When I open my eyes, Will is watching me. He’s sitting across the room, with his back against a wall of exposed brick. Once again, his hair has fallen forward, but it isn’t enough to hide his concern.
The misery in this room is palpable.
I force myself back to the journal, past that terrible page.
Prospero lied to me. He’s done nothing to check the rise of the swamp, and I do not know the location of the pumping station that he promised would cleanse the water. He won’t distribute masks to the people. I have only one threat left, and I don’t think he believes me.
And then the last pages are about the Red Death.
While the Weeping Sickness is passed through the air, the Red Death is contracted through both the air and the drinking water. I have nothing more to threaten Prospero with. All is lost. He’s taken my wife. My son is dead. I will not be the one to save the city.
I shut the book and stare into space for a long time. What about me? Did Father think I was lost too? Was he right?
I wake to the thump of a footstep against the wood floor and sit up, clutching the journal to my heart.
The room is still shadowy, though light is streaming in through the hole in the roof and the filthy windows.
“Good morning.” Elliott stands a few feet away, silhouetted by the light that’s filtering in.
“Good morning,” I reply, trying to hide my surprise. I dart a glance to Will’s corner, but he’s gone. I tuck the journal under my skirt and gesture toward the rest of the couch. “Do you want to sit?”
He collapses beside me so quickly that I’m surprised he waited for my invitation. Elliott isn’t one for waiting. The skin under his eyes looks bruised. He hasn’t slept.
“The storm is over?” I prompt.
He nods. “April is watching the swamp. She’s the best shot, and she was feeling restless. I think she wanted to get away from the children.” He gives me a sidelong look. “We’ll be leaving today.”
“To go back to the city?”
“Araby . . .” He reaches out, as if to embrace me, but I put out my hands to hold him back. So he twines his fingers through mine, and the way our hands fit together feels extremely personal in just the way I wanted to avoid.
“We need to talk,” I say.
“Do we?” His expression is sardonic, but I ignore it. I have the right to voice my opinion.
He has to realize that if we go to the palace, everything is lost. The echo of my father stops me before I even start.
Thom pokes his head around the corner. “Did you move the prisoner? The door is open. And he’s gone.”
Elliott is on his feet immediately. “Go tell Kent and April. We need to arm ourselves,” he says. “He’s dangerous.” Thom’s eyes dart back to the corridor. He’s hiding something, but Elliott doesn’t see his face. He’s looking at Will, who has entered the room behind the boy. Thom hurries away.
Will stops, considering Elliott, but before he can say anything, Elliott lunges at him. “You did this,” he accuses. “You let him go.”
Will struggles to hold him back.
“You were going to kill him.” Will’s voice is quiet but no less accusing.
“Yes. I was. How long ago? How long has he been gone?”
Will shrugs out of Elliott’s grip and crosses his arms as he answers.
“He left during the storm. His only crime is having the disease and trying to get away from the city.”
I think it’s Will’s nonchalance that pushes Elliott over the brink. He slams into Will, shoving him against the wall. Elliott’s fist connects once, and then Will is fighting back. He hits Elliott right above the eye, and Elliott’s head whips back.
Elliott wipes a thin line of blood from his eyebrow and says, “He manipulated you. His crimes were much worse than that. I recognized him—he used to work for my uncle, before he caught the contagion. And then he started doing Malcontent’s dirty work. Ravaging the lower city. Killing children and feeding them to crocodiles.”
Will pales. “The Hunter?”
“Ah, you’ve heard the stories?”
Will nods.
“He’ll wait until the right moment to kill us,” Elliott says. “The moment that it becomes a challenge. If I were you I’d stick close to your siblings until we get out of here.” Will reacts to this like it’s a threat, shoving Elliott backward.
“Why didn’t you tell us who he was?” he shouts. Elliott scoffs, more than ready to fight.
I throw myself between them, facing Elliott. My arms are out to my sides, as if we are all children playing some game. But the anger in this room is far from childish.
“They want to kill us all, you know,” Elliott says. “He told me about Malcontent’s plan. They were told to attack, to come into contact with as many people as they can. They are going to infect everyone in the city.”
Will is shaken. “He told me about his family. He couldn’t live with them, because of the disease, but he was worried . . .”
“You are a fool.” Elliott steps forward so my hand is pressed against his chest, and he speaks to Will over my shoulder. “We won’t be safe until Kent can get us out of here, and even then, you’ve released a killer back into the swamp.”
A bruise is forming around Elliott’s eye from Will’s punch, in the same spot I hit him after he dangled me over the river.
“You tortured him.” Will slumps against the wall.
“I got information,” Elliott says. “You heard a pack of lies. Which of us is more noble?”
I push Elliott farther from Will. “That’s enough.”
“Elliott,” Kent calls from the room above. “We’re missing a musket. We need to get out of here—”
“Did you give him a musket?” Elliott’s voice is so low that it’s practically a growl. “Did he tell you that he was afraid of the swamp, so you stole a gun for him?”
“No.”
Will looks away from Elliott’s stare. I can see by the way that his shoulders slump that he realizes the extent of his naïveté. And Elliott’s anger is only building. The tension is making him practically vibrate.
Standing between them isn’t enough. I take Elliott’s hand. He is the one angry enough to attack. But my gesture goes deeper than that, and I know it. He looks down, and I meet his eyes. Once, I thought Will would save me. From myself. But he couldn’t even do that. I pull Elliott to the ladder, and he climbs up to help Kent.
I glance back. Will knows. And he knows he doesn’t deserve to feel hurt, but he does. I can see the conflict in his face before he turns and walks out of the room.
I hesitate a moment before following him. Only one door in the hallway is open, the one leading to an abandoned bedroom.
“Did you keep him locked in here?” I ask Will, but don’t cross the threshold.
“In the closet,” he says. “Otherwise he could have escaped.” He gestures to the window. He obviously doesn’t want to talk, and now that I’m here, I don’t know what to say to him.
A cricket scuttles onto the toe of my right shoe. I jump back, stopping only when I hit the door across the hallway. My hand knocks against the doorknob, but it doesn’t even jiggle. It’s locked. If the prisoner wasn’t kept in one of these rooms, why are they locked? Would a family, abandoning their home, lock doors inside it?
Curious, and seeking a reason to pause here with Will, I walk the entire corridor, trying every door. Those on the right are locked. The left are open. The crickets are everywhere now, creeping through the darkness. Spiders spin elaborate webs in the corners. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are mice in the walls, and if there are mice there are probably snakes. I repress a shudder.
I push hard against one of the locked doors, but it doesn’t give even slightly.
“The one at the end of the corridor is loose,” Will says. He’s right. The lock does wobble. But it’s intact, so none of my companions must have been interested enough to break it.
I hit the door with my good side
, but even so, pain radiates across my back. I gasp and lean against the wall while the pain subsides. Will just watches.
“Well,” I say, “are you going to help?” I can’t understand why none of them have investigated this mystery. Anything could be hidden behind a locked door.
“Araby!” April calls from upstairs. “Hurry, we’re leaving!”
“Don’t forget this,” Will says, handing me Father’s journal.
“Thank you.” I straighten up and give the door one last kick. “I’ll want to share it with Elliott.”
Neither of us says anything more while we gather our gear and climb to the roof.
As soon as we emerge, I’m immediately covered with dew, or what passes for dew in the thick humidity of a swamp. The precipitation is visible on my arms, gleaming in the weak morning sun.
A drop runs the length of my dress and falls to the blue-gray slate tile.
April is waiting. She gives Will a quick, disgusted look, and then ignores him, leaning against me. “Thank God we’re leaving. I hate the swamp.”
He disappears, walking around the ship, leaving us alone.
April and I haven’t had any time to talk. Part of me longs to discuss the pain of what happened with Will. Perhaps she could help me make sense of it. Perhaps she could unravel what’s happening between me and Elliott, how our fake romance seems to be turning into something very real. And maybe she could tell me about that secret half smile that she can’t quite hide whenever Kent is near.
She leads me to the deck of the airship and right to Kent. I’m surprised that he isn’t scurrying around the ship, double-checking everything.
“How is Will?” he asks.
“His lip is bloody,” I say, though I know it isn’t what he’s asking. Kent looks at me, and I can see that he understands. We are, both of us, throwing in our lot with Elliott. For the good of the city. And for April.
“Your father was my hero,” Kent says. “Is my hero. Since I was a boy.”
He wants me to tell him that the rumors are lies. I want him to say the same to me. Instead, neither of us says anything. We stare out over the destroyed landscape. The swamp has enveloped everything. The last remnants of a rose arbor are decaying even as I watch.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Kent says finally.
I cast a sharp look at him, and he seems completely serious. What more does he see through his corrective lenses? April takes his hand.
“Elliott has been helping me with my inventions for years, since we met as boys. And Will is my closest friend,” Kent says finally.
The way he’s being pulled back and forth between his two friends is more noble than what has happened to me. I’ve kissed both of them, after all.
“April is my best friend. My priority is getting her to my father. Not flirting. Or romance. That sort of thing can wait.”
April is pretending she can’t hear us, but I see the start of a tiny smile. She enjoys being the center of attention, even when it’s because she’s dying. My fear is cold and leaden in my stomach. Dying doesn’t seem real to her yet; the sores are little more than a nuisance. In a few weeks, it will be much, much worse. Maybe even sooner. We do not have time to stop at Prospero’s palace.
“Do you believe the rumors?” I ask. “The ones that say Father had some sort of cure? That he threw it away the night Finn died?”
“Partly. But I know he would never throw something so precious away. If he had a cure, he would have kept it. He would still have it.”
Our eyes meet, and I feel a flutter of hope. Just because Father didn’t write about it doesn’t mean he never created it.
Kent considers me, still grasping April’s hand. “In my experience, the only way to survive in this world is to find something to live for. For me, it was my inventions. For my father, it was perfecting these lenses that give me vision. For Elliott, it is power. Will hasn’t found that something yet, but I think he’s close.”
“And what do you think it is?” My voice is harsher than it should be, given that last night I was so close to forgiving him.
“Helping people. Helping the weak.”
I was weak. But I’m not anymore.
A splash from the swamp reminds us that we are all in danger. Kent turns to April. “The ship is almost ready to take off. I’ll need a few moments. . . .” I leave them alone and go to find Elliott.
He’s at the prow of the ship, close to the wheel, watching the swamp, gun in hand. This is my last opportunity to convince him that there’s a chance for April and that she’s more important than the way he looks when he returns.
Elliott knows what I’m going to say.
“What if there’s nothing left?” he asks. “I’ve spent my life planning to save the city. What if there is nothing to save?”
I step forward, so that there is no space between us. His gun rests on the rail of the ship, but I’m touching his other side.
“What if you run away because you fear there is nothing left, and you discover later that people were waiting for you?”
He pulls away, balancing the musket with one hand and running the other through his already-mussed hair.
“The city is waiting,” I push on. “You’ll give them hope.”
“That won’t save them from the Red Death or from Malcontent.”
“We’ll find a way. Father didn’t stand up to Prospero, but he knows things. . . .” If I’m going to throw my lot in with Elliott, if I’m going to convince him that we can save the city together, it’s time to stop keeping secrets. I hold out the journal to him. “He wanted you to have this, remember? He didn’t know that I had already taken it. I’ve read most of it, and he has insights about the Red Death.” I take a deep breath and then plunge on. “He says the key is the water supply. In addition to the masks, we need clean water.”
I can see Elliott’s brain working. “The poorer parts of the city have almost no clean water. Their wells are tainted with rising water from the swamp. But if we could evacuate the poor areas, there is plenty of room in the upper city. . . . Do you really think that I can give them hope?”
He searches my face, and I resist the urge to look away from the intensity of it. He’s nearly convinced.
“Elliott, you have to see this through.”
“I never meant not to. Prospero, I had a plan for. And you were helping me with the masks. I had spies and soldiers. Even Malcontent I could handle, but the Red Death . . .”
“I know,” I say softly. “But April needs my father, and we haven’t got much time. You already have the plans for making masks. This is the last piece. You don’t need guns.”
“If we go back to the city, you’ll be with me?”
A part of me wants to refuse. But if he needs me, how can I say no? The city needs him.
“Yes. The scientist’s daughter on your arm. That’s what you wanted.”
His lips twist. It is what he wanted, but now that status is gone. My father has been named the greatest villain of all time.
“No, just you,” he begins. “I want—” I tense at the urgency in his tone, but before he can finish his sentence, there is a high-pitched scream. A child’s scream, from the direction of the swamp.
“Stay here,” he says, and takes off, jumping easily from the airship to the slate roof of the manor house. Kent runs past me into the cabin, then bursts from the door carrying two muskets and follows Elliott. I try to run after Kent, but moving that quickly hurts more than I expected.
By the time I reach them, Will’s there too, holding Henry, and Kent is kneeling beside Elise at the edge of a decorative stone parapet. She’s pointing out over what was once a lawn, but now is just tree roots and muck.
The sun comes out from behind low, hazy clouds, and Elliott’s fair hair gleams in the sudden brightness.
Beyond the parapet is a moldering staircase that was once inside the house, but is now exposed completely to the elements. The stairway turns twice, and the carved wooden banister is mostly intact.
“There’s people,” Henry says. He holds the binoculars out to Kent.
“Did you give him my binoculars?” Elliott asks.
“They’re coming this way.” Elise’s voice is mesmerized, like she is looking at something both terrible and wondrous.
As if I am being pulled into Elise’s imagination, I hear the splashing of someone running through the water. I follow the line of her shaking arm. A girl in a dress that used to be white appears through the vegetation, pulling someone behind her, barely paying attention to where she is putting her feet. The rank water is as high as her calves.
A shot cracks from the undergrowth. Elise screams again, covering her mouth with both hands. The girl in the swamp turns her head toward the sound but doesn’t stop. She can’t.
Will hands Henry to me, and I crouch down behind the rail of the parapet, pulling Elise with me. Thankfully, the railings are thick and ornate and haven’t succumbed yet to the decay of the rest of the house. And we’re four stories up. The shooter will have to get closer to pose any danger to the children.
“This way,” Elliott calls to the girl, dropping to the stairwell and bounding down the stairs. April has gotten to us now too. I’m aware of her behind me, even as I watch the girl’s desperate race through the marsh.
Elliott stops at the place where the stairway disappears into the water. The girl stares at him with wild, terrified eyes. He reaches out his hand.
But she stumbles, unable to catch herself because she won’t let go of her companion. The hair on the back of my neck rises. If the gunman wants to kill her, this would be the time to shoot. Elliott is moving, stepping into the muck, grabbing her. He takes the boy’s arm, but then pulls back.
The boy’s face lifts upward. I gasp.
Red lines run down from his eyes and stain his mask. The slight girl pulls at him, urging him to stand.
Everything goes silent. The frogs, the crickets. I’m holding my breath.
The man out there must be our former prisoner. The Hunter. He didn’t kill us before, but now he’s tracking these new arrivals. Stalking them like prey.
Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death) Page 4
