The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait Page B

just below her collarbone, that needed to be replenished. She would ask Mr Wilton to take her to his church again, if he did not suggest it. Even though, when she thought of what had happened there, who she had turned into, she was a foreigner to herself. She tried to mouth out the words she had spoken; she could remember the sound of them, sharp and ancient, but she could not bring up their form.
    ‘Are you speaking to me, Miss Prickett?’
    Alice interposed herself between Mary and her thoughts, in her yellow hat and coat.
    ‘No, I am not. I was not speaking. What do you want?’
    ‘Why do rivers bend?’ Alice asked, her voice high against the water’s gush.
    ‘It is to do with geography,’ said Mary.
    ‘But why is it to do with geography?’
    Mary stared straight ahead. The meadows were quiet at this time, a little after lunch, except for a man striding away from them at right angles, his boots muddy, his head turning first one way, and then another, as if he were looking for somebody.
    ‘Because geography is the study of the land,’ she said.
    ‘Is it the land that makes the river bend so?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But why?’ said Alice again, breathing up at her.
    ‘Because Y’s got a tail!’ said Mary, in a rush of fury. ‘Now go away!’
    It was beginning to rain. Mary stared up at the grey mass of the sky. When she looked down again she saw that the striding man had changed direction and was now coming towards them, rather fast. She recognized the way his hat was angled on to his head, tipped very slightly back.
    Ahead of her the children were crowded round something on the ground, white and awkward. Its neck was twisted and much too long, its beak pointed impossibly back towards its neck.
    ‘Come away, come away at once!’ said Mary.
    ‘It stinks,’ said Ina.
    ‘Then come away.’
    Somebody had kicked the swan over. The whole of the underside writhed with fat white maggots, bringing the bird horribly back to life. Mary fumbled in her reticule for a handkerchief; the smell clung to the inside of her nostrils and filled up her mouth.
    She stepped back and tried to pull Ina with her.
    But Alice and Edith still stared in at the entrails, which curled out with a horrible intimacy. Above, it was still recognizably swan-like: clean white feathers, wings held as if they were still floating on water. It made the spillage below worse, a ghastly secret. It reminded Mary of a medical book she had once seen. This skin that held in so much sausage meat. That glistened so terribly; that was both you and not you.
    ‘Come away , I said!’ But Mary’s voice was muffled by the handkerchief she held over her mouth. What if they got dirty – got a disease? Disease was surely floating about in the air round where the swan lay, and they would inhale it and get sick. She must wrench them all away. She must go in and push them back from in front, using one arm for two children.
    She heaved in a breath and shouldered her way in, pushing them backwards with her elbows, full of rage. Her shoe came down on something soft and marshy; she heard the high, slick sound of it. She cried out.
    Mary felt a steadying hand on her elbow – Mr Dodgson’s.
    ‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.
    Mary nodded; she could not speak.
    ‘Sit here, on this log.’
    On a log? Women did not sit on logs. But he pressed her down, his hand on her shoulder.
    ‘I saw you in the distance. I hoe-hope you don’t mind.’ His smile held traces of embarrassment. ‘I thought I might join you, for a walk.’
    Mr Dodgson had seen her ineptness; he had seen her lose control. Abruptly Mary wanted to cry. She nodded up at him vigorously.
    ‘Your boot,’ he said. He crouched down in front of her. Her boot had a residue of something pink and white around the rim and on the top of the toe.
    ‘Let me,’ said Mr Dodgson.
    ‘No, please!’ Mary tried to twist her foot to wipe off the matter, round and over.
    But he had got up to fetch some dock leaves and