The Twisted Ones

by T. Kingfisher

  I groaned. It felt incredibly dumb and dangerous to fall asleep with monsters everywhere, but it wasn’t like I was going to be able to chip my way out of the cell using the Tupperware container. “I know you’re right,” I said. “It just feels wrong. And Anna told us to be ready.”

  “It’s easier to run away if you’re well rested. And they didn’t kill us on the spot when they found us, so that’s got to be worth something.”

  “You think they’ve got something else planned?”

  “Hon, for all I know they’re gonna eat us and are trying to find the recipe book.”

  On that comforting thought, she closed her eyes and began to snore.

  I climbed down and curled up around Bongo. He was a bit puzzled, but happy to be the little spoon. I put my face in his ruff and smelled unwashed dog, which shouldn’t have been a comforting smell, but at the moment I’d take what I could get.

  I wanted to panic. I could feel the panic all through my body, as if my skin were stretched over the top of it, but I couldn’t.

  My dog needed me and I couldn’t break down until he was safe, and that was all there was to it.

  20

  I must have slept for a few hours. Long enough for one of the clasps on Bongo’s collar to imprint itself on my cheek, anyway. I sat up because Foxy nudged me.

  “Huh?”

  Bongo whined.

  Foxy nudged me again with her foot, practically a kick.

  I started to protest, then saw her face. She wasn’t looking at me.

  I turned my head very slowly.

  The door was open, and the doorway was full of effigies.

  I crab walked backward on one hand and both feet, dragging Bongo with me. He didn’t fight it. I felt the moment I hit the metal grate on the floor because my fingers separated and a bar slammed into the space between my ring and middle finger with all my weight behind it. It was excruciating. I barely noticed.

  The effigies stared at us, eyeless.

  They weren’t moving. I could see one of the headless, humpbacked ones and the one with the mud-dauber nests on its back. There were others behind it, but I couldn’t make out where one ended and the next began. They filled the doorway and the hall, as far back as I could see, a river of sticks and stones.

  … and broken bones… sticks and stones… and I twisted myself around like the twisted ones…

  My shoulder hit the wall behind me. I could feel the metal bars digging into the backs of my legs. Bongo put a paw in a gap and slipped, then recovered.

  And the effigies just stood there, watching. Their shadows painted the ceiling of the corridor, unmoving.

  Very far away, muffled by the strange stone, I heard tapping sounds.

  Maybe that’s the ones in the back saying, “What’s going on? I can’t see!”

  I shoved my hand in my mouth to muffle whatever came out next. Hysterical laughter or screaming, I had no idea.

  With my other arm, I dragged Bongo’s head down against my chest, as if he were a small child and I was trying to keep him from seeing something terrible. He let me do it. Dogs never let you do that.

  Dogs didn’t belong here, under the voorish dome.

  People didn’t either.

  I heard a click beside me. It wasn’t a twig-and-bone click. It was the sound of a gun being cocked.

  “Foxy…?” I didn’t turn my head.

  “I got six bullets,” she said. Her voice was absolutely flat, and she wasn’t talking to me. “I doubt y’all are gonna let me reload, but the first six could be interesting.”

  I tore my eyes away from the doorway and saw that she had a gun leveled in front of her. It looked gigantic, but that didn’t mean anything, since any gun looked gigantic, as far as I was concerned.

  I wanted to ask her a question, like, Where the hell did that come from? or maybe Why didn’t you shoot somebody before we ended up in a prison cell? but it didn’t really seem like the time.

  The effigies didn’t move. They didn’t retreat. They didn’t advance. They didn’t even seem to notice.

  None of them had eyes as I understood it. They had hollows and sockets and empty places full of darkness.

  I still couldn’t shake the feeling that they were studying us.

  Foxy’s wrists were starting to shake with the strain of holding the pistol up, but she never moved.

  And then finally, minutes or hours later—I couldn’t begin to tell you—the effigies began to leave. I saw the shadows ripple on the walls as they walked away. Some of them didn’t even bother to turn around. They just reversed their limbs and began to move in the opposite direction. The corridor filled with tick-tick-tick noises.

  The mud-dauber effigy tilted its head at me. Its head was a couple of sticks tied together with twine, not even solid, just a vague V-shape that might have been a muzzle and more mud-dauber wasps coming out the back, all bundled together like a pan flute.

  It reached out with its forelimbs and pulled the door shut.

  Foxy exhaled all at once and let her arms drop. She did something arcane with the gun and put it back into her backpack.

  “Foxy, where did that come from?”

  “My grandmomma. She said if I was gonna date boys, I should always carry cab fare and a condom—”

  “That is not a condom, Foxy!”

  “—and if any of ’em gave me trouble, I was to whip that piece out and show ’im that mine was bigger ’n his.”

  I digested this for a moment. “Interesting woman, your grandmother.”

  “Yeah, she was somethin’ else. Anyway, I’ve had it in my backpack the whole time.”

  “Why didn’t you pull it out when we were on the hillside?”

  She snorted. “And how many of them do you expect me to shoot? I ain’t Annie Oakley, I can’t line up ten of those things with one bullet.” She frowned. “I admit, I did think a bit about taking that Anna woman hostage on the spot, but when people are throwing uncanny shit around, I ain’t inclined to return fire. Seemed pretty likely that I’d just get myself killed and then you and your puppy’d be here all alone. Figured it’d be better to keep it for the last resort.”

  Bongo heard the word puppy and tugged his head out of my armpit, wagging his tail. I wish I had a tenth of the emotional resilience of a dog.

  I exhaled slowly. “Well, I guess they know you’ve got it now.” I couldn’t believe how prepared she was, particularly in contrast to how unprepared I was. “You ever think about joining the FBI or the CIA or something, Foxy?”

  “I looked into it once, but apparently they want you to have finished high school.”

  “Shame.”

  “That’s what the nice agent said. He was a sweet boy. Made me breakfast in the morning and everything.”

  I examined my left hand. The webbing between my fingers had turned an angry red, and there was a jarring ache through my hand. I squeezed various bones and nothing made me scream in agony, so it probably wasn’t broken. Not that I could have done a damn thing about it if it were.

  At least it was the left. I can type, hunt and peck style, with my right hand if I have to. You know, in case I had to do any copyediting while I was sitting in the holler people’s prison.

  “It’s interestin’,” said Foxy slowly.

  I looked up.

  “They came here without any of the holler people.”

  “Anna said there weren’t any more,” I said.

  “Yeah. She said. I ain’t saying she’s a liar exactly, but she’s been leaving some bits out.”

  “Well, we’ve had one five-minute conversation…,” I said, determined to be fair if it killed me. “Not that I think you’re wrong.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “But if she’s not telling them what to do, who told the things to come stare at us?”

  I blinked. I hadn’t thought of it. The first effigy, the deer-skull one, had been staring in my window, and I’d come to think of it as just a thing they did.

  “And why?” I said. “What we
re they looking for?”

  Foxy shrugged.

  “And the Building…” I could practically hear the capital letter when Anna had said it.

  Foxy shrugged again.

  I put my arms around Bongo again and wondered if we’d ever get answers, or if finding out the truth was going to be even worse.

  “What time do you think it is?” I asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” She jerked her chin toward the door. “Listen up. Something’s going on out there.”

  I listened. Even through the muffling silence of the door, I could faintly hear an angry raised voice and clacking sounds.

  It was coming closer.

  I wrapped my arms around Bongo. He quieted a little, but I could still hear the whine down in his chest, at the bottom of every exhale.

  A final angry shout. A clatter of bone and metal. The door opened.

  Anna came through and shut it behind her. Her eyes were as red as tail lights. “Get up,” she said.

  “What’s going on?” I gripped Bongo’s collar tight.

  “It’s the poppets. They’re going to take you to the Building.”

  I swallowed. “Why?”

  “To get a look at you, I suppose.”

  “They’ve been coming to the house,” I snapped. “Staring at me through the windows. Haven’t they had a good enough look already?”

  She shook her head, her hair whipping in frustration. “Who knows why they do what they do?”

  “But I thought your people made them!” I remembered the passages in the Green Book, the Lady Cassap making a poppet, the clay men that the narrator made. Surely they were the same things, or something like them.

  Anna gave a short, grinding laugh. “What? I’ve never made one.”

  “That old guy, then,” said Foxy. “Uriah.”

  “Him?” Scorn dripped from Anna’s voice. “He can’t do much more than stare and mumble. He’s been here for centuries. One of the last of the real old bloods, for all the good it does him now. No, he’s not making them.”

  “Then where do they come from?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered furiously. “Listen to me! We have to go now.” She looked over my head at Foxy. “Afterward, we have to run, do you understand? The Building’s near the edge. And they always stay together for a little bit after, so there’ll be fewer of them.”

  “After what?” I asked. She ignored me.

  “I’ll distract them,” she said. “Be ready.”

  “After what?”

  Finally she glanced at me. “Ugh, I don’t have time! You’ll see!”

  Eventually I nodded. So did Foxy.

  “We hear you,” said Foxy grimly.

  Anna yanked the door open again.

  A corridor full of clicking shadows looked in at us. Far back, I could see Uriah, surrounded by made monsters.

  Anna never faltered. She lifted her chin, inhumanly tall and inhumanly pale, and walked forward. The poppets parted to let her pass.

  “Well,” said Foxy softly, rising to her feet, “I guess if we don’t want them to drag us, we’d better follow her.”

  I expected to take the long corridor to the surface again, but we did not. Instead we turned and turned again, until I was thoroughly lost.

  These corridors were better lit, which was… Well, I don’t know if that was good or not. There were oil lamps every few yards, the niches alternating between the left and right side. Each splash of light illuminated carvings that rippled and swirled on the opposite wall.

  Either the magic on Bongo was starting to wear off or there were too many effigies around us, because he began to turn his head and look at them, his forehead wrinkling. I could see him trying to think. Normally he doesn’t devote that much mental energy to anything that doesn’t involve food.

  I was not having an easy time of it myself. It was light enough in the corridor that I could see them clearly. I don’t know if that was more frightening than blurry, indistinct shapes in the dark or not. There also seemed to be more of them than before, or perhaps they were just walking more closely.

  That’s it. They’re moving like they have somewhere to be.

  The Building.

  I tried to picture what it could be. Another of these gray stone boxes? A gigantic factory, turning out twig-and-skull creatures on an assembly line?

  “Quit pokin’ me,” Foxy growled to something behind her. “I ain’t moving any faster in these heels.”

  “How are you not having a complete breakdown?” I asked her. I heard myself laugh as I asked it, which I hadn’t intended to do. Panic was starting to claw inside my chest, as if one of the effigies had crawled in there and was trying to carve their way out.

  That’s a lovely mental image. And so helpful right now.

  Foxy snorted. “Was in some protests back in the day and the cops came to bust it up. These days, if I ain’t being teargassed, I figure I’m doing okay. Keep walking, hon.”

  She gave me a little shove in the back. I hadn’t even realized that I was slowing down.

  “Plus I took half a Valium earlier,” she added.

  “And you didn’t share?”

  “Well, I figured one of us needed to be sober in case we needed to drive.”

  “Not a lot of cars around here, Foxy.”

  She sniffed. “There’s a thing over there, got a muffler for a rib cage. Looks like somebody tried to make a greyhound, then got bored halfway through.”

  “I don’t think we can drive away on a muffler.”

  “Not by itself. But I mean, we get enough of these things together, we might be able to build a car outta spare parts.”

  “Did you ever see that old show, The A-Team?”

  “Pfff! Hon, I saw it when it aired.”

  “There’s that episode where they get locked in a barn and turn a tractor into a tank that shoots cabbages.”

  “I yield to nobody in my love of Mr. T, but that one might’ve been a tad unrealistic.” She considered this. “Although they lock us in with an arc welder and I might work something out.”

  Listening to Foxy’s outrageous comments kept me walking. If Anna heard them, she gave no sign.

  Our procession slowed gradually, until it seemed like we were moving at a crawl. I looked forward and saw that ahead of Anna, Uriah was walking very slowly, his hands on the backs of two effigies that flanked him. Somehow the sight of a human—or something human enough—willingly touching one of the things made my stomach churn.

  I turned to the carvings on the walls to keep from looking at Uriah’s monsters. These carvings did not look like mere ornamentation. There were figures that looked human, very tall, always facing the viewer, with a great curved shape over their head. The sky? A rainbow, rendered in gray rock? The voorish dome?

  The next set of carvings had the same figures, with smaller ones at their feet, like children. They reminded me of Egyptian carvings, how the kids always looked like the adults, only half the size.

  We passed a half dozen more carvings, all of them similar except that the human figures were doing different things with their hands. Maybe an art historian could have made sense of it. I had the feeling that there was a great deal of information there, if only I had the ability to decipher it. One had the figures holding a baby, which was actually proportioned more or less like a baby, which made me wonder if I’d been wrong about the small figures being children. Representation of a royal family? A ruling class, and the others were peasants? Had I discovered holler people feudalism?

  One of them was definitely a burial. I remember that one clearly. The human figure was lying down, wrapped in some kind of shroud. Something stood at its head, like a human with a bird’s head, or maybe some kind of mask. The small figures covered their faces, backs bent as if in terrible grief.

  The one after that had only the small figures, no large ones. Children whose parents had died? A population with a dead king?

  The next carving had the small figures holding u
p a baby, and then it went back to the same sets as before—big figure, small figure, domed sky.

  “You seeing these, Foxy?”

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  “Kinda reminds me of that stuff in pyramids. Or the others. The big winged bulls.”

  “Assyrian?”

  “Don’t you swear at me.”

  We left the corridors through another door set in the hillside and stepped into the dead city.

  It had grown dark. That surprised me somehow. I’d thought we were beyond day and night here. Nevertheless, the clouded sky had darkened to the color of cold liver. The air was cold.

  Lamps had been lit in the city, but strangely.

  I don’t know why, but you expect streetlights to be regular. All at the same height, more or less evenly spaced. You expect it so much that you don’t even think about it—you look up and notice immediately when a streetlight is out, because part of you knows that there is supposed to be a light right there.

  The lights were set up wrong. They looked like some kind of cloth lanterns, but they were tacked up haphazardly. One building would have three of them and then there would be a long stretch of darkness. Two would be at chest height and the next dozen would be on the second story.

  I’d say that it was unsettling, but I was a long way past unsettled. The holler people were gone, Anna had said. Had the effigies done it? Did it have some esoteric significance, or had they just been given an order to put up lights from here to here, without any innate understanding of how lights even worked?

  Isn’t that interesting? whispered the little voice.

  It didn’t really matter anyway. The lantern cloth was torn and ragged and most of them gave off only a dim, firefly glow. One or two blazed bright as day, casting shadows behind the effigies that were almost as grotesque as the creatures themselves.

  The panic was settling into a new phase. I felt distant and disassociated. I could hear all my thoughts coming from a long way off, echoing inside my head.

  For some reason I thought of Skip describing the difference between his ups and downs. Could something as simple as panic have an up and a down form? One panic had felt like I was going to run screaming into the city. This one felt like I might simply sit down and put my arms over my head and wait for an effigy to kill me.