symptoms of illness to finish something else. Then, though, the illness comes crashing down upon the person like an avalanche. It makes Father and Eldric feel guilty, which is nice, but tiresome.
Eldric speeds through the front door, but I call after him. “I won’t stay in this chair. You’ll come back sometime to find I’ve disappeared.”
Hmm. When might
It might, and it will. I mean to walk to the fields to check on the green mist. That’s what the Swampfolk used to do every spring when I was small. We’d rise before dawn. We’d wait and watch. For days and days, we’d watch the sun rise over fields of plain brown earth, and we’d turn about and go home. But one morning, the sun would rise on fields of green mist, and we’d stay to welcome the earth. We’d tell her how glad we were she’d awakened once again. We’d sprinkle salt and bread on the ground and say strange old words that no one understands anymore.
Tonight wouldn’t be like those not-so-very-old days. I’d be watching in the evening, and I’d be watching alone. But I wouldn’t let another day pass without watching for the earth to awaken.
“You may as well have let me fetch her,” I say as Eldric emerges with Rose. “While you were gone, I ran around the square. Twice.”
“Don’t even think about doing that,” says Eldric.
“Or?” I say. I listen to myself. I sound, perhaps, a touch childish.
“Or I’ll pound you into a pulp,” says Eldric with the utmost good humor.
“I know that’s a joke,” says Rose.
“Quite right, Rosy Posy.” I hand Rose the box of paints. “I have a color request for this fidget.”
Rose opens the box.
“Let’s paint it the exact color of the motorcar.”
“I’m the one who has an eye for color,” says Rose.
“I’m the one who’s ill,” I say.
“You’ve been ill too much,” says Rose.
“Hear! Hear!” says Eldric.
I feel the prickle of tears behind my cheekbones. I lie back and close my eyes. They’re joking, I tell myself. Or at least Eldric is. Rose doesn’t know how to joke. But sometimes I cry at the stupidest things.
Rose sets out the paints; she mumbles over them. Eldric whispers. Mumble, whisper, mumble. Finally, Rose says, “What color is the motorcar, Briony Vieny?”
Eldric has coached her, of course.
“Cardinal.” (Hallelujah! Hallelujah!)
The two of them rattle about in the paints.
“Is this one cardinal?” says Eldric.
“No, it’s this one,” says Rose.
“You’ve got an eye for color, right enough,” says Eldric.
I get what I want, but I still feel like crying. What a stupid baby!
Stop, Briony! Don’t you remember about treading out the paths? You don’t want to deepen the path to
That’s actually no longer true, although truth is entirely irrelevant to the treading out of brain paths.
Eldric sends Rose to the kitchen. We need a bite to eat, he says. “Ask Pearl for some of those sunset buns your sister likes so well.”
I smile. I know Eldric sees it. He may be indifferent, but at least he forbids me to say I’m not a hero. There! Another brain path in want of scuffing.
I am drifting into sleep. I’m thinking mad, mixed-up thoughts, or perhaps I’m dreaming, but my dream thoughts are true, true in the real world. I wish that Eldric had cared for me while I was ill, as he did when I was recovering from my encounter with the Dead Hand. But, instead, it was Father who cared for me. He sang, and bathed my forehead, and took to singing again at night. It’s awfully silly with daughters who are eighteen, but I don’t have to pretend not to like it. Rose likes it, which means that even if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t say so because one doesn’t say one doesn’t like things if Rose likes them, unless one doesn’t value one’s hearing.
After a few pints of ale, Father even manages a few
I tell him it was reasonable to think he’d dealt her a death blow when he stopped singing and locked away his fiddle. She should have unwound and died.
But Stepmother was too clever, of course. The very day Father locked away his fiddle was the day she told me—“reminded” me—that I hurt Rose and that I was a witch. And that meant I couldn’t leave the Parsonage. Stepmother had made me believe it was too dangerous to enter the swamp, and anyway, I couldn’t leave her alone to care for Rose. Stepmother made sure I’d stay close by. Stepmother wasted no time in beginning to feed off me.
I tell Father no one imagined a Dark Muse could feed on girls.
Father tells me it’s awful to realize how long ago she started planning; taking her first steps when I was seven; making me believe I was wicked; keeping me tethered to her larder should Father discover what she was.
I wish he’d told me from the beginning, when he realized the truth about Stepmother. But it wasn’t possible for him, the Reverend Larkin, to tell his daughter he married a Dark Muse. It was too shameful. He had to hide the fact. He left her to die for want of feeding, or so he thought. He never thought she’d feed upon his girls.
I hear Eldric pause, hear him pad over to me, lion soft. He pulls the coverlet up to my chin. He often performs these small kindnesses for me when he thinks I’m asleep. And when I am asleep too, I suppose.
But I wish he would do the same when I’m awake. I wish he’d help lay down new brain paths for me and scuff out the old. I wish he’d tell me how perfect I am, just as Father did when I was small. That he’d exclaim over my darling apricot ears and perfect fingernails. That he’d scuff out the paths Stepmother stomped into existence, paths of wickedness and guilt.
I fall into mad dream thoughts of fingernails and babies. I put a baby on the wrong train, and no one can find it, and I’m running about, looking for the baby, but the air is thick as glue. What a relief to wake up and realize I’ve been asleep. Rose has gone, leaving behind half a plate of sunset buns and a litter of crumbs. Eldric holds the paintbrush in the tips of his fingers.
“Damn!” he says.
“I can give it a go,” I say.
The paintbrush pauses. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
“I don’t think so.” I try to shake off my dream.
He reaches for the plate of buns. “Give it a whirl, will you, while I get things warmed up.” He glances at the bowl of soggy cream. “And get things colded up.”
I give it a whirl. Painting a tiny fidget is not as easy as it sounds. Every little mistake looks huge. A dribble of paint has run into a corner and dried.
“Damn,” I say. I was never as wicked as I’d thought, so I have some extra goodness to balance out a bad word or two.
Or, for example, the law permits Eldric to wing the constable in order to protect Briony Larkin.
Eldric returns with a sunset-lathered bun. We speak of a certain person who has an eye for color but can’t