by Ilsa J. Bick
“I thought he was your friend,” Emma said.
Bode arched an eyebrow. “Dash my wig, she’s got quite the tartur-trap, don’t she?”
“And then some,” Tony said, but he was trying not to grin.
Definitely not amused, Rima said, “Fine. There’s humbugs, if you’d like.”
“I wouldn’t say no,” Bode said. “My mouth’s rank.”
“I wouldn’t,” Emma said, as Bode fingered up a peppermint.
“Full of opinions, aren’t you?” Popping the candy into his mouth, Bode sucked experimentally, then wrinkled his nose. “Well, if there’s peppermint, I can’t taste it. Not terrible. Just … nothing.”
“Told you,” the girl said.
“Emma.” After a warning glance, Rima spied a blotch on Bode’s jaw. “You’re bruised. What happened?”
“Long story. Got myself cuffed, that’s all.” Tonguing the humbug into his uninjured cheek, he said to Tony, “But that don’t answer my question, brother. Why you bleeding?”
“How should I know? I’m fine now,” Tony said, pointedly not looking at Rima.
Bode arched an eyebrow as if to say, Tell me another. “Well, come on.” Bode jerked his head for them to follow. “Just me tonight, but ain’t got but four.”
“Where’s Weber?” Not that Rima was heartbroken. The man was a pig. His specialty was sandwiching her to a wall as he passed and calling that an accident.
“Given the night off,” Bode said, leading them from this entry and down a short corridor. At a large double door, he fished out a key. “Good riddance, too.”
“I’m not arguing,” Tony said as they followed Bode into a high-ceilinged storeroom. Once used for putting up what was grown in the asylum’s gardens, the room was now empty of barrels of preserved pickles, boxes of potatoes and beets and turnips in straw, clutches of onions, ropes of braided garlic, and dried herbs. The air was cold and smelled faintly of brine and dust. Spooling from a burst pane of the room’s one window, a tongue of snow had settled in a long drift over the cobbled floor. In the center of the room, four bodies, done up in burlap, had been laid on a low table. “What happened?”
“Too much to explain.” Bode’s face darkened a moment. “I’m not sure I understand it all myself, but a patient … a girl … took a bad turn. I’ll check on her later.” He shook himself free of whatever he was thinking. “They’s a sack in the fourth bag. Some bread, cheese.” He hooked a thumb at her. “Mittens for you, Rima.”
“Oh.” She felt a leap of relief and hurried over to tug open the sack. Reaching in, she pulled out a pair of brown wool mittens. “Thank you.”
“Wait,” Emma said. “You put food in with a body?”
“Best way to smuggle it out,” Bode said. “Not to worry; she wasn’t one of the bloody ones. A girl what hanged herself, is all.”
“That’s gross,” Emma said.
“Well then, I guess you don’t need any of the victuals now, do ya?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What?” He cupped a hand behind one ear. “Say that again?” Grinning, he pointed. “Got a few bags o’ mystery in there, too.”
“What?” Emma asked.
“Sausages,” Tony said.
“Oh.” Emma frowned. “Why don’t you just say that? What’s so mysterious about a sausage?”
“Oh, plenty, my little chuckaboo.” Bode waggled his eyebrows, which made Emma giggle. “Cook swore they was dog, so they’re likely rat and cat … uhm …” He gave Emma an apologetic shrug. “Cat’s meat really is quite good, you do it up right.”
“As long as it’s not Jack.” Emma looked at Rima. “I’m not saying that this isn’t übergross, but can we eat something now, please? I’m really hungry.”
Rima was about to agree to a bit of cheese and bread when Bode cut in. “I can do one better,” Bode said. “I’m to bring you for a little sit-me-down. There’s a meal in it.”
“What?” Rima exchanged a puzzled glance with Tony. “With whom?”
“One of the doctors … Kramer?” Bode eyed Tony. “He’s very keen on you.”
“Me?” Tony frowned. “What for?”
“Damfino,” Bode said.
That light in the window. Rima’s heart gave a sick lurch. “Something’s wrong with his face, isn’t there? This doctor?”
“Yeah. Rot took half,” Bode said.
“Rot?” Emma’s nose wrinkled. “Like what you guys said—those worms?”
“Squirmers,” Bode said.
“Yeah, those. Like it rotted off? Gangrene and pus and stuff?”
“Worse. Got this tin mask?” Bode cupped a hand before his face to illustrate. “Gives you the jimjams to look at it.”
“Yes, that’s the man,” Rima said. “He kept an eye on us and … Oh.” A white bolt of shock jagged through her, and she put a hand to her mouth. “Oh God.”
“What?” Tony’s brows knit. “Rima, are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, trying to quell the shake in her voice. God, no; now I remember. There had to be a connection. “Bode, what’s this doctor want with Tony?”
“What you worried about?” Bode said. “I’ll be right there. What could happen?”
Plenty, if I’m remembering right. “What if we don’t go?” Rima asked.
“Rima?” Tony asked. “What is it?”
She only shook her head. “If you come back empty-handed, would you be sacked, Bode?”
Bode frowned. “Me? Dunno. I doubt it. But why would you refuse? I mean, we’re talking food. Kramer’s got himself quite the hoard, I think. So you can be sure of hot tea, biscuits, probably cheese that ain’t gone off, plus what I got for you besides.”
“But if we left?” Rima slicked her lips. “We have to get back anyway.”
“We do?” Tony asked.
“Yes,” Rima said. To Bode: “What would happen?”
Bode tossed a look to Tony, who only shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose,” Bode said. “But Kramer’s no idjit. You’re rats, and Battersea’s the only gasworks still running. He’ll find you one way or the other, he wants you.”
“I could eat,” said Emma.
“I don’t see the harm either.” Tony looked at Rima. “He’s an alienist, yeah? That’s what they do. They talk. So where’s the problem?”
“I just don’t like it,” she said. “Bode, is there another way out of here?”
“Rima, what’s gotten into you?” Tony said.
“Well …” Bode looked befuddled. “Yeah, you could duck out back, past the old criminal wings, though it’s across acres of unbroken snow. I ain’t never been.”
“Fine,” she said. Just get out, get Tony away from here. Emma too. I don’t like this, I don’t. “That’s what we’ll do. Bode, you should come, too.”
“What?” Bode said at the same moment that Tony shook his head and said, “Rima, you’re not making sense, and we’re not doing anything so stupid without good reason …”
Her control broke. “You want a reason? How about this? That woman, the one with the purple eyes, who came from the mirror? The one from your nightmare?” She looked at Emma. “The one who nearly got you?”
“What? You had a nightmare?” Bode said, as Tony tried to take her hands.
“Rima, calm down,” Tony said. “What about her?”
“Oh, Tony.” Tears, large and frightened, coursed down her cheeks. “That woman … she’s here.”
BODE
Everyone Dreams
TONY HELD HER hand as Rima talked about odd images: a mother who tried to kill her, a home she didn’t recognize. When she got to the part about another Tony and an explosion, their Tony paled. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony said.
“I didn’t want you to worry.” Rima squeezed his hand. “I was afraid you’d be angry at me for drawing from you, but I had to do something. Anyway, I’m telling you now.”
“So the woman wasn’t in the valley during any of it?” When they shook their heads, Bode moved
his in a curt nod. “Right. I don’t remember her either. So I guess that’s something. What about after?” He heard the newer, grimmer edge in his voice. “After that other Tony died?” As Rima described a bizarre contraption that propelled them through a blizzard—wheels of India rubber, and it was very loud—he recognized some of the words: whisper-man, Peculiar. A younger Elizabeth named Lizzie.
And Emma. He glanced down at the girl, who sat cross-legged on the floor. The cat curled in her lap. The girl had gone white as salt. But it’s the right name, same color hair. Even the eyes are right. He could see some faint outline of the young woman this girl would become. It bothered him that, to him, she looked a touch like Meme. Coincidence; you’re letting the nightmare confuse you. “What happened next, Rima?”
“I was …” Swallowing, Rima pressed her lips with shaking fingers. “Bleeding. Dying. The whisper-man was too much for me to hold, and then that other boy, the one with the gray eyes, he tried to help …” She shook her head. “I don’t remember much after that, other than darkness and a feeling of rushing.”
“You didn’t get any of this?” Bode looked at Tony. “The cave, the birds?”
“No.” Tony’s skin was tight around his skull. “I didn’t get half what either of you did. That business on the snow, for example. Wolf-creatures, spiders erupting out of a girl’s mouth, and then your … cart? … being drawn down into some black muck. Got none of that. I think the other Tony was dead by then.” He peered into Bode’s eyes. “You didn’t see the end either, did you? What Rima’s talking about, what happened in that cave? Because that Bode was …”
“Dead. Yeah.” Exhaling, he gave himself a shake. In the broken window, his distorted reflection stared back, like a freak show curiosity caged in glass. Glass. Hadn’t there been something about that in his nightmare? He remembered a mirror, but he thought this was altogether different. About reflections trapped in a glass basin? No. That wasn’t quite the right word. Not basin, but … energy sink?
“What about a sink?” Tony said.
“What?” He looked from his broken reflection to find them both staring at him.
“Energy sink,” Rima said. “What’s that? Is it for some kind of water?”
“Damme,” he said, “I don’t …”
“Think of it as a place where energy goes when it’s released.” Emma’s voice was very small, almost inaudible. “It’s basic physics.”
“Physics,” Bode repeated. “Science? You know what this is?”
“Yeah, what’s so weird about that? Of course I know science.” The girl looked up from her cat. “Look, when you burn a log, there’s fire, right? Once it’s burning, though, it’s not like you can set it more on fire. So where does the heat go?”
“Into the air,” Bode said. “The room.”
“Right. That’s because it’s colder. When there’s heat, there’s more energy, by definition. The molecules are moving faster. When you heat water, it doesn’t stay hot forever. That’s because the air’s cooler. When you get a fever, you’re hot, right? Your body works harder when it’s fighting? So, that drawing thing you do, Rima … you’re kind of this human energy sink.”
“So what you’re saying is that this … energy, it always goes to a place where there’s less of it?” Rima asked.
Emma nodded. “That weird rock you saw, Bode, in your nightmare? Somehow it saps energy. Eventually, if it takes enough …”
“It empties the tub.” Bode nodded. “All right, I see that. Makes sense. The Emma in my dream was worried we’d be trapped inside, never make it through.”
“Odd about the Peculiar,” Rima said. “That it’s a kind of container in our nightmares but a fog here. Strange coincidence.”
“Maybe not,” Emma said. “It’s cold here. You can’t go anywhere. Other than this is like, you know, a place, a city, and your dreams are about some weird valley, I don’t see the diff—” She stopped, her expression intent and inward-looking, as if parsing through a thorny mathematical equation. Watching her think, Bode was struck by how much older she looked at that moment. That finger of disquiet tickled his neck again. In the dream, I see the child Elizabeth might have been—and I see the girl this Emma might become?
Then why did he see the ghost of Meme taking shape under this little girl’s skin?
“What?” Rima asked the girl.
“Oh … all this talk about energy? I was just thinking about what you said happened on the snow in your nightmare. I didn’t see that part, but that thing with the wheels—actually, that sounds like what we call a truck, not a cart; you don’t need horses or anything and …” She flapped an impatient hand. “Never mind. Anyway, how the snow broke?”
“Energy.” Tony gave her a sharp look. “You’re thinking the quakes, aren’t you? A release of energy?”
“Uh-huh. During a normal earthquake, that’s why the earth shakes. Do you guys remember why that whole scene or setup or whatever it was broke up in the first place? Because it did, and kind of the same way ice has to be, you know, thick enough to take a lot of weight. My guardian, Jasper, always told me that if you get stuck on the ice and it starts to break, then you spread yourself out.” Emma held out her arms. “You distribute your weight so it’s not all concentrated in the same spot.”
“So …” Rima hung on to the word a moment. “Too many people? In one spot?”
“Kinda?” Emma said. “I don’t know how it would work, though, or why it would happen. I mean … lots of weird stuff happens in dreams. I only mentioned it because energy seems to come up a lot.”
“Well, it’s beyond me,” Bode said. “What I can’t figure is, what’s all this got to do with a woman with purple eyes coming through a mirror or window, especially if she wasn’t there in the valley in the first place?”
“That’s the only thing you can’t parse?” Tony asked.
“What if the nightmare’s the reason she could?” Rima looked to Tony. “You said something changed for the other Tony. What if the nightmare was the change?”
“And now we’re having it?” Tony screwed up his nose. “But we weren’t in the valley. Our … well, I guess you’d call them our doppelgängers were, and the woman came after them. Actually, all we know is she came for the other Tony. Maybe it stops there, with him. Bode hasn’t seen her in a nightmare or real life, here.”
“Yeah, well, don’t forget she came after me. None of you guys saw me in the dream as me either,” Emma said.
“Maybe we’re seeing what will happen.” Bode nodded down at the girl. “Your future. Perhaps this is about warning you, not us.”
“Then why are we dreaming it?” Rima asked. “The nightmare’s about the other Rima, the other Tony and Bode, a different Emma, not us.”
“I don’t know. We’re obviously connected somehow.”
“To them as well as to each other? How? I understand us, I guess. We grew up together,” Tony said, then added, “Not that I remember much of that. Odd, don’t you think?”
“And then some, but I think it’s moved beyond that, brother. We’re all tangled up, our lives bound to each other and now to you, Emma. What we’re supposed to do, though …” Shrugging, Bode spread his hands. “Haven’t a clue, except I feel this urge. Like I got to take care of Elizabeth because she’s important, even though I didn’t see her as her in the dream.” And Emma, too. He regarded the little girl. The pull to protect her was there, too. It was obvious to him that Tony and Rima felt the same.
“I understand that, but how about we all get away from here, this asylum, for starters? That woman doesn’t have to come to life in a dream. She’s here. I’ve seen her in a window.” At Tony’s skeptical look, Rima said, “I did. It came to me right after I noticed that doctor watching us. We passed under some windows, and I remember looking up and thinking there was something there I ought to see or once saw that was very important; that felt … déjà vu? Been here before? I didn’t put it together until you told us about Kramer. That’s when I realized tha
t I’d seen her here, in a window. Don’t ask me when, because I can’t tell you. I just know I have.”
“A patient?” Tony said.
“No one I’ve seen.” Bode scowled. “I’d think I’d remember a woman with purple …” Oh. His hand fell to his waist. Oh good Christ. “You said, a window,” he said to Rima. “You remember if you could see anything else in the room behind her?”
She nodded. “Books. And … a folding screen? Some kind of table, I think, but not one you would put flowers on or dishes. Does that make …” Her voice trailed away, and her eyes went wide as saucers. “Oh. Bode, where …?”
“Kramer’s office, and that’s where she was when you saw her.” The purple lenses were coal-black in the dim light. “Nicked them just now. Don’t ask; stupid reason. This is them, yeah?”
“You look through them yet?” asked Tony.
“No. Give me the jimjams.” He tucked them back in his pocket. “Sooner I get ’em back to Kramer, the better.”
“So now what?” Rima asked. “Whether this woman was a patient or nurse or relative of a patient doesn’t matter. The point is, she was here; the glasses prove Kramer knows or knew her. She came through the other Tony’s mirror.”
“Yeah, but in a nightmare,” Bode said.
“Unless I’m dreaming right now and you guys aren’t real,” Emma said, “she came through my kitchen window. And how do you explain me?”
“Right.” Rima nodded. “Now Kramer wants Tony. There’s got to be a connection.”
“Yeah.” Eyes brushing over his distorted reflection in the storehouse window, Bode chewed over that a moment. “Let me ask you both something, all right?” As he transferred his gaze back to them, he thought he saw something wink outside, on the snow. Thought, Reflection from my lantern, and dismissed it. “Don’t stop to think about it. Emma, hold your tongue; this isn’t a question for you.”
“Okay,” Emma said.
“What?” Rima asked.
“Have you ever had a dream before now, ever?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Emma open her mouth, then quickly shut it. Tony and Rima only turned puzzled frowns to each other. “Come on,” he said, “it’s a simple question. Have you ever dreamt anything before now? Out with it, fast.”