A Cup of Normal (20 page)

I’d been given the advice to stop writing such lyrical, descriptive short stories. Taking that advice to heart, I tried writing several “bare-bones” stories to no avail. Eventually, I gave up and threw myself headfirst into this lyrical, rhythmic original fairytale.

LEEWARD TO THE SKY

Crouched beneath the wet stone doorframes
in the old town of Brinkofsea, sits Stigin Niddle, fingers too bent to make the magic, build the magic, push the magic, flying, driving the night into morn.

Some see her, bent Stigin Niddle, making the finest sails the fleets have worn. Sails so thin a child’s smile shines through them, so strong, the storms of black winter can’t tear them. Sails over her bony legs, like a wedding dress about a corpse, sails flowing like honey and sunlight to the edge, but never beyond the stony-arch of the doorway where Stigin Niddle sits, pushing magic.

Boat captains treat her like queen-goddess-nymph ruler of luck and weather. Buy her sails with never a haggle. Pour gold at her feet, bow away, and adorn their great hulled ships with fabric richer than their finest tales.

Crewmen treat her like mother’s own yes-lady, as-you-say lady and tip their hats as they go by to find less respectable women leaning from up-above windows with perfume and bright dresses promising moist warm evenings.

Fish-hawkers treat her like ugly girl odd-out sister and keep her fed, fish and crab and sleek, pungent eel.

Magic under foot, ugly, happy Stigin, spinning sails in the damp doorways of Brinkofsea.

Until the landman came, from high mountain stone and thunder, pushed by a wind that smelled of change, looking for magic caught by the small sea town, hungry for something brief and sweet, like the last wine of summer on a lover’s lips.

He didn’t know he wanted Stigin Niddle. He didn’t know magic was an ugly thing.

Twelve days he walked the cobbled town, twelve days striding, bootheels against wood dock, eyes taking in slate sky and jade-tipped waves. Looking for the taste, the song, the filling for a hunger that pushed at his skin and bone, the need that only quieted at night in the amber embrace of ale.

Met a man, a shipman-boatwright of strong, long-fingered, building hands. A man whose hands bent plank, carved ships from mind to solid, breathing creatures of tall mast and rig.

Lovely Ladies, he called them, Grand Dames of tomorrow’s horizon. The shipman-boatwright made his own kind of magic, and gave it to the vessels he created.

The man from the mountain almost found what he searched for there, his own hands pressed against sea-soaked teak, the lift and fall of ship rocking his hips like a languid lover.

Eyes closed, mouth open he breathed in the wild call of the sea, of the ship straining against the tethered hold of land, thirsty for the sky’s edge and knew this was as close to magic as ever he had come.

But the birds above called out, the wind drew against his skin, reminding him of land, of his mountains, of the hollow hunger deep within.

A false love, this ship. The man opened his eyes and shook his head. No, to the shipman-boatwright whose eyes were so caught by the beauty of his own creations, he did not notice the man leave — did not know he was once again alone with the great mahogany lady. No.

Yet something about the ship called to the man from the mountains, lingered even as his boot touched the cob-solid gangplank. Something here, a part of this ship, was that which he sought.

The man from the mountains turned, looked over shoulders wide and strong from life between the stone and wind of cliffs.

Something there, in the ship, a half-heard song, caught between gull cry. Soft as a feather shaving sky. A snap of sail.

The man from the mountains smiled. Yes. The woven strands, gossamer as diamond-spun spider silk, caught by wind to snap in short brilliant laughter, like a voice caught singing.

Magic.

He walked back to the deck, boots beating rhythm to his heart and pushed both hands into the unfurled sail. He felt the shock of need roll down his spine to pool, heavy and warm between his thighs. Never closer than this, than his hands against a sail too fragile to exist in a world of hook and lashings. Never closer had he been to ending his search. To finally know magic.

He shook the shipman-boatwright until his eyes cleared of rapt fascination for the vessel. Sail, he asked. Where?

Lips bowed in a smile, the shipman pointed. Stigin Niddle. Weaver, maker, doorstoop croucher. In the heart of Brinkofsea, perfect, magic Stigin.

The man from the mountains ran. Boots fell in cobbled tones, singing his need, pounding with haste. So close. Would that which he sought slide away like cloud to sun, before he could glimpse it, know it finally, fully?

If he were in his mountain’s hold, his feet would have known the way to go, but here in the shack and alley town of Brinkofsea, his feet followed street after street, coming no closer to the center, the call, the thing called Stigin Niddle.

Night came, bringing a cold wet cloak from the ocean’s depth. Brinkofsea huddled in the cold, doors closed, windows drawn. Lantern light pushed out from the cracks between cedar shakes, throwing gold rods of light into the slick cobble streets. Smoke slipped up stone chimneys, mingled, mixed with fog and cold.

The man from the mountains stopped, changing his breath, until it rose and fell in rhythm with the ocean. Magic was here, wrapped in the fog, he could taste it like honey on his tongue, feel it like the cold heat of mint against his skin.

But magic is elusive, hidden, the sound of madness creeping. Though the man followed the call, careful to keep his footfalls soft, his breathing in rhythm with fog-muted waves, magic was ho-ho, and you won’t see, in the dark wet streets of Brinkofsea.

On the cusping break of night to dawn, the man walked the last alley, the last street, morning cry of bird and hard smell of baked salt-bread filling the air where fog had once lay, fog which pulled away without the man feeling its loss.

Shipmen called while feet of runners pattered across cobble. Tide is turning, night is turning, life is turning. Up now, men and boys, up now rope and sail, up upon the crashing waves, before the chance is gone.

With each step, the man from the mountains wondered if fate was turning, if he too should shoulder against the wind, find his way home, taking defeat at his side.

And there, near the end of the alley, in the shadows of a doorway, leeward to the sky, blind to the wind, a woman sat sewing. Sails the color of dawn-painted clouds billowed and shimmered, laying like maidens of gossamer, fae beauty, bare to the pale sun, calling, calling, magic here beneath the stone, in the cold dark shadows.

So drawn to the sails, the man did not see the woman behind them for several moments. When he did look, his eyes, dazzled by gossamer beauty, could not believe the vision before them.

Thin to nothing, hair long and wild, Stigin Niddle sat, her sharp face tipped to the side, as if she heard a song no mortal could follow, her fingers lithe and long, spinning magic beneath her palms into cloth. Eyes lost in the gray of the stone which surrounded her, she rocked slowly, her mouth pulled in a smile only babes, or the mad can wear.

And despite the hollows of her cheeks, the pale skin covered with thin silver tracks of snails gone by, despite the cast of blue about her lips and eyes, as if she were long adrift in the cold, cold sea, the man from the mountain knew that magic, the filling, the need that had called him from snug and warm mountain holding was here, before him, in the lifeless eyes and flying hands of Stigin Niddle.

A fish hawker came, tossed yesterday’s carp at her feet, stared at the man of the mountain, the stranger who could not take his eyes off the woman beneath the sails and knew, with pity, that the man had never seen the ugly side of magic.

The fish hawker put a strong calloused hand on the arm of the man — wet and cold — his skin running with droplets of last night’s fog, his breath oddly in time with the ocean caressing the edge of Brinkofsea, in time with Stigin’s fingers pushing, coaxing cloth to spring, full and sewn from nothing but her hands.

The fish hawker pulled on the man’s arm, intent to take him somewhere warm, a fire, a hot mug of tea, away from the ugly odd woman, spinning magic for a world she could no longer see.

But the man from the mountain pushed aside the fish hawker’s hand, and before he could think again, before the fall of one wave curled into another, he bent, and caught Stigin Niddle’s hands between his own.

You are bound no longer to this town, bound no longer to stone and shadow, no longer to magic’s call. Come with me, lady Stigin, and the mountains themselves will bow down to you, hold you dear, precious, love you — but less even than I shall love you.

The hawker laughed. Could the man from the mountain think a woman such as that, a creature such as that would hear his words, bide his call? Magic has fed upon her humanity, sails have replaced her soul. She is but an empty shell, lost and singing, mad, and happy among the drift of sea and swell.

Ugly Stigin, perfect odd, sister Stigin. Not a creature that can be captured, not a woman to hear the heart of a man.

The man listened not to the hawker’s words, listened not to the gulls crying fool, fool, listened not to the slow drip of fog and morning sliding down the stone, down Stigin’s shoulders, her hair, her face. He listened instead to his heart, pounding with the strength of the mountain, the land come to claim that which the sea had taken, his lady, his love.

Fool, fool, the gulls cried from above, poor mistaken fool, the hawker echoed.

But Stigin did not hear the words of the hawker or the gulls. She did not hear the crash of the waves. Slowly, slowly, like sand sliding down stone, Stigin’s hands rested, her fingers lying still and white as folded wings against sails that no longer spun.

The man from the mountains laughed out full, and plucked her up, the nearly nothing of her left, and pulled her against his chest. Love I will give you, love shall you know. No longer the dampness of doorway, no longer the endless skein of sails to be spun.

At the moment the man held her, cradled her face against his own, the hawker cried out, the townsfolk cried out, the captains who had called her queen-nymph-goddess, the crewmen who had called her yes-lady, as-you-wish lady, called out as one, for then the spell was broken, and Stigin Niddle was no longer the heart of gray Brinkofsea, no longer the single, simple vessel for the magic of sail, the taming of the sea to pour through.

Lost it all when Stigin Niddle smiled and breathed again, her first breath.

They speak of her still, of Stigin Niddle, of the ugly, magical creature born of the sea, through whose hands the finest of sails were woven. They speak of the day magic was lost to the town of Brinkofsea, and they speak of the man, whose hands were not afraid to touch, and heart was not afraid to love the ugly beauty of magic.