Part 15 (1/2)

Rose was all anxious-monkey smiles and indirection. She had a great deal to say about the fire department and the letters she'd written the firemen, and she spoke about the dangers of fire, and somehow got on to confiding that she didn't like the same-colored food all on one plate. But about her experience with the witches, she'd only say that they'd taken her ribbon.

”Which is not very clever,” she said, ”because a pink ribbon does not match up at all well with red hair.”

”You speaks on color, Miss Rose.” The Chime Child spoke in the accent of the Swampsea, with its round vowels and pinched-off consonants. ”What does you think on the color o' yon Nelly's hair?”

All heads swung toward the prisoner's box. Nelly held her chin high, looking neither left nor right. It brought to mind her feet, dancing round the Maypole. It must have been four years ago or more, but I hadn't forgotten her dancing feet.

”Do her hair match the hair o' the witch you was speaking on?” said the Chime Child. You'd never guess from her plain, gravelly voice that she lived in a world of midnight births and the second sight. ”The witch what thinked to thief you away?”

”The witch's hair and Nelly's hair don't match at all.” Rose was very firm on this, but she started to waffle when she went on to say that despite that, neither of them should wear pink, and before she'd finished, you could tell that Judge Trumpington and the Chime Child had lost whatever confidence in her opinion they might have had. Their opinion was doubtless confirmed when Rose shrieked that I must cover my ears (it was almost noon), and they summoned the next witness, who was Eldric.

The air was saturated with yawns when he took the stand. His long fingers fidgeted about for want of a paper clip or a saltshaker or a sc.r.a.p of the London Loudmouth. I found myself wondering what he'd think when Rose and I stole away to London. Who'd tell him we were missing?

Eldric seemed quite a different person in the witness box. I'd never seen him so-so efficient, for want of a better word. There were no humorous asides, no hint of the bad boy. His account of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth was precise and complete in every detail, except for the bit about the naked backsides. That, he left out.

I noticed particularly.

I had, so far, withstood the courtroom and the eel-sick. But after Eldric had finished, the reflection-slices returned. I saw Stepmother and the white pillow and the black hair and blood and spit. I saw myself too, saw my own bird hands holding a spoon. My hands were feeding Stepmother. My hands were feeding her soup.

And then the sick-sandy smell of eel saturated the courtroom. I tore my hand from Tiddy Rex's, I pushed through the courtroom door. But the smell followed me down the courthouse steps, round the side alley, where only the dogs could see me heave my breakfast onto the cobbles.

14.

Nineteen Chimes The village children were playing on the railroad tracks, which reminded me that the maiden run of the London-Swanton line had been delayed for want of a permit. But I wouldn't think about it. I wouldn't let myself slide into that Mobius strip of worry, where I remind myself that once Mr. Clayborne's men have finished rebuilding the pumping station, the Boggy Mun will re-infect Rose with the swamp cough. That it will then be too late to run away to London because Rose will only bring the swamp cough along with her.

See how I'm not thinking about it?

Eldric was playing with the children. He rose from a clot of boys tossing horseshoes and waved me over.

I waved back. I'm coming!

This was the fourth Friday afternoon we were to meet at the Alehouse. Friday is an exciting day. It's payday, and market day, and bad-luck day, and Pearl-looking-after-Rose day, so you never know what's going to happen.

Eldric said that my education had been sadly neglected. How, he asked, could a girl grow up in Swanton never knowing that the close of market meant the beginning of Two-Pint Friday? That customers and merchants alike simply slid a few feet north, into the Alehouse, where two beers could be had for the price of one, and the fish and chips were always hot and steaming.

I settled my hat (the ribbon is a very pale pink), I smoothed my gloves (pink monogram on white). Father must have suffered quite a shock when he finally noticed that Rose and I went about in a state of acute ventilation, for he'd ordered up more new clothes. I know it's only that Father doesn't want to appear mingy, but I confess, I like new clothes. I adore new clothes.

Perhaps I'm shallow. Yes, I'm shallow, I don't mind admitting it. Perhaps I should admit that there's no end to the depths of my shallowness.

Off I went, into the bustle of Friday market, which on this particular Friday was all squashed with oilcloth tents: A storm was blowing in from the north.

Tiddy Rex detached himself from the horseshoe-tossing boys and trotted toward me. He pa.s.sed a group of girls skipping rope, grubby pinafores flapping, voices rising thin and high.

Tie the baby to the track.

Look! The one oh one!

The train goes click, the train goes clack,

Look, the baby's done,

For,

Five,

Six,

Seven . . .

Tiddy Rex touched my hand. ”Mister Eldric, he brung that rhyme all the way from London.”

All about us, life carried on in its disordered way. A donkey pa.s.sing, carrying spices and flies. Mad Tom, poking his umbrella into rubbish bins and rabbit holes, looking for his lost wits. Petey Todd, pinching an apple from the greengrocer's bin.

Petey has a s.p.a.cious view of what belongs to him.

”Mister Eldric!” called one of the skip-rope girls. ”I maked ninety-four, I did.”

”Ninety-four!” Eldric pounced to her side. ”You should get a blue ribbon or a gold medal! But I haven't either.”

He paused, as though considering. ”Could you make do with a blue-ribbon bit of fish?”

How the girls laughed!

”Or a fish fried like a medal?”