Chime

I leaned into him; he pushed me away. “Please don’t do that,” he said. “It’s too hard.” And there was something so sad about it, I wanted to cry. Except of course that I couldn’t.

He kept hushing me as we made our way through the dark to the staircase. “Up you go, quick now. You’re on the third floor, remember?”

“I have an excellent memory.”

“Right!” said Eldric. “Go straight to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow. You might not feel very well, I’m afraid.”

“Up I go!” I held tight to the banister.

“I’ll watch you go up,” said Eldric.

“Watching people isn’t polite,” I said. “Up I go!”

And finally, up I went. Rose was asleep. “Shh! Mustn’t wake Rose!” I believe I nursed some unkind thoughts about the do-not-cross line; and then, like a good girl, I went straight to bed.

I awoke in the dark with a cotton-wool mouth and a hammering in my head. I turned my head; the hammering sloshed to the other side. I grew gradually aware of my surroundings. I lay beside Rose, but on top of the bedclothes. Eldric’s coat hung all about me.

Bits of the night came back. Snippets of “Lord Randal.” I sang it—yes, I’m sure I did. I staggered through the square, singing, just like any drunken fisherman. How could I show my face in the village again? I should have to stay at home for the rest of my life. It could be done, I knew. I’d heard of an American poetess who never left her house. But I hated poetry.

Eldric had helped me home, hadn’t he? Had he held me upright, or might I have dreamt it?

A thought about Eldric sloshed through my head, passed out the other side.

How thirsty I was. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The hammering sloshed all about; I felt vilely unwell. You might not feel very well. That was Eldric’s voice in my head. I hadn’t dreamt it; he’d been there. Did I make a fool of myself?

The thought sloshed back, daring me to remember. Whatever it was, it was worse than weaving and singing through the square. I didn’t want to remember, but I kept picking at the memory—Eldric, Eldric and Leanne. Leanne was dangerous—she was consuming him alive. But Eldric could not—or would not—believe.

I swallowed hard, but the sick still rose, and all at once I was scrambling across the floor. I was wretchedly sick in the ewer.

The smell of sick jumped out at me, the fishy, gritty smell of eel. Eels boiled in eel broth. With the smell came the memory of Stepmother. Sick, and eel-smell, and Stepmother. They belonged together.

I didn’t want to remember Mucky Face bearing down upon Stepmother. But I couldn’t help it, couldn’t help remembering that livid belly rounding over her, curling, cresting, crashing. I’ll never know if Stepmother screamed. I heard nothing but the smack and smash of water.

Stepmother vanished beneath Mucky Face, but he hadn’t finished. On he surged, into the Parsonage, and only in the Parsonage. He preferred it to any other house. He surged through doors and windows, and nooks and crannies, and holes too small for an ant. And there he stayed for weeks, loitering in the dining room and the parlor and the study and the library, where he turned the books into bloated corpses to fester and rot on the shelves.

I sagged to the floor, leaned against the bed. Images of last night slid behind my eyes in a mad kaleidoscope. Prying into Eldric’s past with Leanne. Prying into his past in bars and bedrooms and brothels. Kicking him beneath the table. Standing on the garden steps. The charm of finding myself eye to eye with Eldric, of leaning into his lips. Give us a kiss, then, love!

And the horridly urgent question of making Eldric understand the danger he was in.

It was almost a relief to be sick again in the ewer.

25 Jaunting

That afternoon, Tiddy Rex knocked at the garden door. “Miss, oh miss!” He’d gone pale with excitement; his freckles stood out in livery spatters. “Come see, miss!”

“What is it, Tiddy Rex?”

“Sorry, miss. I were supposed to say it with them other words: Mister Eldric would take it very kindly if you might look into the square.”

Eldric. My stomach curled up on itself, like a hedgehog.

Give us a kiss, then, love!

“Honest, miss, you’ve never seen nothing like it. It be a surprise. An’ Mister Eldric requests the presence o’ Miss Rose, as well.”

“Rose!” I called into the house. “Eldric has a surprise for us in the square.”

“I prefer surprises,” said Rose.

I had to face Eldric sometime. Staggering and weaving, singing “Lord Randal”—

“Let’s hop along, then.”

“I don’t hop,” said Rose.

It was not quite raining, but the air was wet. You could see the wind. The gallows rose tall and lonely, skin and bones against gray clouds. The wind set the noose to swinging. I turned my back on its Cyclops eye.

The surprise stretched and purred before me.

It was a motorcar. (“Motorcar! O Motorcar!” sing the heavenly angels.) Long, but not too long. Red, but not too red. Sleekest of sleeks, shiniest of shines. And sitting at the wheel was Eldric Clayborne, letting a slop of urchins lay sticky hands all over its redness.

Not really red, but cardinal. Yes, cardinal—Cardinal!—with its overtones of High Churchiness. (Hallelujah! Hallelujah!)

“Don’t she be a beauty?” said Tiddy Rex.

She?

“All us lads, us be jaunting in her soon. That be the properest word, says Mister Eldric. Jaunting.”

She. Of course the motorcar was a lady. Briony Larkin might fall in love with a lady. That would be quite proper. There would be none of the nastiness of men and their cigars.

The motorcar had been acquired with Leanne in mind, of course, but I’d love her anyway. The motorcar, that is.

Mr. Clayborne’s men had left off their work to gaze at her. Rose walked round and round, touching the candy-apple skin with one finger. All the while, Eldric was helping dirty little boys and girls into the motorcar and sitting their horrid backsides on the white leather seats. One of the boys sounded her goose-voice of a horn.

White leather. I must pause for another color adjustment. Not white, cream. Thick, melting cream, with darling little buttons to fix the decorative pleats and puffs—cream leather buttons, of course. Even the insides of the doors were padded with cream leather.

Each wheel was a spun-candy confection of metalwork. In front, protuberant car eyes peered from protective brass hoods. A brass eagle perched on her nose.

“Do you like her?”

I jumped at Eldric’s voice. “I’m in love.”

“So am I,” said Eldric, “which works out well, as I’ve saved the first ride for you. Pearl has made us a picnic. I took the liberty of thinking you and Rose might join me.”

“I should have thought you’d give Leanne the first ride.”

“After what you told me?” he said.

“You didn’t believe me, though, did you?”

“No.” He smiled; I smiled. Give us a kiss, then, love! Ugh. Hedgehog stomach. Ugh.

Rose and I shared the passenger seat. I sank into cream leather.

“Miss!” Tiddy Rex pressed his nose to the window. I found a cunning little crank to open it. “You be taking me next time, miss?”