Another Jekyll, Another Hyde
Page 20
He walked out of the alley and onto a bigger street, then onto an even bigger one with more traffic. He passed two men in suits coming home from work. Then a tired mother fumbling for her keys. Suddenly, it became painfully clear where he was.
He was standing right outside the Faust children’s apartment.
“Yes, I’d like to leave an anonymous tip, please,” said Thomas as he held the sleeve of his jacket over the mouthpiece of a well-hidden lobby phone in a random youth hostel in Midtown. This was probably far enough from the scene to ensure that he didn’t get caught. It had been hard to find a public phone away from his usual hangouts, in a place with no passersby or attendants or video cameras. He had searched for more than an hour, thinking how hard it must have been for his dad when he was young and had to use these things every day.
“Name, please?” a nasal voice droned.
“Anonymous,” Thomas snapped. Everything was so clear now. Edward would have used a place where he was a regular visitor — a place that belonged to him and his mother. A real Upper East Side prison. Thomas had seen enough mentions of dungeons in his journal to realize that it was the most likely place for Edward to use.
“How can I help you?” said the police station operator.
“I have a tip for Detective Mancuso. Please tell him that the missing girl Marla Harker is being held at this address.” He paused, then added, “Actually, tell him there are three missing kids there. Tell him to dig around all the rooms. They’re probably separated from one another, but there are definitely three.”
He mumbled the address and quickly hung up, lowering his face as he left the hostel and rushed back home. If Marla was still alive, he probably had only a few hours to prepare before he would be dragged to prison for life. Still, despite the fact that he had almost gotten away with everything, despite having defeated Edward and escaped blame, he didn’t regret his decision to risk it all again. It was well worth it.
Thomas waited at home all night. He sat by his bed, his bags packed, looking at his sneakers and waiting for the officers to break in. Once in a while he turned on the TV to see if there was any news of Marla. He didn’t dare call her house.
Packing had been an easy enough task. What could he take to jail? In the end, he grabbed only a book, thinking that it, too, would be taken away from him, but at least he could read during the long bouts of waiting while they booked him. He looked around his room and thought about how many expensive things he owned that he would never miss.
He wondered if he should say good-bye to his father.
Probably the cops would let him do that. And he would likely see his dad during the arraignment and trial. The whole thing would take a few months at least. . . .
There was a sharp knock on his door.
Thomas jumped, then clutched his chest and tried to breathe. He would have to learn to control these reactions or he would be eaten alive in jail.
“Come in,” he said.
His father opened the door, face flushed, suit disheveled, and mumbled, “Hi, Son.”
Thomas stood up and pulled his sack over his shoulder. “Don’t say anything, Dad,” he said, trying to hold back the tears. “I’m ready to go.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Then his father said, “Where the hell are you going? I really can’t deal with this now, Thomas.”
Thomas opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then started to explain, when his father cut in. “Look, Son, I just wanted to tell you that they found your classmate Marla Harker. She’s safe at home, so you can stop worrying. But I can’t stay long because they need me at the lawyer’s office. Apparently Nicola and I are involved now.”
“Involved in what?” Thomas whispered through an almost-closed throat.
“We own some property that was used somehow. . . . Look, I have to run. I’m drowning in the fallout from this mess. But, please, don’t pull some teenage runaway stunt tonight, OK? This family has been through enough. And things are not good with Nicola. Just sit tight until I get back.”
His father glanced around Thomas’s room, then looked his son in the face again, waiting for an answer. Thomas just nodded and forced a smile.
“Good,” Mr. Goodman-Brown said, and began to hurry out.
“Dad, wait!” Thomas blurted.
Mr. Goodman-Brown stopped. “What is it?” he said, a little sharply.
“Is that all?” said Thomas, rubbing the back of his neck. It felt hot and wet. “I mean . . . did Marla say what happened?”
His father looked past Thomas and shook his head sadly. “Well, I suppose I should tell you so you know what to expect.”
Thomas held his breath.
“Your friend Marla,” said his father, “well, she was so drugged up, she could barely remember her own name. Nothing she says makes any sense. She probably won’t be back at school for a while. And when she is, you and your friends should take it easy on her . . . with the questions and the gossip, I mean.”
“What do you mean?” said Thomas, sitting down on his bed again.
“Apparently the first thing she did once she got home was to throw out all that goth stuff. She’s probably just eager to start fresh, like all of us. . . . Oh, and you won’t believe this, but they found some other kids, too. Bizarre.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow. “So no sign of the kidnapper, then?”
Mr. Goodman-Brown cleared his throat. “Look, Thomas, just one other thing. You won’t be seeing your stepbrother, Edward, anymore. He’s trouble, and you’re never to mention him to anyone, OK?”
She stands in front of the mirror, touching her face, running her fingers across her many bottles and powders. It is happening at a frightful speed. She watches as the decades, the centuries, and the millennia appear and disappear in the mirror like flashes in a cauldron. Her heart quickens, then dies down again like a spent motor.
She is dying.
Today is her last day, because Edward, her immortal soul, is gone.
Her face is changing by the half hour, slow enough that she can mourn, but still far too fast. It is a punishment, a slow torture, watching herself deteriorate and waste away. She remembers her days as a girl in Egypt, millennia ago, when she was human and had the mundane dreams of small children.
Deep in thought, she almost misses the last of the beautiful blond governess. Within minutes, that face is gone and she is only the mousy nurse. How strangely similar they are. What separated the two but a few lines on her face, a few inches of height, a deeper tan here, a darker color there.
Now even the plain-faced nurse is gone. Now she sees another face emerging. The face of pure hatred and malice that lies beneath it all. The old hag. The nanny with the hunched back and the winding and deep caverns chiseled in her face. There is no point anymore in taking inventory. All the life she had built and stored up in jars and pills and potions is gone.
She is so very ugly now. She rests her face on the table and takes two shallow breaths, letting the moths hover over her lifeless head with its tangle of gray matted hair, like a nest of snakes, long dead in a pit.
Soon there is nothing left but a lingering murk. A dark cloud of half-formed insects, dust, sickness, and death. The shape of the woman begins to dissipate, wafting toward the window.
And finally, finally, the blue and branded eye flickers, then fades into nothing.
After cross-referencing the primary texts from the Egyptian scrolls (including secondary evidence from the Book of Gates), eastern European fables about the “one-eyed witch,” and historical accounts in England (regarding both the demoness and her son), we can conclude that the demon Vileroy was one of the longest-lived demons. In total she may have captured thousands of unsuspecting souls. The ripples she produced undoubtedly ruined millions. She was a Legion on her own and might have corrupted so many more had she not let her life source be depleted, had she not underestimated the strength of humans. That was her weakness. . . .
As I have tried to establish in this thesis on de
monology, our decisions follow us into the afterlife, and even there, the angels and demons have their own to make. Nicola Vileroy nearly accomplished immortality, but she fell just short and was forever destroyed.
It is fitting, then, to end with a quote from a mythic text, the Book of Legion, regarding demon eulogies: “We will not honor them for their conquests when they are gone, and we will not strain to remember their accomplishments, because that is not the work we do.”
— from Demon Histories, by Jamie West (born Christian Faust), Professor of Humanities
DANIEL NAYERI is the co-author of all three books in the Another series and the author of Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow: Four Novellas.
His sister, DINA NAYERI, is the co-author of the Another series. Both were born in Iran and now live in New York City and Amsterdam, respectively.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 by Daniel Nayeri and Dina Nayeri
Cover photopraph copyright © 2012 by Francois Marclay/Getty Images (face)
The authors respectfully credit the original 1886 novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson as reference and inspiration for this story.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
ISBN 978-0-7636-5261-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7636-5623-2 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com