The Dickens Mirror (46 page)

He said it like a question. “I think so, but I’m not sure. Bedlam is Kramer’s.”

“And she’s his creature.” Bode grunted. “Never liked when he said that.”

Now that she’d seen what lived in those cells … she didn’t either.

THE CUT WASN’T
uniform, but hooked and branched into various side passages as well as larger carved rock rooms that might have been used to store equipment. Whenever they came to a fork, they went right unless there was no choice and marked each turn using Weber’s scalpel to scratch arrows. Although the tunnels felt uniform, they must be gradually heading down. The areas of bare rock dwindled, and the number of standing pools, orange in candlelight, increased.

“We’re going to be swimming soon.” Her skirt, wet almost to her knees, was getting heavier. What she wouldn’t give for jeans. No: waders.

“Oh,
balls
. Don’t like this.” Bode pointed at a bloated-looking crossbeam. Digging in a thumbnail, he pried off a long, soggy splinter. “Wet rot. Lucky this hasn’t come down.”

Don’t jinx it
. Her eyes skipped to the view ahead. Water gathered in a wide bowl of rock that stretched to either side of the tunnel. Was there a lip or something, a ledge to skirt that? Jumping her gaze to the right, she spotted a narrow, horizontal, rust-red rill. It took her a second to recognize what this was. “Look. Train track.”

“Damme, you’re right.” Crouching, Bode ran a hand over
worn metal. “Tunnel’s a little wider here. Must’ve used that to move rock out in handcarts.” Pushing up, he gestured toward the far wall and the remains of a rusted ladder. “Best one we’ve seen.”

“Think we could climb up? Be nice to get out of this water.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Wading across, he edged right around that large pool. “Like a mirror, that is. You can even make out the gouges in the ceiling.”

“Still waters run deep,” she said.

“I heard that. It’s from some story, isn’t it? About a cat or something?” A small silence, and then he said, “Speaking of which … mind if I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” she said, only half-noting how strained he suddenly sounded. She began sloshing her way through to where he stood. The water was deep all right. “What?”

“You know it would go easier if you’d pick up your skirt there.”

“I’m about five seconds from chucking the damn thing.” Kicking a swath of sodden cloth, she blew out in frustration. “What’s your question?”

“It’s about a cat.” He’d already turned to move on, but now he paused and looked back. “I can’t believe I’m asking, but … the name Jack mean anything?”

She stopped dead. He couldn’t have surprised her more if he’d spit in her face. “I had a cat named Jack,” she said, slowly. “When I was a girl. He disappeared when I was twelve. After I’d …” Her hand brushed her jaw; without her thinking about it, her tongue pressed against the jagged edge of a bottom tooth. “I had an accident.”

“Laid open your chin.”

She blinked. “Yes. Bode, what …”

“Well, I’ll be dratted,” Bode moaned, turning aside. He started forward, water rising in sheets. “
Two
of you. I
am
mad as hops, gone completely nutter …”

“Bode?” But then the gurgle of water, that hollow
bloosh
as he stumped away, penetrated. Actually, it would probably have clicked sooner if he hadn’t mentioned Jack and put her off her stride. Now, though, above the drum of her heart, she also heard that old chain-smoking miner dude:
Remember, girl
 … 
lower levels
 …

“Bode!” She splashed after. “Bode, wait!”

“What?” Face still working, he looked back over his shoulder. “What in blazes you want now—”

His foot came down with a loud
sploosh
.

And then, so quickly that he never had time to cry out, Bode plunged through the surface and took the light with him.

Shadow-Boy

“BODE!” FOR A
moment, Elizabeth forgot where and what she was and lunged, arms outstretched, hands open in a grab. All she slapped was that cold black mirror. While that queer greenish-yellow glow still suffused this space, her view beyond and through the mirror into the world she’d left behind had gone the way of Bode and his light. The darkness was so absolute, so pitchblack, she doubted that Emma could see her hand in front of her own eyes, much less that pool into which Bode had plummeted. “Emma, don’t just stand there! Do something,
do
something!”

“What exactly do you expect her to do?” The shadow-boy, Eric, moved to flank her. Gesturing at the mind’s eye, his hand lost coherence for a brief second, thinning to wisps before solidifying again. The shadow-boy was, mercifully, behind her. “She can’t
see
.”

“Quiet!”
From beyond, in her real world, she heard a sudden thrashing, a huge, gasping inhale, a spasm of coughing, and then Bode’s frantic, choked cry: “He-help, Emma,
help
, I c-can’t …” At the same time, Emma was screaming, “Bode, can you swim?
Can you grab on to something?” More crashing, the slop of water smashing rock, and what Elizabeth thought was a blubbery gurgle. Then … nothing,
nothing
. Still no light either. Only water on stone, and Emma, that stupid
stupid
girl, shouting Bode’s name into the dark.

“
Damn
you, Emma!” Elizabeth shouted. “Stop sniveling and go
after
him!”

“And just how is she supposed to do that? There’s no
light
. If
she
falls in, then they’re both dead.” A pause, and then the shadow-boy added, “Us too.”

“Then
damn
it all, I hope she
does
fall in,
does
drown!” Tears dashed down her cheeks. From the corner of her eye, she saw only his form, umbral and indistinct as black mist. She was afraid to turn a direct look. After that horrible business with Weber and how effortlessly Eric flowed out of this place to take control before she even realized what was happening, the other pieces she’d only glimpsed as silhouettes, the
sense
of a crowd, were even closer now, especially those three other shadows: the small girl that had to be a shadow-Lizzie and the other two closer to Elizabeth’s age. “At least then I could take control again, if only for a little while!”

Although this was not precisely the way it had happened before. She’d felt nothing physical, not Weber choking her or even panic as her throat closed. Yet her chest had grown suddenly heavy with a crushing
doom
. Casting a startled glance down at her hands, she’d seen them begin to bleed of color and substance and grow glassy.
God, I’m going to die; my body’s dying
. Even that thought felt transparent, as if she were nothing more than a fading scrawl done in weak, watery ink. As Emma slid into unconsciousness and the weird glow in this space darkened, the walls of this prison wavered. The floor shimmied under her feet, and for a
second, she could feel herself moving back into her body the way blood gushes through arteries. In that brief moment, agony suddenly flared in her chest and throat; she was aware of Weber’s weight on her body, could
feel
his spit spray her face and the judder of her heels on canvas.

Coming back had been swift, like the sudden flare of a match: awakening to a room only just beginning to reconstruct itself and this shadow-boy beating the life out of Weber. The only reason she’d managed to eke out even a few seconds in control of her body again was because, however strongly this Eric felt about Emma, he
hadn’t
planned any of it. His move into the front of her mind had been reflex, and then she’d surprised him, that was all. She was certain he’d never let that happen again.

Now, the shadow-Eric said, “Actually, it’s probably good there’s no light.”

“What? How is that better?”

“Because she’ll have to take a breath and think. If she had a lamp or candle, she might’ve made a grab …” His voice trailed away.

“What?” Seething, she aimed a punch at his chest and then gasped as her fist sank in an ebony swirl to her wrist. How did he do that? Solid one second, then so much shadow the next? “What is it?”

“Matches.” He moved past her to the mind’s eye. “Emma,” he called. “Emma, listen to me. You’ve got
matches
.”

A distance behind, she heard the blanks shuffle ever closer, and she hurried to join him at the black mirror. “What are you doing?”

Despite the burr, Eric’s words were taut. “Making a suggestion.”

“How can you do that? She’s locked us up tight.”

“No, she’s locked up against
you
. But she knows I’m here. I’m not a threat.”

“You’ll never get through, not while she’s conscious and in control. Even if you could, how will she know it’s really you? She’ll never listen.
I
wouldn’t. I would
never
trust a shadow.”

“And that’s why she’s my Emma,” he said. “Because she will trust me. She knows I would never hurt her.”

The words cut. “Oh no? You didn’t just knock Weber out. You beat the man to pulp. What kind of a monster does that?”

“I was …” His face seemed to lose coherence a moment before it firmed. “I was upset. I lost control for a second, that’s all.”

“And killed a man. So think twice about just how much you should be trusted. Besides, you’re not strong enough to break through.” Actually, with the mark of the Dark Passages on him and the three shadows pressing ever closer—any moment, they would take on some coherence and personality, just watch—she thought she might be wrong about that.

“Do you want to save Bode? Because I do. He was our friend, and if he means anything to you, then you’ll stop getting in my way. I’m strong, I
am
, and so is she.” His obsidian gaze fixed on the mind’s eye. “Come on, Emma. Don’t be afraid. Listen to me. It’s Eric. You know I’m here. So listen: remember the matches. Remember the
flask
.”

“Flask?” she said. “Why is that …”

“If you want Bode to die, keep talking,” he said, and then paid her no mind as she fumed. “Emma, this is important. Listen: you’ve got …”

The Strength Only Shadows Possess

MATCHES
.
THE WORD
popped in her mind. Followed by another:
flask
.

“What?” she whispered. The faint echoes of Bode’s shouts had only just faded away. When she first heard him thrash, she’d come
this
close to bolting forward but stopped herself at the last possible second. Go into the drink with Bode, they were both cooked. She was on her knees, inching forward, trying to remember what she’d seen before the light went out, feeling through icy water for the edge of the hole.

Then she thought,
Canvas
.

Light. Of course!
Her stiff fingers fumbled the button securing her right hip pocket and gave the fabric a vicious yank. There was a
tick
as the button popped and struck stone. She slid in a hand. Her fingers curled around the match safe. She carefully drew out first it and then the flask. She didn’t even bother to try the button on the right. Ripping that pocket apart, she found the burlap-wrapped scalpel.

Sitting cross-legged, she unwound the burlap and clamped it
in her teeth. Uncapping the flask, she stuffed the fabric into the open bottle, jamming it in as far as it would go, leaving enough of a tail for a wick. With a quick flick of her wrist, she upended the flask until the burlap got wet. The liquid inside had no smell, which worried her. Shouldn’t alcohol smell?
Remember, might be different for you, like Meg Murry and IT. Food didn’t taste like anything for Meg either, but it was still food
. She sure hoped that explained it.

Teasing a match from the safe, she snapped the hinge closed, then felt along the matchstick until she nested the head into the ridged striker. She gave it a sharp swipe. The match head flared with a spit and sputter. Quickly, she held it to her booze-soaked wick. A second later, the burlap caught in a sooty shower of tiny sparks.

“Bode?” Returning the match safe and scalpel to her pocket, she held her homemade torch over her head with one hand as she shuffled forward on her knees, feeling along the rock floor with the other.
How much time gone, how much?
Thirty seconds, she thought, maybe almost a minute. In the candlelight, the rippling water was a dull bronze. The remaining iron rungs were black slashes.
Just got to find the opening
. If there’d been ladders bolted to the rock, might there be a rung or something still below? Or a protruding piece of iron he could grab onto?

“Come on, Bode,” she said, “here’s the light. Look up.
Think
. Bubbles rise.”
Where is he? Why hasn’t he come up yet?
Flicking her gaze to the left, she looked for the ladder’s boreholes, then followed those to where she thought the opening must be. With a start, she saw the water there was a little darker and then realized that what she was looking at were streamers of diluted blood.

“No.”
She thought about it for exactly a half second, then clawed her way to a stand. Hugging the wall, she balanced her
makeshift torch on a rung high enough where she thought a splash wouldn’t douse it. She dropped to the rock again, the temperature change stealing her breath. Just one more piece of bad news; she knew that from those CPR lessons Jasper had made her take before he’d let her kayak on Superior. A lot of people didn’t drown in cold water; they suffocated because when cold water hit their faces, they gasped. Reflex. Their windpipes clamped down at the first wash of icy water, and then it was over unless they got to the surface.

Leaning forward, she thrust her right arm through the hole, stretching as far as she dared, afraid of losing her balance and sliding in headfirst. All she felt was cold water and stone and … Something brushed her hand. The contact jerked a gasp from her throat, and she almost flinched away before she registered:
fingers
.

“Bode!” Flopping onto her stomach, she dug the points of her boots into the rock and plunged both arms into the water. Her left fingers scrabbled over the limp back of his left hand and then a wrist, the bunched folds of his coat sleeve, the hump of his left shoulder.
Coat’s hung up on something
. Finger-walking around his shoulder, she felt a stout thumb of metal protruding from the wall, and understood at once how he must be oriented: listing to his right, legs falling away from her and to his left, which put his head and chest under the lip on her side of the hole.