Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death) (23 page)

“You were amazing—”

“What about you, with the heights?” My voice is teasing, and his mouth turns up in the corners.

“We make a good team.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I
T IS RAINING AGAIN, AND THE CITY SMELLS OF
dead leaves. Will holds a black umbrella over me. Henry and Elise stand close to my mother to avoid the downpour.

In front of us stand three statues, weeping angels holding out their hands in supplication.

“She will be missed,” Elliott intones, and he shuts the book that he was reading from, pushing wet blond hair from his eyes.

The cemetery is filled with black dresses beneath white masks. It’s the first time I’ve been to a funeral in years. The first time we’ve had the luxury to bury our dead.

Cold water washes over the ankles of my boots. It is a fitting day to bury April. I waver a bit, too miserable to cry, and Will holds me tight. Thom, our newest hero, rearranges flowers and then settles beside the grave, his head bowed.

But the rainwater running through the streets is clean. Already the swamp has receded a few feet.

Elliott postponed the election, but he’s going to have it—even though he’s unopposed. Will now prints a newspaper, reporting on Elliott’s every move. Kent is making plans to leave the city, though at the moment Elliott has requisitioned the airship to bring food to the populace. It’s a daunting task.

Father is still in Elliott’s custody, and when he goes outside escorted by his guards, people yell obscenities. But he’s alive. My father is a murderer. But so am I. The magnitude of what he’s done hits me sometimes. And then I think that maybe Elliott is right to seek retribution.

At least I’ve had a chance to tell Father that I love him, and soon I may be able to tell him that I forgive him. He’s helping to produce the white-powder vaccine and mixing it with the water supply. New cases of the Weeping Sickness are almost unheard of. No one has died of the Red Death in days. People still wear masks, but eventually we may not have to.

I go to the Debauchery Club every day, to beg Elliott to release my father. Most days he won’t see me. Sometimes he speaks as if we are friends, but on those days, when I finally bring myself to mention Father, his eyes go frosty.

Perhaps it would be different if April were alive. I don’t know.

By the time we leave the cemetery, the rain has stopped. Everything is still wet, but the sun is shining now.

We pass over a low bridge, and I rest my hands on the stone rail, listening to the unfamiliar sound of childish laughter. In the green space between two buildings, a group of boys is kicking a ball back and forth. Laughing. Henry watches them with interest.

“You can cry,” Will says. “She . . . would want you to wail. Loudly and dramatically.”

And something opens up inside me, because he’s right. She would want dramatics.

“I wish she could see this.” I gesture past the children playing, to a new hat store that has opened down the street. Imagine a store that sells only hats. With sequins and feathers.

I cry for a long time, and Will holds me.

The children are with us, silent and still. I know this must be hard for them, and yet I draw comfort from them being here. Elise takes one of my hands and Henry takes the other.

“I miss her,” I say into Will’s shirt.

“I know.”

I wipe my eyes. The river runs bluish gray through the center of the city, and even though the rain just cleared, crews are already hammering at burned-out buildings.

Perhaps tomorrow Elliott will listen when I beg him for my father’s freedom.

“Could we go talk to them?” Henry asks. “To play for a little while?”

Will grumbles a little as Henry pulls him toward the boys.

Henry is glowing with anticipation, but when one of the boys kicks the ball too far, it’s Elise who retrieves it. She hands it back to him, and he smiles at her shyly. Will’s eyebrows go up.

Two of the boys wave at me. I helped their mother move their belongings to a new apartment last week. My status as hero has earned me some responsibility, helping to reunite families, particularly children who were lost.

“We shouldn’t stay . . . ,” Will begins. He’s bothered by my mother’s continuing disapproval of him, and it’s getting late, but I shake my head. The children have been absorbed by the group. The boys gather around Elise to show her how to kick, but she’s a natural and doesn’t need much instruction. Henry is laughing with the younger children. A bit of parchment is half buried in the dirt at the edge of the field. I pick it up, half expecting an indictment of my father, but it’s merely . . . an invitation to a party? Not a sumptuous masquerade ball. A child’s birthday party.

When is Henry’s birthday? I wonder. And Elise’s? Perhaps this year I will even celebrate my own. And Finn’s. April would approve.

I wipe away the last of my tears and settle into Will, watching the children play.

“Is your birthday coming up?” I ask him. “Maybe we could throw a party.”

About the Author

BETHANY GRIFFIN
is the author of
Masque of the Red Death
. She’s also a high school English teacher who prides herself on attracting creative misfits. And she’s always admired Edgar Allan Poe. By reimagining his classic short story into a two-book saga, she says, “I wanted to add the things I most love to the dark, stifling atmosphere that Poe had created. I wanted to write a much longer story, complete with conspiracies and subplots, and add fascinating characters.”

Bethany Griffin lives with her family in Kentucky.

www.bethanygriffin.com

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Credits

Front cover art © 2013 by Sammy Yuen and Ali Smith Photography

Cover design by Sammy Yuen and Paul Zakris

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

Dance of the Red Death

Copyright © 2013 by Bethany Griffin

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Griffin, Bethany.

Dance of the Red Death / Bethany Griffin.

pages p. cm.

Sequel to: Masque of the Red Death.

“Greenwillow Books.”

Summary: In this continuation of a twist on Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic short story, wealthy seventeen-year-old Araby Worth, betrayed and bereft, discovers that she will fight for her city and the people she loves, beginning at the prince’s masked ball.

ISBN 978-0-06-210782-4 (hardback)

EPUB Edition APRIL 2013 ISBN 9780062107848

[1. Plague—Fiction. 2. Love—Fiction. 3. Wealth—Fiction. 4. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 5. Balls (Parties) —Fiction.] I. Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809–1849. II. Title.

PZ7.G881327Dan 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2013011910

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FIRST EDITION