I turn to him and put my teeth together hard. “Wife?”
“His beloved.” The spirit shows his teeth and smiles knives at me. “Miranda’s mother.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Ah, well! Not her, not exactly. She died giving birth to Miranda.” Ariel touches one finger to his lips. “But our dear master thought to use his arts to grow himself a homunculus to replace her. Poor deformed creature! It should never have been made. I reckon ’tis a piece of God’s mercy that it perished, though I daresay the magus thinks otherwise.” He shudders. “And poor Miranda!”
My thoughts are dark and muddy, and I do not understand the spirit’s words. “What of her?”
Ariel looks at me sideways. “She caused its demise,” he says. “’Twas an accident, but…”
“No.”
“Yes.”
And now I do and do not understand. Not all the words, no, but enough. My heart hurts inside me.
Oh, Miranda!
In the garden, Master pushes dirt into the hole with his own hands, his head low and his shoulders going up and down. I think maybe he is crying tears. I am not sad for him, though.
“An accident,” I say.
“It means she did not do it a-purpose,” Ariel says.
“Yes,” I say. “I know. I know what is an accident. But Master punishes her for it anyway and I think she is very hurt. She sleeps and sleeps and does not wake.” I look at the spirit in his eyes, in his eyes that turn colors and change. “If you know everything, tell me this thing. Will Miranda die?”
Now Ariel shakes his head, all his white hair floating around his pretty face. He does not look back at me. “I know not,” he says. “I do not know everything. Only God does and ’tis for Him to decide. All things are His to decide.”
God.
I would like to spit on the ground. I do not like this God in the sky who decides everything.
I do not like this Ariel.
Most of all I do not like Master.
I do not want to see or hear anything more. I push past Ariel on the wall, only there is nothing to push when I do, only whoosh and he is gone, a feeling like wind and mist on my face.
I go to Miranda’s garden and crouch on the wall and watch her sleep. She sleeps and sleeps. I creepity-creep to the window and say her name. Quiet, so quiet, like she says my name through the rocks that night long ago; then louder; then more louder, so loud I am afraid that Master will hear all the way in the far garden.
But Miranda does not wake.
What else to do?
I look at the sun in the sky and think it is high enough to go to my place and back before Master knows I am gone.
First I gather flowers and vines from the gardens; the little white ones like stars that smell so sweet, and some bigger ones that have flowers that are orange and red and shaped like a thing that makes a loud shout that Miranda says is called a trumpet, though she never did see one. I make them into a big circle as I go, tying them like a snare to catch a hare, but in my thoughts I am making what Miranda says is called a necklace. It is a special thing.
It is harder to climb to the most high place with my arms full, but at last there is Setebos laughing at the sky.
I put the circle of flowers and vines around his neck and it is oh, so pretty! Little white flowers and big orange-red flowers like flames side by side, and all the green leaves and vines, smelling so nice. I remember what Ariel says about Setebos, but I do not care. The spirit does not know everything.
Setebos watches over the isle and the sea, and Setebos watches over me since Umm is dead.
I am alive.
And Setebos is here.
So.
“Setebos.” I reach to put my hands on his upturned face and say his name. The hard brown stone of him is warm from the sun. My eyes are hot and wet, and my hurting heart is afraid inside me. To pray is to say please and thank you, so I do. “Oh, please! Let her live. Let Miranda wake and live.” I stretch tall and put my lips on his jaw. The circle of vines and flowers tickles against my skin, ticklety-tickle. “Please, Setebos! Thank you, Setebos!”
Little bits in the rocks in his eye-holes that I put there so he might see better sparkle in the sun.
I think he hears me.
“Please,” I whisper again. “Thank you.”
I go back.
Master is in the kitchen, moaning and groaning as he makes some bad-smelling thing on the hearth. Now that he is not so very, very angry, he thinks to be sad for Miranda who is hurt and not only himself, but I am still not sad for him. But now he is afraid, too, and that makes me more afraid. “Oh, oh!” he says. “Oh, Miranda, my poor, sweet child! You innocent fool! What have I done, what have I done?”
(I know what you have done, Master.)