Part 3 (1/2)

The voices of girls!

”So pretty as you be, Rosy!”

Eldric and I, plunging into black spruce.

”Fires are dangerous!”

A green dimness now. Needles of sunlight, glancing off Rose's hair. ”Fires are dangerous!” She stood screaming, her eyes squeezed shut.

”Us got us some visitors!” said a girl's voice.

The girl was-Look up, Briony; you have to look up. Higher-into the treetops!

Three figures, das.h.i.+ng and darting through the trees.

”Such a pretty Rosy!”

They sat astride black branches-no broomsticks for these Swampsea witches!

”Doesn't you be wis.h.i.+ng to come along with us?”

I crunched my fingers round the Bible Ball. ”Get away from her!”

The black capes, the gnarled branches, swirled around Rose. ”You be making such a pretty little witch, Rosy!”

Rose clapped her hands to her ears.

What if I proclaimed my own witchiness? Would they leave Rose in peace-honor among thieves, and all that? But I couldn't, not with Eldric listening. I shook my Bible-Ball fist at them.

”Ooh, doesn't I be scareful!” said one of the witches, although the branch she rode bucked, like a startled horse. Wisps of carrot-colored hair floated from her hood.

”I be trembling in my drawers,” said another.

”Such a woeful lie!” said the third. ”You doesn't wear no drawers!”

”No drawers for us witches!” How they screamed and laughed.

I darted forward, pecking the Bible Ball at them.

”Look at them eyes she got!” said the redhead. ”Like to coals, they be.”

The witches rose on their branches, screeching with laughter. ”It be fine not wearing no drawers.” The redhead again. ”Look Rosy, such a treat it be!”

Rose didn't look.

Pine needles swirled about our feet, stirred by an unnatural wind. I smelled the tart-treacley scent of magic. The wind corkscrewed up to a miniature whirlwind, a tornado of pine needles, spiraling up and under the witches. Now, at last, the capes decided to follow the laws of nature, billowing up and out, leaving us with a spectacular view of three naked backsides.

My hands jumped like startled birds. I ought to have looked away, but the sight was horribly fascinating. Fascinatingly horrible. Eldric grabbed my bird hands, and together we stared up at the three gnarled branches circling the glade, up at the twin-moon backsides.

The witches laughed. This was no old-hag cackling but peals of girlish laughter. Eldric and I stared. The witches circled and descended upon Rose. More laughter as they pulled away, one of them dangling Rose's hair ribbon from her finger.

”Now girls, for t'others!” The witches dove upon us. Eldric and I ducked-they'd smash into us-but the branches reared back, then hovered an Eldric's arm's-length away. There came a rearrangement of legs and capes. They laughed and laughed as we stood, looking up into their inner girl-parts.

Eldric crunched my bird hands. I jerked my chin to my chest. I felt my face boil with my own hot blood, which in an alabaster girl is a terrible thing to see-shades of crimson coming but never going.

I felt rather than saw the witches circling, then rising, now above the trees, now out of sight. But their shrills and shrieks of amus.e.m.e.nt blew to us on that unnatural wind.

That unnatural wind-think about that, Briony. Think about anything rather than what you're thinking about, which you mustn't name, because then you'll think about it.

The unnatural wind is a perfect memory to stuff into your mind. It will make you remember you hurt Rose. It will make you remember the swings, the froth of petticoats, Rose's screams-those knitting-needle screams, which even when Rose was only seven, sounded just as they do today.

You must remember so you can hate yourself. It's been ten years, but you mustn't let yourself forget what you owe Rose.

It was Easter Day and Rose and I wore our white, frothy frocks. It was a day of froth: the froth of spring blossoms, the froth of lace on Stepmother's hat, the froth of petticoats as Rose and I pumped ourselves higher and higher on the swings.

Stepmother wasn't Stepmother yet; it would be years before she and Father married. We knew her well, though, Rose and I. Perhaps she meant to help the poor Reverend Larkin with his motherless daughters. That would be like her. Father was forever fretting that he didn't know how to raise girls properly. Poor man, his wife dying in childbirth.

I remember so clearly how Stepmother's pretty fingers flew like hummingbirds. How she played a game of catching at our legs, pretending to pull us down. How she pulled at Briony's legs, Rose's legs. Briony's legs, Rose's legs.

Rose's legs. Rose's-Rose's-Rose's- When you're jealous, your spit turns to acid. When you're jealous, you eat yourself from the inside out.

When you're jealous, and when you're seven-year-old Briony Larkin, and when you're a witch, you raise a wind. A wind that makes Rose whimper and complain; a wind that makes Rose scream that she didn't prefer to swing; a wind that makes Rose lose her grip on the ropes; a wind that makes her fall, so that she smashes her head on a rock.

It would make a better story if I could describe how her skull made a sharp crack, if I could describe how her blood pooled on the rock, how it matted the gra.s.s and dried in her yellow hair. But I have learned that life is both less exciting and more horrid than stories.

No crack, no blood, just Rose crumpled on the ground. Just Rose screaming.

Rose, screaming. Rose screaming in the memory-time of the swings; Rose screaming in the now-time of the Slough.

Eldric crunched at my hand.

”That hurts!”

”Sorry!” Eldric let go at once.

”Go ahead, plug your ears,” I said, not looking, never looking at him, never looking at him again. My face must be in the crimson-streak stage, which lasts forever. ”It's not rude, not if it's when Rose is screaming.” Pine needles drifted round our feet.

”But I don't want to miss anything!”

What would that be like, not wanting to miss anything? How wearisome to be forever grabbing at bits of life. Look at Eldric now, stepping over to Rose, bending over her, asking perhaps if she'd been hurt. I sat at the foot of an alder, leaned against its trunk, just waiting. Light-needles glinted off the pale gold of Rose's hair. I felt a little distant from myself, as though I sat in the audience of a production of my own life.

There would be no surprises in this production. I'd be caring for Rose in every scene. In the next scene, for example, the curtain would open upon me hanging about Tiddy Rex's sickbed, comparing his cough to Rose's. I mustn't neglect to play that scene, even though it had just occurred to me that a person with the swamp cough might be unable to scream so very enthusiastically. But I couldn't take any chances. It's my fault Rose is the way she is.

It's my fault that Rose screams. That she screamed this morning, that she was screaming now. She screamed like a river, the longest river you could imagine, and from time to time, words bobbed to the surface, like sticks. I could make out the words, although I doubted Eldric could. Rose screamed for her hair ribbon. It was her favorite ribbon and it matched her frock. And although she didn't say this, I knew that without the ribbon, she'd refuse to wear the frock.

Rose is finicky about colors.