Isis - Douglas Clegg [11]
As I moved the latch upward, she pulled me back around, grabbing hold of me again.
“You swear you will tell no one,” she said as she shook me as if I were a rag doll. “Swear!” She glanced out the window, perhaps seeing Percy there, perhaps wondering what I might be capable of doing.
“I will not,” I whispered in a snarl, seething as I spoke. “I will tell everyone. You will be ruined. You will be ruined. You will be out in the street before supper. You’re nothing but a . . . a . . .” I quickly tried to think of the worst word I had, but only my grandfather’s language came to me. “Harlot.”
“Then you will be known as a little liar, missy,” Edyth whispered. “Spencer and I will say that you have an unclean mind. I will lock you up with your grandfather. I will . . . I will . . .”
“What? What will you do to me? Kill me? Cut out my tongue? You’re a servant here,” I spat back at her, struggling against her as she held tight.
I leaned toward the open window to cry out to Percy so he would see us and come help me.
Edyth drew back and slapped me as hard as I had ever been slapped in my life.
I felt the back of her hand as it whacked against my cheek.
I fell backward against the window, the freezing pain along my face.
Though this happened in a few seconds, it felt slow and endless, for I cried out in terror as I felt myself going through the opening window, backwards, droplets of rain on my face.
FOUR
1
Edyth grasped my wrists. Her hands, moistened by sweat, began slipping. She grabbed my waist, but even this was too much for her.
I saw the world upside down, where the gray sky was the earth and the green and brown earth, the sky. Percy Marsh looked up at me from the green sky, though his face was a wash of rain.
Edyth grabbed my legs as I twisted, suspended, out the window.
“Dear God!” she cried out. “Dear God!” She did not mean to let me go, I know that, although I was sure she would, for better I were dead than an eyewitness to her ruination. Yet she groaned and moaned as she held me there and called out for Percy and for Spence and for Harvey and for Mrs. Haworth and for Old Marsh to come help her.
I hung there, looking at this new upside-down world, and thought: I am going to die. I am going to fall, and my head will hit the flagstones and I will be somewhere else in the next second. I will be wherever you go when you die. Heaven. Hell. The Otherworld. The Other Side. The Upside-Down Land.
I saw the stone-hedges and remembered what Old Marsh had said, that they had been built from the local stones to keep the dead within their circle. I wondered if I would haunt this place after my fall. If I would stay within the flagstone walk and the cellars and the sunken gardens and the Tombs and the Thunderbox Room and the cliffside of Belerion Hall ever after because of the stone walls that ran along the estate’s edges.
“Here? What’s all this?” I heard Harvey’s voice and the sound of shouts from down the hallway. Then, I heard his voice just above me. “Iris? Iris? Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” Harvey said. I felt relief at the sound of his voice. I knew that once he arrived, everything would be all right. I wanted to tell him about the terrible and evil Edyth Blight, and his awful twin Spence, but I was too happy hearing his voice as he came to my rescue.
He and Edyth exchanged some words while I looked down at the flagstones below. How far was it? I wondered. How far a drop? If I fell, I might only break a leg. Or both legs. Perhaps my head would crack open. Perhaps Percy Marsh would run beneath me and catch me.
Edyth’s grip on my legs began slipping again, and I felt a strange freedom as I thought more and more of just dropping.
“It’s all right, Iris,” Harvey said, his voice soft and comforting. “Don’t be afraid. I want you to close your eyes. Will you do that? Close your eyes, and count to ten. Count slowly. By the time you open them, I shall have you here again, up here with me. We will laugh about this. Remember the Great Villiers Trapeze Brother-and-Sister