I awoke at once. Darkness leaned on me, panting in my ear. I looked over the do-not-cross line into the moonlit window. Eldric’s face floated in the glass. I clutched the neck of my nightdress before sliding out of bed. There was too much Briony, too little nightdress.
I pulled at the casement, released his face from the glass. He reached through the window, his beautiful hand, his five beautiful fingers outspread. If I were a poet, I’d write about hands, nothing but hands. I touched the whorled petals of my fingertips to his; our hands made the roof of a house.
But, wait: Eldric had been ill only five days ago, the night of the garden party. How could he be so entirely recovered?
“The time has come,” he whispered. “Time for wolfgirl to come into the night.”
Into the night! An electrical thrill ran between my shoulder blades. “But my nightdress?”
“Into the night!”
I gave him my hand. My whorled fingertips bloomed. Into the night!
The roof was slippery with moonlight. A skitter of roofs ran below, the view spattered with dormers, chimneys, corbels, oriels. Our descent was planned in ingenious bad-boy fashion. Ropes ran over the roofs, dipped over edges to roofs below, where other ropes waited.
Eldric showed me his bad-boy technique. You lay your middle on the rope and squizzle yourself along the rope and over the edge. It is generally thought a good idea to hold tight.
Down he went. I did the same. You might read about such an adventure in a book, but it’s different in the moonlight, different to experience it in three dimensions—the rope pressing into your middle, feeling thicker than it looked; the slates too, larger than you’d imagined, smelling of dampness and stored-up weather. Your nightdress bunching up beneath as you slip over the edge, and the passing thought that at least you’re wearing undergarments of an unventilated variety. Your feet finding a knot in the rope, which you don’t need, but getting another little thrill when you realize that the lion boy-man attended to every detail with you in mind.
Eldric would never plan an initiation for Leanne. He never could. Even if Leanne didn’t mind sacrificing her blue-green skirts to the rooftops, she’d never be able to haul herself up and down ropes. She had too much heft up top.
I was fast, I was strong. I almost laughed to see Eldric strolling about on the roof below, as though he weren’t tensed to leap should I fall. But I had my own bad-boy muscles. He’d learn to trust them as I did.
We scribbled down the last ropes, tumbled into the garden, which was heavy with the scent of azaleas. Eldric must be feeling very much recovered indeed, to have arranged not only for a full moon, but one of unusual brightness. She was dazzling, glinting off the Flats and the Quicks.
I looked at Eldric. The moon hung in his eyes.
“Into the Slough, wolfgirl!”
Into the Slough!
Impossible that Eldric could love Leanne. Not a girl who thrilled to the hanging of a witch. Not a girl who in the land of metaphor game was a motorcar.
“Bible Ball first.” Eldric snatched a gossamer bag from some fold of air.
From what I understand, motorcars are all hot air and rude noises, vented from certain unmentionable regions.
Eldric tied the bag round my wrist with pale taffeta ribbons. Within lay a Bible Ball. Even a Bible Ball was dressed up tonight!
Wolfgirl and lion-boy loped past tangles of blueberry bushes. The moon followed us into the Slough. We snickled through ferns and scrub and moon shavings and root tangles and logs frilled with overlapping mushrooms.
We leapt into snickleways, waded through velvet ooze. We dripped out the far side, trailing smells of sulfur and rotten eggs.
We laughed at the sulfur. We laughed at the rotten eggs. We laughed at the drifts of moon-peel. We laughed.
“Behold the task that lies before you.” Eldric took my shoulders and turned me toward a log. “Follow the trail of breadcrumbs until you have found the great treasure of the swamp.”
Breadcrumbs?
Shimmering drops ran the length of the log, leading your eye farther into the Slough. Creamy toadstools grew from crevices in the trunk, and in between the crevices were the glittering, glancing mooncrumbs.
“Not breadcrumbs,” I said. “Mooncrumbs.”
Clever Eldric! You had to look very close to see that the mooncrumbs were nothing but dribbles of lime. They glowed fluorescent in the moonlight.
“Quite right,” said Eldric. “That was a test. Your journey is now begun, and remember: Do not return until you have claimed the treasure. Many have sought it; none has returned.”
I followed the mooncrumbs to the end of the log. There they dribbled onto the ground and farther into the Slough.
I followed the mooncrumbs, always the mooncrumbs. They made an enormous, luminous treasure map, looping me along paths, circling back upon themselves, beckoning me across snickleways.
Clever, clever Eldric!
I plunged into a snickleway, into a skim of moonlight, into the dark and ooze.
I disappeared. My feet, my knees, my waist. I sank to my chest. Laughter now, Eldric laughing as I plashed about.
“I shall have my revenge!” I shouted.
Oof, ooze to the chest, hard to push, hard to push, but the Amazon of the Swampsea can push through anything, can scramble out the other side, shake herself, lope on. A crashsplash came behind me; Eldric had leapt into the snickleway. I loped ahead, leaping logs frilled with mushroom pantalettes; sploging through ooze and splat; following the mooncrumbs until they ran into nothingness at a cobweb of roots cupping a bundle of oilcloth.
I waited until Eldric caught up with me. I felt like a kettle on the boil, hiss and steam. This—yes, this must be the feeling of happiness. I must hold on to this feeling.
I opened the oilcloth. Inside lay a small, square box. I opened the box. I sat back on my heels.
I didn’t know what to say. A skylark sang. It was almost dawn.
In the box lay a wolfgirl made of wire and pearls. Gray pearls. Tiny wires, tiny pearls, twisted round and round into the very shape of a wolf, into the very shape of a girl, into the very shape of Briony.
I didn’t know what to say. I clutched the wolfgirl Briony.
“Off we go.” Eldric reached for my hand. His eyes were white and gold. “One of the tricks to being a bad boy is not to get caught. My father will be rising soon.”
I flew to my feet, mucky to the shoulder, he mucky to the chest, his curls flecked with mud, my own hair hanging over my shoulder in muddy rats’ tails.
He wouldn’t have made a treasure for Leanne, would he? And anyway, what Eldric-fidget could possibly represent that tangle of clichés?
Birdsong rose all about as lion-boy and wolfgirl walked home. They were hardly tired. “You seemed ill last week,” I said. “Especially on the night of the garden party. But here you are, quite—”
Quite what? Quite well? Such a feeble word for an electric boy.
“Quite!” said Eldric. “And in tip-top bad-boy fettle. I attribute my recovery to the restful week I spent with Father, reviewing the letters of application from all my would-be tutors, poor fellows. I resent feeling unwell, you know, as I can no longer say I never fall ill.”
We left the Slough for the Quicks. We passed a slurp of green water where an egret stood laughing like a madman.
“It was quite nice, really, spending a week with Father. I hardly wanted to sneak out at all.”
By the time we reached the Flats, a silver eyelid winked from the eastern horizon. It winked the Quicks into emerald splotches and pale shimmers.
We reached the back garden. The gray slate roof skittered up and up to my bedroom window. “It’s going to be harder going up,” I said.
“Mmm,” said Eldric. I felt rather than saw that his attention had shifted. “Do you remember what I said just now?”
I followed the direction of his gaze.
“That it was quite nice spending a week with Father.”
The garden door was ajar. Father and Mr. Clayborne sat on the stoop, waiting.
“I’ve changed my mind,” said Eldric.