The Gracekeepers Read online

  He’d slipped so deep into his thoughts that he barely noticed the first breath of wind that signaled their emergence from the doldrums. It was Cash, in fact, who alerted him. The clowns had taken to peeling back the canvas of their coracle and perching on the edge, allowing the sun to brown the skin that was not covered with tattoos. Jarrow found their presence comforting. In the still air of the doldrums, alone on the wide sea, with no sign of life from the covered coracles, it would be easy to feel alone in the world. But Jarrow needed only to glance over his shoulder and see the edge of a brightly colored limb to know that his circus continued.

  “Easterly!” came the shout on their second afternoon. The sky was flat and blue as an upturned bowl, and the sun glinted silver off the kicked-up waves. Those waves should have been Jarrow’s clue to the breeze, but his worries seemed to clump inside his brain and obscure his vision.

  “I feel an easterly, Captain!”

  He turned toward the call. Cash was on the port side of the coracle, ideally placed to feel the first breath of wind from the east. Jarrow lifted his face to the sky. Sure enough, he could feel the push of a breeze against his skin. Relief flooded through him.

  Cash’s call roused the rest of the crew. Jarrow waited for the head count before announcing: “We are free of the doldrums! Hoist the sails, crew, hoist the sails. Hoist! Hoist! Hoist!”

  Usually the crew would join the chant, but the only response was a smattering of watery smiles. Well, that was all that could be expected. Perhaps they thought Jarrow callous for continuing on in the face of such loss. But what was his choice? There were still eleven other members of this crew, and it was his responsibility to ensure that they were fed and clothed and kept safe. Better to be a callous captain than a negligent one. He kept the smile pinned to his face and turned to retrieve the mainsail from its cubby under the port bow. He knew he should have hung it before now, but he was as superstitious as the next captain: the mainsail had touched the dead, and it would take a strong wind to blow that away. No point in letting a mild breeze whisper ghosts around the ship.

  Understanding that there would be a wait while the sails were hoisted, the rest of the crew busied themselves with individual tasks. The clowns tugged out their skin-diver gear and the thick glass sphere of the lung, ready to collect food for dinner; Mauve and Teal sat on the edge of their coracle and dipped their feet into the water, shouting over to Cash the names of the undersea items they needed for their beauty supplies; Ainsel led the horses back to his coracle.

  The distance up the mast to attach the mainsail was not far, perhaps twice Jarrow’s height. From there, it could be hoisted by ropes on the deck. It was easiest for the acrobats, so used to monkeying up ropes and platforms. But he had already asked so much of Melia. The world was still turning and bellies were still hungry and the circus still needed to perform, and soon enough she would have to do her duty. But not yet. The rest of the crew could manage, and North was small and skinny enough to shin a little way up the mast.

  “North!” called out Jarrow. She had ducked back down into her coracle to dry and settle her bear after his daily exercise, and took a moment to reappear. He made a note to ask her how Melia was faring. “North, please help me to hang the sail.”

  “Oh, I—yes, Jarrow.” She ducked down into her coracle once more, then climbed out and began to step across the line of boats to the Excalibur.

  Ainsel, who had already stepped on board to help with the sail, gaped at his father. Jarrow regarded him with a slight smile.

  “Thank you, Ainsel, but I can manage this ship quite well. I should practice for after your wedding, no? You may tend to your horses. I imagine that they are still restless from the storm, and we must have them ready to perform when we reach land tomorrow. We all wish to eat.”

  Ainsel muttered something that Jarrow could not discern. As North passed, he swept his arm wide and dropped to a deep bow in a parody of manners. Jarrow watched, the sail in his hands.

  North did not react to Ainsel. Instead she stepped past him and on to the Excalibur’s deck, then waited for Jarrow to pass her the sail. He held it out, but hesitated. He could feel the heat from North’s skin, so close to his own. When the boat was not moving, the air was oppressively hot. Sweat itched along Jarrow’s top lip, and the rough skin of his cheeks began to ache in the humidity. He knew that he should stay out of the sea-spray as he sailed; the saltwater only made his skin crack more, but it felt so soothing on the reddened flesh. He was anxious to get the circus moving again.

  “North,” he began. “I knew your parents for many years before you were born. I know you didn’t get much time with them, before—that is, perhaps they never spoke of their hopes for you. But all of this—the house, and your marriage to Ainsel—I am sure that it’s what they wanted for you. I am sure it’s even more than they hoped for. Ainsel is my firstborn son, and I loved his mother very much. I do not give him away lightly.”

  She kept her eyes down on the deck. Jarrow waited, wondering if perhaps he should repeat the words in case she hadn’t heard. The silence thickened. The sail was heavy in his arms.

  “What I am saying, North, is that I am proud of you. I am giving you my son because I think you are worthy of him. And you know that if there was anything—that is, any reason that you might not be able to start your life on land—live properly with Ainsel as his wife…” He faltered.

  From the coracles came the ting of glass against metal. Jarrow glanced up. Dosh was in the water, lung balanced on the surface, ready to start diving, pulling faces at Cash and Dough through the scratched glass sphere. Damn: Jarrow had forgotten to ask him to bring up some of those pinkish seaweed shoots, the ones that Avalon liked. And he needed Cash to scrape any barnacles from the undersides of the coracles while the clowns were diving. And he needed to discuss a tweak to Bero’s fire-breathing act. And he should check that Cyan had properly mended the costumes for the maypole. And Melia needed a new coracle, and the Excalibur’s seams needed caulking, and Avalon needed things for the baby, and he still did not have quite enough saved up for the house, and the days were slipping away toward their arrival at the island. And, damn it, North still had not answered him. He cleared his throat.

  “Well,” he croaked. He coughed again and passed the corner of the sail to her, keeping the mass of it in his arms. “Thank you, North. I am glad that there is nothing to stand in the way. You will be an excellent landlocker, and you will make us all proud. Now we had better get the sail up.”

  As North began to climb the mast, the sail’s edge tucked into the back of her trousers, Avalon popped up from belowdecks. Her anger seemed to have blown over. It never took long—and at least Jarrow hadn’t had to sweeten her with gifts this time. She tiptoed to peck a forgiving kiss on his cheek, murmuring that she wished to sun herself on the deck. She waited for a kiss in return then stretched out, one hand behind her head, elbow cocked.

  Jarrow had intended to watch North, but instead he watched Avalon watching North. Her eyes were squinted shut against the sun—but no, not quite shut; just enough to mask the direction of her gaze. He pretended to busy himself with the wheel, checking again that its movement was smoothly oiled. From above came the click of bone hoops, the shift of limbs, the shush of fabric dropping. North had hung the sail. But still he kept his eyes on his wife.

  Her pose was one of absolute relaxation: head tipped back, one arm stretched along the gunwale. He held his breath, all the better to observe her.

  He saw Avalon’s head tilt up, following North’s movement as she slid down the mast. He saw her eyes widen; saw an unpleasant little smile sneak across her lips. He glanced up at North, but she had already shinned back down to the deck and was fussing with her clothes, rearranging them where they’d rucked up during her descent. She stood with her back to him, and he could not see what had so intrigued Avalon.

  He flicked his gaze between them. As North turned to go back to her coracle, Avalon stood to meet her. If North was surprised
, she did not show it; she simply stood with her hands at her sides and her gaze on her feet, waiting.

  “Oh, North,” sighed Avalon. She took both of North’s hands in her own, turning them so that the palms faced up. She opened her own hands so the two pairs were in a line, as if she was showing North something held in her hand. But Jarrow could see that her hands were empty.

  “Our little north child,” continued Avalon, her voice as soft as a breeze. “Our child,” she repeated, to let North know that she and Jarrow really did think of North as their own dear daughter. The throb in Jarrow’s head lessened. Avalon was happy once more, and that meant he could be happy too.

  Avalon took hold of North’s hands and pulled her close, so close that the swell of her belly pressed against North’s own middle. Despite her moods, Avalon really was the sweetest of women: reminding North of the baby, showing her that North should see the child as a new part of her family. Jarrow would never have known how to show North this, and he was grateful to Avalon for her kindness.

  “Ready to hoist!” he called out. There was a rush of activity: Dosh tugged on the cable attaching Cash to the boat; Teal and Mauve pulled their feet from the water and fussed over their canvas; Avalon slid belowdecks; and among it all, North slipped away from the Excalibur and back to her coracle.

  Jarrow tugged on the rope that would hoist the sail and get the fleet on their way.

  Don’t let Whitby’s blood be on the sail, he thought. Please, please, all you gods of the earth and the sea, let that gracekeeper girl have rinsed the sail. Don’t let there be blood.

  He hoisted the sail.

  The striped fabric was bright and clean, as spotless as the day it was made. It bellied in the wind, already tugging the Excalibur and its line of coracles on to their next port. Jarrow double-checked his compass and his sextant. Then he took hold of the wheel and steered them in the right direction, letting the wind soothe his throbbing skin.

  10

  CALLANISH

  After the circus left, Callanish passed the time in looking at the map pinned to her wall, and stitching up the worn patches in her white dress, and polishing the grace-cages until they gleamed as bright as the sun. This last exercise was the most effective, as by the time Callanish had polished the final grace-cage, the first had become tarnished by the seawater and she could begin all over again.

  The supply boat returned, so her grace-cages were no longer empty, and her belly did not need to be empty either. Boats passed on the horizon. Some of them approached, offering up their dead to Callanish. She stitched their faces, folded up their fists, and caged a bird above them. Every night she dreamed of the bear-girl.

  One morning, she tore a finger-thick strip off the hank of fabric and sat down to write a letter to her mother. She imagined how the words would look, printed on the fabric. They all seemed wrong. She wanted to say…she wanted to say…she closed her eyes and imagined the bear-girl. Her lips opened and she could speak. The bear-girl, and the bear-girl’s baby—she knew them, deep down in her guts, her heart, the base of her spine. They felt real, like family. But how could they be when she already had a family?

  Callanish wanted to say so many things, but the most important thing was something she could not say. She wanted to tell her mother that she remembered. And that she was sorry.

  She stood up again, and got into her rowing boat, and went all the way out to the furthest-away grace, one she’d caged last week. It didn’t have long left; she checked whether it was breathing, but its time had not yet come. Tomorrow, probably. She’d have to row back then to unclip the cage door and tip its tiny body into the water. She was almost at the edge of her graceyard, the outer circle of thirteen spindly stones with the look of weathered wood. Real wood was far too precious for such a thing, but the salvaged metal had been etched and shaped so that, if you weren’t looking too closely, it could almost be wood. From this distance, the house looked like wood too; at first Callanish had worried about rust, but now she encouraged it. The metal had lasted this long. It would last after she was gone.

  She poked her fingers through the dulling bars of the cage, ruffling the grace’s feathers until she found the largest, brightest one. When she tugged it free, the grace did not flinch. It did not look at her, or at anything at all. It did not seem to know that she was there. She tilted the feather in the light, watching the colors shift from green to blue.

  Callanish had never meant to be cruel. She remembered her mistake, and she would continue to remember it even if she could be forgiven. She wanted her mother to know that, although she could not say it. She sat for a long time in her boat on the flat sea, surrounded by dying birds, with a single feather in her hand. Then she went back to her house, wrapped the grace-feather in the strip of fabric and wrote her mother’s name and island on the outside. She waited.

  —

  When the messenger finally came, it was night. This was not unusual; good messengers spoke the language of the constellations, which communicated more than an empty blue sky. Callanish was in bed, face turned to the window and the busy stars, waiting for morning. The first she knew of him was the steady splash of the waves against his boat as he approached.

  The graceyard had been visited by many messengers, so without looking she knew what was out there: a single-masted boat the size of her house, sails fluttering, deck overwhelmed by a huge waterproof chest; and at the helm, hands on the wheel, a man in blue with his head shaved to the skin: the standard uniform of a messenger.

  The beat of the waves grew louder, louder, and then it stopped. Callanish heard the thud of the messenger’s boat bumping up against the dock. He would not be rude enough to climb out of his boat until she came to greet him. She pulled on her gloves and slippers and stepped on to the porch.

  A little boat with its sails now furled and its rope fastened to the dock. A man in blue. He climbed out of the boat and stepped toward Callanish.

  “I need you to take something for me,” she said. “A message.” From the pocket of her dress she pulled a canvas-wrapped feather. “The address is on it.”

  “Hello to you too,” he replied. Callanish said nothing. He lifted the parcel, tapping it with his fingertips. “I don’t hear any paper inside. Is the message written on the other side of the fabric?”

  It seemed rude to say that it was none of his business, so Callanish kept saying nothing.

  “Or is it a verbal message? Seems odd to take the cheap option when you’ve already got the fabric, but I don’t mind. I’m good at verbals. One of the best, if you want to know. I don’t just remember the words, I remember the intent of the words. That’s what really matters.” He grinned at her, teeth bright as bones in the moonlight.

  Callanish knew that the messenger had traveled far and probably wanted to rest, but he could not rest here. She had nothing. There was nothing.

  “I have payment,” said Callanish. She went into her house and scooped up chips of quartz and copper and gold: a month’s worth of Resting payments, the parts she couldn’t eat or wear or wash with. She went back out to the porch and dropped the chips in the messenger’s waiting hand. He poked through the offering.

  “This isn’t enough,” he said. “Not even for a verbal.”

  Callanish swayed, dizzy with panic. “But it has to be enough.”

  He shrugged. “Sorry. I’ll be back around in six months or so. You can save up and I’ll take it then.”

  Six months. What did it matter if she waited six more months? But it did matter. It did.

  “You have to take it,” she said. “Please.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, I really am. But I have to eat. Messages mean money, and money means food.”

  No one was more shocked than Callanish when her tears began to fall. She hiccuped out a sob.

  “Hey! Hey, now. No need for that.” The messenger slid his arm around Callanish’s shoulders, and she let him. Her knees gave up and she collapsed on to him, both of them dropping to a clumsy embrace on the por
ch. “Hush now. Hush now, little fish. It’s okay. It’s okay, I’ll take the message. You can pay me when I come back. Or we can trade for something. We’ll figure it out. Don’t cry, now.”

  Callanish leaned forward and kissed the messenger, their lips slick and salty with tears. After a heartbeat of hesitation, he kissed her back.

  She pulled away, took his hand, and led him into her house, wiping her cheeks dry on her shoulder. They lay down on the bed.

  Around them, the graces shuddered in their cages and the sea sucked at the moorings. It was not difficult to pretend that they were the only people left in the world. It was so easy, in fact, that perhaps it wasn’t pretending. No one would ever know what happened out here. Such small crimes.

  —

  Afterward, they sat together on the porch, feet tucked up, two handspans of empty space between them. Callanish could not offer the messenger anything. She had no spare food, nothing to drink.

  “What’s your name?” asked the messenger.

  Callanish picked a flake of rust from the boards and cast it into the water. It left a reddish smudge on the finger of her glove.

  “What’s with that map you’ve got pinned up on the wall?” asked the messenger.

  That was a question that Callanish did not mind answering. “My great-great-great-great-grandfather,” she said. “He made lots of maps, but that’s the only one left now. He was a cartographer. From back when there was still land to map.”

  “There are still plenty of maps, little fish.” The messenger stretched his arms up over his head, letting the bones crack. “Sea roads, trading routes, the locations of the archipelagos. Even if people can read the constellations, they need maps. There are still cartographers around. Lots of them.”

  “I didn’t say that there weren’t,” said Callanish. “But it’s different now. Before, the land was a proper home, not like—it doesn’t matter.”

  The land that her ancestor had mapped no longer existed. The contours of mountains and valleys, the lines denoting when one country became another, the shaded colors to show kingship: all of it was gone under the endless ocean. Back then it had shown the real world. Now it was only history, stories of a place that once was. Callanish knew all about mourning—she only had to think of the hundreds of bird skeletons, picked clean by fish, resting forever beneath her house. But she did not know how to mourn the world that she had never seen.