Hi everyone,
This week, the main thing on my plate is the draft of my current novel, plus some contract non-fiction writing. But yesterday, the first line of a story popped into my head. I opened a file to jot it down, and then the second line came… and before I knew it, I had this strange little story.
So I thought I’d share it with all of you, hot off the press, so to speak! It’s about 700 words, so it’s a quick read.
Untitled
by Kate Heartfield
I, Savonarola, sent my ashes out into the world. But first, I sent the children. No one could deny a child.
It was for them you learned to let the strings bite your fingertips, to render birdsong. It was for them, these works of hands.
I see how you have put yourself into the portrait. There, that counter-arch in white lead at the top of your lip. Those too-quick strokes around the eye tell me you’re afraid of how the skin is changing, there. Afraid to die.
I was not afraid of the fire, and I was right about that, as I have been right about everything. You rendered me inert, a pile of ash from which no tree can grow. Where nothing grows, nothing dies. I am eternal.
Your work was not.
You chose every part of it so carefully, as if it mattered. Those poplar boards, and no others. Not minding the knots, you ran your fingertips over the wood. You lifted them to your nose.
Meanwhile, in a field where a widow was brushing the dirt off an onion, a rabbit heard death approaching. (I cannot die.) A shudder ran underneath the furry skin, and then, a knife.
The rabbit skin went into a pot. You—another you, you’re all the same to me—watched it carefully, as you had been taught. Almost boiling but not quite. Lessons as old as the stones beneath your feet.
To render is to give back.
The rabbit yielded everything that connected its skin to flesh.
You, the painter, felt the glue between your fingertips, pressed them together and pulled them apart, like a child, as if to prove it could be done. You mixed it with water, let it sit, warmed it, painted it on the boards, let it dry. Twice. That was the first week.
I have never had much patience.
I did not pay attention to what you did next. Zinc and gypsum, warming and stirring, painting and drying, waiting out cool weather. Smooth and scrape, with iron just rough enough to give you calluses. (I prefer things that are already smooth.) Breathe and burnish, add honey when it’s needed. All of you armies of workers, spitting and chewing, like insects lovingly preparing your own graves. I cannot die.
Render it all unto me. I am entitled to every mote. I will take it, and give nothing. I cannot die.
Meanwhile, a pine tree cried tears that were used to smooth the voice of the strings of a vielle—yes, that one there, so gloriously cracked and splintered, its dying breaths so discordant, soon to be silent ash.
Meanwhile, millions of years before, another tree wept. So early, not even I was around. The tears waited, for millions of years, hardened into amber, and still they waited, a time of waiting I cannot fathom. I have never had much patience.
Pulverized in moments, like the bones of a burned man, that amber softened, became varnish, to temper the surface you would use. To temper is to moderate, to mix, to strengthen.
Then you prepared to paint with the yolk that might have nourished a chick, with the ground up bones of the earth, with figs and clay and who knows what else, gathering all the dead and living pieces of the world into your mortar, like a child making a secret. No one could deny a child.
Meanwhile, a pine marten died alone, listening to the songs of birds. You did not know that marten, but its fur took the paint eagerly.
So much death and time rendered into a single dark spot on the white ground. The darkness became the pupil of your own eye. I watched you stare out at me from the fire. A self-portrait.
In the years since, I have lost whatever curiosity I might have had about why you would spend all that time and effort. I have lost whatever faith drove my violence. You’re all the same to me.
To render is to transform information.
What can you make out of my ash? What shall we do with all that carbon?
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Those of you who have seen the new Apple ad that came out this week probably figured out what inspired this story. Maybe it’s a little on the nose, but hey, so is the ad, which I found very disturbing. The resonance with the bonfire of the vanities got under my skin.
In a happier vein, one nice thing that happened since the last newsletter is that the legendary fantasy writer Robin Hobb had some lovely things to say about my novel The Chatelaine, including: “This is a book that ignores the usual boundaries and rules of fantasy. This story will stay with me for a long time.”
An upcoming event to let you know about: On Saturday June 1, I’ll be appearing online at the Cymera Festival with Sophie Keetch to talk about retellings and my novel The Valkyrie. I’m looking forward to it.
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with some things to say about swords and words. I hope you’re all well.