“What shall I call you?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him my name, but then I thought better of it. The Lady Catriona was a dream to him, a prize to be won. He would not want her if he learned she had been turned into an animal by her ex-lover. I did not want to alter the image of Catriona he had in his head—the glimpse of my face through the carriage window those years ago.

And so, I did what I have always done in order to get what I want. I lied. “We cats, among ourselves we do not have names.”

“Well, then, I shall have to make up a name.” He was silent for a moment. “I know. Let’s call you Boots.”

“Let’s not.”

“Puss—”

“Definitely not. ‘Puss’ isn’t a name, it’s an invitation to ribald puns.”

“What am I to call you, then?”

“Call me Cat.”

Update: My mom just called to tell me how much she liked Cat’s Tale.  I’ll post (good) reviews if when they come in, but, for the record, that’s the one that means the most.

I do not faint until my third day in the dyehouse. I am relatively new to these shores, and possessed of a stronger constitution than those who have toiled here a year or more. I feel it coming on before it happens, and step back from the fire and the steam before falling to my knees upon the packed dirt floor.

My sight becomes as black as the swirling liquid in the dye vat, and when next it clears, I am in a cooler place, resting upon a pile of undyed garments as Matron Jarvis leans over me.

“Do not breathe the steam,” she says as I squint up at her wrinkled, spotted face. Her eyes are overhung by sagging lids of papery skin and I can barely see them for the folds. Her mouth is a grim line of thin, pale lips with deep wrinkles all around, like cracks in a field of dried mud. There is nothing kind about her—she is as obtuse and unyielding as the wall outside, and has only allowed me this respite so that she may wring more work from me before the bell sounds for evening Meeting.

“You shall return to the vat tomorrow, but for today you may remove buttons and gewgaws from the finer garments so that the dyestuff does not tarnish them.” She points to a rough-hewn bench in the corner beside a garish pile of cloth, and beneath a smoking oil lamp.

I tell myself I should faint more often. It would not be a difficult thing to pretend a weak constitution, a delicate sensibility. I could groan and moan in all my tasks, but continue bravely on, grimacing like a martyr keeping silent on the pyre. I could pretend weakness, and these people would love me for it. In this place, there is no better standard of a pure soul than a suffering body.

I settle on the bench, and start to pick gilt threads from the hem of a brown satin doublet. I am slow at the task, savoring the soft feel of the fabric between my fingers. No, I do not have it in me to enjoy suffering, nor even the appearance of it.

I finish the doublet and retrieve another garment from the pile. This one is a hooded velvet cloak, as deep red as the last drops of wine poured from the bottle. The buttons are carved of bone. The hood is lined with sable. The fabric warms in my hand, soft and soothing as a pleasant memory.

The back hem falls longer than the front, making the cloak’s purpose apparent. Like all the garments of the wealthy, this hooded cloak was designed for a single activity and is quite impractical for any other. It was not meant for walking but for riding. I will have to cut the extra fabric from the hem before it will be suitable for the muddy streets and endless work here within the wall.

The Elders would rail at the vanity of such a garment, but I can only smile as I imagine myself wearing the cloak. The sable lining of the hood caresses my cheek, catching the warmth of my skin and keeping it close. The long rear hem of the red cloak trails out behind me, spilling over my horse’s withers as we travel across the snowy white fields and through the dark forest toward the cold blue sea and a ship that might carry us Home.

Reluctantly, I think of the woman to whom the cloak belonged. She is small—roughly my size. She arrived last week. Last night at meeting I watched her raise red stripes upon her back with the flagellant’s whip as she confessed her sins. By her confession, her life was a litany of lust, greed, pride and curiosity. Her tale stretched from birth until the moment she decided to leave the Old World for the new; to trade her red hood and cloak for a shredded back and bloodstained shift.

Here be monsters.

I cannot rend this garment. It is too beautiful; too soft and warm. I can no more cover its brilliant hue to make it seem humble and holy, than I can blot out my hatred of this settlement and my longing for a place where my thoughts and beliefs are my own concern.

This cloak and I, we are the products of an other place; of an other, less humble people. My mother feels safe within the wall. She finds comfort in confession, peace in penitence, and ease beneath the Elders’ ever-watchful eyes. But for me this place is as poisonous and penetrating as the steaming liquid in the vats. I will die if I stay here.

The moment is so ordinary, so natural. Like a door opening in a dark room, the thought of leaving illuminates my mind. All of my silent complaints and petty rebellions were useless stumblings in the dark. I must find my own path. I must leave the darkened room to walk blind and blinking into the light.

This is not the faith the Elders want for me, but it is the faith I have found. I do not want the wall, or the dyeing, or the cold comfort of their pure, white Heaven. I want the world outside the chamber; the unknown places on the map.

The Elders say the land beyond the wall is wicked and untamed, but what good is protection from the world without if it comes at the cost of conformity, penitence and pain?

My red cloak and I, we will keep our colors and our character. We will forgo the certainty of salvation and take our chances with the wolves.

Thanks for reading!

The dyehouse is downwind of every other building, but its location does little to diffuse its smell. The building is squat and dark and windowless. Its roof is pierced with chimneys, like arrows sticking out of Saint Sebastian’s chest. The air around it is soaked in the moist, acrid stench of dyestuff, lye and urine. After a day’s work, I’ll carry that same stench, and everyone who walks within ten feet of me will know I have again incurred an Elder’s wrath.

The work is hard, the hours are long; the dying is no easy task. Pilgrims, still wan and weak-legged from their voyage across the ocean, must bring their garments to be dyed black before they can become citizens of God’s kingdom here on Earth. In so doing, the Elders say, they obliterate the sin of pride, and come into the kingdom humble as penitents.

In the dyehouse, we submerge the aristocrat’s bright velvets and the pauper’s faded woolens into the same steaming, stinking tub of boiling water and ammonia which we have distilled from urine and some other sources. We stew the garments longer than a tough cut of meat, until the threads are weak enough to accept the dye. The dying takes time, but we will wait. Within the wall, time is something we do not lack.

Once the garments have been soaked and softened, we submerge them in a vat of black dyestuff laced with arsenic to help the color stick. We stir this pot for hours before it is time to remove the sodden mass of black clothes. The dye makes our hands rough and gray. The arsenic makes our skin pale and our bodies weak.

There is no punishment worse than the dyehouse, save the tannery and the distillery where our chemicals are made. But that work is heavy and hard—the men labor with their coats removed and sleeves rolled back. I have been told that the sight of men working at such labors would be not purify my soul, but cast me deeper into sin. We women are weak, and must be protected from such sights. Thank goodness.

This is not to say the dying is an easy task. The color fades fast in clean water and bright sunlight, and must be renewed every year or so. The dye does not take to fabric so well here, as it does at Home. The plant we use to make our black is called Miser’s Heart. And like its namesake, Miser’s Heart thrives on cold air and sparse nourishment. It is overfed and overwhelmed by fecund soil. It withers in the warm summers of this foreign clime.

Our plants, like our people, are used to stingy seasons and stony ground. We mistrust abundance. We fear ease. We despise pleasure. Comfort is a snare the devil sets to steal our souls away.

Or so the Elders say.

I believe I would enjoy a few comforts—or, at the least, an easier chore. There is no shortage of dyestuff in this new world, and all of it is a great deal easier to refine that the stingy black of Miser’s Heart. In spring a host of flowers rise in brilliant shades of gold and red and blue, filling the fields beyond the wall like an army bent on conquest.

We could easily attire ourselves in royal blues, imperial purples, or reds as rich as spilled blood. We could be paupers clad in the colors of kings, but we are a modest people; we must work hard so that all who see us will know it. We must attire our bodies in black and never look upon our naked skin. We must hide our hair, lest, tempted by its softness and rich color, we give in to the sin of pride. We must never enjoy softness or beauty, for these are but signposts on the Primrose Path that leads unwary souls to Hell.

This is what the Elders tell me, though nine months of punishment and repetition have not yet cowed me enough to believe it. But I feel myself weakening. My body slows, my mind grows tired. I soften. One day I will soak up the Elders’ words the way softened cloth soaks up the dye. It may take time, but in God’s kingdom here on Earth, time is something we do not lack.

So here’s me cheating on my blogging by posting the start of a story I started a while ago, and mean to finish once I get three or five other Works in Progress out of my head and into my hard drive (and thumb drive, and back-up disk. Save early and often, peoples.)

Nieves

When I was very young, I asked my mother what had happened to the smallest finger on her left hand.

“I cut it off,” she told me, miming the chop of a knife with the flat of her right hand. One swing, sure and swift. She’d smiled when she said it, no doubt meaning to keep the conversation light. She often told outrageous tales just to see my eyes grow big. And when I asked, “Truly?” she’d shake her head and we would giggle over my credulity like a pair of mean little girls.

I did not realize until I was much older that she spun those fanciful tales a purpose. She meant to teach me to tell a lie from the truth, and to distrust even the people I loved the most.

I was not surprised when, scarcely nine months after my mother’s death, my father returned from one of his buying trips with a cartload of second-rate silks and a new wife. I wasn’t angry, either. He was the sort of man who needed a wife. He needed stability, love and care. He needed someone to remind him to eat in the mornings and to take him to bed at night.

When I saw the carriage trailing his cart, I’d high hopes of his new wife. But then he told me she was a beautiful, impoverished noblewoman. He called her a delicate flower who needed his care. He told me his new wife had two daughters just my age, and he promised we would be the best of friends.

My father herded half a dozen footmen out to hold the horses, set up the stairs and open the door so he could help his new wife down from the carriage. Her hand preceded her from the dark interior. It was delicate and powdered white, gilded with a filigree of rings and bracelets. Her fingernails were varnished pink. The stones in her many rings twinkled prettily in the sunlight, but I knew they were glass.

My stepmother’s foot followed next. She wore shoes of gaudy pink satin, frayed at the toes, studded with dull glass gems, and capped by a spindly wooden heel that would barely support its wearer from one end of her bedchamber to the other. I do not mean to be cruel when I say this, only factual: I knew her for a whore before I ever saw her face.

…She paused when she saw me, and I couldn’t blame her. I knew what I looked like—my cold expression, my red hair and freckled skin, my black eyes smoldering like hot coals. Her eyes flicked to the torches flanking our door, noting, I am sure, the way the flames yearned toward me though the wind urged them in the opposite direction.

Her face tightened beneath its façade of paint. Her white-powdered hand wavered on the verge of greeting me. In that moment, she realized my father’s tales of an innocent, biddable daughter were spun from the same wishful imagination that had let him believe her to be a noblewoman, and to believe the two hard-eyed whores (scarcely a decade her junior) who peered out of the carriage behind her were her daughters.

“Step-mamá!” I greeted her, taking her shoulders and kissing her powdered cheeks. My lips came away white with a mixture of lead and lard, but it was worth it for the expression of surprise that crossed her face. When my father wasn’t looking, I wiped my mouth on the cuff of my velvet sleeve.

“Come inside, let me show you and my new sisters our home. I know we shall be ever so happy together!”

With my father’s help, the three women wrestled their threadbare satin skirts and listing panniers up the stairs and into the house. I showed them to the parlor, which still stank faintly of burned flesh, and directed my new step mama to sit in my mother’s blue leather chair.

“I just knew you four would get along,” my father said, beaming from the doorway. I hadn’t seen him so happy since before my mother’s illness. “I’ll leave you ladies to get acquainted while I see to the unloading of my latest shipment of fine textiles.”

My new stepmother’s lips parted on a word as the door swung shut. I think she was going to say, “Wait.”

I smiled, pleased as a spider to have so many flies trapped in my parlor. I winked at the hearth and it roared to life, shooting flames up the chimney and sparks onto the rug. The candles followed, lighting all at once.

“Please don’t hurt us!” One of my new stepsisters pleaded. Despite her shopworn satin and powdered hair, she suddenly looked young and frightened.

“We didn’t know,” said the other. “We didn’t know Master Drayman’s daughter was a Wise Woman.”

“A witch,” I corrected, smiling wide to show my teeth.

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