For a while I stand at the window. There’s a clear sky full of stars and the sound of the wind pushing through the trees and the house breathing.
Agnes
I have done what I could. For part of the night I smelt the air in the woods. But they tricked me and things are worse than ever. I have heard words harder than any text in the Book of Air.
I knew if I cut my arm on the glass they would see where the blood came from. If I called them to see the blood while it was fresh, the wound in my wrist would show and they would bind it up and slap me for my insolence. But with the cherries eaten only blood would do. I had the pen and nothing else and must use it somewhere they wouldn’t see.
I was afraid to at first and sat with the pen, not sure how to begin. Then the Reeds came with food and left, and came again having emptied my pot, and I knew I must wait another day to be set free. At dusk I made myself do it, sitting in the narrow space where the walls are tiled in stone. There was more blood than I meant. I cried out, but no one came.
Even if they hear me, they know not to come.
After a time I reached up and took my white feather from the shelf and soaked its tip. I crawled on my knees to the door and pushed the feather under it. Then I crouched low to the floor with my mouth to the crack and blew, watching with one eye while the feather lifted, scurried and settled. I slept then, just I where I lay.
Footsteps woke me and the creaking of boards on the landing. Then silence. Then the scrape of the key – not turned but pulled from the lock – and the sound of breathing, with a faint roughness in the throat that told me who this was that looked for me through the keyhole. The room was full of greenish moonlight. If I had lain in the bed, Brendan would have seen me there. If I had been asleep how long would he have watched?
I got to my knees, steadying myself on the door, and whispered that I was ready, that it was time. My eye searched for his and saw movement, then light, then darkness as the key slid in.
‘You see the blood,’ I said. ‘It’s time. You can let me out.’
I heard his tread on the staircase and shouted, ‘Tell them it’s time.’
I thought I might wait until morning, but it was still dark when the Reeds came. They led me down the backstairs, through the stables, and out into the High Wood, careless of my weakness and my bare feet. I asked them were they taking me home, told them this wasn’t the way, asked if the Mistress had seen my blood. They said nothing, but I felt the hardness of their hands.
There was a fire burning in the clearing among the birches and a pot steaming over the flames. I was dizzy with hunger and the summer air and the smell of the broth. They knelt me on the ground and let me sink back on my heels. One of the women took a ladle and filled a cup. I raised my hands to take it, but they kept hold, pouring faster than I could swallow and I coughed some of it back. Sweet and sharp it was with a taste of earth. They poured more and my mouth was all peat water and fungus. They threw a blanket round me and for a while I watched the flames rise and weave and spit sparks as big as fireflies.
Then I was pulled up again and led stumbling in among the trees to another clearing, where ancient oaks towered above me. They sat me on a chair facing a dark figure, thickly veiled, and behind her, like blossom on a bush, a blaze of candles to blind me. She made a movement with her hand and we were alone. Everything moved oddly. I saw all the blades of grass where the light caught them, the different ways they curled and twisted, and the caterpillars climbing.
Her eyes were covered but I felt her looking.
I asked her, ‘Why have you brought me here? What is this place?’
Her answer was no more than a whisper. ‘The dialogue box.’
‘What is the dialogue box?’
‘My domain.’
‘What happens here?’
‘A window opens.’
‘I want to go home.’
‘Your home is the red room.’
‘I was to stay until I bled. The Mistress promised.’ I felt the tears coming, I felt so sorry for myself. ‘I am Agnes daughter of Janet. Agnes daughter of Walt who died when I had seen only eight summers. My home is Walt’s cottage – my cottage. I want my own bed.’
‘You are a cry from the red room, a knocking on floorboards, a scrape at the door.’
‘I am Agnes.’
She leant towards me and murmured at my ear, ‘Pass a word and use a name.’
‘Agnes, daughter of Janet. I work at the Hall, chopping wood, lighting fires, sweeping staircases and passageways, studying the Book of Air.’
‘Figuring the task bar.’
‘I feel strange. Am I dreaming you?’
‘They’ve put you in a sleep state.’
‘Where is Brendan?’
‘Lost in the Book of Windows.’
‘Where is my mother?’
‘Your mother is dead. Why did you speak like that at her burial?’
‘She lived all those years. She wasn’t nothing. If Jane why not Janet? Where is Janet’s book?’
‘There are four books. Everybody knows this.’
‘Cooking and scrubbing, sweeping the ash from the fire grate, feeding the pig.’
‘Four books with the Book of Death.’
‘Food for the pig is all she is now. No more talking in her sleep. No more pain. No more sighing. No more stinking of piss.’
‘Can you be trusted with a secret, Agnes?’
‘Yes, anything.’
‘I don’t think so. You spoke at your mother’s burial about the Reader.’
‘Where is he? Where is Brendan? It was wrong of him to let them take me.’
There was a sound then and a movement of the head and I knew who this was. Not a Reed at all, not a woman even, but Brendan himself. I would have known him at once if they hadn’t fed me mushrooms.
‘Can you be trusted to be good,’ he said, ‘if the Mistress lets you out? Will you stop your mouth at burials? Will you keep these wild thoughts to yourself?’
‘Will she let me out?’
‘If she does.’
‘This is blood on my skirt, look. You can tell her. And tell her I’m sick. My throat is sore. It’s too cruel to lock me up. My feet are bruised from pacing.’
‘Show me, Agnes.’
I raised one foot towards him and he took it on his lap. So soothing it was to be held, to feel his hands on my ankle and on the aching sinews of my calf. He reached for the other foot. There was such steadiness in his touch, and so firmly he held and stroked me, drawing my skirt above my knee and pulling me towards him, that I felt my whole body grow slack and the tears come freely to wet my face.
Then such sorrow and compassion in his sighing. ‘And this will be our secret, Agnes?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘our secret.’ And I was so lost to myself that there was only pleasure as the hands strayed higher, opening me to the cool night air, so content I was to know nothing and to think nothing and to let my body become servant to another’s will. I had no sense of danger, until I remembered my book held tight against my back by the belt at my waist.
I moved suddenly to straighten myself and to hold his hands from reaching around and underneath me.
I said, ‘I have a bigger secret, anyway, bigger than this. Bigger than riding to see the scroungers.’
He stopped and looked at me, ‘What secret?’
I wouldn’t have said these things. I would have kept everything hidden. But the broth the women fed me had moved me sideways from myself.
‘What secret, Agnes?’
‘I have a baby.’
‘But you bled.’ He made no more effort to soften his voice.
So I cried to him directly in his own person. ‘Why have you done this to me, sir? Locked me away to hear voices and go mad?’
‘Not me. The Mistress. The women.’
‘Why did you let them?’