Nieve

by Terry Griggs

  They progressed slowly upward, Weazen huffing as she mounted the steps. Observing her creaking around during dinner, Nieve wondered at her age, and thought she had to be ancient. So old that her wrinkles had wrinkles. But not so old that her wits had deserted her. She served Elixibyss, true, but Nieve got the impression that she was in no way subservient. Like Lirk, it wouldn’t do to cross her. A glob of jam? Nice fate! Well, she wasn’t going to shed any tears over what had happened to Murdeth.

  Up to this point, Weazen hadn’t uttered a word, so Nieve was surprised to hear her say, in her raspy deiler voice, “Remember, miss, she can see you, but she can’t hear you.”

  They had reached the landing of the second floor. Keeping her head averted from Nieve, Weazen continued, “Times she sleeps, too, while she claims not to. This way, miss.” She turned left and advanced down a narrow hallway, while the spherals, unable to tempt Nieve to take a headfirst plunge over the banisters, whirled off in the opposite direction.

  Nieve, following, whispered, “Can she see everything?”

  “Most everything, depends.”

  “Depends on the ring?”

  “Aye, take care with that. She’s not to see us talking.”

  They passed several closed doors before Weazen stopped at one, and, clutching the doorknob awkwardly with her bumpy, arthritic hand, gave it a twist. She entered the room ahead of Nieve, hobbling over to a nightstand, where she set the candle. Then, with what seemed like sleight-of-hand, she produced a small jar from out of her apron pocket, along with a waxed paper package, and slipped them into the nightstand’s drawer.

  “Salve for your neck.” She addressed this to the wall. “And summat to eat.”

  Nieve continued to hover on the threshold of the room, gaping at it. She had expected to be lead into an empty cell, sterile and cheerless, without any comforts whatsoever. What she saw before her almost made her weep.

  The illumination was dim, but she had no doubt that what she was seeing was her room, her room from home! It had been copied down to the last detail – the desk with its peeling decals, the birds’ nest and fossils perched on the bookshelf, the tattered dictionary, the hooked rug on the hardwood floor (flooring complete with scorch mark), even the baseball bat leaning against the nightstand. Copied or stolen? The only thing that was different was an oddly-shaped rocking chair that had been shoved into one corner. And the window. Her window at home didn’t have steel bars on it.

  “I . . . thanks so much.” The deiler’s offerings had been as unexpected as the room. She moved cautiously toward the bed, observing it more closely, running a hand over the comforter, her old blue dinosaur-patterned comforter from when she was little. It shouldn’t be here, even though she was desperate to dive under it and hide.

  “You’re very kind, Weazen.” Unless the salve and food were poison, but she didn’t think so. “I’m starving. I promise I won’t let her see.”

  “Don’t worry, miss, this room, it’s mirror-made. Except the chair, that’s real enough. Good night.”

  “Is it night?” Nieve sank down onto the bed, spirits, already low, sinking with her.

  “Always,” Weazen responded, face still averted as she left the room and quietly closed the door behind her.

  –Twenty-Six–

  AFew Words from the Chairman

  Mirror-made? While pretending to settle, Nieve surveyed her room, trying to see it as best she could in the scant light cast by the wavering flame of the candle. Even in the weak light there was something cockeyed about it. Her desk was the wrong way around for one thing, with the drawer on the left side, not the right. And, although it was hard to tell from her vantage on the bed, the titles of the books heaped on it appeared to be in the same kind of mirror writing she’d used in her school report on the World’s Backward Walking Champion, Plennie Wingo (!TNELLECXE, Mrs. Crawford had written in the margin).

  The dinosaur comforter felt oddly insubstantial, too. Hers had grown somewhat thin and worn over the years, but was still comfy and warming, while this one, when she pulled it up over her, felt as light as the meringue on a pie. Same with her sapphire blue pajamas, which she’d found folded and tucked under the pillow as they always were at home. These ones, though, weren’t made of flannel, but of a lighter, silkier material. No way was she going to put them on, even though the ring repeatedly dragged her hand toward them.

  She detested the thing. When she slid her hand under the covers, burying it, in order to check out unobserved what Weazen had left in the drawer, the band grew fiery hot and burned her finger, which was now as sore and puffy as the welts on her neck. She would have loved to poke the ring in its eye, but instead made a big show of yawning. She yawned and yawned until – yawning being contagious – it worked! The ring stopped bugging her, began to blink with fatigue, and even slackened its grip.

  Weazen had claimed that Elixibyss would fall asleep, and the ring’s glow did gradually begin to fade, like a nightlight that was losing power. Nieve stretched out and lay motionless staring up at the ceiling (the billowing cobwebs above didn’t look real, either), waiting for the spying eye to glaze over completely and for its heavy golden lid to close. The trouble was, before the ring stopped watching, Nieve did too. Utterly exhausted, she closed her own eyes for the merest moment to give them a rest . . . and spiraled into sleep.

  A voice woke her, a very strange voice that had drifted into the crowded darkness of her dreams in search of her. “Nieeeeve,” it creaked. “Nie-e-e-e-v-e.”

  She jerked awake and sat up straight. The Impress! But no, it hadn’t been her voice she’d heard. This one had been too scratchy and slight. She checked the ring. Luckily, it hadn’t been roused and the eyelid remained closed.

  “Weazen?” She spoke barely above a whisper, even knowing that the ring couldn’t transmit sound.

  No one responded.

  She slowly reached for the candlestick with her free hand – the candle had burned down to a nub, how long had she been asleep? – and held it up to scan the room. No one. Only a dream, then? She sometimes did dream noises – a phone ringing, distant laughter, a balloon popping – noises that sounded genuine, and usually woke her up, but weren’t. What if the room was haunted, she thought with a shiver? This was not something she would have believed possible a day ago, but a day ago she hadn’t been imprisoned in the unbelievable, either.

  Still, all was quiet. Nothing leapt out at her. Nothing was there.

  Nieve cursed herself for falling asleep, yet she felt better for it, not so downhearted. She was no less famished, though. Replacing the candlestick on the nightstand, she opened the drawer and retrieved the wax paper package, which she unwrapped one-handed. It was a cheese sandwich with wilted lettuce and a bite taken out of it. The teeth marks left in it were kind of pointy. Too hungry to be squeamish about finishing what somebody else, maybe Weazen, had started, she devoured it.

  When it came to the salve, that was trickier, but she managed well enough after first unscrewing the lid with her teeth. She dabbed the greasy stuff carefully on her neck and rubbed it in, breathing in its familiar, healing fragrance. What was it?

  “Aloha,” the voice, squeaked. “Ve-r-r-aaaa,” Squeak, squeak.

  Nieve dropped the jar and made a grab for the baseball bat that was leaning up against the nightstand. To her amazement, the moment she seized it the bat shattered in her grip. It flew apart like some impossibly fragile Christmas ornament, its thin shards tinkling as they tumbled to the floor.

  “Che-e-e-ap.” Squeak, squeak, creak. “Po-o-o-r quali-t-y-y merchandiiiise.”

  It was the chair. The chair in the corner was talking!

  They’ve rigged up this room to make me think I’m crazy, Nieve thought indignantly, or to drive me there.

  “Meee? Rememmmber me? Nieeeve.”

  “Oh my gosh!”

  Nieve slid off the bed and again reached for the candlestick. Holding her other hand stiffly so as not to disturb the ring, she hastened to the dark corner wher
e the chair was quietly rocking on its own. She hadn’t paid it any attention before, but now, holding the candle up, she saw that it wasn’t really a chair, but a man whose body had been twisted and wrenched and bent into the shape of one. If that weren’t shocking enough, it was a man she knew. It was Mr. Exley, the pharmacist who had without warning sold his business and left town. Except, obviously, he hadn’t. He’d been abducted, like Mayor Mary, and Alicia, and Malcolm . . . and turned into a piece of furniture.

  “Mr. Exley.” She wanted to touch his hand, but didn’t dare move the ring too much. “Does it hurt badly? I mean–” She didn’t know what to say!

  He was cunningly made. His arms formed the arms of the chair, his lap the seat, his torso and shoulders the back, and his long legs were bent at the knee for rockers. His face was squashed almost flat, rising above the back like a headrest. Despite this, he could move his lips to speak, if at times more creakily chair-like than was easy to understand.

  “My de-e-e-a-r, ohh myyy . . . don’t-t-t-t waaant to compla-a-a-i—n. Cooould use a dustiiiing, mind, a bit-t-t of pol-i-s-h-h-h.”

  Mr. Exley had always been fastidious in his personal upkeep.

  “How did they do this to you?” She could feel herself getting angry, as though the candle she was holding was burning inside her. “Was it that serum they inject into people?”

  “Thaat’s it-t-t, Nieeve. You alllways we-e-e-re a smart one. Faaactories. They ha-a-v-e faactori-e-e-e-s. Twisssden does-s-s.”

  Nieve hesitated. She could hardly bear to say it. “He makes things out of people? All the people who’ve gone missing?”

  “Yes-s-s, oh yees, Nieeve, buut not all. She-e-e keeeps some herr-ss-s-e-l-f-f. A chairrrr heeears thiiings. There’s a-a-a r-o-o-o-o-m.”

  A room? Where the troublemakers end up. “Where, do you know?”

  “Sorrry, Nieeeve, thaat I–”

  Mr. Exley stopped rocking and his face stiffened into what could have easily passed for a wooden mask, a peculiar decoration on a most peculiar chair.

  Puzzled, Nieve glanced down at her hand. The ring’s eye had begun to glow. It blinked blearily a few times, but seemed unfocused, unseeing, as one often is when woken in the middle of the night. She pivoted on her heel, quickly pointing it away from Mr. Exley and toward the darker side of the room, until the eyelid, still heavy, fell shut, its watcher succumbing once more to sleep.

  Nieve turned back to Mr. Exley, who’d resumed his rocking and squeaking. “She doesn’t know you can talk, does she?”

  “Nooo! I’dd be on-n-n th-h-h-e scrap heeeap. Kindling, I’d-d-d b-e-e-e.”

  “But Weazen does? And she put you here?”

  Mr. Exley rocked faster, which she took to be a nod of agreement. Then he creaked, “The s-a-a-a-lv-e, Nieeve. Use-e-e it.”

  “The salve?” She thought for a moment. Advice from the pharmacist, or . . . ? “Yes, of course. Wait a sec, Mr. Exley.”

  Not that he was going anywhere, but Nieve thought she just might be.

  She hurried back to the bed, and, placing the candle once again on the nightstand, picked up the jar of salve. Dipping a finger in, she scooped up a gob slick as butter, which she rubbed onto the finger that wore the ring. It soothed the burn and almost immediately reduced the swelling, which was a help. It must have helped, too, that Elixibyss, the eye behind the eye, remained asleep and the ring itself was more relaxed. Nieve wriggled and worked it gradually, carefully, along her slippery finger until she was able to pull it off.

  Delighted to have rid herself of the odious spying thing, she raised it up for Mr. Exley to see.

  “I’m going to find that room,” she announced. “And I’m going to get us all out of here. You too, Mr. Exley.”

  Talking big, as Gran would say, but that was better than talking like a chair, which is surely what would happen if she didn’t do something. She eyed the ring, now held between her thumb and forefinger, and couldn’t resist: She plunged it into the jar of salve. After shoving it as far into the guck as it would go, she twisted the lid back on, secured it tightly, and tossed it onto the bed.

  Not the wisest thing to do, but very gratifying.

  Mr. Exely let out a loud creak of alarm, but Nieve was already out the door and halfway down the hall.

  –Twenty-Seven–

  Troublemaker

  Nieve had been warned about the spherals, but followed a trio of them down the stairs regardless. Seeing as Elixibyss had been the one to issue the warning, she didn’t know how seriously to take it. They seemed harmless enough and helped to light the way, three softly glowing beacons that floated above and before and around her. So far so good anyway.

  Once on the main floor again, she made her way back to the dining room and stood with an ear pressed against one of the doors. It was utterly silent within. Slowly, she tried the handle. The room was locked. She bit her lip, wondering what to do. If only she could whisper some words of encouragement to Lias through the door, let him know that she hadn’t forgotten him. But that would be stupid. A guard might be stationed in the dining room. She’d passed by one earlier roving the hall – his seven eyes roving, too – before following Weazen up the stairs. Elixibyss herself could still be in there, having nodded off at the table. If so, she might wake up at any moment, check the spy ring and find herself staring at the bottom of a jar of salve.

  The spherals were hovering in an archway nearby, waiting for her. Waiting to lead her astray? Could she be more astray than she already was? She pictured herself stepping through an open trap door and plummeting down a shaft into a pitch black, rat-infested dungeon. Then she pictured Malcolm being clobbered by that huge mud-faced septaclops. She decided to follow the spherals, trust her instincts.

  As soon as she moved toward them, they wafted away, leading her down yet another hall. Trailing after them, she reflected how this whole long night was like an extended, frustrating dream of hurrying down hallways, never reaching the end.

  This one, however, came to an end shortly.

  The spherals arrived at another set of double doors and briefly wavered in front of it, illuminating patches of ornate gold embossing on the panels. A special room, then. One after the other, they then poured through the crack between the doors, leaving her behind in the dark hallway.

  Nieve hesitated, queasy with nerves. She sensed that they were taking her exactly where she wanted to go, but wasn’t at all sure she was prepared for what she might see.

  Prepared or not, she pushed ahead through the darkness, arms stretched out before her like a sleepwalker in a cartoon. When she reached for the doors, she ran her hands along the panels’ fancywork in search of the knob. Fat as an orange, she found it easily, and it turned just as easily in her hand.

  Stepping inside, Nieve found herself in a shadowy ballroom, vast as a gymnasium. The massive crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling in the centre of the room was unlit, but, as in the dining room, there were lit candles in sconces on the walls. Visibility wasn’t great, but she immediately saw enough to make her want to turn around and run.

  The spherals were gliding around the room, moving along the rows of chairs that lined the walls. The chairs were normal enough, if fussy – spindly legs and gilded woodwork – but what filled them wasn’t. Every single chair was occupied by a person who sat unmoving and staring straight ahead, like wallflowers at a dance. No one spoke or made a sound of any kind. Everyone sat in exactly the same position, very straight, with hands in their laps and feet flat on the floor – no crossed legs or waggling feet, no slumping or restless twitching. They very strongly and eerily resembled wax figures, but of course they weren’t that.

  Steeling herself, Nieve moved closer to examine them, and began walking along the nearest row, following one of the spherals. It was drifting and circling slowly, casting a bluish glow on each face as it passed. She recognized the man who had escaped from the orderlies at the hospital, and felt her heart sink, sorry that he hadn’t made it after all.

  And
then she stopped moving. Stopped and stared. The next person in line was her teacher, Mrs. Crawford. She was seated beside an older boy Nieve also recognized from school. Most of the faces she’d seen so far had been drained of emotion – the boy’s was, but Mrs. Crawford’s certainly wasn’t. Her frowning expression had been caught and frozen while she’d been speaking, and speaking her mind by the looks of it.

  A troublemaker.

  As was Mayor Mary. Nieve knew she’d find her here, and she did, not much farther along. The spiders’ silk still clung to her in thick strands, although her head was mostly uncovered. She looked furious. Her face was locked in an angry snarl that was startling it was so unlike her.

  “Now, see? See what happens when you make faces, dear? Your face gets stuck. She looks ridiculous, doesn’t she?”

  The Impress. She had risen, unnoticed, from the last chair in the row. As she approached Nieve, she mused, “An experiment, the cobwebs. Interesting results, but not particularly useful.”

  Nieve glared at her, this creature with the borrowed face, her mother’s face. Was that an experiment, too? She was glad to see that Elixibyss’ right eye was smeared-looking and watery.

  “Go ahead, glare all you want, dear. Your fierce-eye isn’t going to work on me. You have been naughty, haven’t you? A very bad girl!” Elixibyss squinched her one bleary eye. “Not only throwing away my beautiful gift and sneaking out of bed, but take a look at this.” She raised a sleeve, exposing her mossy arm and a tiny black patch of skin. “A disfiguring bruise! I wasn’t going to mention it, but someone forced my car off the road earlier this evening and we had a little accident.”

  Nieve looked at the arm, then looked again, trying to take in what she was seeing. She was sure it hadn’t been there before.

  “That’s not a bruise,” she said slowly. “It’s a . . . puncture.” A puncture beneath which there was nothing. No layers of skin, no muscle, sinew, or bone, only emptiness. “You have a hole in your arm.”