by Brian Byrne
Marty realised he was shaking. But he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Lissa was right—he wasn’t ready for the things Aileen or Victor had talked about. He wouldn’t be for a long time.
He spent that night staring at the top of the four poster bed. He’d become so preoccupied with his own hunger he’d completely forgotten about Victor and everyone else. They didn’t know it yet, but they were relying on him. He was the only one who could save their lives and he didn’t have the first clue how to do it. Lissa was right about that, too—he was no hero. He was a regular twelve year old with a strange power, good for nobody but himself.
Later that night his door creaked open. He watched as Lissa strolled into the room, pulled the chair out from the sewing machine and sat down, facing him.
“You asked me how I know about this place,” she said. Marty sat up. “I wasn’t planning on telling you, but I used to live here. One night, nearly two months ago now, the strangers came for my family, just as they did Sam’s grandparents. We heard them at the door. Mum told me to hide in the basement while they dealt with them. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did what she said. I was a coward, like I’ve always been. I locked myself down there, and listened while the strangers took them. They gave their lives for me. If Victor hadn’t come I’d probably still be here, starving to death.”
Lissa turned and looked at the sewing machine, and down at the pair of half-sewn jeans. “Mum was making these when they came. She was a seamstress. She loved making outfits for me.”
She stood up, pushed the chair in and strolled back out of the room, leaving Marty more awake than ever.
*
The next morning Marty went straight to Lissa’s bedroom. “I never thanked you for bringing me here,” he said, and she rolled over in bed to look at him. “Who knows where we’d have ended up if it wasn’t for you? It must have been hard for you to come back here.”
She propped herself up on one arm. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said all of those things to you yesterday, even if they are sort of true. I mean, when it comes down to it I suppose you’re not that bad.”
Marty felt his cheeks stretching. Smiling seemed so foreign now. “I’m no Aileen. I’m definitely no Richard Mortimus.”
Lissa shuddered. “He was disgusting. That face. And all that dandruff. Ugh.”
“Yeah, hopefully once we find Victor we’ll be able to get back at him some—”
Marty’s mouth opened wide then closed again, like a fish. “Hold on. Mortimus is bald. How could a bald person have dandruff on their shoulders?”
Lissa’s opened too, but didn’t close again.
“It wasn’t dandruff,” Marty said, and it came out a whisper. “It was…snow.”
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” Lissa moaned, falling back into bed. “Not the Depression?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Marty wasn’t too excited at the prospect of wading through all of that snow again, but the dread he felt was partly offset when he remembered Sam’s apartment. What were the chances his parents had left food behind? He highly doubted the strangers would have let them pack it up as they were leaving.
“This is all well and good,” Lissa pointed out as they walked side-by-side downstairs. “But how are we going to get passed all of those people?”
By this point the sewing machine was branded into Marty’s brain. “Can I see some of the outfits your mother made? I think there might be something we could…fashion.”
*
“This is your idea? I look ridiculous!”
If it weren’t for Lissa’s face Marty might have thought he had walked in on a stranger getting changed—albeit a shorter, considerably more stubborn one.
“Would you wait a minute? I’m not finished yet.” Marty had never been in a walk-in wardrobe before. It looked like a miniature clothes shop. There were all manner of outfits in here. Some items, like the dresses and suits, were the sort you’d see anywhere else. But there were plenty of outfits that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a costume shop.
“Here, put this on,” Marty said, throwing her a black top hat. “Oh, and these,” he added, bringing her over a pair of stilettos.
Lissa tilted her head. “Do you want me to snap my ankles?”
“The strangers are six feet tall. We have to make this look convincing.”
She plopped down on a puff and started putting them on. “I still don’t see why I have to be the one who dresses up. Can’t you do it? It is your idea.”
“Because I’m the one they want. When they see you, the stranger, dragging me along beside you, they’ll keep their distance.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said, shaking her head. “Will you help me? I’ve never walked in anything like these before.”
Marty walked her over to the full-length mirror. The trench coat had a different design and the top hat was the wrong shape, but compared to Lissa’s slightly sweaty face these were minor inaccuracies.
“I look even more ridiculous now!” she screeched. “They may be tainted but they’re not stupid. They’ll figure out what we’re up to the second we step outside!”
“I’m still not finished.” Marty pulled a pair of tights off the mannequin in the corner. “Try these on.”
“Why? You can’t even see my feet underneath this thing.”
“Not on your legs. On your head. It’ll disguise your face and you’ll still be able to see.”
“What?! No way!”
“Do you want to save Victor or not?” Marty’s guilt trip worked; she snapped the tights out of his hands, removed the top hat and pulled them down over her head. Marty looked at her in the mirror. It didn’t hide her face quite as much as he would have liked, but he hoped that for once the dark would work to his advantage.
*
“Remember,” Marty said with his hand on the door knob. “If you feel like you’re about to fall, lean on me. You’ll be holding onto me anyway so it shouldn’t look too obvious.”
“All right,” Lissa called from an entire foot overhead. “Let’s just get there as fast as we can.”
Marty took a moment to settle himself. He hadn’t realised it until right this instant, but he was terrified. Now that he really thought about it, this was a ridiculous idea. It was something that might work in an old B movie, not in real life. And what would happen when it didn’t? They had no backup plan; no way out if the whole idea backfired. They had one chance, and if they failed, they wouldn’t just be ending their own lives, but ironically, the lives of the very people who would kill them.
Lissa sighed. “Will you hurry up? My feet are aching already. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Marty grabbed the handle a little tighter. If the reflections were going to kill him tonight he wasn’t going to make it easy for them. He stood back, pulled the door open and threw himself into the front yard.
“Please!” he screamed, backing up along the ground as Lissa teetered after him out the door. “I don’t want to die!” He pulled himself upright, fake-stumbled and landed on the ground again, giving Lissa time to catch up. When she’d almost reached him he scrambled to his feet, screaming as he sprinted down the hill. Halfway down he pretended to trip and landed hard on the ground again. He took a peek at the reflections at the bottom. It was working: they became suddenly alarmed, their eyes wide with fear as they backed away.
“Get up!” Lissa hissed as she came close.
Marty stood up again, moving backwards but still giving her time to grab him. She swayed a little, but caught hold of his arm just as she was about to tip off her feet. He pretended to struggle as they walked together to the foot of the hill.
By now the reflections had largely dispersed, but they didn’t look as frightened as they had just a few moments ago. Now they were frowning, like they already knew something was up.
“Quicker!” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
“I can’t go any quicker!” Lissa sn
apped back.
Nearby, a tall man who’d backed onto the footpath started whispering to the couple next to him. As he talked they became suspicious, their eyes narrowing.
Marty felt Lissa swaying again. “Lean on me!” he said between fake whimpers.
“If I lean on you any more it won’t look right!”
All around them people were beginning to mutter. It wouldn’t be much longer until they figured out they were being fooled.
“We need th mve fstr!” Marty said, with his mouth shut like a ventriloquist’s.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Lissa replied loudly, becoming careless. “If I move quicker I’ll fall. Do you want me to fall?!”
“No, bt if we dn’t thy’ll—“
“Fraud!” somebody yelled. It was Emily Richardson. “That’s no stranger!”
“I’m going to—” Lissa squealed, tipping backwards. Marty threw out his arm in a bid to catch her but she was already sprawling onto the ground.
“Help!” she screamed as the reflections formed a ring around them. Marty bent down and pulled her out from under the jacket.
“Pick me up!” She kicked out, stabbing him in the ankle with her stiletto.
Marty yelped and just like that he got an idea. “Get on my back!”
Even Lissa understood this was no time for an argument. She clambered onto him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist. She was much heavier than she looked; now he was the one who was swaying.
“When I tell you to, let your legs go, okay?” She was slipping, so he pulled her up a little.
“All right,” Lissa screeched into his ear, making him flinch. “I really do hope you know what you’re doing.”
He didn’t, really. But when did he ever? He rotated, trying to spot a weak link in the mob. There must have been more than a hundred people here, but after nearly a full revolution he found it: a group of five kids, probably the same age as him, had linked their hands together like they were playing a game of Red Rover.
Marty clapped his hands around Lissa’s and ran towards them, turning his body to the side as he came near. “Now!” he yelled, and immediately felt himself being thrown off balance. He swung around, and on the second spin Lissa’s monstrous shoes hit three of them hard in the face, knocking them backwards and breaking the chain. Somehow Marty managed to remain upright, keeping Lissa on his back as he stumbled over the reflections and started running down the street.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Lissa said, laughing wildly as she wrapped her legs back around his waist.
The reflections took after them, but even with Lissa on his back Marty managed to keep his lead. He didn’t know where this sudden surge of energy had come from, but something about the reappearance of the man in maroon made him hungry; not for food, but for answers. It made him feel like he was getting closer, not just to finding Victor, but to whoever had spent thirteen years sending reflections through mirrors for no other reason than to kill him. The person who’d blackmailed Sam, and when that didn’t work, given Mortimus orders to burn Victor’s house down. The person who had the ability to make an entire world do as he pleased but didn’t have the courage to face Marty.
Marty’s legs suddenly felt heavy. He realised he was attempting to run through two feet of snow. They’d made it. They’d actually made it. He looked back up the hill and saw that their chasers were slowing, too. Gradually they were giving up and turning back.
“Great job,” said Lissa, patting him on the back. “Now can we go inside? My feet are killing me.”
*
Marty opened a cupboard at random and went weak at the knees. He was right: Sam’s grandparents had left food behind. Lots of it, too. There were huge bags of wheat, porridge and rice, enough to keep them going for at least a couple of months.
At the stove Lissa let out a little cheer. “We have power! Now we’ll actually be able to eat the porridge instead of just gagging on it!”
Marty opened up another cupboard and thought he might topple over entirely. Tall jars of jam in every possible flavour, and beside them, an assortment of peanut butters: smooth, chunky, organic, whole grain. “Forget the porridge,” he said, pulling out jars at random. “This is all I’m eating.” He took a fistful of chunky peanut butter, jammed it into some blueberry jam and proceeded to stuff himself silly.
It was amazing how good a single meal made him feel. As soon as he swallowed the first sticky mouthful Marty felt reenergised, like he could take on the reflections all over again. Lissa also seemed to be in a much better mood, immediately agreeing that, once they finished eating, they would pull on some extra layers of clothes and start looking for Victor.
*
Outside an icy wind had started up, but Marty was wearing so many clothes it felt more like a tepid breeze.
The Depression consisted of a block of apartments and, next to it, two rows of houses. They circled the apartments first but found nothing. The houses, too, looked abandoned.
“I thought you said they took Victor here?” Lissa said, her teeth chattering in spite of her multiple sweaters.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re not outside.”
That’s when it happened again: there, on the other side of the street, he spotted the man in maroon. The man turned around and vanished between two houses, but this time Marty was ready.
“Go back to the apartment,” he shouted, already bolting across the street. “I’ll be back soon!”
“Where are you going?!” Lissa screamed.
“No idea!” Marty slipped between the same two houses but when he got to the back garden it was deserted. There were three walls here, all of which led to neighbouring gardens. There was no telling which one the man had chosen, so Marty picked the back one on a whim, using an old dog kennel to help himself over it. This one was abandoned too so he ran out onto the street. At the far end he spotted the man’s coat billowing behind him as he disappeared around the corner, back towards the block of apartments. Marty broke into a sprint. It was hard running in the snow, and he had to lift his legs high with every step he took, but at last he came to the corner. For a moment he thought the man had vanished and felt a strange concoction of disappointment, and oddly, relief. Then he saw him—half of him—smack dab in the middle of the street, quickly disappearing into the ground. Confused, Marty picked up the pace. When he finally got there he saw a grate. He leaned in for a better look and shivered. It was dark down there, so dark he couldn’t even see where it went. What if there was a big drop? What if someone—or something—was waiting for him at the bottom? He was scared, but curious. Did this man know where Victor had disappeared to? Was he about to lead him to someone who did? Either way it was too big a lead to throw away, no matter how much he’d rather stay above ground.
Bending down, Marty slipped his fingers through the gaps and pulled, but nothing happened. He took a deep breath and tried again. Still nothing. After a quick scan he found a latch on the right hand side. He undid it and this time the grate came up easily. He sat down, hung his legs over the edge and, before he could rethink this somewhat hasty decision, pushed off and fell silently into the darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The ground came quicker than he thought it would. His feet hit first, immediately going from under him as he sprawled onto his back. Feeling slightly stunned, it took him a few seconds to finally sit upright. This was a new breed of darkness. Blinder than a visually impaired bat he felt around underneath him and found something cold and slippery—ice. Then he noticed the smell. It was like a dozen Richard Mortimuses were breathing heavily into his face. What made it worse was the heat: despite the ice it was incredibly humid and he was already feeling dehydrated. He stripped down to a single t-shirt and trousers and felt a bit more comfortable. Standing up he spread his arms wide and found smooth concrete on either side, arching around him to form a tunnel. When he looked straight up he saw the hole he’d fallen from, a tiny white squar
e in a starless black sky. He frowned. If the heat wasn’t from his surroundings, where was it coming from?
Swallowing the bile that had been creeping up his throat Marty felt around for his torch. He’d stowed it four sweaters deep, but eventually he found it, turned it on and—nothing happened. No wonder it had cost so little. More out of habit than anything else he put it back in his pocket and, with no other reason to delay, set off.
After a few minutes the tunnel veered left, right and then left again, like the slithering of a snake. Marty felt the ground descending as the tunnel continued turning this way and that, leading him deeper and deeper underground.
His ears had just popped when something finally broke the impenetrable blackness. At first he was sure he was seeing things, but no matter how long he waited, no matter how many times he tried to blink it away, it refused to fade.
It was a star—or at least it looked like one. It was the same size and shape only much less bright, as if the dark were nulling some of its power. Marty waited a beat and then did what any person with very little options would do: he ran towards it. Suddenly, he knew this was it. He knew that for all his questions, he would find the answers, all of them, in the middle of this star. He didn’t know how or why he knew—he just did.
It was getting warmer now, like the star itself was the source of the heat. It grew bigger, and soon it stopped looking like a star and became a circle of light. Marty ran faster, not stopping even when he thought he was about to slip on the ice, until the circle grew so big he saw what lay beyond it.
He slowed and crept towards the edge. He was standing, not on the cusp of a star, but a vast cavern. The walls were littered with the openings of hundreds of tunnels like this one. Below, the floor sloped inwards to what could only be described as a massive gaping hole. And above it, suspended high in the air by coiling tendrils of dirty black smoke, was a man dressed in a pair of striped green pyjamas.
In that moment Marty forgot everything. He forgot he was standing at the heart of a sewer system, where the only way out was down. He forgot he was several feet underground, where nobody—not even Lissa—would know if things went astray. He forgot that from this point onwards, there was no backing out. He leaped out of the tunnel, dropping several feet onto the ground below. But instead of tumbling he threw himself forwards and rolled. It worked: the pain in his legs was minimal and in seconds he was on his feet again, running towards the centre of the cavern.