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 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 b.u.t.ter 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-b.u.t.ter 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-b.u.t.ter 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 embarra.s.sment.

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 appet.i.te?" 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 gla.s.s an' sh.e.l.ls 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 sc.r.a.ped of b.u.t.ter, 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 gra.s.shopper 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."

Perhaps he'd worn me down.

And now I was speaking to him, although it was yet another betrayal of Stepmother. I'd already betrayed her in so many ways. Going into the swamp, frolicking about rather than working out how to apprehend her murderer.

Out we went, the Brownie and I, into the snarl of time, twisting and tangling through the village to Dr. Rannigan's house.

His housekeeper said he was attending another patient.

"Do you expect him back soon?" I said.

His housekeeper was sure she didn't know.

"Might he have stopped at the Alehouse?"

His housekeeper said it was not her place to remark upon the doctor's attachment to the demon drink, and that I might perhaps take myself off, as she had work to do.

"How dare he!" I said to the Brownie, which made no sense, but the Brownie, being the Brownie, understood. Dr. Rannigan was our Dr. Rannigan. We needed him now.

I sat on a stile outside the doctor's house and waited. The Brownie waited, crouched at my feet. "I missed you," I said.

"It were a worry, mistress, when tha' setted tha' lips an' didn't say nothing."

I missed you. What had made me say that? But it was true, especially in the last few months of Stepmother's life, when she grew worse and I grew better.

"But I'm afraid," I said. "We could easily hurt someone again."

I saw the world those last few months as though through a magnifying gla.s.s. The world shrank to a three-inch circle. It was reduced to bits of lint and flakes of paint and nibblings of fingernails.

"But mistress," said the Brownie. "Us never hurt n.o.body."

"That's what I thought," I said. "But I know differently now."

"But mistress!"

I slid from the stile. I didn't want to speak of Stepmother and Mucky Face. "Perhaps Dr. Rannigan's finished with his patient."

I knew what kinds of arguments the Brownie would offer; I'd offered them all myself. I hadn't the patience for them now. The day was taking forever. Where was the loose end of time?

The Brownie and I peered into the Alehouse. No Dr. Rannigan.

He was at none of the usual places. He wasn't playing at draughts with the mayor; or discussing herbs with the apothecary; or in the teashop, reading the London Loudmouth. We returned to Dr. Rannigan's house and peered in the garden shed. His guns were still hanging from the wall. So he wasn't out shooting pheasant, although hunting season had just begun and Dr. Rannigan loved to hunt.

Back to the Alehouse, where Dr. Rannigan and Cecil sat sharing a table and a plate of fried fish. Cecil saw me first.

"Milady!" One coiled-spring move, and he stood before me. He was stronger than I'd thought, faster than I'd thought.

"Not now, Cecil. I must speak with Dr. Rannigan."

"But Briony-" Cecil blocked my way.

"Let me pa.s.s, Cecil." I was shouting. "Let me pa.s.s!"

All at once I was looking into Dr. Rannigan's patient cow eyes, holding his hand, walking with him through the Alehouse door, hearing him tell me to stay in the Alehouse, to sit and rest. Hearing him tell me I looked tired. Watching his rumpled back cross the square- The world leapt back to its mad pace. The day had pa.s.sed while I wasn't looking. Shadows leaned against the windows, candles sprang into flame.

"Milady!"

I turned my back on Cecil, rounded the corner of the Alehouse. But that was stupid, because there was only more Alehouse. No part of the Alehouse is safe if one is to avoid Cecil Trumpington.

"Please talk to me!" Cecil's voice came pleading and scratching at my back.