Chime (13 page)

“I needs must speak to thee, mistress.”

The voice splashed and slapped.

Not human.

I turned toward the estuary, where a wave stood on its tail, like a fish. You think it must fall, but no: It can stand as long as it needs. This I knew from the last time I’d seen it, which was also the first time.

“Two years I been waiting,” said Mucky Face. “I been waiting, but tha’ didn’t never leave tha’ dwelling. I been waiting to tell thee it broke my heart.”

“What do you mean?” I turned away from the pumping station. Best draw away: The station might explode.

“I misliked to strike tha’ stepmother like I done.” Mucky Face followed me along the estuary, beating the water with his tail. “The call, though, it come too strong.”

“But I was the one who called you.” My thoughts lagged behind the meaning of his words. “I told you to strike Stepmother.”

“No, mistress!” said Mucky Face. “ ’Twere an Old One what called me. ’Twere an Old One o’ the wicked, solitary kind. Its power were monstrous an’ catched me at ebb tide.” He paused. “That power, it kilt the minnows what be my friends.”

I shook my head. It was I who’d called him. I’d been angry, of course, and later, Stepmother and I worked out why: I’d been jealous.

Jealousy is never a nice thing to look back upon, but even in the nastiness, I remember the thrill of calling Mucky Face. I didn’t have a word for it then, but I do now: power. Such thrilling power we witches have—over the wind, over the tidal wave, over so many of the Old Ones.

I wish I knew what I’d been thinking. I’m nearly sure I meant only to frighten Stepmother, remind her I’m a witch, make her pay attention to me, not Rose. If I were a praying person, I’d pray it was just power run amok, helped along by the Brownie. Brownies are mad for practical jokes. I’d pray that I’d only meant Mucky Face to stand on his tail, to stretch his boiling strength over the Parsonage, over the garden. That I’d never imagined he’d smash himself upon Stepmother.

I remember it, all of it. I remember the gray water surging from the river, smashing itself to spray, washing over a blue dress. I remember my throat filling with acid, wanting to run to Stepmother, not wanting to run to Stepmother.

I had to save Stepmother. I couldn’t endure life without her. I couldn’t endure life with the guilt of having killed her. I’d barely left the house in a year, since Stepmother had told me I was a witch. Dr. Rannigan. I had to fetch Dr. Rannigan.

I had so many memories. My words couldn’t begin to do them justice. “I called you to crush my stepmother.”

“No, mistress,” said Mucky Face. “’Twere an Old One what called me, an Old One what were born o’ water. Tha’ doesn’t be born o’ water, mistress. I needs must speak direct. Tha’ doesn’t be near strong enough to call me. Tha’ doesn’t be near strong enough to draw me five miles upriver to tha’ dwelling.”

I wished I could believe him, but I am an Old One, I have that power. I called him and he came.

“Forgive me, mistress.”

“Don’t say that anymore!”

I remember running, running from Stepmother’s body to the Alehouse, where I found Dr. Rannigan. My memory now speeding into a jumble of people and voices, into the flooding of the Parsonage. My memory lingering on Stepmother, whom Dr. Rannigan and the Hangman lifted ever so carefully onto a stretcher—

“What do you want of me?” I said.

“I been wanting to come back into the story,” said Mucky Face.

The story, the story, always the story! “All the stories are burnt.”

“Can tha’ not scribe ’em again?” said Mucky Face.

“It’s too late for that.”

“But tha’ needs must scribe ’em, mistress! Scribing, it don’t never die, but a story what be on a person’s tongue—well, there don’t be no person what lives forever an’ aye. Scribe o’ my power that it don’t be forgot. Scribe o’ how I surges into the fringes o’ the sea. Scribe o’ how I dive—”

It was then that the pumping station blew up. Mucky Face tipped backward, exploding into foam. I tipped forward, exploding into a run.

You can run and run. You can run and grow fitter and faster. You can run so much and so fast, you turn back into wolfgirl, running endlessly, effortlessly, through the swamp.

I knew I’d called Mucky Face. I knew Mucky Face had injured Stepmother. But I was running, running like wolfgirl, outrunning my memories.

You can outrun your memories, but sometime, you will have to stop. And when you do, there will always be Stepmother, waiting to be remembered.

Look at me, Briony, walking and talking with a boy-man. Tonight is the first meeting of the Fraternitus Bad-Boyificus. Eldric and I walk along the towpath. The sun sits on the river like a great orange yolk. Eldric and I admire it.

It feels as though it’s been months since Eldric arrived, but it’s been only five weeks. If you want to stretch out your life, here’s my advice: Look about for new experiences, lots of them. It slows down time. Here are the experiences I recommend: Sit down to breakfast with a person, actually sit and eat and talk. Plan the details of a secret club while your father reads the paper, and even if your father realizes what you’re doing, it’s all right, because you’ve kept the important thing secret.

No one knows about the fraternitus.

Pardon me: Fraternitus. It’s the sort of word that simply begs for a Capital beginning.

The Shire horses have marked the path with their great dinner-plate hooves. We put our feet inside their footprints, we laugh.

Briony feminina regularitatis est.

She is a feminina regularitatis who deserves a holiday, just for this one evening. Listen to what she did. Hark unto the extreme cleverness of Briony Larkin.

I deserved a holiday, and I deserved to dispense with the laces and trusses expected of a clergyman’s daughter. I wore my oldest frock, which looked remarkably like a potato sack, and I wore very little beneath. I should never have imagined how lovely that feels. It’s most freeing, and it gives you the delicious sense you’re on your way to moral degeneracy. I shall soon be painting my lips and drinking gin.

The first meeting of the Fraternitus Bad-Boyificus was also to be my first fighting lesson. I made a fist and showed it to Eldric.

“Fistibus Briony.” I shook my fist. “Eldric terrorificorum est?”

“Terrific? I’m terrific!”

“Not terrific!” I said. “Quite the opposite. Listen carefully: terrorificorum.”

“Hmm,” said Eldric.

“Grant me patience, O Jupiter Magnificum!”

“Not terrified!” shouted Eldric at last. “Never terrified of Briony’s fistibus!”

We laughed and laughed. I was aware that I didn’t hate myself, which left me in a philosophical dilemma. Should I hate myself for not hating myself?

Briony destere Briony.

It doesn’t quite have the same ring.

I initiated conversation, like this:

“Do you think you’ll return to London?”

I found myself truly interested in what the answer was to be.

“Not for some time,” said Eldric. “Father intends to find another tutor willing to spend at least a year in the Swampsea. I feel it my obligation as a bad boy, and a founding member of the Fraternitus, to complain whenever he speaks of staying on. So please don’t mention how very glad I am to stay.”

“Mumibus wordium,” I said, although I knew that Mr. Clayborne knew Eldric was fond of the Swampsea, and that among the three of us—Mr. Clayborne, Eldric, and me—each of us knew the others knew. There’s an example of the Clayborne family language. It’s a silent language, but dead opposite to Father’s. And I, Briony Larkin, was beginning to pick it up. I learn languages quickly. Have I perhaps mentioned that?

“Speaking of tutors,” said Eldric, “I wonder that your father let you go without lessons since that Genius Fitz of yours left. I hope I’m not being a nosy parkerium.”

“You can’t blame Father,” I said. “Or, rather, you can blame him, and I certainly invite you to do so, but it will have to be for something else. Father intended to send me to school. It was all arranged, and my trunks were packed, but Stepmother fell ill and I stayed to care for her.”

“Surely there were other suitable people who might have done so?”

“It’s difficult to explain.”

It was impossible to explain.
Stepmother fell ill.

But that wasn’t quite true. Stepmother also fell.
Stepmother fell.
Mucky Face smashed her, and she fell. Which made her fall ill.

I made Stepmother fall and she fell ill. I made Rose fall, and she fell ill.

I hadn’t known what I was doing at the time, but I remember both incidents entirely. My life changed in the few minutes it took for Stepmother to tell me about them. I couldn’t leave her then, of course, not the Stepmother I’d injured. I couldn’t leave her ill, and alone, to care for Rose, whom I’d also injured.

I may be wicked, but I’m not bad.

Eldric turned toward me on soft lion’s feet. Some witchy antenna picked up waves of indignation: Eldric was ready to pounce. “So you sacrificed—”

“Not
sacrifice!
” I hate that word. Father used it in his one-sided arguments with Stepmother.
Is it fair that Briony sacrifice her life for you and Rose?

Father lost control of his voice when he and Stepmother argued. It was no longer the crisp, laundered voice of the clergyman, or even the curling ribbons of his irritated voice. Instead, he shouted. The Reverend Larkin actually shouted.

But in this particular argument, Eldric was the quiet one and I was the one with a throat-full of shouting. Shouting is angry, and Briony plus anger is dangerous. Briony plus anger results in something like Mucky Face.

I ought not to shout. I ought to forget that I’d been longing to go to school after Father dismissed Fitz. That I’d have seized the chance to go anywhere, but especially to London, and school!

Eldric and I had stopped walking now. We had stumbled into an argument.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “Father and Stepmother told me to go, but I refused. I unpacked my trunks.”

I’d sat that day at Stepmother’s side in the sewing room. She couldn’t manage the stairs, not with the injury to her spine. Her beautiful black hair streamed over the pillow. She smiled her generous smile—how could she bear to smile after what I’d done? She’d be in pain for the rest of her life.

Fitz was not always kind about her; he said her teeth were too big. But he was jealous, I think. We’d been the best of companions, he and I, but when Stepmother came into our family, she became my best friend and Fitz second best.

“I know things are done differently here in the Dragon Constellation,” said Eldric. “And I know that when in the Dragon Constellation, it’s wise to do as the Dragon Constellationers do
.
But I can’t help bringing up a tradition from my native Earth. Parents there are expected to give their children opportunities. Not every parent, of course, but parents like your father, and mine. We expect them to open doors for their children so they can march forth into the world.”

March fourth. Eldric’s birthday.

March forth!

“But I told you, Father gave me opportunities.”

“And your stepmother?”

“I told you that too. I was the one who wanted to stay—who decided to stay!”

Stepmother had taken my hand in her own cool one. She was always cool, and that day, the sewing room was positively chilly. She disliked fires, even on the coldest nights. “You do see what happened,” she said. “Don’t you, darling?”

I did see, much as I wished I didn’t. She laid out the events, like puzzle pieces. She never told me what happened. She left me to draw my own conclusion.

Puzzle piece number one: Stepmother had been sitting under the parlor table with Rose, helping her with those infernal collages.

Puzzle piece number two: I’d stood in the parlor door, watching, and I said something about not understanding how Stepmother could bear the tedium.

Puzzle piece number three: I stood gazing across the river, to the swamp. Stepmother came into the garden, Mucky Face rose from the water.

I did see what I might have been thinking. I knew exactly what I’d been thinking. I was jealous that Stepmother had spent such a deal of time with Rose. My jealousy had called up Mucky Face.

“If your stepmother really wanted you to march forth,” said Eldric, “she shouldn’t have accepted your—well, I won’t say sacrifice.”

“Except that you just did,” I said. “And in any event, you don’t understand.”

But my argument was slipping away from me. I knew I was right, but I couldn’t explain why. We turned toward the bridge. Our feet whispered over the silvered wood. The lion-boy was quiet; the wolfgirl was quiet. I’ve been training the wolfgirl, running her up and down the stairs, when no one’s about to see. It’s marvelously exhausting.