Magic Under Stone

Celestina grew better by inches. She still couldn’t move much or get out of bed without help, but she could sit propped up on pillows without too much pain, making it easier for her to read. Whenever I came to bring her food, however, I usually found her sleeping or simply staring at the ceiling.

I tried to cheer her up, but I couldn’t seem to summon the strength for it when I badly needed cheering up myself.

How I missed Erris and his jokes. Sometimes it had irritated me, but now I realized how much I loved him for it too. When he had been trapped at a piano, only able to communicate with our system for matching letters to the piano keys, he had still tried to make light of the situation and cheer me up. I wouldn’t be able to do that. I was sure. I couldn’t even imagine what sort of bottomless despair would come over me in those conditions. There was something so wonderfully normal about a joke, so that even though our relationship had been almost entirely unconventional, I could forget about clockwork gears and fairy royalty, and see him only as himself.

But he was gone, and the only thing to do, really, was work. Annalie did nearly all the caretaking for Celestina, but she wasn’t a good cook, so I managed that. Annalie brought Celestina trays of food and cups of tea, dumped her chamber pot, made poultices for the swelling and bruising, helped her change clothes.

I baked bread, chopped vegetables and stirred stews, and washed endless dishes. Neither Annalie nor I had ever known a life entirely devoid of servants. We could manage the simple things easily enough, but we certainly didn’t know how to wash clothes, and at some point it had to be done. I took notes from Celestina’s instructions.

First we gathered snow to melt, and then we had to heat the water. I didn’t realize how much I could sweat in the dead of winter until it came time to stir the clothes, standing over the hot water. Annalie and I took turns pounding and moving the stick around in the tub, then pulling the clothes out.

We’d hardly gotten anywhere, and we were both panting and aching. Celestina always did the hardest work in the house, even little things like grating potatoes for potato pancakes or kneading bread. She did it so automatically that I’d never thought about it before.

Celestina’s bell rang from upstairs. She needed something.

Annalie started to laugh, in a spent way. “Ohhh, not now. How do poor women ever manage, with so many things to do and babies?”

“I really don’t know.”

“And there are two of us!” Annalie groaned. “But I really don’t want to go up there.”

“I’ll go…”

“No, no, I’ll do it. I know you don’t like nursing. But maybe you can start taking the whites out and putting the darks in.”

“Do you think the whites are clean?”

“I have no earthly idea, but they’re as clean as they’ll get.”

While Annalie disappeared up the stairs, I hooked the sodden clothes on the end of the stick. My arms were shaky from exertion, and the clothes seemed to weigh tons. A nightgown slipped off the stick and fell on the already wet floor. I cursed and hurriedly dropped the rest of the clothes into the wooden tub. Scalding drops of water splashed on my arms. I bent to pick up the nightgown, back muscles screaming, and slipped it in with the rest.

There were still more clothes to be moved. Still the dark clothes to pound. Then the washboard, then rinsing and wringing, and then hanging it all to dry. I had the paper with all the horrid instructions right in front of me, the ink bleeding because along with everything else, it had gotten wet.

I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t care if our clothes were stained and stinking, I couldn’t do this. I didn’t care if women all over the world, all throughout time, spent their days doing such things. I should be looking for Erris, I should be studying magic, I should be dancing like the old Nimira used to do. I never thought I’d have even a moment of missing my days in shoddy dancing troupes.

When Annalie came back, I am ashamed to say I was sitting on the floor, crying in an urgent, angry way.

“Nimira,” Annalie said gently but firmly. “I know it seems overwhelming, but if we just take it one step at a time…”

“No,” I said. “We’re on step one of… of I don’t even know how many. We can’t do it. I don’t care. Why do I give a damn if my clothes are clean or dirty anyway?” I was shouting, my throat rough.

She put a hand on my shoulder. “Other women do this. I know we can, and it will feel so nice to have clean clothes.”

I turned away from her touch. “I’m tired of everything. I just want to go after that jinn!”

“It would be dangerous to go alone, though,” Annalie said. “Maybe when the doctor comes, if he would stay with Celestina… Or if she could go to a hospital in New Sweeling… we could go together.”

“I don’t want to wait for the doctor!” I was sobbing, feeling as childish as Violet. “What’s wrong with you? How can you still be so dispassionate? Is it something about the spirits; did they drain the caring right out of you? Nothing moves you. You don’t even care about your own husband.”

I said it and winced. Some part of me demanded to know how I dared to talk to Annalie like that. She’d stood up to the crowd of men from Cernan; she’d taken care of Celestina. She didn’t have to help me, but she did, and now I was shouting at her about Hollin, as if I had the right.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I had fled as far as the threshold between kitchen and scarcely used dining room when she spoke.

“Nim. Wait. Please.” When I looked back, she shook her head a little. Loose strands of hair floated around her head from the bun she’d twisted it in to work.

“Forgive me,” I said, feeling chagrined now that the heat of the moment had gone. “It’s not my place to lecture you about Hollin.”

“I suppose I did sound a bit heartless, talking about a separation and marrying Karstor for convenience. I just… Well, when I was young I did what I was told was best, but it was never best for me.”

“You don’t think you’ll give him even a chance when he returns? He really does seem to be changing.”

“What does it even matter to you? Do you think I need Hollin Parry?”

“No. No, not that. I think maybe… he needs you.”

“I don’t think I want him to need me.”

“Well, no, it’s not that either, it’s…” I sighed. I couldn’t seem to explain it to Annalie any better than I could explain it to Erris. “Maybe I just want someone to have a happy ending. Or maybe I just feel guilty about my part in it.”

“But it’s not your fault, Nim. Not at all! It’s entirely his. And I do forgive him for it… I truly do. We were already so very distant with one another when you came along. But that’s the thing. Our marriage barely began, and then it was over. I’d rather just start again.”

“I understand,” I said. “He told me… he was a little frightened of you.”

I expected her to scoff at that, but instead she looked solemn. “I know.”

I looked at her a moment, with her disheveled hair, and thought how different she seemed from the first time, when she’d been cursed to spend her hours in a handful of dark rooms, hidden from the world, with the orbs of spirits floating about her like fireflies. “I was a little afraid of you too. Seeing you like this, though…”

“Yes, I’m hardly frightening now, not compared to the laundry.”

“It’s just that you’ve changed. And he’s changed too, I think. But his heart is still with you.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Not so directly, but I can tell, the way he speaks of you.”

Annalie smiled faintly, just to herself, as if she didn’t mean the expression to be shared. “A part of my heart is still with him too. I just don’t want to do anything stupid. I like who I’ve become.”

“I think you’re one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever met,” I said, quite truthfully. I had never met a woman whose power you could sense without her lifting a finger! I’d known women in the theater who bucked convention, but it was different with Annalie. There was nothing theatrical or attention-seeking about her, no motive except to be herself. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“No, no. It’s all right. Whatever becomes of Hollin and me, you and I needed to talk, didn’t we? I suppose we can simply thank this awful laundry for bringing it out.”

“Are you sure the spirits can’t do laundry?” I asked, and she smiled at me ruefully.