Plain Kate

His beautiful fur was matted with blood. He would hate that. She got out one of the horse brushes. She brushed until the bristles were thick as if with rust, and his fur was perfect. She liked the grain of it, how it followed the lines of his bones and muscles. It swirled in knots over his joints, and stood in a soft ridge along his breastbone, just beside the wound that had killed him. It was strange that his fur was still so soft, while his body was stiffening.

She sat beside him, numb, forever.

She had never been the sort for ghosts, though she had seen too much of them. But she would have cut off her carving hand to glimpse one now. It wasn’t fair. There should at least be a ghost.

But there was no ghost. Only Behjet, and Drina behind him, hovering at the curtain. She hadn’t seen them come in.

“Plain Kate,” the Roamer man said. His voice was soft as if he were gentling a horse. “I have prayed—Plain Kate—”

“Just Kate.”

“What?”

“Kate.” She was as plain as she had ever been. And over that she was burn scarred and half bald. But Taggle had thought she was beautiful.“My name is Katerina Svetlana. Kate.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

And no one said anything for a while. The canvas arch around them glowed with sun.

Then Behjet said,“Your cat. Drina has told me—”

“He was more than a cat,” she said.

Another silence.“What should we do with…” said Drina.

Taggle’s body was what she didn’t say. Kate had been thinking about that. She had been thinking about nothing else. “That place where we met: the meadow by the river. He was happy there. We had sausages.” She looked up. “We can bury—”

But she couldn’t finish.

“I’ll harness Cream,” said Drina.

***

Inside thevardo, Kate took apart one of the trestle benches and put it together again as a box. She used Behjet’s shaving knife, though it sat like a stranger in her hand, though she knew she was ruining its edge and somewhere deep inside, her carver’s soul protested. Her knife—she had killed her friend with her knife. She had left her knife and maybe her heart there, lying in blood and fire.

But still she worked. Her hands as they cut the dovetails for the joints seemed strange to her: Darkness trailed them as they moved; their lower sides wore the darkness like a second skin. It was her shadow. Her shadow, returning.

She worked as Cream was harnessed, bits of tack rattling like muffled bells. She worked as Drina came and wrapped Taggle’s body in her favorite scarf, the red one with the white birds. She worked as thevardo rattled over the corduroy road. She worked as the branches scraped the canvas sides like fingernails. She worked as the light failed and thevardo shuddered to a stop.

She finished the box. It was strong and square, and would last a long time, even in the earth. And then she waited.

After too short a time the shovel stopped. But Kate couldn’t get up. She thought about Taggle’s name, and how the Roamers didn’t say the names of the dead. And she hadn’t said his, not yet. She was afraid to. It would make it real.

Lenore lifted the curtain and paused, a pale shape in white against the lavender evening.“If a woman,” she said softly, “might enter and speak.”

Kate shrugged.

Lenore came in, trailing light. Though she had asked to speak, she said nothing. After a moment she knelt in front of Kate, and bent her head to Taggle’s body. A gray ear stuck out between the red loops of cloth, guard hairs arching over the intricate, delicate interior. She stood heron-still a long moment before she said: “The grave is ready.”

“I know.”

“I wish,” Lenore said, touching the red wrappings, “I almost wish it were mine. What my brother did for me—and the memory of what I have done. They will not be easy to live with. And I feel so strange. Like a bowl that holds water on the outside; like a goblet with no stem…”

“What happens,” Kate asked, “after you die?”

“I don’t know.” Lenore traced the curve of Taggle’s ear. Under her long fingers it looked delicate and stiff as a cicada wing. “Death was a shut door. I beat against it—oh, so long, my skin split open. But it was blocked. I would like to think that the dead stay close.” Her voice had gone wandering off. “The dead stay close. At least for a little—” And like a wing, Taggle’s ear twitched.

“Fetch my daughter,” gasped Lenore.

Kate stumbled backward.“Drina!” she shouted. “Drina!”

“He was right,” Lenore whispered. “The dead should stay dead. And yet…”

Drina burst through the curtain.“Mother!” Then she froze and her face opened up as if an angel were standing in front of her.

Kate whipped around, and there was her cat. He was standing up on the bed, shaking his head and trying to paw the wrapping away from his face. The indignant howl was muffled:“Yearow!”

“Taggle!” Kate shouted. “Taggle!” She reached out but couldn’t touch him, she was afraid to try in case he melted into the air. Her hands hovered. Loop by loop, Taggle wormed his way free of the red wrappings, and then he was standing there on the bunk: greyhound sleek, golden eyed, perfect, alive.