Stolen by Moonlight, Betrothed by Sun

I was found in a fishing pond south of Saint-Maroon, in the spring of 1431. Two young men, clumsy with pry poles rather than fishing poles, found me in the slimy muck and weed of the shore, a collection of worn gold coins nearby. The linen pouch that had once held them had worried away to nothing. They stared at their find for a long time, one of them using a notebook and pen to record what they had found. The other didn’t want to wait, wrapped his meaty hand around my hilt and meant to pull, but the other man ripped him back. 

​

The hand on my hilt was shocking—large and warm, pink-palmed and smooth. It had been years since anyone had held me, and could I have levered myself out of the mud, I would have. It was not her hand—it could not be—and yet it was reminiscent. I waited in the mud, for it was all I had done for the past three hundred years and I was best at waiting now. Once I had been best at stabbing.

​

When they pulled me out, they ripped weeds from the ground along with me, so eager were they to cradle me. I worried in their haste they would strip away the last of her—but they left the leather scabbard and linen sagging from my hilt, deeming it of little immediate interest. They washed my blade in pond water, fingering the mud from my cold length. Their fingers skimmed over the engravings, but their eyes did not behold them. No curse, this—nothing evil would befall their houses—but they did not look at me the way she had; they did not mouth the words and take up an oath.

​

The young men carelessly tossed me on the shore and returned to where they had found me, on hands and knees to pry every piece of gold from the mud that they could. There was one piece they would never reach, it having shifted to the deepest part of the pond. Their pry poles could not reach that far, but some day in the future, men would find it, would prise it from the dirt and cart it to auction.

​

I basked in the thin sunlight like a cat, having only felt the timeless imprisonment of mud and dried mud as never-ending rain, snow, and drought. It was these cycles that pushed me from the depths to the surface. When the young men returned, they wrapped me in cloth and threw me into the darkness of a wagon. I’m the fecking king of Esile, one of them whispered. This is Direland, you idiot, the other said. 

​

This was very much Esile—I could still remember coming to its shores—were they that addled? Maybe with drink. The wagon jostled like a beast as we moved away from the pond—away from the pond—and something in me lurched. 

​

I was leaving whatever was left of her—of us—in that pond. But the leather and linen bound me still, wrapped me the way she once had, and all would be well. She had said.

 

The next light I knew was cold, bright. An older man with one hazel eye was peering at me, a cigar clenched between his yellowed teeth. His other eye was hidden behind a patch—I thought of the captain, the bos’n, the cook—but he was none of them. Just an estoc, he said of me, but the work was fine and I would clean up well enough, he was certain. The gold—well that was another matter, he said. Gold was gold, and he’d pay its weight. He offered an absurd amount of money to the young men and they fled with whoops and laughter, into the day beyond this dank room. 

 

* * *

 

Her Highness Elisabeth Duguay-Trouin looked nothing of the sort when she sauntered into the smithy, her crescent moon smile barely visible beneath the brim of her hat. It was the kind of hat a cavalier would wear, though not cocked up, nor decorated with an ostrich feather or any other kind of adornment. It was plain black felt, which set off the gold of her hair, a treasure chest spilling open. She wore trousers like a man, the buttons on her plain coat barely containing the bulk of her. Every step of her leather boots rattled me where I hung upon the smithy’s wall. 

​

She came with two others—rough men who smelt of beer and salt—but she only had eyes for me. She brushed the smithy’s hands away when he tried to alter her course—what could a lady possibly want in this shop, he demurred—then she lay her hands upon me. Her fingers were warm points of sunlight against my blade. She took me from the wall and held me with two hands, and it was as if I had been made for them. Her strong fingers encircled my hilt and I was drowning. The smithy had never held me this well. 

​

I had not been made for her hands—the Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies of the King had ordered me, honed to the sharpest point anyone in the shop had ever seen. He meant to skewer some men, he said, right through their plate. Elisabeth held the point to the smithy’s heart and he did not move, knowing full well how little thrust it would take to bring his life to a bloody end. But she laughed and said only that she meant to buy the blade and he’d best not argue. He did not argue. 

​

She carried me out into the sun-filled day, toward the docks where The Windflower awaited her. Her family made ships, I came to learn, and she, though betrothed to the Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies of the King, meant to sail away on this one. She bore me at her side and whispered my name into my hilt, a betrothal of another kind.

​

“Let us go,” she said.

 

* * *

 

The auctioneer droned on, detailing the skirts on the common and boring dress he was presently auctioning off. They were cream linen, he said, remarkably preserved despite the toil of ages. He had said the same of every item thus far, and if his audience cared, they gave no hint. They waited for the items that had brought them across oceans and lands.

​

The skirts had no rival, the auctioneer said, for when one lifted the skirt to examine what lay beneath—

​

These crowds were not horrified by the mere idea. An exposed ankle, a revealed leg, the crowd was immune to the idea of such sins. But they did gasp when gloved hands carefully parted the skirts to expose the truth of them. Beneath the thin linen ran a network of embroidered lines, a careful reproduction of the country in which we resided. The Grand Commonwealth of Esile spread across the skirts, with small marks to show camped enemy armies. It was the War of the Dragons, it could be nothing else, for there had also been embroidered a hulking body in the Swift River—a dragon, they claimed, with bones of opal. The threads sparked like opals might, and the audience rose in a frenzy, to bid upon the dress.

​

And then it was my turn. The auctioneer did not touch me, for I had been carefully placed in a wood case with a glass lid; everyone could admire me without finger-printing me. The case rested on a table, which they wheeled onto the stage as the dress was wheeled off. 

​

They angled the case to allow the audience to see me, and everyone looked with interest but none so sharp as a man in the front row. He slid to the edge of his seat and pushed his glasses back onto his nose with his middle finger. He should have looked grimy—a thief, for sure—but his suit was neat and his eyes conveyed an intelligence that surprised. Eh, thieves were best when they had smarts, too. 

​

“An estoc,” the auctioneer said, “common enough, but this one dated to the year 1022 and the War of the Waves. It matches the description of a blade made for the Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies of the King, noted in the journal of the Grand Smithy. Said blade was stolen and never seen again—until now, presumably.”

A low murmur rolled through the crowd. The War of the Waves was not nearly as popular as the War of the Dragons, but what can you do? Dragons are far more uncommon, all things considered, though Elisabeth and I had ridden one. Once. Still, the War of the Waves had one thing going for it.

​

“—and said the mighty beast rose from the ocean, sinking a dozen ships in its haste to consume but one: the ship carrying Her Highness Elisabeth Duguay-Trouin. The battle raged for weeks, kraken and whale relentless. Her Highness was lost in the battle, yet this blade appears to have been at her side, given the worn leather scabbard and linen which accompanies it. Her initials are marked upon the leather, and so too the True Rose of House Duguay-Trouin. Please, you may approach and pass to get a better look.”

​

Who didn’t love sea monsters? We had been thrown from the deck into the salty waters, and down and down we plunged until the mighty squid captured us within its arms. Horrific, if I may say, but he swam us away, meaning perhaps to beak us to death, but I’d cut his arm free from his body by then, and Elisabeth and I swam away in a gush of ink and blood, washing upon a shore we did not know where we were greeted with swords and manacle and taken to the luxury of Lowenhold Prison, the black shards of it rising from the ground like some frozen star cast to the ground.

​

“Who can say where she was taken in the waves,” the auctioneer said. “We can only dream she washed upon some shore alive, and lived the rest of her days grandly. Now who shall bid?”

​

Oh, they all did.

 

* * *

 

They said I was tempered in blood and marked with sigil and rune, but that’s nonsense. I was made the normal way, the way anyone would make a proper sword. I wasn’t “proper” if you asked some people—I was best at stabbing, for I had no cutting edge. So I had a limited skill set; don’t we all? Swords that slice very rarely stab well, honestly. 

​

In any case, Elisabeth loved me and loved stabbing things. I also loved stabbing things and came to love Elisabeth, for she took me everywhere, and saw me well kept. She named me in secret whispers and moonlight. I slept at her side as any dog might, faithful and true, instantly ready when she needed me. She washed me, oiled me, sharpened me when necessary. She practiced day and night; sometimes we wandered the woods and she whispered poetry to me, though never any other. 

​

While I was not marked with runes, Elisabeth did see me marked with words. We found a small smithy in Khyber Bay who undertook the job. His hands were steady, his eyes narrow, but Elisabeth knew him from long ago she said. They drank ale like war-mates, they laughed like old lovers, and then my length was marked.

​

Upon one side, it said take me up. Upon the other, it read cast me aside. I did not like this second line, it felt like a horrible prophecy, but Elisabeth kissed the words and whispered to me, and it would be all right, for all things were with her. She could mark me as she would; she could take me up (she had, hadn’t she), and she could cast me aside, though had not yet. I could only wait—unless I was stabbing something. 

 

* * *

 

“Forged by the gods,” Ruskin said, lifting me toward the water-stained ceiling of his apartment. Ruskin’s hand was like a meat mitten, slick with sweat.

​

At the dining room table, his betrothed Cynthia cackled as she shelled beans, each legume hitting the metal bowl with an angry ding! “And you spent our life’s savings on that pig sticker,” she said, her cheeks hollowed by years of hunger, her golden hair shiny from lack of washing. She wore a strand of dull beads around her neck, their false gold having worn thin.

​

Ruskin pirouetted to face her, jabbing my length in her general direction, Cynthia did not flinch, only batted me aside when I got close enough. A brown bean skin clung to my edge.

​

“What’s this life matter,” Ruskin said, “without food, without work.” He spun again, slashing me as if I had a cutting edge after all. “With this, I can join a band of adventurers—I’ll hit the tavern tonight, see who’s aboot.” Thrust, thrust, parry. “I’ll return with pooch of gold, you’ll see.”

​

Ruskin took me out into the night. The air was cold; my scabbard and linen had been left in the wood display case, all of it hastily discarded on the bed when he’d brought me home to Cynthia. It felt like a farce, for shouldn’t I have been won by a museum curator, someone who understood what the True Rose meant, someone who knew my actual worth, someone who had, perhaps, been tracking every little rumor of post-war Elisabeth? She had lived—surely someone suspected.

​

But Ruskin did not know Elisabeth from Cynthia. Ruskin danced through the streets with me, skewering a potato on his way. The merchant beat Ruskin with another potato, until Ruskin hurled the first back at him. Ruskin made a dance of it—he might have been talented, for he evaded the screaming merchant and stepped gingerly into the neighboring street. He skipped down its length, a rich baritone erupting from him as he lifted his voice in “Jerry’s Making Merries at the Pub.”

​

Was this my life now? Lashed to Ruskin’s side as he nimbly sang his way down street after street? A bard who fancied himself a fighter? His hand should have wrapped ‘round a lute, not a hilt, and yet here we were. Ruskin lifted me until the moonlight slid down my length like quicksilver. He cackled. He launched into “A Blade Forevermore,” striding toward the tavern on the corner, where others of his kind awaited. Songs spilled into the streets, and lantern light, and beer, and thieves.

​

Ruskin did not see the thief who waylaid him; one moment, Ruskin was singing about the balance of a blade, and the next he was flat on his back, blood running from his severed throat. I tumbled into the road, but not for long. The murderous thief snatched me from the dirt. I expected the chill of an unfamiliar scabbard, but no—it was my own scabbard he slid me into, wrapping the tattered linen around us both. Judging by the dull beads that encircled his wrist, Cynthia had shared Ruskin’s fate.

​

We were deep in the woods when the thieves stopped to rest and eat. The thief who carried me drew me out, laid me beside the fire, and admired the light along my blade. 

​

“It’s useless,” a second thief said. “Why’d you want that absurd thing anyhow?”

​

The first thief did not answer, but his dirty fingers stroked over the True Rose as if he had plans, as if he knew what it meant. 

​

The third thief joined them with a pair of rabbits he set to skinning, and the three soon set to eating without further contemplation of my uselessness. The stars shone beyond the sparking fire and their dirty heads, but clouds were moving in, clouds that called to mind rain or snow. 

​

The last time I had seen snow—save for that which fell upon the pond into which I had been cast—was the day Elisabeth and I had ridden a dragon. We’d been in peril of our lives, fleeing from Castle Campenni, both of us wondering how dinner parties so regularly dissolved into petty arguments that left guests fleeing in peril for their lives.

​

It didn’t happen all that often, Prince Campenni insisted. It had happened the last time we’d been there, Elisabeth reminded him, at which point the prince said perhaps we were the common thread, and not the dinner party or his home, or even he himself, and so we three fled, up and up the castle floors until surely the grand building would run out and we would be at a loss for an escape route—but upon the roof we found something wholly unexpected.

​

“Skutch!”

​

The snowy night was illuminated by four rooftop cauldrons of fire. Near one, a slumbering dragon lifted its head at the prince’s call. Skutch, we presumed, shook the snow from her silver scales, a wary look falling from her green eyes. But she did not balk at her prince or his guests; Skutch extended a wing and Prince Campenni set foot to it as easily as he might stone. He carefully followed the ridge of bone at the wing’s forefront and so did Elisabeth and I follow. 

​

And then we were airborne, the prince whooping in the night air as we fled the angry guests upon the rooftop. Skutch carried us into the snowing clouds where Elisabeth closed her eyes and laughed at Campenni’s antics. They were old friends—surely the peril was false—but time with the prince was never dull. Much like myself.

​

The prince took us on a short air tour of the city and its surroundings, setting Skutch down just beyond the inn where we’d taken a room for the night. We were welcome at the castle, he reminded Elisabeth, his voice thick with the scent of brandy, but she turned from his suggestive touch and thanked him, then we vanished inside the inn. From our room window, she watched as Campenni and Skutch took to the snowy sky once more. 

​

The morning was clear and we reached the coast, from which we sailed to warmer shores—the shores of Esile from which I would soon be cast aside by Elisabeth’s own hand.

 

* * *

 

Of course there were rumors about me. The first thief seemed to know them all. It was said one could gaze into my narrow blade and see the future. If I had ever been able to tell the future, I could no longer; things had been more certain when it was Elisabeth’s hand around me, and not this thief.

​

It was said that I could slice through iron as though it were wood—but surely either would prove a difficulty given I was a stabbing blade. It was said, the thief continued, that I had taken the arm of a knight in the Holy Wood, draining so much blood from him in the act that I glowed scarlet for years after; the knight had me attached to his body, replacing his arm—I stabbed men as efficiently as I stabbed steak. It was said that no man could tell a lie with me at his throat; I suspected it more because of the imminent threat of death than anything my blade harbored. 

​

They claimed that mythical Roland bore me first, long before Elisabeth, that I changed color thirty times a day depending on my knight’s mood, that I could shear the wings of a dragonfly in sixteenths, that my hilt would unlatch for the True Bearer, and a gleaming golden dagger would reveal itself. (Would gold make a good weapon—I cannot say, I am not a smithy.)

​

I had been rendered a thousand-thousand times in artwork, the thief continued to the dismay of his friends; knowing art was a gentleman’s pastime, and he was nothing if not a gentleman, he insisted. The Rapture of Angels by J. Flammia was the moment of my birth they said; angels fluttering downward from a gleaming heaven, bearing me in their arms, though if you looked closely enough, I was floating, for it was said none could touch me but the True Bearer. Not even angels.

​

They said The Harrowing by Lord Brandt showed the truth of me; only a fragment of the work remained, kept in the church alongside the River Tayl. It was said the priests were forbidden to speak of me, of the truth, for when fully known, I would sear eyes from heads with my brilliance. I would topple nations. The surviving fragment shows a blade similar to myself, held in a slender hand blackened with soot. It looks like Elisabeth’s hand—she thought so when we gazed upon it, Father Pulver having taken us to the cellar to unlock four doors before kneeling before the vault that held the fragment of canvas. It was frayed, older than dirt, and so beautiful. Elisabeth reached out to touch it, and the father clasped her hand before she could. She drew back as if burnt. You cannot, my child, he whispered. And then she withdrew me from the scabbard.

​

The priest took a step backward, into the wall, and clutched at his cassock as if seeing some true horror. It is just a blade, he told himself. It is not, Elisabeth returned. We left as we had come, locking each door behind us. Father Pulver crossed himself as we went, but Elisabeth’s hand was gentle around me. 

​

It was said, the thief said around a mouthful of rabbit, that I would never dull, that wounds inflicted by me would never heal. It was said that the grandest kings of old had handed me down through the ages—from the angels, the second thief spat—from the angels, the third thief confirmed.

​

As his partners slept, the thief made away with me, crossing himself as he whispered prayers and hopes. The woods around us were dark, deep, and we did not get far before a laugh made the thief still. He squeezed his hand around my hilt, and the laugh came again. 

​

It was the laugh of a young woman, but she did not reveal herself. Where, the thief demanded, and chased the trill of her laugh into the thickening trees. Deeper and deeper we went, into the froth of a churning river, for surely she was on the other bank. A ghostly slip of smoke twined through the trees—there, he said, there, and he lunged, only to tangle himself upon a knotted root. He tumbled into the water and I fell from his side, lodging in the roots as the water carried him head over heel and away. 

​

“There you are,” a new voice whispered.

​

An unfamiliar hand pulled me from the roots, wrapping the thinning linen around the scabbard to keep us whole. It was a young woman and she walked us down the riverbank, to find the third thief entangled in another set of roots, quite drowned and dead. Her hair was ebon as the night sky, eyes and skin too. 

​

“He didn’t deserve you,” she said, and pressed me to her breast. “He would have sold you in the end. And for what? She told me about you—” And here she drew me back, pulled me from the scabbard just a bit to see my blade. “It’s you—cast away, but retrieved ere long by my very own hands. It’s you, not birthed by angels, but by my great-grandfather smithy for her lieutenant.”

​

Her. My metal sang at the idea.

​

“Elisabeth,” she assured me, and the world seemed to fade from knowledge; there was only her name, ringing in the air. “The True Rose.”

​

We walked from the river, and through the town, and from there found a horse, to make the journey more manageable. She carried me through rain and snow, and one mudslide, ensuring I was secure and clean every step the way. I nicked her only once, during that mudslide; her blood was related to Elisabeth’s. 

​

She disguised me in trousers, and blankets, and myriad other items as we made our way ever north. By the sun and by the stars, we traveled by road and by wits, until we made our last camp, and the wolves crept out of the woods to sit beside her crackling fire and study both she and me. 

​

She withdrew me from the scabbard then, standing on trembling legs to face the beasts. But they only wanted to be warm; it was said I calmed animals, and hadn’t The Barnyard by Vincent Vivichenko proved such—for there I’d lain in the dirt, before the bare feet of a milkmaid, the wolves kept at bay from the cows.

​

The fire sparked down my length and into the amber eyes of the wolves. This was it—the crisis. The young girl would lunge, the slavering wolves would swarm, and I, in my most necessary moment, would fail. All the texts said so—it was foretold. I would tumble from her hands, the wolves would set upon her, and blood would once more illuminate my blade. 

​

But it did not come to pass. The girl did not lunge and the wolves did not swarm. She lowered me, and the wolves bowed their heads, and she sat, and offered them some of the rabbit we’d killed earlier. They were gentlemen, not wolves, perhaps some fantastic combination, for blood did gleam on their jaws. But they sat peaceful and warm and full across the fire from the girl and we passed the night like this. Come morning, the wolves were gone, only their paw prints in the dirt proving they had been there at all.

 

“Elisabeth said you could do that,” she whispered as she cleaned the camp. “She’s… She said…”

​

Her voice broke then. She said no more, only packed up and we were off again, riding and riding until the woods cleared and the hills rolled unobstructed before us. The land spread to the coast and we could see every bit, every farm and every cottage, and what a nice place it seemed, though surely people were suffering, struggling, trying to manage every day as this young girl did—though none had picked up their lives to pluck a blade from a thief and take it—where? Where was this place?

​

We followed a narrow road between thatched houses, until the houses paused and gave way to a small yard. No—a graveyard. The stones rose from the hard ground as shadows, some tilted this way and that. We dismounted and walked through the gates, leaving the horse loosely tied, and she went directly to it—an unnamed grave, with only a river stone marking it. She kneeled, and drew me out, and lay me crosswise upon the ground. 

​

The ground sang. I could feel her, my Elisabeth, underground. She was only bones now, some of them broken, and had I a fraction of the heavenly powers everyone believed I possessed, I would have pulled her whole from the soil. But I lay there, inept. Only a stabbing blade, after all. We all had our shortcomings.

​

“It’s been so many years,” she said, and touched her hands flat to the ground on either side of me. The grass was short, yellowed from winter’s misery. “You should be here with her, but I find I cannot leave you. Curator Levy will want to see you—can you imagine the look on his old pinched face? I’ve only seen him once—maybe he’s not even there anymore, but old men take so long to go away.”

​

She took me up once more in the end, and we left the graveyard, though Elisabeth felt like a distant heat the entire while. I had lain in a pond; she had lain in this ground. And how had she met her final end? I liked to imagine great battle, for it’s what I knew, Elisabeth falling where she had once succeeded, because by then she had cast me aside. When she should have stabbed, she was instead felled, given she’d thrown me to my fate.

​

Was that it? Before she’d cast me aside, they were closing in—you can guess who, for all things come full circle. The Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies of the King was not a man to trifle with, so he would tell you at alarming length. He would not be thrown aside a second time—she was his betrothed and I was his sword.

​

The first throwing aside still stung, Elisabeth disguising herself as a knight upon the jousting field so she could try her skill against men. She liked the horses, the speed, and yes, the stabbing with a giant lance. To be so large, to shatter shields and unseat men, and claim glory. Elisabeth assured me she would not throw me over for such a lance, she wanted only to try. She gave a false name, and rode with the other men to town before the king and his queen and there among them came a lady, who reached over the wooden railing and beckoned to the knights. It was Elisabeth she summoned, and Elisabeth who came, drawn to the warmth in her eyes. If the lady saw the truth of what Elisabeth was, we could not say; Elisabeth’s eyes were the only visible part of her, the rest hidden beneath plate and helm.

​

The lady gifted Elisabeth with the length of linen from around her neck; it smelled of plum and rose, and sweat for the day was warm. The lady tied this cloth around Elisabeth’s arm and Elisabeth shuddered, perhaps feeling as if she’d been knighted after all. Elisabeth bowed to her from atop the horse, then rode to take her place.

She won that day—of course she did. What kind of tale do you think I’m telling? Elisabeth won, and met the lady that evening, and what happened between them is not mine to say, but trust the Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies of the King allowed this evening to burn through his heart like a flaming coal. It had left a hole inside him, had left him shamed and gelded, and he would not have it. 

​

Knowing this, Elisabeth would never willingly give me away, nor would she give herself. It should never have happened; Elisabeth miscalculated his anger, believed she would be able to laugh and set things right once more, but he came with beasts and blades, meaning to take from her what she had taken from him. A blade, but also a life at court. Elisabeth kissed my blade and whispered I shall return, and flung me into the pond waters.

​

And then she never did.

​

But now I knew her resting place, felt it like an anchor holding me to the earth even as the young girl and I rode ever north. North to the big city, where we found our way across cobbled streets, and down narrow alleys. We slept in a close room and the following morning, we made haste for Curator Levy and his old pinched face. He was still there, he was still old and sour, but his expression eased when the girl revealed me. He was hesitant to touch me, the scabbard, the linen. We were older than old, he said, how could we possibly still exist.

​

“Just because it’s hard to find, doesn’t mean magic is gone,” she told him, and he huffed, but did not argue. He found muslin padding, and carefully set me into a box and there I stayed while he conferred with colleagues, and gave the young woman compensation for the gift she had bestowed. 

​

The girl came to see me when I had been placed in my final display case. The case was wholly glass, allowing visitors to walk circles around me and read both inscriptions. I became the centerpiece of a display about the War of the Waves, the walls around me painted with depictions of the final sea battle. Kraken and whale and ship and wave looked nothing like they had that day, but they evoked the time well enough. Around me were other artifacts, bits of shields and sails, a shattered cask, a false leg. Each was a memory and like me conveyed part of a long, terrible story. 

​

The notation beneath me said I had belonged to Her Highness Elisabeth Duguay-Trouin. To most this did not matter. To many, it was a marvel. To others, it was an insult. They came to view me, and some scowled and others smiled. Young girls pressed their hands against the glass and dreamed. Twice thieves tried to steal me, but the museum security guards were upon them before they could. Three times we left the museum, touring the land as part of a traveling exhibit on war and loss and what yet remained. Four times, something stranger happened.

​

Nights at the museum were quiet, dark. The room in which I was kept had a vaulted ceiling, and moonlight streamed in unimpeded on full moon nights. The first full moon I experienced was brilliant, every bit of metal in the room gleaming with the silver light. Until something made it wink out—as if something had moved between window and moonlight. But given the height of the roof…might thieves be trying a new way of entry? 

​

It happened thrice more, these nights not concurrent, but stretched rather over a series of months. Amid these, I was removed for the traveling exhibition, so if it happened when I was not there, I could not say. 

​

On this fourth occurrence, it happened more than once, but no shadow appeared upon the wall to betray any thief who might be trying to enter. The streaming moonlight, thick with dust motes, flickered and flickered again. The glass surrounding me wavered as though it were turning to water, and then it began to crack.

​

Of the thief, there was no sign, nor did security arrive. The crack was louder than anything in the room—how could they not hear?—and the front panel eventually shattered. The glass cascaded onto the marble floor, cool night air rushing over me. It was not unlike being pulled from the pool, yet the thief did not betray themselves. How was it possible? What had broken the glass? Curator Levy would narrow his already narrow eyes as he considered it come morning, but by morning I would be far away, for there came a hand through the moonlight.

​

The hand was pale and slender, and I knew it for I had been held by, cared for, and used by this hand for years. ‘Twas Elisabeth come through the moonlight, her cheeks washed pale and thin across the years. How long had she been dead? Time made no sense and no difference. It was my Elisabeth, and her fingers wrapped round me again. She lifted me from the display and pressed me to her ghostly lips. 

​​

It took me a while, but I’m back. 

​

And she whispered my name, and my name was hers, and there was no question—I went with her as I was meant to; together we rushed through the moonlight and into the night, and away where none would find us. 

​

It is said I can make a person disappear, but that I can also reveal their truest self. It is said I shall never break nor lose my point. It is said that I shall be taken up and cast away. As foretold, here we are; I am taken up once more. 

 

 

 

About the Author

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E. Catherine Tobler’s short fiction and poetry has appeared in Clarkesworld, F&SF, Bourbon Penn, Gamut, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Nightmare, and others. Her editing and writing work has been a finalist for the Nebula, Utopia, Sturgeon, Hugo, Ditmar, Aurealis, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. She currently edits The Deadlands.

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