The Dickens Mirror

by Ilsa J. Bick

  She let that go, but she could supply the rest: do that too many times—or do it even once with something very powerful and hold on a second too long because every ounce of your being screams not to let go—and you ended up like her: stained. Nowhere to go.

  I’m sorry. She felt Eric as a sigh along Elizabeth’s neck. I didn’t mean to stain you. I thought I’d let go in time.

  “Don’t, Eric. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I’d do it again.” I would try to save you, no matter what. Maybe she could understand McDermott after all. Eric felt so real, as if the longer they all spent time together, the more solid they became. Not that Eric would spring back to life or anything; that would never happen here. Maybe, in some other Now, an Eric would find an Emma, but it wouldn’t be her.

  Rima: Wonder who’s in the third sack.

  A new McDermott? Casey, a flicker.

  A good guess, but she didn’t think so. Size was all wrong.

  Emma. Eric, again. If we’re going to do this, now’s the time. While they’re all focused on the bodies.

  He was right. She might never get a second chance. But God, she was scared. She didn’t want to do this, not really, but she didn’t see another way out. She couldn’t go back to her old life. So it was either do nothing or this one last thing and hope for the best. But I don’t want to be nothing; I’m not ready to die.

  We don’t know if that will happen. Eric felt so close. But at least it’ll be our choice. Better than waiting around for something else to make that decision for us.

  So you are really going through with this? She couldn’t tell if Elizabeth was scared or skeptical. And you’d do it voluntarily? Elizabeth said.

  “We can’t stay here, inside you, forever,” Emma said. Just the image of Kramer looming over her with a syringe made her flesh creep. “It’s your best chance, too.”

  Perhaps. Elizabeth sounded thoughtful. But I was made for this place. Perhaps there’s no escaping destiny.

  “I don’t believe that. I got out.” So she might again, just in a different way. Sweeping her eyes around the room, Emma mapped out positions, mentally choreographing her moves. Bode and Meme were behind and off her left shoulder. Weber was slumped even further back, and the blanks had retreated to slots along the far wall. Frank and his Meredith of the moment were to her left; Rima, the Tonys, Chad, and Emma were the furthest away, in the last cell to her right. Between her and them were Kramer, London’s Meredith, the examination tables, and Doyle.

  And the cynosure’s where Kramer left it. She snuck her eyes to the instrument on her right, within arm’s reach. Quick snatch and grab, nothing fancy. After that—she slid a hand into her right skirt pocket and felt the keen steel scalpel, the one that Weber had stolen and which she’d swept up from her cell’s mattress what seemed ages ago now—she had to hope the others were fast enough. If she was really lucky, she’d pass on a suggestion, too. She hoped it would stick. But she’d settle for getting little Emma out of here and letting the chips fall where they would. She couldn’t control everything.

  Do the best we can, Eric said. Besides, you heard McDermott: you’re in it. It should work.

  “Yeah.” But should wasn’t the same as would. There was little Emma, another wild card in all this. Have to trust the cynosure knows what to do.

  There’s no guarantee you’ll be able to stay where you’re going, if you even manage it. You might only make things worse, although—Elizabeth’s tone took on a wry note—difficult to imagine how that could be.

  “But maybe not. This place is in pieces. McDermott never finished. There’s no coherent organizing principle, nothing that pulls it together or directs all this potential energy. But our Lizzie knows how to build Nows. So if we pull together …”

  To write a nice story, make this world over?

  “What other alternative is there? If we’re right … Hey, look.” Their interior exchange had lasted only a few seconds, and now Emma saw the constable, hands up as if warding something off, blunder back from the examination tables. “You see Doyle?”

  Yeah. I don’t think you’re going to get a better shot. She felt Eric and the others gather themselves. Get ready, Eric said. And Emma: I will hold you to my heart, across times …

  It was not and never had been her thought, but his, from that moment before they’d charged the whisper-man to try and rescue Casey and Rima. But Eric was in her, and she in him, and she knew the rest.

  “To my heart, across times, Eric,” she said. “To the death.”

  DOYLE

  Creature

  1

  DEAR GOD, WHAT had he done? I’m not a monster. I’ve never been cruel when it wasn’t called for in kind. Gasping, Doyle threw up his arms but couldn’t blot out what lay on those tables. Core his eyes from their sockets with his black blade, and he’d still see them: fresh, unmarred flesh and yet that awful emptiness. Like dolls. His gaze flitted to the third bag, which he’d not torn open. Best to leave that.

  No, better: get Meme out of here. He jerked his head around. With that bandage round his head, the boy, Bode, looked like a battlefield survivor, but it was Meme who tottered and Bode who slid an arm round the girl’s waist. The sight was acid and ate at his eyes. No, he would save her, back slang it from here. They would start fresh, just him and Meme, and to hell with …

  “So they’re for you,” Meredith was saying. Her voice was queer, a little dead already. “For when you start over. How many times, Frank? How many other copies of me are out there? Or do you only bop over to a nicer, less crazy Meredith in some other Now?”

  “No,” McDermott said. “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what’s it like?” Meredith asked in her dead-voice. “Tell me. I really—”

  “Constable, what is in the third bag?” Everyone turned, though Doyle couldn’t, not right away. “Constable?” Meme called again. “What’s in it?”

  Face her. Don’t be the coward we all know you are, darling.

  He did what Black Dog asked. Meme had taken a step away from Bode and now stood, uncertain, one hand outstretched toward Doyle but the other still lingering after as if tethered to the other boy by an invisible thread. “What … who is it? You must know, because you brought these here,” Meme said. “Show us.”

  “Yes, Doyle.” Kramer was still as a sphinx. “Do.”

  Black Widow stood, regal yet ashen, by the doctor’s side, and for the first time, Doyle thought how much a pair they were. How they looked so like the McDermotts, come to think of it. Why, sculpt Kramer a new jaw and he might be a double at that. And why not? McDermott had peopled this fiction with other bits of his life. Why not a bizarre, broken, half-lunatic version of himself with the same obsessions and mad desires? It hit Doyle that if a man lost his wife, that might just feel as if a good half of him had been carved away, his innards gutted … and now here was Kramer, face eaten and in ruins, the loss plain as day: half man, half monster. Considering his own Black Dog, that did seem to be quite the theme, didn’t it?

  “Hasn’t Doyle done enough?” A blank had more life in its voice than McDermott. “What’s the point?”

  “Because I want to know,” Meredith, his wife of the moment in whatever Now they inhabited, said. “I need to see this.”

  No, trust me. None of you needs this. But he’d no choice, did he? He felt Black Dog shuffle softly alongside as Doyle worked his blade into the slit he’d already started. This time, he worked the blade with care. He felt the supple glide of skin under his fingertips, the shudder of a heartbeat, the throb of a pulse along the neck. The head was swathed in light cotton, but loosely: a trick he’d learned when watching the undertaker do his pap. Then, too soon, he was done. Sack cut, wrappings laid aside.

  It was at that last second, too, that it came together for Doyle. McDermott had returned, oh, who knew how many times to fashion these, over and over again. So Kramer must’ve seized a chance and stolen one, but without understanding exactly what came next. It also made so much more sense
now why Kramer always said it in that most peculiar way of his: my creature.

  It was also clear that Meredith was right. McDermott was obsessed.

  But not only with his wife and daughter.

  2

  FIVE SECONDS AFTER Doyle flayed that sack, Meme began to scream.

  But it was another ten before she snatched the knife.

  EMMA

  The Third Body

  1

  THEIR VIEW WAS blocked, so she couldn’t see what—who—was in that third bag right away. But boy, she had a hunch, and before that policeman stepped back, Emma shot a glance at Elizabeth. Their eyes locked and Emma just knew the other girl was thinking the same thing. Emma turned to Rima. “You were right,” she said.

  “What?” Rima’s brows folded. Her arms tightened around Tony, who was more awake now, so maybe Rima had drawn enough from him after all. “What do you mean?”

  “When you looked through the glasses at Meme,” Emma said, “and saw noth—”

  That was when Meme started screaming, the sound like a spike. It was that loud. Beyond the cell, everyone was focused on that third body, and Meme. Bode kept trying to pull her back, but she fought, biting and kicking until he backed off.

  “It is not right, it is not fair!” she shrieked. “This cannot be right! I am not a monster, I am not!”

  The others jostled, like seagulls squabbling over a dead fish, and then Emma could see why Meme was freaking out.

  The third body was her.

  The third body was Emma.

  The third body was Meme.

  2

  “MEME, I’M S-SORRY, so sorry!” Doyle, the policeman, was blubbering like a kid who knew he’d done something he couldn’t take back, while, beyond, in the far cell, Meredith was shouting at McDermott: “You couldn’t let her go, you couldn’t let this die, could you? What were you thinking? A world built just for her? Your grand experiment? They’re things, they’re creations; you can’t set them loose.”

  “And what are you?” McDermott roared. Snatching Meredith by the arms, he shook her hard. “I have been trying to set you free for years, across times, and still it’s never enough! I can’t save our daughter, and I can’t save you from yourself!”

  “Meme!” Doyle held out his arms as if he expected a hug and a kiss would make everything all better. “You’re the last person I wish to harm!”

  “But I am not a person! Can you not see?” Raging, mouth hanging open, she rounded on the creepy doctor. “What did you do, Kramer? Steal me from McDermott to see if you could breathe life into the clay of my body? Do better with me than you have accomplished with those … those things?”

  Kramer said something, but Emma couldn’t hear what. It was chaos; except for those android-like things and the guy with the lumpy head, everything was a swirl, the perfect gambit for an escape except for the stupid iron bars, and Emma was thinking, If there was ever a time for Lara Croft. Then there was a flicker, way off to her left, and she turned.

  Elizabeth was moving, darting for a table. No one except her saw; they were all clustered around the tables and Meme, with their backs turned, and the blanks and messed-up Weber … well, they didn’t count, probably couldn’t think. Elizabeth made a running grab for the glass pendant. As soon as she touched it, the glass began to glister and glow, and Emma’s heart gave a leap. It works for her, it works for her!

  She scrambled to her feet. By her side, Rima started, called her name, but Emma was already flying across the cell. She dropped to her knees as the older girl dashed up. “What, what?” she asked.

  “Here,” the other girl said, though her voice had a weird hum that reminded Emma of when Superior really got going right before a big storm and the wind grabbed the windows and made them brrrr. Elizabeth thrust the necklace through the bars. “Put this on, and don’t take it off!”

  “Okay?” It came out as a question. This was not what she expected. Keys to unlock the cell—that would be good. Or a gun, a knife, something. But a necklace? Still, she slipped it on. To her, the chain looked like something soldiers used for dog tags, and those scraps of metal … was there writing on them? “But I don’t know …,” she began, and then realized that the glass hadn’t stopped glowing. There was something else happening, too, right between her eyes, under her lacy skull plate: the thump and throb of a new, fresh headache. Like I had right before crazy London Meredith showed up in my window at home. The same she’d felt when the secret door opened down cellar.

  “Listen to me. There’s only time to say this once.” Elizabeth was talking low and fast. “When I say go, you go, understand?”

  “G-go?” Emma felt Rima come up and drop alongside. “Go where?” she asked.

  “It’ll be obvious.” Elizabeth flicked a quick glance over her shoulder. Following her gaze, Emma saw that none of the adults were paying any attention. Meme was shrieking; the McDermotts were shouting at each other; Doyle was screaming again. Lots of noise and plenty to distract them. By now, Chad had scurried over, half-dragging the other Tony. “But if this works,” Elizabeth said, “you have to go right away. Don’t look back, don’t hesitate.”

  “If what works? What are you going to do?” Chad asked.

  “Get you out.” The older girl drilled Emma with a look. “When the time comes, you grab only the other Tony and Chad, you hear me?”

  “What?” She heard the high squeak in her voice. “I can’t leave Rima and—”

  “No,” Rima said. “She’s right, Emma. We have to stay, Tony and I. This is where we belong, but not you.” To Elizabeth: “You’re Emma now?”

  “Mostly, but we’re all here,” the other girl said. “Elizabeth, too, and she’ll still be here when this is done.”

  “Done.” Emma stared. “What do you mean, done? Why aren’t you coming? Where am I going?”

  “Don’t let her scream, Rima.” Elizabeth grabbed Emma’s wrist. “Honey,” Elizabeth said as, a second too late, Emma saw a flash of steel, “you’re going home.”

  3

  IF RIMA HADN’T slapped a hand over her mouth, Emma would’ve yelled plenty good and loud. The scalpel sliced a bright red ribbon on her palm, the pain like the thin line of a hot laser. Cheeks ballooning, she was still blowing the trapped ball of a scream when that steel flashed again as Elizabeth—the other Emma—cut herself, then slammed their bleeding palms together.

  The sensation was an explosion, a black, icy rocket blasting through her body, racing from her toes to shatter through the top of her skull. Emma’s vision reddened. Orange spangles bloomed, and there was a rushing, almost metallic clatter in her ears, like hundreds of birds snapping their beaks at once. Her body went limp. She might even have passed out a split second.

  “Hurry.” It was Rima, bracing her up. “Hurry, Elizabeth, now!”

  “Blood of My Blood,” Elizabeth said. A dark red rivulet was threading from one nostril. “I bind you. Breath of My Breath, I invite you, I take you …”

  Emma was having trouble breathing. There was a cold hand in her chest, working its fingers up her throat and down into her lungs, reaching around to cup and squeeze her heart. Another, very thin, slipped into her head; she could feel it walking her brain, picking its way across crevices and crooks before finding one very dark, very deep slit and worming its way in.

  “Together, we are one and there are the Dark Passages and … and … that’s enough, Emma!” Grimacing, Elizabeth threw her head back as her face glimmered, the features rippling and shifting, now a boy, now a half-girl, now a scaled creature with a silver swirl for an eye. “That’s enough, Emma,” Elizabeth growled, her voice a good octave lower. “Don’t hang on too long. She only needs a suggestion. Now, let her go, let her go, let her …”

  “Stop!” Rima wrenched their hands apart. “That’s enough!”

  The icy fist gripping her heart melted away in an instant. That weird sense of a finger stirring and poking the meat of her brain eased, though it wasn’t quite … gone. It stuck there, the wa
y a shred of pot roast got between her teeth, and she could feel a mental tongue sneak to worry it. In Elizabeth’s eyes, Emma saw the gold birthmark flare with rage and hunger, and Emma had the sick feeling she was the bunny and that was the wild animal out there ready to eat her alive.

  “Sorry. Right.” Elizabeth glanced askance and Emma wasn’t sure the other girl was even talking to them. When she looked back, her eyes had cleared. She reached through the bars. “Rima, let me …” As the other girl hesitated, she said, “You saw Weber. My blood heals. It will help.”

  “All right. Do it … ah!” Rima stiffened as Elizabeth pressed her bleeding hand against an open wound on Rima’s forearm. The contact was brief, no more than a second, but Emma saw Rima’s head rock back and then her eyes widen. “God, what …”

  “Save Tony.” Elizabeth surged to her feet. “And make sure Emma goes, Rima.”

  4

  FIFTEEN SECONDS GONE.

  Fifteen before Meme.

  ELIZABETH

  The Moment Electric

  YES, YES, YES! She didn’t know if that was her or Emma’s voice, but it didn’t matter because this was what she wanted, perhaps was even why she’d been created. Blood singing, Elizabeth lunged for the blank rock wall immediately to her left. Her palm was still bleeding, but already the muscles were wriggling, the edges of her skin worming and sewing themselves together. Her arms writhed, and as waves of energy swirled, she felt the hard ridges and lumpy pillows of her many scars begin to soften and disappear. They were all there now, the many pieces perched at the front of her mind, clamoring for release, and none stronger than Emma and her shadows. The pull was immense, this imperative to let go a tidal surge.