The Dickens Mirror (37 page)

After a brief silence, he unhooked a canvas bundle from his left shoulder. “Brought you some blankets and a good coat. Thought you might be taking a chill.”

No, you thought I’d be in la-la land and figured you might as well be comfortable
. Wasn’t like he could dial up his sleep number on this ratty mattress. “Why am I down here?”

“What ya talking about?”

“Exactly what I
said
, asshole.” Man, she sounded braver than she felt.

“What ya mean?” Weber actually sounded insulted, like she was criticizing how the asylum was run. “Ya nutter, ya snatched a knife! Ya chucked that damn jar, damn near broke my head.” He touched a splotchy bandage over his nose. “Then you run into that mirror, and we’re expected to hop to whilst they’s some of us hurt just as bad.”

“I remember what I did. I was scared. But I’m not violent now.”

“Yeah, well,” Weber drawled, “if’n I had as much laudanum down my gullet as you, I might be a little limber. Surprised you’re awake, actually.” He seemed to remember something, and his eyes snapped around the cell before coming to rest on her again. “You musta been thirsty. Where’s your jug? How much you drink?”

Well,
hello
: water had to be drugged. Good thing she hadn’t found it before this. But what he’d said begged another, more interesting question: if Kramer had given her such a large dose, how
could
she have come out of it so soon?

Because … I’m not
really
from here?
This felt almost right.
I’m like Meg Murry. Unless I buy into IT, nothing quite works the way it should
. And why hadn’t Weber said anything about the cave glowing? Or the energy waves? Did he even notice?
Maybe he’s seen it before. This might be normal for down here
. She wondered what he’d do if she could make those hands appear again.
Or … maybe he
can’t
see the glow?

“I don’t need to be here anymore,” she said. “I want to go back to my room.”

“You want, you want.” Weber’s mouth worked. “Doctor wants you here, and here you’ll stay. So shut your trap and don’t make trouble.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“When he’s good and ready.”

“What about Mrs. Graves? Can I see her?”

“Not now. She’s gone to her rooms, I suspect. She’s got better to do than worry about you. You’re stuck with me. Now you mind, or I’ll be happy to make sure you do.”

She didn’t doubt that. “Fine. You’ve checked; I’m alive. So … go away.”

“Not so fast. Remember, I’m responsible; I’m to bring you meals, make sure you’ve not perished from thirst. You’d do well to think about what
I
might want. What
might
”—his eyes roamed her body—“grease the wheel. Save us all a lot of fuss.”

She thought he’d probably like it if she fought. The problem with only hurting him was that he’d hurt
her
more.
Although he would have to explain why to Kramer
. So maybe he wouldn’t dare.
Can’t take that chance
. She felt the jug pressed up to the small of her back. The heavy metal might crater his skull, but she’d have to get it right the first time, or at least stun him enough to give her time for another swing.

“If you touch me, if you d-do anything …” She squelched the stammer. “I’ll tell Kramer, I will.”

“Oooh.”
He injected a mocking quaver. “I’m
sooo
worried. I’m
sooo
frightened.” His tone turned hard. “It’s my word against yours, and you’re mad.”

No. I’m Emma, and Kramer knows it
. He’d believe her, but she
had to deal with Weber
now
. “Forget it.” Still crouching, she inched her right hand closer to her hip. “Don’t even try to touch me.”

“ ’At’s where you’re wrong.” Weber hung the lamp on a short wall hook. “Now move away, so I can see the jug and plate.” Her dismay must’ve shown, because he let out another nasty, nasal bark. “Stand up or crawl, I don’t care which, but
move
.”

“No,” she said, “I wo—”

Without warning, Weber came at her, fast, crossing the room in two giant strides.

Still, she almost got him.

I’m Not Elizabeth

ELIZABETH WAS A
much smaller girl, and weaker. Used to her own body, with its longer reach and greater strength, Emma miscalculated by only a second or two, but it was enough. Too much, in fact. She might still have made it, if only Weber had been just a little slower or stumbled on the uneven mattress, but he wasn’t and didn’t.

The jug was also heavier than she’d thought, and her swing was awkward, the jug’s weight actually pulling her off-balance. Gasping, she tried to correct but staggered on that damned lumpy mattress as Weber loomed.

“Oh no, dear, none of
that
.” Trapping her wrist in his left hand, he brought his right around in an openhanded slap.

The pain was enormous, an explosion in her head and something she actually
saw
as a white flash. A cry jumped off her tongue as she felt Elizabeth’s body
—her
body now—crumple.
No!
Bucking, she aimed a kick for his groin, but her legs tangled in that stupidly long skirt. In the next moment, Weber had straddled her chest, tacking her shoulders to the mattress with his knees.

“Got any fight left in you, huh?” Weber slapped her again, hard enough that her head whipped to one side. He leaned down, his face only inches from hers. “I can do this all night. You ready to mind?”

“Kr-Kramer …” That last slap had driven her teeth into her cheek. She sucked a ball of blood. “Dr. Kr-Kramer will be-believe me.” Breathing hurt. Her ribs felt ready to snap under Weber’s weight. “He
w-will
. You keep hitting me, there’ll be bruises.”

“Oh, but he
won’t
.” Weber ground his knees into the balls of her shoulders and laughed when she groaned. “You may be his pet of the moment, but you’re also a nutter, and look what you done to yourself, slapping yourself silly.”

“You’re
wr-wrong
.” Panting now, she tried staying with it, but it was hard. Weber was so damned heavy. Bright red spangles burst over her vision. If she didn’t get air, she thought she was probably only seconds from passing out. “He’ll b-believe me b-because”—she pulled in a cawing breath—“because h-he knows … I … I’m n-not …”

“What’s that, dear?” Cocking his head, he cupped his left ear with a hand and leaned in closer. Mimicking her: “H-he knows y-you’re n-not …”

She pulled in as large a breath as she could. “I’m not Elizabeth”—and then she struck, fast as a snake.

Weber let out a shrill, high shriek. He reared, screaming, and she went with him, jaws clamped tight, teeth digging into his cheek, sawing,
grinding
. She felt stiff stubble on her tongue and oily grime, and then something wet—Weber’s blood, strangely tasteless—burst into her mouth.

“Let go, let go!” Bawling, Weber swatted with his right. The angle was awkward, and only the heel of his hand connected,
bouncing off the back of her skull. Still, the hit was hard enough that stars exploded before her eyes, and her jaws slackened for no more than a nanosecond—just long enough for Weber to pull free.

“You … 
you
 …” Cursing, Weber loomed. A flap of skin hung from his cheek, and blood streamed from his jaw to drip into her face. His huge hands clamped around her throat. When she bucked, he tightened his grip. “You’ve done it now, ya blower!” he roared. “You’ve done it
now
!”

She couldn’t have answered even if she’d wanted. Her lungs were on fire. Her fingers tried hooking over his hands, and she could feel her nails as they tore and scratched, but his grip only tightened, the pressure, the pressure, the
pressure
crushing, her throat collapsing as the pain in her chest came alive as something with hands and claws that dug and scratched and tried to rip her open from the inside. When he shook her, her head flopped and bounced, limp as a rag doll’s. He was still shouting something, but she only knew that because spit and blood sprayed her cheeks. Every sound—his shouts, the dull thump of her feet against canvas—faded in the louder, frantic throb of her pulse. In another moment, even that was gone, as an insidious, remorseless blackness leaked into her ears and over her vision the way an overturned jar of ink spreads over white paper.

No more sound now. No more light. Only the agony in her chest remained: that, and a weird … hesitant … intermittent awareness … like the sweep … of the beam … from a lighthouse …

 … and there was … something …

 … something …

 … in her head, someone …

Dungeon

“WELL?” BODE SAID
.
They’d come to a standstill at a four-way junction. “You know which way?”

“I think so,” Meme said, tossing an uncertain look from one opening to the next. “Give me a moment.”

Oh, perfect
. Though he wasn’t angry at her. Each time this evening he’d unlocked and dragged open a door, cringing at every metallic
clank
and
squawww
, he half-expected Kramer and an army of faceless minions to suddenly appear. Nerves, that, and the noise: that continual ghostly yammer of the mad seeping through iron doors.

It was also the weirdness of the place working on him: these very bizarre tunnels and the way the air
moved
. So different from the tunnels through which he’d taken patients to other cells beneath the asylum. Tipping the iron pick in which he held their one candle, he watched as molten wax dripped to cold stone and instantly solidified. He’d done this the whole way, laying a trail of wax bread crumbs just in case they got turned around. Which they might be at the moment.

Where in God’s name are we?
You didn’t need to be an engineer to know that these tunnels came from before Bedlam as he knew it now had been built. Those more familiar structures echoed the buildings: bricked and lined with cells, with each section gated off with an iron grate and wood door, like an old castle keep. These passages were very strange, as if they’d detoured into a much older, almost ancient portion of the asylum. The strangeness was in everything: the moist air that pulsed with a weird, faintly phosphorescent aura, emanating from walls that were no longer brick but carved, glassy stone. The light was just bright enough that there was almost no need for their single candle. He dragged a tentative finger over glowing, carved stone.
Cool
. And had he caught the slightest suggestion of a reflection?

Yet there were still cells: whole series of iron doors, one right after the other, with patients behind each one, if the noise was an indication. So eerie, though.
More like a dungeon
. What would lie out this way? He tried to imagine where they were in relationship to the surface, but there’d been so many turns and doglegs and crosscuts, he’d lost track. Had they veered off toward the back grounds? Perhaps the derelict criminal wings? But if there were still patients here, who looked in on them?

A sudden muffled shout sounded from somewhere close behind. He near about jumped a foot. Hot wax spilled onto his index finger as the candle trembled and tried to snuff, but he barely felt the burn. All the fine hairs on his neck were stiff as pikes. God, these poor buggers—how often did they actually see other people?
They all sound alike
. It was hard to think of them as people.

“Hate that sound.” Meme shivered. “You know, I sometimes think they don’t have faces at all? Just … bodies screaming
sounds. No matter how many times I’ve been down here, working with Doctor, I never get used to it.”

He only nodded, a little spooked to hear his thoughts come out of her mouth. He peered into the tunnel on his right, at three o’clock, which seemed different from the passage they’d just exited at their six, and the other two at nine and twelve. Shadows swarmed, but he saw how the light from Meme’s candle bounced back from walls that faintly glittered. The tunnel’s mouth exhaled air that was much colder and laced with a sour and slightly noxious fume, like what the Thames smelled like on an ill wind: gassy as a sewer. Shite, probably the real thing: either human or animal droppings. Bats, maybe rats. He edged closer.

“Where are you going?” Meme whispered. “That’s the wrong way.”

She knew that for sure? “Just checking.” Another step, and now his nose tingled with a nip of icy air. Interesting. A draft? He wondered where this cut went.
Not back to the main building, that’s sure
. If there
were
bats, then there had to be an exit aboveground.
Maybe once I grab Elizabeth, we go this …

A sudden, sharp scream pierced the air.

Christ
. His heart seized, fisting to a knot that pushed into his throat. Startled, he blundered away from the tunnel’s mouth and stumbled back to the four-way junction. Had that been a patient? Someone in a cell, or out in a corridor? “Which tunnel did that come from?” he asked. The scream had dwindled to hollow echoes. “Could you tell?”

“No.” Meme looked as terrified as he felt. “Do you think it was her?”

The scream had certainly been
high
enough, but the edges were rough, mannish. He just wasn’t sure, and there’d only been
the one scream. The sound had been so sudden that even the nutters had quieted. He could picture them, quivering in the dark, ears pressing against iron, listening above the thud of their hearts. Yet the scream had also been very loud. Must mean an open door somewhere.

Oh, come on
. He turned a complete circle.
Which tunnel, which way?
Excluding the one they’d just left and the tunnel at three o’clock with its glittery stone, that left two: nine and twelve o’clock. Cocking his head, he stilled his lungs and listened so hard his ears rang.
Come on, one more scream. Just one. Help me find you
 …

As if in answer, the shriek came again, and this time, he heard, very clearly, that brutish bellow. His head whipped left, to the tunnel at his nine.

“Bode?” Meme sounded suddenly tentative. “I think that was a man.”