Clem smiled. “That’s a cheerful thought.”
“But I’ve never felt such a sense of foreboding. I couldn’t budge from the step!” she repeated. Her face looked troubled once more.
“I’m relieved you’re well. You keep resting, and I’ll put dinner together.” Clem belatedly removed her wet cloak and went to hang it near the fire.
“Oh, I don’t want to rest,” Rosie said, springing to her feet. “I already have everything prepared.” She hurried toward the kitchen. “I’m perfectly well. Look, I made chicken pie, and it’s just the right temperature.”
Clem followed in silence, as if assessing her sister’s state of mind. Finally she smiled. “It looks wonderful. Let me change out of my wet clothes. I’ll only be a moment.”
She returned some minutes later, wearing a plain brown dress with white trim. Clem watched her sister cautiously over the meal, and it didn’t escape her notice or mine when Rosie’s expression grew abstracted, her gaze settling on the middle distance. Iknew, as I’m sure Clementine knew, that she was recalling the figure of her father in the street. “Thank you so much, Rosie,” Clem said as they finished the pie. “This is just what I needed after soaking myself.” The rain still pattered furiously against the closed windows, but inside, the apartment was clean and dry.
Clem lit a fire in the sitting room, and the sisters sat down in their habitual positions on either side of the fire: Clem reading her books on enchantment and Rosie knitting. As the fire crackled and the rain pattered, Rosie seemed to slowly forget her unsettling encounter with the apparition of her father. For the rest of the evening they spoke of other things. Rosie had many complimentary things to say about Walter Ainsley. Not only was he “kind” and “attentive,” he was “clearly devoted to his sisters” and “intelligent.” I thought this last was a stretch, but I’ve observed that for many young women, a combination of politeness and genuine good nature may pass for intelligence, and who’s to say that they’re not right? Such qualities are rare enough in men that they appear to be less rudimentary elements of character and more keen adaptations to social circumstances. Clem listened with a knowing air, did not contradict her once, and agreed that they could visit the Ainsleys sometime very soon.
Finally Rosie, with a yawn, declared herself tired and went to bed. When the little scuffling sounds from her room had died down, Clementine put aside her unfinished books and went to her own bedroom. First, she took something out of her satchel—a small pouch, from which she withdrew a marble.“Lucir,”she whispered. The marble slowly began to glow with an intense white light.“Flotar,”she added. Obediently, the marble floated just above her shoulder, accompanying her as she moved around the room. Then, making as little noise as possible, Clem unpacked the sack full of armor and placed each piece on the bed.
Finally, I thought. Perhaps now she would be wise enough towearthe armor Livia had so deliberately assembled for her.
The pieces were unusual and did not match. There were two helmets—one of lead chain mail in addition to the barbute—and a chain mail shirt alongside a cuirass. There was also an extra pair of lead sabatons. Clementine tried on the chain mail helmet and shirt; they fit her. The sabatons with square toes fit her also. Livia had chosen well.
She removed the helmet, the shirt, and the sabatons, and placed them inside her wardrobe. Then she spent several minutes examining the remaining pieces on the bed. Although they didn’t match, she had enough to create a full suit of armor from head to toe. She rearranged them so that they made a human figure, with the helmet on the pillow and the tapered sabatons at the foot of the bed. Once she was done, it looked as though an armored man had disintegrated on her bed, leaving only the steel of his armor behind.
She went to her desk. Even then, I had no suspicion of what she had planned. But when she drew out the small gray lump that Cassandra had given her, I suddenly understood, with dismay, exactly what she meant to do. It wasbone. Of course it was bone.
I sent her a warning, strong and sudden.
Clem paused. “I realize it’s dangerous,” she whispered, “but I know what I’m doing.”
I did not think she did, not really. The sight of the bone was horrible to me, though it was clean and smooth, hardly looking like a bone at all. All I could see on its knobby gray surface was the terrible twisted path that lay ahead, beginning with imperceptible distortions—desires and ambitions, corrupted thoughts—and ending with terrible transmutation. And yet Clementine behaved as though it was an ordinary object, not the beginningof her perilous descent into ruin. After all, Cassandra had herself suggested it: Had she anticipated this moment, or had she planted the idea in Clementine’s head?
Clem delicately placed the bone inside the left sabaton and stepped back.“Armar,”she whispered.
It was a clever spell, combining in a single word the acts of assembling and arming, but nothing happened. She moved the bone to the right sabaton and tried again.“Armar.”Once again, the armor lay unmoved. Clem withdrew the bone from the sabaton and held it up to her face, scrutinizing its shape. She had failed—there was still time to stop. Perhaps the bone wasn’t human bone after all. Perhaps Cassandra had intended something else. Perhaps I could yet persuade Clem to abandon this; I pressed upon her once more the sense of danger, and she frowned, shaking her head. “Please stop,” she whispered. “This must be done; trust me. Wasn’t I right about the stones?”
Shehadbeen right, but that was different.
Clem’s expression softened. “I know you’re worried about me,” she said. “But I’m doing this for our protection. I promise I have no greater ambitions to meddle with bone.”
Reluctantly, I withdrew my opposition. Trapped in the realm, who was I to forbid her the few tools she had for defense? There was nothing I could do for her. Nothing.
Clementine nodded, as if acknowledging my acceptance. She leaned over the figure once more and placed the bone in the right gauntlet.“Armar,”she whispered.
For a moment, the gauntlet lay still. Then, very slowly, as if the figure within were still sleeping and only just beginning to stir, the fingers of the gauntlet closed and opened. The gauntlet moved in unison with the vambrace, which bent experimentally at the elbow. Now the other gauntlet began to move, the fingersflexing. The sabatons followed, and the greaves, looking for all the world as though some invisible being inside the armor had begun to stretch its feet and legs, shoulders and arms, hips and back. Piece by piece, waking slowly, the suit pulled itself together, the helmet joining last of all. Then the creature sat up and lifted itself from the bed.
It was repulsive. Uncanny. And yet undeniably wondrous. The helmet inclined its head toward Clementine slowly in a gesture of deference. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought I saw, for a moment, a solid form beneath the vambrace at the crease of the elbow: a thing of substance, uniting the armor from within.
Clementine looked with satisfaction at the being she had made of Cassandra’s bone.
“Good,” she said quietly. “You have one task, and one task only.Cuidar,” she whispered. The suit of armor bowed smoothly, making no noise. Clem went back to the living room and took up her books again. From where she sat in the yellow armchair, she had a perfect view through the open door of her armored creation—or, perhaps, it is better to say that it had a perfect view of her.
I did not trust that creature of bone. Not at all.
Sam: Bindings
Cuidar: One of the most common castings, used by mothers everywhere. The casting offers a protective veil that lasts a short time and, it must be stressed, only encompasses inanimate objects. But if the shoes, jacket, pants, and hat are protected, is not the child also?
—Euphemia Parra,Encantos de palabra(translation mine)
Saddle Street, 1887
