Singing My Sister Down and other stories Page 4

  ‘So you thought my gran didn’t either,’ Mirka said.

  ‘Did I say that?’ Again the offended look. There was going to come a time when Mirka was less afraid of this mouthy man than she was just plain irritated.

  ‘It’s true enough,’ she said. ‘But we can’t let all the moon go.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Jiran Gust said. ‘I’m glad you see my thinking.’

  Mirka started closing the door. ‘We’ll put the flag out soon. When she’s all laid out and ready.’

  ‘Good. Very good,’ said Gust, as if these had been his instructions.

  Else was breathing hard and her hands were trembling. ‘Watch out not to cut me,’ Mirka said, going back to the bench.

  ‘He’s so loud,’ Else said. ‘I don’t like him. And he rushes everything.’

  ‘That’s what I said, didn’t I? We’ll put the flag up when we’re good and ready.’ Mirka ran her fingers over the bald part of her head. Such a strange feeling, to be so unprotected.

  ‘As if we would put the whole moon away!’ Else shook her head and lifted the stone to start shaving again.

  Visitors came all day, family after family. They brought food, fresh for now and potted for later. They refused to eat anything. Everyone knew that Gran was all Else and Mirka had. They knew that all she’d had was what the village paid her to clean the moon and keep it alight.

  Late in the day came the families of the night-cliff workers, dusty from digging out Gran’s niche.

  ‘You know where it is,’ said Kunss Clay. ‘At the end of the topmost row: Breka, Ansa, Holsa. And now Taris, last of all – not that she was any less than them.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mirka. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And it’s good and big, so—’ Arbst Clay faltered at a sharp look from Kunss. He glanced around at the milling rock-families, spreading his hands helplessly. ‘So that, I don’t know—’

  ‘It’s grand as befits a grand lady,’ Kunss said loudly.

  ‘If you wanted to put—’ Arbst’s dusty shoulders were up around his ears now. ‘If there were any of her belongings that, you know, you’d see fit to wall up with her—’

  Suddenly Kunss’s wife was among them, Kunss’s hand tight on her arm.

  ‘Mirka!’ she cried, and he let go so she could fall on Mirka. ‘My heart! Dear girls, how will it be for you now?’

  Mirka submitted to her hug. Kunss ushered Arbst away behind her, muttering savagely in his brother’s ear.

  Last of all Jiran Gust came, and Breka Gust’s other three sons, wearing tunics and hats. On their arms the brothers’ wives were veiled and caped and painted, and they said all the right things and almost meant them, smoothing their way into and out of this house they’d never once entered when Gran was alive. Their many children came too, and stared at Mirka and Else with something like respect, when usually they’d nudge each other and laugh. Mirka was grateful for Gran’s power, the power of her lying there dead, to still their spiteful tongues. She took the embraces of the women politely, her scalp skin brushed by the gauze of a mourning veil or by a perfumed, powdered cheek. She met the men’s gazes and thanked them for coming, thanked Jiran Gust for coming, ushered Jiran Gust out the door as the sun sank, shut the door behind him for the second time that day.

  In the dimness she and Else folded Gran, put a mask on her, wrapped her about with her best blanket and strapped her up tightly.

  They hardly had the energy to eat. They sat in a chink of moonlight from the mostly-covered window, and dipped into a bowl of muddle between them. Mirka thought she might never speak again.

  ‘Such nice muddle,’ Else sighed. ‘So much lovely food. It’ll last ages if we’re careful.’

  Mirka nodded, and swallowed, and then heard spill from her mouth: ‘How would it be if this turned out to be the last moonlit night?’

  She dipped again and swiftly filled her mouth.

  ‘Well, it isn’t,’ Else said, ‘so there’s no point wondering.’ She bent to the bowl, but not before her eyes had flashed at Mirka.

  ‘You could never give me a look like that, for instance, if the moon went into the wall with Gran. I wouldn’t be able to see it.’

  ‘Oh, stop it—’

  ‘I wouldn’t be able to see anything. It would be back to the bad old days again.’

  ‘Eat.’ Else mimicked Gran snapping at them. ‘There’s a lot to do tomorrow.’

  She got up and went to the food bench, and clinked pot lids and fiddled with cloths. ‘Here’s honey, from Floda Pert! I suppose that will keep, though,’ she added regretfully. ‘We should eat something that will be less good tomorrow.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Mirka. She felt cheerful, reckless. She was almost afraid of herself. ‘Bring the honey,’ she said. ‘And that sprout bread the Clays made us. Let’s eat whatever we want tonight.’

  The moon was weak – because of the visitors, there hadn’t been time to wash and oil it. Mirka stayed by the window bathing her face, her hairless head, in its feeble beam, curled up much as Gran was, hugging her knees.

  She dozed and woke. Now and again she turned to look at Gran, bound and blind on her bed. She stroked her own cold scalp and marvelled. Such a strange day, so full of people: such a strange night, with honey dreams unfurling through it, and full-stomach dreams, and Gran not here to dismiss them, to order Mirka to be sensible and lie down and sleep properly.

  Before dawn she got up and crossed to the chest, dug beneath the coats and quilts and pulled out two dark cloths folded square, one loose-woven and one thicker and waxed. She tucked them into her waistband and covered them with her shirt. Then she went to the bed, put the straps over her shoulders and lifted Gran onto her back. Bending over Else, she touched her bare head.

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Now?’ Else said in her sleep.

  ‘Bring water, and some of that food.’

  ‘Already?’ Else woke and checked the window, rubbed her eyes.

  Mirka made for the door.

  She stood outside while Else sighed and shuffled about. From along the slope, high in its clearing, the moon-quarter shed its cool light, giving shape to the lumpy trees, sharp edges to the town, shadow to the whip-curve of the river at the bottom, making a white comb of the water falling through the slots in the weir. On the far bank stood the pale night-cliff, cut with tracks like skin-creases, smudged with the stone-stopped mouths of tombs, speckled with offerings and amulets.

  Else came out with a bundle, closed the door and squinted eastward. ‘There’s not even a little bit of light above the wall!’

  ‘The earlier the better.’ Mirka started out along the furrowed path.

  Down across the valley they went, through the straggling town, across the garden plots at the bottom, cut apart with narrow paths and water-channels, and finally over the river itself, stone to stone across the weir. Then up they climbed, the moon at their backs, until they reached Breka’s tomb, which would always be first and finest, and Ansa’s and Holsa’s less ornamented, for Ansa had not made such a good marriage, and Holsa had not married at all and her brothers had not wasted money commemorating her adventure.

  Finally they were at Gran’s niche, a fresh mouth in the rock, flat-floored, curved-sided, with all its rocks piled up beside it. Mirka sat on the lip, set Gran down and loosened the straps. Then she and Else climbed in – Arbst was right, they’d dug a good roomy cavity – and together they moved Gran deep inside, her blanketed toes to the wall, her curved back to the world.

  Else began to weep and say her goodbyes. Mirka looked out across the valley. The softly moonlit wall between this valley and the Nonas’ turned darker as the sky lightened beyond it.

  ‘Don’t put any rocks in yet,’ Mirka said, climbing out onto the ledge.

  ‘What? Why not?’ Else wiped away tears to see her properly.

  ‘I’ve got to fetch something.’

  ‘Fetch what?’ Else scowled. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing. Keep talking to Gran. A
nd here.’ She picked up the food-bundle and put it in the niche. ‘Eat something.’

  She flitted along the cliff face, light as a bat without Gran to carry. She slithered down the steep path to the river, sprang across from stone to stone, ran up through the still-sleeping town. And then she struck right at Gran’s house – her house now, hers and Else’s. Out across the slope she went, leaving the town behind. How fast she could move without the moon-oil on her back, without the moon-wash on her head!

  Gran’s moon, the only piece left, slumped in the high cleft of an oak, shining only dimly, and split across the top from lack of oil. The oak was long dead from dousing with moon-wash. Over the years the rain had spread the wash through the soil and down the slope, killing everything, and all the dead trees had been cleared away to make space for the light to beam out.

  Mirka took the two folded cloths from her shirt. She spread the night-cloth at the foot of the tree, and the moon-muslin on top of it. She climbed to the moon, put her back and shoulders to it and pushed. Unoiled, it wasn’t heavy. People said it was made of cheese, but it more like a giant, airy cake. It made a damp squeaking noise. Its weight slid off her back, and fell with a soft splat to the cloths below.

  What did she think she was doing? Mirka gripped the dead wood and peered over the empty cleft. The moon-stuff lay like the bright centre of a black flower, broken right open to its glowing, oily heart.

  The early light strengthened. The wall was stark black now against the sunglow. The other way, in the dimmer sky above the cliff, the dark moon-hook glided slowly down towards the wound it had carved, morning after morning, in the world’s rocky rim, ever since the Daggnegs first stole the moon from the sky, and with it the stars, plunging this valley and the Nonas’ into nights of utter darkness. Then the Nonas had stolen it from them, and then, in her youth, Gran and her sisters and that bossy Breka had adventured out and captured it from the Nonas.

  Well now no one would have it. Mirka climbed down and pulled the voluminous cloths over the piece. She drew the drawstrings tight, through the soft muslin and the cracklier night-cloth. Why shouldn’t Gran take her quarter, if the other three got to take theirs?

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’ she said aloud, to keep the thought of angry Jiran Gust – of all the Gusts, of all the town enraged – from weakening her. And she hoisted the bag onto her shoulder and hurried out of the clearing.

  ‘Are you crazy? You’re crazy!’ Else wittered, running at her along the ledge.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Mirka murmured. ‘Everyone will hear you.’

  ‘They’ll kill us!’ Else said in a fierce whisper. ‘Those Gust men, think about it!’

  ‘I am not thinking.’ Mirka forced Else backwards ahead of her. ‘I am not stopping. I am not letting you stop me.’

  Else was easily pushed around too. She bounded back and forth along the path like an anxious puppy. When they reached Gran’s niche, she stood hands to her cheeks as Mirka laid the crumple of dark cloths on the floor around Gran.

  ‘There you go, Gran,’ Mirka said, though she was talking more to Else. ‘I know you didn’t want to upset people, but what’s good for Breka and the others is good for you too.’

  Else shook her head, eyes everywhere. Mirka clapped her hands at her. ‘Give me a rock, quick. Before they notice and stop us.’

  ‘You’re out of your mind,’ said Else, but she bent to the rock pile and began.

  No one did notice. It was a mark of how soft Gran had been, and how soft people thought her granddaughters were, that no one raised their eyes that day to check that the moon-piece was still in the oak. Mirka and Else sat in their house of mourning, with all the windows covered and the door wedged closed from the inside, and listened for some shout of realisation, some explosion of rage, and it never came.

  Else didn’t speak to Mirka. She sat in the corner weeping for Gran and making big scratch marks on her bald head with her fingernails.

  Mirka didn’t cry a single tear. She was too in awe of herself, and too terrified. And she was too busy listening, with the soles of her feet, and for long stretches with her ear to the ground. She could hardly feel it, she could not quite hear it: a rumour of earthquake uneasing the ground, a distant, slow gnawing within the stuff of the valley. She wished she could go out, and cross the river and press her ear to the night-cliff. Or walk the other way and listen at the wall, for the noise might not be anything to do with them burying the moon. It might be the Nonas tunnelling through the mountains, coming to reclaim the moon.

  Even inside the shuttered house it was clear when the sun began to sink. Then Else started up wailing, and it could have been mistaken for mourning, but Mirka knew it was fear – fear of people finding out, fear of being whipped and put in a cell. Else had been making too much noise, throwing herself about too much, to hear the gnawing. She didn’t know enough to fear worse: the Nona-tunnel, the gnawing moon, or what might rush out at them at any time from one side of the valley or the other.

  On and on Else went. Mirka didn’t say a word, didn’t think a thought. She just sat, feet and hands and bottom pressed to the floor, following the rise and fall of her sister’s noise, trying to feel the faint scraping, the faint chewing going on under the earth.

  Then darkness fell. It fell completely. Mirka couldn’t see any part of herself; eyes closed or open made no difference. The world was drawn in sounds: Else’s howls showing how square the other room was, shouts of alarm rising outside like a cloud of flies from a piece of rotting fruit.

  The neighbours came, pounding on the door, beating at the shutters with sticks.

  ‘This is a house of mourning,’ Mirka called out to them. ‘Can’t you see the flag?’

  ‘No one can see anything! The moon is gone, you thieving daughter of thieves!’

  ‘The moon is gone?’ Mirka exclaimed. ‘Are you sure? I haven’t cleaned or oiled it in two days. Maybe it’s fallen from the oak.’

  ‘It’s gone utterly! Don’t pretend you don’t know!’

  Else let out a shriek, then muffled her sobbing face. She’d better not shout any actual words or Mirka would throttle her.

  Then Gust men came. Jiran Gust himself stood outside the window and bellowed through the cracks. ‘Do you have the moon in there, Mirka Tyton, or is it buried in the rock with your grandmother?’

  ‘Neither!’ She must keep a steady voice. ‘I don’t know where it is if it’s not in its tree.’

  ‘Do you think we’re stupid?’ he cried. ‘When it disappears the very night your gran is buried?’

  ‘I agree, it makes us look very bad. But a thief might know that, don’t you think? There are cunning girls and greedy men who travel beyond the sky – any of them could bribe one of our people to tell them when was best to make their move.’

  Her voice, her coolness was working – he wasn’t bellowing back at her. The only noise was Else, and her own heart thumping.

  ‘Have you checked were everyone’s been,’ she said, ‘these last several hours? Have you patrolled the rim for soft spots?’

  ‘Quiet!’ he said. ‘And quiet that girl in there.’

  Something in his voice – fear in his voice, in Jiran Gust’s voice! – made Mirka fly in to Else and clap a hand over her sister’s mouth.

  Outside, someone whimpered, someone else whispered.

  ‘From the cliff,’ said a woman farther from the window.

  Mirka could feel nothing in the ground, not the merest nibble. But in place of that unease, beyond the sealed house there swelled a sound, which at first Mirka took for weather approaching, some monstrous wind, some rampaging flood.

  ‘Who is that, so many?’ said a man outside. ‘Is it those thieves the girl was talking about, rushing in over the rim?’

  And then Mirka heard it for what it was – a vast crowd of people giving voice in a hollow space.

  Arbst Clay spoke then. ‘It’s from inside the rock. It’s all our dead, from all down time. Something’s waked them. My guess is light. My guess is
the full moon.’

  The townspeople fell silent. The wind swirled the thousands-strong voice around the valley.

  ‘What will they do?’ said someone. ‘Will they come out of the cliff and walk among us?’

  A fist battered the shutter. Mirka and Else fell back as if it had come right through and hit them. ‘You’ll face the whole town tomorrow!’ Jiran Gust said. ‘If we survive the night.’

  He moved away through the crowd outside. ‘Go to your homes, people. Lock yourselves away as these young witches have. Who knows what the dead will want of us?’

  All night the dead-crowd roared behind the cliff. Sometimes they joined more or less in a song, rowdy, off-note, the beat sliding out of control. But mostly they racketed on much as a live crowd does.

  But they were not alive. They were bones and dried-up flesh. And how could such a big crowd, all our dead from all down time, not find their quarters confining? Surely they’d burst out and overrun the valley? Mirka hugged her knees and clenched her jaw tighter. Maybe she could squeeze herself right out of existence before they came.

  Else was silent now. Mirka had left her, and sat in another part of the darkness. Every surge of dead-noise sent fear spidering over her naked scalp.

  My guess is the full moon. How could the moon be full, when it was four pieces walled up in four separate tombs? Those hours of scraping underfoot – had that been the moon-pieces chewing their way to each other through the solid rock?

  Mirka could only hug and clench for so long. She dozed and jerked awake again, and now the dead-song was drearier, wearier. So the dead could tire too? Could they sleep? Would they sleep, when morning came to the living world?

  Mirka felt for the window, tried to see light bleeding in around the shutters. But everything was as yet the same markless black. She found her way to the door, fumbled for the mallet, hammered away the wedges and lifted the latch.

  ‘Mirka?’

  ‘Hush, Else. Go back to sleep.’ Mirka opened the door. The darkness outside was as shapeless as ever, but the air was cooler. The dead’s dirge droned on.