Hush

by Dylan Farrow

  My hands sweep frantically over the meager contents of each space I search. Kennan’s quarters are immaculately tidy. Fortunately, I find a small sewing kit in the drawer of the bedside table. I shove it into my pocket and head for the door.

  My mind tries to reconcile Kennan the murderer with Kennan the ruthless trainer. The woman I tried so hard to find camaraderie with, to trust. It’s hard to picture Kennan, even at her most austere, as a killer. It’s difficult for me to attach the title to someone I know, no matter how deeply I dislike them. Murderers were scary figures from cautionary tales. They seemed almost as imaginary as Gondal.

  Gondal! My eyes snap back to the desk. I grab Kieran’s ox, clutching it for dear life.

  I hobble back to my room, locking the door behind me.

  I rip out the thread from my previous attempt, ready to make a fresh start. I concentrate my thoughts on the Book of Days, pushing everything else from my mind.

  The needle flies through the fabric. The Telling starts, smoother and more immediate.

  I watch the wall out of the corner of my eye as the door begins to manifest. I focus on the end result—willing the door into existence, deftly stitching around the resistance I meet.

  The needle grows red hot, but I’m faster this time. I complete the final stitch. The needle snaps, burning my fingers. I frantically look at the door as it flickers in and out of view.

  Until, finally, it affixes itself in reality.

  “That’s more like it,” I whisper to no one in particular as I get up from the bed, gripping the little stone ox in my pocket. For luck.

  I open the door.

  * * *

  The hallway I’m in is dark, cut through the stone of the mountain like the lower caverns. The same luminescent stones line the walls. I step cautiously as I move deeper in. I keep my guard up. The castle makes it impossible to know reality from illusion.

  I see a faint, rectangular light ahead, the corners of a door. It pushes open easily and plunges me into light.

  I’m in the refectory—or at least, a room that looks exactly like it. I see the rows of long tables, all empty. There is an eerie undercurrent as my steps echo a beat after I take them. Everything is as it should be, except …

  Veils of light enfold the room, wrapping around and contorting everything in it. They shift and flicker around one another. I have to close my eyes and open them again to fully understand it. There are different versions of the space, different versions of reality. Limitless possibilities. It’s like standing in a room made of mirrors.

  When I look at my hands, the shroud shimmers over my own skin. It’s not an illusion, not exactly. I’m in the same refectory, but on a different layer, one accessible only through the altered reality of my Telling.

  All around me, there are faint streaks of movement. Dreamlike silhouettes of people move within the various layers of reality. If I try to look at them directly, they disappear, but I can follow them on the periphery of where I gaze.

  This labyrinth isn’t a separate space within the castle; it’s in an entirely separate realm of existence. As if two truths—or even limitless truths—are capable of existing at the same time. That is why no one could find it. It is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We are in it, and it is hiding from us, at every turn. No one thought to look right under their noses. I didn’t.

  Hidden in plain sight. I wonder, has the Book of Days been hiding all these years in this separate realm?

  “Three more disturbances have taken place…” I hear an unfamiliar voice, cutting in and out before fading. I glance around the room, searching for the source.

  “Our manpower and resources are stretched too thin…” Another voice. It reaches me from across the room, across dimensions until it disappears.

  A third voice. “We receive less and less from every tithe we collect…”

  Roughly a dozen older Bards, including Niall, are clustered around a map of Montane at the end of the room. They rapidly flicker in and out of sight. When I step closer, the images condense somewhat. The figures are still ethereal, but more firmly anchored in front of me.

  “At this rate of attrition, we won’t be able to maintain our numbers for much longer,” one Bard says, crossing his arms. “We’re squeezing blood from a stone.”

  “We can’t afford to lose face or pull back. The chaos will only spread,” Niall counters, drawing a few nods from his peers. “We control them. Collect extra from the towns that haven’t been hit yet by famine. They just need the proper motivation.”

  “And when the famine ravages everywhere else? Then what shall we do? How do you propose we motivate them?” The first Bard struggles to control his voice.

  “The way we always do,” Niall replies readily. “Our agents in the villages will plant rumors, and control and monitor the flow of information. Keep the people suitably frightened.”

  “You’re risking widespread panic,” another points out. “The people are already frightened.”

  “Then they’ll be all the more eager to double their tithes in exchange for our favor, won’t they?”

  I make tight fists, letting the bite of nail pressed into skin ground me. Not too long ago, I was one of the people they’re talking so casually about manipulating, controlling, and extorting.

  As quickly as the vision appeared, it dissipates. Disgusted, I turn away.

  The door I used to enter the room has, predictably, vanished. But instead of trapping me, several others take its place.

  It really is a labyrinth, I think as I watch the doors alter, shift places, and realign. There is no pattern, only random movements. I’m not sure how to pick the door that leads to the Book of Days.

  Unless it doesn’t matter.

  “There’s an old rumor, a legend really, that the castle will lead certain people where they need to go…”

  “All right, High House.” I brace myself and approach the nearest door. “Do your worst.”

  * * *

  I regret those words almost immediately as I stumble along the uneven floor. There is minimal light here. Only a thickness to the air that makes me feel as if I’m walking underwater. I’m in the ghostly bowels of the castle. A place lit by braziers that cast shifting shadows across the stone walls and thick, metal doors.

  The sanitarium.

  It is more frightening than I remember. I use the phantom figures that glimmer in this plane to guide me. Their movement is punctuated by bloodcurdling screams, always shifting and fading through the spaces where existences collide.

  The end of the cells spills out into a larger, circular room. It’s sterile and the lights are blindingly bright against the whitewashed walls. The sound of screaming is loudest here.

  There are peculiar holes on the floor, and I jump back when my foot sloshes against a dark red liquid draining into them. Perhaps most unsettling are the apparatuses set up in the center. Each one is different, and obviously meant to contain a person, but it’s nearly impossible to say what the purpose of such disturbing machines might be. When I look up again, people’s silhouettes flash and contort inside the room. They lie on beds, their hands and feet bound by metal shackles. Their gaping mouths open, their shrieks echoing a second too late.

  Would this have been my fate if I had not been discharged? A shiver penetrates deep in my bones. Bile rises in my throat, but I swallow it down.

  Ghostly figures manifest at the center of the room, hovering over a bed. Their faces are covered by masks.

  “Another death? Unfortunate. Prep the next one,” a tall man says to a young woman. “Cathal wants a complete report by sunrise. Did you get a reading from the last test?”

  My heart twists in horror. Cathal is in charge of this?

  “The data is inconclusive, sir,” she responds. “There’s still no evidence to suggest that a Bard can be ‘cured’ of the gift. Or that it can be bestowed artificially.”

  The man shrugs. “If it can be done, it would boost efficiency. That’s what Cathal is i
nterested in. If it can’t, then we’ll know conclusively and can pursue other avenues.”

  “At least there’s no shortage of test subjects.” I can nearly hear the grimace on the young woman’s voice from behind her white mask.

  “They’re Bards. They’ve given their lives for High House,” he says reverently. “They are doing their duty as we are doing ours. Reset the devices and bring out the next one.”

  My breath comes out shakily, grating against my throat, still raw from the smoke, as the figures dissipate into another realm.

  I feel a lurching sensation as I turn, as if the castle is contorting impossibly around me, the same way a dream would. This time, I’m in Cathal’s solarium.

  It’s dark, with only the faint light of one torch and the gossamer fabric of the phantom realm I’m in to illuminate the room. The leaves of the exotic plants and the angles of the statues and furniture make everything seem unnatural and elongated.

  The door opens quietly, and I turn toward the sound, expecting to see Cathal. My brow knits when instead I’m faced with Kennan.

  My rage flares. If only I wasn’t trapped on a spectral plane and could punch her again for what she did to my mother. And a third time just for myself and everything she put me through.

  I seethe, watching as she tiptoes around the furniture, casting wary glances around her.

  The door opens again, louder this time. I remain still for a moment, until I remember I can’t be seen. Kennan slips behind one of the chaise longues, nimble as a cat.

  “Come out of there, Kennan, it’s just me.” Niall strolls into the room. “I see you’re up to your old tricks.”

  Kennan comes out of hiding and faces her fellow Bard. My gut twists as I watch them. Maybe they were accomplices all along.

  “Stay out of my way,” Kennan says. “It was Cathal who weakened the structure under the tower that night. I will prove it.”

  “Don’t you dare go pinning that tragedy on Lord Cathal.” Niall glares at her dangerously. “Even if you had a shred of proof, no one will believe a woman with a known history of…”

  “I know what I saw!” Kennan snaps, interrupting him.

  Niall scoffs. “Do you? Do you really?”

  “I…” For the first time, I see Kennan falter. Then my surroundings fade to darkness again.

  High House was supposed to be a bastion of truth and order. That’s what we were always told. Could this be a trick of the labyrinth? I don’t want to believe that Cathal is capable of such atrocities. I don’t want to believe that anything masked in a mantle of righteousness could be so evil.

  How many Bards has Cathal sent to find the Book of Days? How many Bards have met this fate?

  Am I next?

  I step back, looking frantically for a door. An escape. Several appear, like before. I rush to the nearest one and barrel through it quickly.

  Am I doomed to madness?

  Succumbing to insanity again feels like a mercy. Anything is better than the truth.

  I run.

  I find more rooms. More corridors. More darkness. Everywhere I turn are the specters of High House. Door after door after door …

  My heart is hammering in my chest. I stop, finding myself in the hallway of the female Bards’ dormitory. Right back where I started.

  The doors don’t go anywhere except in circles. This is how the others were trapped. How I might be trapped if I don’t think of something.

  I trusted the doors before. Trusted High House. I let it lead me.

  But perhaps I should be taking charge.

  I close my eyes, concentrate, but I can barely catch my breath, can’t think straight. I’m dizzy with frustration, with exhaustion, with fear.

  I press myself flat against the stone wall and sink to the floor. I want to cry but nothing comes. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what’s real anymore.

  Panic rushes through me, that this is all a nightmare and I’m still standing in the doorway of my home in Aster, screaming in horror over Ma’s death. That I am hurtling downward in a chasm of uncertainty and I will never, ever stop falling.

  This must be what madness feels like. It is worse than death.

  Cathal said the labyrinth nearly killed him. I understand now what he meant. Death, or permanent entrapment in this endless nightmare, is starting to seem like a real and distinctly terrifying possibility.

  My body aches under the weight of everything that’s happened to me. I can’t stop shaking—not even when I hear a soft sound reaching me as if from across a great distance.

  I squint. Imogen stands at the end of the hall, framed in shadow. Her curls loose around her face. From so far away, she looks tiny, and I’m reminded how young she is—not much older than I was when I lost Kieran.

  How did she know? Why does she always appear whenever I feel alone, whenever I need her?

  My name is Imogen, she’d said. Like my favorite ewe from back home.

  It hits me like a thousand boulders.

  She isn’t real either. She’s a Telling. Nothing more than an illusion. She is me. My younger self. A figment of my desperation.

  “No,” I murmur, trying to hold my voice steady. “You aren’t real.” My voice scrapes against my throat. “I’m alone.”

  She steps closer cautiously.

  Her face is half hidden in the dim light. She reaches toward me. Her hand touches my shoulder, and I shudder. Her touch feels real. I’m so confused, so scared, so overwhelmed, I don’t know what to think.

  She kneels before me. This close, she doesn’t look exactly like me. Her eyes are darker. She has only a small beauty mark under her eye instead of a multitude of freckles. Her hair is wilder.

  I blink. I seem to be between dimensions now; half in reality, half in the labyrinth.

  “Shae,” she says softly. “You’re not alone.”

  “That can’t be…” I say, not wanting to trust her, not ready to trust anything. “You’re only a Telling. A figment of my imagination.”

  She quirks her head. “Well, that’s unexpected,” she blurts out. It’s so direct, I almost laugh.

  Instead, I swallow. “How are you here? Why are you always appearing right when I need you?”

  Imogen sighs and looks away. When she looks back at me, I see the hint of a smile in her eyes. “He told me to watch out for you. To make sure you were okay.”

  “He?” Is she talking about Cathal? Ravod?

  “All I can say is, I know how strong you are, Shae. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” Gently, she reaches out and brushes my hair from where it’s fallen into my face. “You should really give yourself more credit.”

  Before I can respond, she flickers out of sight, and I’m alone in the labyrinth.

  Imogen’s words weave through my thoughts. She’s right. I’ve been so worried about making Cathal believe me. Wanting Ravod to believe me. I never tried believing in myself.

  I recall everything that happened—everything I witnessed. I repeat the story of Ma’s death inside my head, and I look at it unflinchingly—the way the constable lied and changed his story, how he patronized me and made me fear others blaming me. The look on Fiona’s face, even as she handed me my bag—her fear that what I was saying was true.

  Mads too. He told me to stop fighting, to stop looking for answers. It wasn’t because he thought I was crazy. He was afraid of what I’d find.

  It’s not enough to send myself back. I must know. I think of the others who have been sent here to wander aimlessly until they lost their minds. Scrambling to stand, I press my palms against the walls. I close my eyes and channel my breath.

  “Truth.”

  The fabric of reality responds with a series of weak pulses, warping through the heat in my fingers. Something below the surface seems surprised by the word, as if it was never asked for such a thing.

  But I’m not asking, I’m Telling.

  I plant my feet more firmly on the ground, bracing against the current that binds me on the spectral
plane, pushing against all my senses and locking myself in place. I take a deep breath, allowing the current to wash over me.

  I anchor my Telling in reality as Ravod taught me, summoning the memory of my mother’s murder, the event that set me on the path to find answers. It gives me clarity. My anger at the injustice of her death pulls the threads of my intent together. I weave in all the pain and hardship I’ve endured along the way, creating a bulwark against the waves pushing against me.

  “I won’t be moved.” My Telling is a scream against the rising tide. “I want the truth.”

  The current swells to what feels like a breaking point … and abruptly stops. A passage manifests in the wall in front of me, crumbling the stone. It’s not another spectral door. There is no shimmer of illusion around it, no flickering. This one is real.

  A shudder courses through the air. An electric current. A crack running through the fabric of the labyrinth. I close my eyes.

  When I open them, I’m standing in the same place, but no longer in the in-between plane of existence.

  Before me is the door to the Book of Days. At last.

  27

  I expected a bit more fanfare for the room where the entire record of reality is kept. Instead, I’m in a small stone room, set below an oculus that streams moonlight onto a simple podium at the top of a short flight of stairs.

  Motes of white dust float through the light, disturbed for the first time in what must be ages. Three statues of robed men, each holding a book, stand vigil on the perimeter. They are cut from the same greenish stone as the rest of the room. One statue is holding up the domed ceiling. The simplicity is startling.

  Something about this room feels final. Like High House has finally let down its barriers.

  My legs shake with every step I take up toward the podium. I swallow the trepidation in my throat.

  I reach the top and look down at the podium.