Seventh Bride (21 page)

Rhea dropped to the ground and curled up in a ball, trying to fit herself onto a single tile. Another seam in her dress popped.
 

If it falls, I’ll fall with it, what do I do can I ride it down oh god, oh god, it’s so
loud—

The tile she was on shot upward.

She had an instant to think,
Wait, this is backwards—
and then she was riding the tile upward, into the sky.
 

The force of the rushing air pinned her against the tile, which was good. She found an edge with her hand and curled her fingers around it. If the tiles fitted into others, somewhere up above, she might get her fingers crushed, but if she fell, she would lose a lot more than fingers.
 

She could not see because the wind made her eyes tear up, and even though she thought she was screaming, she could not hear through the sound of the clock.
 

Oh, Lady of Stones, let the hedgehog have gotten away! It can’t hold on through this—it’ll get blown off—crushed—please let it be somewhere else—

She clung to the tile and eventually she stopped screaming because it didn’t seem to be helping. The wind blew against her face and her fingers were so cold she could hardly feel them anymore.

She did not sleep—sleep would have been impossible, not to mention insane—but she went away in her head to a place that was a little like sleep. She did not think, she did not act, she lay on the tile and the wind hammered against her. Fragments of images danced in her head, one step short of dreams.
 

A long time later, or what felt like a long time later, the wind seemed to slacken. She opened her eyes.

She was sitting up on the edge of a beach. The tile underneath her was obscured by small black pebbles. The wind was blowing in from the water, and it smelled of salt and ice and cold.
 

Rhea took a deep breath, sobbed once, and then shoved the rest down. She had no time—or she had plenty of time, she wasn’t sure—but it would do no good either way. She stood.

It was strangely quiet and strangely loud, all at the same time. The water slopped against the beach, an endless over-and-under of sound, and yet there was a silence over the whole place. The wash of the waves muffled any other sound. She had never seen anything like it, because, in her whole life, Rhea had never seen the sea.
 

She stared at it for a few moments, transfixed, and then dragged her eyes away.
It’s like staring into the fire. Always moving, always changing, and hours could go by before you notice…

The sky overhead was white with cloud. The water was grey. The small black stones slid underfoot.
 

She turned, feeling her feet slide in opposite directions, and let out a yelp.

Ice hung over her.
 

It was a mountain of ice, a shattered cathedral of ice, pressed into fantastic blue green shapes. It leaned out over the beach and arched over Rhea’s head.
 

Rhea’s mind skittered frantically and landed on the word
glacier.
 

She scrambled backward, practically falling, trying to get out from under the leaning wall. It looked as if it must collapse at any instant and bury her under unknown tons of ice.
 

But it did not fall.

When she finally tripped over her own feet, she fell backward, with the shadow of the glacier just touching her skirts. Her breath whooshed out and she panted, staring up at the ice wall…and still it did not fall.

Gradually her breathing slowed. She got to her feet and thought
I am running away from ice. What do I expect it to do, bite me?
 

Why is there a glacier and a beach inside the clock?

She shoved stray bits of hair out of her face and stared up at the ice.
Oh.
Oh.
Maria said the clock-wife was from up north. And Sylvie said there are things in the ice…

“This is where she’s staying,” said a voice, just over her left shoulder.
 

Rhea whirled.

Sylvie was standing behind her.
 

It took Rhea a moment to recognize her. She was not wearing a bandage. This Sylvie had clear grey eyes and gazed at Rhea steadily. When Rhea shifted on her feet, Sylvie’s eyes moved to follow.

She can see. She isn’t blind.
 

“Sylvie?” asked Rhea. Her voice cracked a little. “What are you doing in here?”

“Do I know you?” Sylvie tilted her head. “Did Maria put you in the clock, too?”

The words slipped into Rhea’s mind like a dagger slipping between her ribs.

Did Maria put you in the clock, too?
 

Too?

Too?

Rhea swallowed hard.
 

 
“Yes…?”
 

Sylvie nodded.
 

There was no sound on the beach but the slopping of water against the shore. Rhea wrapped her arms around herself to keep out the cold. The stupid red dress flapped around her knees.

Sylvie was wearing a white dress. Combined with her white skin and white hair, she looked as colorless as the sky.
 

“Did she…did you…?” Rhea made a useless little gesture with one hand and felt desperately foolish.

“Yes,” said Sylvie. “I couldn’t find her. I went out again.” She lowered her head, gazing at the ground. “Most of me did. I’m still here. But I’m out there, too.”
 

The words chased each other around in Rhea’s head and she struggled to catch them and string them together in a way that made any sort of sense at all.
 

She went out again. She went into the clock and went out again—and she’s not blind here and—

Oh Lady of Stones.
 

Had Maria put Sylvie into the clock
before
she’d gone blind? On her own wedding day, perhaps?
 

Had she tried to wake the clock-wife already?
 

But she came out—but she’s still
here—!

 
“How is that possible?”
 

“Ask Maria.”
 

Sylvie didn’t sound angry, Rhea noted. She sounded rather distant and matter-of-fact about it.
 

Time is strange in the clock, Maria warned me—but she didn’t warn me that I wasn’t the first!

Had Sylvie tried to warn her? She had said that Maria could be ruthless. Was that what she had meant?
 

If Sylvie failed—but of course she failed—but she’s been married to Crevan for
years—

Oh, Lady of Stones, how many other wives have tried this? Has she been throwing us all into the clock in hopes that one of us will succeed?
 

“Have you been here long?” asked Rhea. She thought that her voice was remarkably steady, given the circumstances.

I am not curling into a little ball and screaming. I wish someone else were here to be impressed by how much I am not screaming right now.
 

Sylvie looked up at that. “I don’t know,” she said. “I went out just a little while ago, didn’t I? The rest of me? We must have met then, because I don’t remember you.”

“Yes,” said Rhea. “Yes, we met then. It’s—ah—it’s been a little while since then.”

“Oh,” said Sylvie. She looked out over the water, which was the same color as her eyes. “Maria said time might be strange here. Are my parents well?”
 

“So far as I know…” Rhea wracked her brain for anything that Sylvie—her Sylvie—might have said about her parents, and could only remember her saying not to judge them too harshly. “I haven’t heard anything bad.”

“That’s all right then,” said Sylvie.
 

She said nothing more for a few moments, which was long enough for Rhea to think a great many frightening things.
If time is strange here, and Sylvie thinks she just left, then how long have I really been here? What if I was riding the tile for hours—weeks—years? What if everyone has died of old age out there?
 

Then Crevan will have, too,
she thought tartly,
and my biggest problem will be solved.
 

Sylvie looked away from the water and smiled at her, Sylvie’s familiar, slightly worried smile. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Just now…” said Rhea.

“Oh. Did Maria put you in the clock, too?”

Rhea inhaled sharply.
 

This Sylvie is
not
all here. The one outside isn’t either, but...

If I get out of the clock, will I leave something inside that thinks it’s me?
 

I suppose I’ll worry about that if I ever manage to get out of the clock.

“She did. I’m supposed to let the clock-wife out,” Rhea said cautiously. “Can you help me?”

“She’s in there,” said Sylvie, pointing to the glacier. “I found her eventually. She’s very angry and she shakes the clock. Most of the time, though, she just wants to curl up in there.”

“Can you show me?” asked Rhea.
 

Sylvie nodded.
 

They picked their way across the stones, parallel to the glacier. “Down here,” said Sylvie. “It goes a long way, but she’s not far. The ice sticks out and it meets the water in the inlet, and she’s inside.”

Not far
seemed to be about half a mile, which would have been easier if the beach had not been sliding, ankle-turning stones. Sylvie forgot Rhea twice as they walked, and had to be reminded again, and then reassured that her parents were well.
 

I hope she remembers where we’re going. I wonder how many times I’ll have to introduce myself before it sticks.
 

A long finger of land stuck out, away from the glacier, and they turned to cross it, putting the sea at their backs. Rhea was glad to leave the strangely moving water. It seemed to her that Sylvie grew more forgetful when she was looking at the waves.
 

The rocks underfoot grew larger and were nearly the size of Rhea’s fist. She had to work her way carefully across them, and they jabbed into her feet as she walked, through the thin soles of her shoes.
 

“There,” said Sylvie, and pointed.

Rhea looked up.
 

The glacier reared in front of them. It was a deep green color, utterly unlike anything Rhea had ever seen in nature. There were no flowers that color, no leaves, nothing she recognized.
 

From where they stood, the sea came in on the right, into a shallow inlet. The glacier met the sea and ended in a rounded nub, polished by waves. The pool at the base was cloudy white, like milk.
 

“In there?” said Rhea.
 

Sylvie nodded.

Rhea stared at the uncompromising ice.
 

“What am I supposed to do now?” she said aloud. “Build a fire and melt her out?”
 

She glanced up and down the beach. There was nothing to burn.
 

Sylvie’s gaze strayed toward the water. Rhea cleared her throat loudly, and the woman who was not blind here looked back. “Yes?”

“How do I get her to let me in?” asked Rhea, clinging to the last shreds of her patience.

Sylvie shook her head. “I haven’t figured that out,” she said. “I don’t think…unless I forgot…” Her gaze grew unfocused again.

Great. If I leave part of me in the clock, apparently that chunk will lose its memory. My memory. This gets better and better all the time.

She wondered how long it had been. It didn’t feel like that long.

Apparently it doesn’t feel like that long to Sylvie, either…

There was a large stone on the beach that stuck a little way into the milky white pool. Rhea stepped out onto it and reached a hand up to the slick knob of the glacier.
 

It was very cold.

Well. What did I expect?
 

“Let me in,” she said hopelessly. “Let me in, clock-wife, if you can hear me. It’s me. I slept against you all this week. I don’t know if you remember…”

And then, because she could not think of anything else to do, she balled her hand into a fist and knocked on the ice like a door.

The return knock was so immediate that it startled her. She jerked backward, windmilling her arms to keep from falling into the water. Hypothermia might not be real in the clock, but she didn’t want to take a chance.

The knock sounded like someone on the other side of a door. Rhea lifted her hand and tapped again.

Was it an echo? It didn’t sound like an echo—

The knock was returned, first one soft tap, then two.

Rhea tapped twice.

A flurry of pounding came from under the ice, so loud and sudden that she retreated back from the ice, her eyes wide.
 

Clearly it was not an echo.
 

“When someone knocks,” said Sylvie, “you should let them in. As long as it’s before dark.”
 

“What if it’s after dark?” asked Rhea. She glanced up at the sky, which was still pale grey.
 

Sylvie considered this. “They might be monsters, then,” she said. “Things melted out of the glacier…”

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what she is,” said Rhea, fighting an urge to laugh hysterically. “Let her
in!
How do I let her
out?”

Another knock, tentative. Was the clock-wife afraid she had left?
 

She squared her shoulders and knocked back. “I’m still here,” she said, putting her face so close to the ice that she could feel cold air against her lips. “I can’t open the ice. You’ll have to open it. Please, come out—or let me in—or just open the door—”

Silence.

Rhea let out a long sigh and saw her breath melt a tiny slickness on the ice.

The wall cracked.

It made a sound like a door slamming closed—or open. A lightning bolt crack appeared on the surface and skidded up and down, splitting into a hundred cracks as it went.