AllFreeNovel
Share Us
THE FIRST THING I REMEMBER IS THE EGG. MY feathers were very black.
Ghassan told me, alone of all his children he confided in me, even when I was so young that yolk still clung to my beak, that he had been born nothing but a bird. A crooked old crow who wanted better for himself, he said.
The first time he changed skins it was quite a surprise—he wrapped himself up in a snake’s molting and the molting stuck, like a coat grown suddenly too small to take off. His feathers were a shrugged-off pile of soot on the forest floor, and he never looked back.
After a while he began to seek out skins, and not long after that he developed a reputation—by the time he died he had not had to steal a skin in decades. Rich in skins, my father, which is all the wealth there is. Folk clambered to trade theirs over, and he always ran a brisk business. If a skin was troublesome, he could always get rid of it; if it was rare, he could always procure it. Some thought he was quite wicked, but in truth, he was no more or less than any other crow: enamored of bright new things, and too clever to get them by the usual path.
He taught me the trade. Most of his children were plain crows, dull as dandelions. But I was like him, he said. My heart was skinless, and therefore I could have any skin I wished. But I had no desire to steal skins, as he did, and which he believed was a vital skill, as vital as reading to a cleric. He chided me, yes, called me weak of will, threatened to teach one of his other crow-children if I could not sneak up behind that possum right this second and split it tail to crown. But I would not. A skin is a sacred thing, more intimate than mother and child, and I wanted to change, of course I wanted to change, to be like Ghassan, but I wanted each of those in whose bodies I nestled to desire the change as much as I did. I searched for a long time, asking this page and that potato farmer whether or not they would like to be a crow, and my father laughed each time they fled in terror or threw stones at me, or politely declined to eat worms and leaves.
But one day, as days will come, I met a girl in the forest, just the sort of girl black and taloned creatures meet in the forest: young and ruddy-cheeked, bright of eye and too curious to take the usual path.
“Hello,” I cawed, hopping into her path.
“Hello, old crow,” she said pleasantly.
“I’m not old at all, you know. I’m quite young, and my feathers have a lovely sheen.”
“They certainly do.”
“How would you like to wear them?” I asked, smoothing my voice into a hushed sweetness, like a pond lapping against its green banks.
The girl considered for a moment, twisting her brown ringlets in her fingers. “I think I would like that very much,” she said softly. “I think it would be very nice to fly, and the life of a milkmaid is dreadfully dull. One always hopes such opportunities will befall one in the forest, but more often than not, one finds oneself an old grandmother with dragging dugs and a dewlap, her fingers numb from endless udders.”
I hopped closer. “Would you let me wear your skin in return?”
She looked down at herself. “Oh, certainly, if you would not find it very plain, and prone to dragging and dewlaps. It is a beastly body in that way. I would not recommend milking cows. It’s terrible for the knuckles.”
“I shall remember that.” I laughed, and we settled about the usual ceremony of stitching and unstitching, in which she was not at all experienced and I was barely adequate, so I am quite certain we made a mess of the whole procedure, but then, one’s first time is always a bit awkward, is it not?
She was lovely, and smelled of milk and hay on the inside. She cawed happily and flew off into the pines.
And I began, each time seeking out accord, agreement, not because I thought it wrong to steal—I am still a crow, after all—but because I do not disdain the usual way. Still, I have fallen into my father’s profession after all, as folk wish to trade and buy and sell, and I accumulated an excess inventory, and began to be sought after. I developed preferences, as Ghassan did—we both prefer a set of skins to one, and to maintain some of our crow shape in the set. I grew to enjoy wearing a boy’s skin, as Ghassan often wore a woman’s. Variety is important, you know, and it always pays to display the skins to best effect.
For all I know he is still crouching on his island, the island where I was born, the island where he squats and plays siren, but Ghassan has not been seen in the waking world for many years, and I am the only Skin-Peddler anyone speaks of these days, but they still call me Ghassan—who can tell who is who when our faces change with winter and spring?
“THIS IS THAT FIRST GIRL’S SKIN. I HAVE CARRIED it with me as a kind of souvenir, but I will give it to you, because you are in need, and I would very much like a bear skin.”
I pawed the snow. “Umayma, I’m scared.”
“It’s all right,” she said warmly, putting a skeletal hand on my shoulder. “The first time always hurts a little, but it gets easier.”
“This will be my only time,” I said stiffly.
Umayma scratched her cloak of feathers. “A pity,” she sighed.
And then she took me in her boy’s arms. I do not know how to say how it was. I felt myself splitting, like a nut in its shell, a fingernail carving the husk open, sugar-blood spilling out. I felt a star open in my chest, burning and searing, tearing the fur and flesh open as if along a seam, stitches popping and snarling. I cried out and my strong legs buckled beneath me, claws skittering on the ice. I could hear the ripping of my skin, then, a wet, sliding sound that brought with it a pain that clouded my eyes and blackened my brain.
And then, the Skin-Peddler was extending her hand to me, and wonderingly I extended my own to meet it—and it was not a paw but a slender girl’s hand, with five fingers and dull, ineffective nails in the place of my proud claws. I stood naked before the vulture girl in her boy’s skin, suddenly shivering without my fur. The cold was like a throttling—it clutched my throat and clawed my chest. I could not have imagined such a thing as this cold; I had always had my thick pelt to protect me.
And so I went home. My mother shrieked and would not speak to me; her despair coated the house like black honey. My sisters did not know me, and ensconced themselves in the Temple to pray for my soul, not believing for a moment that Laakea had bid me do this thing. Gunde called a Versammlung, but even they could not decide what to do with me. They resolved that I could stay—but if I could manage it, they preferred that I go.
When the wolves came, I went eagerly. There was nothing for me in the North. If I went south with them, surely I would hear word of you, or the Snake-Star. And in a city such as Al-a-Nur, what secret could not be discovered? I could make us both bears again; I could find you wherever you had become lost. Could it hurt if I stole some bit of excitement or adventure for myself while I searched? I set out with a heart high as hearth flame. And when I entered the Tower of St. Sigrid, I told myself, very reasonably, that such knowledge was as likely to be there as anyplace else, such histories, such magic. But in truth, I was enamored of the Saint, and the Dreaming City, and all that had come to pass in the world since you left me. You were already becoming a distant memory, a childhood love. The world had cracked open and shown me wonders—I knew I could not close it again.
I began to forget you, because I thought it best to forget. Another destiny awaited me, and it was not simply to be a bear-wife fishing through the ice.
EYVIND STARED, STRICKEN. HIS EYES WERE FULL OF tears, his stained shirt clenched in his enormous hands.
“So much happened, my love. I wore this skin until it was so accustomed to me I don’t think I could take it off if I wanted to. I searched for years for the Saint, and when I came to Muireann, destitute, in despair, there you were. I knew you in a moment; of course I knew you.”
