Under the Pendulum Sun

by Jeannette Ng

My fingers smudged over my aching eyes. They stung from how dry they were. My nails dug into my skin and the pinpoints of pain only reminded me how my skin could not contain myself. I wanted to be everywhere at once, anywhere but here.

Tineola arcanofera (Semiotic Moth) 2”-2” 7”’ This rare stripe-winged moth is snowy white, with gold costae and fringes, and an interrupted marginal band of pale yellow. Native to Arcadia and sometimes found in earthly libraries, this pest is often said to feed off the written word. It allegedly consumes secrets and digests them into less informative fragmentary whispers.

The door opened into an airy set of chambers dominated by a four-poster bed, carved of darkest rosewood and extravagantly curtained. The foundation of the bed was carved in mimicry of fallen leaves and gilded in shades of gold and brass. The drapes fell in heavy folds; the pattern of their brocade suggested strings of feather-veined leaves. The tableau was made complete by the gnarled and treelike posts, the illusion of bark having been worked again into the wood, a tree masquerading as itself.

Penemue took a step closer to me and leaned in to study my face. I could see behind the edges of his mask, white veins under his skin, ever shifting, an endless scrawl of almost words. His breath smelt like the glue on the spines of new books and the rich ink of old ones.

The Pale Queen surveyed us all from atop her own steed. She was dressed quite simply with her owlish crown atop her head. She was in excellent spirits as she, laughing, ordered her retinue to mobilise the dogs. The men of sand gathered and herded the great multitude of hounds. They were, I assumed, the huntsmen and the whips. I could not imagine why she needed so many sorts of dogs, since many had specialities and skills that were barely applicable to the hunting of… I did not want to finish the thought. Speckled spaniels and pointers lounged atop one another, surprisingly docile as they were roused to the ready. Lurchers thumped their tails in anticipation. My eyes lingered on the sleek, grey forms of the whippets. They moved with ethereal grace, eyes on the horizon and ears twitching. I felt a pang of home, remembering our father’s own hunting dogs. The hyenas I did not expect. It was not until I heard their cackling that I realised what the dark-striped dogs were with their wide, flat heads and coarse manes. Their tongues lolled from their red maws as they swung their faces back and forth, watching and waiting.

“I know my sister like I know my own mind.

Hello Hamilton reference!

That night, I dreamt. I was in a perfect garden. The air smelt of mint and the earth was new. A man who was all mankind looked at me. He did not speak so much as command. The garden bent to his will. He watched as I stood in the shadow of a tree with white serpentine roots. I leaned against the tree, and its warmth embraced me. I pulled leaves from the tree and read them like pages from a book. The world was made with words. If I looked hard enough, I could read those words still. They flowed in the veins of the world, written on their seams. They told me this tree would reach the heavens. They told me nothing was forbidden. They told me knowledge could not be a sin. I licked my lips and they tasted of salt.

“Yes,” said the merchant after surveying his jars. He held each to the wavering candle. The ghostly white moth inside pressed its delicate limbs against the thick, distorting glass. I could see its furry feet. “I have what you want.” The light glinted off the glass, and the eyes on the moth’s wings seemed to stare back at me. The little brown paper label read: Lost Truths. “But the question is, do you have what I want?” “I can pay you,” said Catherine Helstone’s brother. “But what?” “Name a price.” “I could take your skin,” said the merchant. He took off his spectacles and held them to his forehead whereupon the creases there opened into a row of eyes that peered appraisingly at Catherine Helstone’s brother. “But I would need all of it. Guilty secrets are cheaper, but you don’t want those. So all of it.” “All of my skin?” he echoed in confusion. “Yes… yes, your skin.” The merchant’s eyes blinked. Meticulously, he emptied one of his pockets and pulled it inside out. He then cleaned his spectacles with the insides of his pockets before putting them back on again. “I think that is fair. Memories aren’t cheap.” “But–” The merchant sighed in exasperation. The barbels around his fishy lipless mouth curled and uncurled. “I suppose you would need something to keep your bits in. I probably have a bearskin somewhere.” “Would that make me a bear?” The merchant shrugged. “Don’t know. I suppose. You could always take it off? Humans are so fiddly sometimes.” Catherine Helstone’s brother...

“Byron would–” “Oh hush, you are nothing like Lord Byron.” I took the page from him. “Your poetry is abysmal.” “Exactly like him then.”

He sculpted a world, telling it to Himself like a story, word after word. This part of the story you already know, although most would have you believe He made it idly, effortlessly, summoning it into existence like a dream, but I tell you now – and I am telling you tales – He slaved those six days. He hammered out the heavens, flat and smooth, like a mirror. He kneaded the mountains out of mud, built pillars to hold up the sky and smoothed the basin for the sea. He carved each and every tree, scratching out the grooved bark with His fingernails and tearing dark eyes into the skin of the white birch.

I plucked a book at random from the shelves. It fell open at an empty page. There was not even the shadow of the words that used to mar the pages. These books had been picked clean. A shadow flickered over the thin rays of light. I turned but I couldn’t see what it was. My heart was racing. There were whispers at the edge of my hearing. A thousand voices murmuring, mumbling, muttering. Indistinct. I put aside the volume and chose another, attracted to its heavy gilt spine. I opened the book, revealing a white moth between its cover. It flew at me, brushing past my cheek. I felt the dusty brush of its wings against my ear. Startled, I dropped the crumbling book. It thudded to floor, the heavy spine loud against the flagstones, sending its fragments up in a cloud. The sound echoed. And then, there was a rustling as a thousand, thousand moths were roused. They must have been resting on every shadowed surface, hiding in every gap between leaning books, perched on every inch of the ceiling. The air was thick with the dust from their mottled wings. I could taste it as I breathed in. It was old books and biting, acidic ink. It was that dust of ancient libraries and fresh, shiny leather covers. It was new paper and the sweet glue of the spines. The moths swarmed me. They filled my sight with their white wings and my ears with their rustling. And then all at once, whispered into my ears were things I never thought I could know.

We’re all born alone, a prisoner of our own skins, an island in our minds, a world of our own creating. Alone and incomplete, craving recognition from shadows of ourselves.