‘How do you know? You might be wrong—’
‘I know, Emmett.’
‘How?’
‘The binder’s fever gave you away. You will be a good binder. In every sense.’
I shook my head. I went on shaking it, even though I didn’t know why.
‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘what we do is very difficult. Sometimes it makes me angry or sad. Sometimes I regret – if I’d known what the memories were, I wouldn’t have—’ She stopped and glanced away. ‘Much of the time it doesn’t even touch me. But sometimes I am so glad to see the pain go away that if that were the only person I had ever helped it would still be worth it.’
‘I’m not doing it. It’s wrong. It’s – unnatural.’
She lowered her head, inhaling so deeply I saw her shoulders move. The skin under her eyes looked as fragile as the bloom on a moth’s wing: one touch and it would brush away and leave bare bone. She said, without looking at me, ‘It’s a sacred calling, Emmett. To have another person’s memory entrusted to you … To take the deepest, darkest part away from them and keep it safe, forever. To honour it, to make it beautiful, even though no one will ever see it. To guard it with your own life …’
‘I don’t want to be a glorified gaoler.’
She jolted upright. For a long moment I thought she would hit me again. ‘This is why I didn’t tell you before,’ she said, finally. ‘Because you’re not ready yet, you’re still struggling … But now you know. And you’re lucky to be here. If you had gone to a bindery in Castleford you’d have had your scruples beaten out of you long ago.’
I held out my finger and slid it through the candle flame, once, twice, slowing down until I could hardly bear it. There were too many questions; I concentrated on the pain and let my mouth decide. ‘So why am I here?’
She blinked. ‘Because I was the nearest. And—’ She stopped.
Her eyes slid away from mine. She kneaded her forehead, and for the first time I noticed how flushed her cheeks were. ‘I’m exhausted, Emmett. I think that’s enough for today. Don’t you?’
She was right. I was so tired that I could feel the world spinning. I nodded, and she stood up. I reached out to help her but she ignored me. She picked her way through the narrow space back to the door.
‘Seredith?’
She paused, but didn’t turn. Her sleeve had fallen back as she leant against the wall, and her wrist was like a child’s.
‘Yes?’
‘Where are the books? If you keep them safe …’
She held her arm out to point at the circular plaque on the wall. ‘On the other side of that,’ she said, ‘there’s a vault.’
‘Can I see?’
‘Yes.’ She turned, reaching for a key that hung round her neck; then her hand tightened on it. ‘No. Not now. Another time.’
I’d only asked out of curiosity. But there was something in her face – or something not in her face, something that should have been there … I pushed my tongue into the sharp space between two of my teeth and stared at her. Strands of her hair clung to her forehead, sticky with sweat. She reeled. I stepped towards her, but she stumbled back as if she couldn’t bear me to get too close. ‘Good night, Emmett.’
I watched her turn, bracing herself in the doorway as though she was fighting to stay on her feet. I should have let her go, but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Seredith … What happens if the books burn? Do the people die?’
She didn’t look at me. She shuffled to the stairs and began to climb them. ‘No,’ she said. ‘They remember.’
I was so tired I couldn’t think. Seredith had gone to bed; I should go too. If only I’d gone to bed an hour ago, instead of sitting down next to the stove in the workshop … Sleep. I wanted to step right off the edge of consciousness. I wanted that darkness more than anything. I wanted not to be here.
I sat down. Or rather, I found that I was already sitting, cramped on the floor with my legs folded, my back against a box. I didn’t have the energy to find a better position. Instead I wrapped my arms round my knees, put my head down, and slept.
When I woke, the first thing I felt was a kind of peace. It was almost pitch-black – the candle had gone out – and I felt as though I were drifting, disintegrating painlessly in the subtle currents of the dark. Then some of what had happened came back – but small, too far away to hurt me, like reflections in a silver cup. I got up and groped my way up the stairs, yawning. I’d thought it was the middle of the night, and the greyish light streaming through the workshop windows made me blink and rub my eyes. It was still raining, although now it was a thin quiet mizzle, and the snow only clung to the ground in a few places, grimy and pockmarked. Seredith had been right about the thaw; the post would get to us at least once more before winter really set in.
The stove had gone out. I hesitated, wanting to leave it and go upstairs to bed; but it was morning, and there was work to do … Work. I didn’t want to think about work. I crouched down and remade the fire. By the time it was going properly I was a little warmer, but the deep, cold quiet of the house needed more than the stove to thaw it. I hadn’t boarded up the broken window; but it wasn’t that, it was something else. I shook my head, wondering if my ears were playing tricks on me. It was like the way the snow had muffled every sound – or a feeling of distance, as if everything I heard was an echo …
Tea. The caddy was almost empty. I put water on to boil and went to get a new packet from the pantry. As I crossed the hall I turned my face away from the moist draught that blew in through the jagged-edged window. As soon as I’d had something hot to drink I’d find a bit of millboard—
Seredith was curled on the stairs, her head resting against the banister.
‘Seredith? Seredith!’
It was only when she moved that I knew I’d been afraid. I pulled her gently to her feet, appalled at how light she was, and the heat that was seeping from her skin. She was clammy, and her face was flushed. She muttered something, and I bent close to hear her. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. Her breath was foul, as if something was rotting inside her. ‘I was just … sitting down.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Let’s get you to bed.’
‘I’m perfectly all right. I don’t need …’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Come on.’ I half pushed and half lifted her upwards, step after step, and then along the passage to her room. She clambered into bed and pulled the blankets over herself as if she was freezing. I hurried downstairs to get her a jug of water, and herb tea to bring the fever down, and more blankets; but when I came back into the bedroom she was already asleep. She’d undressed, and her clothes were crumpled in a pile on the floor.
I stood very still, listening to the silence. I could hear Seredith’s breathing – faster, louder than it should have been – and the faint crackle of rain against the window; but behind that, and my own blood in my ears, there was nothing but the solid emptiness of the house and the marshes beyond. I was more alone here than I’d ever been.
I sat down. In this light, sleeping, Seredith looked even older; the flesh on her cheeks and below her jaw sagged, so that the skin was stretched thin over the bones of her nose and eyes. A scab of spittle clung to the corner of her mouth. She murmured something and turned over, and her hands twitched and clutched the quilt. Her skin was a chalky, yellowish colour against the faded indigo-and-white of the patchwork, while here and there the shadow of a raindrop crawled across the cotton.