The Dickens Mirror (40 page)

She nodded. “But lower, too. Like a curtain or sheet of paper.”

“Think there’s someone else coming? Maybe”—the little girl swallowed—“that crazy lady? She might know we’re here b-by now.”

“Regardless”—Tony snugged them close—“we won’t let her take you.”

“May not be up to you.” Emma was paler than the snow. “Can I ask you a question, Rima? About drawing?”

“What do you want to know?” Rima asked.

“Does it work both ways? Can you put back?”

“Why you asking?” Tony jogged the girl’s shoulder. “What you thinking?”

“What about
what
you take?” The girl skimmed her tongue over lips that were dead-white. “Is it always … you know … when someone’s s-sick?”

“Emma?” Rima ducked down to catch the girl’s eyes. “What are you …”

“You take energy. So … that means eventually things even out, maybe even tip the other way, and you can’t h-hold on to all of it. You don’t know that you can’t draw other things, too. Like that other R-Rima?”

“She took what was left after death,” Tony said.

“A whisper,” Rima said. “A watermark.”

“Isn’t that just another name for residual energy?” Emma asked.

“What are you driving at?” Tony asked.

“I’m not sure, but …” Emma’s mouth worked. “Tell me this: when you take s-sickness, can you let it go where you want?”

“I don’t know.” Despite the cold, she was mystified, a little interested now, too. “Why are you …”

“Could you hide me?” The girl blurted it out, the words under pressure. “Take who I am, my … my watermark or stain or whisper or whatever, and b-bottle me up or something? Could you hide me inside of you and then let me go? Put me b-back?”

“What are you saying?” Snow tumbled from Tony’s eyebrows as they folded in an alarmed frown. “You mean, you want Rima to steal your … your
soul
?”

“If it’s energy.” Eyes pooling, the girl nodded. “Yeah. Could you?”

“I don’t …” Rima faltered, looked to Tony for help. “Emma, why would you even think …”

“Because what if she
does
come?” Tears swelled over the girl’s cheeks. “If I’m … you know … 
dead
, then maybe she’ll leave me alone!”

“No.”
Aghast, Tony crushed the weeping girl close. “
Never
. We have you, Emma. You’re our charge, yeah? Our chuckaboo? ’sides, you heard Meme. They never once mentioned you. Don’t even know about you.”

“They have to, if they’re working together. Only a matter of time before they figure it out.” Ice-tears pebbled the girl’s jaw. “And I don’t trust Meme. Bode d-does, but
you
know he shouldn’t.”

Blast, why does she have to be so observant? Doesn’t miss a trick
. Rimes of hoar frost clung to Rima’s muffler where her breath had first condensed and then iced. Now that she’d stopped moving, her many layers of clothing, saturated with sweat, were already beginning to freeze. “What are you talking about?” she asked, knowing full well what the girl was saying. “Why would you say that?”

“Come on, Rima, I’m not dumb,” Emma said. “I saw your face. When you l-looked through the panops?”

“She’s right.” Small bits of ice rained from Tony’s lashes and eyebrows when he scrubbed his face. “I did, too. The name’s wrong, but you know it was her. I r-recognized her from the dream.” He paused. “And we let Bode go, no warning.”

He’d have done it anyway
. What was more, Rima suspected Bode must know, even if the name was wrong.
Why would that be, though? Ours were all the same: two Rimas, two Tonys, two Bodes
. “Once he’s got his head in harness …”

“He don’t back down. I know. But Emma’s right. Wh-why did you keep cutting me off, not let me tell him?”

Because so many other things
are
right
. She didn’t understand this Many Worlds business or
Nows
, but there were the glasses, and she believed in doubles leading their own lives. There was the nightmare they all shared, after all. “Since you’re both so observant, did either of you see the way she looked at him? She likes Bode. Cares for him. Her coming out wasn’t never for us or the other T-Tony.”
And what of the other me? She said that Rima’s world is a shambles. But why? Because that Rima’s not there?
“She did it for Bode, pure and simple.”

“So what did you see?” Tony asked. “When you looked at Meme through the glasses?”

“Nothing,” she said.

From the way the little girl’s eyes narrowed, she thought Emma understood at once, or at least had an inkling. Tony only frowned and blinked away ice. “Yes, you did,” he said. “I know you. You went white as salt. So what did you see?”

He really didn’t understand. “Exactly what I just said: I saw …” All at once, her skin prickled, the hair standing on end along her arms and the back of her neck. “Oh boy.” Emma jerked a look not at the sky but the ground. “You f-felt that, too?”

“Yes.” She followed the girl’s gaze.
Something about to happen
. The premonition was very strong, a physical ache like the dig of a claw at her throat.

“What?” Tony’s head swiveled right and left. “Felt … oh.”
Eyes wide, Tony released them and chafed his arms. “I’m all pins and nee—”

Beneath her feet, Rima felt the sudden slip and sideways shift of the earth, and then the sound again, the one she’d heard at the guardhouse: that low grumble as the ground shook.
Another quake?
Cutting above the wind’s howl, their cart let out a high squeal. To her horror, a spiderweb of fine fissures and cracks sketched themselves over the snow, and she saw the right wheel begin to lurch and tremble.

“Get back!” Launching himself, Tony threw his arms round them both, pushing them back into the snow just as the cart’s wheel plummeted in a precipitous drop with the roll of the earth. To the left, a huge block of compressed snow lifted at the same moment, thrusting up like an iceberg in a white sea. The cart went down at a slant, the bagged bodies they’d roped down slithering like fish on a wet deck. Whether it was the sudden weight or the unbalanced load, the wheel shattered, its spokes buckling in loud cracks.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The shuddering stopped. A plume of pulverized snow quickly dissipated in the wind.

“Are you all right?” Tony’s voice was as broken as the snow. Rima could feel his heart banging against hers. “Rima? Emma?” Tony looked to his left where Emma had come to rest about a half foot away. “You hurt?”

“I’m okay.” Emma sounded breathless. “You guys?”

“Fine.” But she was also afraid to move. Whether it was their combined weight or the fractured snow, they’d come to rest a good foot below the surface. Looking up, she thought, was like getting a corpse’s-eye view of the world.

“That’s two tremors,” Tony said. “Why n-now?”

“Maybe it’s the end,” she said.

“No.” It was Emma. “I think it m-might be something else. Remember your nightmare? What happened when that other R-Rima got into that big fight on the snow?”

“Yes, it broke. You think …”

“Yeah, same space. Too many of us bunched together, like a crowd on thin ice. This
Now
can’t take the pressure. I bet there’s more than just the other Tony here now. Maybe”—Emma slicked her lips—“maybe another
me
. You know … grown up? Like the girl in your dream? Or maybe they found the other Bode?”

“Whichever it is, we
really
need to go.” Rima didn’t know if Emma was right, but two quakes in one day and in roughly the same spot were bad no matter what. Belatedly, she realized that she’d not heard the collapse of bricks or the squaw of metal. No shouts either. So they really must be quite a distance out from even the derelict criminal wings, unless the storm muffled all sound.

“Come on.” Struggling from the divot they’d made in the snow, Tony extended a hand to pull her out. “Snow’s stopped,” he said.

“What?” She felt a kick of hope that quickly faded. Their cart had come to rest at a forty-five-degree angle. Its left wheel had popped clear of the snow. Most of the bodies had tumbled out, though a few hung over the cart’s lip like partially opened jackknives.
But we’re all right
. The sky had brightened to a muzzy gray, and no one had come for them. “I think the cart’s ruined,” she said, then frowned and scrubbed at her eyes. “Must have hit my head. Snow’s all wobbly.”

“No, look at the cart, it’s …” Tony touched it with a finger.
“Solid, but do it look to you like it’s underwater?”

That was exactly it. “A glimmer,” she murmured. “I saw the same thing right before the cat—”

“Jack!” Gasping, Emma floundered to her feet. “
Jack?
Ja—” She stopped. “Guys.” She backed up a slow step.
“Guys?”

“What …” And then Tony pulled in a sharp breath. “Oh
shite
.”

“Uh-huh.” Emma’s voice had almost no substance at all. Air was weightier.

“Dear God,” Rima said—because, yes, the snow had stopped.

But now the fog was there.

Emma’s Blood

THE CELL WAS
eerily bright, the rock high above pulsing and shimmering with that bizarre, phosphorescent glow. Dangling from an iron hook, Weber’s lantern jounced, splintering the gloom with wild shafts of light. There was a loud crack, a series of glittery
smashes
as, somewhere beyond this cell, rock splintered. Metal shrilled, and a huge bellowing grumble sounded as stones suddenly gave way to clatter to rough-hewn rock. At the door, Meme was still screeching, but whether from terror, he didn’t know.

“Meme!” He managed a single floundering step. All at once, the ground jerked sideways. By the door, Weber’s lantern hurtled from the wall like a spent comet. There was a glassy shattering sound, and as the flame guttered, Bode had a single moment to be glad that lantern oil didn’t spontaneously ignite the way it did in novels.

Beneath his feet, the mattress padding twitched and heaved. He stumbled, his arms shooting out for balance as his feet shuffled in a queer stutter step. The toe of his left boot stubbed one of
Weber’s legs, and he felt himself totter and then fall. A sharp yelp jumped from his mouth as his shoulder slammed into a puddle of gore. As he pushed up, something very large
whirred
past his left ear to thud into Weber’s chest. There was a series of snaps as Weber’s ribs crumpled, and Bode thought,
Shite, the ceiling!
As if to drive home the point, a chunk of stone plowed into his left thigh. If he’d been thinking, he might even have dragged Weber’s body over his, let the dead man absorb any more rockfall. As it was, he drew up his legs and then threw his arms up to protect his skull, turtling his head into shoulders. Another slam of the earth knocked him flat onto his belly. What tasted like centuries of grime and grit rose from the mattress’s guts to clog his throat and nose. Choking, spit pooling under his tongue, he cowered, listening to the bang of stone against stone. He realized he’d lost track of Elizabeth. God, what if part of the wall had come down on her? And was that still Meme screeching, or was that only the high scream of stressed rock? Why was this happening altogether?
Like the city’s ripping itself apart
.

A moment later, the shuddering began to wane, dwindling to a kind of shivering as vibrations rippled and juddered into his bones, only more and more weakly, until they finally stopped. For a long second, he couldn’t move and only lay listening to his own harsh pants. His ears were ringing. Finally, he dragged up his head, blinking against dust and grit. There was a jumble of that glassy stone all around. When he moved his arms, chunks clashed together as if he’d stirred large shards from a broken vase. A single look at the ceiling showed cracks and fissures where the rock had shaken free. In the dim greenish glow that hadn’t died, he could see the mattresses had ripped free of their bolts and now lay in heaps along with boulders big around as his head.
Elizabeth—Emma?—had vanished. The corner in which she’d cringed had partially collapsed in a slurry of rubble, torn canvas ticking, and clots of ancient horsehair.

“E-Emma?” His voice was rusty. He also didn’t know if that was the right name, but damme, he had to call her something. No answer came.
Shite
. As his ears cleared, he could still hear Meme’s high keening screams echoing from the corridor beyond. Pushing up on hands and knees, he wobbled to a stand, then picked his way around fallen rock to the door to look. To his right and left and all the way down as far as he could see, piles of stone spilled from where the walls had slumped to rubble. Meme was nowhere.

“Meme?” Chased by echoes, his shout raced away down the tunnel. No one answered, though that curious high wail continued. Then he realized this wasn’t Meme at all but the mad clamor of patients behind their iron doors, all joining on that single manic note as if they’d taken up the chorus where Meme had left off. But where was she?

From inside the cell, he heard a grunt and then a bony slithering of rocks. “Emma?” he said, ducking back. “Where are you?”

“Here.” Her voice was muffled. In that far corner, a mound of stone heaved as first a hand and then her arm snaked from a pile of rubble. “I’m buried, can’t …”

“Wait. I’m here. Hang on.” Hurrying over, he grabbed her groping hand. Her fingers closed over his, and he gave them a squeeze. “I’m right here, but you got a load of rock on top the mattress. Are you hurt? Can you move at all?”

“Not much.” Her voice was reedy and labored. “Hard to breathe.”

“I’m here, I’m here. Don’t panic.”
Oh no, I’m panicked enough
for us all
. Heaving stones aside, he uncovered the mattress that had torn loose. Beneath, she lay in an awkward heap, one booted foot pinned between two large rocks. “You all right?”

“Foot’s jammed.” Her bandage was gone. An oily black trickle leaked from where her stitches had pulled apart. Her nose was either still bleeding or had started up again. Big ruby drops swelled on her jaw before pattering to her chest and onto stone.

“Give me a second.” Hooking his hands around one of the boulders that trapped her foot, he heaved it up a few inches. His shoulders popped with the strain. “Go,” he grunted. After she’d wriggled her foot free and crabbed back on her hands, he let the rock bang back into place. “Damned heavy. How about your foot? Can you walk?”