The Midnight Circus, стр. 33
“Well,Iain,” I said. “You have come to me.”
“Ihave been called to you,” he said airily. “I could not stay away.”
Andthen suddenly I understood that he did not know there was magic about;that these were just words he spoke, part of his lovemaking, that meantas little to him as the kisses themselves, just prelude to his passion.
Well,I had already paid for his pleasure and now he would have to stay formine. I opened my arms and he walked into them as if he had never beenaway, his kisses the sweeter now that I knew what he was and how toplay his game.
Inthe morning I woke him with the smell of barley bread. I thought if Icould get him to stay a second night, and a third, the charm would havea chance of really working. So I was sweet and pliant and full of anardor that his kisses certainly aroused, though that which followedseemed to unaccountably dampen it. Still, I could dissemble when I hadto, and each time we made love I cried out as if fulfilled. Thenwhile he slept, I tiptoed out to the place where I had buried thebutter sachet.
“Stay,Iain, stay. Stay, Iain, stay,” I recited over the little grave where myhopes lay buried.
Fora day and another night it seemed to work. He did stay—and quitehappily—often sitting half-dressed in the cot watching me cook or lyingnaked on the sandy beach, playing his whistle to call the seals to him.They roseup out of the water, gazing long at him, as if they were bewitched.
Wemade love three and four and five times, day and night, ’til my thighsached the way my arms had at the churn, and I felt scrubbed raw fromtrying to hold on to him.
Buton the third day, when he woke, he refused both the barley and mykisses.
“Enough,sweet Moll,” he said. “I am a traveler, and I must travel.” He gotdressed slowly, as if almost reluctant to leave but satisfying the formof it. I said nothing ’til he put his boots on, then could not stopmyself.
“Onto another shieling, then?”
“Perhaps.”
“Andwhat of the babe—here.” It was the first time I had mentioned it. Fromthe look on his face, I knew it made no matter to him, and withoutwaiting for an answer, I stalked out of the croft. I went to theheadland and stood athwart the place where the butter lay buried.
“Stay,Iain,” I whispered. “Stay. . . ,” but there was neither power normagic nor desire in my calling.
Hecame up behind me and put his arms around me, crossing his hands overmy belly where the child-to-be lay quiet.
“Marryanother,” he whispered, nuzzling my ear, “but call him after me.”
Iturned in his arms and pulled him around to kiss me, my mouth wide openas if to take him in entire. And when the kiss was done, I pulled awayand pushed him over the cliff into the sea.
Likemost men of Leodhais, he could not swim, but little it would haveavailed him, for he hit the rocks and then the water, sinking at once.He did not come up again ’til three seals pushed him ashore onto thebeach, where they huddled by his body for a moment as if expecting atune, then plunged back into the sea when there was none.
Ihurried down and cradled his poor broken body in my arms, weeping notfor him but for myself and what I had lost, what I had buried up onthat cliff, along with the butter, in a boggy little grave. Strippingthe ring from his hand, I put it on my own, marrying us in the eyes ofthe sea. Then I put him on my back and carried him up the cliffside tobury him deep beneath the heather that would soon be the color of hishair, of his eyes.
Twoweeks later, when Mairi came, I showed her the ring.
“Wewere married in God’s sight,” I said, “with two selchies as bridesmaidsand a gannet to cry out the prayers.”
“Andwhere is the bridegroom now?” she asked.
“Goneto Steornabhagh,” I lied, “to whistle us up money for our very owncroft.” She was not convinced. She did not say so, but I could read herface.
Ofcourse he never returned and—with Mairi standing up for me—I marriedold McLeod after burying my father, who had stumbled into a hole onenight after too much whiskey, breaking both his leg and his neck.
McLeodwas too old for more than a kiss and a cuddle—as Mairi hadguessed—and too pigheaded to claim the child wasn’t his own. When thebabe was born hale and whole, I named him Iain, a common-enough name inthese parts, with only his nurse Mairi the wiser. At McLeod’s death ayear later, I gave our old farm over to her. It was a payment, sheknew, but exactly for what she never asked, not then or ever.
NowI lie abed with the pox, weakening each day, and would repent of themagic and the rest—though not of the loving which gave me my child.Still I would have my Iain know who his mother was and what she did forwant of him, who and what his father was, and how the witch cursed usall. I would not have my son unmindful of his inheritance. If ever thewind calls him to travel, if ever a witch should tempt him to magic, orif ever a cold, quiet rage makes him choose murder, he will understandand, I trust, set all those desires behind.
Writtenthis year of Our Lord 1539, Tir a’ Gheallaidh, Isle of Lewis
DogBoy Remembers
THE DOG BOY was just a year old and newly walking when his father returnedto take him into Central Park. It was summer and the moon was full overgreen trees.
Theonly scents he’d loved ’til then were the sweet milk smells his mothermade, the fust of the sofa cushions, the prickly up-your-nose of thefeathers in his pillow, the pure spume of water from the tap, and theprimal stink of his own shit before it was washed down into the whitebowl.
When his father came to fetch him