Unwept

by Tracy Hickman

  Surely, however, he would make an exception for this … for her.

  Ellis hurried back into the parlor, quickly snatching the key from the bowl on the mantel.

  Surely, he would make an exception.…

  * * *

  Ellis looked up at the carriage house, the rain washing down over her face. A spindly narrow turret rose above her, capped by a slate cone and a widow’s walk around its crest. The main doors of the carriage house rose before her, light spilling out from beneath the doors.

  Ellis stepped up to the door, intent on putting the key in the padlock, but discovered that it was hanging open. She slipped the key into her jacket pocket, swung the latch to the side and opened the door just enough to slip into the space beyond.

  It was difficult for Ellis to see the extent of the large open space. The light was coming from an open trapdoor in the floor at the far end of the carriage stalls that ran nearly the length of the structure. Light glimmered off the finish of a pair of carriages, but Merrick’s automobile was not here.

  “Merrick?” Ellis called out toward the lit patch in the floor.

  She plunged through the dark space toward the light.

  A ladder led down through the trapdoor to the storage space beneath.

  “Merrick!” Ellis called out. “Please, I need your help!”

  Frustrated at receiving no answer, Ellis slipped quickly down the ladder.

  The wooden walls were unfinished and rough. The room was wide though not as wide as the carriage space above and felt cramped. There was a hallway with a series of closed doors on either side that ran down into the darkness beyond.

  In the center of the room, however, was the desk from Merrick’s study, gleaming beneath the light of a well-trimmed lamp. His chair was set behind it as though he had only recently abandoned it. There was an ink and quill set as well as a number of pencils.

  All of these were set around a pale green book with an embossed cover.

  He must have only just left, Ellis thought as she stepped around the desk. He’ll be back in a moment and find me.

  The writing on the cover of the book caught her eye.

  Gamin.

  Merrick’s scrapbook? Ellis’s brow furrowed. Jenny said that they all kept them, but Merrick hardly seems like the type that would gather scraps of anything.

  She reached out for the book and turned open the cover. She took in a startled breath.

  A crude sketch of her face stared back at her. Beneath it was written: “The Book of Our Day.”

  Ellis began turning the pages. Most were filled with notations and terribly small writing that was difficult to read in the lamplight. Some of the larger notations, however, she could read.

  Rules of the Day …

  Outsiders …

  Gamin …

  Soldiers …

  Demons …

  All of these writings, however, were surrounding sketches and scraps cut from pictures. Here was the Norembega drawn in careful detail although the proportions were strangely off, drawings of Summersend, the Nightbirds Literary Society House and other places in the town.

  She caught her breath.

  A sketch of a gate.

  “Alicia! Come on; I think I can see something on the other side!”

  “No! You know it is against the Rules of the Day!” Alicia said. “He’ll be angrier with you than he is already! Let’s go back!”

  “But we found the gate! Doesn’t that mean we win? We could have our very own day!”

  Ellis’s hand began to shake. She turned another page.

  The writing grew more chopped and less precise. There was anger in the writing that grew with each turn of the page.

  The sketches continued to illuminate the pages. A sketch of Jenny with her crippled hand. A sketch of Gamin in flames. Dr. Carmichael … Captain Walker … shipwrecks … soldiers … the burnt church …

  Then a sketch of the interior of a Pullman car, with Ellis in her ugly green traveling dress, Finny Disir in her nurse’s uniform. More writing here, written with a hasty hand, as Ellis turned the page again.

  Erasures. A rough sketch of Ely nearly obliterated. The artist from the station scratched out. A picture of Alicia with the head torn from the page. A picture of the key in Ellis’s pocket with dark liquid drawn dripping from it.

  Trembling, Ellis turned another page.

  A monster sketched in pencil. The head of a jackal and large, leathery wings sprouting from its back.

  Carefully rendered on the jackal face was a great paisley mark.

  Ellis was startled by a noise behind her.

  Something shifted behind the first door in the long hall.

  Ellis closed the book carefully, then picked up the lamp from the desk. She walked with quiet, careful steps toward the door.

  “Merrick?” she called out softly. “Is that you?”

  The door was secured by a silver lock set into the door just below the knob.

  Ellis paused, then reached into the pocket of her jacket. She produced the silver key. It looked clean and bright. She slipped it expectantly into the lock.

  It fit perfectly. She felt the bolt slide easily as she turned the key. Gripping the knob with her free hand, she turned it and pulled open the door, holding the lantern high as she stared into the room beyond.

  The dead eyes of Alicia Van der Meer stared back at her.

  22

  BLEEDING KEYS

  Ellis took several steps back, pulling the lamp away from the open door and allowing the darkness to shadow the awful display within.

  It was not just the body of Alicia that was found within the closeted space. Her body lay at the foremost edge of a stack of other bodies piled inside one on top of the other and pushed toward the back of the cell. The dead were piled nearly to the rafters.

  Ellis took a step forward, raising the lamp once more. Alicia, Ely, Isaiah, Martha, Silenus and a host of others lay within the space. The barber who had cut Jenny’s hair. The members of the literary society. Jenny was not among them. Merrick had told Ellis that these people didn’t exist, and now they did not. Curious, cold detachment settled over Ellis. Alicia’s neck shows the signs of deep puncture wounds, as does her right shoulder where the neckline of her dress slipped down. The dress is heavily stained, but the neck wounds, deep and extensive as they are, show no signs of bleeding. The shoulder wound exposes the bone and yet is similarly clean.

  Ellis was horrified and yet some inner part of her curiosity drove her forward. She leaned into the space, holding the lamp high with her left hand and reaching out with her right. She lifted Alicia’s right arm up, examining it carefully.

  Pallor mortis, Ellis thought as she looked under the arm and then dropped it carefully back into place. She looked down behind Alicia’s neck. Livor mortis but no rigor mortis. Blood pooling but no evidence of bleeding. Ely looks to be in a similar state. The artist girl shows no signs of putrification despite being dead far longer than either Alicia or Ely.

  Ellis leaned in closer still.

  The artist girl shows cut marks consistent with the described dismemberment and yet her body appears to be intact, with none of the decomposition that was previously described. There’s no distinctive odor, either, all of which is impossible given the time that had passed since the demise of some of the bodies. It is as if they were dolls, made of flesh and bone, whose strings had been cut—

  Ellis suddenly stood up, appalled as much at her own actions as at the horrific scene before her. Wondering how she knew so much about the human body and could so calmly observe such gore, she stumbled back out of the room. Ellis turned hesitantly, looking down the hallway to her left … down the many doors lining the hall … doors exactly like the one she had just opened.

  The sketched monster in Merrick’s book … the bodies in Merrick’s cellar …

  Ellis felt sick in her realization.

  I’ve trapped the wrong monster.

  Ellis slammed the door shut, suppressing the
scream that she felt rising within her. Merrick told me never to come in here. He must not know that I’ve seen this. If he knows that I know …

  She reached into the jacket pocket, her shaking hands fumbling for the key.

  He cannot know that I’ve see this.…

  She finally grasped the cold of the silver key and pulled it out of her pocket. Ellis willed her hand to hold still as she struggled to insert the key back into the lock beneath the doorknob, dreading what she knew was beyond the closed door. The key at last slipped into the lock.

  Ellis tried to turn the key, but her fingers slipped around its head suddenly warm and slick to her touch. Ellis reached for the key once more and gasped.

  A crimson, viscous liquid dripped out of the keyhole, coating the key before it dripped down onto the floor in front of the door.

  Blood flowed from the lock.

  Ellis’s breath quickened. She knew she had to get the key back into the bowl over the mantel of the house. If Merrick discovered it was missing …

  She reached again for the key, gripping it tightly, her fingers pressing the warm gore away from the key to fall into the growing pool on the floor. The key turned with effort, pushing the bolt closed and locking the door once more. Ellis held the key as tightly as she could and pulled. The blade slid free of the lock with more ease than she expected.

  Warmth ran down her hand.

  It was not the lock that had been bleeding; it was the key. Blood flowed down between her fingers, following the curve of her wrist before it fell, spattering down the front of her green jacket and onto her skirt.

  “No!” Ellis screamed. She dropped the lamp on the table and rushed up the ladder, vivid red stains blossoming on every rung. She dared not drop the key—Merrick would know that she had taken it. She needed to get the key back into the bowl, out of her hands, and get back to Summersend. Perhaps she could change then, wash away the stains, and Merrick would be none the wiser.

  She fled from the carriage house, grateful to be back in the rain. The precipitation ran gratefully over her, a cleansing that she desperately desired. The blood still flowed from the key but was diluted as she ran across the hill back toward the house.

  She stumbled into the vestibule at the front of the mansion and pushed open the heavy front door, heedless of the water cascading off of her clothing onto the polished wooden floor of the Norembega’s front hall. The parlor was just to her right. She stepped into it, the key cupped in her hand as she moved toward the fireplace and the cut-glass bowl resting in the center of its mantel. She lifted her arms.

  The twin griffin statues supporting the mantel shifted on the hearth, their heads turning toward Ellis.

  Ellis skidded slightly on the polished wooden floor, trying desperately to stop. The griffin statues on either side of the firebox snapped out at her, their stone beaks clacking. Their feet and wings remained fixed to the hearth and firebox, but their necks and beaks craned forward, shifting and bobbing in snake-like movements as they lashed out at her. Ellis tried to reach the key over them to drop it into the glass bowl. The left griffin struck upward, the tip of its beak catching the jacket cloth of Ellis’s outstretched arm, rending the sleeve at once and cutting into her forearm. She snatched her hand back with a cry.

  The key continued to bleed, its crimson flowing down her torn sleeve, mixing with her own blood from her wound. She took a step back from the fireplace, searching the room for anything she might use to lift the key up over the animated statues and replace the key before she was discovered.

  The griffins abruptly returned to their places—silent and unmoving.

  Ellis watched them for a moment, then hesitantly took a step toward them, the key held in front of her, her eyes fixed on the bowl on the mantel.

  “Ellis?”

  She caught her breath. Ellis turned slowly, shifting her hands behind her with as casual a motion as she could manage, hiding the key behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” Merrick stood in the archway of the entry. He was still wearing his morning coat and suit, but the cloak was drenched, as were the legs of his trousers. His eyes were fixed on Ellis, curious with a hint of sadness about them. “I told you to stay home.”

  “I couldn’t,” Ellis said. “I was … I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?” Merrick scoffed. He set the umbrella in a stand next to the front door and began removing his cloak. “There’s nothing to fear at Summersend, Ellis. It’s the safest place in all of Gamin. I’ve seen to that.”

  “You are right, of course.” Ellis nodded. Behind her was the curved study room in the turret. She knew there was no exit there. There was a sitting room to her right, but the doors were closed; she did not dare risk passing the fireplace or its griffins again to reach the room. The only other exit from this room was past where Merrick stood. “It was just a foolish panic of mine. I’m feeling much better now. I’ll go home.”

  “In this weather?” Merrick chuckled.

  “Well, as you can see, a little more rain could hardly matter now,” Ellis said with a shrug and a smile. She started toward the entrance archway as if to pass Merrick. “I know you’re busy.”

  Merrick’s smile turned to a thoughtful expression as he stepped into Ellis’s path, blocking her way. “Your dress is stained.”

  “Oh yes.” Ellis nodded, though she did not dare look up into his face. “A little accident in the kitchen before I came. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get it out.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Merrick observed quietly. “It’s pooling on the floor behind you.”

  “Oh yes.” Ellis nodded. “I’m so sorry. That was the accident in the kitchen. Cut my arm. I panicked, I guess, and ran here before I properly dressed it. I’m feeling better now, though. I’ll just hurry home and—”

  Merrick shifted in front of her as she tried to step around him again. He gazed down at her, a slight curl to his lips.

  “What do you have in your hand, Ellis?”

  “Nothing,” Ellis lied, taking a step back.

  Merrick moved with her, standing uncomfortably close as he looked down at her. “Show me.”

  “Merrick, I really must—”

  “Show me!” he demanded into her face with unbridled rage.

  “I … I found this key, is all,” Ellis said, her voice sounding small in her ears. “It’s really nothing.”

  “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Merrick’s voice shook with quiet, barely controlled rage. “You had to ruin the game … and now you must pay the price.”

  His hands swung suddenly upward, gripping her by the lapels of her ruined jacket. He lifted her up off the ground with unexpected strength. Ellis tore at his hands with her fingernails, rending the backs of them, but his eyes remained cold and fixed on her, focused in their malice. He threw his head back, roaring with a trumpeting sound that was deafening. He threw her down the length of the parlor. Ellis tumbled across the polished wood, the key falling from her hand as she skittered to a stop near the archway to the study.

  She drew herself up, trying to stand and face Merrick, but he was already coming for her.

  “This is my day.” Merrick seethed with each considered step. “I make the rules. I decide what is real and what is not. I did this all for us, Ellis, and then you had to spoil it! You wanted the day all for yourself! You couldn’t trap me, so you had to leave me here!”

  “Trap you?” Ellis snapped as she regained her footing. Suddenly she realized what he was saying. “The workroom in Summersend! Jenny said I designed it. I created it for you, didn’t I?”

  “But it didn’t do you any good, did it?” Merrick said.

  “So now you’re going to kill me,” Ellis said, stepping away from him, her back against the bookshelves, knowing she had nowhere left to go. “Just as you killed all the others?”

  “Oh, they aren’t dead.” Merrick grinned. “Not that way. This is worse … much worse, I hear.”

  “What have you done to them?
” Ellis demanded.

  “I’ve sent them away.”

  “Where?”

  “To the Umbra, Ellis.” Merrick chuckled. “To the place farthest from the light. Where everyone goes who breaks the rules of my day … and, Ellis, of all souls, how could you have broken the rules to my day? You have to go now, too, Ellis. You broke the rules of my day and I have to send you away.”

  “Then please,” Ellis begged. She needed time to think, find something to defend herself. “Let me say my prayers … let me make my peace before you take my life.”

  “Prayers?” Merrick gave a hideous laugh, continuing toward her, passing through the arch into the half circle of the library. “Here? Just where do you think you are, Ellis, that prayer would be of any use at all?”

  Rage played across Merrick’s face, barely checked.

  “It’s time to visit the carriage house.”

  He reached down for her.

  The glass of the library windows exploded inward, showering the room with shards as a wall of countless moths dove down around Ellis, shielding her in a chaotic whirlwind of beating wings. Through the sudden flurry of insects Ellis saw Merrick raise his hands against the razor-sharp slivers, several of which impaled his palms. Again he let out a trumpeting roar of outrage as the glass fell to the floor in a shower around him. He flew backward through the arch as though driven by a terrible wind, alighting on the floor in a crouch beneath the arch that led to the entryway.

  Ellis felt the whirlwind of moths constricting around her, a stifling shroud. She pushed through the vortex, the hard soles of her shoes crunching across the shattered glass covering the floor between the library and the parlor. She turned before the fireplace toward the closed pocket doors to the music room, but the doors were locked shut, leaving her only avenue of escape through the entry and the door to the vestibule beyond.

  Merrick stood slowly, barely contained rage causing the muscles in his face to twitch.

  The vortex of moths coalesced, taking shape and substance. The shadows became a man resolving into one in a soldier’s combat uniform, his hair in dark waves atop his head.