by Ilsa J. Bick
To the death, Emma. I will never let go. There was so much more to tell her, a lifetime of stories they might have written, but there was no more time. I will hold you both to my heart, across times, to the death.
Together, they charged into the circle at a dead run.
THE WHISPER-MAN
There Is Another
“YOU BITCH!” THE whisper-man raged. Somehow the girl had called off the birds, not that it should have mattered. Once taken in—once invited—the boy should have been helpless, without the strength to resist. Not like Good Old Frank, who knew a trick or two, or his brat, who was more skilled even than her father.
But something was wrong.
THERE IS ANOTHER. This couldn’t be. Casey was the perfect creation: an outline waiting for color, a sponge, a tabula rasa with even less of a history; and that which Casey possessed—abuse and cruelty, rage and betrayal—was the very kind of horror it liked best. True, the boy had been infected by his brother, who had, in his turn, been tainted by Emma. Casey had morals and scruples. He could love. Yet Casey was fresh and strong. As soon as it finished taking the boy, it would bind enough of Emma to gain the one thing it lacked: access to the cynosure, a skill Lizzie had somehow denied it and Emma hadn’t possessed until it had shown her what to do. Then it would break free, away from this place. Together, it and Casey would play across the Nows.
Slipping inside the boy had been so effortless, little more than a sigh. Just like Lizzie, the boy opened himself, a willing sacrifice for his brother and the Rima-bitch, who should be dead, but she had tricked it, tricked it. Still, time should’ve been on its side.
Suddenly, it felt the red scald of an acid-burn, so stinging and harsh, it let out a howl. What was that? Something in the boy, the boy; the boy was carrying something!
WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU? LEAVE! THE BOY IS MI—
Something axed Casey’s legs, and then it was toppling, crashing to the smooth, glassy black rock. Screeching, the whisper-man kicked and spit as Eric wrapped Casey up tight. Eric was alive; he had survived the birds as had Emma, and it knew what she meant to do. It could not fight them all, not at once. No, it would not go back; it would not be nothing again.
I WON’T BE LOST AGAIN, I WILL NOT! A great gust of fear, sour and strong, swept through it. The whisper-man gasped in terror, and Casey stiffened with it. LET ME GO! YOU CAN HAVE THE BOY IF YOU—
I don’t want him. I want you. The intruder battened down with a will that coiled itself in a muscular rope, tighter than any serpent. I was written for this purpose, this moment. I am your end, and we will grapple.
YOU WILL LOSE.
Probably. I can’t match evil for evil. But I have come to do battle. I can delay you, just long enough.
WE CAN SHARE, the whisper-man thought, wildly. THE BOY IS STRONG, STRONG ENOUGH FOR TWO, FOR MANY. TOGETHER, WE WILL—
Beneath Casey’s body, the mirror-rock quivered as if with a sudden earthquake. The floor of the Peculiar heaved, gave, thinned. The whisper-man felt Emma’s will surge, as strong and sure as Eric’s arms around his brother, as the intruder’s hold on it—and the way began to open.
“NO, WAIT!” it thundered. “LET ME FINISH!”
EMMA
What Endures
1
ERIC CRASHED INTO Casey, smashing the smaller boy down against the rocky floor. Casey’s head struck hard; the man-shadow bleeding from his skin swirled and then draped itself over Casey’s bulging eyes. From her place by Rima’s broken body, Emma had the crazy, wild hope that this—the emergence of this other, the shadow—would be enough. But then Casey screamed again, and his voice still belonged to the whisper-man.
There was a pressure around her hand, and she looked down into Rima’s ravaged face. “D-door,” Rima whispered. Bright blood-bubbles foamed over her lips. “Make a door into … into the D-Dark Passages … Eric c-can’t … h-hurry …”
“Emma!” Eric shouted. Casey was thrashing, bucking and kicking, but both the shadow-man and Eric had the smaller boy pinned, and Eric was close enough to touch. The shadow had whatever power a whisper possessed, but Eric was real. He was solid and strong—and more: Eric was the force and the power of love. “Do it now, Emma, do it now!”
“I WON’T LET YOU!” the whisper-man boomed. “I WILL BIND YOU, BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, I WILL BIND—”
Together, then, and that was as it should be. They were linked in space and time and an eternity of words, bound in a single purpose to a solitary hope. Tightening her grip on Rima, she reached for Eric’s outstretched hand. His fingers closed around hers—
And Emma screamed. A stinging red charge, scorpion-bright and viper-quick, bit into her mind, because blood—all their mingled blood—binds.
YOU SEE? The whisper-man boomed through the cavern of her skull. You CAN’T FIGHT ME, EMMA. YOU’RE NOT STRONG ENOUGH, BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, AND I WON’T NEED YOUR BODY. I WILL TAKE WHAT I WANT; I WILL HAVE YOUR ABILITIES. I AM TAKING THEM NOW. YOU FEEL IT, DON’T YOU? MY POWER, MY STAIN SPREADING THROUGH YOUR BODY, AND YOU, BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, I WILL BIND YOU—
Go. Not Rima or even Eric, but the shadow-man, the other whisper, the one concealed in Casey’s body. Hurry, Emma.
And she thought, Push.
The cynosure fired. The purple maw gaped, and she felt the change as the rock thinned and pulled apart, and then the chains of light that were Rima and Eric and Emma and, yes, even Casey’s many colors flared to life—but there was a faint smear of red that Emma knew.
Bode? A jolt of surprise and joy. Bode! Is that—
In part. I am Battle, and what remains. His secret, and gift. The shadow-man’s thoughts were as airless as the fading images of a distant dream. Hurry, Emma. You don’t have much time.
She saw what it meant, and felt it, too. A seeping black stain was working its way through their chain, because it had Casey and so did Eric. So did they all. A whisper left a stain, and they were all bleeding, their blood mingling because they were willing to sacrifice for one another. They were willing.
Emma! It was Eric. The blue and gold of their mingled chain pulsed with urgency. Go, Emma, go! Break this place wide open, and do it now, Emma, do it now!
She pushed, and the mirror-room groaned under the effort. All of a sudden, a door blistered and broke open in a great, convulsive shudder as a glistering bolt of light, more powerful than the hottest sun, erupted from the cynosure. A nanosecond later, the Peculiar exploded, shattering in a blistering halo of energies—
2
AND THEN THEY were through and falling fast into somewhere, somewhen, completely new.
It was like nothing that had come before. There was light, not only the brilliant path laid by the cynosure but the hard, bright diamonds of a crowded galaxy. Those must be the many worlds and times of the Nows, and this, the Dark Passages, a hallway with infinite branch-points. Above, below, all around, the way spread itself in a dizzying cluster of galaxies, and they rocketed through, sweeping past worlds; past doors and realms and an infinity of Nows. Choose a door, any door, and push; pop onto the White Space of another story, a different timeline, a new—
Something nipped her skin. A needle, a sting as viper-quick as the bite of the whisper-man trying to scorch its way into her body—and yet not, because she also felt it: a tenebrous finger on her arm. She started, her focus wavering. What was that? She thought of the inky tentacles swimming up from snow as Rima’s nightmare broke apart and remembered the moment she’d pushed through that black membrane in Jasper’s basement: that hand swimming around her wrist to pull her in, just as McDermott reached through the Dickens Mirror and pulled something out. It had never occurred to her to wonder if there might be more than one monster.
But now, she remembered what Lizzie said: You don’t want them to notice you.
The cynosure was a focus and path, a lens and lighthouse … and a … a beacon?
My God. The realization broke like a wash of icy water. They’re the moths, and I’m the light.
Something shot out of the black and battened down on her wrist. An instant later, something else slinked around her waist, a third teased an ankle, a fourth curled around her right thigh. Whoever these creatures were, whatever lived in the Dark Passages swarmed. Or perhaps they were the fabric of darkness itself, the space between galaxies and all matter: a living web that grabbed and tugged and latched on like leeches; and their sound, the whispers that were a clamor and then a river swelling to a roar, crashed through her mind.
They see the cynosure. She felt the panic scrambling up her throat. That’s why it’s so dangerous to cross. They know we’re here; we’ve been seen!
YOU SEE? YOU CAN’T GET AWAY. The whisper-man was still strongest in Casey, but despite the shadow-man, its gelid fingers were surer now, beginning to creep over her thoughts, and she knew from the sudden gasp in her mind that Eric felt it, too. Of course it had been there all along; in the illusion of Lizzie, it had touched them all. In a way, it was finding bits and pieces of itself in them. Perhaps its stain—what Frank McDermott had discovered as the twin to all his horrors—was the midwife of the nightmares of all their lives.
FIGHT ME, AND YOU ONLY DRAIN YOURSELF, AND THEN THEY WILL HAVE YOU. STOP FIGHTING, AND I WILL HELP YOU ESCAPE—AND THEN YOU WILL HELP ME. The whisper-man bit down again, and she grunted, her concentration stuttering. Almost at once, the Dark Passages thickened. She was still pushing as hard as she could, but it was as if she were bogging down, as she had been in the energy sink of the Peculiar, as mired as a woolly mammoth caught in a deep pit of black tar. The light linking her to Eric and Casey and Rima was beginning to fade, the colors bleaching away as these others, whatever they were, clawed and grabbed. Her mind slid, her concentration—her hold on the others—slipping as if she’d stumbled onto a floor made of slick ball bearings.
Help us, she thought to the shadow-man. Please, if you helped Bode, help us.
I can’t do any more. The shadow-man was a sigh, and already evaporating, slipping like smoke from the chain. I belong here. You have to do the rest. The shadow-man was dwindling, fainter than a dying echo. Don’t hang on too long, Emma. Let go before the infection—
But then the shadow-man, whatever it had been, was gone.
What? Let go? What did that mean? No. If she did that, the others wouldn’t make it. They’d be stuck here. Yet where, exactly, was she going? They had no place in any world or Now, not all together. The whisper-man had Casey, and soon, it would have Eric. She would be next, and Rima, her color already so faint, would die soon. If, by some miracle, Rima lived and Emma could get them all through, no Now would be safe, not if they brought the whisper-man, too.
Even if I could get rid of him somehow, if we all end up in the same Now, wouldn’t we destroy it the way the world Rima created from that snow did when Eric and the others found them?
My God, she’d brought them to the place where they would die. Or drift forever, trapped in the Dark Passages with all these others, whatever they were.
NOT TRUE. The whisper-man pulsed in her brain. LISTEN TO ME. I ONLY WANT THE BOY. DO WHAT I ASK, AND I WILL GIVE YOU ERIC. I WILL FREE HIM; I WILL FREE YOU ALL IF—
Emma. Eric—his essence, that color—suddenly surged. We’re already free, because we can choose.
NO NO NO. The whisper-man’s panic was electric. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Emma. The cobalt edged with a glister of gold that was Eric shone so bright he could’ve been the deep waters of Superior at sunrise, a Now, the promise of a different world—and maybe he was all those and more: not only himself but what endures in memory and across times. Emma, no matter what …
NO, I WILL GIVE BACK THE BOY! PULL ME THROUGH AND I WILL—
Keep going, Emma. Find your Now. Find a way out.
No, Eric, she thought. We can’t. It will still—
Go where you can, where you have the best shot …
NO NO NO NO—
And don’t listen to it, Emma. We have the power to choose, and this is my choice. Eric was calm, his thoughts like a long drink of cool water on a desperately hot day. I choose for you.
Eric, don’t. In that last instant, she finally sensed what he meant to do. Wait!
Don’t look back, Emma—and then …
He let go.
EMMA
Where I Belong
NO! SHE MADE a grab, reaching out with her mind, her hand, her will—and missed.
That was enough to break them. Her hold on Rima slipped, and then they were all spinning away from one another in streamers of light, like falling stars. In response, the Dark Passages roiled, swelling as the darkness converged in a tidal surge over Rima, so faint, and the rainbow-swirl that was Eric locked in his fatal embrace with Casey and the whisper-man. The Dark Passages rolled over and swallowed them up, and then she just couldn’t see them anymore. The colors died and, with them, Eric’s voice. The whisper-man’s howls cut out, and then there was nothing: no Casey, no Rima. No Eric.
She tried to stop, slow down, but the cynosure wouldn’t let her. Lens and beacon, focus—and a path now, one she couldn’t leave. Later, she thought Eric himself gave her that one final push as he broke away, so she wouldn’t be able to stop even if she knew how. But she didn’t, and now these beings were swinging around. Sniffing her out. She could feel them noticing the beacon from the galaxy pendant, and knew she was almost out of time.
Got to get out. But how? Where could she go? If these really were doors to other Nows, then she—or a piece of her, another version—must exist in each. She belonged everywhere and nowhere. Would she, on her own, break a Now to pieces? What would happen if she met up with or even slipped into herself in another Now?
Can I do that? Maybe. She was different. The whisper-man said so; it had taken her while she was awake, dropping her into her many alters, because she was a creation with no set path.
Then put me where I belong, she thought fiercely. She felt the cynosure crackle with a new and vicious heat. Drop me into the Now where I’ll find them again: Eric and Casey and Rima and Bode and—
PART SIX
THE
SIGN
OF
SURE
EMMA
Elizabeth
1
“ELIZABETH.” A SLIGHT buzz to the z. Whoever this man was, he had a lisp, so the name seemed to have been mouthed by a rattlesnake: Elisssabess. A pause. “Elizabeth?”
“Wh-what?” The word burred on her tongue, slow and hesitant. She sounded like a Little Mommy My Very Real Baby Doll with a faulty motherboard. Or HAL, from 2001, getting his memory banks yanked. “Whaaat?”
The same man said, “Elizabeth, is that you? Can you hear me?”
“H-hear?” She felt the sounds as much as she heard them, a kind of fading in and out, there and gone, as if her brain were an ancient radio and she had to feather the knob to get the scratchy broadcast bounced halfway around the world to gel. She realized, belatedly, that she was standing. Swaying, actually. Worn wool chafed her bare feet. A sheet, or maybe a very long nightgown, clung to her legs, chest, and back. Her skin, hot and damp, smelled sour, and her lank hair reeked of sweat and grime. Bad dream? Her chest, her stomach, the inside of her skull … felt very strange: flat and hollow, a limp glove of a girl—all skin, no innards. The last time she’d felt this wan and washed-out was when she was ten and coming out of anesthesia after the surgeons put in her plates. Then, her mind had slowly bled back into her body, the blood inching through to plump up arteries and veins and the pink sponge of her brain and guts, the way air leaked into the nooks and crannies of a deflated Macy’s Day Parade balloon. I’ve been sick? Where was she?
“Who’s Eliz … I’m …” She lost the thread of the question and her answer, the words unraveling on her tongue. Her head ached. Eyes watering with pain, she tried to bring the world into focus, but it was foggy and fuzzy, a chaotic blur seen through a broken kaleidoscope, the colored bits of glass refusing to arrange themselves into patterns. The only thing she recognized
with any clarity was a yawning chasm, an inky hole at the center of her vision. The edges of the gap wavered, as if the world around it was only an uncertain outline and just now on the verge of becoming.
That must be the way I came in. She was in a new Now? The hard eye of her titanium skull plate burned. Wincing, she pressed the heel of her left hand to her forehead, then heard herself drag in a sickly gasp. No gash. She pressed harder, her fingers searching through muscle and skin. Wait a minute, where’s—
“Now, now, are you in pain?” A different voice, female, much clearer, the static starting to fade. The words were clipped, a little dry. “Another of your headaches?”
Oh God. Her heart iced. Was there an accent? No, you’re imagining things; this is House, up to its old tricks. With a fresh blast of panic, she pressed harder, using the fingers of her left hand and the heel of her right because she was … clutching something, a pen or stick or maybe a fork. She couldn’t tell, but for whatever reason, she didn’t relax her grip; felt as if that was the wrong thing to do. Where is it, where is it? It had to be there. She felt the plate burning in her mind. Give her a pen and she could ink its exact margins, every curve, even where the screws were. But under her fingers there was only skin and muscle and bone.
No plate. How can that be? I feel it. Gasping, she fought a rising tide of black horror as she ran her fingers over the rest of her scalp. No scars. But I had them just a few seconds ago.
“Elizabeth? You are there, yes?” The guy with the whisper-man lisp again, right in front, behind that hole in her vision. God, if she hadn’t just seen the thing die—with Eric and Casey and Rima, and Eric, oh Eric—she’d have sworn she pulled that monster through with her. “Come now, no need for a fuss. Let’s all be calm, shall we?”
Calm? Oh, that was a good one. “Wh-where …” Her mouth tasted awful, like she could scrape mold off her tongue. “Where am I?”
