Lumière (The Illumination Paradox)

by Garlick, Jacqueline E.

  I fall back on the bed, listening to her shoes clomp about the room overhead. Perhaps Iris is right. Perhaps I could have trusted Eyelet. Perhaps she would have understood. My eyes drift again to the window. Or perhaps she’d just think me a madman.

  A gust of wind slaps the glass, drawing my attention to the wave of Vapours building momentum on the horizon. I jump from the bed, checking the Vapour barometer mounted just outside my window. Its needle fluctuates between forty-seven and forty-eight parts per million. We’ve got about twenty-four hours—maybe more, maybe less.

  I stare at the needle. We’ll need supplies. Plenty of them. What, with an extra mouth to feed and an extra pair of lungs to keep breathing? I don’t dare risk not having enough oxygen on hand. You never know what’s going to happen when the Vapours set in.

  I look up again at the dark clouds brewing atop the ridge.

  I hate the thought of leaving her here, unattended. But if I don’t go now, I go never.

  Twenty three

  Eyelet

  I sit up and check my face in the looking glass. I’ve no thrash marks on my cheeks. No dried drool to chisel from the corners of my mouth. I don’t look drained or weathered, my skin isn’t sallow, and I’ve no dark circles under my eyes as I normally do after I wake from a grand mal episode. Which I was sure I was slipping into last night. It’s as though I sank swiftly into the depths of a major seizure only to somehow be pulled from it, escaping the brunt of its storm.

  But how? It’s not possible. Once an episode begins, it can’t be reversed. That’s never happened before. Unless…

  My eyes land on the empty cup resting atop my dressing table.

  The tea.

  Of course.

  I wash, dress, pull my hair up into a twist, secure it with combs, and race down the stairs. Exposed or not, I’ve questions that need answering. Starting with what was in that tea.

  “I demand to know what happened last night.” I fill the entranceway, letting him know I mean business, a barbed tongue my weapon.

  “Good morning to you, too.” Urlick sips his tea, staring at me through the steam.

  “I know there’s something going on in this house, and I intend to find out what it is.” I circle him like a panther.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  He flips open a copy of The New Age.

  I disarm him of it. “Let’s start with the noises I heard last night, shall we?”

  “Noises? What noises?” He exaggerates the word like he pours his tea: high, then low, then high again. “I heard no noises.” He throws a glance at Iris across the room. “Did you?”

  Iris beats the batter relentlessly.

  “Perhaps it was just a figment of your imagination,” he returns to me. “You know, new room, strange place—”

  “It was no figment, and you know it.” I pinch up close. “Neither were the feet I saw scurrying up the chimney.”

  He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a boat in bad weather.

  “Stymied you now, haven’t I?”

  “You’re sure you’ve not become afflicted?” he says, reaching out and laying a hand to my forehead as if I were sick.

  I bat it away. “Don’t play games with me!”

  “I don’t believe it’s me playing the games.” He reaches for the paper. I snatch it away.

  “Oh really? Perhaps then you’d like to explain to me what was in the tea you forced me to drink last evening!”

  “What tea?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to try to deny it!”

  Iris breaks an egg too sharply over the edge of her bowl.

  “You were never drugged.” He peers at me through snowy white flustered lashes. His hands clasp and unclasp the chair back.

  “What do you call it then? Oh, that’s right, you called it comfort tea, didn’t you? Medicinal, you claimed, as you forced it down my throat—”

  Iris crumbles the shell of an egg.

  “I’ll not discuss this further.” Urlick tugs at the points of his waistcoat and sidesteps me.

  “And yet last night you begged me to trust you!”

  He whirls around.

  “How can I trust you, when you don’t even trust me enough to tell me the truth!” I step toward him. “What is it, Urlick? What is so important you’d rather drug me than have me find out?!”

  His lips quiver. He sucks in a breath of air as if preparing to tell me something, then turns his head instead. “I’m going into town to the mercantile,” he says to Iris, dismissing me altogether. “The Vapours will be upon us soon. I need to get supplies.”

  “What? Wait!” I give chase as he turns to leave, the soles of his shoes striking hard against the linoleum. “You are hiding something from me, Urlick, I know you are!” I reach for him and he pulls away.

  “I’m sorry…” is all he says. “If I’m not back by this afternoon”—he swallows, staring past me at Iris—“you know what to do.” He shoulders his pack and heads for the door. “And cancel Flossie,” he adds. “No need her coming all this way for nothing. I’ll make up the lessons later.” He grabs a gasmask from the hook on the wall next to the door, eyeing me like a naughty child in need of discipline. “You are not to leave this house for any reason, do you understand? Iris, you are not to let her out of your sight.”

  Iris nods.

  “Until then—” He turns, drawing the boxcar door across the tracks, filling the room with its rumble. “Stay put,” he says again, eyeing me hard.

  He reaches up, activating a box labeled Guardian on the wall. “The Infirmed will be on the move already. Trying to find safe haven to weather the storm. And we don’t need them in here with us.” He keys in a code and a small red light starts to pulse from the box. “This stays on until my return. Don’t turn it off unless you’re sure it’s me.” He looks to Iris. She nods like she understands.

  I, for one, sure don’t.

  He steps across the threshold into the elevator and pulls the boxcar door across in front of his face. His coal black curls flicker through the slats as he starts his descent and for a sinking moment I worry I might never see him again.

  I glance at the window, the Vapours’ curious fingers already prying at its seals, like the steamy cloud in the jar I demolished in the study. I need to find the machine, use it, and get out of this madhouse quickly. Clearly, I’m running out of time.

  I turn to Iris, shaking the black billowing creeper from my mind, closing the gap between us. “You’ll tell me, won’t you, Iris? You’ll answer my questions.”

  Iris turns her eyes away.

  “You know why I’ve come, don’t you?”

  She picks up a dish and busies herself, dunking it in the dishwater.

  “I know you know where it is, just like you know what was in that tea.”

  Her eyes flash.

  “Where is it, Iris? Where is the machine?”

  She hunches her shoulders and scuttles away as if trying to hide in plain view.

  “Look at me.” I whirl her around. “Tell me the truth, about the tea, the screams, everything—”

  She breaks away.

  “Iris!” I run after her. “Iris, please...I know you know everything that goes on around here. You have to tell me what’s going on!” I grab her by the shoulders and turn her to face me. “Last night, why did he act that way? What did he give me? What was in that tea?”

  She twists her head.

  “Iris, please! You’ve got to help me. You don’t understand. I need to know what’s in it!” She rolls her shoulders and bolts away. “Very well, then!” I race ahead, circling her. “Urlick brought a machine here, from the market in Gears. And I know you know where it is.” Her eyes quicken. “Please, Iris. I need to find that machine, before Urlick comes back. My entire future depends on it.”

  She drops the plate she’s holding. It shatters on the floor. She stares at me purse-lipped.

  “What is it? What’s wrong with you?” I s
hake her. “Why won’t you speak?

  Have you got no tongue?!”

  She gasps. Her mouth flies open—and I fall back, bringing a set of trembling hands to my face.

  “What’s happened?” My chest heaves. “Who’s done this to you?”

  A severed stub of cauterized skin flails in the back of her throat— all that remains of a tongue. It’s swollen and black—the work of some terrible madman.

  You are never to enter my father’s third-floor laboratory, no matter what sounds you hear. The words of Urlick play out in my head. “Urlick’s father!” I clap a hand to my mouth. “He’s done this to you, hasn’t he? He’s a madman, just as I suspected!”

  Iris lunges at me, shaking her head.

  “It was Urlick, then? He did this to you?!”

  She shakes her head harder, her eyes round and desperate.

  “Good God,” I gasp. “He’s the madman, not the father.”

  Iris panics, shaking her head furiously now. Tears spring to her eyes.

  “The machine.” My heart races. “He’s been using the machine to torture people, hasn’t he? That’s why all the secrecy. That’s why he drugged me. That’s what he didn’t want to me to see!” My eyes move from her to the ceiling and back again.

  Iris moans, shaking her head. “The girl.” I grab her by the shoulders. “What have they done to the girl?”

  She gasps and struggles, breaking away from me.

  “Please Iris, for the love of God, tell me what’s going on!”

  She turns her back and heads for the door.

  Taking up my skirts, I bolt for the kitchen up the main stairs, leaping them two at a time. If she won’t tell me, I’ll find out for myself.

  Iris turns and bounds after me, stopping halfway up the stairs, turning and clattering back down. A horrible noise pours from her lips as she sails across the kitchen toward the boxcar door. She’s going to warn Urlick.

  I’ve got to find the machine before she reaches him. I’ve got to put a stop to his madness. I cannot allow Urlick to abuse my father’s science any longer. I will not stand by and see one more person harmed.

  She trips the Guardian and the alarm squeals. Its high-pitched whirring sound roars after me up the stairs.

  I scale the remaining three steps, arriving breathless at the top of the third flight, waving a shaky hand over the brass plate to open it. Throwing it back, I storm the forbidden laboratory door. A second alarm fills the Compound with its shrill scream.

  The room is dark and smells of formaldehyde, methacholine, and humectants. A shockingly vile combination, enough to drive anyone away. I hold my sleeve to my face and push through it, dust swirling in my wake. The walls are lined with shelves lined with jars, containing some of the darkest things I’ve ever seen. A complete smorgasbord of pickled body parts, brains, tongues, eyes, all standing side by side with murdered rats and fetal pigs.

  I cringe. Pulling my gaze from the shelves, I lock onto a cabinet full of mixtures below. “Alkaline. Formalin. Arsenic.” I rumble through the tinctures and jars. “Glutaraldehyde?” I pick it up. “Used for the preservation of anatomical specimens?” I read the label. “What’s going on here?” I gasp, holding my chest. “Arsenic next to embalming fluids. What kind of madman am I dealing with?”

  My head cranks around to the sound of shoes on the stairs. I’m running out of time. Throwing back another door, my heart pounds as a table of mechanical body parts is exposed, arms and legs made of wood and shackles. Robotic eyes stare up at me from the sheets. Fingers of a mechanical hand clamp down on my sleeve. I shriek and try to sling it away, but it clings to me, its fingers seemingly possessed, acting somehow of their own volition.

  I scream and falter backward, shoulders hitting the mantelpiece hard. My head whacks the glass mirror above. I reach out, groping the air, trying to steady myself. Shoes tread up the stairs. My hand finds the mouth of a sculpted lion on the front of the mantel, accidentally plunging its chin to the floor. The hearth spins, taking me with it—dumping me out into a dimly lit cavern on the opposite side of the wall.

  Everything smells of worms and dirt. There are no walls, there is no floor. I stand in a room dug into the side of the earth. Tunnels spring from it like the corridor we crawled through when I first arrived, in order to access the elevator shaft to the main door. Torches flicker from metal casters bolted to the walls. Cobwebs sag from the ceiling. It’s so cold, my breath crystallizes before my face.

  “Eyelet!” I hear Urlick’s muffled voice call for me. He pounds the wall at my back. I move from the hearth, afraid at any moment it’ll swing around and he’ll appear in front of me, angry and ready to attack.

  Grabbing a torch from the wall as a weapon, I dart down one of the corridors to hide. Hearing the rise and fall of another’s breath, I turn, knees knocking, to find nothing but an old wooden surgical bed pushed up against the back wall of a cave. The bedding is ruffled, the pillow worn. I gulp, step forward, and throw back the sheet. The face of Urlick’s father peers up at me.

  I shriek.

  It’s the same eerie face with dull portrait eyes that peered down at me from the top of the landing last evening. Not one, but ten of them, all in a row. Strewn across the mattress, each exactly the same. “Good God,” I suck in a sharp breath, my hands trembling. They’re masks, death masks—I touch one, and pull my hand back, chilled by its feel—made for the living to remember their loved ones after death.

  “Oh, Urlick, what have you done?”

  Death masks. Cast of paraffin wax, using the deceased’s face as the mold, they’re then tinted with color to make them look lifelike, their cheeks injected with ink to make them glow.

  Shocked, I lean in a little too close, and one of the mask’s eyes springs open, rubber lids fluttering back. Its dull painted gaze leers up at me and my heart turns cold in my chest.

  Something gasps, and I wrench around, torchlight blazing a trail through the darkness. “Who goes there?” I shout, clutching my chest. My throat pulls tight.

  On the floor in the corner lies the girl, the one from the night before. Her long scarlet hair lies pooled around her head, drenched in the foam, draining from her twisted mouth. Her legs are curled oddly up behind her back. Her hands are gnarled into a stiff pair of claws. Her eyes look dead. Locked in a frozen stare. I know that stare too well. Seizures. She suffers from seizures. Episodes, the same as I do. That’s why the noise. The screams in the night. It all makes sense to me now.

  She lets out a moan and her body gyrates. Acidic fear splashes up my throat from my gut. Though I’ve experienced grand mal episodes many times, I’ve never witnessed one. How very different it is to be inside the skin of the afflicted, compared to watching the afflicted inside their skin. My poor mother—I wince at the thought—all those times she was forced to watch me suffer. How terrified she must have been.

  The girl lets out a shriek and my heart freezes. I want to help her, but I can’t. My feet won’t move, my hands are stiff. A shiver runs the length of my spine.

  And then it hits me. Perhaps she hasn’t always been this way. Perhaps she’s the product of some mad experiment gone wrong. Perhaps Urlick knows my secret. That’s why he’s drugged me last night. This is what he didn’t want me to know.

  I nearly vomit at the thought, and the twelve that follow, as my mind races through possibilities. Perhaps he only agreed to let me stay because he had plans for me. After all, what better specimen than a runaway?

  I stumble backward as the girl screams again, dropping the torchlight in my hand. A face comes to light in the spiraling lick of flame. A man, squat in stature—with no arms, just legs. I shoot backward, bringing a hand to my mouth at the sight of him, as he creeps from the shadows to comfort the girl, raking her hair away from her face with his toes. Every cell in my body curdles.

  He looks up at me through the darkness and I can’t help myself: I scream, imagining my own mutilated future. Turning, I fling myself at the mantelpiece, pounding and shouti
ng for it to turn. Father’s machine or not, I need to get out of this madhouse, while I’m still in one piece!

  At last my hand connects with the lion’s jaw. I plunge it to the floor. The mantelpiece spins, hurling me out on the other side. Urlick stands in the door. I crawl forward, gasping, stumbling onto my knees and from there to my feet, snatching the poker from its stand.

  “Get away from me!” I shout, spearing at him through the air. “Get back! Or I swear I will cut your throat wide open with this.”

  “Eyelet, please, let me explain.”

  I swing the poker, lofting the pointed end at his head.

  Urlick jerks back, avoiding the blow, and I dash for the door, bursting from the room and down the stairs, past a stunned-faced Iris, back pasted to the wall of the kitchen.

  “Wait!” Urlick screams, chasing after me.

  I trigger the lock and throw back the boxcar door.

  “You can’t go out there!” Urlick screams. “Eyelet, you’ll die!”

  I roll the door across the tracks, and pull on the throttle, clinging to the wires inside as the platform descends, Urlick's pleas fast becoming a distant memory.

  Twenty four

  Urlick

  I chase her into the forest, my hand clamping down on her shoulder. She twists away from me, falling back up against a tree.

  Shattered.

  Breathless.

  Screaming.

  “Get off of me. Let go of me!”

  She fights.

  She sinks her teeth into my hand.

  “EYELET!” I shake her off, her image veiled by thick mist. “Eyelet, please. It’s not what it seems.”

  “It’s not, is it?” She kicks and bites. Vapours roil atop the hills. “You’ve an explanation for Madness, have you?” Her heel connects with my groin and I groan, buckling. Eyelet slips from my grasp, shrouded instantly in mist.

  “Eyelet! Please!” I hobble after her, glancing up at the Vapours crouched atop the escarpment, ready to pounce. “Eyelet! Let me explain!”

  She runs on, charging through the forest toward the Vapours. I don’t think she even realizes.