It was jealousy, of course. Jealousy makes you feel small as a splinter. Jealousy makes you feel empty, makes you want to reach for the Brownie. But the Brownie’s bit of carpet was empty, save for biscuit crumbs and a bit of coal-sputter.
Eldric took his tea on the floor. He did look comfortable, leaning against the wall, and when he smiled, he reminded me of Stepmother. She often smiled when she worked with Rose. She had a great flash of a smile; it echoed her pearls and foaming lace.
But Mr. Dreary chose the chair next to me. He was too starchy for the floor. He was unlike Eldric in every way, including the depressing whiff of tinned soup—of which, I neglected to mention, Eldric does not smell.
“Here be the properest thing to do,” said the constable. “If Miss Briony an’ Mister Eldric will be so kind as to take the Reeve an’ me, us’ll examine where them witches was.”
Not I! Hadn’t I sworn yesterday I’d never leave Rose alone, not even twenty feet’s worth of alone?
“I’d be glad of a walk,” said Mr. Dreary, stretching his puffy little legs. He was from America and had a most peculiar way of speaking.
“A walk!” Eldric jumped to his feet, the very picture of a wild boy, pouncing and bouncing with his long, curling lion’s smile. “A walk is so . . . so healthy!” He was ready for another swampy adventure filled with danger and naked backsides.
“I want Briony to read to me.”
“But Rose,” I said, although I knew it would do no good, “don’t you remember the library fire?”
Rose did.
“What happened to our books?”
“Your stories, do you mean?” said Rose, ever precise.
“Yes, my stories.” Rose was right. Ever since the flood last year, the library held only the stories I’d written. I hardly remember that time, though. That’s when I’d fallen so ill, when I was winding down.
“I like the stories where I’m a hero,” said Rose.
“What happened to my stories?” I said.
“They burnt,” said Rose.
“Am I then able to read them to you?”
“Stories?” said Eldric.
“No,” said Rose. “I liked the stories where I’m a hero.” She gave her little pre-cough sound.
“Hand to your mouth, Rose,” I said.
“What stories?” said Eldric.
“Foolish stories about me and Rose.” And the Old Ones. I’d always been writing the stories of the Old Ones. “I’m too old for them now. I’m glad they burnt.”
I was, too. Sometimes I wonder if I called up the library fire simply in order to destroy them.
“I wish my book had burnt in the fire,” said Rose, which is what she’d taken to saying whenever the subject of the library fire arose.
“A book you wrote?” said Eldric.
Rose shook her head.
“Who did, then?”
“It’s a secret.” Rose was full of secrets.
Mr. Clayborne’s voice rose, and so did Mr. Dreary’s peculiar accent. Mr. Dreary didn’t want to carry a Bible Ball into the swamp. He didn’t believe in the Old Ones.
“I must insist,” said Mr. Clayborne. “How can it hurt? It’s no more than a bit of paper scribbled with a Bible verse.”
“I’d feel foolish,” said Mr. Dreary.
“It don’t matter if you feels a fool or if you doesn’t,” said the Reeve. “Them Old Ones, they be real as real, an’ don’t it be better to feel foolish than to feel dead?”
“The Old Ones are dangerous,” said Eldric, his eyes sparkling whiter than white. “There’s the Dead Hand, who will rip your hand off. There are the Wykes, who will lure you into the bogs. There’s the Dark Muse, who will suck away your spirit.”
“I’m glad to see,” said Mr. Clayborne, “that my son is capable of acquiring and retaining at least some information.”
“If there’s enough blood and wickedness,” said Eldric. “I stopped in at the Alehouse this afternoon, which is better than any library. I am absolutely stuffed with information. Do you know there exists a person who’s only half of an Old One? Something like that, anyway.”
“The Chime Child was born at the Mirk and Midnight Hour,” said Rose, who was dotty about birthdays.
“The Mirk and Midnight Hour,” said Eldric. “Lovely. I wish I’d been born then.”
“I prefer that you not be born then,” said Rose.
“I shall accede to your wishes,” said Eldric.
“Mightn’t it be better if you postponed your trip into the swamp?” said Father. “It will be dark soon.” Father would think of that, wouldn’t he? Didn’t he ever get sick of living with himself, of being so—so prudent?
“But I don’t want to miss the Boggy Mun,” said Eldric. “Not the king of the swamp! See how much I know, Father. Isn’t that every bit as good as memorizing the kings and queens of England?”
“I hears you, Mr. Reverend, sir,” said the constable. “But evidence, it be right fragile. It might to be blown away, an’ that were a woeful thing.”
“Our English monarchs are so unimaginative,” said Eldric. “They execute people in such tediously conventional ways.”
I had to bite back my laugh before I could speak. “I’m sorry, but I cannot accompany the constable.”
“Why ever not?” said Father.
What could I say now? I couldn’t tell him I’d promised Stepmother never again to enter the swamp. I couldn’t tell him that Briony and the swamp, together, are deadly.
How did Stepmother manage to ignore Father so neatly, with him never realizing for a second?
It was then that the plates of the earth shifted beneath me. Gravity reversed itself and ran uphill. I tasted lightning. I was falling, falling up into witchiness.
A skull sat on Mr. Dreary’s shoulder. It stared at me as though we were acquainted, which we were. We’d met once, but I couldn’t think where.
The eyes of the skull were black holes held into place by bone. They were no more than holes, but they recognized me. The skull worked its jaw back and forth.
When a person has already seen Death—seen it once, at least—you’d think she’d remember whose shoulder it had been sitting on. But this particular person did not. She only knew that that person had died.
She knew that Mr. Dreary was soon to die.
How could I have forgotten who it was? I rarely forget the little things, much less the big ones. Perhaps I’d seen Death during the last months of Stepmother’s life, when I was ill and foggy. I remember little from that time.
Death must have perched on Stepmother’s shoulder when she was fading out of life, but I hadn’t seen it then, of course. No, not Briony, the girl who let her stepmother die alone.
Death had no lips, but it was smiling.
No one else could see it, not Eldric, not Father, not Mr. Dreary himself. Just me, Briony, third-class witch. I’d promised Stepmother not to leave Rose. I’d promised her never again to venture into the swamp.
But what if I might prevent Mr. Dreary’s death?
Dead finger-bones chittered. It was waving? Yes, a friendly little finger twinkle, waving good-bye. Death vanished all at once, and I fell back into human-ness, with Father folding my fingers around a Bible Ball. “It’s all decided, then. Pearl will care for Rose while you help the constable and the Swamp Reeve.”
This just shows you how much Father knows about me, which is exactly nothing. Giving me a Bible Ball to protect me from the Horrors is like throwing a life preserver to a fish.
I oughtn’t to go into the swamp, but Mr. Dreary was to die. Would Stepmother approve of my following him into the swamp to make sure he was safe? How could I know? What if I just wanted to return to the swamp because the hinges of my jaws still ached with craving?