What happened here? How could these people be so different from what House had shown her? Then she remembered what the shadow-man had said, right before he faded: that she mustn’t hang on too long or let the creeping black that was the whisper-man reach her. He called it an infection. That must be what he meant: something of the whisper-man, a creature of the Dark Passages, remains bound to the blood. She had been bleeding, her skin torn and slashed by the birds. Worse, the whisper-man had already used her before, many times over, whisking her away in blinks to other timelines, different Nows. So had this final exposure to the whisper-man’s energy, his blood, been enough to tip the balance?
Or could this be something different? McDermott was always worried about the characters he didn’t finish infecting other book-worlds and Nows. She’d assumed it meant breaking a Now in the same way that the snow had disintegrated around Eric and Casey and the others, but these people … Her eyes darted to Graves’s artificial one, that nurse’s prosthetic hand. Kramer’s mask. Was this what McDermott meant?
Am I to blame for this?
She had to get out of here. There must be something like the Dickens Mirror here; there had to be. Maybe that’s why House showed me this before. The bell jar’s the key. She threw a glance at the dead-eyed, stuffed cockatoo under glass. Got to get back to the domed chapel, get out onto the roof, and then … Would a slit-mirror appear as it had before? Maybe not. This reality, this Now, was very different from what she’d been shown. Still, she had the cynosure; felt the weight of it between her breasts, on Eric’s beaded chain with his dog tags. So not everything’s disappeared; but why don’t I have skull plates anymore? Because this was where she belonged? This was her true and real Now?
“Oh.” She inhaled. A different Now meant a different version, another Emma. Had she then slipped into that Emma’s body? She remembered that deflated, flat feeling before everything snapped into focus. Yes, that would explain what was happening here. But wasn’t there something wrong with that? If this body belonged to a different Emma … Then why don’t I have her memories? Where is she?
Here. A wisp of sound drifted past her right ear, light as the decaying mist of a dying dream. Here.
“What?” She jerked her head around for a wild look. There was only the dead cockatoo, with its eternal stare, in a shell of glass. “Where? Where are you? Who’s there?”
“Elizabeth,” Kramer began.
The breathy voice, so small, came again: Here. Something stirred, like the creepy-crawly scuttle of spider’s legs, in the middle of her mind. And who am I? No, the question is who—
“Are … you.” That spidery scuttle had worked its way onto her tongue, and now it clambered, a leg at a time, over the fence of her teeth to move her mouth, form words with this new strange voice: “Wh-who … are …” Stop, stop! Choking, she clapped a hand over her mouth. Don’t let it win. Be quiet, be quiet! Oh, but the urge to speak, let this thing squatting in the center of her mind have its say, was ferocious, like a burn. I am me, she thought back to whatever this was, fiercely grinding this alien presence under the boot of her will, killing it, killing it. I am Emma, and I don’t hear you, I don’t know who you—
“Are you in pain, Elizabeth?” Kramer oozed forward. “Maybe a tonic …”
“No!” She whipped the knife down, and Kramer stopped dead in his tracks. But she was grateful for the distraction—for anything that might muffle that spidery little voice. “Just back off and let me think. Don’t push me, don’t crowd me!”
“Of course.” Without turning, Kramer put up a hand, and Weber, who’d been sidling closer, stopped as well. “Let’s not get excited.”
Oh, easy for you to say. This was a different London, but Jasper—whether he was a Dickens creation or not—might still be her guardian. Did he have a house with a cellar? If so, there might be a door, a way into the Dark Passages. She could push through, go somewhere else, get back to her own life where there must be versions of Rima and Bode and Tony. But not Eric, and there won’t be a Casey. God, could she bring them back somehow? Might they really exist as something more than words on a page?
Worry about that when I can. Nothing will happen if I don’t get out.
“I want to go home,” she croaked. “I want to see my guardian. I want Jasper.”
“Guardian?” Despite the knife, Kramer sidled just a touch closer. “Elizabeth, we’ve spoken about this at great length. You have no guardian and no home to which you may return.”
“No …?” She felt that sudden flower of hope wilt. “Listen to me, please. I’m fine. All I need is to get out of here. I only want to go … to go …” She pulled in a short, hard breath at a sudden pop of memory.
“Go where?” Kramer said. “Where would you go, Elizabeth?”
Lizzie. She would find Lizzie and her mother, Meredith. In one of her Lizzie-blinks, there had been talk of London and something bad happening that they couldn’t reverse. Was this it? Had to be. She and Lizzie were tangled, so the chances were good the McDermotts were here, in this London. Wait, hadn’t Lizzie and her mother left for several months? To go where? But if I can find them, find McDermott, I’ve got a chance …
“Elizabeth?” Kramer prodded. “Tell us which home you mean.”
“My … house, of course.” If he asked where, she was screwed, but if she had a life in this Now, she must live somewhere. She hurried on. “Where I live.”
“And where is that?” When she didn’t reply, Kramer said, “Or don’t you remember that there is no longer a home to which you may return?”
Something about the way he said that made a cold knot form where her stomach ought to have been. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then let me refresh your memory. Do you remember going down … what did you call it … such a curious phrase …” Battle pulled his brows together in a frown. “Down cellar?”
Oh Jesus. Okay, be calm; you can talk your way out of this, if you just stay calm. “Yes, of course I remember,” she said, carefully. “I went down cellar to look for a book.”
“So you say.” Battle’s icy gaze stroked a shiver. “But do you recall what you found instead? You discovered a … what did you call it? Ah, yes, a gateway, correct? A secret passage to other realms filled with beings that exist between worlds?”