The Taste of Burnt Matches
- Enter the narrator's sister, who is not into whatever they are doing and wants to go home.
- Whatever they are doing, apparently, is standing by a river waiting on Eldric (remember the handsome stranger from before?) on a barge.
- Father tells the sister no because they don't want to hurt Eldric's feelings, and Rose (that's the sister's name) cares about that about as much as a hungry dog cares about table manners.
- You can tell a lot about a family based on whether or not the kids listen to their parents—and Rose obviously doesn't. So she says she wants to go home again, which is the theme she pretty much sticks to for the rest of the chapter.
- Turns out both the narrator and her sister are important enough to be given space—think presidential children, except their father is a clergyman.
- The town they live in is called the Swampsea, which sounds awesome if you're into things like swamp creatures and being sticky and dirty and getting bit by mosquitos.
- Try to remember to assume that Rose still wants to go home—but if you forget, don't worry, because she'll totally remind you.
- The narrator lets us know a couple very important things while complaining about the villagers staring. First, she and her sister have been sick and not really out and about for three years. Second, their stepmother killed herself. Except the narrator doesn't think she killed herself so let's put a big question mark around that event for now.
- We meet Eldric's father, who is also called Mr. Clayborne—he's waiting for his son with the two girls and their father.
- Rose stops talking about going home to tell us all that she doesn't like boys; the narrator mentally agrees.
- Apparently the stepmother died only two months and three days ago. The narrator thinks about the day she died and wonders why she hesitated to go in her room. Okay, wow—this sounds like regret of the worst kind: regret when someone you love is dead.
- The narrator, who we now know is named Briony (yay), breaks out of her own thoughts about death and poetry, and reminds herself that Stepmother would tell her to take care of Rose who has a cough, and mentions that she promised her stepmother she would take care of Rose.
- Briony worries about something called swamp cough, which doesn't sound good—she thinks Rose might have it, but her father is pretty much ignoring her concern.
- Fast fact: swamp cough has no cure.
- Poor Eldric is already hated by Rose, and now Briony is planning on not talking to him and threatening to feed him to some river spirit called Mucky Face. Nice Briony. We see what you meant when you called yourself wicked.
- Eldric finally comes off the barge and everyone is pretty excited about his looks (except Rose, of course, who has no intention of shaking his hand).
- He's super tall, like six or seven feet according to Briony, and he's old enough to go to university and pretty fashionable. Briony's father calls him handsome, but she doesn't agree—she's mostly taken by his clothes and the sense that he knows something about culture.
- We'd like to note here that Briony is a true swamp girl. Not to be rude, but this girl is impressed by a vest, a tie, and the idea of turn-on lamps and motorcars. It's also very possible that this isn't taking place in our current, technologically advanced world.
- Briony mentions a boy named Cecil Trumpington who wants to marry her for her looks.
- Yep—we are definitely not in Kansas anymore. In the middle of introducing us to some other seemingly minor characters (Swamp Reeve, Mayor Brody, Judge Trumpington, and Mrs. Trumpington), Briony thinks about how beautiful Mrs. Trumpington's frock is. This is a fancy old-fashioned English way of saying dress—definitely not how most people talk today.
- Briony starts to feel self conscious about her family, their clothes, and herself. Actually, she says more than once that she hates herself, so all that talk about being hanged earlier makes sense. She also plans on hating Eldric. This poor guy.
- Rose and Briony are twins? What? Yeah, we just did the same double take Eldric does. What's up with Rose then? She doesn't seem all there…
- And while we're talking about family, what is up with Briony and her father? She says he doesn't talk to her, and she seems pretty angry about the way he's pretending they have a happy or perfect family.
- Briony introduces herself to Eldric.
- Eldric has orange brown hair and golden eyes that make Briony compare him to a lion.
- Briony has been taking care of Rose for years, which has pretty much sucked the life and the laughter out of her. She actually describes Rose, unintentionally perhaps, as a kind of parasite when she wonders if her sister is feeding off of her soul juice. Can this girl's life get any more depressing?
- While everyone waits, Briony thinks about how awkward things are going to be with Eldric living at their house, and about how awkward things have been in general ever since her stepmother got sick and died. Then she goes off on a tangent about everything she hates. This girl is no sunshine, that's for sure.
- Rose doesn't like strangers, and she's getting ready to scream.
- We learn that Briony and her father didn't talk after the investigation of her stepmother's death… which means there was an investigation. Is someone hiding something? Seems she died of arsenic poisoning. Briony's father says she took her own life, but Briony says she never would have done that.
- And… cue Rose screaming.
- Briony starts thinking morbid thoughts about silence and burnt matches. Just what did she set on fire?