Miranda and Caliban(74)

I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children …

And so I put the disloyal thought aside and continue to paint at Papa’s bidding, peopling the walls of his sanctum with images of all of the seven governors, including an image of the Sun even more splendid than the first, and many of the various faces of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, until such a morning when Papa greets me with his grey eyes wide and shining, gladness radiating from him as though the very marrow of his bones is alight with it.

“Miranda,” he says in a deep, hushed voice, and I could weep at the suggestion of affection in it, the affection he has not shown me since the day he found me with Caliban on the grassy banks of the stream. “The hour is nigh. I have prayed and prayed upon the matter, and God has spoken to me.”

My throat tightens. “Yes, Papa?”

Papa nods with great solemnity. “If I am to succeed in this working, a great sacrifice is required of me.”

“Is it the he-goat, Papa?” I say.

“Oh, the goat, aye; but it is merely an offering.” Papa shakes his head, white hair stirring. “No, if I succeed on the morrow, I have pledged to the Lord God Himself that I will renounce my magic.”

I gaze at him.

Papa smiles a tranquil smile at me and places his hands on my shoulders. “Your rightful destiny awaits you, Miranda; yours and mine alike. And I shall procure it for the both of us. Once it is done, there shall be but one last image for you to render.”

If I am to succeed on the morrow …

There is no more time left.

I swallow hard against the taste of fear in my mouth.





FORTY-TWO





CALIBAN


It is still dark when I wake with a feeling like creepity ants crawling on my skin, summer-dark and warm, but oh, my skin is creepity-crawling, and I have felt this before. It is a warning from Setebos who watches.

Something is coming.

Across the sea, someone is coming.

I want to go to the high place to see even though Master has forbidden it, but no, there is Master himself, there is Prospero, banging on the door of my chamber with his staff and shouting, “Awaken, awaken, make haste and fetch the white he-goat to the courtyard, you lazy villain!”

Fetch it yourself, I think; but I do not say it. He would only punish me, or worse, make Miranda do it.

So I fetch the goat. It does not want to come and fights the rope, its mouth opening and closing without any noise, but I am stronger than the goat is. “I am sorry,” I whisper as I drag it to the courtyard. “I am sorry.”

“Cease your muttering,” Prospero says to me, and I do. He is in fine robes I have never seen before, all yellow-gold and shimmering, and there is a circle of gold around his hair.

I look sideways at Miranda and see that she is in a fine new yellow gown, too, although this I did see in the pirates’ treasure so many years ago. Oh, and there are gold necklaces with sparkling stones around her neck, too; but she looks sideways at me, quick, quick, and I see her face is pale in the faint light.

She is afraid.

I am afraid, too. The creepity feeling grows stronger and stronger; biting ants, now. But I am angry, too.

The sun does rise in the east and Prospero says his dawn chant, the deep, magic words rolling from his mouth. The air feels shivery, and Miranda shivers although it is warm, and the lid on the smoke-trickling metal bowl that hangs from a chain she holds shivers, too. The goat tugs at the rope, its mouth opening and closing, opening and closing.

Master—Prospero—takes out his knife. “Hold it fast, lad,” he says to me, and I do. I hold the goat by its curling horns, lifting its head toward the sky and holding it in place to show its throat. Its tongue sticks out.

Prospero goes to one side of the goat, and flash, waah! He cuts its throat open. Blood comes out hard and fast, one, two, three, then slower. The goat’s legs go crumplety-crumple under it and it sags heavy, its horns sliding in my hands. I catch it and lower it gently to the stones. Some of its blood gets on my hands. The fear goes out of its eyes, and they are empty like glass.

Now Master wipes his knife on the goat’s rough white hair, leaving smears of red. He puts away the knife and lifts the lid of the smoking bowl, puts herbs and things on the coals. He takes the chain from Miranda and begins to swing the bowl around, leaving trails of strong-smelling smoke like streaks of clouds in the air, and begins to make his long prayer.

This is the part I remember from when he did free Ariel that is so very long, only it is the sun that Master prays to this time, and it is all, oh, Lord Sun who is so wonderful, oh, Lord Sun who is called this thing and that thing and another thing, oh, Lord Sun who is the light of the world, I ask you this, I ask you that, oh, Lord Sun, hear me, hear me, hear me.

All the while the creepity feeling is shouting at me to go, go, go, go to the high place and look!

But even if I did dare, I would not leave Miranda. It is the longest time I have been near her since that day. Master is not looking at us, he is looking toward the sun, waving his staff and his bowl around, making his prayer.

Behind his back, Miranda and I look sideways at each other again. She is so near, I could touch her hand; only mine are bloody.

I love you, I say to her with my eyes.

She gives me a scared little nod. I love you, too, her eyes say.