“Mother, it's me.” Callanish took a step forward. “It's Callanish.”

Veryan stepped forward too, clasping her daughter's hands.

“Oh, that's a beautiful name. Don't tell anyone, but”—she lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning in, conspiratorial—“that's what I plan to call my baby. Callanish Sand. Lovely, don't you think? My baby is going to be blessed by the gods. That's why I
am having her here, you see. At the World Tree. So that my baby will be blessed. So that she will always be happy.” She turned away and stroked the tree's bark, crooning a lullaby under her breath.

Callanish pulled off her dress and put it over her mother's head, rubbing Veryan's arms to warm them. She shivered in her thin slip, trying to hide her shock at her mother's chicken-bone limbs, her distant eyes, her twitching fingers. It took all her self-control not to snatch her mother's hands away when she rested them maternally on her belly.

“It's not your time yet, Veryan. I'll take you home now.”

“But you'll bring me back here later?” Veryan allowed herself to be led away from the tree, though she cast longing glances back as she walked. “You'll bring me back when the baby is coming? I know it won't be long now. I need to do right for my child. For my Callanish.”

“Yes. I'm sorry, I should have said that. I'll bring you back, and I'm sorry, and I'll do whatever you need, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

 

T
he clowns had waited a long time to sate their hunger. But when it happened, they wanted it to be in the right way, for the right reasons—and Dosh knew that this was not the right way. They'd never liked the north-west archipelagos. The clams were too busy worshipping tree gods and bowing to the military to appreciate the circus. Why go somewhere you weren't wanted? With Cash in charge, rebellion would be as indiscriminate as rain. Dosh preferred to choose battles. Better to save your revolution for where it had a chance to take hold.

“Maybe we shouldn't do the act tonight,” Dosh said, leaning in to examine Dough's face. They were painting the outlines of teeth on one another's faces, to make it look as if the flesh of their cheeks had been cut away.

“No choice,” said Dough, trying not to move too much under Dosh's brush. Dough always spoke as if only a set number of
words had been allocated for the day. It was annoying, but not as annoying as Cash—who, of course, had started talking over the end of Dough's short sentence.

“We want to,” Cash said, “and we have to, and so we will. Red Gold said that without the bear and the acrobats and that horse-whore we had to shock the clams. Every night before this it's been maypoles and flirting with the glamours and chucking paper money at angry clams. Safe and boring. Finally, we have our chance.” Cash had finished the pre-show prep, and sprawled out on a bunk, long limbs twisted at unlikely angles, checking that the tight military coat allowed the proper sensuousness of movement.

“What's been happening so far with our safe and boring act? Are you satisfied? Is your belly full? When the clams are bored, we go hungry. Red Gold told us to do the military act. For once, he's right.”

Cash was definitely bored, and it made Dosh nervous. For Cash, boredom led to restlessness, and restlessness led to danger.

“And let's not even mention our poor beds,” went on Cash with a theatrical sigh. “Just as empty as our bellies.”

The curtains around their bunks hadn't been shut for weeks. Northern girls were more cautious about going with the clowns. They said the circus was all surface and lies, which was obviously true, though only northern girls seemed to think that was a bad thing. They had religion in their blood where circus folk had glitter, Cash always said, and nothing closes a clam girl's legs faster than fear of gods.

Clam girls were hard to seduce, but there were always a few who wanted a secret taste of rebellion. Once or twice, Dosh had enticed one behindcurtains post-act, eyelids smeared black and limbs speckled with paint and blood. The clam girl had shared
a drink in the mess boat and then giggled her way back to the coracle, joining Dosh behind the bunk curtains before sneaking back to her island before dawn. But not lately. Angering the gods wasn't worth a boring clown.

“It's just,” said Dosh, reluctant to give up so easily, “it seems risky. We saw a military boat a few days ago, and the northern archipelagos don't like circus folk.”

Dough chimed in. “Don't like the military more.”

Cash scoffed. “The military are still landlockers. Under their uniforms they're just clams. They're all on the same side, as long as it's against us.” Cash leapt from the bed, pacing the narrow coracle. Dosh and Dough stopped buttoning up their bloodstained coats to watch.

“Red Gold put us in charge tonight. He knows how tonight will go—no bear dance, so no applause, so no food. Well, boo-bloody-hoo. Is a wild animal really the best performer in this whole circus? Our whole lives, our ringmaster trains us for subversion—and then shies away from our suggestions when they get a bit too daring for him.
Good
suggestions, I might add—ones that would have got food in our bellies.”

“Cash, don't be so hard. He's kept us off the prison boat, hasn't he? Maybe he was right to—”

“Shut up, Dosh. Red Gold's lost his nerve. He's hiding away in his cabin, petting his horse-whore, buying her flowers so she'll keep pretending she carries his child. He should be the Lord of Misrule, tearing apart the world and leaving the clams to put it back together. But he's forgotten who he is. He doesn't know what to do any more—that's why he made us the ringmasters tonight. He fears those military masqueraders. He fears the prison boat.” Cash paced, outfit tight over flexing limbs. “Well, we don't fear anything! What's the point of living life
under a booted heel? It's worth the risk, I say. Tonight…” A slow smile spread across Cash's face, matching the painted-on teeth. “Tonight we go all out.”

Dosh knew that whatever new tweak Cash wanted to put on the military act, the others would go along with it. They had to. And more than that—Dosh wanted to. He would not be frightened by the clomp of boots on the deck. They'd chosen their battle, and this was it.

 

C
allanish fed her mother, bathed her mother, put her mother to bed. She tweezed splinters from her mother's feet and stroked her mother's hair until she fell asleep.

It was still morning, but the day's light was pale and watery. Callanish left a candle burning beside the bed in case Veryan woke. Her mother's clothes were far too big—they had all been sewn with roomy hips and a pouch in the belly, to accommodate a growing bump—but she pulled them on anyway: boots, a dress, a fur over-vest. She could not chase out the chill. After a moment's thought, she pulled on a pair of her mother's leather gloves. They had been made for her mother's hands, and they pressed uncomfortably on Callanish's webbed fingers.

She clicked the front door shut behind her and crossed the tiny front garden, leaning her elbows on the gate to rest her head
in her hands. Compared to the stillness of the graceyard, the island was a riot of sound and movement—but compared to the constant wind and waves and motion and chatter on Flitch's boat, it was as calm as death. She stood with her eyes shut, steadying herself on the motionless land. Her mother did not know her. She was not forgiven.

“Callanish?” The voice was tentative. Callanish jolted upright, muscles protesting. “I thought it was you. Did you find your mother?”

The woman was familiar. Pale lips, awkward shoulders, woodbrown hair wrapped in a long braid. Her hands were chapped red, and she smelled of bread and musty fur.

“Mrs. Farrow?” guessed Callanish, her brain still catching up. But her memory stumbled: this couldn't be Mrs. Farrow, because Mrs. Farrow had looked like this when Callanish was a child, and now she looked exactly the same, and how could—

The woman smiled. “Mrs. Farrow was my mother. My parents both passed so I have the house. I'm Mrs. Rye now.”

“I remember. From when we were little. You're—it's Jenny, isn't it?”

The smile stayed. “Mrs. Rye will do. You found your mother, then?”

“Did you know she was there? Why didn't you bring her back? She was freezing.”

The smile disappeared. “She's always there. Every morning, every evening. You'd know that if you'd ever come home.”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Rye. I didn't mean—”

“Me and the other neighbors, we've done right by her. We've spent weeks of our lives bringing Veryan back from the woods. Islanders look after one another.”

“I know. But I'm here now, and I'm going to take care of her.”

“Ah. So you're staying.” Mrs. Rye tucked her hands in the pockets of her sealskin over-vest and looked satisfied.

“No, I—I don't think I can stay. On the island…it's not the place for me…and—I'll have to go back to the graceyard. But I can look after her there.”

“You want to take Veryan with you? Away from her home, to your island of dead damplings? Disgusting. We've heard all about what happens out on the water. Those people living out on the sea, they're already infecting the good folk of the islands.”

Mrs. Rye's voice was getting louder, and curtains were twitching in the other houses. Callanish was sure that the islanders had been watching her from the moment she knocked on her mother's door. They would have all seen her stumbling back from the woods, wearing only her underclothes, carrying her mother as best she could. And behind those curtains they'd stayed. If they'd seen her hands and feet, then they'd seen them. It was too late now to hide. She was too big to be buried like a baby.

“We should have known,” went on Mrs. Rye. “As soon as you sent that dirty great feather, we knew you'd turn up here sooner or later. We should have guessed that it wasn't enough that you abandoned your home to go to that—that horrible place. But how can you even think of taking Veryan? She led the spring procession more than once—as the spring bride, even, and you can thank that for your own life. There's not many here can claim that honor. This island is her home. And you want to make her serve damplings for the rest of her days? To touch their dead bodies and say heathen prayers over them. Tell me, is that what your mother had planned for you?”

“There's no other way. I have to earn a living, and the graceyard is the only work I know. I have to take her back with me.”

“You have to let her live here, so that she can die here. What would you do when she passes? Tip her into the sea with the damplings? She belongs on this ground—in this ground. She should be burned on sacred wood and scattered at the World Tree—where she was born, where she was married. It's the natural order. Her body should nourish the good earth after she dies.”

“She's not going to die! Why are you saying that? She won't die. She's fine.” Callanish had held more dead bodies than she could count. She knew that people died every day—dozens, hundreds of them. But not her mother. Never her mother.

Mrs. Rye took a long time to reply. “You left, and you forgot all about us. But we remember. We remember what happened in this house.”

Callanish felt a shiver from deep in her bones to the top of her scalp. “I know, and that's why I'm here. I came to say sorry. To make it right with her.” She tightened her jaw. She would not let a single tear fall, not in front of Mrs. Rye.

“I know I haven't visited, but I tried to make it right. I sent her a feather from one of the graces, to show her that I remembered her. But you—you already knew that. Did she show you? Did she know what it meant?”

“What were you thinking, sending her that? What good could it have done?”

“So she did know? She does know, still?”

“Oh, Callanish. Your mother doesn't know anything at all.”

“You're wrong. She's ill, and you're being cruel.”

“She doesn't know you, child. She's been this same way for a long time. We looked after her when you wouldn't, and that's
what she knows: her home, and her neighbors, and her island. Why change that now? What good could it do?”

“She's my mother. And she doesn't—” Callanish swallowed hard. “She doesn't know me.”

“That is sad. But the world is full of sadness.”

Callanish glared at every one of the twitching curtains, refusing to blink. “What do you want? You're angry that I didn't come back, and now you're angry that I'm here. Tell me. What do you want me to do?”

Mrs. Rye pushed open the gate, forcing Callanish to take a step back, then walked into Veryan's garden. Shock replaced grief. All landlockers were fierce about their own tiny patch of earth, and in all her childhood Callanish had never seen an islander trespass on another's ground. Mrs. Rye took hold of Callanish's arms and leaned in to hiss in her face.

“Leave. Leave, and don't look back. She's better without you.”

Callanish pulled away, but the garden was too small for retreat. “But I'm her daughter. She needs to know who I am. It's better that she knows.”

“Better for who?”

Without waiting for an answer, Mrs. Rye turned and went into her own house. Callanish stood, silent and alone in the garden, still trying to steady herself.

S
he stayed at her mother's house, living off the neighbors' thin-wearing charity, letting the days blur. Every night she sat and watched over her mother, every morning she made breakfast for her mother, every afternoon she weeded and planted the back garden with her mother, every evening she fell asleep upright
in her wooden chair and had to run into the woods to the World Tree and bring back her mother. Did she know? Did she know that the tree was where she'd lost a child? Did she know that this soil held the tiny bones?

At times it seemed that Veryan remembered. She'd call out her daughter's name in her sleep, but when Callanish woke her, she smiled glassily and patted her hand. It took Callanish longer than it should have to realize that her mother dreamed not of her, but of the daughter she was yet to have. She wished that she could be that daughter, blessed and happy and at home. But if she stayed, it was only a matter of time until the islanders saw her hands and feet. She couldn't stand to wear those gloves and slippers for the rest of her life. North had seen her hands—and instead of flinching away, she had pulled her closer. Callanish was tired of hiding. But when the islanders knew what she really was—what her mother had given birth to—would they still look after Veryan? Would she even be allowed to stay on the island?

When Callanish did manage to slip into sleep, Mrs. Rye's words spun in her head:
she's better without you
. Within an hour of waking she'd convinced herself that the neighbor was wrong. How could a lie be better than the truth? But the next night sleep would blind her again, and there were the words.

Every time Veryan passed the table, she picked up the feather. She'd stare at it, stroke its soft barbs over her cheek, then put it carefully back down. One day she stared at it for longer than usual, then held it out to her daughter.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It's a grace feather. See how its colors shift from green to blue, like the sea? It means remembrance. It shows that no distance, no amount of water between two people, will make them forget. Someone gave it to say that they remembered you.”

“Oh, that's nice. But they didn't need to. I remember everything.”

Callanish didn't know how to reply, so she didn't. Veryan put the feather back and carried on pottering around the house.

The next day, she picked it up again, asking, “What is this?” and the conversation was repeated. The day after, she picked up the feather, but did not ask anything. Instead she stared at Callanish, heavy and slow. Then she put the feather in the chest of sealskins and shut the lid. She did not speak for the rest of the day.

Callanish had sailed across the world to her mother's house knowing that she would receive one of two answers: yes, she was forgiven; or no, she was not forgiven. Now she had her answer, and it was neither. She was not forgiven, but she was not unforgiven.

She did not need Mrs. Rye's voice echoing in her dreams to know that the words were true. The longer Callanish stayed, the closer her mother came to remembering—and remembering would bring her nothing but sadness.

It did not take long to make the arrangements with Mrs. Rye. The neighbors had already been looking after Veryan, and Callanish promised to send coins and copper when she could. Mrs. Rye was kind enough not to tell Callanish that she was doing the right thing.

Afterward, she stood at the gate to her mother's garden, but did not go inside. Dusk was creeping in, though the stars had not yet appeared. A chill shivered through her. Inside the house a lamp had been lit, casting a honey-warm glow. Through the window, Callanish saw her mother, singing to herself as she rolled two boiled eggs on the counter to crack their shells. On the table sat a block of butter, a white loaf, and a small pot of honey. She would have a good supper.

As she pushed open the gate, it squealed. Her mother's head snapped up at the sound. Callanish dropped to her knees and crawled underneath the window. The grass was damp and the wall scraped her back as she pressed against it.

Veryan's silhouette spread out into the garden, blue-black in the honeyed light. Callanish kept looking at the shape until it slipped away: back into her house, back to her supper, back to her life.

“Goodbye,” she whispered to the space where her mother's shadow had been.