Dead Voices

by Katherine Arden

  “Not so fast, my girl,” said Seth, coming close to the mirror, speaking low and fast and deadly earnest. “We are going to play our game again. The game of wits. The game you cheated at last time in the corn maze. With the help of this very watch.” He held it up again between two fingers. “This time you won’t have your cheat. And you have until dawn to find your way back through the mirror. If you don’t find your way, well, then you’ll stay right where you are.”

  She was silent, staring at him in horror.

  Seth continued: “Your friends can try to help you if they choose, but if they help and you fail, then you all will be trapped on the other side of the mirror. However, if your friends lie back down and sleep like good little boys and girls, then they will wake up safe and sound with no memory of you at all, and everyone will go home safely.”

  Seth rubbed his hands together, looking absolutely delighted with his game. “What will they choose, what will they choose?” he singsonged.

  Ollie could hardly speak around her dry throat and tongue. “And,” she whispered. “And my dad? What will happen to him?”

  Seth pursed his lips. “Oh,” he said. “No grown-ups allowed in this game, my dear. The adults, all four of them, will sleep until dawn. If your friends play and you lose, then the grown-ups will wake up three children short with no idea what happened to you. So sad. Another tragedy in Hemlock Lodge.” Seth wiped a theatrical tear from his eye. Ollie hated him like she’d never hated anyone in her entire life.

  “However, if your friends go quietly to sleep,” he continued, “then I will make sure that the adults forget all about you. Your father won’t be in the least unhappy. You will just be his little dead daughter, who died along with his wife in a tragic plane crash. He will go home and marry Coco’s mother. Your friend Coco will be his little daughter. He will live long and happily.”

  “And if I beat you?” Ollie asked, wishing her voice sounded strong and fierce instead of being a thin, appalled croak.

  A lifted brow from Seth. “You won’t beat me,” he said gently. “It’s not impossible, mind you; it wouldn’t be a game if winning were impossible. Highly unlikely, however. Of course, should the unlikely happen, your prize is to be restored to the lodge, storm over, the watch on your wrist, your friends with you, all safe and sound. It won’t happen. But that is the prize. In the meantime, I can be generous. You may have one minute to talk to your friends. Say goodbye and all. Convince them not to help you, lest they be trapped there with you. Then—let the game begin.” His smile was wide and joyous, the way a wolf grins, pouncing. With a neat dramatic gesture, he fastened Ollie’s watch to his own wrist. “May the best of us win.”

  Ollie, shocked, afraid, wanted to scream at him in fury and terror, to slam her fist on the mirror again. But she held herself very still and breathed. In, out.

  Ollie’s mom had taken her to do scary things all the time when Ollie was little. Climbing huge trees. Climbing boulders. Jumping off rocks into deep water. Olivia, she would say, when you’re scared, it means you’re thinking of the future. You’re thinking of what might happen. If you’re doing something risky, you can’t think of the future. You must only think of now. And if you only think of now, then you won’t be scared.

  But, little Ollie had said, I don’t know how to only think of now.

  Breathe, her mother had said. Breathing is what you’re doing right now. So breathe. Think of that and nothing else.

  So Ollie breathed, and thought of that and nothing else, and so she didn’t cry when Brian and Coco ran up to the mirror like they’d been shot from a cannon. As though Seth had been holding them back somehow. She didn’t know what Seth could do, Ollie realized. She didn’t know anything about him. After they’d made it home safely the last time, she’d tried to forget the smiling man altogether.

  It had never occurred to her that he might not forget them.

  Ollie couldn’t see her friends’ faces very well, since there was only the weak glow of the fire to illuminate them. But Ollie didn’t need to see their faces well. She knew them by heart. They were closer than a brother and sister would have been. They were her best friends.

  Brian and Coco were both trying to talk at once. But Ollie put a hand up. They went quiet. Breathe. Ollie felt strangely calm now.

  “Mr. Voland is the smiling man,” said Ollie. “He found us; he’s come back.” She could see him just at the edge of the mirror, watching them. He could probably hear everything they were saying.

  Her friends stared at her. Coco’s mouth and eyes were round and ridiculous with horror.

  “He says I’m stuck here,” said Ollie, talking fast, trying not to think too hard about what she was saying. “Unless I find the way back through the mirror before dawn.” Ollie put her palms on the mirror to illustrate. “But I don’t know how to do that. He says you can help me, but if we fail, then you’ll be trapped on this side of the mirror too. So—” Ollie swallowed hard. “Better you don’t help me. If you go to bed, and sleep, it’ll be okay in the morning.”

  Brian said, “Owl, don’t be an idiot. We’re going to help you.”

  “But you can’t!” Ollie snapped, and lost her fragile control over herself. She pressed her hands desperately against the glass. “Brian—Coco—our parents—my dad—they can’t lose you too. Better one of us than all three of us.”

  “Ollie,” said Coco, “Brian’s right. We’re not leaving you. And—why do you believe that guy, anyway? He’s the smiling man? He’s a big huge liar! He lied about being Mr. Voland. He’s probably been lying this whole time about Mount Hemlock, about ghosts, about all of it. Maybe he’s lying about this too. We’re going to help you. Hang on, okay? Just hang on. We’ll get you out.” Coco put both her tiny hands on the glass, right against Ollie’s on the other side. But Ollie couldn’t feel it. There was a mirror between them. Coco’s eyes were huge and shining with intensity now. “It’ll be all right, Ollie. It will.”

  “I love you,” said Ollie to her friends, just as their eyes widened. Coco and Brian both started to shout a warning. Ollie didn’t hear it, though. She stopped hearing sound through the mirror a second before a gray bony hand fell on her shoulder.

  “Got you!” said a low, dead voice, right in her ear. “Bad girl, talking out of turn. It’s the closet for you until you learn some manners.”

  11

  COCO SAW THE gray-faced woman sneaking up behind Ollie, and she screamed a warning. She saw Ollie’s lips move, asking what, but Coco didn’t hear anything. It was like a movie that had suddenly been muted. Brian was pounding his fists on the glass. “Ollie!” he was shouting. “Ollie!”

  Coco had a swift, horrible glimpse of the woman digging her bony fingers into Ollie’s arm, wrenching her around, and dragging her friend, struggling, across the dining room. Coco could see Ollie’s mouth move as she yelled. Brian was still banging on the glass, as though he could force a way through. But Coco didn’t think they could.

  Coco then did one of the biggest, hardest things she’d ever done in her whole life. She turned away from the mirror. She turned away from the sight of her best friend being hauled away somewhere she and Brian couldn’t follow. She pressed her lips together. She pressed her hands to her sides so they wouldn’t shake. She couldn’t help Ollie by shouting. She could help her by figuring out what was going on.

  Coco marched right across the dining room and stopped in front of Mr. Voland—Seth—the smiling man. He was beside the fireplace, watching the scene in the mirror opposite, laughing with such giddy delight that he’d sunk down on a chair. When he looked up at her, he had to wipe actual tears of laughter from his eyes.

  “Well?” he asked her, still snorting.

  Coco didn’t say anything for a moment. She was swallowing the urge to scream at him, or to beg like a little kid for him to bring Ollie back. She knew that wouldn’t help. Instead she tried to think.

 
Coco hadn’t actually met the smiling man in the corn maze, the way Ollie had. Ollie had confronted him on the platform in the middle of the corn maze, in the world behind the mist. But Coco and Brian hadn’t seen her do it. They’d been on the ground, held by scarecrows. The only things Coco knew about the smiling man came from what Ollie had told her about that night. And from reading an old book called Small Spaces.

  So Coco didn’t know very much about him. She’d imagined him, of course, and she’d seen him in her nightmares. But her imagination had supplied a cloud of bats around the smiling man’s head, smoke coming out of his nostrils, snakes wrapped around his wrists, and his smile the empty grin of a skull. Her nightmares had given him a thin, nasty voice and a face always in shadow.

  But in real life, the smiling man wasn’t like that at all. He still looked a little like plain Mr. Voland, with freckles across his nose. But now his smile was cruel and happy and wild, and his light-and-dark eyes seemed to take over the rest of his face. Looking at him, Coco wondered how she’d ever thought even for a second that he was just an ordinary person.

  She took a deep breath. She saw that Mr. Voland—Seth—had taken Ollie’s watch. He was wearing it on his own wrist. Coco felt faintly sick, seeing it there. Her mind raced.

  She said slowly, “So you are the smiling man. You had blond hair before.”

  “What’s a face?” remarked Seth. “Just another kind of deception.”

  “Did you come back here just to trap Ollie behind the mirror?”

  “Yes,” he said. “For she beat me once. And I do not like to lose.” He gave her a flicker of a smile. She really hated that smile. Behind her, Brian had stopped shouting and thumping on the mirror. There was the swish of his feet in socks on the floor as he came up beside Coco. A sideways glance showed her the shine of furious tears on Brian’s face.

  “Ollie said there was a way for her to get back to this side of the mirror,” Coco went on, choosing her words, trying to think. “If she can find it.”

  “There is a way,” said Seth. “But she won’t find it.”

  “She will. We’re going to help her,” said Coco.

  Seth’s smile widened. “I hoped you would. I’ll have all three of you behind the mirror, in the end.”

  At that, Brian, with a yell and a flying tackle worthy of the high school football team, threw himself at the smiling man.

  But he missed. Seth didn’t even move, just sat in his chair, as cool as the winter night outside, and somehow Brian was left to slam face-first into the table behind him.

  “Brian!” Coco cried, and ran over to haul him upright. “That was dumb,” she told him. His lip was split and bleeding.

  Brian just shook his head, wiped off his split lip, and said to Seth, fists clenched, “Bring her back!”

  “No,” said Seth calmly.

  Coco wanted to give Brian a hug; she wanted to help him calm down. She wanted to tell him, This isn’t a hockey game; it isn’t a duel in the fantasy books you like to read. You can’t just be the fastest, the strongest, and the bravest and win. We have to make a plan.

  Coco might have been tiny, but she was good at making plans. She’d played enough chess. At least, she hoped she had. She was still thinking as hard as she could. Seth had taken Ollie’s watch. It must be important. Possibly they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to get through the mirror without the watch’s help. They needed the watch. But how to get it back?

  I like games, Mr. Voland had said. He was playing one now. A nasty game. One that only he understood. But what if Coco challenged him to a different game?

  Seth leaned back in his chair, still smiling. He was enjoying himself, she realized. He wasn’t worried about them outsmarting him. Maybe he was overconfident.

  She licked her lips. Brian looked like he was about to start shouting again. So she spoke first. “That watch isn’t yours,” Coco said to Seth. She was surprised at how strong her voice sounded. Not thin or squeaky at all. “It’s Ollie’s. Give it back.”

  “It’s mine now,” said Seth. “I take it you mean to help your friend and be trapped alongside her? Very well. Go help her. You are wasting time.”

  “Not without Ollie’s watch, we aren’t,” Coco said.

  “I fail to see how you’ll get it,” said Seth. “I’m not giving it to you.”

  Coco swallowed hard. “I’ll play you for it,” she said. “Unless you’re scared of a kid outsmarting you. You said you like games.” Beside her, she felt Brian’s stare, but he didn’t say anything.

  Seth snorted. “Wiser and greater men than you have tried outsmarting me, as you put it. They are dead now.”

  “Well,” said Coco very coldly, “that’s too bad for them. But I’m a girl, and I bet I can beat you at chess.” She hadn’t forgotten him cheerfully mocking her and Ollie earlier. She hadn’t been playing very seriously then. Maybe he’d decided she was terrible. She hoped he had.

  She hoped she wasn’t.

  Seth went still. His eyes narrowed. Coco’s mouth was dry, and she was shaking with the coldest terror she’d ever felt in her whole life. “Unless you’re scared you’ll lose,” she added.

  Seth just raised a casual eyebrow. “The last time I played chess was with a knight by the sea, and his life was the forfeit.”

  “Great,” said Coco. “You know how to play, then.”

  His laugh was unpleasant. “Yes,” he said. “I know how to play. And I accept. One match. The watch is yours if you win, for all the good it will do you. But what will you give me if you lose?”

  He snorted when Coco didn’t say anything. She couldn’t quite bring herself, like the knight by the sea, to offer her life. “I thought so,” he said. “I will not play if you do not also have a forfeit.”

  “Me,” said Brian.

  Coco whirled. “Brian, what?”

  Brian gave her a small, shaky smile. “If she loses, I’ll go back behind the mirror with Ollie,” he said. “I’ll even promise to stay there forever. ’Cause, you see, Coco won’t lose.”

  “Well enough,” said Seth. “I accept.”

  “Brian, that is the worst idea I have ever heard,” said Coco.

  “I’ve seen you play enough times,” said Brian. “I trust you. Got a better idea, Tiny?” She glared at him by reflex, and it made her feel better. More normal. She realized Brian had called her that on purpose, to annoy her so she wouldn’t be scared.

  “Okay,” said Coco, and hoped she hadn’t just decided to do something amazingly stupid. “I’ll get my chess set.”

  “No need,” said Seth, and pointed at the table in front of him.

  A chessboard was already set up there, its pieces made of perfect, hard, glossy stone, black and white.

  Brian let out a low whistle. “You got this, Coco,” he said. “Just like in Harry Potter.”

  “I never read it,” said Coco, between gritted teeth. “But if I win and we get out of this, you are never going to call me Tiny ever again.”

  “I wouldn’t do that anyway,” said Brian seriously. “And I’m really sorry I kept calling you that.”

  “It’s okay,” said Coco. “I’m getting a growth spurt, though. One of these days.”

  They smiled at each other; forced smiles, but better than nothing.

  Seth cracked his fingers. The fire set points of red light into his eyes. “Let us play.”

  * * *

  —

  Mother Hemlock—at least Ollie thought the gray woman was Mother Hemlock—might have been a ghost. Or she might not have been. How did you tell? Ollie realized how little—how very little she knew about ghosts. Or anything. She and Brian and Coco had come out of the world behind the mist only wanting to forget about it. To go back to school, be normal kids, ride their bikes, do their homework, make scones in the Egg with her dad.

  Ollie hadn’t even considered that may
be they’d been making a mistake. That even if they were done with the world behind the mist, it wasn’t done with them.

  She wasn’t behind the mist now. She was behind a mirror, and the gray woman was hauling her across the dining room, muttering gleefully.

  “Upstairs! Upstairs now! To the closet first! And then straight to bed with you, missy! No supper! I’ll teach you to disobey! I’ll teach you.”

  Ollie fought. “I didn’t—disobey—let go of me!” She thrashed in the thing’s grip, head-butted her, bit her horrible-tasting arm, let her legs go limp so that she was dragged across the floor. It was like being a toddler; the woman—the ghost—didn’t even react. Ollie felt panic starting to choke her. If she could not get free . . .

  Another dark shape was waiting for them in the archway between the dining room and the lobby. It wore a blue jacket and a ski mask. Ollie couldn’t see very well. The only light in the room was the dull, hellish glow of the fire, the only thing that was the same on both sides of the mirror. His hands hung down by his sides, and he wasn’t wearing gloves. The fingers were black. Not ash, Ollie realized. Frostbite.

  Was this Gabriel Bouvier? she wondered.

  Or Gabriel Bouvier’s ghost?

  He made a horrible garbled sound and raised his hand, palm out. Like he was saying STOP.

  Mother Hemlock slowed a little. “I’ve been kind,” she snapped at him, in a voice like old bones crunching. “I’ve given you houseroom here, traveler. But this is still my house. Get out of my way.” And she raised a hand in return, pointing a finger directly at him. The ghost in the ski mask stumbled backward like she’d hit him, even though she hadn’t even touched him.

  But to raise her hand and point, Mother Hemlock had to let go of Ollie’s arm. They were close to the fireplace. Close enough for Ollie to pull her hand into the sleeve of her jacket, lunge at the hearth with all her strength, and grab a fistful of hot coals. She shoved them up at Mother Hemlock’s grayish, furious face.