“I’ll start,” said Eldric. “I saw your lantern through the window, and being the nosy parkerius that I am, decided to come along.”
I refrained from correcting his Latin. “Did you know your father had posted a guard?”
“Yes,” said Eldric.
“Did you suspect me?”
Eldric paused. “I didn’t not suspect you.”
“Now you know,” I said.
“Now I know.”
A little silence. Good thing Eldric started. He saw me leave—he’d have known any story I might have invented to be a lie.
“Shall I ask why you did it?”
I slid down the wall, sat.
“Good idea,” said Eldric. “Let’s make ourselves comfortable and wait for the wind to die down.”
I slumped against the wall.
“Why did you do it?” said Eldric.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Perhaps I can find out this way.” He brought the lantern to my face. “Don’t they say the eyes are the windows to the soul?”
I closed my eyes.
“But now, the only thing I can discern is the vivid blueness of your lips.”
He heaped his greatcoat around me. I protested, as one must do; I even opened my eyes for extra politeness. But he insisted he was warm in his slouchy tweeds. He defied me to find a trace of blue in his lips.
This is what I want. I want people to take care of me. I want them to force comfort upon me. I want the soft-pillow feeling that I associate with memories of being ill when I was younger, soft pillows and fresh linens and satin-edged blankets and hot chocolate. It’s not so much the comfort itself as knowing there’s someone who wants to take care of you.
“What are you thinking?” said Eldric.
“I’m thinking of what will happen when you tell your father, and he tells my father.” I’d been thinking of exactly that, but in an inside out sort of way. I’d receive the very opposite, the opposite of satin edges and hot chocolate.
“And finally the constable will show up to fetch me.”
“And you’ll spend your life in jail?”
I closed my eyes again. Eldric thought I was joking.
“Father’s a righteous man,” I said.
“You’re mad!” said Eldric. “Of course he’s not going to call the law on you.”
“Not if your father does it first,” I said.
“Do you really believe your father would turn you in, or mine?”
I did believe it. Stepmother had believed it too. That’s why she promised again and again never to tell Father. She knew what would happen were he ever to find out.
I thought of the constable, of his droopy eyes and sloppy lips. Would he have to touch me to arrest me?
“I won’t tell anyone,” said Eldric. “My father, your father, no one.”
“But that’s not fair!”
“How is that?” said Eldric.
“I destroyed a very expensive pumping station, and haven’t paid anyone back, and besides, it wouldn’t be fair to Robert. He’s supposed to tell your father.”
“Let me take care of my father,” said Eldric. “I’ll lie if I have to. And if you need to pay me back, here’s what you can do. I’ve been wanting to have a garden party, at the Parsonage, but I’m a visitor and don’t like asking your father.”
“You want me to ask Father?” I said. “That hardly makes up for an expensive pumping station.”
It was wonderfully comforting that Eldric would lie for me. He would? Really, he would?
“There’s such a thing as being irritatingly ethical,” said Eldric. “That’s you, right now.”
That’s a pleasant change. Witches are rarely accused of being irritatingly ethical.
“Now,” said Eldric, “for a talk about the Fraternicus.”
“Fraternitus,” I said.
“I was just testing you,” said Eldric. “You passed. Now, tell me the meaning of Fraternitus.”
“Fraternity.” Where was this going?
“And what’s a fraternity?”
“A brotherhood.”
“In a brotherhood,” said Eldric, “each of the members trusts the others.”
Oh-ho! “You’re not going to talk me into telling you why I did it.”
“It appears not,” said Eldric. “But I have something I want to say. I feel it with every fiber of my bad-boy being. When I put my unscholarly mind to work on why you’d destroy the pumping station, I can think of only one thing: You’re in some sort of trouble.”
“Maybe I’m one of those people who likes to watch things burn.”
“You’re being irritatingly ethical again,” said Eldric. “But without the ethical bit.”
“I’ll show you how ethical I am.” I reached for the satchel and drew out a bottle.
“It’s from the church?” Eldric spoke softly, as though he were praying.
“From the church.”
“Communion wine?”
“Communion wine.” I knew that Mr. Clayborne was no fool, that he wasn’t the man to let the illuminating gas cause a second accident. He’d have turned it off, or contained it somehow. So I’d stuffed my satchel with the kinds of treats that appeal to fires—paper and rags and paraffin and alcohol.
“Brilliant!” said Eldric.
How lovely to no longer have the option of destroying the pumping station. What a relief! It wouldn’t be a relief the next day when I awoke to hear Rose coughing. But I might as well enjoy it for now.
I drew off the cork. “How does one drink it?”
“Right from the bottle.”
“A swig?” I said. “I’ve never had a swig.”
I drank. The smell shivered against the roof of my mouth. I wiped my mouth with Eldric’s coat sleeve, just like a bad boy. “I’ve swigged.” I handed the bottle to Eldric. “Or is it swug?”
“Swug,” said Eldric. “It is in bad-boy circles, at least.” He swug. “It tastes much better outside church.”
“It’s the picnic principle,” I said. “Things taste better outdoors. And if it’s a forbidden thing, so much the better.”
“I’m sorry I called you irritatingly ethical,” said Eldric. “I was clearly mistaken. Now back to my idea, from which you are clearly trying to distract me. I’m not saying that Fraternitus members mayn’t have secrets from each other. Sometimes that’s inevitable. But don’t you think we can trust the other and ask for help?”
There was no point in saying what I really thought. I nodded and swug again.
“Perhaps our initiation will bind us in mutual trust and aid.”
“I’ve been waiting and waiting,” I said, “but no initiation.”
“Keep waiting,” said Eldric. “Now that I’ve mentioned it, I shall have to delay it for months. The initiation must never come when you expect.”
We were most companionable, passing the bottle between us. I made myself forget about the next day. We leaned against the wall, very gradually sliding toward each other. I leaned my head on his shoulder; he rested his head on the top of mine; and the astonishing thing is that it wasn’t at all awkward.
I wouldn’t worry about tomorrow. I’d let today be enough.
We laughed a lot and I grew warmer still, lovely and warm. I do realize that some of that warmth was due to the wine, but there was much more to it than that. There are two distinct aspects to Communion wine: one aspect is the wine itself, the other is the idea of communion. Wine is certainly warming, but communion is a great deal more so.
16
The Party’s Always Over at Midnight
“I don’t like all one color,” said Rose, “but I like our frocks.”
I knew she did. She’d been saying so all day. She liked the way they matched up with themselves, which is to say they were white, white, white.
But that’s what young ladies wear to garden parties. White.
Rose was to attend the party. Dr. Rannigan said she might.
“Robert will like the way I match.” Rose turned so I might do her buttons.
I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t say what I’d said so often in the past few days. That Robert might choose not to come; that he might feel awkward; that he wouldn’t have any friends at the party.