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The Seventh Swan: Part One By Jaida Jones My eldest brother, who should have been king, instead lives in a high tower which we built that he might hide from us and us from him. There are seven of us brothers and
our one sister. From eldest to youngest: Courage, Wisdom, I’m in agreement. Each of us has our own resemblance to our name, but perhaps not in the way our mother intended. Did she think I would be lovely of face and not of heart, or that Patience would put her talent to the test while sewing our nettle shirts, or that Courage would be brave indeed but completely alone, remembering more than all of us how it was to fly? Curses are particular things. Much like a pebble dropped into still water, what seems great at the time is the first intrusion, yet what lingers affects us most. My sister saved us all: we were wild swans once. My brother Courage still has his wings; there’s no way to save him. Our kingdom is turned over to Patience’s husband Mark and we are all, generally, grateful. On the whole, seven brothers are free of the curse that bound them. What does that make us? Relics of a different time. Mark has been kind and has given us all land, and we’re no longer swans. This, Wisdom says, is a price worth bearing—that and our brother Courage, who has no hands, and whom none but I dare look upon. Would Wisdom be so wise, Luck asks often, if Wisdom bore the burden of wings for arms? Courage enjoys reading. Or, because his fingers are undone by feathers, he enjoys being read to. Being the youngest I still live with my sister, a prince in title only. During the hot summer afternoons I climb the countless steps to my brother’s cool perch and read to him. For example: ‘There once was a king with three daughters. He was a jealous man and desperate to be loved in return as he loved. One evening he called his daughters to him, ever seeking to be assuaged. His youngest daughter was the most beautiful—‘ ‘The youngest children always are,’ Courage says, with a pointed look in my direction. ‘—and the king knew privately that, of all his daughters, he loved her best. He put the question to his eldest child, who answered in a pretty voice, fawning kind: I love you, father, more than dragons love their treasure, more than the sailor his sea; I love you until the ends of the earth and back again, so fierce is my love. And the king was pleased. ‘When he questioned his second daughter, her voice trembled as she spoke: I love you, father, until a rose should bloom in the snow—until the oceans should dry entirely—until the world should be a wasteland where no green thing ever did grow, and the lamb chases the lion all the way home. The king was pleased a second time. ‘But when he came to his third daughter, he found her unusually silent. His heart grew troubled. At last, the youngest girl said: Father, I love you as good meat loves salt. She said no more. ‘Outraged and brokenhearted, the king banished her from his lands, never to see her again. Whether or not he missed her even as he meted out his harsh punishment, no man but he can ever know. ‘It came to pass that the two daughters, who swore their love upon their white breasts heaving with passionate devotion, realized what a fool their father was. With their husbands they conspired to take his land from him, and all his power, and soon cast the old king out. It did not suit the king to be a beggar, but he had no choice. He walked the land until his feet were blistered and he himself was a stooped, unrecognizable cripple, and hungry beyond bearing. ‘One day, while knocking on doors and begging for anything to cleave his stomach from his spine or fill his belly enough to walk onward, he was told of a celebration that was to happen that very night in a neighboring village. It was said that the lord there was taking his true-love wife, and that no man wanting for food would be turned away from their door. ‘Desperate, the old man raced to see if this rumor were true. Indeed, it was; he was set a place at the beggar’s table, where food and drink had been laid out before him. It was more food than the old king had seen in months. Yet there were so many hungry guests that there was not enough salt to go around, and the old king was one of those who had to take his feasting without. When he cut into his roast and fell to eating, he found that the meat had no flavor at all, though it was tender and moist. ‘He understood his daughter’s words at last. When he thought of the years he had been without her and the wrong he had done, he fell to weeping in his seat. ‘The woman of the house, who had been watching this strange beggar during the feast, came to him then, and asked him if he did not recognize his daughter—had she changed so much since last they were together? The old king fell to his knees and begged for her forgiveness, which she granted him at once, and from thereon the love between them mended as if it had never been dealt any wound.’ Courage leans against the windowsill and looks out over the land, its sectioned geometry, the red soil beneath all that greenery. ‘It’s a good story,’ he agrees, ‘but I’ve always thought it somehow dishonest.’ ‘Dishonest?’ ‘There must have been times—many times—when they still thought of the wounds they’d dealt each other. Closed, healed; it doesn’t matter. You always remember the hurt. That’s what people are: they exist to remember what losses they suffered once, and what blows they were dealt.’ ‘They were happy,’ I counter. ‘Oh, surely,’ says Courage. ‘Things were right between them again.’ ‘And what did the father have to forgive his youngest daughter for?’ ‘For being stubborn,’ Courage says. ‘For refusing to see how he needed to be loved.’ ‘Wasn’t that better for him?’ I ask. ‘Lessons don’t always need to be taught in the extreme.’ Courage spreads his wings. Earlier in the summer he molted, and I combed the feathers with my fingers much as I comb his hair. Courage is my only kindness. I bring him his meals because doing so troubles the servants more than is wise. Some afternoons I plait his hair into a warrior braid. Others, I slice apples and feed them to him from my own fingers. Wisdom tells me I shouldn’t treat him as a dog since in the end he will only resent me for it, but Wisdom believes his name has given him more rights than mine has given me. No one knows how much I love my brother. He sacrificed his arms for all of ours. I wonder how deeply his resentment runs, and whether he still blames me with all the others. When
we’re together he lists everyone’s faults but mine, and I laugh and laugh when
he adopts Wisdom’s scolding tone. I, too, can play this game, acting out Luck’s
self-assured posture or I eavesdrop on my sister’s conversations with her husband. ‘It would serve him better to abandon this game,’ Mark says. ‘He does no one any service, and there is talk.’ ‘What would you have my brothers do instead?’ Patience asks. ‘Pretend they never had a kingdom? Should they abandon Courage, leave him scraps by the door as if he were a madman and deserves no more than silence and shame?’ My sister still blames herself. What should she have done otherwise? I wonder. She would have been burned at the stake for a witch to save us. Not even Courage blames her, though I think he hides for her sake as well as for his own. These are the conversations I don’t bring to Courage in the tower. During the time that we were held captive by the witch I was no older than sixteen. Courage was kind to me, though he and the others had teased me when we were boys only. She kept us in a wide, white room with a door made out of white bone where in the night we returned to our human shapes. I remember Courage’s strong hands stroking my hair. Selfishly I wept, and asked my brother, ‘Who will save us?’ ‘Someone,’ my brother promised. At times he was even able to laugh. ‘After all, we have Patience.’ ‘Don’t fill his head with lies,’ said Wisdom bitterly. ‘You can’t spoil him now.’ ‘Be
kinder, Wisdom,’ said ‘Yes. We’ll manage it,’ said Perseverance. Luck said, ‘Curses are always broken.’ I curled my fingers around Courage’s wrist and held on, as if I could bleed him dry of all his hope. My eldest brother had strong, handsome hands, the muscles of his forearms like slim rope tangled over the bone. He held me close and promised me: Tomorrow, tomorrow. He said the same thing every night. Our sister did save us. We flew down to her and she threw her shirts of nettle over us in turn from youngest to oldest; my brother made sure it happened so. The last was not finished. There were no arms. The nettles tore into my feathers and then my flesh, and when it was finished we were all naked and bloody—but human. Courage covered my nakedness with his wings. My
sister cried. When you think about it, there are many to be blamed for how things turned out. First and foremost is the witch who stole our father’s heart and cast the spell on us. Second—and perhaps just as important—are people, who are stupid on their own and even stupider in large numbers, and who seek always to destroy that which they don’t understand. It was the witch who created our predicament and people who tried to burn my sister. I also blame Courage. To a fault, he is stubbornly brave. It serves him no purpose and has left him very lonely. ‘That’s the way our brother is,’ Wisdom says, polishing his spectacles. ‘I didn’t ask your opinion,’ I reply. My brother’s head is in my lap and I toy with his hair, looking out the window. I’m late for dinner. He’s scolded me twice and has since given up on chasing me away. It’s late autumn and the fireflies are out: I can see them below, blinking on and off, sudden golden lights. I feel an unexpected futility, followed by quick, sharp anger. ‘What is it?’ Courage asks. I’m frowning. ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I’d rather it had been Wisdom than you.’ This is an uncharitable thought. I can feel the weight of Courage’s disapproval settle over my heart as he shifts away from my hands. ‘Go to dinner,’ he suggests. ‘I won’t.’ ‘Patience will wonder where you’ve gone,’ Courage says. ‘Think of our sister.’ ‘It isn’t fair!’ Dinner is always a solemn time—and who will feed Courage if I’m not there? He struggles with his fork and knife, and when I think that he might eat with his face like a bird I feel ill. Mark’s scorn is a burden and my brother’s face is handsome and I will throw a dinner roll at Wisdom’s head if he says anything at all. My mother, who named us, chose poorly. We should have been one whole child instead of eight unfinished creatures. I compose myself. ‘You should eat first,’ I say. ‘Then I’ll go.’ ‘Mark will be resentful.’ ‘Oh, Mark.’ I pour my brother a glass of water, and when I look up I see him watching the world from the window, with a keen hunger changing his mouth, a bruised color in his gray eyes. I dream of how he looks that night and pick a fight with Luck over breakfast. A plate is broken. Mark yells. Patience defends me and Luck goes riding to cool his temper. I hate him; I hate everyone. Patience holds me until I’m calm again, but it’s no use. I feel sullen; I know my faults, that I won’t ever be generous. ‘You must be less selfish,’ Wisdom scolds. ‘You must leave Courage alone.’ Wisdom knows nothing about it and I tell him so. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he laughs. ‘No matter how much he loves you or anyone, there’s no whole man who can make him happy.’ I hear Mark calling for me from the dining room, the muted sound of my sister trying to soothe him. ‘Where is the boy?’ he demands. ‘Where is Beauty?’ How I loathe them all. My eldest brother has broad shoulders, sandy hair, fine brows, a gentle mouth. He looks something like Patience and yet different from the rest of us. There’s no one else like him in the world. ‘Should I stay away?’ I demand from the doorway. ‘Do you hate me too? Should I not come?’ ‘Why,’ Courage says, smiling in bafflement, ‘who’s put such silly thoughts in your head?’ ‘Everyone!’ I cry. ‘They say it or they mean it, but they think I do you harm!’ ‘Come here,’ says Courage. I’m wary of him now, but I do want him to hold me; I want the lie to be a subtle one I can’t divine. Courage is very good at hiding the truth from me. I’m careful as I go to him, sitting beside him on the unmade bed. ‘What did they say,’ Courage soothes. ‘Tell me, Beauty.’ ‘I won’t,’ I say. ‘Let me wash your hair.’ A change comes over my brother’s voice. ‘What did they say,’ he repeats. I tell him of my fight with Luck at breakfast and my sister’s kindness. I also tell him of Mark and I save Wisdom for last. ‘He said you can’t love me,’ I finish, drawing my knees up to my chest and pressing my chin against them. ‘I want to hit him. I’m not going down again; I’m not. I’m not.’ Courage is silent. Did I do the right thing to tell him? I don’t know. I think of the old king and his youngest daughter, of two stubborn people incapable of phrasing the truth so that the other might understand it. I think of willful misunderstanding. I think of gentleness. I refuse to lie to my brother, but I don’t know why. ‘I do love you,’ Courage says at length. ‘I’m glad,’ I say. ‘As good meat loves salt,’ he adds, and draws me clumsily against him. My brother already knows I love him, so I don’t have to tell him how. He holds me in his arms where I sleep comfortably and warm, my cheek pillowed against the downy crook of his shoulder. In September I’m out with Mark’s hounds when it begins to rain. We run together across the shortcut through the overgrown fields, where giant hogweed raises welts on my arms and hands that sting like burns, the dogs barking gladly. By the time I return home I can feel the fever hot and sluggish in my veins. Wisdom frowns at me over his spectacles and Patience wraps me in towels, setting me by the fire. Even Mark is kind, and sorry he sent me out. By evening, though, it’s very bad. I toss the covers off and pull them on again, and that whole night I can find no peace for my burning skin, no matter how Patience soothes me with cold water and her rough, tender hands. The second day I’m no better. I can feel things happen to me but I can’t think about them, people moving in and out of the room, the sound of Patience crying. Her voice, without a body, floats to me and strokes through my damp hair. ‘And what if I lose him?’ she says. ‘What then?’ ‘Shh,’ says Wisdom’s voice. ‘It’ll be all right. It’s nothing but a fever.’ ‘Fevers have claimed stronger,’ Patience says. ‘He’s only a child still! Only a child.’ ‘He’s seventeen,’ Wisdom reminds her. ‘Eighteen come the new year.’ I don’t want him here, I think, anger whipping through me like a fire. I cry out, throw my hands in the air, and call him every name I can think of—which isn’t many. Patience holds me down against the mattress and soon I’m still again, my face wet with my own tears. I don’t even know why I’m crying. I
don’t know what happens the third day. Only later do I hear the story of how
Courage came down from the tower for the first time in a year, of how my
sister, for all her patience, locked herself in her room, and how Mark yelled
and I do hear Wisdom and Courage arguing in the hall. I shout my eldest brother’s name and something crashes in the hall. Then he is with me. ‘Now,’ he says. ‘What’s this?’ ‘I’m sick,’ I say. ‘Wisdom told me.’ Courage’s voice is thick and his chest broad. He has no hands to tend to me, fetch me water or push the hair from my face. He kisses my brow, though, and kneels on the bed beside me. ‘Mark tells me you were out in the rain.’ ‘With the dogs,’ I say. I show him my hands, the welts faded from pink and no longer raised, just angry and discolored against my skin. ‘I can’t hold them,’ says Courage. ‘Wisdom’s angry.’ I laugh and put my hands against Courage’s cheeks. ‘So’s Mark.’ ‘I didn’t know what happened. You didn’t come for three days,’ Courage says. ‘Patience is weeping now, but what else could I have done? No one came to tell me where you were.’ ‘I might’ve even been dead,’ I say. ‘For all you knew.’ ‘That isn’t funny.’ Courage sounds angry. Has he been angry this entire time? I’m not sure. ‘Don’t be cross, too,’ I say. ‘It’s not my fault I’ve got the fever.’ ‘But do you think I didn’t wonder?’ Courage sighs his anger out in a quick burst as I tuck my hands against his chest. ‘I counted how many ways you could have been dead already! Was it worth it, I asked myself, to protect so many by staying in that tower, if you were hurt somewhere and I so far removed? And why, I wondered, had no one come to tell me what was amiss? Could it be that my sister and brothers feared me so—or that they’d managed to think only of themselves, and in doing so, had forgotten me? Or—and this was the worst!—was it simply that you grew bored and restless? You are careless and unkind,’ Courage chastised, with his voice suddenly gentler than it had been. ‘So often, you do not think at all about what you do.’ ‘But I was sick!’ I protest. ‘I’m sick now—Patience thinks I might die!’ ‘You will not,’ Courage says. ‘You’ll be strong, and you’ll think of those you would harm with your dying.’ ‘It isn’t a choice,’ I say. ‘My head hurts, Courage, my arms are sore.’ I would like him better if he would pity me, but his jaw is hard, as if he is gritting his teeth very tightly together. ‘You must get well again,’ Courage says. ‘You’ve troubled your sister enough.’ I push my nose against his cheek the way Mark’s hounds push against my hand, searching for their treats, or chasing the smell of my lunch on my fingers. My joints ache everywhere, and my skin is too tender where the sheets rub against it. ‘Were you worried?’ I ask. ‘Very.’ ‘Worried enough that you came down,’ I say slyly. ‘Go to sleep,’ says my brother. Courage doesn’t leave my side. He sits me up against his chest, the curtains drawn back and the sun shining in through the window. I squint into my clear broth and my hand shakes on the spoon. I can feel the disgust tremble through Courage’s body, not at my weakness, but at his own. ‘I hate clear broth,’ I say loudly, to distract him. ‘I want eggs.’ ‘They’ll make you sick again.’ ‘Then I’ll be sick all over Wisdom. I don’t want clear broth again.’ Courage sighs. ‘How would you feel,’ he asks, ‘about toast?’ ‘Maybe,’ I concede. ‘Maybe toast would be all right.’ I spend as much time as I can being convalescent. As soon as I’m better I know Courage will go back to the tower. ‘I’m going with you,’ I say, still in my nightclothes. ‘And we’ll have someone bring meals up, and water for the bath, apples and books and the hounds, and my clothes and other things.’ ‘No,’ says Courage. ‘You won’t.’ ‘I will,’ I insist. ‘I’m used to you now.’ Courage leans back against the pillows. ‘You’re almost as pale as I am now, is what you are,’ he says, tilting his head to get a good look at me. ‘You’ll have to be more careful when it snows, and if you aren’t I won’t let you up at all.’ ‘I’m going with you,’ I repeat, waiting for him to agree to it. He gives me a hard look instead. ‘Beauty,’ he says. ‘No.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Will you not think of Patience?’ Courage asks. ‘Will you not think of the sacrifice she made for us, and how much she loves you?’ ‘I love Patience well enough,’ I mutter. ‘But I’d rather think of you.’ ‘The tower room’s too small,’ Courage reminds me. ‘There’s only one bed, and we’ll grow sick of each other. Then we’ll fight and you’ll leave, and it will make a great deal of trouble for everyone to come and bring your things and your books and your games down again. Also, Mark would miss his hounds.’ ‘The hounds like me better.’ ‘They are Mark’s,’ Courage warns. ‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘I’m coming with you. My hair’s grown too long, though; I’ll ask Perseverance to cut it before we go.’ ‘I like it long.’ ‘Do you?’ I loop my finger through the ends, which have curled from the time spent against my hot neck and my sweat-dampened pillow, and tug at them. ‘Hm. I don’t know.’ ‘You aren’t going with me,’ Courage says. ‘And that’s the last I’ll hear of it.’ We fight. I try to undo him by crying—it isn’t entirely dishonest—but he won’t be moved. Mark comes in at last and separates us; though he won’t bring himself to touch Courage, he holds tight to me. ‘Go back to your tower,’ he tells Courage in a tight voice. ‘You aren’t helping anyone by being here.’ I struggle against him; I try to kick his shins. He’s stronger than I am, though, and quicker too, and I can’t break free of him or do him any of the harm I want to. ‘Let go of me!’ I shout, like a child; I don’t care. Courage looks away from me and for a while I hate him as much as I hate Mark, and Wisdom, and all the others except for Patience—though it’s a different hate, too fierce, too hot. That evening my brothers and Mark endeavor to show me reason. ‘You must see reason,’ Wisdom tells me. ‘You make it too hard on him.’ ‘And too hard on my wife,’ Mark adds. ‘You come back with a bird-look in your eye. She’s been strong long enough. It’s time you thanked her for the kindness she did you. It’s time you gave her some peace.’ Luck puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Come on, Beauty,’ he says. ‘They’re right about this. It’ll be better for you, too, won’t it? More time spent in the fresh air. We can go riding together.’ ‘I don’t want to go riding with you,’ I hiss. ‘I want to speak to Patience. Where’s my sister?’ ‘Perhaps crying still,’ says Mark in a dark voice. ‘We can’t remind her of Courage. She is too good for it—she blames herself.’ ‘That
isn’t Courage’s fault,’ I say. ‘And it isn’t mine. What about you?’ I turn to ‘You
do him an unkindness,’ ‘If we must,’ says Strength, who seldom speaks out at all, ‘we’ll hold you back until you see our logic.’ ‘You’re the youngest,’ Perseverance reasons with me. ‘He feels a great instinct for you—and we all do.’ ‘Which is why we can’t allow this to go on,’ Mark concludes, as if everything has been decided. I haven’t agreed to anything, though. I hate my sister’s husband the most, since we have no blood in common. I hate his rational mouth, his reasonable chin, all the logic in his eyes. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying, because I’m surrounded by the six of them, and can’t show them any weakness. ‘Beauty,’ Wisdom says. He reaches across the table to take my hand. ‘When he came to see you the servants all threatened to leave us. One of them saw him in the hall and fainted. Think, brother, think on what it meant to him to see it.’ My stomach is uncertain. I don’t like to feel guilty. This is the first I’ve heard of the incident; Courage should have told me already, I think, so that I could be prepared now to hear it. He didn’t. I look around the table into all my brothers’ faces, and Mark’s as well. ‘You’re seventeen now,’ Mark says, not unkindly. ‘Eighteen soon enough. It’ll be better this way for all.’ I don’t see Courage after that for three months. My birthday after the new year is a happy celebration. As a secret gift, Patience takes me aside to the kitchen, where the air is close and hot and smells of spices and meats. ‘I want you to know it first,’ she tells me, cupping my cheek in her hand. ‘Beauty, Mark and I are going to have a child.’ I embrace her and congratulate her. A new light has come into her eyes, one I barely recognize, but it makes her very beautiful. ‘I won’t tell the others until tomorrow,’ she promises. ‘Today is yours.’ I lord the secret I have over them cleverly so that they think I’m preening because it’s my birthday and nothing else. Mark gifts me with a fine young hound, and the others give me oranges, books and a new coat with gold buttons. The soft green fabric is the same color as my eyes. I’m happy enough that I even kiss Wisdom on his cheek, but that night from my room I can see an unsteady light in the high tower window. It’s not even enough that Mark let me keep the hound in my room with me as birthday privilege. I turn my face against my pillow and wonder who, if any, will tell Courage he’ll be an uncle soon. In the morning I’m decided. I flirt with the maid who brings Courage his meals and hot water in the tower and steal the key from her. I pretend to the others I’m taking the new hound for a walk around the grounds and circle round the base of the tower twice. The drapery over the tower window is drawn. I send the hound back to the house and climb the stairs too swiftly to think on it, but when I reach the door I realize I’m uncertain. You must be kinder to him, Wisdom used to say. Wouldn’t I rather be kind to him? Perhaps I would. But perhaps I must love him too stubbornly for a while, too stubbornly for either of us to bear. I must make him see, rather than do what’s kindest for him. Isn’t that so? I put my hand against the door, palm flat, fingers spread wide. The key is in my other hand, and I should open the door. By now Courage is bound to have heard me standing here, and breathing heavily as if there’s a fishbone caught in my throat. ‘Who is it? Courage asks at last, voice rough and uncertain with disuse, and very close to the other side of the door. I press my cheek against it, closing my eyes. ‘Who’s there?’ ‘It’s me. Beauty,’ I warn him, though I’m certain he already knows. ‘The door’s locked.’ ‘I brought the key.’ ‘It’s been three months, not three days,’ Courage reminds me. As if I didn’t already know it! I fit the key to the lock and turn it at once. Some weight against the door prevents me from pushing it open, but I strain and refuse to surrender. At last I hear Courage sigh and give in, and the door swings into the room, away from my shoulder. Inside, it’s dark. I shut the door behind me and lean against it for support, searching my brother out as another shadow in the gray room, lit only by slim shafts of sunlight around the drawn curtain. ‘It was your birthday yesterday,’ Courage says. ‘But I have no present for you.’ ‘That’s all right.’ I hold up my arms. ‘See? I’ve a fine new coat. Mark got me a hound, and the rest bought me my own books.’ I pause to lick my lips. ‘Patience and Mark are going to have a child.’ I can hear the sound of my brother’s breath quickening. ‘I see,’ he says at length. ‘And you came to tell me this news?’ ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You didn’t have to come in for that—no, Beauty, don’t!’ he cries. It’s too late; I’ve already thrown open the curtain, letting the bright sunlight flood the little round room. Before I can turn to get a good look at him he’s withdrawn into the deeper shadows. There are feathers all over the floor, white and gray, long and short. My brother must never be without his dreams of flying. I bend down and retrieve a white feather, ribbed but soft, and set the hollow point of the quill against my forefinger. ‘You must be wanting for a shave,’ I say. ‘I’ll fetch some hot water.’ ‘Beauty,’ Courage says, but I’ve already slipped out. I make the maid promise not to tell a soul what I’m doing and bid her bring two basins of hot water up to the tower after me. She’s willing enough to obey, though wide-eyed, since I beg that promise off her lips. The door is still unlocked to me when I return to the tower. Courage is standing by the window, the curtains half drawn again. He’s bearded and his hair is long, so that all I can recognize are his sad gray eyes. In one of the drawers are the old scissors, mirror, comb and razor I used to employ. I set to untangling three months of knots in his hair. He doesn’t wince and I try to be gentle, taking my work piece by piece. From outside I hear the slosh of water and the heavy thunk that means the maid has brought us the first basin of water. I leave the comb in my brother’s lap and drag the basin inside, water splashing over the lip of the bowl. ‘I’m sure Wisdom told you what happened,’ I say, wetting my hands to lather Courage’s face with soap. He swallows thickly as I bring the razor up under his throat, against the warm pulse of the vein there, tracing a straight path of bare skin through the beard. The blade makes a satisfying sound. My brother moves his chin up and down, whichever way I guide it; I kneel between his legs, dip the razor in the water until it’s cloudy with hair and soap, until my brother’s face is smooth and bare. ‘They sat me down and told me it was best I leave you to yourself, that you’d be grateful if I could only be less of a selfish child. They all told me it was so and I thought perhaps you’d asked them to do it, so of course I was angry at you. I wondered why you hadn’t seen fit to ask me yourself to let you alone—I wondered if you were really so foolish as to weather me like a burden. Hadn’t we had such fun together? Didn’t you like it when I read to you? If I’d bothered him for so long, I told myself, then I won’t bother him any longer! I’ll stay away. But it was so boring, Courage, and I missed you! I could see your window out of mine and there were times when I didn’t know who was looking after you. It even kept me awake, so I was cross during the day, and tired, and sharp with everyone. Now I see no one was looking after you—I should have given up on it sooner. It was a fool’s plan. Wisdom doesn’t know anything about you, does he?’ I stand to admire my finished work. Courage’s cheek is smooth and his jaw hard, thinner than I remember it. I bend down to kiss him once against the corner of his mouth and he catches me round the waist with his wings. If he had hands I would feel them, not the ghosting of feathers, across my back. I hold still. ‘Now let go,’ I say, when the silence makes me weary. ‘I’ve your hair to wash and cut. How short do you want it?’ Courage struggles for a moment: I can see the signs of it at work on his mouth. ‘An inch off, I think,’ he says at last. Once it’s wet, I comb the hair as straight as I can and cut the ragged ends with steady fingers, then dry his hair with one of the pillowcases. Only then do I realize I’ve done him no favors at all by coming here. His eyes are resting hungry on my face, and no matter what I offer him, it won’t ever be enough. ‘Come,’ I say, tangling him in my arms and pulling him against my chest as he did for me when I was sick. ‘What shall we talk about?’ ‘How has the winter been?’ Courage asks unsteadily. ‘Is Patience well?’ I try to think of something to offer him. My thoughts do nothing but pain me. ‘The winter’s almost over,’ I say. ‘Patience is well enough. Can I stay the night?’ ‘You’ll cause trouble,’ he says. ‘Do you care that much?’ I ask him. He’s silent for a long while, regarding my face, but the hunger has gone out of his eyes. At last, he offers me a weary smile. ‘Not so much at all,’ he admits. It may be my place on this earth to teach Courage how to be selfish. Wisdom shouts, and Mark too. They hide it well from Patience, who is in bed to rest and be doted upon as any much-loved mother-to-be. ‘Will you never think of anyone but yourself?’ Wisdom demands. ‘Are those the only thoughts you know?’ They may well be. I hide from them in the kitchen, sneaking bits of lunch while Cook prepares it; I won’t dine with the others, and I tell her as much. ‘Is that so,’ she says. Her hands and forearms are covered in flour, and her left cheek stained with grease. ‘Then you’ve the time to bring this out back to Nick the Peddler.’ She hands me a napkin wrapped around some bread and a wedge of cheese and shoos me out the door; I can hear her flinging her favorite knife around, and talking to her roasts. Nick the Peddler has come our way before. He sells vials of colored water he calls potions, to cure what ails you he says, and white soap carved into wild animals, and mirrors to show you your true love, ribbons for your hair, good leather wallets, special berries to cure aches and pains and a cream he promises will get rid of any wart in a fortnight. His cart is full of empty promises and his filly gray around the nose. Nick the Peddler has a red nose, dark circles under his eyes, a golden gypsy hoop in his left ear, and walks with a limp some man gave him, no doubt, for being unable to live up to his promises. ‘Afternoon, Nick Peddler,’ I say. ‘Take some lunch with me,’ he offers, patting the ground beside him. ‘Your Cook is a good woman. I’ll not be stingy. I’ll even tell your fortune for free.’ I break bread with him and watch him eat, crumbs getting in his beard. When he’s finished I give him my hand and he traces my soft palm with his callused fingers for a long time, looking deep into the lines. He hems and haws as if it’s been years since he last read the future in a man’s wrinkles, rather than a few days ago for all the children the next town over. ‘Well,’ says Nick. ‘Well now.’ ‘Do I die young?’ I ask. ‘Do I live well, or recklessly? Should I avoid the fire at night or the mirrors in a long hall?’ ‘You were a bird once,’ says Nick. ‘Everyone knows that,’ I remind him. ‘But something from that time plagues you,’ Nick adds. He nods towards the tower and I try to pull my hand away from him, but he catches me by the fingers and holds tight. ‘Not yet,’ he says. ‘I’m not done.’ His eyes are rheumy and a too-pale blue. I find myself trapped by the look he gives me, and my blood is sluggish without warning, as if I’ve swallowed one of his lying potions. ‘Stop,’ I tell him. ‘Let go of me.’ ‘You don’t like what I see?’ Nick asks. ‘Let go of me,’ I repeat. ‘Let go.’ ‘Do you know the tale of the girl who traveled east of the sun and west of the moon?’ Nick forces my hand open, making shapes across the soft flesh of my thumb. The pulse at my wrist pounds and pounds as he closes his fingers around it, testing its rhythm. I feel dizzy. ‘I know it,’ I say. ‘She ran away.’ ‘She didn’t know where she was going.’ ‘She went to save a man she loved.’ ‘And all she had in her pockets was luck.’ ‘It were better if you left,’ Nick Peddler tells me, ‘and took your brother with you.’ I buy a few penny books from him to make him leave. It’s possible this was his plan all along, but the memory of his stubble and his water-logged eyes follows me everywhere, as dogged as Perseverance, who’s no doubt been given first watch over me to make sure I don’t see my brother ever again. I can’t be trusted to do as I’m told. Still, I’m not completely stupid. Only an idiot would try to go to Courage now, with all the eyes in the house on him. I visit Patience instead. Her room is the only one where I can find any peace. I show her the paper-backed penny books I bought from Nick Peddler and she bids me read her one of them. It’s the story of Jewel-Tongue, who aided an old fairy down by the river, and whose reward was that whenever she spoke diamonds and rubies and pearls, not words, rolled off her lips. To me it’s no more than a fine way of silencing her, but Patience seems to enjoy the tale. ‘Will you help me?’ I ask her, once I’m finished. ‘Why, Beauty,’ she says. ‘What with?’ I want her to teach me how to alter a jacket. She gets out her needle and thread and I supply the coat. It’s still right in the chest and the waist, but the arms are all wrong. ‘The length,’ I explain. ‘The arms are too short. And perhaps—the sleeves should be wider, as well.’ We work at our task all afternoon long. If Patience suspects anything—and how could she not?—she says nothing to me, nor does she ask me why I wish to fashion Courage a coat now, on the very end of winter. Now and then I grow bored with the work and read another penny book. I bring Patience her dinner with my own, but she barely pauses in her sewing to eat any of it, as if driven by the memory of some other task, incapable of stopping until it’s laid to rest. By the time she’s finished it’s very late, and Mark has come in more than once to admonish me for bothering her. ‘She needs her rest,’ Mark says. ‘It’s no trouble,’ Patience promises. ‘I like to have the work.’ Before she even knew of the need to rescue her seven brothers, Patience tells me, she worked for a seamstress. Her fingers are slim and deft. I think of how the nettles must have made them bleed until they were stiff and numb. All the good deeds in this world will be rewarded. All the small gifts will be repaid. You can trade a pail of water for a jewel-filled mouth, a bit of honesty for a fortune. There’s more than one witch in the world. We burned ours at the stake in my sister’s stead because the people cried out for a burning—but it was before we thought to ask how we might break the last of the spell. A curse is unforgiving, strict, and can’t be bargained with. My brother Courage had his chance. It’s a fool’s hope to think he’ll have another, even though it’s a wide world full of witches. The same kind of patience bows my sister’s pale, slim neck over her thimble and thread, scraps of extra cloth spread out haphazard and patchwork on her lap. ‘There it is, Beauty,’ Patience says. ‘Finished at last.’ The coat looks like a quilt all cobbled together, the sleeves nearly twice as long as they once were and three times as wide. No feathers will be crushed inside of it. I kiss Patience on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ I say. I gather the coat tenderly into my arms. ‘Is he very cold?’ Patience asks shyly, as I’m halfway out. ‘No,’ I tell her truthfully. ‘It’s a gift, that’s all.’ ‘Oh,’ says Patience. ‘I’m glad.’ I have to sneak out of my room through the window, for Wisdom has relieved Perseverance and stands watch outside my door. In bare feet with the coat cradled against my chest like a baby I run across the cold dark grass and take the winding steps two at a time. I nearly pound down the door in my eagerness. ‘Here,’ I say, and shove the gift against my brother’s chest. He can’t take it, but now he knows it’s his. ‘What is it?’ I unfurl it, holding it up to him. The sleeves are just right. I help him into it and do up the buttons, tugging the lapels to lie smooth. There’s no mirror save for the hand-mirror I use to shave him, so I can’t show him properly how he looks. ‘You look handsome,’ I say. ‘It was your birthday, not mine,’ Courage reminds me. I ignore him. ‘There’s no occasion.’ ‘Not for anything?’ Courage lifts his head to let me adjust the collar and I do the final button, then run my hands down his sides. The sleeves are long enough to cover his wings completely and then some, so there’s no chance of a feather showing by accident. ‘Today Nick Peddler read the future in my palm,’ I say. Courage lifts a brow. ‘You believe that?’ he asks me. ‘Not if he tells me something I don’t like,’ I reply, grinning wickedly. ‘I think—I think he told me I should run away.’ Courage is immediately sobered. ‘Beauty,’ he warns. ‘With you,’ I explain. ‘He says we should run away.’ ‘And so you made me this coat.’ He twists that he might examine the patches where his elbows would be and frowns. ‘You didn’t do this on your own. You had Patience help you.’ ‘And she was glad to.’ ‘She must have known it was for me.’ ‘I want to bite you,’ I say, feeling sullen. ‘She asked if you were cold up here.’ ‘Not last night,’ says Courage. ‘Anyway, the weather’s turning. It’ll be warm soon.’ I grasp Courage by the front of his new coat. ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Please. There’s more than one story. Ours isn’t finished. It’s only a curse, and the witch is dead. Perhaps her magic has weakened with time or there’s—there’s something stronger. Please come with me, Courage. We’ll follow Nick Peddler. If I pay him, he’ll show us the way.’ ‘He’ll lie,’ Courage says. ‘He’ll have no reason not to.’ ‘Not even money?’ Courage’s smile is sad. ‘No, Beauty,’ he says. ‘Then we’ll make him a fair trade,’ I say. ‘I kept my shirt of nettles. Isn’t that worth the truth?’ ‘You’d better burn it,’ Courage says, his jaw tight. ‘You’re afraid,’ I accuse him. ‘You’re afraid it won’t work.’ ‘It won’t,’ says Courage. ‘It’s not fear, Beauty.’ ‘You’re a liar,’ I say. ‘You’re lying.’ Courage says nothing to this at all. I want to break his favorite things or stamp holes through the floor, anything at all to drown out the sound of my own disappointment and chase away the taste of it. I want to hit him, though I’ve never lifted a hand against him like that before. ‘If you don’t come with me now,’ I threaten him, ‘I won’t ever come back. Wisdom waits outside my door. Perseverance follows me everywhere I go. Luck says he’ll take me to the city when he goes next month. What if he doesn’t bring me back? What if I like it better there? What if I don’t ever forgive you for being a coward and lying to me and we never see each other again?’ I take him by the front of the coat I made for him—I realize only now for what purpose—and shake him. ‘Don’t, Beauty,’ Courage says. My fingers lose their strength. ‘What do you fear the most?’ I ask. Meat loves salt, I think; it doesn’t need it. You can be more with and still not be less without. Courage’s wings hang limp by his sides, within his sleeves. I’ve never known such a burden; I’ve never been anything but beautiful. My arms are whole and soft and in the summer, when I roll up my sleeves, they don’t freckle but turn golden-brown, the hairs very fine and very fair. ‘I don’t know,’ Courage answers at last. ‘That’s a hard question.’ ‘No it isn’t,’ I say. ‘It shouldn’t be.’ ‘Would you sleep on the ground?’ Courage asks. ‘Would you walk even when it’s hot, even when it rains? You like your bed the way it is. Come: don’t be foolish.’ ‘If you don’t come, it doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘I’ll go alone if I have to, even if Nick Peddler tries something funny with me.’ Courage waits outside my window; I can see him, standing in the square of light cast from within my room, watching for signs of my return. The nettle shirt is hidden under my bed, where I’ve kept it for a long time, but it doesn’t gather dust; every once in a while I take it out and beat it clean with a brush, careful not to tear my skin. I see no reason to hide it from anyone, and it’s not the sort of thing that disappears with time. I wrap it in a quilt so I can hold it against my chest without ruining my new jacket, and then I leave the way I came. The night is dark and the stars are shifting in the sky. I’m sorry to have to leave the hound. Mark’s land is very green. It rolls all into itself and against itself, sloping and gentle. I know the land best from above: this and all other kinds of land, the way it is inexplicably sectioned off against its neighbor, the lines that draw and quarter each county as its own separate piece. There are times when the dirt is yellow beneath the grass, and times when it’s red. The closer you come to the sea the more yellow the dirt gets, and the grass hungrier, and the sheep leaner, everything stained by salty wind. Mark’s land, when furrowed, is the sort that furrows red. The tall grass parts and shifts in the wind. Night turns everything dark, and I hate the paths my brother and I are forced to take through the tall grass. If we were flying we could see the cows from high above rather than lowing and dark all around us, their stupid eyes watching us, mean and accusing. We could see Nick Peddler’s cart and horse, and the color of his fire as it dwindles out, a little prick of curling light in the darkness below us. I draw close to Courage’s back, the nettle shirt between us. We find Nick Peddler the next morning—or, rather, Nick Peddler finds us. It’s early yet when we stop to rest our feet by the stream that runs the border of Mark’s land. I take off my boots and my socks, stained brown at the toes and heel by sweat and leather, and plunge them into the ice-cold water. After a while I get used to the cold and roll up the hems of my trousers as well, wading in to my knees, but it’s no fun watching my toes turn blue beneath the water by myself. There are a few small fish who sleek by my ankles. I wonder if any of them grants wishes. ‘Come in with me,’ I say. I wrestle off my brother’s boots and his socks, roll his trousers up neatly beneath the knee. He lets me guide him out into the water, where despite all my careful rolling the bottoms of our trousers are soaked through. The sun will warm them later, I think. It’s no matter. ‘There aren’t any wishing fish here,’ Courage says. ‘How do you know?’ I ask. ‘If we don’t look closely enough, we may miss something.’ ‘The world’s very big,’ Courage points out. ‘We can’t catch everything. What if we’re in the wrong place at the right time? The right place at the wrong time?’ I suppose he’s right. If there were wishing fish in Mark’s stream, Mark would have known about it already. I try to catch a few fish anyway, but they slip wriggly through my fingers and twice I almost slip on unsteady rocks and plunge into the water. Each time Courage is beside me, and each time I catch him by the front of his coat to keep from falling down. ‘Careful,’ he tells me. I don’t have the time to be careful. The sun is higher in the sky when we hear the sound of wheels squeaking and a tired old horse puffing tired old breath. Nick Peddler is standing on the bank of the stream, feeding his filly an apple and watching us act like fools. ‘Have you been looking for me, then?’ he asks. I scramble out of the water and hurry to stand, dripping, by the one thing I have to bargain with him. ‘Taking my advice?’ ‘I need more of it,’ I say. Courage moves to stand behind me, the toes of his left foot against my right heel. I turn for a moment to look at him, the wind blowing his hair across his face, and feel sadness like a splitting of my ribs. I brush the hair away before I bend down to gather up the quilt and nettle shirt into my damp arms. ‘A tisket for a tasket,’ Nick Peddler says. ‘I want to lift a curse half-lifted already,’ I say. ‘And I’ll give you the payment after you tell us where to start.’ ‘It’s him, then?’ Nick Peddler rubs his scratchy face. ‘That’s the brother?’ I feel a strange and fierce defiance, drawing myself angry-eyed between Nick Peddler and my imperfect brother. ‘It is,’ I say. ‘And there’s wings in there?’ Nick Peddler points to my brother’s sleeves. ‘Folded a little, yes,’ Courage says. ‘But there.’ ‘Walk with me a-ways,’ Nick Peddler offers. ‘And tell me how it happened.’ I put my socks and boots on and then help Courage with his, and we walk for a while in silence, listening to Nick’s horse munch the apple. ‘Perhaps you should tell the story,’ Courage says at last. If it will help to tell it, I think. ‘Our mother died soon after she had me,’ I begin. ‘I was her eighth and last child. Our father remarried soon after that because he couldn’t bear to be alone, but his new wife was a witch of a woman. We hated her—she was cruel to us because we stood between the children she might one day have with our father, and she wanted his land for her own sons. ‘When she was certain of his love for her and pregnant with their first child she cast a spell over all of us but our sister: we were swans by day, human only in the darkest hours of the night.’ My throat feels dry and I find I can’t look at Courage as I speak. ‘She hid us far away from our father, and he never came to look for us. ‘As part of the spell, if we told anyone of our plight, our lips would be sewn together with nettles, and there would be no hope of ever undoing the curse. ‘After a few years she sent our sister—that’s Mark’s wife, Patience—away from our father’s land, for the witch had at last poisoned his heart completely against all his children save those he had with her. Patience wandered, hungry and alone, forced to take whatever jobs she could find, with the hopes that she might one day discover the fate of her brothers. One day she came upon the house where our stepmother kept us. She saw us through the window turning from swans to men, and fell to weeping by an old tree in the heart of the forest. It seemed there was nothing to be done. ‘But the tree took pity on her, and told her the way to break the spell was this: if she could sew us seven shirts of nettles, seven shirts for seven swans, though her fingers bled and her stomach tangled itself with hunger—and if, when the nettle shirts were finished, she threw these shirts over us while we were still in our swan shape—then we would be her brothers forever, and birds no more. If Patience could do all this, the witch’s curse would shatter. ‘In order for the cure to work, she couldn’t explain her task to any man nor speak at all until it was finished, or her lips too would be sewn up with nettles, and we would remain swans forever. ‘Our sister spent her days seeking out the roughest nettles she could find and sewing them together. One by one she completed the nettle shirts, and during the daylight hours, when we were free of our prison to travel the world as swans, we flew to her side and gave her what company we could. It was then that Mark first saw her with bloody hands, gathering nettles in her arms. It was then that Mark first loved her, and we all knew she loved him, too, though she could never tell him so until she’d saved us. ‘One mute girl alone, crafting nettles into shirts, accompanied wherever she went by seven swans—no wonder people thought she was a witch. She was captured one day—we were swans only, and could do nothing to help her!—and tried unjustly, and was sentenced to be burned as a witch. Mark fought for her, but his people wouldn’t listen to reason—and what reason could Mark give, when the woman he loved wouldn’t open her mouth even to defend herself against false charges? ‘Patience continued sewing. We brought nettles and thread to her cell every morning. She continued to sew even as she was taken to the stake. We didn’t know then how many shirts she’d finished. All we saw was a bundle of nettles she held in her arms, close to her breast. ‘We flew down to her, attacking any man who dared to try and stone her as she was carted through the streets. Before she was bound to the stake she pulled free of her captors—Mark killed one of them, and injured two others—and in the time that bought us she managed to throw the nettle shirts over us, one by one. Our eldest brother, Courage, saw to it that we all went before him in case anything should happen to interrupt us. ‘At that time we thought Patience must have finished all the shirts, but as it happened she hadn’t had enough nettles to complete the final one. It had no arms, and so Courage, who was given the final, unfinished shirt of nettles, was left with wings. That was the end of it.’ ‘Is the witch dead?’ Nick Peddler asks. ‘If she were still alive, you might strike a bargain with her.’ ‘Mark’s people found her,’ I say bitterly. ‘They burned her in my sister’s stead. We couldn’t stop them.’ ‘Ah,’ says Nick Peddler. ‘Ah.’ I hug my bundle to my chest, feeling it prick me still through quilt and jacket. I long to see Courage’s face unchanged by the story, but when I feel brave enough to lift my eyes he isn’t looking at me. He’s watching the trees instead, the moss and the ferns, the light shifting through the countless leaves. I’ve no idea what he feels at all, if anything. Perhaps he no longer feels like a part of our own story, too separate from that time when all of us still had hope. ‘I’ve no potion in my cart to cure what ails you,’ Nick Peddler says at length. ‘I’ve no magic, either, to divine what answers your future holds. I’d have to look into your brother’s palm for that, and he has none.’ I lay my free hand on Courage’s shoulder. At least he doesn’t shrug me off. ‘So you’re no help at all,’ I say. ‘I’ll trade you what I do know for your nettle shirt,’ Nick Peddler tells me. ‘It’s old magic, though it’s run its course. It’s worth the time I’ll spend, the money I’ll lose, going out of my way for you. I know a place. You can find more answers there than I have for you here.’ ‘Where’s that?’ I ask. ‘The gypsies,’ says Nick Peddler. ‘They’ll know a thing or two. ‘ Despair floods all my excitement. ‘And what will I give the gypsies for their help?’ ‘You’re a good-looking boy,’ says Nick Peddler. ‘I wager you’ll think of something.’ ‘Beauty.’ Courage’s voice is hard and unfamiliar—perhaps because I’m not expecting it—and when I turn to face him I find him looking at me with a dark expression. Everything about him is hard and unfamiliar out here. ‘We’re turning round. Thank you for your help, Nick Peddler,’ he adds, ‘but we won’t be trading anything with you, or with the gypsies.’ Courage’s forbidding tone strengthens my resolve. I’m a good-looking boy, just as Nick Peddler said, and I’ll think of something. Courage isn’t the only one of us who can make sacrifices. ‘If I give you the shirt of nettles, you’ll take us to the gypsies?’ ‘It’s a deal,’ says Nick Peddler. ‘Beauty,’ Courage warns, anger making his voice hot. ‘A deal,’ I say, ignoring him, and shake Nick Peddler’s hand on it. It’s a matter of honor now. No one can make me betray the bargain. Courage doesn’t talk to me until lunch time, when Nick Peddler sets up his cart shop in front of a house I’ve never seen before, and starts me on pretending I can tell the fortunes of the maids there. ‘Be kind to them, and look up through your lashes,’ Nick Peddler suggests, as if I don’t already know the trick. ‘Make sure to hold their hands tight as you can, and tickle the insides of their wrists with your thumb where the skin is soft.’ I tell one she’ll marry a handsome man, and another she’ll have three fine children, one of whom will be a king. I tell the third to be wary of the sea, which makes her cry for her sweetheart the fisherman. One of them tries to corner me behind the house and puts my hand all the way up her skirt. I pull away before she gets any more ideas. Nick Peddler puts three copper coins into the very same hand when I return to his cart, his filly watching me impassively. ‘That’s your share,’ he explains. ‘You’ve a special talent for it.’ We visit four more houses and sleep that night under a willow tree. I wonder what will happen if I weep against it—if its hanging branches will be stirred by my plight, if it will have any answers for me—but I’m not so pure of heart as Patience, and I find I can’t summon any tears. I tell Courage of the maid instead, using his shoulder for a pillow. He settles one wing in its heavy sleeve around me, a makeshift blanket. Even with the roots of the willow tree poking my thighs and back, I’m comfortable. I rest the palm of my hand and all its fortune against Courage’s hip. ‘Did you say anything to her?’ he asks. ‘Of course not,’ I reply. ‘You’re too unkind,’ he tells me. ‘You should have let her down easy, or told her you’ve a sweetheart waiting for you.’ ‘That wouldn’t have made her feel any better,’ I protest. ‘You know it wouldn’t have.’ ‘She must have fancied you a great deal, to move so quickly.’ ‘Maybe she didn’t fancy me enough,’ I say. During the night I can’t sleep, and I’m awake still when Courage rolls away from me. I can’t tell if he’s sleeping or if it’s on purpose. I follow him first with my arms and then my whole body, curled up against his warm back. The second time, he doesn’t pull away. We travel for a week with Nick Peddler. Courage stays by the filly as I tell fortunes and Nick sells his potions, his keepsakes, his lover’s knots. Now and then we split the profit of a tough sale that my words of encouragement tip the scales for. Once, the young lady of the house, surrounded by her giggling handmaids, comes out to see me, and tells me she’ll give me anything I ask for if I’ll only give her a kiss. She must be very bored, and I refuse her entreaties until I remember Courage’s words under the willow. ‘Will you help my brother?’ I ask her. The girl pauses, suspicious. ‘Help him with what?’ she asks. ‘I’ve run away from home to save him,’ I tell her, leading her in circles round a tree. It’s almost the truth. I can feel her white, soft hand chasing after mine against the bark of the tree trunk. I’m going to have to kiss her—but only if she promises to help. ‘What does your brother have to do with me?’ she asks, pursing her soft lips. ‘That’s the only thing I want,’ I tell her. ‘You said, if I gave you a kiss, you’d give me anything I want: I want to help my brother.’ ‘I can’t help him unless I know what’s wrong with him,’ the girl reasons. ‘He’s under a curse. Nick Peddler’s taking me to see the gypsies, so I can ask them what they know about how to lift it. But once I give Nick Peddler his payment for leading me to them, I’ll have nothing in the world to give the gypsies for their help.’ I look up at her through my lashes and I can see the breath catch in her throat. ‘All right,’ she says. ‘Have you any scissors?’ ‘I have a pocketknife,’ I say. It was Nick Peddler’s gift to me, with laughing eyes, saying I might need it now against the women of the house. ‘What’s your name?’ she asks. ‘Beauty,’ I say. ‘Beauty.’ She lifts her hands to the pins in her hair and lets it all down at once, brown hair that shines red in the sunlight. ‘Come here, Beauty, and cut a lock of my hair.’ I draw the hair back from her soft neck and she turns her head aside from my hands, giving me room. I’m gentle and her breath quickens as I move the blade close to her skin, then pull sharply against the hair pinched between my thumb and forefinger. She takes the lover’s trinket from me at once, binding the end in a silk ribbon from the bodice of her dress. ‘You can keep it safe in this,’ she says, and gives me the locket from around her own neck. When she clasps it round the back it catches on my own hair, and her fingers are deft in untangling it. At last she fits the lock of hair into the locket, and the silver heart closes around the keepsake with some difficulty. I feel cheated. ‘How will this help my brother?’ I ask. ‘The gypsies are weak for silver and gold,’ she explains. ‘The locket will sell for a fine price.’ ‘And the hair?’ ‘That much is selfish,’ she whispers. ‘But then, you never know what it may bring.’ Gifts given freely from a maiden have their own magic worth. I know this much, and I’m content. When she bids me put my arms around her I do so, though I kiss her no more than swiftly on the corner of her clever mouth and slip free of her right after, locket knocking against my collarbone as I trip, running, through the grass. ‘You should be more careful,’ Nick Peddler tells me that evening, smoking his long pipe. ‘Fathers are more dangerous than anything.’ ‘Not more dangerous than mothers,’ Courage wagers. ‘Ha!’ Nick Peddler says. We cross two bridges on our way. Nick Peddler says he normally doesn’t go this far south until at least mid-May and it’s only the start of April. If we weren’t such good luck, he adds, he’d complain. As it is, he’s made more money in the week traveling with us than in a month on his own. He tells me every morning at breakfast, every afternoon at lunch and every night at dinner how he wishes he were born with a prettier face. ‘Yet,’ he adds, drawing his fingers rasping over his cheeks and chin, ‘if I had a prettier face I’d not be a peddler. Beauty has its own magic, for good or for ill.’ ‘What sort of magic is that?’ I ask, combing Courage’s hair. Nick Peddler nods to the locket I still wear. ‘That’s an example of the good,’ he explains. ‘And the ill?’ I ask. ‘Ah, the ill—you haven’t seen it yet,’ Nick Peddler says. ‘I hope you don’t, either, ’til we’ve long since parted ways. My legs are too old for running. Filly’s, too. You’ll both soon outstrip me, and leave us behind to catch the beating for it.’ His filly snorts in agreement. Courage asks me later, at last, whence came the locket Nick Peddler mentioned. ‘I thought you might not ask it,’ I say. ‘I thought I might not, either,’ Courage admits. I take it in my hand and turn it this way and that. It’s finely made, the mark of a wealthy young woman, engraved in intricate detail. I think of the dark lock of hair inside it, and how by now it must have long since lost its life and luster. I don’t dare open it. There’s a time and place for every charm. ‘I don’t know who gave it to me,’ I say. ‘What did she look like?’ Courage watches the fire instead of watching me. Something about this leaves me feeling uneven and unhappy, as if, each step of trying to help him, I’ve done wrong rather than right. ‘Do you want to know? I scarce remember it.’ Courage swallows. ‘Then you can invent something very fine about her, I’m sure.’ ‘She had auburn hair,’ I say defiantly. ‘She told me she’d give me anything in the world I wanted if I’d only give her a kiss.’ ‘And you asked for a lock of her hair?’ Courage looks more surprised now than wary. I can’t help myself: I laugh. ‘I told her I’d run away from home to help my brother, who was put under a curse,’ I say. ‘I told her that the only thing I wanted, it was likely she couldn’t give. It was trade we entered into willingly. There’s magic enough in that.’ For a long time Courage is quiet, working a sadness out of his mouth. When he smiles at last the expression is rueful, almost sorry. I long to touch his face and chase the sight of it away, but instead I turn the locket over and over again in my hands. ‘You should be more careful, as Nick Peddler says,’ Courage tells me at last. ‘Should one of their fathers see you at the game—’ ‘It’s no matter,’ I say. ‘You’ll look after me.’ ‘With what hands?’ Courage asks. I have nothing I can say to that. He sleeps again with his back to me, but he does press himself into my arms when I come up against him in the dark. One morning we wake to find that mist has descended upon us so thickly we can’t even see the noses in front of our own faces. I knot my fingers in the back of Courage’s coat, searching for his face with my own. Our foreheads knock together, and our chins. I feel the brush of his lips blindly against my ear, and then we sit still, holding each other. At length we hear the sounds of Nick Peddler waking. He grunts, snorts, stamps his feet and swears twice, Damned mist and Bleeding weather. We listen to him scrabble about and then he strikes up a match, cutting paths through the mist that swirl and are swallowed up again. ‘Don’t lose sight of one another,’ Nick Peddler counsels, ‘hold fast. I’ll light a fire. Once the sun comes it should lift—if it doesn’t, ha! Well, we’ll be in trouble then for certain.’ I curl against Courage, hearing Nick Peddler storm about; now and then he sighs, or his filly snorts. The white air smells of sulfur. I press my fingers in between the buttons on Courage’s coat to warm them, the mist sliding against us like sheets of ice. ‘What do you think it is?’ I ask. ‘I don’t know,’ Courage whispers. ‘It isn’t her,’ I say, shivering. ‘She’s dead.’ It’s the first time I’ve been glad to know it. ‘Of course it isn’t,’ Courage says. ‘Though,’ he admits a moment later, ‘I do ache.’ ‘Where?’ ‘At the shoulders,’ says Courage. I think: the place where the curse meets his true body. I lift my hands quickly to rub at them, though the angle is wrong, pressing my thumbs into the shifting muscle, stiff in places, in others knotted. Courage’s hair brushes against my face. I have to turn about in his lap to get a good hold, and against my palms I can feel on each side where his human scapula meets with the bird’s humerus bone; I can feel where flesh becomes the prick and pinch of feathers. His lifts his wings helplessly and lets them fall, the mist stirred into eddies around us, like a bath clouded with soap foam. ‘Beauty,’ Courage says. I move my hands along the humerus and feel the joints, where the bones become slimmer and more delicate, all the way to where even my delicate hands could snap them in two. Then Nick Peddler makes a sound of triumph and strikes a match against the banked fire from the night before. It sparks to life and the mist begins to pull away, the ebbing fingers of an enchanted tide. When I turn to face old Nick, he’s watching us both keenly, a new understanding awake in his rheumy blue eyes. ‘If you go on two, three days straight in that direction,’ Nick Peddler says, crooking one finger in the opposite direction from the trees, ‘you’ll come to the gypsies’ spring camp. You’ll have to hurry, though, else they’ll have moved on by the time you get there, and chances are you’ll not find them again.’ I say nothing, but in thanks and as our deal requires, I lay down my bundle, untangle and unhook the quilt from the nettles, and leave the shirt to lie limp on the grass, arms outstretched as if for an embrace. Nick Peddler walks all the way around it, making tsk sounds with his tongue against his teeth. At last he produces a sack from his cart and traps the thing quickly, almost as if he expects it to grow wings and fly off unless he claims it first. ‘It’s been a pleasure to do a turn of business with you,’ Nick Peddler says. We shake again on it. ‘Keep a sharp eye out for that ill luck, mind.’ That’s when we part our ways, him to the forest and us to the coast. We take a straight path from now until the shore grows rocky, where, Nick Peddler explained, we’ll turn inland, keeping away from the hills. If we’re lucky we’ll reach the gypsies before they start their summer roving through all the major cities, tricking their way from town to town. My boots are beginning to wear through the heels, so I cut off four corners of the quilt to pad Courage’s and my soles. ‘Will you take a gypsy earring and a gypsy wife?’ Courage asks. I laugh. ‘Will you?’ ‘If any one of them is mad enough to have me, I might.’ ‘Nick Peddler says they’re none too kind to strangers,’ I remind him. It doesn’t worry me that the gypsies strike a hard bargain. I’ve only seen them once, when they came far enough north to squat on Mark’s land; but those were harder times and he didn’t once try to chase them off, as other men did, for being gleaners. The further I travel from Mark and the more distance I put between us, the better I begin to think of him. He’s not so terrible a man. At times I even forget to blame him for certain things. Soon the land begins to change, the plants thinning into stragglers tenacious enough to grow in earth changed by salt and coarse with sand. Chill breezes blow in from over the water. I swat the midges from my neck and face, waiting for the beach to turn rocky. Here and there we stray off the yellow grass to wander the beach itself, where the sun scorches seaweed and jellyfish and salt-rotted wood and empty shells. In the afternoon, I find scoured glass the exact color of my eyes. I keep it with me until we leave the beach because of its fat beach flies, which bite at my wrists and throat and leave my skin stinging. The first night we sleep by a stream and I bathe my stings and my brother’s with the cold water, pinching the bites between my nails the way Cook taught me would numb the itch. I mark an X over each head so we can sleep, stretched out over what’s left of the quilt. |