“Ah, but now that thou knowest there is more to dream, thou wilt dare to dream it,” Ariel says softly, as softly as the wind. “Thou shouldst not, for there is only pain in it for thee. Methinks the magus in his sanctum has already chosen a bridegroom for his daughter. Who shall it be? A prince? A potentate? A pharaoh?”
I should know better than to let Ariel bait me into responding; oh, I do know better! But, but, but … how can such a thing even be true? If Miranda is only this day a woman, how can Master think to see her wed, when yesterday she was a child? “That cannot be,” I say. “Who? There is no one!”
Ariel holds up one slender hand. “I, a humble servant, do but speculate. Who am I to know what the great magus dost see in his mirror? Who am I to know what the great magus wilst call forth with his art or when that day shall come? But of this I am sure. The bridegroom will be well formed and pleasing to behold.” The spirit’s appearance changes, and of a sudden it is a young man who stands before me, tall and fair-skinned, dressed in fine attire. “He shall be hale of limb and handsome of face,” the spirit continues in a deeper voice. “Eloquence shall grace his tongue. He shall be possessed of all the qualities to charm and delight a girlish heart.” He pauses. “Shall I tell thee what he most assuredly shall not be?”
“No,” I say. “I would hear no more!”
But Ariel does not listen. “He shall not be swart and stooped, with hunched shoulders and bowed legs,” he says, and his appearance shifts. “Nor shall he have a villain’s low brow and out-thrust jaw.”
I recognize myself take shape before me.
“He’ll not have hair as coarse as a pony’s mane, nor sullen eyes that glower beneath it,” Ariel continues, and now his voice is as rough and harsh as my own. A sprinkling of darker moles emerges to dot the brown skin of his face and throat and shoulders. “He’ll not be speckled like a toad.”
I see myself.
I am ugly and misshapen.
It is a thing which Ariel has told me before, but today he has shown me. Now I understand it truly in my bones, an understanding that sinks into me like a heavy stone into those dark tides.
Beside Miranda, I am a monster.
And then I am running again, running like a poor dumb wounded beast, running and falling and scrambling on bleeding hands and feet down the crag, my chest hurting and my breath coming hard in my throat, picking myself up and running, running, running with nowhere to go from a knowing I cannot run away from, and all the while Ariel’s laughter follows me, sharp and bright as knives.
TWENTY-FIVE
MIRANDA
Day by day, I accustom myself to the unpleasant business of womanhood. I cannot help but feel betrayed by it, as though I were promised a wondrous gift and given something loathsome in its place.
I suppose that is unfair, for Papa never promised me that it would be wondrous to be a woman grown. No, that is a fantasy I created for myself, daring to hope that it would be a glorious day on which Papa entrusted me with all of his secrets at last, and I would know who I was and from whence I came.
I see now that that was a vain hope. Contemplating the price of disobedience as Papa bade me, I come to see that the trust that I lost when I disobeyed him can never be regained, no more than Adam and Eve can hope to regain the lost paradise of Eden after disobeying God. Like Eve, I sought knowledge forbidden to me; and like Eve, I have only myself to blame for my sin. I should be grateful that Papa yet speaks of allowing me to assist him in his sanctum.
If the prospect fills me with creeping dread, well, I have only myself to blame for that, too.
Still, there is a small resentful part of me, the faint spark of rebellion not extinguished by my punishment and ensuing affliction, that cannot help but think that Papa might have warned me about the burden of Eve’s curse.
After all, it is an alarming amount of blood that I lose, and it is no easy task to bind the moss-filled muslin pouches in place with the sash to capture it. Although I pass the sash between my thighs and knot it firmly around my waist, the pouches are prone to shifting nonetheless. In order not to dislodge them, I am forced to walk with a careful, spraddle-legged, shuffling gait, ever heedful of the bulky pouch of dried sphagnum that is wedged between my thighs and growing sodden and distasteful as it absorbs the blood that continuously seeps from me. I find it necessary to place the jar outside Papa’s sanctum and knock upon the door at least three times a day. Of course, the shifting of the pouches causes blood to soak the sash, too, in patches that dry and crust and chafe my thighs. Given that Papa regards this blood—this menstruum, as he calls it—as such a valuable and dangerous substance, I am not sure what I am to do about it.
When I ask Papa, he frowns. “I should have thought the arrangement sufficient,” he says. “Can you not manage these matters more carefully, Miranda?”
I look down. “Forgive me, Papa. I am doing my best.”