“I should like to hear you,” said Eldric.
I shook my head. I wouldn’t sing, not with Father. He’d broken off our ritual of singing every evening, and never a word of explanation. He sang wonderful songs, or so I’d thought. I must have been fond of him then.
Anyway, I can’t sing anymore.
Father had grown rusty, but only a little. I don’t like to admire Father, but it’s true that the old tunes sounded complete with the fiddle added back in. The fiddle stitched all the other sounds together—the whistle, the accordion, and the drum, which Davy Wallace played remarkably well despite his missing hand.
Eldric’s fidgety fingers reached for the salt and pepper shakers. Pepper bowed to Salt; Salt bowed to Pepper; and away they went, gliding through the cutlery and plates and splashes of gravy.
Eldric leaned toward me. He smelled of pine and thunder and soap. London soap must be the cleanest soap in all the world. “I always forget,” he said. “It’s Pepper who’s the man, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” I said. “At least here in the Dragon Constellation.” Eldric was not unlike Tiddy Rex. He could make me smile too.
Father played the opening bars of “True Thomas.” I couldn’t imagine Father was actually going to sing. Then he’d have to open those scratches he pretended were his lips.
But Father looked my way. “Do you still know every verse?” No, of course he wasn’t going to sing, not Father.
I declined to answer. He wasn’t going to flatter me into singing with him. He couldn’t disappear for three years, then go all smiles and rainbows and expect the same back. I particularly remember the day Father disappeared. It was the day Stepmother told me I’m a witch.
It was, in the end, Mrs. Whitby, Pearl’s mother, who sang. Salt and Pepper changed their steps to match the slow melancholy of “True Thomas.” Most people can’t fidget and listen at the same time, but Eldric was dead opposite to most people. He could listen only if he fidgeted; and he was fidgeting and following the story of True Thomas, who was stolen away to Fairyland, where he stayed for seven years, unable to tell a lie. That last bit sounds ghastly. If I couldn’t lie, I’d be dead.
Once the song was done, Eldric launched Salt and Pepper into a polka. “Does that happen here? People being stolen into Fairyland?”
“We’re not glamorous enough for Fairyland,” I said. “That’s for ballad-y places, like Scotland. In the Swampsea, you’ll merely get your hand ripped off, like Davy Wallace, or your wits snatched away.”
“That’s the Old One for me,” said Cecil.
“How do you mean?” said Eldric.
Listening to Cecil’s explanation was rather less enlightening than anything Mad Tom might have said, but we finally understood that if any of the Old Ones was to attack Cecil, it would be the Dark Muse. She feeds only on the energy of truly artistic men, draining away their wits, and we were given to understand that Cecil was just such an artist. He wrote poetry, you see.
And indeed he did, as for example, in my birthday poem where he rhymed “seventeen” with “Halloween.” I actually do have a birthday; it’s November first.
“What about Briony?” said Eldric. “Which of the Old Ones would attack her?”
“The Fairies,” said Cecil. “They love golden hair and beauty and wit.”
“They also like good housekeepers,” I said, “so there’s an end to that.”
“Which Old One would take Eldric?” said Cecil.
I was allowed to look at Eldric now, stare at him if I liked. “I don’t know him well enough.” I flatter myself that I am quick to see what sort of mask a person wears, but I hadn’t yet with Eldric.
When Tiddy Rex returned to our table, he laughed and laughed to see Salt and Pepper dancing. He’d traded Cecil’s sixpence for licorice, and he gave quite a lot to Rose.
Cough, Tiddy Rex! Cough!
He really was a very nice little boy. Too bad he’d have to grow up.
Wait! I didn’t really mean that, not the way it sounded. I wanted him to live to grow up. I didn’t want him to die of the swamp cough. Not Tiddy Rex, the boy with the star-powered freckles.
But you’d think he’d live forever at the rate of not-coughing in which he was currently engaged, which was one hundred percent. That’s the way of the swamp cough, though. You can live with it for months, comfortably enough, and only at the very end do you get dreadfully ill.
They oughtn’t to have took the Boggy Mun’s water.
The Boggy Mun’s water.
The Boggy Mun.
I couldn’t speak to the villagers about the swamp cough without ending up swinging beside Sam Collins. But what if I called on the Boggy Mun? What if I spoke to him? He’s killed people; we’ll probably get along. What if I promised to give him something he wanted in exchange for taking back the swamp cough?
The Boggy Mun couldn’t have what he really wanted. I was the only person who could stop the draining, because I was the only person who knew the connection between the draining and the swamp cough. But I’d never stop it, because I value my neck. So why not take back the swamp cough like a good little Boggy Mun and take the next best thing, which is blood and salt.
There are certain things the Old Ones can’t abide, such as Puree of Christ. There are certain things the Old Ones go mad for, such as blood and salt. That then is what I’d offer the Boggy Mun, salt from the kitchen and blood from the witch.
It was a good scheme. I could save Rose from the swamp cough—if she had it—without risking my neck. I’m not like that fellow who thought it a far, far better thing to trade his life for that of another. I’m nothing like him: I’d never volunteer to lay my head in the lap of Madame la Guillotine. No, that fellow was a hero and I’m not a hero at all.
9
A Good Little Boggy Mun
The sky was the color of porridge. The wind slapped at the ancient trees. It slapped at me too, but I slapped back and pushed ahead. I mustn’t miss my opportunity. The Boggy Mun shows himself just as the evening mist rises, and he keeps strict business hours.
A V of geese flew above, strung beak to tail as though on a wire. The Flats turned into the Quicks and gobbled up my feet.
In my pocket, I carried a paring knife. Pearl keeps the kitchen knives bright and sharp. If you believe in justice and a connect-the-dots world, you’d think I’d trip and die on my own knife. But I’d wrapped it in multiple sheets of the London Loudmouth and carried it point down.
I arrived at the Boggy Mun’s bog-hole just as the mist was rising. A melted-butter sunset pooled on the horizon. The mist was thickening over the dark splat of the bog-hole. It grew thicker, now still thicker. I set a twist of newspaper on an island of moss. Against it, I set the knife.
A burble of water—that meant the Boggy Mun was stirring. A wailing of wind—that meant the Boggy Mun was rising.
I opened the twist of newspaper, sprinkled salt onto the moss. Next came the knife. Which hand to use, left or right? My left hand is nimbler, but my scar constricts my range of motion. I took the knife with my right hand.
Slicing yourself is harder than you’d think. Your skin doesn’t slice, not like bread or cheese. Your flesh pushes back. It’s resilient, like the skin of a mushroom.
I pushed at the knife. My mushroom skin pushed back.
I thought of what I did to Rose. I thought of what I did to Stepmother. I pushed through my mushroom skin. Self-hatred is powerfuclass="underline" Out came the blood, drizzling into the salt.
“Boggy Mun, I, Briony Larkin, come to beg of you a boon.” Should I tell him I’m a witch, or would he already know? If he knew I was one of the Old Ones, might he be more likely to grant my request? A trade discount, so to speak?
The water lip-lapped; the wind wailed.
“You have sent the swamp cough to us, to the people of the Swampsea. Our loved ones are dying and dead. If you will take back the swamp cough, I promise to visit this spot every evening and give to you our salt, and give to you my very own blood.”