Twixt

by Sarah Diemer

  “I’ll show her how,” says Charlie, voice gruff, stepping closer to me, putting her arm around my waist.

  Isabel's eyes lock onto Charlie's hand upon my hip. She stares for a silent moment, breathes out.

  “Suit yourself.” She lifts her gaze, lingering on Charlie's face, and Charlie doesn't look away, doesn't even blink, until Isabel, at last, breaks her stare. She steps back and away from us as a piercing voice makes us all start.

  “Chaaaaarlie!”

  Charlie's arm falls back to her side as she spins around.

  The woman who dances across the room to meet us has dark hair piled atop her head, her shoulders bared and her chest almost bared, the V of her black dress's neckline plunging halfway down her ribcage. Her smile is wide and natural, though her eyes are shrewd, missing nothing.

  “Charlie, darling, I’ve missed you!” she squeals, throwing her gloved hands around Charlie’s neck and squeezing so tightly that Charlie is forced to plant her face along the woman’s shoulder.

  “Miss Black,” she says, grinning when the woman eases back, and Charlie takes another whoosh of breath, staggering a few steps away from the woman, toward me.

  “Charlie, we miss you so much here. Not that Edgar isn’t a good Fetcher, because of course, everyone knows he’s a good Fetcher.” She pulls a black lace fan from the crevice of her bosom and begins to fan herself, shaking her head and frowning. “But I’ve said to myself all this good long while that we need our best back, and if we had our best back, we’d save more new Sleepers than all the other Safe Houses combined, and you know what I always say, more is more, so—”

  “So glad you think so highly of me, Miss Black,” Edgar smirks, sidling up, single brow raised, with Violet standing stiffly by his side. Miss Black snaps her fan shut and smacks Edgar on the shoulder with it.

  “Edgar, you know that I love you truly, but Charlie’s the best, and Black House should always have the best.” She turns to Charlie, placing her hands on her hips, eyes narrowed. “Promise me that you’ll think about coming back, Charlie.”

  “You know I can’t do that, Miss Black, but thank you for the invitation.” Charlie is visibly uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other, leaning back when Miss Black darts forward, placing her arms around Charlie’s neck again and forcing her into another tight squeeze.

  “You’ll always have a place here, darling,” she promises, kissing Charlie’s left cheek and then her right, before dancing off, snapping her fan open with a resounding clack. Charlie breathes out, rubbing at her shoulders stiffly, shaking her head as she watches Miss Black’s retreating form.

  “She always did love you best,” says Edgar, teasing, until Isabel, pushed aside by Miss Black, regains her ground and advances on him. Edgar crosses his arms, sighs, cocks his head.

  “You owe me three,” says Isabel sharply. “Give them to me.”

  “Always a pleasure,” mutters Edgar, drawing a small pouch from his waistcoat pocket and pulling out three quivering black feathers. They seem to dance in his hand, bending toward Isabel.

  Nox.

  Isabel snatches them from him, crumpling their fragile forms into her palm before she flounces back across the room, away from us—though she tosses a glare back over her shoulder.

  Charlie sighs, leans toward Edgar. “Two for us, I guess.” She tugs her little scissors up on their chain, nudging them out from beneath her shirt.

  “Wait.” My heart is pounding so fiercely, it’s difficult to breathe. “You don’t have to Mem, Charlie. Not for me. And I…I want to pay for mine. Let me pay with—”

  “No,” Charlie and Violet say at the same time.

  But Edgar watches me, frowning. “Everything comes at a price, Charlie. You always say that. And it's true.” His words are sympathetic, but fast. “Let her buy her own Nox.”

  Charlie grimaces, raking her hand through her hair, but she takes the chain with the shears over her head and coils it upon my palm. The metal is still warm from her skin, but the scissor blades are sharp.

  "What should I—"

  “A curl,” Edgar says, eyes downcast, avoiding Charlie's gaze. “A piece of Nox will cost you one curl.”

  I pull my tangled mane over my left shoulder, staring down at it, trying to separate it with my fingers. I draw out a black coil, glancing to Edgar. He nods, and I swing Charlie's shears open with a gentle creak. One snip, and the bit of black falls into my hand. Something inside of me sinks, then shrivels, as I hold my hair out, palm up. Edgar plucks it and, in its place, drops a small black feather.

  “Here,” says Charlie, taking my other hand gently. She draws me toward the far edge of the room, sitting down with her back to the wall, below a collection of Wisps in faceted glass decanters. She pats the floor beside her, and I sit down, too, clumsy as I try to fold my legs, tucking my skirts and my boots beneath me.

  I’m so nervous… I feel clunky and graceless on the floor of Black House's ballroom, next to Charlie, who looks edgy but comfortable enough leaning there, one knee up, the other drawn beneath her. Violet lowers herself then, crouching beside me. I raise my eyes, scanning for Edgar, and find him striding amongst the gathered people, making small talk and trading feather after feather, their dark translucence ethereal in the softly lit room, for snips of hair.

  “Okay. All right.” Charlie holds up the small scissors in one hand; they tremble a little. “I’m going to help you, okay?”

  “Yeah,” I whisper, leaning close. Charlie takes my hand in hers, long fingers curling around my wrist.

  “It’s going to hurt a little,” she whispers, and opens her own hand, showing me a thin, arcing line of black that runs across her palm, curving to follow her hand's natural line. “That’s how you can tell I’ve taken Nox. Once you take it, your lifeline blackens, like this.”

  I stare down at my own palm. No blackness traces it yet.

  “I’m going to cut now, okay?” Charlie whispers, and I grit my teeth, close my eyes as she places the edge of one of the shears against the beginning of my lifeline. The cut is quick, expert, following the line. I swallow as I open my eyes, staring down at the wound, red bubbling up where the skin was gashed.

  Charlie takes a feather and sets it against the line of red, black covering the red, absorbing it, until there’s nothing left but blackness. I watched, transfixed, as the feather seems to melt, merging into my skin, and I close my eyes tightly, ready…

  Everything is focused on the pain in my palm, the strange coolness of the feather as it shrinks, vanishing.

  I wait.

  After a long moment, Violet beside me breathes out, shifts, leans closer.

  “Charlie…” she whispers.

  I open my eyes.

  Charlie’s staring down at my palm curled into hers. My skin now bears a single black line, and the wound is gone, healed, with no blood remaining.

  Charlie glances up into my eyes, her own wide, her brow furrowed.

  Across the room, there's a gasp, and my head turns toward the source of the sound. I watch a girl collapse upon the floor, body shaking as her hands, black lined, lay open and flat beside her. Her back arches, mouth distended and eyes wide, unseeing. She holds that posture for a long time—too long—and then relaxes, lays perfectly still, chest rising and falling in short breaths, head tilted back and mouth curving, as if she’s in ecstasies.

  “That’s Memming,” murmurs Charlie, voice husky, fingers grazing the new black line upon my hand. “I don’t—”

  “What’s the matter?” asks Edgar, moving through the crowd to stand beside us. “What was Lottie's memory like?” Behind him, more people drop to the floor, drop at random, all around the room, and my eyes dart from one to the next, my heart skipping, because that—none of that—happened to me when Charlie put the feather on my hand. I feel a pang of disappointment, but deeper, colder, there's only fear.

  “She didn’t…” Charlie’s staring up at Edgar, mouth open. She breathes out. “Edgar, it didn’t work.”
<
br />   He blinks, then stares down at me, at the black line on my open palm. “That’s impossible.” Edgar kneels, removing a pair of shears from his pocket with practiced ease. The scissors, delicately engraved, dangle from a long, thin chain buttoned to his breast lapel.

  “May I?” he asks, and I nod. He takes my other hand, the one not yet lined with black. His shears are wickedly sharp and slice along my palm so smoothly, I feel no pain for a heartbeat—but then I gasp, suffering the burning sting of the wound.

  Edgar has drawn a single feather from his pouch, and he presses it now upon my sliced palm. The feather, as before, seems to melt into my skin, blackening the lifeline. And the wound seals, like a mouth closing, and then—

  I should gasp and flail and fall backwards, arching, moaning…

  Nothing.

  I feel nothing, not even the pain of the cut inflicted by Edgar's shears.

  I stare up at him, heart beating fast. “Is it supposed to happen now?” I ask him, wetting my lips. He watches me closely, carefully, then sits back on his heels, hands on his knees.

  “That’s…not possible.” He turns from me, glancing to Charlie. “I’ve never—”

  “Me, either. What does it mean?” she whispers.

  Edgar flops down onto the floor, hands behind him, propping him up. “I, lovely ladies, have no idea.”

  Violet, Edgar and Charlie's heads all turn toward me, as one, watching me so closely that I blink at their wide eyes, staring right back. “What’s happening? Why isn’t it working?” I ask them, examining my hands, palms up, upon my legs. They both boast thin black lines now, curving away from each other in opposite directions.

  “Nox always works, Lottie,” Edgar states finally, heavily. “And it didn’t work on you. You haven't got a memory, have you?”

  "No." The anticlimax is bitter. I try to swallow it, but my throat is too dry. “Maybe… What if we—”

  “We've tried twice. It’s never not worked, and twice it hasn’t worked.” Edgar’s mustache twitches sideways, bewildered. “I doubt it’ll work if we try again.”

  The room feels too loud all of the sudden, and warm, stuffy. I watch the convulsing forms upon the floor—bodies arching at unnatural angles and falling still, arms spread out wide, as if they’re waiting, as if they're prepared to embrace an old acquaintance.

  Isabel sits on the edge of a plush chair, watching us above the writhing, shut-eyed mass. Two of her friends from earlier, a boy and a girl, stare toward us, too, standing on either side of the fire. I don’t know why, but with their narrowed eyes, the way that they lean toward us, sighting us, singling us out, I feel…hunted.

  Isabel stands, then, begins to weave between the prostrate forms of Memming Sleepers. Beside me, Charlie sits up straighter, and I rise, too, pressing my back against the wall.

  “Well?” Isabel asks, hands on her hips. “How was it?” She’s talking to me, I know, but she’s staring at Charlie, can't seem to remove her eyes from Charlie.

  I open my mouth, but Charlie gives me a warning glance, and I stare down at the floor, heart racing.

  “Fine. Don't tell me," Isabel mutters, cutting the words short. I look at her, then, at the sharp lines of her face, wondering why she bothered to ask at all.

  Charlie glances at the tall grandfather clock beside the fireplace, at the hands moving too quickly over its face.

  “Almost midnight," she says, frowning. "Isabel, do you have a room that Violet and Lottie can stay in while Edgar and I go out Fetching? I don’t think that Memming is something Lottie's much interested in now. And Violet, as you know, doesn't enjoy it.”

  “Oh, but the party is such fun.” The brown-haired girl’s eyes flash as she folds her hands prettily in front of her. “If you insist, though, of course. Why, they can stay in my room!”

  Edgar and Charlie exchange a glance. “Surely you have plenty of spare rooms for new Sleepers…” Charlie begins, but Isabel’s smile stretches across her face, curving up wickedly. It's not a real smile. There's a bite behind it.

  “I’ll find them a room. Don't worry.” She looks to the clock. “Now, you two hurry along. You don’t want to be late. The new Sleepers count on you, Charlie.”

  The clock strikes midnight with a harsh gong that startles me.

  I narrow my eyes. Wasn’t it only just sunset?

  Time’s kind of funny here.

  “Come,” says Edgar, tugging on Charlie’s sleeve. “We are late already, and the Snatchers might beat us to the crossroads."

  Charlie bites her lip, eying Isabel.

  "Miss Black won’t let Isabel do anything foolish, Charlie." Edgar pins Isabel down with a piercing glare. "You know that, and so does she.”

  Isabel’s jaw tightens, and Charlie’s helpless gaze holds mine for a long moment after she rises. I nod at her, urging her to go, remembering the girl we lost to the Snatchers only last night.

  With a sigh, Charlie turns and follows Edgar through the archway, down the hall. The distant creak of the front door opening and closing reverberates throughout the tall-ceilinged space.

  They're gone.

  I feel cold on the side that Charlie had filled beside me. I bring my knees up, wrapping my arms around them to stop my shivering, and half-listen to the strange, shuffling sound of the Sleepers Memming, Miss Black among them, eyes closed as her back arches upon the floor, curving a question out of her spine.

  “So, Lottie, let me guess. Charlie couldn’t be bothered to come up with a name for you, so she just gave you the leftovers of hers.” Isabel’s head is cocked to the side, and her fingers remain on her hips, splayed and pointy. “Is that how it happened, Violet?”

  “Shut up,” Violet whispers beside me, shoulders up, face white.

  “You know, Lottie?" Isabel leans forward, bending at her beribboned waist. "I think Charlie likes you.”

  I stare up at her, eyes wide.

  “But Charlie’s a strong girl. She only likes strong girls." Straightening, looming, she taps her chin, as if a thought just occurred to her. "You know what I thought we could do to pass the time, a fun little game? Let’s prove to Charlie how strong you are,” Isabel says, shifting her weight forward. “We do it every night here at Black House. Do you remember, Violet? I'm sure you do.”

  I hadn't thought it possible, but Violet blanches, paling further, shrinking back as Isabel snatches at her arm, pinching her fingers around the fleece.

  Violet winces. "No, I don't—"

  "Hush, baby." Tightening her grasp, Isabel tugs, pulling Violet to her feet. “She used to live with us at Black House, you see," Isabel tells me. "And you do remember, Vi. You were very good at the game, as I recall.”

  “Leave her alone,” I growl, standing up, balling my hands into fists.

  Isabel ignores me, so I step forward, shoving hard against her shoulders. With an arched brow, she drops Violet’s arm, staring at me with her perfect lips parted. Then her eyes begin to flash, wild.

  “You touched me." Her teeth are bared, sharp as shears. "No one from Mad House is allowed to touch me,” she snarls, then blinks, smoothing her features, as if she just remembered her manners. “I think you’ll be adept at our little game, Lottie. I'm very good at it. That's what impressed Charlie…in the beginning.” Her eyes darken, dangerous.

  “Isabel, just leave us alone until Charlie gets back. We'll just stay here,” says Violet, but Isabel ignores her, is still staring at me with bright, sparking eyes.

  “What kind of game?” I ask, curiosity—and a streak of competitiveness I hadn't known I possessed—getting the better of me. Violet shakes her head emphatically, but Isabel’s mouth curls up into a smile, and she folds her arms in one smooth gesture.

  “It’s called Faster,” she whispers.

  “No, no, no,” Violet wails, tugging at my sleeve. “Lottie, please…”

  I watch Isabel carefully, my anger cooling into a rigid, unbending stubbornness that frosts my limbs, making them stiff.

  “Aren’t you curious
?” asks Isabel.

  I shake my head, lying.

  “Ah,” she whispers, rolling her eyes. “You’re afraid.”

  I am. It’s the truth, and we both know it. But fear doesn’t rest easy with me, the holding of it in my bones, in my stomach. I want to get rid of it, throw it away, push it off from me, and I feel so strange, staring down at the palms of my hands that now bear black lines from Nox. Nox, that should have given me memories… That didn’t.

  I stare down at my hands, then back up at Isabel. The blood rushes through me, and as Violet pinches my skin, I say, clearly, “Tell me about the game.”

  “No…no…” Violet whispers so softly as Isabel crooks her finger toward the boy and girl lounging by the fireplace, urging them forward.

  “This is Anthony and Gerda,” she tells us. “And these are Lottie and Violet,” she tells them, her eyes slitted toward us, mouth smirking. “They’ve just agreed to play Faster!”

  Anthony stares us up and down. He has wavy brown hair that’s perfectly curled around his ears, is wearing jeans and a very tight black jacket. The girl, Gerda, has on a slinky red dress, her blonde hair swept in one soft wave down her back. She smiles at me, teeth flashing in the half-light.

  “Violet, I’m sure, remembers the rules,” says Isabel as we move out of the ballroom, into the hallway, and down another corridor. "Tell Lottie how to play, Violet."

  My heart is pounding so loudly, it's hard to hear anything else.

  “You just have to be faster,” Violet breathes, her teeth chattering together as she pants beside me. “Isabel, when Charlie finds out that you’ve goaded us into this—”

  “Charlie loved this game and would be disgusted by your sniveling.” Isabel tosses a sneer over her shoulder. The hallway is narrow; her wide blue skirt brushes against the walls as she walks quickly along. “Did you forget that Charlie invented Faster?”

  Violet falls silent, hugging herself and falling a little behind me.

  My heart stills for a moment. Charlie invented this game? Then maybe it won't be as bad as Violet makes it out to be. I think of Charlie's warm brown eyes, her gentle manner and her soft voice. I think of the way she holds my hand, and places her hand against my back, always letting me know she's there, beside me. I think of how fast she was, how steady, when we ran from the Snatchers that first night…