CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“CATALINA!” I screamed, lung-ing to-ward the limp fig-ure on the mir-rored sky-ground.
Fury and grief pro-pel-ling me for-ward, I tack-led my dop-pel-g?nger out of the way with a skele-tal ooft.
“What are you do-ing to her?” I yelled, the voice echo-ing around the labyrinth a thou-sand times in dis-tant loops.
My dop-pel-g?nger raised a bony hand and slapped me clean around the face.
“Try-ing to save her, you stupid bitch!” she snarled, wrest-ing me off her with sur-pris-ing strength.
I fell back on to my heels with a jar-ring shud-der. “She can still be saved?”
But my dop-pel-g?nger was once again hunched over Catalina, pump-ing rhyth-mi-cally on her chest. Then she brought her lips to Catalina’s, hold-ing her ski-slope nose and breath-ing air into her lungs.
For sev-eral mo-ments, I was pow-er-less to do any-thing but watch.
My thoughts and emo-tions were a fran-tic car-ni-val. Hope and fear and loss. A pe-cu-liar kind of re-lief—watch-ing even my tor-tured, starved dop-pel-g?nger work so hard to save Catalina, a girl she’d barely had the time to get to know be-fore I im-pris-oned her here … Maybe I was a good per-son, deep down.
And Catalina had seen it all along. You have a heart like a train.
Af-ter what felt like an eter-nity tee-ter-ing over a dark precipice, Catalina’s limbs thrashed sud-denly and se-verely, then she vom-ited lake wa-ter all over the floor.
“She’s alive,” I whis-pered, tears fall-ing down my cheeks. I crawled over to her. “Catalina. Catalina. I’m here.”
But she was not awake. Not con-scious. Her body was alive, but barely.
“Her pulse is thin and weak,” my dop-pel-g?nger said. The voice wasn’t how I thought I sounded. “Er-ratic. But it’s there. If we don’t get her out of here soon, though … We need a doc-tor. We need a doc-tor very, very soon.”
“She’s di-a-betic,” I mut-tered, drop-ping to the ground be-side her. I pressed my fore-head to Catalina’s and fought the urge to sob—she was blueish, mar-ble-cold. “She’s prob-a-bly hy-po-glycemic right now. She’s been down here far too long.”
“Then we need to go,” the other me said. Then she looked up at me, her ex-pres-sion so ut-terly heart-bro-ken that it re-minded me of the lit-tle girl play-ing chess against her-self. “How could you do this to me?”
“I think you did this to your-self,” I whis-pered. My mind was on a sick-en-ing fair-ground ride, and I wanted to get off. “If you’re the real me … you made this de-ci-sion.”
See-ing my-self mov-ing and talk-ing in-de-pen-dently of me … it was like star-ing into a mir-ror that had a brain of its own.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong this is so wrong—
I had never been more afraid in my life.
Streams of wa-ter slicked down the mir-rors and paint-ings, but it never pooled at the bot-tom, just van-ished into the trick floor, which was also the sky.
“We have a plan to fix this,” Mum said, so sen-si-ble and ca-pa-ble, so moth-erly. I could imag-ine this ver-sion of her dust-ing floury hands on an apron so she could help me with my home-work. “Please, lis-ten.”
“You’re you,” the dop-pel-g?nger said, sud-denly rooted to the spot. “Mum?”
“It’s me. And I love you.” Il-log-i-cal jeal-ousy coursed through me. “Al-right? I love you, and I’m here to help you.”
My dop-pel-g?nger’s eyes shone, and she nod-ded, dumb-founded with emo-tion. I knew the feel-ing.
I lis-tened as my mum ex-plained the plan, and ev-ery inch of me railed against it.
She can’t die, she can’t die, she can’t die.
But other Penny took it bet-ter than I did. Then again, she was the one who’d been stuck in this pur-ga-tory for weeks, cold and starved and ter-ri-fied. The need to es-cape must have burned far brighter in her.
I wanted so badly to re-fute my mother’s plan, to sug-gest we stay down here longer and fig-ure out an-other way, but we couldn’t.
Be-cause Catalina would die with-out im-mi-nent med-i-cal at-ten-tion.
We had to move. We had to move now.
“How are we go-ing to—” I started ask-ing, but my mother had al-ready hoisted Catalina over her shoul-der in a fire-man’s lift, the raw strength so in-con-gru-ous with the mother I’d al-ways known.
Then again, didn’t they al-ways say a mother could lift a car off a baby if they had to?
The four of us set off once more. As our bro-ken crew rounded the cor-ner, we were met with an-other fig-ure, and my stom-ach twisted again.
Blonde curls tum-bled to rounded shoul-ders. A cur-va-ceous body in a pink ging-ham swim-suit. Wa-tery pale blue eyes and plump, rose-tinted cheeks. I didn’t rec-og-nize her from the gallery.
“I heard ev-ery-thing,” she said, her voice posh and wob-bling. “Your plan to es-cape. Please. You must take me with you. I beg of you.”
“Els-beth,” my mum said softly, and it clicked into place.
Of course. The girl who went swim-ming in the lake was at-tacked by swans, and fell through the ether.
Ev-ery inch of her trem-bled.
She didn’t have a por-trait. She hadn’t made this aw-ful de-ci-sion. And yet she’d been stuck here any-way—for an un-fath-omably long time.
“Do you know how long you’ve been here?” I asked her gen-tly, as though try-ing not to spook a squir-rel into dart-ing up a tree.
But our new com-pan-ion was stead-fast. “Years.” She frowned, as though she could work it out by rote count-ing. “Decades, even. I fell through the lake in eigh-teen ninety-nine.”
I fixed a sym-pa-thetic ex-pres-sion on my face. “It’s been over a cen-tury.”
The rosi-ness blanched from her face. She shook her head ve-he-mently. “Im-pos-si-ble.”
“I’m sorry.” And I meant it. What a hor-ri-ble, hor-ri-ble thing, to slip through a crack in the uni-verse and never find your way back.
“Ev-ery-one I knew—ev-ery-one I loved … they’ll all be gone.” Her bot-tom lip wob-bled, and she bit down on her knuck-les. “They’re all dead?”
“I’m so sorry, Els-beth,” my mother said coax-in-gly. “But we can still take you with us.”
Els-beth be-gan to scream.
It was blood-cur-dling, ear-shred-ding, al-most in-hu-man. A wounded an-i-mal, a griev-ing widow, a mother who’d lost her daugh-ter. So much pain and fear that hear-ing it made your lungs crum-ple in-ward.
And then she started to lash out, pound-ing her fists against the mir-rors and walls, hair-line cracks ap-pear-ing in the sil-vered glass.
“Els-beth,” Mum shouted. Louder still, “ELS-BETH!”
No re-sponse. Els-beth be-gan slam-ming her whole body at the mir-rors, as though try-ing to smash through with sheer brute force.
Catalina still hung life-lessly over my mother’s shoul-der.
“Mum, we have to go,” I mut-tered ur-gen-tly. “We don’t have time for this. Catalina…”
“She comes first,” my dop-pel-g?nger fin-ished fiercely.
Mum nod-ded.
Leav-ing Els-beth be-hind, we hur-ried down the next cor-ri-dor, Mum’s breath-ing be-com-ing more and more la-bored as she car-ried Catalina. I watched in amaze-ment as, de-spite her ex-haus-tion, she stud-ied the panes of the labyrinth—mir-rors and paint-ings, black and white—to fig-ure out the route. She must have built an in-cred-i-ble map in her mind, like learn-ing the long-est, most com-pli-cated chess game ever played.
Af-ter a few min-utes, Els-beth’s dis-tant howls faded away. Ei-ther she had given up, or we’d moved far enough away that we could no longer hear her.
When my mother stopped dead and stared at a char-coal-gray back-ground with gold con-stel-la-tions, I knew we had reached our fi-nal des-ti-na-tion. We had marched to her ex-e-cu-tion like guards es-cort-ing a death-row pris-oner to the gur-ney.
“When the gap ap-pears, the light will be blind-ing.” Mum’s tone was low and ur-gent as she low-ered Catalina to the ground. “Mem-o-rize the size and shape be-fore-hand, close your eyes, and be ready. Waste no time. Can the two of you lift Catalina?”
My dop-pel-g?nger looked at me and nod-ded.
I stared at the back-ground of the por-trait as the con-stel-la-tions re-ar-ranged them-selves into Orion. Wa-ter slicked down it in dark, oily rivulets.
“What if it doesn’t work?” asked other Penny, and still the sound of her—my—voice made all the hairs on my spine stand on end. “What if it doesn’t work, and you die for noth-ing?”
Mum took my hand, then my dop-pel-g?nger’s, and again I had the child-ish feel-ing of not want-ing to share her. “I won’t have died for noth-ing. I will have died for you. And you are ev-ery-thing.”
As she turned to hug me, a thou-sand thoughts pin-balled through my mind.
I love you.
I need you.
I will miss you—this you—for-ever.
But I couldn’t say any of it, and nor could my mother. In-stead we just held each other and wept softly, and it felt as though these thoughts were beam-ing di-rectly into each other’s chests—a warm, painful cur-rent, both heal-ing and dev-as-tat-ing.
It was the cru-elest trick the world could have played. To give me ev-ery-thing I’d ever wanted for the briefest of mo-ments, only to make me watch as it was wrenched vi-o-lently away.
Other Penny watched, an im-pen-e-tra-ble ex-pres-sion on her face, and I swore in-wardly that I would heal her. As soon as we got through this, I would never stop heal-ing. I owed it to my mother—I couldn’t squan-der my life af-ter she had given her own for it. Right now I could not imag-ine car-ing about calo-ries, about pounds and inches, about con-trol or pun-ish-ment.
I just wanted to live.
And I wanted Catalina to live too.
Mum pulled away from me, and with a fi-nal lov-ing look, turned to face the paint-ing.
My heart writhed and jumped, and I felt its pulse in my ribs, in my tem-ples, in my throat.
Don’t do this, the lit-tle girl in-side me wailed, but I knew it had to be done. There was no other way to save Catalina—or my-self.
Mum with-drew the mir-ror shard from a hid-den fold of her dress, then stud-ied the por-trait for a long time. It must have been a strange, tor-tur-ous prospect, to end your own life with-out ac-tu-ally want-ing to end it. To force your hand to lift the blade, an-tic-i-pat-ing the pain, then the noth-ing-ness. I wasn’t sure I would have the strength to do it.
I could barely watch.
Dop-pel-g?nger Penny and I hoisted Catalina up be-tween the two of us, flank-ing her on ei-ther side. As Catalina’s head lolled onto her chest, a corkscrew curl tick-led my nose, and it was ev-ery-thing I could do not to break down and sob.
Our bod-ies were mere inches from the back of the can-vas.
Mum sucked in a fi-nal, coura-geous breath be-side me.
The mir-ror shard lifted.
I closed my eyes, an-tic-i-pat-ing the bright white flash but pray-ing it didn’t come.
It came.
Bright, brighter than any-thing, so bright it burned the back of my eye-lids.
A pierc-ing, spec-tral scream that came from nei-ther me nor my mother but from the puls-ing or-gan-ism it-self.
Don’t open your eyes. Don’t look back. Just climb.
I pressed my body for-ward, haul-ing Catalina through with us, but some-one grabbed me from be-hind. An-other feral scream, not from the por-trait but from the per-son yank-ing me back.
Mum?
No.
Els-beth.
What—?
Then I un-der-stood. She was try-ing to get through first.
And I was barely strong enough to re-sist her shoves.
Our sec-onds ran down in the strug-gle.
Please! I tried to scream at her, but my throat was too tight with ter-ror.
Other Penny’s cold, bony hands closed around mine and pulled, harder than I thought her ca-pa-ble of, and she tugged both me and Catalina through the hole in the por-trait.
Fall-ing through the ether felt like noth-ing I had ever ex-pe-ri-enced.
It was cold and sear-ing hot, nei-ther solid nor liq-uid nor mist, at once deaf-en-in-gly loud and hor-ri-bly, ab-so-lutely silent.
And then we hit solid ground.
The pol-ished hard-wood of the gallery floor.
Peel-ing my eyes open, the first thing I no-ticed was that there was only one of me.
Look-ing fran-ti-cally around, there was no sign of my dop-pel-g?nger, just Catalina slumped hor-ri-bly on the ground.
Had it worked? Had both Pen-nys be-come one? Or had Els-beth some-how hauled her back to the other side? Had this all been for noth-ing?
In the split sec-ond it took to study my mother’s evis-cer-ated por-trait, an-other head ap-peared through the hole in the ether.
Blonde curls.
Els-beth.
Her shoul-ders, then her torso, and she was nearly through, and I hated her for what she had al-most cost me, and—
The hole in the ether shrunk sharply shut, cut-ting her off at the waist.
For a sin-gle hor-rific mo-ment she was sus-pended in mid-air, eyes open in a silent wail, her body welded to the wall like a taxi-der-mied stag head.
And then she fell to the ground, her corpse sawn off at the hips.
She did not bleed, and no en-trails spilled out; it was as though the ether had cau-ter-ized her shut.
I opened my mouth and screamed like I’d never screamed be-fore.
I screamed for my mother—dead now, in ev-ery form—and for the un-speak-able hor-ror of the half body in front of me.
I screamed for Catalina, who I might not be able to save if the gallery was still locked from the out-side.
I screamed for my-self, all the ver-sions of my-self—baby and girl and young woman and dop-pel-g?nger—and ev-ery-thing we had just lost, and for the life we had just re-gained.
When the screams fi-nally ran out, and my throat was raw and hoarse and shred-ded, I crouched over Catalina’s body, press-ing my face into her soft stom-ach. She was breath-ing, but not very con-vinc-in-gly.
Please please please please please don’t die please don’t die I need you I need you I need you so much, please—
Then I heard foot-steps run-ning to-ward us.
Hope surged in my chest.
Davina, Maisie and Fraser burst through the en-trance to the gallery, all of them wet and pant-ing but alive, and they ran to-ward me and Catalina and they were talk-ing in soft, ur-gent voices, and Maisie was sprint-ing back up to the the-ater to call for help, and I couldn’t un-der-stand any of it, the fran-tic mur-murs, Fraser’s broad hand rub-bing my back, Davina cup-ping Catalina’s jaw and beg-ging her to stay with us, and I so badly needed to stay awake, stay present, to save our per-fect, per-fect friend, but my vi-sion swooped and dived, and then
ev-ery-thing
went
black.