Twig

by wildbow

  Silently, with all the focus he could bring to bear, he scrawled promises on his brain with a permanence that he might use to etch words on stone tablets.

  To make amends, to show gratitude, because he couldn’t bring himself to pray and he needed to do something of magnitude to have an iota of vision for the future, he promised her a teddy bear, he promised her her music…

  ☙

  Autumn

  The cell door slammed shut. He stirred to wakefulness, blinking, though he hadn’t been asleep. Reality and dream blended in together, now.

  He was fantasizing, or dreaming. The madman having his world turned upside down, screaming about the loss of his life’s work, the thinking machine.

  Men of the law arresting the madman, then approaching the board, where three of the original nine heads were still functional, the number of wires tripled to compensate.

  Fantasy?

  No. The smells and tastes and touches…

  Wendy was standing beside him, stroking his hair.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said.

  He didn’t dare hope. Easier to think he was still in the basement, and that reality had slipped away entirely.

  He realized that someone was staring at him. The world seemed so distorted. He was higher up than he was used to, almost five feet off the ground.

  He’d once been six feet tall, he remembered. That life felt so far away.

  The person in the cell was a young woman, not much older than he was. Or older than he’d been. He wasn’t sure he was a he anymore.

  His thoughts were rambling, he knew.

  Her hair was black, a contrast to Wendy’s blonde hair, cut straight, and tucked behind one ear, while it obscured the other. Her eyes were narrow and dark, her mouth curved in a light smile, painted crimson.

  She wore a lab coat, he realized.

  He looked away, bothered. The science, the doctors, all of it, he’d seen what it came to, in the end.

  Not just what he’d experienced, but Wendy.

  So many horrors, so many lines crossed.

  He couldn’t turn his head away, not really, but he averted his eyes, watching the officers patrolling the room. Half of it was desks, half of it was cells, a single row with one occupant per cell.

  He was good at letting time slip by, now. He knew the techniques. Count the cracks, count the bars. Study the people. The guards, their habits, their way of dress.

  There were so many new sensations and things to experience that he wasn’t able to process it all. He was free, but he wasn’t sure what that entailed. He didn’t dare hope for one thing or the other, out of fear that if he hoped for death and got a second chance instead, or vice versa, it might break him.

  The clang of the cell door opening was startling. He’d been watching the people, but the people had taken action without him noticing. There was a man in a grey coat in the cell in front of him, with guards gathered loosely around.

  “You’ll be getting these injections twice a day for a week. You know what these do, Ms. Fray.”

  “You want to make me forget.”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if it does damage to other parts of my mind in the process.”

  “Nothing has been proven on that front.”

  She made a scoffing sound. She sounded so cavalier. Did she not realize what the Academy’s people were capable of doing? Even without a lab coat, the madman and his thinking machine had been the Academy’s doing.

  Warren had had enough time to puzzle that much out.

  “If you do this, you can go to the underground laboratories, you can work on projects, live in dorms…”

  “A half life. I made my bid for professorship, I failed, and you take half of everything.”

  “Some people would kill for this much.”

  “Or carry out a crazed experiment in their basement with limited resources? Trying to make nine heads think as one?” Ms. Fray asked.

  “Even that.”

  “No. I’ll take a lifetime of imprisonment if it means keeping my brain.”

  “You don’t get a choice, Ms. Fray.”

  “I can tell you that I took a dose of the Wyvern formula just this morning.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Contraindicated. Don’t tell me you got your grey coat without knowing what contraindicated means.”

  “I know what it means. I’ve never heard of the formula, and quite frankly, after having read your files, I suspect you’re lying, to delay the inevitable.”

  “Ask Professor Hayle. He’ll know.”

  There was a pause. Then, “Lock her up. Watch her. I’ll be back later this evening after I’ve confirmed.”

  Warren watched as the guards and the doctor in the grey coat vacated the cell. The door clanged shut, making Wendy flinch, and they went about their way, the grey-coat exiting through the door at the far end of the building.

  Long minutes passed. Ms. Fray paced, leaned against the bars to peer further into the building, and alternately watched Wendy, watched Warren, and studied the guards.

  Some time had passed before she cleared her throat, standing straighter.

  Within the cell, the woman raised a finger to crimson lips.

  Wendy did the same, echoing the gesture.

  The cell was equipped with a toilet behind a short barrier, intended for privacy. Ms. Fray approached the toilet, then bent over it, hand going to her throat.

  Warren still felt like this was all a dream. Too surreal.

  He saw Ms. Fray stand up, now with a writhing tentacle coming out of her mouth. She gripped the tentacles, grunting and making choking sounds, as she hauled it out, excruciating inch by excruciating inch.

  It took a minute and a half, by Warren’s estimation, before she’d retrieved the entire thing. It coiled and uncoiled, tentacles reaching out and wrapping around her hands and forearms.

  “What are you grunting and moaning about?” a guard asked.

  But as the guard reached the cell, Ms. Fray was sitting on the toilet, the tentacled horror pinned between her back and the toilet’s tank, blocked from view by the barrier.

  The guard shook her head, turned, and walked away.

  Ms. Fray reached under her dress.

  Warren averted his eyes, horrified.

  He heard a titter.

  When he looked up, she had what looked to be a large piece of glass. No more tentacles. From the speed with which she’d acted, he suspected it had been tucked into the band.

  Again, she raised a finger to her mouth, the universal gesture for silence. This time, however, she had a piece of glass in her hand, and the tentacle-thing held behind her back.

  The second guard paced down the building, then headed back up toward Ms. Fray.

  The moment he passed by the cell, she reached out, and the tentacles did as well, snaring him by the head and throat, pulling him tight against the bars.

  “Feel that?” Ms. Fray asked.

  “Mmph,” the guard said.

  “Then don’t touch your pistol.”

  The other guard had heard the crash of skull against bars. The woman approached at a half-run from the far end of the building.

  “Keys,” Ms. Fray said, calm. “You can reach the door. Work fast. If she gets here before the door is open, I’m going to cut your throat so my pet is free to stop her.”

  The guard fumbled, keys rattling. He reached up, holding the keys at an awkward angle to see which one he was selecting.

  The key went into the lock. He turned it, and the door came open.

  Ms. Fray hauled him in a touch deeper, then gripped the sliding door, hauling it open. With the man’s head between the bars, the sliding door caught him in the side of the head or the neck.

  Warren saw the other guard approaching at a swift run.

  She rounded the corner, standing back this time, pistol raised.

  Ms. Fray was crouched, the other guard’s pistol in hand, tentacles coiling at one side.


  The woman guard had to take the time to figure out what was going on, the position of her target, and adjust before pulling, aiming between the bars.

  Ms. Fray only had to pull the trigger as soon as the moving target came into view.

  Three shots, in quick succession.

  Covered in a light spattering of blood, Ms. Fray stepped out of her cell.

  “You. You saw what I just did,” she said. “I’m going to keep doing it, over and over, in ways both dramatic and subtle. You can come with me and help, or you can stay here and be at their mercy.”

  “Me?” Wendy asked.

  “Him.”

  Warren blinked.

  Mercy doesn’t exist.

  “I’ve got to go. They’ll have heard shots. Yes or no, do you want revenge?”

  He thought of Harry.

  He thought of the Madman.

  He nodded.

  She reached out to scoop him up. Wendy got in the way.

  Warren rolled his eyes over to Wendy, then back to Ms. Fray, then to Wendy.

  “You too, then. Bring him.”

  Wendy nodded.

  Ms. Fray collected the keys. She walked backward, facing Warren, pointing at the cells.

  He looked.

  A stranger. Another stranger. Empty. A stranger.

  The madman.

  He must have given some tell. Another shot from the pistol rang out. The madman died, a shot through the head.

  The gun twirled on Ms. Fray’s finger as she turned her back on Warren and his stitched friend, marching for the exit.

  ☙

  Winter

  The creature squealed as it died, crushed under a meaty fist. Bird, bug and reptile blended together, it was the size of a large dog, and surprisingly hard to kill.

  Warren stretched, then heaved out a heavy breath.

  “Is it safe?” Ms. Fray asked.

  “Yes,” Wendy said.

  Ms. Fray opened the door and stepped out of the washroom. She looked down at the stain in disgust. “Whelps. One of the Academy’s weapons.”

  Warren nodded.

  “If there’s one here, there’ll be more. They have our scent. We’re relocating.”

  Warren nodded, again.

  Ms. Fray led the way, but she usually did. She always walked briskly, she rarely held back, if she was even capable, and she expected everyone else to keep up.

  Not that Warren had much difficulty. He was taller than he’d been with his original body, to the point he almost had to bend double to get through the door.

  The city swirled with snow. Mad creatures and doctors were everywhere, and he felt his head hurt as he glanced at each. It wasn’t a pleasant place, this, but it was good for camouflage. Ms. Fray and Warren looked entirely normal walking down the street.

  “I keep expecting them to lose interest, but they up the ante each time. Academy investigators, monsters, The Hangman, Dog and Catcher… now the Whelps. They really, really want me,” she said.

  Warren nodded.

  He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye.

  Stray cat. He might not have seen it if it weren’t for his sharp eyes.

  A second later, a fanged beak snapped out, consuming half of the cat. A tongue snaked around the rest, and hauled it into the creature’s gullet.

  Another whelp.

  “I saw it too,” Genevieve said. She gave him a pat on the arm, where his striped sweater was rolled up to the elbow. His forearm was bigger around than her upper body, his fist large enough that when he held Wendy’s hand, it consumed the hand and most of her forearm. “It won’t come out into the daylight.”

  His strength and new body was of her design. She’d asked what he’d wanted, and with a writing implement in his temporary hand, he’d scrawled out a simple word. ‘Strength’.

  He didn’t trust his sanity, but he trusted his mind. It had always been sharp. The only flaw had been that it had been too trusting. No longer.

  Now he had a body to match the mind.

  They approached the train station, amid a light snowfall. Ms. Fray led the way toward a side street. If they were catching a train, they’d hitch a ride in a car carrying crates or hay, so witnesses wouldn’t be able to report on them. It had bought them some time in the past.

  She put a hand to his chest, stopping mid-stride. He had to go to some effort to stop fast enough. Had he been any slower, he might have forced her wrist or arm backward and snapped them.

  She didn’t seem to notice or care. Her eyes were on the train station across the street.

  Passengers were getting off. Young, old, many of them women and girls attending the local women’s Academy. A small school, but popular. Many a father conceded to his daughter’s wishes to study, but insisted on something like this. A quiet, safe town and an unthreatening learning environment.

  “There,” Genevieve said. “They got off a few seconds ago.”

  He watched.

  “The Lambs,” she said.

  He frowned, then realized she was talking about the children. Just on the verge of adolescence, all six of them, they walked with purpose, working their way through the gaps in the crowd.

  “They finally caught up,” she said. “This is good.”

  He glanced at her.

  “Change of plans,” she said. “We’re staying.”

  Stitch in Time—4.1

  The stitched servant helped lift our bags out from the side of the train. Mine had been the last one in, so it was the first one out. Once I had it, wheels digging tracks into the thin layer of snow, I turned to survey the area.

  Storybook. Best label to apply to it all. Things were quaint, but in a very controlled, calculated way. The colors of the houses, the pleasant aesthetic, and the winding streets, many cobblestone with the beginnings of ruts carved into them, all planned and rigidly enforced.

  It was fascinating. The houses were like cabins, but the exteriors were well looked after, white, gray, or blue in color, and almost every single one had smoke coming out of the chimney. The streets were gray cobblestone and lighter gray slabs of concrete, covered in white snow and the black grime the wagons and carriages had dredged up. For every man, there were five women, aged eighteen to thirty, and of those five women, four had monsters with them. Academy creations.

  The subtle hideousness of Kensford was clearer as I looked at the trees and plants. In the early winter, there were trees and shrubs bristling with leaves, all a blood crimson in color, the leaves barely visible under the snow that had piled several feet high on each bough, or the ice that clung to branches.

  There were also meat trees, in the natural-growing-meat sense and the ‘gibbets and meathook’ sense. Not too unusual, except they were ubiquitous.

  The end result was, in the end, storybook. A town that embraced the old fashioned. But so many people romanticized history, and forgot how very bloody it was. The city smelled like smoke and crematoriums, and it made me feel like I was about to venture into a world where every house was a gingerbread house in disguise, and every pretty young woman was really a witch, ready to thrust unwitting children into ovens.

  The other Lambs, now hauling their luggage, joined me, the six of us forming a loose line, looking at the town of Kensford. The only building that was taller than one story was the local Academy. Though all things in Kensford centered around Dame Cicely’s in a symbolic sense, it sat at the back, bordered on two sides by thick forest, a Victorian-style building grown like a tumor might be, asymmetrical, with the odd bit here and there. A tree had been literally grown from one side, closer to the forest, framing it all in a trimmed crescent of red leaves.

  “So pretty!” Helen exclaimed.

  “Did you ever want to come here?” Gordon asked. He was asking Lillian.

  “Oh…” Lillian said, sounding surprised at the question. “No. You need to be at least eighteen, I think.”

  “But if you were? Or when you are?”

  “Gosh. I’d be terrified.”

&
nbsp; “Strict?” I asked.

  “Yes, but that’s not why,” she said. She looked around, and stepped closer to Gordon as a pair of young women walked on, a stitched in fine clothes hauling their luggage. She lowered her voice and confided, “It’s so cutthroat.”

  “A lot of Academies are,” I said.

  “I don’t hear stories about other places like I hear stories about Dame Cicely’s Academy,” Lillian said. “They intentionally fail out a certain percentage of each class, to cull and ensure they’re the best, or close to, because there’s Lady Eleanor’s—”

  She drew quiet as more young ladies walked by, departing from the train.

  “You scared of them?” I taunted her.

  “I don’t want to say something that would stir up any rivalries,” she said. “What was I saying?”

  “You don’t hear stories about other places like you hear stories about here,” Jamie said. “They intentionally fail a certain percentage of each class, to cull and—”

  “Okay,” Lillian said, a little flustered. “Okay. Yes. Thank you, Jamie.”

  I caught the twinkle in Jamie’s eye and elbowed him. He elbowed me back.

  We continued back and forth like that as Lillian continued talking, “Most women who go to the Academies, they need permission and money from their parents, and from what I’ve seen and from what I’ve heard, most have to fight to hold on to their place. If they mess up once, one year of bad gradings or lack of advancement, it’s done, it’s over. Mom and dad cut off the funding and order you back home. Then they introduce you to a nice fellow to marry, and that’s your life.”

  “A lot of people with guillotine blades hanging over their necks,” Gordon remarked.

  “It gets worse,” Lillian said. “Put the two things together—”

  I finished the statement, “—And you have a lot of classmates who know their peers are dancing on a razor’s edge. Just a tiny bit of sabotage or cleverness, and there’s one less competitor for the remaining seats.”

  Lillian nodded. “Exactly.”

  “I never liked the idea of working in a stuffy lab all day,” Mary said. “I understand why people would, with it being the fastest path to greatness, but it didn’t feel like it was for me.”

  “You like the idea of this?” I asked.