The Dickens Mirror

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “So what did you see?” Tony asked. “When you looked at Meme through the glasses?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  From the way the little girl’s eyes narrowed, she thought Emma understood at once, or at least had an inkling. Tony only frowned and blinked away ice. “Yes, you did,” he said. “I know you. You went white as salt. So what did you see?”

  He really didn’t understand. “Exactly what I just said: I saw …” All at once, her skin prickled, the hair standing on end along her arms and the back of her neck. “Oh boy.” Emma jerked a look not at the sky but the ground. “You f-felt that, too?”

  “Yes.” She followed the girl’s gaze. Something about to happen. The premonition was very strong, a physical ache like the dig of a claw at her throat.

  “What?” Tony’s head swiveled right and left. “Felt … oh.” Eyes wide, Tony released them and chafed his arms. “I’m all pins and nee—”

  Beneath her feet, Rima felt the sudden slip and sideways shift of the earth, and then the sound again, the one she’d heard at the guardhouse: that low grumble as the ground shook. Another quake? Cutting above the wind’s howl, their cart let out a high squeal. To her horror, a spiderweb of fine fissures and cracks sketched themselves over the snow, and she saw the right wheel begin to lurch and tremble.

  “Get back!” Launching himself, Tony threw his arms round them both, pushing them back into the snow just as the cart’s wheel plummeted in a precipitous drop with the roll of the earth. To the left, a huge block of compressed snow lifted at the same moment, thrusting up like an iceberg in a white sea. The cart went down at a slant, the bagged bodies they’d roped down slithering like fish on a wet deck. Whether it was the sudden weight or the unbalanced load, the wheel shattered, its spokes buckling in loud cracks.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The shuddering stopped. A plume of pulverized snow quickly dissipated in the wind.

  “Are you all right?” Tony’s voice was as broken as the snow. Rima could feel his heart banging against hers. “Rima? Emma?” Tony looked to his left where Emma had come to rest about a half foot away. “You hurt?”

  “I’m okay.” Emma sounded breathless. “You guys?”

  “Fine.” But she was also afraid to move. Whether it was their combined weight or the fractured snow, they’d come to rest a good foot below the surface. Looking up, she thought, was like getting a corpse’s-eye view of the world.

  “That’s two tremors,” Tony said. “Why n-now?”

  “Maybe it’s the end,” she said.

  “No.” It was Emma. “I think it m-might be something else. Remember your nightmare? What happened when that other R-Rima got into that big fight on the snow?”

  “Yes, it broke. You think …”

  “Yeah, same space. Too many of us bunched together, like a crowd on thin ice. This Now can’t take the pressure. I bet there’s more than just the other Tony here now. Maybe”—Emma slicked her lips—“maybe another me. You know … grown up? Like the girl in your dream? Or maybe they found the other Bode?”

  “Whichever it is, we really need to go.” Rima didn’t know if Emma was right, but two quakes in one day and in roughly the same spot were bad no matter what. Belatedly, she realized that she’d not heard the collapse of bricks or the squaw of metal. No shouts either. So they really must be quite a distance out from even the derelict criminal wings, unless the storm muffled all sound.

  “Come on.” Struggling from the divot they’d made in the snow, Tony extended a hand to pull her out. “Snow’s stopped,” he said.

  “What?” She felt a kick of hope that quickly faded. Their cart had come to rest at a forty-five-degree angle. Its left wheel had popped clear of the snow. Most of the bodies had tumbled out, though a few hung over the cart’s lip like partially opened jackknives. But we’re all right. The sky had brightened to a muzzy gray, and no one had come for them. “I think the cart’s ruined,” she said, then frowned and scrubbed at her eyes. “Must have hit my head. Snow’s all wobbly.”

  “No, look at the cart, it’s …” Tony touched it with a finger. “Solid, but do it look to you like it’s underwater?”

  That was exactly it. “A glimmer,” she murmured. “I saw the same thing right before the cat—”

  “Jack!” Gasping, Emma floundered to her feet. “Jack? Ja—” She stopped. “Guys.” She backed up a slow step. “Guys?”

  “What …” And then Tony pulled in a sharp breath. “Oh shite.”

  “Uh-huh.” Emma’s voice had almost no substance at all. Air was weightier.

  “Dear God,” Rima said—because, yes, the snow had stopped.

  But now the fog was there.

  BODE

  Emma’s Blood

  THE CELL WAS eerily bright, the rock high above pulsing and shimmering with that bizarre, phosphorescent glow. Dangling from an iron hook, Weber’s lantern jounced, splintering the gloom with wild shafts of light. There was a loud crack, a series of glittery smashes as, somewhere beyond this cell, rock splintered. Metal shrilled, and a huge bellowing grumble sounded as stones suddenly gave way to clatter to rough-hewn rock. At the door, Meme was still screeching, but whether from terror, he didn’t know.

  “Meme!” He managed a single floundering step. All at once, the ground jerked sideways. By the door, Weber’s lantern hurtled from the wall like a spent comet. There was a glassy shattering sound, and as the flame guttered, Bode had a single moment to be glad that lantern oil didn’t spontaneously ignite the way it did in novels.

  Beneath his feet, the mattress padding twitched and heaved. He stumbled, his arms shooting out for balance as his feet shuffled in a queer stutter step. The toe of his left boot stubbed one of Weber’s legs, and he felt himself totter and then fall. A sharp yelp jumped from his mouth as his shoulder slammed into a puddle of gore. As he pushed up, something very large whirred past his left ear to thud into Weber’s chest. There was a series of snaps as Weber’s ribs crumpled, and Bode thought, Shite, the ceiling! As if to drive home the point, a chunk of stone plowed into his left thigh. If he’d been thinking, he might even have dragged Weber’s body over his, let the dead man absorb any more rockfall. As it was, he drew up his legs and then threw his arms up to protect his skull, turtling his head into shoulders. Another slam of the earth knocked him flat onto his belly. What tasted like centuries of grime and grit rose from the mattress’s guts to clog his throat and nose. Choking, spit pooling under his tongue, he cowered, listening to the bang of stone against stone. He realized he’d lost track of Elizabeth. God, what if part of the wall had come down on her? And was that still Meme screeching, or was that only the high scream of stressed rock? Why was this happening altogether? Like the city’s ripping itself apart.

  A moment later, the shuddering began to wane, dwindling to a kind of shivering as vibrations rippled and juddered into his bones, only more and more weakly, until they finally stopped. For a long second, he couldn’t move and only lay listening to his own harsh pants. His ears were ringing. Finally, he dragged up his head, blinking against dust and grit. There was a jumble of that glassy stone all around. When he moved his arms, chunks clashed together as if he’d stirred large shards from a broken vase. A single look at the ceiling showed cracks and fissures where the rock had shaken free. In the dim greenish glow that hadn’t died, he could see the mattresses had ripped free of their bolts and now lay in heaps along with boulders big around as his head. Elizabeth—Emma?—had vanished. The corner in which she’d cringed had partially collapsed in a slurry of rubble, torn canvas ticking, and clots of ancient horsehair.

  “E-Emma?” His voice was rusty. He also didn’t know if that was the right name, but damme, he had to call her something. No answer came. Shite. As his ears cleared, he could still hear Meme’s high keening screams echoing from the corridor beyond. Pushing up on hands and knees, he wobbled to a stand, then picked his way around fallen rock to the door to look. To his right and left and all the way down as far as he
could see, piles of stone spilled from where the walls had slumped to rubble. Meme was nowhere.

  “Meme?” Chased by echoes, his shout raced away down the tunnel. No one answered, though that curious high wail continued. Then he realized this wasn’t Meme at all but the mad clamor of patients behind their iron doors, all joining on that single manic note as if they’d taken up the chorus where Meme had left off. But where was she?

  From inside the cell, he heard a grunt and then a bony slithering of rocks. “Emma?” he said, ducking back. “Where are you?”

  “Here.” Her voice was muffled. In that far corner, a mound of stone heaved as first a hand and then her arm snaked from a pile of rubble. “I’m buried, can’t …”

  “Wait. I’m here. Hang on.” Hurrying over, he grabbed her groping hand. Her fingers closed over his, and he gave them a squeeze. “I’m right here, but you got a load of rock on top the mattress. Are you hurt? Can you move at all?”

  “Not much.” Her voice was reedy and labored. “Hard to breathe.”

  “I’m here, I’m here. Don’t panic.” Oh no, I’m panicked enough for us all. Heaving stones aside, he uncovered the mattress that had torn loose. Beneath, she lay in an awkward heap, one booted foot pinned between two large rocks. “You all right?”

  “Foot’s jammed.” Her bandage was gone. An oily black trickle leaked from where her stitches had pulled apart. Her nose was either still bleeding or had started up again. Big ruby drops swelled on her jaw before pattering to her chest and onto stone.

  “Give me a second.” Hooking his hands around one of the boulders that trapped her foot, he heaved it up a few inches. His shoulders popped with the strain. “Go,” he grunted. After she’d wriggled her foot free and crabbed back on her hands, he let the rock bang back into place. “Damned heavy. How about your foot? Can you walk?”

  “I think it’ll be okay.” She gave it an experimental roll, first one way and then the other. Her face was pinched. She used the back of a hand to smear away blood from her upper lip. “Another nosebleed. Is this … do you know if Elizabeth is sick? More than her …” She gestured toward her head. “You know.”

  Sick? His chest was boiling over with bright red panic. “Yeah, I’ve always thought so, though no one’s said. You … is she bad off?”

  “I think so, yeah.” Pressing a palm to her right ribs, she winced. “Hurts more than it did before.”

  She sounded wan and worn out, and he remembered what Meme had said about the other Tony. My Tony has nosebleeds, too. Christ, what if they were all sick with the same thing? Yeah, but then why am I all right? Why isn’t Rima ill? Because our doppelgängers aren’t here? But Rima’s was: her … her shadow? Existing inside this girl. “Your stitches is torn open. You’re bleeding.” And I’m going mad.

  “Yeah.” Using the side of a hand to wipe her brow, she stared at the blood on her fingers. “Are you okay? Where’s Meme?”

  “Gone. Probably to warn Kramer. But listen to the others now. It’s like they’re screaming for her.” Why had Meme become so hysterical?

  With her pale skin and dark eyes and the blood, it was like looking down at a skull in this weird, grainy light. “How long do we have?”

  “Not very.” His voice was terse, and then his control broke. “So what was all that? Huh?” God, he wanted to hit something. “You realize you killed a man, yeah?”

  “Thanks. You think I don’t know that? What the hell was I supposed to do?”

  “Not … bloody … that!” he roared.

  “Bode …”

  “Shut it! Let me think!” Fists bunched, he wheeled away fast. Got to get out of here, got to get out now! His eyes fell on Weber, whose torso was half-covered with debris. Yeah, but Bode, you got to think. You’re running now. Cove probably had pockets full of useful things. Dropping to his haunches, he averted his eyes from the mess and quickly ran his hands over Weber’s trousers. Left pocket was crammed full: keys, a penknife, a candle stub jammed in a small brass holder, a brass match safe that was half-full, Connell’s silver flask, and a small brown bottle. Oh, wonderful. Just what we need. He replaced the laudanum, though he laid the flask aside. Weber’s candle stub reminded him of the one he’d dropped. Tossing a look around, he spied a straight iron finger. Miraculously, the candle was still there. Stuffing his haul into a coat pocket, he patted Weber’s right pocket and realized why the nob had transferred everything to the left. Weber, you thieving arse.

  “So, who are you now?” Carefully tugging Connell’s scalpel free of that right pocket—at least Weber had wrapped the blade in burlap, probably so he’d not skewer his balls—he said, “Who am I talking to? You Elizabeth? Ya Emma?”

  “Bode, you know I’m Emma. Calm down.”

  “Ohhh, that’s rich.” Whipping round on his heels, he stabbed air with the scalpel. “You’re telling me to be calm? You killed a man. One hit, one hit woulda done, and you know it!” He was raging, foaming at the mouth. What was he doing, yelling at this girl? So much water under the bridge, wasn’t it? But what did Meme see? Who? “But no, you beat the man’s head in!”

  “He would’ve killed you and … damn it!” She dragged an arm over streaming eyes. Dark blood oiled down the side of the girl’s face to drip from her jaw. That forehead was a mess, like a weeping third eye. “It wasn’t me!”

  “No? So then Meme is right, yeah? This Eric is a monster, and now maybe that’s what you are? Nothing but a mon—” His voice failed. What he’d been about to say evanesced from his tongue.

  “Bode?” she asked. “What?”

  “Emma.” Oh, but he suddenly sounded so strange. Why couldn’t he breathe? When he pointed the scalpel, the blade shook. “Look. Your blood. Emma, your blood, look how it’s …”

  He heard her gasp. “Oh my God. It’s …”

  She couldn’t say it either. But he saw all right. Oh yes.

  Emma’s blood—that trickle of black oil from her forehead that had dribbled onto shattered rock and torn canvas—her blood, all of it …

  Was moving.

  RIMA

  Spider to the Fly

  1

  “WHY ISN’T IT moving?” Tony’s fingers laced through Rima’s. “It’s just … hovering.”

  “All around us.” Emma was crowded back against them. “Like it doesn’t want us going anywhere.”

  Why? The Peculiar was perfectly still and quite dense. Like milky glass. Against the white snow, Rima found the effect disorienting, as if they were encased in a white sphere.

  “Is this what it was like before I popped out?” Emma asked.

  “It was much darker then, b-but …” Shivering, Rima nodded. “Essentially.”

  “How far away you think it is?” Tony’s tone was curiously flat, too, as if the space inside this fog dome, however large it was, deadened sound.

  “Can’t tell.” Maybe a hundred feet? Twice that? Until one of them actually tried walking up to the barrier, it was impossible to say. “Listen.” Rima cocked her head. “You hear that?”

  “Like crackle ice, when you smash it under your boot,” Tony said.

  “Or Rice Krispies. Snap, crackle, pop. Or static between radio stations. Or …” Emma’s face trembled. “I’ve heard this before. From down cellar.”

  “I think it’s coming from the fog. Not right at the surface but inside. You know how you can look at a pond and the surface is still but underneath there are currents and things swimming? There’s a layer keeps the fog in place,” she said.

  “Ohhh,” Emma breathed. “You mean, a force field. Wow, yeah, why didn’t I think of that? It’s like on S-Star Trek.”

  “What?” The girl was a mystery. Rima had been thinking more of hoar ice over a shallow puddle: that she always knew there was water beneath because of the bubbles and the way the water moved when she put pressure on the ice.

  “All right,” Tony said. “So the fog is soft and squashy as custard and needs something to hold it in place. How does that help us? We can’t just stay here.
”

  “The only other choice is to see if we can walk through it.”

  “Not with a force field in place,” Emma said. “Probably get zapped. But … how come you guys don’t know about this already? I mean, the Peculiar’s been here for a while, right? Has anyone ever tried walking into it?”

  “From what I’ve heard,” Tony said, “yeah. They make it inside but doesn’t nobody ever come back out. Until you, that is.”

  “I didn’t go into a Peculiar,” Emma said.

  “That you know of,” Rima said. “Maybe, in your … Now … it’s different. You said there was a barrier between you and that square you came through.”

  “You mean that the Peculiar changes depending on where it is?” Emma’s eyebrows tented. “Well … water does that; goes from liquid to solid to gas. I can buy that.” The little girl cocked her head. “So what if the force field’s like … a one-way mirror? Whatever’s inside can see out, but you can’t see in?”

  “Meaning that there’s something or someone there, watching us now?” Rima ran her eyes up and down the fog. Perhaps Emma’s right; it’s like a carriage, a way of transporting energy from one place to another. There was a way to know, too. Maybe.

  “What?” Startled, Tony looked down when she took her hand from his. “What is …” Then he saw what she was doing and battened around her wrist before she could tug off her other mitten. “You taken leave of your senses? That is not an option.”

  “Tony.” She said his name calmly enough, but her pulse was jumping in her throat. “You know it is. I’m the only one who can do this. If there’s something inside, maybe I can … I don’t know, talk to it. It’s not hurting us, just waiting for something.” She gave her hand, still imprisoned in his, a pointed look. “Tony, we can’t stand here forever and wonder.”