Flora peeled back a bit of blanket. She wasn’t what I’d expected. She was red and creased, as though she’d been folded away in a drawer for too long. She opened her mouth like a blind kitten.
I brushed my finger down her cheek. She turned toward my touch and opened her little red cave of a mouth. How did she know how to do that? How intelligent she was!
“Later,” said Flora, “I’ll let you hold her.”
I knew exactly how to hold her. I’d have to lay my hand beneath her head. I remembered that about a baby—such a weak stem of a neck, such a heavy flower of a head.
“What’s her name?” I said.
“Aria,” said Flora. “Do you remember it?”
“Why would I remember it?”
“It was your name,” said Flora. “Before Gentleman Jack carried you away.”
Aria! I tried to remember it, but I couldn’t. When I got back to the buttercream cottage, I’d look in my almond wardrobe and weigh down the memory.
It was a pretty name, I thought, and it had a pretty meaning. Flora said that an aria was a kind of lyrical song. And then she had to explain that Lyrical meant beautiful and imaginative.
She also said a pretty thing, which was that she was proud for her daughter to have my name and that I matched up with my name.
“You mean I’m beautiful and imaginative?” I said.
“Precisely!” she said, sounding for a minute like the Judge.
“And good at compromise?”
“You’re getting better and better at compromise,” she said.
I thought that the word Compromise was sort of like the word Discomfit. Discomfit had the word Comfit in it. The word Compromise had the word Promise inside of it. I had used to think that compromise was tame, but keeping your promises was important, and compromise was important.
Flora spoke in a voice I’d only heard once before. It was the voice she’d used when she said she wanted a baby to share and love.
“I can never thank you enough for saving John,” she said.
I especially hadn’t expected her to say that. I’d saved Lord John, and at last someone was grateful to me—and I hadn’t even thought about it! Was it better to have it come as a surprise?
It had never come when I wanted it.
A knot for me and Flora’s baby. And now—yes, I was sure of it—I’d had a knot with another baby, in the Before Time. Ever since Gentleman Jack had given me the watch, my head had been filled with half-dreamed opal glimmerings of a baby, who’d grown gradually into a little boy. He’d held the collar of a great dog and staggered around. With the memory came a smell. The smell of lavender. The smell of wardrobes filled with whiteness. The smell of memories.
You could have good memories and bad memories. But if you were going to have any memories, you had to have them both, didn’t you? You couldn’t just keep the good ones and bury the bad.
The memories of my brother were both good and bad. If I wanted the good ones about his flower head, I had to have the bad ones, too. The memory of the two of us, in a room filled with fire. Of a great timber falling and of—
There my memories stopped. But that was all right because almost everything was in plain sight. Doubtful Mittie’s bloody hands had been in plain sight. “Doubtful Mittie murdered my brother,” I said.
“Not murder,” said Gentleman Jack. “It was manslaughter, because he didn’t mean to. He was trying to save you both.”
“If a person gets bloody hands,” I said, “it means he meant to kill the child.”
“It was just that the fire got out of control,” said Gentleman Jack. “Doubtful Mittie couldn’t go back for your brother or for Rough Ricky.”
“The Judge told me that bloody hands mean murder.” The Judge knew everything, and Gentleman Jack knew the Judge knew everything. He fell silent.
Rough Ricky’s scars were in plain sight. “Rough Ricky never had an Affliction,” I said.
“No,” said Gentleman Jack. “He was injured in your fire.”
“It wasn’t my fire,” I said.
“Your fire” and “my fire” reminded me of the Judge explaining the difference between the Judge and the Sheriff setting a trap for Gentleman Jack and Gentleman Jack setting a trap for Marshal Starling.
Gentleman Jack broke the law and fell into the trap. Marshal Starling obeyed the law and fell into the trap. They were pretty different things. Gentleman Jack’s fire had been a trap. Gentleman Jack had broken the law by setting the trap.
All this from a wardrobe filled with whiteness and a phantom sniff of lavender.
Flora waited with me until the Sheriff and Deputy arrived. They bent over Gentleman Jack. They yanked out the dagger, which made him yell. They applied pressure to the wound, which made him yell. But he wouldn’t bleed to death, not with the dagger out and the pressure on. They snapped on the cuffs, which made him yell.
Then, finally, the Sheriff turned to face me. “Thank you!” he said. “Thank you for calling us to arrest Gentleman Jack.”
That made the second time someone was grateful to me. I was surprised. My surprise buds had started to work again.
I was more used to saying Thank You than You’re Welcome, but I said it pretty well anyway, and then I mentioned that Gentleman Jack was wearing a pendant that belonged to me. The Sheriff took it from Gentleman Jack and gave it to me without a word, but he was smiling a rusty sort of smile.
Flora handed me the dagger. “It’s a nice piece,” she said in her usual “sit down and shut up” voice. Her voice was like vinegar, sharp but bracing. “Use it well.”
It fit in the sheath as usual, but nothing could ever be usual between me and the dagger, not now.
The Sheriff and the Deputy propelled Gentleman Jack toward the Sapphire. Gentleman Jack was handcuffed, so the Sheriff didn’t need to wrench his arms behind him.
I walked the other way. I walked until the buildings trickled out and a stone wall ran along the gulch. I hoisted myself onto the wall. I wore both pendants again, the green opal hanging so far down that it lay in the place where my ribs didn’t meet. I wasn’t really wearing it, though, not the way the opal’s owner would wear it. I don’t know why I was so certain it wouldn’t bring me bad luck. Maybe it was all about intention—I just meant to take care of it until I found the opal’s true owner. I knew I didn’t own it. But Gentleman Jack had meant to own the opal, even though it had never warmed to him. Even though it didn’t match his eyes. It was bad luck times two.
The sky was beautifully bright. Now that it was spring, Orion would rise in the east, just before dawn, which it must have been because I found the three stars of Orion’s belt. From there it was an easy eye-hop to the reddish star, and then another eye-hop to the tight blue cluster of the Seven Sisters. I said their names: Astra, Estella, Sidra, Marien, Izar, Vespera, and—
“The Blue Rose!” She had joined her sisters in the sky. Tonight was the night to climb the star steps and thank her for granting the boon I craved, even if she might not have granted it yet.
Even if I might not have craved it yet.
The Seven Sisters were clear and bright, but they weren’t bright enough to help me walk the star steps. I knew who could help me, though. I needed only to whistle three notes: low, high, middle.
One, Five, Four.
I needed only to whistle three sounds: Pa-oh-ah. I whistled, I waited. She wouldn’t be long.
It was easy to walk with Paloma. I could hold her collar without stooping. She nudged me around a bend in the stairs. We curled round jetties of rock. I brushed against it, felt the weight of it: a thousand-thousand tons of pink stone. It smelled like the beginning of the universe. It smelled like the wardrobe of space.
The moon was black, but Paloma could see with her nose. I couldn’t see with my nose, but I could see inside my head, where there were more half-remembered opal glimmerings. I saw my mother’s bird-wing eyebrows. I heard her sing the song about milk and honey. I knew I was in bed because I could smell the
sheets and I could feel the satiny trim on the hem. I was in bed and she was singing to me. I felt her lips press at my cheek.
The stars hung so close, like the cliff swallows’ nests, that I felt I might reach out and pluck them. Stars weren’t cold and distant. They were warm and friendly and smelled of cinnamon.
It’s good to return to a place where you can call a dog from the other side of town and she’ll come running and snuffling your fingers and lick you. It’s good to return to a place where a dog has a collar and the collar is just the right height for your hand. It’s good to return to a place where there are star steps and where there can be no violence.
It’s good when the dagger doesn’t say a word.
I thought about Oakheart’s collar. I’d thought about taking it with me, just in case we ended up in a courtroom and I could produce it as evidence that I’d been to the Harvest Fair. But when I’d given Oakheart his collar, the Judge gave Paloma her own red collar. If I’d taken Oakheart’s collar, maybe Paloma’s collar would have disappeared.
It was excellent that I hadn’t taken it.
I also thought about the coins I’d given away, despite the dagger’s insistence that I keep them. What if I’d kept the coin that was intended for the Shrine? Maybe that would have displeased the Blue Rose. What if I’d kept the Judge’s penny instead of repaying Betsy? Maybe the dagger would have been forced to attack me.
The dagger said nothing.
There was no more Day Zero. It turns out there can never be a Day Zero because nothing can be the way you expect. If you keep expecting and counting, you start to count into negative numbers. That’s the way to unwind your life. But I was going to wind it up.
Candlelight glimmered at the top of the star steps. When there’s a Dark Moon, you can see a burning candle a mile away. But you can’t see the person holding the candle until you reach the top of the stairs. The person handed me a candle and lit it with her own candle. There she stood, in her robes; I waited for her to speak.
“No weapons shall be allowed in this place dedicated to the Blue Rose,” said the priestess. “Surrender them here, or they shall fail to prosper.”
I liked how things kept being in plain sight. No wonder I hadn’t been able to sharpen the dagger after I’d failed to surrender it on the Feast of the Blue Rose. It wasn’t prospering when it couldn’t get sharp. But then I did surrender it to the priestess in Netherby Scar and I was able to sharpen it again.
The opal grew warm; blue fire ate at the darkness. I drew the dagger from the sheath. “May I leave it here?” I said to the priestess. I didn’t need the dagger. I un-needed the dagger.
“You may,” said the priestess. That was all she said, but she looked at me for a while before she took the dagger.
“Come back for me!” cried the dagger. “Don’t leave me here!”
The dagger had been stuck in my mind for about five years, and then it had been stuck in Gentleman Jack for about half an hour. The effect was the same: it was a plug. For Gentleman Jack, it kept his blood from leaking out. For me, it kept my memories from leaking out. But when the dagger had been stuck in Gentleman Jack, memories had come to me. Memories contained in smells and feelings and pictures and words.
I would start saving my memories. I would fold them carefully. I would wrap them around lavender. I would tuck the most delicate ones in tissue paper. I would add them to the memories that were already in my wardrobe.
I would rebuild my memories shelf by shelf.
I walked the path to the Shrine. I stopped when I reached the statue of the Blue Rose. I held up the candle; it shone on her face. It turned her cheek into a silver pear. The eyes in the back of her head let her see into the past. The eyes in the front let her see into the future.
She was the Guide to beginnings and endings. She was at the center of everything. I would crave a boon.
“Please bring the del Saltos a baby boy.”
I had said Please, and I had gotten pretty used to saying Thank You. It would be all right to thank her, I thought. All right to thank her for something she hadn’t yet done but might do. Something she might make happen in the past and let it bleed into our future.
But you couldn’t just say a regular old Thank You to the Blue Rose. You had to raise your voice, you had to praise her in song. And I was a Songbird—
I was the Songbird.
I stood at the edge of the cemetery, looking down at the town. I raised my voice in praise of the Blue Rose. I whistled the delicate, melancholy tune. I whistled it once through, in order to call the people to their windows, so they too could raise their voices.
Lights flickered on in the houses below. The windows filled with smudges. The smudges didn’t look much like people, but you knew they were people because you could hear them. From all around came voices raised in praise of the Blue Rose, together with my whistle. With the words in my whistle.
“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.”
From all around came a melody to heaven.
And then came the bells, the great, lily-throated Shrine bells. They were ringing out the Dark Moon. The birds were already up and singing, but you couldn’t hear them over the bells. They flew in silent bundles of darkness against the dawn. I rang with echoes, I rang with the bells. I burst into a shower of sparks.
Morning stars eddied round me, pale moths winking into dawn. Such strange things I thought! I thought about wildness and tameness. I thought that maybe wildness wasn’t all about sharp edges and chilly nights. My feet could be wild, walking the star steps, but I could also still curl up in a room. I could turn around and around, making it fit my shape. Birds turned round in their nests and birds were wild. Wolves turned round in their dens and wolves were wild.
I could be wild and still have a home.
Now light leaked from the Shrine. People came pouring out. Each carried a candle, a white wax candle like mine, burning with a steady yellow flame. I waited. The Judge and Mrs. del Salto came first. Mrs. del Salto wore a light summer dress with pale embroidery. Only once before had I seen her in white, and that had been her nightgown. I was surprised all over again.
“Our Songbird!” they cried as they drew near. “Our Songbird!”
The light in their faces pulled me toward them. They were magnets, I was a magnet. I couldn’t help it. The Judge caught me, wrapped his arm around my left shoulder. Mrs. del Salto wrapped her arm around my right shoulder. Her dress was soft and smooth. It was silk.
She pulled me round to face her and there came a familiar warmth. It was the warmth of an opal calling out to me, telling me to open my eyes, to see the world clearly.
But it wasn’t my star opal. It was the green opal that hadn’t warmed up to Gentleman Jack. It warmed the hollow place beneath the meeting of my ribs. It pressed against Mrs. del Salto’s midsection.
It was where Flora had had her baby bulge.
The Blue Rose must have looked backward and given Mrs. del Salto a baby, and then looked forward and known I was going to crave a boon for a baby. Maybe Mrs. del Salto didn’t even know she was going to have a baby, not yet. But the opal knew.
The opal belonged to the baby. It warmed to the baby, even through Mrs. del Salto’s fluttery dress. Even through her skin. In a few months, the baby would start to make a bulge, and then it would be in plain sight. But there might be something that was already in plain sight, which would be a blue rose growing in the garden for the baby. I smelled it in my memory, wild and sweet.
And then—yes, I thought: I was the sister. There would be a blue rose for me, too.
Mrs. del Salto kissed my right cheek. “This is our girl,” she said, “returned from the road.”
I wouldn’t have to race to tell them about the baby before three breaths and a swallow passed by. I could tell them when I wan
ted to, which was pretty much Now. I would make them so happy. I would tell them the baby would have green eyes.
The Judge kissed my left cheek. “This is our girl,” he said. “Bright as a star.”
With deep appreciation for Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, without which this book could not have been written; and many thanks to Rosaria Munda, for her loving and careful reading of the manuscript, and in particular, for saving me from dozens of saintly errors.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination
or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2021 by Franny Billingsley
Cover photograph copyright © 2021 by Lee Avison/Trevillion Image
Pages ii–iii image copyright © CloudyStock/Shutterstock
Page numbers refer to the hardcover edition.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted,
or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and
recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2021
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
Candlewick Press
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Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
www.candlewick.com
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The Robber Girl Page 35