“She’s out of her mind, but she’s not doing anything wrong,” had been the verdict of the warden, a big, burly man who had almost been cast as the leading role in a manifestation of Pinocchio when he was a boy. Blame Disney for that one: the story was a recent invention, as narratives went, but it was close enough to parts of the ATI that the narrative had been able to latch on to it and start turning flesh to wood. He still walked with a limp. “Leave her alone as long as she’s not hurting anyone.”
Elise had been muttering since then, muttering for months, reminding the walls what her story was supposed to be. Still, her eyes widened in surprise when the mouse skittered out of its hole, a brass key clutched in its jaws. She held out her hand. The mouse dropped the key into her palm before sitting back on its haunches and beginning to groom its whiskers.
Elise sat up. Elise looked at the key.
Slowly, Elise smiled.
# # #
We’d been on cleanup duty for most of the morning, picking up the pieces of a fairy-tale pyramid scheme, better known as a twenty-thirty-five—a House That Jack Built. Each element had chained onto the last until it formed an inevitable tower of ridiculous coincidences and unsustainable expense. Then it had started to crumble and had caught the attention of dispatch. Since my team was currently low man on the totem pole, on account of having barely survived our HR review, we were the ones called to corral the cow with the crooked horn, catch the horse and the hound, and recover the hammer our eponymous Jack had used to build his house in the first place. Once we had them all locked safely away, we’d be able to take care of any remaining narrative disturbance.
Sloane had managed to locate the cat that chased the rat, and was sitting on the back bumper of our van, petting the feline and making little cooing noises. It was weird as hell, and I was considering going over to ask her what she thought she was doing when Jeff walked up with a mopey-looking teenage girl.
“This is Agent Marchen,” he said. “Tell her what you told me.”
“Um,” she said. “Jack? Like, the guy who built us this clubhouse? He went to my high school up until last year. He’s pretty cool. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He didn’t file proper building permits with the city,” I said, giving Jeff a sidelong look.
‘Wait for it,’ mouthed Jeff.
“But he did,” said the girl. My attention snapped back to her. “This lady, she showed up with a toolbox and a bunch of papers. She said her husband had filed everything before he died, and she just wanted to see his final project completed. Jack didn’t do anything wrong. He had all the papers, everything. If you look in what used to be the living room, you’ll find them.”
“Did this woman have a name?” I asked.
The girl shook her head. “No. She was short though, if that helps. Way in need of a better hairdresser. She looked like she had a perm that melted.”
“What color?”
“What? Uh, white lady. I think that’s sort of, you know, racist? As a question?”
I forced a smile. The girl took a half step backward. Lips as red as blood and skin as white as snow do not make a friendly combination when viewed in the real world. “No, I didn’t mean ‘what color was her skin,’ I meant ‘what color was her hair?’ That melted perm you were talking about, what did it look like?”
“Oh! Uh, it was blonde. She was blonde. I don’t know what her eyes looked like, she was wearing really thick glasses.”
There was only one person I knew who fit that description, and she was supposed to be locked up in Childe for the rest of her life. Trying not to sound as disturbed as I felt, I asked, “How long ago was this?”
“Like six months,” said the girl.
“Excellent. Thank you for your help.” So Birdie Hubbard had given this Jack his hammer and his building plans before she’d challenged the entire Bureau. The House must have been part of her attempt to overwhelm us with more stories than we could handle—a plan that had nearly worked and had left plenty of time bombs scattered around the city, waiting for the right set of circumstances to set them off.
“Goddammit, Birdie,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. “If you weren’t already in prison, I’d wring your neck and put you there myself.”
“Henry?”
The voice was male, deep, and worried. I lowered my hand and turned. Andy was looming over me.
“What is it?” I asked. Out of my entire team, Andy was the only one not on the ATI spectrum. That meant he was less sensitive to the ripples and eddies in a site like this one. That was good. He might be slower to recognize certain dangers than the rest of us, but he was also immune to the little narrative needles that made us twitch out of our skins. If Andy looked this upset, something was genuinely wrong.
“Dispatch just called,” he said. “They’re sending Piotr and his team to this site to finish cleanup. We have a new assignment.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
Andy’s anxious look didn’t change. “There’s been a breakout at Childe. Six prisoners are missing, including Elise Walton. Our self-made Cinderella.”
“Oh, fuck,” I breathed. Then I whirled, shouting as I marched toward the van, “Pull back, we’re leaving!”
Sloane raised her head and blinked as the cat leapt out of her lap and dashed off to find a new rat. Demi and Jeff looked up from their own tasks. I kept walking. They’d move when they realized I was serious, or I’d leave them here. I didn’t see any other choice.
“The fuck?” demanded Sloane, when I was close enough.
“Elise got out.” It wasn’t the gentlest way to tell her. There wasn’t any way to tell her that would actually be kind. Elise and Sloane shared a story. No amount of trying to be kind was going to change that, and so there was no point.
Sloane jerked to her feet, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted, “We’re leaving! Get in the fucking van or get out of the fucking way!” Dropping her hands, she stomped for the passenger-side door. I ran after her. If I didn’t move fast enough, she’d hot-wire the van and leave without me. I couldn’t blame her. I would have done the same if it had been someone who shared my story.
I started the engine as the side door slammed open and the rest of my team tumbled inside. “Andy, fill them in,” I said, turning the flashers on. We weren’t police in the traditional sense, but we were close enough to get away with breaking a few traffic laws when we had to.
I was planning to break them all.
“Hold tight,” I said, and slammed my foot down on the gas.
Our van had been outfitted by the finest mechanics the ATI Management Bureau had to offer, and since some of them could bend metal with their bare hands, that meant something. If it hadn’t been for the sirens giving people time to move out of our way, we would have been in multiple crashes before we reached the turnoff for the prison.
There’s only one prison in North America rated for containing fairy tales. Maybe that sounds silly, but the wards alone took up half the attention of the Archives, and opening another would have required us to pull staff from elsewhere in the world. Having one prison for a continent was problematic enough before you started trying to transport prisoners. Sleeping Beauties couldn’t be safely loaded onto airplanes; if the pilot passed out at the controls, a lot of innocent people would die. Bluebeards had a tendency to manifest on ships and trains, and we’d once had a full-on Big Candy Mountain incursion when trying to transport a Robber Bridegroom. The only answer was to set up a transit network that skipped over those risks.
When I said I was planning to break all the laws that governed motorized vehicles, I meant it. That included the laws of physics.
We came tearing around a bend in the road, at a spot the locals had helpfully started calling “Dead Man’s Curve” some twenty years before. The needle was hovering at ninety-five, which was as fast as we could go without risking me losing control. The guardrail loomed up ahead of us, so close that I almost hauled on the wheel and fol
lowed the road. But that would have missed the point of this little exercise, wouldn’t it? I slammed my foot down instead, and we broke through the rail and sailed off into the abyss, already falling.
# # #
Trips to Childe always did a number on our shocks. The van hit the prison parking lot like a load of bricks, all excess speed swallowed as payment for the transport. I jerked against my seatbelt. Demi swore. Sloane didn’t say anything. She just kicked her door open and ran, heading for the prison. I unbuckled my belt and checked that my badge was clipped in place before I opened my own door and slid out—
—and staggered, almost falling over as a wave of peace, contentment, and absolute calm tried to hammer its way into my forebrain. My badge blocked some of the impact, but the rest was bad enough to make me want to vomit. I caught myself against the side of the van instead. My story, which had been relatively quiescent recently, reared at the back of my mind, stretching tendrils out like it was going to manifest in self-defense.
“Henry?” It was Jeff’s voice. I realized I could feel his hands supporting me. That was when I realized something more alarming: I couldn’t see.
He must have realized I was in distress, because he lowered his voice as he leaned in, and said, “It’s all right. You closed your eyes. I forgot that you hadn’t been here since you fully activated. Take a deep breath. Remember who you are.”
I’m Snow White. The words popped into my mind, so compelling that I started to open my mouth and say them aloud. I snapped it shut again, alarmed. “I’m Henrietta Marchen,” I said. There was no strength in my voice. I might as well have been whispering.
“Your full name.”
“I am . . . I am Agent Henrietta Marchen, ATI Management Bureau.” This time, I spoke loudly enough to be heard. I stood a little straighter. “I am Agent Henrietta Marchen, ATI Management Bureau.” The story stirring inside my skull backed off and backed down, curling back into the place where it slept. The pressure radiating off the prison didn’t go away, exactly, but it died down to manageable levels. I opened my eyes.
“I am Agent Henrietta Marchen, ATI Management Bureau,” I said, for a third time. Three was always a good number to go for in fairy tales. Then I turned to look at my team.
Jeff was holding my free arm, keeping me from collapsing. He let go when I started to move, although the look of worry on his face didn’t die. Demi and Andy were behind me. Demi was pale, and she was holding her flute, fingers clenched so tight that her knuckles were white.
“Sucks, don’t it?” she asked, forcing herself to smile. It looked more like the grimace of a grinning skull. “It’s supposed to keep us from freaking out and killing each other when we’re all locked up together like a big box of stories. All it ever did for me was scramble my brains into pudding.”
“You were here?” I stared at her. I knew Demi had been taken into custody after Birdie Hubbard subverted her—my team had made the arrest. But I’d seen her in the interrogation room, and she’d always been available when I called with questions. I suppose I’d believed, on some vague, hopeful level, that she’d been kept somewhere in our offices until she was cleared to return to field duty. Not Childe.
Never that.
Demi nodded fractionally, her hands never leaving her flute. “Yeah,” she said, lowering her voice to something that was barely above a whisper.
“I didn’t know,” I said. I looked over my shoulder to the prison, which loomed, cold and foreboding, like something out of a Gothic romance. Old sanitariums have their own story, I thought. Maybe they chose the wrong place to build. “I didn’t know you were here, and I didn’t know it was like this once your story was active. Sweet Grimm, I’m so sorry.”
“You’re one of us now,” said Jeff. I looked back in time to see him pushing his glasses up, a wry smile on his face. “Maybe management will listen when you say that this is inhumane. They’re letting you lead a field team, after all.”
Speaking of my field team . . . “Did Sloane run straight inside?” I asked. “We need to catch up with her before she does something we’re all going to regret.”
“Sloane has her ‘free-story’ charm,” said Jeff. “We need to get you yours.”
“You have one already?”
Jeff nodded and pulled his key ring out of his pocket. One of the charms dangling from the overloaded steel hoop—an oversized crystal spike that I had always assumed was plastic—was glowing with a serene blue light. “They gave it to me years ago, when they approved my access to the Archive. They use the same charm sets in the two locations.”
It would’ve been nice if someone had mentioned any of this to me: if there had been an orientation packet of some sort, handed out when my story consumed the last chances I’d been holding for a normal life. But there was no point in getting upset about it now. Not when we had a job to do. “What about Demi?”
“I have to get a visitor’s pass,” said Demi. “I don’t think I’m eligible for a permanent charm.”
“This place is creepy as all fuck: I’m not contesting that,” said Andy. “I don’t see what’s so upsetting about it. What’s it doing to you that I can’t feel?”
“It wants us to be calm and docile and obedient and not riot,” I said. “It’s like having a bunch of really happy maggots shoved into my brain, and it makes me want to burn the whole thing to the fucking ground.”
Andy frowned. “That’s probably not the result they were looking for.”
“You think?” I started storming toward the prison doors. The happy maggots writhed and bit inside my brain. I did my best to ignore them. Let them bite and squirm. I knew who I was, and no charm or personality manipulation spell was going to change that.
I was fucking pissed, that was who I was.
A guard in the standard slate-gray uniform of Childe Prison was standing outside the doors when we arrived. He was alone. That wasn’t normal: they usually insisted their guards travel in groups of at least two. Then I saw how he was fidgeting, and realized there was a reason for his solo status.
“Your friend is already inside,” he said, as soon as we were close enough to speak without shouting. “She was quite insistent.”
“How many guards did you send with her?”
“Three.”
“That’s not enough.” Thirty might not have been enough. “I’m Agent Henrietta Marchen. This is my field team. I’m also an active seven-oh-nine, and your prison is trying to make my brains dribble out my skull. My agent, Demi Santos, is an active two-eighty. We need whatever protections you have to offer against your compulsion charms.”
“I was told you’d be accompanying Agent Winters,” said the guard, casting an uneasy glance at Demi, who was still holding her flute like a lifeline. “I’ve been cleared to provide you with a countercharm, but Agent Santos is on the watch list. I can’t let her have one.”
“Yes, you can,” I said. “If you want us to go in there and fish Sloane out before she starts putting people through walls, you’ll give Demi her own charm. If you don’t think that’s an important use of our time, we’ll go wait in the van. I’m sure Agent Winters can do plenty of damage without our help.”
The guard stared at me. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I looked calmly back. “We were summoned to Childe. We came to Childe. As the leader of this field team, it’s up to me to decide how my people can be of the best use. If I say we’re most useful sitting in the van and listening to the radio, then that’s what’s going to happen. Good luck getting Sloane back under control. She doesn’t listen to most people.”
The guard paled. “Please wait here. I’ll be right back with two countercharms.”
“Thanks,” I said, and smiled so he could see all of my teeth. My naturally red lips did an excellent job of making them seem very white, and very sharp.
The guard turned and fled.
“You’re feeling assertive today,” said Andy, giving the prison walls another unhappy look. He couldn’t feel the compulsi
ons they radiated, but he didn’t have to feel them to dislike the place. All he had to do was look at it. “This because you figure it’ll take HR six months to put together another review?”
“It’s because I refuse to let a member of my team be treated like a second-class citizen when we’re the ones who failed to protect her,” I said. My voice was tight with anger. “Birdie got to Demi because we didn’t think to check the downsides of the Piper story. That was our fault. She doesn’t get punished for it forever.”
“Or I do, but I have people like you to keep it from sucking as much as it could,” said Demi. I looked at her. She smiled a little. “I know I’m never going to be a deputy director or anything fancy like that. Even if I’d been the first Pied Piper with an impeccable record, that would always have been one step too far. But I like my team, and I trust you to take care of me. Because you do. You always have. Even when I couldn’t see it.”
“Demi—”
“Here.” The guard came trotting back through the prison doors, moving so fast that the only thing between him and the word “run” was the stiff way he was holding his arms, like he was afraid they’d drop off if he let them bounce too much. He had a crystal spike in each hand. The crystals were glowing. Our charms.
He stopped in front of me. “Here,” he said again, and thrust the crystals toward me.
I raised an eyebrow as I plucked the crystals from his hands. “Thanks.” The effect was instantaneous. The pressure that had been rolling off the prison since we arrived faded like it had never been there in the first place. The maggots stopped chewing at my brain, and suddenly I could breathe again.
Wordless, I turned and offered one of the crystals to Demi. She took it, and an expression of profound, heartbreaking relief washed across her face. We shared a look. This was what the Bureau was doing to all the stories they had in custody. Innocent people whose only crime was being afflicted with an incurable narrative were being kept under the same spells that were used to control and contain real villains. It wasn’t right. It needed to change.
Indexing: Reflections (Kindle Serials) (Indexing Series Book 2) Page 4
