Miranda and Caliban(71)

You could not punish Miranda so.

They do not look so very strong, those chains. I could break them with my hands. Oh, but that is another thought that makes my skin creepity-creep and a sick feeling come into my belly.

Too bad for the poor dumb monster, poor dumb Caliban. He will have to use his dull wits and not his strong hands.

I gather mussels and think.

I gather wood and think.

And I think to myself, oh ho! I cannot raise my hand to Master, not even to pull the charms from his neck, but Miranda can. Her little hands are not strong enough to break the chains, but they are quick and clever enough to find the clasps that hold them closed and undo them.

And then—

I raise a big branch high over my head and bring it down hard over a fallen log; hard, so hard it crrracks! Even though it makes my body ache, it feels good to do it.

“I would that was your head, Master,” I whisper.

“Oh, la!” a hated voice says behind me. “Thou shouldst not say such things.”

My shoulders go tight and rise toward my ears. I have not seen the spirit since … that day. “I will say what I like!” I say without turning around. “Or will you betray me for this, too?”

Ariel comes around before me, all foamy-white and a-flutter in the breeze, stepping oh, so lightly over the bits and pieces of scattered wood under his feet. “I do but serve our master.”

I look at him. “You would be free if he were dead, too.”

The spirit’s eyes blaze unexpectedly. “Free? Say rather that I shouldst be damned for all eternity!”

“So?” I pull back my lips and show him my teeth. “Miranda does love me, and I would suffer any hurt for her!”

“Thou speakest of things thou knowest not,” Ariel says with pity. “Dost suppose the tenderness of her maiden’s heart shouldst survive thy cruel dispatch of her own father?” He shakes his head, wisps of fog stirring. “Set aside these murderous thoughts.”

“Thoughts are not deeds,” I say in defiance. “You cannot tell me what I may or may not think!”

Now the spirit’s eyes go clear and cold, as cold as the stream in winter. “Thoughts give birth to deeds, and thine run red with blood. I tell thee, if thou hast an ounce of wisdom lodged within the dense bone of thy skull, set them aside.”

I laugh a hard laugh. “Will you carry tales to Master if I do not?”

“The more fool thou if thou thinkest Prospero takes thee for aught but a villain,” Ariel says with the cutting knives in his voice. “Thou didst seek to defile his own daughter!”

(Oh, Miranda!)

“I’d do it again, too!” I spit at him.

“Aye, thou wouldst,” Ariel says as though the words taste bad in his mouth. “But thou shalt have no second chance; no, nor to plot bloody vengeance either, for I am bidden to keep watch over thee and make certain thou cause no further mischief until our master’s work is done.”

I look at wispety Ariel and laugh again. “You? What will you do other than fetch Master?”

Ariel smiles, a smile like the edge of a blade. “Thou thinkest me a harmless sprite?” He does open his arms wide. “Ah, but I have other guises.”

A wind comes, not a whooshity little breeze but a great rushing wind that roars and roars, and that Ariel does grow and grow up into the sky, bigger than a man, yes, taller than trees, and his hair like white wisps of foam and fog goes dark and spreads like storm-clouds across the sky. He says something like thunder and lightning flashes in his eyes, then rain is coming down and I am on my belly in the dirt with fear shaking my aching bones, my hands over my head and my eyes squeezed tight shut, poor dumb monster, the rain hitting hard like little stones on my back and making the dirt to mud.

There is another crrrack sound so very near and I see red flash behind the lids of my eyes and smell wood burning, and sounds that are not words come out of my mouth.

Then there is only rain, then nothing.

I open my eyes and pull myself out of the mud.

Ariel is the Ariel I know again. I stare at him and wish I were Umm to put him in the pine tree.

“Now thou knowest,” he says. “Take heed and think to do no harm. I will be watching.”

Whooshity-whoosh.

Smoke is coming from an oak tree where lightning split its bark, but only a little bit. The wood is wet and I do not think it will keep burning. All the wood I did gather is wet, too.

Oh, I do hurt.

I limp to a new place and begin to gather dry wood. There is rage in my heart and it is hot and angry.

I try to make it go cold.

I must be cold and angry to think; to plan like Master did begin to plan all those years ago.

By and by, I think that Ariel did tell me a true thing. Miranda’s heart is tender; tender and true.

I cannot kill her father. Not with my own hands, no.

Oh, but what if it is true that there are other hands coming? Hands that belong to men who are already Master’s enemies.

I do not say the thought aloud, because that Ariel might be anywhere, lurking and spying; but I smile and now it is my smile that has knives in it. And then I think it may be dangerous even to smile such a smile, so I unsmile it. I bend my back and gather wood like a good servant, and I think the thought very very quietly to myself.

I will find a way to use their hands against you, Master.