“Done!” Eldric stepped back. “At least you don’t need stitches, which I fear poor Petey will need.”
Poor Petey. I’d like to say I could almost feel a tender spot for poor Petey, but the truth is I’d rather feel at the tender spot on his head and give it a poke.
“It’s a fine day in the Dragon Constellation for us frater,” said Eldric. I agreed and didn’t even correct his Latin. Who needs plurals anyway?
It had in fact grown sunny, warm enough that the greengrocer set a cart of vegetables outside his shop, and Davy Wallace sat on a stoop, grading pheasant feathers, which he did astonishingly quickly with his one hand. If one were an optimistic person, one might say that it was really quite warm.
The day had turned itself inside out. How fragile life is; it can turn on so little. Pearl’s baby dies, but then there comes a spat-on handkerchief, the creation of a brotherhood, and the end of the swamp cough.
Was I really so happy not to die? Was this feeling simply relief? Or was it that Eldric was taking care of me? Stepmother cared for me during those long, foggy months of my illness. I don’t know how she did it, with that injury to her spine. I didn’t deserve care at all. But every time I awoke, there she was, with a bowl of soup, or an herbal plaster, or my writing materials—I couldn’t bear to tell her I was too tired to write: She was so very delighted to be giving me the opportunity.
There is much, I suppose, that I don’t recall of my illness. I had grown so very dull-witted. But should I ever again sink into illness, I’m sure I’ll remember Eldric.
I’ll remember he cared for me. I’ll remember that someone at last had taken the time to touch my face.
11
The Chiming Hour
“Mistress! Just a word, mistress!”
Not the Brownie, I absolutely would not talk to the Brownie. I slammed the garden gate behind me.
“Have a care, mistress. You almost caught my nose!”
Then you shouldn’t have such a long one.
“Won’t you write the stories again, mistress? I ask not for myself alone, but for all of the Old Ones.”
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking. I absolutely would not ask why he’d linked his power to mine in order to call Mucky Face.
Why he’d had me injure Stepmother’s spine.
Tonight, I’d keep the world safe from Briony Larkin. No talking to the Brownie. No going into the swamp, not really. I’d only to cut across a corner of the Flats and from there, strike out through the fields of wheat and rye.
Worry buzzed round me like a gnat. There was no one in the Parsonage to keep an eye on Rose. Pearl was still at home, mourning her baby, but even if she’d returned, I couldn’t have asked her to stay past midnight. The whole of the village was asleep. But Rose was asleep too, and Rose sleeps very soundly. That is one way in which we are not at all identical. Rose tells me I talk in my sleep, that sometimes I scream. I’d worry about blabbing my secret, except it’s only Rose. I must make it a point never to sleep with anyone else.
The lantern had already grown heavy, but I held it high. Its yellow light bounced ahead, off the Flats, broke across the fields of rye. It was midnight, the chiming hour, the favorite time of many of the Old Ones—the Dead Hand, the Dark Muse, the Devil.
The Dark Muse is the most wicked of the three; at least I think so. She doesn’t steal the man himself, as the Devil does. She steals his soul and his wits. That counts for a lot, if you ask me. I’d rather be in Hell with my soul and wits, than in the outside world without them.
But the Dark Muse is one of the few things I need not worry about. She only preys on men.
I’d meant to creep up on the pumping station, but instead, it crept up on me. The night was cloudy, no moon shone. My arm sagged under the weight of the lantern, leaving my toes most beautifully illuminated.
Suddenly, there it was, a rise of red brick, striped with new mortar.
A fingernail of fear scraped down my back. Someone might spot me, mightn’t they? None of the Swampfolk was likely to be abroad at the chiming hour, but what about Mr. Clayborne’s men?
Mr. Clayborne might have posted a guard. The station was the heart of the draining operation. If it was destroyed, the draining must stop, and rebuilding would take a deal of time.
I crept round the pumping station—no guard here, no guard at alclass="underline" Mr. Clayborne trusted the Swampfolk.
I stepped back, forcing the lantern light off my toes, onto the station. It put me in mind of Petey Todd, show-offy and muscular. He was going to be just like the pumping station when he was grown, puffing out his chest and punching his chimney into the sky.
If Petey were a building, he’d be a pumping station.
Petey Todd: disgustimus!
The doors were sneery and unlocked. The polished hardware said, clear as anything, “Wipe your feet!”
I did, but only because I mustn’t leave any traces. Machines hulked in the shadows. The lantern glanced off bits of polished brass and glossy paint. I shone it about, found the switch.
Let there be light!
I flicked the switch.
Behold: There was light!
Illuminating gas is extraordinarily clean and white, as though it were piped straight from the stars. The machines sprang from the shadows, fierce as Roman legionnaires in red and gold.
I brought out my weapons: three candles and a book of matches. How small they looked next to the machines, like David’s slingshot next to Goliath. But we know what happened to Goliath.
I pulled at the windows; they closed smoothly—no stick or squeak or scowl. Mr. Clayborne kept his house in good order. I drew a match across the striker’s gritty lip. The flame shone yellow in the piped-in starlight. I lit the candles, one, two, three. There: I was done, save for shutting the door behind me when I left.
An open flame, plus a sealed room, plus illuminating gas—these things added up to an explosive situation. I prowled round the outside of the pumping station, pushing and pulling at doors and windows. All shut tight.
If I was lucky, the explosion would spark a fire.
“Mistress!”
My hands jumped. They’re always the first to be afraid.
My thoughts followed more slowly. Mistress. My thoughts turned the word upside down, then right side up again. Mistress. I had not been caught—not by anything human.
“I needs must speak to thee, mistress.”
The voice splashed and slapped.
Not human.
I turned toward the estuary, where a wave stood on its tail, like a fish. You think it must fall, but no: It can stand as long as it needs. This I knew from the last time I’d seen it, which was also the first time.
“Two years I been waiting,” said Mucky Face. “I been waiting, but tha’ didn’t never leave tha’ dwelling. I been waiting to tell thee it broke my heart.”
“What do you mean?” I turned away from the pumping station. Best draw away: The station might explode.
“I misliked to strike tha’ stepmother like I done.” Mucky Face followed me along the estuary, beating the water with his tail. “The call, though, it come too strong.”
“But I was the one who called you.” My thoughts lagged behind the meaning of his words. “I told you to strike Stepmother.”
“No, mistress!” said Mucky Face. “ ’Twere an Old One what called me. ’Twere an Old One o’ the wicked, solitary kind. Its power were monstrous an’ catched me at ebb tide.” He paused. “That power, it kilt the minnows what be my friends.”
I shook my head. It was I who’d called him. I’d been angry, of course, and later, Stepmother and I worked out why: I’d been jealous.
Jealousy is never a nice thing to look back upon, but even in the nastiness, I remember the thrill of calling Mucky Face. I didn’t have a word for it then, but I do now: power. Such thrilling power we witches have—over the wind, over the tidal wave, over so many of the Old Ones.