Stepmother instructed me to look out the window into the garden. She asked me how wide the river was. I said about thirty feet. She asked me where Mucky Face lived. I said he lived in the river. She asked me whether Mucky Face would be able to hear me calling him from the swamp side of the river. I said he would. She asked me whether Mucky Face would be able to hear me calling from the non-swamp side of the river. I said he would.
Perhaps he’d have come sooner had I been in the swamp itself. Sooner and stronger. I don’t know, and anyway, he was quite strong enough.
“Don’t look at the lights!”
“Hold on to your Bible Ball!”
The swamp slurped and swallowed. The stars rubbed out the Dreary-shaped space. Eldric shifted behind me; the tussock gasped and gurgled.
The swamp plus Briony . . . Briony plus the swamp . . .
Next time, Briony, keep your promise to Stepmother. Don’t pretend you’re interested in doing good. How long can a clever girl trick her own self? It’s been three years since you learned you’re a witch. Perhaps you didn’t kill Stepmother, not technically, but that doesn’t mean St. Peter’s going to wave you through the pearly gates.
Slurp and swallow, slurp and swallow. Mr. Dreary had vanished. Too late to pull him out. The false lights had vanished. Everything had vanished except Eldric and me. Everything had vanished except the two of us, the lantern, the stars, and the swamp, which breathed slowly through its jellied lungs.
7
Girl What Can Hear Ghosts
Rose and I stood in our usual place, facing Father and the headstone. We usually stand beside the grave, but there’d be no grave for this funeral. You need a body for a grave, and Mr. Dreary’s body had been taken by the swamp.
Taken by the swamp. No, Briony, please try to remember! Not taken. The Wykes lured Mr. Dreary into the most treacherous part of the Quicks, where he fell and drowned. Where anyone would have drowned, unless he could walk on water, which I venture to say Mr. Dreary could not.
But I could not forget how the swamp slurped and swallowed. Those were not the sounds of falling.
Father had prepared a sermon on the meaning of Mr. Dreary’s life. That’s what stories do, they try to create meaning from nothing. But there’s no meaning to Mr. Dreary’s life. He lived, he smelled of tinned soup, he died.
When we were small, Rose and I used to play a game called connect the dots. I loved it. I loved drawing a line from dot number 1 to dot number 2 and so on. Most of all, I loved the moment when the chaotic sprinkle of dots resolved itself into a picture.
That’s what stories do. They connect the random dots of life into a picture. But it’s all an illusion. Just try to connect the dots of life. You’ll end up with a lunatic scribble.
But Father has to try. It’s his job.
He looked up; the crowd fell silent. Fall silent; fall into the Quicks. Slurp and swallow. Stop, Briony! Please try to remember: Mr. Dreary had a Bible Ball.
Rose and I faced Father; the congregation gathered behind. I was used to playing clergyman’s daughter, dressed in funeral black, down to my ribbons and lace mitts. Rose was identically dressed, but she wasn’t playing. Rose can never learn how to play.
“Black isn’t a color,” said Rose.
I shook my head. “Hush, Rose!”
The daughter of a clergyman will attend hundreds of funerals. She may attend as many as two or three a week when the swamp cough is on the prowl. I’d stood beside dozens of graves since Stepmother died, but hers was the one I remembered. I remembered the dark oblong; I remembered its corners, clean and sharp, like the angles of a hospital bed.
“I match up with pink,” said Rose. “I don’t match up with black.”
I put my finger to my lips. “Father’s speaking.”
But Rose doesn’t like to be hushed. “Black isn’t a color. I want my pink ribbon.”
The crowd rustled behind us. They’d be staring, of course, at the reverend’s peculiar daughter. I don’t mind the disapproving ones so much. It’s the tolerant ones I can’t stand, the ones who smile at Rose, who speak to her ever so slowly and gently. They don’t realize how very intelligent Rose really is. They’re just terrifically pleased with themselves. Look at me! they all but shout. See how broad-minded I am! How wonderfully progressive, how fantastically twentieth century!
“I match up with pink.”
“Come along, Rose.” I turned round; she followed me into the graveyard. I used to stop by Mother’s grave, but I haven’t recently, not for several years. I used to stop to talk to her and tidy up a bit. I used to trim the ivy on her headstone. But now ivy and lichen have run riot over the gravestone carvings, which are not the usual cherubim but sunflowers and daisies—Mother’s favorite flowers. They’re exquisitely carved. I’d say you could almost smell them, except sunflowers and daisies haven’t much of a smell. I wish I might have known Mother. I wonder whether I’d have taken such a very wicked path if she hadn’t died when we were born. She knows I’m a witch, I suppose. I imagine her looking down on me and shaking her head and sighing.
I can’t face her.
Stepmother ought to rest here too, in the Larkin plot, but no: The Reverend Larkin didn’t fancy giving his second wife a proper burial.
I led Rose to the far end of the graveyard, to a tenement of tiny gravestones. They sprouted round our feet like pale mushrooms. So many children had died of the swamp cough this winter. The gravestones were uneasy newcomers, perched at the edge of their seats.
The earth tilted beneath my feet. I sat so I wouldn’t fall. The second sight was coming upon me. Not the ordinary sort of second sight, the sort that links me to the Old Ones. It’s the other sort, the sort that links me to the spirit world.
The sort that, only three days ago, linked me to the skull of Death.
The world shook herself like a dog. She tried to fling me off, but I clung to the nearest gravestone. This sort of second sight is never roses and moonbeams, but death and blood and the smell of fear.
From the grave beneath came a little voice. “ ’Twere the Boggy Mun what sended the cough what taked me.”
It was a child’s voice, thin as skimmed milk. The world swung off its axis and ran uphill.
“The Boggy Mun,” said a second child from the nextdoor grave. “The Boggy Mun, he be that angry his waters been took away.”
The earth tried to scratch me off, like a flea. “Taked me, an’ the baby too,” said a third. “Them last minutes, they was bad, with old Death hisself a-leaning on my chest.”
“An’ now us be asking you for help, girl what can hear ghosts.”
Don’t ask me! Thunder fizzed at my fingertips. Girl what can hear ghosts. I can’t help—I won’t help! But the words stuck to my mind like flypaper. Us be asking you for help.
“Them London men, they oughtn’t to have took the Boggy Mun’s water.”
“Tell ’em the Boggy Mun sended the swamp cough, he be that angry.”
Us be asking you for help.
“An’ now my baby sister, she be took with the cough.”
The ghosts thought I could appease the Boggy Mun, who would then snatch away the swamp cough. Poor ghosts—well no, they’re not really ghosts. They’re Unquiet Spirits who can’t rest until something in the living world has been set to rights: their murder avenged, their sins confessed.
Their baby sisters cured.
The children’s voices grew thinner.
The Boggy Mun had ruled the swamp since before our human time began. He was lord of the swamp, of the water and the mud, and all swampy states in between. He could be kind, he could be savage. He could kill with the swamp cough, and why not, when his water was stolen away?