Chime. Part 40

"Tell me the story again," says Eldric. He says his memories of the Dead Hand and the swamp are like a dream. He remembers, but he doesn't remember.

"Which version do you want?" I say. "The one in which I am terrifically heroic? Or the one in which I am extraordinarily heroic?"

"The latter," says Eldric, but then he looks at me sideways, and I know what he's going to say.

"For goodness' sake!" I say. "I am not too tired. Would you and Father please stop treating me as though I'm going to break?"

"But you did break," says Eldric. "That's hard for us to forget."

"You broke too," I say. "But you don't see me worrying about you."

"But you do worry, I think. You worry in a different way."

Eldric's right, although I'll never admit it. I do worry about him. I worry that he has horrid feelings about having lost his hand, his dominant hand. He was a boy-man who boxed and fidgeted and climbed roofs, and now-What does he say to himself when he's alone?

I hate myself? Is that what he says?

I can only guess at his feelings. I know what Dr. Freud would guess, but he'd be wrong.

"You could at least complain," I say. "I adore complaining. It calms the nerves."

I wish I'd lost my hand instead. I have no particular need for it, except for writing. But even so, I need only the one.

"Ha!" he says. "You didn't see me all the while you were ill. Just ask my father if I didn't complain. Or Pearl. Pearl knows."

It's true. I've lost time, all sorts of time. I've lost memory time with Stepmother; I've lost real time with Eldric. I feel as though he and I are just now meeting all over again. I try to identify what's shifted between us. Perhaps the best word for it is guarded. Eldric has grown guarded.

I tell a highly colored version of our journey through the swamp on Halloween night. But there's enough truth that I let Eldric shake his head and say, "How did you do it, though? All those miles, and me, such a weight!"

"Robust," I say primly. "You're robust."

"You're very kind." Here comes his curling lion's smile. "I rather think my father would call me hulking."

"Only when you ask for thirds at supper. You tell him I say you're robust, and that I'm the one to know."

The five thirty-nine whistles. Eldric and I jump, then laugh. The skip-rope girls scatter. The five thirty-nine tosses her luminous hair and chuffs away from the station.

Someday I will gallop away with the five thirty-nine to London. And someday, I will take one of her sisters from London to Dover, then sail to France, and I know just what I'll say. "Pardon, monsieur." I will be very polite. "Le restaurant Chez Julien, il est sur le Boulevard Saint-Michel, a droite, si je ne me trompe pas?"

I mention this to Eldric, but he shakes his head. "Let me remind you of the correct phrasing, and please note my perfect accent: The restaurant Chez Julien, she is, if I do not mistake myself, down the Boulevard Saint-Michel, to the right?"

I speak again in my French voice. "I must note one error, monsieur, one oh-so-small error. A restaurant, he is a boy, not a girl."

"Really!" says Eldric. "The French have certainly got that wrong!"

"You can correct them on your next visit."

"I shall be sure to." Eldric sweeps his newest fidget into his palm, admires it from all sides. "We are ready for paint. Or, as they'd say in Paris, Voila! French is an admirably economical language."

"I'll fetch Rose." I peel off my lap rug, but Eldric springs up first.

"I'll do it."

"I am not going to break!"

"Not if you keep quiet," says Eldric. Dr. Rannigan has told Eldric and Father he was astonished I managed to hang on through the end of the trial. But he also says he's seen it before. That sometimes people stave off the symptoms of illness to finish something else. Then, though, the illness comes crashing down upon the person like an avalanche. It makes Father and Eldric feel guilty, which is nice, but tiresome.

Eldric speeds through the front door, but I call after him. "I won't stay in this chair. You'll come back sometime to find I've disappeared."

Hmm. When might sometime be? It might be this evening.

It might, and it will. I mean to walk to the fields to check on the green mist. That's what the Swampfolk used to do every spring when I was small. We'd rise before dawn. We'd wait and watch. For days and days, we'd watch the sun rise over fields of plain brown earth, and we'd turn about and go home. But one morning, the sun would rise on fields of green mist, and we'd stay to welcome the earth. We'd tell her how glad we were she'd awakened once again. We'd sprinkle salt and bread on the ground and say strange old words that no one understands anymore.

Tonight wouldn't be like those not-so-very-old days. I'd be watching in the evening, and I'd be watching alone. But I wouldn't let another day pa.s.s without watching for the earth to awaken.

"You may as well have let me fetch her," I say as Eldric emerges with Rose. "While you were gone, I ran around the square. Twice."

"Don't even think about doing that," says Eldric.

"Or?" I say. I listen to myself. I sound, perhaps, a touch childish.

"Or I'll pound you into a pulp," says Eldric with the utmost good humor.

"I know that's a joke," says Rose.

"Quite right, Rosy Posy." I hand Rose the box of paints. "I have a color request for this fidget."

Rose opens the box.

"Let's paint it the exact color of the motorcar."

"I'm the one who has an eye for color," says Rose.

"I'm the one who's ill," I say.

"You've been ill too much," says Rose.

"Hear! Hear!" says Eldric.

I feel the p.r.i.c.kle of tears behind my cheekbones. I lie back and close my eyes. They're joking, I tell myself. Or at least Eldric is. Rose doesn't know how to joke. But sometimes I cry at the stupidest things.

Rose sets out the paints; she mumbles over them. Eldric whispers. Mumble, whisper, mumble. Finally, Rose says, "What color is the motorcar, Briony Vieny?"

Eldric has coached her, of course.

"Cardinal." (Hallelujah! Hallelujah!) The two of them rattle about in the paints.

"Is this one cardinal?" says Eldric.

"No, it's this one," says Rose.

"You've got an eye for color, right enough," says Eldric.

I get what I want, but I still feel like crying. What a stupid baby!

Stop, Briony! Don't you remember about treading out the paths? You don't want to deepen the path to stupid baby. You want to tread out a path to kindness. What might Father have said? Poor girl, you've been so ill, and no one's looked after you for such a long time.

That's actually no longer true, although truth is entirely irrelevant to the treading out of brain paths.

Eldric sends Rose to the kitchen. We need a bite to eat, he says. "Ask Pearl for some of those sunset buns your sister likes so well."

I smile. I know Eldric sees it. He may be indifferent, but at least he forbids me to say I'm not a hero. There! Another brain path in want of scuffing.

I'm a hero. Briony Larkin is a hero.

I am drifting into sleep. I'm thinking mad, mixed-up thoughts, or perhaps I'm dreaming, but my dream thoughts are true, true in the real world. I wish that Eldric had cared for me while I was ill, as he did when I was recovering from my encounter with the Dead Hand. But, instead, it was Father who cared for me. He sang, and bathed my forehead, and took to singing again at night. It's awfully silly with daughters who are eighteen, but I don't have to pretend not to like it. Rose likes it, which means that even if I didn't like it, I wouldn't say so because one doesn't say one doesn't like things if Rose likes them, unless one doesn't value one's hearing.

After a few pints of ale, Father even manages a few I love yous. He was devastated that he'd left us alone with a Dark Muse-even now he can hardly bear to say the words. I tell him he couldn't possibly have realized she'd turn to us for her next snack.

I tell him it was reasonable to think he'd dealt her a death blow when he stopped singing and locked away his fiddle. She should have unwound and died.

But Stepmother was too clever, of course. The very day Father locked away his fiddle was the day she told me-"reminded" me-that I hurt Rose and that I was a witch. And that meant I couldn't leave the Parsonage. Stepmother had made me believe it was too dangerous to enter the swamp, and anyway, I couldn't leave her alone to care for Rose. Stepmother made sure I'd stay close by. Stepmother wasted no time in beginning to feed off me.

I tell Father no one imagined a Dark Muse could feed on girls.

Father tells me it's awful to realize how long ago she started planning; taking her first steps when I was seven; making me believe I was wicked; keeping me tethered to her larder should Father discover what she was.

I wish he'd told me from the beginning, when he realized the truth about Stepmother. But it wasn't possible for him, the Reverend Larkin, to tell his daughter he married a Dark Muse. It was too shameful. He had to hide the fact. He left her to die for want of feeding, or so he thought. He never thought she'd feed upon his girls.

I hear Eldric pause, hear him pad over to me, lion soft. He pulls the coverlet up to my chin. He often performs these small kindnesses for me when he thinks I'm asleep. And when I am asleep too, I suppose.

But I wish he would do the same when I'm awake. I wish he'd help lay down new brain paths for me and scuff out the old. I wish he'd tell me how perfect I am, just as Father did when I was small. That he'd exclaim over my darling apricot ears and perfect fingernails. That he'd scuff out the paths Stepmother stomped into existence, paths of wickedness and guilt.

I fall into mad dream thoughts of fingernails and babies. I put a baby on the wrong train, and no one can find it, and I'm running about, looking for the baby, but the air is thick as glue. What a relief to wake up and realize I've been asleep. Rose has gone, leaving behind half a plate of sunset buns and a litter of crumbs. Eldric holds the paintbrush in the tips of his fingers.

"d.a.m.n!" he says.

"I can give it a go," I say.

The paintbrush pauses. "Sorry, did I wake you?"

"I don't think so." I try to shake off my dream.

He reaches for the plate of buns. "Give it a whirl, will you, while I get things warmed up." He glances at the bowl of soggy cream. "And get things colded up."

I give it a whirl. Painting a tiny fidget is not as easy as it sounds. Every little mistake looks huge. A dribble of paint has run into a corner and dried.

"d.a.m.n," I say. I was never as wicked as I'd thought, so I have some extra goodness to balance out a bad word or two.

The truth will set you free. That's both true and not true. It was certainly liberating to learn I'm not a witch. To learn I hadn't hurt Rose, or even Stepmother, at least not with Mucky Face as my weapon. To learn that Stepmother was never really ill, except for a brief period after the fire, before she turned to Rose, and of course, the last day of her life. It was not so liberating to remember I poisoned Stepmother, but for that, I am forgiven. It seems that if someone (Stepmother) is killing someone else (Rose), the law permits you to kill the someone in order to protect the someone else.

I like myself.

I like myself.

Or, for example, the law permits Eldric to wing the constable in order to protect Briony Larkin.

Eldric returns with a sunset-lathered bun. We speak of a certain person who has an eye for color but can't manage to finish painting a certain fidget. We speculate that she has gone to visit Robert: Rose has become awfully independent these days. We are relieved of our conversation when Tiddy Rex comes running by.

Eldric looks at me. "Shall we?"

"Is it dry?"

Eldric nods.

I call Tiddy Rex onto the porch. "You are just the boy we want to see. We hope you will agree to join our secret society."

"The Fearsome Four," says Eldric.

"The mission of the Fearsome Four is to fight for justice," I say.

"To go on quests," says Eldric.

"I never been on no quest," says Tiddy Rex. His eyes are wide and exactly match the color of his freckles.

"In the olden days," I say, "people set off on quests by horseback. But in these modern days, heroes go by motorcar."

"Motorcar!" Tiddy Rex's voice is just a squeak.

"The existence of the Fearsome Four is a solemn secret," says Eldric. "Will you join us and dedicate yourself to our mission?"

Tiddy Rex flushes. "Aye, aye!"

"Kneel, then, Tiddy Rex, that you may be sworn into the secret society of the Fearsome Four."

Tiddy Rex kneels. I glance up as though this is a holy moment. The sky is all stretchy clouds, like elastic lace. "Do you solemnly swear to face all perils in order to rescue those in need? Do you swear to be relentless in the eternal quest for justice?"

"Aye, aye!"

"Do you solemnly swear to motor from one end of the world to the other, rooting out evil wheresoever you may find it?"

"Aye, aye!"

Eldric rises. He sets a leather cord around Tiddy Rex's neck. "I now p.r.o.nounce you a member of the Fearsome Four. Welcome, Tiddy Rex! Rise and walk among us."

Tiddy Rex's face is a starry map. He touches the fidget hanging on the cord.

"Mister Eldric!" he says, for the fidget is a brilliant copy of the motorcar, right down to the tiny bra.s.s eagle. The eagle's not made of bra.s.s, of course, but it's painted gold, and you can see its beak and its every talon.