“Rose Daughter” by Robin Mckinley Excerpt.

This is, by far, my favorite passage of any book she’s ever written. This book isn’t my favorite book of hers(Deerskin is), but this passage always sticks out to me. I hope when you read it you can understand why. Apologies, I don’t know how to indent so I have to hit enter instead of indenting.

She came home from these small adventures with her head ringing with instructions and spent the evenings writing up  notes, listening to the silence, trying not to be frightened, and wondering wearily what she was forgetting.

I can teach you to remember, the elderly salamander said to her.

“Oh—oh no,” said Beauty, “Oh no, that won’t do at all. But thank you.”

Your other friends are giving you gifts, said the salamander, gifts of things you  need, things you ask them for, but sometimes things they know to offer you. Why may not I also?

“It is very kind of you,” said Beauty, “but I have no claim on you.”

You have the claim of friendship, said the Salamander. My master, since he retired, is interested only in counting his money. I shall miss you, for you have been my friend. Let me give you something. It will be a small something, if you prefer, something smaller than memory.

“I would rather forget how to smoke meat and brew beer and saw and nail if I might also begin to forget the last few weeks,” Beauty said simply.

The salamander was silent, but she saw by the flicker in its cloudy eyes that it was thinking.

Pick me up, it said at last, so that I may look into your eyes.

Beauty picked it up gently, in a hand that shook only a very little.

This is more difficult than I expected. We salamanders rarely give gifts, and when we do, they are rarely small. It made a faint, dry, rattling sounds Beauty recognized as Salamander laughter. This will have to do.

Abruptly it opened its eyes very wide, and Beauty was staring into two pits of fire, and when she sucked in her breath in shock, the air tasted hot and acrid with burning. Listen to me, my friend. I give you a small serenity. I would give you a large one, but I am uncertain of human capacity, and I furthermore believe you would not wish it. This is a serenity you can hold in the palms of your two hands—even smaller than I am. And she heard the rustling laugh again, even through t he thunder of the fire. I think  you may find it useful. It hooded its eyes. You may put me down.

Beauty set it back down on the pillar where it spent its days watching the townsfolk and pretending to be a garden ornament. It turned suddenly, like the lizard it almost was, and touched her hand with its tongue. I did not mean to frighten you, it said and its voice was tinny and distant, like the last reverberation of an echo. Cup your hands and look into them now.

Beauty did so and at once felt heat, as if she held a small glowing sun in her hands. She looked down and again saw fire, red and hot and bottommless. “It—it doesn’t look very serene,” she quavered.

Trust me, said the salamander, and curled up and became the statue of a salamander. (Pg 17-18, End Chapter One)

Notes