Nevermore

39 Much of Madness

The doorknob rattled.

Isobel watched as the chair holding the door shivered and shook. Something banged into it hard, jarring the door in its frame, and she jumped, letting out a yelp.

All at once the whispers died. The door settled.

A small light, white and crystalline, like the light she had seen in the woodlands, appeared in a wink at the bottom. It traveled along the crack slowly, back and forth, as though probing for a way in. There was a sound on the other side, like the slip of gauze fabric over the wooden exterior of the door, and Isobel found herself fighting the urge to scream. Then the white light blinked out.

Silence. Only the sound of their breathing. And then a new sound. Quiet and distant.

Music.

“Do you hear that?” she whispered, still clinging to him. The tune grew louder. One instrument, one note at a time, it pieced itself together until at last she could place what it was she heard. An orchestra?

“Don’t listen,” he said, his voice brittle. “Pretend it’s not real.”

The music grew steadier, firmer, and it was real—string instruments sighing out a swirling waltz. A crash of cymbals accented a change in melody. The waltz swelled even louder, so unlike the deafening, crunching goth music. It couldn’t be another band, could it? There was no way. She heard no guitars. No tortured vocals.

New voices filtered in from beyond the door, different from the whispers they’d heard a moment before. These voices were more substantial, more alive, the sound of real people laughing and talking and shouting. The voices rose steadily, accompanied now by the delicate clink and tinkle of glassware. More and more voices chimed in, one for every second that passed, until they blended into a unanimous, lively hum. Despite the light laughter, the trilling, swirling tune, Isobel clung tighter to the back of Varen’s jacket. It made no sense. All of it felt . . . wrong.

“Who’s out there?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“Isobel, listen to me,” he said, turning to her. Her stare broke from the door and she looked into his eyes as he spoke. “Look for a way to the woodlands. When you’re there, find the door. You’ll know it when you see it. Go through it and don’t wait for me. Don’t trust anything you see.”

“What? But . . . I—I don’t understand.”

He shook her. “Promise me!”

“Varen, I—”

Her voice caught in her throat, seized into silence as she watched his eyes dilate, the pinprick of fear at their core expanding, consuming the green of his irises until nothing remained.

Nothing except for two black coin-size holes.

She felt a tremble start all over. She reached for him but stopped short as black-to-purple wisps of cloudlike ink, like a thousand crawling insects, whispered out from behind his shoulders. The darkness surrounded him, growing thicker, clamoring to take hold of him, like the unlimited tentacles of some formless wraith. The wisps wrapped his shoulders, his arms.

A pair of blindingly white hands emerged from within the churning void. Like talons, they clung to his chest. A woman’s white face appeared in a flash over his shoulder—her eyes two empty sockets.

Panicked, Isobel reached for him. She caught his arm, and for a moment they held each other tightly.

“Find the door,” he said. Then he let go.

“No!”

With a hiss of shadows he fell backward, into the open wound of darkness. His arm slipped from her hands despite her desperate fight to keep hold, and then the blackness folded over him, swallowing him, knitting together until it was gone and he with it.

“Varen!”

She rushed through the space that had taken him. She reached the wall, pressed her hands flat to the wood, beating, shouting. “Varen!”

She swung around, searching the room with her eyes. The light overhead continued to sway. Back and forth. Back and forth. Breathing hard, her heart thundering, she watched it, watched it as though, with its next pass, it would bring him back.

She ran to the center of the room and turned in a full circle. She stopped, but around her, the room continued to spin. It turned and turned, revolving faster and faster until everything smeared and streaked into a blur. The light. The laughter. The voices and music. Her legs weakened. Dizziness overtook her. Her body gave in and her knees hit the floor. The room whirred faster. Nausea crept over her. She lowered her head, shut her eyes, and pressed her hands over her ears to block it out.

“Stop!” she said, then screamed, “Stop!”

A quiet click noise, like the unlatching of a door, broke through her consciousness.

Isobel looked up.

The room had ceased to spin. Before her, the door stood cracked open. Light shone in—a dim crimson glow. Through the crack, Isobel saw plush ebony carpeting and the corner of thick black draperies.

“Come, let us go,” she heard a man say, his accented voice rising over the drone of talk and distant shrill laughter. Small bells jangled.

“Whither?” another man asked.

“To your vaults.”

The scent of cinnamon, freshly baked bread, and spiced meat seeped through the door, causing her stomach to clench. She remained motionless, listening, battling the urge to throw up.

When she thought she could, Isobel stood. Shakily she drifted toward the door. She reached an unsteady hand to the knob. The door opened outward, opposite from before, and it moved easily, seemingly more from her touch alone than from any effort on her part to push.

The music washed over her, building and falling, the melody mimicking itself, then starting over again. A chamber of rich ebony lay stretched out before her. Thick velvet draperies spilled from tall windows, like motionless black waterfalls. Phantasmal light played through the stained-glass bloodred panes, setting shadows loose to clamor over the sable walls and coal black carpeting.

“The vaults are insufferably damp,” one of the men’s voices said. “They are encrusted with niter.”

“Let us go, nevertheless,” the other voice returned, and Isobel recognized his accent as Italian. The bells on his cap jangled again, and the sound drew her out of the office.

She kept one hand on the door frame as she passed into the room where the smell of perfume and wine mingled with the scent of rich food. She looked up and noticed more black draperies. They hung suspended from the vaulted ceiling. Combined with the deep crimson windows, the space seemed like the innermost chamber of a royal crypt.

But where had the warehouse gone? The goths and the Grim Facade? And why did this place seem so familiar?

“The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”

The two men stood just within the doorway opposite her own, one at the far end of the otherwise empty room, their silhouettes surrounded by a haze of dim violet light. Who were they? What were they talking about? And where was she?

The bell-capped figure took the arm of the other. Then that man raised a mask to his face. He drew his cloak in tighter and they hurried off.

Isobel crept forward, toward the archway where they’d stood.

A deep, bold sound arose from behind, halting her steps. The noise vibrated through the carpet, strong enough to stir the curtains. It rolled through Isobel’s shoes and through the solid black walls. Dread, like a poison, spread its way through her, and she turned toward the source of the noise.

Like a dark sentinel, an enormous ebony clock now stood in place of the door she’d walked through not a moment before. The clock’s face, like that of an unforgiving god, glowed white in the surrounding blackness while the chimes sang out a discordant melody.

The party music died out at once and with it, the voices and all laughter. The clock’s song washed clear and haunting through the chamber and the hall, resonating like a false lullaby.

When its cry died down, snuffing out at last with a lingering, mournful echo, Isobel could hear nothing but the sound of her own blood rushing through her ears. That, and the quiet turning over of the clock’s innermost mechanisms.

She’d been here before, she realized, if only in her mind. It was exactly as she’d imagined it too. Every detail. Down to the clock that now towered over her, real as life itself.

Then the clangs came, dull and droning, and the seed of Isobel’s fear grew.

She rushed back toward the clock, but any trace of the door she’d entered through had vanished. In its place, a silver pendulum close to Isobel’s own size swung to and fro just as the lightbulb had. It swayed back and forth as the clock chimed the hour.

Four. Five. Six.

Wait. What time was it?

Nine. Ten.

Isobel’s eyes rose to the face of the clock. One long spearlike hand aimed at twelve, the other, shorter hand at eleven. She listened as the last chime throbbed around her until it dissolved into nothingness.

There was a beat of pure silence. The gears in the clock finished turning, and then a woman’s light laughter trickled from some chamber far away. It was followed by the pluck of strings and the immediate build of voices. The music started again, and somewhere, a champagne cork popped.

No. No. No. This wasn’t real. She placed a hand to her forehead, trying to backtrack through her memory, to recall in reverse order the night’s events. This couldn’t be happening. She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.

The clock’s pendulum sliced through the air like a scythe, reaping the seconds. With each pass, its ornately engraved silver surface flashed a mottled version of Isobel’s reflection.

The pendulum passed again, revealing in the circle of silver the white face of an empty-eyed figure, one which now stood behind Isobel.

She gasped and swung around, nearly tumbling backward into the clock.

There was no one. Her eyes darted, catching the tail end of the fleeting shadows thrown by the flickering light of the bloodred windows.

She looked back at the clock and the pendulum passed again, reflecting only her own image. Isobel took a step back. She looked up at the clock and saw the minute hand twitch. She turned and ran for the violet archway.

Midnight. That was when it had happened in the story. That was when it would happen, she realized with renewed panic. Wherever she was, whatever was going on, dream or not—she had an hour. One hour. To do what? To find the door Varen told her to find? Did he think she would leave him? And if she couldn’t find him before midnight, then what?

Isobel pushed the thought out of her mind and passed through the archway, eager to escape the black chamber. Violet walls hugged in close around her in a short, curving, almost tunnel-like passageway. It funneled her into another room of about the same size, this one sharp violet with windows cut to resemble amethyst jewels.

Where the black chamber had been empty, people stood scattered throughout the violet, dressed like peacocks and jesters, demons and queens. There were feather masks and silk masks, glittering gowns with belled sleeves, top hats and long cloaks. Countless golden ornaments hung suspended from the ceiling, filling the space like a gilded solar system. A young woman decked in white ostrich feathers and diamonds lay stretched on a divan. Her ivory slipper hanging from one toe, a glass of wine in each hand, she laughed hysterically as a tiny man in a green and yellow jester’s costume took one false fall after another.

Isobel scanned their masked faces, their forms, looking for anyone—anything—familiar. She pushed through the room and wove her way around groups and couples.

Reaching the archway to the next room, she had to pull herself back to one side to avoid being trampled by a long train of revelers. Hands linked, they rushed past her, screaming and shrieking with laughter. The last person in line, a man wearing a floppy-eared dog mask, reached to grab her hand, to pull her along. Isobel fell away from him, half stumbling into the next room.

This chamber, white as snow and decorated in pastels, opened large and wide around a circular dance floor filled with revolving dancers. Gilt details chased the curved walls and netted the domed ceiling far above. The whole room glistened and sparkled like the inside of a Fabergé egg.

Dressed like iridescent dragonflies, the musicians sat huddled in one corner. They played their instruments feverishly, bowstrings fluttering like the wings of the insects they represented.

The rhythm they kept was a steady one-two-three, one-two-three. Dancers turned like dervishes, bead-and-gemstone-encrusted skirts flaring out.

Powdered and pale, the women looked like stale pastries. Tall and with garish, pointed masks, the men seemed like predators.

She caught a glimpse of a familiar figure. He turned away, locked in dance with a dark-haired girl in red.

“Varen!” Isobel ran onto the crystal tiled floor, dodging between dancers, ducking below gloved arms and snapping fans. She lost sight of them, then saw the couple again and pressed toward them once more. She was sure it was him. His hair, his height and frame—they matched. And the girl. Had it been Lacy?

She ran straight for them, shoving to get through. The couple disappeared and reappeared in flashes through the web of costumed courtiers. They twirled in front of her, glided behind her—then just beside. She felt the brush of the red skirts against her leg as they passed, and she fought to follow them, forcing her way through the linked arms of one couple.

Reaching them at last, she grasped his shoulder. He turned. Black eyes stared down at her though the holes of an equally black bird’s mask. The figure smiled, flashing crimson teeth.

“Care to cut in, cheerleader?” Pinfeathers asked. He moved aside from the arms of the girl in red, revealing her dress to be the twin of Lacy’s, complete with the stains that Isobel had caused earlier. In fact, everything was Lacy. Everything except for the featureless, fleshy space where her face should have been.

Isobel uttered a sound of shock. Pinfeathers took up her hands, pulling her to him.

“What? No!”

He spun her before she could wrench away, and they coiled in a tight circle. The world blended into a mesh of chaos, color, and noise.

“Stop!” she shouted, but he ignored her, throwing her into revolution after revolution, almost swinging her into another pair of masked dancers who scampered aside, laughing.

“Where’s your mask?” he asked. “Everyone is wearing one but you, cheerleader. Are you trying to say you have nothing to hide?” He dragged her through the steps.

“Let go of me!”

“You know, I’ve been chatting with your friend all evening.”

“Varen? Where is he?”

“Really, cheerleader. I’m beginning to think you have a one-track mind.” He pushed her away violently, and Isobel stumbled outward, nearly toppling into a pair of courtiers dressed as what she thought must be a pair of black spray-painted toucans. She stared at them confused, and in return, they glared at her until Pinfeathers yanked her once more into the dance. She crashed flat against him and he spun her again.

“I meant your other friend,” he said. “Then again, you have so many. It’s been hard just to keep them all straight! I wouldn’t exactly say he’s much of a conversationalist, though. Kind of the strong, silent type. At least until he screams. You look beautiful tonight, by the way, have I told you yet?” He smiled.

Distracted by his words, trying hard to read his meaning, Isobel forgot for a moment about the world spinning madly around her, forgot about the dance. She stared at him, searching.

Grinning, he stared back as though waiting for her to get the punch line. But she didn’t. If he wasn’t talking about Varen, then who could he mean?

He swept her into another spin. This time Isobel felt herself twirl effortlessly into the movement. Somehow, while she hadn’t been paying attention, her body had picked up the dance.

Her feet followed through with the steps. She looked down at her pink slippers, confused at the sight of them gliding over the floor. It was as though she knew the dance perfectly, even though she’d never waltzed in her life.

“There now, that’s better,” he said, drawing her back to him. “Look at that, you’re a natural.” They spun again to the trill of bells, and Pinfeathers, tilting his head back, hummed along.

Beneath the mask, she could see the jagged outline of the hole in his face, the sharp red teeth within.

Something in her told her to pull away. To run. But her feet remained locked in the dance. He spun her so that her back faced him and linked clawed fingers with hers, one hand at her waist as he guided her into a promenade.

She followed his lead helplessly, her eyes trailing to the white hand that rested on her side, the red claws clutching the pink ribbon. She wanted to recoil, to pull away, but someone’s lavender skirt swished against her own, startling her to press back against him. He gripped her tighter.

“Look,” he hissed.

Her head popped up. Dancers churned around them like storm-tossed flowers, their heads held to either side as they whirled with abandonment.

“Look at them,” he whispered, his voice in her ear. “Have you ever seen anything like it? They have everything, don’t they? Everything except a single care to dwell on.”

Isobel ripped her hand from his cold clay grasp. He gripped her and twisted her to face him once more, throwing her into a low dip. The world reversed itself, then he righted her too fast, and she came up with her vision swimming. He captured her hands again. His foot pushing hers, urging her back into the dance.

“Don’t you see, silly girl? Don’t you know that you can do anything here? You can have anything.”

“It’s not real,” she said. “None of this is real.”

“You’re real, aren’t you? Try it. Think of something you want. Think of something you want more than anything. Wait. I know . . . but first you have to close your eyes.” He stopped the waltz and lifted a clawed hand toward her face. Involuntarily her eyes fluttered shut. When she opened them again, Varen stood before her.

The bruises and the cut on his face were gone. There was no sign of kohl beneath his eyes or the slim silver loop through his lip. And his hair was not the stark black she knew, but a gentle wheat color. He smiled down at her, his eyes somehow warmer, green like a forest. Each difference in him was subtle in and of itself, but combined, the overall change in him was dramatic. He seemed so . . . normal.

She lifted a hand to brush her knuckles against his jaw, as he had done that night outside her house. He linked fingers with her free hand, and she was surprised not to feel the sharpness of his dragon ring or the hard corners of his class ring. His skin felt so warm against her own. She glanced at the front of his button-up shirt. It was blue—her favorite shade—and it looked good on him.

She lifted her eyes, searching his face.

“Trust me,” he whispered.

“But I—”

“Just let go.”