“I know, I know. The monster will find us and hurt us and kill us,” said Pin, but she couldn’t help frowning after the word ‘kill.’ It had such a finality to it, something that she didn’t want to understand.
To her, life felt infinite. Slow, but endless.
Lisa wheeled herself out of the Atrium with a dozen books in hand. She was good at organizing, sorting, and remembering things. Lisa was actually LI-SA: Library Intelligence—Support Assistant. The library was an ancient jewel in the city, though no one had visited it for many years. Numerous LI-SAs had been installed to take care of the library as the public interest declined. But Pin’s Lisa seemed to be the only one who still remained, maintaining the vast collections of books, articles, and journals scattered all over the broken building. The fate of the other LI-SAs was a mystery.
Pin listened to the echo of Lisa’s wheels squeaking in the hall. After she knew the robot was elsewhere in the depths of the building, Pin ran toward the large spiral staircase just outside the Atrium. The good thing about living in such a big building was the unexplored space that it offered. Pin dashed across the lobby, sprinted up the winding staircase, and weaved her way through halls of bookcases. But she wished more than anything to crack open the windows and race outside, just to keep going and never stop.
The second floor was full of fiction. Pin had never liked novels. Their made-up worlds made no sense to her. They seemed out of touch with reality. She preferred books filled with facts and interesting realities, things that were logical and tangible. But Lisa had truly irritated her that morning, and so Pin found herself traversing the corridors of bookcases in the fantasy section. A faded blue hardback sat wedged tightly between several smaller novels, beckoning to be plucked out of the crowded shelf. Pin drew it out and sat on a window seat, glancing at the overgrown garden. Tall fir trees blocked her vision. She always wondered what lay beyond.
Fables and Fairy Tales, read the title in embossed gold print. She flicked through the glossy pages, glancing at the colorful illustrations and skimming through the large print. There were many drawings: malicious queens, a wicked stepmother, witches, dragons, and hunters. All bad and evil. And the heroes, the princesses, the good folk who received their happily-ever-afters. But every time Pin had read these stories, the heroes fell as flat as the pages.
A princess cursed into a deep slumber waited helplessly for her champion. Across the page, an evil queen with pointy fingers cackled over a glass orb. She had the same green eyes as the princess.
What if the queen wasn’t evil, Pin wondered, but simply misunderstood? Maybe no one listened to her, but she was really the one in need of help. Perhaps she wasn’t evil at all—just a confused soul. A little deformed, crying out for help. Pin looked through the dirty window at the trees outside and tried to peer through their branches.
“Maybe there’s no monster out there,” she said. “Maybe whatever it is just needs to be understood.”
Tree branches wavered gently in the wind, enclosing the library in its own cocoon. Pin’s fingers traveled to the golden locket around her neck. She clicked the button on the side and the locket opened, revealing two pictures: one torn beyond recognition, and the other of her mother. The same warm brown eyes that Pin herself possessed stared back at her. Pin often opened the locket to gaze upon her mother’s frozen, smiling face. She wished her mother could crawl out of the picture and onto the seat, rocking Pin in her arms. But as the days slipped by, Pin realized her memory of the kind face was fading. She would open the locket in the mornings and evenings, sometimes sighing, sometimes crying.
Months before, Pin had been left in the library, entrusted to Lisa’s care. Why her mother had left her, Pin never really knew.
“Pinterry.” Lisa’s voice rang throughout the upper floors. She couldn’t shout; she could merely increase the volume. “Come and help me with these books.”
Pin slid off the bench, leaving the book of fairy tales on the seat, and went to look for the bot.
♛
As she opened her eyes, a full moon greeted her. The darkness around her held no surprises; Gen hadn’t found her yet. For now, she was safe. Pin tried to sit up straight, but a jolt of pain paralyzed her limbs and she cried out.
“I’m okay. I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.” The words did not soothe her. She closed her eyes and lied to herself again, that everything would be fine. But as she thought the words, her heart pounded against her chest with brutal force. Her skin prickled and burned.
It wasn’t the first time this had happened.
♛
Pin didn’t like to tell lies. Every time she did, her skin would burn with a fire like the sun and her heart would not stop racing. But Lisa had annoyed her so much that day that Pin had to find a way to leave. If she didn’t, she knew she would surely go mad. Staying indoors made time itself become something imaginary. Minutes ticked away, blending into hours, melting into days.
The library had two main entrances, front and side, and then a back access to the garden. The main entrances had been barricaded shut long ago and would have made too much noise to open, but the back access had a jammed broken door.
Pin made sure Lisa was far away from her, filing books under Flora, Nature at the other end of the library, before she crept past and ran down the hall. A nagging feeling told her to stop and turn back, but something else pushed her to break the door down and run away. She fiddled with the handle, desperately willing the door to swing open.
A gentle whirring of wheels echoed in the hall.
“Pinterry, what are you doing?”
Pin scrambled to invent an excuse. “I read a book earlier about fixing things using hammers and nails,” she said quickly, “and I thought, this door has been broken for ages, so why couldn’t I fix it?” She grinned, but it made no difference. The robot’s metal features remained detached, the stark opposite of Pin’s eagerness.
In that moment, Pinterry wished that Lisa was someone who could grin back at her, laugh at her bad jokes, scold her with a real angry voice. But of course she could never be.
“We don’t have books on—” began Lisa, but as she did, Pin began to shake. She clutched the door handle for strength. Her legs filled with air, knees buckling. The effect of the lie. Was her heart pounding far too loudly? Or could Lisa hear it too?
“Pinterry, are you okay?” For just an instant, Pin thought she heard concern hidden in the monotone voice. She gave a small nod before an idea lit up in her head.
“Actually, I’m not feeling good. I’ve read that stagnant air can lead to all sorts of illnesses. I think I need to get some fresh air.” Her heart punched violently and her skin prickled. Pin didn’t know how long she could lie before she would pass out. “Lisa, you wouldn’t really understand. It’s a human thing.”
The words stung, but Lisa didn’t register it. She only shook her metal head and took Pin by the arms, slowly guiding her to the front door. Pin’s beating heart settled and then shuddered, this time from sheer excitement as she realized Lisa was going to let her have her way.
“Only for a few minutes,” Lisa said. “We don’t want—”
“The monster to find us. No, we don’t,” said Pin, grinning from ear to ear.
♛
Dead leaves rustled nearby. Pin jerked her head to the side, thinking the sound was footsteps coming closer, but no one was there. She was alone. Lost and alone. She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking back and forth, cradling her chest as if to soothe what was inside. A cool breeze sent shivers across her skin, wisps of dark hair tickling her cheeks.
Pin remembered how she’d longed to feel the wind, to be blown away by it.
And when she had felt it, it was glorious.
♛
“Pinterry, not too far!” Lisa had called. Pin stood still as the warm breeze hit her outside the library entrance. The sun shone down from a pastel blue sky and dusty green trees swayed gently, lining the road outside the library. Pin closed her eyes a
nd tried to quell her excitement so she could savor the flavor of the wind brushing her skin like a soft embrace.
Her little lie had worked, and now she had her freedom. She glanced at Lisa before sprinting away. And she didn’t look back.
Pin ran and ran and ran, passing tall buildings and roads littered with the remains of the past. Warm air filled her lungs and she shouted, utterly exhilarated. She ran till her legs could carry on no more, then she clambered up a stone wall and stood tall. There was an identical stone wall embedded with black lamp posts in the distance. Still panting, Pin looked over the edge and saw a dry, muddy abyss. The Thames should have been in front of her, but now an empty ditch snaked its way through London. Pin frowned and held on to a lamp post, glancing around. It was very still and quiet, as if no other soul lived in the city.
The gentle humming of wheels caught up to her. Lisa’s mouth glared red, but somehow Pin thought Lisa looked concerned. Maybe she was. Pin sat on the stone wall, dangling her legs.
“Get down from there,” said Lisa. “You could get hurt. Pinterry, were you lying to me before? Are you not ill?”
Reality drowned out Lisa’s words. The mundane routine of her previous existence had vanished. Pin was outside, underneath a perfect blue sky. No book could replace the way the sun scorched her face.
“What happened here? Why is no one else around?” Pin asked finally.
“The city has been like this for a while,” said Lisa, her volume turned to the lowest setting. A large structure stood in the distance across the muddy abyss, tall and pointed at the top, with a massive black hole on each side. Pin recognized it as Big Ben, but there was no clock face, only a gaping aperture at each side.
Without the clocks, time seemed to disappear into a void. There was no forward or backward—only now. Life had already felt endless and slow to Pin, and it felt even more so at that moment.
“The monster,” said Lisa. Pin flicked from Lisa to the building.
“Big Ben?”
Lisa shook her head.
“It always emerges from that side. Always from the north.”
Pin’s curiosity grew and sprouted wings. She sprang from her perch and skipped along the stone wall before the robot could drag her back. Lisa called out to her, and Pin wondered if robots could panic. When she was at a safe distance, Pin slowed to a walk.
London had grown wild. Once a cornerstone of the world, now a city reduced to a jungle with crumbling buildings. Vines like thick green snakes grew out of windows and cars, sprouted from beneath sewers, and formed a carpet of green across streets. Pin trailed alongside the empty Thames, inspecting roads blocked by overgrowth. From the corner of her eye, she was certain she saw the vines crawl.
Then came a rustling. Not from the wind, nor the vines, but something stronger. Pin stopped in her tracks, her eyes darting around. The rustling came from a little way off, in the denser part of the jungle. It grew louder. Pin felt Lisa’s metal hand grip her shoulder, trying to drag her backward, but Pin didn’t hear her plead. Lisa wanted her to come, but Pin stood rooted to the ground.
It wasn’t till the bullet blasted past her head that Pin turned to run. She didn’t need to read any books to know the danger here.
“Come on, Lisa!” Pin screamed. Lisa’s wheels, which had always been old and not built for a chase, struggled to keep up. Pin grabbed Lisa’s mechanical arm and pulled her, metal scraping on the gravel.
“My wheels will break,” said Lisa, but she allowed Pin to drag her.
The safest option was to go back to the library, but Pin’s mind was muddled from the blast. They wound through side roads, racing to find a sanctuary of sorts until they came to a high street. Old shops lined the road, some with shutters drawn, others with broken glass scattered over their steps.
An abandoned bakery stood at the corner, stale bread and fancy pastries displayed behind the intact window. Pin pulled Lisa gently around the corner, hoping to find some way out, when she realized they had reached a dead end. Houses squashed against each other in the narrow cul-de-sac. Creeping vines grew over cars that lay wrecked on the tarmac.
“This isn’t good,” muttered Pin. She turned back to the high street and jerked Lisa’s arm, but the bot could not move. Thick vines were tangled in between the cogs in her wheels.
“I cannot go any farther,” said Lisa, with her unnatural calmness. Pin tried to pull apart the plants, but too many of them had twisted into Lisa’s machinery. She had to do something else. Perhaps if she lured the monster away, it wouldn’t know Lisa was here.
“Stay here and don’t make a sound,” she whispered to Lisa, who nodded and stopped struggling. She looked strangely lifeless.
Red clouds streaked the sky over the high street. Pin observed the debris as she crept across the pavement: broken signs, shattered TV screens, torn books, and more. She crouched down and lifted a lone page, wondering which novel it had been ripped from. An illustration of a monster, with twisted horns and a cruel, ugly face growled at her. She dropped the paper and jogged ahead.
A tall iron gate stood at the edge of a derelict park. Pin dragged the gate open, frowning as it creaked loudly. This place is so beautiful, she thought as she sneaked through, but the grass is yellow and the ponds are all dried up. Leaves crunched underfoot and not a soul breathed in the stillness.
“Found you.”
Pin was paralyzed. From the edges of her vision she saw a man aiming a gun at her. He stepped sideways to look at her before his face crumpled from fury into confused relief. Dark circles puffed under his eyes and wrinkled, gray skin hung from high cheekbones. Stubble covered half his face. His bright eyes were the color of a perfect sky.
“What’s your name?” he finally asked.
“Pin.”
“Are there any others?
Pin shook her head. Great, I finally find another person and I can’t even speak, she thought in annoyance.
“So you haven’t got a mum or a dad?”
She shook her head. Not anymore.
“Brothers or sisters?”
None.
“Aunts? Uncles? Cousins?”
None, none, none.
“Anybody?”
She stopped moving her head just in time to hide the lie and he took her silence as a ‘no.’ The man reached for her and Pin took a step back, tripping over a fallen branch. He caught her wrist and hoisted her up, bright eyes piercing through hers.
“Didn’t I see you with a bot before?” Stale breath wafted over her face and Pin winced, very aware of the gun in his other hand. She didn’t dare answer the question.
He saw her pained expression and asked softly, “You’re not scared, are you?”
Pin had no time to consider an answer. She just wanted him to let go.
“No,” she said. Her heart punched, skin flushed and prickled. The man held on a little longer before seeing her sway.
“You’re not well. Come on. Let’s take you home.”
♛
“Home” did not mean the library. Home was beyond Big Ben, a long walk away. They trekked across Westminster Bridge, but its road had collapsed, leaving only the narrow pavement on one side. Tarmac crumbled and Pin glanced over the edge, seeing only the dark chasm of the ditch below. She shuddered before the man—he’d introduced himself as Gennaro—pulled her away.
Pin felt like she was in a strange sort of trance. She couldn’t believe that Lisa had warned her so desperately about Gennaro, such an ordinary man. He did have a gun, but apart from that, he wasn’t frightening. He simply looked exhausted.
“How have you survived this long?” Gen asked.
“I’ve been at the library. Mum wanted to keep me safe,” said Pin. “But she hasn’t come back yet. Have you seen her? She looks like me, but older.”
Gennaro shook his head. His narrow eyes darted from street to street as they passed by, and Pin struggled to keep up with his quick pace. She thought about Lisa, caught helplessly in the vines, and wondered if she ought t
o mention her. The gun dangled in Gennaro’s loose grip, but Pin knew at a moment’s notice he would have it ready to fire.
It would be best to keep Lisa a secret, she decided.
Gennaro lived in a small house with one floor. It was the only one on the street that wasn’t completely covered in overgrowth, but the front door was barricaded shut. They walked down several steps to the side of the house to enter, and even then it was a struggle to budge the door open.
“Helps keep intruders out,” said Gennaro. “You have to push it from this side.” He pointed to where the lock was and shoved the door with his shoulder. It gave way after several attempts, and they entered a very messy kitchen.
A scream pierced the air.
Pin covered her ears, looking for the source, and saw a small, old woman perched on a chair underneath a thick blanket.
“It’s her! She’s back!” The old woman pointed at Pin with a shaking, wrinkled hand. “Get her away from us!” Gennaro put his arms around her and tried to calm the woman down.
“It’s okay, Mum. She’s a friend. We’ve found a friend.”
She wasn’t convinced. The screaming continued until Gennaro managed to lift his mother up—against her protestations—and carry her into another room. A few minutes later he emerged and closed the door to the silent room behind him. “She hasn’t been feeling too great for a while.”
The kitchen and living area was one messy, squashed room. A small fire burned in the hearth and Pin hovered over it, entranced by the colors.
“Sit,” said Gen, but it came out more like an order. Pin obeyed and sat on the corner of a chair, barely allowing herself to relax. He sat on the couch and looked at the fire too, but his shoulders remained upright and palms gripped his knees.
“Why were you chasing me?” said Pin. The question had flickered in her mind for the last hour. Gen cleared his throat.
“Oh, I thought you were… I thought you were a robot or something. Silly, isn’t it?” He got up and rummaged in the kitchen before placing two dirty plastic bottles on the coffee table. “They’ve never been opened. Go on—have a drink,” he said. She muttered a thanks but didn’t take the bottle.
Magic at Midnight Page 42