Except you were supposed to place the spoon outside the knife. If I were in charge of the rules of cutlery, I’d say the knife should go outside the round, childish spoon. Wasn’t it obvious that the round, childish spoon should be guarded by the fierce, watchful knife?
I didn’t have a Good Thing feeling.
I laid the butter knife diagonally across the bread plate. In the cottage, the butter lay dreaming in the cellar. But what did the butter do here, in Netherby Scar? What did the butter do in the cellar below the cellar of the world?
Morning came slowly in Netherby Scar, or at least the light came slowly. The canyon walls were too close to let you see the stars slide down the sky. The walls were too close to let you see the sun rise.
Somehow, though, the birds knew it was time to wake up and start singing. I recognized their voices—there a lark, there a robin—but their accents were thick and strange.
Grandmother handed me a squat bowl with round sides. It was a sugar bowl. I knew because of the little feet. I took it through the kitchen to the pantry. My tongue was getting ready for sugar. It prickled at the edges with sugar juice.
All the drawers in buttercream cottage opened like butter.
“Not butter again!” said the dagger.
But there was nothing buttery about Grandmother’s sugar drawer. It was cranky and saggy, running downhill and tilting into its own corners. There was no white sugar, only brown, and it was too hard to scoop. You’d have to excavate it with a pick, like gold.
Nothing was the way I’d thought it would be. There was no marble floor. There was no trying on Grandmother’s pearls or touching her skin. It was good I’d touched Mrs. del Salto’s dress. Otherwise I’d never know the feeling of silk.
“Then quit thinking about it!” said the dagger.
Now the men came to eat, not all at once, but in little groups. I waited for Gentleman Jack. Where would he sit? Would he sit at the end of the table? It wasn’t a democratic table. It was long and narrow. The regular people would sit at the long sides; the important people would sit at the ends.
I asked Grandmother where Lord John sat. She said he sat at the end.
I asked Grandmother where Gentleman Jack sat. She said he sat at the side. He never did come to breakfast, though. He slept the whole morning in one of the velvet chairs.
I ate in the kitchen. That was the way I liked it, sitting alone, no one watching me eat. Not the Judge, not Mrs. del Salto. No one watching me put the knife outside the spoon, turning the sharp edge outward so the spoon would be safe.
The father doll had said that people ate more in a crimson room. But the kitchen wasn’t crimson. I would have to wait until later to eat more.
Everything was heavy. My coat was heavy, but I couldn’t take it off. Grandmother’s house was too cold.
My insides were heavy, but I couldn’t take them out.
My pockets were heavy—at least I could empty my pockets. I set the magnifying glass and Grandmother’s photograph on the kitchen table. I unclasped my pendant and set it beside them.
Once I saw them all together, I realized they belonged to each other. They were all about seeing. The opal made you see the right thing to do. The magnifying glass made you see things that were small. And the photograph made you see I looked like Grandmother.
I had three talismans. The number three was strong. I had a strong triangle of talismans.
I reached for the photograph and studied it. I didn’t need the magnifying glass to see that the woman in the photograph had long eyes. They did not look like Grandmother’s round eyes. I didn’t need the magnifying glass to see that the woman had birdsong eyebrows. They did not look like Grandmother’s straight-ahead eyebrows. Or to see that the woman in the photograph had a triangle chin and that Grandmother had a square chin.
Or to see that Grandmother had looked familiar because she looked like Gentleman Jack and Lord John. But I needed the magnifying glass to see the baby. I held it over the photograph, over the baby’s bonnet, over the grayish embroidery that was all but invisible against the eyelet fabric. I drew the glass away, adjusting it to get the best focus.
The word on the bonnet said Darrell.
Darrell.
Darrell meant Beloved.
Darrell.
The word was too heavy. It lay in my mind like a stone.
Darrell meant Beloved.
It was too much to know.
My pockets had been heavy and made me tired. My insides and my thoughts were heavy and made me tired. I laid my forehead on the table, pressed my knuckles into my eyes. I wanted to make my brain go dark, but the word Darrell was too full of letters. They kept my eyes bright.
Darrell. It had so many extra letters. Beloved was a big idea; it needed a lot of letters. Just like the word Friend.
“Sharpen me!” said the dagger.
“But you don’t sharpen,” I said.
“Polish me!” said the dagger.
“But you don’t polish,” I said.
“Sharpen me!” said the dagger.
“But you don’t sharpen,” I said.
“Polish me!” said the dagger.
“Oh, for stars’ sake!” I said. But I borrowed Rough Ricky’s whetstone, just to shut the dagger up. I ran the whetstone along the blade and . . . and I felt the friction! I felt the grit in the stone catching at the dull bits of the blade.
“I told you!” said the dagger.
But the dagger hadn’t told me anything.
I wished I could sharpen myself for Gentleman Jack. But you can’t take a whetstone to your mind the way you can to iron and carbon. You can’t angle a whetstone against your brain—angle it at twenty-two degrees—and sharpen up your mind.
From the sitting room came crashes and yells and the sound of breaking glass. I was running before I was quite awake. I squeezed myself through the narrows of the house. Dark pressed at the windows. I’d slept through the whole day and into the evening.
Gentleman Jack stood in the sitting room. He held a chair by the legs. I knew he was going to throw it. You can throw a chair harder when you hold its legs because you can swing your arms. The chair hit another man in the chest. The man staggered back. Now the glimpse of a black eye, now the whole of his face, now a shiver of recognition: it was the cigar man!
“Fight!” yelled a couple of men. “Knife! Fight!”
Knife? I saw then that the cigar man held a blade. It was only a dumb cigar cutter, but I still wished Gentleman Jack had his Lucretia, or another good knife, like the dagger. I thought about giving the dagger to Gentleman Jack, presenting it to him, my palms side by side, the dagger laid across. I thought of how Gentleman Jack would examine it. I imagined how he’d say:
“You have kept it clean.
“You have kept it dry.
“You have kept it sharp.”
And then he’d pay me a penny.
“I am Jack Royal,” said Gentleman Jack. “I do not pay to enter my own town. I gave this mutt one black eye already, and now—” He curled his fingers into his palm, where he had another black eye, waiting.
“Knife! Fight!” Everyone was yelling now. The words got all mixed up. They didn’t exactly rhyme, but when you yelled them, they started to sound the same.
Gentleman Jack leapt. He kicked the cigar man’s blade hand. The kick made a crack, the kick made the cigar cutter go flying. The cigar man was backing up now, backing up, almost in the foyer, turning to run, which was hard because of having no exits. And Gentleman Jack running after him, scattering chairs and tables, clenching the second black eye in his fist.
“I love Netherby Scar!” said the dagger.
I’d thought I’d love it, too. But it was different from what I’d expected. I thought of how the cigar man had tried to charge me to use the path. Of how I’d thought about my opal pendant and how I’d never give it away so I wouldn’t give away my luck. I’d thought then that I was walking toward my luck, but now I wondered if instead I’d walked away from it.
&nb
sp; The men settled down again. They seemed to be agreeably surprised by the fight. I couldn’t tell what kind of men they were. They wore suits and ties, like the Judge, but they acted like the men in the Sapphire, drinking, smoking, swearing, spitting. Except that Grandmother’s house had little silver cups for spitting.
“Not real silver,” said the dagger.
Why had Gentleman Jack told me I’d have to be quiet in Grandmother’s house? The men were explosions of loudness. Even their spit was loud.
Was this Grandmother’s empire, all spit and tilt and no brown sugar to sweeten it?
Grandmother gave me a broom and told me to sweep up the broken glass, which I did, while she picked up the overturned chairs and tables. “What did I tell you,” said Grandmother. “Jack always makes a mess.” I swept up other crumbs from the fight—bits of splintered wood; a couple of coins; a white porcelain knob with a silver screw in the center; and a brown tooth that probably should have had a screw in the center but had only a hole.
Now Gentleman Jack returned, stretching his cat-smile over his teeth, his black-eye fist open and relaxed.
“There will be no fights in my house, Jack Royal,” said Grandmother. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
Gentleman Jack didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. It was what the Judge would call a rhetorical question.
Grandmother herded us to the velvet chairs, and then we were all sitting, the three of us, around a little table. This was the first time I’d sat on one of the chairs, which should have meant that Grandmother would let me try on her pearls. But I knew now that would never happen. Nothing would ever happen.
“Lots of things are happening,” said the dagger. “Good things like fights are happening.”
“Let’s see what Jack has told you, Girl,” said Grandmother. “What are the tasks I asked of him and John?”
At least I knew the answer to this.
“Fetch unto me the mountain’s gold,
To build our city fair.
Fetch unto me the wingless bird,
And I will make you my heir.”
And then I saw that it was just like the cattle boy’s song. When you put the Mountain’s Gold words to the melody of the cattle boy’s song, they fit exactly. Which had come first? Had the Rosati stolen it from Grandmother, or had Grandmother stolen it from the Rosati?
But that was a dumb thing to think. You can’t steal words.
“You can steal anything,” said the dagger.
“Why do we want the gold?” said Grandmother.
“To build your empire,” said Gentleman Jack.
“I thought this was the empire,” I said.
“Not this dung heap, Girl,” said Grandmother. “Once I have the gold, I’ll transform Netherby Scar into a glittering town that will draw people from hundreds of miles.”
I thought of the Judge talking about Blue Roses and how a city on a hill cannot be hidden. But no matter how much Netherby Scar glittered, people would never see it from hundreds of miles.
“Tell me, Jack,” said Grandmother, “why did I choose Netherby Scar?”
“It’s on the railroad line,” said Gentleman Jack. “People can get here quickly and comfortably. We’ll run a trolley from the railroad station direct to the Grand Hotel.”
“Why do we want the Songbird?” Grandmother was exactly like Gentleman Jack. She liked asking questions.
“The Songbird will sing praises to the Blue Rose,” said Gentleman Jack. “And that will call the Blue Rose’s attention to Netherby Scar.”
An hour ago, I might have said to Grandmother, “But I thought you were the Songbird.” That was because of what Mr. Elton had said, that the woman in the photograph had been their Songbird. It would be hard to un-know what I’d thought for so long, that the photograph was of Grandmother. But the woman held a baby. The baby’s name was Darrell—
I might still have tried to believe it was Grandmother in the photograph. After all, anyone can hold a baby, and things you’ve thought for so long are hard to un-think. But Mr. Elton said I looked like the woman in the photograph, and I knew I didn’t look like Grandmother.
I refused to look like Grandmother.
“The Songbird will praise the Blue Rose, so she’ll bring us marvels,” said Gentleman Jack.
“We’ll sell the marvels,” said Grandmother, but I didn’t understand.
“Why doesn’t the Girl know about the empire?” said Grandmother.
“She’s a little dull, Mother,” said Gentleman Jack.
“Then sharpen her up!” said Grandmother.
“Here’s what we care about,” said Gentleman Jack. “We want people from all over the Territories to spend their money in Netherby Scar. People will come from miles around to crave boons of the Blue Rose.”
“And why will they stay?” said Grandmother. “Even after having craved their boon?”
“Because,” said Gentleman Jack, “we will have built casinos with crystal chandeliers, and dance halls with marble floors, and hotels with mahogany reception desks, and everywhere you turn you’ll be able to purchase lobster dinners and sirloin plates and pink champagne and opals, and every opal will come with our pledge: ‘Good Luck Guaranteed!’ We’ll attract gentlemen with heavy pockets and diamond stickpins who will pay, and pay well, to play—and play hard—with no interference from the law.”
I suddenly saw it all very clearly. I was getting horribly good at seeing. Netherby Scar would be selling luxury and pleasure. Netherby Scar would be selling lawlessness.
“No one likes a town with a sheriff,” said the dagger.
“So, Jack,” said Grandmother, “what do we need first?”
“The gold,” said Gentleman Jack, “to build the casinos and hotels.”
“So, Girl,” said Grandmother, “where’s the gold?”
“In the Indigo Heart,” I said.
“So, Jack,” said Grandmother, “where do we get a Songbird?”
“We crave the boon of a Songbird from the Blue Rose.”
“What happened the last time you craved the boon of a Songbird?”
“The Blue Rose sent me the Girl,” said Gentleman Jack.
“The Blue Rose sent me?” I said.
“How did you know she was no Songbird?” said Grandmother.
“She couldn’t be a Songbird,” said Gentleman Jack. “Not with that voice.”
“The Blue Rose sent me?” I said.
“Then why did the Blue Rose send her?” said Grandmother.
Gentleman Jack shrugged. “Sometimes the Blue Rose sends you a burden, to see if you accept it with an open heart. And when she sees that you do—that you’ve honored what she sent—she sends what you really want.”
I was the spit in Gentleman Jack’s eye.
“I’ve cared for the Girl for many years,” said Gentleman Jack. “I’ve proved myself to the Blue Rose. It’s time to crave another boon.”
“Who inherits my empire?” said Grandmother. “You or John?”
“Whoever brings you the gold and the Songbird.”
“And if you each bring me one?” said Grandmother.
“We have to split it.”
I’d dreamed for so long of living in Netherby Scar with Grandmother, but I’d arrived now and already I had to leave. Was that ironic? Netherby Scar was filled with irony, and it was also filled with iron. “The iron has entered his soul,” the Judge had said. Maybe the iron had entered my soul, too. There was iron in my soul about Grandmother, iron in my soul about Gentleman Jack. The iron told me I had to go back to Blue Roses.
I’d become so good at seeing that I knew exactly what to say. I knew the exact words that would get Gentleman Jack to take me back to Blue Roses. They’d be lies, of course, but I figured I owed Gentleman Jack a few lies. “Lord John already craved his boon. He asked the Blue Rose for a baby—a baby for him and Flora. He asked that the baby be the next Songbird.”
“Why didn’t you tell me!” said Gentleman Jack.
> I didn’t answer. It was a rhetorical question.
A great silence fell among us. I heard only the fire chewing at the log. I had to break the silence before it was too late to speak. “The Blue Rose granted the boon he craved.”
“How do you know?” said Gentleman Jack at last.
“Because of the blue rose that bloomed,” I said, “just outside the Sapphire.”
“When did you start to lie so much!” said the dagger.
“And besides,” I said, “Flora has a bump that shows you she’s having a baby.”
Gentleman Jack paused, then said, “That’s why she refused to visit me in jail. She reckoned I’d figure out their plan and steal a march on her and John.”
“But as usual,” said Grandmother, “John’s way ahead of you.”
“Not for long,” said Gentleman Jack. “I’ll get the baby. I’ll smoke them out! Flora will appreciate that. It’s my signature touch.”
No, it was Rough Ricky’s signature touch.
Gentleman Jack shouted for me and the Brewster Boy to stir our bones. He shouted that we were going back to Blue Roses. He shouted that Rough Ricky was too recognizable to come with us. He shouted that the Brewster Boy and I should get our things together.
I’d leave the copy of the emblem and the wanted poster behind, but the rest of my things were already together—the photograph of baby Darrell, the magnifying glass, and my star opal. I wore the opal; the other things were in my coat pockets. And then it struck me: I’d been in Netherby Scar for one night and one day, and then part of another night, and I still hadn’t taken off my coat.
WE LEFT BEFORE DAWN. The darkness seemed absolute, but I knew it could get still darker. It would get darker tonight. Tonight was the night of the Dark Moon.
Gentleman Jack gave the Brewster Boy a lantern. “Hold it high,” he said.
Back on the old Day Zero, Gentleman Jack, Rough Ricky, and I had ridden first, the three of us making the points of an arrow. But now, on the almost-last Day Zero, Gentleman Jack, the Brewster Boy, and I straggled along in a row. We didn’t make a triangle. We made a line. A triangle is strong, a line is weak. I rode last, in the coattails of the lantern light. The light glanced off the streets, which were sticky as flypaper.
The Robber Girl Page 32