Chime by Franny Billingsley Read Free Book Online Page A

said the constable. “But evidence, it be right fragile. It might to be blown away, an’ that were a woeful thing.”
    “Our English monarchs are so unimaginative,” said Eldric. “They execute people in such tediously conventional ways.”
    I had to bite back my laugh before I could speak. “I’m sorry, but I cannot accompany the constable.”
    “Why ever not?” said Father.
    What could I say now? I couldn’t tell him I’d promised Stepmother never again to enter the swamp. I couldn’t tell him that Briony and the swamp, together, are deadly.
    How did Stepmother manage to ignore Father so neatly, with him never realizing for a second?
    It was then that the plates of the earth shifted beneath me. Gravity reversed itself and ran uphill. I tasted lightning. I was falling, falling up into witchiness.
    A skull sat on Mr. Dreary’s shoulder. It stared at me as though we were acquainted, which we were. We’d met once, but I couldn’t think where.
    The eyes of the skull were black holes held into place by bone. They were no more than holes, but they recognized me. The skull worked its jaw back and forth.
    When a person has already seen Death—seen it once, at least—you’d think she’d remember whose shoulder it had been sitting on. But this particular person did not. She only knew that that person had died.
    She knew that Mr. Dreary was soon to die.
    How could I have forgotten who it was? I rarely forget the little things, much less the big ones. Perhaps I’d seen Death during the last months of Stepmother’s life, when I was ill and foggy. I remember little from that time.
    Death must have perched on Stepmother’s shoulder when she was fading out of life, but I hadn’t seen it then, of course. No, not Briony, the girl who let her stepmother die alone.
    Death had no lips, but it was smiling.
    No one else could see it, not Eldric, not Father, not Mr. Dreary himself. Just me, Briony, third-class witch. I’d promised Stepmother not to leave Rose. I’d promised her never again to venture into the swamp.
    But what if I might prevent Mr. Dreary’s death?
    Dead finger-bones chittered. It was waving? Yes, a friendly little finger twinkle, waving good-bye. Death vanished all at once, and I fell back into human-ness, with Father folding my fingers around a Bible Ball. “It’s all decided, then. Pearl will care for Rose while you help the constable and the Swamp Reeve.”
    This just shows you how much Father knows about me, which is exactly nothing. Giving me a Bible Ball to protect me from the Horrors is like throwing a life preserver to a fish.
    I oughtn’t to go into the swamp, but Mr. Dreary was to die. Would Stepmother approve of my following him into the swamp to make sure he was safe? How could I know? What if I just wanted to return to the swamp because the hinges of my jaws still ached with craving?
    Could it be that I truly wanted to save Mr. Dreary?
    I doubted it, but I’d go. I hadn’t the knack of only pretending to do as Father wished. Did I want to save Mr. Dreary?
    I’ll never know. We witches don’t go in for self-knowledge.

6
Please Let Him Live!
    I drifted across the Flats. Drifting—that’s the proper way to navigate the swamp. Not chasing after Rose, not pounding past the Reed Spirits, with no chance to stop for the singing of the reeds. I drifted beside Eldric, listening to his low whistle. How could I have forgotten that the swamp has no beginning? How could I have forgotten that the swamp simply seeps into existence? That it bleeds and weeps into existence?
    The itch was gone—the itch of my scar, the itch of the swamp craving. How lovely to seep and bleed and weep into the swamp. It would take more than three years for me to forget. If I could love anything, I’d love the swamp.
    Is this what a nun feels when she runs wild? Perhaps running wild needn’t mean dressing in satin and taking to cigarettes. It might mean running into the wild, into the real, into the ooze and muck and