Unwept

by Tracy Hickman

  “Out?” Ellis was feeling dizzy again. “Out from where?”

  “Here!” Ely insisted even as they both continued the precise steps around the floor. “Gamin!”

  “But why?” Ellis asked. “You seem so happy here—”

  “It’s a prison, Ellis,” Ely said. “I’m tired of pretending at life.… I want to live it like you did.”

  “Like I did?” Something cold and hard formed inside of her.

  “All you need to do is show us the way you left,” Ely said.

  “But I don’t remember leaving,” Ellis said. “I don’t remember anything!”

  “Well, how did you get back?” Ely asked. “You were away … in the city.… How did you get here?”

  “On the train,” Ellis said. “It’s the first thing I remember with any clarity at all: waking up on the train.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll start,” Ely said. “Alicia is arranging it so that Merrick will be occupied for some time. Alicia will join us on the south side of the house and we’ll leave at once.”

  “Leave?” Ellis was shocked. “Why should I leave?”

  “Because none of this makes any sense to you, does it?” Ely said. “Because you’re not insane—they only want you to think you are. And mostly, Ellis, you should show us the way because none of this madness will stop until you do.”

  “What about Jenny?” Ellis asked.

  “Show us the way out,” Ely said, “and then you can save Jenny, too.”

  18

  TWISTED RAILS

  Their carriage plunged down High Street. Ellis sat wedged into the seat with Ely clutching the reins on her left and Alicia gripping one of the steel bow sockets supporting the top on their right. Ely glanced nervously behind them from time to time, sweat breaking out on his brow despite the chill of the evening air rushing past them. The lights from the party at the Norembega fell behind them, the sounds of it fading into the clatter of the horses’ hooves and the rumble of the narrow tires below. The canvas top swayed above them in their headlong rush. The road was bright before them under a rising moon and the pools of light from the occasional gas lamps on either side. Porch lights, too, illuminated the scene from the homes on either side. It all struck Ellis as potentially idyllic if the company with her crammed into the seat of the carriage were not so desperate.

  Ely pulled on the reins, his foot pressing hard against the dash. The horse raised her head, whinnying in protest as she cut to the right, the carriage sliding across the gravel covering the access road. The carriage tipped slightly before righting itself.

  The train station lay just ahead.

  “It’s your fault,” Alicia said to Ellis, both anger and fear edging her words. “There was no reason for you to bring Jonas here. No doubt he was perfectly well off where he was and now all you’ve done is upset everyone!”

  “Jonas!” Ellis exclaimed. “I didn’t bring him here!”

  “This isn’t a game anymore,” Alicia snapped. “You could have sent Jonas back and everything could have stayed just the way it was—for his own sake and everyone else’s. But you had to bring him here and ruin it all!”

  “It will be all right,” Ely said, easing up on the reins as the brightly lit platform of the train station loomed before them. “Just as soon as she shows us the way through the gate, we should be safe.”

  “Safe?” Ellis asked. “Safe from what?”

  The horse slowed to a trot. Ely pulled the carriage around to the front of the southernmost platform and dropped the reins. He reached his foot down for the long step mounted to the side of the carriage and swung his other foot down to the ground. He dashed around the back of the carriage to the opposite side, lifting Alicia down. Ellis moved to step down from the carriage herself, but Ely lifted her clear of the vehicle’s body and placed her on the ground. He gripped her hand and pulled her up the steps toward the station.

  The platform was utterly deserted beneath the brilliant light of the gas lamps. There was freight on the platform and several pieces of luggage but not a single passenger or freight handler. The locomotive chuffed just beyond the southern end of the platform, smoke billowing from its stack and steam hissing from its vents. There was a baggage car behind the tender and four Pullman cars making up the rest of the train. No conductors wandered the station platform. No faces looked out from the windows of the train.

  “Let’s go,” Ely said, pulling Ellis toward the train.

  “Wait!” Ellis said. “Where are we going?”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to tell us,” Alicia said, biting at her lower lip again. “This isn’t going to work, Ely!”

  “Ellis made it, didn’t she?” Ely argued. He pulled Ellis up the stairs into the Pullman car. “Come on!”

  Alicia followed at once.

  The Pullman car was brightly lit and, like the platform, completely empty. Ely pulled Ellis behind him, his hand gripping hers painfully hard, until they reached the middle of the car. He swung her over toward a cushioned chair. Alicia sat down next to her. Ellis looked down at her party dress and at the empty railroad car around them.

  “Ely, this is ridiculous,” Ellis said, moving to stand up.

  The train lurched suddenly, forcing Ellis to sit down at once. The station platform began to slip past the windows of the Pullman.

  “All right,” Ely said, leaning forward toward Ellis. “That’s as much as I can do.”

  “I’d say you have done quite enough!” Ellis sputtered. “This has gone far beyond games, Ely! This is kidnapping!”

  The lit platform of the station fell behind them as the train picked up speed. The dark silhouettes of the trees increasingly blocked the lights of Gamin and the moonlight shining on the bay beyond.

  “She’s useless to us,” Alicia said in exasperation. “I told you, Ely.… I was there.”

  “No,” Ely said, shaking his head. “Please, Ellis, you’ve got to remember. We can help you—we will help you—but you have to help us first! The gate, Ellis. What do you remember about the gate?”

  “Nothing,” Ellis said, shaking her head.

  “She’s forgotten,” Alicia moaned. “It’s no use.”

  “Listen to me, Ellis. You and Merrick had a fight,” Ely continued. “You both were so stubborn and he has a fearsome temper. One day the rage was too much for you and you went from Gamin and never returned. It’s not there anymore, but if you can just remember what it was like—”

  She could not see it at first. She was so very angry and upset.

  Ellis blinked. There was a flash of a memory, an impression of light that called to her.

  A field in the moonlight. Her tears in the moonlight. Away. Far away where he would not look for her.

  “I … I d-d-don’t know,” Ellis stammered.

  Beyond Gamin. They walked the fields. The sun had fallen from her right hand.

  “Were you on the train?” Ely urged. “Please, Ellis! Think!”

  A church hidden among the trees. The Children’s Church.

  The clattering of the rails continued as the train followed the tracks straight toward the south.

  “Where is it, Ellis?” Ely demanded. “You’re the only one who can find it. Where is it?”

  “A very good question,” came a voice from the vestibule at the back of the railcar.

  Ely’s head jerked up at the sound. Ellis and Alicia both turned suddenly.

  “Indeed, the very question I’ve been asking for some time.” Dr. Carmichael stood leaning against the frame of the door, swaying slightly with the motion of the car. His boater hat was pushed back onto his head. His waistcoat was unbuttoned beneath his open coat. His tie was missing and his collar undone at the top. “By all means, Ellis, where did you go that day?”

  Ellis sat silent as the wheels of the railcar clacked rhythmically along the rails.

  “Wherever it was, it certainly wasn’t on this train,” Dr. Carmichael stated with a malevolent smile. “I know this train very well. This trai
n might arrive from just about anywhere, but it only has one destination now.”

  Ellis opened her mouth to speak, but Ely spoke to her first. “We cannot trust him, Ellis. He is an ‘outsider’—not like us—and he’s siding with Merrick in the game.”

  “It is true that I’ve taken sides but not with Merrick.” Carmichael shrugged. “I don’t expect you to understand, my dear Ellis, but we all want the same thing—to get away from this lovely, perverted gilded cage. It is, after all, why I followed you since you left the party although I above all people here could tell you this railroad excursion would not work. Nevertheless, I may still be able to help.”

  “You’ve never helped anyone,” Ely said, his face gone suddenly pale.

  “Well, it’s not for a lack of trying,” Dr. Carmichael answered. “You know there was a time when I could help you leave here anytime you chose. Interesting phrase that, don’t you think … ‘anytime you chose’? I could have taken you to a place right on this very train where you never have to worry again, never have to deal with the burdens of your decisions or the consequences of your actions. It wouldn’t have cost you anything that’s of any real use to you and we would have ridden these very rails there together. All I would have asked was that you put in a good word for me when you get to your destination and ask my master if I might be allowed to perform some other service—any other service—on his behalf. But Gamin certainly has changed, hasn’t it, Ely? The rails have all gone twisted now. But there certainly was a time when I could have taken you away.”

  “We are not choosing sides in your war,” Alicia said flatly. “We never wanted any part of it. We just want—”

  “You just want to enjoy the fruits without working the harvest.” Carmichael sneered. “You just want to ride the ride at your carnival without paying for the ticket. Don’t we all?”

  “If you’re so anxious about our leaving,” Alicia said, thrusting out her jaw in defiance, “then why are you trying to stop us?”

  “Oh, my dear Alicia Van der Meer.” The doctor smiled as he stepped forward and took his own seat across the aisle from them. He leaned back. “I don’t want to stop you. Quite the contrary; I want to go with you. You see, we’re a great deal more alike than you think. In my case, however, I keep paying for the ticket without ever getting to go on the ride.”

  “We appear to already be going somewhere,” Ellis said as the train plunged southward down the line.

  “Perhaps we have already arrived?” Carmichael sighed with a sad nod of his head.

  The train whistle blew. The rhythm of the rails slowed its pace. The train was coming to the next stop.

  “You’re all as mad as a March Hare and I’m tired of being the goat of your cruel jokes! I’m getting off,” Ellis announced, “and taking the next train back to Gamin.”

  Alicia’s eyes were fixed outside the window as light from the station began to fill the slowing Pullman car. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Ellis.”

  Ellis turned to the window.

  The train was slowing next to the station. Gas lamps brightly illuminated the empty station platform and the large sign over the double doors into the building in its center.

  The sign read GAMIN.

  “But … we couldn’t be back!” Ellis exclaimed. “The train traveled in a straight line. There were no turns!”

  “Jenny can only hold Merrick’s attention so long,” Alicia said. “We should call this off, Ely … hurry back to the party and hope no one has missed us!”

  “No!” Ely insisted. “I’ve been sent to the Umbra before and I won’t go back. We’re getting out of here.”

  An unearthly howl suddenly shook the Pullman car. Its power raised dust up from around the railroad platform outside and caused the station-house sign to swing on its hooks. It was mournful, desperate and hungry. There was something basic and animal in the trumpeting that shook Ellis to her bones.

  Worse, it was familiar to her.

  The familiarity terrified her.

  The sound died away into the distance, leaving a profound silence in the still Pullman car.

  “Now, there’s something we haven’t heard for a long time,” Dr. Carmichael said, drawing in a deep breath. He removed his boater hat, shook his head and sighed.

  Ellis struggled to think.

  The howl resounded again, closer somehow this time. Several of the glass panes in the Pullman car cracked at the sound.

  “You should have sent him away,” Alicia wept. “Now it’s too late! You’ve ruined it for us all!”

  Ely grabbed Ellis by her shoulders, shouting into her face, “We’ve got to run, Ellis! We’ve got to find the gate before that thing finds us.”

  “What’s happening?” Ellis blinked. “What kind of hell is this?”

  “Hell? Oh, Ellis, you’ve got it wrong. This isn’t hell.” Ely grinned maniacally. “This is where they send those who aren’t good enough for hell!”

  “Welcome home, everyone.” Dr. Carmichael set his feet up on the seat in front of him and doffed his hat in his private, scornful joke. “Again.”

  19

  THE GATE

  Ely ran across the railroad platform, dragging Ellis behind him, her hand crushed in his desperate grip. Alicia followed behind, tears streaming down her face. The carriage was gone, the horse having bolted at the first monstrous trumpeting sound. Ely did not miss a step. He plunged across the lawn, cutting the corner of the access road in his dash toward High Street. Ellis struggled to keep her footing as the folds of her party dress threatened constantly to trip her. The grass stained the hem as she ran. She could hear Alicia’s breath behind her, gasps for air driven by fear. Ellis’s heart pounded inside her chest.

  High Street was deserted.

  The bellowing howl thundered down the street from their left. Alicia gave a short scream, but it was swallowed up by the cacophony of rage that shook the ground under their feet. The sound washed past them like a tidal wave.

  “This way!” Ely shouted, pulling Ellis behind him south down High Street.

  “Town?” Alicia asked, following after them both. “You think the town will protect you?”

  “We need time!” Ely shouted back. “There’s someone there who can help.”

  “Against that?” Ellis struggled to keep her feet under her.

  They hurried past the Nightbirds Literary Society House and toward the center of Gamin. Ely cut across the empty street toward the burned-out buildings, kicking down a charred door and motioning them all inside. The smell of charred wood and paint filled Ellis’s nostrils. Her eyes began to water. Ely did not stop, however, urging them farther into the building’s devastation and the back storerooms. The wood creaked beneath their feet, soot coating Ellis’s and Alicia’s party shoes, smudging their dresses and gloved hands. The second-story floor had collapsed downward. Ely pushed aside the boards that cracked and clattered as they fell. At last the trio emerged out the back of the burned-out ruins. A steep precipice ran along the back of the destroyed buildings, but there was just enough space for a path behind them to the center of town.

  The rage of the beast resounded once more, its deafening roar causing pain in Ellis’s head. At the northern end of the charred buildings, a wall suddenly collapsed, crashing to the ground.

  “It’s here!” Alicia breathed.

  Ely pulled Ellis to the ground, setting her with her back against the rear wall of what once had been a flower shop. Alicia scrambled quickly to sit next to her with Ely on the other side.

  “It was southeast of town,” Alicia whispered hoarsely.

  “What?” Ellis was not sure she had heard the young woman properly.

  “The gate was southeast of town,” Alicia said with urgency. “It isn’t there anymore—or it wasn’t when I last went looking for it—but that’s where you found it when you left. On the far side of a field, down a narrow path through the trees there’s a small church.”

  The memory came unbidden into Ellis’s mind. Th
e Children’s Church. She had never seen it before. It was so bright and the gate was open.…

  “How do you know this?” Ellis demanded.

  “Because … because I was there, Ellis,” Alicia said, tears streaking the soot on her face. “I’m the one that brought Jenny back. I was there when you left. I hoped you would never come back. Hoped you would go away and never be seen among us again.”

  “Where did I go, Alicia?” Ellis asked quietly.

  Alicia turned her face to Ellis, her large eyes shining in the moonlight, her face stained and filthy. “Mortality.”

  “Get ready!” Ely muttered under his breath, pulling his feet under him and rising to a crouch. “We’ve got to get down to the end of these buildings and cross the street past the church!”

  Ellis struggled to her feet, following Ely along the back of the ruins. She glanced back at the young woman behind her. “Come on, Alicia. It’s not far.”

  “Go home, Ellis.” Alicia stood still, her party dress torn and soot stained. She flashed a sad smile at Ellis. “You’re terrible at this game. It won’t hurt me … I know what it wants!”

  “Alicia!” Ellis called out as loudly as she dared. “No!”

  “Don’t get caught, Ellis.” Alicia laughed as she ran, a giggling, hideous cackle of hysteria. She skipped along behind the burned-out shells of the southern shops and turned the corner toward the street, vanishing from sight.

  Alicia’s cackle became a terrified scream as the shadow of the beast cast itself over the ruins where she ran. The screams echoed on and on through the streets as the unseen creature snarled. Unspeakable rending sounds like the tearing of wet cloth merged with the shrieks.

  “Run!” Ely shouted. “Run now!”

  Ellis gathered up her skirts and ran after Ely. The horrible sounds followed them, fading slightly with every rushed footfall. They came to Sycamore Street. Ellis could see the park on the far side of the road with the burned-out shell of the church beyond.

  “Keep running,” Ely urged. “Don’t look back!”

  Ellis followed at a run in Ely’s footsteps, crossing Elm and plunging headlong into the park. The screams and the rending sounds had stopped, but the howling had continued. She could feel her party shoes slipping on the wet grass as she rushed up the incline of the park. The blackened pews were achingly close, each facing the exposed lectern at the southernmost end. Ely was running faster than she could keep up, heading toward the southern corner of the gutted structure.