Lily Read online

  Only then did she open her eyes, gazing up through the thin skin of water that covered her body. She could see the familiar shapes of the bathroom around her, thrown out of focus by the distortion of the water’s motion. She wondered if this was what it was like to drown, if just before death the drowning person looked up and saw through the waves the shapes of a familiar world stretched into fantastical lines. She wondered what her father saw just before the water filled his lungs and his heart had stopped beating.

  The water became deeper, filling up the big tub until she was lying at the bottom with a foot of ever-shifting golden light between her and life. There, caught between the worlds of water and air, she floated, listening. Her ears were filled with the sounds of the storm coming from far away, as though somewhere above her a giant blacksmith was beating his hammer against a forge and the echo was rolling down and around her head, becoming less powerful as it pushed its way through the water until, reaching her, it had become a soothing pulse.

  Without wanting to, she found herself thinking about the ability of water to shut out the harshness of the upper world. She recalled once when she was very small being on the deck of a boat during a sudden and furious storm, and looking down into the black waves. The shrieking of the wind and the startled cries of the other passengers had upset her. Then the boat had shifted violently as a wave lifted it up, and she had been dumped into the ocean. The blackness closed over her head, and as she sank into it, in the moments before someone dove in to bring her back, her one thought had been not how frightened she was, but how quiet and calm it had been under the water.

  It was like that now. Outside the storm raged, while in the tiny bathroom at the top of the house on the cliff, a girl who was not yet a woman was rocked in a warm cocoon. The shifting light threw patterns against the porcelain so delicate that the slightest movement of a finger or toe caused them to fall apart like breaking glass, only to reform moments later in entirely new ways as they played across her skin. She felt as though she was a creature waiting for its time to be born, knowing that while it remained in its shell of light it would be forever protected.

  After a minute had passed, her chest began to ache, as the oxygen she had drawn into her lungs at the last moment before she submerged ran out. Her body cried out for her to leave the water and return to the realm of air. At the same time, she felt a peculiar desire to stay where she was, to let the water drag her even further down into itself, where she would not have to hear the sounds of storms. She wondered how many people, when they drowned, faced an instant when they had to choose to keep reaching for air and life or to simply sink. How many of them, thinking they wanted nothing more than to draw breath once more, stopped only inches away from the surface and, bewitched by the quiet, turned back. She imagined her father trying to push his way up through the blue as the remaining oxygen within him evaporated into his blood. She pictured him frozen, knowing that another pull of his arms would bring him through the barrier between life and death. She wondered if he’d had to choose.

  Then came the moment when she herself had to make that decision. She could lift her head and rise up, or she could remain still. Despite the burning of her lungs as they called to her for air, she felt something comforting about the idea of taking the water into herself, of filling up every empty space inside with warmth. She closed her eyes, surrounding herself with the feeling of it. And as she did, she saw again her father’s face, the dead eyes staring into her own, and she chose.

  She screamed, the sound emerging as bubbles that rolled out of her mouth and went speeding up to the light. Her body followed, her head rushing up behind the scream until she was through and air was filling her lungs in great gasping sobs.

  T W O

  BABA YAGA NIBBLED the last bit of meat from the finger bone, then sucked on the end, pulling the still-hot marrow into her mouth with a satisfying slurp. She dropped the bone into the bowl on the table, and reached for another. Finding the pan empty, she uttered a curse and pushed the bowl away. She tried to remember if there was another child in the cellar; she didn’t want to kill one of her fine, fat chickens.

  She was always ravenous when awakened from a deep sleep, and her mood was not improved by the dream she’d had. The girl who had come to her was unlike any she had ever encountered. Filled with wild magic. The question was, how would she use her power? The possibilities were many, and Baba considered them all one by one. Such a girl could be very useful. Or dangerous. Probably both.

  Her stomach rumbled, and she got to her feet. She walked down the seven stairs to the cellar door and peered through the tiny window set into the wood.

  “Is anyone in there?” she called, rapping on the door with a bony knuckle. It was difficult to see in the dark, and the shadows played tricks on her eyes.

  A whimpering sound came from one corner. “Please.” A boy’s voice. “Let me out. I promise I’ll be good.”

  Baba Yaga’s spirits brightened. She wouldn’t have to wring a chicken’s neck, or waste time plucking feathers while her stomach grumbled. “Come on, come on,” she said, opening the door. “Make yourself useful.”

  The boy scurried out. Standing before her, he trembled. He was small and thin. His face was dirty, and there were bits of straw in his hair. A bit like a chicken himself, Baba Yaga thought. She wished he were bigger, or that there were two of him.

  “Are you afraid?” she asked.

  The boy nodded his head.

  Baba Yaga tried to remember what he had done to land himself in her cellar. Stolen an egg from her henhouse? Taken the wrong path through the forest? Accepted a dare from a friend to knock at her door? Perhaps he’d simply decided to see if the stories were true.

  Unfortunately for him, they were.

  Grabbing the boy by the wrist, she dragged him behind her as she returned to the kitchen. Her hunger was reaching monstrous proportions, and she considered eating him uncooked. But the taste of the roasted marrow was still on her tongue, and so she opened the door to the huge oven and threw him inside. She hummed loudly to drown out the sounds of his protests, but these lasted only a few moments. Her fire was hot, and soon the cottage was quiet again.

  She settled into her chair to wait. Again her thoughts returned to the girl. It was seldom that she found herself intrigued by anyone, particularly a human. But this girl made her curious. Curious enough to leave the forest? she asked herself.

  She hadn’t had such a thought in many a year. Now that she did, she considered the question. Was it time for an adventure? What could she gain from it? Perhaps nothing. But it might amuse her to see where this child went and what she did. And it’s not as if you’re doing anything else, she reminded herself.

  The smell of roasting meat filled the air. She sniffed, inhaling deeply, and her mouth watered. Yes, perhaps it was indeed time for an adventure. But first, a bit of supper.

  T H R E E

  IN THE WAY OF THE village, they buried Lily’s father that evening, despite the storm that continued to rage around the point where the cemetery had stood since the first inhabitant had died and been laid to rest there, looking out over the sea, her grave swept clean by endless winds. It was there that the people gathered at dusk, the lanterns they held in their hands casting a golden pale over the hole that had been dug as soon as news of the drowning had spread. Beside the hole lay the body, wrapped from head to toe in whitest linen and tied around the chest with a red cord.

  as soon as news of the drowning had spread. Beside the hole lay the body, wrapped from head to toe in whitest linen and tied around the chest with a red cord.

  The village had no priest, as they followed nothing that would be called a religion by anyone who happened upon them murmuring into the waves before launching their boats or saw them pinning small bags of salt or bunches of mistletoe inside the pockets of their greatcoats before setting out after dark had fallen. Yet they were possessed of rituals as dark and as strong as any performed by the servants of God, and it was Alex
Henry who led them through them. He stood now beside the mouth in the earth, looking out at the sea and waiting. When the last of the sun had fallen behind the horizon and the first and brightest star of evening was visible even through the cloud-washed sky, he turned to the assembled villagers.

  “It is time,” he said, and nodded to the two men on either side of him. Moving silently, they took the head and feet of the body that lay on the grass and gently lowered it into the ground. Then they stepped back, and all eyes turned to Lily, who stood at the opposite end of the grave from Alex Henry. Her mother had refused to come, locking herself in her bedroom when they came for her, and so she stood alone looking down at her father’s shell.

  “It is the child who begins it,” said Alex Henry, and Lily walked to the pile of earth beside the grave and took a handful of dirt. Clutched in her fist, it was cool with rain, and she felt it compress into a ball as she squeezed it tightly. Turning to the open hole, she held her hand over her father’s chest and crumbled the earth in her fingers. It fell in a fine rain over the linen, dusting the body as cinnamon might be sprinkled over freshly-baked bread. When her hand was empty, she turned away.

  One by one, the villagers filed past the grave, each one taking up a handful of earth and passing it over the body of Lily’s father. This much of the death ritual they shared with those outside their world; even the children understood the importance of covering the body with earth from their hands. Lily watched as fathers led to the grave little ones barely able to walk and helped them cast their offerings into the darkness.

  When they had all passed, Alex Henry nodded once more to the two men beside him, and they began to fill the remainder of the hole, their shovels working like clockwork arms as one lifted a spoonful of dirt, turned it into the hole, and then swept away as his companion echoed the sequence. Lily knew that they would be done quickly, as tradition demanded, and that before the moon rose to its highest point her father would be wrapped in earth.

  The villagers began the walk back to the small group of houses, and as the last person passed by her, Lily fell into step with the others. Moments later, the song of death began, the first high keening note sung by the woman with the most beautiful voice. The others joined in after her, and soon the night air was filled with the sounds of many voices. Lily sang too, taking comfort in the words of light and love and renewal. Her heart was sore, and she knew that she would cry more tears in the days to come, but as she watched the procession of gentle light wind its way down the sloping path and into the welcoming arms of the village, she sang with joy.

  They came to the doors of the Great Hall, and went inside. As they did at each death, they would spend the night together, eating and drinking around the fire. The youngest would be told stories of the creatures that came out with the moon and of things that danced beneath the sea. They would hear of the fair folk and the selkies, of the White Ladies and the kobold. They would be told of Foolish Sarah, who followed a man with the feet of a goat into the forest and returned seven years later, her mind half gone, and of the young man who listened too closely to the promises of a vodyanoy and was drowned for want of a kiss.

  Like the funeral, this was the way of the village. Lily could remember with great clarity the first time she’d sat in the hall, on a winter’s night when the sea wind hurled snow sharp as knives and they gathered to celebrate the death of old Elsbeth Applegrim, almost two hundred years old when she’d turned from her baking and crumbled into dust on the kitchen floor. Lily had sat, eyes wide with terror and excited wonder, as Alex Henry had told the children why the villagers wrapped their dead about with red cord.

  “The soul,” he said in a voice like whiskey seeping from its cask, “is tied to the body like a lover to a lover. When one dies, the other wanders alone and afraid. We bind the soul to the body so that it remains at sleep. If we did not, the world would be crowded with souls looking for their missing selves.”

  Lily had seen ghosts. Everyone had. They appeared at moonfall and in the hours afterwards, pale forms that walked the fields and peered in windows. In general they were stupid creatures and not to be feared, but Lily knew that sometimes they gathered someone who looked like their missing selves into their arms and carried them into the next world. They did it for love, that was understood, but still their touch could bring death.

  Sitting by the fire and looking into the dancing flames, she thought about the red cord wrapped tightly about her father’s chest. She imagined digging through the earth and cutting it, freeing his soul so that she could see once more what he looked like in motion. But she knew also that it would bring pain. Years ago, a young man had done exactly that, sneaking away from the safety of the Great Hall to the cemetery and unearthing the body of the girl he’d loved. Her spirit had risen, and he’d reached out to her, only to feel the life taken from him as she reached cold hands into his chest to warm them.

  The flames blew hot breath over Lily’s skin, and the voices of the people talking around her provided a soothing murmur upon which she let her tired body rest. She thought about her mother, locked in the bedroom of the empty house. She pictured her huddled against the wall of the bedroom, staring at the bolted door and fearing any knock that might come against it. She wondered if her mother would open the door should her father’s wraith come calling for her, or if she would put a pillow over her head and scream until morning drove him away. Her mother did not believe in such things, she knew, but she also knew that belief had little to do with whether a thing was true or not.

  She was woken from her half-sleep by the touch of Alex Henry’s hand on her shoulder. “I have something for you,” he said, handing her two packages wrapped in paper and tied with string.

  Lily looked at the bundles, turning them over in her hands. “What are they?” she asked.

  “Your father’s birthday gifts to you,” he said. “I brought them from the house.”

  Alex Henry walked away and rejoined the children waiting for him to tell them another story about Black Hannah or the silver-eyed foxes that darted beneath the fir trees on Midsummer Eve carrying messages between the worlds. The other villagers were busy about the Hall, tending the roasting meats, sewing, and remembering other nights like this one.

  Lily picked up the larger of the two packages. It was surprisingly heavy. As her fingers worked at the knotted string, she imagined her father wrapping it, his big hands deftly knotting the thin twine as though he were mending a tear in one of his nets. Even more clearly than she remembered his face, she could recall the look and feel of his hands, so often had he held her close or lifted her up, laughing, and spun her around until the sky and sea melted together and she felt the pounding of the earth’s heart in her own. His hands with their long fingers, the skin cracked from pulling the rough nets into the boat and from lifting heavy tangles of fish, flapping and dripping, from the ocean.

  The knot came free, and the string fell away from the package. Lily tucked it into the pocket of her dress before pulling apart the paper to see what lay beneath. It was a hand mirror, a small round of polished glass set in a silver frame. It looked old, like something that would sit on the dressing table of a very rich woman, for her to hold in her hand and look into as she fixed her hair or applied color to her lips. Lily wondered where it had come from.

  Lily picked up the mirror. The metal grew warm in her hand. She traced her finger over the silverwork, the seahorses and outlines of crashing waves decorating the back, feeling the ridges and valleys beneath her fingers. It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. The edge of the frame was also worked up into waves of silver, and falling crests of water framed her reflection. She looked at herself, and was surprised to see that the glass reflected nothing of the room behind her. Only her face was visible, and no matter how she turned the mirror, she saw nothing else. The glass itself was very old, its surface thin as paper. Yet within it her features were shown perfectly, as though her mirror image were even more alive than she hersel
f was. This disturbed her, and she turned the mirror over in her lap and picked up the second parcel.

  The smaller gift turned out to be a small wooden box. It was perfectly smooth, with no inscription or design marring the deep red skin of the wood. Nor were there any hinges or locks; the top was carved to fit perfectly over the bottom. Lily lifted the lid and found inside a seashell. It was unlike any she had ever seen before, perfectly round and large enough to cover the whole of her palm. It was pale blue in color, and its surface was swirled with violet, like the color of the clouds just after a rain. She picked it up, and found that its sides curved back under itself, forming a hollow shape. Around the sides were tiny holes that created intricate patterns all around the edge.

  Also inside the box was a note. Lily picked it up and unfolded it. Written in her father’s clear, fine hand was a short letter.

  Dear Lily,

  I found this shell many years ago, when I was the age that you are now. I have never seen another like it, just as I have never seen another like you. As is so with other shells, when you listen to this one you will hear the sea. But sometimes you will hear much more. I took it with me when I left the village, and when I needed to return its sound led me back.

  Always remember that I love you.

  Lily folded the note with great care and slipped it back in the box. Then she lifted the shell to her ear and listened. The sound of the sea roared through its emptiness, carrying with it the sharp cries of gulls, the slap of waves, and the whistling of the wind where it sang freely while tossing the waves into the air. She had heard these sounds many times echoed in the hollow of a shell. But somehow this shell contained not an echo but the true voice of the sea captured within its glossy walls. She put it too back into the box and replaced the lid.