Miranda and Caliban(48)

I think there must not be a sign or he would have told me so … but mayhap I am wrong. He does not tell me when Ariel torments him, and I suspect the mercurial spirit speaks to Caliban of things he is forbidden to say to me.

And, too, Caliban is angry at me.

On the day my courses begin, he vanishes and returns at dusk empty-handed, covered in scrapes and bruises, and Papa is forced to punish him. I do not blame Caliban for his anger, for I shouted most unkindly at him when he was but trying to help. I tender him a sincere apology for it the next day, imagining he will accept it and we shall be friends again.

Instead, he is strange.

“You should not apologize,” he mumbles without looking at me. “I should not have done what I did.”

“No,” I agree. “You should not.” Of course, I did not tell Papa that Caliban came to my window. “But you were only trying to help, and I should not have shouted as I did. Will you not forgive me for it?”

He shrugs, his shoulders hunched and tight.

I lay a hand on his arm. “Caliban?”

To my surprise, he jerks away as though my touch has scalded him and gives me a swift, fierce glare. “Do not touch me!”

Bewildered, I seek to apologize anew, but Caliban turns his back on me and stalks away. Nor does he forgive me in the days that follow, but remains sullen and withdrawn, refusing to meet my gaze. When I enter a room, he leaves it. He vanishes for hours on end, and reappears to stomp about the palace and grounds, tending to his chores with ill grace, doing just enough that Papa reprimands him without punishing him.

I do not know what I have done to grieve him so. I think it must be the uncleanliness of my woman’s courses that offends him and makes him recoil from my presence.

’Tis a hurtful thought, but there is naught that I can do about it.

On the fourth day, my courses slow to a mere trickle and on the fifth day there is no more blood.

I tell Papa.

Papa is pleased. “On the morrow, you shall assist me in my sanctum,” he says to me.

I make myself smile at him. “Thank you, Papa.”

That night in my dreams I see it. The pale misshapen thing floating in its jar, tiny hands like starfish pressing against the glass walls, its milky eyes and its bud-shaped mouth opening and closing.

Shattered glass.

Its mouth gaping, gasping for air.

Oh, but when I awaken with a gasp of my own, the dream fades. I have learned well how to put it behind me. And now there is sunlight and the sound of Papa’s chanting. There is a fine gown of whisper-soft blue fabric draped over the chest in my chamber. With a quick glance to be certain that the shutters of my window are closed, I don it with alacrity. It is a bit too large for me and it smells faintly of an incense Papa must have used to suffumigate it, with an underlying hint of mold, but it seems to me the most wondrous thing in the world, so wondrous I burst into tears.

This is the kind of gift for which I have yearned for so long. Now I truly feel like a woman grown.

I open my chest and take the mirror that Caliban gave me from its hiding place beneath my ragged robes. It is too small to show me the whole of my image, but when I hold it at different angles and turn this way and that, I see myself in pieces. More of the skin of my chest shows than I am accustomed to seeing and the gown gapes in the front to reveal the faint shadow of the valley between my breasts, but it reaches all the way to the floor so that I am no longer bare-legged below the knees.

Holding my skirts so that they do not drag upon the floor, I hurry to the kitchen so that I might begin my chores.

Caliban is tending to the fire in the hearth, a task with which Papa entrusted him some years ago. I am so glad, I forget that he is wroth with me.

“Oh, Caliban!” I twirl, letting my blue skirt flare out around me. “Look! Isn’t it beautiful?”

I think he forgets for a moment too, for his mouth curls into a smile as he looks up from the hearth, warm and kind and familiar; and for the space of a few heartbeats, it seems to me that everything might be as it was long ago, happy and peaceful. But then a different expression crosses Caliban’s face as swiftly as a shooting star across the night sky, a mingled look of sorrow and regret and anger … and then it is gone.

Turning back to the fire, he mutters something under his breath.

Weary of trying to decipher his moods, I choose to ignore him and go into the garden to fetch the morning’s bounty, feeling gently beneath the sitting hens and placing their warm, fresh eggs in the apron of my long blue skirt. When I return, Papa is seated at the table. I set the eggs on the sideboard with care, and then, heedless of decorum, I fling my arms around him in an impetuous embrace. “Papa! Thank you ever so much.”

Papa chuckles. “You’ve earned the right, child. Or, dare I say, young lady? Come, let me behold you in your finery.”

Taking a step back, I make a deep curtsy, the hem of my skirt puddling around my bare feet.

Papa smiles at me, the creases around his mouth deepening with pride. “You are the very picture of a fine young lady.”

At the hearth, Caliban breaks a stout branch over his knee with a sharp, defiant crrrack, shoves both halves into the fire, and stomps out of the kitchen, taking the milk-pail with him. I watch him go with dismay, feeling my brow furrow.

“In the name of all that is holy, what ails the lad?” Papa complains. “He’s been sulking for days.”