The Telling

evil-doing, for all his accursedness, had been allowed to keep his beauty. He told her to open the gate, that he might make his escape from Hell, and since he was her father, she obeyed. My eyes were becoming too tired, and were falling shut, and I let the book drop on to my chest, and closed my eyes, and fell straight asleep, and when I woke the next morning, the book was splayed like a dead bird on top of me. I put the book back on the shelf, but with some anxiety; I had not finished it; what if it went the way of the red one?
    I was walking down the village towards the vicarage, the warm early sun in my eyes, my mind still locked up in the darkness of that story, and thinking why God would have made a gate to Hell; He could have dropped the falling angels in from above, filled Hell up with syrup and pressed a lid down tight and sealed it, and kept them there like bottled plums for all eternity, and never let Lucifer and Sin out to torment us. I came up to the servants’ door, and went into the dim hallway. Petra stalked through, her tortoise-shell fur sleek with pleasure; for once she had a dead mouse hanging from her jaws. I let her out. I sat down on the bench, untied my laces, and pulled off my clogs. I pushed my feet into my slippers. Wiser minds than mine had almost certainly settled such questions long ago, but I couldn’t forget Sin, and what seemed, to me at least, the unfairness of her situation.
    The book’s ghost followed me all day. The words I spoke seemed to arrange themselves into the patterns of the Reverend Milton’s verse. My thoughts were dark with Hell, entangled with Eden’s vines, glowing with the light of Lucifer’s approach. All day I was on edge that when I got back the book would be gone. When finally Mrs Briggs released me from work, I flung on my shawl, knotted my clogs and walked as fast as I could up the village street, doing my best not to break into a run that would be noticed and talked about by the women on their doorsteps.
    I came up the steps, into the kitchen, and over to the dresser: the book was gone. In its place was a squat black volume.
    ‘Oh!’
    I swung around. Dad was in his seat and Mr Moore was coming down the stairs. Dad’s glance was irritable: ‘What?’
    Mr Moore paused at the stairs’ foot, and looked with innocent enquiry at me.
    ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
    I lifted the new book down from the shelf, glanced at it swiftly. Mr Moore crossed the room and took his hat from the peg. Dad said something more, making me start; I turned guiltily towards him, tucking the book behind my back.
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘It’s a fine evening,’ he said. ‘You should call for Thomas.’
    I could feel the flush rise up my throat. ‘I’ve been on my feet all day.’
    ‘When I was courting your mam, there wasn’t an evening went by that I didn’t walk the three miles to Capernwray and the three miles back, just to take a cup of tea in the kitchen with her, and with that old hag of a cook glaring at us the whole time. Things were different then. None of this nonsense then. Isn’t that right, Moore?’
    Mr Moore pushed his hat on to his head. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. He nodded to me, said good evening, and went out.
    While Dad was in the room, I worked on a basket; he retired to bed early, and in what was left of the long evening, I read the new book. It was a play, by William Shakespeare, about a king called Henry. I didn’t much care for it. Mam came home, and went to bed, then the boys came in, and went up to their room. I was vexed with the story. I missed the other book. I didn’t believe the ending to the current one, didn’t believe he loved her; I didn’t see how he could have come to love her, like that, in a moment, so conveniently. It was almost dark in the kitchen when Mr Moore came home. Outside some of the light still lingered. He caught me there, frowning at the book.
    ‘Not to your liking?’ he asked.
    I blinked up at him; my very bones ached to speak to him. But I didn’t speak; I couldn’t name what it was I felt, and if I could, I would not have dared to say it.
    ‘Never mind,’ he said. He said goodnight, and went upstairs.
    The Reverend Milton’s blue book had left a mark upon my thoughts, as looking upon a candle flame leaves a scald upon the vision, that drifts across the sight after the flame itself has been snuffed out. When I lay down, it was to think of Sin, tormented in the darkness. It was to think of Eve,