The Dickens Mirror (16 page)

And that’s what you are. You’re a monster of my mind. Why can’t you die DIE—

What?
That wasn’t her thought, not even her voice. She wanted to ask, out loud,
Who are you?
But she was afraid to talk to it, worried that would mean the voice was real, and it couldn’t be, it just
couldn’t
.

Yes, but I remember the valley, pushing into the Dark Passages, and then landing in …
Her throat worked. Beneath her still tightly shut lids, her eyes burned hot.
Landing in an asylum
. God, maybe she
was
insane. Was that what everything had been about? Her madness? Eric and everything else only a hallucination? The valley had never happened and neither had her life: Jasper, Madeline Island, Sal, Holten Prep … all of it?

No. It’s all been so real
. So … a dream, maybe? Like
A Nightmare on Elm Street
or something?

Nightmare
. The voice was back, and now it paused, as if rolling an unfamiliar word around its mouth, tasting it with a tongue.
Dream?

Oh, she was
so
not answering, no matter how clearly the
words reverberated in her skull. Where was she, anyway? Eyes still closed, she turned her head ever so slightly, her senses quivering like a bat’s. Her ears pricked to a crackly rustle beneath her belly. Paper? Or perhaps that was cellophane. From a distance came a different sound: hollow and irregular and more formless than a moan or cry. More like a lot of … 
noise
. Clamor? Voices? Other people?

Yes
. A hiss.
Thanks to you, they’ve put me with the rest of the nutters
.

Nutters
. She knew that word. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that.

Rocket scientist? What are you babbling about?

She didn’t know this voice, didn’t understand why it was there.
Screw you
. She gave the voice a mental shove.
I’m going to wake up
. She would open her eyes—

Don’t ignore me!
The voice was an angry red clot.
I’m speaking to you!

and there’d be her roommate, Marianne, sleeping it off in a tangle of sheets—

Who?

across the room. It would be noon and Christmas break and—

Answer me!
A
kick
to her skull, and then an explosive
ker-POW
as the voice boomed,
I WILL NOT BE IGNORED!

“Uh!” Emma’s head rocked back. Her teeth clashed together with an audible click, snagging her right cheek. Bright orange spangles burst over her vision. Her spit was coppery, and she could feel a slow trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.

YOU THINK YOU CAN BANISH ME WITH A THOUGHT? YOU THINK IT’S THAT EASY?

“Jesus, would you shut the hell
up
?” Her voice came as a low,
animal croak, and the effort cost her. A knifing pain scraped her ribs.
Hurt
. She thought she was sick, too. When she swallowed, her throat convulsed around a clog of what felt like broken glass. Yet she still heard the difference: that lighter tone that was a touch more musical—and that
accent
.

At that, it all came rushing back, the images tumbling one after the other through her mind: losing Eric and Casey and Rima in the Dark Passages, her command to the cynosure, and then
blinking
onto the ward. Racing away from Kramer and that inspector and
Doyle
 … yes, Arthur Conan
Doyle
 … only to smash into that mirror from which loomed a face, large as life: the delicate oval of a much smaller girl with wild blonde hair and yet one with
her
eyes, that golden birthmark …

No, my eyes, my face!

that belonged not to her then but little Lizzie, all grown up.

Oh crap
. Emma’s eyes snapped open, and her heart turned over in her chest.

She was in blackness.

A Different Girl

“WHOMEVER MCDERMOTT THOUGHT
he was—whether Charles Dickens was a nom de plume, a
dédoublement
, flesh and blood, or Jolly King Eddie—is immaterial, Doctor,” Battle said. “My interests lie in tracking him down. For that, I require his daughter to be lucid. At this point, I see little value in your methods. The way you and that
thug
of an attendant manhandled that girl …”

“Don’t tell me my business,” Kramer said as he went to work on another lemon slice. God, the smell was driving Doyle mad. He swallowed back a flood of saliva; his stomach seemed to have grown claws that dug at his belly. He didn’t know what he wanted more, the phial in Kramer’s vest or that bit of fruit. Christ, he’d settle for the rind at this point.

“She was agitated,” Kramer said, around lemon. “You may not approve of my tactics, Inspector, but if you want information, if you desire her lunatic of a father before he kills some other innocent in the misbegotten fantasy that he can somehow magically restore his family … well.” Plucking up a napkin, Kramer set about wiping his fingers. “This is the way. The
answers are locked in that girl’s brain, and I will have them.”

“As you had the father?” Battle observed.

“Yes,
thank
you, Inspector.” Every word was hard-edged as a cut diamond. “Would you like me to admit defeat? Very well: I failed. There.” Kramer tossed his napkin aside. “Satisfied?”

“It is not a question of satisfaction, Doctor, or blame. This is not a competition. This is about catching a madman.”

“But you hold me responsible, isn’t that right?”

“McDermott was in your custody.” Battle’s shoulders moved in a slight shrug. “If he’d escaped my station, I’m sure there’d be a hue and cry.”

“So you
do
blame me. Brilliant. We’ve descended to name-calling and finger-pointing.” Sitting forward again, Kramer selected a lumpy scone studded with what might be raisins but looked suspiciously, to Doyle, like dried rat turds. “I’d complained to the Lunacy Commission for quite some time about the criminal wings’ gas mains. They cleared me of any culpability in the explosions. Besides”—Kramer snapped his scone in two, the sound crisp as the break of a small bone—“you ought to be delighted. All those criminal lunatics immolated at a go.”

“I’m glad to see your irony intact. I might share your sentiments if the same explosions hadn’t both set McDermott free and destroyed his notebooks and writings, so we’ve no clue as to his whereabouts. You say you read that last novel?”

“
The Dickens Mirror
? Yes, but it was in pieces, not a proper story at all. More fragments and notes.” When Kramer slipped scone into his mouth, Doyle caught a fleeting glimpse of wet muscle. “Why?”

“I wondered if there might be something you recall, a detail or mention of a place that might point us in the right direction.”

“Other than it being set in London and predominantly within these walls? It revolved around the man’s usual preoccupations: labyrinthine tunnels, structures that transmogrified, doppelgängers, splits in the personality, false selves, and, of course, his wife and daughter. I
was
struck by how he wove the Peculiar and our current predicament into his mythology. Saw it as energy that might be manipulated. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he’s not holed up somewhere close by its edge, or even worked out a way to wander in and out without becoming lost.”

“All conjectural and meaningless if the girl can’t remember where she was. Your mesmerism’s failed, and I don’t see how clouding her mind with your tonics helps.”

“Which is why I am the doctor and you are the inspector. Get a medical degree, we can talk. Otherwise, lodge your complaints with the Lunacy Commission … but oh
yesss
 … they’ve gone the way of Parliament and our good King Eddie, haven’t they, stealing off into the night?” Kramer dusted crumbs from his fingers. “You say we should work together? So answer me this: why have I not been allowed to examine the bodies?”

“The bodies.” Battle gave Kramer a look as if the doctor had just spouted gibberish. “You’re not a police surgeon. You’ve not even a surgeon. You’re a
doctor
. An
alienist
.” (Doyle thought the inspector might as well have said
quack
.) “You’ve no standing,” Battle said.

“Balls. Who do you think performs necropsies here or inspects the dead before we sack them for the rats?” How Kramer managed a noise like a wet fart with a mouth like that was a mystery to Doyle. “I know my way around a body.”

“Don’t try to sell me a dog, Kramer. Why are you so keen on them?”

“It’s not obvious? Battle, for God’s sake, a thorough study of the corpses might provide a clue as to McDermott’s whereabouts.”

“They’re not within your purview, and that’s final.”

“Oh, don’t piss on me, Battle, and call it rain. This is about territory. You don’t
want
me to examine them, do you?”

“Perhaps not. Frankly … I suspect you’ve other motives.”

“Have I? And what might they be?”

“I don’t know. But I’m certain to find out.” Battle got to his feet. A very tall and broad man, he seemed to inhabit the office, which settled around his shoulders like a cape. “The bodies are not your concern. Now, if you’ve nothing useful to add, I’ll leave you to work on Doyle here. In the interim, I wish to interview some of the staff who’ve attended the girl. If you’d make them available, I’ll speak to them on the ward.” Battle tossed a look at Doyle. “How long? For you to tend to my man?”

“Not very,” Kramer said, regarding Doyle with eyes that were hard as stones. “I dare say your constable’s as eager to be free of this place as you.”

Got that right
. Doyle forced himself not to squirm.

“What about the girl?” Battle asked. “When can I speak with her?”

“Hard to say. I’ll send word when she’s stable. But, Inspector,” Kramer said, “let’s not get our hopes up, shall we? It’s not as if she’s going to wake a different girl.”

A Different Lizzie

FOR A SECOND
,
Emma wondered if she’d gone blind. The space was absolutely pitch, as in
no
light, not even a mild wash of silver from a shuttered window. It reminded her of a particularly heart-stopping moment in a defunct iron mine when their guide flicked off his headlamp just for kicks. Jasper had arranged it all back when she was eleven and fresh out of the hospital with her new face. Detouring on their trip back from Milwaukee to the U.P., Jasper steered them into iron country so they could do a little camping and a little illegal spelunking with this gruff, really ancient, chain-smoking miner dude with nicotine stains on his knuckles. Some wheezy old drinking buddy of Jasper’s who didn’t mind bending the rules, like, a
lot
. They’d followed tracks laid for ore carts down branching corridors with rotting crossbeams, flittering bats, cables sagging from ceilings, iron mesh and bolts holding up the ceiling in some parts. A lot of standing water, ankle-deep in places, the pools still and mirror-perfect. Death traps, the dude said; actually screamed for her to
freeze!
with her boot poised a half foot above what she could’ve sworn was solid
rock.
That’s the problem with old mines
, the dude said, thrusting a walking stick into the pool. She kept waiting for his hand to stop and the stick to hit bottom … and waiting and waiting.
Lower levels flood. Remember, girl, still waters run deep. One wrong step
—lighting a fresh smoke with the dying butt of another, the miner dude cracked a yellow grin—
it’s a long way down
.

Yet this darkness now was also … weird. It actually seemed to shimmy and move, the way things did when you had a high fever. Everything trembled and she couldn’t shake the sense that the darkness wasn’t only air but
something
.

Where am I?
Felt like she was underground, or in a deep basement. Her left shoulder ached; something knobby and a little musty-smelling palmed that left hip and her cheek.
Lying on my side
. A pad? Or maybe a mattress? Every movement rustled, like wind stirring dried cornstalks. Something heavy snarled around her legs and feet.
Skirt
. Her hand drifted up and touched the buttons of a coarse, long-sleeved, high-collared blouse. Thick tights. Low-heeled ankle boots with tons of little buttons. What
was
this stuff?

Be grateful
. The hectoring voice—Elizabeth, a different Lizzie—was back.
They’ve always made me wear a strong dress to keep me from tearing my clothes
.

Strong dress
. She knew that word from both her
blink
while still in House and from when she’d appeared on the ward. Well, now she knew where they’d put her, too.
Padded cell, below the asylum
. Kramer had her drugged, then put somewhere for safekeeping, probably to keep her away from that inspector, Battle, and … 
Arthur Conan Doyle
. In this
Now
, he was a constable, and he’d … rescued her? From what?

I don’t know
. Elizabeth faltered.
I can’t remember.
Sometimes, I’m not even sure I was ever in this
Now
at all
.

Struggling to a sit provoked a gust of nausea. Emma’s already aching head chattered with fresh pain. When she moved, the darkness seemed to curl, then pull back, like a wave over sand.

Oooh
,
does that hurt?
A vicious jag behind her eyes.
It’s what you deserve. Why won’t you leave?

Believe me, honey, nothing I’d rather do
. The question was how.
Wait
. Her hand drifted for her neck, but she already knew from the lack of weight.
Gone
. Kramer had taken both the galaxy pendant and Eric’s tags.

Eric? Who’s that? Is he another piece? And what do you mean
,
tags?
Those scraps of tin on my necklace?