Enthalpy of Fusion

IV.

They said the hecklemen of Hockmaree lived beneath the buttercups. I was five and curious. I wanted to find them and ask them why they didn't have houses, and if they would be my friends.

Mother had told me not to run, because proper women waste their health on haste. Father cautioned me against getting dirty, because we were having company. Parents find these things important, but not so little girls.

I had a mission, had awoken burning with it and struggled down my required breakfast. Free, I dashed from the house and into the gardens, those adult obligations shouted in my direction as my orange dress and I disappeared into the vegetation.

"The heckmen of Hockmaree live beneath the buttercups," I whispered to myself, turning a corner around the roses. "The silver-lipped skrymorrie girls cant the mouldered corpses up." I had learned the words by their sounds alone and repeated them because their shapes felt like magic. I slowed as I came to the row of falling buttercup bushes, the yellow flowers cascading down on thin ropes of vine. "When magpie ghosts leave Chauncey Spring and the iron bells of Harlowe ring..." This part I knew, the iron bells. One hung over each entrance to the city and each church. Two of the great gate bells had cracked, one was missing entirely. "The water horse shall leave its shores, and black dog shun Sgùbarrach moor."

I fell to my knees and pushed aside the curtain of vines and flowers. I had no measure for the time I spent crawling into the hedgerow, whispering patiently to the hecklemen that I would be their friend. Adult voices sounded from the house, but I ignored them.

"Dottie!" My grandfather. He had the voice of an actor, fit for telling tales and having you believe. His voice was much closer, though filled with that taut, searching tone that parents use to call children and dogs. I opened my hand and placed two grapes I had stolen from breakfast at the base of one of the buttercup plants. They could trust me, I wanted them to know. I could bring them gifts.

"Little Dot." Grandpop Torr's voice was right behind me, speaking down, I imagine, at my little legs and shoes still sticking from the hedge. My shoulders rippled with guilt and my small chest froze with the fright of being found.

"Hi, Grandpop Torr," I squeaked out, unsure, staring at the grapes.

His clothes scratched against each other as he knelt down. "May I ask what you're doing down there?"

I craned my head around then and peered at him, his suit mostly a shadow among the flowers and leaves. Much to my shock, he sounded interested rather than angry, and I scuttled back into the open.

"Looking for hecklemen!" Grandpop Torr would make an excellent ally in this, I thought. I liked listening to him talk, and he always told the truth.

"I see." He eyed the falling buttercups and then watched as I wiped the dirt from my hands on my dress, leaving black streaks. He stifled a laugh. "Your mother will be furious about that dress."

I stared down at it and frowned a little. "We're having visitors," I mumbled slowly.

He laughed, and I looked up. "Dottie, I think the visitor you're having is me."

"Oh." I didn't know if that made the situation better or hopeless.

"Hecklemen," he muttered to himself and levered up to standing. "Did you find any?"

I scowled further. "No." And pouted at the plants, as though they had betrayed me with their keeping of secrets.

Grandpop Torr extended his hand, and I took it, because I was supposed to. He started leading me back out of the garden, and I stumbled along, peering back at the buttercups every few feet.

"Maybe apples?" I said suddenly and looked up at my grandfather with flashing hope.

We stopped and he looked down at me in puzzlement, mouthing the word apples. He crouched down, looking at me and my sullied dress and then the bushes where he had found me. "You know, your mother would never be caught searching for hecklemen in the garden," he said seriously.

This was a reprimand, I was sure.

"I know." I dropped my gaze to the ground and spoke sullenly. You were supposed to speak sullenly when adults told you you were wrong. My mother would not crawl on her knees in the garden. They thought this was good. I thought this was boring. Grandpop Torr chucked my chin with his finger. "Don't you want to grow up to be a pretty lady like your mother?"

A glanced at him, just, then shrugged.

"Little Dot?"

If they were under the buttercups, I wanted to find them, bring them home, show everyone what I had done.

I shrugged again.

"Dorothy, look at me." His voice had gone suddenly serious, deep and steady. I looked up into eyes of pale blue. "What do you want to be?"

Many things, things I did not have names for. I want to find secrets. I wanted to make people proud. I wanted to run through the gardens. I wanted everyone to smile at me like they smiled at Grandpop Torr after he told them a story. I wanted more than I could hold in my two hands.

"Well?" He poked my tummy, making me grin.

I settled until I could look quite seriously back and had search my vocabulary. "I don't know," I said, mischevious. Grandpop Torr would understand my theatrics.

His eyes narrowed. "I think you do."

"The greatest."