Barrier

by Mary Victoria Johnson

  “See things?” Avery and I asked together.

  Deio either ignored us or didn’t hear. “As soon as we breach the barrier, Boundary won’t be able to stand by itself anymore. Two worlds can’t overlap for long. So know that if either of you break concentration, whoever is still left inside will be as good as dead.”

  Great, so now I have to risk my friends’ lives too, I thought bitterly.

  The worst part—Avery would agree with me—was the unknowing. We’d been discussing taking down Boundary for months, and now that we were here, I felt far too unprepared. There were more Others spread throughout this forest than the flat and the farm combined, and the implications of failing to hold them back were beyond terrifying. Avery hadn’t been lying about his poor Ripping skills, and Deio still looked as if he was seconds away from keeling over. Then there was Andrew, and Madon’s threat, and a thousand other worries clouding my mind—now Deio was suggesting hallucinations were also a possibility?

  “Ready?” Deio asked.

  I’ve been ready forever.

  No.

  Beside me, Avery gave an uncharacteristically nervous laugh.

  Before I had time to ask one of the thousand questions burning inside my head, a Rip sliced through the silence of the forest. A heartbeat later, the Others came.

  Two children sit on a bench, wearing matching outfits and matching expressions of fear. They both have auburn hair and dark eyes that make them almost indistinguishable. They can’t be more than four years old. One of them reaches out and takes the other’s hand.

  “It’s going to be okay. It always is.”

  “Ignore it!” Deio shouted.

  “What was that?” Avery shouted back. “It was like I was standing somewhere else, I…”

  “The Boundary is tied with the memories of those who created it.” Deio had his hand outstretched in front of him, trying to control the monumental Rip he’d opened. “Releasing them…look, please just try to ignore it.”

  I couldn’t reply. I was too busy mentally screaming at the Others to stay away, even though the sheer weight of them was nearly suffocating. To anyone watching, I wasn’t facing anything more than an empty wood, lit with midmorning sun and glittering ice crystals. They wouldn’t be able to see the invisible hoards that were straining towards Deio’s Rip, held back only by a single thought.

  The children are older, perhaps ten. Unmistakably Deio and Demitra. Surrounding them are about half a dozen adults. One, a younger woman with a disarming snaggletooth, approaches Deio and reaches out as though to embrace him. Instead, she drives a switchblade into his upper arm.

  Deio stares at her. He doesn’t flinch.

  From behind them, a scream wrenches from Demitra’s mouth. She drops to her knees and clutches her shoulder as though she was the one being stabbed.

  “Interesting,” the woman lisps. With a jerk, she twists the blade.

  Demitra’s screams redouble.

  “Why are you doing this?” Deio asks. “You’re hurting her.”

  “Exactly.” The woman twists the blade yet again. Her fist is covered with blood. “I’m hurting her.”

  Hate flashes across Deio’s expression, and he wrenches away, removing the knife and tossing it to the floor. Oblivious to his wound, he crouches beside a quivering Demitra and glares at the surrounding adults.

  “You’ve tested this before. You know the answer. Leave us alone now.”

  The vision faded. I fought the urge to turn and see Deio’s reaction, but knew that if I moved, if I tried to speak, I’d let the Others through. I couldn’t see what progress they were making behind me. All I could do was close my eyes and focus on the imaginary shield I’d created, ignore the pressure coming at me from all sides, and ignore the battering of memories being thrown into my mind, a whirlwind of voices and flashed images. Every now and then, with the stronger memories, another scene would play out.

  “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, and here comes a chopper to chop off your head,” Demitra sings, twirling. “Chop, chop, chop.”

  With the final ‘chop’, she bends down and strikes something hidden behind a desk. Blood spatters across the wallpaper.

  “Must you be so messy?” Deio asks.

  Demitra stops dancing and stares at him with mania in her eyes. “Look at your hands.”

  Sure enough, his palms are stained crimson. He shrugs and wipes them on his trousers.

  “They didn’t deserve to have it done cleanly,” she says, the singsong quality of her voice making it all the more unnerving. “We could’ve made it clean if we’d wanted to. But we didn’t.”

  She bends down again, then faces the wall and begins to paint the word FARTHING in red letters. Then she freezes.

  “Someone’s still here.”

  Deio takes a fire poker, lying discarded on the floor, and nudges open a wardrobe.

  A man hides there, terrified. It’s a younger Madon.

  Deio smiles at him and raises the poker.

  “Wait,” Madon blurts, hands raised. “Please. I can help you.”

  “Nobody can help us,” Demitra says.

  “I can.”

  Nausea wrenched through my stomach. Concentrate. I had to concentrate. The Others were becoming more and more relentless, more desperate. Our reality was destroying them. Perhaps they’d be able to thrive better inside Boundary. Perhaps that was why they were trying so hard to reach it.

  I blinked away stars, surprised by how heavy my eyelids were becoming. I wanted to sleep forever.

  Think of Fred. Think of Penny and Tressa and Lucas. Nothing else mattered.

  Demitra stands in what looks like an abandoned industrial lot. She paces, chewing her lip, nervousness palpable. She holds a chubby toddler in her arms, but awkwardly—she’s never held a child before. The toddler begins to grizzle.

  Madon rushes into the scene, stopping dead when he sees her.

  “Where is the child from? What have you done?” he demands. “Where is Deio?”

  Demitra shakes her head, tears beginning to slide down her cheeks. “He’s cleaning up. He’ll be here soon.”

  “Cleaning up what?”

  She’s crying now. The toddler starts wailing in earnest.

  “Demitra, answer me,” Madon says roughly. “What did you do?”

  “My sister. This is my sister.” Demitra kisses the carroty fuzz atop the toddler’s head, tightening her grip. “I—I didn’t mean to…my parents didn’t recognize me, and they…they were afraid of me. I thought they might still love me, but they didn’t, and I…I lost control.”

  If this surprises Madon in any way, he doesn’t show it.

  “I thought your parents were dead.”

  “So did I.” Demitra sniffs. “Turns out I can’t trust my own memories. Oh, well. They’re certainly dead now.”

  “That’s impossible!” Avery shouted. “These can’t be real!”

  “Concentrate,” Deio snarled back. “Evelyn, you’re letting them through.”

  Of course I was letting them through. It was like trying to keep water in a bucket full of holes; no matter how hard I tried to cover everywhere, the Others leaked through. There were too many of them. And, try as I might, I couldn’t help but dwell on the memories flashing in and out of my head. Like Avery said, the timeline didn’t match up, yet the emotions were so strong…

  They’re outside Boundary now, almost exactly where we are standing. Demitra, Deio, Madon, infant Penny—and Beatrix.

  “You’re sure this will work?” Madon asks.

  “Don’t you trust me?” Deio gives a lazy laugh. “There’s another world, a vacant world, right here. I can feel it.”

  “We don’t know if it’s stable.”

  “It will be.” Deio says it with utter confidence.

  Demitra is staring at Beatrix, who holds Penny in her arms. Beatrix’s face is knitted with a tender love; Penny is fast asleep, dreaming.

  “You’ll take care of her,” Demitra says. It’s not a que
stion.

  “Like she was my own.” Beatrix glances at Madon with something like sadness, before returning to Penny. “Although the poor darling will be rather lonely if you keep her in there forever.”

  “Not forever,” Deio says, though he sounds like he couldn’t care less. “Until it’s safe.”

  Demitra, however, seems worried. “Lonely? But you said you’d be there, always.”

  “I’m old, my dear. How much company can I give a child?”

  Demitra nods. An odd look comes over her. “No one should be alone,” she whispers.

  My heart began pounding. I was beginning to understand where the story was heading, and I didn’t like it.

  “Evelyn!” Deio shouted. “Damn it, focus on the Others!”

  The entire reason behind our captivity was being revealed, and I could no more ignore it than I could stop breathing. Despite what I’d believed, this wasn’t about our gifts at all. It had always been about Penny from the beginning.

  “Evelyn, please!”

  “I’m going to hide upstairs!” Penny laughs, her gown muddied and torn at the hem.

  “You mustn’t!” another girl whines. Her black hair is thick and glossy, her face full and bright, creased with displeasure.

  I look so young. I barely recognize myself.

  Demitra stands behind the cedar, watching us run away. Even when she steps on a twig and breaks it, neither of us seem to notice she’s there.

  “There you are.” Deio materializes out of nowhere. “You’ve got to stay away, Demitra. This isn’t helping anyone.”

  “She’s our age now,” Demitra whispers. “Soon she’ll be older than us.”

  “We knew this would happen.” Deio looks bored. “Time moves faster in the other layer just as it moves differently in all the layers. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “Why can’t we let them out? We could use her, we could—”

  “Because she doesn’t even know how to Rip yet,” Deio snaps, and Demitra closes her mouth. “Because concentrating on this place is the only thing stopping Madon from interfering with our work. Because they’re stuck in a pseudo-Victorian world thanks to your little eccentricity, and know nothing about the outside world, because you didn’t want them to. And because there’s a fairly serious war happening. Until she’s mature enough to be tested—to discover her power—she’s useless to us.”

  Demitra nods far too many times, like a bobble-headed doll. “He hurts them.”

  “He stops them from asking questions.” Deio turns and walks through the forest. The trees appear to bend away from him, clearing his path.

  Demitra hovers a moment longer, watching Penny and I find separate hiding places. Then she follows her brother and vanishes.

  Focus. Focus.

  Avery was saying—shouting—something to Deio. A humming in my ears blocked out the words, that scrambled fuzziness that usually comes seconds before passing out, where the world seems to be disappearing around you.

  The Others were relentless. I was so, so tired. The visions came faster, more like blips, more of Madon arguing with the twins over controlling the world within Boundary, and Deio arguing with Demitra over her obsession with watching us, and Beatrix arguing with Madon over his use of torture, and Demitra arguing with Deio over setting Penny free. All the dark secrets that had been absorbed by the Boundary being thrown rapid-fire into the open. Then:

  Madon stands over Beatrix’s body, anguish tearing his face into something terrifying.

  “How could you?” he roars when Deio and Demitra appear. “How could you?”

  “She was telling them about the trials,” Deio says. “I am sorry, but if she kept at it—”

  “There are other ways to deal with people.” The sudden calm in Madon’s voice is more unsettling than the rage.

  Deio only smiles his perfect, insincere smile. “The best part is that you have to admit to doing it. They’re breaking your rules. They need some fear. Else they’ll start seeing you for what you really are—weak.”

  No. No. No.

  My blood turned to ice. These memories couldn’t be true, they couldn’t, they couldn’t…Madon was cruel, tyrannical, and sadistic, but he wasn’t half the monster I’d believed him to be. The real monster stood behind me yelling my name.

  “Evelyn, look. We’re doing it!”

  Barely able to process his words, I twisted my head around.

  Boundary.

  The manor, the lawns—albeit in a terrible state, but still there. And four figures in old-fashioned dress standing on the other side of the creek, growing more and more substantial by the second.

  My eyes locked with Fred’s. He mouthed my name, but I couldn’t hear him. Despite my tears, I laughed a hoarse, gasping laugh.

  “We’re doing it!”

  Stay away, stay away, stay away. My shield became a chant, growing stronger and stronger.

  “You’ve got to cross the creek,” Deio shouted. “Penny, do it now!”

  Penny hesitated. She took a step forward.

  Then a Rip tore through the forest.

  No! Don’t let it collapse!

  The chant broke and the shield dissipated.

  Boundary vanished.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Avery swore, stumbling backwards and nearly knocking me over. Did you see what I saw? He didn’t need to say the words for me to know what his expression meant.

  Deio, on the other hand, stood rigid by the creek. An incalculable rage was beginning to dance behind the deathlike sheen that still clung to his face, and I automatically took a step away.

  “Who’s there,” he said, toneless. Then he wrenched around and screamed, “Who’s there? Madon!”

  Madon dragged himself out from behind a copse of trees, seeming horridly satisfied. “I did warn you.”

  “You’ve destroyed it.” Deio’s tone grew cold again. “It’s gone. They’re gone. All those years…and you’ve…what were you thinking?”

  “I realized that it was going to fall anyway.” Madon shrugged. “So you ask me why I destroyed it? Spite. You don’t always get to win, Deio. You’ve been winning for far too long without consequence—nothing more than a child who hasn’t ever faced discipline…yet.”

  Spite. I might never see Fred again because all my friends and I had ever been to them were counters in a game that never should have involved us. Only this game wasn’t black and white, good and bad; both sides were just as vindictive and wicked as the other, and innocent people were dying in the crossfire.

  “You killed Beatrix,” I said, whirling on Deio. “And our parents.”

  “And many, many others.” Deio waved his hand, still fixated on Madon with a burning fury. “None of that matters now.”

  “You kept us under a bell jar. You took away everything from us for your own gain. Don’t you see?” I blinked away my tears. They were freezing on my cheeks, numbing my skin. “You’re exactly like those people who tortured you.”

  “Evelyn’s right,” Avery said flatly. “You’re…”

  He didn’t seem to be able to find a strong enough word.

  I couldn’t think. Nothing felt real anymore. I didn’t know what to do, what else to say…so I just watched Madon and Deio with a heart of ice.

  “You look ill,” Madon was saying.

  “Breaking into Boundary took effort.” Deio spat each syllable.

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “Of course I’m—”

  A change came over him. The fury faded away and was replaced by something else, an expression I’d never seen Deio wear before: fear.

  “For Evelyn and Avery’s benefit,” Madon said, flicking us a glance, “should I tell them a little story about you and Demitra?”

  I thought of the twisting knife and shuddered.

  Madon, however, appeared to be enjoying himself. “That’s what made the pair of them so valuable. Demitra absorbed all his emotion, all his pain—imagine, an assassin without a conscience who
couldn’t be hurt, and a counterpart so mentally overwhelmed that she lost her humanity too. A psychopath and a lunatic.”

  “Stop,” Deio warned.

  “Yet,” Madon went on, moving ever closer, “you say you’re angry with me? You, Deio?”

  I wanted to point out that I didn’t care about Deio’s feelings—or lack thereof—at that moment. I didn’t care why the twins were ‘valuable’, and I didn’t care if Madon felt a lesson needed to be taught. I clung to a hope that somehow Boundary had survived the Rip, meaning that every precious moment spent bickering was a moment that we should be using to free my friends…but no sooner was I about to say all this aloud, I was cut off by another figure emerging from behind the trees.

  I must’ve been dreaming after all.

  Andrew.

  Here.

  “Andrew,” I cried. I was about to run over and throw my arms around him, but something in his expression stopped me.

  There was something very, very wrong about this.

  “Where is Demitra?” Deio demanded.

  Madon stared at him. “Time for another story, I think.”

  Andrew avoided my gaze. “I don’t think we need to go there. He knows.”

  “They don’t.” Madon nodded at us.

  A thousand tiny cuts were scattered across Andrew’s face as if he’d run through brambles, and he stood with his shoulders slumped. The kindness and cheer I’d grown used to was gone—he just looked exhausted.

  “I didn’t tell you the whole truth about the car accident,” Andrew began, almost whispering. “It wasn’t an accident at all, you see.”

  A vein in Deio’s temple began to tick.

  “We were about half a mile from home when this car came hurtling down the lane…far too fast, and it…” Andrew squeezed his eyes closed. “It ploughed her over like she wasn’t there. There was nothing I could’ve done afterwards, she…her neck…” He trailed off again. “I ran after the car and it ended up stopping. The driver was just a kid, just another teenager. Claimed it was a mistake. But I was so upset, I kept screaming at him over and over and over and I swear, all he did was look at my leg, and…”