The Sphere (46 page)

The little princess trembled so fiercely that her bedcovers rose up like waves in the sea. The nursemaids went away. All the candles were put out, and the noise in the passageway grew quieter and quieter until it was silent, but nothing happened. The same scene repeated itself again and again, over an unbearable series of nights that only magnified the fear in the little princess’s heart. The little heir learned to crawl, and he scurried up and down the halls of the palace, keeping all the servants on edge.

It was the whistling of the wind one night that told the little princess the time had come. It had been autumn for some time in the kingdom, and still the window to her room remained wide open. With her heart in her throat, she ventured down the dark corridor. Slowly she opened the door to her brother’s room. The heir was sleeping peacefully, his golden curls sparkling in the moonlight. The little princess slid her slender arms beneath the blankets to pick up the little boy, who went on sleeping soundly as she moved him.

Rosy, plump, and blond.

The little princess struggled under her brother’s weight as she carried him down the hall. She went into her room, chilled by the deathly cold coming in through the window. Like a little baby bird, the heir laid his rosy, plump, blond head on the princess’s soft pillow.

When day came, a heartbreaking shriek split the calm sky of the kingdom in two. It took four people to pull the queen away from the silver cradle. They had to carry her out, her feet dragging on the floor, prisoner to a madness that would never leave her again. Her petrified eyes were fixed on the cradle, watching with terror as the little princess slept on, undisturbed.

By the time the story is over I’m lying on the floor, trembling uncontrollably, my face soaked with tears. Memories that I kept hidden deep down inside myself come surging back. I had buried them so deeply I’d forgotten they existed. Now the images of the nanny reading me the book attack like a horde of evil spirits. She read the story while the newborn twins were sleeping in the next room over. I was supposed to behave, because I was already eight. I was supposed to keep quiet, very quiet, no matter how much the terrifying Tale of the Heir frightened me. The twins, the family’s most precious possession, were not to be disturbed. I loved them with all my heart, I loved them from the moment I set eyes on their tiny little selves when they came home... rosy and plump. I became an invisible, inaudible presence. I thought that if my house had had a garden I would have moved there, just like the little princess did. The images of
The Tale of the Heir
came to me every night just as I was falling asleep. I had completely forgotten how many times my eyes sprang open in the early morning hours, trying to pierce the darkness of my room, to see if the window was open or not. I wondered over and over if there was really any place for me in life. I looked at the twins in their cribs with an unbearable ache in my heart, convinced that the time would come when I had to choose between their lives and my own. More than once the burden of that choice spilled over into tears and I wept as the grown-ups laughed: “it’s just a book.”

The heir, the real one, has reached me. His round blue eyes watch me as his rosy, plump hands reach through the few inches of air separating us. When I feel his fingers on me I stop thinking. I stop breathing. Everything stops, finally.

Beatrice looks up from the book and sees me. A wave of anger takes over, and she lets out a roar like a wild animal and throws herself at the heir.

“Beatrice, stop! He’s only a child!” shouts Morgan.

Beatrice doesn’t hear. She’s lost in an uncontrollable rage, completely out of her role. She yanks the child away from me roughly. He cries out in fear, and his wails pierce everyone’s eardrums. The flat characters, which had been standing still, become agitated and start slamming into each other and the walls. I open my eyes and watch it all happen through a sort of haze. Ambrosio covers his ears and goes over to the boy, picks him up, and carries him out of the room. Beatrice’s eyes are bloodshot. She looks at Necrus and her nostrils flare.

“Stop, my lovely lady—consider your actions,” says Sherlock.

She gallops right at Necrus like a bull and slams her head into his stomach. The impact is so violent that the little man goes flying and crashes into a wall.

Morgan comes over to me, her intense green eyes gazing at me with a tenderness that makes me feel at home. I’m incredibly weak, but Morgan’s face comforts me, and takes away my fear.

“It can’t end like this,” she whispers to me. “You have to get up, Eurydice—do you hear me? You have to get up.” I feel involuntary tears rolling from the corners of my eyes, but I know they have nothing to do with my feelings. They’re just a bodily reaction. “Get up!” Morgan yells. She has one of her hands beneath my head. She looks up, and I hear her reciting spells, loudly and quickly.

“What’s wrong?” Sherlock’s voice sounds like it’s miles away.

“This damned place,” says Morgan, “it’s a blank page, my role has no power here.”

Morgan is crying. I feel her tears falling on me. As they land gently on my face, I’m filled with joy. I know the reason her magic isn’t working has nothing do with the blank space; she used magic earlier with Ambrosio. I lift my hand to dry her face.

“You don’t cry,” I say, struggling so that she can hear my words. “You shouldn’t cry.” This is not the moment to mention permanent death to her.

I feel Beatrice’s soft hands wrapped around my own. My friends are beside me. I close my eyes and see everything I’ve lived through with them, and I feel the warmth in my chest that Axel woke in me so many times. Yes, these friends made of paper accepted me completely from the very beginning. Different, changing, with all my subtleties.
Look, Axel—your definition of love.
Sherlock, Beatrice, Morgan—they knew how to see my essence. I feel calm, and lucky not to have died without knowing theirs. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay in the Sphere forever.

“Chain them all up!” Necrus shouts orders as he tries to get his breath back.

The freed Sphereans have recovered and gathered around me. They watch the scene in disbelief. The flat characters finally begin to move, but their attack is complete chaos, and they start chaining one another up instead.

“Useless!”

My companions help me up so I can lean against the wall. From there I can watch the erratic movements of the army of cardboard characters. With a flurry of slaps, the flat creatures that haven’t been chained up turn on their creator. They’re like a swarm of bees devouring a corpse. Necrus moans and kicks under the pile of his characters. I can’t tell which arms and legs belong to the characters and which to Necrus. His robot falls and smashes against the ground with a thunderous crash. Neither the Sphereans nor I can look away from the horrible sight. Suddenly the flat creatures begin to collapse, falling backwards like planks, with a sound that echoes against the laboratory walls. Then they go completely still.

“Are they dead?” asks Beatrice in a small voice. She’s recovered her role.

“I’m afraid so,” answers Sherlock.

They go on falling, one after another, until all the pieces of the mound covering their creator have tumbled down. In the center of that desolate vision of dead characters is Necrus, without his helmet, struggling to breathe.

“Morgan, can you do anything?” I ask urgently. “We can’t let him die.” Morgan looks at me blankly. “Cure him, you can cure him,” I insist.

Romeo embraces Juliet, who buries her head in his chest so she doesn’t have to look at Necrus, misshapen and in agony. I feel stronger. Morgan and I go over to where Necrus is writhing on the ground, and the fairy closes her eyes and concentrates.

“His state is similar to the one you enter into at times,” she says.

“He’s asleep?” I ask.

“Yes, though a little differently from the way you do it. I think he’s kept himself in that state the whole time. His helmet did it.”

“That’s how he was able to live in the Sphere,” remarks Sherlock.

“He’s suffering! Don’t you see? Do something.”

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do. He’s coming out of his artificial state. I suppose he was suffocating because he refused to wake up.”

Now my strength is coming back in waves. I’m waking up to life again. I pick up the helmet and stick the tubes back in as best I can, and then ask for Morgan’s help to put it carefully back on Necrus. He’s paralyzed, so stiff that we all fear the worst. I press some buttons on the robot, but Necrus remains still. Ambrosio throws himself to the ground and begins to weep wildly over the body of his master.

––––––––

A
mbrosio looks up at us, his face filled with spite.

“My lord is immortal! You cannot do away with him!” Necrus remains lying on the ground. We say nothing; all eyes are on him. “I will avenge his death, I swear to you!”

As the monk runs toward us Necrus slowly opens his eyes.

“He’s alive!” exclaims Anna Karenina, pointing in horror.

“Finally, they’re all dead,” says Necrus, coughing. He gets up and looks scornfully at the flat beings. He nudges one of his characters aside with the toe of his boot. “Why are you looking at me like that, you accursed Sphereans? Do you feel bad for me? Eh? You have nothing—NOTHING—to pity me for. You are the ones who should curse your luck. Trapped here, infinitely repeating the same actions. And you, Eurydice, you should regret your own ending... Or perhaps not. Perhaps there is nothing to regret. It will be just what you always wanted—worthy of a gothic heroine.”

“Quit talking about gothic heroines. What do you know about what I like? You don’t know me!” I shout.

“Gothic heroines, solitary women gazing out to sea, eyes full of melancholy, loves that last beyond death...” Necrus takes my notebook out from one of his pockets. “Some very good drawings, by the way.”

“Give me that!”

“You will remain trapped for all eternity in this world to which you do not belong. The Sphere will be your tomb.” Necrus’s eyes look like they belong to a corpse. They remind me of the filmy look of a fish as it dies staring right at its captor. “What is your last wish, Lord Necrus?” he asks theatrically, to the empty air. “Leave the one who destroyed my dreams trapped here!”

“It wasn’t my fault you couldn’t achieve your dreams.” Necrus looks at me with such hatred that my blood runs cold, but I stand my ground. “I’m going to get out of here, but first I’m going to bring order back to the Sphere.”

“Do you really think you can do it? How naïve!” Necrus starts to walk away backwards, his eyes still on us, the rusty wheels of his now-ruined robot squeaking. He takes a box and climbs on top of it like a podium. “Perfect.” His uneven, yellowed teeth reveal a dark tongue. “I have the ideal audience. I never thought life would offer me this pleasure. I have you, the most important characters of literature, all here before me. Someday, if your roles allow it, you shall tell the tale of how you met the man who brought your little world to its knees. Thank me—you’re about to witness the greatest show of all: my disappearance.”

With those words Necrus lifts his hands to his neck and pulls off the helmet, which falls to the ground and breaks in two. He immediately begins to struggle for breath, but instead of writhing, he stands still, and his figure begins to fade.

“Enjoy the Sphere,” he says to me with an evil smile. His voice is so hoarse I can hardly make out the words.

I’m filled with anguish. I don’t know how to leave the Sphere. I stumble toward Necrus and shake him by the shoulders:

“Come back! Come back! Tell me how to get out of here!”

His shoulders fade quickly, until my fingers are only clutching at air. I pick up the two halves of the helmet and place them on a head that is almost completely gone. Now there’s no neck left to fasten the helmet around. I try over and over again, failing each time. Necrus’s misshapen grin is getting deeper; his mouth is turning into a dark cave. The sallow skin decays and fades before my eyes. I hear beeping, just like before, but much louder, more persistent, and voices shouting my name.

“You can’t go,” I yell and weep at the same time, “you can’t leave me here!”

I wrap my arms around what’s left of Necrus.

“Dissie!” exclaims Beatrice in horror. “You’re disappearing!”

Sherlock and Morgan stretch their arms out to me. I look down and see that my body is erasing itself, just like Necrus. The beeps have become unbearably loud and the voices calling to me ring painfully in my ears. I recognize them now: Axel, my parents, Marion and Laura. Necrus’s legs and my legs are completely gone. Our entwined bodies have become a small crumpled mass, a little circle that begins spinning quickly. Each time we spin, it’s like we’re being sucked down into a vortex. Heathcliff and Cathy watch me, holding each other tightly. Everyone seems hypnotized by the sight.

Dissie!

The voices keep calling me.

Dissie, wake up! Come back!

I realize that the vortex that has devoured us is transporting us through different dimensions. I think I see the white lights of a hospital. I stretch my arms out and see my own hands—not as they were in the Sphere, but pale and slender, stuck full of needles. I can nearly reach out and touch the familiar voices, but then something yanks me away, something much stronger than the whirlwind from before. I’m in utter darkness. I speed along beside Necrus as our bodies disintegrate and slip in between the layers of human time. There’s a sudden jolt and I open my eyes. Necrus has vanished.

A light, chilly rain is falling. I’m in a graveyard. I wonder if all my hopes have been in vain. Maybe I’ve been dead all along, ever since I arrived in the Sphere. Maybe all this is just proof of what I had refused to believe.

I can hear weeping and the comforting words of a priest. I look slowly around until I see an open hole in the ground. Next to it is a coffin completely covered with flowers. Am I witnessing my own burial? If so, I’m surprised by how calm I am.

I feel another yank; I’m being pulled back in time again. A huge clock in front of me shows that we’ve only gone back one hour. When the movement stops all the cells of my body fall back into place
.
It takes me a few moments to get my bearings and see where I am: inside a small gothic church. Thick clouds float past on the other side of the tall windows. The stone beneath my feet has been worn down by the centuries. I’m standing next to the entrance to the church like a ghost no one can see. At the altar a priest is giving mass, telling the people gathered here to say their last goodbyes to a man who had been loved by all. The coffin that was covered with flowers before sits at one side of the altar. The wreaths and bouquets of flowers are lying on the floor.