Chime (20 page)

I waited until Eldric caught up with me. I felt like a kettle on the boil, hiss and steam. This—yes, this must be the feeling of happiness. I must hold on to this feeling.

I opened the oilcloth. Inside lay a small, square box. I opened the box. I sat back on my heels.

I didn’t know what to say. A skylark sang. It was almost dawn.

In the box lay a wolfgirl made of wire and pearls. Gray pearls. Tiny wires, tiny pearls, twisted round and round into the very shape of a wolf, into the very shape of a girl, into the very shape of Briony.

I didn’t know what to say. I clutched the wolfgirl Briony.

“Off we go.” Eldric reached for my hand. His eyes were white and gold. “One of the tricks to being a bad boy is not to get caught. My father will be rising soon.”

I flew to my feet, mucky to the shoulder, he mucky to the chest, his curls flecked with mud, my own hair hanging over my shoulder in muddy rats’ tails.

He wouldn’t have made a treasure for Leanne, would he? And anyway, what Eldric-fidget could possibly represent that tangle of clichés?

Birdsong rose all about as lion-boy and wolfgirl walked home. They were hardly tired. “You seemed ill last week,” I said. “Especially on the night of the garden party. But here you are, quite—”

Quite what? Quite well? Such a feeble word for an electric boy.

“Quite!” said Eldric. “And in tip-top bad-boy fettle. I attribute my recovery to the restful week I spent with Father, reviewing the letters of application from all my would-be tutors, poor fellows. I resent feeling unwell, you know, as I can no longer say I never fall ill.”

We left the Slough for the Quicks. We passed a slurp of green water where an egret stood laughing like a madman.

“It was quite nice, really, spending a week with Father. I hardly wanted to sneak out at all.”

By the time we reached the Flats, a silver eyelid winked from the eastern horizon. It winked the Quicks into emerald splotches and pale shimmers.

We reached the back garden. The gray slate roof skittered up and up to my bedroom window. “It’s going to be harder going up,” I said.

“Mmm,” said Eldric. I felt rather than saw that his attention had shifted. “Do you remember what I said just now?”

I followed the direction of his gaze.

“That it was quite nice spending a week with Father.”

The garden door was ajar. Father and Mr. Clayborne sat on the stoop, waiting.

“I’ve changed my mind,” said Eldric.

We sat in teams of two. Eldric and I at one side of the dining room table, smelling of plant squish and rotten eggs. Father and Mr. Clayborne at the other side, smelling of strong tea and leftover sleep.

It brought to mind the day Eldric arrived. I remembered standing in the dining room with all those men gobbling up the air and clogging up the mirror. But the numbers had changed, the alliances shifted. The teams were equal now.

Mr. Clayborne cleared his throat. “Eldric!” But instead of looking at Eldric, he looked at Father. Father looked at Mr. Clayborne, who cleared his throat again. “I always thought you good-hearted, despite your eternal pranks and mucking about.”

“I like mucking about.” Eldric turned a couple of toothpicks into swords, which leapt into mortal combat.

“But I never thought you could do anything so wicked.”

“Wicked,” said Father.

Wicked? I was the wicked one.

“Mucking about isn’t wicked.” Eldric wore his lazy lion’s smile. He didn’t mind what he was called. He was a sticks-and-stones sort of person.

“Imagine my surprise,” said Father, “when I came to look in on the girls and what do I find?”

His voice hadn’t undergone its morning ironing. “Or, rather, what I don’t find. I don’t find Briony.”

“You check on us at night?” How horridly reminiscent of Dracula, a Dracula clergyman, who has just a little trouble with crosses.

“From time to time.” Father drew his palms down his cheeks. “It takes me back to the days when we’d sing together at night.” He stretched out his eye-wrinkles.

“But I was awake then,” I said.

“Yes,” said Father, his eye-wrinkle insides all soft and raw. “You were awake then.”

“En guard!” Eldric’s toothpick-swords leapt to ready position. “Parry—thrust!” The toothpick-sword leapt at my finger.

“Don’t touch my daughter!” Father’s scratch-lips ripped apart. His teeth were too big.

A horrid, heavy silence followed, a Dracu-clerge silence, while Father reset his lips into their proper scratches.

“So that’s what you think.” Eldric rolled the toothpicks between his thumb and forefinger.

“What else are we to think?” said Father’s wrinkled voice. “The two of you, missing all night.”

“Have a little trust!” Eldric’s voice rose. “I may lounge about and laugh, but to think you’d believe I’d behave—that is to say, your daughter and I—and I, a guest in your house!”

Snap! Bits of toothpick-sword fell to the table.

Understanding came like a kick to the stomach. They thought Eldric and I were together—together the way boys are with girls.

“Returning at dawn,” said Mr. Clayborne. “Together.”

“For God’s sake!” shouted Eldric. My shoulder-wings jumped. Now they were all shouting, Eldric, Father, Mr. Clayborne.

I plugged my ears. I hate shouting. It makes my ribs go tight.

It was stupid to think I could be a bad boy. Of course I couldn’t. There’s no point in trying anything new.

You try your first step. What then? You have to walk everywhere.

You have your first conversation with the Boggy Mun. What then? Your sister gets the swamp cough.

You try your first initiation. What then? You have to—

Eldric tapped my arm. I unplugged my ears.

“We appear to have misjudged the situation.” Father’s eye-wrinkles had slipped back into place. “Mr. Clayborne and I are sorry.”

I waited for the
but
part. There was bound to be a
but.

“It seems I am a bad influence on you,” said Eldric. “This comes as quite a surprise, as I have found you wonderfully impervious to influence.”

They were to forbid me to see Eldric, weren’t they? I needed a safe place to put my gaze. It was easiest to look at the bits of toothpick-sword.

“It’s really more that you’re a bad influence on Eldric.” Mr. Clayborne smiled to show he wasn’t serious. “Eldric’s new tutor, Mr. Thorpe, is to arrive next week. You and Eldric were to have lessons together, as you know—”

“I’m not to share Eldric’s tutor?”

“I told them you help me learn, but they didn’t listen,” said Eldric.

“I miss Fitz,” I said. My brilliant Fitz. “When shall I ever have lessons?”

“Fitz was hardly suited to be a tutor,” said Father.

“Just because of the arsenic?” I said. “It never interfered with our lessons.”

“One doesn’t leave one’s daughter alone with such a man,” said Father.

“Why ever not?”

But of course he wouldn’t tell me. Which means, of course, he couldn’t think of a single reason why.

The early light came in at the window and glanced off the stubble on Father’s jaw. Father hadn’t ironed his voice, and he hadn’t shaved, either. But Father always shaved. Where was the father who left me alone?

“It’s not that you’re a bad influence on Eldric,” said Mr. Clayborne. “Of course not. But I’ve come to see that he’s steadier, more level-headed, with young women who are rather older than you.”

Not Leanne!

Not that rather older young lady!

Yes, Leanne. “She is a clever young lady,” said Mr. Clayborne, “and has been wanting to continue her studies, but her circumstances have been rather straitened of late.”

Leanne to study with Eldric? To sit across from him, every day? She’d take pains, I supposed, to resemble a painting by this mysterious Klimt—all in gold, flowers in her hair, in a state of tasteful undress.

The rather older young lady, who was very old, indeed. Or so she’d told Rose, oh how terrifically funny, ha-ha, top marks! I let myself imagine she was telling the truth. If she were very old indeed, she’d have to be an Old One, and Eldric would discover her true nature and cast her off in her petticoat . . . No, best keep her in her clothes. I was an Old One, but I’d never be very old indeed. Unfair that we witches live only a mortal lifespan, that we’re deprived of the infinity of experience that makes the Boggy Mun so tricky.

The Boggy Mun and his tricks . . . How had I not seen it before? I had a perfectly trick-free bargain to offer the Boggy Mun. A bargain he’d be glad to accept: He’d cure Rose and get what he wanted.

Up you get then, Briony. Put an end to this affecting scene. Paste on your angelic face, tell one of your pretty lies. It’s not Father’s business where you’re going. It’s just between you and the Boggy Mun.

The Quicks sputtered, the sponge squished beneath my feet. I was a bit squishy myself. I’d had no time to bathe: I wanted to catch the Boggy Mun during his morning hours. I had to reach the bog-hole before the mist burnt off.

Eldric and Leanne? Leanne and Eldric! Leanne, sitting in my seat, laughing with Eldric.

Shut up, Briony!

Eldric and Leanne, sharing an inkwell. Eldric turning his pen into a boat, sailing it over his blotter—

Shut up, Briony!

The Quicks breathed slowly, their poisoned breath smelling of sulfur and infection and overripe flesh. They smacked and swallowed, smacked and swallowed.

Soon the Boggy Mun would open up shop. I wore no cloak and had no pockets. I carried my knife and salt in a basket. Little Red Riding Hood, skipping off into the woods. And whom will she meet?

Why, her own self, of course: the wolf. My hand flew to the gray-pearl wolfgirl hanging about my neck. If I didn’t know I couldn’t love, I might have thought I loved her.

I sprinkled the salt. I sliced through my mushroom skin. I drizzled my blood onto the salt.

The Boggy Mun came just on time.

He came in the mist, in the midst of his long beard. He came in a tangle of mist and midst. The ancient face peered from the tangle, the crepe-paper skin, the crumpled eyelids.

“I came before,” I said.

“Aye.”

“You did not grant my request.”

“I did not.”

“Twice, I have spilt blood and salt.”

“Aye,” said the Boggy Mun.

“I come today not to beg but to bargain.”

The crumpled eyelids lifted, hung, waited.

“I know how to keep the water in the swamp.”

The eyelids waited.

“But I shall have need of your help.”

The water ran, the wind wailed, the eyes waited.

“I can act on All Hallows’ Eve, but not before.” I’d let the ghost-children speak for themselves, tell the villagers of the Boggy Mun and the draining and the swamp cough. But I’d have to wait for Halloween, for it is only on that night that ordinary mortals can see and hear the dead.

“I can do something that will make the men turn off the machines. If they do that, the water will stay in the swamp. But you must do your part. You must cure Rose of the swamp cough.”

The mist hung motionless.

“If Rose has died, or is near death, I shall have no reason to act.”

“Cured, no,” said the Boggy Mun. “If’n she be cured, I got me a notion tha’d flight wi’ her to them dry lands beyond my reach.”

He had a reasonable point.

“This be my bargain. Tha’ sister, she don’t continue no worse, she don’t continue no better. Tha’s got no need to fret on her ’twixt now an’ All Hallows’ Eve.”

Halloween. The night the dead rise and walk the earth.

“Tiddy Rex too,” I said.

“Tha’ sister an’ the lad shall survive All Hallows’ Day,” said the old-parchment voice. “An’ if’n matters comes about as tha’ says, the cough shall be lifted from tha’ sister, an’ from all t’other fo’ak what be striked.”

The wind wailed, the water ran, the Boggy Mun was gone.

It seems unfair that I can feel worry but not relief.

There, there, Briony: You’re asking for too much. After all, the Boggy Mun was surprisingly agreeable. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?

Mostly.

Then please shut up.

It was the ghost-children, of course, who should tell the villagers about the draining and the swamp cough. What an idiot to ever have thought of telling the villagers myself.
A fellow can’t trust nothing what might be said by a witch.
But they’d believe the ghost-children.

And even if they believed me, they’d know me for a witch and hang me. This way, I’d have a chance to escape. I’d call the ghost-children from their graves. I’d escort the ghost-children to the villagers, urge the ghost-children to tell the villagers their tale. Then I’d disappear. I’d lose myself in the swamp. Best start now, start finding places to hide and crannies in which to store provisions.

I pressed into the shady margins of the Slough.

“Pretty girl!” said a chorus of small, chiming voices. “Pretty girl, make story.”

I hadn’t thought about the Bleeding Hearts for three years. I’d forgotten how prettily their voices chimed together. On the other hand, they talked far too much and had the most appalling grammar.

“Pretty girl, make love story.”

“People don’t make stories,” I said. “People
write
stories. They
make
tables.”

“Make tables!” Their pink blooming faces turned up toward me like thousands of glorious hearts. “Make tables!”

A person could never talk to the Bleeding Hearts.

“Pretty girl, make story at table.”

“Use your articles!” I said. “Make
a
story—I mean, write
a
story at
the
table. Or, write
the
story at
a
table. Or—”