Miranda and Caliban(10)

Hot tears scald my eyes and I find myself sitting down hard on the floor. “I hate you!” I shout at the wild boy. “It’s not fair! All I wanted was a friend! I hate that Bianca was killed to summon you! I hate you!”

The wild boy whines.

Burying my face in my hands, I cry harder. There is a release in giving in to tears; not the quiet and decorous tears I shed for Bianca’s death, but great sobs of self-pity that wrack my whole body. Absorbed in my grief, I do not hear the wild boy’s stealthy, creeping approach.

I know nothing of it until I feel his hand touch my foot.

I look up.

The wild boy is crouching before me. His dark eyes are bright and troubled. He makes a crooning sound deep in his throat and strokes the bare skin of my foot with his knuckles.

He is trying to comfort me.

I stare at him in wonder, self-pity forgotten. He croons encouragingly at me. There is understanding in him. “Miranda,” I whisper. Tapping my chest, I say my name again, as slowly and carefully as I can. “Mir-an-da.”

The wild boy squats back on his haunches. The filthy remnants of his breech-cloth hang between his thighs. His throat works and his mouth opens and closes. I think mayhap he is trying to speak.

I shift to kneel on the floor, sitting on my heels. If he stood upright, he would be taller than me, but sitting thusly we are at a height. “Miranda.” I touch my chest again, then point to him.

The wild boy’s brow furrows and his right hand twitches as he raises it and scrabbles at his own chest. I nod. His mouth opens again, his red tongue touching his teeth as though searching for something. His breath comes in short huffs and his nostrils flare, his tongue questing.

I remain very still, at once scared and excited.

“Cal—” It is a word, or a portion of a word. For all the howling and barking he has done, his voice sounds rusty with disuse. His lips move in an exaggerated manner as he struggles to make human sounds. “Cal … Cal…” He gives his head a sideways shake, bares his teeth, and tries again. “Cal-i-ban.”

“Cal-i-ban.” I echo him softly. “Caliban. Is that you? Is that your name? Caliban?” I can see by his frown that the name, if that’s truly what it is, is the only word he recognizes. Leaning forward, I dare myself to touch his arm with one fingertip. “Caliban?”

“Caliban.” This time the word emerges in a sigh of agreement, then is repeated more surely with a tone of rising excitement. “Caliban!”

It is at this moment that Papa emerges unexpectedly from his sanctum on the upper story and enters the gallery. We catch sight of him at the same time, the wild boy and I. I scramble to my feet, dumbstruck with fear. Oh, Papa will be sorely grieved! The wild boy gives one of his great startled leaps, landing in a crouch and covering his head with his arms. Papa’s hands grip the railing hard enough to whiten his knuckles and he scowls down at us, thunder written on his brow.

Terrified though I am, I find my voice. “He has a name, Papa!” I call up to him, hoping the news will offset his anger. “The wild boy has a name!”

“Oh, does he indeed?” Papa’s voice is dangerously quiet. “And how might you have discovered it, lass?”

Trembling, I stand my ground. “He told it to me, Papa.”

Papa is silent for a long moment. I cannot tell what he is thinking. “For all of our sakes, I pray it prove true, child,” he says at last. “But if it is so, I would hear the lad speak it himself that I may know it is the truth, and not a flight of fancy your overly tender heart has accorded to some savage utterance or bestial grunt.”

I go to the wild boy, squatting before him and ducking my head low to meet his gaze. “You must tell him,” I whisper. Even though I know he does not understand my words, I will him to grasp my meaning. “You must say it aloud or he will bespell you again, and we shall never be friends.” I touch my chest. “Miranda,” I say once more, then point at him.

Beneath the shelter of his wiry arms, the wild boy peers back at me. “Caliban,” he whispers.

Louder; it must be louder, else Papa will not hear him. I stand, tapping my chest. “Miranda.” The wild boy whines. “Please!” I beg him, my voice rising in despair. “Oh, please!”

The wild boy’s shoulders tighten, but then he lowers his arms and straightens slowly from his crouch, lifting his head to gaze toward Papa in the gallery. “Caliban.” He brushes his chest with his knuckles in unmistakable meaning and repeats the name with exaggerated care. “Cal-i-ban.”

I feel triumphant and scared.

Papa strokes his beard and looks down at us. “So it seems that youth and innocence has prevailed over wisdom and experience in the matter of taming the savage breast,” he murmurs to himself. “Curious, indeed. ’Tis a phenomenon that bears further study. Mayhap there is a correspondence of innocence and ignorance at work, the significance of which I had not fully reckoned.”

I begin to hope that Papa is so pleased with this discovery that he will not punish me.

But no, his gaze sharpens and he reaches for the amulet that binds me to him, the one that bears a lock of my hair. I look down at the floor and make my hands into fists in anticipation of the pinprick stings of correction that will follow.

“Miranda.” Papa waits until I look up again. His expression is grave and disappointed. “Even if I did not expressly forbid it, I daresay you are sensible enough to know that you defied my wishes in entering the wild boy’s cell without permission. Is this not so?”