Oh, dreary me!
“But the swamp’s so beautiful,” said Eldric. “I don’t care for the idea of draining it.”
“It’s progress,” said Mr. Dreary. “You can’t stand in the way of progress.”
“I can so,” said Eldric.
“But Miss Briony understands,” said Mr. Dreary. “She knows what progress will mean to the Swampsea. Cattle, crops, education, commerce, medicine.”
Miss Briony understood no such thing, but just then, a brace of pheasant had the good sense to blast out of the reeds at our feet. Mr. Dreary jumped. Eldric and I pretended not to laugh.
We skirted the hungry bog-holes, which were simply dying to drink down any unwary traveler. Well, actually, it’s the traveler who’d be doing the dying. But the swans had nothing to fear and were feeding at the bog-holes, poking about with their yellow bills. The water shone yellow, reflecting the yellow sky and the white swans and the bronzed reeds and the yellow bills. The ground quaked beneath our feet, breathing in air, breathing out mist.
“Tell me about the Horrors,” said Eldric.
“Later,” I said. “We ought to catch up with the constable and the Reeve. The swamp is unfriendly at night.”
I called, but they’d drawn too far ahead.
“I can throw my voice as far as I threw that stone,” said Eldric. “You remember, the stained-glass-smashing one?”
He threw his voice, all right, and with the proper shattering effect. The constable and Reeve turned about and waited.
“Don’t worry,” I said as we sped up. “You’ll experience the Horrors soon enough.”
London seems an exciting place, far more exciting than the Swampsea. But it occurred to me that the Swampsea might seem equally exciting to Eldric. He wouldn’t have seen any of the Old Ones: So many had died in the great cities—in London, and Manchester, and Liverpool. No one knew it was the machines and metal making them sick, killing them.
Only the vampires can survive. They’re remarkably tough, which is lucky for them, as they don’t embrace country living.
By the time we reached the constable and Reeve, the sunset had turned to dust. We’d only two lanterns among the four of us. The water was gray, the reeds were black. With every step, we squeezed at the lungs of the swamp. It breathed out mist and poison.
Mr. Dreary coughed and rubbed his eyes. “Smells like the Hot Place.”
I said nothing, not having had personal experience.
Now that dusk had fallen, came the Horrors. Voices wailed about us, voices of the dying and the damned. Twigs snapped beneath invisible feet; an invisible something smacked its lips.
Mr. Dreary whirled round, and round again.
“Don’t run!” I grabbed his sleeve.
“It don’t be naught but the Horrors,” said the Reeve. “They delights in making folks scareful, but you got yourself a Bible Ball.”
“Don’t run!” I tightened my hold on Mr. Dreary’s sleeve, turned to the others. “Don’t let him run!” A chorus of screams cut through my words. Hold tight, Briony. This is why you’re here, to save Mr. Dreary.
“Look at the lights!” Mr. Dreary’s voice scratched like an old nail. “A village, we’ll be safe there!”
“No!” The Reeve, the constable, and I spoke over one another, trying to explain. “They’re false lights; they’re the Wykes; they’re luring you into danger!”
Mr. Dreary was not fit, but he was strong enough, in a horizontal sort of way. He tore his sleeve from my grip, fled deeper into the Quicks.
I flew after him, hitching up my skirts. “Stop!” Mr. Dreary puffed, and wheezed, and slipped. I lurched at his coattail, but up he bounced, hurtling toward the cluster of lights. They shone softly, in fair imitation of a village whose inhabitants understood the value of a good fire and a stout door.
“Don’t run!” Eldric bolted after us. A fringe of light caught Mr. Dreary’s coattails. Mr. Dreary screamed. Eldric spun forward, but all he illuminated was the dark heart of the swamp.
“The two o’ you follows him that way,” shouted the constable. “The Reeve an’ me, us’ll come at him from t’other.”
What a fool I was! I should never have come to the swamp. I should have kept my promise to Stepmother. I should have remembered that in the swamp, my wicked energy adds up to disaster and death.
“Don’t look at the lights,” I told Eldric. “The Wykes will trick you just as they did Mr. Dreary. They’ll trick you right into the Quicks.”
“Hell!” said Eldric.
“It may come to that.”
We couldn’t run, not in the dark, not in the Quicks, where speed equals death. I picked along bits of mud, walked tightrope between bog-holes. Eldric followed, holding the lantern high. Starlight swam on the darkness. “We’re looking for grassy bits that will support us,” I said. “They rise from the Quicks, like islands.”
I drew a deep breath. “Mr. Drury!”
“Don’t move, Mr. Drury!” shouted Eldric. “We can save you if you stay put.”
Please, let Mr. Dreary live. Please let him live!
But witchy magic doesn’t listen to please and pretty please, and anyway, I didn’t really care. I only pretended to care because not caring makes me a monster.
The star-dimpled water shone before us. We leapt onto a tussock, which quivered beneath us. Stars floated in the pools, lanterns floated in the pools. Not just one lantern, not just our lantern. Scores of lanterns, hundreds of lanterns, flickering about us.
“The Wykes again,” I said. “You can’t help seeing the reflection of their lights, but don’t look at them straight on.”
“Mr. Drury!” called Eldric.
Black water stretched as far as we could see, black water, grassy tussocks. Maybe we could save him. Maybe. I coiled myself tight as a spring. We jumped to the next tussock. Eldric landed beside me, almost tumbling me into the ooze. He grabbed my elbow.
We leapt from tussock to tussock. We squished the lungs of the bog. It breathed its poisoned breath. We coughed and rubbed our eyes.
Smells like the Hot Place.
“But aren’t we forgetting something?” said Eldric. “He has his Bible Ball.”
“It will protect him from most of the Horrors,” I said. “But it won’t protect him from his own foolishness, from allowing the Wykes to lure him to the most treacherous part of the swamp. No Bible Ball can prevent him from slipping and drowning.”
But it was your own foolishness, wasn’t it, Briony? This is just what Stepmother had been talking about. You, in the swamp, with your witchy jealousies and rages boiling always beneath. You don’t think you mean harm, but harm you do. You’ll kill Mr. Dreary just as you killed Stepmother—or you would have, if the arsenic hadn’t gotten her first.
You have to remember it, remember that you were the one who called the tidal wave. Remember! Surely you remember your witchy rage, how it set the river to boiling?
I know you remember standing beside the river, looking up at the Parsonage. Looking at the back garden, at the apple tree, where the swings had once hung. Looking at Stepmother, bending over the vegetable beds. You remember the boiling river, you remember Mucky Face rising—rising from the river—rising ten feet, fifteen feet, curling over himself.
Curling himself into a wave.
You’d called Mucky Face and he came. He came rearing like a snake, rising to the height of the Parsonage. He was a curl of iron, hard and black, save for his whirlpool eyes, his foaming mouth.
He smashed himself upon the Parsonage, he smashed Stepmother and the vegetable garden. Mucky Face flooded the Parsonage, but nowhere else. Mucky Face injured Stepmother, but no one else.
But it was enough. Mucky Face drowned our books, Mucky Face injured Stepmother’s spine.
“Look!” Eldric raised the lantern.
It shone on a Dreary-shaped space, a black space where no stars shone.
“Don’t move, Mr. Drury!”
Stepmother would have died from her injuries had the arsenic not found her first. Even then, I didn’t understand. I had to ask Stepmother—ask her as she lay in bed—ask her if she was sure about the dangers of my wandering into the swamp. It didn’t make sense: I had, after all, been standing across the river from the swamp when Mucky Face appeared.