“Come on, Evelyn, don’t be a sourpuss,” I teased. “Come and help.”
She didn’t react at all, save for heaving her skinny self over with a sigh, and adjusting the sheets next to the peeling wallpaper so that they were far enough away from the little iron fireplace.
“Shut the window?” Lucas asked, his hands full of pillows. “It’s raining again, and we don’t want the room to rot any more than it already has.”
I got up to do so, when a loud voice made me jump and stop.
“What do you mean you meant to?” Someone was shouting furiously, and I flinched as I recognized the tone. Madon. Oddly enough, He had lost His temper quite often, but scarcely yelled as He was doing now. “God, this whole place was already crumbling to pieces, why the hell did you have to go and burn it?”
He must have had an answer we couldn’t hear, because a few seconds later He spat back, “You don’t need to remind me, I’m no fool. But I’m getting fed up of waiting, and having these ridiculous, childish whims damper my own plans…yes, I know. That’s no excuse! And I don’t see why we have to talk here, when it would be so much easier to…”
His voice slowly lowered until I couldn’t hear anything else.
Lucas dropped the linen, pleading, “Penny, this is our chance! We have to confront Him.”
“Did you not catch any of that?” I hissed. “Someone else burned the manor, not Him. You’re not going to find out anything, you’re just going to get yourself killed! He clearly isn’t in the best of moods right now!”
Lucas glared back at me, not moving, and I matched his stare. Then Evelyn gave a little huff of frustration and ran out towards where the Master had been shouting.
“Evelyn!” I gasped, but she was already gone.
We ran after her, skidding to a stop as she slowed down herself. Just around the corner, the Master was standing wearing His travel clothes. I couldn’t quite see who He was speaking to, and wasn’t about to wander closer to have a look.
“Everything is going according to plan; we’re nearly finished and they still haven’t come close to guessing. Relax.”
I froze, realizing who it must be. What was D doing here?
A cold chuckle sounded, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
“We have visitors. I must go. Remember what I have told you.”
A shadow swept across the hallway, filling me with an icy paralysis as it passed, and then it was gone.
“What are you doing?” The Master said expressionlessly, turning towards us.
“I want to know why you let Fred lose!” Evelyn shouted, and I winced. I didn’t see that kind of anger coming, not from her! “You cold-hearted, selfish, horrible, evil, murdering devil!”
He raised his eyebrows and laughed coolly.
“Charming praise. Now get out. I’m not in the mood for these games.”
“Tell me!” Evelyn shrieked stamping her foot on the ground. “Why are we here, and why can’t we get out? Why? Why are we the only ones left?”
His smile vanished, replaced by a scowl. “Let me give you a hint, hmm? Being dead and being lost isn’t always the same thing; and getting out doesn’t mean you’ve won. Besides, I think you’ve gathered that I’m not alone in this…which reminds me, eavesdropping is rather a nasty habit.”
And just like that, a rip tore through just like the shadow.
We all cried out in pain as it hit us, but instead of falling to the ground in utter agony, I merely clenched my fists and rocked on the spot. Yes, it hurt, yes, I wanted to scream, but no, it wasn’t excruciating. I wasn’t on the verge of madness, only on the verge of tears.
Push back. Go on, I dare you, D whispered in my mind, but the tone was amused rather than helpful.
Who are you? Why are you talking in my head now? I snapped back, perturbed by the sensation.
I’m D. You’re not responding to my letters. I made alternate arrangements. Now push back!
So against my better judgment, I did.
I let the air swim until I could see the gaping rips He had created, wrapping around all of us and causing the pain. Struggling to stand as it increased in intensity, I created my own rips around His, and slowly let them expand so that they pushed His away. The pain lessened, and I saw His eyes widened in shock.
I bit my lip until I tasted blood, eyes screaming in protest as I pushed; the torture second now to my intense concentration. I felt my knees buckle and I collapsed, but refused to relinquish my struggle.
Then it finished entirely. I closed my eyes and slumped to the ground, so that I didn’t see the anguish on His face as He ripped away.
Normally that act alone would have caused nausea, but now it was only a faint buzz.
Interesting, D remarked, sounding somewhat bemused and more than a little disappointed. I suppose I shall have to reward you for that…try the letters ‘O’ and ‘U’. Not that it will help you much, but apparently your friends think it important, being as misguided as they are. If you want to actually succeed, then go find the place where it all began.
And then the voice faded, just like that. More importantly, though, there was the increasingly outstanding fact that for some reason, whilst His power was in decline, mine was increasing.
23
“What did you think was going to happen?” I was aware of Lucas snapping at Evelyn. His voice sounded distant and unclear, like I was underwater. “‘Yes, dear children, I shall quite happily tell you exactly what you must do to defeat me and live happily ever after’? It doesn’t work like that in real life!”
“I know, I’m not stupid!” Evelyn retorted impatiently, fists clenched and face pale. “It was your idea to confront Him, might I remind you, but I did it because—”
“Of Fred?” Lucas suggested tersely. “Stop living the past, Evelyn, we need to focus on now! And that charade ended in torture, what if it had been worse? What if He now goes to whoever is controlling this thing, and gets them to ramp it up a little bit?”
“Fred disappeared yesterday!” Evelyn shouted, and I could hear tears in her voice now. “That isn’t the distant past! Please, let’s stop bickering.”
I shook my head as everything slowly crept back into focus. It seemed that the more I practiced ripping, and the more difficult a trick I tried to perform, the longer it took to get back into an ordinary state of mind.
“I’m okay,” I announced, wobbling as I stood up.
“Did you make that punishment go away?” Evelyn gasped.
“I think so.” I nodded, faintly pleased with myself.
“This is fantastic!” Lucas grinned, patting me on the back and receiving a proud beam in return. “Gosh, you must be getting stronger to be able to contend with Him, soon you’ll be able to— Oh my goodness, what if you managed to rip out of the Boundary, like He can?”
I was stunned, having honestly never thought of that. The question was, if ever that became possible, would I do it? Would I leave my friends behind for my own freedom?
“That’s not the half of it,” I blurted, not wanting to think about it too much, not trusting myself to pick the right choice. “Did you interpret what He said like I did? Our friends aren’t dead! ‘Being dead and being lost isn’t always the same thing.’ What else could that mean?”
“It could mean that not all of them are okay.” Lucas shrugged, ever the bringer of regrettable logic. “That wording sounds too fishy. Besides, we knew that already. But I did not understand that last bit whatsoever.”
“Me neither,” Evelyn piped up, as if to remind us that she was present.
“I have some other information though,” I brought up hesitantly, my mind churning for a way to present it without giving D away. “The letters O and U. Oh, and I think our friends are setting up the letters to help us.”
“Where did you…?” Lucas began, but he must have seen my pleading expression, begging for him to not go there, as he trailed off his question. “Never mind. This is probably the best sequence of events that have e
ver happened to us! Most or all of our missing friends are still alive, we have two more letters in a puzzle they have set up to help us, and Penny is beginning to rival the Master Himself in terms of ripping power! There’s only one thing for it!”
“Lucas, you don’t have champagne in your room?” I laughed, remembering a piece I read during lessons.
“Hardy har har. I have something better.”
He sprinted away down the corridor, running into his chamber without stopping for us.
“We aren’t going in the boys’ chamber, are we?” Evelyn asked anxiously, chewing her lower lip and giving a nervous grimace as we followed him.
“If you do, I shall give you a proper dress,” I coaxed, smiling.
As I knew she would, Evelyn relented and followed me through the doors, relaxing a bit as she saw nothing out of the ordinary inside.
Lucas was sifting through something on his desk, so I led her over to where I had safely stashed the two undamaged gowns in the empty corner. I dearly hoped the attraction of proper clothing would keep her from realizing what Lucas was doing.
One was a soft lavender dress with thick petticoats and paisley embroidery sewn delicately over the bodice and skirts, possibly a dinner gown, and the other was a simpler item of navy blue, made of a heavy material we wore in chillier weather. It was an easy decision who got which dress. We took them to the chamber we were now to use.
It felt extremely odd putting on a gown without anything underneath, but I rather liked it. We didn’t need sucking in as much as we did whilst still well-fed, and considering they had belonged to Tressa, I found mine rather tight anyhow.
Evelyn hated changing in front of me, so I left her to go and see what Lucas was up to.
“It fits?” He glanced up as I entered the chamber, oddly surprised.
“Well of course it does!” I defended myself, hurt. “I wasn’t that much larger than Tressa, just slightly stockier, and…shorter.”
It was indeed strange, I admitted, that the dress of a girl a good few inches taller than me fitted almost perfectly, and was exactly the style I loved to wear. Almost as strange as finding two dresses unharmed in a room that had otherwise been destroyed. It must have been D then.
“Anyway, on a lighter note, I was thinking that maybe we should write down what clues we have already and see if we can make any sense out of them?” Lucas suggested eagerly, like a child on his birthday. “It’s like a mystery now, much better to deal with than trials.”
“I don’t think the fire was the end of it,” I muttered ominously, but sat down at the desk anyway.
Evelyn breezed in, looking much happier now, and perched delicately beside me with an expectant expression.
RDOU, Lucas wrote. Being dead and being lost isn’t always the same thing. Getting out doesn’t mean you’ve won. Master not alone in this. Penny’s power increasing.
Lucas finished the page off with a flourish, brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t get it. I wonder if we unscrambled the letters…dour? That’s a word, right? But it means gloomy and severe, I don’t see how that helps at all.”
“Can I add something to this?” I asked, hoping to not be questioned. Lucas handed me the pen, and I scribbled, If you want to actually succeed, go to the place where it all began
“Don’t ask. Just interpret,” I ordered.
“That’s easy,” Evelyn exclaimed, and we turned to her in alarm. “I mean, it’s the library, right? Where the books first disappeared, and we began to question Beatrix? That chain of events led to Penny pulling the lever, and here we are today.”
“She’s right,” Lucas acknowledged, winning a proud blush from Evelyn. “But the only problem is that the library doesn’t exist anymore. It burned down.”
“Books?” I suggested, trying to win my way back into the conversation. “Are any of those left?”
“A whole bucket load, actually,” he admitted. “Want me to bring them out?”
“No, I’d rather we sat here and contemplated life for a couple of years. What do you think, genius?”
Lucas flashed me an irritated look before sighing. “All right, all right. I’ll go grab them. Want to give me a hand, because there are literally tons of them!”
He wasn’t exaggerating. I had been expecting three or four books, certainly not the massive library of more than a dozen thick volumes he had somehow managed to keep hidden in the cove between his bed frame and floor, on everything from geography to fairy tales.
Seeing the information up close, I once again felt that familiar rush at the prospect of knowledge of the outside world, and feeling the wonderful worn leather covers under my hands…until they were stacked a mile high in my malnourished arms.
“Good grief!” I panted, and Lucas scooped a last 900-plus-paged book and plopped it onto my wobbling pile. “When did you get all of these? I was under the impression you only took a couple!”
“Well…” he started, slightly guilty. “I did take a couple. Then a couple more after that. But I was petrified one day Beatrix would claim it to be too dangerous and take them away – which, incidentally, she did – so I didn’t give any of them back. It isn’t technically stealing, I do live here!”
“Don’t apologize.” I laughed, straining to walk. “It might just save our lives!”
We plunked them down on Lucas’s desk, and then sat down to inspect our new pile of clues with thoughtful expressions.
“A Study of Sociiety,” Evelyn read, picking up a slender old book on top. “How odd, I never knew society was spelled with two Is, did you?”
“It isn’t,” Lucas uttered immediately, snapping the suspect book up and scanning the title, which sure enough was misspelled. “Another letter. It looks like somebody scratched it in there. Subtly hidden, but I’d have noticed that if it were there before. I suppose the hidden word isn’t ‘dour’, then! R-D-O-U-I.”
“Do we just read them, then?” Evelyn asked, pleased that she had spotted the abnormality.
Lucas affirmed that yes, it was necessary, and we quickly dived for the least intimidating and more interesting books.
I seized one about a dwelling in the outside called London with lots of illustrations showing magnificent buildings and a massive creek that looked much wider than was possible. Seeing the way it encircled part of the city, I wondered whether they had Boundaries too; it was probably more bearable if there were thousands of you, though.
“I wonder what it’s like,” I mused aloud, enraptured by the sketches of people – women in beautiful bonnets, men in splendid top hats, and merry children skipping down cobbled streets full of horses and carriages. “Outside, I mean. Where were we from? Who were our parents? When we get out, what will we do? Coming so close to freedom rather makes you wonder if you’re actually prepared, doesn’t it? What if there is nothing…what if the Boundary is the only world, and these books are about fantasy?”
“The only way to find out is to get out,” Lucas answered briskly. “No point in worrying. It’ll only scare you.”
“I’m not scared, I was only wondering!” I argued, but when no one answered, I glumly fell back into reading. I didn’t blame them, since thinking about all the possibilities gave me the chills.
So we settled into an easy rhythm, reading every page of as many books as we could, glad to have something to do for once which might have some significance. We left nothing unread, fearing to leave the vital clue undiscovered, although by nightfall my eyes were starting to ache and water.
“We need sleep,” I announced, slamming down a book on animals. “I simply cannot focus anymore.”
“Hear, hear!” Evelyn agreed tiredly, slumping in her chair. “I’m so hungry I can’t think, and now my eyes are betraying me. Goodnight, Lucas.”
“Night, girls.” He nodded, still buried in a thick textbook. “I’ll finish the last two hundred pages on this before turning in, I think.”
Lucas’s eyesight was already terrible due to such conditions, but in his mind, th
e end justified the means, and I couldn’t argue with him.
Evelyn and I slipped into the chilly room and pulled on our sooty nightgowns, gagging at the stench of smoke still deep within the fabric. Our makeshift beds were much less comfortable than what we were used to, and having never slept in a different room my entire life, it felt extremely odd.
I stared long and hard at the ceiling, first trying to unscramble the letters, then giving up and thinking about how much better the room would be with new wallpaper.
“Penny?” Evelyn called softly from over in her own pile of sheets. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” I affirmed with a yawn.
“Do you think Fred really is okay?” she asked hesitantly. “I can’t seem to stop thinking about it. I know I should be trying to help you and Lucas figure things out, but quite frankly, I don’t want a future without him. I’d rather things stay as they are with us all together.”
“I wonder if it would have been better too sometimes,” I admitted, suddenly feeling very selfish. We had lost Tressa, Avery, Fred, and Beatrix due to a quest started by me, and there was a possibility we’d lose more. Was it worth it? Probably not. Was I able to change the past? Nope. “But as for Fred, and the others, I think they’re fine. Honestly.”
Evelyn didn’t reply, but sighed contentedly.
Perhaps there was hope left after all.
24
The next morning we got dressed and went for breakfast with our hair uncombed and faces unwashed, nibbled at as much gruel as possible before nearly being sick. I found some old shoes near the kitchen and although too small for Evelyn and me, they would have to do. I gave Lucas back his boots. We returned to the boys’ chamber and resumed reading books until our heads began aching again.
“I swear,” Evelyn whined, planting her head down in the middle of two pages, “I shan’t last much longer. I’m so hungry I could faint, and my poor eyes are nearly falling out, and I must look a frightful mess – I haven’t bathed in days!”
“That makes three of us,” I sighed. “I’ve read most of these already in lessons, and to be honest I’m not absorbing it any more than I did then. My mind is slowly being eaten by my stomach.”
Boundary Page 21
