Between Floors

by W. R. Gingell

  “Yes,” said Zero. “Call me if you have another dream.”

  They left me there with two empty bowls and too many questions, while Between snapped and sang, then grew quiet. I huffed a sigh and turned off the crockpot, then washed up the dishes. Looked like I was being excluded from the investigation again. Nothing new there—you don’t take the pet along when you’re investigating the disappearance of your friend, do you?

  Mind you, most pets don’t have a phone and friends in the police force, so if I really wanted to know what was going on, was there anything stopping me? I mean, apart from Zero, if he caught me.

  Maybe I was safer trying to find Daniel. At least it was something I could do, instead of sitting around and waiting for an Athelas who wasn’t coming home, and couldn’t be helped by the pet. Supermarket tomorrow, then, I decided, sniffing a bit. There were still JinYeong’s blood snacks to make.

  Chapter Six

  I should have guessed I’d dream about Athelas again when I fell asleep that night. Should have guessed I’d find myself back in that hallway, after trudging down so many versions of the real thing. But somehow it was still a nasty shock to find myself there, chilled and stuck with no way forward and no way back.

  I tried walking the hallway again for a while, hoping not to have to go back to where I knew Athelas was waiting—hoping to find something that would be useful when I inevitably got there. Just like the first time, there was nothing there; no way of getting out of the hallway by going forward or back, and no way of getting any closer to the blueprint that was always just out of reach down the hall, the you are here sticker a sarcastic reminder of my inability to get myself out of this dream or this hall.

  Nor were there any sun or moon doors.

  “Fine,” I said, my voice a small, scared growl. “I’ll just go find Athelas again!”

  It took me about fifteen minutes after I said it, to actually push through the wall construct and do it, though. And when I did, and the moonlight room opened before me, dread pricked at my stomach.

  Ah heck. Around me was the same room, windowless and white, the same glimmers of moonlight dancing on the cold air—in the middle of the room, the same Athelas who had killed me, pierced through by that moonlight.

  Athelas turned his head languidly, and there were deep bruises beneath his eyes.

  “Welcome back,” he said. There was the smallest smile on his lips.

  I didn’t like it much, so I said, “You killed me.”

  “And yet, here you are back again! Strange, is it not?”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “You shouldn’t have come back,” he said, and the malice in his eyes made me shiver. He could hardly do more than turn his head and stare at me, but it was still horrible. “I’ll only kill you again.”

  Even though I knew it wasn’t really me he was talking to, it still made me shiver.

  “Didn’t have a choice,” I said shortly. “I went to sleep, and here I was again. It’s not like it’s any fun being killed by you, you know. And you don’t exactly have people lining up to help you, either.”

  Athelas laughed, and if his laughter had been frightening yesterday, today it was horrible. “Nonsense. I have you. What could be more fitting?”

  “Yeah, but you don’t think I’m me.”

  “Exactly so.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Does it not? Allow me to offer some advice, in that case: If you’re trying to convince a subject that they’re facing someone they know, you should really adjust their memories of the last time you tried to do so.”

  I looked up at him. “Yeah, I’ll remember that. You mean someone with my face tried this again before I got here today?”

  “If you prefer to express it thus,” murmured Athelas.

  “I flamin’ do!” I said in annoyance. “Oi. If I try to rescue you this time, are you going to kill me again?”

  “Of course,” he said. He sounded far more tired than I remembered him sounding last time. “Don’t think I won’t.”

  What the heck had they done to him while I was awake, to make him so grey and tired?

  “What happened?” I asked. I could feel warmth growing behind my eyes again, and blinked it away. This Athelas wasn’t exactly the Athelas I was used to; here and now, he would only mock me for tears. “What did they do to you?”

  “You were there,” Athelas said. “Don’t you remember? They gave you to me to kill.”

  “If you didn’t want to kill me, why do it?” I said exasperatedly. That was no reason for him to be as grey as ash, was it? He hadn’t hesitated when he killed me, so it couldn’t have meant too much to him. Even if he didn’t think I was me, there should have been some hesitation, shouldn’t there?

  “I’ve regretted not killing the pet as soon as I met her for some time now,” said Athelas. “No, don’t take another step toward me. I’ve already told you I’ll kill you. I don’t think the pet is quite as stupid as you’re playing her to be.”

  “I nearly rescued you yesterday,” I said. It was hard to make myself take another step toward him, because it seemed like I could still feel the bruising around my neck, even if it wasn’t visible to the mirror. “If you hadn’t killed me, you could have been—”

  “If you hadn’t been wearing that face, perhaps I wouldn’t have killed you,” said Athelas. “I’ve no love for the pet. I won’t be rescued by it, even if it’s just a ploy—even if there’s no one else to rescue me.”

  “There’s Zero,” I said, ignoring the hurt his words caused. “I told you, he’s coming for you. He’s just gotta figure out where you are, so if you can start being helpful and tell us where you actually are—”

  “An interesting tactic,” murmured Athelas. “Having seen I’m perfectly willing to slaughter the pet, you’re now proffering false hopes?”

  “They won’t be false if you stop waffling and tell me where you are!” I snapped, a bit more tartly than I meant to. “We already went to the station to try and find you—me and JinYeong, and you weren’t there. Just don’t tell Zero, ’cos he doesn’t know I was there.”

  A smile passed over Athelas’ face. “Goodness me. You almost sounded as if you could be the pet.”

  “It’s because I am,” I muttered; but I muttered it to myself. Athelas obviously couldn’t understand. How the heck was I supposed to convince him I was actually the pet?

  I took one more step toward him, but I felt sick. I really didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to go over there and try to free him when I knew exactly what he’d do as soon as he got the chance.

  “Dear me,” said Athelas. His voice was only a thread, but it was a mocking thread. “Don’t tell me that you’re hesitating? That’s really not very Pet-like of you.”

  I pointed at him. “You killed me last time. Of course I’m going to hesitate. If you’re bored, you could try talking.”

  “How novel.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m a bad interrogator or whatever. If you don’t think I’m the pet, at least tell me something you expect them to know, whoever they are.”

  “They?” murmured Athelas. “Very well. As for them, I’m not entirely sure myself who they are. I can see their footprints through Behind and Between, and I saw their influence at the Waystation. If I was to guess, I would say they’re a very well put-together rebellion.”

  “Rebellion against what?”

  “The Family, one presumes. A bit more of a bloody rebellion than Zero’s, too, if one considers the retaliation when the Family found out about the Waystation. It’s not me that any of you should fear—it’s the Family.”

  “What’s it got to do with me, then?”

  Athelas’ eyes flickered away, and he sighed. “Why should it have anything to do with you? You’re merely a pet. You’re kept to give some measure of pleasantness around the house.”

  I frowned. “I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s why Zero keeps me around, and I don’t think that’s what you t
hink, either.”

  “Think as you please. A pet is a pet. What else can it be?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure there’s something else. You lot wouldn’t keep me around if I wasn’t some use.”

  “That’s very jaded of you, Pet. So. Very. Unlike you.”

  “Don’t tell me what’s unlike me,” I told him. “You’re just a fae. You don’t know about humans. You don’t know about me, either.”

  A faint smile passed over his face. “Are you ready to give up?”

  “Nope,” I said. “But while you’re being so talkative, you might as well tell me why you lot decided to keep me. Zero wouldn’t have kept me if you didn’t suggest it first.”

  “Aren’t you underrating yourself? There are many cases of fae seeking temporary comfort in the arms of humans, after all.”

  I stared at him. “That’s rubbish! It’s nothing like that with Zero.”

  “Is it not? Perhaps you’ll have to make up your own theory, in that case.”

  “You know what the really annoying thing is?” I asked him. “It’s that even if you did think it was me, you couldn’t be more flamin’ hard to understand! What kind of twisty people did you grow up with, anyway?”

  “The fae,” he said. “What else do you expect? Well, Pet?”

  “So you’re still gunna call me Pet?”

  “Merely for the sake of ease,” he said. “And as I assume the real Pet is dead, I might as well call you by that name as any other. It will be a reminder to me in future to take care of vermin instead of allowing such to live.”

  I glared at him, and that made it a bit easier to take the last few steps toward the base of the solid moonlight that pierced him. “You’re just full of nice things to say today, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, are we beginning again?” asked Athelas. “I don’t think it’s very wise of you.”

  “Haven’t decided yet,” I told him.

  “It’s of no use—I won’t allow you to rescue me.”

  “Fine, give me proper answers when I ask you questions, then!” I said, in exasperation.

  Athelas laughed. “Even less finesse! Why should I answer those questions? You don’t listen to the answers.”

  “All right,” I said. “If I can’t rescue you, and you won’t answer those questions about me, you can flamin’ answer some other ones.”

  “Can I?”

  “Yeah. I want to know if walls are really walls.”

  “This is certainly very pet-like. Perhaps you could expand on what you mean.”

  “Well, when I’m in the human world, things mostly look like they should to humans. Sometimes I can see stuff that looks different, but mostly it’s human. When I’m Between, there’s a lot more that looks different, and when I’m Behind, it’s all different again. Which one is the truth? ’Cos if it’s just the way you look at stuff, one of ’em has to be the truth, doesn’t it? I mean, is the freezer aisle in the grocery store actually the freezer aisle, or is it a hallway in an ice castle?”

  “It is both.”

  “Yeah,” I argued, “but if it depends on the way I see things, doesn’t that mean the way I see things changes them?”

  “No,” said Athelas. “That’s something different again. That is something that gets humans killed. Your only talent is sometimes seeing things as they are on a different plane. You don’t change them, and your sight only affects yourself—your own perceptions.”

  I thought about that for some time longer before I said, slowly, “I don’t think so.”

  Athelas looked away. “Do you not? I wonder why you asked me, then.”

  “I mean, I mostly think that’s right, but sometimes I change stuff. It’s not just how I see it. I sort of tell it to change and it does.”

  “Humans can’t force things to reveal their Between and Behind appearance,” said Athelas, his eyes flicking back over to me. “Nor can they force a thing to be something it was never meant to be on any plane. If you could do that sort of thing, you would be a very different pet indeed.”

  That was weird. He knew—oh yeah. Athelas was treating me as though I was someone pretending to be Pet, and not Pet. So that meant whoever he thought I was didn’t know about the things I could do.

  More importantly, it meant that Athelas was trying very hard to make sure that whoever he thought I was remained ignorant of my abilities. What was so important about me being able to make things reveal their other, Between selves?

  “Hang on,” I said, remembering what else he’d said. “You mean there are some people—some Behindkind—who can make a thing be a different thing? Something that isn’t normally Between or Behind?”

  “Do you think that playing ignorance will make me believe that you’re actually the Pet?”

  “Sorta,” I said. It wasn’t so much that I thought ignorance would convince him—it was more that I’d hoped he would be able to tell that I was me.

  How was I supposed to convince him that I was me when he was certain I was dead?

  I circled him warily a few times before it sank in that there was no way to convince him. I would just have to free him again as best I could and hope I could persuade him not to kill me again. It’s not like I was actually gunna die, after all.

  “What are you crying about now?” asked Athelas wearily. “Stop it.”

  “I’m not crying,” I said. “I’m snivelling. There’s a difference.”

  “Is there?”

  “Yeah. You wouldn’t understand. You’re just Behindkind.”

  There was a small hiss of laughter—or maybe it was pain—from Athelas. “Perhaps not,” he said. “But I understand that you’re stalling, for what that’s worth.”

  “Trying to figure out a way to get you free without you being able to kill me.”

  “There isn’t one,” said Athelas.

  “I’ll make sure I release your hands last this time, anyway,” I said. That way, he wouldn’t be able to use them to strangle me.

  “Do you really think that will help?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “But it’s better than being killed.”

  “Shall I tell you a secret?”

  “That’d be something new,” I said suspiciously.

  “I’ve been alone for two days since I killed you—do you really think I don’t have a weapon by now?”

  “If you’ve been alone, where did the weapon come from?” I pointed out. At the same time, it was Athelas. More suspiciously still, I asked, “What weapon?”

  A brief smile came over Athelas’ lips, and left them oddly rigid. “A knife.”

  “Okay, so you got a knife from somewhere, even though no one has visited you, and you managed to get one that isn’t steel?”

  “You seem unconvinced. Never mind. I’ll show it to you later.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’ve already got one. Oi.”

  “Yes, P—yes?”

  “What’s the point of all this?”

  “The point of what?”

  “You, in this room. You said torture before. How come I’m torture?”

  Athelas looked at me through his lashes. “I misspoke,” he said. “You are a form of information gathering. The moonlight could more rightly be called torture—the entire affair smacks of mismanagement.”

  “Are you really gunna hang there and critique the blokes who’re torturing you? What if they decide to do something worse?”

  “There’s nothing worse they can do to me,” said Athelas. “I already know their limits. You should tell them to release me now, while there’s still a chance for them to die quickly.”

  “Pretty sure that wouldn’t make anyone let you go,” I said, but I still felt chilled.

  “Very well,” said Athelas, and there was a dreadful edge of ice to his voice when he said, “I shall enjoy tearing you each apart, piece by piece, slowly.”

  “You never get any less creepy,” I said, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. I started working away at the moonlight again. “Don�
�t kill me this time.”

  “I’ve already told you—”

  “I know,” I said. “But just don’t.”

  If Athelas yesterday had been able to withstand all but the roughest of my ministrations, today each touch of moonlight drew a gasp from him, and when I got to the middle ones that needed a firm pinch to convince them to disintegrate instead of the feather-touch the outer ones needed, he actually groaned.

  I couldn’t help it; I stopped.

  “Maybe I can get Zero,” I said, more to myself than him. There were tears streaming down my cheeks now. I didn’t try to stop them because I knew I couldn’t; and because I knew Athelas would only sneer at me for that, too.

  “Very good,” gasped Athelas. “Do try. I look forward to seeing if this place is able to make any reasonable facsimile of my lord.”

  I was pretty sure I didn’t understand what he’d said, but I hazarded, “You mean you don’t think he can get in?”

  “How cleverly you misunderstand.”

  “What the heck is wrong with you?” I demanded. I was heart-sick and shivering, and it shouldn’t have made me lash out at him, but I didn’t seem to be able to help myself. “You’re strung up on moonlight, hidden away in a little room, and I’m trying to help you!”

  “Are you really? I’m quite certain you’re trying to help yourself, but that’s a matter of perspective, I suppose.”

  “Zero’s been looking for you for the last two days,” I said. I didn’t mean to sound accusing, either, but it came out that way. “He’s been really worried.”

  “My lord is always worried,” said Athelas. “But considering he moved heaven and earth to separate himself from me, I’m not entirely certain why you think he’ll be looking for me.”

  I stared at him. “What are you talking about? We’ve all been living together for the last couple months; of course he’s worried about you!”

  For the first time, his eyes really focused on me, and I felt that he saw me, the Pet, and not a person-wearing-Pet’s-face.