Such a Pretty Little Rosy!
- Briony runs toward the river while counting her steps.
- Eldric follows.
- Briony tells him he can't come, and Eldric ignores her and tells her about her father's plan: Eldric and Briony search the swamp while the Reverend Larkin and Eldric's father search the fields. We think the men took the easier, less messy end of this deal for themselves, but, hey, they're the grown ups.
- Briony's father gave Eldric something called a Bible Ball that's supposed to protect him from something else called The Horrors. Oh goodie.
- Eldric pleads with Briony not to over exert herself, especially after her illness—and though Briony doesn't respond, she does agree with him in her head and recalls how difficult her illness had been.
- Briony is pleased to see that the swamp is still as muddy and oozy as it was when she left it three years ago. Yuck.
- They stop to make a plan and Briony explains the quick and dirty (or should we say muddy) of the swamp to Eldric. Basically, there are three parts: Flats, Quicks, and Slough.
- They continue and Briony begins to hear voices calling her that only she can hear. Okay…
- A quick memory of her stepmother encouraging Briony to write and helping Rose make collages also reveals that Briony hears these voices because she has something called second sight.
- Apparently, stepmother made Briony promise not to go into the swamp anymore because her powers there could be dangerous.
- Side swamp note: The Quicks are plants that want to eat people, and snickleways are like creeks that smell really bad. We're talking rotten eggs bad.
- They locate Rose when they hear her yelling "'fires are dangerous!'" (4.76) and the voices of girls in reply calling her Rosy.
- When they get to Rose, they see that the voices belong to three young witches.
- Let's pause here for couple of interesting notes about these witches. First, they don't ride broomsticks, they ride tree branches. This probably makes it easier to find a ride in the forest, so we applaud the savviness of their vehicular switch. Next, these witches don't seem to be causing much more trouble than schoolyard bullies—they basically circle Rose, taunt her, and then steal her hair ribbon. Finally, these witches don't wear underwear. Yes, we think this is a weird thing to note too, don't worry, but they made sure to tell (and show) everyone. Perhaps they misunderstood the idea of a full moon?
- After a kind of confusing and somewhat difficult to picture tussle between the witches, Briony and Eldric, and their branches, the witches ride away causing what Briony refers to as an "unnatural wind" (4.111).
- The unnatural wind causes Briony to have a flashback to a time before stepmother had married her father, when she and Rose were just seven years old. In her memory, Rose injures her head on a large rock after being knocked off a swing by a jealous wind that little Briony conjured up.
- Rose screams in the memory, and back in current day she is screaming as well—Briony suggests Eldric plug his ears, but he refuses for fear of missing something.
- Briony's reminds herself that all of this is her fault a few times.
- Rose won't wear dresses with the wrong colored hair ribbons—that's why she's screaming now, for her hair ribbon.
- Briony returns to the flashback and remembers how she wanted Stepmother's attention while she was tending to Rose. She remembers the look on her stepmother's face and her stepmother telling her never to tell her father about this.