The twisting stairs undulate under the light and shadows like the iron-black bones of an ancient serpent. Looking down through the loose weave of her eyelashes, it almost seems as if scales are rippling over muscles as the wyrm turns, turns, turns up into the darkened gorge of the tower. She can't stand here forever, not after hearing the scream, the snap, the silence. Yet her feet only curl around the edge of the grated landing, pressing the metal hard into her bare soles. Something lurks below, and she can't look, won't look, because to look at a monster is to be devoured by it.
But
(the scream, the snap, the silence)
curiosity and fear, those mismatched twins, propel her to take a step. She is helpless to go against a warning once it is given, like a girl in a myth. Do not open that door, do not open that jar, do not look back. Her descent is as inevitable as a leaf falling from a tree.
Just above the first story the light solidifies. See what you should not see. Something rests at the bottom of the Great Spiral, and it is not supposed to be there. Something dark and hunched and alone. Something familiar.
Her next step slips. She catches the handrail almost too late, straining her arm with her off-balanced weight. The pain is a distant scream compared to her heartbeat. Her monster has revealed itself, and it looks very small against its ever-spreading pool of blood. What propels her now are
(the scream, the snap, the silence)
gravity and dread. Its face, she must see the face of that thing below, and so she keeps going.
Blood has reached the stairs when she steps off them, the heat and slickness of it obscene as it squelches underfoot. It isn't the only obscenity. That blood shines a garnet against the dark marble floor with facets pricked by lamplight. The sprawl of the corpse is elegant and inflexible, like a martyred saint captured in Baroque oils. Gore and shit and flowers thicken the air, a stinking stew complemented by
(the scream, the snap, the silence)
a low moan of terror. That dread sound is of her own body, not the one just ahead. Her toes brush something hard, and she reels back. A high-heeled shoe, that is what she has knocked into. It is detritus in her path. Forward, forward, she must go forward. There is not much farther to go. A few paces, that is all. She leans down when she reaches the corpse. It is a woman, this thing, with hair fanned out into the blood like dark water weeds. Light flashes on its half-curled hand — on something attached to its hand. A ring of two intertwined bands, one gold with rubies, one silver with emeralds.
God, that ring, it belongs to —
"Charlotte."
The name echoes off the walls and up the clock tower and in her head. Charlotte, that is Charlotte. Elise collapses, knees striking the floor hard. Blood soaks her clothes, but that doesn't matter. She reaches out a shaking hand, then turns the dead girl's face towards the light.
Her eyes stare in stark, riveted horror at what she finds. There is no looking away. Bluebeard's wives, Pandora contrite, a pillar of salt is she, repentant in the aftermath. Oh, why has she looked at this face? It is a face she has loved, a face she has detested, a face she has seen in countless mirrors. Her own face.
She shutters her eyes, but it is late, far too late. All evils have fled the pithos, and not even hope dwells at the bottom. Her mind has emptied, too, as if all fear has slithered through a hole in her skull. The dead cannot fear the worst when the worst has already happened to them. Blood cools and congeals beneath her, against her, yet she stays in place. This is her blood, it belongs with her, just as she belongs with her corpse.
Then a sound:
Drip. Like a single bead of poison falling into a glass, tainting life-giving water with death. Thirst throbs on her tongue, and she
* * *
opened her eyes to a fortress of tomes, an opened book bag, and a pillow of notepaper. She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her face, then peeked around the books stacked before her. The few people scattered around the tables in front of hers seemed too involved in their own studies to notice her. A good thing, too, because the ugly scars on her chest and stomach had started aching again. She returned behind her wall of books, the perfect sanctuary for anyone who wished to take seven drops of a silvery mystery medicine.
Her drops washed away the pain of old injuries. Injuries that, according to the memory she had gained during last night's sleep, had been too dangerous for her to tell Charlotte about. A different kind of pain throbbed in her chest at that thought, not only because it reminded her of Charlotte, but because she had forgotten whatever had given her those scars. They had been older than she had imagined; her accident had not been the cause of them. Something else had made them, or — she touched one of the scars through the fabric of her blouse, just above her cardigan vest — maybe someone else. The scars were too straight and regular to have been the result of a random mishap. But the truth, no matter how dangerous, was lost to her now.
"Oh, good, you really did come here."
Elise looked up to see Stella gazing over the wall of books. "Good morning," she said. "It is still morning, isn't it? I ... I lost track of time."
"Unless the universe has reordered itself without my noticing, you have the time of day right," Stella said, with no sarcasm at all. She then sank down out of sight. An unseen chair scraped against the floor.
Leaving the books up while someone had come to talk would have been rude, so Elise started taking them down. As she did so, she spoke with the other girl. "Have you come to study, too?" she said. "That's what I've been doing. I studied a little while I was in the clinic, but I really need to catch up with what I've missed before classes start again tomorrow."
Stella, who was becoming steadily revealed as Elise demolished the book fortress, was bent over several sheets of paper on her side of the table. "No studying for me. I'm working on columns for the Herald."
"Oh," Elise said. "Oh, yes, of course."
Taking a box of pencils from her book bag, Stella said, "You don't need to try so hard."
Elise almost dropped a large book on the flight patterns of seabirds that had somehow been necessary on one of the assignments that Gerver had given out while she was unconscious. She tried not to fidget, or flee. Just because Stella was a suspect didn't mean that she had murdered Charlotte, or that she knew she was on a list. All Elise needed to do was act normally. "What do you mean?"
"To pretend." Stella selected a yellow pencil, then scribbled a few notes in the margin of her paper, the bulk of which was filled with numerous paragraphs in tiny purple writing. "If you don't remember me, you don't remember me. There's nothing either of us can do about that." After a pause, she added more to her notation. "But we can start again as friends, if you like."
If Elise couldn't stop imagining Stella shove Charlotte down the Great Spiral Staircase, that offer might have made her smile. Never turn your back on those who might stab it, Gerver advised in her head. Damn him for being right, even an imaginary version of him. With the staff of the University's newspaper all being on her list, she had no better way to keep track of them than friendship. And her memory loss would allow her to excuse any misgivings she might show toward her old friends.
What she had to do was clear.
"All right," Elise said. "Let's start again."
Stella smiled, and Elise forced herself to do the same. They soon returned to what they had been doing before. Elise finished placing her books into proper stacks on her left and right, then went back to her studies. Difficult as it was to sit at the same table as a potential murderer, her attention quickly wandered; she leaned back in her wheelchair to allow her gaze to do the same.
Fortunately, a distraction came in the form of architecture, which had to be a lost love of hers considering all that she seemed to know about it. The Reading Room, as the library was called in the University's handbook, was square-shaped, deep, and lofty. It vaulted three stories high plus a little more, with a domed skylight at the very center. Golden scales fanned out from the rectangle of leaded glass like the fronds of a fern over the ceiling, the latter of which was painted a gorgeous sapphire. Hanging from the skylight was a tremendous unlit chandelier of iron; it would doubtlessly look beautiful in the evening, light shining down on the neat rows of tables on the first floor.
A gunshot thud sounded above, and her attention turned to the galleries held aloft by twisting columns of dark wood. Windows there let in the day above the tops of the shelves, as they did on the levels above and below.
"This column is ..." Stella began, drawing Elise's stare. She twirled a new pencil, this one bright green, between her forefinger and thumb. "This column is a very important column, but I don't think the sender needs my advice anymore."
Oh, right, Stella worked on the newspaper's advice column, didn't she? Elise fixed her face into what she hoped would be an expression of interest. "Why not?"
"The relationship that she was so worried about, the one with an Extraordinary, it's over."
A moment passed before Elise worked that out. "Does that mean she's an Addy, this letter-writer of yours?" She shook her head. "Of course she must be. Why else mention his Extraordinary status if she had it?"
Stella watched Elise with a startling amount of concentration. She seemed to be waiting for more, and when Elise didn't give it, she spoke. "I'm not sure what to do with this, and you are the acting editor."
Yes, so Elise was. Though finding the suspect list had spoiled any happiness she had about being a member of the Herald's staff, she couldn't shirk her duties. That would invite suspicion. Besides, something in her balked at the suggestion that she leave her responsibilities behind. She had enjoyed working on the paper yesterday. No one, not even Charlotte's murderer, could take that small happiness away from Elise now. "Give an answer and publish it," she said. "Willow mentioned yesterday that you — that we don't have enough material for next week's issue, so we should use it." This suggestion hadn't seemed to offend Stella, but it was difficult to tell when the other girl rarely seemed to move the muscles in her face. "You don't think the sender will mind, do you?"
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Mercy existed in the universe, because Stella finally looked down at the letter in front of her. "No, I think she's incapable of minding these days."
That sounded like a yes. "Good, then we won't have a problem."
The two girls returned to what they had been doing before, Stella writing and Elise avoiding everything important. Other students came and went over the large black and white marble diamonds of the floor, footsteps echoing in the library's quiet and page-musty air. Some students stayed in the main room, but others went to the additions at the north, south, and west. When Elise had been hunting the stacks earlier for one particular volume or another, she had glimpsed those three other rooms. Narrow and rectangular, but just as tall as the central room, they contained more shelves and reading areas that included comfortable-looking armchairs. These spaces were, like their mother, rendered in a curious mix of Gothic-Renaissance revival, each one bearing a plaque outside their doorways with the name and color of their rooms: Amethyst, Jet, and Pearl. As evidenced by his Manor, Lord Rambling had been a man with delightful taste, but she couldn't spend all day staring at walls. She returned to her studies, which mostly involved reminding her of the things she hadn't forgotten: her university courses.
A long time later, she stretched in her wheelchair and checked the time on the clock attached to the second-story gallery. Just after ten. Nearly two hours had passed since she had first entered the Reading Room. She covered a yawn, then caught the scent of pleasant and familiar perfume.
"I've done my part," said its owner.
Elise turned to face Willow, and found a stack of typed papers spread before her face like the world's largest playing cards. Several of the pages had headlines. "You've finished everything already?"
"Of course." Willow perched on the corner of the table, a brazenness that was allowed by the equally brazen cigarette pants that she wore. Few girls at the University seemed to wear anything except for skirts or dresses. The high waist and polka dots made for an eye-catching outfit paired with that turtlenecked blouse of hers. Too casual to wear outside the home or a picnic, perhaps, but she did look terrific. "A girl with a beauty like mine can't help but know the subject."
"I'll say," Elise agreed. She took the articles, then began reading.
What she saw may as well have passed for bizarre code. Elise had only relearned how to apply basic makeup this morning — and she had done so with a light and shaky hand — but what Willow had written was an assault against nature. According to her advice, green or gold eye shadow was a must for fashionable ladies this December, along with bold red lipstick. The suggestions for red, white, and green clothes to be worn during the weekends and evenings left Elise imagining girls going about like giant Christmas ornaments.
How could someone who came up with ideas like this have possibly been a suspect for Charlotte's death? Elise almost yanked the brown paper list out of her book bag so she could strike Willow's name from it.
"That one's for the holidays," Willow said, "but the one for next month is underneath. The theme for it is Halloween, of course."
"It's, uh, very creative," Elise said. She almost patted herself on the back for getting the words out without dying of laughter. "Holly berries for earrings shall certainly cause a stir in December." She glanced at the beauty advice for October and almost choked. Orange blouses with black or green skirts? Good Lord, if any girls actually heeded this advice, it would look like pumpkins were roving the corridors.
Stella, who had been reading the beauty articles upside down from her side of the table, spoke up. "Yes, holly berries would go handsomely with tinsel braided in hair."
Willow narrowed her eyes, as if she suspected mockery. She wasn't alone in that.
"Should I go with silver or gold tinsel?" Stella said, seemingly unaware of the skepticism directed her way. "I can never remember which one flatters me."
After a long moment of scrutiny, Willow spoke. "Silver."
"Silver!" Stella looked pleased and saddened at once. "Ah, but I do hate to disappoint gold." She blinked at Elise. "Would you like to try gold tinsel in your hair? I wouldn't want it to be lonely — gold, I mean."
A stream of stuttering half-excuses left Elise, defenses so poor that Willow came to her aid. "I'm not sure it would suit Elise."
Although Stella wore her disappointment plainly, she eventually nodded. "I don't quite agree," she said, "but you're the expert on all things fashionable, so you must be right."
Of course, as soon as Willow came to the rescue, she put her damsel in distress again. "But I do think that gold shadow would look just wonderful on those eyelids of yours, Ellie — they're like big, blank canvases."
For the first time in her very short memory, Elise had reason to be self-conscious about her eyelids. Someone gave a rasping cough nearby, one that sounded like poor cover for a laugh. Willow's eyes narrowed once again, this time in the direction of that cough, and she muttered about having to deal with oddities too early in the day.
In an effort to move the topic away from makeup altogether, Elise straightened Willow's beauty tips into a neat stack, and said, "What oddities?"
"Marek, of course," Willow said.
Elise followed her friend's gaze to a rightward table, where Tarian Marek sat. He hadn't been there when she had come to the Reading Room, and she hadn't noticed him enter. Had he dropped by while she was sleeping, or after she and Stella had started working? Either scenario could be possible. As for oddities, there weren't any. He had his face so far in a book that only his neatly parted hair was visible, but that hardly seemed a mark of the bizarre. "He's studying."
"Alone." Willow made it sound like a crime.
"I was studying alone before Stella came along."
Willow spared Elise a sympathetic glance, then patted the shorter girl on the shoulder. "You only think nicely of him because he's in your Hall."
No, Elise tried to think nicely of him despite his fickle personality, and her suspicion that he knew her more than he let on. Her efforts had proved worthwhile, for he treated her with his own brand of kindness. But his name had been on the suspect list, too, and her defense of him came out flat. "He's an Underseer."
"I know," Willow said, "and I still say he charmed his way into that one."
"With what? Powers or smiles?" Elise paused at the archness in her own voice. Not fifteen seconds ago she had been wary of defending Marek, and now she leaped at the chance. Why? What had it been? The answer came with little thought. It was what Willow had said: You only think nicely of him because he's in your Hall. She had made being in Hall Seven sound like a bad thing, and it had taken a moment for that fact to sink in for Elise.
The questions did not bother Willow a bit. "Knowing him, both."
"But I don't know him," Elise said. "And I don't know you, either. I don't know any of you."
An abashed look touched Willow's face. She started to say something, but the words disappeared beneath a wave of memory, and Elise sat in the middle of the desks rather than at the front of them, not wishing to have been called a teacher's pet for doing so. Things were bad enough with her being a freshman in several advanced classes. This particular one included upperclassman. But she didn't need to worry about standing out in English class. Almost as soon as the teacher had finished roll call, the woman said, "Please read your selection for us, Marek. I've been waiting all week to hear whatever delightful poem you've chosen."
All the students except for Elise turned towards the back of the class, several of them rolling their eyes the second the teacher couldn't see them. Elise looked, too — though seconds late, she was just in time to watch a boy rise from his desk in the back corner. He looked younger than the other students, though not as young as she was, wearing his school uniform with a neatness that escaped most of the other boys.
"Pursuit," he said, in a clear, strong voice, "by H. D," and began to read.
Another memory chased the heels of the first, so lucid that Elise could smell blackboard chalk.
Students shuffled out into the corridor at the lunch bell. One of the junior boys bumped Elise out of the way, then snagged Marek by the jacket. A half circle of boys surrounded the two of them at once. "You think you're so smart," the junior said, twisting Marek around to face him. "But I'll tell you a secret." He poked a finger into Marek's chest, hard enough to send the younger boy off balance. The junior gripped the jacket harder, popping threads on the lapel. "It doesn't matter how many professors feel sorry for you when you're less than worthless. And you are, Addy." He gave Marek a shake. "Got it?"
Not a word left Marek's lips. He just hung there, the toes of his shoes barely touching the floor, and stared away like a beaten dog.
The junior looked to his friends. "Like I said — worthless," he told them, then let Marek loose into the nearest wall. They all laughed when the boy crumpled, but they hadn't seen what Elise had. The way that Marek had kept himself from really hitting the wall, the way he had kept himself from really hitting the floor, the way he had stared after his bullies as they paraded away. Like he knew what worthless really meant, and he was looking at it.
"— and friendless as he is," Willow babbled miles away, "I'd be surprised if he didn't end up sent to the Factory. I mean, he's already in Hall Seven." Her eyes widened. "No offense, Elise."
"It sounds like it's supposed to be offensive," Elise said, "being in Hall Seven." Being where she was, she meant to say. Yet the careless insult barely mattered next to the things she had just remembered. The only oddity about Marek was how he held himself back from hurting all the people who had hurt him. A boy like that couldn't have killed Charlotte ... couldn't he?
"It's not offensive, being there, really." But Willow had spoken too quickly. "Elise, I didn't mean it like tha —"
A book slammed shut. The three girls weren't the only ones in the Reading Room searching for the source of that noise. They found it at once. Marek was leaving the library so fast that his jacket fluttered. The book he had been reading sat on his table.
Elise jammed everything she had taken out of her book bag back into it. She couldn't let him go, not after what she had remembered about him. "He has his reasons to keep away from people, I think."
Willow slid off the table, then placed her fists against her hips. "You wouldn't be saying that if you had your head on straight," she said, lifting her chin high. "If you knew — well, you don't know, you can't, but I'm telling you now that he's not worth it."
Elise didn't bother closing her bag; she dropped it onto her lap. "You're right," she said, not looking at Willow. What she was going to say would be hurtful, but she couldn't help it, not when it was the truth. "Like I said before, I don't know him and I don't know you, so that means I have about as much reason to trust you as I do him."
And either one of you might be a killer.
"It's bad for your health, sticking up for him," Willow said, with an almost pleading note. "He's from the wrong side of town, the wrong side of everything."
Marek had reached the halfway point of the library. If Elise wanted to catch him, she would have to hurry. "I don't listen to gossip," she said, and it didn't matter if she had listened to it or not in her past life. Her new life was different. She rolled away from the table as fast as she could.
"You should!" Willow called out after her. Someone hushed her, which she ignored. "You'll live longer that way."
Elise stopped only to take Marek's abandoned book. It was just as heavy as it looked. By the time she finished wrestling it off the table, he was out of sight. She would just have to give it to him this evening, then. The tweedy young librarian at the front desk, whose name plate declared him to be Barnaby Bramson, took a long look at the cover of her book. In a voice almost as dry as the pages rustling in the Reading Room, he read, "Hm, Ordinary Society: A Criticism." His large black eyes stared at Elise over his thick spectacles. "This isn't your usual fare, Miss Ellsworth."
That sounded like disapproval. "It isn't?" she said.
Bramson grimaced, then nodded. "Ah, forgive me; I'd almost forgotten. Of course you'd be interested in all kinds of subjects after the accident damaged your memory." He shook his head. "Such a pity."
Their conversation thankfully ended there; he wrote down her checkout date in the book and in a log on the desk, then bid her a polite goodbye that she echoed. Her wheelchair's bulk prevented her from hurtling out of the library like she wanted to do.
"Should we go to Valens Valley together?" Stella said suddenly from Elise's left side.
Elise's hands almost snagged on her wheels in surprise. "Valens Valley?" she said. "Why would we go there out of the blue?"
"Oh, for no reason." But a note of strain in Stella's voice said otherwise.
The motive for it soon became clear: a horribly familiar girl was approaching them. What did such a girl want from her? Elise almost kept going straight past her, but stopped instead. She would have to face her past eventually. That may as well be today. "No," she said to Stella, "I don't think I'll go to the Valley today."
"I'll buy you some candy, then."
Elise gave her a numb thank-you for this offer, and Stella left her alone with the sister she only recognized from photographs and a single painful memory.