Myths of Origin Four Short Novels - By Catherynne M. Valente Page 0,55

you wanted me and so I have become what you wanted. Why do you mock what you made?” I stared blank-eyed at the repetition of Wall-rims endless to the horizon and further on.

“It is my entertainment, to watch you flop and gasp like one of my little trout. You would not rob me of that, my puella, no. Do you not see what you have achieved? Completion, End. At least a facsimile of it. It is so beautiful. And your singularity is the best of all. You cast a shadow neither sunward nor back, it is only alwaysnow, for you. That is enviable. But you have done it without Purpose, without intent, and so it means nothing. You still and always understand nothing of what I could have given you. I would have made you a Hero, you would have been made entirely of blaze, and eaten the Labyrinth in a swallow, so great would have been your need. As it is, you have found your Way to the End, and you do not even know it, because you would not accept the Quest. The function of a Quest, my function, is merely to make the End significant—you squandered me.”

“But it would have been illusion. Nothing is the reality, the absence of Center and meaning. I carried it like a shawl around my shoulders. You would have laughed as I drowned naked.”

“How vivid. Cling to your little cliffs, if you must. My gifts are vast.” She bent her archer’s mouth around the ivory pipe. “Oh, humanchild, must we do this, must we play this game where I am a frightful Witch and you are the brave Maiden? Don’t you want to play something else? I am very nice, you know. Put your mouth on my wrist, it tastes of peppermint. Wouldn’t it be more fun? Why don’t you be the witch this time?” She smiled for the first time, teeth like a row of soldiers, leonine and seductive. I felt my old helplessness roving.

“I am dying and you speak of games. How long do you think I can sit at chatter before nightfall when I will be mad again? Give me what I came for.” The Angel shook her sapphire head.

“Oh, all right. You are such a stubborn little caryatid. You must always have it precise.” She cleared her throat dramatically and fluttered her razor wings wide.

“I will not!”

I spread my hands, hopelessly confused, lips parting in anguish, unable, at this last which is not last, to comprehend her animal mouth. She moved close, trailing her fingers from my waist to my chin, slowly, tattooing cold into my flesh, her dark eyes drawing those same snail-patterns inkless on glass skin.

“Oh, pretty little thing, we all play our parts for you. Do you like it, precious puella? Are we very good at what we do? Do we satisfy each and every night when that red, red curtain goes up? All of us glossy little ducks in a row? Do you love us, dearest, darling, only? Will you clap, clap, clap? Shall I bow at the end as I yield? Oh, Darlingglass, will you laugh at all the right parts?”

She laughed herself, deep in her throat, an intimate rumbling as she lay her silky head on my terrified chest. “It is all an act, my own, but it is all there is. All we have, you and I. The rapiers are real, the duel is true. But you never see the stage, tragicsylph. I suppose I cannot ask for that much. I am a witch forever, and you will fear and never love me.”

“Please,” I whispered through loose and prismed lips, “take it out of me, take it out, let me be whole.”

“You are close to the skin, now, beautiful, close to the rim, dancing out beyond its edge. You could put out your smallest finger and see the pattern. But it is not, after all, the Way of things. Come, come now, you must play your part, too. Threaten me, put your hands on my throat, tell me you will surely kill me like a brave and good Maiden ought to, if I do not wipe you clean as a window.”

She leaned upon me like a divan, smiling her disturbing kittenish smile, bewildering and lithe, full of snow. I put my hand tentatively over her mouth, shrill cold screaming lip to palm with the contact, and her eyes twinkled with mirth above the flesh-hyphen.

“Just stop laughing at me and help me.