Yet how will she know this is from me?
I could give her my key, the one I found in Clotho’s cauldron. Unlikely that I’ll ever use it, trapped under Shepherd’s shadows as I am. Maybe with two keys at her disposal Claret could somehow … But as I reach my hand inside my cloak, I feel it.
Something that wasn’t there before. A feather.
I take it out, and feel a quiet kind of awe for its obsidian colour. An understanding that the ravens haven’t left me, even when I don’t hear them; that I am not without my weapons, my surprises. That I can change the outcome of this tragedy, even when all feels lost, all acts written.
May Shakespeare choke on that – and so may Shepherd.
I hand both rose and feather to the girl in front of me,and wait until she has completely vanished. Only then do I allow myself to laugh, softly. The fiend-queen our creator treated as an afterthought, a pretty bauble to imprison then conveniently forget, might just begin a revolution in this garden. With thorns and blood and roses, I might just wake the buried dead.
26. Claret
When my hair has dried and my attitude has moulded into something passing for submissiveness, Helene finally releases me from that chair, removing the pins that held the cuffs in place – that held me in place. The sound they make as they fall on the floor causes us both to bite our lips, nervous of drawing its attention, but the golden-masked wraith keeps its distance, happy to be a harmless ornament, as long as I behave.
The tiniest bit of shadow shimmers at its edges.
I rub my wrists, skin chafing, tender from my former bonds of gold.
Helene hasn’t offered any real information during this time – only that I now have leave to walk and wander but with her by my side at all times, my most unlikely guard and gaoler.
At least the wraith doesn’t seem to follow us, for now. We exit the anointing room, heading to what looks like a bathing chamber with a steaming, shallow pool. ‘See, isn’t this nice?’ she comments, sounding almost sincere. ‘So similar to home.’
I nod, not fully trusting my throat to make any proper sounds to feign agreement.
Because she’s not entirely wrong. But she’s so far from being right.
Our ‘proper place’, so graciously bequeathed to us by Shepherd, could have been any palace from my world; tall columns rising up to vaulted ceilings, structures of stone and marble, soft rugs and softer pillows. Yet even as we walk, Helene’s hand on mine like another shackle, nails sharp enough to mark my skin, I can feel the otherness. The wrongness.
These columns are too tall, too glistening, too white – like a mirage of sun on sand, blinding me when I look too close. Their texture is wrong, too: less solid stone, more porous … something. As if they’re made of sponges left long enough outside the sea to harden, to calcify. If I sank my fingers into them, would they crumble like that skull did?
Would I be able to break Shepherd’s spurious world to pieces?
I catch Helene’s narrowed gaze, her pursed lips, and surmise I shouldn’t try. Not yet.
Instead, I follow her lead, sitting by the edge of the terracotta-tiled pool, among several women who apply copious amounts of oils on their skin, braiding each other’s hair, or swimming languorously in the shallow waters. Such picturesque lascivity brings to mind painted vases of nymphs, gathering in rivers. Only there are no vivid colours anywhere; no bold patterns in dresses, pottery, the walls. Everything is in shades of cream or white.
Even the waters have the faintest tint of blue, like melting ice.
And when I look closer still, the wrongness becomes manifest.
They’re like Helene – all of them. Skeletons, wrapped in convincing flesh and fabric that flickers in and out ofsight as I watch in horror. A moving sea of death and bone, assembling itself to an approximation of existence. Familiar faces, yet not quite. Real, but not entirely so. Like echoes of ancestors long since passed, and me the only one with eyes that work both ways.
Despite the balmy atmosphere and soothing, scented vapours from the pool, I shiver. I hold on to the pool’s edge, trying to find a solid surface in this shifting world.
A hand squeezes mine, almost shyly. I stare at it. Bone shifts to skin shifts back to bone in the time it takes me to find strength to blink. ‘It’s best if you don’t think about it too much. No need to be as sharp-gazed as a hawk. Soften your eyes,’ Helene whispers, and for the first time I consider whether she sees what I see. Whether she’s also screaming on the inside, sweating clammy dew, while her mind tries to find ways to handle this collapse of sanity, this monument to the macabre we’re both observers and exhibits at.
Then my pale cypress of a sister undresses and dives into the waters, and I have no choice but to follow, swimming cordially with skeletons.
I find myself looking for glimpses of gold everywhere, proof that we’re being watched.
But the waters are warm, and the women-skeletons look happy and carefree, eager to treat me like I’ve always been in their midst. So I indulge them. I relax for a moment.
And then I see Shepherd’s reflection, shimmering on the water’s surface.
Golden fur. Black spots that swirl and become snake-like, as the water moves. A pair of all-too-knowing feline eyes, rimmed with black malar stripes that seem set on me. I stand still, planting my feet on the pool’s bottom as Iconsider what to do next. Everyone around me – my sister included, although with a moment’s hesitation – gushes and coos. They hurry out of the waters to get dressed and approach their goddess, seeking her favour. I’ve always been a fearless swimmer, but in this moment, I consider whether the wisest thing to do would be to sink into the pool’s depths, never come out again as my lungs burn and my breath bubbles out and my flesh slowly boils away. Until I become yet another skeleton to adorn Shepherd’s halls, a skull for her to stack up as she sees fit.
Maybe I’ll wear a golden mask too, stretching my features hideously.
