Chime (33 page)

That’s why she ate.

A story, for her and her alone.

She ate it all up.

It started about an hour later, the first symptoms, abdominal pain, nausea, then an urgent need for a chamber pot, the results of which were bloody—all of which I’d expected. I’d written Fitz, asking if he didn’t ever worry about over-ingesting arsenic, and as I’d known he would, he wrote me a treatise on the stages of arsenic poisoning, both chronic and acute.

Stepmother’s was acute.

“Talk some more,” said Eldric.

I remembered exactly when the skull of Death appeared on her shoulder. Her face had collapsed, her eyes gone red.

Eldric’s knees buckled. I grabbed him round the middle. He slumped against me, toppled me over. We juddered into a log, which slammed into my ribs.

The slump of Eldric pinned me to the log. I hardly felt him breathe. Was he in shock?

“Eldric?”

A person could die from shock.

“Eldric?” I couldn’t move him.

I’d never known the true meaning of dead weight. If the mountain wouldn’t get off of Muhammad, Muhammad would get out from under the mountain. I squiggled out, bit by bit, scraping myself over moss and bark. My ribs yelped and whined.

Stones and twigs and leaves and blood—blood, leaping from Eldric’s wrist. I tightened the tourniquet, watched the spill of blood slow to a weepy drizzle. I watched myself lift his arm with my two hands and lay his hand on his chest. I watched myself examine the raw edges of his wrist. I watched myself worry that I might see severed bones and ligaments. I watched myself being relieved to see nothing but red ooze. I watched myself being ashamed at being relieved. I watched myself work out what to do next.

He’d lost so much blood; his eyes were closed. I should be obliged to drag him. But first, I needed to secure his arm to his body. I mustn’t let it bump about.

I could pass another length of frock under his back. I could tie it over his front, which would pin his upper arm to his side, secure his forearm and hand to his chest. But how was I to do that? He was very heavy. I’d have to roll and push and—what if I hurt him again?

But as long as you’re thinking about rolling and pushing and hurting, why not think about rolling him onto your cloak? It might work as a sleigh. You could pull him on a cloak-sleigh, jiggety-jig, all the way home.

You may take one—two—three breaths, Briony, and then you have to move!

I worked at a seam in my skirt, tearing through the stitches. Why didn’t I have a knife? Florence Nightingale would have had a knife. I laid four lengths of fabric widthwise on the ground, one at shoulder level, one at elbow level, one at hip level, one at ankle level. I laid my cloak over the lengths of fabric.

I could think of only one way to do it. I slipped my arms under Eldric’s arms, dragged him backward, over the cloak. The cloak bunched up beneath him.

Hell!

I was wrung out by the time I’d wrapped the cloak around him, looped and tied each length of fabric round the front to hold the cloak in place.

I grasped the collar of the cloak, stepped back, tugged. It could be worse, Briony. It could be your leg that’s hurt, not your shoulder and ribs. Don’t think about it, keep walking. Think about the snickleway ahead. Think how to get Eldric across without drowning him. Think! Think!

Time ceased to exist. I could not think into the future, I could not remember the past: There was only now. There was only the present tense.

The Slough is the worst part of the journey. There are so many obstacles—logs, scrub, snickleways. The snickleways are both the hardest and easiest, the water both help and hindrance. It eases the burden of Eldric’s weight, but it also wants to drown him. You have to hold his head above water, which means the bit of snickleway you’re fording can’t be too deep. Which means you plough through it yourself first, to test the depth, and when you do ford the snickleway with Eldric, you have to wrap your arms around his chest. You have to pull him as high as you can, you have to press his neck and shoulders into your middle. When you emerge from the snickleway, you are shaking with the effort. You are tempted to let yourself rest.

But you don’t.

You ford another snickleway, you tremble with effort. You tremble with cold. You’ve given most of your clothes to Eldric. You wear only your petticoat and chemise.
Slough.
It’s an appropriate word. Perhaps you’ll slough off your skin.

Blood seeps through the cotton that holds Eldric together. You lay him down, settle his head in moss, gently as a lark’s egg. Gently now. You untie the tourniquet, but you are slow to tie it again. Your fingers are cold. All of you is cold.

The blood streams, weeps, trickles. Eldric’s lips are the color of clay. His eyebrow scar is the color of a rat. He opens his eyes. They do not shine whiter than white.

You could say something. You could say,
I lust you.
You could say,
I love you.

I love you.
The words are not unfamiliar. I believe I heard them more than once when I was little. Perhaps when you hear them over and over, the words stomp out a path in your memory:
I am loveable.
But what if you cease to hear
I love you
and start hearing
Oh, Briony! We musn’t ever tell your father.

Now you have an
I am wicked
path. And surely, the
I am loveable
path begins to fade.

The swamp goes on forever, you go on forever. Your bones mutter curses. The rain turns to spit. Rain spits on Eldric. The edges of the world draw close, and closer. The world is gray and small.

I do not see the bloodhounds until they begin to bay. We are the ferrets, Eldric and I. The constable is almost here. Now I may rest.

I sink to the ground. I settle Eldric’s head in my lap. I bend over; I shelter his face from the rain. I do not think of the future, but I remember the past. I remember Stepmother’s vomit, streaked with bile and blood.

Stepmother called for water. She was so thirsty, she tasted metal, she said. She must have water, she said. I turned away.

“Briony!”

“Eldric!”

The figures come nearer. Father’s mouth makes a black hole in his face.

It took Stepmother fifteen hours to die. 

It’s the last day of my trial. The spectators have arrived early; the benches are almost full. Why, I don’t know. There will be no surprises. I’ve been a model defendant. I’ve confessed to everything. Everyone knows what the judgment is to be.

Rose, Father, and Eldric sit in the front row. I don’t want to look at them, but my eyes are out of control. There they go, glancing over Eldric’s tie; over one tweedy sleeve; over a bulge of gauze, swelling from the cuff like a Christmas pudding.

I will make my eyes obey. I look away, up at the windows. It is snowing. This trial has been a long one. We are drawing near Advent, season of surprise weddings. I do not, however, believe I shall attend any of them.

“All rise!” My bird hands jump at the bailiff’s voice. A cold tide of faces surges below.

I grow dizzy when I stand. Dr. Rannigan says I ought to be in sickbed. He says I’m not well. He says I ought to be in a warm bed, not in a damp bunk, not in a cold cell. Judge Trumpington gave permission for me to stay at the Parsonage. He said he could count on the reverend to bring me to my engagements at the courthouse.

But I wouldn’t stay at the Parsonage.

It’s one thing if a person learns you’re a witch. It’s quite another if he learns you’re a murderer. I almost forget I’m a witch now that I know I’m a murderer—murderess, actually. Murderess sounds so much worse.

Judge Trumpington clears his throat. He is about to begin. I have grown horribly accustomed to the rhythms of his speech. The Brownie sits on the hem of my skirt. I like that. He holds me to the ground. I wish he could stay in my cell with me, but there are too many bars, too much metal.

“As usual, in a case that involves an Old One, we have dispensed with the traditional formalities.” He looks at me. “I think I speak for all of us when I say we have been most impressed with the defendant’s candor.”

When I told Dr. Rannigan I wouldn’t stay in the Parsonage, I told him I knew I was going to hang. And if one’s going to hang, what’s the point of recovering?

“Aye,” says the Chime Child in her rough-and-ready way. “She be wondrous candorful. I never seen a defendant as confessed to such a quantity o’ wickedness.”

I’d never seen Dr. Rannigan so angry. He shouted at me. He shouted that he knew exactly what I was doing. That I was clinging to every bit of strength I had in order to get through the trial. But that I’d really given up. That once the trial was over, I’d let myself die. Which was precisely my point. I’d rather die from illness than be hanged. But other than that, what’s the difference? I’ll turn to dust. The church bells will take an inventory of Briony Larkin: one chime for each year of life, eighteen chimes in all.

“I knows I been getting old,” says the Chime Child. “I maked a grievous misjudgment on poor Nelly Daws. I doesn’t got the stomach for judgments no more. But there don’t be no one else, an’ the judge, he be desirous for my recommendation.”

The spectators stir. It’s been a long trial, but at last, we’re getting to the end, which is bound to be satisfactorily gruesome.

“All you as be here today,” says the Chime Child, “you heared the candorous confessions o’ yon Briony Larkin. You heared most o’ the story an’ I heared it all. Briony telled me the bits what be particular an’ private to her. I knows the whole story, but I doesn’t got no answers. I got only questions.”

“Go ahead,” says the judge.

“This question, it be tricky-like to answer.” The Chime Child looks at me. “Supposing it be you, Briony Larkin, you what be judge an’ Chime Child today. How does you pronounce on your own self, innocent or guilty?”

I feel the press of spectators’ eyes as they wait for my answer.

“You should hang me.”

Why such mutter and stir? I’d been wondrous candorful, so what did they expect?

“What be your reasons, Miss Briony?”

“I told you about Stepmother and the arsenic. Isn’t that reason enough?”

“But she be an Old One,” says the Chime Child. “There be times us allows the killing o’ them Old Ones.”

“Not unless there’s a trial first,” says Judge Trumpington. “The system is flawed, we know that, but we can’t proceed without a trial. We can’t take the law into our own hands, Mrs. Gurnsey.”

Mrs. Gurnsey. It’s queer to remember the Chime Child has a real name. A real name and a real life. That she’s married and has children, that her husband is a fisherman, that she plants poppies in her garden.

“Us be at a trial right now,” says the Chime Child.

“Let me make sure I understand you correctly, Mrs. Gurnsey,” says Judge Trumpington. “You suggest putting the stepmother on trial?”

“Aye,” says the Chime Child.

There follows a long discussion about courtroom rules and how the judicial system doesn’t allow you to try a person if she’s not present to defend herself. But finally the Chime Child puts an end to it. “It don’t matter nohow. The stepmother, she be dead. But Miss Briony here, she be alive. She be the one us doesn’t want to kill if there don’t be no reason.”

Everyone’s sorry to have hanged poor Nelly Daws, but don’t let that prolong my trial. Please don’t. There’ll be no lastminute exculpatory evidence, I promise. Just let me lie down.

“Did you never suspect your stepmother was one of the Old Ones?” says Judge Trumpington.

“Never,” I say. “She was always very kind to us.”

Something has happened. Judge Trumpington and the Chime Child look away from me, into the mass of spectators. Someone has risen. I see him only from the corner of my eye, but I know it is Eldric.

He doesn’t offer up his name, or beg pardon, or say a word about pleasing the court. He is already stepping forward as he says, “I believe I can help.” Judge Trumpington nods and says, “Please.”

Soon I shall be obliged to look at his face and I can’t bear it.
Murderess.
He knows me to be a murderess. I can’t bear it.

I look away. The spectators’ faces are splats of snow. My head is filled with white.

I don’t understand Eldric’s idea. He wants to make me a story. I will say the words, he will write them.

I say nothing. Judge Trumpington says nothing. The Chime Child approves.

Eldric lowers his voice. He speaks for me, alone. “When you wrote me into an understanding of Leanne, you’d a notion there was something about her we had yet to learn, had you not? I’ve the same sort of notion about the late Mrs. Larkin. Perhaps I can do the same for you.”

There’s nothing to understand. She was an Old One. I procured arsenic from Cecil, I poisoned her.

Eldric stands at the defendant’s box. He lays a sheet of paper on the ledge. Rose has given it to him. I recognize it as twin to one she gave me in the library. She wanted me to make it into a story. I associate it with the smells of sawdust and paint and polish. The smells of hope and life.

I face the Chime Child. Eldric faces me. The sooner I start, the sooner I end, the sooner I lie doon.

Eldric taps the pencil point onto the paper. He asks me to speak of the time I was ill. Not the Dead Hand illness, the earlier one, the long one, before Stepmother died. He isn’t accustomed to writing with his left hand. He grips the pencil so hard his fingertips go red.

What can I say about it? That I was ill, that Stepmother nursed me? Eldric taps at the paper. He taps it into a Tiddy Rex of freckles.

“She was very kind,” I begin.

“Let’s start with specifics,” says Eldric. “What sort of illness was it?”