This was another example of time running in both directions, like trains on a track. Wouldn’t they just crash into each other?
We rose for the final time. The flutes and pipes played again. It was the music that went with the words of praise to the Blue Rose. Finally, something I recognized!
“The bird sang like a star,
Exalting near and far
The brightest Sister Seven.
With grateful joy we raise
Our voices in her praise:
A melody to heaven.”
I mutter-said the words, like the Judge, because I had an ugly voice and I couldn’t sing. But how had I even been able to say the words with my Affliction? Maybe the priestess had been speaking to me—to me alone—even though she was also speaking to everyone else. That would be very priestess-y.
It had felt a long way walking up to the Shrine, but it was all downhill back to the square. The Judge passed coins to the boys who had watered and walked the horses. Off we went again, the horses lifting their beautiful, delicate legs higher than the other horses, shaking bells into the air.
A heavy moon sat just above the horizon. “A full moon!” I said. How strange it was that the Feast of the Blue Rose should be on the night of the full moon, when what the Blue Rose really liked were nights of the Dark Moon.
I tried to express this, and the Judge said that maybe the word I wanted was Ironic. That Ironic meant something happening the opposite way from how you thought it should.
My eyes started puffing in and out, which is what happens when you’re tired. Or maybe it’s that your eyes stay the same and the scenery keeps puffing in and out. My eyes closed themselves, and my head bobbled of its own accord against Mrs. del Salto’s shoulder. I thought maybe she wouldn’t like that, but my head was too heavy to lift. The Judge must have thought I was asleep, because he said a sort of personal thing to Mrs. del Salto, the kind of thing he’d never say in front of me. He said that the Blue Rose’s ways were mysterious and that Mrs. del Salto shouldn’t turn her back on the Blue Rose for not having granted her boons.
Then the Judge corrected himself. “For seemingly not having granted your boons. You have to remember to keep your heart open to whatever the Blue Rose may bring.”
Mrs. del Salto lost the nice voice she’d had all day. “I don’t want to open my heart, Marcus,” she said sharply, as though she was still fitting me for the lavender dress and her mouth was still a hedgehog of pins. “And I most certainly don’t appreciate being used in a game of Russian roulette—”
The Judge hardly ever interrupted, but he did now. “And don’t close your eyes to whatever the Blue Rose might already have brought.”
“Russian roulette,” said Mrs. del Salto. Her shoulder had gone stiff. My head joggled against her bones.
Russian roulette? I knew what roulette was, although it was hard to imagine the Blue Rose playing it, bending over the spinning wheel, looking at it with all her eyes, including the one at the back of her head. But if she did play, I’d bet she’d win. The Blue Rose was probably pretty good at roulette.
“It’s humiliating,” said Mrs. del Salto. “Crawling to her to crave that Magda and Isaac be spared from the pox. Then begging her to bring them back—”
Her words swam like minnows, in and out of my ears. I wanted to listen, but I was too tired. Mrs. del Salto had craved boons of the Blue Rose. This was something to think about when I had more light in my brain.
I woke up just as we neared the cottage, and as we made the last turn, a murmuration of starlings swirled into the sky.
“Look at them!” said the Judge.
They were like the bells that rang from the Shrine. They lit you up from inside. How did they know how to twirl themselves into a ribbon, to fan across the sky, to pleat themselves into the folds of an accordion?
They were like metal filings, drawn in the same direction by a magnet. Now the magnet tugged in one direction; now the magnet tugged in another. And then I thought of what the dagger had said about iron in blood, and what the dolls had said about the Indigo Heart attracting the people it wanted to keep, and about how the Indigo Heart was filled with magnets.
I kept thinking about Magda and Isaac and how Mrs. del Salto had craved two boons for them to live. And then I thought that babies were also like magnets and that the Blue Rose made them stick to you.
And then I wished I had more magnets so I could fly with the Judge and Mrs. del Salto, fly as the starlings flew, always swooping in the same direction, seeming to know when the others would move.
“No, you don’t,” said the dagger, which shook me into wakefulness.
The dagger was right. I was no starling. Starlings went about in murmurations with thousands of other starlings. I did not swoop about with thousands of other people. I went about only with Gentleman Jack.
I STILL HADN’T VISITED GENTLEMAN JACK.
“Because you haven’t destroyed Grandmother’s photograph,” said the dagger.
I’d tried explaining myself to the dagger, but it could never understand how the photograph rang a pearly bell inside my mind. How I couldn’t bear to think of losing that bell. But Gentleman Jack had been asking for me again. I had to go now.
“Sharpen me!” said the dagger, which always wanted to be sharp for Gentleman Jack.
I wanted to be sharp, too, but I couldn’t sharpen myself, and now I couldn’t even sharpen the dagger. I’d slid both edges of the blade over a whetstone. I’d slid it at the correct angle, which was twenty-two degrees. But the dagger wouldn’t sharpen.
“You’re not doing it right,” said the dagger.
“I’ve sharpened you a million times,” I said.
“Not a million,” said the dagger.
First, I raided the pantry for butterscotch. The good thing about the Judge was that he’d bought butterscotch for Gentleman Jack—enough for a long time. The bad thing about the Judge was that maybe he was keeping an eye on the level of the butterscotch, watching to see if I was visiting Gentleman Jack in secret.
It would be like a butterscotch thermometer: the more the butterscotch went down, the more time I’d been spending with Gentleman Jack.
But that didn’t sound like the Judge. He wasn’t sneaky that way.
I had to slip off in secret because the Judge didn’t want me going about on my own. Not until the guard dog arrived, anyway. But it took a long time to train a good dog, and we were still waiting.
What if the dog arrived after Day Zero? Would they send the dog to Netherby Scar to find me? Maybe that would be what the Judge called Ironic. What if the dog brought me back? It would be extra ironic if the dog stopped me from stealing myself.
Nothing in the Sapphire had changed, not the curling piano music, not the bulgy glass eyes of the moose. How did the moose manage always to be looking at you no matter where you were? There was the yellow smell of old cards and the raw smell of pink gin.
Flora sat in a deep chair, wearing a black dress with a pattern of gold horseshoes; the ribbon around her neck was gold. Her baby bulge was bigger. The horseshoes climbed up and down the bulge. I went over to her, and when Lord John saw me, he did, too. Flora wrapped an arm around my waist. “What’s on Jack’s mind now?”
“He said to remind you about Lucretia,” I said. “He said to remind you that Lucretia is sharp.” He’d actually said to remind Flora about the way Lucretia scores, but it meant the same thing.
“I remember,” said Flora. “What do you think, John?”
“I think,” said Lord John, “that we should be very afraid.”
They both laughed.
No one laughed at Gentleman Jack. No one made fun of him. Their laughter struck me like one of the great bells in the Shrine. But the bells could stand being struck. A bell is made to take the strike and transform it into a great golden voice. I didn’t have a golden voice, though. If you struck me, I’d just fall down.
“He wants you to visit him in jail,” I said. “He wants to talk t
o you.”
“I appreciate the invitation,” said Flora, “but tell him I’ll pass.”
“He sure doesn’t give up,” said Lord John. “You can say that about Jack.”
“You should call him Gentleman Jack,” I said.
You couldn’t call Gentleman Jack just Jack, and laugh at him, without a storm of fire and lightning. Rough Ricky’s bombs were firestorms. One of them would make Lord John stop laughing.
“Jack doesn’t mind a little informality,” said Lord John. “Not between friends.” But Lord John didn’t have a friendly voice. I wished I was wearing the opal pendant. Maybe it would tell me if Lord John was really friendly. But the opal didn’t speak clearly. It grew hot, it grew cold. Hot, cold. What did it mean? Anyway, I could only wear it after the guard dog arrived. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about someone stealing it.
Someone like Rough Ricky.
“What’s Russian roulette?” I said.
“My stars!” said Flora. “What put that in your head?”
“Mrs. del Salto said that when she asked for her children back, the Blue Rose played Russian roulette with her.”
“Hmm,” said Flora. “John, see if your silver tongue can fashion an explanation.”
“Tell me,” said Lord John, “how many chambers does a revolver have?”
“Six, usually,” I said.
“What if you loaded the revolver with one bullet, leaving five empty chambers. Then you spun the cylinder, held the gun to your head, and pulled the trigger. Your odds of survival are one in six. It’s a game of chance, which some find exciting.”
“I bet they change their minds if they end up dead,” I said.
“I bet they do, too,” said Lord John.
“But what did Mrs. del Salto mean?” I said. “About Russian roulette and the Blue Rose.”
“She might mean,” said Flora, “that the Blue Rose appears to act randomly. Sometimes she grants the boon you asked for. Other times she gives you something else entirely. I can see that a person would be mad if she asks the Blue Rose to save someone she loves and the Blue Rose lets that someone die.” Flora set her hand on her stomach. On the baby, really. “But she always gives you what you need even if it’s not what you want.”
“Why do you want a girl?” I said. Most everyone—including Gentleman Jack—would rather have a boy.
“That’s a big question,” she said. “One thing I like about women is that they’re generally better at compromise than men.”
But compromise was tame. Compromise was giving in.
“Gentleman Jack never compromises,” I said.
“My point exactly,” said Flora.
“Why do you want a baby?” I said.
“It’s someone to love,” said Flora. “It’s someone to share with another person.” Her voice was different than usual. It was a love-and-share voice.
“Are you sharing it with Lord John?” I said.
“I am,” said Flora. “And if it turns out that we didn’t get what we expected, we will try to be philosophical and discover what it is that we need.”
Philosophical. That was the word Mrs. del Salto used. “Does Philosophical mean to accept your sorrows?” I said.
“That’s a very neat explanation,” said Flora, which I think meant Yes.
“Do you remember the story about you and Gentleman Jack going to the Fair?” said Lord John.
Of course I remembered. It was something that hadn’t happened, but it felt more real than anything.
“You need to practice telling the story,” said Lord John. “You want to be word perfect for the trial.”
“Not word perfect,” said Flora. “That’s unnatural.”
I didn’t think I’d be word perfect. None of my words had ever been perfect. But I practiced the story. I described the great horses with the hair falling over their feet, and the lemonade, and the shells and the peas, and the gingerbread.
“Here comes a part we haven’t talked about,” said Lord John. “At the end of the day, you and Jack walked to the edge of the fairgrounds to rest. And in the dust . . .”
He paused. “Don’t forget the dust. It was at the end of the day and very hot and dusty.”
“Which was after I had not been sick,” I said.
“Which was after you had not been sick,” said Lord John. “That’s when you found these.”
He poured a string of beads into my palm. They were yellow, green, and blue. “They were scattered in the dust.”
“Later,” said Flora, “when you got back to the hideout, you strung the beads on this string.”
I nodded. I pictured myself stringing the beads. I pictured myself wetting the end of the string with my tongue, pulling it to a point with my fingertips, easing it through the little openings in the beads.
“It’s a good detail, those beads,” said Lord John. “There were several peddlers at the Fair, selling beads and tins and other whatnots. A judge and a jury will believe a child found beads in the dust.”
I let the beads slide through my fingers. It was not a long strand, not even long enough to go around my wrist. I would remember the story. My mind scurried about, nailing the details into place. Peddlers—that was one detail. Bang! Dust—that was another detail. Bang! I tucked the beads into my pocket; I tucked the story into my mind.
“What should I tell Gentleman Jack?”
“Tell him I remember,” said Flora.
I was just pushing through the swinging doors when a voice said, “Hey, Girl!”
I turned around. The owner of the voice stood at the bar. He made a shadow in the mirror.
“It’s Robber Girl to you!” I said. I could say that here, in the Sapphire. Flora and Lord John would stand up for me. I could say whatever I liked.
I stood a little apart from him. He turned out to be a biggish boy. “You tell Gentleman Jack something for me.” A biggish boy with a biggish ambition. “You tell him the Brewster Boy is wanting to join the Gentlemen.”
“You tell him.” No boy was going to tell me what to do—especially no half-baked boy. That’s what the Brewster Boy was, mostly raw, with red wrists that stuck out of his sleeves and little face-pricks of hair trying to be whiskers.
“You’re the one can tell me how to join up.” He stood beneath the moose head, but his gaze was as exactly unlike the moose’s as it could be. Instead of looking at everything, his eyes looked at nothing in particular, now shambling off in one direction, now another, now stumbling in to focus on me.
A thought like a dark plum dropped into my mind. I remembered standing right here, beneath the moose head, hating Betsy Elton, vowing to get even—
“Revenge at last!” said the dagger.
Yes, revenge—revenge and estrangement. Betsy would be sorry for everything she’d said to me. “There’s a girl at school,” I said. “Betsy Elton. Gentleman Jack hates her.” That wasn’t exactly untrue. He’d hate her if he knew her.
“Not ‘Not untrue’ again!” said the dagger.
“You find out what she looks like,” I said. “She lives above the General Store and has yellow hair.” I would not say the word Ringlets; I refused to say it! “Then you come to school and give her a scare. It has to be at school, so I can see it.” Not to mention that there’d be no adult other than Mrs. Elton to protect her. “So I can tell Gentleman Jack what you did.”
“Done and done,” said the boy. “I’ll scare her real good, and you can tell Gentleman Jack the Brewster Boy is wanting to join the Gentlemen.”
“The Brewster Boy,” I said, as though memorizing his name. But it was a dumb name. It was too dumb to forget.
“Then I’ll get in with the Gentlemen,” said the Brewster Boy. “I’ll get me some bloody hands, just like Gentleman Jack.”
“Gentleman Jack doesn’t have bloody hands!” I said. “He’d never kill a child. No hurting, just scaring. If you hurt Betsy, Gentleman Jack won’t let you join the Gentlemen.”
“Do you got any of Gentleman Jack’
s gloves?” said the Brewster Boy.
“Twenty dollars a glove,” I said. I turned away from the Brewster Boy. I had to see Gentleman Jack.
For once, I didn’t have to wait in the Sheriff’s office. The Deputy rose when he saw I’d come alone. He smiled his big, easy smile and said he could guess why I was there.
I showed him the bag of butterscotch. He opened it briefly and said, “No axes in there!” Then we were through the ghost-mouth door and into the cell block.
Gentleman Jack rose when he saw me. He gripped the bars, hard. His gloves were filthy, stained with rust and grease and plink water. The silence was terrible. Please, Gentleman Jack. Ask me what my name is. Ask me who saved me in the wilderness. Ask me what I owe you, and I’ll say I owe you all my gratefulness.
“Don’t tell me the Judge kept you away again,” said Gentleman Jack.
That was my plan. “Butterscotch.” I passed the bag through the bars. That was all I’d tell him about the Judge, which was nothing.
Gentleman Jack smiled. It was a cat-smile. I’d never quite seen it that way before. Cats smile over their teeth. Cats smile over mouthfuls of cream.
“Tell me about Flora,” said Gentleman Jack.
“I told Flora to come visit you,” I said.
“And?” said Gentleman Jack.
“She said thank you for the invitation but that she’ll pass.”
“And?” said Gentleman Jack.
“I reminded her about Lucretia.”
“And?” said Gentleman Jack.
“She said she remembers.” These were all the wrong questions.
“Where’s Grandmother’s photograph?” That was especially the wrong question.
“I destroyed it.”
The Robber Girl Page 22