Unreal City (24 page)

“Then you know everything. You were there. You know why—why was she killed?” I demanded. Felix’s eyes flitted to the area behind me where the lunatic familiar waited, but he made his way through the tall grass toward me.

“That night, my friend’s master was upset, and he ordered his spirit to hurt all those who’d wronged him.”

“Lea never hurt
anyone
! How dare you!” I screamed, suddenly not wanting to know what he had to say. From behind me, I heard the Antler-Man give a roar that made the whole sea-cliff tremble. I whimpered and covered my head while I waited out the tremor.

Come back to Unreal City. Come find me. Come back to me!

“Let me finish, Sarah!” Felix sounded urgent. I could tell from his fixed stare over my shoulder and the way his fur bristled that the Antler-Man was coming. “His master’s command was so full of malice, so corrupted by his hatred that his state of mind was altered. While he moved to destroy the boy who had tormented him, Lea tried to stop him. She got in his way, absorbed the blow and perished in her attempt to stop him.”

“Who would ever—who would do such a—” And again, for the second time that night, my subconscious fit everything together in a moment of blinding clarity. “Stephen. It was Stephen.”

“Yes, Sarah, now please, we’ve got to get out of here. He’s coming for you, he—”

“Of course it was him. And that’s why Joy’s blood didn’t work. It’s because he’s still
alive
. He’s in a coma, he’s—” I sputtered, putting my hands to my forehead. “He’s in Unreal City. He’s been dreaming there this whole time.”

“Yes, Sarah. Stephen lost his mind when he saw he’d killed Lea, and warped my friend’s mind in doing so. The master and servant are connected; you saw Poe’s familiar. But what you must understand is that Stephen’s not just in his garden dreaming. He’s trapped in the deep place under the City. He can’t get out. His familiar wanders the places between this world and the other, searching for him—tortured by his hunger, trying desperately to carry out his master’s wishes in hopes that he’ll come back. He kills indiscriminately, acting upon his master’s malice, which arose from those who berated him, and he searches endlessly for your sister. Neither will accept that she’s gone, and that’s why they’re drawn to you—it’s why
I
was drawn to you. You’re carrying her around your neck, Sarah,” Felix sputtered.

“You never told me
any of this!? WHY?”
I yelled, clutching the pendant around my neck.

“You never
ask
—”

“Bullshit, you’ve broken enough rules to—”

“Sarah, this is hardly the time or place. We need to get inside, we need to—”

The howl of the Antler-Man split the night again, growing so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. Tears sprang to my eyes as the sound shook my body and I cowered, but then it all faded. I looked behind me to find the Antler-Man had gone.

“Where is he?” I whispered to Felix, looking around the cliff.

“I—I don’t know. He’s still on this side of reality, but—” he paused and looked up at me with remorse. I stood up, my legs feeling weak and my head still spinning from intoxication. I could feel him too; he’d gone closer to the sea. He was waiting for me, waiting to bring me to his master. I took a step in his direction and Felix gave a pathetic little meow. I turned back to him.

“How could you keep all this from me?” I demanded, my voice cracking.

“My mistake was believing that my friend had detached himself from Stephen’s spirit. I honestly thought it would reassign itself to Joy when it tasted her blood and—”

“No, that has nothing to do with this. Why did you keep
everything
from me?” I protested, and he hung his head.

“For the same reason Stella and Angus and all the others kept it from you. We all loved Lea. She was kind. Her dreams were beautiful, and her soul was pure. She was so unlike many of the masters I’ve had, and we all hoped that she would stay forever. We didn’t want you to fall to the same fate. We wanted to keep you from dying the way she did. I thought if you never knew, you’d never go looking for him. But it seems he found you, instead.”

“You wanted to keep me alive cause I
look
like her, or—or sound like her? Like, what, am I Lea’s substitute? Is that it?”

“No, Sarah, because your heart is just as pure, and you’re just as kind. You try and cover it up with your rage and misery to keep yourself from caring about people, and to keep people from caring about you. You’re scared to death of losing anyone else, so you just try to stop caring, but that’s not
you
. That’s not your soul. I know because I’ve seen it, and it’s just as beautiful as Lea’s was,” Felix purred. “When my master is cruel, my world is cruel, and the number of good people is in short supply. I wanted to keep you as my master for as long as I could. It was selfish, but then I don’t love anything as much as I love myself. I apologize for misleading you.” Felix bowed his head and crept closer.

I had the sudden urge to hurt him, to kick him away as hard as I could—maybe because he was so vulnerable or I was so angry—but it passed quickly. I felt the truth ringing for the second time in my life, like Mom had promised me I would feel, and dropped down to my knees. I opened my arms to him.

He crawled onto my knees and I curled my arms around him. I held him like someone might hold to the side of a tree as a great wind blew by. With shivering fingers, I stroked his fur and felt his throat quivering as he purred against my arm.

“I understand. I understand why you did it, but you know I can’t just let this go on. I’ve got to set things right. Stephen was my friend, too. Lea loved him, and to leave him the way he is—trapped down there—I won’t allow it. How do I get to him?” I asked, and his purring stopped abruptly.

“You’ve got to get at him to help him, and that’s almost impossible. He’s buried beneath his garden, just like you almost were,” Felix said, sounding quite put-out. I contemplated this and something occurred to me. The diamond knife that I’d cried out, tear by tear, on the cliff. That man had told me it was a tool.

“I think I know how. You’ve got to send me there. Take me to Unreal City,” I begged and he leapt out of my lap, regarding me with his burning eyes.

“You’ll lose your mind down there.”

I held firm. “I don’t care. Send me.”

“Feed me then,” he relented, though his voice was darker than I expected it to be. He was usually so gleeful at the mention of food. I reached to yank out some hair, but he shook his head. “No more fooling around, Sarah. You want me to let you risk your life. You’ve got to pay up. I’ve given you more than enough time to decide. If you’re serious about this, then show me,” he demanded.

I hesitated. If I lived through this, would this be the life that I’d want to come back to? Would I want to be bound to this creature for as long as I lived—a bond deeper than anything the human mind could dream up? Trapped in each other’s care and company, with insanity and delusion as my regular bedfellows? But I could also have the world, and more. I could be the master of my own infinity, the despot of my own solipsistic universe. Unlimited, even by the edges of my own imagination. Bound forever to the elite few who dared to dream further than the common man could ever conceive. Yes, it appealed to me; it appealed to the best and worst parts of me. And I decided in that instant that I could live with that sort of violent ecstasy. I was only ever guaranteed this one life, no matter what the faithful promised. I might as well make it spectacular.

“All right,” I surrendered. “I’m yours.”

THE BITE HURT
more than I expected it would. Felix crawled his way up my body and sank his sharp, digging teeth into the side of my neck. I whimpered and sank downward, feeling the pulse of pain resonate through me. My skin grew hot as he retracted his teeth and lapped at the spots of blood oozing out of the puncture wounds. His tongue was rough on the open wounds, and I gave a sob each time he licked. Felix seemed to go into a frenzy once he tasted my blood, but when he’d had his fill after about five minutes he bounced off me and paced around my legs, licking his lips. I waited to feel some profound sense of bonding with him, or any indicator at all really, but nothing happened. The pact had been made quietly, without the slightest ripple of disturbance. How easy it could be to make this mistake if one didn’t know what they were getting into.

“It’s done. I’ll be here for the rest of your life, though if you’re determined to go through with what you’re planning, I’m not sure how long that will be. The promise we made before still stands, you know. If you lose your mind down there, I’ll have to kill you. I’m bound by my word now, unless you order me differently.”

“I know,” I told him, rubbing at the side of my neck and drawing my hand back to look at the blood spatters on my fingers. “But I’m determined. Let’s go. Now, before I lose my nerve.” I felt like electric currents were shooting up my spine, alight with the sense of oncoming danger.

Felix spun in place, causing my intoxicated head to whirl even more violently. He stopped and that little box sat under his paws, waiting for me. I pulled it up off the ground and consumed its contents. The enchanting flavor hit me, making me forget everything for the duration of its blissful passing. I sank down into the tall grass and closed my eyes, waiting to lift away from my earthly bonds. Because I was anticipating it with such urgency this time around, it wasn’t so much a pleasant drifting sensation as it was a rocket upwards. I felt like I’d boarded a ride at an amusement park—one that shoots up at an incredible speed before dropping, though the drop never came. I just kept hurtling into the sky, past the edges of the world. I tried to see what was going on around me, but there were only jets of very bright light surrounding me. I opened my mouth to call for Felix’s help and found I could make no sound.

I kept trying to shout for him until I could hear my own voice again, whistling through the air. As vision returned to me, I found that I wasn’t resting peacefully in the beds of clover and moss of my garden, but miles above Unreal City and dropping toward it with increasing velocity. My witch’s hat was caught in the wind and flew away. Eyes streaming, I looked around again to see Felix falling beside me.

“
This is why you wait for me to lead you here!
” he howled over the roar of the wind and all I could do was nod in agreement. I could see all twelve gardens arranged on the disc. I guessed I had about four minutes before impact, and tried to ride the currents and aim for my garden where the landing was sure to be safe. I noticed my left hand held the diamond knife that I’d created on my previous visit.

Use it to defend yourself. Use it to get to the deep place
. That was what he’d told me to do. I grasped the dagger’s hilt with both hands and glanced about.

“Felix, which garden in Stephen’s?” I shouted to him. He swam his way over to me, hooking onto the back of my robes.

“The eleventh. That one that looks dead, there.”

It was difficult to distinguish which one he was describing. I saw two gardens that appeared to be barren landscapes from this high above the world, but I soon could tell them apart by the spurts of lightning and the warped, craggy hills of Poe’s domain. My eyes narrowed and I kept my vision focused on the arid earth of the garden between the tranquil beach of the Japanese fisherwoman and the heather-dotted plains of the man with the Kelpie. With the point of my dagger aiming directly at that hard, baked dirt, I flew toward it with determination and confidence that I would break it apart, and not the other way around.

I expected a violent crash, or a vicious thud at the very least as I neared the ground. In the split second before impact, deep panic and doubt shot through me. Why had I done this? How could I have been sure? But with my arm extended in front of me, the point of the dagger touched the ground before any part of my body, stabbing through with ease, as though it were the surface of a balloon rather than hard-packed dirt.

I gave a victorious shout as the world formed into a concave shape and I was pulled through a chute of darkness. I called out for Felix but could not hear his voice. Down, down I went.

I couldn’t see a thing at first. I just kept falling. I couldn’t feel the presence of any familiars, other Cunning Folk, the life-hum of the gardens, or anything at all. Just empty space. I fell down the chute, daunted at what I might find at the bottom of it. And then I saw earth, roots, and a meager light coming from the clusters of minerals embedded in them.