sea and the moon- and starlight playing upon each other, and the seals sinking back to their rest. Slowly I hid my new self in my same old blouse and kirtle and boots, kicked over the embers and crushed the heat out of them. I walked, warm now and thick-shod, across the rocks and up the sandy path. At the top of the cliff I stood in the grass under the stilled stars that had so dithered and streaked above me before. I had been ugly once; I must remember that, remember how to be ugly again now that I knew I was beautiful, remember how to be ordinary now that I’d seen the wonders inside me.
I walked home through the unmagical night. I changed into my nightdress in the privy and went into the house, and my old life greeted me there, ready to box me straight back in, to pack me tight among my old chores and irritations. My new eyes looked around at the shadowy kitchen; it would never hold me again as it had. I was here, but I was no longer trapped here.
As I went along the hall, Mam grumped from behind her door. ‘What’ve you been so long for? Have you the squitters, or what?’
‘I fell asleep there.’ I shuffled onward as sleep-clumsily as I could pretend.
‘A person could lie here bursting, ’ she said.
‘You should have followed and knocked,’ I said mildly, and caught back a laugh into my throat, at the thought of what her knocking would have led to.
I closed my door, undressed and laid down my clothes, and put myself to bed. I did not want to sleep, to see the end of this night, to wake into the humdrum tomorrow and think it all a dream. But as I’d seen, lying beside the seal-man on the Crescent rocks, what did my wants count for? Nothing and less than nothing. I watched the ceiling’s swirling shadows, happy to matter so little. When my thoughts ran down at last, with a sigh I wrapped my own arms around myself, and stroked my own damp hair as I sank to sleep.
Life went on as before. The feeling of the seal-man’s hands faded from my skin, and the sight of his face from my memory. One day after midsummer it struck me that life had gone on, for quite a time, without its usual monthly event, and that he had left me more than my torn virtue and my new peacefulness.
I looked coolly on this realisation. The town would condemn me, and Mam would rant and rail, but I would still have this bab, half-magical, entirely mine.
Now that I had admitted it, I felt the child growing inside me. But I did not become spectacularly ill, as both Grassy and Bee were now, embarked upon their next babs — as they had been for every bab, trying to outdo each other with their suffering. I did not have to sit about green with a puke-bowl by me, fighting to keep food down. Sometimes a vague wisp of sickness floated through me, and once or twice the smell of fry-fat brought a lump to my throat; any but the weakest tea tasted foul to me, and the house sometimes had so close a fug that I must go and gasp on the step if I were not to faint away. But Mam did not notice these small discomforts, and no one else watched me closely enough to remark the difference.
And then the discomforts went away, and there was only the knowledge, the growing weight right deep down in me, the occasional fluttering movement. I waited for someone to notice, for voices to snap and eyes to turn on me. But there had always been a lot of me, and I was not much larger, only firmer. The outward change was hardly to be remarked, beyond what Mam always carped about, beyond what men like Garter O’Day watched sidelong when they had the chance. The months went on, and the weather closed in,and I sat by the fire curiously unfrightened. I would go back in my mind to the night I had had with the seal-man, to the dark of the spring moon; I would listen to the movements of his child in me, and it would all make a sense of sorts. There was no need to tell it, to surrender it up for gossiping, to cheapen it so. Let people realise when they would; it was no concern of
I walked home through the unmagical night. I changed into my nightdress in the privy and went into the house, and my old life greeted me there, ready to box me straight back in, to pack me tight among my old chores and irritations. My new eyes looked around at the shadowy kitchen; it would never hold me again as it had. I was here, but I was no longer trapped here.
As I went along the hall, Mam grumped from behind her door. ‘What’ve you been so long for? Have you the squitters, or what?’
‘I fell asleep there.’ I shuffled onward as sleep-clumsily as I could pretend.
‘A person could lie here bursting, ’ she said.
‘You should have followed and knocked,’ I said mildly, and caught back a laugh into my throat, at the thought of what her knocking would have led to.
I closed my door, undressed and laid down my clothes, and put myself to bed. I did not want to sleep, to see the end of this night, to wake into the humdrum tomorrow and think it all a dream. But as I’d seen, lying beside the seal-man on the Crescent rocks, what did my wants count for? Nothing and less than nothing. I watched the ceiling’s swirling shadows, happy to matter so little. When my thoughts ran down at last, with a sigh I wrapped my own arms around myself, and stroked my own damp hair as I sank to sleep.
Life went on as before. The feeling of the seal-man’s hands faded from my skin, and the sight of his face from my memory. One day after midsummer it struck me that life had gone on, for quite a time, without its usual monthly event, and that he had left me more than my torn virtue and my new peacefulness.
I looked coolly on this realisation. The town would condemn me, and Mam would rant and rail, but I would still have this bab, half-magical, entirely mine.
Now that I had admitted it, I felt the child growing inside me. But I did not become spectacularly ill, as both Grassy and Bee were now, embarked upon their next babs — as they had been for every bab, trying to outdo each other with their suffering. I did not have to sit about green with a puke-bowl by me, fighting to keep food down. Sometimes a vague wisp of sickness floated through me, and once or twice the smell of fry-fat brought a lump to my throat; any but the weakest tea tasted foul to me, and the house sometimes had so close a fug that I must go and gasp on the step if I were not to faint away. But Mam did not notice these small discomforts, and no one else watched me closely enough to remark the difference.
And then the discomforts went away, and there was only the knowledge, the growing weight right deep down in me, the occasional fluttering movement. I waited for someone to notice, for voices to snap and eyes to turn on me. But there had always been a lot of me, and I was not much larger, only firmer. The outward change was hardly to be remarked, beyond what Mam always carped about, beyond what men like Garter O’Day watched sidelong when they had the chance. The months went on, and the weather closed in,and I sat by the fire curiously unfrightened. I would go back in my mind to the night I had had with the seal-man, to the dark of the spring moon; I would listen to the movements of his child in me, and it would all make a sense of sorts. There was no need to tell it, to surrender it up for gossiping, to cheapen it so. Let people realise when they would; it was no concern of
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