Godmother: a novel

  "She was my best friend," she said. "She used to let me help her paint. We used to swim every day in the river. Every night she would spend an hour brushing my hair. I loved her smell, and the jewelry on her dresser that she let me try on. We used to dance around the room and laugh so hard I thought I would be sick from it."

  "Yes," I said. "Such happy memories. It is good to not forget. But you can't live in them. You can't forget the present."

  The words felt like splinters I was pulling out of skin. They sounded hollow and strange, even to me. I did not know what to say to her, even as I felt the stale words pushing through me. All I could see was the vision of her mother floating on the water. The curve of her lips just below mine.

  "I have no present," she said, her voice barely audible, and I understood.

  We were two ciphers lying in the grass, ruined, the horses and the carriages shimmering in front of us, mirages flickering in and out, threatening at any moment to return to twigs and pumpkins, the earth. It seemed, right then, that the whole world was that way, empty, populated by ghosts. That there was nothing real at all. Go back, I told myself. Go back to the fairy lake, your friends, your world.

  But I couldn't move. The silk and tears under my palm.

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  Her starlit hair. The darkening night and the musky scent of the jasmine cloaking us, like a veil. I couldn't even imagine moving. I clutched her, buried my face into her neck.

  "Don't cry," I said. "Please."

  "I just want to disappear," she said.

  Even as she said it, I could feel her slipping from my grasp, and I held on to her.

  "Help me, Godmother," she said. "Help me go back to her."

  I could see her mother's body by the edge of the water, her stepmother's face hovering above hers in the dark room, the cooks and maids and stable hands abusing her. I could see her bent over the stone floor with a bucket by her side, covered in ash under the chimney. I could see her on the floor of the stable, clutching herself. I could see the blade against her skin, the moon shining against the river, the drops of blood hitting the water's surface.

  I wanted all her pain, her dreams and thoughts and memories. Her skin and hair. The straw pressing into her. She was unspeakably beautiful. All of it was. This pain and desire and emptiness and grief, this terrible longing moving from her to me and back again. The world I knew--the fairy lake, my sister, my friends, our days spent flying through reeds and across treetops--seemed blank, dull. I wanted this. Her life moving through me. I wanted to love a human so much that I could feel pain like hers when they were gone.

  I sat up suddenly. There was a buzzing against my ear, but when I turned, there was only empty space. I looked around. The carriage and horses were barely there now, just flickers against the darkening sky. Only the tip of the sun was visible from behind the mountains, a hot orange line searing over them. It seemed as if the whole world had stopped, and

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  yet if I pricked my ears and listened very closely to the night air, I could hear the violins and flutes, the pop of wine being opened, the click of heels on the marble dance floor.

  Soon it would be too late for her to go, and I would have failed everyone. This was my job. Who I was.

  I tried to pull myself from her thoughts, wrench myself from the pain that was filling me. It was coming into me so quickly I could barely breathe.

  "Cinderella," I said, trying to make my voice firm. And then again: "Cinderella!"

  "What is it, Godmother?"

  Her voice clutched at me, pulled me down like an anchor. I had to use all my strength to gain control of myself, what I was saying.

  I spoke as calmly and deliberately as I could. "The ball has started. I can't take you back to her, but I can take you to him. He is your future."

  She twisted around to stare up at me. "I have no future."

  I reached into myself, and there was nothing there. I had no power now, I realized. No way to help her.

  "You are so kind, Godmother," she said, pushing herself up from the grass on her elbows. "No one has ever been this kind to me."

  "I'm sorry," I whispered.

  "You can do anything. These shoes," she said, reaching over and holding one up, watching it glow in the pale light, "you just imagined them, didn't you?"

  She was so calm now.

  "They are tricks," I whispered. "That's all we can do in your world."

  "I imagine things all the time," she said. "But I can't do

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  anything. I can't make one thing change. I have lived in this house for five years, you know. I haven't left it. Not even once."

  "I am here now," I said, and I could feel the desperation hacking at my chest, "to change things for you. To change your entire life. Don't you understand that? Everything will change."

  "It's too late for me," she said. The night seemed to have gone black, all at once, and in the starlight she looked like a ghost. If I blinked, she might disappear, along with the horses and carriage.

  "No," I said. "It's not. Upstairs, in your room, you were so happy! When you were transformed. Let's go back. I can do it all over again. A new dress, new everything."

  She looked at me, confused. "I wasn't happy," she said.

  "You were," I said. "You dreamed of him. I came and made you beautiful, for him."

  I reached out for her, but it was as if she'd turned to ash. She slipped out of my reach and stared at me.

  "I never dreamed of him," she said.

  I felt like I was floating. Like nothing was real. I crouched on my knees and leaned toward her. "But I was in your head," I whispered. "I felt what you felt, saw what you saw. You were in a field. He was walking toward you."

  "No," she said, her voice low. Shaking her head and moving back on the grass. She looked afraid now. I wanted to scream. Grab her by her shoulders and shake her until she admitted that what I said was true.

  "Don't you remember? It was a big field. It stretched out in every direction. He was walking toward you. The prince. Reaching out to you."

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  "No," she said, firmer now. She straightened her back and looked right at me. "I don't think about the prince. I never think about the prince."

  "I was there."

  "Sometimes I dream of my father," she said before I could continue. "A field we used to play in, he and I, when I was a child. When my mother was having an episode, he would take me there. I don't care about the palace. Any of that."

  "What do you mean?" I asked. I couldn't understand anything suddenly. "You were made for him. To go to the ball and fall in love. You should be dancing with him right now. I thought--"

  I stopped. Remembered the dream then. The man in the field, the longing that seared through her whole being.

  "Godmother," she said, "if you are here to help me, then help me go back to them. My mother and father. Our house by the lake."

  "But--"

  "I want to swim in the lake with my mother. I want to dance with her in the garden. I want the three of us to walk together in that field."

  "But I can't--"

  "No, Godmother. You can do anything. Anything you want. I would give anything to be like you."

  I just stared at her, speechless.

  "Please help me."

  She had not been happy, I realized. I had imagined it. Her eyes lighting up in the mirror as she watched herself. Her twirling around and kicking up the glass slippers, turning her ankles to see. Her skipping down the great hall

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  excitement crackling and streaming through her. Had I imagined all of it?

  "You aren't real," I said, and I felt tears on my cheeks as I spoke. "I can't tell what is real."

  She gave me a strange smile. I could barely see her face in the dark. "I didn't know that fairies cried," she said. Her voice was kind now, soft.

  "I am supposed to send you," I said. "It's my role. What I was sent for. I have to send you. I have to."

  "Oh, Godmother," she sai
d, leaning toward me. Reaching out her arm and stroking my hair. "You are so beautiful. I have never seen anyone so beautiful as you."

  "I'm not even human," I said.

  "Your hair is so red. I've never seen hair as red as yours, or eyes as green."

  "Stop," I said. I grabbed her wrist. My thumb rubbed against the scar, which seared into me. "Stop! They're not real. Don't you see? None of it is real! I'm not even human!"

  "You're hurting me," she said, and I dropped her wrist suddenly, saw the marks where my nails had cut into her, into the wound.

  "I am not even human!"

  The slippers were broken, I realized then. Shattered into bits. Long shards of glass spread out around her, next to us. I couldn't remember her having broken them. She looked right into me, her face inches away. I flinched. Her eyes were so hollow and dead. How had I not noticed before?

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  THE DAY before the ball was a Friday, and I went to work at the normal time, knowing full well that it could be my last day. That it would be my last day. The alternative was unthinkable.

  I walked up and down the aisles of the store, feeling the spines of the books under my palm. I opened the case behind the register one last time and took out the book. I stared again at my favorite pictures, the leaves running down the sides of the page, the words scribbled in French. Left there, just for me. All my old loves will be returned to me.

  Yes.

  George came down just before noon.

  "Are you excited?" I asked him.

  "Yeah," he said. "I'm excited. Not to put on a tux, and not to see my ex-wife, but Veronica seems great."

  "You think so?" I asked. I could barely contain my excitement. "I think you two are perfect for each other. I think this will change everything."

  George laughed, then reached over and put his hand on mine. "Thank you, Lil. You may be getting a little ahead of yourself, but I appreciate it, that you care so much."

  I watched his face. There was a sadness to him, something in his eyes that made me breathe in. It had always been there. It had been in Theodore's face, too, I realized. Even then I had responded to that.

  "You're welcome," I said. "And I want to thank you as well, for everything you've done for me."

  He gave me a strange look. "What do you mean?"

  "Just letting me work here. Giving me a place. I didn't always have a place, you know."

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  "What's up, Lil?"he asked. "You're acting like you won't see me again."

  A bit of cool air swept through the room as a young couple came in the front door.

  "No. I just want to thank you. I never have."

  For a moment the way he looked at me took me off guard. As if I were young, as if he could see into me.

  "Well, it has been my pleasure, madam," he said. "You're a mystery, you know that? Someday you should tell me your story."

  "Yes, I should," I said, looking down.

  And I thought, for a second, what if I told him? What if I told him and Veronica both? Just sat down and said, This is who I am. This is who I was, this is what I did, and this is how I'm setting things right. What if I told him I was leaving?

  I would have given anything to have my powers again, right then, and be able to hear George's thoughts, feel what he felt. Humans had seemed so simple to me once, when I had not understood anything at all.

  "I hope ..." I didn't know how to say it. "I hope this works out for you." The way it was supposed to work out for Cinderella and the prince. I didn't know how to tell him what I had seen in him. What I wanted to see: him and Veronica, together, erasing all the longing and sadness from each other. He would laugh if I told him that.

  "Thanks, Lil. Well, I'd better get going. I've got to pick up my tux, then head up to Chelsea to meet a client."

  "Oh," I said, reaching out to him. "Will you be back today?"

  He looked at me in surprise, and I caught myself. "I don't think so," he said. "But I'll see you Monday morning. Maybe

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  we can have an early breakfast across the street. I'll tell you all about the ball." He emphasized the last two words and smiled.

  He does not believe he can be happy, I thought.

  "That would be wonderful," I said.

  "I'll see you Monday."

  I watched him leave, his dark hair falling past his collar, his long body pushing out the door.

  It hadn't occurred to me before then that I might miss the human world when I left. How much I would miss George. But then I thought of everything I would be returning to.

  I spent the rest of the day putting things in order, the way I always did. Restoring order to the shelves, helping people pick out just the right book, wrapping their purchase in a brown paper bag. I tried to get through all the boxes George had piled in back.

  When I left work, I thought about going to the diner to eat but then decided to do something more special. I had so little time left. I considered going down to the water, but it was too soon, much too soon for that.

  And suddenly New York seemed wide open, wonderful, enchanted. I wanted to go somewhere new. A place I'd never been. My mind ran through all the possibilities--the far-flung beaches, the zoo, the botanical gardens, the planetarium where constellations lit up all at once in the dark. And then I thought of what George had told me, about the fairy paintings at the Frick.

  I didn't mind the long walk. I made my way over to Fifth Avenue, filled with excitement. The cars slid down the avenue like fish, their headlights glowing, and every building

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  had an illuminated wrought-iron entryway with a doorman standing in it, ready to usher people in or out. There were posh people everywhere, with their small dogs, their town cars pulling up to the curbs, their perfumed skin and puffing hair. I walked past, invisible, my hands stuffed in my pockets. I glanced into the lobbies, saw marble floors and chandeliers sparkling, hanging down.

  I thought of the palace and its silver stairs. How they had felt under my human form, the glass slippers clacking against metal.

  An hour later I turned on Seventieth, and the street was darker now, lined with town houses fronted by swooping banisters, greenery bursting out of the windows and doorways. There were whole worlds in each one, I thought, imagining what I might have been able to see once on a street like this. Of course, the world was so crowded now. The thoughts and dreams swirling here would likely move into a fairy and eat her alive. Wouldn't they? I laughed. I thought of Cinderella's stepmother and her dream: the banquet tables laid with food, the chests overflowing with jewels.

  Men and women walked by holding hands, stepping out of cars, walking up into the palaces lining the streets. I thought of Veronica and George, how perfect and alive they were, the way her eyes would glitter when she looked at him, her lashes batting up and down like wings, and how flushed he would become under her gaze. I thought of her ice blue dress with the crystals shining off it, wrapping around her body and clashing with her hair.

  I could see all of it.

  The Frick came up on my right, surrounded by a regal

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  dark fence. I took a breath and stepped through the main door, past the security guards and around the side, to the front desk.

  Inside, it was a riot of color, all around. I was surprised that it was an old house, a mansion someone had lived in once. I could feel the presence of lives in the walls and air, even before I read about them.

  I bought a ticket, then walked slowly through, one grand room after another, past the ornate furniture that was on the verge of crumbling, the fireplaces, the paintings that took up whole walls. Everything rubbed up against everything else. As I walked from room to room, I heard whispers, laughter. At one point I saw men and women standing around the couches with drinks in their hands, and stopped in my tracks. They were gone a moment later, the whole place turning so quiet I could hear my breath, my beating heart. The faint movements of the pacing guards.

  I entered a great hallway, a l
ong rectangle of a room lined in paintings. Every kind of painting, it seemed. Whole worlds clashed and collided with each other there. Stormy scenes, dark trees bent against blackening, melancholy skies. Portraits, faces staring out, spoke of other, ghostlier worlds. I thought of everyone, all the places and people I had known, the dreams I had taken up into myself and could still feel rustling there, deep down.

  I stopped and stared into one of the paintings: a lit-up, butter-colored harbor with long boats teeming against the shoreline, where men and women wandered and worked and waited. The sky glowed and turned to dark, then to a bright dewy blue, almost translucent. Sugary. The water was green and brown and blue, constantly changing, almost

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  alive. I could see the sun and the buildings reflected in it, growing and spreading across the surface, feel the cool sprays of it flicking onto my hands and face. The sky, I thought, is going to break open. I stepped closer, stared into one of the boats, the people working there and the sails dangling and folding down, like sheets hung out to dry, and then the faces, the people bent over, moving. I could hear them talking, shouting orders. I could hear the sounds of their feet stomping across the hull, the planks of wood, the water slapping against it, and the tug and groan as the boat stopped and swayed in the harbor.

  "Ma'am?"

  I recognized something. A familiar line of the jaw, arch of the forehead. A clock, I saw then, rising up across the water. Chiming one, two, three ...

  "Excuse me, ma'am?" A hand touched my arm. "Ma'am, are you okay? I need you to step back behind this line."

  I looked down, disoriented. Green carpet, a yellow line.

  I moved then, but I could feel the tears bubbling up in me, pressing against my eyelids. I looked back at the painting but it was all still now, quiet. A lovely scene lit from within, as if a heart were glowing from inside of it. The figures on the boat were motionless, drawn in black paint. The clock tower had disappeared.