Lost
WHY YOU COMING so low, and why now? Hunching her shoulders against the wind, Rima gave the sky a sidelong glance as she and Emma horsed the cart another half foot while Tony strained at the yoke. No, it wasn’t her imagination. The snow was still falling in sheets, almost in a deluge like a heavy rain. Yet through this strange half-light, she saw that the fog was much closer. So either they were wandering into a thick roll of errant mist, or the Peculiar itself was drawing down over them. Or—she aimed another uneasy look—you’re about to spit out another visitor.
“No use,” Tony said, teeth chattering. Weighed down with bodies, their cart had sunk until the axles were completely submerged. “Don’t look anyone’s been out this far in years.”
One look, and Rima felt a sick stab of dismay. “Tony.” She touched a hand to her nose. “You n-need to …”
“What? Sh-shite.” Swiping at his lip, he studied the scarlet chunks of frozen blood, then brushed his hand against a thigh. “N-no help for it,” he said brusquely.
“So wh-what do we do n-now?” Snow lathered Emma’s eyebrows. Her shoulders were mantled with white. On the cart, a sack rippled as Jack wormed his way to the neck and popped out for a look. “Hey, b-boy.” Emma rested her forehead on the cat’s head. “Don’t you know curiosity k-killed the cat? You need to stay warm.” To the others: “Do we g-go back?”
“No.” When Tony opened his mouth to protest, Rima pushed on, “You heard Bode. You can’t risk getting closer to the other T-Tony.”
“Don’t think it makes much difference.” Shrugging out of his yoke, Tony stumped around to the cart’s rear and held out his arms. “Come on, girls, get warm.”
Sinking into his chest made the icy lump of fear in Rima’s throat melt a bit. Burying her face in his coat, she inhaled his scent. Despite her new mittens, the pain in her hands was ferocious, like hundreds of knives hacking her flesh. “Why haven’t we made it off-grounds y-y-yet?” Talking was hard work. “How far back do you think the asylum is?”
“Don’t know.” His right arm tightened around her shoulders. “Last thing I remember seeing was those ruins. I thought I kept them to our l-l-left, but …”
But you’re not sure. Neither was she. She felt her stomach drop. They’d gotten themselves lost somehow. Gloomy, and the snow’s so thick, easy to get turned around. Then, of course, there was the Peculiar.
“Was it like that when I showed up?” Emma’s eyes slid from the glowering fog to Rima. “That th-thick?”
She nodded. “But lower, too. Like a curtain or sheet of paper.”
“Think there’s someone else coming? Maybe”—the little girl swallowed—“that crazy lady? She might know we’re here b-by now.”
“Regardless”—Tony snugged them close—“we won’t let her take you.”
“May not be up to you.” Emma was paler than the snow. “Can I ask you a question, Rima? About drawing?”
“What do you want to know?” Rima asked.
“Does it work both ways? Can you put back?”
“Why you asking?” Tony jogged the girl’s shoulder. “What you thinking?”
“What about what you take?” The girl skimmed her tongue over lips that were dead-white. “Is it always … you know … when someone’s s-sick?”
“Emma?” Rima ducked down to catch the girl’s eyes. “What are you …”
“You take energy. So … that means eventually things even out, maybe even tip the other way, and you can’t h-hold on to all of it. You don’t know that you can’t draw other things, too. Like that other R-Rima?”
“She took what was left after death,” Tony said.
“A whisper,” Rima said. “A watermark.”
“Isn’t that just another name for residual energy?” Emma asked.
“What are you driving at?” Tony asked.
“I’m not sure, but …” Emma’s mouth worked. “Tell me this: when you take s-sickness, can you let it go where you want?”
“I don’t know.” Despite the cold, she was mystified, a little interested now, too. “Why are you …”
“Could you hide me?” The girl blurted it out, the words under pressure. “Take who I am, my … my watermark or stain or whisper or whatever, and b-bottle me up or something? Could you hide me inside of you and then let me go? Put me b-back?”
“What are you saying?” Snow tumbled from Tony’s eyebrows as they folded in an alarmed frown. “You mean, you want Rima to steal your … your soul?”
“If it’s energy.” Eyes pooling, the girl nodded. “Yeah. Could you?”
“I don’t …” Rima faltered, looked to Tony for help. “Emma, why would you even think …”
“Because what if she does come?” Tears swelled over the girl’s cheeks. “If I’m … you know … dead, then maybe she’ll leave me alone!”
“No.” Aghast, Tony crushed the weeping girl close. “Never. We have you, Emma. You’re our charge, yeah? Our chuckaboo? ’sides, you heard Meme. They never once mentioned you. Don’t even know about you.”
“They have to, if they’re working together. Only a matter of time before they figure it out.” Ice-tears pebbled the girl’s jaw. “And I don’t trust Meme. Bode d-does, but you know he shouldn’t.”
Blast, why does she have to be so observant? Doesn’t miss a trick. Rimes of hoar frost clung to Rima’s muffler where her breath had first condensed and then iced. Now that she’d stopped moving, her many layers of clothing, saturated with sweat, were already beginning to freeze. “What are you talking about?” she asked, knowing full well what the girl was saying. “Why would you say that?”
“Come on, Rima, I’m not dumb,” Emma said. “I saw your face. When you l-looked through the panops?”
“She’s right.” Small bits of ice rained from Tony’s lashes and eyebrows when he scrubbed his face. “I did, too. The name’s wrong, but you know it was her. I r-recognized her from the dream.” He paused. “And we let Bode go, no warning.”
He’d have done it anyway. What was more, Rima suspected Bode must know, even if the name was wrong. Why would that be, though? Ours were all the same: two Rimas, two Tonys, two Bodes. “Once he’s got his head in harness …”
“He don’t back down. I know. But Emma’s right. Wh-why did you keep cutting me off, not let me tell him?”
Because so many other things are right. She didn’t understand this Many Worlds business or Nows, but there were the glasses, and she believed in doubles leading their own lives. There was the nightmare they all shared, after all. “Since you’re both so observant, did either of you see the way she looked at him? She likes Bode. Cares for him. Her coming out wasn’t never for us or the other T-Tony.” And what of the other me? She said that Rima’s world is a shambles. But why? Because that Rima’s not there? “She did it for Bode, pure and simple.”
“So what did you see?” Tony asked. “When you looked at Meme through the glasses?”
“Nothing,” she said.
From the way the little girl’s eyes narrowed, she thought Emma understood at once, or at least had an inkling. Tony only frowned and blinked away ice. “Yes, you did,” he said. “I know you. You went white as salt. So what did you see?”
He really didn’t understand. “Exactly what I just said: I saw …” All at once, her skin prickled, the hair standing on end along her arms and the back of her neck. “Oh boy.” Emma jerked a look not at the sky but the ground. “You f-felt that, too?”
“Yes.” She followed the girl’s gaze. Something about to happen. The premonition was very strong, a physical ache like the dig of a claw at her throat.
“What?” Tony’s head swiveled right and left. “Felt … oh.” Eyes wide, Tony released them and chafed his arms. “I’m all pins and nee—”
Beneath her feet, Rima felt the sudden slip and sideways shift of the earth, and then the sound again, the one she’d heard at the guardhouse: that low grumble as the ground shook. Another quake? Cutting above the wind’s howl, their cart let out a high squeal. To her horror, a spiderweb of fine fissures and cracks sketched themselves over the snow, and she saw the right wheel begin to lurch and tremble.
“Get back!” Launching himself, Tony threw his arms round them both, pushing them back into the snow just as the cart’s wheel plummeted in a precipitous drop with the roll of the earth. To the left, a huge block of compressed snow lifted at the same moment, thrusting up like an iceberg in a white sea. The cart went down at a slant, the bagged bodies they’d roped down slithering like fish on a wet deck. Whether it was the sudden weight or the unbalanced load, the wheel shattered, its spokes buckling in loud cracks.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The shuddering stopped. A plume of pulverized snow quickly dissipated in the wind.
“Are you all right?” Tony’s voice was as broken as the snow. Rima could feel his heart banging against hers. “Rima? Emma?” Tony looked to his left where Emma had come to rest about a half foot away. “You hurt?”
“I’m okay.” Emma sounded breathless. “You guys?”
“Fine.” But she was also afraid to move. Whether it was their combined weight or the fractured snow, they’d come to rest a good foot below the surface. Looking up, she thought, was like getting a corpse’s-eye view of the world.
“That’s two tremors,” Tony said. “Why n-now?”
“Maybe it’s the end,” she said.
“No.” It was Emma. “I think it m-might be something else. Remember your nightmare? What happened when that other R-Rima got into that big fight on the snow?”
“Yes, it broke. You think …”
“Yeah, same space. Too many of us bunched together, like a crowd on thin ice. This Now can’t take the pressure. I bet there’s more than just the other Tony here now. Maybe”—Emma slicked her lips—“maybe another me. You know … grown up? Like the girl in your dream? Or maybe they found the other Bode?”
“Whichever it is, we really need to go.” Rima didn’t know if Emma was right, but two quakes in one day and in roughly the same spot were bad no matter what. Belatedly, she realized that she’d not heard the collapse of bricks or the squaw of metal. No shouts either. So they really must be quite a distance out from even the derelict criminal wings, unless the storm muffled all sound.
“Come on.” Struggling from the divot they’d made in the snow, Tony extended a hand to pull her out. “Snow’s stopped,” he said.
“What?” She felt a kick of hope that quickly faded. Their cart had come to rest at a forty-five-degree angle. Its left wheel had popped clear of the snow. Most of the bodies had tumbled out, though a few hung over the cart’s lip like partially opened jackknives. But we’re all right. The sky had brightened to a muzzy gray, and no one had come for them. “I think the cart’s ruined,” she said, then frowned and scrubbed at her eyes. “Must have hit my head. Snow’s all wobbly.”
“No, look at the cart, it’s …” Tony touched it with a finger. “Solid, but do it look to you like it’s underwater?”
That was exactly it. “A glimmer,” she murmured. “I saw the same thing right before the cat—”
“Jack!” Gasping, Emma floundered to her feet. “Jack? Ja—” She stopped. “Guys.” She backed up a slow step. “Guys?”
“What …” And then Tony pulled in a sharp breath. “Oh shite.”
“Uh-huh.” Emma’s voice had almost no substance at all. Air was weightier.
“Dear God,” Rima said—because, yes, the snow had stopped.
But now the fog was there.