Chime (6 page)

“I’d feel foolish,” said Mr. Dreary.

“It don’t matter if you feels a fool or if you doesn’t,” said the Reeve. “Them Old Ones, they be real as real, an’ don’t it be better to feel foolish than to feel dead?”

“The Old Ones are dangerous,” said Eldric, his eyes sparkling whiter than white. “There’s the Dead Hand, who will rip your hand off. There are the Wykes, who will lure you into the bogs. There’s the Dark Muse, who will suck away your spirit.”

“I’m glad to see,” said Mr. Clayborne, “that my son is capable of acquiring and retaining at least some information.”

“If there’s enough blood and wickedness,” said Eldric. “I stopped in at the Alehouse this afternoon, which is better than any library. I am absolutely stuffed with information. Do you know there exists a person who’s only half of an Old One? Something like that, anyway.”

“The Chime Child was born at the Mirk and Midnight Hour,” said Rose, who was dotty about birthdays.

“The Mirk and Midnight Hour,” said Eldric. “Lovely. I wish I’d been born then.”

“I prefer that you not be born then,” said Rose.

“I shall accede to your wishes,” said Eldric.

“Mightn’t it be better if you postponed your trip into the swamp?” said Father. “It will be dark soon.” Father would think of that, wouldn’t he? Didn’t he ever get sick of living with himself, of being so—so prudent?

“But I don’t want to miss the Boggy Mun,” said Eldric. “Not the king of the swamp! See how much I know, Father. Isn’t that every bit as good as memorizing the kings and queens of England?”

“I hears you, Mr. Reverend, sir,” said the constable. “But evidence, it be right fragile. It might to be blown away, an’ that were a woeful thing.”

“Our English monarchs are so unimaginative,” said Eldric. “They execute people in such tediously conventional ways.”

I had to bite back my laugh before I could speak. “I’m sorry, but I cannot accompany the constable.”

“Why ever not?” said Father.

What could I say now? I couldn’t tell him I’d promised Stepmother never again to enter the swamp. I couldn’t tell him that Briony and the swamp, together, are deadly.

How did Stepmother manage to ignore Father so neatly, with him never realizing for a second?

It was then that the plates of the earth shifted beneath me. Gravity reversed itself and ran uphill. I tasted lightning. I was falling, falling up into witchiness.

A skull sat on Mr. Dreary’s shoulder. It stared at me as though we were acquainted, which we were. We’d met once, but I couldn’t think where.

The eyes of the skull were black holes held into place by bone. They were no more than holes, but they recognized me. The skull worked its jaw back and forth.

When a person has already seen Death—seen it once, at least—you’d think she’d remember whose shoulder it had been sitting on. But this particular person did not. She only knew that that person had died.

She knew that Mr. Dreary was soon to die.

How could I have forgotten who it was? I rarely forget the little things, much less the big ones. Perhaps I’d seen Death during the last months of Stepmother’s life, when I was ill and foggy. I remember little from that time.

Death must have perched on Stepmother’s shoulder when she was fading out of life, but I hadn’t seen it then, of course. No, not Briony, the girl who let her stepmother die alone.

Death had no lips, but it was smiling.

No one else could see it, not Eldric, not Father, not Mr. Dreary himself. Just me, Briony, third-class witch. I’d promised Stepmother not to leave Rose. I’d promised her never again to venture into the swamp.

But what if I might prevent Mr. Dreary’s death?

Dead finger-bones chittered. It was waving? Yes, a friendly little finger twinkle, waving good-bye. Death vanished all at once, and I fell back into human-ness, with Father folding my fingers around a Bible Ball. “It’s all decided, then. Pearl will care for Rose while you help the constable and the Swamp Reeve.”

This just shows you how much Father knows about me, which is exactly nothing. Giving me a Bible Ball to protect me from the Horrors is like throwing a life preserver to a fish.

I oughtn’t to go into the swamp, but Mr. Dreary was to die. Would Stepmother approve of my following him into the swamp to make sure he was safe? How could I know? What if I just wanted to return to the swamp because the hinges of my jaws still ached with craving?

Could it be that I truly wanted to save Mr. Dreary?

I doubted it, but I’d go. I hadn’t the knack of only pretending to do as Father wished. Did I want to save Mr. Dreary?

I’ll never know. We witches don’t go in for self-knowledge.

I drifted across the Flats. Drifting—that’s the proper way to navigate the swamp. Not chasing after Rose, not pounding past the Reed Spirits, with no chance to stop for the singing of the reeds. I drifted beside Eldric, listening to his low whistle. How could I have forgotten that the swamp has no beginning? How could I have forgotten that the swamp simply seeps into existence? That it bleeds and weeps into existence?

The itch was gone—the itch of my scar, the itch of the swamp craving. How lovely to seep and bleed and weep into the swamp. It would take more than three years for me to forget. If I could love anything, I’d love the swamp.

Is this what a nun feels when she runs wild? Perhaps running wild needn’t mean dressing in satin and taking to cigarettes. It might mean running into the wild, into the real, into the ooze and muck and the clean, muddy smell of life.

Eldric’s whistling slid into words. “Your father says you know the swamp like the back of your hand.”

“I am not at all interested in the back of my hand.”

“But you’re interested in the swamp,” said Eldric. “So why have you stayed away for so long?”

“Who told you that!”

“You did,” said Eldric.

Had I? Eldric and I drifted through the swamp. We wept across the Flats, we bled around the remains of ancient trees. Mr. Dreary had fallen behind us; he didn’t know how to drift. He splatted along on his dreary legs.

“I see you love the swamp,” said Eldric.

I didn’t love anything. But I couldn’t say that, and I couldn’t explain why I’d abandoned the swamp.

There were so many things I couldn’t say. That Stepmother had proven to me that the swamp and I, together, were dangerous. That I’d promised her never again to set foot in the swamp.

When I was hollowed out with craving, I’d remind myself that the swamp and I were a combustible combination. When I bit at my own teeth, I’d remind myself that my swampy combustions hurt people.

“There’s always Rose to look after,” I said. “She wants a lot of minding.”

But I wasn’t minding Rose, not right now. I was in the swamp, for the second time in two days, leaving Rose in the Parsonage. But it was all right, wasn’t it? Pearl had promised never to take her eyes from Rose, not even for a moment (although I’d told her she could blink). It was all right, wasn’t it, because I was doing it for the best? I was doing it to save Mr. Dreary—wasn’t I? A witch is wicked enough to fool her own self.

Best check on him—yes, there he was, in the finest of dreary fettles. Don’t fool yourself, keep checking.

“But you’ve always had Rose to look after,” said Eldric.

“Don’t forget we all fell ill,” I said. “First Father, then I, then Stepmother. Rose too, just a bit, toward the end of Stepmother’s life. We each of us had to mind the other.”

All, that is, save Father. He didn’t mind anyone, and I mind that. He’d been quite ill for the first year or so after he married Stepmother. But then he got better and went off, or maybe he went off and got better. I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that he came home only to sleep. We rarely saw him.

“She didn’t kill herself, you know.”

I hadn’t known I was going to say this, but it was too late to take it back. “My stepmother wasn’t the type to kill herself.”

“She was murdered?” said Eldric.

I tried to answer without answering, as this was not a popular hypothesis. “She wouldn’t have killed herself.”

“No?” said Eldric.

I looked up at him, his cheeks not exactly rosy, but pinkish gold. “You don’t believe me?”

He paused. “I don’t not believe you.”

I should never have said anything. Of course he didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t myself. Why didn’t I think about it all the time? Why didn’t I turn into Mr. Sherlock Holmes and bring her murderer to justice?

We fell into silence. Eldric fell back to whistling; his whistling slid into singing. “Gin a body meet a body, comin’ thro’ the rye.” Beyond the Flats lay the fields. I had used to love lying in them in the fall, the rye waving above my head, bronzed and feathered.

“Gin a body kiss a body, need a body cry?”

Eldric and I bled and wept round twists of black branches. It was most peculiar to hear Eldric sing. I felt he was singing just for me. I’d not felt that since Father stopped singing to us, at bedtime. I suppose we’d grown too old for that, Rose and I, but still, I’d missed it for a long time.

Now I had to struggle to keep up with Eldric. He wasn’t short of breath; he was fresh as the proverbial daisy. Unfair! This is my swamp and I’m wolfgirl, tireless and fierce. Unfair! I wished I could uproot him and pluck his petals, one by one.

But I already know how it will end.

“Let’s slow down,” said Eldric. “No need to rush, not today.”

“You think I’m not fit,” I said.

“It’s Mr. Dreary who’s not fit,” he said. “It’s you who’ve not been well.”

“But I’m not a fragile, faint-y sort of girl,” I said. “Once, I could run forever.” I can’t even remember when I learned to run forever. It seemed that I’d always been wolfgirl. Father had never minded my going into the swamp until I turned ten. Then he began to have doubts. He told me I ought to be more ladylike. He never quite forbade me, though, and thank goodness Stepmother came along to say I might visit the swamp as much as I liked—until, of course, she told me I mightn’t.

He had a nice voice, not beautiful but pleasant. He sang as naturally as he spoke.

He returned to his subterranean whistle. Drift, weep, bleed through the black labyrinth of trees, through the ancient forest. Drift, bleed—

Blast!

Blast Mr. Dreary, calling for us to wait up. His Dreariness was slow and puffy. His little legs weren’t drift-worthy, only drear-worthy.

“Hold tight to your Bible Ball,” I said. “We’re about to enter the Quicks. They’ll gobble you up if you’re not careful.”

“Unless,” said Mr. Dreary in his tinned-soup way, “I happen to come across a Horror who’s immune to the Bible.” How could a tinned-soup voice sound mocking? Mr. Dreary didn’t believe in the Horrors.

“How does a Horror come to be immune?” said Eldric.

“Natural selection,” said Mr. Dreary, very proud no doubt to have heard of Mr. Darwin.

“Not enough time,” I said. “The Bible only came to the Swampsea during the last century. Natural selection doesn’t work that quickly.”

“How do you also come to know so much?” said Eldric.

“Father engaged a brilliant tutor for me. Henry Fitzgerald was his name, but we called him Fitz. He didn’t mind. Sometimes we called him the Genius. He didn’t mind that, either. He was interested in everything—in Mr. Darwin, in Dr. Freud, in those machines that photograph people’s bones.”

“My feet are wet,” said Mr. Dreary.

“You lack the proper gear,” I said. We teetered along a trickle of land that wound between water and mud. “Here in the swamp, even the swans wear rubber boots.”

“Not for long,” said Mr. Dreary. “Give Clayborne a couple of years, he’ll drain the swamp dry.”

Oh, dreary me!

“But the swamp’s so beautiful,” said Eldric. “I don’t care for the idea of draining it.”

“It’s progress,” said Mr. Dreary. “You can’t stand in the way of progress.”

“I can so,” said Eldric.

“But Miss Briony understands,” said Mr. Dreary. “She knows what progress will mean to the Swampsea. Cattle, crops, education, commerce, medicine.”

Miss Briony understood no such thing, but just then, a brace of pheasant had the good sense to blast out of the reeds at our feet. Mr. Dreary jumped. Eldric and I pretended not to laugh.

We skirted the hungry bog-holes, which were simply dying to drink down any unwary traveler. Well, actually, it’s the traveler who’d be doing the dying. But the swans had nothing to fear and were feeding at the bog-holes, poking about with their yellow bills. The water shone yellow, reflecting the yellow sky and the white swans and the bronzed reeds and the yellow bills. The ground quaked beneath our feet, breathing in air, breathing out mist.

“Tell me about the Horrors,” said Eldric.

“Later,” I said. “We ought to catch up with the constable and the Reeve. The swamp is unfriendly at night.”

I called, but they’d drawn too far ahead.

“I can throw my voice as far as I threw that stone,” said Eldric. “You remember, the stained-glass-smashing one?”

He threw his voice, all right, and with the proper shattering effect. The constable and Reeve turned about and waited.

“Don’t worry,” I said as we sped up. “You’ll experience the Horrors soon enough.”

London seems an exciting place, far more exciting than the Swampsea. But it occurred to me that the Swampsea might seem equally exciting to Eldric. He wouldn’t have seen any of the Old Ones: So many had died in the great cities—in London, and Manchester, and Liverpool. No one knew it was the machines and metal making them sick, killing them.