Stiltskin (Andrew Buckley) (28 page)

“Well, back to matters at hand. I’ll answer any questions you have, directly, mind you, as long as you tell me which of you I’m speaking to.”

A bead of sweat formed on Tweedle’s head.
It couldn’t be. How would he know?
Tweedle was fortunate that his long life cycle allowed him to outlive a great many people and the details of his past were, for the most part, buried within the Agency or the Archives and a few others who also lived long lives.

The Hatter leaned forward. “A madman can’t fool a madman and as you can see, I’m clearly very mad. I know your story, Tweedle Dee… and Tweedle Dum. But like I said, your secret’s safe with me, I just want to know which one of you I’m currently talking to. That’s all.”

Tweedle tried to collect himself. And failed miserably. “Ah… eh… uh.”

“That’s not really English, is it? Look, I know you convinced everyone that your two personalities have been amalgamated into one and therefore you are completely normal and able to function as a regular member of society. But I know better. I know why you can retain so much information. I know why you deal so well with madmen and the criminals of Thiside. It’s because you’re just as mad. You simply hide it better. You’re both traitors to yourselves. You’re both still in there, it’s plain and obvious to me. You’re a charade, a fake, a counterfeit. You are a grand theatre production with two main actors but only one voice. Now,” said the Hatter and unfolded his long spindly fingers in a questioning gesture, “tell me that I’m wrong.”

Tweedle was sweating profusely. He’d been so careful. After his therapy, he’d been able to convince everyone that he’d developed being normal into a fine art.

“You… y-you’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“I’m not here to talk about us.” Tweedle clamped his hands over his mouth.

“Ahh, there you both are. You have to admit that taking a page out of my extensive book isn’t a bad idea. It is better to be exactly who you are rather than exactly what you think people want you to be.”

“B-but, you’re mad.”

The Hatter smiled broadly. “Then you, my friends, are in good company.”

Tweedle twitched slightly and burst into tears.

The Hatter stood up to his full height. With the candlelight throwing shadows against the wall and the thunder rolling outside the Tower, the Hatter looked truly ghastly, his hair hanging in thick greasy strands and his ragged clothes draped over his skeletal body.

In the Agent’s mind, Tweedle Dum bawled incessantly while Tweedle Dee simply whimpered. The ropes of sanity that the split personality of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum had perfected over time had been frayed in a matter of minutes. When he was a boy, Dum and Dee had been two personalities trapped in the young boy’s body, not opposing personalities but more like conjoined twins. They had bickered and fought and agreed and loved and laughed. However, such weirdness can be tolerated for only so long and his options came down to severe therapy or time in the Tower before his madness hurt someone. The choice was natural.

“Troll!” shouted the Hatter.

There was a snarfling sound and the locks on the door slid aside. The door creaked open a few inches and the Troll poked his ugly little head through.

“What ya want?” drooled the Troll.

“Our dear friend here seems to have lost his mind. I don’t suppose there’s a spare cell where he might rest? I’ll look for his mind while he’s sleeping,” explained the Hatter politely.

“What did ya do ta him?”

The Hatter adopted a look of pure surprise and innocence. “Me? We were just talking and he started… well, look at him.”

The Troll opened the door. Candlelight skittered across the wall, illuminating the cell to reveal the large, round figure sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cell sobbing. The Troll looked at the Hatter, who shrugged.

“I didn’t even get to tell him my secret,” said the Hatter and shook his head disappointedly.

The Troll waddled over to Tweedle and took him by the hand. “C’mon, ther ther, s’aright, ee as that effect on a lot o people.”

The Troll grabbed the candle, then pulled on Tweedle’s hand to lead him out of the cell. Tweedle hoisted himself to his feet, head hung low, and the pair exited the cell, leaving the Hatter to himself.

The door swung shut and the light ceased to occupy the room. The Hatter stood in the middle of his cell and grinned maniacally at no one in particular.

obert had assumed that travelling through the intricate system of the doors would become easier the more he did it. He was wrong. He’d lost count of how many times he’d turned around and stepped back through the door, and the nauseating feeling that crept up his bowels and tickled his tonsils had yet to subside.

He stepped out of yet another door and as he did so, the world slipped back into focus. He was standing on a long beach with a vast blue ocean gently lapping up on the sand. The sun peeked over the horizon and the smell of sea air filled Robert’s lungs. And then he saw them. He wasn’t sure at first, but as the sun crested the horizon and then suddenly shot into the air, spilling morning sunlight over everything, he quickly became certain.

“Those are Mermaids!” he exclaimed.

Three female Mermaids were lying farther down the beach, sunning themselves. They were naked from the waist up.
I suppose they’re naked from the waist down, too
. “They’re beautiful!” he said.

“Yeah I suppose,” said the voice.

“You suppose? You suppose? Look at them, they’re beautiful!”

“Well, they’re half fish aren’t they?”

Robert looked at the Mermaids. “From the waist down, yes.”

“I just don’t see the appeal,” said the voice.

“How can you possibly be me? Do you know how many times we’ve disagreed over the last several hours?”

“Well, I haven’t been counting…”

“Twenty-six,” said Robert.

“So you’ve been counting, then, have you?”

“Twenty-six disagreements!”

“Well, it’s been a long night.”

“I just don’t understand how you can possibly be my mind or my conscience or whatever you are. I just don’t―”

“Those Mermaids are getting closer,” said the voice.

Robert opened his mouth to argue and then realized that the voice in his head was correct. The Mermaids were crawling along the beach toward Robert, dragging their long fish tails behind them. They were around thirty feet away. Their naked breasts looked large and perky and bounced seductively. Their long, dark hair blew in the sea breeze. The morning sun shone upon their bronzed skin. They made the most beautiful snarling sound and their fangs looked sharp…?

“What the hell?” asked Robert.

Twenty feet.

The Mermaids were beautiful but they were snarling and even spitting a little. Each had her mouth opened unnaturally wide, revealing long, snake-like fangs. One of them looked like she had bits of a dead creature hanging from her jowls. They were crawling faster and they looked distinctly hungry.

Ten feet.

“I hate to keep suggesting this,” said the voice.

“I’m way ahead of you,” said Robert and turned and ran. The door was still open, a shimmering hole on the beach. He could hear the snarling of the Mermaids behind him. He dived head first through the door―

―and rolled out onto hard green stone.

He looked back at the door to check the door’s size. He’d learned that the doors shrank the closer they came to winking out of existence, and that the average life span of any given door was around fifteen minutes. This one was still large so he had some time.

He was standing in a courtyard. Or at least, he was standing in the remains of a courtyard. There were piles of green rubble everywhere. The green rock sparkled where the sunlight hit it.

“It looks like emeralds,” said Robert who had gotten far too used to speaking out loud as he was now completely comfortable with the voice in his head speaking back to him.

“Pretty,” said the voice.

“This must have been the Emerald City. From the Wizard of Oz. Or, well, I suppose the book was based on what this used to be,” Robert corrected himself.

He still had a hard time getting his head around the fairy tales of Othaside being based on actual reality, even though they were only loosely based. The Mermaids had been a real eye-opener. Mermaids as bloodthirsty creatures were a far cry from beautiful creatures who helped people, sang songs all day, and hung out with fishes.

He must have travelled miles through Thiside during the last several hours trying to find a door that was remotely close to the Archives. Almost everywhere he went, there had been signs of life. He’d dropped into a colony of Fairies, he’d appeared in a dim mine shaft with slimy skulking things living in the dark, he’d walked close to the edge of a high cliff, and conversed with an old man living in a cave. Even the most remote areas of Thiside had someone or something living in it. But not here. This place was desolate; not even the air moved.

Robert climbed to the top of a pile of rubble made up of broken statues. He looked out over the landscape, which stretched all the way to a blackened harbour that looked like it had burned to pieces. Piles of rubble lay everywhere. More disturbing were the carcasses of giant man-like creatures that were scattered everywhere. It looked like someone or something waged an epic battle here. In the stillness that occupied this broken city, there was a sense of something that Robert couldn’t place. It felt…

“Electric,” said the voice.

“Yeah, I can feel it. There’s a heaviness to it.”

“Ohh, did you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“Sorry, thought I felt a shiver. Felt good. This place has magic.”

If the voice in Robert’s head had been a person, he imagined that it would be staring off into the distance, thinking carefully about a faint memory stirred by the feeling it had just experienced. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly thought of the voice as a different person, as it was firmly present in his mind, but the image seemed to fit, if only for a moment.

“We should keep going,” said Robert and his stomach whimpered at the prospect of re-entering the doors.

Robert slid and crawled his way down the pile of rubble and stepped back through the doorway―

―and stepped out onto a grassy hill at the edge of a forest. Robert recognized this place. It was where he’d run into the forest the night before, to escape from Lily. That seemed like a lifetime ago. He’d been wandering through countless door after door all night, trying to get back here. But now he was here, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Thankfully, fate had the situation well in hand.