Ariel shrugs his shoulders. “Not all base desires stem from the root of thy manhood,” he says dismissively. “To what end dost thou suppose the magus works?”
I am weary of his taunting. “Why do you ask me when you know the answer and will not share it?”
“Why?” Ariel echoes the word. “Why not? Should I pretend to understand mine own whys and wherefores? Indeed, my monstrous friend, I do not.” His hands dance in the air, weaving back and forth, breezes streaming from his fingertips. “While I remain at our master’s beck and call, my whim and will is as the wind, blown hither and thither and yon; no more am I free to say. Wilst tell me thou hast not wondered at our master’s purpose?”
A monster he has named me and a monster he has shown me to myself, so it is a monster I will be. Opening the larder, I thrust my hand into the pail full of mussels and seawater. Plucking out a mussel, I pry it open with my nails and tear loose the morsel of orange flesh. I pop it into my mouth, poppity-pop, and chew it raw with savage pleasure. I fish out a second mussel, but it is closed hard and tight and will not open, so I thrust it whole into my mouth and crack its shell with my strong back teeth. Sharp shards cut my mouth, but I do not care that it hurts. I chew it anyway, chomp-chomp-chomp, tasting brine and blood. “I wish the wind would blow you away forever!” I say fiercely, spraying bits of shell and bloody seawater.
Ariel’s eyes have gone cold and dark with no light in them. “There is a storm in the offing, and where it will blow the lot of us, not even I can say. Thou hast wits and will not use them. Methinks thou art a greater fool than I had reckoned.”
I spit out a mouthful of shards. “I care naught for what you think!”
“As thou wilt.” Ariel bends at the waist, sweeping one arm behind him; Miranda taught me long ago that is a thing called a bow. It is a thing a man does to show honor and respect to someone, and there is a thing that a girl or a woman does that is called a curtsy, and she showed me that, too. It was a thing I had seen her do to Master many times, but I did not know what it was called. Oh, we did bow and curtsy to each other all one long day, Miranda and I, laughing and laughing.
But that was many years ago, and there is no honor in Ariel’s bow, only mockery. He goes away and I am alone.
My mouth is cut and hurting, and there is a taste in it like ashes from the mussel shell. I spit out the last of the shards and think to myself, oh Caliban, you are a foolish monster indeed.
There is a storm in the offing.
That Ariel is a tricksy spirit and I do not trust him, no, not for one heartbeat; but he has no love for Master. It may be that in his own tricksy way he was trying to tell me something.
Or it may be that the spirit only sought a new way to make mock of me.
But, but, but …
I think of that day, oh, so long ago, when Master did arrive on the isle with you, Miranda. There was a storm that day, too. I think of Master’s voice and the cold, hard, angry words he did speak across the sea while you were sleeping, sleeping on the sand. I wish I could remember what words Master did say, but that was from before, when words were lost to me.
I think Ariel did speak truly. Another storm is coming, and I do not know what it will bring.
Oh, I would protect you, Miranda! You are like sunlight to me. I would protect you from aught that might harm you; yes, and from your own father who seeks to use you for his own ends, whatever they may be.
If only I could bear to look you in the face.
TWENTY-SEVEN
MIRANDA
Papa’s sanctum is a wondrous place.
I have not forgotten what befell me there, but the more time I spend in his private chamber, the more faint and distant the memory grows; and the more ashamed I feel of the fear it instilled in me.
I am oh, so enamored of this process of painting! It is quite simply magical. With every stroke of the brush, I learn more and more of what I am about and to what I aspire. When I sleep, I dream of figures passing over me as the spheres of heaven rotate above me, and I seek to memorize the lines and planes of them, and every aspect of their visages that I might render them truly.
Under Papa’s tutelage, I learn to care for my brushes, cleaning them in the pungent turpentine he has distilled from pine sap and wiping them dry on rags. I learn about the bright pigments which the little gnomes have delved from the deepest and most remote places on the isle and ground to a fine powder: lead white, red cinnabar, azurite blue, yellow ochre, green malachite, brown umber, and carbon black. For each of these elements, there are correspondences; some logical and some unexpected. Cinnabar, for example, from which the vermilion pigment is ground, is also the element from which quicksilver, the living metal itself, is extracted.
Who could have imagined such a thing? Truly, this isle is filled with magic.