Chime. Part 12

"And a secret language," I said. "We'll speak in Latin, so no one will understand."

Except Father, and who talks to him anyway?

"Here's the problem with Latin," said Eldric. "It's so very secret, I can't understand a word. Being expelled takes a toll on one's Latin."

"Oh, not that sort of Latin, not the ordinary sort," I said. "It's the difficult sort of Latin no one speaks anymore. But I'm sure you know it already. It comes from rarely attending to one's lessons. Here, tell me what this means. Fraternitus."

"Fraternity?" said Eldric.

"Very good," I said. "And what does fraternity mean?"

"Brotherhood?" said Eldric.

"See, you do know the difficult Latin. What does this mean? Bad-Boyificus."

"Bad boy," said Eldric. "You're right. I did learn the difficult Latin back in my perhaps not-so-misspent youth."

"And Fraternitus Bad-Boyificus?"

"Bad-Boys Fraternity," said Eldric. "No, I mean club. Bad-Boys Club! We'll need an initiation, of course."

"Lovely!" I said, which is not, perhaps, initiation-appropriate vocabulary, but I meant it sincerely. An initiation! The very word conjured visions of dark rooms and candles and initiators wearing Spanish Inquisition-style headgear.

"Here's the most interesting thing about an initiation," said Eldric. "You never know when it's to be. So you must watch for it, listen for it, and trust it, even if you're called at the dead of night. Your fellow fraternitus will never let you come to harm."

"Frater," I said. "It's fellow frater."

"Done!" Eldric stepped back. "At least you don't need st.i.tches, which I fear poor Petey will need."

Poor Petey. I'd like to say I could almost feel a tender spot for poor Petey, but the truth is I'd rather feel at the tender spot on his head and give it a poke.

"It's a fine day in the Dragon Constellation for us frater," said Eldric. I agreed and didn't even correct his Latin. Who needs plurals anyway?

It had in fact grown sunny, warm enough that the greengrocer set a cart of vegetables outside his shop, and Davy Wallace sat on a stoop, grading pheasant feathers, which he did astonishingly quickly with his one hand. If one were an optimistic person, one might say that it was really quite warm.

The day had turned itself inside out. How fragile life is; it can turn on so little. Pearl's baby dies, but then there comes a spat-on handkerchief, the creation of a brotherhood, and the end of the swamp cough.

Was I really so happy not to die? Was this feeling simply relief? Or was it that Eldric was taking care of me? Stepmother cared for me during those long, foggy months of my illness. I don't know how she did it, with that injury to her spine. I didn't deserve care at all. But every time I awoke, there she was, with a bowl of soup, or an herbal plaster, or my writing materials-I couldn't bear to tell her I was too tired to write: She was so very delighted to be giving me the opportunity.

There is much, I suppose, that I don't recall of my illness. I had grown so very dull-witted. But should I ever again sink into illness, I'm sure I'll remember Eldric.

I'll remember he cared for me. I'll remember that someone at last had taken the time to touch my face.

11.

The Chiming Hour "Mistress! Just a word, mistress!"

Not the Brownie, I absolutely would not talk to the Brownie. I slammed the garden gate behind me.

"Have a care, mistress. You almost caught my nose!"

Then you shouldn't have such a long one.

"Won't you write the stories again, mistress? I ask not for myself alone, but for all of the Old Ones."

I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of asking. I absolutely would not ask why he'd linked his power to mine in order to call Mucky Face.

Why he'd had me injure Stepmother's spine.

Tonight, I'd keep the world safe from Briony Larkin. No talking to the Brownie. No going into the swamp, not really. I'd only to cut across a corner of the Flats and from there, strike out through the fields of wheat and rye.

Worry buzzed round me like a gnat. There was no one in the Parsonage to keep an eye on Rose. Pearl was still at home, mourning her baby, but even if she'd returned, I couldn't have asked her to stay past midnight. The whole of the village was asleep. But Rose was asleep too, and Rose sleeps very soundly. That is one way in which we are not at all identical. Rose tells me I talk in my sleep, that sometimes I scream. I'd worry about blabbing my secret, except it's only Rose. I must make it a point never to sleep with anyone else.

The lantern had already grown heavy, but I held it high. Its yellow light bounced ahead, off the Flats, broke across the fields of rye. It was midnight, the chiming hour, the favorite time of many of the Old Ones-the Dead Hand, the Dark Muse, the Devil.

The Dark Muse is the most wicked of the three; at least I think so. She doesn't steal the man himself, as the Devil does. She steals his soul and his wits. That counts for a lot, if you ask me. I'd rather be in h.e.l.l with my soul and wits, than in the outside world without them.

But the Dark Muse is one of the few things I need not worry about. She only preys on men.

I'd meant to creep up on the pumping station, but instead, it crept up on me. The night was cloudy, no moon shone. My arm sagged under the weight of the lantern, leaving my toes most beautifully illuminated.

Suddenly, there it was, a rise of red brick, striped with new mortar.

A fingernail of fear sc.r.a.ped down my back. Someone might spot me, mightn't they? None of the Swampfolk was likely to be abroad at the chiming hour, but what about Mr. Clayborne's men?

Mr. Clayborne might have posted a guard. The station was the heart of the draining operation. If it was destroyed, the draining must stop, and rebuilding would take a deal of time.

I crept round the pumping station-no guard here, no guard at all: Mr. Clayborne trusted the Swampfolk.

I stepped back, forcing the lantern light off my toes, onto the station. It put me in mind of Petey Todd, show-offy and muscular. He was going to be just like the pumping station when he was grown, puffing out his chest and punching his chimney into the sky.

If Petey were a building, he'd be a pumping station.

Petey Todd: disgustimus!

The doors were sneery and unlocked. The polished hardware said, clear as anything, "Wipe your feet!"

I did, but only because I mustn't leave any traces. Machines hulked in the shadows. The lantern glanced off bits of polished bra.s.s and glossy paint. I shone it about, found the switch.

Let there be light!

I flicked the switch.

Behold: There was light!

Illuminating gas is extraordinarily clean and white, as though it were piped straight from the stars. The machines sprang from the shadows, fierce as Roman legionnaires in red and gold.

I brought out my weapons: three candles and a book of matches. How small they looked next to the machines, like David's slingshot next to Goliath. But we know what happened to Goliath.

I pulled at the windows; they closed smoothly-no stick or squeak or scowl. Mr. Clayborne kept his house in good order. I drew a match across the striker's gritty lip. The flame shone yellow in the piped-in starlight. I lit the candles, one, two, three. There: I was done, save for shutting the door behind me when I left.

An open flame, plus a sealed room, plus illuminating gas-these things added up to an explosive situation. I prowled round the outside of the pumping station, pushing and pulling at doors and windows. All shut tight.

If I was lucky, the explosion would spark a fire.

"Mistress!"

My hands jumped. They're always the first to be afraid.

My thoughts followed more slowly. Mistress. My thoughts turned the word upside down, then right side up again. Mistress. I had not been caught-not by anything human.

"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.

12.

Wolf and Lion 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.

This is Briony Larkin.