Unhonored

by Tracy Hickman

  The hall shifted again and retook the shape of the ballroom but this time it was no longer a ruin. The fallen plaster at the corners rose up to the ceiling to retake its place. The paint erupted in luster and the gilding took on its former glow. The dusty chandeliers shook off the years, the spent wax rising up to reform their candles, each of which erupted again with flame and light. Merrick was impeccably dressed in a morning coat, waistcoat, and formal striped trousers. Ellis glanced down at her own dress, a beautiful formal gown with a wide skirt flaring out with their every turn.

  She gazed up into his eyes.

  They were dark, cold, filled with hunger but no passion.

  “We were together, Ellis.” Merrick’s smile was chilling. “We could be again.”

  Ellis pulled her right hand away from Merrick’s shoulder, lifting her left, and she turned under him. It was a simple pivot but as she turned she let go completely of his right hand, spinning away from him intentionally.

  In an instant, Jonas stepped in, grasped her again in his hold and continued the dance. Somehow her dress was caught under Merrick’s foot and Jonas pulling her away ripped the dress, leaving a huge patch of the cloth behind as the skirt of the ball gown shredded and tore away.

  The wheeling dance continued but it was not the same. The ballroom floor was suddenly packed with souls she did not recognize, separating her from Merrick, Alicia and the rest of the Gamin crowd who now were only at the farthest fringes of the floor. The music had become more desperate and driving, darker, faster in tempo and more sinister.

  “Hold on to me, Ellis,” Jonas pleaded, his eyes welling up with tears. “You must stay with me until the end of the dance. No matter what happens … we must finish this dance!”

  The changes around them were happening more quickly now. They were whirling through the Boston Common, a grotto in the midst of the city where Jonas had knelt before her with as expensive a ring as he could manage.

  Then they were dancing at their wedding. There was her mother glaring her disapproval from the side of the room. Then the dance was suddenly unbearably crowded in the small apartment that was a secret disappointment to her though Jonas was showing it to her with such pride.

  “Hold on, Ellis,” Jonas begged. “Please, hold on.”

  The dance turned more violent. It seemed more of a tango now than a waltz although the music drove on as before. She was dancing around Jonas in one of the few dresses she could still wear to her medical studies. Jonas wore rougher clothing, too. His face was no longer cleanly shaven, his hair was unkempt and his face flushed. He would stop her in her dance, twist her about violently into a new pose. Their contact became rough and their dance steps sharp and staccato in nature. His eyes were bleary as he gazed more through her than at her.

  Ellis let go of Jonas, turning away from him on the floor.

  The dancers in the hall stopped.

  The music suddenly changed. An oboe sounded a set of notes, followed by violins in a low, minor key tremolo.

  Ellis was once again in her dull, green traveling suit. She took a step backward away from Jonas.

  “Please,” he begged through watery, red-rimmed eyes. He held his hand out toward her even as he staggered uncertainly before her. “Not now! We have to finish the dance!”

  Ellis hesitated.

  “My lady!”

  Ellis turned toward the sound.

  “Don’t trust them.” Margaret was running toward her from a side door into the ballroom. She grabbed Ellis’s hand, pulling her back toward the door. “It’s all a trap. They’ll keep you here forever if you stay!”

  Ellis fled the ballroom with Margaret.

  “No!” howled Jonas.

  * * *

  Ellis slammed the doors of the ballroom closed behind her. Margaret was already far ahead of her, still running down the tall gallery of paintings that looked as though it might never end. Ellis ran after her, calling down the hall as she passed the portraits, “Margaret, wait!”

  Margaret slowed her steps as Ellis caught up to her.

  Ellis dared not look at the faces from the paintings; she could feel their eyes following her as she passed them.

  “Where are you taking me, Margaret?” Ellis demanded.

  “To where you can get your answers,” Margaret replied. “To those who know everything that ever was or will ever be.”

  “Then show me,” Ellis said.

  The waltz played on behind them as they fled down the gallery.

  13

  A SPOT OF TEA

  The drawing room was falling apart. The floorboards were warped and the painted plaster on the walls was crumbling. The patterns on what little wallpaper remained merged with dreadful stains. Several of the panes of glass in the tall arched windows were missing while the rest barely permitted the light to penetrate let alone afforded a view of the dead garden beyond.

  In the center of the room was a round claw-foot table leaning precariously to one side. It was covered in a ragged and stained satin spread with tattered, yellowing lace on top of it. A lazy Susan sat precariously in the middle of the slanting tabletop, an assortment of creamers, sugar bowls and a prominent china teapot all covered in dust and linked by cobwebs. A cart sat to one side, its plates each covered with molding cake.

  Ellis sat on one side of the table. Margaret stood just behind Ellis’s chair, her hands folded primly in front of her as she waited.

  In the remaining seats around the circular table, the three Disir sisters sat in faded and threadbare dresses and tattered blouses. Each wore a corsage of brittle, dead flowers pinned to the collar of their quaintly unfashionable Zouave jackets.

  Minnie leaned forward, pouring a tea flecked with dregs into the chipped cups. Not a trace of steam escaped from the liquid. Ellis assumed it had gone cold.

  “Don’t you just love antiques?” Minnie gushed.

  “I assume you are referring to the furniture and not the company?” sniffed Finny.

  Margaret spoke before Ellis had a moment to reply. “It was so good of you to receive her ladyship on such short notice.”

  “It is our honor to receive your call,” said Linny Disir, although the tone of her voice was devoid of the warmth her words implied. Linny picked up a needlepoint frame and began working the thread at once. “We seldom have guests in this part of the house. Still we keep ourselves busy.”

  “Busy, indeed!” chirped Minnie.

  “Please, I need your help,” Ellis said quickly before Margaret could interrupt again.

  “You need our help?” Finny scoffed. “Now that is amusing, is it not, sisters?”

  “Most amusing,” Linny said without a trace of a smile.

  “May I offer you some cake?” Minnie said cheerfully as she gestured toward the cart.

  Ellis glanced at the mold bloom that completely obscured the cake slices. “No, thank you, Miss Minnie. Please, I need you to tell me where to find Jenny.”

  The Disir sisters looked at each other in surprise.

  “Merrick has hidden her somewhere in the house,” Ellis pressed on. “I need to find her if I’m ever going to leave again.”

  “But it’s your house,” Linny observed with a puzzled expression on her face. “You, above anyone else, ought to be able to remember where to find her.”

  “But I don’t remember,” Ellis said. “At least, I don’t remember this house.”

  “You don’t remember anything?” Finny asked as her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “Not about here. I do remember a few things about my life in Boston,” Ellis replied. “Bits and fragments of family or people or events, but they’re all like a handful of pieces from a jigsaw puzzle, none of which seem to fit together and certainly did not seem to be enough to complete the entire picture.”

  “Will someone please remind me about Boston?” Linny asked.

  “Well, not that I know anything about it,” piped up Minnie, “but I understand that it is a big city where Ellis grew up as a child and then m
et and married—oh, what’s his name?”

  “Jonas.” Finny frowned. “Jonas Kirk.”

  “Yes, that’s the name,” Minnie chirped happily at the prompt. “Of course they weren’t always in Boston and he treated her rather badly when they lost that child but then I suppose that’s the way of the world, so I hear. I remember—and you can back me up on this Finny as I recall remarking on it at the time—that it was a real shame considering that it was he who coerced Ellis through the Gate in the first place—”

  “Mind your tongue, Minnie!” Finny scolded. “You know the rules to the Game!”

  “Oh, piffle to the rules,” Minnie sniffed.

  “Merrick was most specific when he sent me to bring her back on the train,” Finny said, her tight dark curls bouncing slightly in her sudden rage. “We were not to discuss her past with Ellis, especially the time before she left us.”

  “Well, if there is anything that I do know,” Minnie groused back at her sister, “it is that those were the rules to the old Game. That Book is closed and now we’re back to playing this Game. We are in Echo House again and there are no such rules here!”

  “Minnie is correct,” Linny interjected, the tone of her voice daring anyone to question her ruling on the subject. “This Game is an old Book and its rules have not been altered by Merrick. There is no prohibition against talking of Ellis’s past in these rules.”

  “You can’t win the game until you know the rules…” her mother had said.

  “So the rules of this Game are different from those in Gamin?” Ellis said more as a question than a statement.

  “Each Day has its rules,” Finny said as though she were stating the obvious.

  “You mean they change at sunset or midnight or…”

  “Nonsense, child,” Finny sniffed. “I’m not talking about that kind of day. I mean the Day, as in the Day in which we live. Whoever wins the Game rules the new Day and their Book becomes the rules for the next Game.”

  “Not that I know anything about it.” Minnie was anxious to take a larger part in the conversation. “But each Book has a different set of rules for the Day according to the life each soul would like to live. Absolutely everyone here in the Tween seems to have a Book of their own Day … the Day that they would like to pretend at living.”

  “Not everyone.” Linny gave an exasperated sigh.

  “No, of course, not everyone,” Minnie corrected. “The Outsiders never do—Soldiers or Shades for example—but they come from beyond the Tween. They’re always trying to persuade us to leave and take sides in the Great War but they have nothing to do with the Tween itself. They do seem interested in our Books but none of them have any Books of their own.”

  “And we have no Books of our own nor are we likely ever to have,” Finny interrupted her sister. “Neither me nor either of my sisters have any desires toward winning the Day. We’re all perfectly content living in other people’s lives. It’s so much easier to play in other people’s dreams than making all that effort to create dreams of our own. We’re content to live by the rules of other people’s Days.”

  “Then this house has its own set of laws … its own rules,” Ellis said as much to herself as the sisters. “Who made them?”

  Minnie beamed a smile over her dead corsage. “Why, you did, my dear!”

  “Me?” Ellis exclaimed.

  “Echo House was your Book,” Linny said, her broad face turned directly toward Ellis. “You made this place.”

  “I made this place?” Ellis sounded incredulous.

  “Perhaps a cucumber sandwich?” Minnie’s offering was nearly overgrown with mold.

  “No, thank you! How is this possible?” Ellis asked. “I don’t remember anything about this mad place!”

  “But of course you wouldn’t,” snapped Finny, setting down her own needlepoint. “That’s the way of the world, isn’t it? You leave this place and forget about us entirely. Off you go beyond the Gate without so much as a thank-you or fare-thee-well!”

  “Who was I?” Ellis asked, dreading the answer. “Who was I before … before the Gate?”

  “You were royalty here in those days,” Minnie gushed. “Merrick made the first Day for you. Of course, I don’t know that much about it but—”

  “Begging your pardon, ladies,” Margaret interrupted the sisters. “I believe you must begin further back than that. May I suggest you start with Merrick, Jonas and Ellis?”

  “Oh, yes,” Minnie beamed. “Quite right!”

  “Merrick, Jonas and me?” Ellis asked.

  “Oh, let me tell!” Minnie begged.

  “I’ll tell it,” Finny interrupted. “You may know where to start but you’ll never know when to stop.”

  “No, sisters,” Linny said firmly. “I’ll tell the tale.”

  The other two sisters quieted at once. Ellis turned toward Linny.

  “Once before a time,” Linny began, “there were three great souls who awoke in the heavens. There were, of course, legions of others but these three came to know and love each other. Two were of men and one was of woman. They were inseparable friends. Each was beautiful and clever in their own way and together they were incomparably glorious.”

  “And they were?” Ellis urged softly.

  “We’ll call them Merrick, Jonas and Ellis,” Finny said. “They each took great joy in their awakening and in the companionship of each other. The challenge of differing thoughts and perspectives was compelling for them.”

  “But it didn’t last,” Minnie burst out breathlessly. “There came the moment—”

  “Minnie!” Linny said sharply.

  Her sister quieted at once.

  Linny breathed in and continued. “But there came a moment when all the gathered souls had to choose for themselves which of two brothers they would follow. A new world, a new creation had been formed but one brother proposed one Book and the other proposed another for its founding rules. Some followed one, some followed the other. This was the choice that every soul was asked to make.”

  “Tragedies have such hopeful beginnings,” Minnie sighed.

  “This choice broke the friendship of these three spirits. Jonas had chosen to follow one of the two brothers, but his love for you was a powerful bond. Merrick wanted you for himself. He did not care to choose at all. He was not persuaded by the promises of either of the brothers.”

  “And between the two brothers,” Ellis asked, though she felt a chill up her spine, “which did I choose?”

  A thin smile formed on Linny’s face. “You, my dear, chose Merrick.”

  Ellis shuddered.

  “Oh, you were such a grand couple,” Minnie gushed. “Even in our banishment.”

  “This was the place provided for us,” Linny continued in quiet reminiscence. “A place far from creation. A place beyond heaven. A place beyond hell. It was you who named it the ‘Tween’ and, with Merrick, helped to create the first Game … it sprang from your Book. You established rules after the pattern of the First Parents … important rules like up and down, light and dark, ground and air and liquid. It was all imagined, of course, since no one had any real experience with that sort of thing. Everyone who followed Merrick here depended on you both to establish the rules of the Day. Of course, there were the unbreakable rules, but you managed to forge a credible dream of existence within their strictures.”

  “Unbreakable rules?” Ellis pressed. “What are the unbreakable rules?”

  “The rules that forged this existence,” Finny replied. “Haven’t you been paying attention? The rules of the Great War.”

  “Perhaps you would like a biscuit?” Minnie offered. “You’re looking a bit pale.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ellis shook her head, trying to understand. “The Great War … the war in Europe?”

  “Oh, nonsense, child!” Finny huffed. “The Great War of Spirits! The war between the two brothers for the souls of creation!”

  “The governing rules of the formation of the Tween require the Gates in e
very Book of the Day,” Linny continued, her cold stare daring either of her sisters to interrupt her again.

  “You said Gates.” Ellis leaned forward against the table, causing it to creak ominously. “There are more than one, then?”

  “Oh, yes.” Linny nodded. “There are at least two of which we know. One is guarded by a creature called Uriel. We believe he, too, is a Soldier, for that is the Gate from which the Soldiers come. The other is watched over by a different creature we only know as Belial. Through them occasionally come warriors of the Great War to try and persuade one of us to choose at last between the brothers and thereby pass back through the Gate with them. The existence of these Gates—and an avenue of access to them—is a founding rule of the Tween and cannot be violated.”

  “But it is often made very difficult,” Minnie added. “Merrick has gotten very clever at hiding them.”

  “These warriors who came through the Gates were a nuisance but the Soldiers that came through Uriel’s Gate brought an unexpected boon—each of them had lived a mortal life before they came among us. You, Ellis, were the first to learn this from them and with that knowledge you began creating Books of the Day that were dreams very much like the mortal world.”

  “That’s when you built this house, my lady,” Margaret said from behind her. “There had never been anything like it before.”

  “Oh, my, yes! Not that I know anything about it, mind you,” Minnie cheerfully gushed. “But Merrick learned so much from you and, oh, what amazing Days were to be had! At first, different people were able to take control of the Days with their own Books but it was very quickly a battle between you and Merrick as to who could beat each other at their Day. It was a wonderful time with everyone wondering what new dark delight you would come up with for each new Day.”

  “That is until you ruined it,” Finny groused.

  “Ruined it?” Ellis exclaimed. “How?”

  “You broke the rules, that’s how,” Finny snapped back. “Somehow you cheated and broke the rules—the rules of the Gate of all things! All for that Jonas boy! All for a Soldier, of all the thoughtless…”