Miranda and Caliban(36)

I stare, gaping.

There on a long counter, there is a brazier glowing brightly, so brightly the bars of the metal grate are red-hot. It makes a faint crackling sound. And I know, I know, I should close the door and go, but I do not.

I need to know what it is that burns so brightly within it.

My feet move soundlessly across the smooth tiles. Inside the brazier, there is a nest of fire; inside the nest, a salamander lies curled, and although I have never seen a fire elemental, I know it as such. It uncurls itself at my approach, lifting its head from its tail and stretching out its legs, unfurling its claws and opening eyes that blaze like I imagine rubies must do, its gaze on a level with mine.

“Oh!” I whisper in awe, for it is so very beautiful in the heart of the fire, all red and gold and shining.

The salamander’s eyes blink. “You mussst be the child,” it says in a voice that crackles and hisses like embers.

I take a step backward. “You speak?”

A tongue like a tiny forked flame darts forth from its lipless mouth and retreats. “Yesss.”

“Oh,” I say again, feeling foolish.

The salamander regards me with red eyes faceted like jewels. “Have you come to sssee it?”

“It?” I echo.

“Her.” The salamander amends its choice of words, its jeweled gaze slewing sideways. “Her.”

I follow its gaze.

There is a glass jar atop the counter. It sits some foot and a half away from the brazier. It is filled with clear liquid, and there is a … thing … floating in it. A dead thing, I think at first; a skinned hare or some such thing that Papa has preserved here.

But it is not a hare.

And it is not dead.

The thing floating in the jar is a tiny misshapen person. Its skin is as white and sickly as the gills of a mushroom. Its features are unformed blobs, but as I stare in sick fascination, its lids open to reveal pale, milky blue eyes. Its mouth opens and closes, and its limbs stir.

“What—” My voice cracks. “What is it?”

The salamander laughs, a sound like a shower of sparks rising. “Look clossser,” it says. “Look closer.”

I do not want to look closer. I want to run away, I want to turn back the sun and unmake this morning until I am safe in my chamber, all thoughts of disobedience abandoned and forgotten. I do not want to have seen this thing in Papa’s sanctum, and I do not want to know what it is. And yet I find myself moving forward nonetheless, rising on tiptoes and putting my hands on the jar, inching it across the counter to draw it toward me for a better look.

It bobs as the liquid sloshes a bit. There is a thin braid of hair tied around one ankle like a tether, golden hair a shade darker than mine, the stray ends of strands floating in the liquid.

My throat feels thick, and my heart is thumping and thumping, faster than a hare’s inside my breast.

Its milky gaze holds mine. Can it see, I wonder? I am not sure, but it seems so. Somehow there is sorrow in those sightless-looking eyes. Its pale bud of a mouth opens and closes, and I think it is trying to form words. The fingers of its tiny hands open like the petals of a flower, splaying to touch the glass.

“What?” I whisper. “Oh, what is it? What do you seek to tell me? What are you? Who are you?”

“Miranda!”

Papa’s voice crashes over me like a wave. I jerk away, but I am scared and careless, and … oh, I can hardly bear it.

The jar topples over the edge of the counter and falls.

It smashes to bits on the tile floor, liquid splashing everywhere. And the thing … the thing …

It lies amid the shards, a pale, naked, misshapen thing, its mouth opening and closing, gasping like a fish. Bubbles rise from its lips. Its soft, narrow chest rises and falls; quickly at first, and then slower and slower.

I am shaking, shaking.

“Oh, you foolish child.” Papa’s voice is soft and deadly, filled with more fury than I have ever heard. He holds his staff in one hand, and the other rises to grasp one of the amulets strung about his neck; not Caliban’s, but the one that contains a lock of my own hair. “You foolish, careless, treacherous child! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Unable to speak, I back away, shaking my head in wordless denial, willing him to understand, to forgive.

Papa does neither. “You’ve killed your mother all over again, Miranda,” he says in that soft, terrible voice, and his fist tightens on the amulet.

There is no time for understanding before the pain comes, a great tearing shriek of pain, tying my entrails in knots and pounding within the confines of my skull. Like Caliban, I fall writhing to the ground, but I cannot even draw breath to cry out. My lungs heave in vain as surely as the poor misshapen thing in the broken jar dying on the floor beside me, sorrow fading from its milky eyes. The pain is too vast, encompassing the whole of my existence. I see only red and think my eyes must be filled with blood. I think my body will tear itself apart, and my skull split asunder.

I think I must be dying, too.

Somewhere Papa is still speaking words laced with anger and venom, but I cannot hear him above the pain.

Oh, merciful God! I would listen if I could; I would beg Papa’s forgiveness if I could. But I can do nothing save endure his wrath.

Oh, merciful God, it hurts, it hurts! Something inside me is breaking.

And then …