by Kelly Creagh
Then, at the sound of humming, she froze.
Someone else was in the room with her—a woman.
The song, slow and soft, was one Isobel knew. Varen’s lullaby.
Isobel stalled her breathing to listen, but just as quickly as the melody had begun, it halted.
She scanned the cluttered room, her sight settling finally on an old dressing screen unfolded in front of the window that, in the real world, led out onto the fire escape.
Squinting, Isobel focused on one of the narrow gaps between the hinged panels.
She could see someone there, sitting on the other side.
As she inched forward, she reluctantly let Scrimshaw’s draped form slide out of her view. Peeking around the screen, she found a woman seated in a cloth-covered chair.
Except, Isobel realized with grim fascination, the figure wasn’t a woman at all.
With seeming disinterest, the life-size doll stared out through the slats of the shuttered window, her eyes lazy and half-lidded, curled lashes throwing long spidery shadows over her rouged cheeks.
Cobwebs swathed her narrow frame, clinging to the moth-eaten frills of her lavender gown. Frizzed wisps of ash-blond hair framed her somber, crackled-paint features, while a familiar purple rhinestone comb secured a loose bun at the base of her neck.
Isobel slipped behind the screen, floorboards whining as she drew nearer for a better look. Triggered by her motions, the brass windup key protruding from the figurine’s back twitched into motion. The key unwound, twisting the cobwebs with it as it rotated, and the humming started again.
Isobel grasped the brass key and held it steady, halting the woman’s voice.
She checked over her shoulder again and could just make out the edge of the boot still sticking out from the sheet. The blue claws, too.
Isobel looked back to the doll.
Sift through his darkness, Reynolds had told her.
Was that what this place was?
Crouching in front of the doll, Isobel searched her fixed features for some answer.
Madeline, Isobel thought. Varen’s mother. Was this how she existed in his mind? As a cold and lifeless mannequin? A windup memory that could only repeat the same sad song over and over? Her image preserved but faded, distorted and worn down by the years of not knowing—not being able to comprehend—what had become of her?
“Why did you leave?” Isobel whispered.
As though in response, the doll’s eyelids rolled up to reveal emerald irises and a glassy stare that trained itself on Isobel. The pupils shrank to pinpricks. Then, with a quiet pop, the orbs cracked. Black oil seeped out from the inner crevices of the doll’s eyes, tracking dark streaks down her cheeks.
Splattering onto the floor, two blots of oil writhed and wriggled into a pair of tiny, dark brown beetles.
Isobel straightened quickly. She jumped back from the insects as they scurried toward her and then, one after the other, into a hollowed knot between floorboards.
She glanced back to the doll and saw that her cracked eyes had fallen shut.
Without a sound, the doll had lifted a porcelain finger to her ruby lips, as though calling for silence.
Somewhere in the room, something fell with a low clunk. A shadow skirted the ceiling, and with a splintering of glass, the light Isobel had lit winked out.
11
Noc Noc
Isobel grew still, holding her breath in the renewed darkness.
Shifting her weight slowly, to keep the floor from creaking again, she leaned toward the slim space between the wall and the screen. Peeking through, she saw that the bowl lay overturned, its contents strewn across the worn boards.
But Isobel did not see the largest of the porcelain shards, the fragment containing the etching of Virginia.
It was missing—just like the figure from beneath the collapsed white sheet.
“They call them deathwatches. ”
The deep, static-corroded voice—almost incomprehensible in its distortion—had come from directly beside her.
Isobel’s eyes slid in the direction of the screen. Poison-tipped hooks of fear snagged her through the gut as she caught sight of a single pitch-black eye, watching her through the narrow slit between panels.
Grinning, the Noc flashed a double row of serrated teeth, an intricate network of cracks spreading into view on the visible slice of his porcelain cheek.
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He inserted an indigo claw into the gap and pointed at her.
“If you listen closely,” he continued, a glossy bead of black liquid racing down his curved nail, “you can hear them in the walls. ”
Isobel zeroed in on the droplet as it reached the very tip of the Noc’s claw. Before the drop could fall, however, it wriggled to life, forming into another of the rust-colored beetles.
Tumbling onto the floor, the insect scrambled to right itself, then scurried off into the same hole as the others.
“The sound, it goes something like this . . . ,” the Noc hissed, and retracting his claw, he tapped lightly against the screen.
The same noise answered from beneath, below the patch of floor right under her.
Tensing, Isobel readied herself to run. But she already knew it was too late. There was nowhere to go.
Nowhere the Noc wouldn’t be able to reach first.
“Their ticking is said to herald the final moments of one who is close to death,” Scrimshaw went on, his jagged grin spreading wider. “So their name, you see, is very suiting. ”
Growing louder, the clicking began to spread, multiplying into a cacophony that Isobel could feel through the soles of her shoes.
Dream, she thought, shifting from one foot to the other, edging away from the hole where, inside, something moved.
“There’s only one problem,” the Noc said, his tone dropping to a hush while the tapping noise continued to rise in volume.
Just . . . a dream.
“History has proven that I can’t die. And since you already have, one is left to wonder what all their fuss is about. ”
Suddenly the ticking ceased. The floor groaned.
Silence.
Then, in a rushing surge, a torrent of tiny bodies came flooding up through the hole.
Isobel cried out. She shrank back.
Stumbling into the chair, she knocked the doll aside. The figure’s head cracked against the windowsill, causing the key affixed to her back to jog into motion again.
The sound of the doll’s humming, slow and stilted, arose to join the beetles’ renewed clicking as her eyelids rolled open, each socket unleashing a fresh cascade of insects.
The bugs converged on Isobel’s shoes, and the screech that had been building inside her at last broke free. She kicked at the gathering swarm, but quick as flames, they engulfed her legs. They scurried up her jeans and scuttled beneath the hems, onto the cuffs of her socks and then the bare skin of her ankles.
Isobel stomped to shake them free and tried to sweep the bugs clear from her in handfuls. But the insects clung to her arms and wrists, scaling her shoulders and then her neck.
She twisted and, tumbling into the screen, slammed with it to the floor.
The bang rattled the boards, rallying even more bugs from all the rotted-out knots that had not been there moments before.
A deep chuckle filled her ears as the tide of insects swept over her.
Her screams pitched higher, joining the doll’s dying song and the Noc’s laughter until all were eclipsed by the now-deafening sound of the ticking.
She needed to get away. Out of there. Home. She wanted to be home. To wake up and never, ever sleep again. She needed—
“Reynolds!” she managed to screech while the writhing mass enveloped her throat, scrambling up her jaw and over her chin.
Clamping her mouth shut, Isobel jerked to one side. She threw her head back, but that didn’t stop the
hordes of tiny bodies from hurrying over her pinched lips.
Lashing left and right, tearing at her own face, she rolled and felt the moving sheet of shells beneath her crunch like a layer of dead leaves. Everywhere, her skin prickled with the sensation of thousands of minuscule legs.
She shut her eyes just before the frenzying ranks could scramble over her lids and into her ears, obliterating the last hints of light and sound—all but their own incessant ticking.
Her screams, no longer containable, burst forth in glass-shattering tones. Sanity left her the instant the insects flooded her mouth, cutting her off before she could cry Reynolds’s name again.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Beneath the drone, a far-off voice repeated her name, urging her to take control, telling her again and again that she was dreaming.
Dreams . . .
They only feel real when you let them, she’d told Danny.
When you let them . . .
Curling into herself, Isobel imagined the living sheath that encased her shriveling up and crumbling away into cinders. As she focused hard on the visual, she felt the currents of scampering legs dissipate, the weight of the attacking insects lift from her body.
All at once, the clicking inside her head ceased, and with a rattling gasp, she sat up.
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Frantically brushing her arms and legs, swiping at her collar and shoulders, Isobel wiped away only dust. She coughed up grime, the choking soot coating her mouth and throat. She didn’t care, though. Not so long as the beetles were gone.
She flinched, eyes darting wildly in search of her tormentor, but like the beetles, the Noc and the attic had vanished. An even deeper darkness bathed new surroundings, interrupted only by the red glow of embers emanating from a fireplace far larger and more ornate than the one through which she’d entered.
She was now in a tidy study.
Quaking uncontrollably, Isobel whimpered, raking her fingers through her hair. Breathless, she whipped her head from side to side, anticipating the next horror Scrimshaw would no doubt inflict on her at any moment.
“Shh, we’re here now,” spoke the distorted voice through the gloom, its tones softer than before, though no less caustic.
“Stay away,” Isobel said, wrestling herself onto quivering legs.
“Hush now,” the Noc said. “Hush. No need for all that. It was just a bad dream. That’s all. We’re here, and that means he’s gone. For now. ”
Isobel wrapped her arms around herself tight and, though her eyes searched, she could not find the source of the voice that seemed to echo from everywhere and nowhere.
On a nearby table, she saw the same oil lamp she’d encountered in the attic. Its chimney, now clean and unbroken, guarded a minuscule blue flame. Then the lamp’s skeleton-key handle twisted on its own, and the flame grew into a tall column of flickering violet fire.
The glow illuminated the same leather-bound books from the attic. Now clear of cobwebs, the tomes lined shelves that followed the walls. Thick purple curtains hung over a shuttered casement window, their folds pooling on the floor, and against one wall stood a familiar pair of ornate double doors.
The plush velvet armchair from the attic now sat facing the glimmering hearth, and suddenly Isobel remembered exactly where she’d seen it before.
Here. In this very room. The purple chamber where she had found Varen imprisoned the night of the Grim Facade.
But someone other than Varen occupied the chair now, red claws resting on one of the arms.
“Don’t be angry with us,” the Noc whispered, “but we had to let him have his fun. Only because we wanted to be sure. Then again, scars don’t lie, do they?”
Motionless, Isobel waited to see if the claws would move, if the seat’s occupant would rise and face her. Well aware that this could be yet another illusion brought on by the treachery inherent in this ever-changing realm, she held her ground.
Still, if Scrimshaw had been pieced together again, then couldn’t the same have been done for—
“Pin?” Isobel said, the single syllable quavering.
“You know how the saying goes,” answered the voice, which sounded weak now, fading. “Where there’s one . . . ”
“There’s more,” Isobel breathed, her memory snatching the final line from the poem Varen had written about the Nocs, the same one she’d read in his sketchbook just moments before burning its pages.
She started forward, keeping her gaze trained on that clawed hand. But when she rounded the chair, she found the seat empty—like the crackled, hollowed limb that occupied the armrest, amputated at the bicep.
Someone snickered.
“Please,” Isobel said, spinning to search the shadows again. “No more tricks. No more games. If it’s really you . . . then help me. Help me find him. Help me find both of you. ”
“If it’s really you,” the voice whispered, its nearness causing her skin to prickle, “you’ll know where to look. You always do. ”
A hand stroked her hair, claws clicking as they grazed her shoulder.
She snapped her head to the right, but still, there was no one. Even the empty limb had vanished.
Behind her there came a quiet click followed by a low creak, and, turning, she saw that one of the tall double doors had eased ajar.
Her gaze trailed up the slim black crack to where, positioned at the top of the door frame in an extension of its decorative molding, the back-lit bust of the chamber’s Grecian warrior woman held the appearance of slumbering.
Isobel remembered that the statue hadn’t been sleeping when she’d been here before, though. Nor had it so closely resembled her, with its hair no longer tightly coiled but straight, falling long to rest around bare shoulders.
“Issssobel. ”
Feet sinking into the thick carpet, heels trailing the dusty residue of her last nightmare, Isobel approached the beckoning call that had come from the open slit between doors—and whatever new horror waited beyond.
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She paused in front of the gap and, peering up at the bust one more time, drew strength from the warrior’s image, from the suggestion of courage it gave.
Then, as she watched the sculpture’s smooth face, a thin crimson split appeared on one alabaster cheek. Blood seeped from the wound, blazing bright.
A phantom pain emanated from Isobel’s own mirroring scar.
She ignored it, though, and taking one knob in each hand, she pushed the doors apart.
12
Phantom Chased
Darkness waited for her in the long, silent hall.
Heavy chandeliers floated above untethered, their underbellies dripping shards of crystal.
The ominous, rolling presence of the smoke ceiling alerted Isobel that she was back in Varen’s Gothic palace, though now she wondered if she’d ever left its boundaries.
She leaned into the hall and glanced left. A pair of violet velvet curtains framed a high wooden archway that led into a joining corridor.
Craning her neck right, toward the opposite end of the hall, she squinted through the gloom—and started. Someone was there, peeking at her from behind a matching pair of curtains midway down.
Isobel withdrew fast into the purple chamber. Waiting a beat, she risked a second glance around the jamb.
The same figure moved in time with her, the stranger’s straight blond hair draping long, just like hers . . . leading Isobel to realize she wasn’t viewing a long corridor at all.
It was a short hall. One that terminated in—a mirror?
Venturing into the center of the passage, she faced her reflection, frowning in confusion. Because she knew she shouldn’t have a reflection. Not as long as she was here in astral form. Not as long as she was dreaming.
With cautious steps, Isobel started toward the image of herself. Taking in the details of her own dust-coated figure, she tilted her cheek
slightly to one side to ensure that her reflection shared her scar. It did. She drifted closer before stopping a few feet away.
The image in the mirror matched her movements—her stillness—perfectly.
Until it winked.
Isobel blinked in surprise.
Smiling, her duplicate whirled—and ran.
Isobel darted after the double.
Passing through the curtains ahead, the entity skidded to a halt, opening its arms to keep balance. Following suit, Isobel staggered to a standstill in front of the mirror, unable to fight the sensation that, without meaning to, she’d performed the exact same movement.
Next, she whipped her head around to see her doppelgänger standing under the archway at the opposite end of the corridor. The specter had whipped its head around too, giving the illusion that there was another mirror at the opposite end of the hall. Then the figment grinned again and, sticking its tongue out at Isobel, dashed to the side, disappearing into the adjoining hallway.
Isobel sprinted after, recalling as she did what she’d overheard the two cloaked figures in the cathedral say about her dream-selves—that they always went to the same place. To the same person. Varen.
She sped around the corner, and up ahead, she glimpsed a fleeting whip of blond hair as her double vanished around the next bend.
Isobel rounded the bend too, to find herself in a new corridor, this one empty.
The drapes at the far end hung motionless. She slowed as she approached them, then stopped, carefully drawing back one side of the hangings.
There, at the end of the next hall, her look-alike mirrored her stance, peeking around one drape into the connecting corridor.
Confused, Isobel pulled back. Pressing her spine flush with the wall, she glanced down the passage through which she’d just come.
Nothing. There was no one. And yet . . . one of the curtains swayed.
With bewilderment, Isobel lifted an arm, extending it out into the passage.
And an arm appeared at the far turn.
Isobel withdrew. The phantom limb copied her, vanishing, the drapes rippling. She repeated the test, and keeping her arm extended this time, she stared at the copycat arm, trying to grasp what was happening.
Had she somehow become caught in a looping illusion created by her own mind? Was this dream version of herself toying with her? Could dreams do that? Or was something else at work?