‘You’re not coming with me?’
‘Me?’ Mauldry chuckled. ‘What would I do out there? I’m an old man, set in my ways. No, I’m far better off staying with the Feelys. I’ve become half a Feely myself after all these years. But you’re young, you’ve got a whole world of life ahead of you.’ He nudged her forward. ‘Do what I say, girl. There’s no use in your hanging about any longer.’
She went a couple of steps toward the lip, paused, feeling sentimental about leaving the old man; though they had never been close, he had been like a father to her . . . and thinking this, remembering her real father, whom she had scarcely thought of these last years, with whom she’d had the same lack of closeness, that made her aware of all the things she had to look forward to, all the lost things she might now regain. She moved into the thickets with a firmer step, and behind her, old Mauldry called to her for a last time.
‘That’s my girl!’ he sang out. ‘You just keep going, and you’ll start to feel at rights soon enough! There’s nothing to be afraid of . . . nothing you can avoid, in any case! Goodbye, goodbye!’
She glanced back, waved, saw him shaking his cane in a gesture of farewell, and laughed at his eccentric appearance: a funny little man in satin rags hopping up and down in that great shadow between the fangs. Out from beneath that shadow herself, the rich light warmed her, seeming to penetrate and dissolve all the coldness that had been lodged in her bones and thoughts.
‘Goodbye!’ cried Mauldry. ‘Goodbye! Don’t be sad! You’re not leaving anything important behind, and you’re taking the best parts with you. Just walk fast and think about what you’re going to tell everyone. They’ll be amazed by all you’ve done! Flabbergasted! Tell them about Griaule! Tell them what he’s like, tell them all you’ve seen and all you’ve learned. Tell them what a grand adventure you’ve had!’
Eight
Returning to Hangtown was in some ways a more unsettling experience than had been Catherine’s flight into the dragon. She had expected the place to have changed, and while there had been minor changes, she had assumed that it would be as different from its old self as was she. But standing at the edge of the village, looking out at the gray weathered shacks ringing the fouled shallows of the lake, thin smokes issuing from tin chimneys, the cliff of the fronto-parietal plate casting its gloomy shadow, the chokecherry thickets, the hawthorns, the dark brown dirt of the streets, three elderly men sitting on cane chairs in front of one of the shacks, smoking their pipes and staring back at her with unabashed curiosity . . . superficially it was no different than it had been ten years before, and this seemed to imply that her years of imprisonment, her death and rebirth had been of small importance. She did not demand that they be important to anyone else, yet it galled her that the world had passed through those years of ordeal without significant scars, and it also imbued her with the irrational fear that if she were to enter the village, she might suffer some magical slippage back through time and re-inhabit her old life. At last, with a hesitant step, she walked over to the men and wished them a good morning.
‘Mornin’,’ said a paunchy fellow with a mottled bald scalp and a fringe of gray beard, whom she recognized as Tim Weedlon. ‘What can I do for you, ma’am? Got some nice bits of scale inside.’
‘That place over there,’ – she pointed to an abandoned shack down the street, its roof holed and missing the door – ‘where can I find the owner?’
The other man, Mardo Koren, thin as a mantis, his face seamed and blotched, said, ‘Can’t nobody say for sure. Ol’ Riall died . . . must be goin’ on nine, ten years back.’
‘He’s dead?’ She felt weak inside, dazed.
‘Yep,’ said Tim Weedlon, studying her face, his brow furrowed, his expression bewildered. ‘His daughter run away, killed a village man name of Willen and vanished into nowhere . . . or so ever’body figured. Then when Willen’s brothers turned up missin’, people thought ol’ Riall musta done ’em. He didn’t deny it. Acted like he didn’t care whether he lived or died.’
‘What happened?’
‘They had a trial, found Riall guilty.’ He leaned forward, squinting at her. ‘Catherine . . . is that you?’
She nodded, struggling for control. ‘What did they do with him?’
‘How can it be you?’ he said. ‘Where you been?’
‘What happened to my father?’
‘God, Catherine. You know what happens to them that’s found guilty of murder. If it’s any comfort, the truth come out finally.’
‘They took him in under the wing . . . they left him under the wing?’ Her fists clenched, nails pricking hard into her palm. ‘Is that what they did?’
He lowered his eyes, picked at a fray on his trouserleg.
Her eyes filled, and she turned away, facing the mossy overhang of the fronto-parietal plate. ‘You said the truth came out.’
‘That’s right. A girl confessed to having seen the whole thing. Said the Willens chased you into Griaule’s mouth. She woulda come forward sooner, but ol’ man Willen had her feared for her life. Said he’d kill her if she told. You probably remember her. Friend of yours, if I recall. Brianne.’
She whirled around, repeated the name with venom.
‘Wasn’t she your friend?’ Weedlon asked.
‘What happened to her?’
‘Why . . . nothing,’ said Weedlon. ‘She’s married, got hitched to Zev Mallison. Got herself a batch of children. I ’spect she’s home now if you wanna see her. You know the Mallison place, don’tcha?’
‘Yes.’
‘You want to know more about it, you oughta drop by there and talk to Brianne.’
‘I guess . . . I will, I’ll do that.’
‘Now tell us where you been, Catherine. Ten years! Musta been something important to keep you from home for so long.’
Coldness was spreading through her, turning her to ice. ‘I was thinking, Tim . . . I was thinking I might like to do some scaling while I’m here. Just for old time’s sake, you know.’ She could hear the shakiness in her voice and tried to smooth it out; she forced a smile. ‘I wonder if I could borrow some hooks.’
‘Hooks?’ He scratched his head, still regarding her with confusion. ‘Sure, I suppose you can. But aren’t you going to tell us where you’ve been? We thought you were dead.’
‘I will, I promise. Before I leave . . . I’ll come back and tell you all about it. All right?’
‘Well, all right.’ He heaved up from his chair. ‘But it’s a cruel thing you’re doing, Catherine.’
‘No crueler than what’s been done to me,’ she said distractedly. ‘Not half so cruel.’
‘Pardon,’ said Tim. ‘How’s that?’
‘What?’
He gave her a searching look and said, ‘I was telling you it was a cruel thing, keeping an old man in suspense about where you’ve been. Why you’re going to make the choicest bit of gossip we’ve had in years. And you came back with . . .’
‘Oh! I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I was thinking about something else.’
The Mallison place was among the larger shanties in Hangtown, half-a-dozen rooms, most of which had been added on over the years since Catherine had left; but its size was no evidence of wealth or status, only of a more expansive poverty. Next to the steps leading to a badly hung door was a litter of bones and mango skins and other garbage. Fruit flies hovered above a watermelon rind; a gray dog with its ribs showing slunk off around the corner, and there was a stink of fried onions and boiled greens. From inside came the squalling of a child. The shanty looked false to Catherine, an unassuming facade behind which lay a monstrous reality – the woman who had betrayed her, killed her father – and yet its drabness was sufficient to disarm her anger somewhat. But as she mounted the steps there was a thud as of something heavy falling, and a woman shouted. The voice was harsh, deeper than Catherine remembered, but she knew it must belong to Brianne, and that restored her vengeful mood. She knocked on the door with one of Tim Weedlon’s scaling hooks, and a second later it was flung open and she was confronted by an olive-skinned woman in torn gray skirts – almost the same color as the weathered boards, as if she were the quintessential product of the environment – and gray streaks in her dark brown hair. She looked Catherine up and down, her face hard with displeasure, and said, ‘What do you want?’