Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood [83]
I flounder through the water, the edges of the ice breaking off as I step. Walking with waterlogged overshoes is hard; I could slip, and fall all the way in. I grab a tree branch and haul myself up onto the bank and sit down in the blue snow and take off my overshoes and pour out the water. The arms of my jacket are wet to the elbows, my mittens are soaked. Now there are knives going through my legs and hands, and tears running down my face from the pain.
I can see lights along the edges of the ravine, from the houses there, impossibly high up. I don’t know how I’m going to climb up the hill with my hands and feet hurting like this; I don’t know how I’m going to get home.
My head is filling with black sawdust; little specks of the darkness are gtting in through my eyes. It’s as if the snowflakes are black, the way white is black on a negative. The snow has changed to tiny pellets, more like sleet. It makes a rustling noise coming down through the branches, like the shifting and whispering of people in a crowded room who know they must be quiet. It’s the dead people, coming up invisible out of the water, gathering around me. Hush, is what they say.
I’m lying on my back beside the creek, looking up at the sky. Nothing hurts any more. The sky has a reddish undercolor. The bridge is different-looking; it seems higher above me, more solid, as if the railings have disappeared or been filled in. And it’s glowing, there are pools of light along it, greenish-yellow, not like any light I’ve ever seen before. I sit up to get a better look. My body feels weightless, as it does in water.
There’s someone on the bridge, I can see the dark outline. At first I think it’s Cordelia, come back for me. Then I see that it’s not a child, it’s too tall for a child. I can’t see the face, there’s just a shape. One of the yellowish-green lights is behind it, coming out in rays from around the head.
I know I should get up and walk home, but it seems easier to stay here, in the snow, with the little pellets of ice caressing my face gently. Also I’m very sleepy. I close my eyes.
I hear someone talking to me. It’s like a voice calling, only very soft, as if muffled. I’m not sure I’ve heard it at all. I open my eyes with an effort. The person who was standing on the bridge is moving through the railing, or melting into it. It’s a woman, I can see the long skirt now, or is it a long cloak? She isn’t falling, she’s coming down toward me as if walking, but there’s nothing for her to walk on. I don’t have the energy to be frightened. I lie in the snow, watching her with lethargy, and with a sluggish curiosity. I would like to be able to walk on air like that.
Now she’s quite close. I can see the white glimmer of her face, the dark scarf or hood around her head, or is it hair? She holds out her arms to me and I feel a surge of happiness. Inside her half-open cloak there’s a glimpse of red. It’s her heart, I think. It must be her heart, on the outside of her body, glowing like neon, like a coal.
Then I can’t see her any more. But I feel her around me, not like arms but like a small wind of warmer air. She’s telling me something.
You can go home now, she says. It will be all right. Go home.
I don’t hear the words out loud, but this is what she says.
36
The lights on the top of the bridge are gone. I make my way in the dark, up the hill, sleet rustling around me, hauling myself up by branches and tree trunks, my shoes slipping on the packed icy snow. Nothing hurts, not even my feet, not even my hands. It’s like flying. The small wind moves with me, a warm touch against my face.
I know who it is that I’ve seen. It’s the Virgin Mary, there can be no doubt. Even when I was praying I wasn’t sure