Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 17 Read online

  Panic swept Fanny and she shook her head. She would not—This, this creature, whatever it was, could not make her! She jerked from the other woman's grasp and scrambled to her feet, stumbling away.

  "Stay away from me!"

  Miss Hughes closed her hand and followed after, a frown marring her brows.

  "I am Shakti. You do not refuse me in my own house."

  "Of course I refuse. As any decent woman would. What have you done to Miss Hughes?” Fanny stepped blindly backwards, her heart pounding, and not only from fear.

  "I have offered her my blessing, as I have you. And she has accepted, with gratitude and longing. But ... you do not."

  "No! Do you know who I am? I am Frances Mary Eden, a British lady and the sister of the Governor General. This is—intolerable! I demand that you remove yourself from Miss Hughes at once and let us leave in peace. She cannot have understood what you would make of her."

  Fanny's voice had regained its strength, though her hands and legs shook.

  "But of course she understood. Did I not answer her desires exactly? Did I not deliver her from fear and despair and grant her a life of power and bliss?"

  Miss Hughes paused, head tilting, eyes narrowing, her lips curving in a suddenly menacing smile. They were near the door of the temple, Miss Hughes pursuing as Fanny continued to retreat. The arched opening framed Fanny in white sunlight. Opposite her, Miss Hughes stood, legs set apart, her long, wet hair clinging to her pale skin, cocooning her in a tenebrous veil. She glanced above her at the blushing dome, her countenance considering, as if hearing a spectral voice.

  "But perhaps another's gift will satisfy better. Power and bliss of a different sort.” She faced back to Fanny, and this time her smile was more than dangerous. It was absolutely perilous.

  "And She desires very much to meet you...."

  Fear streaked along Fanny's nerves and her stomach twisted. When next Miss Hughes spoke, her voice had changed from sultry heat to chill calculation.

  "It would seem that you came here not to worship at Shakti's feet. When she felt your breath and smelled your lush ripeness, she rejoiced.” Miss Hughes shook her head regretfully. “Shakti is generous and loving, but her time is not yet come again."

  Fanny opened her mouth to ask who? But no sound emerged. Instead, as she watched, Miss Hughes reached for the crumpled white lawn dress she'd been wearing. The dress fit awkwardly, as if the shape of Miss Hughes’ body had changed. She gathered her hair and twisted it around her head, pinning it in place with a filigree comb that Fanny didn't remember ever seeing before.

  Miss Hughes came to stand beside Fanny, her pale cheeks rosy, her lips red and full. She was beautiful, like the deadly edge of a finely wrought sword. Fanny shivered.

  "Who—?” she croaked at last, unable to produce any greater sound.

  The creature looked at Fanny and her eyes seemed like infinite wells. Fanny's stomach twisted tighter and bile rose sour in her throat.

  "The wheel turns. And turns again. I am always, forever, and never-ending,” Caroline Hughes said. “I wear many faces. As the wheels turns, so do I. I am Shakti, Parvati, Tara, Chamundi, Devi, Durga, and a hundred other names. I am Kali."

  Her tongue slipped out to trace the red lips as though she tasted something there. “You have summoned me forth, and so I walk amongst mortals once more. Let us go."

  Without another word, she took Fanny's stiff arm and retraced their spiraling steps out of the temple and back to Barrackpore. If the Sepoy escort noticed Miss Hughes’ alteration, they said nothing Fanny could understand.

  * * * *

  Fanny looked down at her knotted fingers. The sinking sun painted them in shades of crimson and orange, reminding her of the light in Shakti's temple. Hot tears of fury and desperation flowed down her cheeks.

  She hardly remembered the rest of the previous day or evening. They had returned to a bustle of activity. Each woman was whisked away by her ayah to dress for the deputation of Sikhs from Ranjit Singh. It had gone well enough, though through it, all Fanny could see were the black holes that were Miss Hughes’ eyes.

  She had ventured to mention the name to Gopi. Her salt-and-pepper-haired ayah had exclaimed in indecipherable Hindustani and shaken her head violently. Pointing to her chest, she had said “Shakti,” and nodded vigorously before pointing outside to the jungle-darkness where leopards screamed in the night: “Kali.” She shuddered and pulled the brush vigorously through Fanny's hair.

  Fanny had lain awake all night.

  Without the punkah, the air closed around her, thick and moist, making it difficult to breathe. Behind her, someone knocked on the open jamb and then pushed through the diaphanous netting without waiting for a reply.

  "Yours is a curious people,” said Miss Hughes in a voice that was both crisply British and liltingly Hindustani. Fanny gasped and spun about, holding her hands out as if to ward the other woman away. But those eyes caught her and tethered her as fast as stocks or ropes. “I have much to learn about you. And you have much to learn about me."

  Again that smile, that perilous smile that boded such ill, such terror and atrocity, such a different expression than mild Miss Hughes normally wore, that it nearly stopped Fanny's heart. “I wanted to see you once more before I visited your home.” Miss Hughes’ head tilted as if listening to something Fanny could not hear. Her predatory smile widened. “Ah, not one of us indeed. No, I am not. But neither are you, any longer. You have been touched by Shakti and you will never put her gift from your memory, and your body will crave more and more as the desire haunts you. It will be an enduring hunger. And that, that is Kali's gift to you."

  She paced forward, her lips skinned back from her teeth, the linen of her scarlet dress rustling. She stopped a hand's breath from Fanny and lifted her hand. Color seeped into the palm until it was the dark burgundy of bruised plums. Fanny blinked. A folded parchment appeared on Miss Hughes’ palm, its smeared, green wax seal unbroken. Miss Hughes tucked it between Fanny's limp fingers. She chuckled, an eager, rich, gloating sound.

  Fanny stared, clutching her letter, as Caroline Hughes’ mouth opened, as if to say a final word. But instead, her tongue emerged from her parted lips, stretching and pushing out like a squirming serpent. Blood ran over her tongue and down her chin, staining her chest. Two more arms sprouted from her ribs, one holding a curving scimitar, the other a severed head, blood dripping onto the carpet. From her ears dangled the heads of two snarling demons and around her neck, the string of pearls turned to a grisly chain of skulls. The wells of her eyes overflowed and washed her skin black.

  Fanny drew one, two, three gut-wrenching breaths, and then screamed, a blood vessel bursting in her eye with the force of it.

  * * * *

  Miss Caroline Hughes swept aside the mosquito netting for the breathless ayahs and aides-de-camp who came running at Fanny's cry. She slipped away down the corridor as they lifted Fanny's insensate form onto her bed. She retreated to the apartment where her trunks and boxes had already been collected. She paused to pen a quick note to Fanny before departing for the harbor where the Jupiter lay at anchor.

  The note was in Hindustani. Fanny would be unable to resist the mystery of its contents and would seek out someone to read it to her. She would find little solace there.

  Caroline Hughes blotted the parchment and folded it, addressing the missive with a flourish. No one could say any longer that her expression lacked for animation, or that her eyes lacked sparkle.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  "Discrete Mathematics” by Olaf and Lemeaux; or, the Severed Hand

  by David Connerley Nahm

  I) When I come downstairs to make myself breakfast, I find a severed hand lying in the floor in front of the sink.

  My first thought is: the dog has done it. Then I remember that I don't have a dog.

  I stand for a long time. Slipper feet, burgundy robe, bristly chin. Sun—already in early fall—cut to pieces across the hardwood by soon-to-be bare b
ranches.

  If I had a dog, life would be easier.

  I decide against coffee and go back upstairs to clean myself for work. Walking down the hall. Passing the bathroom. Stopping for a moment at my sister's room. Her door is very slightly cracked. I put my eye to the sliver of dark. I see the cloud of powder blue that is her comforter. I hear her breathing. I am less afraid.

  I cannot find my dress shoes and have to wear sneakers.

  * * * *

  II) In the evening when I come home, the hand is still there. Fix a bowl of cereal and consider it. I have not imagined it. Whether this is a relief or not, I do not know. In the pale green of the fluorescent lamp above the sink, it looks as if it never held life.

  Perhaps it isn't real.

  I crouch down, bowl still in hand, jaw grinding obliquely, and looked at it. There is a small dark puddle of sticky underneath. The severed portion is turned away from me but I can see its rough edge. There are ants on it. There are ants in lines coursing from it to the counter, to the window, like loose thread.

  I put the bowl on the counter and go into the bathroom to be sick.

  I wipe my mouth and splash water on my face. In my rush this morning I forgot to shave, and now you can make out the spots on my face clearly where hair didn't grow.

  I used the guest soap to wash my hands. It is lavender.

  My sister is sitting up in her bedroom, watching TV. Brown hair in long tresses and dark shapes against her thin blue robe. Her arms stuck up waving. I clear away the plates I left for her and kiss her on the forehead. She smiles, looks at me. She wants to know how my day has been. Leaving certain things out, I tell her about it.

  Later she drops a fork down the laundry chute.

  * * * *

  III) So:

  a) It is not my imagination. There is something on my kitchen floor.

  b) It is a real hand. Not a wax hand or a gardening glove. A severed hand from a person.

  c) I do not have a dog. There is a dog that lives in a yard behind my street that keeps me up all night.

  d) I live with my sister. It is not her hand. I checked.

  e) She could not have done it. She cannot get up and down the stairs. She cannot do much of anything.

  * * * *

  IV) I work at the University Library. It was built the same year my mother was born. I have worked there for twenty-nine years. I am forty-seven. I work twenty-eight hours a week at the library. It is a small university and a small library. Not very nice. I imagine the stacks burbling with the stiff clicking and whirring of tired machines. They sigh as they search the red shelves for media to reassign. The idea makes me laugh: is there anything funnier than a sad machine?

  No one ever checks anything out.

  On the weekends I trim yards and cut hedges. I get groceries for elderly women who live on my street who were friends with my mother. I repair bicycles for neighborhood children.

  In my garage the tools are neatly arranged on racks and shelves.

  I seem very tall when I am in my house because I expect to see it from the perspective I had as a child. But I am not very tall otherwise.

  A lot of my clothes are blue. I didn't plan it that way. But it is a trend I have noticed.

  The sound outside keeps me awake and I think about how I will need to clean the hand up and get rid of it. As unexpected as it is that it should appear in my kitchen one morning—like a small chocolate bell or a firecracker—it is not likely to suddenly not be there when I wake.

  Though, my sister used to reason, things are more likely not to exist than to exist.

  * * * *

  V) Wednesday—I spend the morning in the basement of the library repairing the spine of a large collection of maps. The names of the countries don't sound familiar. I wonder: how much of what I learned growing up have I forgotten? At lunch I try to make a list of all of the people whom I have worked with at the Library. I use a sheet of hotel stationery from the pocket of my coat—four and a quarter by five and a half, at the top: The Conquistadore Inne. Rye and mustard, soda to drink. I fill the paper on both sides. I remember them all, it seems—but how do I know?

  The book of maps is too large to carry alone. Unwieldy and delicate. Spines on books like this degrade easily. Left open and unattended, they want to slump wantonly to the floor. It is a book's natural state: open on the floor, pages down and crumpled. But this one I repaired very well. It will not rip again.

  This morning I prodded the hand into a plastic bag with a butter knife. The handle was shaped like a banana. I didn't want to touch the hand, which seemed like a natural impulse. It resisted moving, tacked to the floor by the dark sticky. The ants in confusion at their catastrophe.

  The bag tied on the table—I scrubbed the hard wood with soap and water. Then with lemon juice. Then bleach. The crevices and cracks were still dark. Broken sun moved across me as I rubbed.

  But what to do with the hand? I glanced at it. I hadn't eaten yet. I did not want to be sick. It was pale and withered, but then it had been sitting on a kitchen floor for several days. There were no rings, but there had been. There was a pale indention around the ring finger. It had been a left hand.

  At night I like to sit in the green chair in the corner of my sister's room and read collections of serialized adaptations of old radio programs. The sort of books that were popular when my grandmother was a young girl, when her father built this house. No one reads them now so I am able to find them cheap at junk stores and in people's garages.

  From these books I know that if I were to just throw the hand out it will be found by a trash man. It is a cliché. Detectives will come to ask me questions that I cannot answer. I would feel less uncomfortable if I had done something—if I knew what I was hiding, I could be sure to cover all of my mouse holes. But I know nothing—like a cold hand reaching into a wet bag without looking.

  Plus, I can't call the detectives myself. Even if I had called right away upon finding a severed hand lying in a pool of sunlight in my kitchen, and even if I had been able to convince them that I knew nothing about it, there had been recent issues with certain neighbors on the street behind my house that I don't care to have this brought into.

  So just dumping it is out of the question.

  The thought of dismembering it and putting it down the dispose-all is unpleasant to me. I can barely stand to look at it. And then I would be part of whatever horrible fate had befallen the hand. I treasure my distance.

  The idea of weighing it down in a bag with irons and throwing it into the lake from a bridge seems like a good one, but there are no lakes near by. And I am afraid of lakes.

  Undoubtedly, if I bury it in my backyard—by the light of the moon and the sawing of the crickets—it will either be dug up, comically, by a meddlesome hound or will dig itself out and crawl slowly back to the house. I will wake from a nightmare and hear something small on the stairs.

  This, too, is out of the question.

  I put the book of maps on the cart to be re-shelved when I am done. The work-study with the prosthetic leg—loafing by the soda machines all morning—now has something to do.

  * * * *

  VI) That evening I go over my lists as I eat a bowl of cereal. We eat in my sister's bedroom because that is where the television is. She has fallen asleep in her plush green recliner. I set the lists and the bowl on the small table beside my chair. I help her into her bed. She says something that I do not catch as I lift the comforter out from under her and tuck it in. What, I ask. But she is asleep.

  I remember her wild hair from when we were children—dark brown straw—flailing around her head. I remember her dental work shining. Her hand holding me against the door to the basement. I was terrified. She was not a cruel older sister like some I have read about. She loved me very much. But she did not like for me to be afraid and sought to cure me of my fears by pressing me to them.

  Our mother worked very late. My sister walked me home from school and usually prepared our dinners. If
we went to sleep before our mother got home, my sister would walk with me—from room to room—checking to make sure there was no one else in the house.

  She is beautiful. She looks nothing now like she did. She is still taller than me, but never stands and is very light so I have no trouble helping her into bed. Patchwork quilts with worn tassels dangling.

  We would play in the house. Hiding and Finding. Frozen Catchers. Soap Chase. Name Tapping.

  In one game I had to stay in the closet in one of the empty rooms until I heard my name being called by a spirit. My sister knew the duct-work well and would stand in the kitchen—in her sock feet, eating ice cream—and call to me through the grate. I could hear the thin distant voice coming from above or below and I didn't understand. I would bolt, the heavy door's knob slamming into the wall. Sometimes she would arrange clothes from our mother's closet—on the floor or hanging in the window in sinister tableaux.

  She did all of that because she loves me.

  My sister sat with me on the bed one night. I had been crying. She put a long freckled arm around me and told me there were no ghosts.

  There were no monsters.

  No creatures clawing or baying. No secret codes or forgotten tales, whistling languages and alien photography. No God nor Jesus nor Allah.

  Nothing.

  Anything that was unnatural to our world was either so mindblowingly big or toe-curlingly small that we would never know it existed. There was only one miracle, only one exceptional event—that we existed, that we had each other, that we woke up each morning and the sun was shining—but this was every day and seemed normal to us.