August 2025 – The Colored Lens

Bringing up the basket was arduous work, bringing calluses to the hands and aches to the back. The wheel was stiff, unyielding, and on her own Anne wouldn’t have been able to turn it–but she had her shadow to help her.

She held one handle, her shadow held the other, and together they turned, turned, turned. Slowly, slowly, out of the mist, its long thick chain creaking, came the basket.

Hopping down onto the outcropping, liking the way the mist swirled around her feet, Anne grasped the thick rim of the basket and hauled it onto land. There was raw wool in the basket for carding, and a clay pot of flour, and a still dancing fish, as well as the usuals. A good basket, Anne decided. Yesterday had been an acceptable basket. The day before had been good. Seven days ago the basket had been bad. Today it was good.

Together with her shadow she unpacked the basket before kicking and pushing it back over the edge. They turned the crank and the chain went chung chung chung chung and away it went, plunging down into the mist, out of sight. The chain wobbled, snapped, and was still.

The fish had stopped dancing. That was good. She hadn’t relished the thought of killing it.

Anne put aside the flour and the wood in the old lean to they called the old fisherman’s hut and carried the fish and other perishables down the slope to the village. Their valley was shaped like a shallow bowl; all paths led up to the cliffside, to the baskets, or down to the village, which was a light and easy walk.

She ran the last leg, bare feet slapping on the ground, ready to the show the others the fish. They all agreed it was an excellent fish, with enough meat on it to feed half the village for a night, and all agreed that Anne had the best basket of the day.

The next day, which was Tuesday, she had an ordinary basket; the day after that, which was Tuesday also, her basket contained nothing but raw wool and an empty pot; the day after that she found lots of vegetables, some of which were purple; and the day after that, she found a girl.

Well, not really a girl. She was Anne’s age. But looking at her Anne thought girl, not woman. Perhaps it was her slight figure, like Maeve and Judith, not like Anne with her big breasts and thick arms. Perhaps it was the way she was dressed, the lacy shawl draped around her. Perhaps it was the way she was curled up in the basket like a baby.

“Well,” said Anne, hands on her formidable hips. “This is a pickle.”

Her shadow nodded its dark head.

“What am I to do with her?”

They brought up odd things in their baskets sometimes, still alive things and things no one had ever seen before but agreed were very interesting and useful. No one, to Anne’s knowledge, had ever brought up a girl. But there she was, curled up quite happily on a bed of wool, oblivious to the creaking of the chain and the drop down into the mist below.

“I can’t leave her here.”

Her shadow shook its head.

Together, they lifted the girl out of the basket and set her gently upon the springy grass. Her head lolled back. Her shadow was asleep too, tucked up beneath her like something had given it a fright.

Now what? She gave the girl a shake. She could pour water on her, she supposed, but that seemed unkind. Maybe it was best to let the girl sleep.

She could go down to the village and announce to all the women there ‘I found a girl in my basket this morning,’ and see what they said, but the thought made her uneasy. She supposed she’d always known – all of them had always known – that they couldn’t be the only people in the world, but it was one thing to know something was true and another thing to be confronted with such tangible and compelling proof.

Well, she certainly couldn’t leave the girl lying by the edge, where she might roll over in her sleep and fall. Together they carried the girl to the lean-to and there laid her down.

Anne took the wool, all wadded up, down to the village, where all agreed that she’d had a very bad basket that morning. Not to worry; she’d have a better basket tomorrow. Maude, on the other hand, had had a stupendous basket and they all sat down for a happy breakfast of bread and fruit.

Still wiping her hands on her apron she went back to the fisherman’s hut and found the girl still asleep. And so she sat beside her, and waited.

It was almost the middle of the day when at last the girl’s eyes opened. She looked around herself, gazing hazily at the ramshackle hut. She looked at Anne. She looked, and she looked, looking Anne up and down in bewilderment. “Who are you?”

The question took Anne wholly off guard. She’d never in her life met anyone who didn’t know who she was, just as she’d never met another she didn’t know. “I’m Anne, of course!” she said. “Who are you?”

“What is this place?” The girl squinted up at the rough ceiling, slitted here and there with sunlight.

“This is the old fisherman’s hut,” said Anne. “Do you have an old fisherman’s hut, where you’re from?”

“Do I – what?”

“I said, do you –”

“I heard what you said. I – I don’t understand.” Shakily, the girl began to stand and as she stood Anne was sure there was something strange about her – something she couldn’t put her finger on. “Who are you? How did I get here?”

“I’m Anne,” said Anne. “You came in the basket.”

“In the – basket?”

Perhaps, Anne thought, the girl was just very stupid. “Yes. I found you in my basket.” She took a step towards the girl, meaning to say something comforting, and her shadow stepped with her, stepping into a shaft of sunlight. There it stood, clear as day, hand outstretched as Anne’s was outstretched.

The girl looked at Anne’s shadow. Her eyes went wide, like a fish. She screamed.

And she bolted.

Anne had half a mind to let her run, for where could she run to? There was only the village. But then she remembered that the girl might be stupid, perhaps stupid enough to run clean over the cliff. “Wait!” she cried, and ran after her.

The girl hadn’t gone far. She was standing on the path, looking this way and that, at the way to the village, the way to the clifftop, each way screened by low trees.

“Mind the cliffs!” cried Anne.

“What?” said the girl.

And it was then that Anne realised what was so strange about her. The girl’s shadow was lying flat on the ground, as if she was asleep even though she was wide awake. It was flat – limp – dead. The sight of it appalled her. She clapped both hands to her mouth and stared, though she knew it was rude to stare.

“What is this place?” said the girl. “What is that?” She pointed a shaking finger at Anne’s shadow.

Anne’s shadow shrank back, stepping behind her, half out of sight. “That’s my shadow.”

The girl was shaking her head. “That isn’t right,” she said. “That – that’s horrid.”

Anne was beginning to understand, and behind her her shadow was quaking. The girl wasn’t stupid – not at all. It was just that, wherever she had come from in the basket, things were profoundly different and profoundly strange. Wherever she came from, everyone’s shadow was limp and flat and lay on the ground like it was dead.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, half to the girl, half to her poor shadow.

“Where does that go?” said the girl, pointing down the hill.

“To the village?”

“Are all the people there – like you?”

“They all have shadows,” Anne said.

“What’s that way?” The girl pointed up the rise.

“The clifftop,” said Anne. “There’s no one up there.”

“Right,” said the girl, and ran up the hill.

Anne lifted her skirt and jogged up after her, just in case she did fall. She found the girl standing near the cliff edge, staring down, down at the mist. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Is this a dream? Am I dreaming?”

“Oh, no!” said Anne. She thought about it. “Unless you usually dream when you’re awake.”

“Of course I don’t!” snapped the girl.

“That’s where I found you.” Anne pointed at the shifting chain.

“All the way down there?” said the girl. “Underneath the clouds?”

“Clouds?”

“The fog,” said the girl.

“Well, me and my shadow hauled the basket up first,” said Ane. Her shadow nodded, proud of its contribution.

The girl was staring down at the fog-sea. It was curious; Anne had seen people gaze out like that, out at the distance peaks of other hills, but never down. Why look down, unless you were bringing up a basket? There was nothing to see.

“But where is this? How did I get here?”

“You don’t have baskets where you come from,” said Anne, tentatively certain.

“Well, of course we have baskets!” snapped the girl. “But we don’t carry people in them.”

“Oh, neither do we!” said Anne. “This has never happened before.”

“But where am I?”

“This is our mountain,” said Anne.

“And you brought me here,” said the girl, “you brought me here – in the basket.” She was gibbering like someone waking up from a nightmare.

“Well, I didn’t bring you here,” said Anne. “I just hauled you up. Don’t know how.”

“Well, you can bloody well haul me back down!”

When Anne said nothing, she went to the crank and began to push and pull on it.

“You won’t shift it on your own.” Anne bit her lip. If only the girl had a shadow that could help her – though perhaps it was just as well she didn’t.

“I – can – try,” said the girl through gritted teeth. “If this is how – I came here – then I can – go back.”

Anne looked up at the clear blue sky, wondering what to do. Things didn’t get put in baskets, only taken out again; but then, girls didn’t usually come in baskets. Maybe this was all some mistake. Maybe she should send the girl back.

Resigned, she put her hands on the other side of the crank, and heaved.

With a long, sad rattle of chain, the basket rose, clunk, clunk, clunk, into view. It was odd, seeing it come up empty, empty, empty.

The girl wiped her brow and gave Anne a curious look. “Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome.” Reaching out together with her shadow, Anne pulled the basket onto the grass. “I suppose you’d better hop in.”

The girl hung back, hugging herself. “And then what happens?”

“I’ve no idea!” said Anne, astonished that the girl thought she’d know. “This has never happened before.” She looked at the wicker bottom of the basket. “I suppose you get in – and I lower you down – and then you disappear.”

“Disappear?”

“Well, back to where you came from,” said Anne.

“Alright,” said the girl. “Alright.” Resting her hands on the edge of the basket, she clambered in, tumbling with an oof and a fumble onto the hard wicker weave.

“Comfy?” said Anne.

The girl put her back to the wall of the basket. “As comfy as I’m getting. Lower me.”

“Are you sure?” said Anne. What if the basket tipped – what if she fell?

“I’ll take my chances,” said the girl. “Lower me!”

Anne gave the basket an almighty shove – and went to the crank – and turned. It was hard work and all the while she thought, wistfully, of that funny girl with her dead shadow, descending steadily away from the mountaintop, out of her life.

We have an hour to do our work, starting before the sun is too fierce. The gates are closed. The stairs cordoned off. We scamper up them. Our buckets slosh. Our brushes rattle. We carry a tall ladder between the three of us. After four years of working together, we’ve worked out a sturdy routine. Bilal sweeps the stairs and the ground around the plinth, pocketing any coins or jewellery he finds, like a fat and tenacious magpie. His back is ruined from scrubbing the stairs and buffing the hand railings until they gleam like the sun beating down on us. Ef, unusually tall for a girl her age, passes her suds-soaked cloth over the statue’s legs, his lowered hands, and his waist. A less serious girl might crack a joke about her constant proximity to the royal crotch. But Ef does not crack jokes. She barely speaks. I clamber up the ladder, a bucket cradled to my hip like a chubby baby, and clean his chest, his shoulders, and his head, which bears a plain circlet. Grime and bird shit collect in his ears and on his protruding throat stone. I whistle a listless tune while I scrub, returning the statue to its usual hearty beige. He is a boy king. Maybe fourteen. Construction on him began when I was four. I have now seen twenty-three Summers. The boy cannot still be a boy unless their years truly are as long as I’ve heard, time warping so much he remains eternally young. I get an amazing view of the city from up here. I never grow tired of it, even when my vision is blurred by rivulets of sweat. I can see the bazaar, and the tiny men thronging it, the hanging gardens, and the towers of the Monastery reflecting the sun.

I’m coming to the end of my work when I notice movement below and distant voices. A small clump of men have gathered at the rope blocking the stairs. One of them, who looks to be their guide, is pointing at the statue, gesticulating enthusiastically. Slightly removed from them is a woman, sheltering from the heat with a paper umbrella. She catches sight of me watching her, and although I cannot see her eyes, they are covered by tinted spectacles that flash in the sun, I know she is watching me closely. She seems to shimmer in the heat haze, like a mirage.

Sammy! Bilal barks up at me. What are you doing? Get on with it!

Muttering under my breath I return to the boy king’s hairless chin. I climb down and fold up the ladder alone, the others have finished before me. The tour guide’s voice, an unctuous thing, echoes over the stone. He and his companions are making their leisurely way up the now-open stairs. I hoist the ladder under one arm, throw the cloth into the cool, filthy water, and race down the steps. The men in the group ignore my passing, but the woman follows my steps with open curiosity. She twirls the umbrella with each step and smiles at me.

“Do you speak Estran?” she asks with no embarrassment.

She can’t be much older than thirty, but her voice carries a resignation and a depth that prickles my skin. I take in the details that I missed at a distance. She is from one of the outer planets judging by her fair complexion. I would guess Estra, she’s not wearing the sweltering fur I’ve seen Uzinian women in. A flaccid straw hat covers her boyish hair which is the color of anaemic caramel. Her dress is shapeless, although not unflattering, and I notice with a flush that has nothing to do with the heat, that it is slightly sheer. The blurred outline of her narrow body looms intriguingly.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I say.

I learned Estran in school and I’ve picked up a great deal through this job. I still speak in my mother tongue when I’m alone with my uncle. He tells me it is important. I’ve always found it strange that there seems to be only one language on their vast planet. I wonder if it was always that way. My muscles strain under the weight of my load, but I don’t move. She nears me and I get a waft of her perfume, sweet and a little cloying like an apple core that has been left to rot under a bed.

“What do you think of him?” she asks, gesturing to the statue.

I’m caught off guard by the question. I’m so used to him by now. He’s familiar, almost comfortable, like an old friend, or a benign and ancient cat. I wonder if her question is some kind of test. Her mouth curves knowingly, as though she has some inkling of my dilemma.

“He’s impressive,” I say simply.

She makes a decidedly unimpressed noise. “I thought…he would be bigger.”

And with that, she moves off, to follow her male companions.

After the cleaning job, I go to the taverna, where I work every other night. It’s a sweaty place in the old city owned by a friend of my uncle. They “specialize” in huge skewers of meat, grilled over open coals then hacked off onto customer’s plates. I don’t think it’s particularly good (I’ve sampled enough leftovers to judge) but it does well with tourists and if that keeps me in a job, I can’t complain. I wash plates and scrape away the burnt edges of meat that grip stubbornly to the metal skewers. It’s tough, greasy work that leaves singes and scrapes on my forearms. The chefs chatter behind me in their harsh, guttural Underlands tongue. I understand enough to grasp that they are sharing a joke about a customer’s ridiculous hat. I try not to get in their way, and they don’t seem to resent me, not openly at least.

When I return home my uncle has left a candle burning on the kitchen table for me. Beside it is a plate of homemade bread and a brown paste, which I discover, when I dip my finger into it and take a taste, is made with pungent garlic and aubergine from our garden. I inhale it so quickly it’s gone by the time I reach my bedroom. My uncle, who sleeps opposite, is still awake. He’s at his drawing desk, one bare foot crossed over the other. He used to be a cartographer before the Estrans came. Now he works as a laborer at the Monastery, but still keeps the flame alive in the evenings. I look over his shoulder. It’s a map of a dense city I don’t recognize, with a lake at its centre. I begin to hiccup deeply, the dense bread getting to me.

You should eat slower, my girl, my uncle says.

I was hungry. It was nice.

Is that a thank you? he asks, turning to face me. He’s entirely bald, his beard almost all grey. There’s a solidity to his wide and stocky frame that I’ve always found comforting.

Thank you, I say, belatedly.

You’re welcome.

He smiles then, his grey eyes twinkling. He’s tired, but not being cruel. He spent all his cruelty a long time ago. I point to his drawing.

What is this?

What do you think it is?

A city you made up.

His smile grows wistful. No. Look closer.

I do. Familiar street names catch my eye, and landmarks from the old city. Maker’s Well, the Meeting House, nestled beside temples and academies that don’t exist.

The old city. Or how you imagine it?

Yes and no. I’m using the records we keep at the Meeting House, trying to piece things back together.

It had a lake?

That’s an embellishment, but parts of the Last Day book suggest one did exist, although not one this large.

But…where did it go?

He points down at the floor, scattered with lead fillings. Beneath our feet. Nothing ever dies my girl, remember that.

I roll my eyes.

“So you say. I need to sleep. Goodnight.”

He gives me the sharp, reproachful look he always does when I speak Estran in his house. I correct myself. Goodnight. His expression softens.

Goodnight.

It occurs to me as I slough off my clothes and climb into bed that my sister has not written to me for months. I wonder how far into the depths of the system she made it. A familiar cold ache roils inside me. I should not have burned her previous letters. Sleep comes gently. My last conscious thought is of the beautiful Estran woman at the statue today. And her rotten, sickly scent.

Month: August 2025

The Meaning of Baskets

The Eyes of A Boy King