Together, we went downstairs. The Judge had already set out three cups. Mrs. del Salto lit all the kitchen lights. She liked the dark, but still, she lit the lights. That was nice of her.
The glinting copper pans and silver curves of the stove looked just the way the coffee smelled, strong and bright. It reminded me of my first evening at buttercream cottage. How ignorant I’d been. Now I knew how to use a fork; now I knew the curly knife was only for butter.
“You couldn’t use it for anything else,” said the dagger. “Whoever heard of a knife without an edge!”
But I liked the idea that the butter had a knife just for itself. I liked the idea of the butter waiting in the cellar, dreaming of its very own knife with the curly edge.
“How did Rough Ricky get in?” said the Judge.
“Through my window,” I said.
“Why was the window open?” said the Judge.
“I like the smell of indigo,” I said.
The Judge looked down his long beak nose. “What did he want?”
I could answer truthfully. “He thinks you have gold in the cottage.”
“I wouldn’t be that foolish,” said the Judge.
“That’s what I told him,” I said, which was not exactly untrue.
“‘Not untrue’?” said the dagger. “‘Not untrue’ means False. Just say it. Say False!”
But I knew from the way the Judge talked that “Not untrue” had a different flavor than just saying False. “Not untrue” was filled with echoes. The word False was a cement block.
“You’re talking like the Judge, all in circles,” said the dagger.
Mrs. del Salto set a bowl in front of me.
“A bowl of coffee!” said the dagger. “She must think you’re a baby.”
Mrs. del Salto had mixed in sugar and frothed the milk so the top was foamy. I figured it must be all right to stunt my growth just for tonight.
“Don’t forget your tin cup in the hideout,” said the dagger. “Don’t forget you liked drinking coffee from your tin cup.”
I hadn’t forgotten, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t drink from the bowl. It was so unusual to wrap your hands around a bowl of coffee. It warmed the whole surface of your palms.
“Tin is metal,” said the dagger. “Metal holds heat. Your hands were warmer with the tin cup.”
I looked from the bowl to my yellow cup. The coffee was sweet and milky and hot. You could smell it so much better from the bowl. The sweetness came from the drawer in the pantry.
But next time I’d drink from the yellow mug. Then the mug would be equal with the bowl.
“We need a dog to guard the house,” said the Judge.
I heard him but I wasn’t listening. Rough Ricky had come, and he had gone, and now I could think about other things. I could think about drawers filled with sweetness. I could think about the butter down in the dreaming cellar.
“The dog will be Starling’s dog,” said the Judge. “It will protect her from Rough Ricky.”
Now I was listening. “I don’t need protection from Rough Ricky.”
The Judge sighed and said I had remarkable tenacity of mind, which made Mrs. del Salto laugh. She seemed brighter than usual. Maybe it was because she’d had something to do. She’d had to hold the revolver, she’d had to protect me.
She’d had to make sure she didn’t shoot me by accident.
“The dog will guard the house,” said the Judge. “The dog will sleep in Starling’s room and stay at her side always.”
Even in school? Would the dog come into school with me and lie beneath my feet? But there’d be no room, because the bench was too short and my feet didn’t dangle. I thought of the doghouse, nestled among the outbuildings behind the cottage. “You used to have a dog?”
“We did,” said the Judge. “A bulldog. Great temperament, face like the back of a pan.”
Mrs. del Salto produced a lovely, creamy cake soaked in milk and syrup. You could eat it with a fork or a spoon. I chose a spoon. I knew how to use a fork, but you could trust a spoon.
It was past midnight, and the Judge said that today was the Ides of March, which was supposed to be unlucky, but he said that right now he felt quite lucky. Mrs. del Salto said I’d never sleep after all that coffee, and the Judge said he’d go upstairs and bore me to sleep. Mrs. del Salto actually laughed again.
But what the Judge really did was to bring some planks and nails to the attic so he could cover the broken window. He asked if I’d be afraid to sleep, even with the planks.
“I’d never be afraid of Rough Ricky,” I said. “But I’ll miss looking at the stars.”
“We’ll replace the glass soon enough,” said the Judge. “And with the dog to protect you, we won’t worry about anyone breaking in.” He reached for a plank, then paused.
“Look! It’s late enough—or early enough—to see the Seven Sisters.” He reminded me how to locate them, gliding your eyes from the three stars in Orion’s belt, to the bright, reddish star in the Taurus constellation, to the Seven Sisters. The Sisters were a tight blue cluster. The Judge reminded me I’d probably only be able to see six of them. He was right; I counted twice.
He reminded me of their names. I liked Astra and Estella. But Sidra was also pretty and it also meant Star.
“What about your name?” I said. “Does it mean anything?”
The Judge said that Salto was a word from the language they used to speak and that it meant Jump, or Leap. That’s what his ancestors had done when they followed the Blue Rose to the Indigo Heart.
“Like a leap of faith,” said the Judge. “We had faith that the falling star was to lead us to our true home.”
I thought about the name del Salto. I thought about the star names. The names matched up with their owners. I wondered if Starling would ever match up with me.
“Since there are only six stars,” I said, “that means the Blue Rose is on earth?”
The Judge said Yes.
“When does she visit her sisters?”
“We, here on earth, tend to notice it during the Dark Moon,” said the Judge. “That’s because we can see the stars better with no moonlight to distract us. When you see the Blue Rose as a star, with her sisters in the heavens, you must climb the star steps to the Shrine to thank her for granting you a boon.”
“But what if she hasn’t granted it?” This was one of the things I just couldn’t understand about the Blue Rose.
“You should do so anyway,” said the Judge. “The Blue Rose can see backward, into the past. She can see forward, into the future. You could thank her for something she hasn’t done yet. She’d know how to appreciate that.”
I knew about time—this wasn’t the way time worked. And anyway, what a waste of a perfectly good Thank You! “Do you mean she won’t grant your wish if you don’t thank her first?”
“It’s not as simple as that,” said the Judge. “It’s hard to describe. Her ways are mysterious.”
“Ineffable,” I said.
“The perfect word!” said the Judge.
I had said a perfect word. The Judge knew a lot about words. If he said so, it must be true. The Judge knew about a lot of things.
“One thing we know for sure,” said the Judge, “is that she prefers to be thanked through a Songbird.”
“You used to have a Songbird,” I said. I didn’t need to say it with a question mark.
“Before she died,” said the Judge, “she used to whistle our praises to the Blue Rose, which meant that all of us in the Indigo Heart could hear and raise our voices with her. She united us in thanking the Blue Rose. Three times daily we’d raise our voices, and together, sing out our thanks.”
“But now,” I said, “you have to say the words yourselves.”
“Exactly,” said the Judge. “We cannot hear each other. We have to wait for the bells to ring, and only the stars know what a stumbling and a bumbling we make. We worry that she’ll fade away.”
“She’ll fade away if you don�
�t sing to her?”
“She sang the Indigo Heart into existence,” said the Judge. “And we sing her into existence. Each of us keeps singing to the other—it’s our life blood, so to speak.”
That seemed like an example of the crazy, mixed-up way that time passed for the Blue Rose.
“How did you know Rough Ricky was here?” I said. “Were you sleeping with one eye open?”
“I sleep with one ear open,” said the Judge. “I’ve been expecting something like this for a while.”
He hammered the planks into place. He hammered the Sisters out of sight. Goodbye, Astra. Goodbye, Sidra. Goodbye, goodbye, Estella and Marien.
The Judge could do big clumsy things, like nailing planks. He could do smaller things, like building the plate-wheel beneath the dollhouse.
“You say you’re not afraid of Rough Ricky,” said the Judge, “but I think you should be. You should be afraid of him, and you should be afraid of Gentleman Jack. There’s no shame in being afraid. It’s smart; it protects you from dangerous people. If Gentleman Jack indeed cared for you, and cared for you well, as he claims, I can’t understand how he could allow Doubtful Mittie in among the Gentlemen.”
“What’s wrong with Doubtful Mittie?” I said.
“His hands,” said the Judge. “It shows he’s not safe with children.”
“Maybe he killed a child by accident,” I said.
“That would be manslaughter,” said the Judge. “Manslaughter is when you kill someone by accident. But a person can only acquire that particular Affliction when he kills a child on purpose. And as you know, that’s what we call Murder.”
I did know that, but I wouldn’t think about it.
But I owed Gentleman Jack my gratefulness, not fear. The next time I told him I was grateful, he’d smile his best smile again.
I HAD A NEW DRESS for the Feast of the Blue Rose. I’d tried it on a lot of times so Mrs. del Salto could sew it just right, and after all the trying on, Veronica washed it. The dress was clean and bright, and I took a bath so I could be clean and bright, too. It was pleasant to take a bath in the morning, with the sunshine creeping across the floor, the pots and pans smiling from the walls. The floors in the kitchen were relaxed; they didn’t mind a little water. Mrs. del Salto squeezed lemon juice into my hair. For extra shine, she said.
“You leave the shining to me,” said the dagger.
Mrs. del Salto led me to her bedroom. I’d peeked in before, but I’d never been inside. It was filled with big pieces of furniture painted blue and white. On the chest of drawers was something draped in black cloth. It must be a mirror, covered so Isaac’s and Magda’s souls wouldn’t get stuck. But the rest of the room was all blue-and-white patterns—tiles with paintings of boats, and stripes with flowers in between, and funny blue dogs running along the top of the walls.
There were little tables on either side of the bed, just like in Flora’s room, but Flora kept a derringer on top of hers. Probably the Judge kept his revolver in the drawer. He was tidy that way.
I stood with my arms up so Mrs. del Salto could pour the dress over my head. It took ages to float over and down. It was pleasant to be extra clean and put on an extra-beautiful dress.
“Those colors become you,” said Mrs. del Salto.
By colors she meant lavender, which the dress mostly was, with just enough ivory background to show off the flowery design. There was a lavender velvet collar and a lavender velvet sash, and if you ran your fingernail through the velvet, you’d leave a shining silver line. The shoes had been bought specially for me, too, and had never belonged to Magda. They were laced with grosgrain ribbons that matched the dress.
Lavender was also something you put in a wardrobe to make the clothes smell good. I liked the idea of that—lavender-colored dresses hanging in lavender-scented wardrobes.
“I’m suffocating in here!” said the dagger.
“But you don’t breathe.” I’d stuck the dagger down the inner thigh of my stocking and tied it round with a ribbon. Mrs. del Salto would never find it there.
I sat on a tall stool, in front of the black drapery covering the mirror.
“Hmm,” said Mrs. del Salto. She looked at our non-reflections for a long time. “It’s March twenty-first,” she said, “which is the first day of spring. And it is on this day we celebrate the Blue Rose, because she is our Guide to growth and new beginnings.”
Mrs. del Salto and I looked at our non-reflections for a while longer. “Here’s to spring!” she said, and whisked the cloth away. The room jolted into brightness. The mirror was in a frame, mounted onto the chest, and when you swung it back and forth, the wall leapt with light.
Mrs. del Salto’s face appeared in the mirror. She paused, as though waiting for something, then said, “It didn’t even crack!”
She laughed. That was nice. She usually only laughed when the Judge said something funny. It’s good to be able to make yourself laugh.
Mrs. del Salto swung the mirror to reflect me, then worked out the snarls in my hair. The mirror reflected the black opals in her ring, and her eyes looked like her black opals, just as they’d done on the day we’d played jacks. I thought about how different Magda and I looked. Magda was gold and pink. You could see that in the photograph, even though the colors were only shades of tan and brown. But everything about me was pale, except for my hair and also my eyebrows, which flew up like dark birds.
Mrs. del Salto stopped brushing and looked at me. “Your skin is lovely.” Her voice trailed off, as though she were surprised. As though she were looking at me for the first time. “Like the moon, or a pearl.” That was good. Later, in Netherby Scar, Grandmother would let me try on her pearls, and the pearls and I would match.
The top of the chest was fascinating. There was a glass bowl filled with dried flowers. They smelled like dust and sunshine. There were beautiful little bottles with lots of sides and glimmering angles. They were filled with liquid the color of straw. A straw color went well with blue and white. It was like the cottage, buttercream with blue trim. The cottage went well with itself.
Mrs. del Salto hesitated her finger over a little china box, then fished out a chain. On the chain swung a gold oval with a stone in the middle. “A star opal,” she said. “It belonged to Magda.”
“It doesn’t shine like your opals,” I said.
“The light went out of it when Magda died,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to find it a new home.” She fastened it around my neck. The mirror reflected the opal. The mirror reflected how it warmed to me. It shimmered with light, then blazed into blue fire.
“It’s certainly the right color,” said Mrs. del Salto. “You’ve made it come alive, which means it belongs to you. It will bring you good luck and protect you and give you the gift of clear sight.”
“I already have good sight,” I said.
“I mean a different kind of clarity,” she said. “Such as knowing what to do if you’re confused. Knowledge like that will bring you good luck.”
I had good sight, but I didn’t have good luck. Neither did Gentleman Jack, because he was in jail. Gentleman Jack needed good luck more than I did. Maybe I should give him my opal.
“Am I the only one who can wear the opal?” I hoped the answer would be No.
I hoped the answer would be Yes.
“You are now,” said Mrs. del Salto. “The opal’s warmed up to you. It belongs to you and wouldn’t warm up to anyone else. You must never wear an opal that doesn’t warm up to you. It’s terribly bad luck.”
“I can feel you being happy,” said the dagger, “happy you can’t give the opal to Gentleman Jack.”
“Why don’t you just go back to being smothered!” I said.
The star opal shone at my neck. The black opals shone on Mrs. del Salto’s hand. They matched our eyes. Gentleman Jack had valuable green eyes. I’d have to give him a valuable green opal.
It was a long time before I said, “I forgot to say Thank You.”
“You
don’t need to,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes, which are bright as the opal.”
It was such a big present, and I didn’t even have to say Thank You!
Later, in the library, the Judge said I was dressed in style. He looked at the opal and said how well it matched my eyes.
“That’s another reason not just anyone could wear your opal,” said Mrs. del Salto. “The color of the opal has to match its owner’s eyes with a fair degree of precision.”
“Or else it’s bad luck?” I said.
“Very bad luck,” said the Judge, but he was looking at Mrs. del Salto. He looked at her for a long time, then said she was dressed in style, too. I saw what he meant. There was nothing rusty about her today. Her black silk dress was almost as bright as her black opals; her buttons caught the light. They were made of jet, she’d said. I was learning lots of things this morning.
We squished up in the carriage; I sat in the middle. I kept my hands on my lap so I wouldn’t touch Mrs. del Salto’s dress by accident. If I did, I’d know what silk felt like before I touched Grandmother. I wanted to touch Grandmother first.
Crows cawed all around us as we rode toward town. When you see big clumps of crows, it means winter’s over. The Feast of the Blue Rose meant spring was beginning.
We passed some carriages, and the Judge called out Good Morning and Happy Feast Day, and they called the same thing back. The del Saltos’ horses were the most beautiful and the quickest. They lifted their knees the highest, shaking jingles out of their harnesses.
We were going the long way round, which was what you had to do when you drove into town. You couldn’t drive on the scatterbrained steps with the unsteady bannister. As we dipped toward town, there began a sort of murmuring, which grew into a rush and roar.
“Like water,” I said.
“Like people,” said the dagger, which turned out to be right. The square was crammed with people, more people than I’d ever seen at once, a spring melt of people—
The Robber Girl Page 20