Chapter 9

IX.

You wait as long as you can. You hold onto it, you bite it back and you sit on it, you stuff it back down. You press it back as far as it will go, and you ignore it. You pretend it isn’t there. You tell yourself it only has to hide for a little while more—a little while more. Just look up and see the sky, and you know it’s coming. You know you don’t have to shut it down for long. You only have to last a little while more.

But God sets Himself against me.

You should have seen the sky that night, the way it was covered and hidden and the way it was gray-not-black or speckled with stars. Grey gloves of clouds entwined themselves above me. Veins of lightning split them, parted them briefly, and vanished—leaving the ceiling of heaven bleak again. Leaving me bereft. Leaving me hungry.

If I could have only looked and known. Even if what I saw told me nothing good—if I could have only looked and known.

It’s madness, I know. My father knew it too.

Everyone who meets me comes to know it. Everyone who sees me wonders, and every one of them is right to wonder. It is a dread of difference they smell. It is an old fear I inspire. It is the fear of being chased, and caught, and eaten.

I knew the moon was full and fat, and I knew there was little to be done. I knew I could not fight her, but if I could see her I could appeal to her—I could ask her for one small reprieve, for one small night while a storm kept us trapped in the water.

The moon might have heard me. She might have granted it. After all, I was making the voyage for her.

I was content to be her creation, and to have her as my mistress. I was ready to be whatever she wanted of me—if she wanted me an animal, not man, I was prepared to let her have that. It was why I left England, and why I left New England, and why I wandered west and south in the new colonies.

I understood that out west there were few people—and most of those were savages. If I could not hide myself from man, at least I would hide from civilization. But some of these savages were a knowing, noble people, or so I had been told. In lieu of avoiding them, I hoped to consult with them. I might find a shaman, or a witch doctor who practiced a magic like the one that consumed me, and drove me.

I did not believe I could be fixed, but I thought I might gain some control, or insight. I thought there might be some leash for the hunger and the madness. I would not find it among the white men, this much was clear.

West then.

But the small red-haired woman would not let me go. She would not let me leave. She followed—oh, how she followed! Tracking me, Mary’s dog. Mary’s lap-hound. Trailing behind me, through France and Germany as I went back to the Black Forest there, where the wolves are fearsome as nowhere else.

Back to India, where I was lost and useless, she tagged along a day’s travel late. Through the north shores of Africa, and down to the jungles there, she walked in my wake.

I would lose her sometimes for weeks and think that I had lost her for good, only to have her find me again on the far side of an ocean—as if she’d never lost my scent at all.

For a long time she only watched. She wanted to learn, I imagine. She watched to see what I touched, and what I shunned. She observed me closely, as closely as she could come. I know what she was doing—she was stalking me. I know it when I see it. I know how the patterns work, and how the dance is stepped.

She was a clever little thing, but she was not dangerous to me. I was stronger. I was faster, and I was clever too. I would not give her any upper hand, because I did not need to.

From time to time I would think, “Perhaps I should speak with her.” It wouldn’t be hard. I could stop, and turn around, and there she would be—if I waited for her. I could sit her down and we could share a pot of tea. I would explain, “I know why you feel the way you do—I understand why you stalk and follow and chase. But I want you to understand, I am leaving now. I don’t want to harm anyone, and I don’t wish to be harmed. But I am what I am, and I’ll do what I must. See? I’m looking to minimize this awful trial. I want to flee. I’m leaving to seek the wisdom of the savages, or maybe to kill them all. But better there, then here. Better a few, than many. Can’t you see, I’m doing my best?”

I would prepare these words for her. I would write them down and line them up. I would consider leaving her notes, and then I would do so—never knowing if she’d find them or read them at all.

After Morocco, I thought I’d lost her for good.

And then I saw her on the Mary Byrd, and I knew that the game had changed. She wasn’t following anymore. She was predicting. She was making me come to her, and that meant she was ready to strike.