The Dickens Mirror

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “Oh God.” Meredith hid her face in her hands. “Jesus, Frank.”

  “What?” Kramer rapped. “This is a world! It’s a Now.”

  “No, it’s not.” Elizabeth never looked away from McDermott. “I’m right.”

  “Essentially.” McDermott measured her with a glance. “Who am I talking to?”

  “Take a wild guess,” Elizabeth said.

  “Emma?”

  “Me?” The word came out as a high squeak. Doyle saw Rima put an arm around the little girl. “You mean, I’m not different?” Emma said. “I’m just like everyone else?”

  “Oh no, you’re very different,” McDermott said. “Trust me on that, honey.”

  “Don’t honey me.” Turning, the girl buried her face in Rima’s shoulder. “I don’t know you. You’re not my guardian.”

  “Emma,” said Elizabeth … or was it another, older Emma residing in Elizabeth’s body? An amalgam of both? My God, Doyle thought, I’m actually getting used to this, and how much lunacy is that? “It’ll be okay,” Elizabeth/Emma said. “I … we have an idea.”

  “We?” McDermott’s eyes slitted. “Who are you talking about?”

  “All of them. The shadows.” Kramer sounded as broken as Weber’s skull. “She can do it at will now. No struggle at all. Just that glimmer.”

  “What about my Elizabeth?” Black Widow asked. She’d said so little, but then again, Doyle thought this was like screaming: eventually, even horror spun out to a certain numb resignation. “What’s she to say in all this?”

  “She’s here.” Elizabeth … Emma … seemed to turn inward a moment. “Right beside me. Elizabeth let us. We didn’t force her, but it was the only way to save Bode. Actually, she’s the one who figured out what Frank’s doing, why he’s left her this way.”

  “Frank.” Meredith cupped a hand to her mouth as if afraid to let the rest out. “You bastard, you couldn’t let Emma go, could you? You had to try, to see what would happen, even after I told you not to.”

  “What were you afraid of?” Elizabeth/Emma asked.

  “You were too much, Emma,” Meredith said. “Too much of the Dark Passages, too close to real. What I’ve never understood is why. Why try so hard? Why keep trying to make you work?”

  “There might be a reason.” Elizabeth/Emma looked at Black Widow, then back to Meredith. “I bet not everything this London’s Meredith says is wrong. You might be like Kramer, not letting yourself hear what she means.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve said that.” Kramer glowered. “Why?”

  “No, Emma,” McDermott said. “Elizabeth. Please. You don’t have to do this.”

  “I don’t have to … what?” Elizabeth/Emma said. “Lie? You mean, like you?”

  “What in God’s name is going on? McDermott, if the Dickens Mirror is here, where is it?” Kramer actually turned a circle. “And Satan’s skin? What is that, a kind of parchment? What are you three going on about?”

  “You’ve all got very selective hearing. I’ve told you.” Elizabeth/Emma kept her eyes on McDermott. “We’re going on about books. Books in pieces. Books going to pieces because of the ink he used to make sure they would die eventually. Books that exist in fragments and were never finished, like Satan’s Skin. Like”—Elizabeth/Emma ran her gaze over the glowing rock before settling on Kramer—“like this place and the people here. Like you. That’s why you’re falling apart. That’s why there’s energy everywhere. You’re a pot of water that’s boiling itself dry, a fire burning itself out, going up in smoke. That’s why the fog keeps getting worse.”

  “She’s right.” Black Widow looked to Kramer, who’d gone as chalky as the paint on his mask of tin. “I don’t like it. But it fits.”

  “What fits?” Doyle thundered. He couldn’t help himself, but they were all talking, talking, talking above him somehow, in their own private language, as if he didn’t matter. “Can’t you just say it?”

  “Yes.” Across the room, Meme—so quiet, so dutiful—was the picture of dread. “What is she saying? What does she mean?”

  “Yeah, go on, Dad,” Elizabeth/Emma said. “Cat’s out of the bag now.”

  “You think you’ve got it all figured out, young lady.” Anger made McDermott’s voice shake. Color flooded his cheeks. “But believe me, you don’t. This will cause more pain and heartache than you can imagine.”

  “I’ve lost everything”—and Doyle thought this was mainly Emma speaking now. “Eric’s a shadow. Me, my essence … I’m stained by the whisper-man. I can’t go back to my Now, can I? No, of course not. What I’ve built for myself would probably fall apart. It might be ruined already, like Rima’s book-world. Funny, too, because I always figured this face was only a mask; that the monster underneath would show itself in the end. And now?” Her mouth moved in a crooked grimace. “It has. I’m stuck here, you asshole. So don’t talk to me about pain. Tell them the truth. You already did. They just didn’t hear what you really meant. Go on.” Her face shuddered, and Doyle saw no glimmer this time, but tears spilling over her cheeks. “Don’t be such a damned coward, Frank,” she said.

  Through the haze of his rage, Doyle had a clear thought: a coward this Emma was not. “Yes.” He squared his shoulders. “Tell us, damn you, and devil take the rest.”

  Ah. Black Dog sounded as if it had found a meaty bone. Of that, have no fear.

  For a second, Doyle thought that McDermott might still refuse, but then the other man let out a defeated sigh. “Fine.” McDermott pulled himself straighter. “She’s right. I said it, and I keep saying it. There is no Dickens Mirror, not the way you think of it.”

  “Of course there is.” Red blotches stained the portion of Kramer’s jaw that was flesh and blood. “You use it. How could I know about it otherwise?”

  “Because of who and where you are. The Dickens Mirror is the title of a book I never finished,” McDermott said. “And the reason you’ll never find it, Kramer, is because you’re living it.”

  EMMAS

  Doll

  1

  THE POLICEMAN, THAT Doyle guy, went ballistic.

  “You’re saying ya come here, take what ya need, leave the rest to rot?” Doyle’s accent was thick, full of rolled r’s and round vowels, like Indiana Jones’s dad. Only he was screaming, waving his hands around and choking on his words, which seemed like they couldn’t spill from his mouth fast enough. His face was redder than a beet and streaky with sweat. Emma thought he might even be crying. “Only some of us is more important, some worth the saving or caring about? Because I look around and I don’t see another Doyle!” he shouted at McDermott. “Why is that? Because I’m a piece of scenery to move around like a tree or rock! I’m a blank, a nothing, someone you snatch ’cuz it’s convenient? Who are you, who are you, to tell me my life is nothing?”

  “Doyle.” It was that creepy, half-faced doctor guy, who hadn’t bothered to put his mask back on. That little wormy nub of a tongue freaked her out. “Control yourself!”

  “Control?” Doyle bellowed. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you! You been pulling my strings from the beginning, playing on my troubles, making me your sop! All very well for you, because you’ve your mission. Going to make everything all whole again, yeah? Fix your flipping face? Wave your arms, and the Peculiar vanishes? Well, I got a bulletin for you. You want to know just how important you are, who really matters?” Doyle was by those tables in two giant strides. Drawing a knife, he began ripping and hacking at burlap, which gave with a sound that reminded Emma of Sal tearing up Jasper’s old underwear into rags. “I’ll show you. He don’t care about you. Take a good long look, and then you’ll know just how much you don’t matter to him!”

  “Doyle, no, wait!” McDermott shouted. Balled fists to her mouth, Meredith was crying but with no sound and only big tears rolling down her cheeks. When McDermott tried to hug her, she pushed him away. “Kramer, please,” McDermott said. “Stop him!”

  “No.” The crazy lady—the other Meredith—was whit
e as cottage cheese. “I want to see. I need to know.”

  Kramer said nothing. Everyone else was only watching. Her face tight, Rima was holding Tony. When she saw Emma looking, she held out an arm. “It’ll be all right,” the older girl murmured as Emma slid close.

  “What if they’re rotters?” When someone hugged you like this, it was hard to believe bad things could happen, but Emma thought this wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. In the cell next to theirs, Chad had dragged the other Tony away from the bars. Across the room, Emma saw that Bode was standing now, a hand on Meme’s arm. A finger of uneasiness tickled her neck at that, but then she felt eyes on her and shifted her gaze. Elizabeth—and the other Emma, along with whoever else was in there, and how freaky was that?—was watching her. As soon as she caught Emma’s eye, the other girl moved her head in a tiny nod. Just a quick up-and-down.

  Like … be ready.

  Ready? Ready for what? Or maybe she was only imagining things, her eyes playing tricks because of the energy wobble.

  Rima looked down at her with eyes that were clear now and not bleeding. “If they’re rotters, then I guess we’re done for.”

  “N-not yet.” Tony’s voice was barely a whisper. He raised a trembling hand to Rima’s cheek, which had ceased eeling. “We … still have to f-find our farm …”

  “On a high cliff, near the sea.” Rima pressed her lips to his forehead. “In the sun.”

  I don’t want to die. Eyes burning, Emma looked away. I don’t want anything to happen to Rima and Tony either. For some reason, she again looked over at Elizabeth, trying to look behind that girl’s face for the other Emma. She thought as hard as she could to that girl, Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.

  “There! You look at that!” A rope of white spit hung from the policeman’s mustache, and there was more lathered on his chin. Stepping back, Doyle aimed his knife, and Emma saw that he’d laid open two of the sacks and only started on the third. There was a big gaping hole over the chest, but either Doyle had thought better of it or decided the first two were enough. “You look at them and then you tell me just who in the hell matters here and what in God’s name it means! Because where they going? Where do they belong?”

  There was a moment’s silence as everyone stared. Then McDermott let out a long moan and let his head fall forward until his chin touched his chest. His knees kept crimping like he was trying to fall, and he probably would’ve if he hadn’t been hanging on to the bars.

  “Dear God,” Kramer said, very quietly. “They’re breathing.”

  2

  BOTH WERE GIRLS, without any clothes on at all, which would’ve bothered Emma any other time except this. The littlest one looked like she was in kindergarten or maybe first grade. Her hair was bright yellow like a sunflower, and her face was a heart, the chin delicate and fine but with baby fat still. She had very pink cheeks, and her lips were the color of spun cotton candy. Her eyes were closed.

  The woman’s face was a little square, but with high cheekbones and an angular jaw. Her hair, a rich, reddish chestnut brown, tumbled around her bare shoulders to curl over her breasts. What Emma noticed, right away, was how smooth her skin was: not milky white but tawny, as if she liked to spend time in the sun. No scars at all.

  The bodies were Elizabeth, as a little girl … and Meredith.

  There was a muttered holy shit from Chad. Both he and the other Tony had pulled themselves upright, the better to see, and Chad had threaded an arm around the other Tony’s waist. They listed, leaning into one another. Across the way, Bode had an arm around Meme now, who’d covered her mouth with both hands. She looked like she wanted to puke. Kramer’s face was half stony, half twitchy, those exposed muscles jumping. From his expression, Emma thought even Kramer was thrown for a loop.

  Doyle’s face was gray. His eyes were as buggy as a cartoon’s, like Wile E. Coyote’s after he’d just run off a cliff with a stick of dynamite in one hand: Wuh? He kept looking at the knife, like he couldn’t understand how it had gotten there.

  “Oh.” Rima’s hand tightened on Emma’s shoulder, and it was only then that she realized she’d moved out of the other girl’s protective embrace and closer to the bars. “McDermott made them again? Why?”

  Actually, with Meredith, Emma thought she might know. This book-fragment is all about an asylum. Kramer’s a psychiatrist or something. She bet the crazy lady, this London’s Meredith, had been his patient. And, look, this other Meredith, the one who thought she was real, had been in a hospital and there were fresh cuts on her arms. How many other Merediths are there? Did they all do that eventually? Because you’d have to be brain-dead not to see it: McDermott was starting his family over again, from scratch, for … for a new book? Or another Now?

  Gosh, what if for him, it’s the same thing? What if he writes a new him, too? What if life in a book with his wife and kid is better than nothing at all?

  Next to the new Meredith, the new little Elizabeth swallowed. Her lids twitched, then briefly flickered open. Someone in the room gasped; Emma didn’t know who, because her gaze was riveted. The little girl’s eyes were intensely, deeply blue, but there was nothing behind them. It was like she was a doll, or an android waiting for someone to download a program. Her lids slid down again, but not before Emma caught a glint of gold, and she knew that it was a birthmark … just like hers and the older, other Elizabeth’s. The little sleeping girl let go of a long sigh, and her mouth made little sucking movements. If you didn’t know better and with her eyes closed like that, you’d swear she was a baby having a dream about a nice warm bottle.

  But why make Elizabeth a little kid again? She couldn’t tell what the older version was thinking, but somehow Emma thought Elizabeth—the other Emma inside—had a hunch. Maybe he thinks that if he starts from when she’s younger, he’ll get more time. That he can change other things, too, and then nothing bad will happen to either his kid or her mom.

  “What is this, Frank?” For a lady who had only just met an earlier version of herself (because that was who this London’s Meredith had to be) and now gotten a peek of the copy that was supposed to take her place—God, when she finally cuts in just the right way and deep enough?—Emma thought Meredith sounded pretty calm. A little deadly even. “What have you done, Frank?” Meredith said. “What are you planning?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” But the London Meredith’s voice was a little breathless now, like someone had gotten her good, right in the stomach. “He’s preparing to discard you as he did me. You’ve become obsolete, a drudge.”

  “No.” McDermott reminded Emma of those pictures they showed of disaster victims when a monster twister’s made match-sticks of their houses, or a guy who went out for a jug of milk and came back to find fire trucks and his family still inside, burned to a crisp. “Never. That’s not … not what this is about. It’s never been that.”

  “Then what has it been?” Meredith asked, still in that deadly, even voice that was starting to sound an awful lot like the crazy lady in black’s. Emma kinda wished Meredith would go ballistic and get it over with. But maybe there was a limit to how much screaming a person could do, the same way you could be afraid for only so long before you had to deal. “Why have you done this? Why have you made them?”

  McDermott gave her a long look with his disaster-victim eyes. When he did speak, he kept it short and sweet.

  “Because she always gets sick. Elizabeth always dies,” he said. “And then, my love … so do you.”

  EMMA

  Escaping Destiny

  HOLY SHIT. FROM her place behind Elizabeth’s eyes, Emma watched McDermott, how calm he was now. Meredith too. He’d said it to Meredith in a Lizzie-blink when Meredith couldn’t quite remember how much in love she and her husband once had been: There’s some spark, an essence I can’t quite wrap my hands around and put where it belongs. That essence was like Bode and tunnels, or Tony and his tentacled nightmares out of Lovecraft. Just like me and my skull plates, the scars, this is the fund
amental that holds constant in every version and cuts across Nows: Meredith always kills herself because Lizzie always dies. No matter what he tries, McDermott can’t write any of that out.

  I’ve always been ill. In her head, at the mind’s eye, Elizabeth sounded as worn out and defeated as McDermott looked. Ever since I can remember. The other girl paused, and Emma could almost hear the rustle of a hem on poured concrete as Elizabeth shifted. Mother was always so melancholy, too. Elizabeth gave a laugh with no humor in it at all. That’s why I’ve heard Mother, with you other pieces. He placed part of her here for safekeeping, too. Why else craft a new Meredith here?

  That would make sense. But Emma bet McDermott wasn’t the type of guy to put all his eggs in one basket either. Guy wrote a lot of books; there must be tons of notes, and she knew there were other unfinished manuscripts. Her Kramer had said so. She bet he visited other places. She’d just happened to land here.

  “Well, now we know what he’s been doing here,” she said. It was internal, a thought directed at them all, but it felt better to imagine it as speech. “It’s the free energy, here for the taking, and he doesn’t have to worry about binding anything from the Dark Passages. He must know that if he reaches into the Dark Passages and binds those things too many times …”