“Sir? What happened? Was someone hurt?”
“Yes, but that’s almost secondary to the fact that someone escaped. Two someones, in point of fact. A fully active three-ten who had been kept on the inner ring of the prison, to prevent her from performing the classic ‘let down your hair’ maneuver, and one of the newer prisoners, who had been moved to the inner ring following her narrative exam and sentencing.” Deputy Director Brewer’s gaze never wavered.
My stomach sank. There was only one person I could think of who fit that description and had ties to my team strong enough to justify these questions. “Birdie,” I said, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. “She got out, didn’t she?”
The deputy director nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Agent Marchen, I’m sorry, but for your own safety, you’re being restricted from the field until she is recovered and brought back into custody. As the woman who first activated your story, we don’t know how connected she may be to your narrative, or whether she would be able to—”
“Wait,” I said, cutting him off midsentence. Maybe it was rude to talk over my boss. At the moment, I didn’t care. What was he going to do, restrict me to a desk? He’d already done that. “Why did you ask about Elise and the glass? There’s something you’re still not telling me.”
“Agent Marchen, please—”
“I have a right to know!” My voice broke at the end, becoming higher and shriller than I was comfortable with. I shook my head, swallowing until my throat felt halfway normal, and continued: “My team has been in her crosshairs more than once. She targeted Sloane. She stole Demi. Now you’re going to send me back to them, to say that our personal bogeyman is out of her box. You need to give me something to work with. You need to tell me everything you know.”
Deputy Director Brewer fixed me with a stern look. “Do you understand that I might be withholding information for your own good?”
“Frankly, sir, if I thought you were in the habit of withholding information ‘for my own good,’ I would’ve sought employment elsewhere by now.” The words were out before I could fully consider what they meant. Because there was no other employment for me now, was there? There was the ATI Management Bureau, and there was Childe Prison, where we kept the active stories and ongoing narratives. The moment Birdie had put me into a position where I had to eat the apple, she had trapped me. There was no escaping for me now. There was just enduring, until I reached whatever botched mission or poisoned fruit pie spelled the end of my happy ever after.
“It’s snowing.” The deputy director’s gaze flicked toward the ceiling. I looked up. Fat white flakes were falling from the air, drifting down around me. The air was growing colder. Soon, we’d be in the middle of our own private blizzard. “Agent Marchen, I recommend you drop this line of inquiry at once.”
“Tell me.”
He looked at me for a moment. Then he sighed. “Our missing three-ten had been kept in a windowless room.”
“Can’t let your hair down if there’s no window,” I said, acknowledging the wisdom of this choice.
“Someone transmuted half the wall of her cell into glass, which shattered to create a window through which her hair could be lowered,” said Deputy Director Brewer. “Somehow, the wall to former Agent Hubbard’s cell was breached, and she was able to gain access to the three-ten. From there, they made their way to the outer wall of the prison, and the three-ten, ah, ‘let down her hair.’ Both of them disappeared without a trace.”
Something had been bothering me about his calm, measured recitation. Finally, I realized what it was. “What was her name?”
“Excuse me?”
“The three-ten. What was her name before the story took her?”
He blinked at me, looking startled, like the question I had just asked had been in some incomprehensible foreign language. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah.” It was still snowing. When the flakes struck my hair, they stuck, unmelting. “I didn’t expect you would.”
The deputy director shook his head, shaking away the confusion, and said, “One of the guards who responded to the disruption came into contact with the glass. He was transmuted almost instantly. Two more guards were struck by flying shards when he exploded. Their families have been notified. The rest of the prison is on high alert.”
I stared at him, too horrified to speak for several seconds. The snow began falling harder. “We lost two prisoners, and three guards died, and your response is to bench my team? Look, we know Birdie better than anyone. Demi can play the glass away, Sloane can punch her way through narratives—you need us. We can’t sit back and let other people risk their lives if it’s this bad.”
“Yes, you can.” He turned to his desk, opening a folder, and produced a single sheet of photo paper. He held it out to me. Automatically, I took it.
It was a picture of an apple, one bite missing, sitting in the midst of a pile of glistening glass shards. One of them was a perfect replica of a human’s eye and cheekbone, the terrified expression preserved forever, or at least until the glass was destroyed. The apple’s skin was as red as blood, as red as my lips, and made my heart stutter in my chest with combined fear and longing.
It was a message. It was a message that could only be meant for me.
And I had no idea what it meant.
# # #
My team was still in the bullpen when I returned. They were pretending to work on their paperwork, stealing anxious glances at the door—all save for Sloane, who was neither working nor looking for me. She was still focused on her pie recipes. I found it strangely reassuring. No matter how bad things got, Sloane would never let on that she gave a fuck about anybody but herself. That was the way the world was meant to be.
Jeff was the first to stand, his eyes fixed on my face, and on the small snowflakes studding my hair. “Henry?”
“I’m going to say this once, and I’m going to say it without any of you interrupting me, because we need to get to work, and we don’t have time to screw around with a lot of questions,” I said. “Sloane, that means you too. Look at me.”
Sloane turned her chair around, frowning as she took in the snow on my hair. “How bad?”
“Bad enough that there’s a mini snowstorm going in the deputy director’s office, and didn’t I say no questions? Shut up and listen.”
Sloane shut up. I had to trust that she was going to listen.
I took a deep breath, tasting the lingering promise of snowfall in the air, and said, “An unnamed three-ten escaped from Childe Prison today, after the wall of her cell was transmuted into glass by an unknown individual who, let’s face it, was probably Elise. The three-ten took another prisoner with her. Former Agent Birdie Hubbard.”
“Birdie’s loose?” squeaked Demi. I decided not to treat it as a question. She looked terrified enough without me getting mad at her.
“The transmuted wall possessed the infectious qualities of Elise’s earlier glassworks. Three guards were killed before they realized that they couldn’t recover the prisoners.” I took a deep breath. “There was something else. An apple, with a single bite missing, was left in the wreckage of Birdie’s cell.”
“They don’t serve apples in Childe Prison,” said Jeff. “It’s considered too dangerous. Figs, pomegranates, and honey are banned for similar reasons. That apple can’t have come from inside the prison.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Elise, or whoever she sent to recover Birdie, was leaving a message. I don’t think I’m being egotistical when I assume it was for me.”
“It might not have been.” Sloane’s voice was soft enough that it took me a second to realize she was the one speaking. I turned to her. She looked at me, and her walls were down: I could see agony and longing in her face. “Elise made a big point of how she changed her story, back when we arrested her. She was going to be free, and she was going to be the heroine, not the villain. She’s done it. She’s done it fucked up and weird and wrong, but she’s still done it. The apple could be for
me as much as it’s for you. A reminder that I don’t have to end in poison, if I’m willing to give up on everyone who’s ever given a damn about me and go to join her.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said. Then I paused. “Is it?”
Sloane shook her head. “No. I don’t give up that easy. What’s a terrible narrative that will eventually destroy everything I love compared to the sheer joy of a government pension? She can’t have me. I’m too fucking stubborn to go to work for someone like her.”
“Assuming she’s even in charge,” said Jeff. “I don’t believe Elise has it in her to mastermind something this complex. Birdie, on the other hand . . .”
“Birdie fancies herself a Storyteller,” I agreed. “She could have put this all together as a contingency plan. Which means we don’t know what else she has in place, ready to be triggered.”
“What did the deputy director tell you to do?” asked Jeff.
“He told me to come back out here and tell you we’re all benched for the foreseeable future,” I said. “There’s too much risk that Birdie will try to take control of our stories. Frankly, Demi, I think he’s right where you’re concerned. You’re too new, and you’re too powerful. We can’t risk her taking you.”
Demi nodded. There was no masking the terror and relief in her voice as she said, “I don’t want to be okay with this. I want to fight with you. But I don’t want to be the girl she made me into ever again. I’m me. I’m not some story she gets to tell the way she wants to. I can’t go near her. I . . . I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“Hey,” said Sloane. Her tone was harsh, and I braced myself for whatever terrible thing she was going to say next. “Don’t be sorry, okay? This isn’t your fault. Our narratives can make us do terrible things, and someone using them as weapons against us is the worst thing I can imagine. So you stay here where it’s safe, and if that bitch comes anywhere near you, you scream your fool head off. We’ll come running. Me, especially.” She cracked her knuckles. “I want another shot at her so bad that I can taste it.”
“Does it taste like desk duty and paperwork?” asked Andy. “You heard Henry. We’re grounded for the foreseeable, and I for one am not going to argue with that. Birdie’s dangerous. She’s already hurt Demi and activated Henry. You think I want to give her another shot at us?”
“I think if we don’t, there’s no telling how many people she may harm,” said Jeff. “We can’t sit back and let others risk themselves while we hide in the corner.”
“I love how ‘please don’t ask any questions’ has turned into ‘argue with each other while not actually asking questions,’” I said. I folded my arms. “All right. Who has vacation time to burn?”
Every hand went up.
“Good. Who here wants to stop Birdie?”
Every hand stayed up.
“Even better. If you want to stay here and anchor a desk, I am completely supportive of your choice. Demi, you need to keep yourself safe. Andy, the same thing goes for you—and more, you need to keep Demi safe. We’re not leaving her alone here.”
“I’m with you,” said Jeff.
“If you even ask, I will rip your earlobes off,” said Sloane.
“So we’re going after her. The three of us will file for vacation, and we will find Birdie before she hurts anyone else.” I looked to Jeff. “Do you still have a cot in the Archives?”
He looked guilty, but nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I haven’t been using it since I’ve been staying at your place. I just haven’t had the time to dismantle it. Why do you ask?”
“Because the first thing we need is information, and if there’s one place where I can learn more about people rewriting their own stories, it’s the place where my own story was born.” I uncrossed my arms, reaching up to brush the snow from my hair. I’d have more snow than I knew what to do with soon enough. “I need to go to the whiteout wood.”
There was a momentary silence. Then Sloane slid out of her chair, standing, unfolding to her full and imposing height. “Why?” she asked.
“Because when Gerry was on the verge of manifesting as a Rose Red, he saw a field filled with flowers,” I said. “Because some of the women in the wood have said things that make me think it’s not the only one—that every story has its equivalent. We’ve just been rounding up the fairy tales and locking them away so fast that no one gets to talk about where their monomyth comes from.” If you dug deeply enough into the Snow White story, what you found was blood on the snow, and the sacrifice at the heart of winter. There had to be something similar in all the narratives, something dark and enduring and cruel. It gave them the strength to feed, generation upon generation, on the hearts and lives of children. It gave them the strength to create people like me. I’d been born with white skin and black hair and red lips. I’d never had a chance.
It gave them the strength to kill.
“Let me see if I follow you here,” said Andy. “You want us to help you drop down into that really vivid dream where all the other Snow Whites who’ve ever lived teach you how to be a better fairy-tale princess, and once you get there, you’re going to what, go looking for the giant fireplace where all the Cinderellas are?”
“Something like that,” I said. But it wouldn’t be a fireplace, would it? It would be a forest like mine, made entirely of hazel trees sprouting from the graves of dead women. Their roots would be ripe with bones, and every branch would be heavy with birds, their avian eyes watching everything that happened. I knew it, deep down, in the part of me that was no longer Henrietta Marchen, but was something much older and more terrifying.
“Why?”
“Because maybe someone there will be able to tell me how Elise is pulling off this trick with the glass—how she was able to shift her story in the first place. All the Snow Whites are connected by the whiteout. Maybe the Cinderellas are the same. If they can give me anything that would tell me what Elise is planning, or what Birdie needs her for . . .”
“I don’t like this.” Jeff’s voice was small. I turned to face him. “Henry, I know you’re mad at Birdie for betraying us. I’m mad at her too. But if you start going to the whiteout wood because you want information on other people’s stories, you’re going to be giving your story more power over you. I don’t want to lose you in there just because you don’t have time to go through normal channels.”
He looked like he was scared out of his wits, and I realized, with a distant sort of despair, that I loved him—genuinely loved him, the way I was supposed to have fallen in love with my personal Prince Charming, and not with a nearsighted Archivist who liked to keep pre-sliced fruit in the fridge so he wouldn’t resort to the old stereotypes about elves and cookies. That wasn’t the part that caused the despair. No, the despair came from the fact that I loved him, and it wasn’t going to be enough.
“Birdie is manipulating the narrative. She has to be behind what Elise has been able to do. I don’t know what kind of wood the Mother Gooses have, but I know the Snow Whites and the Cinderellas are close enough to one another that I can find out what sort of ripples Elise is causing. I have to do this. It’s not a lack of patience or a lack of time; it’s necessity. If we don’t stop Birdie before she creates another Elise, who knows what damage she could do?” So many people were already dead, and I had the sinking suspicion that this was only the beginning.
“How do you get to the wood?” asked Sloane. “Just go to sleep?”
“Sometimes that works, but there’s a faster way—and I think I know how to make it absolutely guaranteed.” I swallowed the pulses of fear that were clawing their way up my throat, sent by the princess who was curled, sleeping, around my heart. “You’re going to give me an apple. And I’m going to eat it.”
Silence fell.
Silence didn’t last. “That’s it, she’s snapped,” said Sloane. “Call the men in the white coats, the snow bitch has gone off to happy fairy la-la land.”
“No, I haven’t,” I said.
“I
don’t believe they wear white coats anymore,” said Jeff.
Sloane stared at him. “Way to miss the fucking point, Poindexter. Your girlfriend wants me to feed her an apple. Me. I never met a piece of fruit I didn’t want to poison. You get that, right? Even if you watch me like a hawk, I could still kill her.”
“That’s why I know it’ll work,” I said. “If I eat an apple you hand me, I’ll be in the wood before I can blink.”
“What about us?” asked Andy.
“You’re going to stay here. You’re going to do your jobs and stay safe, because that’s the way it needs to be,” I said. “Jeff, can you get that vacation paperwork started?”
“I still don’t like this,” he said.
“I’m not going to ask you to,” I replied. “I’m just going to ask you to help me stop Birdie. Will you give me the apple? Will you help me into the wood?”
Jeff looked at me for a long moment before he sighed and stood. “You know I will. Wait here, both of you. I’m going to go get the paperwork.” Then he was gone, moving with the sort of speed he only accomplished when there was something to file.
Sloane looked at me. “You sure about this, Princess?”
For once, I didn’t bristle at the title. “No,” I said. “But I don’t see any other way.”
She took a deep breath. “Fine,” she said, finally. “I’ll do it—after you try going to sleep and getting into the wood the way you normally would. All right? We’re not risking your life and my status as a non-villain just because you’re in a hurry. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, relieved. We might not be taking the fast way, but that didn’t matter. We were moving forward. We were going to fix this.
# # #
It had been years since I’d taken a vacation. The amount of time I had banked up was as depressing as it was substantial. According to HR, I could have walked off the job for a year before I ran out of stored days—assuming anyone would let me. Even getting a month approved was difficult, and probably wouldn’t have happened without Deputy Director Brewer stepping in and saying we were doing it on his orders.
Indexing: Reflections (Kindle Serials) (Indexing Series Book 2) Page 10
