Chime. Part 2

Stepmother had never cared for fires. They made her too warm, she said. I had to wrap up when I came into the sewing room to care for her. The sewing room was a sad place then, and I always think a clean-swept grate is desolate.

The light from the window caught at Eldric's wide lion cheekbones, and at a rougher sweep down his cheeks. Whiskers? Did this boy-man shave? Of course he did, foolish, ignorant Briony. He was twenty-two. He'd be shaving away in this room, in the very room where Stepmother died.

I was suddenly aware of him, of the overwhelming Eldricness of him, of his busy London blood pumping just inches away. Of his paper-clip energy and switch-on eyes.

"Miss Briony!" It was Pearl calling-screaming! "She runned out. Miss Rose runned into the swamp!"

I slammed through the swinging door. I'd done the very thing Stepmother had warned me about. Or rather, I hadn't done it.

I hadn't been caring for Rose.

I hate myself.

You must take care of Rose. Stepmother had said that again and again. Take care of Rose. And I had promised.

I'd learned how to do it. I'd learned I had to hate myself.

I crashed into the kitchen. The cupboard door was ajar.

When you hate yourself, you don't neglect your responsibilities. When you hate yourself, you never forget what you did.

I'd even forgotten about Rose's cough. How little it took, two bright eyes and a couple of paper clips. What if it's the swamp cough and she dies, Briony? How will those bright eyes look then?

Let's review the rules, Briony: What, above all, mustn't you forget?

You mustn't forget to hate yourself.

4.

Such a Pretty Little Rosy!

One hundred eighty-three steps to the river.

I hurtled down the riverbank.

One hundred eighty-three . . .

Other footsteps now, joining mine-no, pouncing over mine, catching me up.

"You can't come with." I threw the words over my shoulder.

But Eldric was already at my side. "Your father made a plan," he said. "You and I are to search the swamp, while he and my father search the fields."

One hundred eighty-three steps.

"And he gave me a Bible Ball."

"Then mind your feet," I said, "else the bog will have you for supper." The Horrors couldn't touch him, not if he carried a Bible Ball.

"Your father says you know the swamp better than anyone." Eldric ran beside me on quiet lion paws.

But it had been three years. I'd changed; perhaps the swamp had changed. "Mind your feet."

One hundred eighty-three steps are quickly taken. We turned onto the towpath, ran beside the river.

"I have Bible b.a.l.l.s for you and Rose," said Eldric.

The bridge rose ahead. How many steps? Rose would know. Already I was winded. I'd lost the old Briony, that longago wolfgirl who could lope endlessly through the swamp.

I spattered over the pebbles at the foot of the bridge, trying to keep up with myself. My breath grew hot and sharp.

"You can't help Rose if you overtax your strength." Eldric took my arm, reined me into a trot.

"I know you've been ill," he said. "Ill for almost a year. I can't even imagine. Please don't overtire yourself and make me have to rescue you."

I might have smiled, but the problem with bridges is that they go up before they go down, and I hadn't the strength. It's true, I'd been ill for a long while. I had a queer sort of illness that made me feel as though I were a music box in want of winding, moving and thinking more slowly with every pa.s.sing day. Thinking-that was the worst. I'm used to being clever, not dull.

We tipped over the rise of the bridge. Downhill now, into the swamp.

The swamp hadn't changed. Lucky me, to see it again, before Mr. Clayborne drained the water. It was just as I remembered, a foreverness of mud and water, water and mud, and to the west, a blackness of trees.

"Rose left no tracks," said Eldric.

She hadn't, she couldn't. The swamp is too oozy and flowy and drifty to hold an imprint. In April, the swamp smells of winter, but the snow has melted; the season of mud has begun. Beyond the stretches of mud and water lay the end of the world, where the air turned blue.

But slow-poke Rose could never run to the end of the world, not in a quarter hour. Unlike me, she's never been quick. I pointed to the blackness of trees.

"She's in the forest?" said Eldric.

"The Slough." But if she wasn't . . . Stop, Briony. Make a plan.

"There are three bits to the swamp. We're on the Flats now, which is all reeds and shallows. Rose will have come to no harm here."

Unless one of the Horrors- Stop!

"In another quarter mile, we'll enter the Quicks. That's the bit that likes to gobble you up. If she didn't come to grief there, she'll be in the Slough. Tread only where I tread through the Quicks. It's only two miles, but every step is treacherous. When we reach the Slough, go on ahead." No need to say I couldn't keep up.

"You'll need your Bible Ball," said Eldric.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed a crumple of paper from his palm. Strange that a thing so small keeps a person safe in the swamp-unless that person is Briony Larkin, who isn't actually a person, which is the reason she needs no Bible Ball. The Horrors can't hurt her: She's a horror herself.

"You keep Rose's," I said. "You'll find her first."

The wind sang through the reeds. "Mistress!" said a voice, and another-"Mistress!" And now a chorus of melancholy voices, calling my name. Or, rather, the name by which the Old Ones called me back in the days when I was wolfgirl, back in the days when I'd used to roam the swamp.

"Where hast tha' been, mistress?"

"Such a vasty time to bide away!"

"Aye, a vasty time."

"Listen to the wind," said Eldric. "It's lovely, the way it blows through the reeds."

I nodded. Eldric saw only the reeds, heard only the wind. He hadn't the second sight.

The second sight.

I tried to disbelieve Stepmother when she told me I'm a witch. I knew she was right, yet I tried to make a case for myself, pecking at the proof Stepmother offered-pecking at it, turning it over, saying it didn't exist. Then pecking at another bit, and another, until Stepmother took pity on me. If I wasn't a witch, she asked, how else was it that I had the second sight?

"Talk to us, mistress! Make us our sweet story!"

Stepmother had leaned toward me then, taken my hand between the two of hers. Her hands were always cool. "I wouldn't tell you if I weren't obliged to," she said. "I only want your happiness."

It was true. Stepmother wanted nothing but the best for us. She wanted us to follow our dreams, helping in every way she could. She made sure I always had paper and ink and pens; she made sure I had time and privacy in which to write. And even Rose-well, Stepmother never minded the sc.r.a.ps of paper Rose left scattered about the Parsonage; she never minded helping Rose cut them into bits, paste them into collages.

"Mistress!"

The voices of the Reed Spirits faded.

"Make us our sweet story!"

Did the Reed Spirits know what had happened to the stories I'd written for them? Did they know those stories had burnt?

The mud-and-water of the Flats gave way to the water-and-mud of the Quicks. Jellied trickles turned to tricky jellies; the land quivered.

"Mistress!"

What a queer feeling; I'd never ignored the Reed Spirits before. It wasn't simply that I mightn't speak to them in front of Eldric. It was that I mustn't ever speak to them, not ever. Stepmother was very clear. She'd told me again and again: Briony plus the swamp plus the Old Ones is an explosive combination.

I had to break my promise now, but Stepmother would understand: I had to rescue Rose.

I gave all my attention to the Quicks, to the fleshy plants and splatty bogs that lick their lips as you pa.s.s by.

"Careful," I said. "The Quicks are always hungry."

We crept round glints of sc.u.mmy water and slimy reeds. My feet wanted to run, but my head told me not to be foolish. I couldn't help Rose from the bottom of a bog. Patience! The Quicks were only two miles across-not even two miles! But a mile lasts forever in the Quicks.

"What's that smell?" said Eldric.

"We're almost to the snickleways. They have a fearsome smell."

"Snickleways?" said Eldric.

"Waterways-you'll see in a moment; they snickle all through the Slough. They won't gobble you up, though-unless you can't swim. You may run-now!"

He ran terrifically fast, which was depressing. I used to run fast myself. Stop now, Briony: That sounds like jealousy, and you know what happens when you get jealous.

Your witchy jealousy breeds firestorms, gales, floods-disasters of Biblical magnitude. Wouldn't Father be proud!

I ducked through tangles of scrub, p.r.i.c.kles of black fir. The snickleways were the color of tea, crossing the Slough, then doubling back to double-cross each other.

"Rose!" I called.

"Rose!" called Eldric, deep in the Slough.

I slipped through twisted branches, plunged into the first snickleway, slogged through the muck. "Rose!" I emerged caked with mud to the chest.

"Rose!" called Eldric.

I brushed past ferns. I pulled against foot-sucking mud.

The water caught at bits of my reflection. Now a dark eye, now a slim nose, now a fall of bright hair. A face belonging to a shattered girl. A girl, scattered through the Slough.

"Rose!" I called.

Scream, Rose! You're so good at screaming. Go on, jab your screams into my ear-squish.

I never lost my internal compa.s.s, although every landmark had multiple copies of itself. The snickleways looked all the same, sc.u.m and duckweed and tea-water and reflection shards. The mud looked the same, every teaspoon, and so did the trees and logs and ferns and stumps.

"Rose!"

I crashed in and out of snickleways, dislodged smells of sulfur and rotten eggs. The wolfgirl Briony never used to crash. She slipped silently through the Slough; she could run forever. But it's three years later now, and I know all the wolves are dead. Isn't education a wonderful thing?

Another snickleway, more egg-and-sulfur vapors, which p.r.i.c.kled tears into my eyes. But they were false witch tears, not real people tears. Witches can't cry.

"Rose!"

More tea-dark water. The sulfur sting grew sharper; my tongue arched and spat. My hands and legs shook; I stumbled over sc.r.a.ps of my face. I pushed myself from the muck, I listened, I stumbled, I pushed myself from the muck, I listened, I- Rose's trademark scream, distant, but unmistakable.

"Rose!"

"Fires are dangerous!" Rose's voice.

A crashing now, Eldric and I running, converging upon Rose.

We ran at each other, Eldric and I. We ran through trees furred with moss.

"Fires are dangerous!"

But there were other voices. "Rosy, dear!"

"Take my hand, Rosy!"