Her chief interest, however, lay in Nkiruka’s spider. “Am I correct that you were using a frottis mélange to slip the spider outside the visible spectrum?” It was the only thing that made sense, for them to have created the spider earlier and then colour-shifted it away.
Nkiruka frowned at her for a moment, then shouted into the house. “Amey!” She followed that with a string of language that Jane did not recognise at all.
The young woman poked her head out of the house. “Mama. Remember Mr. Pridmore want us to speak only English.”
“Bah. Let dem tell.” She shrugged. “Me too old fu punish.”
“You know that not true.”
“Maybe. But still, tell me wha she say.”
Amey turned to Jane. “Sorry, ma’am. You can repeat the question? I’ll try an’ help my mother understand.”
“Of course. Thank you for your help. The spider your mother made. I wanted to know if she used frottis mélange.”
Amey bit her lip. “Hm … I don’t know that word either.”
Too late, far too late, Jane understood that she was asking about a formal term of art that neither woman would have had opportunity or reason to learn. “It … it is a word that relates to using a thread of poorfire…” That term received nearly as blank a look as the French had. “Using a thread of glamour that is above the visible spectrum—that is, light that we cannot see with normal vision. So, frottis mélange means using that thread to anchor a fold elsewhere. I—I think my explanation was so disordered that it barely made sense to myself, but did you catch my meaning?”
“I think so, ma’am.” Amey turned to her mother, who waited patiently through the exchange. Amey changed to a rolling percussive language and the two had a rapid conversation, including hand gestures that Jane thought might be glamour.
In fact, as they continued, she became more certain that it was. It alarmed her to see a woman who was increasing work glamour. “Please—there is no need for you to work glamour on my account. Not in your condition.”
The two women stopped. Nkiruka looked at her, then at Amey, then back at Jane. “Why?”
“Well…” She did not want to discuss such a delicate subject, especially if it would alarm Amey, but without the benefit of an education, they might not know of the danger. “Well, glamour is not safe for a woman in the family way.”
“You t’ink glamour mek woman lose dem baby?”
“I have been taught that, yes.” It was, in fact, common knowledge in England.
Nkiruka laughed at her, shaking her head. “No, no.”
Jane shook her own head. She had miscarried before while working glamour. “I have evidence to the contrary.”
“Ha! If working glamour mek woman lose picknee then no new slave woulda born.”
“I understand your point, but must, respectfully, disagree. All of the best medical science says that the energy toll on the mother’s body from working glamour is a danger to both her and the child.”
“English medicine. You t’ink glamour all one thing.” Nkiruka shook her head and held up three fingers. “Is three different magics. Two safe. Sound and scent. Even light all right, if not too much. Like walking. Walking good for de mother. Running, no.”
The memory of running through a field of rye with a stitch in her side stopped Jane’s breath for a moment. She shook her head to brush the past away. “But the overseer says that the birth rate here is extremely low. If your expectant mothers are working glamour, might that account for it?”
There was a shift in Nkiruka’s posture, but Jane could not determine what it was. A glance passed between Amey and Nkiruka. The moment passed so quickly that Jane might have imagined it.
Amey struggled up from the bench, steadying herself with a hand against the wall. “Don’t worry bout me. The only thing that hurt is that hard bench. I goin’ inside. Call if you need me.”
“You lie down.” Nkiruka watched her daughter go, then leaned back against the wall. “My daughter tell me what you asking ’bout de spider. You wan’ know how I do it.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Language hard for dis. Come, let me show you.” She moved her hand and, in the centre of the yard, the spider rose from the dust.
Jane frankly gaped. When Nkiruka had worked the creature before, she had been sitting on a bench on the other side of the yard. Any threads she had to control the glamour must have been anchored there, and yet she worked it from here. Generally, the further one was from the illusion, the harder it was to maintain the threads and folds involved in creating it. Nkiruka showed no sign of even breathing hard. Jane swallowed in astonishment.
“I am afraid I did not quite catch the weave.” To be more accurate, Jane had not seen it at all.
“Dat ah your first trouble. Folds. Weaves. I do not use those.”
“Pardon?” It had clearly been a glamour. “May I ask, then, how you created it?”
“Is different where I come from. We don’t try an’ mek glamour behave like cloth.”
“Oh—oh, well, neither do I. It is only that the language of fabric is so useful for discussing what is an otherwise intangible art.”