I narrowed my eyes and kept walking, scanning the path around me for signs that either Henry or the marquis had come this way. It was difficult; the walls were high enough to block most of the light, which meant I couldn’t see footprints. They were also thick enough to keep the air from circulating, which meant the two almost diametrically opposed stories were at war all around me, curdling each other and twisting into new, unpleasant shapes.
“Who the hell has a hedge maze on their property, anyway?” I muttered. “Have these people never seen Labyrinth? Or read The Shining?”
“Those are both much more recent popular culture references than I expected from you,” said Henry, stepping out of a cul-de-sac and falling in beside me, matching her stride to mine. I flinched instinctively away. She either ignored it or didn’t feel the need to mention it—it was hard to say—as she continued, “I would have thought you’d go for the classics. Something about a minotaur lurking in here, all horns and bloodlust.”
“There hasn’t been a minotaur manifest in North America for almost a hundred years,” I said, and hated myself for going along with her. I slanted a sidelong look in her direction. “Where’s Jeffrey?”
“We split up to cover ground faster when we realized you and Ciara weren’t joining us as quickly as you were supposed to. Did something go wrong?” Henry looked concerned. There was something off about the expression, like she’d practiced it too many times in the mirror and worn all the believability away. It didn’t help my nerves any. It didn’t help my burning desire to punch her in the mouth, either.
There are times when reacting to everything with violence is not just inconvenient, it’s annoying, especially since I rarely actually allow myself to hit anybody. My life is a web of unfulfilled desires and unscratched itches. “Yes, something went wrong,” I said. “You decided we should chase a dude who’s already killed two people and kidnapped a third into a dark creepy hedge maze that has absolutely no business existing. If you don’t consider that ‘wrong,’ there’s something seriously wrong with you.”
There was something wrong with her. I was surer of it now than ever. The air couldn’t circulate, and so the cold radiating from her body was trapped, swirling around us until it felt like snow should start falling at any moment. I resisted the urge to move away. I would have been more comfortable, but it would have given her another opportunity to ask me why I was so upset, and I didn’t want that. Everything about this situation seemed designed to set my teeth on edge.
To my surprise, Henry smiled. It was easy to forget how disturbing she looked, seeing her day to day as I did, but here and now, in the shadows of the maze, she looked like some sort of twisted murder clown grinning at me before she devoured my soul.
“Wow, I am not going to sleep this week,” I muttered.
“You’re right: this situation is disturbing,” she said. “I’m glad you feel that way about it. I was afraid you wouldn’t notice. Deputy Director Brewer has come to me with a few concerns about your behavior since I woke up.”
“Is that so.” It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be. I knew Dan Brewer better than she’d ever bothered to try, and I knew he wasn’t having concerns about my behavior: I was well within the normal limits that the Bureau would put up with. As long as I wasn’t putting arsenic in the communal coffee pot or smashing the mirrors where his story-struck girlfriend pined for the real world, he wasn’t going to go to Henry with concerns about me.
She was lying. The only question left was why.
“He said the last time you’d rejected a team leader, the team you were on fell apart. We’re effective as a unit, Sloane. We do good work. That doesn’t mean the Bureau won’t reassign us all if they think that we could do better work somewhere else.”
“Maybe it’s time for that,” I said. “I mean, fuck. Demi’s active now. You’re active now. Your whole thing with Jeffrey is screwing up his ability to be an effective researcher. Andrew wants to be a father, and that probably means he isn’t going to want to be in the field forever. Everything runs its course. Let it go.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Henry. “Maybe there’s a time for everything. But Sloane, if that’s true, don’t you think it’s time for you to think about letting go too?”
I gave her a sidelong look. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been hating everyone, and everything, for a lot longer than you like to let on,” said Henry. “Your story isn’t done because it never really started. You’re part of something bigger, and not something independent. Like being a part of this team. As long as you’re doing this sort of work, your solo career can’t stop.”
“I don’t follow.”
The shadows in the maze were deep, but Henry’s skin was pale enough that I could read her cool, calculating expression as she looked at me and said, “Maybe you’re so stuck because you’re still playing a supporting role in someone else’s story, instead of starting up a story of your own.”
I stumbled.
Recovering my balance took me a few seconds, and gave me the time I needed to get my breath back. Finally, I said, “You’re high. You found whatever that Marquis de Carabas asshole was smoking when he started seeing imaginary cats, and you decided to try it for yourself.”
“I’m serious, Sloane. You’re stuck because you’re a minor player in a Cinderella story that never really got started. You don’t qualify to be a Cinderella in your own right—even if your family was alive, you lost your father and not your mother, which is the wrong direction for most versions of the story. There was probably a time when you could have washed the bitterness off and gone to a different ball, but that ship has sailed by now, don’t you think? You need to find another story. Unless you really feel like being sixteen and angry about it forever. How did you wind up so tall? You shouldn’t have had time to get so tall.”
“There was a beanstalk incident.” It had happened in the early 1800s, which made it worse. These days, I was a woman of above average height, but I wasn’t out of the ordinary for, say, a supermodel. Back then, there had been a few carnivals willing to give me a job, had I ever decided to leave the Bureau. “You don’t normally ask me these sorts of questions, Henry. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“You don’t normally behave so poorly that my job is at risk,” said Henry. “The kid gloves are off.”
“Oh, are they? I hadn’t noticed.” I stopped walking, planting my feet firmly in the loamy ground. Henry continued for a few more steps before she turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised in silent question.
I said nothing. I wanted to see what she would do.
Seconds ticked by. Finally, looking frustrated, Henry demanded, “Oh, what now? Did I hurt your precious feelings?”
“Nope,” I said. “I mean, one, that assumes I have feelings to hurt, and two, it assumes I’d ever give you the chance. You did tip your hand a little, though. You’re not Henry. She might want to know those things, but she’d never just ask them like that. She’d give a fuck about how I might react. Because see, she cares about my feelings.”
“Which don’t exist,” she said.
“Not for you,” I replied. “Who are you? How do you have Henry’s face? Are you a broken mirror, or some sort of doppelganger? Are you a Death on the Road? Can you die?” Can I kill you? Surely it wouldn’t tip me over any edges to take care of someone who’d hurt my friend. Heroes killed all the time, they just did it for the right reasons. I couldn’t think of a better reason than “impersonated Henry, hurt Jeffrey, led us all into danger at least once.”
I was going to enjoy feeling her nose break under my knuckles.
The woman who wasn’t Henry smiled. Her posture shifted, becoming more relaxed, less formal—and more predatory. She didn’t stand like a Bureau agent. She didn’t stand like a fairy-tale princess, either. She stood like me.
She stood like a villain.
“Tell me, have you known the whole time, or did I actually tip you off just now?
I’m trying to figure out how stupid you are.” Her voice dropped as she spoke, acquiring a mild buzz that set my teeth on edge. “I’ve never thought your story gave you much reason for genius. It would be wasted on someone who only needs to know how much arsenic to pour into the evening tea.”
“So you’re really not Henry, then.” I relaxed a little. Suddenly, all the dark and dangerous thoughts I’d been having about a woman who was supposed to be my friend seemed just a little less dark, a little less dangerous, and a lot more justified. I wasn’t turning on the hand that fed me. I was behaving like a good soldier and watching for danger, no matter what form it took. “Who the fuck are you, lady, and what did you do with our boss? She’s obnoxious and wound too tight, but we’re used to her. I’d like her back, if you don’t mind.”
“Not happening,” said not-Henry. She ran her hands down the front of her body in a way that was so disturbingly sexual that I wanted to avert my eyes. I knew Henry was no virgin. Jeffrey’s silly grin after he’d moved in with her would have confirmed that, even if I hadn’t dated her brother for the better part of a year. Twins, as it turned out, told each other everything. Gerry had been a deep wellspring of shit I didn’t want to know about the woman I called boss.
None of that justified this stranger touching Henry’s body that way—and it was Henry’s body. I was sure of that. Henry had eaten the apple in my sight. Jeffrey had been by her side near-constantly from then until the moment when she’d woken up. Whoever this parasite was, she was wearing Henry’s skin like a suit. It made me want to hurt her. It made it impossible for me to raise a hand.
“It’s a relief, actually; I was hoping someone would figure it out, and more, I was hoping it would be you.” The woman who wasn’t Henry smiled. “You don’t belong here any more than I do. The Bureau’s had you captive for far too long, Sloane—or would you rather I called you ‘Amity’? It’s such a pretty name. I don’t really understand why you walked away from it the way you did.”
“I’m going to scratch your eyes out of your head and feed them to the first crow I see,” I snarled.
“No you won’t.” She ran her hand down Henry’s chest again. Technically, the hand was Henry’s too, but it didn’t seem that way, not with this woman moving it. “You miss her. You wouldn’t be calling me out if you didn’t. That means you won’t do anything that might damage your precious Henrietta’s perfect storybook of a body. You want her back too badly, at least right now.”
“What, are you planning to force me into a situation where it’s Henry’s body or a whole bus full of orphans? Because lady, I don’t think you’ll enjoy the choice I make.”
“No. Because I’m going to make you see that really, what you want is me. I’m so much better for you than she could ever have been. Oh, maybe the rest of your straitlaced little team will think this is some sort of a corruption, but you, Sloane, you’re open-minded and ready to see the possibilities inherent in something new. Something better than you’ve been given up until this point.” She lowered her hand, leaned a little closer, and said sweetly, “Aren’t you tired of being the villain of the piece? Don’t you want something more?”
Yes. Yes, I did. That was all I’d ever wanted: to be something more than a prop in someone else’s story, condemned to fill my mouth with poison and my hands with knives. That was why I couldn’t accept it—or anything—from her. I knew without asking that any apple she offered me would be a death sentence, and any mirror she showed me would already be burnt black from the inside. This was not the way to change my story.
“I’m listening,” I said.
“The Bureau has made a lot of mistakes since its inception. You know that. You were there.” Her smile spread. If I hadn’t known better, I would have marked her for a Cheshire Cat. I would have been wrong. Cats could be cruel, but even they didn’t toy with their prey this much. “It’s sort of a marvel they were able to go as far off the rails as they have without you showing them the error of their ways. I kept expecting to find some massacre in your files, some bloodbath of a bureaucratic adjustment, and it was never there. It was just yes ma’am and no sir all the way down. Did they promise you a better story if you played along? They were lying if they did. Following the rules never bought anyone a fairy tale.”
“They were my friends,” I said. How many of my files had this woman read before she did whatever she’d done that had allowed her to seize control of my friend’s body? She’d already called me “Amity.” That meant she had access to Jack’s files, and those were usually buried so deep that sometimes even I forgot that they were there.
Maybe if she’d called me by that name two hundred years ago, it would have hurt as much as she had clearly intended it to. Back then, I’d still held out hope for Amity, some small prayer that one day, I’d find a way to save the girl I’d been. But those days were far in the past, and Amity Green was buried with her sisters, in spirit if not in flesh. I was Sloane Winters. Changing my story wouldn’t change my past, no matter how much I might wish it.
“Your friends used you and set you aside like a doll they no longer had time to play with,” said the woman. “They never loved you. They never wanted to love you. It would have been too much of a risk, and they were long since done with risk-taking by the time they got to this palace of lost potential and doomed idealism. You were a tool to them, and they were the world to you. Don’t you think it’s time for that to be turned around?”
“What’s your name?” It was a struggle to keep my voice level, but not as great a struggle as it was to keep my hands open and my arms by my sides. I couldn’t kill her while she wore Henry’s face. The thought of making her sorry she’d ever stolen it was becoming more appealing by the second. There are a lot of ways to make a person suffer without breaking the skin.
“We have two names between us: Sloane and Amity,” said the woman. “We have a third, if you insist on cleaving to ‘Henrietta’ as a reasonable thing for this body to be called. It’s a plodding, disgraceful name. As far from a proper address for a princess as you can get, and believe me, I’ve heard many names used for the princesses of this world. It’s like they were trying to crush her spirit before she even got started, don’t you think? Poor thing never stood a chance.”
“Look, lady, fuck your math, okay?” I finally allowed my hand to move, dipping it into my pocket and pulling out my phone. “I’m calling Ciara. She’s going to be thrilled to learn that I was right about you all along.”
“I don’t think so,” said the woman. She didn’t move, but the smell of snow and apples grew stronger.
That wasn’t all that was growing stronger. I remained very still, only cocking an eyebrow upward as I asked, “No? Why wouldn’t I call her?”
“Because we’ve been watching you, and I’m the lucky one who gets to make you the offer. Join us. We can change your story. We can make you anything you want to be. A hero, a villain in your own right, even a princess worthy of the crown—it can all be yours if you agree.” She held her hand out toward me, a small smile on her bloody lips. She clearly thought she had already won, and that it was all over save for convincing me to go along with her.
She’d forgotten one essential fact of our situation. Sure, she’d managed to ditch Jeffrey, and sure, Ciara had gone in the opposite direction to look for her, but those weren’t the only other people in this maze. Red-faced and sweating, the erstwhile Marquis de Carabas leapt from the shadows behind her, shouted, “Villain!” and swung his weapon—a groundskeeper’s machete—at her head.
The woman who wasn’t Henry yelped and hit the ground, rolling away from her attacker as quickly as she could. He made a wordless noise of frustration and raised the machete to swing again, only to stop when he saw me.
I had one clear path out of this. It all depended on how convincing I could be as a selfish, amoral, manipulative creature—which was to say, a cat. “Took you long enough,” I said, injecting as much of a sneer as I dared into my voice. “I had time to kill six
rats, three birds, and a frog before you found me.” I raised one hand, studying my nails as I had so often seen the barnyard cat back in Salem studying its claws.
The Marquis’s eyes widened. “Puss?” he said, in a half hopeful, half bewildered tone.
“Are you slow now, or just a fool?” I dropped my hand and glared. “You let the girl get away. She’s your wife. You’re responsible for her. Why are you running around this maze instead of finding her and bringing her back?”
“You didn’t tell me you could be a woman,” he said, like that was more important than anything else I could have to say. He looked me up and down and added, “You’re beautiful.”
“Yeah, well, my last owner had me spayed,” I said. The woman who wasn’t Henry was picking herself up from the ground. I pointed to her. “The ogre’s back. You couldn’t do that part of your job either.”
Technically, it was supposed to be the cat’s job to get rid of the ogre: after the Marquis tricked it into transforming into a mouse, Puss in Boots would leap upon it and gobble it down, resolving the situation in a quick, fatal fashion. Thankfully for me, this particular Marquis was seeing things rather than actually traveling with a talking cat, and so when I said “ogre,” he reacted without hesitation. Not-Henry yelped and rolled away when he brought the machete down again, narrowly missing her head.
“Call him off!” she shouted.
I crossed my arms. “It’s an interesting philosophical question, really. I can’t hurt you because you’re wearing Henry’s face. He, on the other hand, has no such restrictions, and probably thinks you look like an alien invader. Don’t you think it’s time to tell me who the fuck you are, in case that gets me to stop the story?”
Indexing: Reflections (Kindle Serials) (Indexing Series Book 2) Page 24
