Miranda and Caliban(37)

… nothingness.





TWENTY-ONE





CALIBAN


Miranda has done a bad thing, but I do not know what it is.

I think … I think she goes into Master’s room, the big room that was Umm’s room, the room where we are not to go, never ever never. But I think it is a bigger thing, too, because Master is so very, very angry.

I find him taking Miranda down the stairs. She is asleep in his arms like when they came to the island and she was so little, but she is not so little now; not so little that her head and feet do not hang over Master’s arms. Her golden hair hangs, too, and her face is very white. And he does not carry her like she is the very best thing now. He walks hard and angry and he carries her like she is nothing more than so many sticks to throw on the woodpile.

I am afraid.

“What?” I say. “Master … what?”

Master’s face is like a thing made of stone. “It is no concern of yours, lad,” he says. “Tend to your chores.”

So I do, but it is not the same with Miranda asleep during the day. And I do not know why Miranda sleeps and sleeps, with her face so very white, lying without moving under her bed-linens where Master puts her.

(What did you do, Miranda?)

I look for that Ariel but he is nowhere. Then I see a thing that is new: Master leaves the palace with the sun high in the sky. He is carrying something again, something small wrapped in pretty blue cloth from the pirates’ treasure.

I follow him, but not so close that he sees me. He goes to the far garden where he put Umm in the ground. I climb the wall and hide in a broken place in the corner to watch. Master summons one of the little gnomes to dig a hole. It paddles in the dirt with its strong hands, paddlity-paddle.

Soon it is a deep hole.

Master goes on his knees beside it. He moves the cloth away from the thing and puts his lips on it, but I cannot see what it is. Master puts the cloth back and puts the thing in the hole.

A wind comes behind me. “Thou skulking churl!” Ariel whispers, and I jump like a bee has stung me. “Hast thou no decency? Wouldst spy on a man laying his own dear wife to rest?”

I turn to him and put my teeth together hard. “Wife?”

“His beloved.” The spirit shows his teeth and smiles knives at me. “Miranda’s mother.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Ah, well! Not her, not exactly. She died giving birth to Miranda.” Ariel touches one finger to his lips. “But our dear master thought to use his arts to grow himself a homunculus to replace her. Poor deformed creature! It should never have been made. I reckon ’tis a piece of God’s mercy that it perished, though I daresay the magus thinks otherwise.” He shudders. “And poor Miranda!”

My thoughts are dark and muddy, and I do not understand the spirit’s words. “What of her?”

Ariel looks at me sideways. “She caused its demise,” he says. “’Twas an accident, but…”

“No.”

“Yes.”

And now I do and do not understand. Not all the words, no, but enough. My heart hurts inside me.

Oh, Miranda!

In the garden, Master pushes dirt into the hole with his own hands, his head low and his shoulders going up and down. I think maybe he is crying tears. I am not sad for him, though.

“An accident,” I say.

“It means she did not do it a-purpose,” Ariel says.

“Yes,” I say. “I know. I know what is an accident. But Master punishes her for it anyway and I think she is very hurt. She sleeps and sleeps and does not wake.” I look at the spirit in his eyes, in his eyes that turn colors and change. “If you know everything, tell me this thing. Will Miranda die?”

Now Ariel shakes his head, all his white hair floating around his pretty face. He does not look back at me. “I know not,” he says. “I do not know everything. Only God does and ’tis for Him to decide. All things are His to decide.”

God.

I would like to spit on the ground. I do not like this God in the sky who decides everything.

I do not like this Ariel.

Most of all I do not like Master.

I do not want to see or hear anything more. I push past Ariel on the wall, only there is nothing to push when I do, only whoosh and he is gone, a feeling like wind and mist on my face.

I go to Miranda’s garden and crouch on the wall and watch her sleep. She sleeps and sleeps. I creepity-creep to the window and say her name. Quiet, so quiet, like she says my name through the rocks that night long ago; then louder; then more louder, so loud I am afraid that Master will hear all the way in the far garden.

But Miranda does not wake.

What else to do?

I look at the sun in the sky and think it is high enough to go to my place and back before Master knows I am gone.

First I gather flowers and vines from the gardens; the little white ones like stars that smell so sweet, and some bigger ones that have flowers that are orange and red and shaped like a thing that makes a loud shout that Miranda says is called a trumpet, though she never did see one. I make them into a big circle as I go, tying them like a snare to catch a hare, but in my thoughts I am making what Miranda says is called a necklace. It is a special thing.

It is harder to climb to the most high place with my arms full, but at last there is Setebos laughing at the sky.