I throw my hand over my eyes to protect them. But it’s too late. They’re burning.
Maniacal laughter rises out of the darkness.
I blink and scream the feeling of my eyes melting, carving two rivers of goo down my cheeks. I spin, digging at my eye sockets, willing the flames away—and when at last my eyes open, it’s the carnie’s eyes that are melting. His bowler hat and striped suit are ablaze. Out of his pooling white blood and bone, Smrt rises.
Hideously aflame.
I gasp and fall back, stumbling, trying to get away. “No!” I turn, and run. “No!” With every step he appears in front of me, laughing. His laughter chases me from the park.
I race through the midway, out the front gates of the carnival, across the road, and down a set of white cloud stairs into a basement laboratory.
A building springs up around me. Its walls are white. A great stone door slams shut behind me.
I’m trapped in a white stone room.
Eyelet? someone says.
I’m afraid to look.
Before me, a figure appears, holding a giant glass syringe. The faceless man points it toward me.
His hands are not real. They can’t be; they’re too big. “No.” I back away.
He steps from the light, and the giant tube behind him glints. It blinds me, temporarily. The Crooke’s Tube, with the needle-nosed end.
I turn and rush at the closed door, slamming against it hard and then tugging it, but it won’t open.
In the opposite corner, a machine churns, puffing smoke. Its gears noxiously grind. It opens its wide mouth and shows its serrated teeth.
Above that, an anvil hangs, as if about to drop.
Out of the machine pours Smrt’s laughter.
A pair of hands reaches down from the ceiling and drags me toward it.
“No.” I fight against them.
Please, Eyelet. Smrt’s voice is low and sinister. Let me save you. He laughs wildly again.
“No!” I shout and struggle.
Please, Eyelet. Be a good little solider and hold still for Daddy now.
Come child. The hands sway me toward him. Let Daddy poison you…
“No. It is not true. He didn’t.”
Oh, didn’t he?
“And you are not my father.”
But I am. You will see.
One day you will see.
He and I, are one. The boom of his voice fills the room.
“Stop!” I clap my hands to my ears and lunge backward. “You are not my father!” I kick and shout my way through the wall, squirming away from the claw-like, reaching hands. I lunge back up the cloud staircase and out into the midway, beyond the gates, where something flashes, so big, so bright, it envelopes the whole scene.
I stare at it, my mouth agape. “No,” I shout as the ground beneath my feet gives out, and I drop through a skirt of clouds, out of the white world.
“The necklace? Where is my necklace?” I scream, falling down, down, down.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
C.L.
MASHECK STANDS HUDDLED OVER the gauges at the south end of the basement, readin’ the Vapour barometer. He taps the glass—like tappin’ them is going to lower their readin’s.
“What’s it say now?” I walk up behind him, snappin’ a torch down from the wall.
He turns, clutchin’ ‘is logbook in one ‘and. “Twenty-three parts per million.”
“Twenty-three?” My eyes spring wide open. “Why, that’s up ten since this afternoon.”
“Eleven. To be exact.”
“Bloomin’ boulders.” I rake my toes over me sparsely-haired head. A sickly stone of worry drops in my stomach. “It should be back to zero by now, shouldn’t it? With all the work we did.”
Masheck’s eyes flash as ‘e swings around. “You’d think so, although we didn’t finish.”
I’m taken aback. “What was I supposed to do? Just leave ‘er lyin’ there?”
“No.” His concerned brows soften. “I just wish we’d ‘ad more time.” He taps the gauges again.
What will we do if the full-on Vapours bust through the purification system? I don’t think either of us is ready for that.
“Look.” I pat him on the shoulder with a nimble foot. “I know you’s worried, an’ so am I. All we can ‘ope is the repairs we did ‘old long enough for Eyelet and Urlick to get back.”
“And if they don’t?” Masheck crosses his muscled arms.
“Well, then, I guess it’s on to plan B.”
“Which is?”
“Look, let’s not panic until after tomorrow, shall we?” I turn to leave, but he claps a hand down on my shoulder.
“I give ‘em eighteen hours, then I’m donnin’ a mask and goin’ after them meself.”
“You can’t do that. You’re needed ‘ere. Those were Urlick’s final words. You ‘eard ‘im.”
“But you didn’t hear the very last thing Urlick said to me.”
I stare at ‘im intently.
“He said, ‘If we’re not back in three days’ time, come lookin’ for us.’ Eighteen hours from now marks three full days.”
I stare, and swallow hard.
Urlick must’ve suspected somethin’ could go wrong. But what ‘ad ‘e been thinkin’? Did ‘e know of the storm? Or somethin’ even worse? I gulp.
“Very well, then.” I hang me head. “‘Ow’s about tomorrow, we don the gasmasks and try to fix those last few broken mills. That way, we’ve done all we can. And then if they’s still not back, we’ll go together to look for them.”
Masheck nods.
“Until then,” I pat Masheck on the back. “Try to get some sleep. Watchin’ them gauges ain’t gonna make them change.” I turn to leave. “Oh, and Masheck.” I turn back. “Not a word about this to the rest. No use gettin’ ‘em all stirred up, unnecessarily. Tomorrow is new day.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Urlick
I FIND MYSELF IN a blindingly white forest, under a blindingly white sun, surrounded by blindingly white trees. I seem to have fallen through some kind of portal or something.
The fall through terrifying darkness was horrific, only to end up in a world of white. I landed on my feet, only slightly jarred, which makes no sense at all.
I stare up at the searing sun, even though it burns my eyes. “What is this? Where am I?”
White grass grows at my feet. And not just clumps of it among patches of dirt like in the Follies; it’s an entire sheer, white carpet. I reach down, gasping, as I run my hands through it. Beyond the clearing, wildflowers grow. Wildflowers! Honest to goodness, wildflowers. I haven’t seen those since I was a very small child. I spin around. There are wildflowers as far as the eye can see. I blink, thinking them a grand mirage. We don’t even have these back home in the terrarium room. This can’t possibly be real. And gooseberries! I lunge forward, accosting the bush, popping one of the berries in my mouth. Though they’re white, they taste perfect—the perfect balance of sweet and sour. Their flavour explodes on my tongue and warms my throat.
I swallow them. Simply amazing!
I hold a hand to my eyes and survey the rest of the forest. I can’t remember the last time I— Are those real raspberries? I dart forward, plucking the fruit and filling my mouth with their tart sweetness. I turn round and round, delighting in each delicacy I find…strawberries and blueberries and blackberries—
I stop. My breath is stolen. I scrub my eyes with my knuckles, disbelieving. No. My eyes must be playing tricks on me. Those cannot be olallieberries growing in the wild.
I rush to the edge of the clearing, throw out my hands, and rake my fingers through the plant. Row upon row of olallieberry bushes stand untouched, unplucked, just as they did when I…
Wait.
If this is real, and if memory serves me, then in the grove on the opposite side of the clearing there should be…
Slowly, I turn around. I race across the white dirt road and toss back the snowy foliage. I gasp. My heart r
umbling. It’s here.
Moncton Gate.
It’s not broken down and crumbling. Instead, it stands steadfast in all its glory, just like it used to before the flash. I burst forward, running my hands through the bushes.
This can’t be. This just can’t be happening. I twist about. The forest, the flowers, the berries, the trees—Moncton Gate—it’s all back.
My chin wavers.
The way it was when I was a child.
If all this is back, then…I whirl around. The house. Where is the house?
I charge toward where I think it should be, white light blinding me. I beat down bushes and stalk through brambles. Finally, I spot it, in all its pre-flash grandeur: it still stands, the twin circular stone turrets jutting out tall among the trees—the two of them, not just one—with their shining windows as opulent as I remember them.
They’re no longer black, but made of shimmering leaded glass—as they once were, before the Night of the Great Illumination. Before the ominous flash that split the earth and left the structure half-buried within the ground, its back end suspended over the edge of Embers’ hellfires for all eternity.
I race toward the house, leaping log and stone as I run. When I reach the front doors, I slam my palms into them. They fling open into the grand old front entry. Sweeping through the parlour and into the study, I call, racing room to room. “Iris? Iris, are you here?” No one answers. I keep searching. “Iris?” I yank open the double doors to the kitchen.
Nothing.
“Eyelet? Eyelet, are you here?” I jimmy open the back kitchen door. The hallway beyond is bright white and swirling.
“Don’t!” a distant voice shouts from behind me. “Don’t do it, Urlick. Stop. Get out of there!”
I swing around. I swear the voice is Eyelet’s. I barrel through the open door off the kitchen, leading to the bedrooms on the second floor, and search the staircase, then circle back, bursting through the parlour again, where I spot someone climbing the tall, winding, front-hall staircase; the one that was destroyed in the cave-in after the flash. The features of a figure slowly take form in front of me. The figure’s back is toward me.
Blinding light pours in from the ceiling. Blinding white light.
I squint looking up. “Father?”
“Marta? Marta, are you there?”
“Father!” I climb the stairs behind him, two at a time.
“No! Don’t.” Distant boots pound the earth.
Father’s dressed in a white mourning suit and long, white mourning tails. His boots, also white, look strangely familiar. He rounds the bend in the staircase, and I see in his hands. He is holding a breakfast tray, with a covered plate, with tea. A single white rose sits in a vase, next to the pot.
“Marta?” he cries out again.
“Father.” I know who it is he’s going to meet, though I’ve never met her myself. My mother. I’m about to meet my mother.
“Marta?” he calls, as though he doesn’t hear me. “Marta? Where are you?”
“No, Father. She’s not here.”
“Marta? Can you hear me?”
There’s another voice, low and soft. I cannot make out the words. I stop cold, mid-tread, and listen. Soft words linger over parted lips.
“Mother?” I call, and launch up the stairs after them. “Mother!”
“No, Urlick don’t!” The distant voice calls to me from the threshold.
I whirl around, and in the blinding light, I see Eyelet standing there. She’s eerily flushed, and her clothes are in tatters. She springs through the parlour and into the kitchen. “Stop, please, stop.” She closes in on me. “They’re not what they appear.”
“It’s my mother,” I shout.
“No, it’s not. You have to trust me!”
I scowl.
The stairs turn to clouds before me.
Father rapidly ascends them.
I turn and race after him.
“Stop, Urlick! Stop!”
But I don’t. I’m going to meet my mother. I scale the cloud stairs at great speed. They extend higher and higher, beyond the second floor, and through the rafters.
“Marta!” Father shouts.
“Come back,” Eyelet screams.
“Mar-ta!” Father sounds angry.
I reach the top and see a faceless woman floating inside a billowing white dress. The figure glows white, her ruffled skirts all aflutter, milk white hair floating out from the sides of her head.
I shield both eyes and squint to try to see her better, but cannot. No matter how hard I try to see, there is no face—just a searing white light beaming up from the neck of her dress, shooting out in a spray of rays. I cannot look through it. The light is too strong. Too bright. It burns.
I lift my arms to shield my eyes.
“Mother?” I say.
Long and lanky arms extend from the bodice of the dress, with fingers white as chalk. “Son.” Her voice is low and eerie. She reaches out, inviting me into a hug.
“Don’t!” Eyelet shouts. “It’s not her!”
But I can’t stop myself; the draw of my mother is too powerful. I reach out and touch her hand—and my hand bursts into flame.
“Urlick!” Eyelet screams.
I howl and draw back, violently shaking my arm, which only fans the flames. Maniacal laughter pours down the stairs.
“Urlick!” Eyelet races toward me.
I flail and spin amid the laughing. My arm is turning to ash. I thrash, whipping it through the air, and the ashes burst into feathers, forming wings and flap away.
I stare, astonished.
The light from my mother’s neck fades, giving way to the face of Smrt. He tips back his head, laughter streaming from his mouth. The sound penetrates my brain.
I shudder, quaking backward. “No!”
Mother Smrt shifts toward me, and I turn and race down the stairs. I slam headlong into Eyelet and collect her up into my arms.
“Eyelet?”
Her dress feels empty.
Her chin is dipped.
“Eyelet?” I cup her face and draw it to me. Her head comes off in my hands.
Smrt bursts into another round of laughter.
Eyelet is nothing but a skeleton. Bones and a skull inside a dress.
“No!” I toss her head away.
“Urlick!” Eyelet’s voice calls after me. The sound gyrates throughout me.
I fumble and turn, clear the staircase, and run screaming through the hall. In the darkness, I knock against the walls and furniture, blind and crashing into things. I tread on something, stumble, and fall down overtop.
Behind me, the stairs are fast dissolving in a rumbling tidal wave of cloud.
“Urlick?”
I look down. Eyelet lies beneath me.
I scramble backward, up onto my feet.
“It’s all right. It’s really me.” She reaches for me.
I touch her face, making sure she’s real.
“We’ve got to get out of here!”
I haul her to her feet and yank her forward, ahead of the tsunami of cloud. Together, we head for the door, racing through the house as it crumbles down around us and folds into the darkening clouds.
Chapter Thirty
C.L.
“COME ON!” MASHECK JERKS his head to the right, swinging the lantern out in front of him. “I’ve got something to show you. Both of you.” He eyes Parthena, who he’s also dragged down here. She totters along behind us, not the most surefooted of the pack.
“Where exactly are we going?” I jog to keep up, then duck to avoid hitting me head on the low ceilings of the underground caverns that weave beneath the Academy.
Who knew these were here?
I look around, wide-eyed. A swoopin’ bat takes a run at my head and I fold in half to avoid it. “How on earth did you stumble upon this place?”
“On a mission to find supplies. Got a little off track.” Masheck tips ‘is ‘ead.
“I can see that.”
“So that’s why you arrived with webs in your hair at the send-off the other day?”
“Precisely.”
Parthena swipes a web from her own hair and scowls. “Are you sure I need to be here?”
“Yes, you especially.” Masheck insists, turning left at the end of the cavern hallway.
A small shriek escapes Parthena’s lips as she slips on the watery surface of the underground limestone path in her slick-soled city shoes. “Why? Why me?”
“Because.” Masheck grins.
We reach a set of massive wooden doors. Masheck cranks them open. They creak back slowly. The eerie sound runs a race up my skin.
Everything in the room beyond is dark. Bone-chilling, blood-letting dark.
“What is this?” I poke my head through the opening. The space smells of sulphur, stale dirt, worms, and crude oil. I sniff, then turn back to Masheck. “I don’t see anything.”
“Of course you don’t. We’re not there yet. Come on.” He darts forward into the darkness, lantern swinging, motioning for us to follow him.
I help Parthena over the boxed-in threshold and down the long, slender, cliff-like path that hugs what looks to be the underground side of the escarpment. “Are we outside?”
“In a way.”
“Should we be?” Parthena’s nose scrunches, worried.
“We’re perfectly safe, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Masheck flits along ahead of us like a giddy, out-of-control child. “Just a little bit further. Around that corner.” Masheck points ahead of us to a great limestone stalagmite cluttered cavern floor.
“Oh, my.” Parthena rounds the corner and clutches her heart.
In places, stalactites extend down from the ceiling in formations long enough to connect, or nearly connect, with the stalagmites on the floor, forming long, waxy, ghost-like columns. “They’re so beautiful.”
“That they are.”
Masheck races ahead, leading us past their opulent beauty along a stone pathway that hugs the side of the escarpment. A steep winding pathway that leads to the escarpment’s top. The pathway grows thinner and thinner.
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