I was a coward, I didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to know how bad it was, what the Hinterland was responsible for.
“Come on.” When I turned to grab Sophia, she was gone. I looked for her, but the pack of bodies was carrying me toward the door. If I didn’t follow, they might’ve lifted me off my feet.
The scream of sirens came up from below, spiraling and distant and moving in. The crowd moved like a many-headed animal, bypassing the elevator, going straight for the cattle press of the stairs. I lost myself in the pack of strangers, shouting and crying and shoving in their rush, but human to their cores.
32
There was more than one trick to the pocket watch. Iolanthe told him the next morning, when they’d ventured into a pastoral world for breakfast and for the kind of air that felt good to breathe. The book she’d read from to get them there had been in a language of trilling runs and hard stops, which tickled the ear to hear it. When he opened his eyes, they were stepping into a meadow so idyllic it looked like a Thomas Kinkade print.
He lay down beside an honest-to-god haystack while Io went off to drum up some food—jerky, milk in a skin, bread with cheese and honey. All of it, even the bread, even the honey, tasted of goat.
In the lazy golden shade of the haystack, she pulled out her watch. It wasn’t completely blank, he realized: it was pearlescent, colors chasing themselves over its face.
“Wait for it,” she said.
A minute passed, and something showed: a string of numbers like a digital display, pinkish but unmistakably there. They darkened to red as he watched, then faded slowly to nothing.
“Call numbers,” she said. “Corresponding to books in the library, corresponding to worlds. Everywhere, in every world, a version of the Night Country tale exists. When the numbers show like that, someone in that world is reading the story, or hearing it. When the numbers turn solid, you know: that’s a world where someone is building it.”
“It has to be built?”
She’d taken a big bite of goat-flavored something; her “Yes” sprayed him with crumbs.
“And we … what? Jump in there and steal it?”
“Think of the picture book. The girl and the boy work together to make their world. It’s better that way, with more minds.”
“So you’re saying we’d be doing these random strangers a favor by appearing out of nowhere and trying to take over their world?”
She thought about it, dusting off her hands. “Yes.”
“But you say you can build a night country. How? Why don’t we just build one our—”
“Look,” she said testily. “I’ve got the magic watch, I’m telling you how this is gonna go.” Then, seeing his face: “No, no, we’re partners. Sorry, what did you want to know? How do you build a night country? That’s the thing, I don’t know how to do it. But somebody, somewhere does. We’ll find one in time.”
He should walk away. He knew he should. But the key was in the lock. Strange treasures awaited him beyond the door. And he’d already told Alice he was doing it, so. He didn’t want to go to her empty-handed. He had his green stacks of fairy gold, his magic pen, the mysterious walnut. He had a few new tricks—he could make goat cheese, drive fence posts, speak passable German. He’d gotten pretty into whittling for a while. But he didn’t think Alice wanted his carved rabbits that looked a hell of a lot like bears. Instead he would bring her what she loved best: stories. He was collecting all the tales he’d tell her when he got home. He was becoming his own kind of library.
Those were strange days. He and Io dipped into and out of worlds, spending a day or an hour or an evening in misty mountain villages, ruins sliced into gold and gray pieces by the falling sun, cities crisscrossed by elevated trains, or wreathed in strange overgrowth, or veined like Venice with waterways. She chose the books carefully, picking worlds where they’d be safe, where they’d blend in. Finch didn’t know how she knew, and she didn’t tell him.
They talked a lot, but she didn’t tell him much. Only tales of her travels through the Hinterland, and a little bit about her life when she was young—reckless, mischievous, underdisciplined. She loved to hear stories about New York if he could make them funny, but he took her lead, never sharing too much about himself.
A week passed. Two. One navy-blue night, drunk on clear liquor served in tiny glasses in a shanty bar on the edge of a vast red sea, Finch cracked open the walnut he’d taken from the Hinterland, which Grandma June gave back. He wanted to see the dress of stars, the meticulous white cat. What came out instead was a man’s voice, bellows deep and touched with stardust.
The moonless child will die
And the starless child will fall
And the sunless child rise higher than them all
The startled bartender made a gesture at the two of them—that world’s way of warding off the evil eye, Finch guessed—and turned their cups over to show them they were no longer welcome.
“A dead world’s prophecy,” Io said, standing. “Were more useless words ever spoken?”
She took out her watch to consult it, as she always did, and her face changed. She held it up.
Numbers blazed off its face in solid black.
The silence between them swelled, then was shattered by the bartender, inviting them in her own language to kindly get their asses out of her bar. Finch laughed a little, looking into Io’s anxious eyes.
“Here we go.”
* * *
Back in the library her face was grayer than the walls. She didn’t let him fetch the book, even though she looked two steps from keeling over. On shaking legs she found it, with shaking hands she took it down. They’d been shocked sober by the pocket watch, but she was four-thirds of the way back to drunk by now, taking continual nips off her bottomless red bottle.
Before she opened the book, she gave him a look. A hard, bright-burning look too packed full of feeling for him to master. It made him put a hand on her arm.
“We’re good,” he said, peering into her eyes and trying to make her believe it. Oddly, her fear made him less afraid. He felt like a man lifting a sail, shouldering a pack. Walking on down the road. “This is good. It’s the very last secret, right?” He squeezed her arm. “We’re ready.”
One more inscrutable look, and she opened her mouth. Her eyes searched his. He thought she was going to say something, something important.
But her head dropped, and she opened the book. Holding it so he couldn’t see its pages, she read the first words. “Once upon a time.”
He startled. “Really?” None of the books had been in English before, or in any language he could identify.
She ignored him. “Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman and a vast green land, with cracked places where the land rose and became rippling stone, and broken places where blue water came in. And the man made stories of the earth and the woman told stories with the stars, and with the children she bore the stories multiplied.”
“Wait,” Finch said. His voice was distant from him, it seemed to come from a place outside his body. “Where are we going?” But the magic was already lifting them, taking them.
“Shh,” said Iolanthe, and began again. “Once upon a time…”
33
Cities go wrong in the summertime. That’s what the cops would tell themselves, the EMTs, all the bodies gathered together to tend to the girl at the bottom of the stairs, as good as pushed by the Hinterland.
The wrongness is in the atmosphere: strange skies, the wheedling nature of the breeze. Heat putting the screws on till the city feels like something set to blow, a place where everyone waits like frogs in a pot with the fire on low. The police would chalk this up as one more of the city’s human horrors. There were enough of them that the Hinterland could blend in. That the mass hallucination would be written off as a drug in the drinks, an airborne attack. But I knew the truth. I knew we were poison.
Once I got free of the stairwell I kept my head down and slipped away to the river. T
he lucid fairy waters of the Hinterland felt very far from this mess of dead leaves and trash, freckled by the lights of passing boats.
I looked around—at the grimy water, the garbage on the ground, the man asleep on a bench behind me, aging and filthy in a world without pity. The city’s beauty receded, until all I could see was the grime on top. The way everything and everyone here existed in their own lonely sphere, untouchable.
I called Ella, but she didn’t answer. I texted her one more time.
I’m coming home soon. I promise. I’m almost done.
I didn’t know why, but it felt true. Whatever I was waiting for, it was coming soon. For better or worse.
Back at the hotel, I opened my windows as high as they’d go, let my room fill up like a dish with night air. It felt like a dare coming back here. It was too dangerous to stay; I had nowhere to go. I should’ve been packing my stuff, but instead I looked out the window, over an insomniac stretch of city.
Here’s what I’d say, if I could write Finch a letter.
Stay. Stay where you are. Let me find you.
My mother wants to run away. She wants to rewrite our life in a place with more empty spaces than people, where the air smells like hyssop and dust.
But not me. I want to find you. I want to walk between worlds with you. I wouldn’t mess it up this time, I wouldn’t hide inside my own head. I wouldn’t let you hide inside yours.
How is it that I don’t even know you anymore? How is it that you’re so far away?
A sound startled me, making my head snap up. Something slid under the door, skidding a foot over the carpet.
A letter. I half ran across the room, my heart flooding with heat. The letter was scribbled in blue ink on old hotel stationery, folded into fours. But it wasn’t from him.
Alice I lied to you when I said you’re not special just because someone loves you. I lied to you a lot I guess but can you blame me when you always believed every damn word I couldn’t resist it. I’m sorry I didn’t stay with you tonight but I’ll see you again soon. It won’t be me exactly but you’ll know I’m there. I’ll be the wind maybe or the trees or the water or the sky even. I don’t really know how it works. Alice I’m tired and I haven’t been good in a very long time and that’s another thing I lied about that I didn’t ever want to be good. I think this is the right choice for me. I think this world is the wrong one.
There’s going to be a time soon when someone’s going to ask you to walk through a door. Say yes. Behind it will be a bright new world bigger and more beautiful than this one and with no cages not one. Just freedom and a place to be happy where you can live or die or just be quiet. This world will be gone and good riddance.
I’m sorry I couldn’t wait for you but look for me and I bet you’ll find me. But even if you don’t don’t worry. I wanted this. I want this.
Love,
Sophia
I read it fast, too fast, the words running up on each other’s heels. By the time I threw open the door, Sophia was long gone.
This world will be gone and good riddance.
My mind rattled the words. Picked over the story my mother had told me. I closed my eyes and her face showed itself in the dark. She was telling me the tale of the Night Country, a cup of whiskey in her hand and dusty sun falling on her shoulders.
The pieces shivered and shook. They formed a figure. It pierced the wall of the world.
The figure breathed in the life of the world behind it, and blew it into the gap.
Into the Night Country. It wasn’t built only on flesh and bone and blood and the tawny muscle of the heart. It was a parasite, feeding itself on the life of the world it was built in. This world.
I started toward the elevator, then ran back for my phone. Sophia didn’t answer my call, didn’t answer, didn’t answer, each ring shrilling in my ear like a scream. I was stepping into my shoes, shoving my wallet into my jeans. Everything I owned smelled like sweat and smoke. I was on my way to the hall when something buzzed in my pocket.
The compass Hansa’s father had given me was rattling like a phone on vibrate. When I pulled it out, the rattling stopped. I studied its face. The needle strained in one direction—behind me, due southeast—like a dog on a leash. I folded my fingers around it and made for the elevator.
Outside, I paced the streets on foot, eyes glued to the compass, praying she hadn’t taken a cab. Breezes tangled around me, just me, leaving the trash and the dirt untouched. I swear I saw the ghost bride watching from the crook of a streetlamp.
The sidewalks emptied as I walked. The darkness deepened, then tipped over the dividing line, inching up toward morning. The sleepless city slept, the stars losing themselves in the whitening sky. My footsteps were muffled but I could hear my breath as clearly as if my hands were cupping my ears. I felt like I was walking through a dream, but my dreams felt realer than this.
I was on an industrial block when the needle jackknifed, swinging toward the building to my right. It was the size of a small warehouse, its face fronted with tiles of reinforced glass. It stood out against the sky like a crisp-cut Halloween decoration. More than empty, it looked abandoned. But there was a side door, a brushed metal rectangle gone lacy with rust. Someone had propped it open with a brick.
Maybe Sophia. Or whoever was waiting for her.
This piece of city felt like an underdeveloped Polaroid. Only the building was sharp. I held my breath as I opened the door a little wider, easing myself through.
There was a trick Ella had taught me, for waking up scared in the dark: stay as still as you can, letting your eyes adjust, waiting for all the hidden things to show themselves. After a few long breaths I could make out a clumsy skyline of spinny chairs. A rolled carpet and an unplugged coffee machine on a countertop. I was in some kind of office, stinking of mothballs and roach spray.
And something else. A metallic, abattoir scent that told me I had to hurry, had to keep going, had to find the black heart of this place.
Beside the chairs was another door. Its knob turned in my hand, letting me into a hallway, windowed on one side. The smell was stronger here and there was someone just stepping clear of a slice of light.
There then gone, but I saw them. Their shape was imprinted on my sight. Small and furtive and somehow familiar. There was something to the sighting that made my mouth go dry, made my heart leap with more than fear.
I followed them. The floor was poured concrete, spattered with mysterious stains, and my shoes moved quietly into and out of the shadows. I heard nothing, then a breath, such a perfect in and out that I knew it was deliberate. A bread crumb dropped at my feet.
I followed it. Hard to the left, into a corridor lit by a red EXIT sign. The door at the other end was just closing. I ran to wrench it open before it caught, and found myself in another office, a wire-glass window on one side looking out over the street. There was a closed door on the other end, but I didn’t think whoever I was following had had time to go through it. Headlights from a passing car strafed the room, lighting all its corners.
Empty. I swore and pulled out my phone to try Sophia. Distantly, beyond the next door, I heard the generic jingle of her ringtone. Before the first ring faded, I was hurtling through the door, into a room with a ceiling as high as a gym’s, pale stripes of sky falling through skylights. The smell was stronger here.
I still had the phone to my ear, listening for the next ring. When the call picked up I nearly dropped it.
“Hello?” I squeezed the phone hard. “Sophia?”
Silence. Then an intake of breath and … a giggle. That giggle burrowed right into my brain, filling it up with an electric terror. It made neon shapes in the air.
“Who’s there?” I whispered.
“Scratch scratch, little mouse,” they whispered back. The call clicked off. When I tried Sophia again, it went straight to voicemail.
She was close. She was with someone I knew, I knew that laugh and could almost place it. I would find them both, I woul
d dig through the dark. There was nothing in front of me but shadows and faint wedges of moonlight. I opened my mouth, took a step.
A door bobbed up from empty air.
34
Finch thought sometimes about the things he missed.
Showers. Real coffee. Soup dumplings. New books. Opening his eyes under the serene blue roof of a chlorinated pool, seeing the wobble of the distant lights. He missed dogs. The closest thing the Hinterland had was a roving tribe of mad cats, who slipped serenely into and out of the tales and looked so knowing he’d tried a few times, quietly, to start a conversation with one of them. No dice.
Despite all that, he didn’t think he really missed life on Earth. He told himself he was glad to let it go.
But when Iolanthe’s words opened a new door, and the molecules of the next world came through, he knew. When he breathed in the chemicals and metal and dead skin dust of the place that had made him, he understood he’d been telling himself another lie.
35
The door wasn’t there, then it was. A crooked rectangle like a child’s rendering, its seams all lined with light. It hung there a moment, defiant.
Then—it opened. Behind it was a wedge of chilled gray air the color of stone. Another day stood through that door. Another world. Was it the Night Country?
A woman stood in the doorway.
First she was just a shape, singed at the edges with light. Then she was a stranger stepping through, all dressed in shabby black, her pale blond hair in braids. Her eyes had the amoral shine of a cat’s. If she was surprised to see me, she gave no sign of it. She was a puzzle I might’ve kept staring at, but there was someone else coming in behind her.
Someone dazed and thin and taller than I remembered. His eyes were wide and his arms outstretched like he was walking into cold water.
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