“Not if your father does it first,” I said.
“Do you really believe your father would turn you in, or mine?”
I did believe it. Stepmother had believed it too. That’s why she promised again and again never to tell Father. She knew what would happen were he ever to find out.
I thought of the constable, of his droopy eyes and sloppy lips. Would he have to touch me to arrest me?
“I won’t tell anyone,” said Eldric. “My father, your father, no one.”
“But that’s not fair!”
“How is that?” said Eldric.
“I destroyed a very expensive pumping station, and haven’t paid anyone back, and besides, it wouldn’t be fair to Robert. He’s supposed to tell your father.”
“Let me take care of my father,” said Eldric. “I’ll lie if I have to. And if you need to pay me back, here’s what you can do. I’ve been wanting to have a garden party, at the Parsonage, but I’m a visitor and don’t like asking your father.”
“You want me to ask Father?” I said. “That hardly makes up for an expensive pumping station.”
It was wonderfully comforting that Eldric would lie for me. He would? Really, he would?
“There’s such a thing as being irritatingly ethical,” said Eldric. “That’s you, right now.”
That’s a pleasant change. Witches are rarely accused of being irritatingly ethical.
“Now,” said Eldric, “for a talk about the Fraternicus.”
“Fraternitus,” I said.
“I was just testing you,” said Eldric. “You passed. Now, tell me the meaning of
“Fraternity.” Where was this going?
“And what’s a fraternity?”
“A brotherhood.”
“In a brotherhood,” said Eldric, “each of the members trusts the others.”
Oh-ho! “You’re not going to talk me into telling you why I did it.”
“It appears not,” said Eldric. “But I have something I want to say. I feel it with every fiber of my bad-boy being. When I put my unscholarly mind to work on why you’d destroy the pumping station, I can think of only one thing: You’re in some sort of trouble.”
“Maybe I’m one of those people who likes to watch things burn.”
“You’re being irritatingly ethical again,” said Eldric. “But without the ethical bit.”
“I’ll show you how ethical I am.” I reached for the satchel and drew out a bottle.
“It’s from the church?” Eldric spoke softly, as though he were praying.
“From the church.”
“Communion wine?”
“Communion wine.” I knew that Mr. Clayborne was no fool, that he wasn’t the man to let the illuminating gas cause a second accident. He’d have turned it off, or contained it somehow. So I’d stuffed my satchel with the kinds of treats that appeal to fires—paper and rags and paraffin and alcohol.
“Brilliant!” said Eldric.
How lovely to no longer have the option of destroying the pumping station. What a relief! It wouldn’t be a relief the next day when I awoke to hear Rose coughing. But I might as well enjoy it for now.
I drew off the cork. “How does one drink it?”
“Right from the bottle.”
“A swig?” I said. “I’ve never had a swig.”
I drank. The smell shivered against the roof of my mouth. I wiped my mouth with Eldric’s coat sleeve, just like a bad boy. “I’ve swigged.” I handed the bottle to Eldric. “Or is it swug?”
“Swug,” said Eldric. “It is in bad-boy circles, at least.” He swug. “It tastes much better outside church.”
“It’s the picnic principle,” I said. “Things taste better outdoors. And if it’s a forbidden thing, so much the better.”
“I’m sorry I called you irritatingly ethical,” said Eldric. “I was clearly mistaken. Now back to my idea, from which you are clearly trying to distract me. I’m not saying that Fraternitus members mayn’t have secrets from each other. Sometimes that’s inevitable. But don’t you think we can trust the other and ask for help?”
There was no point in saying what I really thought. I nodded and swug again.
“Perhaps our initiation will bind us in mutual trust and aid.”
“I’ve been waiting and waiting,” I said, “but no initiation.”
“Keep waiting,” said Eldric. “Now that I’ve mentioned it, I shall have to delay it for months. The initiation must never come when you expect.”
We were most companionable, passing the bottle between us. I made myself forget about the next day. We leaned against the wall, very gradually sliding toward each other. I leaned my head on his shoulder; he rested his head on the top of mine; and the astonishing thing is that it wasn’t at all awkward.
I wouldn’t worry about tomorrow. I’d let today be enough.
We laughed a lot and I grew warmer still, lovely and warm. I do realize that some of that warmth was due to the wine, but there was much more to it than that. There are two distinct aspects to Communion wine: one aspect is the wine itself, the other is the idea of communion. Wine is certainly warming, but communion is a great deal more so.
16
The Party’s Always Over at Midnight
“I don’t like all one color,” said Rose, “but I like our frocks.”
I knew she did. She’d been saying so all day. She liked the way they matched up with themselves, which is to say they were white, white, white.
But that’s what young ladies wear to garden parties. White.
Rose was to attend the party. Dr. Rannigan said she might.
“Robert will like the way I match.” Rose turned so I might do her buttons.
I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t say what I’d said so often in the past few days. That Robert might choose not to come; that he might feel awkward; that he wouldn’t have any friends at the party.
But Rose had heard me often enough. “I’m his friend. He would come because I’m his friend.”
“You’re all buttoned, Rose.”
Once, I would have called her Rosy.
Or Rosy Posy.
Funny how I kept thinking of our pet names since that rainy Two-Pint Friday at the Alehouse, when Father called me Briony Vieny.
“I look pretty,” said Rose.
She did, too. The dress was drifty and Grecian in shape, with a high bodice that flowed into a great shoulder bow. Mine was identical. The party had proved to be a lot of work, and in the end, Pearl abandoned her plan to design two dresses. We’d look like twin Grecian oracles, rather pale from staying in our cave. Also minus the prophetic powers, which was a pity. If I could look into the future, I’d know how I saved Rose from the swamp cough. I hadn’t had a single idea, so far. Two weeks and no ideas.
“Do you suppose Robert’s here yet?”
“Why don’t you go see,” I said, which left me to do my own buttons, but that was better than going mad. “Don’t forget, Dr. Rannigan says you must wrap up well, and that you mustn’t stay at the party past ten o’clock.”
It also left me with some brain-room to think about how to save Rose. One needs an entire absence of Rose to be able to think about her. If she died, I could think about saving her all the time.
There’s a riddle in there. I’ll suggest it to the Sphinx.
Rose came dancing over the moment I descended the stairs. “Leanne is here, and because of my eye for
