Sword and Song Read online

  He doesn’t dare look at her. He’ll play her the cooling song, one of the songs that seemed to come to him because of Antilia.

  The first few lines he sings so quietly he can hardly hear himself. But his voice strengthens, the song soars.

  I’m going somewhere. Somewhere with wind, and fire.

  Wish for me. This is my wishbone.

  Crack it apart for me. This is my wish song.

  I burn.

  You cool me.

  I’m going somewhere. I don’t know when, or why.

  Somewhere with wind, and fire.

  The last chord rings down slowly in silence. Finally it’s her that speaks.

  “You wrote it, didn’t you?”

  “Only if you like it.”

  “I love it!”

  She sings back a couple of the lines. The song sounds beautiful with her voice. She falters.

  They sit in silence once again, and he realizes it’s getting late. She’ll have to go, surely. He wants to see her again, he will see her again. “Ophelia,” he says, “I really like you.” He says it fast so he’ll get it out before he second-guesses himself and doesn’t say anything.

  “I like you, too,” she says, and her eyes are bright like two stars.

  —

  He walks her to the subway station because it’s late and maybe it’s not so good to walk alone, not on a Saturday night, not to the neighbourhood he gathers she lives in. He tries to convince her to let him walk her home but she’ll have none of it.

  “You’re so chivalrous,” she says. “Knight in shining armour.” But then she gets serious again and looks away.

  He wonders if it’s shame about the place she lives. Thinking that makes him regret showing her his house, the bottled-up middle-class-ness of it. He remembers the careful way she held her body when they first got there, like she was afraid to touch the granite countertops or stainless steel fridge.

  They don’t kiss goodbye. But they exchange numbers. Same numbers but the last four are inverted, isn’t that weird? He’ll remember her number now.

  He watches her walk away from the street corner where they say goodnight until she is lost in the shadows.

  Rowan hops on his bike and takes off. Sometimes he feels like if he could ride his bike fast enough, he’d be able to punch through, find himself in Antilia for real. And there’s so much happiness inside him right now, because of Ophelia, that he feels like he could ride around the world.

  He swoops across the street, past the yellow bike-path post. Down into the valley, past trees and water. Around a corner, past a huge oak tree—straight on a downslope, he’ll get up some speed. And he does. Fast, fast—it’s like sliding down the waves in a good wind off the coast of the island, crests curling behind him, wall of water towering over the little boat, but he’s not afraid because he’s got Ari with him and Ari’s nothing if not a sailor. Rowan smiles as he pounds through the dark, feeling his heart beating, his body working. Ari—powerful, tanned the colour of leather, with a cynical mind. When he’s with Ari he knows he’ll be okay, because Ari is just too funny and brave to die.

  Rowan rides his bike down a great green wave, wind rushing past his ears.

  There’s a brightness, a soft puff of air, a silence. Light, bright white light, shines out quick as a search beam from a lighthouse. That’s new, Rowan thinks. I’ve never seen light like that before.

  His body is seized and pulled. He feels himself falling, like a hole opens somewhere and drags him down.

  Wind smacks into his body. He’d gasp but he can’t breathe. There’s a small boat on an ocean far, far below. Rowan slides toward it. If he doesn’t breathe soon he will die. There’s a person in the boat, small from this height, hunched over the tiller. The boat has a wooden frame covered in dark leather, like an Irish currach. Two short masts; a small square sail, red, bellies with wind. The waves are big, bigger than they looked from high up.

  The boat rushes toward him, or he toward the boat; it’s all moving very fast now.

  He hits it.

  The impact of the wooden frame would knock the breath out of Rowan if he had any air left in his lungs. He bounces, once, then lies in the bottom of the boat, staring at the sky above. Grey, low, and gloomy.

  And then water washes in over the side, soaking him. Freezing. Rowan sputters, chokes, coughs, sits up. He smells fresh air, hears the cries of birds, feels the heave of the boat on the water. The salt in his eyes burns.

  It’s real.

  “Where . . . What?”

  It’s Ari at the tiller. He looks at Rowan, a smile thinning his lips. “You took your time.”

  He wears chain mail over a leather jerkin and a metal helm lies at his feet, rocking from side to side as the boat heaves. His black hair is slick with wet; his hooked nose has a drip on the end of it. He looks up at the sky. He looks up at it for a long time.

  Rowan wants to ask about everything at once. But instead he simply says, “Worried about the weather?”

  Ari meets Rowan’s eyes. “Where is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Her,” says Ari.

  A wave heaves toward them, nosing under the little boat. They rise. No sign of land.

  “Ari, who are you talking about? What’s going on?”

  “It’s getting rougher. Here.” And Ari tosses a line toward Rowan.

  And then something’s fighting him—his bicycle, jerking out of his arms like a frightened horse. His bicycle? What’s that doing here? Rowan sees Ari’s face opening with dismay. “No!” His friend reaches out toward him. But it’s no use, the horrible sliding feeling thrills through Rowan’s body and he’s back on his bike—no, he’s flying over the handlebars.

  Rowan splays forward, the bike stays still, and he lands full on his face by the side of the path.

  He sits up, hand over his nose and mouth. He is wet. Soaked with salt water.

  The blood comes down his face hot and fast. His nose hurts, his two front teeth, too, but they’re still there.

  He’s sitting on the ground beside the bike path and there’s no sign of Ari or the ocean or a boat. Nothing. He’s home.

  The blood won’t stop coming. It pours down the back of his throat, a salty, metallic, almost chalky taste. Rowan swallows and spits, spits some more. Stands up. Wheeling his bike one-handed, he goes forward into the night.

  —

  As Rowan leaves the path, a figure steps out of the shadows. His face tilts as he watches Rowan toil up the bike path. Once Rowan’s out of sight the young man crouches, deftly twitching the sword in his belt out of the way. He examines the ground where Rowan’s bike came to its sudden stop. His muscular forearms are covered in tattoos: patterns, fluid and strange.

  He is wet with salt water, and in his hands is a soaked, taut ship’s rope, straining into the shadows. The man tugs, looking intently into the darkness where the end of the rope would be. The patterns on his arms take on a faint glow as if phosphorescent.

  The man stands, winding the rope in his hands. He’s careful about it. He lifts his face and sniffs at the air. His nose wrinkles as if he smells something unpleasant. He steps off the path, into the darkness. No sound. The faint glow on his arms glimmers for a moment, brightening, then winks out. There’s a single blast of cold, wet, salty air, and then nothing.

  Seconds later two cyclists whiz into view, headlamps like icy fireflies. There’s a faint hum of traffic from the street above, and the gentle gurgle of the river sliding past. There’s a little blood beside the path, but that’s invisible in the darkness. They ride by and continue on their way, into the soft city night.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Everything All Mixed Up Together

  Those people are after her.

  Hats, big rubber boots, lace blankets. One of them has feet that go backward, legs twisted-broken. Their faces are covered in fabric, Hallowe’en masks, bank-thief nylon stockings, noses and eyes squished out of shape and lipstick smeared on top. It’s impossible to tell
if they’re men or women, singing and shouting and playing music. The adults all laugh and dance with them, but Ophelia knows. The horse’s head is coming behind with a mouthful of nails. The horse’s head is going to get her.

  They talk in the most terrifying way.

  Ophelia screams, the kind where the sound comes out all high and tight. The nightmare screaming where you can’t make any noise, can’t move.

  Then she realizes it’s a nightmare. She’s awake now. Through the window she sees a dim flash of light from the direction of the valley—a storm? But the sky’s clear, she can see stars. She listens and watches, but there’s no thunder, no returning flash. What time is it?—early. She must have just fallen asleep after leaving Rowan, fallen straight into a memory-nightmare.

  She wishes she’d had the courage to kiss him. But she’d put up her wall, scared. She likes him too much.

  She lies back down but her skin’s prickling, heart’s hammering. Her mother told her about those people—Johnnys or something—no, janneys. They’re just janneys, her mother said, just Christmas visitors having a bit of fun. It was nothing to be afraid of. Easy for her to say. She didn’t have the fat one lean into her face, didn’t have that high-pitched, wheezing, in-taken breath-talking coming at her. She wasn’t chased by the most frightening thing of all. The Hobby Horse, draped with an animal skin that went over his back and down to the floor. The big horse’s head came after her, lower jaw opening and closing, snock snock snock! Mouth full of nails, like teeth.

  Ophelia had cried until she’d thrown up. Sure, the youngsters are always afraid of the janneys, one of the women with her mother had said. Ophelia remembered them—so many women, with big breasts and wide hips like her mother, you sees where I gets my good looks! her mother had said, and all the women laughed. Aunties and cousins, an army of redheads. She’d been passed around the room, lap to lap, those big, sweet-smelling women hugging and kissing her “to death” until she’d stopped crying from the strangeness of it all. More Christmas presents than she’d ever seen in her life, and the twins, too, the mountains of gifts. They still came in the mail every year, even though Ophelia’s never been back. Eight years ago now, half her life away that visit was.

  The janneys had done something—what was it? There was an accordion, yes, and a fiddle, and they’d grabbed the aunties and made them shriek. And they’d made everyone try to guess who they were; it was then that Ophelia had finally realized they were other grownups, dressed up. Friends of the aunties, friends of the woman her mother told her to call Grandma. But there was also something more formal—a play?

  Saint George had fought his brother, The Grand Turk.

  And then been horrified that he’d killed him.

  Called out for a doctor.

  Doctor, doctor, come with speed.

  Help me in my time of need!

  And then the doctor came, with a big doctor bag.

  Yes, I can cure all things! the man said, with a strange accent.

  Itch, stitch, the ’pox,

  The palsy and the gout,

  And if the Devil’s in him, I can root him out.

  With a flourish, a big blue glass bottle came out of the doctor bag.

  I’ll apply this cure to the crackbone of his heart.

  —

  All the next day, Ophelia avoids her mother. She does the breakfast dishes, does homework, hears news about the city going to orange alert, keeps her head down. She thinks and thinks of Rowan. He’s too good to be true, and now he’s going to be called up and die in this stupid, pointless, unwinnable war.

  No, don’t think that. He won’t be called up; it’s a lottery, what are the chances? If he does have to go, Ophelia will volunteer. She’ll go, too, she’ll find him.

  I’ll apply this cure to the crackbone of his heart.

  She can’t stop the churning in her brain. Over and over she goes through the conversation they had the night before; over and over she sees Rowan lying on some battlefield, his beautiful face covered in blood, dead. There’s so much she hasn’t told him. She couldn’t admit to him that the red island on that old map was hers.

  And he’s given her a name for her other place. Antilia. Island on the other side.

  How could it be there, in his house? How is that possible?

  She hasn’t told him she is going insane. That the imaginary world of her childhood is coming into this world and seizing her, one piece at a time. She’d wanted so badly to tell him, but who wants to go out with a crazy girl? And besides, she’d been so raw after the fight with her mother, and it had felt so good to be with him. She’d just wanted to be with him, stay happy, in the moment. Not think about all the insanity whirling around in her brain.

  “I’m going out for a bit,” says her mother. Ophelia looks up from the homework she’s been staring at sightlessly for the last ten minutes. “Watch the youngsters, will you?”

  Ophelia nods, but her mother doesn’t see. She’s dragging herself out the door and she’s still wearing her pink pyjamas, and slippers.

  “Shoes!” Ophelia yelps, too late. Her mother’s out the door.

  She comes back ten minutes later smelling of cigarette smoke.

  Ophelia is about to tear a strip off her—why would she take that up again when she quit years ago?—but then sees the sad look.

  Ophelia knows she should reconcile with her mother. But the memory of her mother, in her face and demanding to know details of a relationship that hasn’t even started yet, it blocks her throat. She hates herself for it, but she can’t apologize, not yet.

  She looks up her word for the day, flipping through her father’s dictionary until her eye lights on something. Pusillanimous. Lacking courage and resolution; marked by contemptible timidity. See “cowardly.” Sometimes the word of the day feels like a prediction, or a prescription. She’d been a coward last night, not telling Rowan about Antilia, or about Pim, and how Pim came back, came here. Ophelia kept it to herself just so the beautiful boy would keep liking her.

  And then there’s her mother. Between the failed date and the fight, Mary needs help, anyone can see that.

  “Time for your nap, Darryl me love,” her mother says, voice like a funeral.

  “Mom? I’ll put him down. You rest a while.”

  Her mother’s face lights up. Sometimes she looks like a little girl; it hurts Ophelia to see how easy it is to make her mother happy.

  “I’ll tell him a story.”

  “Us too, us too!” clamour the twins.

  “You’re too old,” Ophelia scoffs, but really, it’s fun telling the twins stories, and she hasn’t in a long time. Ophelia takes Darryl from her mother’s arms, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Thank you, Ophelia me love.” Their eyes meet. The fight is forgiven.

  The children all pile on her mother’s giant unmade bed.

  “Tell a scary one!” Siobhan demands.

  “Yeah. One with the Witch!”

  Ophelia shivers. Pim had said that the Mender was waiting. An image had flashed into Ophelia’s mind when Pim said that, a feeling, something ominous. The witch, the White Witch of Rose Hall. She sent me to find you. It’s one thing to tell stories about them, but Ophelia is pretty sure she doesn’t want to meet this person with the weird title. Mender. Witch. Whatever.

  “It’ll scare the little man.”

  “Please?”

  They plead and plead some more.

  So Ophelia sings a song to get Darryl to sleep.

  Then she settles. Perfect silence has to descend before she will tell a story. The twins almost hold their breath, ecstatic. Ophelia closes her eyes and waits for that feeling, the thrilling down her thighs and in her stomach that means the story is emerging, waiting for her to tell it.

  She sent me to find you.

  Ophelia opens her eyes.

  “Sorry, guys, no story today.”

  Siobhan and Shakira’s faces open up with shock and dismay. Shakira almost looks like she is going to cry.
/>   “Why?”

  “You said you would!”

  “Hush, you’ll wake Darryl.”

  “But you promised—”

  “Ack!” Ophelia raises her palm, silencing them. She closes her eyes again. The stories come from a mishmash of her own experiences and her imagination, and half-memories of her father’s stories from Montego Bay. But they also come from the other place, Antilia, somehow. And now she’s afraid . . .

  But then, she doesn’t go there by telling a story. It’s just that the images emerge from that place in her imagination. It’s not like she’s ever been in the midst of a narrative with the twins and suddenly been . . .

  . . . in salt water . . .

  That’s never happened.

  She won’t let it happen.

  “All right.” She takes a deep breath and lets the silence settle again. Something . . . there it is. A small woman in black robes, edged with red. Really, she’s more like a nun than a witch, but the twins fastened onto the woman-in-black thing really early on and dubbed her the Witch, and somehow it fits. She’s young, younger than Ophelia, but looks older, centuries old, you can see it in her eyes. Old as that old woman in Harbour Grace who sat in the chair in the corner, smoking and screeching, the woman who Ophelia’s mother was afraid of. It had taken Ophelia until the end of that long-ago trip to realize that this woman was Mary’s mother. How could she be afraid of her own mother, so afraid she’d move thousands of miles away, and yet never really escape her?

  “So. When last we left the Witch, where was she?”

  “On her ship fighting the pirates?”

  “No,” Siobhan corrects her sister. “She was in the city that smells like cinnamon. In her house, in Rose Hall.”

  “How come Rose Hall smells like cinnamon, not like roses?”

  “It smells like both at the same time.”

  There’s some way that Rose Hall is in Montego Bay, where Ophelia’s father comes from, and in Harbour Grace at the same time, and also in Antilia. Like the White Witch. Everything all mixed up together.

  Ophelia can’t make up her mind whether the White Witch is good, or evil. But the twins like it best when she’s evil, and besides, evil makes a better story.