Conjured

by Sarah Beth Durst

  This door had a palm reader but no guards. We ran through it. The next door required a combination code. We ran through it as well. The fourth door was guarded.

  The guards already had their guns drawn.

  “Shoot the male,” one instructed. “Don’t hit the female.”

  Before I could react, before I could think, the other guard squeezed the trigger. Zach jerked backward, his hand torn out of mine. The sound echoed and continued to echo, reverberating through the hall and through my bones. And then the bullet clattered to the floor at Zach’s feet. “Bulletproof,” Zach said as he lunged toward me and brushed his lips against mine. An instant later, the guards’ jackets caught fire.

  Startled, they dropped their guns. One began pounding the fire on his chest. The other shed his jacket as quickly as possible and stomped on the flames.

  We ran forward and through the door into the silver room.

  Chapter Twenty

  Silver walls. Silver ceiling. Spotless white floor.

  I still had no memory of this place, other than from my failed attempt to remember it before. But I’d had visions with silver mirrors and silver walls.

  “Dead end,” Zach said. “Knew it was a trap. It was too easy.”

  “They shot you.” I never, ever wanted to see that again.

  “Lou should have stopped us before we even left the third floor. But he didn’t.”

  Grabbing his hand, I walked straight toward one of the silver walls. In a vision, I’d walked through a silver wall into a meadow. The Storyteller had been there, knitting a red ribbon on the steps of the wagon. There, I thought, I want to go there. Behind us, the door burst open and slammed against the wall. Two armed agents ran into the room. But they were too late. Reaching the wall, we melted into it.

  I felt coolness wrap around me, as if I were wrapped in chilled towels. It was hard to feel Zach’s hand. It felt swaddled in wool, distant. My body felt numb. And then I stepped with Zach out of a silver mirror that lay on the ground in the middle of a meadow.

  The sky was a startling blue, and the air was light and warm.

  “Whoa,” Zach said.

  Birds called to each other—so many birds that their calls mashed together in a cacophony louder than screams. They flew in thick batches that looked like swooping clouds against the sky. Sparrows, I thought, watching the birds. This was where I’d learned about sparrows.

  “‘Flock’ isn’t an adequate word for this many birds.” Zach strained to see them all. “Needs a special name, like bevy of quail, charm of finches, murder of crows, parliament of owls …”

  “They’re sparrows.”

  “Host of sparrows. I may have made that up, or—”

  “Shh,” I said.

  The meadow stretched endlessly in all directions. It was coated in delicate wildflowers that swayed and dipped in the breeze. After I’d walked through the silver mirror, I’d waited here by the wagon while the Magician and the Storyteller erected the tent for the show …

  Spurred by the memory, I ran forward through the flowers. Only a few yards from where the silver mirror lay, the grass was matted in a broad circle. No flowers grew, and the grass was sickly and yellow, as if it had been blocked from the sun. My heart was thumping so hard it almost hurt. I knew this place! I’d been here with the Storyteller and the Magician. Our tent had been here, near the other tents, and our wagon had been beside it.

  “You remember this place,” Zach said. It was more of a statement than a question.

  I nodded.

  “Do you remember other places?” Zach asked.

  I nodded again.

  “Then … we need some kind of plan. Maybe you, the Magician, and the Storyteller will have a nice reunion where you share childhood memories. But if the agency didn’t lie … I’d rather not end up chopped to pieces and stuffed in a box.”

  I pulled the box out of my pocket and held it in the palm of my hand. The silver winked in the sunlight. “Lou gave me this to use against myself. We can use it trap the Magician.”

  “Very poetically appropriate,” Zach said. “How does it work?”

  “Open the lid, touch someone with the clasp, and they’re sucked inside. They can’t call for help; sound can’t penetrate it. They can’t use magic to escape; magic can’t penetrate either.”

  “And Lou gave it to you. That’s a stroke of luck that tips right over into massively suspicious.”

  I slid it back in my pocket. “He also didn’t let Malcolm chase us.”

  “He wanted us to escape—or, more accurately, you,” Zach said, and I nodded unhappily. He could be right. They didn’t try to shoot me, only him. “On the plus side, maybe it means no one will try to stop you.”

  “Or maybe it means the carnival is a trap.” I scanned the meadow. As far as I could tell, we were alone, except for the sparrows.

  “But is it a trap for you, or for him?”

  I walked around the outer edge of the matted grass. Suddenly, finding this place didn’t feel so wonderful. “Lou, Malcolm, Aidan … they’re playing a game, but no one ever told me the rules or even let me see the board.”

  “Then don’t play,” Zach said. “We can go anywhere. Any world. No one would ever find us. We could invent new lives. Leave our pasts behind.”

  Overhead, the birds dipped and swirled in clouds of feathers that cast shadows on the meadow. “You’d be living a lie. I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You’re not asking; I’m offering.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because …” He trailed off, staring at me. “Wait. You’re not quite yourself yet. I was too rushed.” He kissed me lightly, and I felt pressure in my face as my features shifted. My cheekbones subtly rose. My body lengthened minutely. My painted fingernails reverted to my plain unpainted half moons. I ran my fingers over my cheeks and nose. Zach, I realized, had memorized me the way I had memorized Malcolm. “Because when I’m with you, I feel whole,” he said. “Because with you, life doesn’t feel brutish and short. It feels beautiful … and short.”

  “I think that makes the most sense of anything I’ve ever heard you say.”

  He grinned at me. “So, run away with me? Explore the multiverse?”

  The way he said it … I felt the possibilities open in front of me, like morning sun illuminating hidden paths. But I couldn’t. There was too much emptiness still inside me. I shook my head. “I can’t feel whole, even with you. I need answers.” As I said it, I realized how true it was. I’d spent enough time hiding. Before I could run again, I had to know more.

  His grin faded, and I wished I’d said a simple yes instead. Above, the sparrows switched directions again, their cries filling the air. The wind blew the grasses and wildflowers sideways, and it blew my hair across my face. I wiped my hair from my eyes.

  Zach took a deep breath. “Okay, then, how’s this for a plan: you give me magic before we enter the carnival. I should be able to hold it for a little while, maybe up to half an hour, before I lose it. We find the Magician as quickly as we can, you distract him and I throw magic at him—toss him at you? You touch him with the box, and bam, it’s over.”

  “And what if the agency lied, and he isn’t a killer?”

  “Then we open the box.”

  I considered the plan. “Simple. But effective.”

  “Simple plans are best,” Zach said. “Supervillains always have complex plans and end up eaten by their own laser-toting sharks. Come on, let’s do it before I utterly chicken out.” He held out his hand. I took it, and we walked back to where the silver mirror lay, embedded in the earth and surrounded by tall grass and pink-and-white flowers. I thought of another memory: when I’d fled to Zach’s house, I’d remembered a church with a graveyard. I fixed that image firmly in my head.

  Together, we stepped onto the mirror, and we fell straight down into it.

  A second later, we crashed onto bare dirt inside a circle of pillars. Six pillars were encased in mirrorlike silver and had been p
olished to reflect the blazing sun. I stood. Dusting off his knees, Zach stood beside me. On the other side of the pillars were marble statues and granite headstones silhouetted against the bleached-out sky. A church with red doors sat on a hill. Beyond the church and the graveyard was a vast expanse of dusty land.

  Yes, this was the place I’d remembered. The carnival came here often. We used to set up our tents in the field of dust by the church.

  Inhaling deeply, I imagined I could smell the carnival. Once, in this place, there had been a boy with diamonds knotted in his dreadlocks. He’d come to see the Magician, and he’d given flowers to the contortionist. I remembered they’d smelled sickly sweet, like one of the Magician’s potions. The boy hadn’t been interested in the animals, even the exotic ones from worlds without humans, but he had tried the games. He’d liked the archery test with the arrows that burst into flame and then dispersed as red-winged butterflies, as well as the ball toss into the mermaid’s tank. One hundred points if it landed in the treasure chest without the mermaid catching it. She always caught it. I’d watched the boy all afternoon, like I was supposed to, until I saw the woman wrapped in scarves watching me.

  Like I was supposed to? I didn’t know where that thought had come from or what it meant. “I think … I want to leave.”

  I looked again at the marble statues. One of them was looking back.

  Barely breathing, I held out my hand, and Zach took it. Retreating, we walked through a silver pillar. This time, we emerged in the middle of an ancient forest. The silver portal was embedded in a tree trunk. The ground was littered in leaves and dry needles, and the canopy of leaves blocked all but thin tendrils of sun. It was the forest, the one from my memory.

  I knew all these places.

  My memories … the visions … they weren’t lies.

  Zach’s breath hissed. “Look up. There’s … quite a view.” His voice was light, but it shook. He pointed toward the tops of the trees.

  Houses were nestled in the treetops. Bird men and bird women soared between them, their lithe bodies twisting between the branches. I remembered that the acrobats had performed in those branches, or ones like them. And the boy in the golden shirt had watched them. Later, we had chased him through the woods—the Magician, the Storyteller, and me. The Magician had carried me. I hadn’t been fast enough on my own, and the boy had been fast. We caught him anyway.

  “Keep going?” Zach asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Again, we walked through the silver—and we walked out into a city plaza made of gray paving stones. Skyscrapers towered around us. Again, I knew this place. I had been carried through here at night. That time, we had been the ones being chased. “We can’t stay here either,” I said.

  A trio of people strode toward us. They wore matching blue uniforms. Their faces were streaked with fur and scales, and they had batons at their hips.

  “But the carnival could be …” His voice died as he saw a woman with wings on her back. Another had antlers on his head. And still others … each a medley of human and animal. At last I saw him notice the trio of officials closing in on us. “Guess it’s moved on.”

  Zach and I scrambled back into the silver. I grasped for another memory—and I thought of a pier, the Ferris wheel rising high above the water, kids laughing as loud as gulls.

  The mirror melted around us, and we emerged beside an ocean. Or not an ocean. A harbor. Sailboats were parked in their slips, their white hulls gleaming. Fishing boats with crates and ropes and cranes with nets were tied to a dock. Between them, a woman with green skin hauled herself out of the water to bask on a buoy.

  “This looks nicer,” Zach observed.

  Several brick buildings jutted out onto piers. The wood pillars supporting them were coated in green threads and roughened with barnacles. A glass sculpture reflected the harbor on its surface. Above, the sky was brilliant blue.

  “Eve, look.” Zach pointed behind me.

  I turned and saw another dock. On it, tent posts without tents rose into the air, like skeletons without flesh. At its tip, a Ferris wheel was empty and motionless. A fence cut across the entrance to the dock. The fence was covered in photos and little pieces of paper, stuck into the links. Below the photos was a pile of wilted flowers, melted candles, and stacks of seashells.

  I was walking toward the dock before I even decided to move, and then I was running. Skirting the fence, I entered the abandoned carnival. Gulls circled overhead, and water lapped at the pillars of the dock, but other than that, it was silent. I remembered this place flooded with people—cries of laughter, the call of the barkers, the music of the carousel.

  A few of the rides remained, only the shell of a balloon ride that had lifted people to a floating roller coaster made out of clouds. The coaster was gone, swept away by the wind, but the balloon baskets and the ropes remained. The baskets were covered in graffiti.

  I walked to an empty booth. There had been a pyramid of brightly colored balls at this booth that sang as they flew through the air. I remembered the face of the man who had run this game. He’d had a beard and sunken eyes. I didn’t remember his name. I didn’t know if I’d ever known it.

  Zach stood behind me. “What happened? The other sites were empty. Why did they leave all this behind here?”

  I didn’t know. For the first time, I was worried about the Storyteller and the Magician, which was crazy—they were at the heart of my nightmares. “I need to find them.”

  “We,” Zach corrected. “There’s a term for the first person plural. Not for the second person plural, unfortunately. Closest we have for that is ‘you guys,’ which sounds like 1980s New Jersey, or ‘y’all,’ which sounds too affected southern for anyone who isn’t really southern.”

  Gulls cawed at one another. One dove sharply down, snatched a piece of paper from the chain-link fence, and rose back up to the sky. I continued through the abandoned carnival until I found a darkened patch on the wood dock that matched the size of the wagon.

  “I think we came here often.” I looked out over the water and saw peaks—they weren’t buoys or islands. They were the tips of underwater buildings. The city extended out under the harbor. I used to watch the selkies swim. “It was part of our regular circuit. But sometimes we’d do extra performances.”

  It shouldn’t have been abandoned like this. It should have been dismantled and packed in wagons. No one should have defaced our site. And I started moving, fast, toward the fence and the papers that the gull had been pecking, certain that it would hold a clue. Zach jogged after me. I tugged one of the photos through the link and stared at it. A teenage girl with light-green skin and brilliant-blue hair pinned by shells …

  “Who died?” Zach asked.

  I looked at him.

  “It’s a memorial. At least, it looks like one.”

  I dropped the photo as if it had burned me. I didn’t know that girl. She wasn’t in my memories, and her photo wasn’t on Malcolm’s tablet.

  “He’s killing again,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I knelt behind the memorial on the carnival side of the fence.

  “He must have been careless,” I said. “Her death must have been traced to the carnival. They must have all fled.” The flowers were half wilted, their blossoms closed or drooped. Leaves hung limp on the stems. A few were roses, their petals wide open. Others were flowers that I didn’t recognize, tight clumps of purple petals with spikes of white in their hearts and teacup-like delicate blooms of pale yellow.

  “You don’t know any of that for certain,” Zach said. “She could have fallen from the Ferris wheel or choked to death on popcorn or—”

  “Aunt Nicki and Malcolm said that he’d started again. If it’s true, then we’re walking straight into the danger that they tried so hard to protect me from.”

  I felt his hand on my shoulder, a comforting weight. “If it’s true, then he doesn’t stand a chance against you,” Zach said. “Together, we wield more
power than a dozen superheroes.”

  I faced the memorial again, all the notes and the photos. One wreath of flowers had the word “sister” pinned to it. Another said “beloved daughter.” I thought of the antlered girl, Victoria’s sister, and all the other faces on the bulletin board. “Do you really think I can stop him?”

  “Yes. And I think Lou wants you to.”

  “I want to.” As I said it, it felt right.

  “I know.” He squeezed my hand, and I looked at him. He didn’t look resigned or afraid or angry. He looked … proud and pleased. I wondered if he’d had this in mind all along … if he’d come for that reason … if the agency had encouraged him to come or even forced him. I wondered if he was manipulating me too, and then I pushed that thought down as hard as I could. It was my idea. If I discovered that my past held horrors, then I’d try to end them.

  A voice came from the other side of the dock. “Hey, what are you kids doing?”

  I spun, looking for the speaker.

  “Just paying our respects!” Zach called.

  Softly I said, “I don’t see …”

  Zach pointed to a man off the side of the pier, half in and half out of the water, bobbing with the waves. Shortly, several more mermen drifted to join the first man.

  I stood up and dusted my knees. “Let’s go.”

  The first merman hoisted himself out of the water. Seaweed dripped from his arms, and his tail split into two legs. On scaly feet, he jogged toward us. Behind him, others pulled themselves out of the water.

  Hand in hand, we ran around the fence and back to the silver mirror. They ran after us. We heard their footsteps sloshing on the sidewalk. But we were faster. We plunged into the silver … and found the carnival.

  Banners and flags were strung between brightly painted poles. An elaborate archway marked the entrance. It was carved to look like clowns dancing, but the paint was chipped and peeling, so only the clowns’ eyes were left in bright blue and green.