“I have walked for three days,” said Amity wearily. “If I am still near my village then I am damned, and nothing in this world can save me.”
The two men exchanged a look. The Rose Red frowned. “That may be so,” she said. “Tell me, have you heard anything of a family with three lovely daughters, two born to the woman of the house, the third brought to her table by marriage? We’re looking for them, you see. We have a gift for their youngest.”
“She wasn’t the youngest,” said Amity. “Gabrielle was second of the three of us, if you reckon by years, and not by the day she arrived at the house.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “I suppose she’s the eldest now, with me gone and Isabelle remaining. I hope she will stand up to Mother, now that I am gone.”
The Rose Red’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry. Are you saying you come from such a family?”
“I’ve left them. They’re safe now.” Amity squared her shoulders and looked up at her interrogator. Her name didn’t fit her as well now as it had when I first saw her coming out to tend the chickens. She was sliding further toward Sloane with every moment. “I’ll not be a wicked stepsister for anyone. I will not let the Devil make a Cinderella of my beloved Gabrielle.”
The silence that fell then was absolute and all-consuming. I realized I was holding my breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
The gold-haired man slid off his horse, trying to make the motion unobtrusive. The Rose Red didn’t take her eyes off Amity.
“I don’t think you know what you’re saying, girl,” she said. “Cinderella is a fairy tale.”
“My father died not six months ago, when the robin was building in the holly tree. My mother loved all her daughters then, and I would never have raised a hand against my sisters, either of them. Isabelle was the gentlest creature in the wood. Even rabbits seemed like foul murderers compared to her! But the snow came, and everything changed.” Amity shook her head. “We are good women. We work hard, and we trouble none. Yet Mother calls Gabrielle foul names and makes her sleep in the barn, and I caught Isabelle pulling her hair, while I dream of poisoned soup and ground glass in the well. I could not stay. Don’t you see? There is a story older than my family, and somehow we stumbled into it, my sisters and I. But you cannot have a Cinderella without her wicked stepsisters, and I refuse that role. I will not be their destruction.”
The man with the golden hair pulled a knife from his belt. “So you admit to being story- struck?” he asked, and his voice was low and dangerous.
Amity didn’t seem frightened. She stood a little taller, lifted her chin a little higher like she was intentionally exposing her throat. “I admit to nothing but saving my family. If that is a sin, strike me down, I beg you. Keep them safe from me by removing me from this world.” She cast a narrow-eyed look at the Rose Red. “You smell of roses. I wonder if the smell of blood will dull them.”
The man with the scar raised his hand—the first motion he’d made since the riders stopped. Both of his companions froze. Leaning forward on his horse, he fixed his eye on Amity. For her part, she didn’t flinch away. She simply looked back at him, cool and calm and resigned to her fate. She had given up, and in this girl, in this place and time, giving up seemed to have unlocked some great wellspring of anger in her soul.
How dare you? her gaze asked, and Because someone must, answered the eyes of the man with the scar.
“You smell roses on our Electa? How fascinating. There are no roses in this wood.” His voice was mild, even pleasant, but there were teeth lurking in its depths.
Amity stood her ground. “Then the lady favors perfumes from France. She’s your companion, not mine. Grill her as to why she smells of roses.”
“But you see, I know she wears no perfume, and more, I know why she smells so. You are an enigma, child. Story-struck, yes, but only from the side; the story you stepped through was never meant for you. You should be a husk by now, devoid of will or want to do anything beyond what the tale commanded. So how are you here, in the middle of this forest, so many miles from your family? How is it that you smell the roses?” The man with the scar leaned even further forward. “You’ve done the impossible. I want to know how.”
“Then you’ll not kill me?” I would have needed to be deaf to miss the pain in Amity’s voice, or the way it cracked on the final word. She sounded like a child who had just been denied her heart’s one true desire.
“Not unless you force us to.” The scarred man offered her his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Amity took it.
“Do you promise me I’ll never be able to harm my family? That they’ll be all right without me?”
“My companions will ride ahead and see that they are well,” said the man. “As for you, I promise you’ll harm none, lest we put an end to your time in this world. Will you trust me?”
Amity hesitated. I could see the confusion and trepidation in her eyes, the fear as she compared the danger of riding away with a stranger in the woods to the danger of walking those woods alone. Finally, she nodded. “I will try.”
The man swung her up onto his horse like she weighed nothing at all. Looking to his companions, he said, “Go. You have your orders.”
“We’ll see you at home,” said the golden haired man. He climbed back onto his horse. Then he and the Rose Red—Electa—were away, pounding off in the direction Amity had run from.
“Where are we going?” asked Amity. Her voice was very small.
“To explore your glorious mystery,” said the man. He wheeled his horse around, urging it into a gallop. In only a few seconds, the road was empty.
I knew what was expected of me by now. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I was standing in a large room lined with books and studded with oak furniture. Whoever owned this building had money to spare, something supported by the cut glass decanter of brandy on the table. The gold-haired man was sitting there, a glass of the stuff in his hand, while Electa paced. The black-haired man leaned against the wall, watching both of them. Amity was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m telling you, Jack, it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” said Electa. She raked a hand through her cherry-colored hair. “The mother met us in the yard, asking if we’d seen her daughter, and both girls were with her. There was no sign of the story. The youngest was holding the Cinderella’s hand and weeping. That girl we found, she broke a Cinderella in formation by walking away. How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know,” said the black-haired man, whose name must have been Jack. “It may have happened before. We have no way of knowing how many stories fail to happen, only the ones which occur and destroy and fade away. Perhaps this is how most Cinderella stories wither on the vine.”
“And the angry young woman now sleeping in the garret?” asked the still-nameless man. “I’m amazed you managed to feed her so much laudanum without her noticing. She must have been very tired.”
“Or had simply never tasted the stuff before,” said Electa. “Look at her clothing. She’s lived a simple, pious life. She probably has no idea what’s going on. She’s going to be a burden. We can’t keep pets.”
“She was strong enough to walk away from a Cinderella that had already started to revise the world,” said Jack. “That bears some careful observation. I’ve already written to London—you remember London, don’t you Electa? The Council of Librarians? They gave us permission to keep you alive, when most were baying for your blood as a dangerous, story-struck individual. This girl deserves the same chance, and besides, she smelled roses on you. That’s unusual. I want to know more, and we have no one here with skill at learning secrets from the dead.”
“How are we seeing this?” I asked. “I never met any of these people.”
“Look at the stairs,” murmured the mirror’s voice. I turned my head. There was Amity, crouched low and hiding in the shadows of the bannister. She must have been there this whole time, watching, listening, as these three strangers debated her fate.
E
lecta glared at Jack. “She’s a liability. She’s story-struck, but she’s not the Cinderella of the piece. Can we afford the risk of a Wicked Stepsister here, in our home? The work is great and there are too few of us as it is.”
“You cut straight to the heart of the matter,” said Jack. “The work is great. There are too few of us. She’s been touched by a story; that makes her eligible to join us. And she smelled roses on you, Electa. Do you know what that could mean?”
“There hasn’t been a hound for decades,” said the unnamed man. “You’re chasing, if you’ll forgive the implication, a fairy tale. Cut the girl loose or kill her, but don’t make her out to be the impossible.”
“Impossible is a matter of perspective, Hiram,” said Jack. “We keep her, for now. We expose her to a few more stories and see what she makes of them. If she can spot them like she spotted Electa, we tell her everything, and we convince her to serve with us.”
Electa looked alarmed. Hiram emptied his glass in one convulsive swallow.
“This is madness,” he said. “You’ll doom us all.”
“Or we’ll save the Colonies from becoming nothing but a breeding ground for superstition and fable,” said Jack. “The only way to know is to continue on.”
Amity, still mostly in shadow, rose and crept back up the stairs. She made no sound as I watched her go, and it was no surprise when I turned back to the room and she was already there.
Her clothes had changed. They were still modest, but they were cut from a finer cloth, and better tailored to the shape of her body. I wondered which of her new “friends” had overseen that. If she was uncomfortable having her figure revealed, she didn’t show it: she was sitting still as a snake preparing to strike, a blindfold tied over her eyes.
“This is your final test, Amity,” said Jack. “If you pass, you’ll be given a new name and a new place here, with us, to hold for as long as you like. If you fail . . .”
“If I fail, you kill me,” she said. There was a sharp edge in her voice that hadn’t been there before. She was wearing away the soft parts of herself, leaving nothing but a weapon in their wake. “Test me, then, and tell me whether I’m to live or die.”
“Very well.” Jack walked to the door and opened it, offering his hand to the woman who was waiting on the other side. She had long white hair, and she didn’t say a word as Jack led her across the room toward Amity. Jack settled her in the chair across from the waiting, motionless girl.
“All right,” he said. “Begin.”
Amity sniffed the air, frowning. Then she said, “I hear waves, and I smell dead fish on the beach. Did you bring me a fisherman?”
The white-haired woman clapped a hand over her mouth, but didn’t make a sound as she turned wide, wounded eyes on Jack.
“Not quite,” he said to Amity, and “You may go,” to the Little Mermaid he had brought before her. The white-haired woman fled through the door she had entered by. Electa led a man into the room. He was wearing a flat cap and had a pleasantly vague expression, like the world was a new delight that was unfolding with every moment.
“Amity?” prompted Jack.
“Empty halls, and too many cobwebs, and graveyard dirt. Why—did you bring me a gravedigger? Why would you do such a thing?”
“Not quite,” said Jack again. He nodded to Electa, who led the Boy Who Didn’t Know Fear away. “We have one more test for you, Amity. Are you prepared?”
“As ever I have been,” she said. “Test me or leave me be, but don’t prattle on so. My ears ache to hear it.”
“As you say,” he said. He reached down and removed the heavy torque he wore around his left wrist. Instantly, he seemed to stand a little taller, and have a little more anger in his eyes. He looked like he could huff and puff and blow the whole world down.
Amity wrinkled her nose. “It smells of wet dog in here,” she said. “Did you bring me a huntsman?”
“Not quite,” said Jack, and his voice was full of gravel, and his mouth was full of teeth. Then he slid the torque back over his wrist, and he was a man once more. “You may uncover your eyes now, Amity. You’ve passed.”
“How fortunate,” said Amity dryly. She reached up to remove her blindfold, looking at Jack. “Now will you tell me what I’ve committed myself to?”
“Your sister,” said Jack, taking the seat across from her while Hiram and Electa walked in from opposite sides of the room. They moved to stand behind Jack, flanking him. “She was a Cinderella in the making. Do you believe this?”
“I said it, and I meant it,” said Amity. “I still dream of her—of doing terrible, unforgiveable things to her. Boiling and burning and poisons in her food. I don’t know why. But the jealousy threatens to consume me whenever I think on her face, which I loved so well, and now wish so truly to destroy.”
“That’s because she was becoming a fairy tale, and she was taking you with her,” said Jack. He began to talk. Amity listened, dubiously at first, but with increasing understanding and increasing horror as he explained the ways stories could and would parasitize the real world. This was before the Aarne-Thompson Index had been published, before the ATI Management Bureau was founded; this was an older, wilder form of controlling the fairy tales that would otherwise have run roughshod over humanity.
Sloane predated the Index. My eyes widened at the realization. I’d never really considered that before, or wondered how much of what we thought we knew was only this year’s wisdom. I’d always known she was older than she looked, but Colonial times? This much older? How much change had she seen? How much change was yet to come?
The things we thought of as constants were just ripples in the water to her. The only thing that had ever remained, century after century, was the story, and the poison it had planted in her heart.
When Jack stopped talking, Amity looked at him and asked, in a very small voice, “Is there any way this can be taken from me? I don’t want this. I miss the girl I was. I dream of broken glass and poisoned pies. It burns me.”
“The story that touched you was never meant for you,” said Jack. He sounded almost gentle, like he understood how hard this had to be for her. I started to like him a little bit. He was doing his best in a world that didn’t have the comforting framework of bureaucracy to fall back on. “Electa is what we call ‘a Rose Red.’ She was tied to an ancient Germanic story about sisters and gold and bears. I . . . come from a different tale. Both of us were meant to be the subjects of our stories, warping the people around us. You were not the spider, to sit at the middle of your web. You were a fly, caught by something too great for you to understand. You aren’t a Cinderella in your own right. You are . . . something new. Something different. We’d like you to stay here, with us, if you would. Your skills could come in handy.”
Amity looked at him. Something was dying in her eyes: some indefinable blend of hope and longing. “Am I a prisoner?”
Jack nodded. “Yes. You can’t be one of us. You’re too new, and too unpredictable. But we’ll be kind, and we’ll keep you as best we can.”
“So you’d ask for my freedom, then,” said Amity bitterly.
“We already have your freedom. You’ve been our captive since I lifted you onto my horse.” Jack’s expression hardened. “You’ll pay three things in exchange for your life—because mark me, the other option is the blade. You’ll pay with your freedom, because we’ll never let you go. You’ll pay with your future, because we will craft you into the weapon we want, and not the woman you would have been. And you’ll pay with your name.”
“My name?”
“Amity Green is a part of the world outside these walls. She has a family. They may miss her, someday. We can conceal you, keep any who might have known you once from recognizing you if they happen to catch a glimpse. What’s more, we can protect your family. You can’t be drawn back into the story if you’re not one of them anymore. But you must give us your name, and you can never have it back again.”
Amity sat up a little straig
hter.
“Take it,” she said. “Save them from me. It’s all I have left to give.”
Jack turned to Hiram and nodded. Hiram stepped forward, pulling a small box out of his pocket. He opened it, holding it toward Amity. There was an odd pulling feeling, one that reached even me, despite my phantom presence at the scene. When it faded, he closed the box, and all three of them looked impassively at the nameless girl sitting in front of them. I couldn’t think of her as Amity anymore; whenever I tried, my mind skittered away from the word, avoiding it as fiercely as it could.
“What shall we call you?” asked Jack.
“Sloane,” said the girl, and Sloane she was, finally: my teammate, who would walk untouched through centuries to come to me. “Sloane Winters.”
Jack smiled. “Let me show you to your cell.”
The scene twisted around them, becoming a different room, a different time. Hiram was there, but older by at least forty years, a gnarled, weary-looking man sitting behind a heavy desk. He glared at Sloane, who stood unrepentantly before him.
“You must stop trying to escape,” he said. “Your safety depends on these walls.”
“You walk me like a hound when you’re hunting a story, and then you lock me away again,” she snapped. “How can you blame me for struggling toward freedom?”
“The last time you were free, someone poisoned the well,” said Hiram.
Sloane looked away. “I would never do that,” she said. “Children drink there.”
“I know, Sloane. Jack was very clear in his notes on what you were and weren’t capable of. But we answer to more than just ourselves, and the Council of Librarians doesn’t know you as I do. I won’t be here much longer. Whoever comes after me won’t remember how young and confused you were. They’ll only see a girl who doesn’t age, whose story is unclear, who could kill us all one day. I’m your last friend here. Please. Be good for a little longer.”
Indexing: Reflections (Kindle Serials) (Indexing Series Book 2) Page 22
