Chime. Part 21

Eldric and Leanne, sharing an inkwell. Eldric turning his pen into a boat, sailing it over his blotter- Shut up, Briony!

The Quicks breathed slowly, their poisoned breath smelling of sulfur and infection and overripe flesh. They smacked and swallowed, smacked and swallowed.

Soon the Boggy Mun would open up shop. I wore no cloak and had no pockets. I carried my knife and salt in a basket. Little Red Riding Hood, skipping off into the woods. And whom will she meet?

Why, her own self, of course: the wolf. My hand flew to the gray-pearl wolfgirl hanging about my neck. If I didn't know I couldn't love, I might have thought I loved her.

I sprinkled the salt. I sliced through my mushroom skin. I drizzled my blood onto the salt.

The Boggy Mun came just on time.

He came in the mist, in the midst of his long beard. He came in a tangle of mist and midst. The ancient face peered from the tangle, the crepe-paper skin, the crumpled eyelids.

"I came before," I said.

"Aye."

"You did not grant my request."

"I did not."

"Twice, I have spilt blood and salt."

"Aye," said the Boggy Mun.

"I come today not to beg but to bargain."

The crumpled eyelids lifted, hung, waited.

"I know how to keep the water in the swamp."

The eyelids waited.

"But I shall have need of your help."

The water ran, the wind wailed, the eyes waited.

"I can act on All Hallows' Eve, but not before." I'd let the ghost-children speak for themselves, tell the villagers of the Boggy Mun and the draining and the swamp cough. But I'd have to wait for Halloween, for it is only on that night that ordinary mortals can see and hear the dead.

"I can do something that will make the men turn off the machines. If they do that, the water will stay in the swamp. But you must do your part. You must cure Rose of the swamp cough."

The mist hung motionless.

"If Rose has died, or is near death, I shall have no reason to act."

"Cured, no," said the Boggy Mun. "If'n she be cured, I got me a notion tha'd flight wi' her to them dry lands beyond my reach."

He had a reasonable point.

"This be my bargain. Tha' sister, she don't continue no worse, she don't continue no better. Tha's got no need to fret on her 'twixt now an' All Hallows' Eve."

Halloween. The night the dead rise and walk the earth.

"Tiddy Rex too," I said.

"Tha' sister an' the lad shall survive All Hallows' Day," said the old-parchment voice. "An' if'n matters comes about as tha' says, the cough shall be lifted from tha' sister, an' from all t'other fo'ak what be striked."

The wind wailed, the water ran, the Boggy Mun was gone.

It seems unfair that I can feel worry but not relief.

There, there, Briony: You're asking for too much. After all, the Boggy Mun was surprisingly agreeable. You got what you wanted, didn't you?

Mostly.

Then please shut up.

It was the ghost-children, of course, who should tell the villagers about the draining and the swamp cough. What an idiot to ever have thought of telling the villagers myself. A fellow can't trust nothing what might be said by a witch. But they'd believe the ghost-children.

And even if they believed me, they'd know me for a witch and hang me. This way, I'd have a chance to escape. I'd call the ghost-children from their graves. I'd escort the ghost-children to the villagers, urge the ghost-children to tell the villagers their tale. Then I'd disappear. I'd lose myself in the swamp. Best start now, start finding places to hide and crannies in which to store provisions.

I pressed into the shady margins of the Slough.

"Pretty girl!" said a chorus of small, chiming voices. "Pretty girl, make story."

I hadn't thought about the Bleeding Hearts for three years. I'd forgotten how prettily their voices chimed together. On the other hand, they talked far too much and had the most appalling grammar.

"Pretty girl, make love story."

"People don't make stories," I said. "People write stories. They make tables."

"Make tables!" Their pink blooming faces turned up toward me like thousands of glorious hearts. "Make tables!"

A person could never talk to the Bleeding Hearts.

"Pretty girl, make story at table."

"Use your articles!" I said. "Make a story-I mean, write a story at the table. Or, write the story at a table. Or-"

"Love story! Love story!"

"Not unless you use your articles."

"Articles! Articles!"

They gave me a headache.

"Pretty girl love!

"Pretty girl love!"

Enough! "Pretty girl love what?" I said.

Stop, Briony! You mustn't start speaking as they do. "What is the object of your sentence?"

"Object! Object!

"Love is object!

"Love is object of desire."

Shut up! You're making me think of Eldric and Leanne turning their pens into boats and swimming them across an ink-blotter sea. There'd be a pirate s.h.i.+p, of course, and a deserted island-Why didn't I just kill myself?

"Pretty girl love pretty boy."

Boy? "I don't love any boy."

"Pretty girl laugh with pretty boy."

Eldric and Cecil were both pretty boys, but you couldn't laugh with Cecil.

"Pretty girl laugh with pretty boy."

At last they'd put an object to the sentence.

"Pretty boy! Pretty boy!

"Laugh!

"Play!

Light nibbled at the edges of my vision. Blue flames skittered over the muck, yellow flames dove into the earth. The Wykes were out early today, glinting, flirting, teasing, luring.

"Love story!

"Pretty girl love!"

The Bleeding Hearts were idiots.

Laughing and playing with Eldric was fun, but it wasn't love. But the Bleeding Hearts were spirits of love and romance. They had no room in their tiny minds for a person who didn't love anyone.

"Love story!"

I turned away. There's no point in saying good-bye to the Bleeding Hearts. It's not in their vocabulary. "Make story, pretty girl." Off I went, but their chiming voices carried a long way. "Make love story!"

Forget them, Briony. Think about the early hours of All Hallows' Day. Think about how the villagers will scrabble after you, all a.r.s.ey-varsy, armed with anything to hand: pitchforks, horsewhips, toothpicks. You can elude them if you get a good head start. It's the scent hounds you want to worry about. You'll have to make a few circ.u.mspect inquiries about how to muddle your tracks and muddle your scent and muddle the hounds. You'll muddle them further by taking to the snickleways. Pity you haven't a boat.

On I went, through spinachy water, into a gray incandescence and the smell of rot. The incandescence insinuated itself beneath my hand as a dog might insinuate its head. I sprang back, but the tattered flesh did not. It quivered.

The Dead Hand slithered and oozed. It tapped finger to thumb as though biting the air. But tapping is crisp; this was all flab and squish.

"No!" I said.

The bloated fingers slimed over my hand, oozed round my wrist.

"You can't!" I said.

The Dead Hand oozed tighter.

"I'm one of you," I said. "I'm a witch!"

The Hand pulled. Tightened and pulled.

What should I do, what should I do?

It wasn't painful, not yet, but the thought of the pain to come was itself a kind of pain.

I sat back on my knees, pulled away. The Dead Hand pulled toward. The bog-hole spat and chuckled.

The Dead Hand did not absorb my warmth; I absorbed its chill. The Wykes sparked up, yellow, blue, glinting, laughing-everything was laughing, the bog, the wind, the Wykes. But not the Dead Hand. It didn't laugh.

The slop splashed at my knees. The wind snickered.

The Dead Hand was silent. It pulled. I pulled back. The earth trembled.

The Dead Hand was silent. It pulled.

Articles, articles! Use your articles!

The Dead Hand pulled and squeezed, pulled and squeezed.

I'd brought no articles, no Bible Ball.

"I'm a witch!"

The Hand didn't care.

But I'm a witch, a witch!

Crack! My wrist went crack! It was the sound as much as the pain that made the sick come spraying from my mouth.

The Hand didn't care. It pulled.

Pull and stretch. It wasn't just bones that held my wrist together. There were other things for which I had no name. Things that could be pulled, things that could stretch. Why had I never known them, given them names?

My wrist was small. How could it fit so much pain? Stretch! The crack had been fast, the stretch was slow. How could one wrist occupy the universe of my mind?

Crack, and stretch, and now snap! I had nothing in my stomach to lose.