Deerskin - Robin McKinley

"Or perhaps my hand has given the wheel a spin; for I do not, sometimes, see that suffering to break any creature's spirit is so excellent a thing. My world is a small one, I know, and like to remain so, for I spend perhaps too much time and strength pitting myself against the great wheel." She laughed a small chiming laugh, and Lissar nestled down more contentedly, for the woman's words stroked her as gently as did her hand, and while she did not understand the meaning of the words, they soothed her, like a mother's bedtime story to a child too young to know language.

"But my world shall thus stay small, for I will go on so pitting myself, and spending such power as I have, and will never, perhaps, be willing to accept that simplicity-that lonely simplicity-that would lift me out of this world forever......" She laughed again. "And why, then, do I tell you this? I recognize something of myself in you, perhaps: the obstinacy, perhaps; or perhaps I know the one who keeps you company. Wake, my child, for someone who loves you wants comforting."

But Lissar's eyes stayed tightly closed. She did not want to wake. She knew too much about waking, for she had been called away from peace back into pain before, and she did not want to go through that again. She wanted to stay just where she was, and sleep forever.

But the woman would not let her. "Wake up, my child. I have given you several gifts, and the world is not as you have feared it, or not wholly so, and I would give you to see the things that are good and kind, for I think you have seen enough of the other. I have given you the gift of time, first; but I have given you other gifts, one that you must discover and one that you must seek. But wake you shall, for I will not have my gifts wasted." And Lissar accepted that the woman knew her better than she knew herself, and that since she believed Lissar would wake, then wake Lissar must.

She opened her eyes as reluctantly as she had ever done anything; she knew that as soon as she opened her eyes she would be ... where? Memory returned to her cautiously, forming at some little distance from her, that she should glance at it only, not feel it, not let it sink through her, spoiling her peace arid comfort: she remembered her last bath, the blood between her legs, leaping out into the snow to escape the man-dragon ... the memory blurred and fell away from her even as she thought it, crumbling to nothingness like the mysterious contents of an ancient box or trunk or cupboard, opened at last and exposed to sunlight: for a moment the relics stand sharp and clear, but at a touch they fall to ashes, impalpable to the surprised hand, lingering only long enough to make the seeker sneeze.

What remained was a sense of the Lady, of her voice, the touch of her fingers, the calm of knowing that the Lady had intervened on Lissar's behalf. The peacefulness was a part of the intervention; Lissar knew she was grateful, beyond grateful, for having been plucked up from her old fate and set down again, facing some new direction, leading to some new fate; but the memory of why she had needed the intervention was an empty, battered trunk or box or cupboard.

No, Lissar thought very quietly. It is not empty; but I can close it for now, and put it away. I will draw it down later, and open it again; but the Lady has given me time and healing, time for healing. I will be strong again when I open that box; strong enough to open it. My strength now is to set it aside.

And she opened her eyes, blinking.

FOURTEEN

ASH LAY, NOSE ON PAWS, SO NEAR TO HER THAT AS LISSAR

OPENED her eyes she recognized that her cheek was being tickled by Ash's whiskers, where the Lady's hand had touched her; and Ash was lying where the Lady had sat. And as she opened her eyes, Ash looked into hers, and a great shudder of relief and excitement went through her, and she leaped to her feet and gave one short, wild, delirious bark; and she never barked.

Then she stood, her newly plumy tail whisking madly back and forth. For the first thing that met Lissar's gaze and understanding was that the silk-furred Ash, whose belly had once shown pink through the light soft down there, had grown a rich, curling coat like one of the great mad-eyed wolf-hounds of the far north. She was still silver-fawn; but as she moved her coat rippled, and when she flung her head back her long fur fanned out like a horse's mane. Lissar stared, astonished, thinking, This is the Lady's doing; this is one of the Lady's gifts....

Lissar sat up. She lay on a little grassy-grassy-mound, surrounded by violets; their perfume was in her nostrils. She had thought it was the smell of the Lady. Around her there were still a few patches of snow, and melt-water ran in rivulets everywhere she looked, though where she lay was quite dry and warm.

As she turned her head to look around her in her amazement, something brushed against her face, and she recognized a wisp of her own hair only after a moment's startled thought. For her hair was soft to the touch, cleaner than a bucket of tepid snow-water and a little harsh soap could make it; and, furthermore, it was combed and smooth and bound up on her head, and there was nothing in the hut for a comb but her own fingers. There was another surprise for her: she reached up to stroke her own hair wonderingly and as she drew her hand down again let her fingers trail against the side and back of her neck, and found there no numb places, but only smooth, yielding, feeling skin.

She climbed to her feet, her brain dazedly acknowledging that her hip no longer hurt and each arm swung as freely as the other-suddenly remembering that she had touched the top of her head, investigating the way her hair was twisted in place, with both hands, and yet the one she had not been able to raise above waist level since she and Ash had escaped into the mountains.

As she moved she noticed the dress she wore; made of the supplest deerskin, white as snow, or as the Lady's gown, though her own plainer, more mortal clothing gave no green light, held no impenetrable black of pure shadow. And as she looked down to her bare feet she saw that the little hollow where she had lain was quite bare of grass, and that the outline of the curve of her body, and of Ash's, was sharply etched by green leaves and violets.

She turned completely around. Ash bounded around her, springing as high as if she imagined she still had snow-drifts to overcome; and briefly Lissar quailed, fearing that what she saw was only a beautiful dream, and that she would blink once or twice more and winter would return, and physical pain.

But she blinked many times, and the warm breeze still moved around her, her limbs were still whole; and her eyes saw clearly, and together, and without dizziness, no matter how often she blinked and how quickly she turned her head. She saw that she and Ash were at one end of the little clearing-now a meadow, full of white and yellow flowers, tall buttercups on stalks, ragged bright dandelions, young white erengard-and that their hut lay at the end opposite where she stood. When Lissar's head stopped spinning, she moved toward the hut, whose door hung wide open as if still from the strength of her own arm when she bolted out into the snow.

The few steps toward the cabin were a little shadowed by her memory of the winter; firmly she remembered that it was this hut that had saved her life, that she had accepted her return to life there, that she had made some of her own peace there, before the Lady came to save her from something beyond her capacity to save herself from. But the shadows lay lightly, for Lissar remembered the Lady, and remembered that she had been granted time to leave the box that contained her past in some attic for now; and for the simple, glorious pleasure of being young and healthy and unhurt, feeling the easy way her legs worked, her arms swung, her feet pressed the ground, her head moved back and forth on her neck, her eyes focussed.