“My brother.” Demitra sighed, glancing around at the frozen scene warily. “He was the one who monitored the contraption in the attic, so we knew when to begin the tests. We got mad that Madon let you start it early, you see, and he got mad that we started cheating by talking to you all. Very blatant favoritism, you see.”
“But…but…why favor me? And why let Avery know what to do in the arena?”
“You have power. You’re more useful outside of the Boundary than in it. My brother, Deio, doesn’t see that way, and thought that somebody ruthless would be better…”
“So he arranged it so that the person willing to abandon all morals and fight for their own gain would get a ticket to the end?” I finished for her, puzzle pieces falling into place.
“Exactly.” Demitra nodded with a touch of impatience. Pausing time was obviously very exhausting. “Anyway, you didn’t make it easy for me.”
“Maybe if you’d appeared like this, rather than as a monster, I’d have listened.”
“Fear factor, sweetheart,” Demitra retorted mockingly. It was funny – she looked so young. Almost exactly my age. “An excellent tool when manipulating people to do what you want.”
“But why—”
“No time,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “Just get out of here and answer all your questions yourself. Nobody but you can decide what happens now.”
My mouth opened, but Demitra simply turned into the Boundary and vanished.
Just as promised, there was a shudder and everything began to move again.
I tried to ignore what had just happened, knowing it would consume my mind if I let it. Instead, I tore across what little space was left towards the door where Avery was standing, animate again.
Then I wrenched open the tiny arched door and shot up the narrow staircase before anything else could happen.
Avery shouted something at me, but I didn’t listen. A minute ago, I had been facing death. Now I was sure to win.
The landing…I let my palms run over the wall to try and find the hidden door, light all gone again, hoping that it would be unlocked, or else we were all done for.
Avery answered that question for me, ramming into the wall with his full body and stumbling over the threshold when it opened easily.
The attic was mostly dust, filled with the red light, and nothing like what it had been the first time. Here, I had started the trials and contacted D for the first time. I shuddered.
The contraption was there, but on a much smaller and less showy scale. Two interlocked rings about the diameter of dinner plates, glowing with an odd energy. And of course, that antique lever which called us to pull it and become victor.
I had expected it to be a race between Avery and I, but there was one problem.
Evelyn was already standing there, face white as a sheet and hands clasped over the handle, prepared to pull it.
“Evelyn?” Avery and I gasped in sync. “I…we…you…”
“Shocking, isn’t it,” she choked, body shaking, “that poor, distraught little Evelyn could actually defy her heart to beat you all? No one thought I could do it, not you two or Tressa, the Master or D, they all cast me off straight away. Only Fred believed in me.”
“Not true!” I contradicted, swallowing down a rising panic. “I never wrote you off! We just thought that being here with Fred was what you wanted!”
Evelyn laughed quietly, sounding not at all bitter or twisted like D, but genuinely upset. “I thought so too, but this is what he wants for me, and I know…I know that if I stay on his account he’ll never stop blaming himself, regardless of whether it was my choice or not. I know I’d feel the same way if it was reversed. I’ve been here for ages, contemplating…”
I had to tread carefully. She had the lever in her hand, the slightest slip up and she’d win, we’d lose.
“Don’t do this, Evelyn. Don’t make yourself unhappy; you know what you and I want…and we can have it! I can go, you can stay with Fred,” I coaxed, steadily taking a step forwards whilst Avery stood silently to the side, formulating his own plan.
“No,” she whispered, torn. “You don’t understand, it would destroy Fred if he thought for a second—”
“Forget Fred,” I interrupted. “What do you want? Really?”
She stood there, tears pouring down her cheeks, but did not step away from the lever.
“To be thrust into an unknown world alone?” I pressed, coming a few steps closer with each word. We didn’t have much time before everything caved in, I could feel it in the shaking floor, but I had to tread slowly. “To never see him again? You’d never get it back, and you don’t know what ordeals could be waiting out there. I have no one to stay for, not like you do. This isn’t your dream, it isn’t your future.”
She bit her lip, puffy eyes not straying from the circles but grip slacking.
I softly put one hand on her shoulder, and the other reached out to take the lever.
Avery jumped in from the side, elbowing me out of the way and snatching at the lever too.
Evelyn jumped and before anyone could process what was going on, she gave it a hefty pull.
Evelyn disappeared. I screamed. Avery shouted.
Then there was an almighty rip, and the ceiling came down on us in a wave of static and rubble.
30
Tressa was shaking me awake, but I was simply too tired. I rolled over to shrug her off, pulling the duvet tighter around my shoulders and burying my face into the pillows.
“Get up, Penny. Wake up. Don’t make me dump water on you.”
“I’m tired,” I mumbled groggily. “Go away.”
“Though your minor issues do concern me, we have much more to discuss. Get up.”
I tried to fall back into a dream that I had been having, but it was no use; I had been well and truly awakened. There was something playing on my mind, something important that I must have forgotten…
“Oh my gosh!” I yelped, jumping up and out of bed in a terrible fright.
I was in the girls’ chamber, which I had seen destroyed by the Boundary and turned to ashes.
Everything was back in order, from the pots on my vanity to the delicate lace curtains hanging from the windows, which exposed a beautiful sunny day outside. When I caught my reflection in a pristine mirror, I noticed that my skin seemed fuller, my hair brighter, and my eyes less sunken as if that one short sleep had healed everything.
Tressa was standing off to the side, dressed in a brand new gown. Her face seemed less gaunt too, but there was still something very drawn in her expression.
“What…how…?” I gasped, swaying on my feet.
“You lost,” she answered simply, reaching into the cupboard and throwing a simple cream day dress at me. “Evelyn’s gone to who-knows-where, and everything has gone back to normal for the rest of us.”
“No, no, that’s not possible!” I panicked, letting the dress fall to the floor. “I was supposed to…not her…this can’t be happening…”
I pattered over to the window and threw open the shutters, letting a warm breeze blow through the room and bathe everything in a bright, sleepy morning light. Tressa watched with an unreadable nonchalance as I poked my head right out and leaned until I was nearly falling.
The grass was emerald again, sprawling until it met the vibrant forests, which were budding with a mixture of evergreen and blossoms, as alive as I had ever seen them. Even the bricks had lightened to a soft beige, and the rhododendrons were full of multicolor flowers at the foot.
“How long have I been asleep?” I frowned, trying and failing to keep my voice steady.
“I don’t know, I just woke up a few minutes ago. You weren’t here when I fell asleep.” Tressa shrugged.
“This is the mirror world?”
“Oh, Avery, always making ordinary things seem so wonderful. This is where we have been whilst you lot battled it out, and it’s basically just a replica of the original. At first, we could see what was going on wi
th you too, as if the worlds overlapped, but slowly yours faded away as if it were dying. It’s gone completely now.”
I nodded numbly.
Evelyn was gone to the wonderful world outside of the Boundary, and I would be stuck here. Forever.
“Penny! Come back!”
I was gone, pushing past Tressa and tearing down the corridor. I was beyond feeling, I was beyond reason. I was beyond fear.
Everything was perfect, better than I remembered, but it was off somehow. Everything that had been destroyed was flawless, everything seemed lighter and happier.
Barefoot and in my nightgown, I stormed down the staircase, down through the entrance hall, which had been in a state of disrepair what seemed like only minutes before, now glistening in full glory.
Out in the gardens, I stopped for a moment to take a deep breath, immediately shocked by how fresh and pure the air seemed now that all the smoke was gone. The clouds had left only sapphire skies and sunshine in their absence, and the heavens seemed to go on forever. It felt quite exposing, yet the gentle wind caressed with such tenderness that it was near impossible to feel anything but relaxed.
This isn’t real. That was what Avery had said. Now I knew exactly what he had meant, and I could not agree more.
My feet did the thinking for me, carrying me across the lush grass to the woods, until I decided on impulse to alter my course just slightly.
There, over in the shadier part of the estate, was a small grey blur. It was so faded that it was quite difficult to tell what it was, though after a quick wracking of memory I realized that it was Beatrix’s grave. The only part of the old world which was still visible in this one – there was not supposed to be darkness here, no reminders of before, yet even in death Beatrix had managed to cheat the overlords to remain for us as a constant memory of who our enemies were, and what they had done.
I bowed my head slightly in her direction, feeling a slight surge of anger and sadness at her loss once again.
Then I continued into the woods, batting branches out of my way and letting the mounting dread stay under control until I could just check…then I nearly ran into the Boundary. It was not buzzing with that strange static we had gotten used to, and for one ecstatic moment, I thought that it had gone entirely.
Just to make sure, I yanked a healthier-than-life leaf on a twig from a nearby tree, then chucked it at the Boundary with a nervous flinch. It did not disintegrate; it did not go through…it simply bounced off without creating so much as a shudder.
Tentatively, I pushed my palm flat on the invisible wall, half expecting the shock of my life, but instead all I felt was a temperature-free surface as smooth as granite and lifeless as dirt. Rock solid, unmoving, eternal. It was official. I was stuck here in this plastic paradise forever.
“D!” I shouted with terror masked underneath a rising fury. “Demitra, whoever you are!”
My breath came hard and heavy, until I couldn’t contain it anymore. I lashed out at the wall with my fists, only succeeding in bruising them (my shoulder had miraculously healed). I clenched them in pain and with a little scream of frustration tried to rip a large rock from the ground, but I could not do it. Panicking, on the edge of hysteria, I tried to levitate a tiny pebble from the soil, but found nothing. I couldn’t even see the blurry edges that allowed me to attempt a rip.
“No!” I cried in despair, tear flowing freely now, knees giving out from underneath me. “No!” Footsteps echoed behind me, but my body was so overcome with the shuddering sobs and boundless fear that I couldn’t look up until someone placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and helped me to my feet. It was Fred, Tressa and Avery.
“It’s going to be okay,” Fred smiled comfortingly, giving my hand an encouraging squeeze. Underneath it though, I saw something else in his expression. Something beyond sadness, something like what Evelyn had worn after she thought she had lost him.
“Fred…” I choked, feeling selfish yet not fully able to reveal my emotions. “I’m so sorry…”
“She’s free.” He shrugged, clearly struggling to remain composed. “I didn’t actually expect her to…you know…get out, but I didn’t want her to stay on my account either. Ironically, now I feel terrible because she’s all alone out there and I won’t ever be able to help her or see if she’s okay. I don’t think there ever was an easy solution.”
“Evelyn,” Avery muttered bitterly. “Plot twist right there. Never saw that one coming.”
“But it came,” Tressa reminded him firmly, flicking Fred a sympathetic glance as he turned away. “So I suppose we’ll have to just accept that this is our future.”
“I can’t accept it,” I said at exactly the same time as Fred and Avery.
“You don’t understand,” Fred blurted, whirling around to face us with a single tear coursing down his face. “I doubted her, which is why I let her try for winning in the first place, because I didn’t actually think she’d succeed! It was my own confidence in her inability that led her to win, and really I should have just…I don’t know if I’m guilty for sentencing her to a dangerous life or guilty for wanting her back in this prison when outside is probably much better…”
Avery said something rude under his breath, but luckily for him no one heard enough to react.
I was simply too numb with shock to do anything but stare past the Boundary into a world I would now never touch. Because I knew that I could have let everyone out, but Evelyn never could. If I had told them that, would they had trusted me enough to let me win on those grounds? How else could this game have been played so that it wouldn’t have ended this way?
“By the way, did you lot ever figure out what those letters we sent spelled?” Tressa interrupted the pensive silence. “Sorry for the jumble, but it took way too much effort to do it all at once, and D said that if we made it too obvious the Master would take them away.”
I shook my head just as Lucas nodded.
“‘War outside,’” he quoted glumly.
I felt something in my stomach drop.
“What?” Fred yelped, stumbling into the Boundary and falling onto his back. “War? Outside? Where Evelyn is? What…how…?”
“D told us,” Avery explained, corners of his mouth curling into a smirk at Fred’s distress. “No idea what it meant, but there you go.”
Again with D!
Fred ran off behind a tree and was promptly sick.
“It was supposed to be you, Penny,” Lucas whispered from behind me.
His voice was uneven and forced, just as everyone else’s seemed to be. The finality hadn’t sunk in yet, and I hated to think of my sanity when it did.
“But it wasn’t,” I hissed softly, jaw clenched and rocking on the balls of my feet. “I messed up somehow, and now we’re here forever and Evelyn is alone in the middle of some war.”
Abruptly, I spun on my heels and tore from the forest again, letting tears blur my vision and anger fuel my speed. In what seemed like a matter of seconds, I was at the foot of the manor again, hair wild from running and face flushed with emotion.
The sun glinted off the stone walls, painting them golden, filling them with warmth. And there, blipping in and out of focus, was Demitra and a boy I took to be her brother. She was staring at the manor and screaming so loud it was silent, and he had a look of incalculable rage on his face.
“Penny,” she snapped, turning around. Flickering so fast it was dizzying. “How could…now I can’t…you’ve done!”
Her mouth was moving, but words came out intermittently.
“War outside?” I shouted back, bubbling with loathing. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“The year…1939…” The brother, Deio told me, remarkably calm in comparison. “World…Two.”
“What?” I took a step back, stunned.
“…You!” Demitra snarled, probably cursing. “The war was…discourage the others…wanting to get out…chance for you!”
The flickering was faster, more violent, and I was s
o transfixed that I didn’t notice the others gather around me in surprise.
As if noticing her predicament for the first time, she gaped at her hand with a look of utter horror. Then with one final scream, this one very much audible, they both vanished.
Avery shook his head in disbelief. “After all that, they were just a couple of teenagers.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Fred muttered.
“A world war?” Lucas shuddered. “In a place nearly a century advanced from us… Poor Evelyn. I didn’t tell her, when I found out, since I didn’t understand… Oh lord, I’ve been an idiot.”
“We all have,” Tressa admitted in a small voice. “Some more than others.”
Avery didn’t shirk or apologize, but gazed at the spot where D had vanished with an odd expression. “Maybe the war really was only a way to discourage weaker people from winning. Like the arena.”
“Only Evelyn knows now.”
I just stood there, shaking, until long after my friends had all dispersed. D was gone, and Madon had got His way, presumably making him the sole Master of the Boundary again. There was only one thing to do now. I wandered to the foot of the manor, a shadowy area where the accursed bushes were once again thriving.
I plucked a blood red rhododendron from its stem, then lifted it slowly to the sky.
“You don’t own us,” I spat to the controllers, who I knew were watching from wherever they were. “You think this is over now you’ve sent Evelyn off to a warzone and left us to die here? It’s never over, you hear? Never!”
My voice rose to a high pitch, echoing off the walls. A dark cloud was appearing from over the northern woods, a reminder of who was in charge and what they were capable of, but there was clear sky left still.
“Like you said,” I added darkly. “The rhododendrons weren’t here for no reason. They mean ‘beware’. Only this time, it’s aimed at you, because I’m not giving up. Ever.”
I thought I saw a figure staring at me with hollow eyes from over by the blurred grave, but when I blinked it was gone.
I dropped the flower, empty and exhausted.
Then I cast one last look at the forest before wandering back to see where my friends were, and decide what we would do next.
Boundary Page 27
