“Girls first, then,” said Eldric.
“Mine is not an easy thing to say.”
“Mine’s harder,” said Eldric. But he smiled for the first time that night.
I’d promised Stepmother never to tell. My tongue curled over on itself, protecting its soft belly. But the alternative was worse: Eldric finding out along with everyone else, and I, never knowing what he thought, going into the future, never knowing.
There came a swallowing-up kind of silence. “I’m a witch.”
There, it was done. I’d ruined everything.
“You don’t look like a witch.”
I wished I could see his face better.
“Witches don’t look like anything. Witches are. Witches do.”
It was so quiet, I heard the candlewick collapse. The flame turned into a blue corpse of itself. I watched it struggle. I watched it drown in its own spit.
The dark blot of Eldric came at me.
“Prove it. Prove you’re a witch!”
There we stood, fire snapping at my wicked left hand, the tumble of Eldric’s underthings grinning at my virtuous right.
“Prove it!”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I need proof,” said Eldric. “Why should I believe anything you say?”
My spit turned to powdered glass.
“If you were a game,” said Eldric, “you’d be a puzzle. If you were a piece of writing, you’d be a code.”
“But I can’t prove it.” I snapped my fingers. “Not just like that!”
“Can’t you? How peculiar!” Eldric laughed, a horrid splat of a laugh. “Show me the most wicked thing you can do.”
How dare he be angry!
I’d walked my own anger on a leash all these years, but it was always just a spark away. I’d work myself into a rhapsody of witchiness. I’d spark into fire.
Fire!
I thought about fire. I thought of the library—the burst of flame, my hand, the smell of burning flesh.
There came no fire.
I thought of the piano burning, crashing to its knees, like a camel. I thought of all my stories. How long it had taken me to write them, how quickly they had burnt.
There came no fire.
“You can’t prove it.” Eldric’s eyes were hollows of darkness.
The taste of sulfur clawed at my throat. Let my words strike sparks!
Nothing. I needed the Brownie to explode my powers into sparks. I needed Mucky Face.
There we stood, on the divide of dark and more dark. Eldric pressed his cheek into my silence.
“I’ll tell you something that will make you believe,” I said. “Have you never wondered how Rose got to be the way she is?”
I’d never told anyone about Rose.
“I did it myself, with witchcraft.”
I’d never thought to say those words.
“I don’t believe you,” said Eldric.
“I meant to hurt her. It’s only hatred. A Dark Muse feeds on artistry. A witch feeds on hatred. Hatred is easy.”
“But you love Rose!” said Eldric. “I know you do.”
Quiet, Briony. Don’t say any more. Don’t tell him you don’t love anyone.
“Then prove you hurt Rose,” said Eldric.
I shrugged. “I remember lots of it. I remember Rose falling from the swing and screaming. Stepmother told me the things I can’t remember.”
“Damn your stepmother! Maybe she’s the witch.”
“Don’t you dare say that!” I shoved him in the chest, hard as I could.
That had no effect, except that he clamped his hands on my shoulders.
“Have you been drinking?” I said.
“No, but that’s quite a good idea. Listen, I don’t understand why you adore your stepmother so. And since we’ve been speaking of feeding, I have to say that she seems to have done nothing but feed off of you. I can’t stand it when I think of her lying in bed all that time, letting you neglect your education, letting you wait on her.”
“I’m the one who injured her spine,” I said. “Just in case that changes your mind.”
“I don’t believe that, either.”
“You don’t need to believe it for it to be so. I called upon Mucky Face to smash her. She’d have died of it eventually, had the arsenic not come first.”
“Mucky Face, the creature we saw from the bridge?”
“The very same.”
“You may be mad,” said Eldric, “but you’re no murderer.” He ground at my shoulder bones.
“That hurts.”
He let go at once. “Sometimes I want to squeeze something from you.” He wrung his hands. “Squeeeeze, like that.” He squeezed his knuckles white.
The fire burnt low, muttering and tossing and closing its eyes.
“How stupid I am,” he said. “I need to remember that if I squeeze, you’ll only break.”
But he kept squeezing his own hands, squeezing until one of his bones cried out.
I couldn’t speak, but then, I never do speak. Not really. I’m always wearing my mask. The underneath Briony is stuck in her own silence.
Someday, silence will make me explode!
Out went my fist, back went Eldric, onto the bed. He held his face in his two palms. Blood leaked between his fingers.
Eldric pinched the bridge of his nose. His shoulders—how they shook!
The Bleeding Hearts had come close to the truth; they couldn’t have known I’m incapable of love.
I sat on the bed beside Eldric, put my hand on his shoulder. “I have a handkerchief.” He peeled his hands from his face.
He was laughing.
Be honest now, Briony. You hit a person and he laughs? That is adorable.
“Well done!” Eldric spoke through my handkerchief. “If you’d done that with Cecil, he wouldn’t have had a chance.” He caught at my fist, wrapped it in his bloody palm. “You used your left hand!”
“It’s my wicked hand. My witch hand.”
I could almost see him thinking about this, how quickly I’d adapted to using my left hand, how clumsy I’d always been with my right.
“You really do believe you’re a witch!” Eldric uncurled my fingers, exposing the scribble of scars.
“Why would I lie about that?”
“To get rid of me?” said Eldric.
My hand was red with Eldric’s blood. I drew it to my chest.
“What had you been going to tell me?” I said, but I was already backing away from him, pushing at the swinging door. I mustn’t get too near. What if I threw myself at him, just as I had when I was tipsy?
Eldric shook his head. “Another time, perhaps.”
I was backing away, and I’d keep on too. After Halloween, I’d back away into the swamp, and if I managed
