She sat down, since there was no furniture, on the floor in the corner nearest the door to which the thread had led her. My aunt was a woman who liked a wall at her back. The invasions had left her uneasy in open spaces, always looking over her shoulder. Though who could hurt her now? as she said to herself, sitting down!! But, as she said to herself, you never can be sure.
The line of gold wire on the walls led her eye along them as she sat resting. Some of the figures they made seemed familiar. She began to think that these figures or patterns were a map of the maze which she was in, the wires representing passages and the stars, rooms; or perhaps the stars represented the doors into rooms, the walls of which were not outlined. She could pretty certainly retrace the first corridor back to the room of the distaffs; but on the far side of that, where the old part of our house ought to be, the patterns continued, looking a good deal more like the familiar constellations of the sky in early winter. She was not certain she understood the map at all, but she continued to study it, to let her mind follow the lines from star to star, until she began to see her way. She got up then, and went back, pursuing the flaxen thread and taking it up in her left hand, till she came back.
There I was in the same room still crying. My mother was gone. Lacewing flies wait years to be born, but they live only a day. The undertaker’s men were just leaving, and I had to follow them, so my aunt came along to her funeral, though she did not want to leave the house. She tried to bring her ball of thread with her, but it broke as she crossed the threshold. I could hear her swear under her breath, the way she always did when she broke a thread or spilled the sugar—“Damn!” in a whisper.
Neither of us enjoyed the funeral at all. My aunt grew panicky as they began to throw the dirt back into the grave. She cried aloud, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”—which frightened me so much that I thought it was myself speaking, myself suffocating, and I fell down. People had to help me get up, and help me get home. I was so ashamed and confused among them that I lost my aunt
One of the neighbors, who had never been particularly pleasant to us, took pity on me, and behaved with much kindness. She talked so wisely to me that I got up the courage to ask her, “Where is my aunt? Will she come back?” But she did not know, and only said things meant to comfort me. I am not as clever as most people, but I knew there was no comfort for me.
The neighbor made sure I could look after myself, and that evening she sent one of her children over with dinner in a dish for me. I ate it, and it was very good. I had not eaten anything while my aunt was away in the other part of the house.
At night, after dark, I lay down all alone in the bedroom. At first I felt well and cheerful, because of the food I had eaten, and I pretended my aunt was there sleeping in the same room, the way it had always been. Then I got frightened, and the fright grew in the darkness.
My aunt came up out of the floor in the middle of the room. The red tiles humped up and cracked apart. Her hair and her head pushed through the tiles, and then her body. She looked very dark, like dirt, and she was much smaller than she had been.
“Let me be!” she said.
I was too terrified to speak.
“Let me go!” my aunt said. But it was not truly my aunt; it was only an old part of her that had come back underground from the graveyard, because I had been wanting her. I did not like that part of her, or want it there. I cried, “Go away! Go back!” and hid my head in my arms.
My aunt made a little creaking sound like a wicker basket. I kept my eyes hidden so long that I nearly fell asleep. When I looked, no one was there, or only a kind of darker place in the air, and the tiles were not cracked apart. I went to sleep.
Next morning when I woke up the sunlight was in the window and things were all right, but I could not walk across that part of the floor where my aunt had come up through the tiles.
I was afraid to cry after that night, since crying might bring her back to taste the sweetness or to scold me. But it was lonely in the house now that she was buried and gone. I had no idea what to do without her. The neighbor came in and talked about finding me work, and gave me food again; but the next day a man came, who said he had been sent by a creditor. He took away the chest of clothes and bedding. Later that day, in the evening, he came back, because he had seen that I was alone there. I kept the door locked this time. He spoke smoothly at first, trying to make me let him in, and then he began saying in a low voice that he would hurt me, but I kept the door locked and never answered. The next day somebody else came, but I had pushed the bedstead up against the door. It may have been the neighbor’s child that came, but I was afraid to look. I felt safe staying in the back room. Other people came and knocked, but I never answered, and they went away again.
I stayed in the back room until at last I saw the door that my aunt had gone through, that day. I went and opened it. I was sure she would be there. But the room was empty. The loom was gone, and the distaffs were gone, and no one was there.
I went on to the corridor beyond, but no farther. I could never find my way by myself through all those halls and rooms, or understand the patterns of the stars. I was so afraid and wretched that I went back, and crawled into my own mouth, and hid there.
My aunt came to fetch me. She was very cross. I always tried her patience. All she said was, “Come on!” And she pulled me along by the hand. Once she said, “Shame on you!” When we got to the riverbank she looked me over very sternly. She washed my face with the dark water of that river, and pressed my hair down with the palms of her hands. She said, “I should have known.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Come along, now. Look sharp!”
For the boat had come across the river and was tying up at the wharf. We walked down to the wharf among the reeds in the twilight. It was after sunset, and there was no moon or stars, and no wind blowing. The river was so wide I could not see the other shore.
My aunt dickered with the ferryman. I let her do that, since people always cheated me. She had taken the obol off her tongue, and was talking fast “My niece, can’t you see how it is? Of course they didn’t give her the fare! She’s not responsible! I came along with her to look after her. Here’s the fare. Yes, it’s for us both. No, you don’t,” and she drew back her hand, having merely shown him a glimpse of the bit of copper. “Not till we’re both safe across!”
The ferryman glowered, but began to loosen the painter.
“Come along, then!” my aunt said. She stepped into the boat, and held out her hand to me. So I followed her.
The First Report of the Shipwrecked Foreigner to the Kadanh of Derb
What you ask of me, my lord, is manifestly impossible. How can one person describe a world? One may indeed use a small pencil to describe a large circle, but if the circle is so large that one cannot make out the curve of it even from the top of a tower, why then the pencil will wear out before it has fairly begun its task. How many tones can one voice take? How can I describe even a single rock, and which rock should I describe? If I began by telling you that the Earth is the third planet of a system of nine, orbiting a middle-sized yellow sun at a mean distance of 93 million miles, with a 365-day period of revolution and a 24-hour period of rotation, and that it has a companion moon, what would I have told you but that a year is a year, a month is a month, and a day is a day, which you know already?