M. Wren - A Gift Upon the Shore

It’s worth an old woman’s life.

It occurs to me then that perhaps all my fear, all my mustering of courage, is in vain. Tonight at least. Miriam may not come tonight.

No. She’ll come. Miriam is not by nature patient. She won’t ignore this golden opportunity I’ve presented her.

Miriam will come.

I ease myself down onto the stone plinth, my back to the door, and contemplate the moon and the exquisite, indifferent night.

The moon is perhaps thirty degrees above the black contour of the hills when I see a yellow star of a light east of the house.

A lantern. It moves as if of its own volition toward the barn. I watch it as I might a natural phenomenon I can’t explain. The light winks out. Miriam has gone inside the barn. That, no doubt, is where she hid the dynamite. Within minutes the light reappears, bobs toward the fence, flickers behind the trees. A pause: the gate. The light twinkles across the pasture, then slows as it moves up the slope.

And finally I can see Miriam. At least, I can see a ghostly shape reflecting the moonlight. On this balmy night she wears nothing but her long, white nightgown. She carries the lantern in her right hand, and under her left arm is a dark bundle. Her hair glows like an amber halo in the moonlight.

She is still at least fifty yards away. I raise the shawl over my head to cover my white hair, then twist around to reach the handcuffs, slip my left hand through the open loop, and stop to wait out a wave of panic that leaves me panting. Then with my right hand, I close the loop around my wrist, hear the ratcheting click, and loose my breath in a sigh. Finally I bunch the shawl with my right hand to hold it up over the lower half of my face, at the same time grasping the whistle between my thumb and forefinger. Miriam is still moving through the moonlight like a mythical creature made whole of that mystic light.

I press back against the door, my hand hanging in the cold bracelet a little above the level of my head. I remain as still as the stones that protect this keep, this treasure house, this life of mine, of Rachel’s.

Miriam is only twenty yards away, but she hasn’t seen me yet. Faintly against the whisper of the surf, I hear her singing as she climbs the slope, singing like a child at play on a sunny afternoon— a child who thinks she is alone.

Now she stops, looks at me. She is less than thirty feet away.

And I begin blowing on the whistle as hard as I can, hearing nothing but its faint wheezing, wishing I could hear that high-frequency sound, wishing I could be sure—

“ Who’s there ?”

I almost laugh. As if she didn’t know. I keep blowing, and in the distance I hear—think I hear—the sound of barking.

Miriam stumbles toward me, the lantern drawing streaks in my eyes. Six feet away she stops again, puts her bundle down. It’s wrapped in dark cloth.

I’m still blowing on the whistle, and now I’m sure I hear barking. All the dogs are barking. But the family—certainly awake by now— will have to get out of their beds, will have to discover that Miriam is not in hers, nor I in mine, will have to, above all, let Shadow out of the house so she can lead them to me, and now, with Miriam looming over me, I understand that the plan was foolish. It can’t succeed.

She closes the distance between us, the lantern glaring in my face, hisses, “What are you doing here?”

I lower the shawl and whistle. “I’ve been waiting for you, Miriam.”

Her face in the light reflected from mine is so fixed, so masklike, I can’t believe it is capable of change even as I watch it wrench into a grimace of frustration.

“You unholy witch ! You’re sick! You’re old and tired and sick!”

“But I’m here , Miriam! I’m here to defend what I hold sacred, and I’m willing to die for it, if you’re willing to kill for it.”

She doesn’t understand that yet. Her gaze shifts to my upraised arm, to the handcuffs. She pulls at the loop connected to the hasp, and I raise the shawl, blow desperately on the whistle. The distant barking gets louder, but there are no lights in the house.

“What is this?”

The handcuffs belong to a world unknown to her. I keep blowing on the whistle, while she puts the lantern down, grips my forearm and pulls hard, sending lightnings of pain through my wrist, and she is strong and determined, and my flesh and bones are weak and fragile. I cry out, “You can’t break it, Miriam!” That doesn’t stop her, but I see a light in the house. Yes, a light in the new wing. I turn away from the pain, blow on the whistle, gasp for air, and blow again. Shadow, come to me, sweet Shadow ….

Abruptly Miriam ceases jerking at my arm, shines the lantern on me, and I hide the whistle in the shawl, hear the rasping of my breath against hers. She stares at me for a long time. She doesn’t seem aware of the distant barking, doesn’t seem aware of anything but my face. And in her face I see the anger and frustration smooth away, see a smile press deep shadows into the corners of her mouth, and I’m struck with terror. I’ve been afraid to this point, but that smile throws terror into the equation.

She touches my cheek lightly, her voice as gentle as the moonlight.

“Oh, yes, I should’ve known you’d be here. The Lord has delivered His enemy unto me. Unto me !”

She rises, stands limned in the moonlight, and she shouts to the sky, “ The Lord be praised! Thou hast delivered thine enemy unto my hands!” Again and again she shouts this affirmation as if the words were charged with potent magic, as if they rise from a wellspring of arcane power within her that can change entrails into portents, water into wine, blood into absolution.

And life into death.

I’m incapable of conscious decision, and perhaps it is my body that remembers to keep blowing on the whistle. And the sound of barking seems louder. Shadow—that’s Shadow’s bark. Yes, I’m sure of it, I think I’m sure of it. Shadow, come to me, come to me ….

Miriam’s exultant litany stops suddenly. She looks down at me, then with a hoarse cry, lunges, snatches the shawl away from my face.

The whistle tangles in the shawl. She rips at it, finds the chain, tries to get it over my head. But I fight her for this, for my silent hope of help. The chain cuts into my neck and palm, and I kick at her, hear her yelp of pain. I see her fist coming, turn my head to make it a glancing blow, but the next one catches me at the side of my mouth, my head thuds against the door. She fumbles at my neck, muttering, “Mine enemy is delivered unto Thy hand… mine enemy…” And she pulls the chain off, tosses it away.

And her enemy is a witless old woman with a mouth full of blood, head raddled with pain, who can’t even manage a coherent word to plead for her life. Or curse her killer.

I stare up at multiple moons, my ears ringing, yet I still hear her chanting, “Mine enemy… mine enemy…” And scraping sounds.

There’s Miriam, wavering into focus. Miriam at the corner of the vault on her knees, digging in the ground with her bare hands and—a knife. Yes, she has a knife. It flashes in the lantern light, but I can’t see what she’s digging up; it’s around the corner.

No. She’s not digging up anything. She’s digging a hole next to the foundation. She grunts, throws a rock out of her excavation, and it tumbles down the slope.

I hear a sound, insistent, continuous, and distant, and the ringing in my ears is abating. Barking. That’s what I hear. Barking dogs. I look down toward Amama, but all I can see is moonlit meadow and a swarm of stars twinkling in the black shadow clouds of trees.

Not stars. Lanterns . I can’t be sure how many. I can’t be sure my eyes aren’t still multiplying the images.