I used to like books and reading, but I destroyed our books in a couple of fits of witchy jealousy. Had I meant to drown our books? Had I meant to burn our books? Honestly, you’d think a witch would know what she’d meant to do. I was, after all, a great girl of seventeen when I set the library fire. But I’m not a proper witch: If I’d had a proper witchy education, I’d certainly not have burnt my hand. A proper witch would avoid that unimaginable pain, that horrible healing, that horrible itching. Sometimes my scar itches unbearably. I have to bite at it so I don’t scream.
The constable dragged up his eye folds. His sausage eyes slid about until they landed on me, which was a greasy sort of feeling. “Us been telled you seen them witches, Miss Briony.”
I nodded.
“Did you see ’em close-like?” said the Reeve.
I’d seen them close-like, all right, but what should I say? If I’d had a proper witchy education, I’d know the rules. Does one betray a fellow witch?
The Reeve took my silence for fear. “Us knows them witches be right scareful to think on, Miss Briony. But them memories you got, they be the very things to get ’em hanged.”
“Briony scared?” said Eldric. “I’ve never seen anyone less scared in my life. She has nerves of iron.”
It’s true: I don’t get scared; I keep my head in emergencies. People think me a sort of Florence Nightingale, but I have no heroic qualities. I simply don’t feel very much.
“You got memories too, Mister Eldric,” said the constable. “Didn’t there be nothing peculiar about them witches?”
Peculiar? No, nothing peculiar, just the normal run of witchy backsides and witchy girl-parts.
“Him an’ me,” said the Reeve, “us be sniffing round for evidence, see? The Chime Child, she do her job proper. She don’t take to hanging when there don’t be no evidence.”
“A child?” said Mr. Clayborne.
“It’s only a title,” said Father. “She’s rather old, really.”
“One of the witches had red hair,” said Eldric, now lying on his stomach and crinkling the pages of the London Loudmouth. That’s what Father calls the London newspaper.
Oh, well. There went my attempt to save my fellow witches, although I can’t say why I tried. None showed any sisterly affection.
Was Eldric thinking of those witchy girl-parts too? Had he ever seen those bits of a girl before? Most girls would blush to think such thoughts, but when you’ve been as wicked as I, you don’t have any blushes to spare.
What do twenty-two-year-old shaving boy-men get to see?
“That be evidence o’ the most excellent sort.” The Reeve’s Adam’s apple strained against his neck skin, which is a thing that should be illegal. “Thank you kindly, Mister Eldric.”
Pearl pushed through the door with a tray. We’ve had lovely teas since Pearl came to us. There’s always soft white bread, like clouds, and butter, and two kinds of jam. The sweet today was lemon cream and butter biscuits.
I adore lemon cream!
Pearl glanced upstairs, where Rose continued to cough and drill through the floor on the pitch of B flat.
“Sorry, Mr. Reverend, sir,” said Pearl, “but I doesn’t got no tricks to quiet Miss Rose.”
I did, though. I had a few Rose-calming tricks, which often as not succeeded one time out of ten. So why was I sitting here, dreaming about lemon cream? My job was to care for Rose, for nothing and no one but Rose.
I stood, made for the door.
“You mustn’t fret about it, Pearl,” said Father. “Rose is difficult to calm.”
Is she, Father? Is she! How would you know? You’ve hardly seen us these three years past.
“And Briony,” said Father, “where are you going?”
What do you think, Father! Who do you think has been caring for a screaming Rose while you’ve been chatting to God?
But there was no point saying anything. There never is.
“Nowhere.”
“I’ve always wanted to go Nowhere,” said Eldric.
“You mustn’t leave,” said Father. “These gentlemen will have questions to put to you still.”
Stepmother always said we didn’t have to mind Father. “He’s a good man,” she’d say, “but he doesn’t know much about girls, does he?” We let him think we were minding him, though. It was easier that way.
She was terrifically skilled, Stepmother was: She was skilled in the art of not-minding-but-pretending. But I, witchy, tricky Briony Larkin, didn’t know what to do.
Eldric squiggled out from beneath the table. “What if I went Nowhere and gave this to Rose?” Of a sudden, he was kneeling before me, a paper rose blooming in his hands. He’d fidgeted the rose right out of the London Loudmouth. The paper was coarse, but the rose was a miracle of ingenuity and engineering. You could look into its whorled petals forever, into petals within petals within petals.
“Rose will go mad for it,” I said.
“Yes, go on,” said Father. “Do give it to Rose.”
“Just follow the screams,” I said. Eldric smiled at me over his shoulder.
Another awkward silence fell, but Mr. Clayborne did what people in novels always do: He broke the silence by clearing his throat.
“What is this Chime Child of which you spoke earlier?”
“Who,” said the Reeve. “The Chime Child, she be a who.”
“But a special sort of who,” said Father.
“She be special, right enough,” said the Reeve. “The Chime Child, she don’t be no Old One, no Old One proper, but she don’t be no proper person, neither.”
Mr. Clayborne only looked from Father to the Reeve and back again.
“She has a foot in both worlds,” said Father. “One foot in the world of the Old Ones, the other in the human world. It would be a miscarriage of justice to try a witch without someone present who understands the Old Ones.”
“You doesn’t need to fret none, Mr. Clayborne.” The constable worked his sloppy lips. “There don’t be no miscarriage: Us does it right an’ us does it proper. Any witch us seizes, she get a trial with the Chime Child an’ all t’other trimmings.”
“Then us hangs her,” said the Reeve.
“Why do you need a trial?” said Mr. Clayborne. “Can’t you tell that you’ve caught a witch if she flinches from a Bible Ball?”
But not every witch reacts to a Bible Ball. They don’t affect me, for instance, which is convenient. Just imagine: the clergyman’s daughter, unable to touch the Bible?
Awkward.
“Not every Old One is susceptible to a Bible Ball,” said Father, “and in any event, even an Old One is entitled to a trial.”
We all fell silent, and as though choreographed, so did Rose. Eldric must have succeeded with his fidget.
It was so quiet, you could hear every little clink and tap as Pearl passed the tea things. You could hear the chimney wheeze.
Two dollops of lemon cream for the constable; two dollops of lemon cream for the Reeve.
You could hear a chunk of coal crack and spit; you could hear footsteps coming down the stairs.
Two dollops of lemon cream for Mr. Clayborne; two dollops of lemon cream for Mr. Dreary.
You could hear the swish of the door pushing past the doorjamb. You could hear Eldric’s lion feet and Rose’s tiptoe feet. Rose held the paper rose just as Eldric had, in the bowl of her hands. There was an unfamiliar softness to her face, as though she might smile.
Two dollops of lemon cream for Rose; two dollops of lemon cream for Eldric.
“I want Briony to read to me,” said Rose.
Three dollops of lemon cream for Briony!
“I want Briony to read to me,” said Rose, spreading her skirts on the carpet, just as Stepmother had always done, except that Rose’s were white and Stepmother’s were always the colors of the sea. It was surprising how entirely at home Stepmother had looked, sitting beneath the table, following Rose’s instructions. But it was not at all surprising how not-at-home I had felt, watching Stepmother with Rose, watching Stepmother’s infinite patience as she cut the papers to slices, to slivers, to splinters.