The Dickens Mirror (39 page)

“He’s right. Look, look, it’s okay. I’m going, all right?” Palms still up, Elizabeth shuffled backward. “But I’m no threat to you. Believe me, I’m here to help. I want to help all of you if I can.”

“Oh, and I am supposed to believe that? The panops, Bode, in my right pocket.” Meme slid him a quick sidelong glance. “Take them out.”

Elizabeth reacted to that. “You’ve got panops?”

Meme ignored her. “Bode?”

“What? Why?” It was as if the two girls were talking
over
him somehow. What the bloody hell was going on? “What do you want with—”

“For
God’s
sake, will you stop asking so many stupid questions?” Meme snapped. “
Get
them, quickly, before this … this
piece
loses its grip!” When he just stood there, she readied the jug for a swing. “You want me to bash its brains in? Get them!”

“Hold on, hold on, all right!” Awkwardly, he slid his left hand from her waist and patted until he found the slit of a pocket. Wriggling his fingers inside, he felt the curve of her hip. Embarrassment fired his cheeks, and he thought,
You nob, ya worried about modesty
now
?
“Just give me—”

“No.”
A snarl—but not from Meme. Elizabeth had gone rigid, her lips skinning back to reveal teeth that were a murky orange in the light of Weber’s lantern. Her delicate features were harder than he’d ever seen. Her eyes were so wide, the whites shone with a kind of feral brightness, and that golden flaw glittered like a star.
“No,”
she said again. “Don’t … don’t
fight
me!”

Was she taking a fit? Odd voice or not, he had to do something. She’d saved his life, for God’s sake. “Elizabeth?” Specs in
hand, he started forward. “Are you in—”

“Blast!” Snatching the panops from his slack fingers, Meme dropped the jug and jammed the glasses into place. “I need to
see
which piece …” She gasped. A hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, dear God, it
is
true. You really
are
 …”

“Stop!” Back arching, Elizabeth’s head twisted right and left as if trying to break free of invisible hands. “D-don’t
fight
 … let m-me
explain
it to them! Bode can
help
!”

“Meme?” There was something very
wrong
with Elizabeth’s face, Bode thought. It had to be the light or the strange, shimmering air, because it seemed to Bode that her features … 
glimmered
. As if Elizabeth was soft clay and unseen hands were pinching and rearranging the shape of her lips, the angle of her jaw.
Or squirmers
. His arms stippled with gooseflesh.
Like they’re under her skin, burrowing, eating her alive
. He actually backed up a step. “Meme, what is it? Is it squirmers? Is she …”

“No,” Meme said.

“B-Bode?” Her features had settled, and it was Elizabeth: truly, this time round. He saw at once that she seemed smaller somehow, and weaker. Her lips trembled. “Oh, Bode, thank God you’re all right. I was
so
 …” Sudden alarm swept her face. “No!” In the cell, her shout echoed back from the walls. “No, please, stay asleep a while longer, just a while …”

“God,” Meme breathed. “What
is
this?”

“What?” Elizabeth’s entire face seemed to wrinkle, to shift—or maybe, again, it was the air. Elizabeth
glimmered
and then she was someone else again. “What is what?” Blinking, she cast a look round, then spied the mess on the mattress. “Oh.” Lifting a hand to her lips, she threaded an arm over her stomach. She looked ill. “Oh God, oh
shit
. Did I do that? I
did
that?”

It’s as if she’s just come awake
. Bode clearly heard it now, too: the change in the timbre of her voice, the cadence. And
shit
, not
shite
, though the Elizabeth he knew would never say either. At least, he didn’t think so. But just which Elizabeth
did
he know?

“No.” The word sounded broken. It might have been the strange shimmy in the air, but it seemed to him that Meme’s face was fracturing, too. Behind their purple lenses, her lids fluttered, and then he saw the glister of tears dashing down her cheeks. “How can this be?” Meme said, a hand to her mouth as if she might be ill. “How can you be first a shadow-
boy
and then—”

“Boy?” Elizabeth snapped to attention. “What did he look like? What color was his hair? What …” But then Elizabeth stopped, and Bode thought it was because she’d finally gotten a good look at Meme. “Oh my God. That … you … that’s not possible.”

“What?” Meme shook both her fists. “You dare say
I
am impossible? It is
you
who cannot be. This is not
right
, it cannot be right! He said that
I
was the only …”

The glasses
. The realization broke over Bode like a dash of icy water.
When I looked through, I saw the other Tony. Now Meme looks at Elizabeth—and she must see someone else: first some kind of shadowy figure—a boy—then Elizabeth, and
now …

“Who are you? What is your name?” Meme shook her fists. If she’d a knife, Bode thought she might have used it. “Where do you come from? Why are you
here
?”

He saw the moment the other girl weighed all her choices; saw them flash through her fine features. He saw the instant she decided, too.

“I have an idea of why I’m here,” she said to Meme, and Bode heard just how tightly she reined in that quaver, as if she were
a hair’s breadth from losing control. Her voice was still harsh, though he thought from the way she grimaced that was because talking must hurt. Weber had nearly crushed her windpipe. “I came to find my friends. I was … between, in the Dark Passages.”

“I know
that
.” Meme spat the word. “I saw that boy, that
shadow
.”

“I don’t know about that,” the girl with Elizabeth’s face said.

“But he knows you,” Bode said.

“Do not tell her!” Meme snapped.

“Why? Where’s the harm?”

“What?” The girl looked from Meme to Bode. “Tell me what?”

How calmly I’m taking all this, like a girl tells me she’s a boy every day
. “The boy. He said to tell you that his name’s Eric. That Casey and R-Rima,” he stumbled, “and Lizzie? They’re all there, but they’re
stains
. He said you would understand what he meant.”

“What?” The girl’s jaw dropped. “He’s
here
? Eric is …” She put a hand to her chest. “Inside?” she whispered. “He’s
inside
me?”

“So it would appear,” Meme said. “He must be strongest of the lot, but he is not what you think anymore. He is part of
it
, more of the Dark Passages than any
Now
you knew. They are
in
you, bound to your blood.”

“Where
did
you come from?” Bode asked. “Do you live in the Dark Passages?”

“No.” The girl swallowed. “I’m from Wisconsin.”

“Wisconsin.”
Same as little Emma
. “Where
is
that? North of London?”

“Well, it’s
north
.” The girl looked taken aback. “Um … in the United States?”

“The United
what
?” Bode frowned. “What you yammering about?”

“It must exist in her
Now
,” Meme said.

“Wait, you mean there’s no United States here? No America?” The girl blinked. “What … what about Germany? Europe? Russia?”

The names were so much gibberish. “There’s only England,” Bode said. “There’s only
ever
been England, and now just this part of London, thanks to the Peculiar. Why? Is it different in your … your
Now
?”

“Way,” she said. “
Way
different.” Then she seemed to hear what he’d just said. “Peculiar? What Peculiar? Are you telling me we’re inside one?”

“Only in a manner of speaking. It’s the fog what’s eating up the world.”

“Stop encouraging it to believe its own fictions,” Meme said. “She is not even a real person, only a fragment wearing another girl’s body.”

“Not where I come from,” the girl said.

“You are
nothing
.” Meme pounded her chest with a clenched fist. “I don’t care what you think you see in the mirror.
I
am a person, not you!”

The girl cast a look down at her body as if she’d just now tried on a skirt and blouse several sizes too small. “Well, considering
where
I am, I see why you’d think that. But if you know about the Dark Passages and other
Nows
, then you must know that there are multiple versions of everyone: as people, ideas … whatever.”

“
I
don’t know nothing about that, but I seen myself in a nightmare, and doubles of my friends, too,” Bode said.

“What?” Meme said, at the same instant that the other girl said, “Nightmare?”

“Yeah, of a valley,” Bode said. “A lot of snow. And my friends, Tony and Rima, they saw themselves, too.”

The other girl gasped. “You know
Tony
? He’s
alive
? He’s here? What about Rima? Is she okay?”

“Here? Yeah, my Rima is fine, but she’s not the girl from that valley, that dream.” Bode’s throat tried to close. “The bloody thing’s real, isn’t it? The valley, the fight, that monster, those … 
scorpions
. All of it. I die to save you and the others,” Bode said to the girl in Elizabeth’s body. “Don’t I?
Didn’t
I?” He bunched his fists over his heart. “I
felt
it happen. But if I saved you, why are you
here
? If I already did this once, what am I to do now? Why am
I
here? Why are
you
?”

“She is here because she has been drawn to Elizabeth and what she carries. She is nothing but a piece, a fragment, and so are these others of whom she speaks.” To the other girl, Meme said, “You have nothing to say to him. He belongs here, and so do his friends. They are not like you.
Your
Rima has vanished. Her world is in ruins, and
your
Tony is dying, and good
riddance
; he should, he
should
.” Meme sounded on the verge of tears. “I should never have interfered. Doctor is right. We are better off rid of you all.”

“Meme.” He was suddenly very tired, his head crammed with information.
Just a few minutes’ peace and quiet to sort all this out
. “Hold on. Can’t lose our heads. We have to think about what to do next.”

“I know precisely what I must do.” She glared at the other girl. “What is your name? I need to know.”

“It’s not what you think,” the other girl said.

“What does she think?” Bode asked.

“Not this.” The other girl didn’t take her eyes from Meme. “I know what you want to hear, but … my name’s Emma.”

What?
Bode goggled. Two
Emmas? One grown, the other not? Which one do I help? Which is the right one?

“No.” All the color drained from Meme’s face. “No … no.”

“Meme?” When she looked at Emma through those glasses, what had Meme seen? Was Emma some monster, or a bloody ruin like poor Tony? That entity, Eric, had said
stain, shadow
. “What did you see?” Bode asked. “
Who?
”

“Bode,” Emma said, from her corner, “you can’t let her leave.”

But it was too late. Meme shrieked something guttural and inarticulate, a high, animal keening that filled this space until it seemed to Bode the world was made of nothing else but that sound.

And then Bode felt the floor, the walls, the
cave
 … begin to shake.

Lost

WHY YOU COMING
so low, and why now?
Hunching her shoulders against the wind, Rima gave the sky a sidelong glance as she and Emma horsed the cart another half foot while Tony strained at the yoke. No, it wasn’t her imagination. The snow was still falling in sheets, almost in a deluge like a heavy rain. Yet through this strange half-light, she saw that the fog was much closer. So either they were wandering into a thick roll of errant mist, or the Peculiar itself was drawing down over them.
Or
—she aimed another uneasy look—
you’re about to spit out another visitor
.

“No use,” Tony said, teeth chattering. Weighed down with bodies, their cart had sunk until the axles were completely submerged. “Don’t look anyone’s been out this far in years.”

One look, and Rima felt a sick stab of dismay. “Tony.” She touched a hand to her nose. “You n-need to …”

“What?
Sh-shite
.” Swiping at his lip, he studied the scarlet chunks of frozen blood, then brushed his hand against a thigh. “N-no help for it,” he said brusquely.

“So wh-what do we do n-now?” Snow lathered Emma’s
eyebrows. Her shoulders were mantled with white. On the cart, a sack rippled as Jack wormed his way to the neck and popped out for a look. “Hey, b-boy.” Emma rested her forehead on the cat’s head. “Don’t you know curiosity k-killed the cat? You need to stay warm.” To the others: “Do we g-go back?”

“No.” When Tony opened his mouth to protest, Rima pushed on, “You heard Bode. You can’t risk getting closer to the other T-Tony.”

“Don’t think it makes much difference.” Shrugging out of his yoke, Tony stumped around to the cart’s rear and held out his arms. “Come on, girls, get warm.”

Sinking into his chest made the icy lump of fear in Rima’s throat melt a bit. Burying her face in his coat, she inhaled his scent. Despite her new mittens, the pain in her hands was ferocious, like hundreds of knives hacking her flesh. “Why haven’t we made it off-grounds y-y-yet?” Talking was hard work. “How far back do you think the asylum is?”

“Don’t know.” His right arm tightened around her shoulders. “Last thing I remember seeing was those ruins. I thought I kept them to our l-l-left, but …”

But you’re not sure
. Neither was she. She felt her stomach drop. They’d gotten themselves lost somehow.
Gloomy, and the snow’s so thick, easy to get turned around
. Then, of course, there was the Peculiar.

“Was it like that when I showed up?” Emma’s eyes slid from the glowering fog to Rima. “That th-thick?”