by Ilsa J. Bick
“For his work, of course.” Kramer gestured toward the examination tables. “Shall we take a look? See what a busy boy he’s been?”
Oh. Doyle felt his insides curdle. No, let’s not.
“Frank, answer me, goddamn it,” Meredith said, “or I will find a way to smash every Peculiar, ruin every book, send all of it back where it came.”
“You will.” Elizabeth’s features shivered, then reformed. “Or you already did; I’m not sure. It might be that everything happens all at once and then things spin out from there. Whatever. Destroying the Peculiars doesn’t work. All you end up with is more of this.” Elizabeth’s gaze roved over the cavern before settling on Meredith again. “Free energy. You know the physics of it. Remember your dream.”
“What the hell are you—” Then Meredith seemed to hear herself. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to snap, but please, Elizabeth, stay out of this for now. Let the adults handle this, all right?”
Black Widow grunted a laugh. “Oh, that’s very rich. Listen to my daughter. She knows what she’s about … well, that piece does, anyway.”
“Shut up.” Meredith’s fists clenched. “Just shut the fuck up.”
“Meredith, stop. You’re only making things worse. I know what I said, but …” McDermott wouldn’t meet her eyes. “But Kramer’s right, and so is Em …” He stumbled. “Elizabeth. I mean …” He made a helpless gesture to encompass the entire cave. “Look at it all, this potential just waiting to be tapped.”
“But Frank, a back door? This isn’t a goddamned computer program! I don’t even pretend to understand why you felt the need to use me as a template for that woman, but don’t you realize that’s how my double got out?” Meredith waved a hand at the rest of the cells. “She found it, and used that to get into their book-worlds.”
“Would you stop saying that shit?” Chad said.
“No, that’s not how she’s doing it.” McDermott sighed. “She’s … she’s using a different way.”
“Oh, really? Which is?” Meredith asked.
“Haven’t you been listening?” Emma said. “I told you. She’s coming through dreams, the same one we’ve all had! You must’ve had it, too. How else did you get here?”
“No.” Meredith shook her head. “A valley? Monsters? Snow? Not me. I had a very different dream.”
“Your house has geraniums. The barn is red,” Emma said. “You have a studio where you make glass, and you used tanks of … I don’t know … fuel, whatever, to blow it all up, and then you made Lizzie get in the car. You made her leave her cat … Marmalade? Only the fog started chasing you.”
“The fog?” Black Widow said. “You mean, another Peculiar?”
“No.” Meredith’s voice was no more than a whisper. Her face was paler than porcelain and her eyes huge, her gaze riveted on the little girl. “A Peculiar’s an energy sink. It’s … sealed.”
At her place along the wall, Elizabeth stirred. “Meredith, she’s not talking about a Bose-Einstein condensate.”
“What’s that?” Emma said.
“Too much to explain,” Elizabeth said. “Think of it as a state of matter as close to zero energy—absolute zero—as possible.”
“I haven’t gotten that far in school,” Emma said.
“I have.” Future Tony armed sweat from his forehead. He was even paler than before. “Nothing would move except on the quantum level.”
“What the devil?” Kramer tossed a confused look at McDermott. “What are they all talking about?”
McDermott didn’t reply, but Doyle saw the swift chase of emotions on the man’s face: surprise, then satisfaction, and then that slight curve to his lips. He’s proud of them, as if they’re all his children parsing out a thorny problem.
“A Bose …” Meredith’s face went slack. Her eyes roved from Emma and Tony to Elizabeth, then back. “How”—she sounded as if someone had delivered a solid gut-punch—“how do you know so much?”
“I told you,” Emma and Elizabeth said at the same moment. “I studied it in school,” Tony said, as Emma went on, “I saw your dream.”
“You saw my dream? You?” Meredith echoed. “That’s not possible.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Doyle asked. He wasn’t aware he was going to speak, but damme, this was ridiculous. “It’s how she found them, isn’t it? She came in through this nightmare, this … this dreaming, somehow. It’s the only logical conclusion because it’s the only thing they’ve in common.”
Excellent, my pet. Battle would be proud.
Doyle pushed past Black Dog’s snigger. “So why you keep saying they can’t dream when they have?”
“Because,” Meredith said, “it’s not possible for any of them—any of you—to dream. Frank makes sure you can’t.”
“Meredith,” McDermott said, “I don’t think this is the time.”
“Oh, shut ya bunghole,” Doyle said. To Meredith: “What do you mean, McDermott makes sure we can’t. Why?”
“Because he figured out that if he lets you dream,” Meredith said, “you go insane.”
DOYLE
What Remains
“INSANE?” DOYLE BRAYED harsh laughter. He nearly doubled over. “You mean … you mean, stark raving mad?” he gasped. He was holding his gut, he was laughing so hard. “Madam, we’re in a bloody asylum.”
“Yes, do watch that tongue of yours,” Black Widow said to Meredith. “You’re not precisely the picture of sanity, you know.”
Reddening, Meredith tugged her blouse until the sleeves covered her bandages. “That’s different. I’ve had a few … problems, that’s all.”
Black Widow gave her a narrow look. “Yes, I daresay. Well, if what you say is true, then how do you explain my ability to find any of them? To find you?”
“I can’t, other than it’s a mistake, an oversight.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, honey,” McDermott said.
“Oh yes!” Doyle was off again. “Honey, do tell!”
Doyle. Black Dog’s tone, brittle as hoar ice, sobered him instantly. Stop your nonsense.
“Dreaming sort of … wakes you up? You imagine, and your imagination wrecks the story.” Meredith shrugged. “You all start going off your own ways. A writer has to keep control of the narrative.”
“Maybe in a book,” Doyle said, smearing tears from his cheeks. But he didn’t miss how Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed as if in sudden comprehension. McDermott only looked like a dipper with his hands deep in a pocket only to find that the jig was up. “But this is London.”
“Well, yes … but in a book-world, that’s all. Actually,” Meredith said, “not even that.”
“What do you mean, not even that?” Doyle looked to McDermott. “What does she bloody mean?”
“I’ll ask the questions here,” Kramer said.
“Oh, shut it.” Doyle scowled, all his hysteria gone now. “I got other words for you.”
Feeling peevish, are we, darling?
“You too,” he said, not caring if the others thought him a lunatic.
“Is something the matter, Doyle? Has something untoward happened?” Kramer tipped his head to one side. “Something unusual?”
“Untoward? Unusual?” Doyle waved a wild hand. “Ya gob, everything out there is a blank to me now. Nothing tastes like anything! People got no faces!”
“You too?” It was the little girl, Emma. “I thought it was just me. Not the people, but the food here is terrible. Like so Wrinkle in lime.”
Wait, it’s happening to the little girl; it ain’t just me. He felt a sudden burst of hopefulness. Oh, thank you, God, I am real, I am, and Kramer’s simply mad! “Did he give you a shot?”
“No. It’s been like that since I got here,” Emma said.
“Started for Tony and me after the nightmare,” Rima said.
“And for me.” It was Bode, finally conscious and still very pale, his long hair hanging in wet ropes. But he was sitting up now as Meme stood, face pinched, a
t his elbow. He pressed a hand to a temple. “God, feel like I’ve come back from the brink of the grave.”
“You have,” Black Widow said.
“Are you all right?” Rima called as Chad said, “Christ, everything’s the same except the accent. You okay, man?”
“Yes, I …” And then Bode’s face drained of what little color it had. “My God. You can’t be—”
“He’s not. Chad’s like the other Tony.” Rima said it almost apologetically.
“I don’t know if that makes me feel better.” Bode cracked a thin smile. “But I’m glad you’re alive, Chad.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of happy about that myself, man,” Chad said.
“But food had taste for you before, Bode?” Kramer asked.
Confusion creased Bode’s face. “I … I think so?”
“Fascinating. Perhaps that’s because you’re a piece of Elizabeth and not cut from the same cloth as our Doyle here.”
“Oh, shut up,” Doyle said.
“For God’s sake, stop thinking only of yourself, Doyle. Look at our world, how broken it is, how scrubbed of its features, its uniqueness. Look at us.” With a curse, Kramer tore off his mask. “Look at me, my face,” Kramer hissed. The purple bellies of exposed muscle quivered, and his naked left eye, without its lid, gleamed as milky-white as the Peculiar itself. “The monstrosity I’ve become. For whatever reason, that … man”—he shook the half-mask at McDermott—“that monster steals from us, and I would have it back. I would restore order, make us whole.”
“Steals?” Doyle saw how Emma’s mouth quivered. Her face was the color of the fog. “What does he take? How does that relate to us, to Elizabeth? Is it … ohhh,” Emma breathed. “Pieces.”
“Oh my God.” Elizabeth gasped. “He’s talking about energy transfer. It’s probably why Kramer thinks releasing the doubles’ energy bottled up in here”—Elizabeth put a fist to her chest—“will help.”
“Because it will,” Kramer said.
“Yeah,” Emma said to Elizabeth. “Exactly. I mean, look at all of it.”
“What are you two talking about?” Rima looked from the little girl to Elizabeth and back. “What do you mean, transferring …”
“The ripples. Why things waver down here. It’s like that energy sink I told you about, Rima. The reason Elizabeth is important is because she’s a container. Inside, there are all these different energy …” The girl looked to Elizabeth. “What’s the word?”
“Signatures,” Elizabeth said. “Energy signatures.”
“Remarkable,” Kramer mumbled, his blued nub of a tongue writhing over naked bone. With no nose, he had to hold his panops like a pair of opera glasses. He looked at Black Widow. “You see this?”
“Yes.” The woman had slipped on her pair. “It’s … it’s her and all of them together.”
“It?” Meredith said. “Them?”
“What does she mean, Emma?” Rima said.
“The pieces,” both girls said, and then the little girl went on: “That’s why Kramer and this other Meredith snatched us. I don’t understand it, but Elizabeth’s like … like a bottle, only she’s got a bunch of different-colored beads all mixed up inside, which is why she’s here in the hospital. Everyone’s all rattling around inside, and it makes her kind of … you know.” The little girl gestured toward her head.
“I think the word’s mad.” Doyle didn’t recognize his own voice, or that dead tone. “Don’t you know we all are here?”
Easy there, poppet.
“Kramer wants to take out all the energy signatures, all the beads that don’t belong until she’s only one color, just Elizabeth. Then, if he can do that, he figures he can build better, you know … people than those blank man-things.” Emma looked at the older girl. “Right?”
I do believe she’s got it, Black Dog said.
“Right.” Elizabeth looked over at Doyle. “He wanted to see how much of you he could take away and what could be put back.”
“He took it all,” Doyle said, hoarsely. His hands bunched. He felt like weeping.
Oh now, darling. Not all. Black Dog gave him a long and sloppy doggy kiss. I’m your true color, the blackness of your heart, with no artifice, no mask to obscure the monstrosity, and I will never leave you.
“God, and how I wish you would,” Doyle said, not caring who heard or what they thought. An illusion; it’s all been nothing but smoke and mirrors.
“But I can put back, Doyle,” Kramer said. “With the Mirror, anything is possible.”
“You don’t have that kind of power, Kramer,” McDermott said. “You never will.” He looked at Black Widow. “It’s the same for you. You came for me and Meredith? You only thought you crossed to a Now.”
“What?” Meredith asked.
“Jesus,” Elizabeth said.
“What?” Emma said to the older girl. “What’s he …”
“But you didn’t,” McDermott said to Black Widow. “You can’t. You won’t ever have that ability.”
“Indeed?” Black Widow’s face was strained. “You forget who I have. I have you. I have your wife.”
“No.” McDermott gave a smile that was so sad, Doyle thought the man might weep, too. “Never. You’ve never had her. No one has, not even me.”
“Frank?” Meredith looked frightened again. “Frank? What do you mean? What are you saying?”
“Please, Meredith, please remember this.” McDermott smoothed hair from his wife’s face. “I have loved you with all my heart. I have always loved you. I would give my soul to save you. I’ve tried so hard.”
“Save me?” Meredith’s eyes grew huge. “What are you saying?”
Oh shite. Doyle couldn’t help but look to the bundles. That’s why she’s—
“Please, McDermott.” To his surprise, Doyle saw the shine of tears on Kramer’s face, dewing both flesh and raw muscle. “In God’s name, tell me where the Mirror is and how to use it,” the doctor said, holding out his hands like a supplicant. “Help us, please. Don’t leave us to die in this blighted world.”
“There’s nothing I can do. I’ve already told you, Kramer.” McDermott’s shoulders slumped. “How many more times do I have to say it? There is no Dickens Mirror here. There’s only the—”
“Dickens Mirror. I know,” Kramer said. “That’s what you say—”
“And you’re not hearing him,” Elizabeth interrupted, though from her tone, Doyle thought the girl he saw might not be the one speaking, as if she had her own Black Dog that had taken control of her tongue. “He really means what he says, Kramer. Think about it a second, and then you’ll get it. It’s that little word, the. Makes all the difference.” She looked at McDermott. “Victorian pastiche. That’s what it’s been called, because you were imitating a style, an era. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why things are the way they are here. This is like Satan’s Skin.”
“Yes,” McDermott said. “That’s exactly it.”
“What?” Doyle looked from one to the other. “What’s Satan’s skin? A grimoire? A demonic parchment?”
“No. It’s pieces,” the girl said. “Pieces of a book.”
DOYLE
Pastiche
“PIECES?” KRAMER’S LIDLESS eye bulged. “A book? A Victorian pastiche?”
“Yes. An imitation. That’s what my Kramer called it,” Elizabeth said.
Imitation. Doyle’s head was hollow. Like me. Just a bit character in a drama.
“Your Kramer?” Kramer scowled. “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”
Elizabeth grunted a breathy laugh. “I wish. In my Now, you’re just as obsessed with McDermott. You’re still an asshole, too.”
“You know about Satan’s Skin?” Meredith said. “That’s impossible.”
“Well, I guess not. Considering that I rewrote part of Satan’s Skin without knowing it, and that started this whole nightmare to begin with,” Elizabeth said.
“But how do you know about it?” Meredith said. “It’s only in manuscript form.”<
br />
“Because I’ve read McDermott’s books in my Now,” Elizabeth said. “I saw a copy of a portion of that manuscript. We had this assignment to do a story in the style of Frank McDermott, and I ended up writing part of Satan’s Skin without realizing it. Changed up a couple things, but my story was virtually identical. It also didn’t end.”
“That’s right.” Meredith gave a slow nod. “He never finished it. But it still doesn’t explain how you know it.”
“It’s a really long story. I saw a … a hint in … well, the doctors said fugue states, but I call them blinks.” Elizabeth waved that away. “Little side-trips to different Nows. Anyway, this one happened in the valley, the one they’re all dreaming about? Yeah, yeah, I know.” She put up a hand as Meredith opened her mouth. “They can’t dream. He doesn’t make them that way. But guess what, they obviously can, because I know about dreaming and they’ve all had the same nightmare. Now, maybe this London’s Tony and Rima wouldn’t have had the dream if the others hadn’t lived through the valley, although if they’re all connected and entangled on a quantum level or something …” She seemed to shake that off, too. “Doesn’t matter what you call it. The point is, I saw a copy of a book in a series I’d never heard of called The Dark Passages.”
“Yes, it was a projected series, but he got sidetracked and then decided he couldn’t write it well enough. So it’s all in …” Trailing off, Meredith searched her husband’s face. He gave her back nothing, but he also didn’t deny anything. “That book’s in pieces, too,” Meredith said to Elizabeth. “Notes, chapter fragments. Character sketches. Of course, it’s disintegrating over time because of the ink and parchment he uses. But that book …” Meredith exhaled a laugh that was mostly air. “It’s set in Bedlam.”
“And you put all that away in a Peculiar?”
“No. Frank sent the pieces to …” Pressing the heel of a hand to her forehead, Meredith closed her eyes. “A vault in London. That’s what he said. I believed him.”
“Because I did,” McDermott said. “I didn’t lie about that.”
“But you left yourself a back door, didn’t you? So you could visit, play around, maybe swap out a character, or edit? Or maybe … Jesus.” Elizabeth leveled a sudden, sharp look at McDermott. “It just hit me: what if you wanted a place to squirrel away stuff that had nothing to do with anything in that manuscript? Bits and scraps and pieces … Is that what we’re talking about? That’s why there are all these pieces inside Elizabeth? Jesus, you made Elizabeth this way on purpose. She’s your own special Peculiar: a container for excess energy or whatever you grab from the Dark Passages, so you can still get at it.” Wrenching her arms free of the blank, which didn’t demonstrate an inclination to grab her again, Elizabeth glared at McDermott. “All this is exactly like Satan’s Skin, isn’t it? The key is … it’s not finished. That’s why this place is falling apart: because you never completed it, and now it’s just rotting away.”