Miranda and Caliban(46)

“A curse!” Now I am alarmed, too. “Master said nothing of a curse. Master said Miranda is healthy and well!”

“And so she is, as well as any lass blossoming into womanhood,” Ariel says, unconcerned. “Eve’s curse is the burden of all womankind; aye, and the burden of mankind, too.” He looks at my face and laughs. “Oh la, poor monster! Wilst thy dullard’s wits not allow thee to compass the truth that thy lustful loins would fain shout to the heavens?” He leans forward. “Surely thou hast seen goats at rut in the mountainside in autumn, and give birth to gamboling kids come spring’s warm breath. Miranda’s womb has become fallow ground. The lass is ripe for breeding.”

Rut.

I do not know this word, and yet I fear I do. What the spirit says is true. I have seen he-goats climb atop she-goats, humping and pumping with their stiff rods; yes, and wild dogs in the empty fishing village at the shore, too. I did not understand their game. Now understanding comes upon me and it is like a dark tide in my blood, an understanding I do not want.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Do not speak so of Miranda! Master would punish you for it!”

“Oh aye, so he would, my fine fellow servant. The magus wouldst punish me most grievously.” Ariel makes his cloud go away with one wave of his arm, dropping lightly to the earth on his white feet. “Though not, I think, so harshly as he wouldst punish thee did I tell him what I caught thee at this day. Didst think of the lass whilst thou pleasured thyself?”

I bare my teeth at him. “Do not speak of her so!”

He laughs, but there is sorrow in it. “Oh, poor monster! Thou hast a tenderness for her.”

“How should I not?” I say through my teeth. “Miranda is my friend!”

“Ah, but now that thou knowest there is more to dream, thou wilt dare to dream it,” Ariel says softly, as softly as the wind. “Thou shouldst not, for there is only pain in it for thee. Methinks the magus in his sanctum has already chosen a bridegroom for his daughter. Who shall it be? A prince? A potentate? A pharaoh?”

I should know better than to let Ariel bait me into responding; oh, I do know better! But, but, but … how can such a thing even be true? If Miranda is only this day a woman, how can Master think to see her wed, when yesterday she was a child? “That cannot be,” I say. “Who? There is no one!”

Ariel holds up one slender hand. “I, a humble servant, do but speculate. Who am I to know what the great magus dost see in his mirror? Who am I to know what the great magus wilst call forth with his art or when that day shall come? But of this I am sure. The bridegroom will be well formed and pleasing to behold.” The spirit’s appearance changes, and of a sudden it is a young man who stands before me, tall and fair-skinned, dressed in fine attire. “He shall be hale of limb and handsome of face,” the spirit continues in a deeper voice. “Eloquence shall grace his tongue. He shall be possessed of all the qualities to charm and delight a girlish heart.” He pauses. “Shall I tell thee what he most assuredly shall not be?”

“No,” I say. “I would hear no more!”

But Ariel does not listen. “He shall not be swart and stooped, with hunched shoulders and bowed legs,” he says, and his appearance shifts. “Nor shall he have a villain’s low brow and out-thrust jaw.”

I recognize myself take shape before me.

“He’ll not have hair as coarse as a pony’s mane, nor sullen eyes that glower beneath it,” Ariel continues, and now his voice is as rough and harsh as my own. A sprinkling of darker moles emerges to dot the brown skin of his face and throat and shoulders. “He’ll not be speckled like a toad.”

I see myself.

I am ugly and misshapen.

It is a thing which Ariel has told me before, but today he has shown me. Now I understand it truly in my bones, an understanding that sinks into me like a heavy stone into those dark tides.

Beside Miranda, I am a monster.

And then I am running again, running like a poor dumb wounded beast, running and falling and scrambling on bleeding hands and feet down the crag, my chest hurting and my breath coming hard in my throat, picking myself up and running, running, running with nowhere to go from a knowing I cannot run away from, and all the while Ariel’s laughter follows me, sharp and bright as knives.





TWENTY-FIVE





MIRANDA


Day by day, I accustom myself to the unpleasant business of womanhood. I cannot help but feel betrayed by it, as though I were promised a wondrous gift and given something loathsome in its place.

I suppose that is unfair, for Papa never promised me that it would be wondrous to be a woman grown. No, that is a fantasy I created for myself, daring to hope that it would be a glorious day on which Papa entrusted me with all of his secrets at last, and I would know who I was and from whence I came.

I see now that that was a vain hope. Contemplating the price of disobedience as Papa bade me, I come to see that the trust that I lost when I disobeyed him can never be regained, no more than Adam and Eve can hope to regain the lost paradise of Eden after disobeying God. Like Eve, I sought knowledge forbidden to me; and like Eve, I have only myself to blame for my sin. I should be grateful that Papa yet speaks of allowing me to assist him in his sanctum.

If the prospect fills me with creeping dread, well, I have only myself to blame for that, too.