Upon A Starlit Tide

11. Sea Slippers

11

Sea Slippers

The world spun hard on its axis, whirling like the globe in Papa’s study used to when Luce, too young to understand its worth, sent it spinning. At the same time—absurdly, impossibly—time itself seemed to stop. She was falling backward, arms flailing in panic, dream-slow. Her hands became a child’s again, small and plump, though now there were strange webs of fragile skin glowing between her fingers. Beyond them, the sky was moving rapidly, turning and turning, although it wasn’t the sky anymore. It was her father’s globe: islands and sea serpents, archipelagos and continents, a blur of ancient colour beneath the endless wheeling of the stars.

The water, when she finally hit it, stole her breath. She gasped, tried to right herself and stand, but there was no longer sand beneath her. The water was suddenly, unreasonably deep, and she was sinking like a stone, black hair trailing through splayed fingertips.

Silence, and softness. She heard singing, low and sweet, a tune she did not recognise. Light and dark at once. And still she sank, down and down. Fear caught her in its teeth. She struggled against it, against the relentless weight bearing her down, and felt something soft beneath her. Silk billowed, rippling like water.

The blue dress.

It cradled Luce as gently as a mother. Folded her unto itself, held her in its cool embrace. And still the groac’h sang, gentle as a lullaby.

Time ceased to be of consequence. How long had she drifted in blue, caught between the surface and the seafloor? How long had it been since she had breathed? Minutes? Hours? Her eyes fluttered open, realisation causing the last of her breath to bubble out of her lungs. The surface seemed too far, the distance too great, the weight of the blue dress dragging her down, down, toward the deep.

A hand broke the surface above. Luce reached up, grasped it. The sea surged at her back, lifting her, pushing her. She stumbled onto the shore, gasping. The beach, the Manche, the sky—even the groac’h—looked exactly as they had when she had fallen into the water. Luce, however, was utterly dry. Her hair, her skin, as fresh and clean as if she had just bathed in scented oils and powdered herself in the sun. She looked slowly down. In place of her sodden underclothes, she wore a gown of blue silk. It too was dry and shining-smooth, as though Nanette or Anne-Marie had pressed it only moments before.

She croaked, a wordless little sound of shock. Struggled to make sense of what she was seeing.

It was the blue gown. And yet, it was not. This gown was darker, like the Manche at midnight. Pricks of silvery thread glimmered across its wide skirts like stars. Engageantes of black lace stitched with silver swung from its elbow-length sleeves, catching at the last of the day’s light. The stomacher shimmered with scallop shells and fine, black pearls. Indeed, the entire dress was pearlescent, shining subtly like the inside of one of the rare seashells in Papa’s study, pink, mauve and gleaming sea-green.

It was magnificent.

‘What did you—how did you—?’ Words abandoned Luce.

‘Tears and blue silk,’ the shore-woman said. She tilted her head, considering. ‘You need shoes.’

‘What?’ Luce squiggled her toes in the dry sand, found that they were quite bare. ‘Oh. I suppose I do.’ Her heart sank. She was yet to forget last week’s torturous appointment with the shoemaker. Veronique and Charlotte had confidently bared their feet, discussing the latest designs, the daintiest dancing steps. Luce’s feet, however, had produced a predictable reaction from the shoemaker: revulsion, quickly followed by pity.

‘May I see them?’ The groac’h’s voice was gentle.

Luce bowed her head, shame rising as the fae woman knelt in the sand before her, her moon-coloured hair gleaming in the fading light. She pushed Luce’s heavy skirts back, ran long, cool fingers over her feet.

‘What have they done to you?’ she whispered.

‘I cannot help it,’ Luce said hastily. ‘I know they’re ugly...’

The tide-woman straightened, met Luce’s eye. ‘Not ugly,’ she said, gesturing to her tusks. ‘Just different. Is there pain?’

Luce nodded. ‘Though.... they hurt less when I swim in the sea.’

‘Then you shall wear the sea.’

She began to hum. A spiral of seawater rose from the shallows, glittering and swirling. The song changed, and the water broke into two, snaking around Luce’s feet, coiling and twisting like twin serpents as they took on familiar shapes: a delicately pointed toe, a graceful arch, a plump little heel. Luce rose slightly as an invisible force lifted her gently from the sand. And then the water hardened, clinging to her skin, as smooth and shining as glass.

‘There,’ the groac’h said, with a satisfied nod.

Luce held up her skirts. The slippers shone mirror-bright, like diamonds or ice. And yet they were quite comfortable—it barely felt as if she were wearing shoes at all. She took a tentative step, and then another.

‘No pain?’ the groac’h asked.

Luce shook her head in wonder. ‘No pain.’ She took another step, savoring the marvelous, cloud-soft comfort. She would be able to walk gracefully into Le Loup Blanc tonight and move about with elegance and freedom. She would be able to dance.

What would you say if I stole you away at the ball?

‘How?’ She stared at the groac’h, as grateful as she was bewildered. ‘How did you do this?’

The tide-woman only smiled. ‘We should hurry,’ she said. ‘The tide has found its rhythm. It will not wait.’

She began to sing again.

The water was waiting this time, tense and expectant. The sea birds had stilled. Even the stars, early and earnest, seemed to cease their shining.

Luce sensed it before she saw it: a rumbling in the seafloor, a disturbance beyond the rocks edging the cove. The water there foamed and roiled, growing more and more agitated, as though a serpent of mythic magnitude was rising from the depths, unfurling its great scaled body, churning the sea with its tail.

The tide-woman’s song grew in strength, reaching notes Luce had never known existed. Jagged shadows breached the water’s heaving surface. A mast, stark against the violet sky, and the broad, curved sweep of a ship’s shattered hull, blackened with age. A hunk of ancient deck floated in the chaos of its counterparts: a cracked forecastle, a slab of stern, its cracked timbers gaping like broken teeth.

‘Damn my soul,’ Luce breathed.

The original wreck had been a caravel; a pretty little Spanish ship, all dashing curves. As Luce watched, the pieces of wreckage began to move, shards of sea-worn timber clipping and catching. Assembling themselves into something other, something new and darkly beautiful.

A black boat, unlike anything Luce had ever seen. Long and low, with inky sails and an elegant open cabin, its seats covered with cushions of midnight velvet. Inky draperies flowed gently in the evening breeze, glittering as though they had been embroidered with stars. Luce was reminded of the river barges she had seen in old paintings; sumptuous vessels made for royalty. A queen of stars and dreams, she thought, might sail in something like this.

‘It will take you to the Le Loup Blanc,’ the groac’h said.

Luce shook herself. She was asleep, surely; had drifted into the exhausted slumber that comes when tears are spent. Even now she lay on the sand, wrapped in the ruined silk dress. Any moment she would wake, cold and disoriented, and begin the long, slow trudge back to the house.

‘You are not dreaming,’ the groac’h said mildly. ‘And now, are you ready? The tide will not wait.’

Luce regarded the beautiful boat before her. The de Chatelaine estate was set high upon the banks of the Rance. To get there, she would need to sail past Saint-Malo and Saint-Servan. The waters surrounding both would be crowded with moored vessels of every size, as well as seamen rowing to and from the quays.

‘Won’t people see me?’

‘Not if you don’t want them to.’

It would be dark soon. Only a fool or a Malouin would dare to enter the port at night, Papa often said.

‘But will it be safe?’

‘There is nowhere safer. But heed me, now.’ The tide-woman grew serious. ‘When the tide reaches its peak and turns, the magic will fade. That is when you must return.’

Luce looked at the water, the colour of the lichen on the rocks, the impressions in the sand. The tide had turned half an hour ago, perhaps less, at almost the same moment she had heard the ship’s bell toll the end of the evening’s second petite watch. An hour of daylight yet, and five hours more before the tide reached its zenith. ‘That will be more than enough time.’ Her heart pattered at the thought of seeing Morgan again. ‘The tide will be highest two hours after midnight. I shall leave before then.’

The groac’h nodded. ‘Make sure that you do.’ She raised a hand, and the sea surged forward, bringing the little black boat close to the sand. A neat ramp appeared, and Luce stepped aboard.

‘Why are you helping me?’ she asked. She knew the way of such things—had heard the stories of those who had been foolish enough to take gifts from the Fae without understanding the risks. There was always a reason. Always a cost.

‘I know what it is to cry and have no one but the sea there to listen,’ the fae said quietly. ‘And because too much has been stolen. Something must be given back. It is the tide’s way.’

Luce frowned at the mysterious words. ‘What do you mean?’

‘No time, no time,’ the groac’h said, pushing the little boat smoothly out into the water ‘The faster it ebbs, the quicker the magic will weaken. You must not linger.’ She pursed her lips, and blew gently through her tusks. A night-charmed wind billowed in the black sails. ‘I will ask the wind to watch over you.’

‘And I you,’ Luce said. ‘I—thank you.’

The shore was slipping away, fading into the shadows. A moment of panic as the night swept its cool arms around her.

‘Do not fear the darkness,’ the groac’h called. ‘It will show you the way.’

Luce stood in the stern, watching as the cove, the lone figure of the fae, melded into the hazy smudge of the coast. She had questions, and plenty of them. Reservations, too. She had sensed no evil in the shore-woman, no ill intent. If anything, she had seemed more human, more gentle, than any of the Fae creatures Luce had met. She wondered anew why her father and the fishermen feared her so. Perhaps it was because they had never deigned to speak with her. Perhaps they saw her tusks, her sea-foam hair and strangeness, and had decided for themselves that she was dangerous and cruel.

It would not be the first time men had judged a woman so.

A silvery hand mirror, its twisted handle dark with age, and a half-mask—cleverly made of black lace, dark pearls, and the same silvery shells as the dress’s stomacher—lay on a cushion inside the barge’s little cabin. Curious, Luce settled herself and raised the mirror to her face. A stranger looked back. The woman’s dark hair was piled atop her head and adorned with ropes of fine, black pearls, while a thick, elegant curl trailed over one shoulder. There were more pearls at her throat and her wrists, and the iridescence of seashells shone on her eyelids and cheeks, her shoulders and collar bones. She looked otherworldly; a princess of the old tales, her blue eyes rimmed in black, her lashes long and thick.

Luce set the mirror down, ran her fingers once more over the wondrous gown: dark as the deepest sea, and shining with the light of distant stars. Sky and sea, reflected.

Saint-Malo came into view, thrust out upon the rocks. The cathedral with its spire, the walls and bastions lent the city an ancient air; it seemed to be born of spray and rock, as formidable as the sea itself. At night, however, it shimmered like a city of old. Countless candles lit its many windows, and the street lanterns turned the stone a buttery gold.

True to the groac’h’s word, the boat remained unseen as it passed the city’s necklace of island forts. It passed the entrance of the harbour, the forest of masts within, and swept into the mouth of the Rance. To Luce’s left, the lights of Saint-Servan glittered, the tall shape of Solidor Tower standing sentinel over the shadowy dockyards and bays. A few frigates lay at anchor, lights swinging gently. She heard the soft slap of water against wooden hulls, snatches of a lonely ballad from a sailor on watch, a brief, low argument on deck about which Saint-Malo bawdyhouse had the most competitive rates.

The splash of oars, and a pair of ship’s boats, brimming with sailors, pulled toward the town. They passed so closely that Luce could have stood and brushed the men’s shoulders with her fingertips, had she chose.

Not one of them noticed the little black boat as it passed by.

Night was falling over the river. Music drifted across the water, muted and broken.

Luce recognised the elegant strains of Vivaldi’s Allegro in E from ‘La Primavera.’ The music grew louder as Le Loup Blanc came into view, the malouinière standing grandly atop its hill, creamy light spilling from its windows, hundreds of torches illuminating the paths and gardens and woods sloping down to the banks of the Rance. Guests strolled along the ordered paths, and gathered before the house, their laughter drifting over the glittering, gilded water.

A thread of uneasiness wound itself around Luce as the boat edged toward the de Chatelaine’s private dock. Several boats were there already, finely dressed gentlemen helping their wives, sisters and daughters, in their precarious gowns, safely onto dry land. What if Luce stumbled and fell? What if everyone saw her, flumsing and flooming in yet another ruined gown, struggling up the muddy bank?

‘Take hold of yourself,’ she muttered sternly. ‘You can do this.’ She slipped the half-mask onto her face, tied the satin ribbons behind her curls with trembling fingers. Then she leaned down to the little boat and whispered, ‘Let them see us.’

At once the lanterns affixed to the mast and four corners of the black-canopied cabin brightened. On the dock, the other guests stopped and stared. Luce did her best to look regal as the glittering barge, shimmering like starlight on seashells, drew smoothly alongside the dock.

There was no need to have worried about falling: three young men had left their gaping partners and were hurrying to make fast Luce’s boat; to set the little carpeted gangplank into place; to reach down and help her ashore.

‘May I be of service, mademoiselle?’

‘... Magnifique.’

‘Here, allow me...’

Despite her jangling heart, the sudden, stifling closeness of the blue-black gown and stays, Luce smiled beneath her mask.

She had arrived.

Music floated across the grounds, enticing Luce and the other guests up the long, winding path to the house. Elegant torches set into the grass lit the way, assisting the gentlemen and their teetering mademoiselles. The flames were warm on Luce’s cheeks as she passed, head high, her enormous dress, as heavy as the sea around her waist, sweeping the gravel with each step.

A set of grand stone stairs loomed ahead. Luce climbed them easily—painlessly!—her skirts held carefully before her, her seawater slippers chiming against the stone.

More people came into view as she neared the house, strolling across the sweeping, lantern-lit lawns, or admiring the gardens. Fountains splashed and shimmered. Elegantly liveried laquais handed out glasses of sparkling wine. Luce took one, nodding her thanks and sipping nervously.

The guests ahead of her flowed through an alley of cleverly shaped hedges and sweet-smelling roses, the air between them thick with the strains of Vivaldi. Following, Luce beheld a magical sight: an outdoor ballroom, packed with masked dancers performing an elegant minuet, the patterns of the dance echoed in their gorgeous gowns and splendid suits. Festoons of greenery, flowers and tiny lanterns stretched over the dancing, and between the branches of the oak trees ringing the floor.

There were hundreds of guests. Many danced, but even more crowded the edges of the floor, or gathered around the little tables and chairs perched on the lawns. The musicians, impeccably attired in matching suits and buckled shoes, had arranged themselves beneath the sparkling trees. Nearby, long tables sheathed in crisp white linen and fresh flowers held mountains of food: mousses and macarons, shellfish and soufflés, pastries and petit fours. Enormous candelabras towered over the array of delicacies, their lights glistening on a series of magnificent ice sculptures. The very air tasted of flowers and starlight.

It was spectacular.

It was utterly terrifying.

Luce paused uncertainly on the edge of the dance floor. It seemed that everyone knew each other, despite the glorious masks— butterflies and birds, constellations and animals— concealing their faces. They seemed to know the evening’s intricacies—when to move, when to stay still, how to greet and compliment and enchant, as though such things were merely steps in a complicated dance. A dance, Luce now realised, that everyone knew the steps to but her.

Even worse, people seemed to be noticing. They were turning from their conversations, from their chaperones, from their dance partners, even, to stare at her. An old madame, glittering with jewels—she had clearly taken the masque as an opportunity to wear every item of value she owned—went to bite a macaron and, when her gaze snagged on Luce, crunched it against her heavily powdered cheek instead. A group of young ladies arranged like a box of colourful bonbons watched Luce with unconcealed curiosity.

Luce blushed beneath her mask. Had she made a terrible mistake? She searched for her own family among the throng and saw Charlotte and Gratienne on the other side of the dance floor, gazing at her in surprise, and, in Charlotte’s case, envy. They took in Luce’s dress, her hair, her mask without an ounce of recognition.

They don’t know, Luce thought, relieved. They don’t see me.

It was an intoxicating thought, as bubbly and delicious as the wine. She took another sip, opened her fan with an elegant flick— shoulders back, arms held out from her wide skirts in the way her sisters’ dancing masters always insisted upon—and dropped into the deepest, most elegant curtsey she had ever performed, her fan fluttering gently against a sea of shining silk.

‘Who is that ?’ someone whispered, close by.

‘Do we know her?’

‘Is she from Saint-Malo? I’ve never seen her before...’

The muttering continued, until one of the young men approached. His hair was powdered, his frock coat of green velvet embroidered with roses. A golden mask covered half his face.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he said politely. ‘Would you care to dance?’

Luce forced herself to nod.

He led her out onto the floor, her dress a glittering shadow among the sweet pinks, yellows and creams. A new dance was about to begin, a minuet, and Luce’s heart thrilled.

She knew this dance, had learned it along with Veronique and Charlotte years ago, when her affliction had been milder. As Luce had grown and the condition worsened, she had been forced to stop those lessons and watch her sisters take part instead. Now, with the sea-glass slippers shimmering at her feet, she found she remembered the intricate little steps, the required lightness and the grace. The swirling pattern of the dance, in which she met her partner, turned to dance with another and then circled back to her partner once more, came as naturally to her as though she had danced it a thousand times before. Her back was straight, her arms floating at her sides, her fan swinging delicately from her wrist. And her feet.... free from the pain, there was nothing to hold Luce back. Nothing but the joy of moving to the beautiful music, of glimpsing her extraordinary gown as it glittered and swirled like some iridescent creature beneath the sea. It was wonderful indeed to dance beneath the stars; to be part of something so grand and so beautiful.

One dance became two, and two became three. Luce was asked to dance by more young men than she could count. They trailed after her, arguing over who would fetch her more wine, or a slice of blancmange with wild strawberries, or iced cream flavored with honey and notes of lavender and rosemary. Luce, eager to escape their attentions and find Morgan, looked out over the dance floor.

And there he was. In his dark, sleekly fitted suit and black mask, Morgan de Chatelaine cut a dashing figure. He was dancing a gavotte with a young, golden-haired woman, a smile on his handsome face as he flowed through the dance’s light and elegant movements. His partner, Luce could not help but note, danced beautifully. Indeed, she was light and graceful as an angel...

Luce went very still. Morgan was dancing with Veronique.

A strange, icy sensation stole through her. She looked at the obscene amount of food her admirers had heaped on her little plate, and pushed it onto the long table beside her. She felt crowded, of a sudden. Her gown too hot, her stays too tight.

‘Here, mademoiselle,’ one of the young men murmured, his fingers brushing Luce’s wrist. ‘You must try the rose-water meringues. They are almost as exquisite as you.’

‘Thank you, no,’ Luce muttered, drawing away. She hurried along the path to the house, eager for fresh air and solitude, but hampered in her efforts to find them by her wide skirts and would-be dance partners, who followed enthusiastically. All but running, she pulled ahead, then swung tightly around the shadowy trunk of a horse chestnut. It worked—Luce heard her admirers crunch on toward the house. Congratulating herself, she rounded the tree, only to find herself facing yet another young man. Luce went to dodge away, an apology already spilling from her mouth. The young gentleman, however, only smiled.

‘Finally,’ Morgan said, his black eyes twinkling behind his mask. ‘I’ve got you alone, Lucinde Léon.’