It was awkward, struggling out of my wet things, feeling entirely exposed, which I was, to the whole half of the world on the east side of the curtain-coat, including the Strangers. And on the west side, to a boy-man who could peer over at any time, except that members of the Fraternitus never lied or cheated. I scrambled into my blouse, which was the only thing that wasn’t wet. It wasn’t worse than nothing, but it was not much better.
“Done?” said Eldric.
“How did you know?” I said.
“I have ears.”
How could a boy-man hear when a girl was dressed?
“Done,” I said.
He turned, wrapped the coat around me. But his fidgety fingers made sure not to touch me, not even through the thickness of the coat. It had been all ruined by Blackberry Night.
“Come along, blue lips,” he said, thinking perhaps that a bit of silliness might smooth over the awkwardness.
“If you were to write me a poem,” I said, “you could rhyme it with
But silliness was not a smoother-over. Not for the two of us as we made our way back to the village. Not on this particular October evening, when Eldric’s long fingers had just taken such care to avoid any bit of Briony Larkin.
We walked in silence past the pumping station, toward the fields of rye. We’d had no time to revisit awkward memories on the outward journey: We’d loped and laughed through the fields to the Scars; it had been too long since our last fighting lesson. But now—well, if only the rye were already harvested and the fields looked like Tiddy Rex after a haircut. It wouldn’t be so awkward then. But we had to walk through a field of awkward memories, through the rye, tall and bronze and smelling of kisses.
I could feel Eldric struggling to contain that hollow whistle of his. How stupid it was, that we couldn’t talk about this. I couldn’t bear it if we went all silent, as Father and I were. Can a lifetime of silence begin with a kiss?
I couldn’t stand it; I had to say something. “Awkwardissimus?”
“Awkwardissimus!” said Eldric.
We laughed, which broke the silence. There was a bit of me, though, that stood outside myself, listening to us: We managed an impressive imitation of the way we’d used to talk, but I thought that any expert would spot the forgery.
The river ran olive brown, like paintbrush water. As we neared the bridge, Mad Tom’s voice broke into our counterfeit conversation. “Give ’em back! I needs ’em sore, I does.”
Silence now, except for the kingfishers gossiping in the reed beds.
“I does, pretty lady. Mad Tom, he mind on you. He mind on you fine by that black hair what you got.”
We crested the rise of the bridge. Mad Tom was hiding behind the black claw of his umbrella, just his shirttail and trouser legs showing beneath. “You got you your own proper wits, pretty lady.” He turned.
Leanne! The pretty lady was Leanne. The sight of her gave me a gray, cotton-woolish sort of feeling.
“Oh, my lilied liver! Oh, my turnip toes!” Mad Tom swung the umbrella from his shoulder, stirred the tip into the pebbles at the foot of the bridge. “I knows the pretty lady’s got some wits to spare for poor Mad Tom.”
Eldric’s face went all un-electric. Heavy eyelids at halfmast, lips tight as curling lips can be.
Is that what love looks like? If you’re a twenty-two-year-old man in love with a beautiful woman, and you see her and she sees you? But perhaps Eldric wanted to hide the look of love. A boy-man might not like to expose his tender feelings, especially in front of Blackberry-Night Briony Larkin.
She had a floaty sort of walk, Leanne did, and she’d trained her cloak to float along with her. The floatiness went with the color of her cloak and skirts, blues and greens that shifted as she moved.
She slowed as she neared us, setting Mad Tom to dancing about her, blessing his liver and spying his wits with his little eye. She called out to Eldric in her dusk-lined voice, but her gaze lingered on his coat, which hung about me like a sack.
“Lovely to see you again—Briony.” The pause before my name was brief, but effective. It said,
Now back to Eldric. “How sweet of your father to write. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear of your recovery.” Her eyes roved all over him. “Are you completely well?”
“Completely,” said Eldric.
He hadn’t seen her since he’d recovered! Ten whole days. Wasn’t that a long absence for an ardent lover?
“I wonder,” she said, “if you could rid me of poor Mad Tom.” Her smile showed her sultan’s-harem teeth— beautiful, perhaps, but excessive in number. “I confess, he frightens me.”
“Them eyes you got, lady.” Mad Tom stepped close, too close for politeness. “They been haunting me, them eyes.”
Eldric took Mad Tom’s arm. “This way,” he said. “The pretty lady needs her privacy.” But he didn’t hurry Mad Tom. He eased Mad Tom down the bridge, letting Mad Tom set the pace. Eldric was a gentleman. I’d never thought of this before.
“I suppose you’re not afraid of the poor fellow?” Leanne leaned toward me, as though we were best friends. She whiffed of scent. I could have guessed she’d never choose something fresh and flowery. Instead, she smelled the way she looked, dark and peppery, with an undercurrent of wild animal.
“You’re accustomed to him, of course. I hear he’s really harmless, but I can’t like him drawing so close.”
But the dusk and pepper were merely surface smells. Beneath lay the smells of salt and seaweed and damp. They slipped into my mind like minnows, startling me into a scent memory of Stepmother. Not Stepmother as I’d last seen her, but the gay, laughing Stepmother who’d first come into our lives.
When Eldric turned back to join us, Mad Tom shuffle-trotted behind. “Here he comes again,” I said, which made Mad Tom address himself to me.
“I thinked I seen you afore, but it be t’other girl I seen.”
He lunged at Leanne with webbed umbrella fingers. “You be the real girl what stole my wits.”
Eldric grabbed the umbrella, pulled it from Mad Tom’s hands. “You want to be careful with that. You could hurt someone.”
“No,” said Mad Tom, quieter now. “I got me a prettier notion. You takes me back an’ works me till I falls. I were good feeding for you, weren’t I?”
My breath snagged in my throat. Such queer things he was saying. Until now, I’d thought Leanne an idiot to be afraid of Mad Tom. But for the first time ever, I was afraid.
“Lead him away again, will you?” said Leanne. “Perhaps I should accompany you this time. He’ll follow me, poor fellow. Perhaps the constable ought to know he’s developed an obsession for me. I feel we may call it that, an obsession.”
“I’ve news of the motorcar.” Eldric took Leanne’s arm. “But I’m promised to Briony for supper, so I’ll have to tell you about it some other time.”
He was? What a bouncer of an excuse! Did he not want to be with Leanne? How could you explain it otherwise?
He didn’t want to be with Leanne!
Leanne leaned in close again, and she frightened me too. “Might you excuse us, Briony?” It wasn’t merely that she pressed herself at me and that she was so tall and dark. “Thank you for sparing Eldric. He’ll be just a few minutes, I’m sure.” It was also that she was somehow bursting out of her skin, and her voice was too big, and she had so many teeth, and I was shrinking away in my skin, and I had no voice at all.
I shrank away from her. I, Florence Nightingale Larkin, actually shrank away, like any regular wilting violet of a girl.
“I swears, lady!” said Mad Tom. “I swears by marble an’ blade to work stone for you till I drops. Just don’t leave afore my time. Suck at my life, lady, till I be kilt.”
