I sat on the floor and laid the dolls on my knee. They were a man doll and a woman doll. They lay with their eyes closed, as though they were dead.
Dolls could not be dead. If I thought the dolls were dead, that also meant they’d been alive. But that was not a sharp, cold thought. I should only have cold thoughts with sharp edges.
Dolls were just dolls. They weren’t alive and they weren’t dead.
Their faces were dusty. I would dust them, even though they were just dolls. It was all right to want to see their faces. I could be wild and still want to see them. I wiped their faces with the hem of my shirt, but they were still dirty. I licked my finger and drew it over their eyelids. A person should not have dust in his eyes.
“Dolls aren’t people,” said the dagger.
They weren’t people. They were dolls and they were tame. I was a robber girl and I was wild. But I could brush their clothes and still be wild.
I brushed the woman doll’s dark-pink dress. The dress had red trim, which was soft and smooth. It was satin.
Satin. The word came to me from the foreign-coin pocket of words. The words were foreign, but I knew I’d used them. I’d spent time in that foreign country.
“Stop remembering the Before Time!” said the dagger. “Remembering is a betrayal of Gentleman Jack.”
But how could I stop words from coming into my head? I brushed the man doll’s jacket and trousers; they were striped with blue. I brushed his waistcoat and his blue string tie.
“Remembering isn’t real,” said the dagger.
If they were alive, I’d be a giant to them. I’d be a giant in their world of apple-seed doorknobs and dollhouses within dollhouses within dollhouses.
“Stop thinking they might be alive!” said the dagger.
They weren’t alive, which meant it was all right to look beneath their clothes. The woman doll wore a petticoat, and beneath that was some white gauzy stuff that ruffled around each ankle.
The woman doll’s foot was attached to her leg with a pin that ran through her ankle. It meant her ankle could bend. Same with the man doll. I looked under their clothes and worked all their joints. It was wonderful how everything could bend, hips and shoulders, elbows and knees.
I sat them upright in front of me. They could sit by themselves. The father doll’s eyes opened. The mother doll’s eyes opened.
“You’re calling them Father Doll and Mother Doll,” said the dagger.
It was because of their eyes, I thought. With their eyes open, they looked like a father and a mother.
“Calling them Father and Mother is like playing with them,” said the dagger.
Robber girls didn’t play with dolls, but it wasn’t playing to notice the dolls’ eyes looking at me. To notice that the mother doll’s eyes were blue and the father doll’s eyes were brown.
“Think about Gentleman Jack instead,” said the dagger. “What did he say to do if you were captured?”
But I’d already done all that. I’d told the Judge I had no name. I wished the Judge had asked me about the hideout so I could have said there was no hideout. That would have been obeying Gentleman Jack and made him happy.
“What happens after that?” said the dagger.
“I go to the hideout,” I said.
“And then what?” said the dagger.
“Rough Ricky and I rescue Gentleman Jack.”
“What if Rough Ricky’s not at the hideout?”
“I go to Grandmother’s house,” I said.
“How do you get to Grandmother’s house?” said the dagger.
“I follow the railroad tracks to Netherby Scar.” I reached into my pocket and took out the pocket watch. “But I will not be able to find Grandmother’s house by telling people her name.”
“Because you don’t know her name,” said the dagger.
“Because I don’t know her name.” Knowing her name would be dangerous. If I knew it, I could tell someone—someone like the Judge. I could tell him even if I didn’t mean to. That was why I didn’t know Grandmother’s name, or my own name, either. I only knew Gentleman Jack’s name because of the Gentlemen calling him by it all the time.
“But I have the watch,” I said. “I can show it to anyone in Netherby Scar and they’ll recognize it. They’ll help me find Grandmother’s house.”
The watch covered my whole palm. It had a picture on the lid, called an engraving. The dagger had told me. It knew about engraving because metal is a thing you engrave and the dagger knew all about metal.
The engraving was a bird in flight, whirring like a star. The picture was called an emblem. It was Grandmother’s emblem, which was how the people in Netherby Scar would know I was looking for her house. Later, we’d fix the watch and then it would tick away into the future. In the future, there would be no more Day Zero.
I’d open the lid, I’d look at the photograph of Grandmother. But then my head jerked up, away from the watch. I’d heard a voice; the voice had come from the mother doll.
“She is the one,” said the mother doll. Her mouth didn’t open and her face didn’t change, but the voice came from her.
“She is the one,” said the father doll. His mouth didn’t open, his face didn’t change. “Even though she doesn’t look like Magda.”
“She can have wild black hair and still be our girl,” said the mother doll. “She can have a thin face and pale eyes and still be our girl.” That made it sound as though they were talking about me.
“When we heard her voice,” said the father doll, “we knew she was our girl.”
“Her voice has the sound of piping in it,” said the mother doll. They weren’t talking about me after all. My voice was the opposite of piping.
“The dolls are talking!” I said.
“Dolls don’t talk!” said the dagger.
But they were. And since the dagger could hear what I heard, why couldn’t it hear the dolls?
Someone knocked on the door, which made me jump. I wasn’t used to knocking because of having no doors in the hideout.
“May I come in?” said the Judge.
“Put the watch away,” said the dagger. “He’ll think you stole it.”
I shoved it into my pocket, even though the watch was one of the few things I knew for sure hadn’t been stolen. It belonged to Grandmother, but she let me have it so I could look at her photograph. I’d never seen her real face, her in-person face.
The Judge came in, looked at me, looked at the dolls.
“It’s been a long time,” he said, “since anyone has played with the dolls.”
“I am a robber girl,” I said. “I don’t play with dolls.”
“If you’re not playing,” he said, “then perhaps you won’t mind if I invite you downstairs.”
“I don’t mind being invited,” I said. But that didn’t mean I had to go.
“Mrs. del Salto and I thought you might want something to eat,” he said.
“Iron and carbon don’t need to eat,” said the dagger.
“I’d also like to ask you a question,” said the Judge. “It will be easier over dinner.”
I didn’t like the way the Judge talked, which was tricky. Why not just invite me instead of wondering if I would mind being invited? Why not just ask me a question instead of saying he wanted to ask me a question?
“I don’t answer questions,” I said.
“You answered my question about your name,” said the Judge.
“I said I had no name.”
The Judge didn’t exactly respond. “You must be tired and hungry,” he said. “You crossed the River Jordan, which is deep and wide. But there’s milk and honey on the other side.” He held out his hand. “Milk and honey.”
I didn’t take his hand, but I got up. I looked behind me, just once. There was the dollhouse painted the color I couldn’t name—the color that was not yellow—which was also the color of the people cottage. The dolls sat on the floor.
“She’s the one,” said the mother doll.
“She brushed the dust from our eyes.”
The Judge didn’t turn around at the mother doll’s voice. Maybe they were too small for him to hear. Or maybe he was too big. Look at the way his shadow splatted all over one side of the room. He was very big.
But the dagger was small and it heard what I heard. Why couldn’t it hear the dolls’ voices?
“Because dolls don’t have voices,” said the dagger.
“She brushed the dust from our eyes and she has piping in her voice,” said the father doll. “That means she’s our girl.”
The Judge walked ahead of me, calling over his shoulder about milk and honey. I followed him; I left the dolls behind.
I KNEW SOME OF THE HOUSE ALREADY. I knew the attic steps, grinning up at me with their white teeth. I knew the second-floor landing, with its gleaming floorboards and closed-faced doors. I knew the carpet on the stairs. It was held in place by heavy metal rods lying right where the step turned up to meet the next step. I knew the dove room, all fat and feathery.
I knew the corridor that led to the foyer, but we turned before we reached it. Here was the part of the house I hadn’t seen. The Judge led me through a blue-and-gold room, toward a door he said was the kitchen door. But it had no doorknob. How did you open it?
“You push!” said the dagger.
The door swung open. It had no knob or lock. Who would want a door like that, with no knob and no lock? The best doors had locks.
Here in the kitchen, everything was steam and sniff and gleam. It smelled hot and gold. It smelled the way the word Grandmother felt in my mouth. The word Grandmother always fit exactly right on the soft middle of my tongue. I liked holding it there, warm and round.
The kitchen smelled like Grandmother, but it didn’t look like Grandmother’s kitchen. Gentleman Jack had told me so much about Grandmother’s house that I could see it in my mind. Grandmother had a red-and-blue carpet on her kitchen floor. It was called an oriental carpet. She had a blue enamel stove and bright pots and pans.
But except for some copper pans, this kitchen had no colors; it was all black and white and silver.
“Silver’s a color,” said the dagger.
The floor was plain indigo wood; the stove was black with curved silver legs.
“Silver is my color,” said the dagger.
Mrs. del Salto was the most black-and-white of all, with her pale face and pale apron and black hair and rusty-crow dress.
She set three plates on a table covered with a white cloth. Gentleman Jack had described the tablecloths at Grandmother’s house. They were damask, he said, which was a fancy kind of material. You could turn damask one way and it would show one color, and then you could turn it another way and it would show another color. But Gentleman Jack had never said Grandmother’s tablecloths had fringes dripping off the ends, like these tablecloths. He never said they were too white for food, like these tablecloths.
I didn’t sit. Mrs. del Salto set knives and forks beside the plates.
“They’re not real knives,” said the dagger. “They have no edges.”
Mrs. del Salto set a pie on the table. The golden smell came from the pie.
“Sit down.” The Judge was already sitting, and so was Mrs. del Salto.
“Even a robber girl may be hungry,” said the Judge.
I didn’t want to sit at the table. The tablecloth was too white. I didn’t want to pick up the knife. It had no edges. I walked around the table because I didn’t know where to sit.
“The table has four equal sides,” said the Judge. “It’s a democratic table, which means you may sit wherever you like.”
I sat opposite Mrs. del Salto. The Judge cut the pie. Up drifted feathers of steam. It was not the kind of pie that cut neatly. I didn’t know how to eat this pie.
“Chicken pie on Thursday,” said the Judge. I’d never had chicken pie. Once Doubtful Mittie had caught a muskrat and brought it to a lady he knew, who made a pie out of it. But it didn’t smell like this pie.
It was Thursday, but it was also Day Zero, the longest Day Zero in the world.
I liked eating the way I ate in the hideout, which was alone. I had my own corner and my own bowl and my own tin cup and my own knife, which was also the dagger. I ate like the Gentlemen. If there was meat, we skewered it with a knife and ate it. If there was gravy, we skewered the meat and dunked it in the gravy. But this meat was already dunked.
I tried to do what the Judge did. He picked up his knife and fork. He used his fork to spear the chunks of meat. He used his knife to cut them. He used the edge of his fork to cut the piecrust.
“A fork?” said the dagger. “To cut!”
I couldn’t eat the way the Judge did. I wrapped all my fingers around my fork until I noticed the Judge balanced his fork on the edge of one finger. I tried to balance it like that, but the fork tilted to the side and off came a bit of crust, splatting the white tablecloth.
I set the knife and fork on the plate. I looked at the plate, not at the brown splatter on white. I’d only eat with the dagger in Grandmother’s house. I’d never make a brown splat on her damask tablecloth. I looked at the terrible knife and fork: they’d made me make the splat. They were silver, with heavy scrolls on the handles.
“Silver is a good color,” said the dagger. “Iron and carbon make the color of silver.”
No one said anything about the gravy splat. I should never have tried to eat. Not in front of people.
“Aren’t you hungry?” said the Judge. “You’re nothing but skin and bone.”
“Where are the milk and honey?” I said.
“Milk and honey?” The Judge had forgotten about them.
“Because of the River Jordan,” I said. You wouldn’t need a fork for milk and honey.
“Ah!” said the Judge, and in a series of foldings and unfoldings he set in front of me a yellow cup, a plump brown pot, a basket of bread, a plate of butter, and a small empty plate. I knew about all of them except the small plate.
The cup was for the milk, the pot was for the honey, the butter was for the bread, the bread was for the butter and also for the honey—
But I didn’t know what the small plate was for.
The Judge gave himself another small plate, which meant he had two plates and I had two plates. One big and one little. The Judge’s big plate was almost empty, except for leftover crumbs and gravy. Mrs. del Salto had just one plate. It was full of chicken pie.
She saw me staring. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I eat only ashes and salt.”
“Now, Monica!” said the Judge.
I looked at her plate. “Where are the ashes?” I said.
“Where’s the salt?” said the dagger.
“Now, Marcus,” said Mrs. del Salto, and that was that.
Everything was quiet, and I still didn’t know what to do with the little plate.
The Judge reached for one of the knives with no edges. It was short and curly.
“Useless,” said the dagger.
The Judge reached for the plate of butter and cut a piece about as wide as my thumb. He put the piece on his little plate. He put a piece of bread on the little plate. Last, he cut a bit of butter from the piece on his plate and put it on the bread. So there was the big piece of butter on the butter plate; there was the small piece of butter, the one the Judge had just cut, on the smaller plate; and then there was the still-smaller bit of butter, cut from the smaller piece on his plate, which was cut from the big plate of butter—
“Why not put it right on the bread?” said the dagger.
I didn’t want to look at the stain on the tablecloth, but my eyes made me look. I took the yellow cup. It had a handle, like my tin cup at the hideout, but it was the kind of cup that could break. I wrapped both hands around the middle.
When I tilted the cup to drink, the side of the cup cast a shadow on the milk.
“If you will permit me,” said the Judge, “I should like to ask you a question.”
What a strange pl
ace this was. It was strange when people asked about asking questions instead of just asking them. It was like cutting the butter and putting it on a plate, and then cutting the butter on the plate and putting it on the bread. Why not just put the butter right on the bread?
Why not just ask?
The shadow of the cup on the milk turned the milk a color that was not exactly yellow. The shadow turned the milk the color of the cottage. I took a sip. It was cold and creamy. I took another sip. I would find a word for the color of the cottage.
“Or perhaps,” said the Judge, “it is more of a request.”
The Gentlemen never talked about talking or requesting. They just talked.
I drank my milk, which tasted just the way the cottage looked, thick and comforting. I drank down the milk.
I drank down the cottage.
“Gentleman Jack will go to trial,” said the Judge. “We will try him for the murder of the Federal Marshal.”
I didn’t like the word Murder. I didn’t want to remember the sound of the gun or how the Marshal had sat on his horse for a long time, holding his stomach.
“I should like to request,” said the Judge, “that you testify at Gentleman Jack’s trial.”
I waited for him to request it, but he didn’t. I set down the yellow cup. The word Murder didn’t go with a yellow cup. I couldn’t drink down the cottage when the word Murder was in the air.
“You do realize,” said Mrs. del Salto, “that the child has no idea what you’re talking about.”
The Judge hadn’t realized. “A trial,” said the Judge, “is when some people get together to decide if another person has committed a crime. If they determine he has, then the Judge decides what his punishment is to be.
“As you know,” said the Judge, “Gentleman Jack killed Federal Marshal Starling. That’s a crime.”
Mrs. del Salto reached for one of the candles. She wore a ring, and even though the stone in it was dark, the candle made it flicker with lights.
Mrs. del Salto pinched the candle flame between her thumb and finger.
I knew it was an opal. The Indigo Heart was filled with opals. You could dig them up just as easily as you could dig for gold.
Opals were for good luck. I wished I had an opal now. I wished I had some good luck.
The Robber Girl Page 4