Chapter Twenty-one The Maiden and her Monster
Chapter Twenty-one
The Maiden and her Monster
Midday arrived with a knock at the door and the cold sound of spadework.
Kensa dropped her scrubbing brush and craned her ear, as a mother would to its babe, anticipating a cry.
Instead, there was only silence behind Isolde’s door.
Perhaps that was worse. With careful steps, the floor wet from her efforts to clean it, Kensa heaved open the front door.
Sunlight forced her eyes shut. When was the last time she’d been outside, truly outside, aside from when she had gone to fetch water?
Her skin itched. When her sight adjusted, she saw a burly man on the front step.
‘We should be done by the afternoon,’ said the blacksmith, Ern.
‘A drink wouldn’t go amiss, mind you, this is thirsty work.
’ He thumbed to the garden at his back, overgrown as always, yet with a new person-sized square cut into the earth.
‘For the funeral,’ he explained, at Kensa’s baffled look.
‘Don’t say you’ve gone and buried her already? ’
Kensa shook her head.
‘The village’ll be here tomorrow morning to give her a send-off.’ He looked her up and down disapprovingly. ‘Enough time for us to put our best faces on, aye?’
Kensa was not sure what her ‘best face’ was, but she certainly wasn’t going to give it to him.
‘Mm.’ Reluctantly, she thanked the blacksmith and pointed at the small garden well.
She was a wise woman, not a scullery maid.
For years, she’d considered herself separate from the village, an outcast with a bad man’s blood in her veins.
That was nothing compared to now, isolated by a secret far bigger than anything she’d known before.
And the one person she would have turned to was gone, replaced by a creature she did not recognise.
Fat tears rolled down her face as she sank into her usual chair in the parlour, hands over her cheeks, as though she could press her weakness back into herself.
It didn’t work, she couldn’t make it work.
No one would understand. Everyone would blame her.
Why wouldn’t they? Here, finally, was the evidence Portscatho needed to condemn her as worthless, no good for anyone, as callous as her long-dead father.
Gradually, the spade-on-soil faded to quiet again.
An hour or a minute could have passed. It was intangible to her.
Fatigue pulled on her limbs; she hadn’t eaten in a day, hadn’t had the will to feed herself.
Did she even deserve to eat, deserve anything, after what she’d done?
Maybe if she let herself starve to near-death, everyone would forgive her.
Yet another fist rapped at the door. Kensa scrubbed at her face, then halted.
It was normal to cry when grieving a lost one, she need not hide it and no one would know the real reason for her upset.
She checked on Isolde first and found her gnawing at a pillowcase, feathers about the room, as though she could find chicken skin beneath.
Grimacing, Kensa dragged herself to the door and answered it, ready to survey the blacksmith’s work.
‘If you’ll be wanting more to drink … ’ she began, then trailed off.
Gone were the men and their shovels. There, on the doorstep, was Elowen. She was thinner than usual, though sturdy enough despite her recent illness. She wore black. In her hand was a small carpet bag, as well as a bundle which she would later reveal as packed with bread, cheese and sausage.
‘Ma was worried you’d have no proper clothes for the funeral,’ she said, fidgeting her feet nervously. ‘I offered to bring them.’ Elowen’s cheeks grew rosy. ‘I didn’t like to think of you here alone and even if—’
Kensa flung her arms around her sister. Buried her face in Elowen’s bright hair. Pulled her close until she gasped. It took a moment. There was a gentle plod as the carpet bag dropped on the floor. Gradually, the other girl brought her own arms up and held on tight.
‘Oh,’ said Elowen.
Kensa did not let go first. Only when the snot drooped from her nose in roping lengths did she finally pull back and mutter, ‘Sorry.’
Elowen shook her head. ‘There’s no need to apologise, we all need a good cry when we’ve lost a friend.’
Kensa rubbed at her own nose. ‘It’s not that.’
‘Oh,’ said Elowen again.
Although the pair stood close, toe to toe, there was the same divide between them which no apology could permeate.
It struck Kensa how little she knew about Elowen.
Did she have friends? Was there one she had ever lost?
How was she feeling after her sickness? Questions with answers she had never cared to learn.
Kensa struggled with her words. ‘I’ve done somethin’ terrible.’
‘You were fairly awful.’
‘No, this isn’t about you and me.’
‘Then I am sure Jack will understand,’ said Elowen, easing back on her heels. ‘You know how he is around you.’
‘What? No, it’s Isolde,’ said Kensa, wincing. ‘Wait, what do you mean—’
A loud clank interrupted their talk, followed by a high wailing sound.
It grew louder, the wails shifting to yowls, then glass breaking and a long, slow ripping sound.
Kensa’s shoulders sagged low enough to reach her knees.
She looked to her sister, desperately, though an explanation was hard to come by.
Elowen’s features hardened and her eyes narrowed. Quickly, they flicked up Kensa’s form, noting the marks on her dress and the bruised quality to her appearance. She looked sharp, intelligence burning with light blue clarity in her irises.
‘I think I’d better come in.’
It took a while for Kensa to explain what had happened. When she reached the turn in the tale involving the Bucka, Elowen paled right down to her bones. ‘Merrin told me about him,’ she said. ‘How terrible he can be, how cruel and unyielding.’
Kensa chewed on her lower lip, teeth worrying at a scabbed corner. ‘It’s not his fault, he was helping me. I must’ve done it wrong.’
‘What did he want in return?’
‘He asked for nought,’ said Kensa.
Elowen’s expression stayed forcibly neutral.
She took charge over tea brewing and bid Kensa to sit, thrusting food into her lap.
Neither one sat on the Bucka’s chair, which remained ominously empty.
In that silent, tricky moment – of which there had been many in the sisters’ relationship – the only interruption came from Isolde’s room, which had been filled with more cushions to occupy the captive within.
‘Come on, out with it,’ barked Kensa. ‘Tell me everything I’ve done wrong! This is what I hate about you, Elowen. You have these thoughts in your head and never speak them!’
It was good to shout. Even if guilt came after. Kensa needed the rage. It was better than sadness, than confronting, well, anything. Especially herself. From the yew shelves, the Bad Books rattled against one another – and one let out a small burp – as though in encouragement.
‘You want me to tell you what I think?’ Elowen did not raise her voice.
She never did. Instead, she leaned back on her chair, slim shoulders bunching up to her ears.
‘I think you’re a fool,’ she said simply.
‘No Devil makes a deal without asking for payment, Kensa. It’s what Old Sal talks about when the Falmouth sailors come to call at the Jennings’ inn, hoping to sway a simple girl with fancy talk.
It’s what Mr Aldridge told us every Sunday about sin and temptation, and what Mr Delavaud will tell us too, when he preaches his first sermon this Sabbath. ’
‘Who?’
‘Besides, if Isolde is not dead, then we have to tell people,’ continued Elowen. ‘Her funeral takes place tomorrow and if she suddenly appears, there’ll be questions.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Kensa, exasperated. ‘She’s come back different.’ Then, quietly, she added, ‘I don’t know what she is.’
She grabbed her sister’s hand – an unfamiliar gesture, even if it came naturally to her – and pulled Elowen into the bedroom where she had imprisoned the wise woman.
It resembled a bedroom no longer. The straw mattress had been de-strawed and its contents strewn about the place.
No feathers were left in their pillows, for they too had been spread wide as a poor simile for snow.
It was dark, the daylight obscured by brown smudges on the window panes.
Kensa did not want to speculate as to what that was; the stench told her enough.
Then there was Isolde herself, whose gown had begun to unravel at the side.
The crone squatted in the corner, wet again somehow, and stinking.
Her hair, what remained, was matted. She was almost the same as she had been earlier, aside from one key difference: Isolde’s eyes were sharper now, no longer cloudy.
That strange grey had shifted to a charcoal hue, bird-like and menacing.
Kensa stepped back from the doorway and her boot struck a small white stone.
No, not a stone. A tooth, gum caught on one side and bleeding.
Elowen, ever controlled, betrayed nothing. She ventured forwards. ‘Isolde?’
Kensa didn’t understand it. Her sister spoke as though to a stray cat, gentle despite the vileness around them. There was nothing in Kensa as disciplined, as quiet, as kind.
Isolde did not move.
‘Do you know who I am?’ Elowen stretched her fingers out, palm upturned.