A Feast of Sorrows, Stories Read online

  The ring was not a plain yellow band, but something different, white gold set with an enormous amethyst. She seemed to like the stone, staring at it throughout the ceremony, smiling at the parson when he asked if she agreed to the marriage. Willoughby saw only a smile but heard a resounding “Yes,” and convinced himself that she loved him.

  She didn’t seem to care what he did to her body—having no experience of men, either good or bad, having no concept of her body as her own, she accepted whatever he did to her. For his part, he laboured over her trying to elicit a response, some sign of love or lust, some desire to be with him. Never finding it, he became frustrated, at first simply slaking his own lust, quickly. Gradually, he became a little cruel, pinching, biting, hoping to inflict on her a little of the hurt his love caused him. For all the centuries men have dreamed of the joy of a silent wife, Willoughby discovered that the reality of one was entirely unsatisfactory.

  It was Mrs Flynn who first noticed the changes in her. Not her husband who stripped her bare each night and used her body as he wished. It was Martha, with her unerring woman’s instinct, who pulled him aside and told him the girl was pregnant. Willoughby became gentle once again, no longer insisting upon his conjugal rights, but sleeping wrapped around her, his hands wandering to the slowly swelling belly, praying that what he had planted there would stay, and would in turn, keep her by his side.

  More and more, he found her under the jacaranda tree. She sat silently for hours, no longer interested in painting, but stroking her growing belly as if soothing the child inside. Whenever he arrived back at the house at the end of the day he would go straight to the tree, for he knew that was where he would find his wife.

  “Where’s Sally?” demanded Willoughby. On one of his infrequent trips to the kitchen, he found Martha alone; no sign of the indigenous girl (re-named “Sally” in spite of her protests) who helped around the kitchen.

  “Gone. They’re all gone, all the natives. They won’t come here anymore,” said Mrs Flynn, her skin shining, hair trying to escape the cotton cap as usual.

  Willoughby paused, astounded. “Why not? Haven’t I always been good to them? I’ve never abused them or punished them unduly. I don’t understand.”

  Mrs Flynn was silent for a moment, weighing her words, wishing she’s not opened her mouth in the first place. How to explain? “It’s Emily. They’re scared of her,” she said reluctantly.

  “Scared of Emily?” His laugh was sharp. “How the hell can anyone be scared of Emily?”

  “She’s . . . different, Master James. Leave it at that. It scares them. They have their legends and she scares them.”

  “What bloody legends? What are you talking about?” He gripped her upper arm tightly, squeezing a slight squeal from her as the flesh began to pinch between his knuckles. She could smell the sour brandy on his breath. He let her go, but insisted, “What legends, damn it?”

  “Sally said they come from the trees. They don’t belong anywhere. They bring grief and eventually they go back to the trees.” Mrs Flynn batted away tears with the back of her hand.

  Willoughby stared at her. “And you? What do you think?”

  “There are superstitions and then there are things we cannot understand, Master James.” She bent her head, new tears fell onto the dough she was kneading; she folded them into the rubbery mixture and refused to look at him again. He left the kitchen, swearing and shaking his head.

  Willoughby rounded the corner of the house, raised his eyes and saw his wife, her curved belly seeming to defy gravity, walking slowly towards the jacaranda tree. She stood before its thick trunk and placed one hand against the rough bark. As he watched, the slender pale limb seemed to sink deeply into the wood, and the rest of her arm looked sure to follow.

  With a yell, he charged at her, pulled her away with a force driven by anger and despair. She was flung about like a leaf in the wind. Finally settling, she stared at him with something approaching fear, something approaching anger. He was too furious to see it and he ranted at her, finger pointed like a blade. “Never, never, never. You will never go near those trees again. You will never leave me!”

  He locked her in their bedroom, then gave orders to his station hands.

  “Get rid of all the jacarandas. Cut them down, burn them. Destroy them all, all the ones you can find.”

  So all the jacarandas within the bounds of Rollands Plain were razed; he even sent some of his men to walk three days beyond the boundaries and destroy any offending tree they found there.

  He let her out only when he was certain they were all gone.

  Her scream, when she found the dead stump of the tree, was the sound of every violated, outraged thing.

  Mrs Flynn ushered the child into the world that evening. Emily did not stop screaming the entire birth, but Mrs Flynn could not help but feel that the screams were more for rage, than for any pain the tearing child caused, for there was very little blood. Strangely little blood. The milk that dripped from Emily’s nipples smelled strongly of sap. The child made a face at her first taste, then settled to empty the breast, her face constantly twisted in an expression of dissatisfaction.

  Willoughby came to visit his wife and daughter, his contrite face having no effect on Emily. She opened her mouth and a noise came like that of a tree blasted by storm winds. Having not heard his wife utter a sound before, he was stunned; having not heard anything like this, ever, he was appalled. He backed out of the room, and retreated to his study and the bottle of brandy with which he’d become very familiar since his marriage.

  Late one evening, a few weeks after the birth, Mrs Flynn saw Emily, standing slender and silver in the moonlight, motionless beside the stump of her tree. She held the baby at her breast; the child was quiet.

  Martha was minded, though she knew not why, of selkie wives, women stripped of their seal skin by husbands afraid to lose them, by men who feared them more than they could love them. She called quietly to Emily and gestured for her to follow.

  She led her to a stand of eucalypts not far from the house.

  Within the circle of gum trees stood a lone jacaranda, the one she knew Willoughby had missed, the one she kept to herself. The silver woman needed to be able to go back to her place or she’d haunt them forever.

  Martha shivered. She was terrified of this ghostly creature, but she hoped she loved Emily more than she feared her, loved her enough to show her the way back. She watched Emily’s face as she recognised the jacaranda, smiled, leaned against the trunk, and a sound like a leaves laughing blew around the clearing. Martha backed away. She watched the woman’s hands slide into the trunk, saw her move forward, then stop.

  The child would not go into the tree. Her diluted flesh and blood tied her to her father and his kind. Martha watched as the pale woman kissed the child’s forehead and laid her gently on the ground. Emily pushed her way into the tree, disappearing until the brown bark was visible again, undisturbed for all intents and purposes. The tree shook itself and let fall an unseasonal shower of purple flowers, to cover Martha and the baby she scooped up and held tightly.

  Willoughby drinks; Mrs Flynn often pours for him. She is strangely disappointed in him each time he swallows back the brandy decanted by her own hand. Most of her time she spends with his daughter, who has her father’s dark curls and her mother’s violet eyes.

  She is a quiet child, but on the occasions when her cries have a certain tone, a certain pitch, Martha catches her up and takes her for a walk, to the stand of eucalypts. Rollands Plain’s sole remaining jacaranda will release a purple blanket no matter what the weather, and the child stares up at the tree as if she finds it very lovely indeed.

  Light as Mist, Heavy as Hope

  “My daughter,” breathed Miller, “my daughter can spin gold out of straw.”

  This sudden boast struck his fellow-drinkers as interesting, if stupid. Miller had a tendency to open his mouth unwisely when ale had passed his lips. The bragging was, however, astonishingly eg
regious. Their king, after all, finding himself in something of a hole, financially speaking, was wont to do anything to refill the kingdom’s coffers. Those with wiser minds shook their heads; Miller was asking for trouble.

  The Taverner, sensing the man was finely balanced between merely making noise and starting a fight, thought it best to send him on his way. He heaved Miller to his feet. The odour of flour that clung to the man crept into the Taverner’s nostrils. It was the smell of his profession, of his world; had he been asked, Miller would have denied the existence of any smell. Miller swayed, peered at the Taverner, and raised his voice so that all in the tavern could hear. “My Alice can spin gold from straw,” he bellowed.

  Looking around, taking in the disbelieving looks with a bleary stare, he began to mutter. “A good girl, my Alice. Good, beautiful, industrious. Better than her bitch of a mother.”

  Noticing the three soldiers in the corner, the Taverner propped one shoulder under Miller’s arm and manoeuvred the sot away. He felt eyes upon his back and sensed danger.

  He sensed danger, too, in the way Miller spoke of his daughter’s beauty. The Taverner suspected when Miller got that look he was somehow confusing Alice with her dead mother in the most base of manners. Sometimes he feared for the girl; most of the time he decided she was her father’s property, like all daughters. And Alice was smart. She could take care of herself.

  Miller stumbled into the night, muttering. A few moments after the door swung shut, a soldier detached himself from the huddle in the corner and approached the Taverner.

  The sound of the front door thudding against the wall made Alice open her eyes. It didn’t wake her, for she never slept when her father was out drinking, or when he came home, drunk and reeking of ale. She never answered when he came to her door.

  At first he would scratch quietly, as if ashamed, then the knocking would grow louder, until he was hammering at the door and shouting, calling her by a name not her own. He would stay until he remembered who she was, and then sob for a while before going away.

  For a whole month after her mother’s death he stayed away from the drink. A whole month when he was her father and nothing more, not a monster or a nightmare or a beast. Weak, like all his kind, he succumbed soon enough and the visits to Alice’s door resumed. Thus far she had remained safe.

  A loud crash hammered her nerves before she heard Miller’s voice, calling her down, calling for help. Tightly wrapping a robe around herself Alice unlocked the door and made her way downstairs.

  Her father was crumpled near the kitchen table, blood flowing from a wound on his head. He looked up at her, pale eyes unfocused as they caught at her, taking in the tumble of golden curls, the eyes so darkly blue that they seemed almost black, the crushed strawberry lips and the swell of her breasts under the robe. He reached out, the gesture unfinished when he passed out.

  Unhurriedly, Alice left the house to draw water from the well. When she returned, she knelt by Miller’s fallen bulk and wiped away the blood, gently wrapped his head with a bandage, and turned away. His hand found her, kneading her thigh like dough, then clawing upward to her breast. She scrambled backward, falling in her haste to escape him.

  He was asleep, but even in his sleep he craved her flesh. She took two swift steps and sunk her foot into his ribs. A loud gasp of air escaped him but still he slept; he would ache in the morning without knowing why.

  In the safety of her room, the memory of her mother came to her with equal longing and resentment. Three months in the ground; three months Alice had spent evading her father. From her window, Alice could see the forest. Somewhere beneath the trees was the spot where they had buried her mother. As far away as Miller could get without exciting tongues; far enough, he thought, that she wouldn’t haunt him and dog his conscience, far enough that he could forget her and take refuge in his daughter’s flesh. His daughter with her mother’s face.

  Alice remembered her mother’s face, thinner than her own, pale skin, bloodless lips, eyes bruised with sickness, and a hand fluttering to draw her daughter close. Alice had stood back, believing her mother chose to go, thinking love was something corporeal that existed only as long as the body in which it resided lived. She refused her mother’s final gift, her kiss, and ignored the dying woman who cried that she must pass a secret to her daughter. When her mother’s sobbing ceased there were cold tears on Alice’s cheeks. Angry and afraid, she stood at the door, refusing her mother’s last kiss even as she lay: still, silent, and growing cold.

  Now there was only her father, who watched her, day in, day out.

  “Where’s your daughter, old man?”

  The uniformed men were impatient. Halfway between the mill and the house the four soldiers had reined in beside him; Miller stopped in his tracks. His bruised cut showing a week’s worth of fading, Miller was in no mood to argue.

  “Alice, get out here!” he roared. Squinting at the lead soldier, he asked, “What do you want my Alice for?”

  “Word of her has reached the king,” said the captain.

  “Who’s been talking about her?”

  “You, Miller. His Majesty was very interested to hear that your Alice spins gold from straw. Got all those empty coffers at the palace, he has. Maybe your Alice can fill ’em. And an empty bed, too. Maybe your Alice has something he can fill in return.”

  “Alice!” cried Miller as his daughter appeared, her cornflower blue dress and white apron very bright in the sunshine. Alice moved with grace, raising her eyes to meet those of the captain, ignoring her father as if she knew what he’d brought upon her.

  “Your father says you can spin gold,” said the captain, dark eyes raking her.

  Alice eyed her father. Her cold contempt was unveiled for the first time and he shrank to the size of a child.

  “If my father says so.”

  “The king has commanded you come with us.”

  “If the king says so.”

  “Is there anything you wish to take with you? Is there anyone you wish to bid farewell?” He shifted in his saddle.

  Alice touched the small gold locket at her throat, then dropped her eyes to the thin ring on her finger. Both her mother’s. All she needed of her old life. She shook her head. The captain reached down and she grasped his hand, swinging up behind him. The last Miller saw of his daughter she was clinging to the waist of the dark captain, eyes straight ahead, her rigid back the only farewell he would ever have.

  The castle appeared like a faded starburst on the hill. The captain had told her over and over that the king was poor, yet Alice had been unable to comprehend a king with no fortune until she saw the faded grandeur of a palace no one could afford to maintain. They rode through the gates of a ruin as utter as her own.

  Paint crackled on the walls as if to draw attention to its plight; anything gilt had been stripped; tapestries were threadbare; furniture was held together with spit and spider webs; windows, greyed with dirt, cracked under the force of a gaze. The crown jewels, once a wondrous collection of fiery gems, were reduced to a single crown, resting on the king’s brow, set with a single diamond.

  The king was handsome enough. Tall, muscular, black-haired, and black-bearded. During her journey she had wondered if she might tell him the truth: that her father had lied. Perhaps he might find her beauty enough to stay his hand, but seeing this poverty she knew he could afford to forgive nothing. He would kill her and send the captain and his men to slaughter her father. While she had no objections to her father’s demise, she had no desire to quit her own life.

  Avarice and need ran through this man’s veins. There was no safety for her here. The king’s need for gold was a flood inside him, and she would be swept up and drowned by it unless she found a way to negotiate the current.

  “My father,” said the king when the niceties were over, “was a spendthrift, and long-lived. In thirty years he managed to impoverish what was once one of the wealthiest kingdoms in the land. When I came to the throne there was just enough mo
ney for the coronation.”

  The corner of Alice’s mouth lifted wryly. Perhaps he saw in her face that she thought the money wasted.

  “Now my problems are at an end. Come.” He gestured for her to follow him out of the dingy throne room, along a dimly lit corridor, down chipped stairs, until at last they stopped at a wooden door, pitted and pock-marked, dark with age. “This should be no challenge for you, Mistress Alice.” The king threw open the door.

  From flagged floor to cobwebbed ceiling the room was filled with straw. Some bales had split and the yellow lengths spilt onto the floor like so much hope gone wrong. A spinning wheel sat, waiting for failure. Alice surreptitiously wiped her sweating palms on her white apron. The king caught the gesture and his smile broadened, dangerous and hard.

  “You have one night, Alice. This night. Spin it all into gold and release me from my reduced circumstances.”

  “If I don’t?” Her voice was stronger than she expected.

  His eyes darkened as he drew close to her, his large hand slipping around her throat. He closed his fingers in a motion that was half-threat, half-caress.

  “You have a very thin neck, Mistress Alice.”

  She held her breath until he released her and left the room. The sheer volume of impossible straw made tears heat the back of her eyes and she clenched her hands, digging her nails into the palms, hoping the pain would stop the panic. She was steel for a moment, before she threw herself to the floor, to the hated straw, and wept, wishing she could die on the spot.

  Near her hand, one of the flagstones moved. She scrambled back in fright, almost burying herself in the straw. The flag moved again, jumping once, twice. A hand appeared in the crack between the stones. It was a small hand: white, smooth, almost feminine. It pushed the flagstone aside with surprising force as a man heaved himself up through the hole in the floor.

  He was ordinary, so very ordinary. Not tall, but not short. Face round, unlined, not old but not young; hair neither blond nor brown. His clothes were neat, plain, and unremarkable; the kind of man she might pass in the street and not notice. He turned his eyes upon Alice. “Nasty.”