A Drop of Night

by Stefan Bachmann

  The shadows swallow Perdu. He’s just a slight variation now, another shade in the dark-to-black spectrum. It sounds like he’s pawing through a drawer. He’s coming back toward us, and he’s holding something tightly in his fingers. He walks up to me. Opens his fist. It’s a compass, the surface scratched and pockmarked in a million places, like a pirate’s.

  “A token,” he says, and his voice is human again, gentle. “A token of my loyalty. I will lead you to safety. There is a secret way. A way they cannot know. Due north as the wren flies, straight as an arrow and straight as string.”

  I don’t take the compass. “Then why are you still down here? You said you don’t want to stay, so go. What’s stopping you?”

  “Everything,” he says, looking terrified again. “Fire and blade and bolt and poison. The palace is not easily breached, neither from within nor from without. But my time here is coming to an end. My usefulness is spent. He will kill me soon. But you will help me.” His gaze flicks from me to the others, and he smiles that awful, limp-lipped grin. “You will take me with you, oui? You will not leave me behind.”

  “When does he want to go?” Will asks. “If it’s up to him, when would we leave the library?”

  “Perdu,” I say. “Combien du temps voulez-vous que nous restions ici?”

  He holds out the compass, trying to get me to take it. “In the morning,” he whispers. “Tomorrow is a new day, a bright day.”

  “How do we know when morning is?”

  “The hands will tell you. Seven times they will turn, round and round. On the eighth it will be morning.”

  “You mean in eight hours? We’re supposed to stay in here eight hours? What makes you think we’ll be safe that long?”

  “I will keep you safe,” he says. “I will hide you in the shadow of my wings.”

  That’s not comforting at all. Perdu’s eyes are alight, fingers squirming along the edges of the compass, leaving a greasy film. I grab it and turn to the others, translating as fast as I can. They listen, their faces getting darker by the word.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Jules says. “What if he’s lying? What if he just wants to keep us in one spot until the trackers can get here?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Look, it’s up to us. We can either wait with him, or go and risk whatever’s out there. They’re both worst-case scenarios, so pick your favorite.”

  I already know my answer. There’s no telling what Perdu would do if we dragged him out there now. We’d have to leave him behind and then we’d be running blind, pushing off into the palace on a teeny-tiny slice of hey-let’s-hope-we-don’t-die. We’ll be doing that either way, but the slice seems bigger with Perdu. We need to trust him. We need to trust something down here, even if it’s just an insane bleeding guy.

  “If we wait, someone’s going to have to be awake,” Lilly says. “The whole time.”

  “We can take turns keeping watch. Two hours each.”

  “I’m not sleeping anyway,” Jules says.

  And so we wait.

  21

  We’ve built our own personal bubble of warm light and coziness in front of the fireplace. Will found a light switch behind a panel next to the mantel. Jules and Lilly have constructed a fort—possibly a full-on mansion—out of chairs, pillows, carpets. It’s kind of morbid if you think about it, setting up camp down here in the palace of your psycho captors. Like a zombie-murder-sleepover. But the alternative is cowering in the dark, so we might as well make the most of it. Also, there’s some satisfaction to be had from using the Sapanis’ stuff. I’m assuming this is their library, if the Sapanis are real people. I’m also assuming this place is not a two-hundred-year-old archaeological site. It’s their house. Their huge, pristine, underground home, which just so happens to have an infestation of bleeding men, traps, and general weirdness. I bet they really don’t want their murder-victims-to-be pawing through their books and using their furs and lounging in their chairs.

  I grab a pillow and mush it up behind my neck, leaning against a desk leg.

  Will has wandered off to scout out the library. Lilly and Jules are busy with home-improvement matters. Perdu’s hiding behind the chair again, eyes pinched shut. His velvet bandages are black and crackly.

  “Perdu,” I say quietly. His mouth twitches open. Wet, gray teeth flick into view, squeezed together, haphazard and gross. He winces, as if the word hurt him. “Where are you from?”

  “Péronne,” he breathes.

  I’m trying to unstick my pant leg from my ankle. The blood has started to cake where the wire caught it.

  “And how did you get down here?”

  “C’est ma maison,” he whispers. “Il me garde.”

  “This is my home,” I translate for Jules, who is looking over at us suspiciously from behind his wall of chairs. “He keeps me.”

  “Who keeps him?” Jules asks. “Is he like the house pet?”

  “Hey,” Lilly says, frowning at Jules. “You don’t know what he’s been through. He might have been down here way longer than us. It’s probably messed with his mind.”

  “Below,” Perdu mumbles, and I raise my hand, signaling Lilly and Jules to shut up. “Down,” Perdu says. “Far into the earth. To good luck and safety and everlasting peace, they brought me. But I will be leaving soon. When the war is done, that is what they told me, when the war is done you may go. But it stretches on and on. It never ends.”

  “What war?” I ask.

  “That war.” He uncurls a finger toward the ceiling. “Up there. They are cutting off heads in the Rue du Fauconnier. Can you not hear the screaming?”

  “There is no war up there,” I say. “At least, not one you’d hear down—”

  “There is always war,” Perdu hisses. He’s crying again. I can see the tears, glimmering tracks down his cheeks. “Everywhere. Up there. Down here.” He taps the finger against his head. “In here.”

  “Uh-huh.” I glance at Jules and roll my eyes. “How old are you, Perdu?”

  His hands come up, fingers splayed like twin fans. He closes his fists, opens them, again and again, and I realize he’s showing me—ten fingers, ten years—decade after decade flickering past.

  “You’re not that old. When were you born? What year?”

  “1772.”

  Will is back. He makes a sound, a soft bark from somewhere in his chest. I think it was supposed to be a laugh. I wouldn’t even have known he was there otherwise. Kid moves like a ghost.

  Jules glances at Will. “What? What did he say?”

  “That he’s over two hundred years old,” I answer. I lean back against the fireplace. Look up at the ceiling, with its network of lines sketching out the Greek figures. I recognize Andromeda, Cygnus. Someone who I think is Capricorn but looks like a minotaur. That gets me to thinking about the Theseus myth, young people being thrown into a labyrinth to feed a monster. But if they wanted to reenact that one, they got the numbers wrong: there are supposed to be seven of us. And Dorf didn’t sound like he wanted us to be food for that thing. He sounded like we were ruining his plans.

  I sigh, still staring up at the ceiling. If this were a proper indie movie moment, I’d be doing my stargazing next to a spray-painted van, while on a road trip across Montana. I’d have a guitar and a big old happy dog. I’d stare up at the endless night sky and feel small or something. Since this is my actual life, I’m looking at stipples of white paint on a ceiling, thinking about being eaten alive.

  I ease my pant leg back over the cut. Glance up at Will. “Did you find anything?”

  “No other doors out,” he says. “Lots of books on philosophy. And the chimney’s blocked about six feet up. Oh, and I found a clock.”

  He hands me a little brass wind-up on two miniature clawed feet. It’s awesome looking, like it could run away giggling and ringing furiously every time you really didn’t want to wake up in the morning. I start winding it up.

  Perdu has turned his back on us again, crouching, head pressed
into the corner. He’s singing softly, under his breath:

  “Four blind mice, oh, four blind mice.

  See how they run, oh, see how they run.

  They all ran after the farmer’s wife,

  Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,

  Did you ever see such a sight in your life, oh

  As four . . . blind . . . mice.”

  “He’s singing nursery rhymes now,” I say. “Creepy ones. Must be past his bedtime.”

  Lilly starts to laugh, but she can’t quite decide whether I’m hilarious or not. And now Perdu turns suddenly, staring at us.

  “Dance around the edge of the pond and you’ll fall in,” he says, soft and urgent, like he’s telling us a secret. “But if you leap in the middle, all will be well. You will still get wet, but you chose to, then, don’t you see? It is your own fault.”

  “Okay, Perdu.” He could just come out and say it: I’m not going to tell you anything helpful, because either I want you to die, or I’m just really clueless.

  I stand abruptly and walk quietly over the furs. Someone follows me and I think it’s Perdu for a second, but it’s Will.

  He doesn’t say anything. Just lopes down the library beside me. We stop in front of the doors.

  I gaze up at the furniture mountain, ears straining to pick up any blip of sound on the other side. The whirring is gone. Every scratch, creak, whisper, hum noise is gone. A solid white silence is crushing against the library doors, so complete it’s like the hallway and the Sistine Room and all the other rooms have vanished. I imagine opening the doors and finding nothingness. Blank space. A vacuum, the library floating like a shoe box in the void.

  “It’s so quiet,” I say.

  He nods. We’re breathing in unison. An itch starts crawling up my arms like a million tiny insect feet. I have the overwhelming urge to shove down the furniture, open the doors, run.

  “What if this is our chance?” I say. “We’re sitting ducks in here. What if we should be running?”

  “We’ll be okay,” Will says, and rolls his shoulders.

  Deep, Will. Logical and well-founded. A layered argument.

  We head back to the others.

  22

  Jules hands me some grapes. He’s got his colorful shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and is rubbing his arm furiously, except you can’t really tell because he has an actual ink sleeve under the cloth one: a Cheshire cat and abstract flowers and the words Plague of Monkey Lice in Mandarin on his wrist. I bet the tattoo artist told him it meant Good Luck and Fortune.

  I swallow the grapes. They taste like ash, dry and bitter. It looks like everyone’s getting ready to sleep. I wonder how long we were out in the glass cube room. I wonder if it’s nighttime up on the surface.

  “There’s another pillow here if you want it,” Lilly says, apparently taking pity on my Spartan sleeping arrangements. I take it and nod at her, which she can interpret as thanks if she wants to.

  She nods back. She’s curled up on a wing chair, wrapped in a carpet like a Bedouin lady. Before I went to check the door, she’d been wearing a fluffy fur sewn from the pelts of a thousand small and adorable animals. I guess Jules explained that to her, though, because she dragged it all the way to the other side of the library and pushed it under a table as a form of protest.

  I pick up the clock Will brought and look at it. “One hour gone, seven to go.” I flick my head in the direction of Perdu. Watch him, I mouth. “Every two hours we’ll switch, okay? The first one will probably be the easiest, since you won’t have to wake up. Who wants it?”

  I expect Lilly or Jules to volunteer. They don’t. No one does, which is admirable and also completely unhelpful. I hand the clock to Jules. “When the hands hit eight, shake one of us.”

  Jules takes the clock. Will stretches himself out onto a rug, laying his sword down carefully next to him. “If something happens . . .” Will says. He trails off, gazing down the library.

  “If something happens, wake up Will,” Lilly finishes. “He’ll chop down our enemies. We’ll send him supportive thoughts.”

  Wow, Lilly, was that sarcasm? Will pushes himself up onto his elbows and blinks at her. He’s probably deciding whether she’s making fun of him or not. She is, but for some reason she can’t bear to let him think that, so she leans off her chair and ruffles his hair. “I’m joking, Will. Hey. I’m joking.”

  She smiles at him, a huge bright smile, all pink tongue and teeth. Will smiles back. His cheeks dig into dimples, and his eyes take on a wry gleam, all before he can stop himself. It’s kind of incredible to watch.

  Will’s facial transformation makes Jules laugh, which makes me laugh because Jules sounded exactly like Pete the Parrot, croaking farewell to me from his cage in the breakfast kitchen. The fact that I laughed makes Lilly laugh, and pretty soon all three of us are laughing, dry and brittle, like a really terrible trio of beatboxers. None of this is even remotely funny. That just makes me laugh harder.

  Will gets his face under control. Raises his eyebrows at us and rolls over. I’m pretty sure he’s still smiling, though. Our laughter trails off.

  I feel full as I curl up against the table leg. Full and warm, which is ironic because those grapes were crap and the temperature in here is fairly chilly, lights or no. I decide I’d live on laughing if I could. I’d probably starve, but maybe it would be worth it.

  I start to doze. Get a crick in my neck and move my pillow to the floor. I’m nearly asleep, my whole body fuzzy and dull. I open my eyes, more of a slow, reverse blink. Will is asleep. Jules is standing by the fireplace, looking nervous, kicking his foot against the marble. Lilly is asleep in her chair. And behind her, just outside the bubble of light, Perdu is standing, watching me, his eyes burning scabs into my skin.

  Palais du Papillon—Chambres Jacinthe—112 feet below, 1790

  The servant’s name is Jacques. He has come every day since I struck him with the vase and he no longer locks me out upon his arrival. He seems to enjoy the company as much as I do, though he is far more ready to say so. He is altogether too insolent, I think. He smiles when there is nothing to smile at and he does not walk like a gentleman, he saunters. Furthermore, he is slow in being useful.

  “Why can you not simply unlock the panel and let me out?” I demanded the day we met.

  “Mademoiselle, they are watching!” he said, cradling his bruised face and staring at me as if I were a wild troll. “What can you not understand? I will already have to spin a pretty tale to explain this face you gave me. ‘Oh, yes, I slipped while feather dusting the china and blackened my own eye.’ You must understand, we have direct orders from Lord Havriel never to allow anyone into the serving passages, least of all you. And if you were to leave, you would be caught. There are other servants running to and fro constantly. You would not get a hundred feet before they raised the alarm.”

  I shook my head and turned away as if to say: You do not know me, and you do not know how many feet I would get.

  He carried on. “And once they’ve caught you, they’ll put you somewhere worse and you’ll get a warty old hag for a servant, and I assure you she won’t speak a word to you, especially if you beat her with a vase. Listen. Please, mademoiselle, listen to me and I will help you.”

  I turned toward him again, curious. His face was earnest, his eyes the colors of slate. “I know of your plight, mademoiselle,” he says. “I know they have locked you away, and revolution or none, it is not right to be caged so. But you must tread carefully. You will have one chance to get your sisters and get back to the surface. You will not get another.”

  And so we began to talk.

  This is what I have learned, six days later. The fact that I can put it all down so briefly vexes me: Jacques follows orders from the head butler, Monsieur Vallé. Jacques’s job is to take care of my hyacinth rooms and to provide me with all that I need. He is strictly forbidden to speak to me. He has seen no one else of my family. The last Bessancourt he saw was Mama. She w
as no longer breathing when he and the old guard carried her down. Jacques would not tell me her wounds, but he has a mother, too, in Péronne, and he said that if she were to die, he would weep for a year. His face was grave when he told me this, and when I cried he did not leave me, but sat at my side until I was exhausted, wrung out like a bit of washing.

  Today I am sitting on the floor of the boudoir and he is cleaning, or pretending to.

  “Why are you no longer a guard?” I ask him. “When we came down, you were in uniform.”

  He shakes out a sheet with a snap. “They told me there was no need for guards here. Peace and everlasting safety and suchlike, you know? The palace is invincible. So now I am a chambermaid.” He laughs and begins tucking the sheet in at the corners, and I cannot help but notice that when he laughs, his face becomes quite wonderful to see.

  “Did you come of your own choice?”

  If he says yes I will like him less.

  “No.” He starts on the pillows. “Well, yes, I suppose, but does a starving thief choose to steal? Does a soldier choose to kill? We do things or else we die.” He tries to twinkle at me, but I will have none of it. I saw the shadow cross his face. I watch him sharply, and wait.

  “You are a nosy sparrow. Mademoiselle,” he adds quickly, “I came here because my father is off at sea, and I have three sisters and four brothers, all living on what coins my mother can scrape together darning socks and patching trousers. My siblings needed bread, and stockings for the winter. So I hopped a cart to the château and begged for work. We don’t have choices the way highborn lords and ladies do.”

  I bristle at that. “Perhaps you have noticed, Monsieur, that highborn lords and ladies do not have quite as many choices as you thought. A golden cage is still a cage.”

  “A cage with no shortage of bread and stockings,” he says evenly.

  “A cage alone.” It comes out in a snarl. I see suddenly what he is: his sympathy for me is mixed with disdain. He pities me, is sorry that my mother is dead, but it is the pity of an older sibling patting the younger one crying over a lost toy. He thinks I do not know hardship.