by Anya Allyn
Remember. Everything is dark. Black. A single snowflake falls. It touches a face, a face I can't see in the darkness. We kiss, a kiss like ice, a kiss that sears me, bleeds through my insides. A tunnel lies ahead. His mouth moves close to my ear. You know that if we go in there, we may never come out, he whispers. I see a large eye behind him, watching. Silver, reptilian. I want to run, leave.
Remember. I'm running, fleeing through a dark tunnel. I don't know which way to turn. the tunnel branches out—like lungs—sucking oxygen from the air. I climb through tunnels, water dripping on my face.
I realized I had my eyes closed. I snapped them open, grasping at the lamp. I was no longer on the chair. I was standing in a tunnel—the branching tunnel I'd imagined. My breaths came in short stutters. A low, pained sound emitted from my chest. Throwing an arm out, I touched the rocky wall. I was really here—somewhere else. How did I get to somewhere else?
Dozens of paths presented themselves. Which way was back? Which way? A moaning cry tore from me.
I stepped forward. The tunnel twisted and plunged downwards.
I was going to die here.
The memories were thick in my head. But the last of my memories were not mine. The girl, the man—I didn't know them.
My feet kept moving. The tunnel was long. Horribly long. I should turn back, try another one.
The tunnel opened up into a small chamber. It seemed to be a dead-end.
My knee hit something hard. Not a rock—something with a smooth edge.
Below me was an old desk—the same as the ones near the library. I bent to touch the worn wood.
A plate sat on top of the desk—a moldy, wet piece of cake on top. Pink icing and candles had slid off the top of the slice, like a surrealist painting. Jessamine’s birthday cake.
A vase with a plastic rose had been placed beside the cake.
I set the lamp down on the desk.
With trembling fingers, I took the plate away and set it down on the floor. As I lifted the desk’s lid, wafts of moldy air made me gag. Inside—damp papers sat decomposing.
Drawings—just like in the other desks out near the library.
Carefully, I lifted the papers out and closed the desk. The first picture seemed to be a landscape—thin, spidery lines depicting an ocean and shore.
The next paper tore wetly as I tried to pull it away. Rearranging the picture on the ground, I moved the lamplight over it. It was a picture of a forest—with two young girls walking hand in hand. Behind them loomed a terrifyingly large snake—its massive jaws open. Picture after picture showed the same snake.
One of the drawings showed the snake smashing through the ceiling of a long corridor, fangs bared. I recognized the corridor—it was here, the corridor outside the bed chamber.
A cold hand reached inside my chest and clutched my heart.
I’d seen the snake before—in the library—one of the times I’d been flipping through book after book, looking for a map or clue, without actually sitting down to read anything.
Either my hands were shaking too much, or the papers too wet, but I couldn't separate the rest of the papers. I lifted them back up to the desk. Smudged text on the underneath of the stack caught my eye. I turned the stack over. It was a poem—faded and difficult to read. I peeled the paper off, folding it together with two ripped pictures of the snake—and secreted them in my bloomers.
Lifting the plate with both hands, I replaced it on the desk—afraid that at any moment I’d drop the plate and smash it to pieces on the rock floor.
I sensed something—a presence—something coming through the tunnels, something trying to reach me. The dress twisted, biting into my throat, winding around my legs. I couldn't run, couldn't move.
Wrenching the dress over my head, I flung it away. It flew like a large, wounded bird, coming to rest in a pile by the wall.
A vibration gathered around me. Something coming for me. I hastened away. Which way? I didn't know. I fled down tunnel after tunnel.
A piercing voice cut through my head. Sharp, scolding. Around me, all went dark, the light fading like the last breath of a lighted match. But the darkness was clear, not the murky night of the tunnels. The walls had disappeared. There was nothing.
A hand closed around my shoulder. “Calliope. Answer me.”
Jessamine's face was before me, her brow furrowed.
“I have learned.” The words came from within me, unconsciously.
She peered at me. “What did you do with the dress?”
“It hurt me. I took it off.”
Her mouth dropped open. “It hurt you?” Her gaze travelled downwards, to the floor. She scooped a mass of black from the floor—the dress. “Don't make up stories.”
I stood there contritely, my mind spinning away.
“But I can see you are quite shaken,” she told me. “You might have been dreaming. Dreams come easily here, to those who seek them.”
Taking the lamp from my frozen fingers, she extinguished the light and replaced the lamp on the statue's arm.
Raggedy moved out from the shadows. Jessamine stepped away into the darkness ahead. I ran in front of the doll, relieved for once to have it near me. We walked silently along the passage, my body numb. I didn't want to think, didn't want thoughts trespassing in my head. But at the back of everything, I knew something within me was different, changed.
* * * *
I was glad the bathroom was empty. The mirror showed me a sallow face against the darkened white of my dress. Not me anymore—but the face of a slow, inch-by-inch death. My head ached, but my stomach had stopped gnawing at me. I guessed my stomach had shrunk to the size of a golf ball.
I tried to hum a song that I used to know—a song from my favorite band. The music had seemed so intense back then—but I couldn’t remember why. The words seemed so remote now.
I was losing myself—everything I used to be was leaving me. I was a doll in a dollhouse. Nothing more.
At school now, there would be two more empty desks. Two more to join Aisha and Ethan's empty desks. Accusations and rumors would spinning like out-of-control wheels around town. Mom would be home alone, wondering why she ever let me go on the camp.
That life was gone.
Life seemed to have structure, seemed to make sense—once. Now I knew life was just a just a game we played. All the things we cared about, and all things we packed around ourselves—all of it could be snatched away at any moment. Other people could control you, make you live in any way they chose. You could slip inside dreams, inside nightmares—and maybe never come out. I tried to push away the haunting visions of The Dark Way—especially the one of Ethan. It couldn't be true—he was there in the cell suffering as much as anyone else here.
Who would be the next one to die here? Even now I felt closer to death than I felt to life.
18. LORD OF MISRULE
Crashing sounds woke me. The sounds boomed along the corridor walls. The pipe organ. Someone was coming.
I sat up on my elbow, glancing around at the others. They were awake in their beds, but their expressions didn’t register the noise.
“It’s just Henry,” said Missouri quietly. “He plays it to let us know he’s sent supplies.”
Jessamine entered, and gave us the command to head out to the kitchen.
The table was missing. Four baskets sat on the floor—filled with ugly marionettes and some new pots of greasepaint and hair decorations. The marionettes had weird, ugly faces, with large bent noses and long chins. Punch and Judy puppets.
My shoulders drooped to see an absence of food in the baskets. Henry hadn't sent down new food since I'd been here.
Jessamine’s eyes were flat—like stones in a dry river. “Henry sends what’s needed. Today is the winter solstice—and we are to celebrate.”
Missouri and Sophronia stared at the baskets and exchanged relieved glances with each other. Frowning, I tried to guess what had pleased them.
Missouri took the basket of ma
keup and hair baubles, and we straggled after her to the bathroom to make up our faces for the day—all of us bereft of energy.
Dresses waited us in the bathroom—new, shiny dresses. I ran a hand down sequined material. These dresses seemed far more grown-up than anything else we'd ever worn in here.
We cleansed yesterday's doll makeup from our faces with soap. Sophronia selected some new paints while Missouri propped Philomena up on the chair. Sophronia drew a skilful stylized butterfly across Philomena's eyes and temples, and colored it in with bright colors. She then drew gaudy blue and purple bird motifs on Missouri and me, tracing sweeping v-shapes around our eyes. She painted deep red color on our mouths. Taking a can from the basket, she then sprayed a cold liquid all over our faces.
“That's the setting agent,” Missouri explained.
“But why go to all this trouble?” I asked.
She gave a wry smile. “Today is the solstice, and they hold the Feast of Fools. It's meant to be a day where the masters serve the servants. All it really means to us is that we get fed—and fed well. And this is what they make us do, if we want to eat.”
I nodded. “I wish the solstice came every day, in that case.”
Sophronia began painting her own face. Missouri took over the styling of our hair—braiding it and winding it around our heads.
Missouri's red hair was startling above the purplish face makeup. Sophronia looked like some kind of rare and exotic creature with her makeup on.
Philomena smiled broadly as Sophronia placed a leafy gold crown on her head. She'd lost a tooth, and the smile had a gap in it.
Sophronia then fussed with fixing feathers and baubles in our hair. She straightened a gold headband across my forehead.
Missouri handed me a green gown. I dressed quickly, pulling my dress down at the shoulders as the other girls did. Philomena was dressed in white, with transparent butterfly wings on her back.
I turned to face myself in the mirror. I didn't look like a young girl anymore—I could easily pass for seventeen. I decided I liked the makeup—it was something to hide behind, pretend I wasn't me. All of this, being down in the underground, could be happening to someone else—happening to this strange girl with the dark, intense eyes.
We made our way down to the ballroom, Philomena swishing about in her new dress.
The table from the kitchen stood in the ballroom—piled high with cakes and French pastries and puddings—and plates of hors d'oeuvres and exotic fruits.
“Hallelujah,” said Missouri in a hushed tone. “They've never done a spread like that before.”
Philomena's eyes grew large in her elfin face. She took in a big gasp of air. I expected her to rush forward, but she didn't. She hung back, waiting.
A slamming noise jarred the air—then another. After an extended time, Raggedy plodded into the room. Ethan and Aisha followed, Aisha in makeup like ours and a blue gown, Ethan in a suit and sad theatrical mask. Ethan bowed to the room and Aisha curtsied. Jessamine and the bear strode in after them, the top half of Jessamine's face painted in the circular motifs of peacock feathers.
“You all look wonderful indeed,” said Jessamine, but her expression beneath the makeup seemed vaguely apprehensive. She hesitated a moment, seeming to debate within herself what to say next. I'd never seen her as anything other than sure of herself, at least, not since the day after Ethan, Lacey and I had travelled into the underground.
“Do take care today,” she said finally. She had us arrange ourselves about the room, either sitting on chairs or standing, as though we were characters in a play, taking our places and waiting for the curtain to lift.
My spine tensed as a thin tune entered the air. Carnival music. My mind travelled along the corridors, right to the other end of the underground. The sound—it was coming from the carousel. The exit carousel. Missouri and Sophronia stared at each other with frozen faces. Ethan jumped from his seat, ready to rush from the room.
The music stopped abruptly.
All was quiet for a moment. Then the scraping of wood on rock reverberated in my bones. Clown was coming.
He moved into the room, along with the doll from the kitchen. They stood either side of the ballroom entry.
Jessamine stepped stiffly over to the gramophone and selected some music. I recognized the tune— Chopin's Nocturne number twenty.
Blood drained from my limbs. I steadied myself against the book shelves. I sensed darkness, palpable in the brightly lit air.
A figure strode in—the figure of a man. His face wore the harsh painted lines of a clown, but over his nose and eyes a huge cone-shaped beak jutted out. Dressed in black, a theatrical cape hung from his shoulders. The eyes behind the mask gazed with cold satisfaction about the room.
Henry Fiveash.
Missouri and Sophronia stared at each other, unbelief and fear etched on their faces.
My intestines filled with ice water. He had been down here but once before. Missouri had told me that.
Muffled sounds gathered out in the corridor.
A dozen or so people swooped into the room, men and women dressed in extravagant costume—the men with the same beak-like masks as Henry and the women in the same theatrical makeup as us. All of them with cold, searching eyes. Vulture eyes.
I shrank back in my post near the library. Philomena drew her legs up on her chair, sinking her head into her knees.
Jessamine stood with one hand clasped over the other, her eyes cast downwards.
Henry stepped over to Missouri. “Ah, the one with the hair and heart of fire. So pleased you made your way to us. You were lost before we found you.”
Her face was frozen as she took the hand he offered. He led her into a waltz around the floor.
He let her go, after a final flamboyant spin. Finding his way over to Sophronia, he produced a white rose from inside his jacket. “The little Indian flower. Our adventuress seeking escape. You grace us with your silent presence.”
She accepted the rose, showing no emotion.
Henry's eyes alighted on Aisha. He strode to offer her his hand.”Enchanté . The girl who sought more than her pale world, more than the dirge of the ordinary.” He stared purposefully at Ethan.
Aisha trembled as she took his hand. He led her for a waltz around the floor. She was weak from her days in the cell, and he half-held her up. Staring over his shoulder, she eyed Ethan with a look of sorrow—a look that hardened as she and Henry danced. Henry whispered something to her, and her expression fluttered like a leaf —her mouth curving into a small smile.
Ethan's forehead flushed with anger above his mask, his eyes fixed on Aisha.
Henry walked her back to her chair. She curled up with her legs underneath her, refusing to meet Ethan's stare.
Henry knelt on bended knee before Philomena. “Dear me, tiny butterfly, you flittered away from those who didn't give you all your heart desired. No one ever neglects you here.” He produced a pink rose from his jacket, and gave it to her.
Henry Fiveash's gaze fell to the corner of the room, where I'd slipped into the gloom of the library.
“Ah, the new arrival. Come out where I can see you.”
I moved out, just enough. The strange guests around the room leaned in, hushing suddenly and listening.
His clown's mouth spread into a wide grin, his teeth yellowed against the white paint. “What an exquisite sweetness—to witness the bud that didn't wish to bloom. The sun in the world above was just too bright, was it not?”
He extended a hand. I took measured steps over to him. He took me into a twirling waltz, so fast I grew faint—so fast it seemed the ballroom had disappeared and we were dancing in a darkened space.
His arm tightened around my waist. His lips brushed my ear. I tensed.
“Did you enjoy our kiss?” he whispered. “More than your kiss with the boy?”
The floor fell away from under me. I was back in the carriage—the rumbling, clattering carriage—with the Copper Canyon falling away beneath th
e dusty window—the man at the desk sketching the mountains. And he was pulling me down, down for that passionless kiss... .
My spine froze. The shadowy man of my dream had been Henry. And somehow... he'd been inside that dream.
I sensed figures around me—people dancing in the same space. Missouri and Sophronia whirled past with their hands on strange men's shoulders, terror stamped on their faces.
Aisha spun out the length of a stout man's arm and in again, a smile twitching on her painted lips.
Ethan eyed Aisha with dazed eyes, as though he couldn't figure out who she was, anymore. A blonde woman in a black dress danced him away, her head resting on his shoulder, long red fingernails clasped over his hand. The dress—was it the one from the storage room? I couldn't see it clearly. Everything was swirling.
Rising above everything, to the vaulting rock ceiling—the music—Chopin's Nocturne. The piece Lacey had played before they took her away. Before they killed her.
Henry released me from the waltz then, and I ran back to the shadows of the library, my breaths straining in my chest.
The waltzing ended, and the people clapped.
Henry clapped the loudest and longest. “My friends,” he said expansively, “we mustn't neglect our new masters on the Feast of Fools!”
He waved a hand in the air, and the people moved forward to the table. They heaped decadent selections of cakes and hors d'oeuvres onto plates, and began offering them around the ballroom.
Henry brought a plate to me, bowing as he did so, with a flourish of his cape. “An amuse-bouche, just for you.”
Tentatively, I took the plate, staring down at a rectangular prism of savory jelly. It had some type of globe-shaped food trapped inside it—something that looked close to being an animal's eye.
