I felt as one bereaved. It was as if Da had died, or if I had lost my mother all over again. I pressed my forehead against the bark of the trunk and waited for the swimming, breathless sensation to pass. What a change from the effervescence of a few moments before!
“I’m fine,” I managed to say.
“You do not look fine.”
“Neither do you.” I stared at him. “And neither do yourclothes.”
Sylvester struggled upright. The dark edges of his clothing had become smoky and indistinct, crawling about as if alive and looking for an escape. The buttons on his coat seemed to have grown legs and scuttled about like bugs. The effect was unsettling, I can tell you. His clothes were unknitting themselves before my eyes.
“They’re made of magic,” he said. “They’re coming undone.”
I realized then that my magic-made cloak had disappeared, but luckily, I was wearing my own dress underneath, the one I had taken from Da’s.
I felt at the pocket, and my few things were somehow there. I suppose the cloak had only been an illusion, after all, while those objects were real and so hadn’t vanished.
Had they really been in the cloak pocket then, all along, or had they really been in my dress pocket, and the magic had made me think otherwise? It all made my head ache, as magic business tended to.
“I didn’t think of it.” I suddenly realized how lucky we had apparently been. “Your father made you using magic. This place could have ... unmade you.”
“There must be enough of a real person left in me, then,” said Sylvester drily.
“Right, but your garments are having some trouble.”
One of the bug buttons pinged itself off his coat and was swallowed into nothingness. His boots appeared to have turned into some kind of black oily substance and were trying to climb up his legs. Sylvester himself looked gray-faced and exhausted.
“Perhaps you should get undressed,” I suggested.
He looked at me sharply.
“I’m not under the spell right now, remember?” I said. “I have no desire for you to be naked for nakedness’s sake. Your clothes just look like they’re about to eat you. Or strangle you. They’re hanging on by a thread in this place. Literally.”
He looked down at his frantically unravelling clothing and sighed. “Fine.”
He divested himself of his belt and the jars containing the hearts he had taken from the storeroom (which seemed to be surviving the new environment just fine, as I suppose they were not inherently magical in themselves without a magic-worker’s hand to wield them), as well as some other mysterious substances, and then busied himself with trying to get free of his suddenly uncooperative garments. Some of them had become smoke, some liquid, and some appeared to have winking eyes and too many legs.
As he peeled off each item of clothing, it was snatched away from him as if by a high wind and dissipated in the air without a trace. Soon he was clad only in what had once been undergarments, but were now more like some sleek, predatory little animal coiling itself around his hips—a weasel maybe, or a pine marten.
“Can you turn around so I can get these off?” he asked.
“And stay turned around for the rest of the day, walking backward?” I said. “I’m going to have to look at you at some point.”
“At least while I undress,” he said.
“Fine,” I said, and turned around, my heart beating a little faster. So, I wasn’t caught up in the spell anymore, but I was still a woman. And despite his current sickly appearance, Sylvester was still the best-looking man I would probably ever have the pleasure of looking upon.
I heard rustling and the snapping of tiny teeth, and then silence. Either he had freed himself from his undergarments-turned-attackers, or they had eaten him.
“Can I turn around?” I asked.
A pause. Then, “I suppose so,” he said irritably.
An idea occurred to me. “Here.” I hitched up my skirt and untied my petticoat, wriggling out of it and letting it fall to the ground. I held it out behind me without turning. “Fashion yourself something out of this.”
My heart was beating fast, but it could not be the spell. The spell was gone. I felt the fabric slip from my fingers, and I let my arm fall back to my side. When the sounds of rustling stopped from behind me, I said, “Ready?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
I turned and couldn’t help snorting out a laugh before I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I giggled.
