Not so very long ago, I would have been holding the pail for him and shouting encouragement from the banks, both of us laughing for the sheer joy of being young and alive.
With the advent of spring, Caliban has abandoned the coarse shirt I made for him and is clad only in worn and tattered sailcloth breeches. His bare skin gleams like polished wood in the sunlight. The muscles of his bent back fan like wings, reaching for his shoulders. Below the pointed ridge of black hair that descends from the nape of his neck, I can see the knobs of bone running down his spine.
I should like to touch them.
I should like to understand how a man is made.
It is a curious thought, and I am not sure if it is a thought of Miranda-the-painter who would stretch out the wing of a mummified bat to see how its tendons conjoin to the bone or … something else.
And then Caliban plunges his hands into the stream and catches a fish, its scales glistening silvery green as it thrashes in his grip.
“Oh, well done!” I cry, clapping my hands together like the child I had been; I cannot help myself.
“Miranda!” Caliban’s head comes up. He tosses the fish into the pail and glowers at me, straightening from his crouch. “Why are you here? You should not be here.”
“Forgive me,” I say to him. “But I would speak further to you of what you told me the other evening.”
“No.” Caliban lowers his head and shakes it like a goat balking at the rope. “You told me to let it be.”
I take a step toward the bank. “You caught me unawares.”
“There is nothing we can do,” Caliban says. “You did say it; I am no match for Master’s—for Prospero’s—magic.”
“We can seek to allay our own ignorance, Caliban!” I say. “Are you not weary of it?” I think I have him cornered on the rocks and he must stay and answer me, but I have underestimated both his agility and his determination to avoid my presence, for he abandons the pail and turns his back on me, leaping from boulder to boulder across the rushing stream.
Well, he has underestimated my determination, too. I am done with letting him flee my presence without ever once telling me what in the name of all that is holy troubles him so.
“Caliban!” I call after him, hoisting the skirts of my gown to my ankles. I step onto the first boulder. “I will follow you day and night until you stop and talk to me!”
Midstream, he pauses and turns to face me, his gaze filled with alarm. “Miranda, no! It’s too dangerous.”
The rocks are slippery, but Caliban is looking at me, truly looking at me without flinching away. True, ’tis with fear and concern, but for the first time in long months, I feel as though he is seeing me and not whatever it is I have become in his eyes that he cannot abide the sight of. It is a big step to the next boulder. I let go my skirts and flail my arms for balance, toes clinging to the surface of the slick rock beneath the shining rush of water. “Will you stay and talk to me, then? Else I will follow.”
He hesitates.
It will require a short jump to reach the next boulder, which protrudes from the surface of the stream. The water is colder than I reckoned, and I am not so hardy as Caliban; nor even so hardy as I was before I began spending my days assisting Papa in his sanctum. My feet are growing numb and the hem of my gown is sodden and heavy, tangling around my ankles. On the far bank, shimmering dragonflies hover above the reeds. Some distance upstream, the water elementals cease their antics and watch with idle interest.
If I do not make the attempt, I shall lose my nerve and my threat shall be proven a vain one. Gathering my skirts and my courage, I leap. For a moment, I think I have gained the boulder safely and begin to smile in triumph, but then one foot slips, and suddenly I am falling.
“Miranda!”
Caliban’s cry is the last thing I hear before the rush of the stream stops my ears. The shock of the cold water drives the breath from my lungs; cold, colder than I reckoned, and deeper, too. When I open my mouth, it fills with water and it is all I can do not to inhale it. The weight of my gown drags me down into the depths of the stream and the current takes me. I thrash against it to no avail.
I cannot breathe.
Oh, good Lord God, I cannot breathe! The water is cold, so cold, and the current is so strong that I cannot tell up from down.
My lungs burn.
Papa will be so angry at me for dying thusly, I think foolishly.
And then a hand clamps my wrist, pulling so hard that my shoulder aches in its socket. My head breaks the surface, and I gasp and sputter. Caliban gets his hands under my arms and hauls me from the stream to the safety of the near bank, where I lie curled and trembling with the cold, my teeth a-chatter.
“Miranda!” He pats at me with anxious hands, his worried face inches from mine. “Are you hurt?”
“N-n-nuh!” I force the words out between my chattering teeth. “Cold!”