H C Turk, page 8
Eventually Elsie found me beneath the bed. What a fine place for hiding, the space below tight about me, the remaining world separated from the concealed witch. The liquid applied to the wooden floor was partially a natural stuff, for I recognized the scent of pine sap and walnut oil; but something had been heated here, the resin cooked to change it to a sinners' creation. I would make the product less noticeable by rubbing against the wooden surface as I crawled into this adequate hole, crawling out only when Elsie came with the broom to poke at me and complain.
"Aye, and you're trying me again, lass," she moaned as though damaged, "trying me by clambering on the floor in your lovely nightclothes. So you're coming out, now, to be dressing proper for the waking hours as I've taught you. Then you're hieing yourself for a meal, child, else I'm leaving your lamp
burn the entire night, along with extra candles."
Fair enough, and out I moved, determining to be witch enough to have gratitude for this woman's kindly aid of the previous night. But not enough gratitude could I find to violate my stomach with the congealed animal grease considered food in this obscene universe. Instead of eating, I applied myself toward London.
Not all of the apparel Elsie provided could I connect alone. Included in my wardrobe were diabolical corsets and gowns whose laces and straps could not be secured by the wearer. How could even sinners be so foolish as to design apparel the wearer could not don unaided, and worse, not remove alone? What if a lady fell from a bridge into a river and had to unburden herself of a mass of fabric so sodden it prevented her climbing up the bank toward air?
Having sufficient familiarity with my bed and that satisfying space below, I continued with the remainder of my chamber, achieving a strange pride with that idea of possession: my chamber. The pride I received came from a sense of shelter and security. The accompanying strangeness was a taint of guilt from my taking any comfort from the sinners, strangeness being appropriate since my mentor's prime interest was death.
The ceiling was bordered with cornices as though a moderate version of St. Nicholas's entry with one more spider. Patterned carpet on the floor, patterned paper on two walls, wood on those remaining. The bed I knew, but how remarkably large it was, and extravagant with its layers of sheets and quilts, not unlike the clothing I was to wear, not unlike that bed in which I slept my last day on Man's Isle. Here was a blessed lack of concise recollection, for it seems I had become ill and vomited upon that clean surface. Of my current bed I imagined the deeper contents: some type of softest straw stuffed into a precise, rectangular form. But, no, that was imagination. The true substance had not been washed enough to remove its scent. From the first, I had found comfort in my bed and pillows because of their natural odor, but now I knew it dead.
The smell was of feathers and down, materials not to be removed from living fowl. Then I wondered of the hairbrush given me, wondered whether a pig's bristles could be removed from the animal while alive, and if so, would the plucking not be torture? Refraining from vomiting upon my new bed despite the good cause of my fowl awareness, I prayed that God might forgive sinners for their iniquities if only He could end them as well, prayed also in apology for my failing to recognize the dead smell earlier, finding selfish comfort instead.
That night I slept on the carpet. I thus discerned it wool, and that is a sheep's covering. At least this fur can be removed without destroying the bearer. How typical of sinners to develop so odd an activity as shaving, then apply it not only to themselves, but animals.
That day I completed examining my (my?) chamber. The soft blue and grey counterpane was not unpleasant, if only because it was not metal nor unfortunate tree flesh soaked in oil, merely woven from the bodies of innocent flax and cotton plants. As for the other fabrics, I remained uncertain of this "silk" on some of my clothing, though it smelled like a bug's excrement. How silly of my nose.
Trees were everywhere. The entire floor, the windows, their sills, and the myriad furniture were made of former trunks. Here was a tall construction with a surface folded flat to write upon. Many drawers and crannies in this thing, paper and ink and quills-and there were more deceased fowls to haunt me, praise God I could not write. Against the opposite wall stood a more massive piece: the armoire tall as a sinning male where-from Miss Elsie had attained some of my clothing, certain nether items brought from one of the paired bureaus rife with sliding boxes.
Shameful was this furniture for its artifice and waste. How unlike a flower, whose complex portions stem from a single seed, whose entirety grows from little; whereas furniture is false, made from butchered pieces of vanquished trees. Flowers come from life, whereas furniture delineates death, the death of plants like flowers themselves. The commode, for example, with its feet humorously carved to resemble the paws of some animal, with its lacquer coating and gilt appliques and veneers. Exemplified here was sinners' craftsmanship, which means annihilating a natural thing to reattach its parts not with ease, but obsession.
Ah-but here was an item to examine. Upon a woody bureau with hateful metal handles was a timepiece. Of course, sinners had invented mechanisms that split the day into smaller pieces called hours, hours into tiny bits called minutes, minutes into virtually nonexistent packets called seconds, all of these sinners' moments unneeded by a witch. "Moment": how fine and broadly applicable an interval, but inadequate for sinners, since moments require no devices for measure. Furthermore, moments are silent; whereas all the sinners' time portions are as loud as their timepieces, for my clock clicked. A sinner's time is filled with noisome activity, having the same contents as a clock. Sound enough this beggar made that the witch deposited it beneath the winter clothing in her armoire. Therefore, when Miss Elsie came to set the pendulum into a motion to set me toward madness, she would find only silence.
Situated against the walls were chairs, standing cases containing books other than the Bible, adjacent shelves with those hated, hot lights. Also present were hygienic devices: a stand with lavatory and water jar made of clay with delicate paintings of flowers seeming no great art to me. Most imaginative of all was that final piece, the chamber pot I had been using since so instructed my first day in London: a sturdy pottery item unusual in utility, but attractive in its smell. Not that witches have an especial desire to be inhaling our droppings' fumes, but at least these materials are natural. And despite the servants' attempts to remove the thing's waste odor by removing the waste each day and occasionally splashing in some perfumed liquid, the pot had come to smell like me. Regarding utility, perhaps the invention was excellent; for if not in these pots, where would all of London's people be peeing? Pray God not in the parks. A further curiosity was of the site where these pots were emptied. Pray God not in the parks.
Situated against the walls were paintings that might have drawn my interest had they not been made of oil smears. A natural oil, I could smell, seemingly from the flax plant, but similar greases were used for cooking killed animals. So away to the walls' better view: windows. Windows in each of two perpendicular walls, for my bedchamber was situated in the building's corner, the second and uppermost story. Through one tall window I viewed the house's frontage, and across the broad street a largish stone town house not unlike ours (ours?). The chamber's rear, larger window had fewer, more expansive panes, none colored: Rathel's house, though elaborate, was no cathedral. I approached this window, pulling aside the curtains to find a revelation. Behind Rathel's home was her garden.
The dull witch had not previously noticed this area, but finally I was pleased in London, for here was my (my?) own park! Near my window grew a large and lovely elm tree. Beyond were sycamores and maples. Below were gravel paths winding through lush, well-kempt grass of a particularly bright green, hedges and bushes unfortunately cut flat or curved, but living organisms nonetheless. I saw flowering plants and spiky, unusual grasses in tall clumps, many plants unknown to Man's Isle, but loved by this witch regardless. Quickly then I attempted to decode the method and mechanism whereby I could part the glass panes and smell the garden, this living segment of the sinners' world enough to make me laugh with joy, then growl with perturbation since I could not open the blooming thing, unable to grasp that hateful, metal latch. And when finally I touched the handle from anger, all my manipulations were to no avail, if only because I would touch the metal, but barely. Then came an encouraging idea: I only had to move downstairs and exit the house to experience the entirety of the garden. So from my chamber I ran, left across the balcony, down the stairs with rapid feet and not a stumble, following the only route to the building's rear, through a swinging door into a corridor terminating in a glassy door through which I saw shrubbery, a door I achieved but could open no more than the bloody window.
What a meager entrapment for the sinners' world of murder. How foolish of Londoners not to use the simple wooden latch of Mother's cabin. How disheartening not to gain that good life removed by a mere finger's thickness of glass due to mechanical ignorance. After sighs and slumping shoulders, I sadly contemplated my future. Either I would abandon my plans, endlessly attempt to open the door on my own, or seek the aid of a servant. Turning to discern my location, I discovered the kitchen at the corridor's opposite end. That locale emitted smells of burning animals and sounds of human voices. Help lay beyond. But no region could be more repulsive than that crypt of bloody baking. I would deny myself the garden rather than enter the kitchen.
Viewing the garden again, I espied a large woman hacking away at a bush with a metal implement. This was Theodosia, the one servant of the household never seen above the stairs. Soon this woman saw me, and gestured that I might join her. After some failed manipulation of the lockwork, I revealed to Theodosia an ignorant countenance. Herein I was successful, for the servant approached to call through the glass that I might come out if I so desired. More loudly I replied that I knew not how to open the door. No part of England exists so wild as to be without doors, she insisted. Briefly I hollered that such was my home. Theodosia then stepped to the door with no kind face to grasp the latch and succeed no more than I, for some witch had locked it from within. Thus, the servant became so exasperated as to howl in wordless consternation.
"What is your great distress?" I cried. "I am the one trapped with no escape!"
Soon we were pulling at the door from opposite sides, Theodosia leaning near the glass to point toward the door mechanisms and mutter unfamiliar terminology as though I comprehended her technical language. Pull on this and that I did without success. What a scene we made to the next servant nearing, one noted in advance by a wave of sick cooking smell; for Miss Delilah approached from the kitchen to expertly release the bolt and activate the latch with a glare and not the first word, returning to the kitchen with a gait of annoyance.
Immediately Theodosia stomped back to her work, grumbling furiously. And though with the door's opening I smelled a raft of natural fragrances, my pleasure was polluted by the consternation I had caused. But with thanks to the good Lord I entered the garden, intent upon enjoying this realm whether I suffered from it or not. Enjoy the green sights and growing smells I did until coming to the well and finding a tiny river that in fact was a sinner-made ditch certainly meant to resemble the Thames, that small wooden bridge above bleeding well intended to represent Hershford. Around and to the house again, through the same door that in my genius I had left unlocked, to my chamber and beneath the bed forever.
"In that I am equal in this instance to my reputation of evil existence, you might believe me likely to chew away the feet beneath your ankles if you allow me not the small privilege of a familiar companion."
Distressing were these words to Delilah, the blood boiler and occasional chambermaid, whose current job was to clamber about attacking dust wherever it was encountered. No fond emotions had I for this servant, considering her curt response toward me when found innocent of doorways. Most upsetting to the servant was my final phrase, for worse than having her legs gnawed to gory nubs was this girl's having a fiend for a friend.
"But that's the greatest, nastiest spider I have ever laid me eyes upon, miss, and it's well lodged itself in a corner of your ceiling."
"Despite its size and impressive appearance, the beast is a kindly soul harming only those genuinely pesty insects whose place on God's ceiling, I am sad to say, is to provide my friend with nourishment."
"But the mistress will chew my feet off her own self if I do not smash the thing."
My next response was to cruelly bare my teeth, a display unbelievable to any witch. Delilah was duly cautious, unable to bear the thought of battling the spider, me, and thereafter Mistress Amanda for having failed with the former. Therefore, she accepted my own exhibited animalism in order to avoid the terrors of that well-legged beast, determining to worry later about the horrors of the wigged one. Taking her broom, she departed my chamber in defeat, grumbling unpleasantly.
"I'll send Miss Elsie up, then, who'll not accept such unkind-ness from a child."
Elsie did not come for the fiend, only calling for the young wench to lure her to the day's second meal. And though she eyed the spider upon entering my bedchamber, Elsie's comment was cooperative.
"Aye, and you're keeping the beast if you will, lass, but if you start rearing a mass of them, then you and I will be mouthing at each others' limbs to see who's coming away the shorter."
Blandly was I affected by her attempts to influence me with humor.
"Since I have dressed in the strange manner of sinners and have brushed my hair till it no longer is the protective coat God made it but more of a sinners' drapery meant paradoxically to obscure windows, I'll be trotting off for a bit of a bite now, unless you prefer I starve."
"So why is it, then, you're not eating this spider, if you've such a taste for bugs?" the servant brazenly wondered.
"Why is it you sinners eat pigs and not cats?" I returned.
"And what's your meaning, lass, in this word 'sinner'? 'Tis a common word, but not from your mouth, I fear."
"Bugs in the mouth are not common with sinners, one of which I am not. A sinner is any person not a witch. Therefore,
you and I are one of each."
The woman pondered my explication long enough to understand that she was not being called a witch. Then her ideas returned to consumption.
"And what of you leading me to believe you've no use for luncheon, girl, if you're about to be doing all this normal eating?"
"I seek the nourishment of God's natural foods of vegetables and fruit," I told her. "It's your city dwellers' cannibalism in devouring dead animals who once were friends to all humans that sickens me. The kitchen itself seems hellish, and surely you are aware of the consequences of your forcing me to consume its bloody products."
"Aye, and the mistress is allowing you to eat raw greens after her fine meats have been removed. Rude you are, girl, to be eating with your benefactor only after she's finished. But that's better, I'm saying, than provoking your sensitive stomach. And a terrible organ it is, what with your huge puking on the table, right upon the cloth and the silver eating ware. And I am the miserable one having to clean it, when in fact it's due to your endless vegetables not being settled by some firm meat."
Strange was Elsie during these ravings, for although she sounded distressed, she had no smell of anger. Since she had begun to spew worse than my stomach days earlier, I interrupted her to explain my own anguish.
"The sensitivity I have is nasal. Never shall I become ashamed of being sickened by the stench of God's good creatures broiling in their own fat." Then, unavoidably, I retched, my hand at once going to my face, more to end those sickening thoughts rushing through me than any bodily fluid.
Thrusting her arm toward the floor, Elsie blurted, "This mess you'll be cleaning up yourself, girl!"
Controlling my choking, I replied, "Being a natural substance, vomit terrifies me not; whereas the eating of animal gore is. . ." Then I retched again, coming up with a bit of bile that I was certain to swallow rather than appear the total wretch to Elsie by soiling her floor. But the gulp in itself was enough for the servant, who whirled about and quit my chamber, having had enough of my oral asperities.
Before eating, I continued with the universal assessment I had abandoned the previous day, having been defeated by that tiny, diabolical bridge. And though I would not abandon the garden proper, I required emotional acceptance before again entering that fine and growing place. But this day would see me situate myself in the sinners' world commencing with the house's interior, territory insufficiently familiar to the realm's new witch.
First I examined my bedchamber's door. This efficient latch-work required but a turn of the handle to activate. Looking closer I saw a hole for inserting a key. The thing could be locked, an achievement beyond me. I thus resolved to learn of these small, swinging walls lest they imprison me worse than the bulk of London itself.
Stepping to the balcony, I viewed the great main room below, an area with no apparent purpose but to separate north from south. Walking along the balustrade, I found additional doors like mine. Standing by the end door, the one farthest from the stairs, I leaned near the jamb, detecting a smell from within of Rathel. Away I went with no further interest, finding an odor of abandonment through the imperfect sealing of the other doors. Outside mine I was pleased to smell my own odor, but not sufficiently established was I therein; so I entered to pee a spot in each corner and make this place my own.
