The Dickens Mirror (57 page)

“It is not right, it is not
fair
!” she shrieked. “This cannot be
right
! I am
not
a monster, I am
not
!”

The others jostled, like seagulls squabbling over a dead fish, and then Emma could see why Meme was freaking out.

The third body was
her
.

The third body was Emma.

The third body was Meme.

“MEME, I’M S-SORRY
, so sorry!” Doyle, the policeman, was blubbering like a kid who knew he’d done something he couldn’t take back, while, beyond, in the far cell, Meredith was shouting at McDermott: “You couldn’t let her go, you couldn’t let this die, could you? What were you
thinking
? A world built just for her? Your grand experiment? They’re
things
, they’re
creations
; you can’t set them
loose
.”

“And what are you?” McDermott roared. Snatching Meredith by the arms, he shook her hard. “I have been trying to set you free for
years
, across
times
, and still it’s never enough! I can’t save our daughter, and I can’t save you from yourself!”

“Meme!” Doyle held out his arms as if he expected a hug and a kiss would make everything all better. “You’re the last person I wish to harm!”

“But I am
not
a person! Can you not
see
?” Raging, mouth hanging open, she rounded on the creepy doctor. “What did you do, Kramer? Steal me from McDermott to see if you could breathe life into the clay of my body? Do better with me than you have accomplished with those … those
things
?”

Kramer said something, but Emma couldn’t hear what. It was chaos; except for those android-like things and the guy with the lumpy head, everything was a swirl, the perfect gambit for an escape except for the stupid iron bars, and Emma was thinking,
If there was ever a time for Lara Croft
. Then there was a
flicker, way off to her left, and she turned.

Elizabeth was moving, darting for a table. No one except her saw; they were all clustered around the tables and Meme, with their backs turned, and the blanks and messed-up Weber … well, they didn’t count, probably couldn’t think. Elizabeth made a running grab for the glass pendant. As soon as she touched it, the glass began to glister and glow, and Emma’s heart gave a leap.
It works for her, it works for
her
!

She scrambled to her feet. By her side, Rima started, called her name, but Emma was already flying across the cell. She dropped to her knees as the older girl dashed up. “What,
what
?” she asked.

“Here,” the other girl said, though her voice had a weird hum that reminded Emma of when Superior really got going right before a big storm and the wind grabbed the windows and made them
brrrr
. Elizabeth thrust the necklace through the bars. “Put this on, and don’t take it off!”

“Okay?” It came out as a question. This was not what she expected. Keys to unlock the cell—that would be good. Or a gun, a knife,
something
. But a necklace? Still, she slipped it on. To her, the chain looked like something soldiers used for dog tags, and those scraps of metal … was there writing on them? “But I don’t know …,” she began, and then realized that the glass hadn’t stopped glowing. There was something else happening, too, right between her eyes, under her lacy skull plate: the thump and throb of a new, fresh headache.
Like I had right before crazy London Meredith showed up in my window at home
. The same she’d felt when the secret door opened down cellar.

“Listen to me. There’s only time to say this once.” Elizabeth was talking low and fast. “When I say go, you
go
, understand?”

“G-go?” Emma felt Rima come up and drop alongside. “Go where?” she asked.

“It’ll be obvious.” Elizabeth flicked a quick glance over her shoulder. Following her gaze, Emma saw that none of the adults were paying any attention. Meme was shrieking; the McDermotts were shouting at each other; Doyle was screaming again. Lots of noise and plenty to distract them. By now, Chad had scurried over, half-dragging the other Tony. “But if this works,” Elizabeth said, “you have to go right away. Don’t look back, don’t hesitate.”

“If what works? What are you going to do?” Chad asked.

“Get you out.” The older girl drilled Emma with a look. “When the time comes, you grab
only
the other Tony and Chad, you hear me?”

“What?” She heard the high squeak in her voice. “I can’t leave Rima and—”

“No,” Rima said. “She’s right, Emma. We have to stay, Tony and I. This is where we belong, but not you.” To Elizabeth: “You’re Emma now?”

“Mostly, but we’re all here,” the other girl said. “Elizabeth, too, and she’ll still be here when this is done.”

“Done.” Emma stared. “What do you mean, done? Why aren’t
you
coming? Where am I
going
?”

“Don’t let her scream, Rima.” Elizabeth grabbed Emma’s wrist. “Honey,” Elizabeth said as, a second too late, Emma saw a flash of steel, “you’re going home.”

IF RIMA HADN’T
slapped a hand over her mouth, Emma would’ve yelled plenty good and loud. The scalpel sliced a bright red ribbon
on her palm, the pain like the thin line of a hot laser. Cheeks ballooning, she was still blowing the trapped ball of a scream when that steel flashed again as Elizabeth—the other Emma—cut herself, then slammed their bleeding palms together.

The sensation was an explosion, a black, icy rocket blasting through her body, racing from her toes to shatter through the top of her skull. Emma’s vision reddened. Orange spangles bloomed, and there was a rushing, almost metallic clatter in her ears, like hundreds of birds snapping their beaks at once. Her body went limp. She might even have passed out a split second.

“Hurry.” It was Rima, bracing her up. “Hurry, Elizabeth, now!”

“Blood of My Blood,” Elizabeth said. A dark red rivulet was threading from one nostril. “I bind you. Breath of My Breath, I invite you, I take you …”

Emma was having trouble breathing. There was a cold hand in her chest, working its fingers up her throat and down into her lungs, reaching around to cup and squeeze her heart. Another, very thin, slipped into her head; she could feel it walking her brain, picking its way across crevices and crooks before finding one very dark, very deep slit and worming its way in.

“Together, we are one and there are the Dark Passages and … and … that’s enough, Emma!” Grimacing, Elizabeth threw her head back as her face glimmered, the features rippling and shifting, now a boy, now a half-girl, now a scaled creature with a silver swirl for an eye. “That’s enough, Emma,” Elizabeth growled, her voice a good octave lower. “Don’t hang on too long. She only needs a suggestion. Now, let her go, let her
go
, let her …”

“Stop!” Rima wrenched their hands apart. “That’s
enough
!”

The icy fist gripping her heart melted away in an instant.
That weird sense of a finger stirring and poking the meat of her brain eased, though it wasn’t quite … 
gone
. It stuck there, the way a shred of pot roast got between her teeth, and she could feel a mental tongue sneak to worry it. In Elizabeth’s eyes, Emma saw the gold birthmark flare with rage and hunger, and Emma had the sick feeling she was the bunny and that was the wild animal out there ready to eat her alive.

“Sorry. Right.” Elizabeth glanced askance and Emma wasn’t sure the other girl was even talking to them. When she looked back, her eyes had cleared. She reached through the bars. “Rima, let me …” As the other girl hesitated, she said, “You saw Weber. My blood heals. It will
help
.”

“All right. Do it … 
ah!
” Rima stiffened as Elizabeth pressed her bleeding hand against an open wound on Rima’s forearm. The contact was brief, no more than a second, but Emma saw Rima’s head rock back and then her eyes widen. “God, what …”

“Save Tony.” Elizabeth surged to her feet. “And make sure Emma goes, Rima.”

FIFTEEN SECONDS GONE
.

Fifteen before Meme.

The Moment Electric

YES, YES, YES!
She didn’t know if that was her or Emma’s voice, but it didn’t matter because this was what she wanted, perhaps was even why she’d been created. Blood singing, Elizabeth lunged for the blank rock wall immediately to her left. Her palm was still bleeding, but already the muscles were wriggling, the edges of her skin worming and sewing themselves together. Her arms writhed, and as waves of energy swirled, she felt the hard ridges and lumpy pillows of her many scars begin to soften and disappear. They were all there now, the many pieces perched at the front of her mind, clamoring for release, and none stronger than Emma and her shadows. The pull was immense, this imperative to let go a tidal surge.

Go!
Slamming the rock with her hands, she cried out, the moment electric, her back arching. At once, she felt them streaming from her fingertips, all the pieces gushing like high water loosed from a dam. Her pulse was thundering, her heart smashing her ribs, and she thought the rest, gathered round the bodies, were still screaming, and Meme loudest of all: “No, no,
no
, I will
not
let
you!” The inside of her skull ached with a lancing pain that shot from her forehead to the top of her spine, and yet her consciousness ballooned, that mind’s eye widening like a pupil until all that remained was a huge expanse: like a night sky with no stars. Her mind was clearing, the cobwebs tearing apart, as if someone had finally decided to sweep back a pair of heavy curtains, open the windows, and let in light and fresh air.

And she thought,
Go, Emma, go! Hurry!

No reply. Although she didn’t think the girl was completely gone. She might never be, if it was true that every essence—a
whisper
, as Rima would’ve called it—left its mark.

But she got her answer when, around her, the cavern groaned. Stone bucked and heaved under her feet, but unlike the quakes, there was no loud crack or bang of stressed rock giving way. This was like riding heavy swells in a sleek kayak.

Kayak
. That must be an Emma-thought.
Because I don’t know how that feels, or what a kayak is. I’ve never seen the sea
. Under her hands, the rock was shimmering, the ripples spreading wider and wider in a mirror image of that mind’s eye, and it was happening fast, within seconds: the stone smoothing, growing glassy and black.

Almost there. It was Emma, a remnant anyway, still with her. Elizabeth, when the Mirror opens, you have to get out of the way fast. If you’re pulled in …

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Only say when.”

Just a few more … The black-mirror rock suddenly seethed, and then she felt the give under her hands. Way’s opening, Emma said. The cynosure ought to …

A roar: “What are you
doing
?”

Following the Light

“WHAT ARE YOU
doing
?”

It was a guy’s voice, that doctor. Emma tore her eyes from Elizabeth, still hunched over that churning rock that was going mirror-smooth, and looked across to the others, still gathered around the bodies. Meme was screeching like someone was ripping out her heart. Crap,
she’d
feel the same way if she saw herself all laid out like an empty-eyed Barbie.

Kicking free from Bode, Meme lunged at Doyle. Crying out, the constable stumbled away from the examination tables and threw up his hands (maybe he thought she was going to scratch his eyes out or something), and that was when Meme got her hands on that knife. Snatching it free, Meme let out another of those crazy, ripping shrieks and dashed for the bodies.

That’s when everyone over there went nuts.

“Meme!” Bode shouted. “Meme, don’t!” And Kramer was bawling, “No! Stop her! Don’t let her …” The London Meredith only stared, stunned, with disaster-victim eyes, but in her cage,
the other Meredith was screaming, maybe for both of them: “No, no, not my little girl,
please
!”

“Meme,
no
!” It was McDermott, pressed up to the bars. “I can help you, but please,
please
don’t ruin them! Not when I’m so close, not when I think I’ve found how to make things right!”

“No, no, nothing makes this
right
!” Meme snarled. “It is their fate, their destiny to
die
, and who are you to play
God
?” Rearing, she plunged Doyle’s dagger down in a hard, fast stab—and straight into the smallest body: little Lizzie.

“AAAHHH!”
Meredith wailed as the knife sank all the way up to the hilt. Lizzie’s eyes jammed wide open, and her cherry-red mouth widened in a soundless scream, like that weird painting of the guy on the bridge against an angry, churning sky.

“Noooo!”
Meredith was practically clawing her eyes out. “Stop, stop! Don’t hurt my baby!”

Too late for that
, Emma thought. Blood boiled, spreading in a slick red lake over the little girl’s belly before leaking down the sides. Little Lizzie—although she really wasn’t yet, was she?—flopped and jerked and looked so much like a hooked salmon flip-flapping on the deck of Jasper’s boat, Emma wished she had a club or something to put the poor thing out of its misery.

“Don’t!” McDermott shouted again. “Meme, stop! Not my baby, not my
child
!”

“She is
nobody’s
child, as I am not,” Meme shouted. On its table, little Lizzie’s mouth still hung in that silent shriek, but what feeble light there’d been in those doll’s eyes fled as fast as blowing out a birthday candle. “She is no more
real
than I!”

“Meme!” Bode grabbed at her arm, but Meme wrenched
free, then brought the blade around in a whickering, backhanded arc. Bode jumped out of the way just in time as the knife flashed down again.

“You are not
me
!” Meme slashed at the third body—the empty doll of a person that had Meme’s face. The skin over its cheeks and forehead, across its eyes, opened in wide, gaping, spurting red slashes. “You are
not
!”