Lumière (The Illumination Paradox)

by Garlick, Jacqueline E.

  My heart gallops in my chest.

  Just as the smell heightens to a point where I fear my brain will explode, the sensation suddenly lets go. I gasp as it drains from my senses, dragging the silver away with it, smoothing away every sharp nerve. My heart slows. Every cell in my body tingles. Slowly, color pushes back into my world. The murky blacks and greys dissolve. The room comes alive with more vibrancy than it had before. All the sights and smells have been sharpened.

  I drink in its beauty as, slowly, my body quakes to a halt. It’s a few moments before I can catch my breath. My muscles lengthen and relax. My fingers stretch and let go. My jaw becomes unclenched.

  I stand, prepared to leave, to rush from this strange garden—then pause, and pocket a sample of the mysterious leaves before I go. I don’t quite understand what’s just happened, but whatever it was, I’m thankful.

  Urlick’s laboratory feels like I’ve stepped into a cave, its skylights swathed in trolling Vapourous brume. I move about the room quickly, igniting the gaslight sconces on the walls, trying to make myself feel better. They hiss to life in a trail behind me, making my skin crawl.

  The hydrocycle chortles from under its tarp, causing my heart to skip. I stop what I’m doing and move across the room, approaching it cautiously. “It’s okay,” I whisper, pulling back the corner of its cover. “It’s only me.”

  The cycle rattles.

  “What’s the matter, not exactly what you were expecting?”

  It groans.

  “I guess that makes us even, doesn’t it? Kind of like the first time I saw you. I was expecting the Illuminator. Not some bat-winged bicycle creature.”

  The cycle whimpers.

  “No offense, but you’re not exactly a cyclist’s dream.”

  It sighs.

  “Can I count on you not to give me away?” I bend a little closer.

  The cycle shudders, ducking aside.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I whisper. “If you agree to not give me away, I promise to fix your wings before I leave here tonight.”

  The hydrocycle straightens.

  “I knew you’d like that.” I pat it on the handlebars. “Consider it done. But you must never ever tell Urlick I was down here, do you understand?” I wag my finger in front of its bony face.

  The hydrocycle shimmies.

  “Good.” I reach out, running a hand over its head. “I have a feeling you and I are going to become great friends before all this is through.”

  The cycle shudders, then exhales.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a machine to unveil.”

  The cycle whimpers as I weave my way through the center of the room, dodging this gadget and that, feeling rather stupid at just having had a conversation with a machine. I look back over my shoulder at it resting peacefully, wings rising and falling again to the floor. I still wonder how that’s happening.

  Turning, I dash at the square of curtains at the back of the room. Time is of the essence, after all. Excited to reach it, I throw aside the heavy velvet screen.“ Aha!” I shout, then drown in disappointment.

  Behind the curtain stands nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Just a vast expanse of stone floor. A large square has been cut into the surface of it, as if marking where something once stood.

  “It’s gone.” I step inside the square, staring in disbelief. “I can’t believe it. He must have moved it. This afternoon, after he noticed my interest in the curtain.” I run to the wall, testing to see if it opens, pounding my fists on the quarry stones. “Where is it?” I whirl around. “Where can it be? He can’t have moved it far! The thing weighs a bloody ton!”

  I race around the room, checking behind every partition, flipping over every box, every crate, pushing aside every bin. “It has to be here! Somewhere! It must be!”

  The hydrocycle whimpers.

  “You,” I turn. “You know where it is, don’t you?”

  The cycle shudders, wincing away from me.

  “Please,” I race toward it, falling to my knees. “Please, tell me. I need to know, where is it? The machine he stole from the market in Gears. Where has he hidden it? Show me, please!”

  The cycle cowers at the tone of my voice, and I realize how frightening I must seem.

  “Very well, then,” I say, picking up a wrench. “Perhaps if I help you first?”

  The hydrocycle brightens, then sighs.

  Twenty one

  Eyelet

  A scream trumpets from the ceiling, startling both the cycle and me.

  My head shoots up, my heart drumming in my chest. “For the love of God, what was that?”

  The cycle shivers as the scream goes off again.

  I’m up and across the room in a flash. My eyes scan the ceiling, searching for the source of the noise, stopping under the apartment on the second floor.

  Iris!

  The scream rises again. A high-pitched, tortured howl. I drop the wrench. “Something’s happening to Iris!” I snatch up my skirts and bolt for the stairs, activating them as I grab for a torch on the wall.

  “Hold on, Iris!” I shout as I lunge out into the corridors. “I’m coming!”

  I fly through the corridor and burst up the stairs, throwing open the back kitchen door. Racing up the main stairs, I cross the narrow passageway that separates the main house from the turret, and I throw my back up against the wall. The scream sounds again, raising the hairs on my neck. Whatever is happening to her must be horrible.

  I suck in a breath and head for the stairs leading to the second floor, gasping when I reach the landing. The scream is so intense now I can barely stand it. Tears come to my eyes. The mournful sound travels up my spine and bites at the back of my neck.

  My heart lurches hard in my chest as I try to decide what to do next. Where is Urlick? Why has he not come to rescue her?

  I blink in the darkness, fighting off the tears, torchlight hissing in my hand. Another scream rattles the bones beneath my skin. Fear sloshes inside my stomach. I swallow hard, trying to muster the courage to charge up the stairs. What monstrous thing could be happening up there for her to scream so chillingly?

  The scream rises again and I long to flee, but I can’t. Iris needs me. Jittery-legged, I force myself around, gather up my skirts and swallow hard, before bounding up the flight, two steps at a time. I’m only halfway when I’m stopped cold in my tracks by the sight of something truly gruesome.

  In the shower of aether light that shines down on the landing above stands a man the same height and build as Urlick—but it’s not Urlick. Dressed in a gentleman’s suit, top hat and tails, his skin looks as though it’s made of wax. His eyes are those of a nightmarish goon. They stare at me, transfixed, like the eyes in a painting. I gasp, pulling a hand to my mouth, as my breath falls away.

  In his arms he holds a child. A girl of ten, maybe eleven years. Her eyes are dull, lifeless, glaring at the ceiling as if she were dead. Her long hair falls over his arms, her legs dangle at his hips. In the shadows beyond, the feet from the basement appear, scurrying up the chimney behind the two figures.

  I can’t help myself: I scream.

  Clutching my heart, I race from the stairs, around the corner, up the hallway to my room. My hands fall to the lock, trembling too much to activate it. “Oh, please, just let me in!”

  “Eyelet?” Urlick appears, quite strangely out of nowhere, his white hand landing hard on my shoulder.

  “Urlick!” I turn, falling into his arms. “Where have you been?” I tremble.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “It’s your father! He’s torturing a child!”

  “He’s what?”

  “Upstairs, just outside of Iris’s room. You must have heard her screaming?” I furrow my brow at his lifeless expression.

  He says nothing, just triggers the lock and whisks me over the threshold into the room. His hands feel tight as a vice on my skin. Why is he acting like this? What’s the matter with h
im?

  “There were feet—” I tell him. “They raced up the chimney behind him. And I saw them before, down in the—” I stop myself before I give myself away.

  Urlick ignores me, dragging me across the floor of the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him.

  “Please,” I struggle. “You have to listen to me. I saw your father on the landing with his victim in his arms.”

  “That’s enough,” he says through clenched teeth. He shakes me.

  Another scream swells in the air above us.

  “You see?” I shudder under the weight of it. “I’m not lying. He’s hurting her.” I twist, trying to break free of his grasp, bolting up on my toes, but he hauls me back. “Please, Urlick, you have to do something.” I fall against his chest. “He may be killing her!”

  He says nothing, just stares at me hard.

  “What’s wrong with you? Why won’t you listen to me?” I try to pull away again, but he pulls me back.

  “Because it’s not what you think!” he says.

  “What are you talking about? How can it not be? I saw her with my own eyes!”

  He snaps me around by the shoulders to face him. His eyes are intense. “What you’re hearing are the cries of the criminals and the Infirmed dying in the woods. That’s it. Those sounds are not coming from this house—”

  “That’s not true and you know it.” I scowl.

  Another scream rakes the ceiling, throwing both our chins up to see.

  “Don’t lie to me, Urlick. Please tell me what’s going on.”

  “Nothing,” he snaps. “I assure you. There is no one else in this house but you and I and Iris—”

  “And your father.”

  A muscle twitches at the side of his cheek.

  A noise from the hall has Urlick looking panicked, as another scream rolls up our spines.

  “Iris!” I shout, suddenly remembering, cranking my head around and back. “Where is Iris? What’s happened to her?”

  Urlick gasps. Looking as though he’s harboring a secret in his eyes.

  “Where is she? I demand to see her now! IRIS!” I spring from his arms and he reels me back, lifting my feet from the ground. I kick, trying to run, my heels meeting with his shins. “IRIS!” I scream. “Iris, where are you! Answer me!”

  “Eyelet, please.” Urlick tightens his grip and I cough from the pressure. “Iris is in no danger, you have to believe me—”

  “Then prove it!” I spin in his arms, trying to strip myself of his grip. “Produce her! Immediately!”

  “IR-IIIIIS!” Urlick shouts. “Iris, show yourself, please!”

  The bedroom door handle turns. The door creaks slowly open. Iris’s round moon face appears at the side of the jamb, her sad-dog eyes gawking in at me, her expression riddled with guilt.

  “Iris?” I say, giving up the fight. “Iris? Are you’re okay?”

  She says nothing, just tightens her grip on the jamb.

  “You see, I told you”—Urlick’s breath is choppy—“Iris is perfectly fine.” He lowers my feet to the floorboards.

  “Iris,” I gasp, my gaze shifting between the two of them. “Talk to me. Please, Iris. Tell me what’s going on!”

  Her lips part as if to speak, but Urlick interrupts. “Go upstairs and fetch the comfort tea.” He flicks his chin toward the ceiling. “The medicinal one. From the room.”

  Iris’s eyes grow big and desperate. Her grip tightens on the jamb.

  “What room?” I wrench around, facing Urlick, then turn back to Iris. “What’s happening here? Iris, speak to me—”

  “Right away Iris, please!”

  “No!” I shake my head, thrashing up against him. “I’m fine. Honestly. I’ll go back to bed and won’t get up again, I promise. Please, just let go of me. Please, just let me go to bed.”

  Another scream jags across the ceiling, sharp and ugly. My heart pulls to a stop. I stare hard into Urlick’s eyes. “Why are you doing this to me? Why won’t you tell me the truth?” My gaze pulls at Urlick. His jaw begins to drop.

  “Iris, please!” He pulls his eyes away from me. “Go get the tea! NOW!”

  Iris darts away, returning a moment later with a cup, steam rising like fingers from its rim.

  “No.” I fight. “No, Urlick, please!” Forcing my head back into the crook of his arm, he parts my lips and thrusts the rim of the cup up against my teeth. “Drink this,” he says.

  “No!” I sputter and squirm.

  “You must!” His eyes are sharp and mean.

  Another scream rises as he brings the cup back up to my lips. “Please, Eyelet,” he begs. “Just drink it. It won’t hurt you, I promise, I’d never hurt you…”

  I look into his eyes, not knowing what to think. What’s happened to the Urlick I know? The one I spoke with last night at supper, the hurt little boy with the horrible birth story, the one who was kind enough to fix me a pie?

  What’s happened to him? Where did he go? Why is he doing this to me?

  He brings the cup to rest on my lips again, and I purse them tight. His eyes beg me to drop my resistance. “How much do you trust me?” he whispers, and I gasp.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I asked how much you trust me.”

  As if I’ve just been pulled underwater, Urlick’s features begin to distort, his face interchanging sporadically with that of his father, then my father, then back to him again. The room starts to spin, becoming a whir of wobbly shadows. The light dims to a grey veil. I smell burning bread and all at once I realize it’s the silver, threading its way up inside my veins.

  Not now. Oh, please, not now.

  He mustn’t know. He mustn’t see this.

  I close my eyes, trying hard to fight the feeling, but the silver’s toxic tentacles are far too powerful.

  I can’t allow this to happen. I can’t fall into a full episode and writhe in his arms. I’ve got to find another way out.

  Reaching out for the cup, I pull it to my lips, gulping down every last drop of its bitter contents. Then I push it away, planning to blame whatever happens next on the potion he’s just forced me to drink, not the silver.

  Twenty two

  Urlick

  I lower Eyelet to her bed, bringing her bedcovers up tight around her chin, and leave her room, weighed down by guilt as I stalk the hall toward my own.

  I flop on my bed when I reach it, staring past my mobile of molecules at the ceiling, consumed with guilt. I reach out and spin the wheels of my origami hydrocycle model, knocking it from the shelf, and squint past my bat-winged chevron wallpaper at the portrait of Charles Darwin that hangs on the wall.

  “I had no other choice, did I?” I whisper to him. “There was nothing else I could do. Perhaps Iris is right, I should have just told her. Perhaps Eyelet would have understood. Perhaps—no.” I run a hand through my hair.

  “She can’t know. She must never know.”

  I turn my head and stare out the window at the Vapours swelling high and fat over the ridge. It won’t be long now. They’ll come tumbling down and swallow us. And she’ll have nowhere else to go. If she were to find out now—before the Vapours set in—God knows what would happen to her. I can’t risk her knowing, for fear she bolts. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to that girl.

  I swallow, forcing down the mix of feelings that have formed a wedge in my throat.

  My bedroom door flies back, crashing into the wall, knocking Darwin dangerously off kilter.

  A steaming Iris stands in the doorframe, her arms tightly crossed over her chest. Her lips as well as her brows are pursed. I’m in trouble.

  She storms across the floor and hands me a note. “Do you really think that was necessary?” I read.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I sit up. “Don’t you?”

  The line of her lips grows even more severe. Her hands thrust hard to her hips.

  “Okay, so perhaps that was a little harsh. But what was I supposed to do?”

  Iris snatc
hes away the paper, scrawls something else, and stuffs it back in my face.

  “Anything but that,” I read. “Really!” I spring from the bed. “All right, go ahead, enlighten me! How would you have kept her from knowing the secret?”

  Iris’s gaze drops to the floor.

  “Yeah, exactly.” I tug at the points of my waistcoat and smooth back my hair. “What do you think is going to happen if she ever finds out? Hmmm…” I jut my face toward Iris’s. “The gig would be up then, wouldn’t it?”

  Iris refuses to look at me. She purses her lips even tighter.

  “You know we can’t let her wander around in this place un-chaperoned.” I turn and pace. “You know what that could lead to.”

  Iris glances at me through seething, squinty eyes.

  “Don’t you look at me like that! You know she can’t know—”

  “Why not?” She scribbles, forcing the note again on me.

  “Why not?” I toss it back. “Do you really think we can trust her?”

  Iris scratches another sentence down and flings the paper back. “You expected her to trust you!”

  “Admirable point,” I say, leaning back on my heels. The floorboards squeak beneath them. “But it’s one thing for me to ask it of her, quite another for me to believe I could accept hers in return. Why, the girl’s little more than a gypsy!”

  Iris narrows her eyes. She turns on her heel and charges across the room, heading for the door. “You’re a fool,” she mouths on her way past me, balling up the paper and throwing it in the trash.

  “Perhaps,” I say. “But I’m a fool with his secrets intact!”

  She storms out into the hallway and slams the door, not once but three times in a row—then again, four more times even quicker than before. Iris’s code for “You. Are. So. Im-pos-si-ble!”

  “Me?” I shout after her. “You should make your own acquaintance some time!”

  “Pfft!” I hear her huff from the hall. She takes to the stairs, stomping her way up the treads to her apartment, slamming the door of her bedroom as well.