A Red Herring Without Mustard

I straightened my back and squared my shoulders. Feely was always telling me to square my shoulders, and I thought she’d be happy to see that I’d remembered.

The instant I opened the door, the music stopped and Feely looked up from the keyboard. She was learning to play without her spectacles, and she was not wearing them now.

I couldn’t help noticing how beautiful she looked.

Her eyes, which I had expected to be like a pair of open coal holes, shone with a cold blue brilliance in the morning light. It was like being glared at by Father.

“Yes?” she said.

“I—I’ve come to say I’m sorry,” I told her.

“Then do so.”

“I just did, Feely!”

“No, you didn’t. You made a statement of fact. You stated that you had come to say you’re sorry. You may begin.”

This was going to be more humiliating than I thought.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “for writing on your mirror.”

“Yes?”

I swallowed and went on. “It was a mean and thoughtless trick.”

“It was indeed, you odious little worm.”

She got up from the piano bench and came towards me—menacingly, I thought. I shrank back a little.

“Of course I knew at once that it was you. Deuteronomy? The boils of Egypt? The emerods? The scurvy and the itch? It had Flavia de Luce written all over it. You might just as well have signed the thing—like a painting.”

“That’s not true, Feely. You were devastated. I saw the circles under your eyes at dinner!”

Feely threw her head back and laughed.

“Makeup!” she crowed. “French chalk! Two can play at that game, you stupid moke. A bit of French chalk and a pinch of ashes from the grate. It took me all afternoon to get it just the right shade. You should have seen your face! Daffy said she almost had an accident trying not to laugh!”

My face began to burn.

“Didn’t you, Daff?”

There was the sound of a wet snicker behind me, and I spun round to find Daffy coming through the doorway—blocking my route of escape.

“ ‘It was a mean and thoughtless trick,’ ” she said, imitating me in a grating, falsetto, parrot voice.

She had been eavesdropping on my apology from outside in the hallway!

But now, rather than flying at her in fury, as I might have done even yesterday, I gathered up every last scrap of inner strength and attacked her with a new and untried tool: clear, cold calm.

“Who is Hilda Muir?” I asked, and Daffy stopped moving instantly, as if she had been frozen in a snapshot.

The appeal to a superior knowledge. And it worked!

By coming to one of my sisters in humility and keeping my temper with the other, I had gained in just a few minutes not one, but two new weapons.

“What?”

“Hilda Muir. She’s something to do with the Palings.”

“Hilda Muir,” Fenella had said, when we’d first spotted Mrs. Bull in the Gully. “Hilda Muir.” She’d said it again when I brought the elder branches to the caravan. “Now we are all dead!”

“Who is Hilda Muir?” I asked again in my new and maddeningly calm voice.

“Hilda Muir? The Palings? You must mean the Hildemoer. She’s not a person, you idiot. She’s the spirit of the elder branches. She comes to punish people who cut her branches without first asking permission. You didn’t cut any elder branches, did you?” (This with another wet snicker.)

Daffy must have seen the effect her words had on me. “I truly hope you didn’t. They sometimes plant them on a grave to indicate whether the dead person is happy in the next world. If the elder grows, all’s well. If not—”

The next world? I thought. Hadn’t Porcelain watched the police pull a baby’s body from the very spot—or very near it—that I had cut the elder for firewood?

“The Hildemoer’s a pixy,” Daffy went on. “Don’t you remember what we told you about the pixies? For heaven’s sake, Flavia—it was only a couple of days ago. The pixies are the Old Ones—those horrid creatures who stole Harriet’s precious baby and left you in its place.”

My mind was an inferno. I could feel the anger rushing back like the Red Sea after the passage of the Israelites.

“I hope you didn’t cut elder from someone’s grave,” she went on. “Because if you did—”

“Thank you, Daffy,” I said. “You’ve been most informative.”

Without another word, I brushed past her and stalked out of the drawing room.

With the mocking laughter of my darling sisters still ringing in my ears, I fled down the echoing hall.

TWENTY

IN THE LABORATORY I locked the door and waited to see what my hands were going to do.

It was always like this. If I just relaxed and tried not to think too hard, the great god Chemistry would guide me.

After a time, although I’m not sure why, I reached for three bottles and placed them on the bench.