Chime

She wanted to be called Rosy Posy. She had an unconscious, of course she did. This is how I want to live my life. How could I ever have doubted she was a real girl?

“I’m not an artist myself,” said Leanne, “but I believe my gift is working with artists, bringing their works to life. Teasing out of the artist the very best that he can do.”

And gobbling him up! Just look at her—all pearly eyes and come-hither teeth.

“I quite agree,” said Eldric. “That’s clearly your gift.”

How did he mean it? Not, I hoped, in the way Leanne took it. Look at her smile. She thought it a compliment.

“What’s your secret, Eldric?” said Leanne.

“The problem I have with telling my secret,” said Eldric, “is that it’s a secret.”

“There’s no one you would tell?” said Leanne.

“One person, perhaps,” said Eldric. “But as there are three of you here, this cannot be the time to reveal it.”

One person, perhaps. Rosy Posy knew how she wanted to live her life. Briony Vieny would like to live hers knowing Eldric’s secret.

26 A Proper Punch

I raised my hand to knock at Eldric’s door. Go on, Briony; don’t be a coward. You have to talk to him again about Leanne.

Go on, knock!

But the door was unsmiling, and Eldric might be too. He’d been gloomy this morning at breakfast, stabbing at his kippers, telling Mr. Thorpe he was too ill for lessons.

I knocked.

The door swung inward, Eldric’s head poked round. “Why, it’s never Briony Larkin!” His face was a blank.

“It’s not never her.” Why had I come? But here I was, and there he was, swinging the door wider, beckoning me inside.

How dark he kept the little room. He’d only a fire at the hearth, and the afternoon was drawing in.

“Not never, perhaps,” said Eldric. “But seldom.”

He sounded like Cecil, master of indirection, forever entering by the exit door and slipping backward through the looking glass.

Why did I care if I was talking to Eldric or Cecil? Aren’t men fungible? Won’t one work as well as another?

“Not very tidy, I’m afraid.”

Eldric had transformed the sewing room with a new approach to housekeeping. The bed was unmade, he’d slung his shirt and vest over the back of a chair. He kicked aside a shoe as he ushered me in, sat me by the fire.

“We can’t have you sitting on the bed, can we?” He sat on the bed himself. “Not on the bed of a notorious bad boy.”

There was one difference between Eldric and Cecil, a difference peculiar to Briony Larkin, and that was lust. I lusted after Eldric; I shuddered away from Cecil.

I didn’t sit. On a nearby table lay a half-written letter and a blotter, sopping up a leaky pen. “I’ll come back. I’ve caught you in the middle of something.”

Eldric sprang from the bed. “What an idiot!” He snatched at the paper, flung it into the fire. The flames blew bright and hot. Black lips crunched across the paper; the words crumbled into ash.

“What was that?” I said.

“If I wanted anyone to know,” said Eldric, “I wouldn’t have burnt it, now would I?”

“I thought members of the Fraternitus were not to keep secrets from each other.”

But lust is just a matter of chemistry. It’s just that Briony molecules and Eldric molecules have a bit that hooks together.

He said nothing; I turned round. “I’ll come back.”

And it’s just that Cecil molecules have no Briony-molecule hooks.

“Don’t go!” Eldric grabbed my shoulder. “I’m in a foul temper, I know, but do stay!”

I hated this. It snapped at bits of my insides as though they were elastic. “I’d like to be able to say I’ll make it quick—isn’t that what characters always say in books? But I’ve rather a lot to bring up.”

“Fire away.” Eldric pushed at my shoulder. I sank into the chair.

“I did, actually, want to speak to you about firing away,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll start with that.”

Eldric leaned past me and touched a candle to the fire. Why couldn’t he just sit down!

“Do you have a gun?”

He whistled a few hollow notes, then drew the candle toward my face. “No, but I can get one.”

I blinked back the light. “Can you shoot?”

“Tolerably well.”

“Would you take that candle away? I look just the same as ever.”

He’d seen it all before: the corn-silk hair, the Dresden-shepherdess face, the black eyes—iris, pupil, lashes.

He backed away. “What would you want me to do with this hypothetical gun?”

“Bring it to the Feast of the Dead, on Halloween night.”

“And then?”

“I’ll tell you on Halloween. But the real reason I came is that I have to talk to you about Leanne.”

“I’ve had enough of her for a lifetime,” said Eldric.

“You have?”

“Once I leave her sphere, I find I don’t much like her. But I told you that. You were right, as always: I was under her spell.”

“You rejected her?”

“I will.”

“Then there’s something else I have to tell you. A Dark Muse can only feed on one man at a time. If she’s rejected by him, she can only feed on a blood relative.”

“My father?” said Eldric.

“You have to warn him.”

“I still don’t believe Leanne’s a Dark Muse,” said Eldric. “And listen here: You say the Dark Muse feeds on artistic energy. But I’m no artist.”

“Leanne thought you were,” I said. “She liked the way you’re always creating something from nothing.”

“And once I reject her she can’t eat?” said Eldric. “I mean, feed?”

“Unless she gets to your father, she’ll dwindle and die.”

“Dwindle and die, just as I was doing? Not that I believe any of this, you understand.”

I paused. “Not exactly like you. You’d have gone mad first, but when you died your soul would have lived on. But a Dark Muse has no soul. When she dies, she’ll turn to dust and blow about for all eternity.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about Halloween, when I would reveal what I really was. I’d turn witchy in front of everyone, in front of Eldric. I couldn’t stop thinking of how his fingers would go stiff, how the light would leave his eyes. How he’d say, Why didn’t you tell me?

“I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a long time.”

“So have I,” said Eldric. “What’s yours?”

“You first,” I said.

“Guests first, my father always says.”

“I’m not a guest.”