Part 40 (1/2)

”Tell me the story again,” says Eldric. He says his memories of the Dead Hand and the swamp are like a dream. He remembers, but he doesn't remember.

”Which version do you want?” I say. ”The one in which I am terrifically heroic? Or the one in which I am extraordinarily heroic?”

”The latter,” says Eldric, but then he looks at me sideways, and I know what he's going to say.

”For goodness' sake!” I say. ”I am not too tired. Would you and Father please stop treating me as though I'm going to break?”

”But you did break,” says Eldric. ”That's hard for us to forget.”

”You broke too,” I say. ”But you don't see me worrying about you.”

”But you do worry, I think. You worry in a different way.”

Eldric's right, although I'll never admit it. I do worry about him. I worry that he has horrid feelings about having lost his hand, his dominant hand. He was a boy-man who boxed and fidgeted and climbed roofs, and now-What does he say to himself when he's alone?

I hate myself? Is that what he says?

I can only guess at his feelings. I know what Dr. Freud would guess, but he'd be wrong.

”You could at least complain,” I say. ”I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.”

I wish I'd lost my hand instead. I have no particular need for it, except for writing. But even so, I need only the one.

”Ha!” he says. ”You didn't see me all the while you were ill. Just ask my father if I didn't complain. Or Pearl. Pearl knows.”

It's true. I've lost time, all sorts of time. I've lost memory time with Stepmother; I've lost real time with Eldric. I feel as though he and I are just now meeting all over again. I try to identify what's s.h.i.+fted between us. Perhaps the best word for it is guarded. Eldric has grown guarded.

I tell a highly colored version of our journey through the swamp on Halloween night. But there's enough truth that I let Eldric shake his head and say, ”How did you do it, though? All those miles, and me, such a weight!”

”Robust,” I say primly. ”You're robust.”

”You're very kind.” Here comes his curling lion's smile. ”I rather think my father would call me hulking.”

”Only when you ask for thirds at supper. You tell him I say you're robust, and that I'm the one to know.”

The five thirty-nine whistles. Eldric and I jump, then laugh. The skip-rope girls scatter. The five thirty-nine tosses her luminous hair and chuffs away from the station.

Someday I will gallop away with the five thirty-nine to London. And someday, I will take one of her sisters from London to Dover, then sail to France, and I know just what I'll say. ”Pardon, monsieur.” I will be very polite. ”Le restaurant Chez Julien, il est sur le Boulevard Saint-Michel, a droite, si je ne me trompe pas?”

I mention this to Eldric, but he shakes his head. ”Let me remind you of the correct phrasing, and please note my perfect accent: The restaurant Chez Julien, she is, if I do not mistake myself, down the Boulevard Saint-Michel, to the right?”

I speak again in my French voice. ”I must note one error, monsieur, one oh-so-small error. A restaurant, he is a boy, not a girl.”

”Really!” says Eldric. ”The French have certainly got that wrong!”

”You can correct them on your next visit.”

”I shall be sure to.” Eldric sweeps his newest fidget into his palm, admires it from all sides. ”We are ready for paint. Or, as they'd say in Paris, Voila! French is an admirably economical language.”

”I'll fetch Rose.” I peel off my lap rug, but Eldric springs up first.

”I'll do it.”

”I am not going to break!”

”Not if you keep quiet,” says Eldric. Dr. Rannigan has told Eldric and Father he was astonished I managed to hang on through the end of the trial. But he also says he's seen it before. That sometimes people stave off the symptoms of illness to finish something else. Then, though, the illness comes cras.h.i.+ng down upon the person like an avalanche. It makes Father and Eldric feel guilty, which is nice, but tiresome.

Eldric speeds through the front door, but I call after him. ”I won't stay in this chair. You'll come back sometime to find I've disappeared.”

Hmm. When might sometime be? It might be this evening.

It might, and it will. I mean to walk to the fields to check on the green mist. That's what the Swampfolk used to do every spring when I was small. We'd rise before dawn. We'd wait and watch. For days and days, we'd watch the sun rise over fields of plain brown earth, and we'd turn about and go home. But one morning, the sun would rise on fields of green mist, and we'd stay to welcome the earth. We'd tell her how glad we were she'd awakened once again. We'd sprinkle salt and bread on the ground and say strange old words that no one understands anymore.

Tonight wouldn't be like those not-so-very-old days. I'd be watching in the evening, and I'd be watching alone. But I wouldn't let another day pa.s.s without watching for the earth to awaken.

”You may as well have let me fetch her,” I say as Eldric emerges with Rose. ”While you were gone, I ran around the square. Twice.”

”Don't even think about doing that,” says Eldric.

”Or?” I say. I listen to myself. I sound, perhaps, a touch childish.

”Or I'll pound you into a pulp,” says Eldric with the utmost good humor.

”I know that's a joke,” says Rose.

”Quite right, Rosy Posy.” I hand Rose the box of paints. ”I have a color request for this fidget.”

Rose opens the box.

”Let's paint it the exact color of the motorcar.”

”I'm the one who has an eye for color,” says Rose.

”I'm the one who's ill,” I say.

”You've been ill too much,” says Rose.

”Hear! Hear!” says Eldric.

I feel the p.r.i.c.kle of tears behind my cheekbones. I lie back and close my eyes. They're joking, I tell myself. Or at least Eldric is. Rose doesn't know how to joke. But sometimes I cry at the stupidest things.

Rose sets out the paints; she mumbles over them. Eldric whispers. Mumble, whisper, mumble. Finally, Rose says, ”What color is the motorcar, Briony Vieny?”

Eldric has coached her, of course.

”Cardinal.” (Hallelujah! Hallelujah!) The two of them rattle about in the paints.

”Is this one cardinal?” says Eldric.

”No, it's this one,” says Rose.