by Kelly Creagh
I glanced down to her, into those big eyes that begged for reassurance and for some sign that she wasn’t alone in her experiences anymore.
“I hear it,” I told her, my voice shaking.
“It keeps going,” she said, her own voice calm and wondering.
Erik. Could it be he’d heard me whisper his name? What was he trying to tell me? Something, apparently, that couldn’t be said in a dream.
“Charlie,” I whispered. “I want you to stay right here, do you understand?”
She nodded, her hand relaxing in my grip, as if the repeating note held some kind of hypnotizing power over her.
Stepping away from my little sister, our hands parting, I drifted into the parlor, my steps slow and measured. I kept my gaze locked on the covered piano. Muffled, the repeated note seemed to come through the walls while also resonating from the area in which the piano sat. Except that, broken and ruined, the piano under the sheet could not have produced such a sound.
I stopped in front of the instrument, my eyes scanning the seat and the covered keyboard, searching for any sign of movement. There wasn’t any, though.
“Erik?”
All at once, as if in speaking the spirit’s name I had dispelled him, the sound stopped. I waited for the note to begin again. When it didn’t, I let my hand, trembling, drift toward the cloth covering the piano. One tug was all it took for the drop cloth to fall, revealing the skeletal and wrecked thing that, like the rest of our house, had once, long ago, been something majestic.
“Erik,” I said, softer now because I didn’t want Charlie to hear me talking to no one. “If that was you . . . can you give me a sign?”
Nothing. Except . . . a new sound. That of gentle ticking.
I turned my head slowly toward the fireplace, the perceived source of this new almost-noise. Our mantel didn’t hold a clock.
But then . . . didn’t Erik’s?
THIRTY-FOUR
Zedok
“We heard you talking,” said Guile. “You and the medium. Did you think we wouldn’t?”
Of course, I did know the masks would have heard. Even in the midst of colluding with Rastin, I’d understood that few other parts of myself would want the plan to transpire.
“It is the only way,” I said.
“It is not,” argued Guile, who approached by another step. “By the by, I feel obliged to inform you that we all find it incredibly rude that you chose not to consult a single one of us regarding your plot.”
“Oh?” I remarked, almost wanting to laugh.
“Yes. Wrath in particular was quite put out.”
Wrath. Why had I not seen him since that night he had appeared before me in the parlor? I kept waiting for his strike—anticipating that it might come at any moment. But, if what Guile was saying was true, why was he here in Wrath’s stead? Out of all my masks, Guile presented the least threat.
“Ah,” said Guile, once again latching on to my unspoken thought. “That may be true. But isn’t it always the least threatening part of ourselves that offers the most ominous the opportunity to operate? A mask for our masks. A wild card, if you would.” With another flourish, he produced a joker card. “And don’t you suppose it would then be true to say that I, by proxy, would be the most dangerous? To Valor, at least.”
I frowned at both him and his most recent selection from his deck, not liking the suddenly dizzying turn of this conversation. Done with Guile, I moved to pass him. He skittered to block my path, arms outheld, the absurd feather on his hat dancing.
“Stand aside, Guile.”
“You cannot go yet. Because, well . . . you see, we are going to take her.”
“What are you on about?”
“That is why the others sent me. To tell you it will happen tonight.”
Was there truly some part of me as idiotic as this?
“You see,” Guile hurried to explain, “with the medium on his way, and you dithering over a heart, and the boy so close to stealing hers . . . Well, when might we ever again get another chance?”
Thoroughly done with his antics, I drew my sword and brandished it at the mask.
“I’ll not tell you to stand aside a second time,” I said. “Go scurry back to the others. Tell them what you already know. That it is useless to try to convince me.”
“Why, Valor,” said Guile through a short laugh, “whoever said we needed you?”
THIRTY-FIVE
Stephanie
Scowling, I left the piano, and as I approached the mantel, the ticking grew louder. I went all the way up to the place where I’d found my angel. And there, I stared at the patch of paper-peeled wall from behind which issued the ticking.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
Tilting one ear toward the sound, I leaned in, certain of what I was hearing but equally sure it couldn’t be real.
“Charlie,” I whispered to my sister. “Do you hear the—?”
Wham!
I yelped, spinning away from the mantel to face the pocket doors that had slammed themselves closed, shutting me in.
On the other side of them, Charlie screamed.
THIRTY-SIX
Zedok
The child’s shriek—it ripped clear and sharp through the night, coming from the house.
“Charlie?”
“Your turn now, Valor!” chortled Guile as he unleashed his deck at me.
Panicked, I charged through the flurry of cards—all faces—shoving aside Guile as I did. He laughed and staggered out of my way, putting up no fight whatsoever—something that terrified me almost as much as Charlie’s cry.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Stephanie
“Charlie!” I hurried to the doors but halted in my tracks when, just as swiftly as they’d come crashing together, they flung themselves apart.
My breath caught at the sight of the foyer that lay before me. Even in the midnight dark, I could tell it wasn’t ours. Not with its beautiful wood paneling that gleamed in the cold glow of soft silver moonlight. What was happening?
I switched from foot to foot, fighting with the impulse to rush through those doors again, because that’s where I’d left Charlie. But Charlie wasn’t there anymore.
“Charlie?” I called into the foreign foyer, my voice ringing through the house-within-a-house that Charlie had already tried to tell me about. She had seen it, too. Through the doorway of her closet.
“Steph-nie?” rang Charlie’s petrified voice from right in front of me, but as muffled and distant as the repeated piano note and the ticking clock had been. Instinct taking over, I surged forward, straight across the threshold and into the house that was not ours.
Unthinking, I dashed across the foyer and into an opulent dining room with walls swathed in smooth and seamless scarlet and gilt-leaf paper. Four high-backed chairs surrounded a cleared and polished table. One long enough to hold a body. A mummy.
Dazed, I retreated from the room with a whimper. Panic then nipped at my sanity, threatening to devour my whole mind the moment I found myself once again facing the closed pocket doors. I went to them, throwing them apart myself this time.
But our parlor was gone—changed to mirror, in every detail, the lavish one from my dream with Erik. All except for the bay window, which, instead of showing a world of nothing, now displayed one of whiteness. Snow blanketed the grounds, huge tufts of it falling at a breakneck pace to fill the sill.
Tick, tock, tick went the black clock now situated centermost on the mantel.
The parlor. If . . . if I went back inside. If I shut the doors and opened them again, would that take me back? Desperation rising to shunt my fear aside, I moved to cross the threshold.
I froze, though, paralyzed by sudden movement in the darkened hallway, and I turned my head to find something lurking there, watching me from within the shadows.
A silhouetted figure.
With lights for eyes.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Zedok
Had I possessed the capacity to breathe, I would have stopped forever at that instant.
Lips parted and eyes wide, Stephanie Armand herself stood in the flesh before me, inexplicably transported to my side of Moldavia. Terrified, she watched me in silence, the glow from the winter moon streaming in through the stained glass encompassing her in the most befitting of halos. Even locked within the grips of alarm, she was beautiful.
She saw me now, though. At last she believed. But what she saw—no doubt it was the source of her terror.
“Stephanie,” I said, forcing myself to formulate words. “How did you get here?”
At the sound of my voice, she stiffened. Her frame, now ramrod straight, became still as death, her face white as talcum.
“Erik?” she whispered with barely any voice at all.
“Yes,” I told her, uncertain of what else to say, though petrified of what this interlude would lead to next. Somehow, working outside of my cognizance, the masks had conspired to lure her onto this side. And now where were they? In entering the house, had I, too, fallen prey to their trap? No matter the answer, this crisis demanded of me one thing and one thing only. I had to get Stephanie back to her side at once.
“I don’t understand,” she half gasped. “This . . . this doesn’t feel like another dream. Is it?”
God. What to do? What to say? If only this was a dream. I could go to her. I could—
“Your eyes,” she said. “Charlie said—”
Knowing better than to sheath my sword, I tightened my grip on its hilt. Then, left with no alternative, I took slow steps toward her, allowing the gloom to peel back from my form. At the sight of my mask, Stephanie pressed her back into the front door, her chest rising and falling with greater frequency.
“I am not the monster,” I told her. A lie. But I would have said anything to keep from triggering the utter panic that was reaching its boiling point within her. In order to return Stephanie to her side, I would need her to trust me. Allow me near enough to take her hand. “Please. You must believe me.”
“Stop,” she commanded, holding up a palm to me.
I complied. “Stephanie, there isn’t—”
“Take off the mask,” she demanded. “If it’s really you, then . . . show me your face.”
I stilled, an unbearable silence elapsing within the boundary of several seconds.
“That’s . . . not possible,” I said at last.
Her jaw setting, she pushed off from the door. Then she came at me, reaching toward me as she had in last night’s dream, this time with the hopes of winning my mask. A victory I could not allow. I would have stopped her had she not halted herself, her attention stolen by something at my back.
The renewal of her terror told me who—what—it must be. Raising Valor’s saber, I whirled on my enemy, but only just in time to allow his gloved hand to close over Valor’s mask.
THIRTY-NINE
Stephanie
“Erik!” I shrieked, darting forward to latch on to the attacking arm of the crimson-clad figure from my sister’s drawing. In the same motion in which he ripped Erik’s mask free, though, he, Zedok, flung me off.
The force of the throw sent me reeling. I met the floor hands-first, my hair falling forward to obscure my view.
Even in the darkness, though, I had seen a portion of his face. Erik’s.
Just the sliver of a glimpse was all I’d caught. A blur of grayish-yellow. Parchment-colored skin stretched over a jutting cheekbone.
It was true, then. The story. The legend of Erik’s walking corpse.
A shadow fell over me, its edges encompassing the place where I half lay, half knelt on the beautiful carpet. The merest glance upward showed me that the shadow possessed antlers.
Fumbling to my feet, I lunged for the front door but cried out when a hand stopped me, taking hold of my upper arm. It spun me easily, and that silver skull mask floated nearer, visible through the screen of my tousled curls, its grinning face coming within an inch of mine.
“Did you see?” he demanded, his distorted voice a scarcely contained rattle of rage. “Did you see us?”
Us?
“Let go of me!” I twisted in his grip, hating how small and weak I sounded.
“No? But you wanted to see, did you not?” Zedok asked, cocking his head at me.
I shrieked in protest as he hauled me in front of him. Hooking an arm around my upper body, he forced me to face the hallway and the cloaked figure now kneeling within it.
Erik, his back to us, hood still up, held one hand to his face. The other searched in vain for the mask that did not lie anywhere in the path of his searching fingers.
Because it lay on the floor behind him—between us.
The skull-masked figure moved us forward. I dug my heels into the carpet and skidded, being edged against my will toward the hunched figure.
“Look,” rumbled the voice at my back.
As we drew closer, my gaze fell to the blue-and-gold mask, which stared sightlessly—soullessly—upward.
Though I wasn’t sure how, I was certain that when he got close enough, Zedok would destroy the mask. Crush it underfoot.
“Take a good look at your Erik!” Zedok growled again, his deep and shredded voice curdling my blood.
“Close your eyes, Stephanie,” warned Erik, who kept his back turned to us. “You mustn’t do as he says, or he will have us both.”
I ignored them, keeping my focus on the mask.
“Turn around, Erik,” I called to him.
Erik stiffened at my command, and Zedok laughed, buying me the time I needed.
I slid my foot forward, hooked the mask under my toes—and kicked it toward the huddled figure.
I didn’t have time to see if the mask got to him, because, with a growl of rage, Zedok hauled me back, walking me in reverse until my spine met with the front door. His masked face hovered close to mine—so close that I could see my own frightened expression multiplied within two rows of grinning silver teeth.
“You have bought yourself but moments,” he hissed. “Rest assured, though, we will have him. And then we will have you.”
“No, you won’t!” I took hold of his silver mask, and without knowing what I was doing, I tore it away.
His laughter filled the room again as the mask came free to reveal a face that was not there. Then his cloak and unraveling form dissipated into nothingness, his mask evaporating from my hand.
After that, silence—the deafening, screaming sort—resettled in the foyer, where I once again found myself alone with Erik.
He stood against the wall now, one hand gripping his chest as though in pain. The other held his mask over his face, like he feared I might try to take it again. Or that someone else—something else—would.
So. Here was his secret.
Why, though, had he told me not to look? Because he hadn’t wanted me to see? Or because seeing would have cursed me, too?
I gasped for my breaths, shaking where I stood.
“You’re hurt,” I said, pushing aside my need to piece things together when clearly the danger wasn’t over.
“My dear,” he managed, “you have no idea.”
The response—so distinctly Erik—made me go to him.
“Charlie,” I pleaded, terror squeezing my throat, making my words tight and pinched. “I . . . she was there and then . . . when I got here . . . Please. I need to get back—”
“He cannot reach her,” he answered, straightening from the wall and lowering his hand from his mask. “At least not . . . at the moment.”
“He got to me,” I protested. “And you.”
“Stephanie,” he said, his voice tense and breathy. “Do you trust
me?”
The question, along with its quietness, sent a peal of warning bells ringing through me.
Instead of answering, I glanced over my shoulder, toward the dining room, where yet another dark figure now stood, this one wearing a long-beaked crow’s mask, his black garb that of a highwayman. My horror grew tenfold then at the sight of several more figures lining the stairway. A jester with a harlequin mask. A woman with a grasshopper’s mouthless face. Next to her, another beautifully gowned lady in a scorpion’s mask. All along the banister overlooking the chandelier—and us—gathered more figures, all of them materializing out of the shadows.
“Quickly,” muttered Erik. “My sword is behind you.”
And that was all he needed to say. Twisting, I lunged for it. No sooner did I lay hold of its hilt, though, than the figure in the bird mask bolted toward me. I had enough time, but only enough, to toss Erik his weapon before one gloved hand took hold of me.
The bird-masked figure ripped me away, tossing me back, into another figure whose mask I could not see. Those who had occupied the stairs and the second-floor landing came pouring down toward me. The whispering menagerie of masks then blurred into a kaleidoscope of crackled ivory, tarnished silver, and antique gold. Countless empty eyeholes whirred by, the repetition of my name creating a low but deafening hiss.
“Erik!” I shrieked, twisting amid the collage of false faces, searching in vain for his mask among the others. He’d vanished, though, and I couldn’t get to him. Yanking myself from the grasp of one figure only resulted in my being snatched by the next.
That mask passed me to another, and then that one to another as they maneuvered me down the back hall.
As I went, an ominous tinkling drew my attention upward, to the chandelier that swayed above me. How had I been carried this far so quickly? And who were these figures? Where were they taking me?
Only when the chandelier passed out of sight did it dawn on me where we must be headed. When we entered the kitchen, I knew for sure.