“Do we have enough chocolate biscuits?” said Rose.
“Let’s eat them all up,” said Eldric. “Now!”
Leanne was now urging the horse up the bluff, now slowing, now slipping from the saddle, turning toward us, smiling with those overripe teeth.
“What a surprise,” said Eldric.
Leanne was pink and glowing and robust, looking indecently healthy. “I thought you might come back here.”
Rose flung herself on the blanket and reached for the packet of biscuits.
“What’s the rule, Rose?” I said.
“Sweets are for after.” Rose set it down. “But I prefer to ask a question now. A person must always keep a secret, mustn’t she?”
“Indeed she must,” I said. I’d thought this place so fresh and new, but they’d been here before. It was all worn out.
“Even if she doesn’t prefer to?”
“Even then,” I said.
“I hope you don’t mind my joining you,” said Leanne. I minded. After all, she’d tried to kill me. A girl in a novel would say it was hard to believe, but it wasn’t.
“I don’t agree,” said Eldric. “Some secrets are wrong and ought to be told.”
“What if a person can tell it without telling it?” said Rose.
“How do you mean?” I said.
“I have a different question,” said Eldric. “Why do you want to tell?”
“It’s a wicked secret,” said Rose. “It’s wicked to say you’ll hurt a person if they tell a secret, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Eldric. “Most wicked.”
We were all sitting now on the blanket. There came a strong smell of musk and salt. Leanne must have drowned herself in scent. For the first time, Eldric looked at her. He adjusted his position ever so slightly, opening the circle, letting her into the conversation.
“It might not always be wicked,” I said. “What if in telling the person to keep the secret, you’re actually protecting her? What if she’ll do herself a harm if she tells?”
Was that what men liked, musk and salt?
“Quite right,” said Leanne. “There are always two sides to every story.”
“It is never acceptable to hurt somebody, or threaten to hurt him,” said Eldric.
“But you punched somebody,” I said. “I saw you.”
“He was hurting someone else.” Eldric ought to have looked at me. I was the person who’d been hurt. But he looked at Leanne. He was falling under her spell, wasn’t he? I had to remind him—
I mustn’t allow him—
“Was it only yesterday,” I said, “that you asked me to give you credit for some brains?”
“I believe so.” Eldric’s fidgety fingers reached for a bun. “How long ago it seems.” He spread the jam very thin, piled the cream very thick.
“Touché!” Eldric handed me a creamy sunset of a bun: mounds of cream, a mere splash of pink.
“Eldric’s much too hard on himself,” said Leanne.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning the bun. “It’s just the way I like it.”
“I know,” said Eldric. “I’ll never come to grips with the thirteenth declension, but I do know what you like.”
How lovely to eat a sunset, still warm and spread with clouds.
“Eldric is far from stupid,” said Leanne. “He’s quite a genius in his way.”
But that was my idea! I’d said he was a genius the night of the garden party. Leanne couldn’t try to kill me, and steal my idea too!
“He was truly stupid.” I hadn’t said it aloud, though.
“You are unkind, Miss Larkin.”
“I think not,” I said. “We are all stupid, aren’t we, from time to time?”
“But I more than most,” said Eldric, smiling.
Leanne began to speak, but Rose interrupted.
“You can stop talking now. You are distracting me from a very difficult decision.” She paused. “I need first to lay the groundwork.”
“Lay away!” Eldric all but sang the words. He’d gone electric. “Shall I fix you a bun, Rose?”
Rose nodded. “Do you remember what Father used to call me?”
“Rosy Posy!” I said, which was the answer, but turned out to be more of an exclamation.
“He used to call you Briony Vieny.”
Briony Vieny. “I remember.”
But I wished I didn’t. How mortifying to remind Leanne of one’s childish pet name.
“Do you know how Briony and I match up?” It is sometimes unclear to whom Rose is speaking, because she looks all about, not into one’s eyes. This time, though, she made it clear to whom she wasn’t speaking: She had turned her back on Leanne.
“Your faces match up quite a bit,” said Eldric.
“Faces are only genetic.” Rose was really very clever in her own way. “But names aren’t genetic.”
“May I make a guess on how you match up?” said Eldric.
“You may,” said Rose, which was generous, because she’s fond of announcing her ideas.
“You match because a rose is a flower and so is a briony?”
“It’s a vine,” said Rose.
“A poisonous vine,” I said.
“I never can guess correctly,” said Eldric. “It must be because I’m so stupid.”
“Please, Eldric!” said Leanne.
I wanted to laugh, I wanted to fling my arms about Eldric. He was playing with me, he was playing against Leanne.
“Because we’re both plants,” said Rose. “Our faces match up, and our names match up, but there’s something that doesn’t match up.” And Horrors take me if she didn’t produce one of her collages.
“Do you like it?”
I did, actually. It was a riot of blues and purples, with a few splashes of peach and gold to give it life.
“I like it extremely,” said Leanne, although she hadn’t been asked. “How did you know just what colors to use?”
“I have a gift.” Rose sat rather closer to me than usual. “But it’s not the sort of gift you give someone. I have it all for myself, Eldric said so.”
“I did the cutting and gluing,” said Eldric. “Didn’t I do an excellent job?”
“Eldric’s the Administrative Assistant of Scissors and Glue,” said Rose.
As I looked at the collage, the colors resolved themselves into patterns, and the patterns resolved themselves into an image. “Do I see people?”
“Yes!” said Rose, and her voice actually managed an exclamation mark. “Who are the people?”
The people were rather abstract, mostly peach-colored blobs with eyes.
“Are they babies?” said Leanne.
“Yes!” said Rose, still sitting with her back to Leanne, which was wonderfully rude. “Who are the babies?”
I stared into the collage, but the baby-blobs did not give up their names.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Who are they?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Rose. “Because of the secret.”
