what did I now see? Wild rains lashing the Manor, bridges of lightning spanning sea and sky.
I broke the silence then. “There is only one other living thing in the Manor, and that is my Sealskin.”
I ran now, far faster than old Taffy, pounding down marble corridors, dark rooms flickering past. Into the Trophy Room, past the dead glass eyes. My sleek, shiny Sealskin shimmered out to my hair before I touched it in the ordinary way. It was heavy, tensile, just as a living thing must be.
I wrapped it around me first, paused, wondering if it would take me over at once, turn me into one of the Sealfolk, there on the figured carpet. But nothing happened; it must take salt water to stir human flesh and Sealskin into one.
The Sealskin fit me exactly, falling just to my fingertips, just to my toes. How marvelous that when I pulled it round my face, each side followed the curve of jaw to meet exactly at my chin. There was nothing wasted, not a single gap. But I had to be closer still. I sank to the floor, pressed it to every part of me. To my naked spine, to my belly and breast, how alive I was to it, or maybe it to me. We drank each other in through every pore.
Taffy whined from the doorway. You have your own fur, Taffy; do not be jealous of mine.
I have the Sealskin wrapped around me like a cloak as I write in the Trophy Room. Poor Taffy doesn’t know what to make of this new version of me. He thumps his tail but does not lie too near. Yes, Taffy, it may be that I am becoming a different creature and that soon you will not recognize me at all.
Soon, but not yet. I cannot turn myself into a Sealmaiden without warning Finian and Lady Alicia about Sir Edward. I cannot leave without saying good-bye. Soon I will restock my Folk Bag and walk the three miles along the cliffs to Firth Landing.
Everyone is away at the Harvest Fair, every servant, even the other dogs (for whom Sir Edward has doubtless bespoken the best rooms). It is unlikely that anyone will return before I do, but just in case, I will hide my Sealskin in the Cellar. It is too heavy to carry with me. No one would think to look there, and anyway, they’re all too afraid.
I am very happy now, watching the rain fall in fat, hard strands. Have I ever been so happy?
The world is a magical place and I’m lucky to be alive in it. Did my mother watch the rain driving against these windows and think it beautiful?
Have I ever been so happy?
14
The
Something inside has sprung a leak. I am growing accustomed to the salt water dripping down my face. I lean over my paper to hide, but no one in the tavern looks my way. They stand around the fire and drink to the Harvest Fair and to the rain and to anything else they can think of.
No one pays attention to a serving girl.
I was transformed this morning, from savage to servant with a bar of soap and servants’ clothes borrowed from Mrs. Bains’s storeroom. A laced bodice and calico shift, very clean and almost new. I wonder if Corin’s clothes would fit me now? I shall never be rosy and rounded — never like the Tragic Queen! — but if you squinted, you might almost take me for a young lady.
I left my hair for last, twisting it into a knot at my neck. And then — oh, I was clapped once more into an acorn shell. The singing spaces collapsed around me; gone were the echoes that paint the universe like shadows.
Imagine a world without shadows. You cannot touch a shadow, but a world without them is a hard world, and flat.
I didn’t stumble once on the rough cliff-top walk to the Harvest Fair. Now that I know it’s my hair that gives the world dimension and depth, I can manage without it. It’s knowing the rules, I think.
It’s as though you were standing in front of a mirror and tying a bow. If you know you’re moving in a mirror world, if you know everything runs right to left, back to front, why then, you know how to adjust. You know to move your fingers opposite the way your mind tells them to go. But if you don’t, you keep moving your fingers the wrong way and wonder why you can’t even make the simplest knot.
The fairgrounds began at a grassy square in front of the Cathedral. The ground was a mass of mud, but the business of the first day was done, and the ale was flowing as freely as the rain, and certainly nobody seemed to mind.
Smoky flares shone off canvas booths pitched along the Cathedral walls. “Penny a pitch! Penny a pitch!” called the barker at the coconut shy. “All sharp?” A peddler with a whetstone, his cart hung with knives and axe blades.
The noise and cheer filled me with a delicious anticipation. I looked for Finian and I did not look for Finian. The search itself was an event to savor. Here, smells of clove and nutmeg drifted from the spice stall. There, mounds of sugared almonds and candied cherries glistened beneath striped canvas. The stonecutter had set out a tray of cunningly carved animals. I lingered over a tiny quartz rooster, all swagger and strut.
“Perhaps your sweetheart will buy it for you!” called an unknown voice. A rush of laughter blew up from a knot of men. Blushing, and laughing too, I walked on. “A drink to the harvest!” Pewter tankards met with thuds of fellowship, warm ale sloshed over cold hands. “To the harvest!”
The crowd grew thin behind the Cathedral, the tents a little rumpled and shabby. “Who’ll put his silver on this glossy fellow!” called a gloomy voice beneath a canvas, and a bright smell stained the air. It was a cockfight. I’d never find Finian there.
I was looking for Finian, only for Finian, confident my disguise made me invisible to anyone else. But when I turned away, I found a great beast with red ears blocking my way, asking politely for attention.
“Liquorice! Let me pass!”
“Liquorice!” Sir Edward called from the tent, not twenty feet behind.
“Go!” I pushed at Liquorice, felt the bony lumps of skull. “Your master’s calling.” If only my hair were loose, I could call upon the power of The Last Word and send him howling away.
“Who’s your friend, Liquorice?” Sir Edward’s voice brought back memories of fresh earth and mildew.
I stamped on Liquorice’s foot; he yelped and slunk aside.
I imagined elegant Sir Edward at the fringe of that shabby company, staring as I disappeared round the other side of the Cathedral. Small growling shivers ran up my spine. I was splashed with mud to my knees and wet all over, straining myself back into the crowd. The stalls no longer tempted me, not the scented candles, the supple leathers, the crimson stitching in a lady’s glove.
Sir Edward could not recognize me, I told myself. Not in a dress, not from the back. My Folk Bag — could he recognize my Folk Bag? But there are many leather bags in the world, and only one Corinna, whom he presumed to be dead.
The crowd flowed round a pretty bright-faced girl and her sweetheart, stopped in the middle of the lane. The man swung her close and kissed her full on the mouth. A most peculiar feeling overcame me; I was lightheaded as though I might have a fever. When the couple moved on again, I saw it was the Valet, and in a red leather vest!
Now the crowd flowed around me, the crowd, together with flowing seconds and flowing thoughts and flowing hands, hands tightening round my waist, squeezing me through an alley between two stalls. Very delicately then, as though I were a waxen doll, the hands propped me against the Cathedral wall.
It was dark in there, but when I looked up, I still saw the familiar blue vein at the corner of Finian’s eye. His voice was a shredded whisper. “You didn’t run away to the Mainland!”
I felt none of the amazement I heard in my own voice. “How did you recognize me?” I felt nothing much at all. The perfect doll, dress-up clothes over a waxen heart.
Finian reached for his handkerchief and peeled off his spectacles, which were foggy and beaded with rain. “I always recognized you.” He swallowed hard, as though he’d bitten off too many words.
The wax doll was startled into life. A secret heart jumped at the dip of my throat; and all the lacings of my bodice couldn’t stop a wild warmth rising from beneath.
