Chime (12 page)

“Robert will walk me home,” said Rose. “I asked him, and he said yes. He will walk me three hundred sixty-three steps until home.”

“Yes, miss,” said Robert. He gave her his arm and she actually took it. Extraordinary.

“All of our books burnt,” said Rose.

“Yes, miss,” said Robert. “I be right sorry for that.”

“But my book didn’t burn,” said Rose.

“No, miss?” said Robert, and off they went: step one. Only three hundred sixty-two more to go.

So there we were, Eldric and I, alone in the square, except for Mad Tom, and Mr. Clayborne’s men laying the London- Swanton line, and a few dozen snips and snails running about, puppy dogs’ tails between their legs.

“You’re a grisly sight,” said Eldric. “Best mop up before you go home. May I?”

He took my shoulders, faced me toward the sun. I leaned against the village well.

“I know a bit about head wounds,” he said, “having given and received so many myself.” I thought of the scar that dipped into his eyebrow, naked and pink as a baby mouse.

“Spit!” He held out his handkerchief.

I spat.

The handkerchief dabbed at my forehead. “Ouch! You’ll have a fine-looking bruise tomorrow.”

“Then you’ll be able to distinguish me from Rose.”

The handkerchief paused. “I could tell you apart from the beginning. You’re quite different to each other, you know.”

Perhaps he could tell, in the obvious ways. The odd one was Rose; the other odd one was Briony.

The handkerchief went to work again.

“So,” said Eldric.

It wasn’t quite a question. It was more of an invitation to tell him whatever I chose. I could talk about Petey, I could not talk about Petey. I could talk about Pearl’s baby or not talk about Pearl’s baby. Eldric gave me a choice, and it was this that made me want to tell him everything.

I’d never met anyone I’d wanted to tell. I wouldn’t, of course, but the thought was comforting.

Comforting in a suicidal sort of way.

“If Petey were a color,” I said, “he’d be puce.”

“Yes, of course!” said Eldric. “What if he were an animal?”

“Rat.”

“Historical personage?”

“Robespierre.”

“Robespierre and the reign of terror,” said Eldric. “Fancy that—I remember Robespierre. Some of the bloodier bits of my lessons must have stuck. Is Petey engaged in a reign of terror?”

“The word
reign
is a bit resplendent for Petey,” I said. “He’s just a two-bit bully. He and his lads were throwing stones at Nelly Daws just now.”

In a few hours, they’d be throwing stones at me too.

“If you were an historical personage,” said Eldric, “you’d be Robin Hood.”

“You must have missed the Robin Hood lesson. He’s not historically real. You’re wrong about me, in any event. I’m no hero.”

“I must respectfully disagree,” said Eldric, which was nice, but ignorant.

“What animal would I be?”

Eldric thought for a bit. “A wolf. It has to be a wolf.”

“I like that,” I said. “Cecil would have made me into a talking mouse with a ruffled bonnet.”

“Anything but that,” said Eldric. “You’re quick and elegant, loyal and fierce.”

Loyal? I wouldn’t correct him.

“If you were a sport, you’d be boxing.”

Ooh, boxing!

“I’ll teach you if you like.”

Some invisible string jerked at a squishy bit behind my ribs. “I should like that.”

Except, first I’d be in jail, and then hanged.

But hanging didn’t seem quite real just then. Perhaps it was because Eldric was taking care of me, which was something that had ceased to be real long ago. I only just remembered it, that hot-bread comfort of being cared for.

When I was ill, before Stepmother came, Father used to spread crisp, white sheets over the library sofa and tuck me up in a special goose-down comforter. I loved running my thumb over its shiny, satiny edging. He’d sit on the end of the sofa and count my fingers and toes, which were always all there. Then he’d pretend to snatch away my nose and tell me I had adorable apricot ears. There was always hot chocolate, and sometimes the smell of lemon and sugar.

“We’ll take it slowly,” said Eldric. “We’ll ease you into being a bad boy. First boxing. Next, stone hurling, which leads naturally to the breaking of windows. You’ll start with an ordinary window, work your way up to stained glass.”

“What next?” I said. “Set your father’s drainage project on its head? Set the water to running backward?”

“There!” said Eldric. “I knew you had proper bad-boy instincts.”

There are certain advantages to having a conversation. One is that a person like Eldric might make you laugh, and you might begin to remember how pleasant that is. Another is that you tell yourself things you didn’t know you knew.

Set the water to running backward.
That’s easy. You don’t even have to be a witch. You just open the sluice gates at flow tide, and all the sea comes rushing back into the swamp.

I had to have this conversation in order to understand how to save my neck from the noose.

“Spit!”

I spat.

I mostly hate talking to people, but talking to Eldric revealed a dazzling possibility. I could sabotage the draining project, and lo, the gloriousness that would ensue: The water would stay in the swamp; which meant the Boggy Mun would be appeased; which meant he’d lift the swamp cough from Rose; which meant that everything would be fine, except for the small matters of concealing my witchiness, and controlling my powers, and keeping Rose safe from me. But once you’ve imagined your head in the noose, these inconveniences are as nothing.

How light I felt. I was ready to play! “We could have a club,” I said. “A bad-boy club.”

Eldric embraced this idea with proper bad-boy spirit. “It must be a secret, of course. We’d need a secret handshake.”

“And a secret language,” I said. “We’ll speak in Latin, so no one will understand.”

Except Father, and who talks to him anyway?

“Here’s the problem with Latin,” said Eldric. “It’s so very secret, I can’t understand a word. Being expelled takes a toll on one’s Latin.”

“Oh, not that sort of Latin, not the ordinary sort,” I said. “It’s the difficult sort of Latin no one speaks anymore. But I’m sure you know it already. It comes from rarely attending to one’s lessons. Here, tell me what this means.
Fraternitus.”

“Fraternity?” said Eldric.

“Very good,” I said. “And what does fraternity mean?”

“Brotherhood?” said Eldric.

“See, you do know the difficult Latin. What does this mean?
Bad-Boyificus
.”

“Bad boy,” said Eldric. “You’re right. I did learn the difficult Latin back in my perhaps not-so-misspent youth.”

“And
Fraternitus Bad-Boyificus?”

“Bad-Boys Fraternity,” said Eldric. “No, I mean
club.
Bad-Boys Club! We’ll need an initiation, of course.”

“Lovely!” I said, which is not, perhaps, initiation-appropriate vocabulary, but I meant it sincerely. An initiation! The very word conjured visions of dark rooms and candles and initiators wearing Spanish Inquisition-style headgear.

“Here’s the most interesting thing about an initiation,” said Eldric. “You never know when it’s to be. So you must watch for it, listen for it, and trust it, even if you’re called at the dead of night. Your fellow fraternitus will never let you come to harm.”

“Frater,” I said. “It’s fellow frater.”

“Done!” Eldric stepped back. “At least you don’t need stitches, which I fear poor Petey will need.”

Poor Petey. I’d like to say I could almost feel a tender spot for poor Petey, but the truth is I’d rather feel at the tender spot on his head and give it a poke.

“It’s a fine day in the Dragon Constellation for us frater,” said Eldric. I agreed and didn’t even correct his Latin. Who needs plurals anyway?

It had in fact grown sunny, warm enough that the greengrocer set a cart of vegetables outside his shop, and Davy Wallace sat on a stoop, grading pheasant feathers, which he did astonishingly quickly with his one hand. If one were an optimistic person, one might say that it was really quite warm.

The day had turned itself inside out. How fragile life is; it can turn on so little. Pearl’s baby dies, but then there comes a spat-on handkerchief, the creation of a brotherhood, and the end of the swamp cough.

Was I really so happy not to die? Was this feeling simply relief? Or was it that Eldric was taking care of me? Stepmother cared for me during those long, foggy months of my illness. I don’t know how she did it, with that injury to her spine. I didn’t deserve care at all. But every time I awoke, there she was, with a bowl of soup, or an herbal plaster, or my writing materials—I couldn’t bear to tell her I was too tired to write: She was so very delighted to be giving me the opportunity.

There is much, I suppose, that I don’t recall of my illness. I had grown so very dull-witted. But should I ever again sink into illness, I’m sure I’ll remember Eldric.

I’ll remember he cared for me. I’ll remember that someone at last had taken the time to touch my face.

“Mistress! Just a word, mistress!”

Not the Brownie, I absolutely would not talk to the Brownie. I slammed the garden gate behind me.

“Have a care, mistress. You almost caught my nose!”

Then you shouldn’t have such a long one.

“Won’t you write the stories again, mistress? I ask not for myself alone, but for all of the Old Ones.”

I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking. I absolutely would not ask why he’d linked his power to mine in order to call Mucky Face.

Why he’d had me injure Stepmother’s spine.

Tonight, I’d keep the world safe from Briony Larkin. No talking to the Brownie. No going into the swamp, not really. I’d only to cut across a corner of the Flats and from there, strike out through the fields of wheat and rye.

Worry buzzed round me like a gnat. There was no one in the Parsonage to keep an eye on Rose. Pearl was still at home, mourning her baby, but even if she’d returned, I couldn’t have asked her to stay past midnight. The whole of the village was asleep. But Rose was asleep too, and Rose sleeps very soundly. That is one way in which we are not at all identical. Rose tells me I talk in my sleep, that sometimes I scream. I’d worry about blabbing my secret, except it’s only Rose. I must make it a point never to sleep with anyone else.

The lantern had already grown heavy, but I held it high. Its yellow light bounced ahead, off the Flats, broke across the fields of rye. It was midnight, the chiming hour, the favorite time of many of the Old Ones—the Dead Hand, the Dark Muse, the Devil.

The Dark Muse is the most wicked of the three; at least I think so. She doesn’t steal the man himself, as the Devil does. She steals his soul and his wits. That counts for a lot, if you ask me. I’d rather be in Hell with my soul and wits, than in the outside world without them.

But the Dark Muse is one of the few things I need not worry about. She only preys on men.

I’d meant to creep up on the pumping station, but instead, it crept up on me. The night was cloudy, no moon shone. My arm sagged under the weight of the lantern, leaving my toes most beautifully illuminated.

Suddenly, there it was, a rise of red brick, striped with new mortar.

A fingernail of fear scraped down my back. Someone might spot me, mightn’t they? None of the Swampfolk was likely to be abroad at the chiming hour, but what about Mr. Clayborne’s men?

Mr. Clayborne might have posted a guard. The station was the heart of the draining operation. If it was destroyed, the draining must stop, and rebuilding would take a deal of time.

I crept round the pumping station—no guard here, no guard at all: Mr. Clayborne trusted the Swampfolk.

I stepped back, forcing the lantern light off my toes, onto the station. It put me in mind of Petey Todd, show-offy and muscular. He was going to be just like the pumping station when he was grown, puffing out his chest and punching his chimney into the sky.

If Petey were a building, he’d be a pumping station.

Petey Todd: disgustimus!

The doors were sneery and unlocked. The polished hardware said, clear as anything, “Wipe your feet!”

I did, but only because I mustn’t leave any traces. Machines hulked in the shadows. The lantern glanced off bits of polished brass and glossy paint. I shone it about, found the switch.

I flicked the switch.

Behold: There was light!

Illuminating gas is extraordinarily clean and white, as though it were piped straight from the stars. The machines sprang from the shadows, fierce as Roman legionnaires in red and gold.

I brought out my weapons: three candles and a book of matches. How small they looked next to the machines, like David’s slingshot next to Goliath. But we know what happened to Goliath.

I pulled at the windows; they closed smoothly—no stick or squeak or scowl. Mr. Clayborne kept his house in good order. I drew a match across the striker’s gritty lip. The flame shone yellow in the piped-in starlight. I lit the candles, one, two, three. There: I was done, save for shutting the door behind me when I left.

An open flame, plus a sealed room, plus illuminating gas—these things added up to an explosive situation. I prowled round the outside of the pumping station, pushing and pulling at doors and windows. All shut tight.

If I was lucky, the explosion would spark a fire.

“Mistress!”

My hands jumped. They’re always the first to be afraid.

My thoughts followed more slowly.
Mistress.
My thoughts turned the word upside down, then right side up again.
Mistress.
I had not been caught—not by anything human.