Part 31 (1/2)

Mr. Clayborne's men had left off their work to gaze at her. Rose walked round and round, touching the candy-apple skin with one finger. All the while, Eldric was helping dirty little boys and girls into the motorcar and sitting their horrid backsides on the white leather seats. One of the boys sounded her goose-voice of a horn.

White leather. I must pause for another color adjustment. Not white, cream. Thick, melting cream, with darling little b.u.t.tons to fix the decorative pleats and puffs-cream leather b.u.t.tons, of course. Even the insides of the doors were padded with cream leather.

Each wheel was a spun-candy confection of metalwork. In front, protuberant car eyes peered from protective bra.s.s hoods. A bra.s.s eagle perched on her nose.

”Do you like her?”

I jumped at Eldric's voice. ”I'm in love.”

”So am I,” said Eldric, ”which works out well, as I've saved the first ride for you. Pearl has made us a picnic. I took the liberty of thinking you and Rose might join me.”

”I should have thought you'd give Leanne the first ride.”

”After what you told me?” he said.

”You didn't believe me, though, did you?”

”No.” He smiled; I smiled. Give us a kiss, then, love! Ugh. Hedgehog stomach. Ugh.

Rose and I shared the pa.s.senger seat. I sank into cream leather.

”Miss!” Tiddy Rex pressed his nose to the window. I found a cunning little crank to open it. ”You be taking me next time, miss?”

I always used to be the one who stayed behind, minding Rose, while the others were off eating ice cream or riding sleighs on cold, crisp nights.

I don't care so much about cold, crisp nights, but I have never tasted ice cream.

The motorcar s.h.i.+vered into life and slid forward.

”Miss? Miss!”

”Next time, Tiddy Rex,” said Eldric. ”You can sound the horn.”

Rose talked to Eldric. She actually conducted a conversation. How did the motorcar work? Why did it make such a noise? I could barely hear them, and what I could hear, I didn't understand. It was all springs and drive trains and liters and cylinders and horsepower. Horsepower? Isn't the very point of a motorcar the absence of horse?

It was a peculiar exchange, but peculiar things will happen in this new world of motorcars.

The afternoon was weepy and gray, but the car was cozy. I held my hand out the window. There's a peculiar pleasure in having just a bit of oneself grow cold, while the rest is snug beneath a lap rug.

I sank into the cream leather. ”The motorcar makes me feel I am truly a Dresden figurine,” I said.

”Dresden?” said Rose.

”Something precious and fragile,” said Eldric. ”Something that ought to be treated with utmost care.”

”Briony's not fragile,” said Rose. ”She always says how strong she is.”

”That's rather embarra.s.sing, Rose!”

”She's right,” said Eldric. ”That's what you're forever saying.”

”Still more embarra.s.sing,” I said. ”Don't you think it's true?”

We b.u.mped along a rough road, through heather and peat and gorse. The moor rose in lavender folds, dotted with a few arthritic firs.

”In certain ways, perhaps,” said Eldric. But then he got quiet and didn't finish his thought.

”In what ways?”

”In Amazon of the Swampsea ways,” said Eldric, but I had the feeling I'd just pulled him back from a faraway place and that that was not at all what he'd meant to say.

Now the earth rose around us, cutting off our view of the moor. Banks to either side dripped with rusty mosses and yellow ferns and mushrooms, brown and rugged, like leather. Autumn had taken hold. Just a bit more than a week until Halloween, which was when Eldric would learn I'm a witch.

I watched him adjust the turning wheel. If Michelangelo had lived in this age of motorcars, I knew just how he'd sculpt Eldric's hand. The long, fidgety fingers, the energy that might, at any moment, turn the wheel into a crown.

We splatted through soggy leaves, then hissed onto pebbles to climb a long rise of moor.

I imagined what those fingers would do on Halloween, when I revealed my true self. They'd go very still while he absorbed the information. And then what? Would he want me to give him back the things he'd made?

I touched the gray-pearl wolfgirl that hung against my chest. If he did want things back, it would be too late. I'd have vanished.

But I couldn't bear to have him find out that way. What if I were to tell him?

What if?

We pulled over at an untidy pile of boulders. The almostrain had given over to almost-sun. Eldric spread a blanket on the sunward side of the boulders, which were flushed and warm.

Rose turned away, even though the blanket suggested picnics, and Rose was very fond of picnics. She looked down the spill of moor, at the wind tearing through the scrub, at a bundle of ponies tumbling by.

Eldric produced the picnic basket; we set out our supper. A thermos of tea; cold chicken; buns with raspberry jam and cream; and biscuits.

”Look, Rose,” I said. ”Buns and biscuits-shop-bought biscuits!”

But Rose did not appear to have heard. She stood smiling, not her anxious-monkey smile, but a real-girl smile. She did have her own thoughts-nice thoughts. Of course she did.

Pearl was a picnic genius. The picnic was the very essence of picnic-ness. She'd given us a quilt, worn and faded to just what a picnic blanket should be. The buns were wrapped in a blue-and-white cloth, and if I were a girl in a story, I'd have exclaimed, Look, they're still warm!

Which they were.

”I suppose it's time to get it over with,” I said. ”While Rose isn't listening.”

”About last night?” Eldric didn't pretend not to know what I meant.

”I'm so mortified. Asking you those nosy-parkerium questions, and . . . and singing!”

”But I'm glad you did!” said Eldric. ”You have a-a dazzling voice! I should never have heard it otherwise.”

I shook my head. ”I used to sing well enough, but I grew out of it.”

”You haven't,” said Eldric. ”I'm telling you, you haven't.”