“We appear to have misjudged the situation.” Father’s eye-wrinkles had slipped back into place. “Mr. Clayborne and I are sorry.”
I waited for the but part. There was bound to be a but.
“It seems I am a bad influence on you,” said Eldric. “This comes as quite a surprise, as I have found you wonderfully impervious to influence.”
They were to forbid me to see Eldric, weren’t they? I needed a safe place to put my gaze. It was easiest to look at the bits of toothpick-sword.
“It’s really more that you’re a bad influence on Eldric.” Mr. Clayborne smiled to show he wasn’t serious. “Eldric’s new tutor, Mr. Thorpe, is to arrive next week. You and Eldric were to have lessons together, as you know—”
“I’m not to share Eldric’s tutor?”
“I told them you help me learn, but they didn’t listen,” said Eldric.
“I miss Fitz,” I said. My brilliant Fitz. “When shall I ever have lessons?”
“Fitz was hardly suited to be a tutor,” said Father.
“Just because of the arsenic?” I said. “It never interfered with our lessons.”
“One doesn’t leave one’s daughter alone with such a man,” said Father.
“Why ever not?”
But of course he wouldn’t tell me. Which means, of course, he couldn’t think of a single reason why.
The early light came in at the window and glanced off the stubble on Father’s jaw. Father hadn’t ironed his voice, and he hadn’t shaved, either. But Father always shaved. Where was the father who left me alone?
“It’s not that you’re a bad influence on Eldric,” said Mr. Clayborne. “Of course not. But I’ve come to see that he’s steadier, more level-headed, with young women who are rather older than you.”
Not Leanne!
Not that rather older young lady!
Yes, Leanne. “She is a clever young lady,” said Mr. Clayborne, “and has been wanting to continue her studies, but her circumstances have been rather straitened of late.”
Leanne to study with Eldric? To sit across from him, every day? She’d take pains, I supposed, to resemble a painting by this mysterious Klimt—all in gold, flowers in her hair, in a state of tasteful undress.
The rather older young lady, who was very old, indeed. Or so she’d told Rose, oh how terrifically funny, ha-ha, top marks! I let myself imagine she was telling the truth. If she were very old indeed, she’d have to be an Old One, and Eldric would discover her true nature and cast her off in her petticoat . . . No, best keep her in her clothes. I was an Old One, but I’d never be very old indeed. Unfair that we witches live only a mortal lifespan, that we’re deprived of the infinity of experience that makes the Boggy Mun so tricky.
The Boggy Mun and his tricks . . . How had I not seen it before? I had a perfectly trick-free bargain to offer the Boggy Mun. A bargain he’d be glad to accept: He’d cure Rose and get what he wanted.
Up you get then, Briony. Put an end to this affecting scene. Paste on your angelic face, tell one of your pretty lies. It’s not Father’s business where you’re going. It’s just between you and the Boggy Mun.
19
Make Love Story!
The Quicks sputtered, the sponge squished beneath my feet. I was a bit squishy myself. I’d had no time to bathe: I wanted to catch the Boggy Mun during his morning hours. I had to reach the bog-hole before the mist burnt off.
Eldric and Leanne? Leanne and Eldric! Leanne, sitting in my seat, laughing with Eldric.
Shut up, Briony!
Eldric and Leanne, sharing an inkwell. Eldric turning his pen into a boat, sailing it over his blotter—
Shut up, Briony!
The Quicks breathed slowly, their poisoned breath smelling of sulfur and infection and overripe flesh. They smacked and swallowed, smacked and swallowed.
Soon the Boggy Mun would open up shop. I wore no cloak and had no pockets. I carried my knife and salt in a basket. Little Red Riding Hood, skipping off into the woods. And whom will she meet?
Why, her own self, of course: the wolf. My hand flew to the gray-pearl wolfgirl hanging about my neck. If I didn’t know I couldn’t love, I might have thought I loved her.
I sprinkled the salt. I sliced through my mushroom skin. I drizzled my blood onto the salt.
The Boggy Mun came just on time.
He came in the mist, in the midst of his long beard. He came in a tangle of mist and midst. The ancient face peered from the tangle, the crepe-paper skin, the crumpled eyelids.
“I came before,” I said.
“Aye.”
“You did not grant my request.”
“I did not.”
“Twice, I have spilt blood and salt.”
“Aye,” said the Boggy Mun.
“I come today not to beg but to bargain.”
The crumpled eyelids lifted, hung, waited.
“I know how to keep the water in the swamp.”
The eyelids waited.
“But I shall have need of your help.”
The water ran, the wind wailed, the eyes waited.
“I can act on All Hallows’ Eve, but not before.” I’d let the ghost-children speak for themselves, tell the villagers of the Boggy Mun and the draining and the swamp cough. But I’d have to wait for Halloween, for it is only on that night that ordinary mortals can see and hear the dead.
“I can do something that will make the men turn off the machines. If they do that, the water will stay in the swamp. But you must do your part. You must cure Rose of the swamp cough.”
The mist hung motionless.
“If Rose has died, or is near death, I shall have no reason to act.”
“Cured, no,” said the Boggy Mun. “If’n she be cured, I got me a notion tha’d flight wi’ her to them dry lands beyond my reach.”
He had a reasonable point.
“This be my bargain. Tha’ sister, she don’t continue no worse, she don’t continue no better. Tha’s got no need to fret on her ’twixt now an’ All Hallows’ Eve.”
Halloween. The night the dead rise and walk the earth.
“Tiddy Rex too,” I said.
“Tha’ sister an’ the lad shall survive All Hallows’ Day,” said the old-parchment voice. “An’ if’n matters comes about as tha’ says, the cough shall be lifted from tha’ sister, an’ from all t’other fo’ak what be striked.”
The wind wailed, the water ran, the Boggy Mun was gone.
It seems unfair that I can feel worry but not relief.
There, there, Briony: You’re asking for too much. After all, the Boggy Mun was surprisingly agreeable. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?
Mostly.
Then please shut up.
It was the ghost-children, of course, who should tell the villagers about the draining and the swamp cough. What an idiot to ever have thought of telling the villagers myself. A fellow can’t trust nothing what might be said by a witch. But they’d believe the ghost-children.
And even if they believed me, they’d know me for a witch and hang me. This way, I’d have a chance to escape. I’d call the ghost-children from their graves. I’d escort the ghost-children to the villagers, urge the ghost-children to tell the villagers their tale. Then I’d disappear. I’d lose myself in the swamp. Best start now, start finding places to hide and crannies in which to store provisions.
I pressed into the shady margins of the Slough.
“Pretty girl!” said a chorus of small, chiming voices. “Pretty girl, make story.”
I hadn’t thought about the Bleeding Hearts for three years. I’d forgotten how prettily their voices chimed together. On the other hand, they talked far too much and had the most appalling grammar.
“Pretty girl, make love story.”
“People don’t make stories,” I said. “People write stories. They make tables.”
“Make tables!” Their pink blooming faces turned up toward me like thousands of glorious hearts. “Make tables!”
A pe
rson could never talk to the Bleeding Hearts.
“Pretty girl, make story at table.”
“Use your articles!” I said. “Make a story—I mean, write a story at the table. Or, write the story at a table. Or—”
“Love story! Love story!”
“Not unless you use your articles.”
“Articles! Articles!”
They gave me a headache.
“Pretty girl love!
“Pretty girl love!”
Enough! “Pretty girl love what?” I said.
Stop, Briony! You mustn’t start speaking as they do. “What is the object of your sentence?”
“Object! Object!
“Love is object!
“Love is object of desire.”
Shut up! You’re making me think of Eldric and Leanne turning their pens into boats and swimming them across an ink-blotter sea. There’d be a pirate ship, of course, and a deserted island—Why didn’t I just kill myself?
“Pretty girl love pretty boy.”
Boy? “I don’t love any boy.”
“Pretty girl laugh with pretty boy.”
Eldric and Cecil were both pretty boys, but you couldn’t laugh with Cecil.
“Pretty girl laugh with pretty boy.”
At last they’d put an object to the sentence.
“Pretty boy! Pretty boy!
“Laugh!
“Play!
Light nibbled at the edges of my vision. Blue flames skittered over the muck, yellow flames dove into the earth. The Wykes were out early today, glinting, flirting, teasing, luring.
“Love story!
“Pretty girl love!”
The Bleeding Hearts were idiots.
Laughing and playing with Eldric was fun, but it wasn’t love. But the Bleeding Hearts were spirits of love and romance. They had no room in their tiny minds for a person who didn’t love anyone.
“Love story!”
I turned away. There’s no point in saying good-bye to the Bleeding Hearts. It’s not in their vocabulary. “Make story, pretty girl.” Off I went, but their chiming voices carried a long way. “Make love story!”
Forget them, Briony. Think about the early hours of All Hallows’ Day. Think about how the villagers will scrabble after you, all arsey-varsy, armed with anything to hand: pitchforks, horsewhips, toothpicks. You can elude them if you get a good head start. It’s the scent hounds you want to worry about. You’ll have to make a few circumspect inquiries about how to muddle your tracks and muddle your scent and muddle the hounds. You’ll muddle them further by taking to the snickleways. Pity you haven’t a boat.
On I went, through spinachy water, into a gray incandescence and the smell of rot. The incandescence insinuated itself beneath my hand as a dog might insinuate its head. I sprang back, but the tattered flesh did not. It quivered.
The Dead Hand slithered and oozed. It tapped finger to thumb as though biting the air. But tapping is crisp; this was all flab and squish.
“No!” I said.
The bloated fingers slimed over my hand, oozed round my wrist.
“You can’t!” I said.
The Dead Hand oozed tighter.
“I’m one of you,” I said. “I’m a witch!”
The Hand pulled. Tightened and pulled.
What should I do, what should I do?
It wasn’t painful, not yet, but the thought of the pain to come was itself a kind of pain.
I sat back on my knees, pulled away. The Dead Hand pulled toward. The bog-hole spat and chuckled.
The Dead Hand did not absorb my warmth; I absorbed its chill. The Wykes sparked up, yellow, blue, glinting, laughing—everything was laughing, the bog, the wind, the Wykes. But not the Dead Hand. It didn’t laugh.
The slop splashed at my knees. The wind snickered.
The Dead Hand was silent. It pulled. I pulled back. The earth trembled.
The Dead Hand was silent. It pulled.
Articles, articles! Use your articles!
The Dead Hand pulled and squeezed, pulled and squeezed.
I’d brought no articles, no Bible Ball.
“I’m a witch!”
The Hand didn’t care.
But I’m a witch, a witch!
Crack! My wrist went crack! It was the sound as much as the pain that made the sick come spraying from my mouth.
The Hand didn’t care. It pulled.
Pull and stretch. It wasn’t just bones that held my wrist together. There were other things for which I had no name. Things that could be pulled, things that could stretch. Why had I never known them, given them names?
My wrist was small. How could it fit so much pain? Stretch! The crack had been fast, the stretch was slow. How could one wrist occupy the universe of my mind?
Crack, and stretch, and now snap! I had nothing in my stomach to lose.
Someone shouting now. “Bloody hell!”
The pretty boy.
The pretty boy pulled. He was London soap and pine. The pretty boy cracked and stretched and snapped. He was tawny flesh and lion’s paw. His paw dug for my hand.
“Hold on!”
But it was the Hand holding on. It was the Hand squeezing.
“Hold on!”
Hold on to the pretty boy? I could hold on to him only with my thoughts. Pretty boy laugh! Pretty boy play.
The Hand squeezed. Love is object of desire. Those chiming words, hold on to them, hold on.
The Hand squeezed. Pretty girl love pretty boy. Hold on to those words, hold on.
But the Hand squeezed. It squeezed out my thoughts. It squeezed out my brain-light. I was disappearing. I saw my brain-light go drip-drip-dripping out my mind.
Out it went, drip-drip-drip, until I was snuffed out.
20
Happily Ever After
Dark and light, dark and light. That was the world. The world was like lace. Lace is dark and light. Stepmother wore lace. Leanne wore lace.
Leanne and Eldric, dark and light.
When we think of lace, we think of white, but without the dark, the in-between bits, there’d be nothing to look at.
Dark and light, dark and light.
Bones are hollow. Bones are webbed with lace.
Anesthesia, Dr. Rannigan!
Bones can hurt—how they can hurt!
Take a hand, crush it slo-o-o-o-w-ly, splinter the bones, crumble the lace, squish away the negative space.
Anesthesia!
“Drink it down.” Eldric’s voice pressed a spoon to my lips. “There you go, every last drop!” Liquid trickled down my throat.
All those airy hollows, gone.
I swallowed. Swallowing tore my hand.
Anesthesia!
* * *
Dark and light, the world was dark and light.
Dark and light, mint and apple.
Go away!
But my voice was lost, and anyway, the Brownie never listened.
Mint and apple. Dark and light.
The smallest eye-twitch tore my hand-lace.
“Every last drop!” Eldric’s voice was honey.
The honey voice sang.
I know where I’m going,
And I know who’s going with me.
I know whom I love,
But the dear knows whom I’ll marry.
Once I had been in the roar-time of my life. Now I was in the hush-time. The people who sat with me were in the hush-time. They made hush-time sounds: a mouse-squeak as they sit in the chair, a crumble of rockers on wood. Father singing, lullaby-soft.
O I fear ye are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son!
O I fear ye are poisoned, my bonny young man!
O yes! I am poisoned; Mother, make my bed soon . . .
Stop: That’s not a hush-time song!
I got eels boiled in eel broth; Mother make my bed soon,
For I’m weary wi’ hunting and fain would lie doon.
That’s a roar-time song. Stop!
Father didn’t stop.
Eldr
ic sat on the end of my bed. His end went down; my end went up. O I fear ye are poisoned. I had to erase that song.
“ ‘I Know Where I’m Going,’ ” I said.
“Briony?” Eldric’s end of the bed went up. He stood at the pillow end. My eyelids felt his gaze.
“Did you say something?” His voice was thick as porridge.
“ ‘I Know Where I’m Going.’ ”
“Shall I sing it?” he said.
I flapped my good hand. Yes!
My end of the bed went up.
Eldric cleared his throat. He sat so long, now silent, now clearing his throat, that I slipped back into darkness.
“I have here a ladies’ hatpin,” said Eldric. “I know you are wondering what this superb specimen of masculinity would want with a hatpin. But what you don’t know is that Tiddy Rex and I are building a castle, and of course, every castle needs a catapult, and what every catapult must have is something to pult. Even as I speak, this hatpin is being transformed into an enormous medieval stone.”
Eldric’s voice was hush-time, but a catapult is not a hush-time pursuit, and neither was the smell. It was a roar-time smell: wood smoke, mixed with a warm, brownish spice, mixed with a whiff of the fruited soaps sold at the Christmas fair.
“It takes a dozen men to heave this stone into the catapult—or women, of course, if they are boxing champions, like you.”
When a person is ill, a whiff of roar-time is better than any tonic. I opened my eyes. Sun slanted in the window. It lay curled in the palm of my left hand, my wicked hand.
Where was my virtuous hand? My virtuous arm was heavy, too heavy to raise itself. I couldn’t see the end of it.
I lay in the sewing room. I didn’t like that. This is where Stepmother had lain. The smell of sickness had infected the room. I memory-smelled it, a bloated oozy smell, toad-scum, stagnant water. It crimpled the underside of my tongue.
I memory-smelled eels. Eels in eel broth. That was a sickmaking smell. Where was my mint-and-apple Brownie?
It was good to open my eyes. It let light into my brain. I was in the sewing room, but the toad-scum smell was gone. It was now just wood smoke and brown spice and fruited soap.
Eldric had brought new smells with him. He’d brought new sounds with him. The sound of his hollow whistle: If a body meet a body, comin’ thro’ the rye.
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