The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  “Why aye,” I said. “He was ganna teach me the tricks.”

  He studied me a moment, the faintest line between his brows. “But Hayli,” he said, with a tiny smile, “you can fly.”

  I glanced away, blood and confusion warming my cheeks. I never imagined anyone would admire my gift, if I ever told anyone about it. But the way Shade said, you can fly, with that wistful note in it…it turned my world topsy.

  “You ever wanted to fly?” I asked, kicking at the ground.

  He laughed, a strange and strained kind of laugh, and turned away with his hands behind his head. “Ah,” he said. “Interesting question. Yes, and…no. Not anymore.” He glanced at me and said softly, “Doesn’t mean I don’t envy your gift though.”

  I took off my hat and ran a hand over my head, suddenly embarrassed. And the way Shade smiled when I stood there with the cold wind tearing my hair in a million directions, like he knew something I didn’t… I shivered and shoved my cap back on, and turned on my heel.

  “C’mon,” I said. “I’m supposed to get you a bed.”

  But he didn’t move right off. He held his hands open at his sides and tossed his head back again, like a wild thing breathing moonlight and drinking the dark.

  “I haven’t seen the moon…” he whispered, and laughed softly. “God, it’s been so long since I’ve seen the moon.”

  I glanced up at the bright disk sneaking behind tufts of fog, scattering little streams of light down when the clouds weren’t looking. Somehow I understood his rapture. The night was cold, so cold, but the silver moon and the silver wind caught my breath away.

  “The moon is singing,” he whispered, eyes widening.

  And suddenly he jerked his head forward, clasping it in both hands like a vice, his face all torn with pain.

  “Shade? Everything jake?”

  “My head. It just…” His voice died off, and he straightened and fixed me with a quiet look. “It’s nothing.”

  I waited and watched him, but he just waited and watched me, until finally I shrugged and turned away. “If you say so,” I said. “Come on. I’m frozen.”

  Down in the barracks I helped him hunt for an open cot. I sent him to find one pretty well clear of Jig’s, because even with their truce, I imagined they still weren’t apt to be too friendly right off.

  “Who gets the bunks with the curtains?” Shade asked, staring right at my cot.

  “We do,” I said. “The girls. Boys dan’ need that. They’re to keep you lot from pestering us.”

  “Oh.” The faintest little blush crept over his cheeks. “Right.”

  Seeing him so red about it tickled me a bit, because I couldn’t imagine any of the other lads blushing up like that. They’d be idiots about it and make smart comments, and in general prove why we had the curtains in the first place. Shade was something else. I didn’t know what yet, but he had me curious.

  “Here. This one is good,” I said, and pointed Shade back toward one of the empty beds.

  It stood close to one of the radiators, next to Coins’s spot and fairly near Anuk’s. Those three seemed to get on all right. Shade didn’t comment, just nodded and sat down on the edge of the mattress, hands clasped between his knees and head bent. I left him sitting there to scrounge up a blanket for him in the storeroom, and by the time I got back with the warmest one I could find, he’d only moved enough to lean against the wall with his knees drawn up.

  I tossed him the blanket. “Should be a box under your bed,” I said. “For your clothes and things. If you have…y’know, extras.”

  He leaned over and peered under the mattress. “Yeah, I see it. Thanks.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Well, good night, Shade.”

  He nodded, fingering the edge of the blanket, looking a mite lost.

  “Oh right. There’s a trough up in the enclosure where you can have a wash-up if you like. I forgot to get you a towel. Everybody gets their own.”

  I ran back to the storeroom and hunted down a towel, and nearly walked into Coins on my way back out.

  “Hayli,” he said, grinning and pulling me into an enthusiastic side hug. “You wouldn’t believe what that kid did.”

  “How’d he get the supplier’s name?” I asked as we walked. “Thought Derrin gave him that job because it was pretty much impossible.”

  “It should have been, right? But he walked straight up to Vanek Meed’s door and waltzed in and waltzed out again with Alby Durb’s name.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Oh, stars! What didn’t he do! That’s more the question. Cloaking, fine. Masking…fine. A mite creepy, but fine. But y’know what got me? He just moved everyone around up there like he owned them. ‘No, no, you can’t come in!’” he said, mimicking a pretentious butler, then, tossing his head like Shade, “‘But I’m already inside, so go fetch Vanek Meed.’”

  He went on a bit, acting out the whole scene, till I was astounded and laughing and feeling a bit peculiar about it all. By the time we reached the barracks, Shade had disappeared, but Anuk was flopped on his cot, arguing with Link about something entirely idiotic as usual.

  “Where’s Shade?” I asked them.

  They stopped bickering to stare at me, like I’d asked them what the moon was made of.

  “Think he went up,” Anuk said. “For a wash.”

  “He div’n even have—” I started, flapping the towel, then sighed and turned around, muttering, “Could’ve waited for me to bring him the grobbing towel.”

  So I marched all the way back through the Hole and out into the frigid night. The gas lamps were completely out tonight, so the only light came from the fickle moon. It was enough for me to see Shade, though, bending over the trough, his lean torso bare to the cold wind and water. I hesitated. The boys used the trough all the time, and we all went swimming together in the river in the summers, so it wasn’t that I’d never seen a boy without his shirt on before. But there was something so vulnerable about the way Shade looked, leaning against the edge of the trough, head bowed and shoulders tense, his knuckles white under the moonlight. Somehow I thought I shouldn’t be there, like I was seeing something I shouldn’t. Like I was seeing a secret.

  A minute and he straightened up, and his hands fell at his sides. From where I stood, I could see the mottled color of the skin on his arms and sides, dark purple and grey-green bruises, some new, some old. The water glittered on his head like a crown, caught in the stubble of his shaved hair. When he shivered suddenly I took a step forward, holding the towel like a shield.

  “Shade,” I said, a bit too loud. “Brought you this.”

  He didn’t startle, just turned like he knew I’d be there. Heat rushed to my cheeks and my gaze jumped away from him, staring at the trough, at the wall, at the ground, aught but him as he came to claim the towel. It was a bare scrap of rag, but he took it like it meant something, then just stood there holding it and staring at the ground.

  “Did you ever think you knew what you wanted,” he said, voice low, “but then when you finally got it, you realized what a lie it all was?”

  I frowned, wondering if I should know what he was talking about. He still didn’t look at me, just pressed the cloth against his face and shook his head once, fiercely.

  “Suppose so,” I said, thinking about the Clan. “Hasn’t everybody?”

  “I don’t know what I want,” he said, then he spun suddenly and slammed his boot against the tin trough, and paced a few steps away with his thumbs hooked in his back belt loops.

  I flinched a bit when he kicked the trough, and watched him anxiously as he stalked back and forth. Finally he stopped moving and grabbed his white undershirt from the pile by the trough, tugging it violently over his head and still-wet shoulders. He didn’t fix his suspenders up but left them hanging loose, which gave him a wild kind of look that I thought even Jig couldn’t match.

  “I’m going into the factory,” he said, balling the towel up with his shirt. “Wanna come?”

 
“Stars, you’re insane!” I gasped.

  He paused as he walked past me, grinning a bit and whispering, “Truth.”

  God, he really is insane…

  I stared after him, watching as he deposited his ball of clothes by the Hole door and continued on to the half-boarded factory entrance. It wasn’t blocked much, just a pair of boards crisscrossed over the middle of the doorway and nailed down. Shade shot me one last mad glance and ducked under the boards, and disappeared into the factory without even a torch to light his way.

  For about five seconds I didn’t move, then I threw my hands in the air and ran after him. I don’t know if it was that I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t scared, or prove it to Shade, or if I wanted to see him get spooked, or if I just wanted to share his mad idea of an adventure. But I did what I’d sworn I’d never do again. I ducked under the boards and crept into the dusty darkness beyond, the grave of machines and memories.

  Shade hadn’t got too far from the doorway yet, like he was waiting for me to join him. I couldn’t see how he wasn’t frozen, standing there in his shirtsleeves, especially when he’d looked so cold ever since I’d met him. Somehow I didn’t think he’d adjusted that quick to our winter.

  “Look at that,” he murmured, and shot me a smile. “Never seen anything like it.”

  I shuddered and peered into the shadows. The moonlight snagged on some broken bits of machine presses and a huge blackened steel monster looming in the middle of the floor, which looked maybe like a furnace crossed with a mangle. Pulleys with shattered chains dangled from the beams high above, and charred benches and grimy work tables cluttered the floor in varying stages of collapse. The wind whistled through the machines, stirring the chains, making my skin prickle.

  “This place gives me the heebies,” I said, rubbing my arms. “And what’s that stink?”

  “God knows,” he muttered.

  “Seen enough?”

  “Do you hear that?” he asked suddenly.

  I froze, turning cold all over. “Hear what? The blood? Do you hear the blood?”

  I strained to listen, but I couldn’t hear it, not the way I’d heard it dripping when I was seven. Shade tipped his head to the side and held a finger to his lips, then without any warning at all, he stole off into the shadows.

  “Shade!” I hissed, clenching my hands. “Come back here!”

  Dead silence. Then, his voice, sharp with alarm—

  “What’s that? Who are you?”

  A strangled cry cut the night.

  Ice tore through me and my feet stumbled into motion, but instead of carrying me to safety, they rushed me into the shadows, toward the cry, toward Shade…

  …And almost tripped over him where he lounged against a broken bench, arms crossed. Smirking. I caught myself and jumped backwards.

  “Shade, you dundering idiot!” I hollered, my hands balled up, the hairs on my arms standing straight on end.

  “Oh stars, Hayli, you made it too easy,” he said, tossing his head back and laughing.

  I never got to call him all the names I had running through my mind, because something about Shade laughing was infectious, and suddenly I was laughing too. Shivering, wide-eyed, hair-on-end, laughing.

  “That was just mean!” I gasped, kicking dust at him. “You and Derrin, you’re both horrid.”

  He moved to get up, but all at once his face blanched white in the moonlight, and his eyes grew terribly wide.

  “Hayli,” he whispered.

  “Oy, no, you’re not getting me again,” I said.

  “Hayli. I’m not slagging you this time.”

  He looked a bit green as he held out his hand, and I saw it all slick and shining and covered with…blood?

  No. Not blood. No.

  I stared, my heart chattering like crazy, fear spidering down my spine. Every bit of my body screamed at me to turn and run, but I couldn’t. Couldn’t move.

  “Hayli, Hayli, don’t be scared!” Shade said, sounding more anxious about me than the blood. He scrambled to his feet, still holding out his hand. “Everything’s jake!”

  “That’s…that’s blood!”

  “Go on. Turn around,” he said, quiet now and steady as could be. “See the door? Let’s go.”

  “But that’s scarzy blood on your hand!”

  “I can’t see for certain. Could be machine oil.”

  “But I heard blood dripping when Derrin sent me in here…I knew it! I knew there was blood!”

  “Hayli. When was that?”

  I gulped and stared up at him, and my face flushed with shame. Stars, he was so calm, and here I was, almost hysterical, like some dumb biddy who’d never been alone in the dark. I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. Creaky chains and muttering wind wouldn’t scare me. I wasn’t afraid of blood, either, or the night. I wasn’t afraid of anything.

  “When I was seven,” I said, and tried to laugh. “Pretty ridiculous, right?”

  His eyes glinted at me in the uncertain light, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all. After a moment he lifted his hand to his nose and gave it a sniff.

  “Machine oil,” he laughed. “Sorry, Hayli, I really didn’t mean to scare you that time.”

  “Aye, right!” I retorted. “Not you!”

  I picked my way back to the door, listening to the slow tread of his boots behind me. Once we’d reached the safety of the enclosure, I let myself breathe a tiny little sigh of relief. The gas lights had come back on, sort of, and in the dim light Shade contemplated his hand. Then he turned and smiled at me.

  “I’ll just wash this off. Don’t wait for me. You look like an icicle.”

  I laughed, and shivered. He didn’t need to tell me twice. I still wasn’t afraid, but I took his words for an excuse and bolted straight for the Hole.

  Chapter 15 — Tarik

  I watched Hayli disappear down into the Hole, trying to steady the nervous race of my heart. My fingers felt sticky, and my stomach cringed with the remembered smell of blood. I had to find Derrin. I couldn’t tell any of the kids about it; I’d only scare them, and they wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it anyway. For all I knew, some animal had gotten killed there…though I tried not to imagine the size it had to have been to leave so much blood.

  I shuddered and waited a few more minutes, until I was sure Hayli had gotten well into the Hole. Then I made my way in, creeping down the steps like a burglar, my bloody hand wrapped lightly in my shirt and towel. I caught Anuk coming down the narrow corridor that led to the storage room, and waved him over.

  “Anuk, where’s Derrin?”

  “Well,” Anuk said, glancing up and down both hallways. “Suppose he might be out with Kantian. If not that, I’d guess he’d be in the barracks.”

  “Look, would you mind checking the barracks for me?”

  He narrowed his eyes, curious. “What for, so? Aren’t you going that way anyway?”

  “It’s just, I need a word with him in private.”

  “And you don’t want all the skitters knowing it?” he asked, and nodded. “Sure. I’ll check.”

  I sat down on the steps, but only had to wait about five minutes before I caught sight of Derrin coming toward me. I got to my feet and started to unwind the shirt from around my hand.

  “Anuk said you were looking for me,” Derrin said as he joined me. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Thought I should mention this to someone, and you seemed like the best option,” I said, and held out my hand. The shirt had kept the blood from drying; it shone a little in the erratic light of a gas lamp.

  Derrin took one glance at it, then arched a brow at me. “What, did you cut yourself? Why is this my problem?”

  “It’s not mine. I stuck my hand in it upstairs. In the factory.”

  He let out all his breath. “You went into the factory? Was it a thrill?”

  “It was fantastic, until I stuck my hand in someone’s blood. I didn’t have a torch. Couldn’t see if there was a body.”
r />   He scrutinized me briefly. “All right. I’ll take a look.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  “What makes you think you’re invited?”

  “Oh c’mon,” I said. “You want to search that whole place, or should I show you where it happened? I’m not squeamish.”

  And if there’s a body up there, I’m sure Kor is going to want to know about it.

  “Fine,” Derrin said. “I’m going to get my torch. Go wash off that blood.”

  I headed back up to the enclosure and turned on the spigot at the trough, scrubbing my hand until I couldn’t see any traces of the blood. Somewhere…somewhere in the back of my thoughts…I thought I heard the singing again. One lone voice, low and sad…

  God, I’m going insane. There’s nothing there. And why did I say anything about it to Hayli? She’ll just think I’m crazy.

  I dug the heel of my hand against my head, willing away the pain. A few moments later, Derrin emerged from the Hole with a torch, and I wiped my hand dry on my trousers as I went to join him. When we reached the factory door, I got the sudden image of Hayli’s terrified face in my mind, and I fought back a laugh. I still couldn’t believe I’d played such a prank on her. It was just the sort of thing Tarik would have done, and I was just glad Hayli didn’t know Tarik well enough to recognize his stamp on it.

  “All right,” Derrin said, ducking under the boards. “Where was it?”

  I headed into the shadows, Derrin’s ring of torchlight flicking at my feet. I hadn’t gone too far into the shadows when I’d played my trick on Hayli; this was the spot where I’d sat down. And there was the blood, tacky with age, with the imprint of my palm in the pool.

  “There,” I said.

  Derrin flashed the light on it. In the mix of shadows from the torch and the moonlight, I could barely see his mouth drawn in a thin line, his eyes dark and hard. He twitched the light away from the puddle to sweep the area around it—the floor, the bench I’d leaned against, the charred ruins of a work table behind it. The light froze, and I took a step forward to see what he’d seen.

  “Oh God,” I gasped.