“Where are you going?” Eldric’s voice was flat and slow, an elastic band, stretched lengthwise.
The character doesn’t decide to leave them be. She simply does. She does anything that requires no decision and no action.
“The village.”
“You can’t go to the village,” said the gray, elastic voice. “They’ll hang you.”
If I were an author, I’d write about people who sit on the floor. About people who look at mouse droppings and don’t care. About people who can only feel a black hole inside.
“Turn around,” said Eldric. “Run.”
“You need to get to Dr. Rannigan.”
My memory grabbed at the doctor’s face, at his high forehead, his patient cow eyes. If only he were here now, he’d know what to do. My chest slammed shut. My breath went silent; I heard the drumming of my heart.
Dr. Rannigan!
What should I do, Dr. Rannigan?
I couldn’t breathe, my heart beat faster. But I couldn’t die, not yet. That was for later, on the gallows. I had to get Eldric to Dr. Rannigan.
Breathe, Briony! Breathe so Eldric can keep breathing. I willed my heart to slow, I willed myself to breathe. The door to my chest creaked open. I drew a breath.
“I’ll walk myself to the village.” Eldric already sounded dead. “You run.”
I was used to the idea of dying but not of Eldric dying. The thought hurt my chest. When a person hurts, she cries. But a witch can’t cry, she has to go on hurting.
“Run!” said Eldric.
Run? Run and leave Eldric to die? Run into a lifetime of loneliness and guilt? He must be mad.
Memory shards now, falling like rain. I watched my hands dip a ladle into a cauldron of eel broth. I watched them pour the broth into a bowl. My fingers now, tugging at a twist of white powder.
How lucky we twentieth-century witches were. Macbeth’s witches had to find poisoned entrails for their cauldron, generally not available at the local apothecary. Briony Larkin had only to measure out four grains of the powder, add a pinch more for good luck, and stir it into the broth.
At first, Stepmother said she was not hungry, but I urged her to eat, saying she’d never otherwise regain her health. If she ate, I said, I’d write her a story.
That’s why she ate.
A story, for her and her alone.
She ate it all up.
It started about an hour later, the first symptoms, abdominal pain, nausea, then an urgent need for a chamber pot, the results of which were bloody—all of which I’d expected. I’d written Fitz, asking if he didn’t ever worry about over-ingesting arsenic, and as I’d known he would, he wrote me a treatise on the stages of arsenic poisoning, both chronic and acute.
Stepmother’s was acute.
“Talk some more,” said Eldric.
I remembered exactly when the skull of Death appeared on her shoulder. Her face had collapsed, her eyes gone red.
Eldric’s knees buckled. I grabbed him round the middle. He slumped against me, toppled me over. We juddered into a log, which slammed into my ribs.
The slump of Eldric pinned me to the log. I hardly felt him breathe. Was he in shock?
“Eldric?”
A person could die from shock.
“Eldric?” I couldn’t move him.
I’d never known the true meaning of dead weight. If the mountain wouldn’t get off of Muhammad, Muhammad would get out from under the mountain. I squiggled out, bit by bit, scraping myself over moss and bark. My ribs yelped and whined.
Stones and twigs and leaves and blood—blood, leaping from Eldric’s wrist. I tightened the tourniquet, watched the spill of blood slow to a weepy drizzle. I watched myself lift his arm with my two hands and lay his hand on his chest. I watched myself examine the raw edges of his wrist. I watched myself worry that I might see severed bones and ligaments. I watched myself being relieved to see nothing but red ooze. I watched myself being ashamed at being relieved. I watched myself work out what to do next.
He’d lost so much blood; his eyes were closed. I should be obliged to drag him. But first, I needed to secure his arm to his body. I mustn’t let it bump about.
I could pass another length of frock under his back. I could tie it over his front, which would pin his upper arm to his side, secure his forearm and hand to his chest. But how was I to do that? He was very heavy. I’d have to roll and push and—what if I hurt him again?
But as long as you’re thinking about rolling and pushing and hurting, why not think about rolling him onto your cloak? It might work as a sleigh. You could pull him on a cloak-sleigh, jiggety-jig, all the way home.
You may take one—two—three breaths, Briony, and then you have to move!
I worked at a seam in my skirt, tearing through the stitches. Why didn’t I have a knife? Florence Nightingale would have had a knife. I laid four lengths of fabric widthwise on the ground, one at shoulder level, one at elbow level, one at hip level, one at ankle level. I laid my cloak over the lengths of fabric.
I could think of only one way to do it. I slipped my arms under Eldric’s arms, dragged him backward, over the cloak. The cloak bunched up beneath him.
Hell!
I was wrung out by the time I’d wrapped the cloak around him, looped and tied each length of fabric round the front to hold the cloak in place.
I grasped the collar of the cloak, stepped back, tugged. It could be worse, Briony. It could be your leg that’s hurt, not your shoulder and ribs. Don’t think about it, keep walking. Think about the snickleway ahead. Think how to get Eldric across without drowning him. Think! Think!
Time ceased to exist. I could not think into the future, I could not remember the past: There was only now. There was only the present tense.
The Slough is the worst part of the journey. There are so many obstacles—logs, scrub, snickleways. The snickleways are both the hardest and easiest, the water both help and hindrance. It eases the burden of Eldric’s weight, but it also wants to drown him. You have to hold his head above water, which means the bit of snickleway you’re fording can’t be too deep. Which means you plough through it yourself first, to test the depth, and when you do ford the snickleway with Eldric, you have to wrap your arms around his chest. You have to pull him as high as you can, you have to press his neck and shoulders into your middle. When you emerge from the snickleway, you are shaking with the effort. You are tempted to let yourself rest.
But you don’t.
You ford another snickleway, you tremble with effort. You tremble with cold. You’ve given most of your clothes to Eldric. You wear only your petticoat and chemise.
Blood seeps through the cotton that holds Eldric together. You lay him down, settle his head in moss, gently as a lark’s egg. Gently now. You untie the tourniquet, but you are slow to tie it again. Your fingers are cold. All of you is cold.
The blood streams, weeps, trickles. Eldric’s lips are the color of clay. His eyebrow scar is the color of a rat. He opens his eyes. They do not shine whiter than white.
You could say something. You could say,
