Part 8 (1/2)

”I knew it!”

”Knew what?” said Father.

”I knew the food would be brown. I don't like brown.”

It was true, everything was brown: the pie, the sherry, the gravy, the biscuits, the caraway seeds on the biscuits.

Brown or not, it looked delicious. I reached for my fork. I'd grown used to eating with my right hand. I was rarely tempted to use my left. It would be harder if I still wanted to write, but all that's behind me.

It's just as well I switched hands: Witches are thought to be left-handed. Perhaps it's true. Rose is no witch and she uses her right hand. We are mirror twins, she and I. What's left for me is right for her; and if I wanted to feel sorry for myself, I might say nothing's right for me.

But Rose was using neither hand. ”I need Briony to cut for me.”

Cut for her? After all these years of teaching her to cut her meat? Of telling her knives weren't dangerous if properly used? On the day I break down and slap Rose, I'll probably use my dependable left hand.

”But you cut your meat ever so well on your own.”

Rose raised her clenched fist. ”My hand prefers to be occupied.”

”What do you have, Rose?”

”It's mine,” said Rose.

”Of course it's yours, but I'd like to see it.” One never knew what hideous things Rose might pick up.

Lamplight glinted off the pewter tankards as they went up and down, although where Cecil was concerned, there was a lot of up and not so much down. Rose uncurled her fingers. On her palm lay a crumple of paper.

”He dropped it,” she said. ”He didn't prefer to have it.”

”It's a Bible Ball,” said Cecil, stating the obvious, which was his specialty.

Father sat up very straight. ”Who dropped it, Rose?”

”Mr. Drury didn't prefer to have it, so it wasn't stealing.”

”The fool!” said Mr. Clayborne. I'd never heard him raise his voice before. ”And after all my warnings!”

Yes, Mr. Dreary had been a fool, letting the Quicks have him for tea. He didn't believe in the Bible Ball, he'd left it behind. Slurp and swallow. I'd been right. The swamp reached out and gobbled him up.

”His Bible Ball?” Eldric leaned forward, the very image of a boy who didn't want to miss anything. Least of all Mr. Dreary; no, Eldric didn't miss him. Why was it that Eldric could get away with a thing like that-not being sorry when a person was supposed to be sorry?

Cecil put on a solemn face for about five seconds, which happens to correspond with his attention span. ”When in Rome,” he said, shrugging wisely.

”We're not in Rome,” said Rose.

”What Cecil means,” said Father, ”is that people who travel to foreign places ought to follow the rules and customs of that place.”

”But we're not in Rome,” said Rose.

”Quite true,” said Eldric. ”We're far from Rome.”

”In the Swampsea,” said Cecil, showing off his geography. I still can't understand how Cecil and my old tutor, Fitz, got along so well, when we often called Fitz ”the Genius” and avoided calling Cecil anything at all, so as not to be rude.

”We're in the Swampsea?” said Eldric. ”Surely not! I'm certain I took the express train to the Dragon Constellation.”

Cecil put on his best dead-poet face. He's far too highbrow for silliness.

But Rose laughed. She does sometimes understand when something's meant to be silly. I never can predict when. But the laughing set off a fit of coughing. What was I doing, filling my belly and licking my burns? I needed Tiddy Rex and his cough.

”Don't tell me you haven't heard of the Dragon Constellation!” said Eldric. ”It's very far, indeed, from London, and I for one intend to follow all its customs. If a native from the Dragon Constellation tells me to carry a Bible Ball, then it's a Bible Ball I shall carry.”

I spotted Tiddy Rex warding the Alehouse against the Old Ones. The barkeep often asked him to perform the odd job, now that he'd achieved the great age of nine.

”Then you must learn our customs,” I said, waving at Tiddy Rex. ”Here's a boy who'll teach you everything.”

Tiddy Rex came bouncing over. ”Doesn't you look beautiful, Miss Briony!”

”Thank you, Tiddy Rex!” I said. ”And here I'd been thinking this frock makes me look slightly dead.” Black is not a happy color for me, but then, funeral clothes do not specialize in happiness.

”Not a bit o' it, Miss Briony,” said Tiddy Rex. ”You doesn't look a bit dead!”

Tiddy Rex is the one person who can make me smile. He's a very decent specimen of nine-year-old boyhood.

”You've heard of Mister Eldric, I daresay,” I said. ”But I'll tell you something about him you must never tell anyone else. Promise?”

”Promise!”

”Mister Eldric doesn't come from our planet at all. He comes from a faraway place out in the sky called Earth.”

When Tiddy Rex smiled, each of his several million freckles lit up.

”But now that he's here, in the Dragon Constellation, he has to learn our ways, so he can protect himself against the Old Ones. You were warding the Alehouse, just now. Explain it to Mister Eldric, will you?”

”Us mixes wine an' bread, Mister Eldric, an' puts it round by the door an' the windows so them Old Ones doesn't come creeping in.”

Tiddy Rex paused, then added, ”Wine an' bread be church things, you knows, Mister Eldric, an' them Old Ones, they doesn't care for church.”

Wine and bread. This has always seemed rather ghoulish to me, as though one were smearing the threshold with Puree of Christ.

”Thank you, Tiddy Rex. Such things are undoubtedly puzzling to a person from Earth.”

”You're a fine lad.” Cecil made a great show of opening his fingers to reveal a coin. ”Such a deal of money. I wonder how many toffees that will buy you?”

”Sixpence a bag,” said Tiddy Rex. ”But licorice be the thing for me, begging your pardon, Mister Cecil.”

”I like licorice,” said Rose.

”Tiddy Rex,” I said, ”how do you like pork?”

”I likes it fine, Miss Briony.”