Part 39 (1/2)

Eldric does not respond. He is going to tell.

I squeeze all the lace from my hand-bones. I turn my fist to cement. ”Don't you dare tell!” I whisper, so he has to draw close. I can easily reach that beautiful face of his. I jab, but I am weak and slow, and his left hand is quick-quick enough, at least, to catch mine.

Eldric speaks very low. ”Don't throw your punch from your elbow.”

”Stupidibus,” I say.

He almost smiles.

I refuse to listen. I put my fingers in my ears. But my imagination keeps following the story. What's he saying now?

When will Father know what I did to Rose?

Does he know now?

Now?

What about Rose?

Does she know now?

Eldric taps my hand. He is done.

No, I amend that: He is done for.

I am going to kill him.

Father has risen. He doesn't know where to put his arms. You wouldn't take him for a clergyman, accustomed to speaking in public.

”I'm trying to sort through what happened here,” he says. ”But one thing I do know: Rose was born who she is and she's remained who she is. I know she sustained no injury that-”

He searches for the mot juste.

”-that compromised her.”

Father is lying to save me. Stepmother was wrong. Father's not so righteous that he'd have turned me over to the constable. I wish I could feel happy about this. Eldric, of course, thinks Father's telling the truth.

”I know it's hard to believe,” says Eldric, in his just-between-you-and-me voice. ”Do you remember how at first I couldn't believe Leanne was a Dark Muse? It was too great a shock. I couldn't accept that my feelings had clouded my judgment, and that my feelings themselves were the result of a spell.”

I could hit him so easily. ”Are you suggesting Stepmother was a Dark Muse?” More sarcastic withering.

Father speaks into Eldric's silence. ”We were married a year before I understood she was a Dark Muse, feeding on my music. I absented myself as much as possible, so she'd have nothing to feed on.”

My mouth tastes sharp and bright.

”We have misunderstood the powers of the Dark Muse,” says Judge Trumpington. ”She's able to feed on girls.”

I have bitten my tongue.

”Happen,” says the Chime Child, ”us never knowed the powers o' yon la.s.ses. The art they does, it be strong enough to feed the Dark Muse.”

”Perhaps Briony misunderstood her own powers,” says Eldric. ”Perhaps she's not a witch at all.”

Eldric's voice again, now for me, alone. ”You've gone whiter than I'd have thought possible. You ought to put your head down.”

”I told you once to put your head down,” I say. I don't recognize my own voice. ”But you didn't.” He'd gone all distant and wavy, as though I were looking at him through old gla.s.s.

My own strange voice rises, speaks loud as Rose. ”Don't tell me I'm not a witch!” My voice is all blisters and scars. ”How do you explain that I have the second sight?”

And then my voice, which I recognize this time, except that it belongs to Rose.

”I didn't prefer to tell the secret,” says Rose, ”but Robert a.s.sured me I ought to.”

I let myself look at her. She wears a white coat, not terribly practical, but she does look lovely in it.

Rose understands, doesn't she? I think she has known for a long while. Is it because I talk in my sleep? You tell them, Rose. Tell them I'm a witch.

My throat is full of liquid, but my eyes are deserts of sand.

”Stepmother,” says Rose, ”was a bad person. Once I told her that Briony had no birthday, and she asked why. I showed her the register in which the midwife had written our names.”

”What register?” says Judge Trumpington. ”What midwife?”

It was the midwife, Rose says, who attended Mother when we were born. The midwife had brought a book with her that said Register on the front. Inside were written the dates and times of all the babies she'd delivered.

How does Rose know it belonged to the midwife?

Rose a.s.sures us it's simple. Over and over, the midwife had written, Ruth Parks, midwife to, and the name of the baby. Or babies, in the case of twins.

Not even Judge Trumpington can quarrel with Rose's conclusion.

My heart squeezes in on itself.

”I found it when I was very little,” says Rose. ”But I was a terrifically early reader.”

The register. It's not surprising the midwife forgot it in the turmoil of twin babies and a dead mother.

”At first Stepmother was nice,” says Rose. ”I showed her the register, and she told me never to tell anyone. I promised. She said she'd hurt Briony if I told, which was exceedingly unnecessary because I prefer to keep secrets. I'm breaking my promise now because Robert says I must.”

”What was the secret?” says Judge Trumpington.

”Robert says I may tell a secret if it's a bad secret,” says Rose. ”I know it's bad because it keeps Briony thinking bad thoughts.”

It stands to reason the midwife might have chosen not to return to the Parsonage. That she may have decided it was better to forgo the register than to collect it from the reverend, whose wife had died under her care.

”That's right,” says the judge. ”You mustn't keep a bad secret.”