After a few moments, I say that I’m ready, even though I’m not. I don’t understand why this had to happen. Maisie was one of the best people that I have ever known, and she was always sweet to everyone.
This place. I just want to wake up from this horrific nightmare. If I could, I’d go back and relive the worst day of my life that was outside of here over and over if I could. Whether it was my mom leaving, or the day with Neven. I would for Maisie, so she wouldn’t have come here.
We approach the house and see a small, stone, water well. I hadn’t paid attention to it earlier when we left the house. August and I walk over to it, and he turns the crank. A loud, screeching sound pours out as the rope starts to wind up.
A tiny, blue bird darts right above my head. I duck as it chirps and flies to sit on a windowsill a few feet away. The bucket finally reaches the top, and August hands it to me. We don’t have the luxury of cups around us, so I just start drinking straight from the bucket. I didn’t realize I was thirsty, until half the water in it is gone.
I pass it over to August, and he finishes the rest. He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. Three other blue birds fly and chirp past us and join the first one by the window. They begin to chirp something that sounds like a melody. Weird.
There is a commotion that suddenly comes from inside the house that sounds like a girl singing. My entire body stills, and I look at August in horror.
Chapter 25
How could there be a voice coming from inside the cottage?
“You heard that, too, I’m guessing?” August asks.
My head bobs up and down. “Yeah, but I thought for a second I might be imagining it.”
August looks over at the window. “No. You definitely weren’t hearing things.”
I don’t understand we just saw Maisie murdered. There’s no way that she can be in that house. “We have to go in there and look.”
August agrees, but only if he can go in first, since he’s carrying the bigger weapon. I didn’t think to grab Maisie’s pickaxe before we fled the area. I’m just lucky I remembered to pick up the knife from the ground.
We walk around the side of the house, until we reach the front. I look up at the chimney and there is smoke coming out of it like before. It’s possible that the same log is burning. Maybe?
When we reach the front door, August doesn’t even pause. He turns the doorknob and slowly opens it and steps inside. I follow slowly behind him with the knife raised in my hand. The stench of what I now know is bloodied, animal carcasses, and dead little men fill the house.
The walk down the hall isn’t long. August immediately stops in his tracks against the wood floor when he reaches the end. I come up behind him, peer around his shoulder, and almost take off running.
There is a girl in the wooden, rocking chair rocking back and forth. She has the same deer fur in her lap and is stitching it. It can’t be, but it is. “Maisie?” I whisper.
The rocking chair comes to a halt. I run past August and stop when I see her staring down in her lap at the fur. “Maisie, what is going on?”
Maisie looks over at me with a big smile on her face. “Maisie? Who is Maisie? My name is Snow.”
I bring my hand to my forehead. “Oh, no. Not this again,” I hiss.
August is already standing next to me and kneels next to her. He rests his hands on the chair. “Maisie, you have to snap out of this.”
“Why are you calling me Maisie? My name is Snow, silly,” she giggles.
I lean down and pull August to stand up, hauling him back. I explain to him everything that happened earlier when I came in the house and found Maisie. About how she was in this crazy state of mind. How I tried to remind her of things, and that it didn’t help. Nothing worked, but then I yelled at her, and she snapped out of it.
“Maybe we need to yell at her then?” August suggests.
“Maisie, snap out of it!” I yell.
Maisie gives me a dreamy look and lifts her hand and starts snapping her fingers. She giggles and goes back to sewing the bloody fur.
“Okay,” August says.
“Help me,” I plead.
August walks over to her again. “How did you get back here? We just saw you back in the forest.” He doesn’t mention that a man chopped off her head with a flying axe.
Maisie raises her head up from her fur and lets her hands still. She then tilts her head, and her dark curls swing back and forth. “You die here, you stay here,” she sings.
“What was that?” I say. I have a feeling this is achingly similar to Ben, Josselyn, and Officer Rodriguez.
“You die here, you stay here,” she sings again.
August turns back to me and frowns. “This is the same as it was with Ben, isn’t it?”
I nod. “I think so. The same probably goes for Officer Rodriguez and Josselyn, and who knows who else? I was thinking earlier about why all these people can’t remember who they are, but we can. It’s because they have died here, and we haven’t, isn’t it?”
August runs his hand across his chin. “That has to be it. If we die, we are most likely going to go through this process of not remembering who we were before.”
I don’t want that at all. What do I do now? I look over at Maisie.
There must be a way to get her out of this crazy personality and possibly a way to get her out of here. I walk over to Maisie and kneel directly in front of her, placing my hands on hers to get her to stop messing with the fur. “Look at me.” Her eye meets mine. “I’m not going to waste my time here telling you stories about how we know each other. We tried that already last time, and it didn’t help you remember anything from before.”
She pulls her hands gently from mine and clasps them together. “Oh, I love stories! Do tell me one. I am all ears, unlike the men over there that no longer have theirs.”
I ignore the part about the men. “I just said I’m not going to tell you a story. Now listen, we were in the forest a moment ago. There was a big guy that attacked us. I know you know the Snow White story, so you know the Huntsman, right?”
“What Snow White story? I am Snow you silly, silly, little thing.”
I’m about to unleash a loaded sentence of fury, but August gets to it before I get the chance. “Maisie, knock this off and come out of there already. Perrie had to listen to this bullshit once today. She doesn’t need to deal with it anymore. I was tied to a tree for who knows how long, and I’m tired as hell and don’t want to hear ramblings of a crazy person for one more second.”
Maisie looks up at August and blinks several times before bringing her fingers to her temples and rubs them for a moment. “Wow, August. I’ve never heard or seen you so angry. Give me a second here. I have to say, I bet Perrie liked seeing this new you.”
I laugh. It’s true. That is one of the few times I have ever seen August mad, and I never thought I would find anger so appealing. “Maisie, only you can make a terrible day turn interesting.”
Then I stop laughing remembering what happened before. “Do you remember everything?” I ask Maisie.
“I do. I remember everything up to a certain part.” She tells me that she remembers me coming the first time to the cottage and us going through the forest and finding August. The last thing she remembers is the Huntsman with an axe coming toward her.
“Everything from before has come back to me with the exception of how I end up back here every time.”
“You have come back here more than this one time?” August asks.
She nods. “Yes, I think this is the seventh time. Sometimes it takes me longer to pull myself out of how you saw me earlier. I don’t understand how I get stuck in that level of insanity.”
I don’t know whether to ask about the axe or what, but I have to. “So, you do remember an axe coming toward you, right?”
“Perrie, I don’t want you to think that I’m naïve or that you are afraid to tell me what’s going on. I know for the most part and am slowly putting the puzzle pi
eces together even with the missing ones. This time was an axe, one time there was a knife at my chest, then a knife at my throat, another time it was my own pickaxe and so on. Somehow, I die here, and I’m unable to leave. After I die, I come right back to this house, and the whole entire process starts over again.”
Only Maisie would be able to not be hysterical about the situation she’s in and be calm about it. She adjusts her eye patch, and I cringe a little inside thinking about her missing eye.
August rubs the back of his neck. “How far have you made it when you try and leave?”
Maisie looks up at the ceiling and starts silently counting with her mouth moving and using her fingers. Then she looks back toward us. “It was on my fourth time. I had the pickaxe with me and managed to duck low and hit the Huntsman in his thigh with it. I ran not much farther, until I came to a barrier and bounced back. I ran again as hard as I could and was pushed back again and fell to the ground. That was when I turned and only remember a pickaxe in his large hands coming at me toward my chest.”
She is starting to look disturbed now that she has to keep talking about it. August has questions all over his face, and I just want to run off into the bedroom and crawl under the bed and cry.
Maisie turns to August. “You didn’t have any blackouts in the forest, did you? He only tied you to a tree, right? No time for murder?”
“From what I remember, there was only being tied up to the tree situation.”
“Okay good,” She sighs. “From what Perrie told me earlier, you guys have been able to go through the barrier in all the places that you have been, right?”
I already don’t like where she is going with this. “Right.”
“Most likely I’m the only one that is stuck here, so I’m going to help you guys get out of here,” she says proudly.
“Are you insane?” August shouts.
“What are you thinking?” I cry.
“That is the thing. I already know I’m not going to get through. If you two can manage to get home, you might be able to help figure out what is going on here. Not to be all gloom and doom, but if dying here is real, then I’m already gone.” She shrugs her shoulders.
I’m getting irritated and step toward her. “And what if you’re not really dead?” I grab her forearm and squeeze it. “You don’t feel like a ghost, and you’re warm.”
Maisie is trying to hide a grin on her face. “Have you ever even seen or felt a ghost, Perrie?”
“Well, no. But still.”
She shakes her head. “But nothing. You’re going to have to warn people, especially Mom, Dad, and Uncle James.”
My shoulders slump. “That’s going to go over really well. I’ll most likely get locked up in a mental institution.”
She looks away from me to August. “You know what I’m saying is right. I need you to get yourself and Perrie out of here. I’ll go as far as I can to help distract. I can’t cross the barrier, and there is no reason to just stay here. Hey, if I’m not a ghost then you guys can come back as heroes and save the day.”
I cross my arms over the front of my chest. “You know I’m right here, and I’m not going to agree to this. I will stay here.”
August walks closer to me. “I know you don’t want to do this because I don’t want to either, but Maisie is right. If we can get out of here, maybe we can find a way to release everyone out of these prisons. As hard as it is to say, if they are already gone, then we can look for answers back home.”
I argue back and forth with them for a long time and finally realize Maisie will never give in. I see her point and the bigger picture regardless of what I want to do. The picture I also see is that August and I aren’t super heroes or anything otherworldly. We are two regular people that are in a disturbing place that we can’t find our way out. If there is a slight chance that we can get out of here and find a way to rescue Maisie, I’m going to take the chance.
I grab August’s hand in one of mine and Maisie’s in the other. “Okay, let’s try this.”
Chapter 26
Before we leave through the forest, we look around the outside of the house to see if there are better weapons. There aren’t any. We each bring a pickaxe, and I hand Maisie the knife. She’ll need more protection than we will.
We exit the house and breathe in the fresh air from the outdoors. Maisie doesn’t look the least bit nervous. She has a determination to help get us out of here, but I have the same determination except to take her with us.
Birds chirp loudly through the trees, and we are being as careful as we can not to make a single sound.
The pickaxe is heavy against my shoulder, and my grip is causing sweat to bead on my palms. One by one, I remove my hands from the axe and rub them against my dress to dry them a bit.
August gives me a smile of encouragement, and I want to bottle that smile and tuck it into the deepest depth of my heart. I give a smile back.
Maisie leans over and whispers in my ear. “I know this is not the time or the place, but he is a good guy, Perrie. He’s good for you.”
“I know,” I say. Because I do know this.
She’s about to say something back, but we’re interrupted by loud footsteps and tree branches swishing up ahead.
Maisie quickens her pace ahead of us. “He doesn’t even try to disguise himself.”
“Get ready to run. That’s all we seem to be doing these days,” August says.
I didn’t mind running before, even though I wasn’t used to it, but I need a break for a while if we make it home.
We move to our left away from the sounds that are coming from our right and start to run. I pump my legs so hard they already ache. I read somewhere to zig zag to avoid being shot, so the person can’t get a proper target. Does that even work? Before I have time to find out, there’s a hit to my shoulder that is like a baseball bat. I lose my balance and drop the pickaxe while catching August from behind. In the process, we tangle up and land on the ground in a heap.
My shoulder is on fire, and I’m holding in a scream. Panic hits me, and I check on August to see if he’s okay. August tears away from me. The pickaxe is beside him and thankfully not through him. He begins to help me up and asks what’s going on.
“You are a lucky little mousy. The end of my ax caught you there,” a loud voice booms like lightning striking ground. It sounds closer than I would like.
The Huntsman appears swiftly almost out of thin air and is standing right before us. “I could have got you easily and made you bleed if you were who I was after. Where is she?”
I look around the forest and through the trees for Maisie and honestly have no idea which direction she went. She appears to be sneakier than the Huntsman. “I have no idea.” Our weapons are on the ground, and he is twirling another axe like a baton.
“Snow? Come out little doe. I don’t want to harm your little pets here, but I will.” He takes a few steps toward us, and we move back. I’m prepared to bolt when there is a patter from the trees above us. Suddenly, I see a huge shadow fall out of the tree and crash onto the Huntsman.
No, it isn’t a shadow. It’s Maisie with a fierce expression, and the Huntsman is knocked to the ground when Maisie falls on top of him. There is a knife in her hand. She stabs at him repeatedly, until he no longer moves.
I didn’t know Maisie had it in her, but after being murdered seven times, one can only take so much. The Huntsman is lying on the ground dead, and Maisie has the bloodied knife in her hand. “Run!”
We don’t hesitate. I take off running through the forest, and we don’t care about the crunching of leaves or the snapping of twigs. We just run. I hit the barrier first and bounce back to the ground. August reaches it next, touching it and nothing happens.
Maisie pats it and pushes on it several times. “This is what happened when I made it here last time.”
There’s a crinkling through the bushes. It can’t be. There is no way. It must be someone else. It isn’t, though. The Huntsman, who seconds ag
o was lying in his own blood, is now standing before us, as if his clothes and entire body had a magical bath.
“No way,” I say.
“What. The. Hell.” August grinds his teeth.
Maisie just stays silent and looks sad. “Try it again.”
“Enough of this. Are you going to come to me, little doe, or do I have to come for all three of you?” the Huntsman growls.
She looks over at us and repeats herself. “Try it again.”
August walks up to the barrier, and a wind begins pulling at him and thrashing his hair. I move to the barrier, and I start to feel a tug. “Maisie, it’s working. Hurry!”
She reaches for the barrier, and her hand is pushed back. “Until we meet again,” she smiles sadly.
I fight for a moment against the barrier to get back to Maisie, and August yells something I can’t hear. When I reach for his hand, he has already been yanked through.
I look one more time at Maisie who winks with her uncovered eye and attempts to dart away from the Huntsman. I have no idea what happens next. The force of the barrier rips me away.
I’m thrust out and bounce on something soft, and then I roll off and land on a cool cement ground. Golden hair is sprawled over my face. I push it behind my ear and look over to see what I hit before landing on the ground. It’s a bed, thankfully. I look for August, but I don’t see him anywhere.
Hair is in sheets all around my shoulders. I go to stand up and am aghast. There’s hair everywhere, along the bed, across the ground, sprawled against the wall.
Why is there hair everywhere? I walk over to the one window that is in the room, and there is a tug at my head. I realize the hair is connected to my head. I lift the golden hair and yank at it and try to walk to the window again.
It’s an oval window that is large enough for a person to fit through, and the walls are covered with light, gray stone. When I lean out the window to look down, panic radiates inside me.
Quinsey Wolfe's Glass Vault Page 16
