“The metaphor game.” I’d punch him on that squarish corner of his boy-man jaw.
“What invention would Leanne be?” I said, thinking of the rack and the skull crusher.
“The very thing!” said Eldric. “To which I have just the answer. If Leanne were an invention, she’d be a motorcar.”
“I adore motorcars!” said the fine horsewoman, raising her tinkling eyes and laughing her twinkling laugh.
“But not the careful, boxy sort of motorcar,” said Eldric. “The lower, longer sort. Black, I think. Calf-leather interior.”
“What a lovely game!” said Leanne, clapping her sultry hands. “Let me think of an invention for Eldric.”
The electric light, of course. But Leanne had her own idea.
“The telephone, I think.”
Because he talks too much?
“You’re ever so good at bringing far-flung people together.”
She was right. I hated her.
“What would I be?” said Cecil.
The X-ray, of course. Cecil likes to look through girls’ clothes.
The barkeep lit the lanterns. They flared blue with a stink of the Hot Place, then paled when Father walked in. He tends to have that effect.
Father headed straight for our table. What would Father be if he were an invention?
“Will you sing with us, Briony?”
I had to look up.
Father can’t be an invention. He’s only old, nothing new.
“Please do!” said Cecil. “You have a lovely voice. I haven’t heard you in ages.”
“Another time, perhaps,” I said. But there’d be no other time. When Father stopped singing, so did I. I stopped so thoroughly I can’t sing anymore.
“Please?” said Father. “Please, Briony Vieny?”
“Will you choose a song?” said Father.
How does love die? In the first year, Father touches Stepmother’s hair and sings
“ ‘Black Is the Color
Sorry, Father. You were the one who asked.
I grasped the fork with my right hand, just as all non-witchy girls must do. I stabbed into the pie. Steam burst from the crust, smelling of cinnamon and wine.
I set down my fork. One reason to cook with cinnamon and wine is to disguise the taste of eel. But you can’t fool me.
“Shall I get you something else?” said Eldric.
I shook my head. The very thought of eel brought up the taste of sick. I sipped at the bees-wine. It buzzed about my mouth but didn’t buzz away the taste. Why hadn’t he brought fish and chips as he had the three Fridays past? Did he think Leanne a touch above Two-Pint Friday fare?
Quiet again in the Alehouse as the Hangman slid back through the door. Rain dripped from his hat brim, flicked off his jacket as he hung it up. Everyone looked at him; he looked at no one. He took his old seat, he looked at no one.
“What a nasty job,” said Leanne, proponent of ridding the earth of witches. She smiled, exposing her heart- shaped teeth. “I wonder that he can bear to eat.”
Cecil said he wondered too, but I didn’t. Let’s say you do something wicked, such as smash your sister’s wits. Does that mean you shall have no more cakes and ale?
No. Your heart must go on ticking, and your mouth must go on eating, and your brain must go on sleeping; and if you enjoy the occasional pint, what of it? You may as well enjoy the pint. If someone makes a joke, you may as well laugh.
Your heart ticks on, that’s all there is to it. Life goes on, that’s all there is to it.
“I like girls with golden hair,” said Cecil to no one in particular, and he snatched at a bit of my hair.
He was tipsy. “Leave me be, Cecil.” How could Fitz have stood his company, Fitz, my tutor genius.
But look at Eldric. Was he also tipsy? Look at him, slipping off his chair, onto his knees. Look at him, kneeling at Leanne’s feet. Look at him, strumming an imaginary guitar.
I stood up. What was I doing here? I hated other people my age. How stupid they were. I should hate to be a regular girl with a sugar-plum voice. I should hate to have swan-like lashes, and a thick, sooty neck. I sound as though I’m joking, I know, but I should truly hate to be like Leanne, so charming and ordinary and stuffed with clichéd feelings. I’m glad I’m the ice maiden. Who wants to be crying over every stray dog?
Not I. Scratch my surface and what do you see? More surface.
I excused myself. I said I mustn’t neglect Rose, which Eldric would have known was a lie, if he’d been attending properly, which he wasn’t. He knew perfectly well that Pearl looked after Rose on Fridays—on quite a lot of other days, as well.
The square ran with water. Light spilt outside the window, dripped off Mad Tom’s umbrella.
“You be going out in this weather, miss?” said Tiddy Rex.
“What other weather could I go out in?”
The Alehouse door slammed behind me. Mad Tom crouched beneath broken umbrella fingers. Hangman’s Square was a witch’s brew of mud and sewage and drowned rats. I stepped into the square, where everything was oozing and bubbling and churning. The wind wound itself through the gallows. It danced with Nelly Daws. Nelly danced with the wind, danced on her poor, dead, dancing feet.
Nelly was no witch. She was a nineteen-year-old girl who, once, had danced round a Maypole. Judge Trumpington had been wrong; the Chime Child had been wrong. Couldn’t they have listened to Rose about the different colors of red hair, Nelly’s and the witch’s?
Don’t think about it, Briony. There’s no point. Remember: You’re the girl with nothing below the surface. Scratch it and what do you find?
More surface.
15
Communion
I’d left Eldric behind in the Alehouse. I’d left Nelly behind in the square. But I couldn’t leave Rose behind, I could never leave Rose. I stood outside the bedroom we shared. I listened to her cough.
Rose had been feeling poorly, Pearl had said. Rose had gone early to bed.
I was glad to hear it. I needn’t tell Rose at once. I needn’t tell her she’d been right, that Nelly had been no witch, that the witch’s hair didn’t match Nelly’s, that the judge and the Chime Child ought to have heeded Rose. But the judge and the Chime Child had dwelt mostly on the fact that Nelly could not account for her whereabouts on the night of the flying snags.
Rose coughed as I trudged up the stairs. Rose coughed as I set my hand on the doorknob. Rose coughed. She had a wet, skin-scraping cough. She had the swamp cough.
I let my hand drop. There was nothing for me in that room. If I went in, I’d just lay myself in our bed, in the
