I tell Father no one imagined a Dark Muse could feed on girls.
Father tells me it’s awful to realize how long ago she started planning; taking her first steps when I was seven; making me believe I was wicked; keeping me tethered to her larder should Father discover what she was.
I wish he’d told me from the beginning, when he realized the truth about Stepmother. But it wasn’t possible for him, the Reverend Larkin, to tell his daughter he married a Dark Muse. It was too shameful. He had to hide the fact. He left her to die for want of feeding, or so he thought. He never thought she’d feed upon his girls.
I hear Eldric pause, hear him pad over to me, lion soft. He pulls the coverlet up to my chin. He often performs these small kindnesses for me when he thinks I’m asleep. And when I am asleep too, I suppose.
But I wish he would do the same when I’m awake. I wish he’d help lay down new brain paths for me and scuff out the old. I wish he’d tell me how perfect I am, just as Father did when I was small. That he’d exclaim over my darling apricot ears and perfect fingernails. That he’d scuff out the paths Stepmother stomped into existence, paths of wickedness and guilt.
I fall into mad dream thoughts of fingernails and babies. I put a baby on the wrong train, and no one can find it, and I’m running about, looking for the baby, but the air is thick as glue. What a relief to wake up and realize I’ve been asleep. Rose has gone, leaving behind half a plate of sunset buns and a litter of crumbs. Eldric holds the paintbrush in the tips of his fingers.
“Damn!” he says.
“I can give it a go,” I say.
The paintbrush pauses. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
“I don’t think so.” I try to shake off my dream.
He reaches for the plate of buns. “Give it a whirl, will you, while I get things warmed up.” He glances at the bowl of soggy cream. “And get things colded up.”
I give it a whirl. Painting a tiny fidget is not as easy as it sounds. Every little mistake looks huge. A dribble of paint has run into a corner and dried.
“Damn,” I say. I was never as wicked as I’d thought, so I have some extra goodness to balance out a bad word or two.
The truth will set you free. That’s both true and not true. It was certainly liberating to learn I’m not a witch. To learn I hadn’t hurt Rose, or even Stepmother, at least not with Mucky Face as my weapon. To learn that Stepmother was never really ill, except for a brief period after the fire, before she turned to Rose, and of course, the last day of her life. It was not so liberating to remember I poisoned Stepmother, but for that, I am forgiven. It seems that if someone (Stepmother) is killing someone else (Rose), the law permits you to kill the someone in order to protect the someone else.
I like myself.
I like myself.
Or, for example, the law permits Eldric to wing the constable in order to protect Briony Larkin.
Eldric returns with a sunset-lathered bun. We speak of a certain person who has an eye for color but can’t manage to finish painting a certain fidget. We speculate that she has gone to visit Robert: Rose has become awfully independent these days. We are relieved of our conversation when Tiddy Rex comes running by.
Eldric looks at me. “Shall we?”
“Is it dry?”
Eldric nods.
I call Tiddy Rex onto the porch. “You are just the boy we want to see. We hope you will agree to join our secret society.”
“The Fearsome Four,” says Eldric.
“The mission of the Fearsome Four is to fight for justice,” I say.
“To go on quests,” says Eldric.
“I never been on no quest,” says Tiddy Rex. His eyes are wide and exactly match the color of his freckles.
“In the olden days,” I say, “people set off on quests by horseback. But in these modern days, heroes go by motorcar.”
“Motorcar!” Tiddy Rex’s voice is just a squeak.
“The existence of the Fearsome Four is a solemn secret,” says Eldric. “Will you join us and dedicate yourself to our mission?”
Tiddy Rex flushes. “Aye, aye!”
“Kneel, then, Tiddy Rex, that you may be sworn into the secret society of the Fearsome Four.”
Tiddy Rex kneels. I glance up as though this is a holy moment. The sky is all stretchy clouds, like elastic lace. “Do you solemnly swear to face all perils in order to rescue those in need? Do you swear to be relentless in the eternal quest for justice?”
“Aye, aye!”
“Do you solemnly swear to motor from one end of the world to the other, rooting out evil wheresoever you may find it?”
“Aye, aye!”
Eldric rises. He sets a leather cord around Tiddy Rex’s neck. “I now pronounce you a member of the Fearsome Four. Welcome, Tiddy Rex! Rise and walk among us.”
Tiddy Rex’s face is a starry map. He touches the fidget hanging on the cord.
“Mister Eldric!” he says, for the fidget is a brilliant copy of the motorcar, right down to the tiny brass eagle. The eagle’s not made of brass, of course, but it’s painted gold, and you can see its beak and its every talon.
I look at Eldric and he looks at me. That was fun! For a moment, we actually had fun.
I’m expected to rest after supper, to prepare myself for the next grand adventure in life, which is sleep. Father and Eldric think they’ve bullied me into this with the suggestion that I shan’t be well enough to study with my new tutor. Yes, Father has engaged a tutor for me, just as brilliant as Fitz. James Bellingham. I haven’t yet told him his pet name. I wonder if he’ll like it?
But neither Father nor Eldric is particularly skilled at bullying. I sit on the upstairs landing until I hear Pearl bid Father good night. I think about Jim Bellingham. What would have been better? To have allowed Father to send me away to school, or to have remained in the Swampsea, to have met Eldric?
But I had no choice, had I? Stepmother saw to that, making me believe I called Mucky Face and injured her. She knew I couldn’t leave her then, not for school, not for anything.
I slip downstairs. I have an excuse ready, should anyone see me, but I don’t need it. I slip out the kitchen door, over the bridge.
I step in the hoof prints of the Shire horses, as Eldric and I used to do. But I’m lonely, and I’m already tired. I shuffle along, I ignore the hoof prints. All I want is to see the green mist. Tears come to my eyes.
Honestly, Briony, enough of the self-pity. What a baby you are!
Stop, Briony: Amend that thought!
What a darling baby, and such delightful apricot ears!
I clamber up the riverbank and cut across the Flats. But it’s harder to walk on the sloppy ground. Where’s wolfgirl? She never minded a bit of slop.
I’ll have to reinvent wolfgirl too. But she won’t be so hard to reinvent. I’ll have to stomp out muscle paths for her, not brain paths. Muscle paths are easy; the brain is a tricky thing.
I think of the moment I discovered that Stepmother was a Dark Muse. I remember my hand moving across paper, my pen leaving a trail of ink. I remember myself, sitting in a sea of crumpled bedsheets, beside the do-not-cross line. I remember that I was ill, that the pen was heavy.
I wrote that Stepmother brought me writing materials. I wrote that the more I wrote, the sicker I got. I wrote about Father’s illness and of his immediate recovery once he abandoned the fiddle and left the Parsonage. I wrote myself into understanding. I wrote myself into realizing I had to make sure I could write nothing anymore. I knew I hadn’t enough power to refuse to write. I couldn’t resist Stepmother’s spell.
I wrote myself into understanding I had to burn my hand.
But the brain is tricky. I couldn’t allow myself to remember what Stepmother really was. I made myself forget. I scuffed out my own real memories while Stepmother trod in false memories.
“Such a vasty time to bide away, mistress!”
I have come upon the Reed Spirits. I’ve not been to the swamp since All Hallows’ Day.