Miranda and Caliban(35)
I am unmoved. “Did Papa bid you to do so?”
The spirit’s lips purse and his eyes darken a hue. “Thou hast my promise, milady, that never again shall words unfit for the tender ears of a child escape me in thy presence. Come, now, Miranda!” His voice takes on a wheedling tone. “Shall we not be friends, thee and I?”
“We are not friends,” I say. “Caliban is my friend, and you were wickedly cruel to him.”
“I did but speak the truth,” Ariel says. “And betimes the truth is cruel. Ah, but that topic is forbidden to us now, milady. What other things might we discuss, I wonder?” He plucks an orange from a bowl on the table, tears away a bit of peel, and sucks at the underlying flesh, then makes a face and spits. “Pfaugh! ’Tis sour.”
“’Tis a symbol of the sun and of gold,” I say coldly. “Its oil may be used in an incense. And Papa says that even though these were grown solely for ornament, they are healthful to eat and serve to balance phlegmatic humors.”
“Thou art a veritable scholar among maidens and wise beyond thy years!” Ariel says in admiration. “No wonder thy father has such grand plans for thee.”
My heart quickens. “Of what plans do you speak?”
“Alack and alas!” Ariel raises both fair, shapely hands in dismay, one still holding the bitten orange. “That I am forbidden to say, milady. But surely thou knowest better than I, being privy to thy father’s plans.”
“No.” I flush with a trace of my former anger. “He tells me naught.”
“Naught!” The spirit’s eyes widen again, turning the hue of rain-washed violets. He glances around and lowers his voice. “But at the very least, surely thou must know what wonders and horrors thy father’s laboratorium contains?”
Realizing that Ariel is baiting me, I do not reply, but it is too late. I have already given myself away, and I cannot help but feel hurt that Papa has allowed the spirit into his very sanctum.
Ariel shakes his head in sorrow, his mist-colored hair floating. “’Tis a pity he does not trust his own daughter.”
It is almost as though he has voiced my own thought. “I trust Papa!” I say in a fierce voice, willing it to be true. “In all that he does, he seeks only to protect me. And he is teaching me his arts!” I gesture at my piece of slate, forgetting that I have wiped it clean. “When I am a woman grown, Papa will tell me all his plans and allow me to assist him in his sanctum.”
“’Tis a long time to dwell in ignorance, milady,” Ariel observes.
“Is it?” I cannot help asking. “How long? How shall I know when I am a woman grown?”
Ariel gives a careless, graceful shrug. “As to that, I cannot say.”
I should like to scream. “You do but seek to plague me as surely as you plagued poor Caliban!”
“No, milady.” Ariel’s eyes darken ominously once more, black and roiling like the sea at night. “Forgive me. I do but chafe at the bonds of servitude that bind me. Upon my honor, I mean you no harm. But mayhap in the wisdom of thine innocence, thou art wise indeed to pay me no heed.” He opens one hand and lets the orange fall to the floor, where it rolls under the table. “Still, were I thou, I should not sleep soundly without knowing what manner of dreams and nightmares thy beloved father concocts in his laboratorium,” he adds in a thoughtful tone. “No, not at all.”
With that, he is gone.
Trickster or not, the spirit has planted a seed inside me that grows at an unnatural pace throughout the day. I would that Ariel had kept his silence, but it is too late. Dreams and nightmares, indeed. Whatever does it mean?
That night my dreams are crowded with shapeless terrors, things that swarm out of the darkness. I awaken with screams caught in my throat, choked whimpers like a hare caught in one of Caliban’s snares, only to find shadows pooling around my pallet, rising like dark waves, formless things in the depths reaching for me with open mouths filled with teeth; and then I scream and wake again with a whimpering jolt, knowing the first awakening to have been false.
Over and over, this happens.
And when I am awake, truly awake, lying alone and afraid in the darkness, I wonder. What does Papa’s sanctum contain?
I know only that I cannot bear any more of this not-knowing.
When Papa’s chant greets the first rays of dawn, I slip from beneath the linens. The tiles are cool beneath my bare feet, all the Moorish patterns on the walls faint in the dim grey light.
Clutching my robe about me, I climb the stairs to the upper story. There is no lock on the doors to Papa’s sanctum, only a pair of heavy iron handles. Trusting to my obedience, Papa has never needed a lock.
I tell myself I will steal only the merest glance. One glance, just to confirm that there is nothing to fear, that Ariel does but seek to bait me as he baited Caliban. And then I will tell Papa what Ariel said to me, and he will bid the spirit to hold his tongue. Papa need never know I doubted him.
I turn one handle and the door creaks open a few inches. Outside, Papa chants the songs of the spheres.
Beyond the door, it is still. A waft of air emerges, carrying the scents I have smelled on Papa’s robes; scents of herbs and oils, acrid scents of chymicals and heated metal that catch in my nose.
I push the door open.
Dreams, oh! Papa’s sanctum contains such things as I never knew existed; fantastical instruments of gleaming metal with bits that spin and turn and fit together in intriguing ways. There are shelves and shelves; an entire shelf filled with books, shelves filled with animal skulls and seashells and coral, horns and hooves, rocks and feathers. There are jars of herbs and unguents, and strangely shaped glass vessels with tubes protruding from them. There are cases and cases of drawers, some labeled in Papa’s neat hand, others labeled in unfamiliar hands and unfamiliar letters. The very walls are covered with strange drawings and symbols I cannot begin to decipher.