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She stood, naked and awake. When she stretched, her outer shell broke into a spider’s web of cracks. Her silvered hands picked off the frosted coating of her skin. Mother of pearl flakes caught in the wind, blowing away like snow. Her real flesh, pale, moist, fresh as a babe’s, began to emerge. She’d been asleep so long, her last life a dream. Bit by bit it would come back to her, the important things, the things she needed to know. For now, all she could think of was the sun and the blueness of the sky, the glittering loch and the mountains rising beyond. She’d stumbled from her cocoon deep in the underground caves not knowing what had become of the world above. A breeze played over her newborn skin. She lay down on the lush grass, curling up, ready for sleep. A different sleep this time. The past moved through her dreams, splintered and confused. Faces from her last life mixed with others from before. When she awoke, a fresh crescent of moon curled in her upheld palm. She lay a while longer and listened to the sounds of night, the creatures that came out, the hooting of an owl. Then she stood, and walking carefully, not yet balanced in the world again,she found her way down to the loch, where she washed herself as the sky lightened. The beginning of a new day, a new life. * The road was black and smooth, not like the roads she remembered. Curled up beneath a bush, she watched the glittering wagons flit past. Oooh. Wagons without horses. One came to a halt and a woman got out, followed by a young child. They stepped into the darkness of the trees. She uncurled herself, approaching on silent feet. The wagon was empty. She touched the windows, bending down to see her reflection there, her silver hair. The door was open. She reached in and pulled out a garment. She put it on. It was soft and pale blue, reaching down to her hips. Before the woman returned, she was out of sight, studying the fastenings on the garment. She followed the road, and from time to time the loch glittered through the trees. She kept out of sight of passing wagons, and soon came upon a house, white and clean, with a garden of flowers. At the back of the house, clothes billowed on a rope. They were almost dry. She pulled some down and tried them on. No one came to shoo her off. Walking back to the road, she saw another wagon stopped just along. There was a man inside, eating bread. She washed herself in the loch and pulled on her new clothes. In the wagon’s window she could see her hair was now red. Bright red, like a flame, like the setting sun. Happy, she walked back the way she’d come. * “Where are ye going?” The man sat in a great monster, its body trailing behind on wheels. “I’m going tae Glasgow,” he said when she didn’t answer. Glasgu. She knew that place. “Glasgu.” She nodded. Soon she would find her tongue. It was always the most difficult thing, speech. To listen to a new person, try to understand what they said, almost impossible sometimes when they used so many strange words. But Glasgu or Glaschu, she knew. He had to come down and help her climb up into the head of the beast. He looked through its window face. With her beside him, they were each an eye in the beast. She laughed at this. He looked at her and smiled. He was older than the man she’d just left. Glasgu. Place of pilgrims. The courts, the Bishop’s Palace. The men who pointed to her hair, the men who said witch, harlot. The women who stood in the river, skirts hiked, washing their clothes, the clothes of their children. Men wrapped in animal skins. Everything was mixed up, images from different times, but the one thing she remembered clearly was having to run. Run fast, aye, before they caught her. But they wouldn’t remember her now. They’d be dead now. The Bishop and everyone. When the man asked her whereabouts in Glasgow she was going, she took a moment to understand his meaning, then smiled and said, “Bishop’s Palace.” He threw her a look, then spoke. She didn’t know all the words he used, but she sensed their meaning. He didn’t know where she meant. “Cathedral,” she said. He knew the Cathedral. He talked to her, talked to her of travelling the road, and she smiled and nodded, listening to the words, trying to remember those he used more often, for they’d surely be common words for others too. In the heat of the monster’s head, she napped, and when her eyes opened, she saw the buildings, tall and shining blue, or stone - red stone, yellow stone - not timber like before, not ramshackle and leaning against one another. “Glasgu?” “Aye,” he said. She climbed down from the head of the beast and the beast sped off. * Nothing was like before. The Cathedral was there. But the Bishop’s Palace was gone. On the hill beyond the Cathedral, towers rose among trees. Walking up there, she saw that it was a graveyard. Perhaps the Bishop and his men were buried here. She’d look for their graves and dance on them, aye she would. She’d dance and sing. She just had to find them. There were small buildings, containing graves. Mausoleums, a man told her when she asked. He didn’t know about the Bishop. The Bishop wasn’t here. Bishops were from the old days. The very old days. All gone now, the man said. There were markings on the stone walls of the mausoleums. She couldn’t read so her fingertips traced the patterns. At the top of the hill she looked out over the city. So big, spreading out in all directions. All gone, the old world. Tomorrow she would explore, memorise the patterns of the streets, see the river, greet it like an old friend. In the dusk of summer, she found shelter in a mausoleum. Now she had a place to sleep, and there were others who slept here. Not just the dead in the ground, who slept forever. But the living slept here too, in mausoleums, with old blankets. Her hair was still red. It would be many days before it faded to silver again. She licked her lips. The metallic taste of blood was still there, though it had been hours since she’d left the man from the wagon. She’d removed his shoes, pulling them on before arranging his body carefully by the side of the loch, like he was sleeping, which he was. Sleeping forever.
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