Chime. Part 37

I'd sung "Lord Randal" dozens of times, never once thinking about Lord Randal's sweetheart making that eel broth. I'd sung it before I knew the writhe and grit of eels. Before I knew their stink sinks into your skin, that you scrub and scrub but can't get it out. Before I grew afraid of my own hands, afraid I'd carry the eel-stink forever. Before I discovered the lemon juice that washed it away.

Remember when you asked yourself why you hadn't turned into Mr. Sherlock Holmes? Why you hadn't tracked Stepmother's murderer down?

That's poetical irony for you.

"Mistress!"

I whipped round, into the smell of algae and dead fish, into the foam and roar of Mucky Face. "Mistress, tha' lad be busking the swamp for thee, an' the Dead Hand, it be draggling behind."

"Behind Eldric?"

"Aye, mistress."

"The Dead Hand, following him!"

"Aye, mistress. It draws ever nigh."

I made a sound like peeling paint. The Wykes sparked up, laughing, teasing, trying to lead me astray. The wind screamed and boxed my ears, but it couldn't hide the other scream.

"Briony!"

The Wykes skittered and sneered.

"Briony!" Eldric's voice was a rusty nail. My teeth cringed.

Thunder gnashed its teeth.

"Eldric!"

I followed his voice through the rabid underbrush. "Briony!"

Only thunder now.

"Eldric!"

Yellow flames skittered ahead of me. "Briony!" Eldric's voice, raw and tattered. The Dead Hand glowed beside his writhing shadow, beside a long darkness of screams. I dove upon the bloated flesh of the Dead Hand, releasing the sweet, rank smell of death.

I pried at its fingers. My nails sank into its flesh. Eldric had brought no Bible Ball-the fool! I wrung out yellow ooze, like curdled cream.

The Wykes watched the witch girl. They saw she couldn't budge the dead fingers. They crackled and cackled.

"Briony!"

I stabbed my fingers into the fleshy web between the Dead Hand's forefinger and thumb. I stabbed at the join between the oozing web and Eldric's warm, living wrist. But they might have been fused together. Not even a shadow could have slipped between.

"Briony!"

I tasted my own sick, I swallowed it down. I let go the hand, tore at my frock. It resisted. I set my teeth upon it. On my feet now, yanking at the placket. b.u.t.tons exploded. Off with the frock, tearing at the shoulder seam. d.a.m.n you, Pearl, for those strong, tiny st.i.tches. Tearing again, tearing. Curling my finger through a tiny hole, ripping. Tearing and swearing.

I couldn't save the hand, I could only save Eldric.

The Wykes sparked up again, yellow, blue, glinting, laughing. I flung myself to my knees, fell into a slippery wetness. The Wykes, yellow, sparking, glinting, lighting the wetness to crimson. A fountain of Eldric blood. Don't look! You'll be sick if you see his non-hand. You've no time to be sick.

I twisted the sleeve round Eldric's forearm.

The Wykes ebbed and vanished. Dawn sifted through the trees like ashes. The Dead Hand melted away. Did it carry away its prize-don't look!

My petticoat was a crimson stain. Eldric's lips were pale worms. His face raged with bruises. "Help me up," said the worm lips.

He held out his left hand. His eyes were empty rooms.

I took his hand in both my own. I pulled; I pulled again. Finally, I stooped and slipped my shoulder under his left arm.

"One . . . two . . . three!"

He did a great deal of the getting up himself. But he staggered at the end, crashing onto my shoulder. I waited, swallowed the pain, before I said, "We'll get you to Dr. Rannigan."

Eldric stepped, stumbled, clutched. His fingers bit into my bones.

"That's right," I said. "Wrap your arm around my shoulder."

He wrapped, he leaned. "Talk to me," he said.

Talk? There was only one thing to talk about. Murderess. The word hung in the air between us.

Only one thing to talk about, but nothing to say. If only I had some excuse, something to explain it. Even witchy jealousy would be better than nothing. I remembered the how of it, the eel and the pliers, but I couldn't remember why. It must be in there, someplace, but you can't get at a memory as you might get at a splinter. You can't poke about in your mind with a sterilized needle.

Eldric's forearm, his good forearm, dangled past my shoulder. I held it in a crisscross of my own forearms-as though that would help anything. That wasn't the arm that needed Dr. Rannigan.

But there it was, pressed against my middle, bulging with bad-boy veins. He'd offered his own red blood from those veins, offered it even though I wouldn't tell him anything, not about the Boggy Mun, not about the pumping station. I might tell him that, at least, tell him about Rose and the Boggy Mun.

I meant to start at the beginning with the ghost-children and go straight through to the end. But I ended up jumping into the middle and splashing about in both directions, talking about the swamp cough and the draining and Rose.

My shoulders screamed under Eldric's weight. But if he could keep going, I could keep going.

"Talk some more."

My memory of those days is always of the time after Mucky Face roared through, leaving the Parsonage smelling of paper bloat and cellar sc.u.m. Of sitting on the library carpet, in a patch of sunlight, finding myself staring at a scatter of mouse droppings.

Storybook characters are always praised for keeping their houses neat as pins. But no one writes about characters who are too weary to clean, characters who can't be bothered to care. No one writes about a character who sits on the floor and looks at mouse droppings. Who looks and looks and leaves them be.

"Where are you going?" Eldric's voice was flat and slow, an elastic band, stretched lengthwise.

The character doesn't decide to leave them be. She simply does. She does anything that requires no decision and no action.

"The village."

"You can't go to the village," said the gray, elastic voice. "They'll hang you."

If I were an author, I'd write about people who sit on the floor. About people who look at mouse droppings and don't care. About people who can only feel a black hole inside.

"Turn around," said Eldric. "Run."

"You need to get to Dr. Rannigan."

My memory grabbed at the doctor's face, at his high forehead, his patient cow eyes. If only he were here now, he'd know what to do. My chest slammed shut. My breath went silent; I heard the drumming of my heart.

Dr. Rannigan!

What should I do, Dr. Rannigan?

I couldn't breathe, my heart beat faster. But I couldn't die, not yet. That was for later, on the gallows. I had to get Eldric to Dr. Rannigan.

Breathe, Briony! Breathe so Eldric can keep breathing. I willed my heart to slow, I willed myself to breathe. The door to my chest creaked open. I drew a breath.

"I'll walk myself to the village." Eldric already sounded dead. "You run."

I was used to the idea of dying but not of Eldric dying. The thought hurt my chest. When a person hurts, she cries. But a witch can't cry, she has to go on hurting.

"Run!" said Eldric.

Run? Run and leave Eldric to die? Run into a lifetime of loneliness and guilt? He must be mad.

Memory shards now, falling like rain. I watched my hands dip a ladle into a cauldron of eel broth. I watched them pour the broth into a bowl. My fingers now, tugging at a twist of white powder.

How lucky we twentieth-century witches were. Macbeth's witches had to find poisoned entrails for their cauldron, generally not available at the local apothecary. Briony Larkin had only to measure out four grains of the powder, add a pinch more for good luck, and stir it into the broth.

At first, Stepmother said she was not hungry, but I urged her to eat, saying she'd never otherwise regain her health. If she ate, I said, I'd write her a story.

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 b.l.o.o.d.y-all of which I'd expected. I'd written Fitz, asking if he didn't ever worry about over-ingesting a.r.s.enic, and as I'd known he would, he wrote me a treatise on the stages of a.r.s.enic 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.

Murderess.

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, sc.r.a.ping 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 b.u.mp about.

I could pa.s.s 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 st.i.tches. 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.

h.e.l.l!

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 l.u.s.t 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.