Clouds End

  “A fine boot!” Foam called.

  “Is it a fit boot?”

  “A fit boot!” the crowd replied.

  “Is it a wedding boot?”

  “A wedding boot!” they roared.

  “Very well!” The Witness grinned and stuffed the little boot into her right breast pocket. Then she bent and raised the cup that had been waiting by her brazier. “The world has seen you apart. It now sees you one.” She gave the cup to Brook, who sipped cold water from it and passed it back. Shandy gave it to Rope.

  “Your people have seen you apart. They now see you one.” And the villagers stepped forward, forming a dense ring of warm bodies, a magic circle of smoking breath.

  Shandy took the cup back from Rope. “You see one another apart.” She poured the water onto the glowing coals in her brazier, and a great cloud of steam hissed into the cold air. “Now you are one!” The mist cleared slowly, and the dark shadow at its heart was Brook and Rope, twinned in a long embrace.

  It lasted a good while, that first married kiss, until at last old Stick grumbled, “Well, of course they’ll keep at it—it’s the only way to stay warm!”

  Rope and Brook broke apart amidst roars of laughter. “Food and drink in the meeting hall!” Shandy cried.

  It was a giant feast and a happy time, for Brook and Rope had each other, and their home, and Clouds End had them too. All the travellers who had sailed for Delta so many months before had returned, and for one night even the haunt was made to feel welcome. Wine flowed, and honey cakes were eaten, and the islanders swapped songs and stories all through the day, keeping their boats in the harbor and their fires burning bright.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE BIRTH

  ROPE WOKE slowly on the last day of winter, following the fragrance of roasting mushrooms out of his dreams. He opened his bleary eyes and returned Brook’s smile with a sleepy grin of his own. “Unh,” he grunted. “Smells good. Rope want.”

  Brook broke a duck’s egg into the skillet. It sent white tentacles creeping over the mushrooms and hissed in surprise at what it found. “Awake at last!” She started to get up from her stool before the fire, stared at her distended stomach, and thought better of it. “You can get your good morning kiss over here.”

  Rope threw back his blankets and stood on the cold matting, shivering as he reached for his heavy tunic. Once dressed, he knelt behind Brook and kissed her neck until she giggled.

  “I know it isn’t for another month, but this is getting too huge,” Brook said, patting her tummy.

  Rope peered hungrily into the hissing skillet, tickling Brook’s neck with his beard. “Is that about ready?”

  “Ah. Ahhh.”

  Rope frowned. “Is that a No?”

  Brook smiled faintly, listening to something deep within herself. Pain flickered in her face, pain and concentration. “Rope. Don’t worry now, but I think you should ask Shandy to drop by.”

  “Why? Are you sick?” Brook stared at him as if he were very, very stupid. “Oh,” he said. And then, “Oh! You mean now? Today?”

  Brook laid a hand on his shoulder. “Go out the door,” she said. “Turn left. Go to Shandy’s house. Knock.”

  “Yes, right. Knock. Yes.”

  “Rope?”

  “Yes? What? What?”

  “Be calm.”

  Rope leapt to his feet and ran to the door. “Calm. Absolutely. Shandy. Yes. Right!”

  * * *

  “I’ll never forgive Brook for getting married,” Shale swore as she and Foam walked down to the dock. “My sister has been trimming my sails for days. ‘When are you going to find a nice man?’ ‘I do so look forward to having a niece!’ ‘Isn’t it lovely, dear little Brook married at last.’ Aaarrrggh!”

  Foam flipped up the hood of his tunic and kept his hands in his pockets. “Is she still riding you for spending too much time on the boat?”

  Shale laughed. “On the contrary, Nanny now approves. She has decided it is the only way I will spend time with a nice, eligible young man. You have become quite a favorite.”

  The low sun came out of a dazzle of white vapor to the east. Ships creaked and rocked against the dock. Some were already out fishing, black against the horizon, their winch arms out like insect legs. “The joke is on her,” Foam said.

  Shale stepped on to the wooden dock, making for the Walrus. “It’s so relentless, that’s what gets me.”

  “At least there is some benefit to spending time with me.”

  Shale squatted by the painter. “I like spending time with you, all right?”

  “Of course! Who could not?” Nimbly Foam hopped on board. He would have to watch himself. Nobody found self-pity attractive. “Off we go! Wind is light and from the east. Jump aboard. Shake out the sheets and draw up the anchor! Today we sail into Adventure.”

  “Besides which, Brook tells me hardly anything about their trip. Pumping those two for stories is like milking trout.”

  Foam ran up the mainsail. “I know, I know.”

  “Do you think they will be all right if something goes wrong?”

  “With the baby?” Foam sighed. “I think so. But it would be hard.” He used an oar to shove them off the dock and then set his sail to catch the light landward breeze. He worked his way north along the island’s leeward coast. Double-Eagle’s twin peaks loomed to port; the Harp was a tiny blot of green ahead. “The sea is too big. You look out on these little islands, tiny fragile little things. You remember all the terrible things that happen.”

  “Good things, too.”

  “Of course. But the big things, they’re mostly bad. The raid on Delta. Shoal burning like a torch. Brine gone, and Rose. Pond murdered. And who knows what happened to Hazel Twist? Did Seven get to him, or did our Hero of Legend just disappear?”

  Shale shook her head. “Seven would never give up.”

  Foam watched ahead for shoals. “Brook’s parents drowning. Rope’s father disappearing into the Mist. Brook being twinned. Jo taking the Spark.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “You know what I thought of, when I heard that? I thought of the little golden candle in the story Seven told. The Shadow Wood.”

  Shale shivered. “Of course the bad things seem big, because you don’t pay attention to the good ones. A good meal, or lying in the sun. When you make up lists like this, life always seems terrible. People usually dwell on the bad things because it makes them feel grand.”

  “I don’t do things to feel grand.”

  “Well, you hardly do anything at all,” Shale joked. “You don’t count.”

  Foam touched the tiller, taking them a little out from land. “Perhaps it is easy to see the good in life when you refuse to take anybody’s pain, Shale. That’s fair, I suppose. You have the right to keep yourself off any shoals you see.” Anger burned in Foam, anger at Shale and anger at himself and all his stupid months of hoping that somehow they could be more than friends. “But somewhere we let you get the idea that it was all right to hurt people. We said, ‘Oh well, that’s just Shale. You know her.’ It isn’t good enough anymore. I am tired of you hurting people, Shale. I am tired of you hurting me.”

  “I was making a joke. Just a—”

  “Find something funnier.” Foam’s hands were tight on the wheel. Shale hadn’t trimmed the sheets when he turned out, and the sails were beginning to luff, snapping in the landward breeze. “Part of growing up is thinking about other people, Shale. Until you start doing that, you will always be the oldest child on this island.”

  Shale trimmed the sheet, then knelt and threw a round turn and two half-hitches around a cleat. She turned to look at him, hurting. “I’m sorry.”

  Creaking, the Walrus heeled to port as she passed the north end of Clouds End and her bow came into a quartering breeze. Shale stood a long time silent. Her eyes were glistening. She drew in a long breath and turned to look abeam, blinking. She brushed a single tear angrily from her cheek. “Is this what you wanted?”

&n
bsp; “No.”

  Shale stepped aft and stopped near the trapdoor of their dry-cargo hold. “Think Stone will let us go to the mainland this year?”

  “Probably not.”

  She nodded, still not looking at him. “Maybe next year.” She watched the pale spring sunshine glinting on the water. Then her eyes closed, squeezing out more tears. She grabbed the ship’s rail while a long, shuddering breath shook her body. “Doesn’t anyone understand? Do you think I am nothing more than selfish? Doesn’t anyone see I am doing it for all of you? I am Shandy’s daughter. I know my duty. And my friends give me so much, so much more than I deserve. And I am not worthy. But I am trying, you see. Trying so hard to make something worth giving back. To give the world as a gift to Clouds End.”

  She stopped. Tears rolled down her face, and dropped into the sea. “Of course. Of course some of it is selfish. But doesn’t anyone understand how much of my life is for you all?”

  Propping the wheel, Foam walked to her side, reached out and held her shoulder. He felt the distance between them, no thicker than the cloth of her tunic beneath his fingers. Gently he touched her, sad and vulnerable, riding the gently rolling deck of the Walrus as if standing on dry land. Softly, he said, “I’m sorry. You always seem so strong.”

  “What a virtue!” Shale cried, laughing unhappily. “To be so strong my friends fear me.”

  Shale, invincible Shale, suddenly so vulnerable. “Your friends love you.”

  “They love me and they fear me,” Shale said, looking over the port rail. “Like the sea.”

  “Shale,” Foam muttered, blinking bashfully over the wheel. “I . . . I . . . I have never told this to anyone, but . . . Well, I was the one who hung those mackerel in the meeting hall for your Naming ceremony.” He risked a sheepish glance at her.

  “I thought it was you!”

  “And, and . . . and that day on the ship, when you came on board naked? I peeked.”

  Shale blushed, half laughing, half crying. “Was it awful?”

  “It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. Well, one of the most wonderful things. Certainly one of the five most wonderful things. No question.”

  Shale cleated the jib sheet and then took Foam’s free hand and held it tightly in her own.

  Gravely, Foam said, “Do you want to hear my deepest, darkest secret? You have to promise not to tell.”

  “I promise.”

  Foam leaned close to her. His lips brushed her shark-tooth and he felt the tear-tracks on her cheeks. “I love Shale,” he said. He looked into her tearful grey-green eyes. “Now remember, you promised not to tell. If she found out, I would just die.”

  Shale laughed and blinked. “Are you sure?” she whispered. “I think Shale might want to hear that just now.” And then she started crying all over again.

  * * *

  Nanny was waiting for them when they returned. Shale gawked, astonished, as her prim sister threw herself down on her knees to lash their painter to the dock. “Nanny! What in all the oceans . . . ?”

  Nanny looked up, eyes sparkling.

  Foam looked at Shale. Shale looked at Foam.

  “Brook!” And then Shale leapt over the ship’s rail, thudded onto the dock and raced up the meadow path for the village.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon the birthing room was warm. Shale had the fire blazing.

  “Relax,” Rope murmured. He rubbed Brook’s naked lower back, massaging it as he had for the last hour.

  Brook smiled faintly and took another sip of honey-sweetened tea from Shale. “Sorry. You aren’t any of those things I called you.”

  “Happens to everyone,” Shandy said briskly. “When the hard contractions hit you think you’ll never make it.”

  “It’s not me,” Brook said. She gasped. “It’s not me anymore. Too strong!”

  A bowl of vinegar water was on the floor beside Shandy; she had her small arm well inside Brook’s vagina, running her fingers lightly over the cervix. “Hand-span and widening,” she said gently. “I can feel the baby’s head against the opening, smooth as a pearl. You are doing just fine, Brook. Just fine.”

  Brook groaned, convulsed by another contraction that seemed to go on forever. Finally she relaxed, smiling like a dozing child.

  Rope hovered miserably near the bed. Shandy and Shale and even Brook seemed to feel some touch of holiness about the business, but for him labor had been nothing but Brook suffering through hours and hours of terrible pain while he stood powerless to help. “Is she all right?”

  Shandy slid her hand from the birthing canal and washed up. “She is fine. In fact, you can take a break now, if you need a rest. This is the last calm. The contractions are just as hard, but she is through the worst of it, where they come in waves one after another. Now she can catch her breath.”

  Bliss stole over Brook. “She is so beautiful,” Shale murmured.

  Her mother nodded, smiling with tired eyes. All her daughter’s toughness was melting away before the power and mystery of birth. “It’s the last moment of peace before the struggle,” she said. “For some women there comes a time when whatever makes you you goes away, like a stream losing itself in the sea. I thought I was dying, my first time.”

  The Witness grinned. “Keep giving her sips of tea with lots of honey, Rope. She will need all the strength she can get.” Shandy took a swig herself. “For that matter, so do I. Oh, getting old,” she said. “Getting old.”

  Outside, the new moon was rising.

  And on the ceiling, in a dim corner above the bed, a bone-white moth held motionless, peering down on Brook with shining golden eyes.

  Some time later Brook grunted explosively, hands hooked under her own knees, bearing down.

  “Oh, Brook. Oh, honey.”

  “Keep bracing her!” Shandy snapped. “I can feel the baby’s head.” She stroked the inside of Brook’s vagina, pressing out the knots of tension. “Does that feel good?” she asked, massaging the lips.

  “Yes-Unh!” Brook nodded, grunting again and bearing down.

  Shandy’s fingers moved up. “There?”

  Brook winced and shook her head. “Too! Too intense,” she gasped. “Rope?”

  “I’m here, love! I’m here.”

  “Rope?” Another contraction shook her, and the baby’s head slid against Shandy’s fingers with a gush of blood.

  “It’s coming,” Shale breathed. “It’s coming.”

  Brook grunted again and bore down.

  “Hold it and push!” Shandy cried. “Push!”

  “Rope!”

  * * *

  The white moth fluttered to the head of the bed. Its golden eyes caught the gleam of the bedside lamp as Brook brought forth a child.

  Brook reached for her baby, only to be ambushed by a great contraction. She groaned from the bottom of her being. Shandy looked up sharply. “Baby’s small but shapely. It’s a little girl.”

  Brook smiled and gasped. Her face was drawn with exhaustion. She had never been farther from the Mist, never felt more grounded and purposeful. Her body was being wrung out like a rag and the pain was unbearable, and still no destiny, no story woven behind the Mist could matter compared to this. “Shale—hold baby! One—more!”

  Another head slid into view at the lip of Brook’s vagina. “Now we know why you decided to start early,” Shandy said.

  Brook groaned again, and a second head emerged, red and crumpled. Shandy ran her finger quickly around the baby’s mouth, clearing out the mucus.

  And then, just as Brook closed her eyes and gasped for one last shove, and the others watched the second baby being born, the moth fluttered up from the head of the bed, lurching like a leaf in the wind. It fluttered to the child already in Shale’s arms and stopped to cling, as if by chance, on the little girl’s face so that white wings fell across her eyes.

  The second babe came easier, sliding out in two long pushes. “One girl, one boy,” Shandy said, rapidly checking them. “Both little
but in perfect shape. Just as they ought to be.” She slapped the infants and let their cords blanch before cutting them. Brook fell back in Rope’s arms with her children mewling at her breast.

  “You did it.” He kissed her sweat-damp neck. Brook gazed back at him, a look of blind relief, barely recognizing him, so happy that it was over, so happy she had her babies.

  Shandy was studying Brook’s vagina for tears. Shale leapt across the room to fetch more water and clean cloth.

  Nobody saw the tiny white moth. Nobody watched it flutter toward the little boy. And nobody even noticed when Net, curled around Rope’s wrist, lashed out and flicked the moth away before it could touch the little boy’s face.

  The next instant all eyes were on the children. As they would be, in one way or another, for many years to come.

  * * *

  Brook and Shandy were drowning in exhaustion. Even Rope felt utterly drained. Speechless and profoundly grateful, he swaddled his children and watched Shale begin the messy process of cleaning up. Shandy sponged the tiny tears in Brook’s vagina.

  Then the old midwife collapsed into a kitchen chair. Shale stoked the fire, finished the cleaning, and passed over a crock of honey. Shandy and Brook, both half-dozing, ate it with their fingers. Rope placed the two snugly wrapped babies in Brook’s limp arms. “They’re so tiny!” he marvelled.

  “Beautiful,” Brook sighed.

  Shale went to refill the waterskin. Spring came with her when she returned, pattering warmly against the roof and walls. A wild, fresh breeze blew away the stale air. “It’s raining,” she said.

  CHAPTER 23

  JO’S CALL

  A TIME of real-world stories followed, though neither Brook nor Jo ever forgot the Mist.

  That spring kindled into summer and was consumed by fall. Brook had no other children; Boots and Feather were her two. Rain-soaked winters came—three, five, seven of them—each blessed with a few magical days of snow. Seven times the grey days closed in, leaving Brook quiet and withdrawn, and seven times her heart lightened with the twins’ birthday and the first glint of spring sunshine on Sage Creek.