Miranda and Caliban(33)

And so I am dismissed to my bed-chamber.





NINETEEN





CALIBAN


I watch the sun set over the sea. Behind me, Setebos laughs his soundless laugh at the sky, his shadow long and black on the rocks.

My heart is hot and angry.

Master will be angry, too. If he does not summon me, I will go back in the morning; for you, Miranda. Always for you. I will say, oh, oh, I was bad, Master, I am sorry, Master.

But not yet.

The sky is gold. Drop by drop, my anger falls away, like drip-dropping blood falling from the hare’s throat.

I do not hear Miranda come until she calls my name. “Caliban!”

My mouth falls open and I jump up quick as a hare. I look at her standing in the falling light of the sun, her little face scared. I am scared, too. “Oh, Miranda! You should not be here. It is late!”

And then she changes and she is not Miranda, no; it is Umm standing there with gold light on her face, her back bent from many hours working over her books. She opens her arms. “Caliban, my son! Come to me!”

Oh, it has been so very, very long since I did see her! And I remember the hits and the bad words, but I remember she would put her arms around me, too, and put her lips on my face.

My feet move even though I do not tell them to, as though it was Master summoning me.

And then Umm laughs, and it is a sound like something breaking, and there is a whoosh of wind that goes in a circle, and Umm changes—and it is not Umm, no, or Miranda there atop the high place with me. It is Ariel, oh-so-pretty, sparkling like sea-foam and smiling like knives. “Ah, thou poor, sorry, unwholesome creature!” he says, laughing. “Thou pitiable monster! Didst truly think thy mother had returned from the dead? Didst truly think she yearned to embrace thee?”

All my anger comes back, hot and hurting. Water comes to my eyes like Miranda’s when she is sad, and I am sad, but I am angry and hurting, too. I am hot and cold and shaking. I have a feeling I cannot name, a feeling of having been bad even though I have not, and it makes me more angry, because it is not right. I make my hands into fists. “Why?”

It is a word that comes out like a child’s cry, all alone and lost and scared. I do not want it to but it does.

Ariel stops laughing. “I am here at our master’s bidding.” His voice is cold, but the knives have gone out of his smile. “He would fain have thee know that there is nowhere on this isle thou might hide where I cannot find thee, and nowhere from whence he cannot summon thee.” He looks at me, and his face is like there is a bad smell in the air. “And yet with night a-falling, I see that thou art but a frightened little boy longing for his mother.”

There is truth in his words and it hurts me. “I am old enough to wish Setebos would strike you dead!” I say, hoping my words will hurt him, too.

The knives did not go far. “Ah, Setebos!” Ariel says, smiling. “I rejoice to say that his reign o’er this fair isle, and that of thy foul witch of a mother, has come to an end.” He bends at the waist and moves his arms to his sides, and bits of clouds dance around him, and the knives grow sharper, though I think they are not only meant for me this time. “Why, it has been replaced by that of the good Lord God and the master thou and I serve alike.”

I say nothing.

The only promise I did make to serve Master, I did make to myself. I made it to me, Caliban.

For Miranda.

Ariel puts his head to one side and looks at me, his eyes dark and churning like storm-clouds. “A child, and harmless … for the nonce,” he says. “But blood will out in time. Thou shouldst abjure the girl ere you harm her.”

I show him my teeth. “I will not!”

There is only a little red sunlight on the far edge of the sea and the gold is going away from the sky, turning to violet.

Ariel sighs. “No,” he says. “I suppose not.”





TWENTY





MIRANDA


In the morning, Caliban is still missing.

I imagine that Papa will summon him as soon as he finishes chanting the music of the spheres at dawn, but I am mistaken. Instead we break our fast in the usual manner, though it is a good deal more work to gather firewood for the hearth without Caliban’s aid. I manage to find enough fallen branches in the kitchen garden to cook our morning meal, but I shall have to venture alone into the forest if Caliban doesn’t return soon.

I do not dare ask about Caliban for fear of rousing Papa’s anger. Instead, I ask if he might not bid the spirit Ariel to fetch wood for us.

Papa frowns at my suggestion. “I would not set so noble a spirit to such a menial chore.” I glance at my palms, dirty from gathering branches, and scrub at them, trying not to let him see. “To be sure, ’tis a pity the gnomes have no affinity for wood or I’d have set them that chore long ago,” he muses. “But Ariel is of a higher order altogether … What are you doing, Miranda?”

“Naught.” I hide my dirty hands beneath the table. “Forgive me, Papa.”

“Oh, child!” Reaching across the table, he takes my hands in his. “No, ’tis I who begs your forgiveness.” His face is grave. “Doubt not that such base labor is beneath you; and yet, we do what we must to endure.”

I do not meet his gaze. “But not Ariel?”