by Sarah Fine
I emerge from the hallway at exactly the wrong time.
“Wen!” Mugo strides over to me, that oily grin on his face. “You look much better than the last time I saw you. Your father said you were very sick. I see now he was exaggerating.”
I bow my head, my stomach churning. “My fever broke last night. I’m tired, but recovering, thank you.”
“Well, you look lovely as always,” he says, and I glance up to see his gaze trace along the neckline of my dress.
I cross my arms over my chest. “You’re very kind, sir.” I raise my head and say the last thing I want to say. “I can start tomorrow if you like. I know you’re in need of a secretary.”
His eyes light up. “If you think you’re sufficiently recovered, that would be ideal.” He licks his lips, and I swallow back my fear.
“Thank you, sir,” I manage to say, though my mouth has gone very dry.
He pats my shoulder and heads into the cafeteria, and I stand there, feeling more alone than I ever have. Yes, I am wearing a dress my mother made for me, but right now it has betrayed me. The way Mugo’s eyes slid along the purple thread, like it was drawing his attention to me, to my body. That is not what I want. Right now I want my brown dress, the one that hangs from me like a burlap sack.
I have to get it washed so I can wear it tomorrow. The thought gives me new energy. I start down the hall but pull up short as the Noor file in for lunch. Sinan sees me and whispers something to Melik, whose eerie gaze flicks over and lands on me. I expect him to smile, but he doesn’t. With a shake of his head, he says something to Sinan. For a moment Sinan protests, but Melik holds up his finger and nails Sinan with a look so fierce that the younger boy backs down quickly, nodding at whatever Melik has told him. Then Melik steps out of line and walks toward me.
We stare at each other for a moment. He must have washed and changed after the trip to the furnace room, because I don’t sense the bitter scent of death on him, only the faint smell of lye soap. His face is flecked with red gold stubble. “How are you?” I ask.
“Alive,” he says. I have no idea what he means by that.
“I’m so sorry about Tercan,” I blurt out. I want to touch him, to offer some kind of comfort, but it would not be appropriate for me to grab him like that, out in public—or anywhere else, for that matter.
His jaw tightens and he nods. He watches me carefully as he says, “You mourn for the boy who lifted your skirt in the cafeteria? Who exposed your skin for all to see?”
Something inside me shrivels. I hope I’m imagining the edge in his voice. “Yes, I do. He didn’t mean it.”
“He did. Do you know what he said, Wen? Right before he tripped you?”
I shake my head. I don’t want him to tell me.
He does anyway. “He said, ‘I’m going to pluck some of the feathers from this pretty peacock.’ He said a few other things he wanted to do to you too, but I won’t embarrass you by repeating them.”
He already is embarrassing me, and he knows it. The heat of shame is rising from my chest, up my neck to my cheeks. I look away to keep him from seeing, but he steps to the side, staying in front of me. “Any normal girl would have wished him harm,” he says in a deadly quiet voice.
I can’t help it, my gaze shifts to the alcove where the Ghost’s altar sits, and Melik notices immediately. He walks over to it and leans around the column that hides the low table from view. His body tenses and he looks over his shoulder at me. “Is that what you did, Wen? Did you wish him harm?”
I can barely speak. My whole body is shaking. How does he know this? How did he figure it out?
I absorb the way Melik’s looking at me now, the way he should have been looking at me all along. “Forgive me,” I say, because I never asked Tercan for it, and because I need it.
“It’s not your fault,” he says lightly. “Like I said, any normal girl would have done the same.” He wishes me a pleasant afternoon and strides into the cafeteria, leaving me staring after him, wanting to cry. His words were kind, of course, but it’s what he didn’t say that’s left me cold.
He didn’t say “I forgive you.”
I RESIST THE URGE to chase Melik down and beg him for his forgiveness, because he is so strong, so hard, that if he doesn’t want to offer me something, I’ll never be able to take it from him by force. I go back to the clinic, not even trying to fight the shudder that grips me as I walk by Mugo’s office. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be spending eight hours a day trapped in there with him. I promise myself that I’ll be strong, that I’ll keep my head down and do my best, no matter how much he yells at me or looks at me with those hungry, weaselly eyes of his. I will earn my way, and I won’t make my father borrow or beg to support me. I wanted him to protect me, but I think he is too weak for that, too scared of what Mugo might do to him.
Up ahead, my father comes out of the clinic and locks the door behind him. He’s got his medical kit under one arm and a jug in the other. Instead of turning to come down the hall toward the offices or the cafeteria, though, he walks to the rear stairwell. I can’t think of why he’d be going down there, I can’t—
Yes, I can.
This morning my father was listening to the tapping of the pipes, frowning at whatever he heard. Onya told me that my father pronounced a boy dead, but my hands were against that same boy’s very alive body a week ago when he saved me from those terrible spiders. The Ghost could have fooled everyone else in the factory into thinking he was dead—except my father. Around here you’re not dead until my father says so. And in this case he said so.
He lied. And now he’s sneaking off into the factory basement with valuable supplies.
Perhaps it’s anger, knowing my father hid the truth from me, knowing he will give medicine and supplies away without keeping enough to support his daughter. Perhaps it’s fear—does my father know the dangers that lurk on the lower floors? Perhaps it’s fiery curiosity, my desire to see this living Ghost and talk to him face-to-face. Perhaps . . . perhaps it bothers me that my father knows more about him than I do. Or perhaps it’s simple foolishness. My feet move before I figure it out, carrying me swiftly down the hall. I catch the slow-swinging metal door to the stairwell before it clicks shut, and I slip onto the landing and let it fall closed behind me. I listen to the sound of my father’s footsteps descending quickly, hollow taps on the metal steps. My own feet are much quieter, and my muslin dress is whisper silent as I follow my father at a safe distance.
As the air takes on a chill, my fear of whatever awaits me down here almost conquers me. First of all, the Ghost. He made me promise, and now I’m breaking that promise. His voice was so desperately panicked and angry as he told me never to come down here again. And yet he left me this token, the tiny metal me, so beautiful. I have to believe he doesn’t hate me, that he wants something from me. The Ghost isn’t the only thing that scares me, though. The net. The spiders. If that’s the factory’s version of security, there’s some kind of evil genius in charge. The spiders are like miniature versions of the war machines made next door, the massive, steam-powered off-road troop carriers and tanks that were used to suppress the Noor so brutally. When my mother told me those stories when I was younger, I felt proud, the kind of pride that comes from growing up in the shadow of something so powerful. Now I am horrified. I’ve felt only a portion of the terror those things cause, and I would never wish it on another person.
It doesn’t stop me, though. I get to the base of the stairs, six flights down, and watch my father’s back as he walks slowly down a dank, dimly lit corridor with an arched ceiling. The pipes are thicker here, like fat snakes lying together in the trees, too lazy to strike. Father stops to step carefully over something at his feet, then proceeds.
I follow him, and when I get to the place he was, there is a thin wire stretched across the hallway, no more than a thread. It’s about the same gauge used to make the braid
of hair on my tiny metal girl. This was the kind of thread I broke that night in the basement, the one that brought a net down on my head and awoke the spiders. My father must know this—where the traps are and how to avoid them. I slowly look up.
And immediately squat low, covering my mouth with both hands to hold in the scream. There, stretched across the ceiling, is not a net. It’s one of the spiders, this one with longer legs than the others. The tips are razor-sharp points. Its black, dead eyes, all eight of them, stare down at me. If this pounces, it will punch eight holes through my body like a long knife cuts through a cow’s throat. With shaking hands I lift my skirt high and step over the wire, my shoulders hunched to my ears, certain the thing is going to jump on me at any moment.
My father has disappeared from sight, but I can still hear his distant footfalls, and I move as quickly as I can to catch up—which isn’t very quick because I have to look for wires strung across my path and spiders lying in wait. Despite my caution, my foot snags on something in the near dark. A dead rat.
It’s been sliced to ribbons.
Its little mouth is open wide, and so are its eyes. It looks as terrified as I feel, and I pity it, that its last thoughts were of horror and pain as the spider tore its guts from its body. Two thin, parallel streaks of blood lead away from the carcass. I remember how low the spiders’ bodies hang and picture their bloody bellies dragging the floor as they scuttle away from their kill. Near where the trail ends is one of those piles of metal shavings. There are a lot of them down here. The sides of the hallway are lined with debris, like there’s a predator down here that eats metal, and these are the crumbs that fall from its mouth. I don’t want to meet this predator.
The hallway turns a sharp corner and opens up, becoming wider and much brighter, which is not what I would expect from a place this far underground. Lanterns hang on both sides, casting a silver white glow. My father is far up ahead, pressing a spot on the wall under the tenth lantern on the right before stepping across the hallway and disappearing. He is so focused on his task that he doesn’t notice me learning all his tricks.
The walls are made of sheets of hammered metal, enormous panels of it welded together, so shiny that I am almost blinded as they reflect the lantern light. Hundreds, thousands of pale-faced, wide-eyed Wens stare back at me, magnifying my fear. A scared little girl in a white dress.
I move quickly toward the tenth lantern on the right. I’m a few dozen steps away when part of the floor shifts beneath my left foot. My heart drops into my belly. I haven’t learned my father’s tricks after all. From behind me come several popping noises and the whir of gears. I spin around and see four metal spiders, each the size of a spring melon, crawling toward me with fangs raised. I back up so quickly I bounce off one of the walls, tearing my sleeve on the sharpened sconce of a metal lantern. As the spiders advance on me, spreading out across the hallway to block my escape, I lunge for the tenth lantern. There’s a button on the wall below it, and I slap my hand against it and let out a scream as one of the spiders reaches the hem of my dress. Its fangs slash down, tearing the fabric and hitting the floor an inch or so from my wool-covered toes. A door slides open behind me, nearly silent. Only the wave of cold air tells me I have an escape hatch.
With my heart drumming loud enough to drown out the metal clicking of spider feet, I throw myself through the doorway as two of the creatures jump onto my skirt. I must hit the opposite wall just right, though, because the door slides shut on my dress with a brittle metallic crunch. I bat at my dress, at my arms and legs, but it seems the door has saved me, because the spiders are either trapped on the other side with the rest of my dress or crushed to bits by the door itself. For several frantic minutes I fight to free myself, and finally manage to do it by tearing a full tier of muslin off the dress. Now it ends at midcalf, which is not only ridiculous but also horribly immodest. However, I’d rather have a short skirt than be eaten alive by mechanical arachnids.
I’m at the top of another staircase. The walls are made of rough stone. This must be the oldest part of the factory, the ruins on which the rest of it is built. Water trickles between the stones, and black moss clings to it. It feels like I’m in a cave, not a building.
My father’s footsteps are long gone now. After all my adventures, I’m well behind him, with no hope of catching up. I am alone deep within the guts of this old factory, knowing full well there are horrors waiting in the dark. If I go forward, I could be slaughtered like that rat. I’m asking for it. But when I hear a scrabbling noise on the other side of the door, I know I have no choice.
I creep down the steps slowly, trying very hard not to touch anything.
There’s plenty of light down here. Fine wires streak along the ceiling, an intricate web carrying electricity to lanterns set into metal sconces with sharp, curved ends. They are beautiful, but not in a way that makes me want to touch them. There’s something cold about them despite the warmth that emanates from their glowing bellies.
When I emerge from the stone staircase, I look up in awe at the cavernous space around me. I have never been in a place like this. The ceiling is as high as the one on the killing floor. It’s supported by thick columns of stone. Enormous metal monstrosities hulk along the walls, heavy gears and giant, spiraling drill bits, surfaces scarred with flames and grimed with oil.
The floor of this old factory room is . . . strange. Parts of it are black and wet looking, like moss on rock, and parts of it are covered in silver gray plates of metal. The metal winds its way through the space, a garden path, branching off into several rooms that have been constructed with welded metal. But none of that is as bizarre to me as what lines these paths.
Sitting and standing on the black, mossy patches are . . . people.
Metal people. Like my metal girl, only life-size. And I recognize them. Boss Jipu sits by a fork in the path, his broad jaw and narrow forehead giving him away. In the corner, with his arms spread wide around his weaselly body, is Mugo. A few are children—Minny’s son, just a scrap of a boy, squats on a mossy patch a few feet from me. They are so lifelike, and yet completely cold. Beautiful but untouchable. Fascinating but repellent. All of them have the same dead black eyes the spiders have, only these eyes are bigger. They are huge, in fact, rendering each countenance glazed, heartless, distorted.
Some of them are staring at each other.
Some are staring right at me.
I back up until my heels hit the staircase, and right then I hear the metal clicking, which sends a razor blade of fear sliding straight through my body. They’re here. The spiders. I burst forward, directionless and panicked.
“They won’t hurt you,” says an echoing voice, hoarse and tired. It is magnified somehow, and I look up and see a pipe over my head with a flared spout sticking out from it, like a gramophone.
“Where’s my father?” I wrap my arms around myself. I wonder if he’s been eaten already.
“Come see for yourself, Wen,” says the hoarse voice. “Second doorway on the left.”
I do as he says, even though I am wound as tight as a spring and ready to run for my life. The second doorway on the left opens up to a darkened room with a metal floor. In the corner, though, is a plush chair and a footrest.
My father is asleep in the chair, a book on his lap. Stories of Kulchan and His Warriors. He read me this book when I was younger, and now he has it here.
“Guiren hasn’t gotten much sleep lately,” says the ravaged voice. “He only made it through a few pages before he faded away.”
“Ghost?” I whisper.
“You weren’t supposed to come down here, Wen. I told you it was dangerous.” He doesn’t sound mad. He sounds too sick to be mad.
“I’m sorry. I followed my father.” This room isn’t very big, but it is rather dark. My father sits by a lit lantern, but the rest of the chamber is in shadow. Still, I can see there is a partition that separ
ates this part of the room from its other half, with only a doorway-size opening at the rear of the room.
The voice is coming from behind the partition.
And it sounds as bad as Melik’s did when he was wrung out by fever. “Are you ill?”
“You know, I’m ready for anything. I can stop anyone from coming down here if I want. Except for you.” He chuckles, and then coughs.
“Why can’t you stop me? It wouldn’t be that hard.”
“No, it wouldn’t. You are so . . .” He lets out a heavy breath, and it echoes through the pipes. There’s a creak, and then his voice simply comes to me from across the room, no metallic magnification. “Life was simpler before you came to Gochan, do you know that?”
I laugh; I can’t help myself. “For me, too.”
My father lets out a soft snort and shifts in the chair. He must feel very safe, or else he would never fall asleep in a place like this. I wonder if he’s been coming down here for the last seven years, watching the Ghost build this metal paradise for himself. I wonder if he’s helped him, if one of the reasons my father is in so much debt is that he has been feeding and nurturing a ghost for the past seven years.
“He’s been good to me, your father,” the Ghost says. “If it weren’t for him, I would be long dead.” He sounds so tired, like maybe being dead wouldn’t be the worst thing right now.
I take a few steps toward the partition.
“Wen, stop,” he says quietly. “Please?” His voice cracks.
“But I want to see you.”
“You can’t,” he whispers.
“You’re sick,” I say, trying to think of a way to get him to allow me to step around the partition, to meet the living dead boy who haunts Gochan One, the one who leaves me presents and protects me from metal spiders. “Do you need anything?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I . . . need . . .” He sighs. “Guiren!”