Her questing fingers told her it was the loose spring which she’d cut her palm on before. Its needle point had wormed its way up through the mattress, and it now sat proud like a sharp spring bud. She pushed down with her fingers splayed about its point and heard the tearing of the sheet.
Tears and tears, tears and tears, she thought to herself with a smile.
It took a few attempts, but she finally managed to hook the spring onto the cuff. She pulled and twisted and was rewarded with the crackling sound of the Velcro unfastening. She altered her wrist position again and dug the bed spring firmly into the loosening restraint. She pulled and rotated her wrist. The strap pulled open, and her hand was free.
She breathed out in a sigh of relief like a surfacing free-diver. Lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky—that’s what she was. Lucky that a loose bed spring was in the exact right position to open her bonds.
She loosened the rest of her restraints as quickly but quietly as she could. She stood in the psychiatric ward room in her hospital gown and breathed deeply once again.
Equal, she thought to herself. This makes the prison and the hospital equal.
She was trapped in a locked room in both realities. Now, all she had to do was escape from two locked rooms. Well, that would be easy if she only knew how.
Lock-pick! The word sprang into her mind unbidden. The answer to the second riddle was a lock pick. That was what she needed, a sturdy piece of metal to act as a tension wrench and a thin piece of metal to work the tumblers of the lock.
She looked at her bare room and saw nothing useful: white linen, white walls, metal bed, and a security camera high in one corner. She paused. The camera had a small illuminated LED indicating it was on. There was no sound. She listened intently and still there was nothing. Whoever was supposed to be watching her was not doing a good job.
Lucky, lucky, lucky—the only difference is a “k”. Lucky Lucy, lucky Lucy, she thought to herself.
Luck wouldn’t hold out forever. Up and up—that was where she had to go. To the nexus point at the up and up.
Her thoughts were disjointed. They always seemed to be disjointed in the hospital. Fractured, that’s what they were, fractured.
Not the point; the point was to get out. Make a lock-pick. Make a lock-pick out of…stuff.
She grabbed at her bed clothes and wrenched them aside to examine the spring, which had freed her from the wrist restraints. She used her fingers to rip the mattress further open and expose the inner coils of springs.
One spike protruded from the rest. She wormed her fingers around it and twisted at it. She felt a snagging sensation on her finger tips and then pain as she tore her finger.
“Tears and tears, tears and tears,” she sang.
Blood welled up from her cut finger and dribbled down into the mattress, slickening her grip. She didn’t care. Pain was irrelevant. Blood was irrelevant. Escape was all.
Get the tools—pick the lock—on with the quest—up and up.
The metal spring came away in her hands. She’d sheared its base, leaving a ragged but flattish metal barb.
“One tension wrench,” she said, to no one.
What she needed now was a thin bit of stiff metal to act as a pick. Where was she going to get that from?
She made a thorough search of the bed and revealed nothing. Metal: yes, in abundance but nothing thin enough to act as a pick.
Blood from her wounded finger dripped freely. She heard it pat, pat, pat on the floor—rhythmic beats of her own pulse. Equal,—they must be equal.
She held the sheared spring in her fingers. The barb was sharp and inviting.
Lucky Lucy, lucky Lucy—they must be equal.
She took a deep breath, readying herself for the upcoming pain.
“Equal,” she said and gouged the barb into her right cheek, just below her eye.
A spider bite, the torturer’s work, and her own hand—three teardrop scars under her eye—equal.
She glanced around at the room as the blood welled up and dribbled down her face. No help from the bed, so where else could she look?
Pat, pat, pat—her own blood. She wanted to be free. She had to be free.
Pat, pat, pat. Free—up and up.
Pat, pat, pat. Must be free, like the birds—like the radio waves in the air.
Pat, pat, pat. Radio? Wireless?
Lucky Lucy: may Lucy be lucky again? The camera’s red eye still stared at her like an unblinking cyclops. Her mind raced.
Lucky Lucy, lucky Lucy. Smell of paint—new hospital.
Walls white, unmarked, not old—new hospital. Latest technology—camera security. Latest technology—wireless cameras.
She grabbed the bed and dragged it to the corner. She paused. There were still no sounds from the corridor.
Bad security, she thought.
Lucy stood on the bed and was just tall enough to see behind the camera.
Lucky Lucy. She saw the black plastic wireless antenna sticking out the back like a dog’s tail.
She grabbed it and wrenched it free with a mighty heave.
Still no sounds came from the corridor. Where was everyone? Surely, they should have been watching her?
No time to worry about that now, lucky Lucy, she thought.
She pulled the thin antenna wire free from its plastic housing.
“One pick,” she said to no one, again.
She sprang down from the bed. The floor was hard and cold on her bare feet as she padded to the door.
Pat, pat, pat. Her blood echoed her soft footfalls.
She knelt and jammed the bed spring into the lower portion of the keyhole.
Pat, pat, pat. The blood still ran freely from her finger. She’d done a number on her finger. Pat, pat, pat.
She twisted the spring slightly clockwise, then anticlockwise. The lock turned fractionally in either direction but clockwise felt springier. That was the way to unlock the door, she decided.
She felt the sweat bead on her forehead. I must get free, must get free, on with the quest, pick the lock, up and up, she thought.
Her mind was traitorously frantic in this reality. But if this reality were true, then she should have expected that. Here she was sick, psychologically broken by some, awfulness, the nature of which she didn’t want to guess—no time for those musings now.
The dark-self voice rose again, reappearing like the face of the Ega on the quest. When will be the time?
Never, she thought back.
Pat, pat, pat. Her blood splattered to the floor. Her blood, like the blood on her thigh after the…
No! She fought back the memories.
Her hands spread on the ground in the alley. Grit digging into her palms and knees.
No! No, no, no! That’s all wrong. I met the wizard, she insisted.
You saw the tramp, said her dark voice.
Bechet gave me the key, she pleaded.
The tramp grabbed you, had you.
Not true, not true, she screamed.
Pat, pat, pat.
The hot hands, disgusting hands, were upon her body. The grasping fingers probed her, fingers inside her—scratching, biting, ripping, thrusting.
“No,” Lucy howled. “No! It’s not true. I don’t want it to be real.”
Then choose another path, the dark voice sneered.
Pat, pat, pat—her own blood. She saw it spotted on the floor by her feet. She was still squatting at the locked door. She leaned forward and rested, her weary head, against the door.
“No,” she said, in opposition to the dark voice. “I am of the white. It could be the truth. If it’s the truth, then I have to face it. Compassion, and courage, and logic, oh my! That’s what this quest is all about.”
The dark voice was gone, the traitorous fear stamped out. She was a Childe of the White. She ran from nothing.
She applied pressure to the tension wrench and held it at the biting point. She inserted the make-shift pick and felt for the lock pins inside. She sensed them thro
ugh the pick, like teeth in a gum line. There were five of them.
She gently pushed the pins up, hearing them click into place as she applied the tiniest amount of extra torque to the tension wrench. It was slow. Her blood patted on the floor, and pins clicked in the lock.
Pat, pat, pat, click. Pat, pat, pat.
She licked her lips in frustration as she heard one or more of the pins drop down loose again with a clunk.
Pat, pat, click, clunk. Pat, pat.
Sweat ran in rivulets down her face. With glacial slowness all five pins clicked into place. She turned the cylinder, and the door opened.
Lucky Lucy, lucky Lucy, her frantic mind squealed at her.
She poked her head into the dark corridor. Black-and-white tiles stretched out in either direction. One way led to another cage door. Lucy’s guts told her to go the other way.
Gently, she wafted down the corridor staying close to the wall.
Pad, pad, pad—went her feet on the cold tiles.
Pat, pat, pat—went the blood from her finger.
“Pad, pad. Pat, pat. Tears and tears, tears and tears,” she sang to herself, under her breath, in a somnambulistic lullaby.
Up ahead of her was a soft greenish light.
She smiled.
Fire exit, she thought,—up and up.
She reached the door and slammed into the emergency handle, opening it. The cold night air smacked her in the face as she barrelled out onto the metal platform.
The fire escape was attached on to the inner courtyard of the hospital giving only access to the courtyard itself not the outside world. There could be no total escape from the hospital.
It couldn’t be long before whoever was on guard noticed her absence. Where was she to go?
Downward, led to nothing but a square garden planted with white roses. That was of little use.
Up and up, her mind roared, up and up—to the Falls of Wanda—on with the quest.
Lucy viewed the fire escape. She was on the third floor of the hospital. The fire escape led up another flight to the fourth floor and then…what?
Up and up—onwards—on with the quest.
She could possibly make it up onto the roof if she scrambled onto the balustrade and climbed from there.
Maybe, there were just enough footholds—perhaps? Lucky Lucy.
She started to climb the stairs.
And vvvvvvvrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuup.
Bright light, an all-powerful, incandescent light—this was the prism prison.
She shook her head to clear the fog of changing realities. She was free in two realities and going up in one. Now she had to escape this prison too—but how?
The last one had been making a lock pick.
She looked around at her surroundings even sparser than in the hospital. There wasn’t a camera: no antenna pick. There wasn’t a bed: no bed-spring tension wrench. There wasn’t even a door with a lock to pick.
She waited for some inspiration to hit her, but nothing came. Her mind felt calm. The racing, nonsensical, patois of the hospital was gone. Lucky Lucy seemed to be confined to that reality only. So, what was she to do now?
How was she going to escape from a locked room that didn’t even have a lock?
Riddles, riddles, riddles, always riddles.
The riddling box, tears and tears, the three-fold realities, it was always riddles and now this one.
She saw herself reflected a thousand-thousand ways. All the Lucys stretched to infinity in all directions.
How did you get out of a room without a lock, or even a door?
The solution, in the other reality, was lock-pick, which was also the answer to one of the riddles from the riddling box. So, what if one of the other answers solved this question?
The other answers were “belief” and “vowels.” Well, “belief” really didn’t seem to fit this situation. How about “vowels?”
“A,E,I,O,U?” she asked her reflected self. “Is that the answer? Come on, door. Open! A,E,I,O,U!”
Her words echoed around the prism prison, spoken from a thousand-thousand mouths.
A,E,I,O,U.
A,E,I,O,U.
U,U,U,U,U.
Her brain made the connection.
“Not U. Q! Quizi…Quotzi… Oh, blast it! Q! Q! I need you!” she shouted.
She waited. She paused a moment longer, and then—tinkle. A tiny star flashed in the corner of her eye. It shattered into being like a mermaid seen through water. The mirror edged face of Quiziquoozelquotzelabub, authorised member for the Agency of Guards, Watchers, Keepers of Keys, Mirror Daemons and Pookas, coalesced on the reflective surface in front of her.
“You again?” he tinkled. “You know ’ow much trouble you caused me last time?”
“Q, oh, Q, I need your…”
“Oh no you don’t,” he interrupted, “not after last time. Do you know, it was only my supervisor at the Agency of Guards, Watchers, Keepers of Keys, Mirror Daemons and Pookas, that stopped me from being torn a-sunder by the Dimn? He was well narked, I can tell you.”
“Please, Q. Help me. Let me out of here.”
“What,” he said. “Let you, out of ’ere? No fear—the Dimn would do his nut.”
“Q. You have to. I have to escape. I have to go up.”
The implacable mirror face floated in front of her. Its eyes shimmered like diamonds.
“Please,” she implored, “it’s for the quest. You were here when the quest began. You let me in. Now, let me out, so I can finish it.”
The mirror daemon’s eyes stared at her coldly.
There was a loud click, and the invisible door swung outwards revealing a reflective corridor.
“Thank you,” she said to Quiziquoozelquotzelabub. “You’re one in a million.”
“Hurry,” the mirror daemon said. “The Dimn will probably have my ears for this.”
Quickly, and quietly Lucy sped along the corridor, staying close to one of the walls. Up ahead the corridor spun upwards in a corkscrew stairwell.
She licked her lips in anticipation, and a broad smile cracked across her face.
“Up and up,” she said, to no one.
And vvvvvvvvvvrrrrrrrrruuuuuuupppppp.
She was back in her body on the plains of Cantab.
Poppy was up ahead.
“Look!” cried the little girl in the blood-red cape.
Lucy looked, and Lucy saw.
Mountains rose up wreathed in purple, broiling clouds spewing lightning and snow. Their sides were covered in a thick tangle of dark forest. And amidst the high crags and deep canyons, loomed the Falls of Wanda—journeys end.
She had made it—she had made it to the Falls of Wanda.
Chapter 28 At the Falls of Wanda
“There are no beginnings, just as there are no ends. Circles within spirals. One may put down the burden, quit the job, finish the book but the story of the burden, the job, the book goes on. Your part may be over but the story goes on.”
The Cheshire Cat, Year After Ice 17095
“What began in blood will end in blood.”
General Thrax, Year After Ice 11946
Lucy and Poppy ran.
Lucy vaulted over fallen branches, and through ankle-high snow as the storm broke overhead. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, and the boiling storm did its best to tear reality asunder.
“Stop!” cried Poppy, from somewhere in Lucy’s footprints.
Lucy halted in a small clearing.
The River Wash careened by. The water churned violently fed by the falls’ close proximity. It roared and roiled past her in a cacophony of noise. The snow swirled in large billowing flakes as if someone had gutted hundreds of pillowcases and thrown the results into a fan.
“Come on, Poppy, we’re almost there! The falls are just up ahead.”
The little girl slowly trudged into the clearing. Her swaying shoulders told Lucy this would be another fight.
“Tired,” Poppy whined, “want sweets.”
“
I don’t have any sweets,” Lucy replied, exasperated at the brat who, even with the legendary Falls of Wanda before her, still only thought in a hedonistic way.
“Want sweets,” Poppy demanded, again. Then she bucked forward as if pushed, and a confused looked slid across her face.
“Poppy?” Lucy asked, taking several steps towards the little girl.
Poppy reached for to her cape and drew it aside, revealing an angry barb protruding from her lower belly. Thick, ropey knots of dark reddish-black blood dripped from the pointed tip—an arrow head.
“Ouch,” said Poppy, as though she didn’t understand. She took one faltering step and dropped to her knees.
“No!” screamed Lucy. She skidded forward, lunging at Poppy. “No. No, no, no, no!”
She turned the girl over to face the sky.
Blood flowed from the corner of her ashen lips.
Lucy didn’t know the words. She couldn’t think. She tried to brush away the fluttering snow from Poppy’s cheeks.
“Hurt?” asked the little girl in the blood-red cape.
Lucy nodded, shock paralysing her voice. Blood was everywhere. The snow around them turned a frosted pink.
“Can’t die,” said Poppy, as she faded. “I don’t want to go. I want… I want…”
Lucy was sure the word was going to be “sweets.” Poppy surprised her at the last.
“…want mother,” she said and died.
“Poppy? Poppy? No. No, no, no, no!” Lucy screamed at the snow, at the roaring water, at the broken sky, at the uncaring mountain.
“Hello, Childe,” came a voice from the past, a voice which sounded like nails on a blackboard, a voice which should have been buried under the smoking timber in Marsh.
The Ega stood at the edge of the clearing. His leather duster, patched and burned in places, was covered in a light dusting of snow. At his side was the dragon-faced crossbow which he had used to kill Poppy. Half of his face was an angry puckered burn scar; the other half was skull. His eyes blazed with insanity and rage.
“You?” Lucy asked, getting up and leaving Poppy’s rag body to be covered by the snow. “You’re dead. You died in Marsh.”
“Wrong,” the Ega said. “Nothing can kill me, little Childe. I came from outside to hunt this land. Now, I hunt you.”
Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy Page 37
