by James Bow
“But I didn’t leave you!” Rosemary gulped. “I was there! Y-you screamed and screamed! I — I had to do something! I thought if I stopped reading, I could stop it from happening!”
“You ran away!” There was a world of contempt in Marjorie’s voice. “Do you know what happens when the story stops? Imagine what it’s like when everything’s against you, and it keeps getting worse! Imagine what it’s like when life and death come down to a single choice in a single moment. Then imagine that when that moment comes ... everything stops.”
Marjorie struggled to get her breathing under control. She couldn’t. Her voice rose in pitch. “And you’re trapped. Trapped in the worst moment of your life, with release so close but coming no closer. Can you imagine that? Can you, dear reader? Can you?”
Her last words came as a shriek. She reared back and slapped Rosemary hard across the face. The web shook. Rosemary looked back at her, agape.
Sobbing, Marjorie struck out again and again. Then she tore Rosemary from the web, threw her to the floor, and straddled her, slapping and punching. “You left me to the Machine! You left me to die! You abandoned me! I hate you!” Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Shielding herself, Rosemary struggled up and threw her arms around Marjorie as the girl collapsed, crying, onto Rosemary’s shoulder.
“You left me to die!” Marjorie choked, giving Rosemary’s back a last half-hearted thump. Then she sagged into Rosemary’s arms.
“But I don’t understand,” said Rosemary after Marjorie’s sobs ebbed. “What if I finished reading and you really were turned to stone?”
“Then she would have met her destiny,” said a voice around her. “She would be at peace. She would not be suspended in mid-air.”
Rosemary looked around in delighted astonishment. “Puck! You’re alive! How?”
“Fictional characters never really die,” said Puck. He appeared before Rosemary, holding a book open to the end. He flipped the pages to the front. “One need only turn to the beginning of the book, and they live again.”
Marjorie pushed away from Rosemary and rounded on Puck, raising her hands as though to call up a spell. Puck raised his hands, palms out. “Truce,” he said. “I think Rosemary has something to say to you.”
Marjorie turned to Rosemary. Rosemary swallowed hard and brushed a stray strand of web from her hair.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Marjorie exclaimed. “Sorry?!”
“I know it’s not enough,” Rosemary cut in, “but it’s a start. I didn’t know how you felt. All I saw was someone hurting, and I couldn’t stand it. I wouldn’t have left you if I knew how you felt. Let Theo and Peter go, and I’ll do what you want.”
“Why should I trust you?” said Marjorie.
“You’re the one who has control of the Machine,” said Rosemary. “You’re the one who has dozens of heroes on her side. You have all the power. What have you got to lose? Or is revenge all you want?”
Marjorie thought for a moment. “I accept,” she said. She opened her notebook and crossed something out.
Peter and Theo materialized in the corridor in front of them. They looked at each other, then down at themselves. Then Theo, seeing his sister, cried “Rosemary!” as he rushed forward and hugged her, swinging her in the air.
“I knew you could do it, Rosemary!” Peter cried. He rounded on Marjorie. “We have you now! You’d better surrender!”
“Peter,” said Rosemary, struggling out of Theo’s embrace and pulling Peter back by his shoulder. “Um, Peter? She won.”
Peter and Theo stared at her.
Theo stepped forward. “What do you mean, she won?”
Rosemary turned to Marjorie, who stood, arms folded, pencil clasped tight. “Look, all of this was because I gave up, right? I didn’t know what I was doing then. I know now. Let Peter and Theo go and give me a second chance. I promise, I won’t let you down.”
The frown faded from Marjorie’s face. She blinked at Rosemary.
“What are you talking about?” said Peter.
But Rosemary kept her focus on Marjorie. “Let me finish your story with you.”
“What?” shouted Theo.
Marjorie gaped. “You would do that? After all I’ve done to you?”
“Think carefully what you are saying, Sage Rosemary,” said Puck, his face grim. “We are inside Marjorie’s book. You would not be reading the story but improvising its end. You would be thrust into Marjorie’s place and expected to live or die, not according to the plot, but by your wits alone.”
“How is that different from what I’ve been doing since we got here?” said Rosemary.
“If you expect a happy ending, do not do so,” said Puck. “There is no telling what the end might be. If it is not a happy one, you could be trapped in Marjorie’s story, as lost in the outside world as Theo was.”
“But Theo will be free, won’t he?” asked Rosemary.
“If you go through with this, yes,” said Marjorie.
“His life in exchange for mine?” Rosemary took a deep breath. “Fair enough.”
“No!” Theo and Peter sprang forward. Theo grabbed Rosemary by the shoulders. “Rosie, don’t do this.”
She flinched. “I have to.”
“No, you don’t!” He shook her. “Not after all she’s done! You’re not giving yourself up to her!”
“Theo,” Rosemary gasped. “You’re hurting me.”
“Why do we have to play by their rules?” he shouted. “She’s just a book. She’s just words on the page. She has no power over us if we don’t let her.”
“Theo, don’t you understand?” Rosemary shook herself from his grip. “Marjorie isn’t fiction. Marjorie is me.”
Peter gaped. “What?”
“All these characters,” said Rosemary. “I was so afraid they’d get hurt. Don’t you see? I’m always afraid that I’ll get hurt. That’s why I’m alone at school. I keep saying I don’t have an imagination, but I’m wrong, we’re standing in it. I’ve got to face my fears!”
“What fears?” said Theo. “What would make you think this way?”
“Because bad things happened to others I loved,” said Rosemary.
Silence hung in the air. Then Theo turned away.
Rosemary turned to Marjorie. “Look at you. I knew I was looking in a mirror the first time I saw you.” She grinned. “I loved travelling with you, Andrew, and John at the speed of thought.”
Marjorie smiled. “Do you remember the planet of negative dimensions?”
“You didn’t like that at first. Left was right and in was out.”
“We got used to it,” said Marjorie.
“And then you jumped again, and ended up in the city of the Machine.” Rosemary’s smile disappeared. “And then I left you. I shouldn’t have. I’ve got to see you through to the end.”
Marjorie’s eyes shifted down from Rosemary’s gaze.
Rosemary stepped back. “Let Peter and Theo out of here and I’ll finish what I started.”
Marjorie didn’t look up. “Deal.”
“When do we start?”
“Whenever you are ready. You should say your goodbyes.”
Rosemary turned to Puck. “Can’t you come with me?”
Puck smiled sadly. “I am no hero, Sage Rosemary, I was merely your guide, and I have brought you to your goal. The rest is up to you.”
She hugged him. “I liked your story most of all.”
Then she turned to Theo and touched his shoulder. He faced her. “Why are you doing this, Rosie?”
“Because you’re my brother. You’ve gotten me out of trouble more times than I can count.”
“That’s my job,” he said. “To take care of my little sister. It doesn’t work the other way.”
“It does, sometimes.” She hugged him. “I love you.”
He held her. “I love you too, little Sage.”
She pulled away at last. “I have to go.” She turned to Peter. He grinned nervously and
held out his hand.
He grunted when Rosemary hugged him, clasping him close, pushing the air from his lungs. He held her for a second, until they pulled apart quickly. Rosemary shifted on her feet and clasped her hands behind her. “Thanks,” she said.
“Don’t mention it,” he replied, looking at the floor.
She stepped back to Marjorie and took her hand. “Goodbye,” she said to everyone. To Marjorie she said, “Ready?” The other girl nodded.
“No.” Theo started forward. “Rosemary, I can’t let you do this!”
“Now!” said Marjorie.
Rosemary closed her eyes and concentrated. The two girls disappeared.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WELCOME TO THE MACHINE
“It has to be me. There is no one else.”
— Rosemary Watson
Peter struggled out from darkness, as though from a bad dream. “Rosemary!” he cried.
Hands grabbed his flailing wrists. “Easy, son, easy.” Mr. Watson soothed him. “You’re out of there. You’re all right.”
Peter glanced around the living room. Trisha sat on the couch, silent and pale. Mrs. Watson was holding down her son. “Theo, it’s okay! You’re back now!”
“But she’s still in there,” Theo sobbed. “She —”
Peter’s gaze shot to the corner. Rosemary sat, propped against the wall, surrounded by pillows, her chin to her chest, her eyes closed. He shot forward. “Rosemary!”
“There’s nothing you can do!” Mr. Watson pulled him back. “We read everything. We know what’s going on.”
Peter blinked. They’d read everything? How? He turned. “The book!”
They rushed over to the coffee table. Flipping the book open to its last page of text, they began to read.
When Rosemary opened her eyes, she saw that she was standing on the embankment where she had first seen the automated city. The empty buildings stretched out before her, cresting in the distance into the towers that housed the Machine.
How did I get out here? she thought. Then she realized. Before succumbing to the Machine, Marjorie must have transported away at the speed of thought. But she couldn’t leave Andrew and John behind, so she would come back.
Marjorie stood beside her. She swallowed hard. Then she looked at Rosemary. For a moment, the two girls faced each other in silence.
Rosemary took a deep breath and walked towards Marjorie. Marjorie walked towards Rosemary. They met like two sides of a mirror, and then Rosemary turned and faced the city, looking through Marjorie’s eyes. Taking another deep breath, Rosemary/Marjorie struck out for the city.
One of the Sentinels followed her as she made her way down the metal steps at the rim of the crater. She ignored it. She ran over in her mind what she had to do.
I have to rescue Andrew and John. But how? I’m just a girl. (“Two girls,” said someone sharply inside her brain.) How can I take on a machine?
It has to be me. There is no one else.
Even realizing this, her feet dragged as she walked through the city towards the building of the Machine. The Sentinel did not prod her forward. She trudged along steadily, step by slow step.
Then she looked up and saw that she was at the entrance to the great building in the centre of the city. No matter how slowly she had walked, her footsteps had taken her here. Rosemary/Marjorie squared her shoulders and mounted the steps. The Sentinel pushed open the huge marble doors for her, but she didn’t say a word. She trudged through the Hall of Stability, keeping her eyes on the ground. The doors to the Hall of the Machine opened before her.
The slow beat of the Machine resonated in her chest, catching at her breathing again, punching through her concentration and quickening her steps to its rhythm. Before she knew it, she had been pushed up the steps and was six feet away. She stared up at it.
“You have returned,” said a voice projected from the Machine, deep as a tectonic plate. “You have come to accept the inevitable.”
“No,” said Marjorie, her voice sounding small and feeble in her ears. “I’ve come to set my brother and my friend free. Please, let them go.”
“That is not my function,” said the Machine.
“We stumbled on your planet by accident. We wouldn’t have come here if we knew what would happen. We don’t belong here. Let us go!”
“That is not my function.”
“How do you expect people to remember your civilization if you turn all your visitors into stone?” demanded Marjorie. “Please! It’s my fault we came here! I just wanted to see interesting things. Show some mercy!”
“That is not my function,” said the Machine. “My function is to preserve this planet. Everyone on this planet must survive. You are on this planet, and so you will survive.”
Metal claws reached out from nowhere and grabbed her wrists and ankles.
“I give you immortality.”
Rosemary/Marjorie screamed.
“Let me end your suffering. Give your troubles to me. Welcome to the Machine.”
The claws pulled her down and laid her prone on a marble slab at the base of the Machine, arms folded across her chest. The slab began to rise into the air. Other metal pinions wrapped around her, holding her head steady, pressing the backs of her legs to the marble. Steam hissed and metal clanged all around her.
Rosemary/Marjorie struggled, but the metal bonds held her fast. Her eyes tracked up and she saw a metal slab, descending fast.
Her scream was cut off by the clang of metal against metal and a hiss of steam.
All was black. She couldn’t move.
I’m flattened, thought Marjorie. But how can I still be alive if I’ve been flattened? I can’t feel my heartbeat. I can’t breathe. I don’t feel the need to breathe. Am I dead? But why am I still here?
A moment later, the metal press pulled away. Rosemary/Marjorie stared after it; she could do nothing but stare after it. Her eyes wouldn’t move. She could see her reflection in the metal of the press. Her body and her clothes were white. She was part of the marble.
Grapples descended. They hoisted the slab into the air and carried it through the Hall of the Machine. The windows and the detail of the walls passed in front of her vision, followed by the blank faces of the stone slabs as she entered the Hall of Stability.
They placed her by the wall at the end of the hall. The grapples left, and silence fell.
She tried to move, but there was no part of her that she could move. Not even the sound of her blood rushed in her ears.
Oh my God! Her thoughts bounced through her head. I’ll be like this forever. Fixed in place forever! What can I do if my heart won’t even beat?
Her gaze was fixed forward. It fell upon two stone slabs, one holding a boy her age, the other an older teenager.
Andrew and John. Of course, they were the last to be processed. The Machine would place them together at the end of the hall and her along with them.
Andrew! she cried out silently. John! What do I do? What do we do? It can’t end like this! It can’t!
Then she heard a whisper in her head.
“Quiet your thoughts,” said the Machine. “You are disturbing the sleep of others around you.”
Others can hear me? thought Marjorie.
She listened. After a while, below the surface of sound, she could hear whispering as though through a closed door.
Who’s there? her thought went out. Can somebody help me? Can somebody get me out?
Get us out! came a voice at the edge of conscious thought. Other voices murmured in agreement.
The voice of the Machine grew dark. “You are here now. You have been preserved. So you shall remain for all eternity. Nothing you can do will change that.”
I can’t move! a thought protested.
Let me out! thought another. I’m going crazy! I want out!
“Quiet your thoughts,” said the Machine. “You cannot get out. You have been preserved for so long that to free you would turn you to dust. I am the only thing betwee
n your civilization and dust.”
What about me? thought Marjorie. What about Andrew and John? We only arrived yesterday.
The Machine did not answer for a moment. Finally it said, “You cannot get out.”
I can be free, thought Marjorie. You wouldn’t try to talk me out of trying if there wasn’t any hope of it. There’s still hope for me, and for Andrew and John. We can be free! I want us to be free!
“What hope do you have?” whispered the voice of the Machine. “Quiet your thoughts. Cease your struggle.”
I want to be free! thought Marjorie.
“You have no hope.”
I want to be free!
“You cannot get out.”
I want to be free!
“Escape is impossible.”
Nothing is impossible, thought Rosemary, her thoughts cutting across Marjorie’s panic. I thought saving Theo was impossible, but it happened. It was the sixth impossible thing I gave to the Ferryman. Anything can happen in the Land of Fiction. Perhaps I can get out of this. Please, God, I hope I can get out of this!
Hope warmed her heart, and at that moment, Rosemary/Marjorie’s heart began to beat.
It was painful, at first. The flesh struck against her stone lungs, and she couldn’t even draw breath to cry out, but gradually warmth spread through her chest, as the stone softened and turned back to flesh. The white of Rosemary/Marjorie’s cheeks flushed slowly to pink.
Her throat cleared and she pulled in her first breath with a gasp. Pupils reappeared in her eyes, and she could blink tears into them.
Her skin regained its pink, her clothes their bright colours. She broke from the stone that held her in place. Her muscles stiff, she fell onto the floor.
Marjorie got up, separating from Rosemary, and ran to the slabs holding her brother and her friend.
“Andrew! John!” she cried. “I made it out! You have to hope!” She jumped up and down into their field of vision. “The Machine takes away all hope. You have to hope to get free. Andrew, John, look at me! I’m free. You can be free too, just as long as you keep hope!”
Pink began to touch Andrew’s checks. The pupils reappeared in John’s eyes. Marjorie danced in relief.