The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [66]
We sat on the bed and talked to the stuffed person, and I was in-troduced to a bear, two rabbits, and a jointed wooden puppet. She showed me a few books, and we spoke of literature.
“I can read them,” she informed me, with the barest trace of self-satisfaction.
“I can see that.”
“Miss Russell, could you read when you were six?” Oddly enough there was no overtone of pride here, just a request for information.
“Yes, I believe I could.”
“I thought so.” She nodded her head in prim satisfaction and smoothed the skirt of the rag doll.
“What is your doll’s name?”
I was surprised at her reaction to this simple question. Her hands went still, and she concentrated on the battered face in her lap, biting her lip. Her voice when she answered was quiet.
“Her name used to be Elizabeth.”
“Used to be? What is her name now?” I could see that this was im-portant but failed to grasp just how.
“Mary.” She spoke in a whisper, and after a few seconds her eyes came up to mine. Light dawned.
“Mary, is it? My name?”
“Yes, Miss Russell.”
It was my turn now to look down and study my hands. Hero wor-ship was not one of the topics Holmes had thought fit to tutor me in, and my voice was not quite steady when I spoke.
“Jessica, would you do something for me?”
“Yes, Miss Russell.” No hesitation. I could ask her to throw herself from the window for me, her voice said, and she would do it. Gladly.
“Would you call me Mary?”
“But Mama said—”
“I know, mothers like good manners in their children, and that is important. But just between the two of us, I should like it very much if you were to call me Mary. I never—” There was something block-ing my throat and I swallowed, hard. “I never had a sister, Jessica. I had a brother, but he died. My mother and father died, too, so I don’t have much of a family anymore. Would you like to be my sis-ter, Jessica?”
The amazed adoration in her eyes was too much. I pulled her to me so I did not have to look at it. Her hair smelt musky-sweet, like chamomile. I held her, and she began to cry, weeping oddly like a woman rather than a young child, while I rocked us both gently in si-lence. In a few minutes she drew a shuddering breath and stopped.
“Better?”
She nodded her head against my chest. I smoothed her hair.
“That’s what tears are for, you know, to wash away the fear and cool the hate.”
As I suspected, that last word triggered a reaction. She drew back and looked at me, her eyes blazing.
“I do hate them. Mama says I don’t, but I do. I hate them. If I had a gun I’d kill them all.”
“Do you think you really would?”
She thought for a moment, and her shoulders slumped. “Maybe not. But I’d want to.”
“Yes. They are hateful men, who did something horrid to you and hurt your parents. I’m glad you wouldn’t shoot them, because I shouldn’t want you to go to gaol, but you go ahead and hate them. No one should ever do what they did. They stole you and hit you and tied you up like a dog. I hate them too.”
Her jaw dropped at so much raw emotion aired.
“Yes, I do, and you know what I hate them for most? I hate them for taking away your happiness. You don’t trust people now, do you? Not like you did a few weeks ago. A six-year-old girl oughtn’t to be frightened of people.” The child needed help, but I was quite certain that her parents would greet the suggestion of psychiatric treatment with the standard mixture of horror and embarrassment. She would, for the present, have to settle for me. Physician, heal thyself, I thought sourly.
“Mary?”
“Yes, Jessica?”
“You took me away from those men. You and Mr. Holmes.”
“We helped the police get you back, yes,” I said carefully and not entirely truthfully, and wondered what was on her mind. I did not wonder for long.
“Well, sometimes when I wake up, I think I’m still in that bed. It’s like...I can hear the chain rattle when I move. And even during the day, sometimes I think I’m dreaming, and that when I wake up I’ll be in bed, with one of those men sitting in the chair