I didn’t know what to say, but Rose filled the silence.
“I like poached eggs,” said Rose, “but Briony thinks they’re disgusting. She likes fried eggs. I think scrambled eggs are disgusting because they’re all one color.”
“No scrambled eggs.” Eldric curtsied with his apron and vanished into the kitchen.
“I know what you’re going to say,” said Rose. “That we should eat the eggs because it’s Eldric making them.”
I nodded.
What did one say when a baby died? I should think of something before Eldric joined us, practice something regularly girlish. But it turned out he wasn’t to eat with us. Perhaps he’d lost his appetite. Perhaps he thought it heartless that I could eat my fried eggs. Unfair that Rose could eat her poached eggs and no one would think anything at all.
“Now for your cloak.” Wearing a cloak is on Rose’s list of the thousand things she hates most. The problem is that each of the thousand is ranked number one.
“But Dr. Rannigan says you must, and anyway, it hardly weighs a thing, it’s so full of holes.” I swung mine round my shoulders. Rose hates any bit of clothing that constricts, but I say, Chin up and bear it. Life is just one great constriction.
“Ventilated,” I said, “that’s the word. Our cloaks are terrifically ventilated.”
The Brownie waited for us beside the door, then followed us like a double-jointed cricket. By all Brownie rules, he ought to have stayed in the Parsonage. He made a poor Brownie. He worked no mischief in the house; he helped with none of the chores. He was reserved and affectionate, devoted to me, or so it seemed.
“Go away!”
He didn’t go away.
The sky was white and went on forever, and so did the wind, right through our ventilated cloaks.
Mr. Clayborne’s men were at work, clanging about with the lengths of steel that were to grow into the London-Swanton railroad line. Too bad it hadn’t been built while my Genius Fitz was still here. He was forever going off to Paris, and Vienna, and other places with delicious pastries, and complaining about how long it took just to get out of the Swampsea. I might be happy about the train myself had I any opportunity to take it. But I’m stuck.
In front of the jail stood a gangle of boys throwing stones at Nelly’s cell. At her window, actually, which was shut and barred, but it was the principle of the thing that counted. It’s not that I dislike every boy in the world, but this particular pack was uncommonly hateful, all snips and snails and puppy dogs’ tails.
They’d throw stones at me too, once I was in jail. But at least I was a witch and deserved it. I wasn’t so sure about Nelly. You’d think I’d recognize a fellow witch, but no: I’d find out with everybody else. If Nelly was a witch, she’d turn to dust once she was hanged. If not, we’d know we made a mistake.
Petey Todd, leader of the snips and snails, must have spotted us, for a moment later, the boys’ voices rose in a singsong chant.
When Daftie Rosy passed away,
What do you think they done?
Sold her off as fishing bait:
A copper for a ton!
Daftie Rosy. I couldn’t let that stand. I approached Petey. He was only thirteen, but big as a man.
“Fe-fi-fo-fum.” I poked my finger at Petey’s chest. “I smell the stink of a big boy’s bum!”
I was in a fighting mood. Daftie Rosy set me off, of course, but there was also Pearl’s ugly baby. The baby had died and I wanted to fight.
“Hey!” said Petey, then his invention dried up.
Dearie me! What to say?
You don’t have to be big to do a lot of damage with your elbow. I jabbed mine into the front bit, where Petey’s ribs gave way to some softer stuff. Down he went. I stamped on his stomach, which resulted in a most satisfactory sound.
I flung myself upon him, grabbed his ears.
“Help!” he bellowed. “She be like to pull ’em clean away!”
“They’re wonderfully handy,” I said. “Big as soup plates.” Up went his ear-handles, down went his skull. Crash! Onto the cobbles.
You can win a fight if you don’t care about getting hurt. I have a good head, and I used it. Crack went my skull against his.
Petey howled.
“See the lovely stars, Petey?”
I saw them myself, red blobs splatting against my eyeballs.
“She’s kilt me!” screamed Petey.
Not just yet, Petey, but give me a minute: You’ll wish you had been kilt.
Crash!
“Dear, oh dear!” I said. “A splat of brains just dribbled out your ear.”
I lifted his head for the third crash. “Pity your mother didn’t cook you longer.”
Blast! An arm scooped me round the middle, lifting me up. Lifting me off Petey.
Whoever it was would be sorry. When I rammed my elbow this time, it connected with muscle and bone, which is far more satisfactory than blubber. A person feels she’s really doing something.
“Steady, miss.” It was Robert’s voice. It was Robert’s arm that had picked me up and was setting me down.
“I fetched him,” said Rose. “I didn’t prefer you to fight.”
“She were in a pother, Miss Rose were, an’ so, miss, I taked the liberty.”
Now that’s true poetic irony. I rush into battle to defend the fair name of Rose Larkin, and what does she do but fetch Robert to stop me.
“I don’t match up today,” said Rose. “I wish Robert could have seen how my ribbon matches my petticoat, but the witches took my ribbon.”
Robert blushed.
I turned away from the Brownie, but he followed along, his absurd knees clicking every which way. I mustn’t talk to him again. If I kept on, it would be easy to slide back to my old ways, stepping into the world of the Old Ones, letting my powers run wild.
Ten paces away, a bubble of villagers surrounded Petey. “Did I kill him?” I said.
“No, miss,” said Robert.
“Pity.”
“I knew Robert would stop the fight,” said Rose. She smiled at Robert, an actual smile. Her teeth were matching strings of pearls. “I knew it.”
Had I ever seen Rose smile before, a real smile?
The villager-bubble burst, revealing Cecil and Eldric, drag-pulling Petey toward me.
“You’re all over blood,” said Eldric.
“The boy shall have a proper beating,” said Cecil.
“But I beat him already,” I said, “and don’t tell me I didn’t do it properly. I’m touchy about these things.”
Eldric looked me up and down with his lightning eyes. “I’d never say you beat him improperly.”
“But the blood—” began Cecil.
Could Cecil never shut up?
“It’s Petey’s blood,” I said. “I can tell by the stink.”
“I sent Robert a birthday card,” said Rose.
“That you did, miss, an’ ’twere a pleasure to receive.”
“But the sheer cheek of this fellow fighting you!” said Cecil.
“It’s the other way round,” I said. “I fought him. He was rude to Rose.”
“Robert sent me a birthday card too,” said Rose, “but he couldn’t send one to Briony because she hasn’t any birthday.”
“I don’t care about who fought whom,” said Cecil.
“Your father would care,” I said. “A judge would care who started it.”
Cecil’s eyes scuttled about like pale beetles. To Petey, to me, and back to Petey. Eldric stood before Petey, speaking to him in a lovely plum-jammy sort of voice and tick-tocking his finger in front of Petey’s eyes.
“Damn it all, Briony,” said Cecil very softly in my ear. “This Eldric fellow is keeping you to himself.” But I imagined I knew what Cecil really cared about. He cared that it was Eldric, not he, who looked so easy and expert. That it was Eldric who looked our way and said perhaps Dr. Rannigan should see the boy.
“I thought we had an understanding,” said Cecil, still very soft.
&
nbsp; We did?
“Cecil, would you please escort Petey to Dr. Rannigan?”
Cecil paused, but there was no way he could politely protest.
Poor Cecil. It’s hard to be a devil of a fellow in these modern times. No stagecoaches to hold up. No princesses to rescue. Just Petey Todd to escort, while the easy, expert fellow walks the pretty girl home.
But perhaps the pretty girl should go straight to the jail. Perhaps it would be easier to turn herself over to the constable now rather than waiting until teatime.
“Robert will walk me home,” said Rose. “I asked him, and he said yes. He will walk me three hundred sixty-three steps until home.”
“Yes, miss,” said Robert. He gave her his arm and she actually took it. Extraordinary.
“All of our books burnt,” said Rose.
“Yes, miss,” said Robert. “I be right sorry for that.”
“But my book didn’t burn,” said Rose.
“No, miss?” said Robert, and off they went: step one. Only three hundred sixty-two more to go.
So there we were, Eldric and I, alone in the square, except for Mad Tom, and Mr. Clayborne’s men laying the London- Swanton line, and a few dozen snips and snails running about, puppy dogs’ tails between their legs.
“You’re a grisly sight,” said Eldric. “Best mop up before you go home. May I?”
He took my shoulders, faced me toward the sun. I leaned against the village well.
“I know a bit about head wounds,” he said, “having given and received so many myself.” I thought of the scar that dipped into his eyebrow, naked and pink as a baby mouse.
“Spit!” He held out his handkerchief.
I spat.
The handkerchief dabbed at my forehead. “Ouch! You’ll have a fine-looking bruise tomorrow.”
“Then you’ll be able to distinguish me from Rose.”
The handkerchief paused. “I could tell you apart from the beginning. You’re quite different to each other, you know.”
Perhaps he could tell, in the obvious ways. The odd one was Rose; the other odd one was Briony.
The handkerchief went to work again.
“So,” said Eldric.
It wasn’t quite a question. It was more of an invitation to tell him whatever I chose. I could talk about Petey, I could not talk about Petey. I could talk about Pearl’s baby or not talk about Pearl’s baby. Eldric gave me a choice, and it was this that made me want to tell him everything.
I’d never met anyone I’d wanted to tell. I wouldn’t, of course, but the thought was comforting.
Comforting in a suicidal sort of way.
“If Petey were a color,” I said, “he’d be puce.”
“Yes, of course!” said Eldric. “What if he were an animal?”
“Rat.”
“Historical personage?”
“Robespierre.”
“Robespierre and the reign of terror,” said Eldric. “Fancy that—I remember Robespierre. Some of the bloodier bits of my lessons must have stuck. Is Petey engaged in a reign of terror?”
“The word reign is a bit resplendent for Petey,” I said. “He’s just a two-bit bully. He and his lads were throwing stones at Nelly Daws just now.”
In a few hours, they’d be throwing stones at me too.
“If you were an historical personage,” said Eldric, “you’d be Robin Hood.”
“You must have missed the Robin Hood lesson. He’s not historically real. You’re wrong about me, in any event. I’m no hero.”
“I must respectfully disagree,” said Eldric, which was nice, but ignorant.
“What animal would I be?”
Eldric thought for a bit. “A wolf. It has to be a wolf.”
“I like that,” I said. “Cecil would have made me into a talking mouse with a ruffled bonnet.”
“Anything but that,” said Eldric. “You’re quick and elegant, loyal and fierce.”
Loyal? I wouldn’t correct him.
“If you were a sport, you’d be boxing.”
Ooh, boxing!
“I’ll teach you if you like.”
Some invisible string jerked at a squishy bit behind my ribs. “I should like that.”
Except, first I’d be in jail, and then hanged.
But hanging didn’t seem quite real just then. Perhaps it was because Eldric was taking care of me, which was something that had ceased to be real long ago. I only just remembered it, that hot-bread comfort of being cared for.
When I was ill, before Stepmother came, Father used to spread crisp, white sheets over the library sofa and tuck me up in a special goose-down comforter. I loved running my thumb over its shiny, satiny edging. He’d sit on the end of the sofa and count my fingers and toes, which were always all there. Then he’d pretend to snatch away my nose and tell me I had adorable apricot ears. There was always hot chocolate, and sometimes the smell of lemon and sugar.
“We’ll take it slowly,” said Eldric. “We’ll ease you into being a bad boy. First boxing. Next, stone hurling, which leads naturally to the breaking of windows. You’ll start with an ordinary window, work your way up to stained glass.”
“What next?” I said. “Set your father’s drainage project on its head? Set the water to running backward?”
“There!” said Eldric. “I knew you had proper bad-boy instincts.”
There are certain advantages to having a conversation. One is that a person like Eldric might make you laugh, and you might begin to remember how pleasant that is. Another is that you tell yourself things you didn’t know you knew.
Set the water to running backward. That’s easy. You don’t even have to be a witch. You just open the sluice gates at flow tide, and all the sea comes rushing back into the swamp.
I had to have this conversation in order to understand how to save my neck from the noose.
“Spit!”
I spat.
I mostly hate talking to people, but talking to Eldric revealed a dazzling possibility. I could sabotage the draining project, and lo, the gloriousness that would ensue: The water would stay in the swamp; which meant the Boggy Mun would be appeased; which meant he’d lift the swamp cough from Rose; which meant that everything would be fine, except for the small matters of concealing my witchiness, and controlling my powers, and keeping Rose safe from me. But once you’ve imagined your head in the noose, these inconveniences are as nothing.
How light I felt. I was ready to play! “We could have a club,” I said. “A bad-boy club.”
Eldric embraced this idea with proper bad-boy spirit. “It must be a secret, of course. We’d need a secret handshake.”
“And a secret language,” I said. “We’ll speak in Latin, so no one will understand.”
Except Father, and who talks to him anyway?
“Here’s the problem with Latin,” said Eldric. “It’s so very secret, I can’t understand a word. Being expelled takes a toll on one’s Latin.”
“Oh, not that sort of Latin, not the ordinary sort,” I said. “It’s the difficult sort of Latin no one speaks anymore. But I’m sure you know it already. It comes from rarely attending to one’s lessons. Here, tell me what this means. Fraternitus.”
“Fraternity?” said Eldric.
“Very good,” I said. “And what does fraternity mean?”
“Brotherhood?” said Eldric.
“See, you do know the difficult Latin. What does this mean? Bad-Boyificus.”
“Bad boy,” said Eldric. “You’re right. I did learn the difficult Latin back in my perhaps not-so-misspent youth.”
“And Fraternitus Bad-Boyificus?”
“Bad-Boys Fraternity,” said Eldric. “No, I mean club. Bad-Boys Club! We’ll need an initiation, of course.”
“Lovely!” I said, which is not, perhaps, initiation-appropriate vocabulary, but I meant it sincerely. An initiation! The very word conjured visions of dark rooms and candles and initiators wearing Spanish Inquisition-style headgear.
“Here’s the
most interesting thing about an initiation,” said Eldric. “You never know when it’s to be. So you must watch for it, listen for it, and trust it, even if you’re called at the dead of night. Your fellow fraternitus will never let you come to harm.”
“Frater,” I said. “It’s fellow frater.”
“Done!” Eldric stepped back. “At least you don’t need stitches, which I fear poor Petey will need.”
Poor Petey. I’d like to say I could almost feel a tender spot for poor Petey, but the truth is I’d rather feel at the tender spot on his head and give it a poke.
“It’s a fine day in the Dragon Constellation for us frater,” said Eldric. I agreed and didn’t even correct his Latin. Who needs plurals anyway?
It had in fact grown sunny, warm enough that the greengrocer set a cart of vegetables outside his shop, and Davy Wallace sat on a stoop, grading pheasant feathers, which he did astonishingly quickly with his one hand. If one were an optimistic person, one might say that it was really quite warm.
The day had turned itself inside out. How fragile life is; it can turn on so little. Pearl’s baby dies, but then there comes a spat-on handkerchief, the creation of a brotherhood, and the end of the swamp cough.
Was I really so happy not to die? Was this feeling simply relief? Or was it that Eldric was taking care of me? Stepmother cared for me during those long, foggy months of my illness. I don’t know how she did it, with that injury to her spine. I didn’t deserve care at all. But every time I awoke, there she was, with a bowl of soup, or an herbal plaster, or my writing materials—I couldn’t bear to tell her I was too tired to write: She was so very delighted to be giving me the opportunity.
There is much, I suppose, that I don’t recall of my illness. I had grown so very dull-witted. But should I ever again sink into illness, I’m sure I’ll remember Eldric.
I’ll remember he cared for me. I’ll remember that someone at last had taken the time to touch my face.
11
The Chiming Hour
“Mistress! Just a word, mistress!”
Not the Brownie, I absolutely would not talk to the Brownie. I slammed the garden gate behind me.
“Have a care, mistress. You almost caught my nose!”
Then you shouldn’t have such a long one.
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