But she didn’t seem to hear me, let alone realise that I’d been eavesdropping earlier. ‘I just want her back, my lovely Milly, I just want her to be happy again. Even if she has to sell her soul for it. I don’t care if it’s the devil’s bargain, whatever the old bitch has to do, all right, she can do it! Bring Milly back, that’s all. But if she dies in there …’
The devil’s bargain. Was that what Seredith did? The bitch, the old witch … I tried to lay the coloured paper on top of the white, but I missed. Clumsy hands, stupid trembling hands. Even if she has to sell her soul. But what did that have to do with books, with paper and leather and glue?
The sun came out between two slabs of cloud. I looked up into a pinkish mist of sunlight. It stung my eyes; for a split second I thought I saw an outline, a dark silhouette against the dazzle. Then the sun was gone, and the young man was too. I blinked away reflexive tears, and looked past the after-image to my work. I’d let the paper cockle, and I’d let it dry; when I tried to peel it away it ripped. I ran my thumb over the sticky white scar that ran across the feathered patterning. I had to start again.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t …’ She strode to the window. When she glanced at me her eyes were in shadow but her voice had a pleading edge. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. I didn’t mean that. Please don’t be angry. Please don’t tell her – the binder – will you? Please.’
She was afraid. I screwed up my botched endpaper and threw it away. Not just afraid of Seredith, afraid of me too …
I took a deep breath. Cut more papers. Mix more paste. Glue out the pages, lay them down, nip in the press, hang them up to dry … I didn’t know what I was doing, but somehow I carried on. When I came back to myself the room was so dim it was hard to see, and a pile of glued papers were waiting to be put between pressing boards. It was like waking from a dream. There’d been a sound, the door opening.
Seredith’s voice, dry as stone. ‘There’s tea on the stove. Bring it here.’
I froze, but she wasn’t talking to me. She wasn’t looking in my direction, she hadn’t seen me. She was rubbing her eyes; she looked drained, infinitely weary. ‘Hurry,’ she said, and the woman scurried towards her with a spilling teapot and chinking cups.
‘Is she – all right?’
‘Don’t ask foolish questions.’ A moment later she added, ‘In a minute she will be ready to see you. Then you should hurry home, before more snow falls.’
The door closed. A pause. A spray of snowflakes brushed the window like a wing. So much for the thaw. In a while the door would open again. I willed myself not to turn round when it did.
‘Come on, my dear.’ Seredith led the keening girl out into the workshop – only now she was docile, quiet.
And then they were embracing, the other woman laughing with relief, sobbing, ‘Milly,’ over and over again while Seredith slowly, deliberately locked the door behind them.
Alive, then. Sane, then. Nothing terrible had happened. Had it?
‘Thank goodness – oh, look at you, you’re well again – thank you—’
‘Take her home and let her rest. Try not to speak to her of what’s happened.’
‘Of course not – yes – Milly, sweetheart, we’re going home now.’
‘Gytha. Home …’ She pushed the tangled hair away from her forehead. She was still gaunt and grimy but not long ago she’d been beautiful. ‘Yes, I should like to go home.’ There was something empty and fragile in the words, like a cracked glass.
The woman – Gytha – led her into the hallway. ‘Thank you,’ she called again to Seredith, pausing at the door. Without anyone pushing her Milly was inert, her face so calm it looked like a statue’s. I swallowed. That uncanny serenity … It made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. My heart said, wrong, wrong, wrong.
I must have made a noise, because she looked at me. I met her eyes for an instant. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing no one there.
Then they were gone, and the door closed. A second later I heard the front door open and shut. The house sank back into the muffled snow-silence.
‘Emmett?’ Seredith said. ‘What are you doing in here?’
I turned to the bench. In this light my tools looked like pewter, and a silver smear of glue glinted on the wood like a snail’s trail. The pile of finished endpapers was all shades of grey: ashes-of-roses, ashes-of-peacock, ashes-of-sky.
‘I thought I asked you to sort out the stores.’
A draught flicked a fine sand of ice against the window and set a wire swinging above my head. There were more papers hanging there; more dim wings, more pages than we could ever use.
‘I finished. I made more endpapers.’
‘What? Why? We don’t need—’
‘I don’t know. Because it’s something I know how to do, I suppose.’ I looked round. There were rolls and rolls of book-cloth, piled like logs on the shelf, all sombre and shadowy in this silvery half-dusk. The cupboard below held goatskins, a box of leather scraps, bottles of dye … And next to it – the door was swinging open, the catch needed seeing to – the boxes of tools glinted dully, their tiny elaborate feet poking up into the light. Reels of gold foil gleamed. In front there were presses, another long bench, the board-cutter, the plough … ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘All this – to decorate books that you don’t even sell.’
‘Books should be beautiful,’ Seredith said. ‘No one sees, that’s not the point. It’s a way to honour people – like grave-goods, in olden times.’
‘But whatever happens in your locked room … that’s the real binding, isn’t it? You make books for people, in there. How?’
She made a sudden movement, but when I looked at her she was still again. ‘Emmett …’
‘I’ve never even seen—’
‘Soon.’
‘You keep saying—’
‘Not now!’ She staggered, caught herself and dropped into the chair by the stove. ‘Please, not now, Emmett. I’m tired. I’m so tired.’
I walked past her, to the locked door. I ran my hand down over the three locks. It took an effort. My shoulder prickled with the impulse to pull away. Behind me Seredith’s chair scraped on the floor as she turned to look at me.
I stayed where I was. If I waited long enough, this fear would pass: and then I would be ready. But it didn’t. And underneath it, like a sickness I hadn’t known I had, was a black misery, a sense of loss so strong I could have wept.
‘Emmett.’
I turned on my heel and left.
In the next few days we didn’t speak of it again; we only talked about the chores and the weather, treading carefully, like people edging across new ice.
