Authors: Franny Billingsley

Tags: #child_sf, #love_sf

Chime (23 page)

BOOK: Chime

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Only Father and Mr. Clayborne did not quite admire it. Father said nothing, but I suppose he’d envisioned another future for his fiddle string. Mr. Clayborne said it was lovely but when would Eldric ever find a focus in life?

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Clayborne,” said Leanne’s dusk-lined voice. “I don’t mean to be discourteous, but I cannot agree with you.”

Didn’t she ever get sick of wearing green?

“I believe there are many things about Eldric’s playful projects that are useful. It’s his gift, don’t you see?”

“I have a gift,” said Rose.

“So you do,” said Eldric, but his eyes never left Leanne’s face.

“He creates the most astonishing pieces from absolutely nothing.” Leanne smiled at Eldric as though she’d invented him. “Just imagine what he might do if he were to turn that sense of play and humor into a business. Designing children’s games, perhaps.”

“With firemen!” said Rose.

“And treasure maps,” I said, but I had to swallow hard. Why hadn’t I been the one to recognize Eldric’s gift? I swallowed again. Jealousy lodges in the throat like a hard, green apple.

“And lollipop trees,” said Eldric, swiping at his brow. He was sweating. “We mustn’t forget the lollipop trees.”

Even Mr. Clayborne laughed, and everyone drifted away, except Cecil.

No wonder Eldric sought out Leanne. She defended him to Mr. Clayborne. She recognized his gift.

“Come here, Rose.” I patted the cushion beside me. “Tell me just what sort of story you want.”

Rose sat between me and Cecil, thank goodness. She made a better shield than the pie plate.

“What heroic act do you want to perform, Rose?”

I almost called her Rosy. Rosy Posy, Briony Vieny.

“I want a story where I save you.”

I could do that. I could imagine Rose into saving me. “Which of the papers shall I use first?”

I began writing when everyone had left. I wanted to let my left hand frolic. No need to make the poor thing feign the awkwardness they’d expect.

I read the ending aloud. “And thus it was that clever Rose saved her sister from the monster of the sea.”

You could write your way into happiness. It might not be the happiness you’d experience if Eldric pushed Leanne from a cliff, but there’s a firefly glimmer in writing something that would please Rose.

“And they all lived happily ever after.”

21
Comin’ Thro’ the Rye

The moonlight slipped and shifted beneath my feet; my legs dissolved into mud. The swamp has no beginning, it has no end, it’s all fringes and wisps and foreverness.

I was porous. I had my own fringes—my ten fingers, my fringe of mucky toes.

It was September 29, it was Blackberry Night, and I dissolved into the swamp. My naked foot merged with iris and orchid and lily. My frock of moonbeams purred against my legs. The earth quivered as I ran, I quivered as I ran, as I ran on spider legs of moonlight, in an ecstasy of fear, in a fear of ecstasy.

My feet were naked, my hands were naked, no more plaster of Paris. My right hand was a shriveled root. But that’s all right, here in the swamp.

I avoided Cecil; I avoided Eldric. I chose to come alone, even though Eldric had invited me. But I’d rather be alone than with Eldric, when what he really wanted was to frolic with Leanne.

Feet sloshing and splattering, shouts and screams. I brushed through fringed gentians. I brushed through comb-edged alder leaves. I brushed through netted moonbeams. I brushed—but an arm caught me round the waist.

“Drink up!”

My throat was tilted back. Bees-wine buzzed down my throat. The drink-up voice ran his fingers down the curve of my neck. My elbow jabbed, sank into belly. The belly grunted. On I ran.

My moonbeam skirts were pale moths, fluttering past the skulls of giant mushrooms. I sank into peat moss and autumn leaves, into the musk-stink of dying cabbage and the splosh of decay.

Voices laughed and ran past me in the shadows. I ran through a tangle of moonlight; I ran into a copper sea.
If a body meet a body, comin’ thro’ the rye.

I was wild, I was wolfgirl. I was light as a moonbeam, my bones were filled with lace. I ran past chiming voices. “Pretty girl love pretty boy.”

A figure came at me.

“Briony!” Cecil, calling, running. “Why didn’t you wait for me!

“It’s Eldric, isn’t it? He’s your protection!” Cecil’s voice was thick. He’d been drinking.

“I don’t need protection.”

“No?” Cecil’s raw-fish eyes looked into mine. “Let’s see if you’re right.”

I didn’t want to talk to him, but Cecil snatched at me, seized my wrist. “You’ve kissed him, haven’t you?”

“Let me go!”

He pulled me close. I remembered how to make a fist. I punched. But my fist glanced off Cecil’s chest. I hadn’t known he was so solid.

Cecil’s lips were wet. “By God, you’ll kiss me too!”

Kiss me too!
Fear whispered at the margins of my thoughts. I twisted and tugged, but he held me fast. He had no lacework bones, no latticed chambers, no spaces or echoes or songs.

“You’ve been drinking!” My hand lumped itself into a fist. That’s right, Briony. Squeeze out all the spaces, squeeze yourself to stone.

“You’re the one I want.” Cecil’s voice had lost its edges; his words ran together. His pupils were huge, the iris no more than a pale rim. Splinters of fear ran down my back.

His hands crunched into my wrists. Too hard! His lips pressed into my lips. Too hard! My lips pressed against my teeth. His man’s weight pressed against my girl froth; his chest crumpled my girl-lungs.

I bit. I tugged. I ripped.

He reared back, blood ran down his chin. I smashed my stone-fist to his face, but he snatched my other wrist too.

He licked the blood from his lips. His eyes were a lunar eclipse. He pulled me close. I smelled the starch in his shirt. Such a very clean smell. He forced my head back. I smelled lavender. It’s shaving cream; Father uses it too. Such a very clean smell.

He held my chin. “No more biting!” He leaned forward. His hard mouth pressed, broke my lips. Blood and spit and sick pooled in my throat. I gagged. His hot fingers crushed, bent my wrist the wrong direction. He parted my lips with his—

But I staggered back. I was free, I was froth. Moonbeams and air touched me. Just moonbeams and air.

Here came a lightning fist, sizzling past my shoulder, crashing into Cecil’s middle. Cecil folded in on himself.

Eldric. It was Eldric.

I was froth. I could breathe.

Cecil lumbered to his feet. Eldric slammed him with an elbow. Cecil yelped and fell.

Eldric picked him up and hit him again.

Eldric picked him up. He meant to hit him again, but Cecil flopped about like a rag doll. Eldric picked him up by the belt and hauled him away.

I sat. The rye waved above my head. I should run. A wolfgirl would run, but I was sitting and clutching my skirts. My hands were shaking. Those bird-bone hands, they shook as they clutched a fistful of moonbeams.

Eldric found me in the sweet, damp earth, clutching my skirts. He found me in the rye. He looked at me with his switch-on eyes. “Did he hurt you?”

I shook my head. Why, of all the words in our bounteous language, did those four tip me into ordinary girlness? I couldn’t speak. My throat was clotted with words. There was a pressure behind my cheekbones. I wished I could cry like an ordinary girl; I wished I could relieve the pressure. But a witch doesn’t deserve to cry.

Eldric wrapped his arm around me.

I looked into Eldric’s electric eyes. Cecil has switch-off eyes. Eldric felt along my arm. Up my jaw and cheekbone, over the crown of my head. He was checking to see if I was broken.

I thought of offering him my wrist. It needed to be cradled and rocked and lullabied. I turned, but my cheek got in the way of his lips. He melted his lips into my skin. Not a kiss, a melt. I could allow a melt. That wasn’t what Cecil tried to do. I let the melt soak in.

I wanted to look at him. I turned, my lips brushed his.

I leaned into the warm-bread softness of Eldric’s lips. They were soft and wet, just a little wet, but I could drown in them.

Drowning. Only that.

Electricity trembled between us. I tasted Eldric’s lips. They were butter and silk. We hardly touched, but there was so much electricity.

Now a kiss, deep and soft, and deeper still. Eldric was never hard and crushing; he was only soft and deep. Only that. Time flew by on fringed moth wings. I was blooming, petals unfurling, soft as cream. Those silk-and-butter lips slid down my neck, traced the margin of my neckline.

Only that.

He lowered himself on top, never hard and crushing. He wrapped his forearms under my shoulders, laced his fingers behind my head. He looked down, I looked up. Our lips didn’t touch, but all the rest of us was touching. A velvet-and-cream electricity trembled between us.

Only that.

Only that, but Eldric pushed himself up, onto his palms. I looked up at him, he looked down at me, down the length of his arm.

“We can’t do this.” His mouth made a red hole in his face. “I meant what I told your father. I’ll take you home.”

I was shaking again. I pulled at my skirts, which were riding up my legs. My wrist hurt. I couldn’t make myself decent. That kiss, that electricity, those silk-and-butter lips—those belong to regular girls. It’s regular girls who have that I-don’t-want-to-stop feeling. It’s regular girls who have surprise weddings at Advent. Not Briony Larkin.

Eldric made a queer noise, something between a groan and a sigh, and pushed himself to his feet. He was slower than usual. He didn’t leap his usual lion’s leap.

He reached for my hand. Eldric, the bad boy, would help me to my feet.

I didn’t take his hand. I was wolfgirl; I sprang and ran.

Eldric called after me. “Wait!” But he didn’t mean it. He’d come to meet Leanne in the moonlight, in the rye-shadows. He meant to lay her down in this copper sea, in these copper shadows. He meant—

But the wolfgirl ran. She was strong and fast, except for her wrist, which hurt. She ran away from her thoughts. She ran.

Eldric didn’t follow.

22
How Is Mister Eldric?

Eldric took ill. He took ill on Blackberry Night, and kept to his bed.

How do you suppose this witch reacted? Can you guess what she might have thought?

Such a relief!

That’s what she thought.

The very sight of Eldric would curl the witch into a shriveled pea of embarrassment.

A witch does not make a good friend.

Let’s remind ourselves how this particular witch works: She is near a person, she is jealous of that person, that person falls from a swing and bashes her head.

The witch meets a person on Blackberry Night. There ensues a shriveled-pea of a situation, and that person falls ill.

How is it that I am always surprised?

I was alone at breakfast the first day, save for the Brownie. I was relieved. I began a new story for Rose.

I declined to answer a letter from Cecil.

I was alone at breakfast the second day, save for the Brownie. I was relieved. I finished the story.

I declined to answer a second letter from Cecil.

I avoided breakfast the third day, because I was sure to see him. I declined to answer a third letter from Cecil.

I was alone at breakfast the fourth day, save for the Brownie.

A strong young man might have a cold for a couple of days, three at the outside. But four days?

“You doesn’t got no appetite?” said Pearl, clearing my plate. I shook my head. I was wedged tight inside my rib cage.

I rose. The Brownie rose too. But just now, I’d rather look at the Brownie than at the poached eggs, quivering in their cups. “How is Mister Eldric?”

Poached eggs? What kind of person would invent such a thing?

“He don’t be well, miss, an’ that Miss Leanne, she be making him worse.” Pearl’s words poured out, as though they’d been pressing against a dam.

“She don’t let Mister Eldric rest. Such a deal o’ rubbish she been fetching him, bits o’ sea glass an’ shells an’ driftwood, but to her it don’t be rubbish. She setted Mister Eldric to making—I doesn’t know what-all, miss.”

A regular person wouldn’t stand there, looking at Pearl’s hands, thinking she might be making Puree of Christ. A regular person would say something. She would sound as though she cared. “How does he look?”

You’re an idiot, Briony: There must be something more regular.

“Mister Eldric’s face?” said Pearl. “It minded me on your stepmother’s face, miss, when she been took ill.”

Eldric, as ill as Stepmother? Did he look as—as reduced as Stepmother had? Like bread scraped of butter, milk skimmed of cream, cups drained of ale.

“Mister Eldric, he be working hisself hollow,” said Pearl. “If you’ll pardon the liberty, miss, Mr. Clayborne, he best fetch Dr. Rannigan, an’ that right quick.”

“Thank you, Pearl.” How calm I was. I was too big for my skin. “I’ll see to Dr. Rannigan.”

See to Dr. Rannigan.
What did that mean? Ought I to consult Father? Mr. Clayborne? My decision-making machinery was jammed. The Brownie followed, lacing his grasshopper fingers in distress. He had a nasty habit of picking up my thoughts.

I looked into the parlor, into the library—empty, empty. I knocked on Father’s study door. Silence, empty. Time snarled in on itself.

I spoke aloud. “What should I do?”

“It be early yet, mistress,” said the Brownie. “Could be tha’d catch the doctor at breakfast.”

“You’ll come with me?”

Why on earth did I speak to the Brownie?

“O’ course, mistress.”

BOOK: Chime

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