Cat in Glass (4 page)

“Shall we run away?” said Harry.

“How silly. We’d starve to death.”

“But we can’t stay here. She’ll kill us.”

I stared gloomily out at the night, wondering if perhaps Harry had a point. What happened next I would have been inclined to pass off as a dream, only Harry saw it, too. Far-off, above a distant wood, something large, round, and shiny appeared in the chilly sky, as if from nowhere. It took me a moment to recognize it as a balloon. I strained to make out what color it was, or to discern a familiar pattern of stars around its middle, but in that light I could be sure of nothing. We watched it drift for a minute or two, like a great
steel ball somehow set free of gravity. Then it vanished. A prickle of fear and excitement ran through me. Harry and I exchanged one of those looks that signals a complex, shared thought—in this case, the memory of a summer fire guttering from an impossible, cold wind.
I owe you a great debt. If there is ever any way in which I can repay it, you must tell me
.

“Clotaire!” we whispered in unison.

We spent the night beside the open window, dozing by turns so that we would not miss Clotaire’s balloon if it reappeared. After a time, the moon set, and the night grew dark and close, with only a sprinkling of stars to light it. Though I fought sleep, I must have drifted off anyway sometime in the small hours after midnight, for I awakened at dawn to Harry’s urgent whispers and his tugging at my shoulder.

“It’s him! It’s him! Look, there’s the balloon.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked out across a windless autumn morning. The half-light robbed everything of color. The hills, the woods, the field lay cold and gray. A few birds twittered their morning songs. The sweet reek of neglected pomace in someone’s cider press drifted up to us, mingled with leaf smoke. And there, splendid in the faded sky, hung the silver balloon. Blinking, I climbed up on the window ledge and waved wildly, shouting, “Clotaire! Wait, Clotaire.”

When I felt certain he had seen me, I turned and bolted out the door and down the stairs. Harry ran after me, his bare feet slapping the polished wooden floors. We stood on the lawn in our nightgowns, waving and calling until the wicker basket touched ground and Clotaire stood before us.

“Hello, my friends,” he said softly.

I looked into his face as steadily as I could, straightened my back, and said, “Sir, you made us a promise once.”

He nodded and smiled a smile so faint that I could hardly be sure it was there.

“We want you to take someone …”

I was cut off by a shout from one of the upstairs windows. “Catherine! Harry! You shall be thrashed within an inch of your lives for this.”

“I don’t give a hoot!” shouted Harry, turning toward the house with his jaw thrust out and his hands on his little boy hips.

I squeezed my eyes shut until I saw stars. “I
said
, we want you to take someone away. To that last world … where the children are cruel and strong. Please!” I opened my eyes. “Take her away forever.”

The sun had just broken over the horizon, and light flowed over Clotaire like a torrent of melted copper. His leather puttees, his sturdy breeches, his scarf, his hair, and even his beautiful face, all of him looked strong and hard as metal in that peculiar dawn.

He gazed down at us and said, “Be certain.”

“We’re certain!” we chorused.

Clotaire went to the wicker basket, opened a small wooden box, and took out a pistol. My mouth went dry. “What’s that for?” I heard myself squeak.

Instead of answering, Clotaire grabbed me and held the pistol to my head. I fancied cold fingers closing around my heart.
I shall die
, I remember thinking.
And I shall probably go to hell
.

Aunt Henrietta burst from the front door of the house, her dressing gown flapping at her heels and her hair flying. “Save me,” I prayed, “oh, Aunt Henrietta, save me!” as the muzzle of Clotaire’s gun grew warm from the heat of my temple.

“How dare you!” she cried at first. Then she saw the pistol, and her eyebrows shot up, and she covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, dear Lord,” she said.

“Do as I say, and the child will not be hurt,” said Clotaire. “Get into the basket.”

“Help!” croaked Harry. “Oh, Father, help us.” But Father lay drunk asleep in the far side of the house.

Aunt Henrietta climbed awkwardly over the wicker rim. “Sir, I beg of you, don’t harm the children.”

“Clotaire … I changed my mind. It’s all right. You don’t have to take her away.” I was sobbing by then.

But Clotaire only laughed, a sound as hard and sharp-edged as glass. “You have made your bargain, my friend. It is past changing now.”

He loosened his grip, gave me a small push in Harry’s direction, and aimed the pistol at Aunt Henrietta. I doubt that I have ever felt so confused and powerless as I did then, watching Clotaire climb into the basket himself. Everything seemed wrong. I wanted him to take her away, and yet the execution of the act frightened me as much as the idea of her staying. I waited for a flood of satisfaction and release, but none came. Perhaps I had, on that distant autumn morning, my first glimmering of a difficult, grown-up fact. Outside of fairy tales, real justice is quite an elusive commodity.

“You had better keep quite still, madame,” said Clotaire as he prepared to fire the burner.

“Where are you taking me?” whimpered Aunt Henrietta, her face the color of smoke.

Clotaire laughed, more musically this time, and said, “A place faraway but nearby, where things are not so very different. A place where you have no counterpart, never have had, and never will.”

Then the burner roared. Flames erupted from it, and the silver balloon strained at its mooring. Aunt Henrietta, wild-eyed, clutched the rim of the basket. Clotaire shouted, “Heaven keep you, my friends.” He pulled out the anchor line, and they rose—up, up, until at last, when they were smaller than a marble or an eye, they vanished.

Harry and I stood on the lawn in shocked silence. The smells of autumn leaves and fermenting apples washed over us as the birds began to twitter again.

Though sixty years have passed since then, that morning still looms in my mind like a shadow that crosses a field and changes the look of the ground in its path. Though I’ve led a fine life and don’t hold much with wishful thinking, I can’t help wondering about the other worlds. Which one would I live in today if Clotaire had said no to us, which one if Aunt Henrietta had not vanished in a balloon?

As things turned out, Father sent Harry and me away to separate schools after Henrietta’s disappearance, probably because he thought it would be easier to drink himself into an early grave if there were no children about. He was dead
before my twentieth birthday. Harry’s gone now, too. He died last year from a heart ailment he never knew he had. As for me, I am left to carry on alone, since I never married. Though suitors courted me aplenty in my youth, none of them had what I was looking for—a certain unthinking impartiality, the ability to stand outside life’s complications and laugh at them.

I never saw Clotaire again after that fateful morning. He disappeared with even more elegance than a puff of smoke. Sometimes, sitting here on the porch, remembering the old days, I long for one more glimpse of those robin’s-egg eyes set so perfectly in that strong, tan face. I long to tell him that I understand things better now, understand about all the drunken Fathers, and all the Henriettas, and all the children who would be so fierce without them. In the best of all possible worlds, I would die with the scents of lightning and peppermint in this tired old nose. So I keep watch, and hope for one last look at Clotaire’s balloon.

W
hen one-eyed Jacinth was ten years old and had just begun to weave tapestries, her mother took her and her two sisters to see the young men of Aranho set off in search of lilies. Jacinth pressed close to her mother as they stood in the noisy crowd at the edge of the village. Sunshine fell down like golden thread from a cloudless summer sky, and the thick grass of the meadows lay heavy with morning dew. Even the straw roofs of the houses and shops seemed bright and magical as Jacinth watched the parade of
Aranho’s tall, handsome youths. Some of them had hair the color of flax, and others had hair as dark as ravens’ feathers. Some sported the soft beards of early manhood, and others had shaven chins. They carried pouches of fragrant bread at their belts, and their knives and bows flashed gaily as they passed. They walked with their shoulders swaying, like men who are glad to be off and expect to return triumphant.

As she watched, Jacinth thought of the tapestry that hung unfinished on her loom at home. She had already woven into it a picture of her father grinding flour at his mill. Now she wondered if she could add this street, and the stone cottages, and the lines of proud young men striding away on their adventure.

Jacinth’s older sister, Wynna, rose on her tiptoes, lifting both hands in the air. “There goes Sten!” she cried. “I see him!” Then louder, “Good luck, Sten. Bring me a lily. I’ll be waiting.”

From the far edge of the passing ranks, Jacinth could just make out a strong, tan arm waving in reply.

“What does a lily look like?” she asked, for in fact she had never seen one, and now she wondered if the lilies themselves could also be added to the scene in the tapestry.

“A lily looks like a bell,” said her mother. “A very beautiful bell, yellow as fire or ripe peaches or the sun when it rises.”

Jacinth frowned, trying hard to imagine such a flower. “Why does Wynna want Sten to bring her one? Just because it’s pretty?” she asked.

Wynna looked down at her and smiled and ruffled her hair. “It’s more than that,” she said. “You’ll find out someday.”

But Jacinth’s other sister, Noa, who was fourteen and jealous of Jacinth’s weavings, grinned wickedly and said, “No you won’t. You’ll never find out, old one-eye, because you’re ugly, and nobody will ever want to bring
you
a lily!”

Jacinth ran her fingers across the familiar smooth skin where her left eye should have been. She remembered how her own reflection had made her run screaming from the still water of the millpond the first time she had seen it. And she knew Noa was right. She was ugly, and all the best things in the world, even flowers, were reserved for the beautiful. She bolted, covering her terrible face with her arms, heedless of her mother and Wynna as they cried, “Come back! Noa didn’t mean it.”

Jacinth ran alone through the deserted streets. The tears in her single eye dimmed the sun. The world, so bright with possibilities a moment before, seemed dark and frightening now. Rounding a corner, she lost her footing and hit the ground in a shower of dirt. Over and over she rolled, until she came to rest against a stone doorstep. There she lay, weeping. Dust stung her nose and throat. Her knees and elbows throbbed where she had scraped them in her fall. But the greatest pain of all lodged in her heart, where Noa’s words repeated themselves insistently.

Just then, she heard a voice above her.

“Are you all right?”

Jacinth raised her head. From between the dusty strands of her hair, she saw a well-made shoe and the tips of two wooden crutches. Raising her head a bit further, she saw that the shoe fit a foot that was attached to a sturdy leg that was attached to a boy. The boy was clothed in brown
wool—coarse, patched, and poorly spun, but clean. He had only one leg. Still, he was tall, and Jacinth could see that he was older than she, perhaps Noa’s age.

“Are you all right?” he asked again.

She sat up and brushed her hair away from her face, waiting for his eyes to widen when he realized that she didn’t look like other people. But his expression stayed the same. His pale brow was slightly furrowed, and his clear hazel eyes shone bright with concern.

With the back of her hand, she wiped the tears away. “Don’t I scare you?” she said.

The boy looked puzzled. “Well, I was afraid you had hurt yourself.”

“Oh, I did,” said Jacinth, proudly displaying her bloody elbows.

The boy pursed his lips, which made him look much more grown-up than he really was. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll get some water and a cloth. My master says it’s bad to leave dirt in a scrape.”

He turned and hobbled off into the house, which she now recognized as the shop of Bot the cobbler. A few minutes later, he returned with a crockery jug of cool water and a scrap of soft cloth. He stacked his crutches and, with surprisingly little trouble, sat down beside her on the doorstep. Gently, he took one of her elbows in his slender hands and began to clean the bits of gravel and blood from it.

“You’re Jacinth, the miller’s daughter, aren’t you?” he said. “I’ve seen you before and I’ve heard my master talk about your weavings.”

Jacinth nodded, suddenly afraid to speak for fear the tears would start again. If he had seen her before, that explained why her face hadn’t frightened him.

“My name is Joth,” he said. “I … I’m the cobbler’s apprentice.” Color rose suddenly in his cheeks, and he looked away from her, giving more attention to her elbow than it required.

She watched him silently, wondering at his strange behavior.

Joth dipped the cloth in the water and looked up again. “You didn’t laugh,” he said.

“Why should I laugh?”

Joth shrugged. “Most people think it’s funny that a boy with only one foot makes shoes.”

Something about Joth’s words gave Jacinth a soft, warm feeling, as if a meadow full of buttercups had bloomed inside her. She looked at him, wondering if she could find some hint of a lie or a trick meant to make her trust him when she shouldn’t. But his clear eyes seemed kind and honest.

At last she said, “I know. People think it’s funny that a girl with only one eye should weave tapestries or go to see the lily hunt begin, too.” She looked off toward the center of Aranho, where she knew the handsome young men must still be striding through the street on their way to the lilies that grew in the faraway forests. When she looked at Joth again, he was resting his chin in his hands and staring sadly away in the same direction.