Vonda McIntyre - The Moon and the Sun

“Let me help you undress.”

“Only help me with my gown, I have a little work to do still.”

First Odelette must have something to wear, for Chartres had rent her threadbare shift beyond repair. In the wardrobe, Marie-Josèphe’s shift with the turned hems lay on top of a new one, of heavy warm flannel with three lace ruffles.

“Where did this come from?”

“Queen Mary. You may wear it. I shall take your old one.”

“It’s yours, you shall wear it.”

Marie-Josèphe helped Odelette into the new nightshirt, gratefully accepted her sister’s help in getting out of her gown and shoes and stays, and tucked her sister back into bed. She used the chaise percée and splashed cold water on her face and hands.

When she washed away the dried blood between her legs, she realized her bleeding had stopped, days early. Worried, she tried to gather her courage, to overcome her terror of submitting to the medical arts. For a moment she resolved to speak to a physician.

But she had so many other, more important things to worry about, so many things to do. The physicians here were so grand, she should not waste their time with female complaints. And, in truth, she could only feel grateful for being spared more mess, more inconvenience. To be safe, she put on a clean towel, and soaked the bloody one in a basin of cold water.

I wonder if the sea monster bleeds? she wondered. She answered her own question: That’s ridiculous. Animals don’t bleed. They’re free of the sin of Eve. Besides, if the sea monster bled like a woman, she would be in terrible danger from sharks.

She fetched Lorraine’s cloak. His musky perfume tickled her nose, as the curl of his perruke tickled her cheek when he bent down to whisper to her. She curled in the chair by Odelette’s bed, her music score in her lap, her bare feet tucked under the warm cloak. Candlelight flickered across the pages.

I thought the score was perfect, she said to herself, but the sea monster is so sad, so frightened in her captivity…

Odelette slipped her hand from beneath the covers, reaching for Marie-Josèphe, holding her fingers tight. Marie-Josèphe left her hand in Odelette’s even after her sister had fallen asleep. She revised the score, turning the pages awkwardly, one-handed. She dozed.

She gasped awake, frightened by the pleasure that invaded her body. The sheaf of music paper spilled to the floor.

The burnt-out candle, its smoke pungent, left her room without a breath of light. A song crept around her, as cold as night air. The sea monster swam through the window, as if the glass were transparent to material flesh. She hovered above Marie-Josèphe, upside-down, her hair streaming around her and toward the ceiling.

Shivering, entranced, Marie-Josèphe thought, This is a dream. I can do as I like. Nothing, no one, can stop me.

She stood, and raised up her hands to the sea monster.

The song hesitated; the sea monster vanished. Marie-Josèphe hurried to the window. The tent loomed at the bottom of the garden, the white silk glowing eerily. Gardeners’ torches flickered in the North Quincunx and the Star and reflected from the Mirror Fountain. The creak of the gears of the orange-tree carts pierced the soft murmuring quiet of the gardens of Versailles.

Singing again, the sea monster appeared, bright as sunlight. Other sea monsters followed, swimming in the air, circling, caressing each other, creating a whirlwind, a whirlpool.

Marie-Josèphe stepped toward the window, expecting to pass through the panes, like the sea monsters. She bumped her nose painfully.

How strange, she thought. In a dream I must be able to pass through the window and swim in the air like the sea monsters. I cannot; my imagination fails me. If I open the window and step out, I would fall. Everyone says that a dreamer who falls instead of flying must die.

She ran down the stairs, hugging the cloak tight against the surprised glances of the servants. They were not used to seeing members of court an hour before dawn. For some courtiers, the hour before dawn was the only time they ever slept.

Beyond the terrace, the gravel cut her feet. She dreamed herself on Zachi’s back. She dreamed herself a pair of stout shoes. Nothing happened. The gravel felt sharper. She ran down the stairs and stepped onto the Green Carpet. The grass was cold and wet, but it did not cut her. The candles verging the Carpet had burned to puddles of wax and smoking wicks.

The radiant sea monsters led her to the tent. The guard slept, lulled by the sea monster’s song.

Inside the tent, inside the cage, inside the fountain, the sea monster splashed furiously with both her tails. A waterfall of luminescence erupted around her.

She sang.

Marie-Josèphe sat on the rim of the Fountain.

“If this were my dream,” she said, “if this were your dream, you wouldn’t be imprisoned.”

The sea monster cried. A male sea monster—the sea monster whose body Yves was dissecting, brought back to life by the song—swam around the ceiling of the tent. Marie-Josèphe closed her eyes, but the image remained, fashioned in her mind by the singing, swimming in front of her as plain as anything real.

“I see your songs,” Marie-Josèphe said. “And you understand what I say. Don’t you? Do you speak? Do you speak in words?”

“Fishhh,” the sea monster said, and then she sang.

A tiny fish, its edges made harsh by the rasp of the sea monster’s voice, flitted across her vision. The song described the fish itself, and its surroundings, the sound of its swimming, the taste of its flesh. The sea monsters spoke not in words, but in images, interconnections, associations.

Marie-Josèphe hummed the fish’s melody. An indistinct image wavered before her and vanished. “Oh, sea monster, my song must be only a blur in your ears. I’ll do better, I promise. Sea monster, what’s your name?”

The sea monster sang a complicated melody. The song described the sea monster, and it hinted, as well, at joy, and brashness, and youthful wisdom.

“How beautiful! It’s perfect.”

The sea monster swam to her. She trailed a glowing wake. The luminescence flowed down her shoulders and along her hair. The sea monster rested her elbows on the lowest step and gazed at Marie-Josèphe. Her whispered song formed shapes and scenes.

Marie-Josèphe ran to the laboratory, snatched scraps of paper and charcoal, and hurried back to the sea monster. She sketched the songs, not in words or notes but rough scribbled pictures. Her eyes filled with tears; sometimes her tears smudged the paper. But the scenes remained clear, for she heard them.

In her song, the sea monster swam alone. Filth and algae dimmed the fountain’s clarity. Litter and coins covered the bottom of the fountain.

The sea monster’s song turned the water sapphire. The trash and the coins transmuted to white sand and living shells. Bright iridescent fish flitted past, changing color all together from blue to silver as they turned.

A strange sea monster swam through the tropical sea. She was older than the captured creature, her skin a darker mahogany, her hair a lighter green, her tails dappled with silver. She was pregnant.

She swam through swiftly shoaling water to a white beach, an isolated island in the expanse of the ocean. The sea monster struggled onto the sand, rolling in the warmth of it, nesting in it, pillowing her belly.

Marie-Josèphe’s sea monster writhed onto the beach beside the pregnant monster. The male sea monster followed, and another. They surrounded the mother sea monster, grooming her hair, rubbing her back, stroking her belly.

The mother sea monster moaned, and wailed, and her body tensed; the aunt and uncle sea monsters supported her so she lay reclining. Marie-Josèphe watched the birth with dread and fascination. It was difficult, painful for the mother, more like the birth of a baby than like the easy births of animals. But finally the wizened baby sea monster lay against its mother’s breast. She held it, crooned to it, and let it suckle while her family washed it with warm sea water and unfolded its wrinkled, webbed toes.