cool. “I wouldn’t tell you if I weren’t obliged to,” she said. “I only want your happiness.”
It was true. Stepmother wanted nothing but the best for us. She wanted us to follow our dreams, helping in every way she could. She made sure I always had paper and ink and pens; she made sure I had time and privacy in which to write. And even Rose—well, Stepmother never minded the scraps of paper Rose left scattered about the Parsonage; she never minded helping Rose cut them into bits, paste them into collages.
“Mistress!”
The voices of the Reed Spirits faded.
“Make us our sweet story!”
Did the Reed Spirits know what had happened to the stories I’d written for them? Did they know those stories had burnt?
The mud-and-water of the Flats gave way to the water-and-mud of the Quicks. Jellied trickles turned to tricky jellies; the land quivered.
“Mistress!”
What a queer feeling; I’d never ignored the Reed Spirits before. It wasn’t simply that I mightn’t speak to them in front of Eldric. It was that I mustn’t ever speak to them, not ever. Stepmother was very clear. She’d told me again and again: Briony plus the swamp plus the Old Ones is an explosive combination.
I had to break my promise now, but Stepmother would understand: I had to rescue Rose.
I gave all my attention to the Quicks, to the fleshy plants and splatty bogs that lick their lips as you pass by.
“Careful,” I said. “The Quicks are always hungry.”
We crept round glints of scummy water and slimy reeds. My feet wanted to run, but my head told me not to be foolish. I couldn’t help Rose from the bottom of a bog. Patience! The Quicks were only two miles across—not even two miles! But a mile lasts forever in the Quicks.
“What’s that smell?” said Eldric.
“We’re almost to the snickleways. They have a fearsome smell.”
“Snickleways?” said Eldric.
“Waterways—you’ll see in a moment; they snickle all through the Slough. They won’t gobble you up, though —unless you can’t swim. You may run—now!”
He ran terrifically fast, which was depressing. I used to run fast myself. Stop now, Briony: That sounds like jealousy, and you know what happens when you get jealous.
Your witchy jealousy breeds firestorms, gales, floods—disasters of Biblical magnitude. Wouldn’t Father be proud!
I ducked through tangles of scrub, prickles of black fir. The snickleways were the color of tea, crossing the Slough, then doubling back to double-cross each other.
“Rose!” I called.
“Rose!” called Eldric, deep in the Slough.
I slipped through twisted branches, plunged into the first snickleway, slogged through the muck. “Rose!” I emerged caked with mud to the chest.
“Rose!” called Eldric.
I brushed past ferns. I pulled against foot-sucking mud.
The water caught at bits of my reflection. Now a dark eye, now a slim nose, now a fall of bright hair. A face belonging to a shattered girl. A girl, scattered through the Slough.
“Rose!” I called.
Scream, Rose! You’re so good at screaming. Go on, jab your screams into my ear-squish.
I never lost my internal compass, although every landmark had multiple copies of itself. The snickleways looked all the same, scum and duckweed and tea-water and reflection shards. The mud looked the same, every teaspoon, and so did the trees and logs and ferns and stumps.
“Rose!”
I crashed in and out of snickleways, dislodged smells of sulfur and rotten eggs. The wolfgirl Briony never used to crash. She slipped silently through the Slough; she could run forever. But it’s three years later now, and I know all the wolves are dead. Isn’t education a wonderful thing?
Another snickleway, more egg-and-sulfur vapors, which prickled tears into my eyes. But they were false witch tears, not real people tears. Witches can’t cry.
“Rose!”
More tea-dark water. The sulfur sting grew sharper; my tongue arched and spat. My hands and legs shook; I stumbled over scraps of my face. I pushed myself from the muck, I listened, I stumbled, I pushed myself from the muck, I listened, I—
Rose’s trademark scream, distant, but unmistakable.
“Rose!”
“Fires are dangerous!” Rose’s voice.
A crashing now, Eldric and I running, converging upon Rose.
We ran at each other, Eldric and I. We ran through trees furred with moss.
“Fires are dangerous!”
But there were other voices. “Rosy, dear!”
“Take my hand, Rosy!”
The voices of girls!
“So pretty as you be, Rosy!”
Eldric and I, plunging into black spruce.
“Fires are dangerous!”
A green dimness now. Needles of sunlight, glancing off Rose’s hair. “Fires are dangerous!” She stood screaming, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Us got us some visitors!” said a girl’s voice.
The girl was—Look up, Briony; you have to look up. Higher—into the treetops!
Three figures, dashing and darting through the trees.
“Such a pretty Rosy!”
They sat astride black branches—no broomsticks for these Swampsea witches!
“Doesn’t you be wishing to come along with us?”
I crunched my fingers round the Bible Ball. “Get away from her!”
The black capes, the gnarled branches, swirled around Rose. “You be making such a pretty little witch, Rosy!”
Rose clapped her hands to her ears.
What if I proclaimed my own witchiness? Would they leave Rose in peace—honor among thieves, and all that? But I couldn’t, not with Eldric listening. I shook my Bible-Ball fist at them.
“Ooh, doesn’t I be scareful!” said one of the witches, although the branch she rode bucked, like a startled horse. Wisps of carrot-colored hair floated from her hood.
“I be trembling in my drawers,” said another.
“Such a woeful lie!” said the third. “You doesn’t wear no drawers!”
“No drawers for us witches!” How they screamed and laughed.
I darted forward, pecking the Bible Ball at them.
“Look at them eyes she got!” said the redhead. “Like to coals, they be.”
The witches rose on their branches, screeching with laughter. “It be fine not wearing no drawers.” The redhead again. “Look Rosy, such a treat it be!”
Rose didn’t look.
Pine needles swirled about our feet, stirred by an unnatural wind. I smelled the tart-treacley scent of magic. The wind corkscrewed up to a miniature whirlwind, a tornado of pine needles, spiraling up and under the witches. Now, at last, the capes decided to follow the laws of nature, billowing up and out, leaving us with a spectacular view of three naked backsides.
My hands jumped like startled birds. I ought to have looked away, but the sight was horribly fascinating. Fascinatingly horrible. Eldric grabbed my bird hands, and together we stared up at the three gnarled branches
