Chương 314: placid island; black infinity - 2-1.10

Can you guess how Muadhnait answered my invitation? I think you can. Sometimes I must sound like I think you're an idiot — or like you're not paying attention; but I know you are, and this time you're already on my side, (and there's really only one side and we've both been on it since before I even started this story.) You've been watching Muadhnait for exactly as long as I had, and it doesn't take a nugget of reconstituted childhood memory as fuel to unravel this particular pattern, does it? Go on.

Make an educated guess. Say it out loud if you have to. Well done. Clap clap clap. A gold star for you. Muadhnait hesitated. At least I assumed she did — staring at me from inside her helmet as if I was a cosmic mystery beyond her comprehension. And perhaps I was. Perhaps the moment I'd put one foot outside the circle of salt, I had joined with the shadows beyond.

Maybe my thin layer of human falsity had fallen away; perhaps Muadhnait saw through the artificial meat and the blood that carried nothing and the skin that was all lies. Maybe she saw a featureless chassis of carbon fibre, and had no idea what she was looking at. Or not. Maybe I'm just flattering myself. Maybe Muadhnait closed her eyes in a silent prayer to her bitch of a Goddess.

Maybe she wasn't looking at me at all, but staring into the darkness past my shoulders, barely lit by the cold greenish illumination from her 'light kernel' in the middle of the camp. Maybe she didn't give a shit. Her visor was a little slice of night folded up before her own lies, as unreadable as a puddle of black mud. But I could hear her breathing — too hard, too fast, rasping away inside all that armour. Yeah, she was terrified. I could tell.

Muadhnait recovered enough of whatever she had that passed for courage, then signed with shaking gauntlets.

"Is my fear really so obvious?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"Answer my question, don't question my answer. Are you coming with me, or not? Going or staying? Staying or coming? Coming or coming?" Muadhnait spread her hands. I took another step back, put both of my feet outside the circle of salt.

"I'm going, going, gone." Muadhnait signed: "Wait!" (The exclamation point was a rapid chopping of one hand capping off the sign.) Then: "Stone-walking cannot be done at night. It's too dangerous. You will not last ten minutes alone in the darkness. I do not know what you are, or what you are made of, but if you are mortal then you will die if you go." I held out my kitchen knife, then my free hand.

"Then grant me a light. Burden my lightness." Muadhnait spread her hands again, more frustrated than lost. She signed quickly.

"Light alone is not enough. Salt alone is not enough. Even the wards and protection on my armour may not be enough. I go willingly—" Her hands faltered.

"But you are an outsider. You do not understand. Please do not."

"Why do you care?" I hissed.

"You don't know me." Muadhnait signed, "Because you are vulnerable and unprotected and you will be alone."

"Then come with me." Muadhnait hesitated, yet again. She was so good at that, she'd turned it into performance art.

"Afraid of the dark?" I whispered. I took another step back. Muadhnait made a helpless gesture, as if she wanted to reach for me and drag me back inside the circle, but she knew that would just get her a knife to the face. (Smart nun, sometimes.) She signed, "You mean to leave your companions behind?"

The glow of molten gold deep down in my abdomen (yes, that deep) tugged me backward another step, but I dug my heels into the stone tiles and stopped for a moment; nobody with a real spine and real guts could have stopped there, not without having their innards ripped out through their back by a golden hook in their bowels. But carbon fibre is not meat, and Maisie Morell doesn't move for anybody but Heather. Muadhnait had made a good point.

"They can't come with us," I whispered.

"Tenny and Casma are children. Kimberly is helpless and terrified. Helped less by herself. You and I are different, the only ones with blades. We can get this done quick, fast and good, while they're sound asleep and safe and sound. Back before they wake. None the wiser." Muadhnait signed, "Then go by daylight. Make them understand, just don't spend yourself like this—""They wouldn't let me," I hissed.

"Come with me. We'll find the Mimic, be done by dawn, and everyone gets to go home." Muadhnait's shoulders slumped, easy enough to read even through all that metal armour. She shook her head, dome-shaped helmet rotating back and forth. I heard something that might have been a sob, but was probably just my imagination. I backed away another step.

The circle of salt, the remains of the fire, the light kernel, Muadhnait, Kimberly, Tenny, Casma — all seemed to dwindle like a glowing speck lost on a dark ocean, as I drifted off among the waves. Muadhnait signed.

"You haven't eaten. Haven't drunk water. Haven't slept. You bleed and yet you fear no blade. I don't understand what you are."

"Just a girl," I said. I started to turn away, toward the darkness, knowing that I would have to turn back in a moment. My bluff wasn't working. (And if you believe that, you'll believe anything I tell you.) But then I saw a final thing before I looked away from our sad little camp in that cold and foggy corner of that empty courtyard. I saw a twin glow from a pair of pink eyes, peering out from inside a blanket. Casma was awake. Casma was watching. Casma had been listening. Because of course she had.

Now I had no choice. Bluffing to get Muadhnait to follow me and get this ruin of a tale concluded as fast as possible, that was one thing; Muadhnait had zero claim on my dignity, I could embarrass myself in front of her without giving a fuck. But to give an inch to Casma meant I would lose every mile I had. (But I should have given in all the way, because Casma was a child, and I was an adult, and you can see that no matter how many miles off you might be.) I turned toward the darkness in the courtyard.

My own shadow stretched out across the tiles and up the far wall, a hundred times my size. A thin and lonely giant without detail. Muadhnait went click-click — clicking her fingertips together to get my attention. When I glanced back, Casma was still watching, one eye hidden inside her blanket, one eye still exposed. Sometimes she's more like her mother than not. Muadhnait was holding out one of her 'light kernels', this one unlit. She gestured at me to take it.

I did, I'd asked for it anyway, and to refuse now would add stupidity to stubbornness. It was smooth, warm like flesh, light as a puff of gauze.

"Better," I whispered. Muadhnait signed, "Why are you doing this?" Because this was the most sensible way to deal with the Mimic without putting Tenny and Kimberly in danger. Because the night was not as scary as Muadhnait said it was. Because I am made of carbon fibre and not afraid of anything. Because we all needed to go home and this was the best way to achieve that. Because I needed to 'do my duty' and look after Tenny (and Casma, fine.) Because when I'd kissed Kimberly's hand she'd looked at me like I was a tree or a stone or the wind. Because the Briar-bitch had walked off into the depths of the castle and invited me to follow. Because all this was not going how I'd wanted it to, and now I wanted it to end. Because I couldn't look like a joke of an adult in front of Casma, because she would think less of me. Because a golden tugging in my guts wouldn't let me sleep.

"Because it's my story," I whispered. Which of those were lies? You'll have to decide for yourself, because I had no idea. I turned and walked away. The looming giant of my shadow joined with the night and the fog. You might be forgiven for assuming that I had no plan (though I won't be the one forgiving you), because you would also be wrong, which is an easy thing to be, but not an easy thing to admit.

My plan was simple — leave the courtyard through one of the narrow passageways which led through the next layer of the castle's curtain walls, and then out into the garden I'd spied when we'd entered the courtyard. If I met anything, I was going to use my knife to find out where the Mimic was — perhaps where she slept, or roosted, or rooted herself. Simple, easy, straightforward. Done by morning. As soon as I stepped into the first passageway, the trickle of illumination from Muadhnait's light kernel was cut off.

I raised the one she'd given me and squeezed for about thirty seconds. It pulsed and fluttered like a butterfly's heart, then glowed with cold green light. Black walls and a black floor stretched off into the dark ahead. Knife in one hand, ball of light in the other, shawl around my shoulders, and nothing on my feet. No sleep 'till Sharrowford. The passageway was narrow and kinked, with little blind corners and weird sharp angles, some of which had trapped tendrils and drifts of misplaced fog.

Stone doors were set into recesses in the walls, but they wouldn't budge for fingers or knife. The ceiling was lined with slits and holes, opening onto utter blackness that my glowing rock couldn't penetrate. At approximately the middle of the passageway I found the remains of a big metal door, fallen almost totally to rust, nothing more than a frame and some hinges.

We don't need to invite Heather into this passage to explain that this was some kind of kill-corridor, a funnel for invaders, lined with choke-points and weapon-slits. (Or maybe we do? How would she tell this part? With lots of shaking and shivering, I'm sure. She was lost and alone in a castle once, and it was one of the worst moments of her life. I knew exactly where I was, and I wasn't alone.) Nothing stopped me in the kill-corridor but myself.

Just past the wrecked metal door, I heard a muffled giggle behind me. I stopped and turned around and listened. Cold greenish light spilled over the nooked and hooked stone of the passageway. My knife met nothing but air. A voice so much wiser than my own once said that the best way to describe silence is to say nothing, but I hate being silent. Perhaps you've noticed?

"I'm tired of this now," I said.

"Come out." Nothing came out. What was I even doing? This hadn't been my plan. Or had it? The tugging in my gut, like golden hooks in the flesh I didn't possess, was pulling me onward, urging me to carry on, keep pushing into the dark, don't turn back now. Had I somehow tricked myself into this by bluffing at Muadhnait? Had Casma looked at me because she'd known I would go? Or was I just confused? After two days of too much from too many others, my thoughts were finally clearing.

I had to face the sad fact that I was not getting what I wanted. What did I want? A neat little story in which I got to make a cute girl cry, and then kiss her while her lips still tasted of salt. I wanted an adventure that ended in high-pitched squeals playing beneath my fingers like a broken piano. I wanted this castle to be full of princesses, and to be the monster climbing into all their bedroom windows. I wanted to be Kimberly's saviour and the Mimic's nightmare.

I wanted and wanted and wanted and was not going to get any of it. What had I gotten? Halfway down a stone corridor, carrying a glowing rock, by myself. A tugging in my gut, another in my head, another wedged between my legs. The Mimic; the giggling dark; the Briar-bitch; Muadhnait; the others back there in the camp; you (yes, you); even Heather. All had a claim on my story, and it was not my own.

"Fuck all of you, then," I said.

"Fuck you. Fuck you!" My voice echoed down the stone passageway. No giggles that time.

"Not you, Heather," I added.

"Sorry. I love you." I wasn't afraid, I was just fed up. Nowhere to go but on, and it wasn't really my choice. The passageway ended shortly after, disgorging me into open space and darkness, like I'd stepped from an airlock into a starless void beyond the edge of the universe. (Which was nice, for all of the two seconds I let myself pretend there was not a single pattern in reality but my own.) Then I lifted up Muadhnait's glowing rock; cold green light snagged on a jungle of pale vines and sallow leaves and chalky-white trunks, spreading fingers of weak illumination off between a million angles of bush and bough, ruffling the haze of hanging mist. It was a massive garden — or ex-garden, because it didn't look like it had been tended in decades. What is a garden when it's not a garden? The wilds of course.

Bone-white grass grew in huge drifts, spilling over the long-ruined remains of flowerbeds, their stone borders cracked by rain and time, their dark soil stuffed with razor-spined black blushes. Trees like cacti reared up in geometrical patterns, their flesh all coal and umber, their spikes all white like shards of chalk. Fog drifts broke and foamed like waves between the rock pools of the forest, the main force of the mist unable to fully descend, kept at bay by the skeletal canopy.

About a hundred feet away a wide line of steps climbed toward a grand entrance into the main body of the castle — or at least into the next curtain of walls. The steps stretched left and right as far as I could see, swallowed by thickening mist and hiding themselves behind the density of black-and-white plant life. My glowing rock wasn't alive enough to let me see the spires and towers of the castle above, so perhaps they had been absorbed into the darkness.

Maybe they would only exist again when the sun rose in the morning. Maybe anything only exists because light falls on it. My light fell on the garden (ex-garden, fine, Casma. No, I won't call it a park) — and made a lot of things exist which probably shouldn't have. I had expected that. Muadhnait wasn't a liar, her fear was real enough. Maybe I would see more fairies, like those which had appeared in the ruined village on the previous night. And they had all vanished when I had raised my knife, hadn't they?

All bark, no bite. All I had to do was wave and they would all fuck off. The real trick would be catching one to question, and then questioning my catch, with or without the help of my kitchen knife. The garden was full of pale figures — nude, smooth, hairless, faceless, white as baby's teeth. Some were tiny, no more than children. Most were larger, much larger. Some had two heads or too many limbs or body plans unsuited for wearing trousers. As I raised my light they turned their absence of faces toward me.

They parted leaves and bushes with flat, fingerless hands. They peered around the trunks of cactus-trees. Every corner, every plant, every possible hiding place was filled with pale things that glowed faintly under reflected light. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. And on the set of massive, wide steps on the far side of the wild garden, something equally massive was coiled about itself. At first it wasn't there, just darkness.

But then it throbbed into being like a heart unburying itself from dirt, revealed by the light from my glowing rock. All chitin plates and twitching legs, made of shadow and smoke growing solid and real. As the light touched the thing's hide, it shifted like a snake, peering out from within its own coils. The giant centipede twitched a leg. The legion of luminescent figures twitched with it — then three of them broke from cover and strode toward me, their own shadows lengthening behind them. I showed them my knife.

They didn't care. One got close enough to grab for my wrist. Another lunged at my waist. The third held its arms out wide, ready to bundle me into a choke hold. The giant dark centipede began to uncoil and straighten out; it giggled, a soft sound more darkness than vibration. More of the pale figures broke their stillness and moved toward me. … … I killed the three, then all the others, then fought the centipede.

I cut out the thing's wet and tarry heart, and ate it raw, which finally quenched the molten fire in my guts beneath a tide of giggling darkness. Then I strode off into the rest of the castle, leaving a nice trail of blood-black footprints behind me. … You don't believe a word of that, do you? Yeah. Like I said. You're no fool. … What do you want me to say? There were hundreds of those pale figures, and the centipede was all the way across the garden.

One-on-one I would have done, because I'm made of carbon fibre, and I wasn't afraid. But hundred-on-one wasn't a fight, it was a surrender. If I'd let them grab me, I wouldn't have been fighting at all. So yes, I turned around and ran away. Call me a coward if you like. You'll be wrong, and I don't care. Squeezing myself back into the narrow passageway was easy enough — nothing to it, just run.

Plunging through the darkness was easier still, because I'm made of carbon fibre and I don't really bruise, no matter how hard I slam into a blind corner. Tumbling out the other side and back into the courtyard, that part was more difficult, because I knew Muadhnait would be watching me. Waiting for one of the pale figures to catch up was nice, because I didn't have to look anywhere else. The mouth of the passageway would admit only one at a time, and my knife could handle that much.

Minutes crawled by; I held up the light kernel, peering into the mouth of the tunnel, waiting for a flash of pale reflection. But nothing happened and nothing came. The centipede was too large to press itself through the tunnels. Why didn't it come over the walls? I don't know. Why does darkness flow to some corners and not others? Eventually I realised I'd probably been let go, for sport or amusement, like a fish too small to gut for dinner.

The molten glow down in my abdomen had curdled to something like acid reflux. I felt like shit.

"I'll be back for you later," I hissed into the passageway. A giggle echoed, then faded to nothing. … I'm not a coward. I was being responsible. We both know that my sister wouldn't have run away. She would have tried to talk, perhaps to the centipede itself. She would have waited until the last possible moment, then gotten herself scooped up anyway, probably carried off, maybe eaten alive (though never digested, she's very good at that).

She would have punched her way out later on, of course, but the process would have taken ten times as long, would have involved the others coming to rescue her, and would have left her all fucked up. That's what you really want though, isn't it? Another damsel in distress to croon over. Too bad. I was capable of saving myself. I couldn't expect Tenny and Casma and Kimberly to do that for me. Not cowardice. Responsibility. … Muadhnait was standing right where I'd left her, holding her cold iron sword.

She raised it as I approached the circle of salt, but I ignored her and stepped inside. She lowered the sword again and signed something, but I didn't bother to watch her hands. Casma was snuggled up with Tenny, eyes firmly closed. Kimberly was still asleep. Like nothing had happened. I wrapped my knife up in my tea towel (the little maids would keep it sharp), then sat down cross-legged at the edge of the circle of salt.

"I'll go in the morning," I whispered.

"Morning is for going, anyway. Plus, you didn't really think I'd leave you alone with Tenny. Or maybe you did. Idiot." Muadhnait eventually sat down nearby, lowering her armour to the flagstones. She said nothing when I passed her the glowing light kernel. She set it in her lap. We sat in silence, staring out into the darkness, which was nice.

When Muadhnait's hands moved peripheral, I assumed she was going to ruin the moment and ask me a stupid question — what did I see, what happened, why did I come back, some bullshit like that. Too much Casma on the brain. (Any Casma on the brain is too much.) She signed, "I am glad you did not die."

"I can't die." Muadhnait's hands returned to her lap. A moment later they rose again.

"If I tell you something in confidence, will you swear never to tell any other?" I looked up at her, which was nice and easy, what with her not having any visible eyes.

"No." Muadhnait's grey gauntlets caught the cold light from the glowing rock in her lap. She looked like a deep sea diver in an antique dry suit, transformed into a sunken idol, bathed in the cold oceanic light of some pelagic temple. A sound came from inside her suit. I don't hate her enough to repeat it.

"Depends what it is," I whispered.

"But I won't swear anything first. Swear by nothing, nothing to swear." Muadhnait's hands didn't shake, but she signed very slowly, lingering on each gentle click of metal on metal.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she told me.

"It is a terrible confession, but it is the truth. Until a week ago, I had never before left my hold. My sister—" She paused and made another little sound I won't repeat.

"My sister is probably warped beyond recognition. I have no idea how to find her in this place, or what I will need to free her, or if she will even want to be free now. Even if I could locate her and take her away from this place with me, she will be too changed to return home, and there is nowhere else to go. Stone-walking is too dangerous, especially in this cursed place, which has swallowed so many. I am not expected to return. That is why I am sealed into this armour." Her hands slowed even further.

"I had not thought to have companions on this final leg of my journey. I was prepared. I was ready. Now I find I am not. I am afraid."

"You came here expecting to die," I whispered. Muadhnait nodded, big helmet going back and forth. Her hands shook again.

"My quest is hopeless."

"But you're doing it anyway." Muadhnait's hands fell to rest in her lap. Night inside the castle was so silent. All that solid stone should have made my whispers into a chorus and turned the clicking of Muadhnait's hands into the striking of gongs, but the fog and the dark and the scale absorbed all sound, so that we seemed to sit in a bubble of stillness, undisturbed by even the ripples.

Muadhnait's breathing — laboured with emotion, broken with hard swallows, hiding the sound of tears — was the only thing I could hear. I unwrapped a corner of my kitchen knife and looked at a sliver of my reflection in the metal surface. What face would I find beneath Muadhnait's armour? A face more suited to this place and this situation than me, that was obvious enough. You must have noticed it too, you're not stupid. I was the only stupid one in that camp. I was a moron.

"Not my story after all," I murmured. Muadhnait looked at me. Weakly, she signed, "Pardon?" I wrapped up my knife and met the sliver of night which lived inside her helmet.

"What's her name?"

"Who's name?" she signed.

"Your sister. Her name. What is it? Name her or forget her." Muadhnait hesitated. Again. She used sign language to spell a name.

"Neassa."

"Older or younger than you?"

"Younger. She is only nineteen."

"Describe her." Muadhnait hesitated - again. I held in a sigh. She signed, "So you will know her if you find her? If I fall first?"

"No. Describe her, all of her, inside and out. Tell me who she is, not just what she looks like. Tell me why you want to save her. Tell me. Just use words. Get to wording." Muadhnait signed, "I want to save her because she's my sister—""No," I hissed.

"There has to be more than that. There is more than that. Tell me or make up a lie or lie yourself inside out, but don't hold anything back." Muadhnait didn't hesitate.

"Why do you care?" I looked over my shoulder at the others. Casma's eyes were both closed. Her chest rose and fell with slow breaths. I watched her for long enough to be certain, (though you could never be certain with Casma), then I turned back to Muadhnait. I stared out into the darkness, at the faint line of the wall on the far side of the misty courtyard.

"You said you don't understand what I am," I whispered.

"Can't fit me into your fit-together fitting of the world around you. Truth is, I'm not very much. I'm a vessel filled with my sister's memories. A remembered thing, memoried in mire. This — being here, being Outside, beyond, whatever, whenever, what — it was supposed to be my story. But now I'm not certain it is, doesn't fit my shape anymore, isn't what I want, or what I thought I want, or want to want. But you have a sister to rescue, and that's an echo of something that meant more than I do.

Things are pulling me in too many directions. I hate them all. I won't be a prop again." Muadhnait was silent. Fair enough. Hard to reply to that nonsense. (And don't tell me it isn't.)"I think this might be your story, Muadhnait," I said. Muadhnait gestured, but she didn't seem to know what to say (again, fair enough.) Eventually she signed, "Is that how your people think, in stories?"

"Don't yours?" Muadhnait didn't have an answer to that.

"Tell me about her," I whispered.

"Neassa. Tell me why you care. Make me care. Make me. Care."

"Why?" Muadhnait signed.

"You didn't answer properly—""Because if you tell me the truth, I'll help you. Not just collateral, but direct. Before I go find the Mimic, before I do anything else, we'll find your sister. Find our way, foundling or found—" I stopped with a twitch of my lips. Didn't want to hiss and shake my head, because that would give the game away. I was lying — not that I'd help Muadhnait, because I would, but about my lack of reasons.

If I peeled that helmet off Muadhnait's head, I would find Heather beneath; I had already suspected that, but this made me certain. And if she had a picture of her lost sister, Neassa would have my face. This is not a literal statement, do you understand? I've already told you this once, but it bears repeating. I did not believe that Heather had somehow already arrived in this dimension, donned a suit of armour, and was pretending to be somebody else.

I'm a crazy little bitch, I know that, but I'm not openly delusional, (and I wouldn't care if you thought I was, so there). But you'd have to be a dullard not to see the parallel. Here was a chance to participate in my own rescue as something more than the damsel in the tower, casting notes from my shuttered window. I was back in the story in which I had been only a prop, except this time I was me. Muadhnait told me about her sister. I didn't care, but I'll tell you what she told me, because maybe you will.

Neassa was small and delicate. Neassa had a beautiful voice and weird feet. Neassa liked to wear a lot of layers. Neassa liked dogs (of which she had several), and books (of which she had none, because books belonged to all), and was bad at art. She had suffered some kind of childhood illness which Muadhnait couldn't explain properly, because the words she used made it sound like Neassa had been born without a heart, and had to have one grown and sewn into her as a replacement.

Neassa was very attached to Muadhnait — the sisters slept in the same bed and washed together and often wore each other's clothes; their parents were both dead, but Muadhnait didn't want to talk about that. Neassa was a skilled scribe, and that was going to be her career, (I didn't ask what Muadhnait did, because I didn't care). But then books had been Neassa's downfall. She had opened a book that was dangerous to read, and summoned the attention of things that should not have been inside a 'hold'.

She had been kidnapped from within her own home, and Muadhnait had been unable to do anything but throw herself after her sister. And now here we were. I didn't sleep that night, because technically I don't need to, and it doesn't matter anyway; I knew that if I slept, the golden glow in my gut would grow wider in my dreams, and then I would forget the promise I was making to Muadhnait, or the promise I was making to myself, whichever mattered more.

I just sat and stared at the dark and thought about my own twin sister — except when I took out my mobile phone so I could spend a few precious percentage of battery life looking at stale pictures of anime girls. Muadhnait slept — or at least I assume she did, sitting up in her armour. A little snore or two drifted out from within all that metal. When I was absolutely certain she was asleep, I leaned as close as I could to the open slot of her visor and took a deep, silent sniff. She reeked of week-old stale sweat.

(Yum.) Dawn came hard and rough and not very pretty, squeezing itself across the grey sky, choked out by the fog, which seemed to thicken as the light grew, bunching long ghostly tendrils in the courtyard corners. Muadhnait stirred and rose, then resurrected the shitty little fire from last night, so she could start cooking breakfast.

Casma and Tenny and Kimberly all woke up, though Tenny burrowed down inside her blanket for an additional fifteen minutes, emitting sleepy purring noises that made me feel much better. Kimberly stood up and did some stretches (which sounded like they hurt), then put her hands on her hips and stared at nothing for a long time, which should have given me a clue about what she was about to do. Casma stretched and yawned, then eyed me as if she was surprised to see me still present.

I stared back at her until my eyes started to water and she was forced to blink; she ruined my little victory by smiling. Muadhnait had yet another meal of plain oats cooking up in her little pot. Tenny finally got up; Casma pulled her to her feet and gave her a hug. They nattered about video games. Kimberly did a big sigh. I stood up last of all, and said what I thought was going to be the most difficult thing of the day: "Muadhnait and I are going to go look for her sister, and then the Mimic.

You three have to stay here. Stay and be good. Or not good. Whichever you want." Casma opened her mouth to argue; Tenny went brrrrt-rrrr-rrrrt!!! (Yes, the three exclamation points are essential. Tenny can be very loud when she wishes to be.) Kimberly turned away from staring at nothing to stare at me instead. She was clutching her own elbows, protecting her belly with her bony forearms. Her eyes were rimmed with dark. Should have been cute, right? But she wasn't.

"I'm going to do some magic," she said. Muadhnait signed, "Witchcraft?"

"Kim?" I said.

"What?" Kimberly took a deep breath and shook her head slowly, as if staring into her own grave and denying she saw her own corpse looking back up at her. She was frowning an adult frown — a real frown about real things that really mattered, not silly stories about lost sisters and parallel dimensions and mischievous fairies.

"This isn't normal," Kimberly said, slow as heart disease.

"I was thinking it over while I was having trouble sleeping. This isn't normal. I know I've said all this before, but I can't stay silent. Whatever took us, it took us from inside Number 12 Barnslow Drive, inside the house. That shouldn't be possible— ah! No!" She pointed a finger at me.

"Don't. Maisie, don't. P-please. I am trying so hard. Please." I hadn't said anything. Kimberly panted, in and out, in and out. Like me when I'm angry.

"I know what you're going to say, Maisie. That we just have to get rid of this 'Mimic', whatever it is, and then we'll be able to go home. But that doesn't make sense, it doesn't add up. Nothing should be able to get inside the house, let alone pull us out here, nothing short of … of … Eileen, or something like her, something on her scale. And now we've been missing for two whole nights. Evelyn would have adjusted her gateway by now. Heather and Lozzie should be here.

Eileen—" Kimberly cut herself off with a glance at Casma.

"Oh!" Casma nodded.

"Mmmhmm! My mum should be here too, by now. But she's not. She's late but unfashionable."

"Exactly," said Kim.

"Whatever is happening to us here, it's not just some minor diversion." She looked up and tried to meet my eyes, but I was looking away.

"M-Maisie, I'm sorry, I know you're … you're kind of enjoying this—""I am not." Kimberly spoke over me; she'd never done anything so not cute before.

"—but it's not a fun little outing. Not only is it dangerous, but this is big, whatever it is. I don't understand it, but this is serious. Maybe whatever's done this is trying to get at Evelyn, or at your sister, or … I don't know. Maybe the whole coven or something, the household, I mean. We have to treat this seriously. I can't go on otherwise …

""It'll be over soon. I'll find the Mimic. You don't have to worry."

"Of course I have to worry! I have to try to get Tenny and Casma home, even if I don't know how." She turned to Muadhnait, bowed her head, and held out a hand.

"Please, Miss Muadhnait, may I have some of your chalk, the same you lent to Casma last night? I will not be able to preserve it, I will probably use it all up, but I … I beg you, on behalf of these two children. Please." Muadhnait signed, "What for?"

"I'm going to do magic. Or … try to do magic, like I said. If I can remember …

""Kimberly," I said.

"You don't have to—""I saw you leave the camp last night," said Kimberly. Her voice cracked.

"I'm going to draw a protective circle around us, right here. I'm pretty sure I can fudge the details, make up the bits that I can't remember. Use some of my own … bodily … fluids, as catalysts. But it might keep the three of us safe while you two go off and … and … do what it is you have to do. And then I'm going to try to see if I can signal home. There's no way I can build a gateway from scratch, but I have to try something. I have to try! Maisie, I have to try."

"No, you don't." Kimberly gestured at Muadhnait again.

"May I have some of your chalk, please?" Muadhnait signed, "I will give you what I can spare." Muadhnait gave Kimberly three long sticks of bright white chalk. Kimberly thanked her. Tenny was quiet and wrapped in her wings, meeting my eyes with weird little darts and jumps. Casma looked prim and proper in her dirty-footed tights. Kimberly finally turned to me again.

"I don't want you to go, Maisie, but I don't have any way to stop you. I'm nobody. I've always been nobody." She sniffed loudly.

"But I have to do this. I have to get the kids home, and I can't stop you. I have to try."

"Why?" Kimberly looked at my eyes; for the first time, I couldn't look into hers.

"Because your sister saved my life, too," she said.

"Because I owe Heather a debt I can't repay. If I let you go off …" Kim swallowed and shook her head.

"I can't stop you. At least I can get Tenny and Casma home." She smiled, but I only saw the edge.

"Good luck, Maisie. I'll see you back home in Sharrowford, if I don't see you here again. Be safe." … My sister would have paused right there. I refuse to stop. … Breakfast was awkward. I could tell that even from a distance; after Kimberly's monologue I turned around and walked away and stood next to one of the passages through the wall. I waited while the others ate. Not like I needed a few mouthfuls of oats in my lack of stomach.

Tenny came to give me a hug, which normally I would try to refuse, but she needed it more than I needed the lack of it. Casma came over to tell me to be safe, (which I didn't need at all), and to tell me that—"Hard on yourself is just hard on all of us, May-may. It's hard to take when you're being like this, but taking it softly won't do you any better, so come back still hard, okay? You always have a choice, a double choice even, and the choice is yours."

I looked her right in the eyes, no matter the itch in my own.

"May-may?" I echoed.

"Do you like that one? I thought of it ages ago but I wanted to use it on you when you really needed it. Do you need it now?"

"I don't need it."

"Seeya back home, May-may." Kimberly did not approach me again. After breakfast and getting her things in order, Muadhnait strode up next to me, her pack on her back, her swords at her waist, her crossbow cradled in her arms. She'd left a little food with the trio. Kimberly was already working on the first layer of protective circle. We watched her complete it; good enough for fairy tales. She waved to me and bowed her head. Muadhnait led the way into the castle.

Better her story than mine, because mine had gone rotten.