One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries (25 page)

“
The skins,” I said, seized by the obvious plan. “The skins and the wicker cages.”

Daisy kept them away from my corner of the hold for three days while I fashioned the skin boat. On the evening of the fourth day, Smith, the shipwright, went rooting through the bundles below decks in search of his stash of rum and discovered the little coracle.

The squeaky cry he made was not so different to the one that he made when he climaxed, but Daisy’s knife in his back probably did not feel as satisfying to him as his usual encounters with her.

“
There are six men still on board,” she said calmly, wiping Smith’s blood onto the furs. “We can’t get past them with your skin boat. Jump in the water and swim to the island. You can avoid the gang easily. Their fires burn through the night.”

“
You saved my life. How could I face my people, knowing I’d left you behind to their mercy? I’d rather die, killing as many of these hateful pig-people as I can with my bare hands.”

“
That will not be many. They have guns. You’ll be shot.” She touched my face, gently. “Be strong, Pale Warrior.”

“
I am strong.”

“
Be strong like a woman. Run, and live.”

I obeyed.

And the only ship I took with me into the snow-swirled sea was a Culwinnan one, not of whale rib and hide but human skin and bone. Guns cracked behind me but I was already too far away for them to be accurate.

The Lady watched me with the silver eye of the moon as I struck out towards the black shape of the shore.

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

H
ow
did it begin?
 

She built me out of snow and sticks and stones. Smooth pebbles made my heart and lungs and brain. Frozen branches curved into my spine and wrists and finger bones. Then there was snow, packed tightly around the staves until it formed flesh and skin.

I breathed into the endless winter, and she caught my breath in her own lungs before giving it back, warm and perfumed. Again I breathed, this time on my own. I opened my eyes.

Surely everyone thinks their mother is beautiful, when they are first born. I saw her glittering eyes, her frosted skin and silver crown and knew her to be a queen, and a witch. But most of all, she was my mother, and I loved her for it.

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

We lived in a tall, winding house of pointed spires and needle-sharp corners. Every room was narrow and high-ceilinged, and the cold air flooded through it. Frost patterned our flagstones, and thin icicles dripped from the window ledges. It was as well that she made me her daughter, since no one else could have thrived in this ice-lashed palace as well as I did.

We were not always alone. My mother’s dwarves and wolves endlessly knocked at the door, demanding tasks, or bringing news. She delighted in them, in the furs they brought her, and the masculine grunts and growls they brought to our dinner table.

I learned to cut the corpses they brought into raw steaks for the chewing, and to boil the bones for gravy pies. We only had one stove and I hated it, with its streaks of heat and billowing clouds of smoke. I only made hot gravy when the dwarves demanded it. My mother, like the wolves, ate meat raw.

Cakes pleased her, and sweetmeats, but I did not make those for her. Rather, she would create them with a twist of her wand and a laugh from her throat, to reward the menfolk for their service.

My eyes were clear enough that I could see the dwarves chew and swallow the knucklebones and gristle left over from my kitchen scraps, as if they were the daintiest of toffees and almond caramels. No wonder that my mother laughed with such delight. Nothing pleased her so well as to trick and to deceive.

I have never liked the taste of sugar. It is a false promise on the tongue.

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

The statues hurt my heart. At first there were only a few, here and there throughout the house. A lion in the forecourt, pixies and naiads scattered through the rooms, elegant pieces of artistry in stone.

But more arrived, every year, then every month. Towards the end it was daily that new statues piled in to our narrow house, filling every room and tower and courtyard. They were not elegant artworks any more, but depictions of pain and fear and agony.

When my mother went abroad in that wide sledge of hers, drawn by reindeer, I was left alone in the house with the stone horrors. Sometimes I thought that the statues spoke to me, in voices so soft and painful that I could barely make the words out.

Sometimes I dreamed of them, and their sadness.

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

Change, when it came, began as a whisper in the air.
On the move. He is on the move. The kings and queens are returning.
 

I thought my mother was the only queen this land had ever known. But the whispers grew louder, even as the winter ebbed away to reveal sand and stone beneath the snow.

What would become of me, in this thaw? If my mother was winter and snow and ice then I was doubly so.

When I was not called to wait upon her, I spent much of my time in the room that my mother had always called the library, though most of the books were frozen fast to the shelves and had to be prised away with a knife if I wanted to read them. I did enjoy the pretty colours of their bindings, and the wide words gilded on to their spines, but that was nothing compared to the stories inside.

The books that I had read over the years told me of worlds beyond ours, of boarding schools and lacrosse, of coal-smoke and carriages. I always wondered if these stories were of the ‘dreadful place’ that my mother came from, before she created our wonderland.

In the books in the library, there were not just winters but springs and summers, autumns, oceans and deserts.

Only one statue stood here among the books, the sad centaur, and I found myself talking to him often, when I was certain Mother was not nearby to hear. I told him of my fears and worries, and made up poems for him about what I could see from the windows of our high and pointed home.

Sometimes I read to him, of the Wickedest Girl, the Dreadful Goblins, and the Secret Five. He seemed to like the stories as much as I did.

On other days, I fancied that he told me tales as well, about these kings and queens who were returning to our land, to thaw us all. The tales always ended badly, but I tried not to blame him for that.

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

I felt the presence of the fair-haired boy before I saw him. It was as if a warm gust swept up the staircase, shaking us all to our foundations. The wolves were uneasy, and I heard them howling from the forecourt.

Of course I eavesdropped. Would you not? Listening to my mother’s private conversations was the only thing that had kept me alive for so long — I needed to be ever cautious of her shifting moods and tempers. Our life together has always been one of thin, fragile ice beneath my feet.

I hid by the winding banister of the stair as the boy approached my mother, the worst of the wolves snapping at his heels. I could smell fear on him, though he pretended to be brave.

“
I’ve come, your Majesty,” he burst out, his shabby fur coat wobbling around him as he hurried forward to greet her. “It’s me, Cyril.”

My mother sat at the far end of the hall with only a single lamp burning. The look on her face made it clear what she thought of him. Obviously he had never paid the slightest attention to her moods, or he would know better to strut before her as if he was something special.

When she spoke, it was in a terrible voice. “How dare you come alone? Did I not tell you to bring the others with you?”

His face fell, and he explained quickly how close they were, the brother and sisters and even the dog that he had apparently promised to my mother. If I had a sister, I should not treat her so lightly, but he seemed quite greedy to get rid of his own.

Then he said the words that made my mother shiver, she who never felt the cold.

“
They say that He is on the move. The fairy of sand.”

There was a flurry after that, of dwarves and wolves, of shouting and sending, and surely this boy’s siblings would be meat all too soon. The sledge was to be readied, the one without bells, so that none could hear the queen and flee in fear.

The boy huddled against the wall, only now seeming to realise how little my mother was pleased with him. He asked for sweets and was given dried bread. My mother snapped at him when he spoke, drumming her fingers against the arm of her chair.

And then the sledge was ready and they were gone, queen and golden boy, dwarves and wolves all. I crept out of my hiding place and went about my chores, cleaning and tidying after them so that all would be proper for their return.

The ceiling dripped. Drip, drip, drip. The floor was wet in patches, and had not iced over the stone as was usual. The windows were wet with condensation, and at first I dared not look.

But I did, oh I did. I saw the snow falling from the frosted tree branches. When I flung the window open, I felt a warmth in my throat that made it hard to breathe.

Not thaw. This was spring.

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

I cleaned and polished every room, and still my mother did not return. The window sills were wet with melting snow, and the courtyard was all shiny flagstones and a golden grit that I did not recognise at first.

Sand
, the old books sang to me, of seasides and fish and chips, Blackpool rock and jolly good fun on the pier.
That is sand.
 

I felt hot all over, as if my own skin would melt away. How real was I? If my mother forgot about me, would I pour through the flagstones and be gone in a few moments, like the icicles that used to cling to the edge of every turret and pointed roof of her house?

A night and day passed, and my mother did not come home. I slept near the sad centaur in the library, pretending that he petted me and called me dear thing. He reassured me that she was not dead, and winter would return.

When I breathed out, there was no cloud in the air.

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

Heat came all in a roar, and the courtyard beneath the house rumbled with that roar. I looked out of a window to see a terrible creature scampering back and forth. Was this the ‘fairy’ that they were all so afraid of? It had a shambling, spider-shaped body, with long brown limbs and spiky whiskers, ears like a bat and the eyes of a snail.

When it reached each statue, it grew in a most alarming manner and made flubbing noises with its lips as it breathed out, bringing the stone to life.

There was dancing and celebration, shouts and cries, hugs and kisses, as friends and family were reunited, and the queen’s spells were broken. A dog barked, over and over, scraping against my fears.

I hid in the library as warmth spread from room to room, but I could feel it coming nearer. I stood by the window, wishing and wishing and thinking cold thoughts, remembering my mother and the ice and the snow and oh, I could not breathe if it was all heat and fire and pulses and skin and sand in this world, I could not.

My breath came raggedly as I pressed my hands back against the window, wishing that the glass was ice, wishing myself cold, cold, cold.

A girl broke into the room at a gallop. She wore strange clothes, not a fur in sight, and her hair was swinging in little bunches. “Psammead, Psammead!” she cried out. “I’ve found Mr Jinks! Oh, do come quick!”

And thus I learned the name of my murderer. I remembered a book in the library, about a sand-fairy who loathed the cold and complained constantly about his whiskers. Was he the same creature who had ruled this land once, before my mother brought the sweet relief of ice and snow?

If he was real, then everything in storybooks was real.

I stayed as still as I could, no longer breathing, as the sand-fairy was carried upstairs in the arms of another dreadful child, a girl with short curly hair who was dressed like a boy. The noisy dog snapped at their heels, barking with triumph, and the creature named Psammead shook hot, gritty sand from its feet on to my mother’s frosted carpet.

“
Are you sure this is your centaur, Anthea?” asked the short-haired girl, struggling to keep the Psammead in her arms and to quiet her dog at the same time. “Do be good, Champion.”

Heat rolled off the creature in waves as he leaned over my centaur and huffed upon him in a thoroughly undignified fashion, turning his ice and stone features into coughing, laughing flesh.

The girl embraced the centaur and he hugged her back. “You did it, Anthea,” he said in delight. “You saved us all.”

“
Not yet, Mr Jinks,” she laughed, shining with joy. “There’s still a battle, isn’t there, darling Psammead? We have to defeat the Frost Witch, if my brothers haven’t done it already.”

“
Indeed,” said the creature in his scraping, hot voice. More sand fell to the floor. “We must ride, children.”

“
Oh,” said the girl who was dressed as a boy. “There’s one more statue. Look.”