“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.
6
Please Let Him Live!
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.
