by Martin Kee
“V—Victoria?” the twerp said at last, her voice hoarse. “Dona?”
Victoria rolled onto her back, holding up her arm, staring at the long scrape that now ran from her elbow to her palm. Her lower lip trembled. She started to lunge again, but Dona’s voice made her freeze.
“Everyone just stop!” Dona bellowed. “Neither of you move.”
Both girls stared at her. The twerp still hadn’t realized that she was bleeding along her temple. Victoria pouted, crossing her arms and Dona turned to face her first.
“I’m not doing this,” she said. “I only wanted to see if she was here, if she was for real. Now I know. I’ll not be a party to your plans.”
The trembling in Victoria’s lip ceased and the girl stood. Brushing herself off she said simply, “I hope you two enjoy catching up,” then strode from the room.
Dona held the twerp in her gaze over the sound of footsteps on stairs, the clacking of heels on marble. Then came the back door opening, closing.
Silence. They were alone.
Dona took a long breath and pulled an envelope from her pocket, creased and wrinkled. It looked as though an attempt had been made to tear it at one point. She tossed it across the room at Skyla.
“Did you write that?” she asked.
Skyla picked up the letter and opened it. Dona watched her expression go from shock, to amusement, to horror. The girl looked at her from over the paper and slowly shook her head. “No.”
“I didn’t think so,” Dona said. “Did you write me back at all?”
“Yes.”
“You know, when I first saw you, I thought I was going insane. Then I read that letter and I wanted to kill you. Now I don’t know what to feel.”
Skyla raised and lowered her shoulders in a slow shrug. “Betrayed?”
“I suppose,” Dona made a face. “Though Vicky and I haven’t been all that close for a while, not since Melissa…”
Her voice trailed off when she saw the expression on the girl’s face. It wasn’t as pained as she expected, almost indifferent.
“You don’t miss her?”
“Sure I do,” said Skyla. “But…”
“But what?”
Skyla shrugged and shook her head. “It’s complicated. Let’s just say that I have very clear memories of her to keep me company.”
Dona stood and looked out the window. Police carriages were starting to pass along the street, heading to the memorial service that would begin. Skyla noticed this as well.
“Is there a fire?” the girl asked.
“It appears our mayor has died,” Dona explained.
Skyla’s eyes went wide. “Really? Who was mayor?”
“Perlandine.” She narrowed her gaze at the girl. “It’s been in all the papers. How could you miss something like that? Have you been living under a rock?”
The girl shrugged again in that way Dona still hated. It always felt so smug, like the girl was keeping some secret from everyone.
Dona let it go for now. “You were crying,” she stated.
“I was,” said Skyla, her face neutral.
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not really.” Skyla turned to face her. “You were about to hold me down while Victoria did some pro bono dental work on me. Something must have changed your mind. Care to elaborate on that?”
“Why don’t you read my mind and tell me, twerp?”
The girl didn’t respond the way Dona expected. She simply stared out the window again. As she turned away, Dona found herself relieved that she didn’t have to see the girl’s eyes anymore. They seemed wrong somehow, too old and too sad.
“That isn’t what I do,” said Skyla.
“You sure knew a lot about people,” Dona said and leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms. “I mean, that was the thing everyone knew about you. You were the gossip, always something to say about someone.”
“Bad habit, I guess.” The light played across Skyla’s face and she wiped her cheek.
“You’re bleeding, by the way.”
The girl put a hand to her head and looked at the blood. Dona gave her a handkerchief from her pocket.
“Thanks. She punches harder than I remember.” Skyla placed the cloth to her temple. Scratches encircled one eye from the glass and Dona figured she was lucky not to be blind.
“She’s been practicing for a few years. Pliers helped too, I guess.”
She watched as Skyla removed the headgear, studying it. A patch of hair came free and she plucked it out, tossing it aside as if it were a common occurrence. One of the lenses was smashed beyond repair, the shards strewn across the floor. The girl frowned as she played with the hinge. It made a sickly click-whir as she tried to close it.
“Mind if I keep this?” Skyla asked, holding out the handkerchief.
Dona shrugged. “I guess.”
The girl fastened it over the shattered lens, closing the casing over it to hold it closed, then placed the goggles back on her head. They sat on the floor facing one another.
“So what made you change your mind?” Skyla asked her.
Dona shrugged, looking away. “I’ve got other things on my mind. You do too, I suppose.”
They sat there for a while as the foot and motor traffic passed on the street below, just two girls talking in a haunted house. When she looked back at Skyla the girl was staring at her through the single lens—or perhaps staring through her.
“You’re doing it again,” Dona said. “That staring. I always hated it.”
“Sorry,” said Skyla. “It’s just that this house is dangerous. There’s…”
“There’s what?”
Skyla smiled apologetically. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Well, try.”
“Not now,” said Skyla. “Maybe later.”
“Why were you crying?” Dona cocked her head.
Skyla gave her a bemused look. “You sure have a lot of questions.”
“I just saved your ass. I’d say you owe me a few answers.”
“A moment ago, you were going to pin me down for the junior dentist. Now you’re acting all concerned?”
Dona shook her head. “I was never going to do that. So, what’s wrong?”
The girl gave her a cautious look. “A friend of mine was hurt... Badly hurt in the bombing… maybe dead. I don’t know.”
“Here? You mean the cannon?”
Skyla shook her head. “No, a bomb. In Rhinewall. She might be dead.”
“When did this happen?”
“Just now.”
Dona made a face. It was all too ridiculous. Clearly the girl was still crazy, or still a liar. Or perhaps she had been lying the whole time. Maybe all of the above. Maybe she was just a very good guesser.
“It’s okay,” Skyla said. “I wouldn’t believe me either.”
“You’ll excuse me if I have a hard time with all of this. I just don’t see how you could know what goes on in Rhinewall… unless you have access to a TypeTalker.”
“If I told you, would you believe me?’
“More than I do now,” Dona said with a half grin. “Why here of all places? I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would want to live in this house after what happened. And then I see you up here in the room.”
“I don’t live here,” said Skyla. “It’s just a safe spot for me.”
“Safe spot…”
“It’s a familiar place… I don’t have a home here anymore, remember?”
“Right…” Dona looked away. “Everyone said you burned it down.”
Skyla only nodded. “That makes sense.”
“You didn’t?”
“Nope.” Skyla dabbed at her lip with a sleeve, looked at the spot of blood.
“And you aren’t going to tell me who did?”
Skyla looked at her. “Do you remember the Reverend Summers?”
“The preacher? Sure. Why?”
Skyla shrugged. “He wanted to smoke me out, I guess. Get me away from s
afety, capture me… and he did eventually. So I guess that worked.”
Dona narrowed her eyes again. “The same Reverend Summers…”
“Yes. Him.”
“But everybody loved the Reverend.”
“Not everyone.”
“He practically saved this city. The man’s a saint,” Dona said.
The laugh that Skyla barked was so sudden and so bitter that Dona actually recoiled. She wasn’t sure if it was the strangeness of the girl’s eyes, or the fact she had never heard a laugh so jaded and bitter from a girl her age. It was a witch’s cackle, full of anger and spite.
“So he kidnapped you,” Dona said. “The savior of this city is a kidnapper.”
Skyla nodded.
“But you escaped… clearly.” Dona was again feeling that she was being had. “And I supposed you somehow just arrived from Rhinewall.” She could feel the anger rising in her voice again, that hatred of being lied to.
“I don’t expect you to believe me,” said Skyla, standing up. She pulled the lens brace closed with a creak, peering at Dona with one eye, the edges of the bloody handkerchief peeking out around the lens casing. “Thanks for the help.”
“Wait,” Dona said, standing and holding out a hand. “I’m sorry. I… I don’t mean to be so skeptical.”
“I know.” Skyla gave her a weak smile. “Look, I appreciate your change of heart, however it came about—”
Fresh footsteps echoed from the street, loud and numerous. Skyla and Dona ran to the window and looked down at the front lawn. A dozen soldiers, their armor glistening in the lamplight rushed across the overgrown ground. Behind them, Victoria strode towards the house, staring up at the window. Her eyes met Dona’s and she winked.
Wood splintered downstairs as the soldiers entered the house, heavy boots crossing the living room and ascending the stairs.
“You’d better go,” said Dona, turning towards Skyla. “Before they arrest you—”
But the girl had vanished. Dona opened the closet door, knowing exactly what to expect. It was empty, only the swaying of clothes and the sparkle of shattered glass on the floor proving that Skyla had been there at all.
Chapter 34
In-Between
GIL FLOATED, RISING and falling with the tide like a fishing bobber. When she surfaced, her world was veiled in pain. The left side of her body throbbed. Men’s voices spoke around her, their words sometimes incoherent, other times crystal clear. Two of the voices were familiar, while another voice made her think of a honeybee in a tin can.
This buzzing voice spoke with little emotion its words long and confusing. “The patient is experiencing a state of shock. These next few days will be crucial if she is to survive the dialysis and therapy to ease the cranial pressure.”
“How do you know?” a man asked. He turned and spoke to someone else. “What does that even mean?”
“It is a medical term,” the buzzing voice would say. “The body is trying to dull the effects of trauma from the explosion. She is very fortunate to be alive. She has lost a great deal of blood. She has suffered a severe concussion. I recommend stasis for now until her vital signs have stabilized.”
“Well, you’re the Physician,” the other man said.
Then the pain would return and she would heave and thrash, her back arching as cold metal probes worked their way into her veins. She was a blind, twisting animal during those times. The pain made her want to retreat, to sink back under the surface—
And there it wasn’t much better, but at least she could see. With eyeless sight Gil could make out shapes, dreams, strange convulsing figures and others who begged her to stay.
This time she found herself on the edge of a cliff, looking across a wooded valley, its tall, coniferous trees swaying in the wind. Strange creatures moved unnaturally, their upper torsos looming above the pointed tops of pines, their heads nothing but a single tentacle set between dual mouths that gnashed at the air with human teeth. When one of the creatures moved into a clearing, Gil saw that it had three legs, its weight shifting between them with no discernable rhythm. Other things flew across the strange dipping clouds, their wings immense as they took to the air, plucking people from the ground. The people screamed—
Awake again and in pain, Gil tried to open her eyes, seeing only a blur. Her face was on fire. She tried to move her arms, finding them restrained with leather straps. Was this another Confessional? She pulled on the restraints and heard a voice.
“She’s back! Get the Physician.”
She heard footsteps in the dark followed by a rhythmic clicking—a clockwork heart beating near her ear. The buzzing voice spoke. “She is still unstable. I am applying more morphine.”
“That’s a lot. She’s just a child.”
“Do you know how old she is for certain?”
“Am I sure of anything? It… it just looks like a lot,” said the one man.
“The patient has been weighed. I assure you we are keeping the dosage within reason.” The voice was strange, metallic, a man speaking through a muffled kazoo.
“What about the arm?”
“The arm?”
“The bolts… it just seems so barbaric.”
“This is only a framework, a connection point for the prosthesis. We will wait to see if she survives before we decide if it is appropriate to proceed…”
A moment later there was the sound of buzz-saws and cutting tools, drifting closer with nightmare proximity. The pain went deep, into her bones, dulled by the morphine. Oh, how she craved more of that morphine. She wanted it in her veins all the time, coursing through her system, making everything pleasant.
A voice spoke behind her, a man’s voice. “Hello, Lovebug.”
“Daddy?”
The man in the room with her spoke again, but more distant now. “Did you hear that?”
“Daddy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I told them!” she cried.
“She isn’t coherent.”
“I will put her under.” Strange leather hands constricted around her arms as she thrashed.
“Daddy—”
She found herself back in the wilderness, the cliff replaced by a wasteland, a blank slate of gray desert. And she was not alone.
A man stared at her from the corner of her eye. He stood inside a green glass box, wearing a suit of white linen, his shadow long spreading across the ground. She wanted to look, but the events through the window were far more interesting. They were screwing something into that girl’s bones.
That girl is me.
Gil stared at the figure on the metal bed. There were two men in the room, a third coming and going. She remembered Harold from the curio shop, the man who came and went was the shop owner, Felton.
The rally. He was at the rally.
But the third figure she did not know. He was tall, wearing a leather cloak and beaked mask—a raven man. He pressed a screw into naked bone, tightening it with a small apparatus that emerged from his hand. The girl lying on the bed groaned and Gil turned away from the window. It hurt too much to watch.
The man in white was closer now, a grin extending beneath his hat. Why did he look familiar?
“You appear to be in a great deal of pain.”
“It hurts out there,” she said and looked back through the thick green glass.
Hours had passed. The two men stood on either side of her body as tubes and wires sprouted from every crevice and orifice. She looked like a girl caught in a spider’s web. The Other Gil’s arm ended in a metal nub now, tubes and wires trailing from the tip. Harold was kneeling over her, either praying or crying. Gil couldn’t tell.
“I knew that one, Felton,” said the man in white, his voice muted through the glass. “We were from the same city him and me. He was a coroner, a butcher. The other one, Harold, is simply incompetent.”
“Will they help me?”
“They might,” said the man, his voice closer now, behind her. “But Harold will likely only make things worse. He’s is a
banker, not a surgeon.”
“That’s too bad,” she said.
“I may be able to help however,” said the man in white. “I can take you from that bed of pain and you can be free of it all.”
“Are there answers where you will take me?” she asked, still staring at the two men watching over her. The Physician entered again, his glass eyes reminding her of Skyla’s goggles.
“What sort of answers are you looking for?” the man in white asked.
She paused, unsure if it was okay to ask. “I want to see my father.”
“He’s here,” said the voice, silky smooth now. “He wants to see you.”
“He is?”
“Turn around and see him.” The voice changed. “I’m right here, Lovebug.”
Her eyes flinched, just a glance. He was closer now, only several feet away, the ground a moving black blot beneath his glass cage, spreading like an oil slick. Another figure appeared outside the glass box. It could have been her father…
Don’t, said a voice in her mind. If you look at him it will be the last time you ever look at anything. Don’t turn away from the glass.
Glass like the pictures she took. Glass to capture light.
“I know you,” she said.
Did that smile fade? She wasn’t sure, but refused to look again.
“Oh?” said the man.
“You were in the photos. You were in the closet, reaching out at her.”
The smile became a sneer, but the man said nothing.
She stared at her body in that tiny room, strapped to that operating table. It hurt to look, hurt more than anything. All she wanted was for the pain to go away, and to see her father.
I don’t know if I can go on like this, she thought.
“It can all go away,” the man said, his smile returning. “I can take you from here.”
Gil placed her hands on the glass and realized that her left hand was gone, the bone jutting out—a fractured spear with blood and gore weaved around the base.
“No more pain,” said the man. “Just you, me, and Jesus.”
“And my father, right?” she asked.
There was a pause, uncertainty. “Of course.”