Chime (29 page)

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Authors: Franny Billingsley

Tags: #child_sf, #love_sf

BOOK: Chime
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Leanne was pink and glowing and robust, looking indecently healthy. “I thought you might come back here.”
Back here.
Eldric and Leanne had been here before.
Rose flung herself on the blanket and reached for the packet of biscuits.
“What’s the rule, Rose?” I said.
“Sweets are for after.” Rose set it down. “But I prefer to ask a question now. A person must always keep a secret, mustn’t she?”
Come back here.
“Indeed she must,” I said. I’d thought this place so fresh and new, but they’d been here before. It was all worn out.
“Even if she doesn’t prefer to?”
“Even then,” I said.
“I hope you don’t mind my joining you,” said Leanne. I minded. After all, she’d tried to kill me. A girl in a novel would say it was hard to believe, but it wasn’t.
“I don’t agree,” said Eldric. “Some secrets are wrong and ought to be told.”
“What if a person can tell it without telling it?” said Rose.
“How do you mean?” I said.
“I have a different question,” said Eldric. “Why do you want to tell?”
“It’s a wicked secret,” said Rose. “It’s wicked to say you’ll hurt a person if they tell a secret, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Eldric. “Most wicked.”
We were all sitting now on the blanket. There came a strong smell of musk and salt. Leanne must have drowned herself in scent. For the first time, Eldric looked at her. He adjusted his position ever so slightly, opening the circle, letting her into the conversation.
“It might not always be wicked,” I said. “What if in telling the person to keep the secret, you’re actually protecting her? What if she’ll do herself a harm if she tells?”
Was that what men liked, musk and salt?
“Quite right,” said Leanne. “There are always two sides to every story.”
“It is never acceptable to hurt somebody, or threaten to hurt him,” said Eldric.
“But you punched somebody,” I said. “I saw you.”
“He was hurting someone else.” Eldric ought to have looked at me. I was the person who’d been hurt. But he looked at Leanne. He was falling under her spell, wasn’t he? I had to remind him—
I mustn’t allow him—
“Was it only yesterday,” I said, “that you asked me to give you credit for some brains?”
“I believe so.” Eldric’s fidgety fingers reached for a bun. “How long ago it seems.” He spread the jam very thin, piled the cream very thick.
“He was hurting someone else.”
I mimicked Eldric. “It’s always different when it comes to oneself, isn’t it? But just remember: You yourself admitted you’d been stupid.”
“Touché!” Eldric handed me a creamy sunset of a bun: mounds of cream, a mere splash of pink.
“Eldric’s much too hard on himself,” said Leanne.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning the bun. “It’s just the way I like it.”
“I know,” said Eldric. “I’ll never come to grips with the thirteenth declension, but I do know what you like.”
How lovely to eat a sunset, still warm and spread with clouds.
“Eldric is far from stupid,” said Leanne. “He’s quite a genius in his way.”
But that was my idea! I’d said he was a genius the night of the garden party. Leanne couldn’t try to kill me, and steal my idea too!
“He was truly stupid.” I hadn’t said it aloud, though.
“You are unkind, Miss Larkin.”
Miss Larkin,
ha! She couldn’t distinguish me from Rose.
“I think not,” I said. “We are all stupid, aren’t we, from time to time?”
“But I more than most,” said Eldric, smiling.
Leanne began to speak, but Rose interrupted.
“You can stop talking now. You are distracting me from a very difficult decision.” She paused. “I need first to lay the groundwork.”
“Lay away!” Eldric all but sang the words. He’d gone electric. “Shall I fix you a bun, Rose?”
Rose nodded. “Do you remember what Father used to call me?”
“Rosy Posy!” I said, which was the answer, but turned out to be more of an exclamation.
“He used to call you Briony Vieny.”
Briony Vieny. “I remember.”
But I wished I didn’t. How mortifying to remind Leanne of one’s childish pet name.
“Do you know how Briony and I match up?” It is sometimes unclear to whom Rose is speaking, because she looks all about, not into one’s eyes. This time, though, she made it clear to whom she wasn’t speaking: She had turned her back on Leanne.
“Your faces match up quite a bit,” said Eldric.
“Faces are only genetic.” Rose was really very clever in her own way. “But names aren’t genetic.”
“May I make a guess on how you match up?” said Eldric.
“You may,” said Rose, which was generous, because she’s fond of announcing her ideas.
“You match because a rose is a flower and so is a briony?”
“It’s a vine,” said Rose.
“A poisonous vine,” I said.
“I never can guess correctly,” said Eldric. “It must be because I’m so stupid.”
“Please, Eldric!” said Leanne.
I wanted to laugh, I wanted to fling my arms about Eldric. He was playing with me, he was playing against Leanne.
“Because we’re both plants,” said Rose. “Our faces match up, and our names match up, but there’s something that doesn’t match up.” And Horrors take me if she didn’t produce one of her collages.
“Do you like it?”
I did, actually. It was a riot of blues and purples, with a few splashes of peach and gold to give it life.
“I like it extremely,” said Leanne, although she hadn’t been asked. “How did you know just what colors to use?”
“I have a gift.” Rose sat rather closer to me than usual. “But it’s not the sort of gift you give someone. I have it all for myself, Eldric said so.”
“I did the cutting and gluing,” said Eldric. “Didn’t I do an excellent job?”
“Eldric’s the Administrative Assistant of Scissors and Glue,” said Rose.
As I looked at the collage, the colors resolved themselves into patterns, and the patterns resolved themselves into an image. “Do I see people?”
“Yes!” said Rose, and her voice actually managed an exclamation mark. “Who are the people?”
The people were rather abstract, mostly peach-colored blobs with eyes.
“Are they babies?” said Leanne.
“Yes!” said Rose, still sitting with her back to Leanne, which was wonderfully rude. “Who are the babies?”
I stared into the collage, but the baby-blobs did not give up their names.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Who are they?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Rose. “Because of the secret.”
“But Rose,” I said.
“I like Rosy Posy,” said Rose.
“But Rosy Posy,” I said.
“I prefer that you see it,” said Rose. “Because then you’ll get better.”
“But I’m no longer ill,” I said.
“You’re ill in a different sort of way,” said Rose.
“What way is that?” said Eldric.
“She’s ill in her thoughts,” said Rose.
“I am not!”
“You are so,” said Rose. “You think certain things about yourself and they don’t make you happy.”
Eldric glanced at me, but I pretended not to notice. Shut up, Rose! “What makes you think I have unhappy thoughts?” I don’t tell Rose things like that—intimate things.
“Because you talk when you’re asleep.”
Oh.
“May I hazard a guess?” said Eldric.
“A hazard is dangerous,” said Rose.
“Hazard a guess about the babies, I mean. Are they you and Briony?”
“Yes!” Rose actually grew pink from all those exclamation marks.
“You’re ever so clever,” said Leanne.
“This one’s you, Rose.” Eldric pointed. “That one’s Briony.”
“Yes!”
“How on earth can you tell?” I said.
“I’ve told you dozens of times that you and Rose are nothing alike,” said Eldric.
“Eldric has an eye for art of all sorts,” said Leanne. “Don’t you, darling?”
“If you say so,” said Eldric.
Darling! Had they
darlinged
each other when they were here? I imagined them, magnificent on horseback, tossing
darlings
to and fro.
“You are not attending,” said Rose.
I leaned closer. The babies were little more than oblongs of paper, yet they were clearly babies. How had she done that?
“It’s fantastic, Rose.”
“I know,” said Rose. “What else do you see?”
I looked, and Eldric looked, but we couldn’t make out anything else. “I prefer that you see it,” said Rose.
“Perhaps Leanne can see it?” said Eldric.
Leanne gazed but finally shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“You see, Rose,” said Eldric, “we haven’t your eye for color.”
“You may call me Rosy Posy,” said Rose. “Leanne, however, may not.”
“Rose!” I said. “That was extremely rude.”
“We didn’t ask her to come,” said Rose.
I turned to Leanne to apologize, but Leanne smiled and shook her head. “Don’t let it trouble you. I quite understand.”
“Don’t give up!” said Rose. “Briony must get better!”
I looked deeper into the collage, into an overlay of dark blues with spots of white and yellow.
“The night sky?” I said.
“Yes,” said Rose. “Eldric has corroborated my theory that it’s all right to say
yes
when you guess correctly.”
“I intend only to make correct guesses,” I said.
The collage was divided into halves with a vertical line of black. At first glance, the halves were identical. A pale moon in each, and a pale peach baby with a single eye.
The babies were identical (unless you chose to believe Eldric), but the moons were not. The right-hand moon hung in the twelve o’clock position, but the left-hand moon had not yet risen so high.
“Hmm,” I said.
“Hmm,” said Eldric.
“My dear Rose,” said Leanne. “You’re quite the artist too.”
Good thing she couldn’t go after Rose. Good thing the Dark Muse only preyed on men.
“Rosy Posy,” said Rose, but not to Leanne. “Briony Vieny.”
“Our names match up,” I said.
“Quite right,” said Rose.
“Our names match up, but the moons don’t match up.”
“You are exceedingly correct,” said Rose.
“Did we have a conversation about this before, Rose? When I was ill?”
“Yes,” said Rose.
It had been a conversation about how one might describe midnight. I remember being rather breezy and saying that ten minutes before midnight looked just like midnight. Rose had said that was no good.
“Is the one with the moon straight overhead meant to represent midnight, and the other represent before midnight?”
“It doesn’t represent,” said Rose. “It is.”
“Is it then?”
“You are exceedingly correct.”
But there I stuck. Rosy Posy and Briony Vieny? Babies at midnight?
They oughtn’t to be up so late.
“Don’t stop thinking,” said Rose. “Otherwise you won’t get well.”
“I’m thinking,” I said. “But Rose—”
“I prefer Rosy Posy.”
“But Rosy Posy.” I had to make her understand that I was neither ill nor injured. “How is this going to cure unhappy thoughts?”
“You won’t have to think them anymore.”
Twilight crept upon us; we tore into the packet of biscuits. Eldric offered a share to Leanne, but she cared only for the homemade kind. We leaned against the warm boulders. Shop-bought biscuits are delicious! Too bad for Leanne.
“Don’t stop thinking,” said Rose.
“Can you give us a hint, Rosy Posy?”
“It’s against the rules.”
My attempts to work out Rose’s secret felt rather as though I were performing brain surgery by the light of a glowworm. “I believe you’re too clever for us, Rosy Posy.”
I held out my forefinger.
“Yes,” said Rose, touching her finger to mine.
Rose lay back on the perfect picnic quilt. She closed her eyes, but she was still smiling. “This is how I want to live my life.”
The rest of us sat in silence while mist and moon and moorland worked themselves into a lather of romance. Leanne was doubtless wishing me and Rose far away. All that lather, but no privacy for a two-person scrub.
“Except I want you to know the secret,” said Rose, her eyes still closed.
“I’m trying, Rosy Posy.”
“Does everyone have a secret, do you suppose?” said Eldric.
“Mine’s a mad husband in the attic,” I said.
Leanne laughed. It struck me I’d never heard her laugh before. “This is not a proper secret,” she said, “but I don’t tell many people, as it sounds hideously conceited. I know I can trust the three of you to understand what I mean to say.”
But there were only two of us now, for Rose was asleep. Her dreaming eyes shifted beneath butterfly eyelids. She wanted to be called Rosy Posy. She had an unconscious, of course she did.
This is how I want to live my life.
How could I ever have doubted she was a real girl?
“I’m not an artist myself,” said Leanne, “but I believe my gift is working with artists, bringing their works to life. Teasing out of the artist the very best that he can do.”
And gobbling him up! Just look at her—all pearly eyes and come-hither teeth.
“I quite agree,” said Eldric. “That’s clearly your gift.”
How did he mean it? Not, I hoped, in the way Leanne took it. Look at her smile. She thought it a compliment.
“What’s your secret, Eldric?” said Leanne.
“The problem I have with telling my secret,” said Eldric, “is that it’s a secret.”
“There’s no one you would tell?” said Leanne.
“One person, perhaps,” said Eldric. “But as there are three of you here, this cannot be the time to reveal it.”
One person, perhaps. Rosy Posy knew how she wanted to live her life. Briony Vieny would like to live hers knowing Eldric’s secret.

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