This bed, the fact of this bed, seemed to offer some reassurance. Perhaps this was what her father had meant for her. He had sent her on ahead. He had made sure she would have a place of comfort. He would be following later.
And the mattress… it was softer than anything she had ever slept on. She reached under its covering. It was stuffed with a fine, silvery fleece, almost more light and air than wool. She rubbed a shimmering tuft between her fingers and leaned back into the cushion.
A mattress and a bed. She had never slept in a bed. Not really. Once or twice, when their walls were too thin to keep out the damp, or when the rats woke them one too many times from their sleep, her father had lifted her little mattress from the floor and set it on the table so she could sleep dry and rat-free while he was away at night. And her father had told her of beds—beds fine and elaborate and curtained and gilded, with cushions plush with thousands upon thousands of feathers.
This was neither a table transformed into a bed nor a gilded masterpiece, but, thought Clo, she would be glad not to be tucked up against the stone walls and floor and the cold that would surely creep along them. At least, while she was here. For however long that would be.
Standing, Clo crossed to the window. The opening was thick, carved out of the stone that shaped everything. Through its glass panes, she could see pale gray sky and pale gray sea, stretching on and on into the distance. No boats, no birds interrupted the expanse; only there, far into the gray water, she could see the line of crashing waves the bosun had rowed her through—a rim of white. It was eerily quiet: in this little room, she could hear nothing—no wind or wave or bird or voice—nothing but the shuffling footsteps of the woman behind the closed door.
Leaning closer to the glass, Clo looked straight down as far as she was able and realized, with a dizzying start, that this little home was part of the cliff walls; it had simply been carved into them. This must be, she thought, the back of the island, not the side she had climbed.
She scanned the sky for sun or moon, wondering if evening was approaching. The light from the sky was a dull and steady gray—flat, with no glimmer behind the clouds to give a hint of time. She sat back down on the bed. It could be morning, or afternoon, or evening, but her eyes felt heavy, and her body, after the waves and the climbing and the fear and the uncertainty, felt heavier. She would close her eyes, just for a moment.… She removed her father’s cloak and pulled it over her like a blanket. She listened to the pulse of her heartbeat against the softness of the mattress. Clothilde, it said. Clothilde.
Clo awoke in the terror that something was consuming her: something was sitting on her, something was pushing sharp teeth or claws into her shoulders again and again. It was dark and heavy and furry and piggish… an animal… there was an animal on her, an animal eating her… Clo screamed and pushed the thing; it dug into her, and Clo grasped the thick bulk of the beast and threw it off. It backed into a corner of the room, hissing and snarling. Scrambling to sit up—What was that thing?—Clo grabbed the first thing she could reach—the bag of turnips—and, still staring at the hissing thing, groped blindly with her fingers for a turnip globe. She hurled it, and the animal made noises more horrible still, rowling, howling, beastly noises. Clo took aim with a second turnip.
Before she could throw, the door burst open, and the little apple-faced woman entered in a flurry. “Feihcsim, feihcsim,” she said, rushing to the beast.
“No!” Clo waved at her to move. “It’s dangerous! It’s wild!”
But the woman knelt over the beast and raised it maternally in her arms. “Feihcsim,” she soothed. She turned to Clo, still poised to chuck her turnip, and wagged a crooked finger at her. “Feihcsim.” She patted the thing gently, and it let out a rumbling.
Clo stared at the animal—its fat paws, its long tail, its dark mottled fur—with horror. The noise it was making—it was purring—suggested it was a cat, but if it was a cat, it was the largest, most beastly cat she had ever seen. It looked more boarish than cattish, thick and rough with a squished bristly face.
The woman released the beasty-cat, which hissed again at Clo before slipping from the room. The woman gestured to Clo that they should follow.
Standing, folding her father’s cloak, glancing out the window, Clo could not tell how long she had slept. Her body felt old, immensely old, as though it were a thread that had been stretched so tight it had begun to unravel. But the light was the same outside as when she had arrived: no sun rising or setting, no moon anywhere in the sky—just the same grayness.
Waiting next to her, the woman made a little clicking noise of disapproval. She pinched at the fabric of Clo’s tunic, and the lines of her face creased into deeper displeasure. Clo looked down: her tunic and leggings were dirty, perhaps, but not much dirtier than usual. Cheeks burning, Clo tugged at her tunic hem, but the woman merely shook her head and guided Clo into the front room.
The table had been set with three bowls and three spoons, and the coals in the fireplace had been coaxed into a brighter flame. A large kettle hanging over the fire billowed out small clouds of steam. Clo watched the little woman shuffle around the hissing, burbling pot, stirring and muttering to herself, while the beast-cat sat in the corner swishing its tail and licking its hoofish paws. From time to time, the woman would lift a slippery piece of something from the pot and toss it at the animal, and it would crouch over the food, devouring it in violent, growling, squelching bites.
“Can you tell me,” Clo finally said, “when the next boat is arriving?”
The woman lifted a ladle from the pot and took a small sip. She gave no sign she had heard Clo.
“The boat? The next boat?”
The woman flipped another slippery morsel out of the pot and onto the floor for the cat.
“I think… my father, he sent me here. He gave me a ticket. A half passage. He must be coming. I know he’ll come. My father? Do you know him? My father? Mon père? Moi otets? Vater? Pabbi? Baba? Papa?” Clo pronounced the word slowly, loudly, in all the languages she knew, hoping one might catch the woman’s understanding.
But at this final repetition of father, the ladle hit the pot with an angry clang, and the woman flapped her hand dismissively at Clo.
Clo sighed in exasperation. How could she make this woman understand?
Whatever was in the pot did not smell of any kind of stew Clo knew—no pungent herbs or meat or roots. If she had to say, she’d say it smelled like cold, but with the red coals and boiling broth, she knew it was anything but cold. Still, the air seemed to smell and taste like snow, like ice or wind, empty and stark. Though she knew she ought to be hungry, she felt nothing for whatever was bubbling in the kettle.
A knock on the door set the apple-faced woman into a flurry again. She tossed the cat another slippery morsel, wiped her hands on her shift, ushered Clo into a chair, and crossed to open her front door. A figure—as tall as the apple-faced woman was short—ducked inside. He was as old as the little woman, but where her skin rucked and rumpled, his was stretched as thin and translucent as vellum. He almost seemed to crackle as he walked. The man lowered the basket he was carrying. It was, Clo saw, full of fish: hundreds and hundreds of black-eyed, silver, shimmering fish. One or two, slipping out and skidding across the floor, were quickly captured and devoured by the cat.