Chapter 10 #3
His brothers moved, too, stood up from their chairs and pulled something from under the desk.
Another board, except this one was atop a low table with small wheels underneath.
The surface was pale wood veined with dark lines, and on my side of it there was this shallow indentation in the shape of a hand, the edges of it that had once been sharp now smoothed over, probably with use.
On the other side, near the three men all standing by the board now, rose a narrow spindle, no thicker than a finger, topped with a wheel. No markings, no nothing on it—just a needle resting against its edge.
The guy who’d made me spin the needle said, “Your hand, Miss Reese.” And he pointed down at the indentation on my side of the board.
“What for?” I instinctively brought my hand to my chest, as if to keep it safe.
“To pay the entry price. Without it, the mask cannot be worn.”
I shook my head again and again—why was everything so confusing? “What mask?!”
He leaned down, his expression never once changing, and he grabbed something from underneath his side of the table.
It was a mask indeed, possibly the most beautiful accessory I’d ever seen.
Its color was a dark cherry red, with black satin strings attached to the sides, so smooth they looked like liquid.
It was a big mask, too, meant to cover more than half the face.
The edge of it went all the way below the nose to shield the upper lip of its wearer, and it was shaped the right way, too.
The holes of the eyes, however, were shaped like a cat’s. The thing looked brand new.
“It’s a masquerade?” I wondered.
“It is, indeed. And to enter, you must pay the price you yourself picked.” He looked at the heart-shaped spinner.
“Memories,” I said, only I sounded like I was choking.
“Precisely. Two bad memories, and one neutral. Three,” said the man, his voice never changing tone, never lowering or rising. It was kind of unnerving.
“How would I do that? I’ve never paid for anything with a memory before.”
“We will do it for you, Miss Reese. You simply put your hand in place, think of the memories you want us to see, and we will do the rest.” He spoke like he was reciting words off a page.
“Will it hurt?” A silly thing to ask, but I was trying to be as prepared as I could be; otherwise, I was going to go running right through those curtains again to the darkness that would lead me outside.
Would it, though?
“Perfectly painless,” said the man, while the others looked up at me from over their glasses and waited without so much as a movement.
“And what…what happens to my memories then? Where will they go?”
“With you, of course. They will go with you,” the man said.
“I see.” Well, I supposed, that wasn’t so bad, was it? If I gave them my memories, and they still remained with me, I supposed it wasn’t bad at all.
And before I could talk myself out of it, I leaned over the table and pressed my hand right on the indentation. To the Everstill with it—I had no other option. March would be in there already. The others would be beyond those doors, and I wasn’t going to run away now. Not when I’d made it this far.
Besides—what could possibly go wrong? It was the Turning Trials. I was perfectly safe.
“What now—oh!”
There was no pain, just like the man promised, but there was a warmth that spread from the wood and to my hand, inward, sinking right into my skin. It caught me by surprise.
They didn’t mind the little scream, though. The two men who’d hunched over the other side only began to turn the wheel together.
As they did, the needle began to spin.
“The memories, Miss Reese. Think of the memories,” said the other. “The first bad memory you want to give…”
A bad memory. What madness—what kind of a bad memory did I want to pay with?
My mind worked even while I was still not twelve-hours certain that I wanted to be thinking about anything, and before the second was over, a bad memory was already spinning in my head, one of many.
One of me standing in the woods south of our house, kicking trees. Thrashing. Crying. Screaming until my throat hurt.
I’d done it plenty of times, that same thing, in the past two years. It was the only place I could go to cry, to let it all out, to be by myself without worrying who might hear or see me. Without worrying who might think (or perhaps notice?) that I’d lost my mind.
It was easy to see the blurry view of the oak trees, tall and proud and dark, and to hear my own voice, and to feel that all-consuming helplessness and uselessness and worthlessness…
A pressure began in the palm of my hand—again, no pain. Still, I tried to pull back instinctively, only to find that I couldn’t. It was like my skin was attached to the surface of the wood, and the board was humming softly, too, and there at the front of the indention, something had begun to glow.
Strings of light were forming right at the edge, over a small hole I hadn’t even noticed before, just over my middle finger. Fine, luminous filaments were slipping out of the hole slowly, and they lengthened and traveled down the dark lines of the table’s surface, all the way to the other side.
I watched in awe as the thin strings funneled upward toward the needle—which was working still, but it didn’t stab the light. It wound it.
Time’s Teeth, I’d never seen anything like it. The light was wrapping around it in tight coils. It was becoming a thread right before my eyes—and fast.
By the time all the strings had reached the needle, a thread the length of my pinky finger made of that glowing white light hung on the wheel, and the man reached slowly to pick it up with a small metal hook. He was careful with it, making sure he didn’t touch the thread with his bare skin.
One of the others held the mask steadily in both hands for him, and he settled the thread on the edges of the left eyehole. The thread hissed a little when it touched the fabric, then merged onto it like it had finally found its place.
My mouth opened and closed but no word came to mind.
“Another, Miss Reese. The second bad memory,” the man said, as his friends began to spin the wheel again, and he held his hook up, prepared.
The second memory that came to my mind wasn’t one I’d consider bad. More like painful, but that’s what took over the center of my mind for a split second.
By the time I attempted to think of another that would better qualify as bad, the pressure and the warmth had spread on my palm, and another batch of light strings were slipping out the table.
Traveling up to the wheel and the needle.
Winding into another thread, identical in shape and length and color as the first.
The man used his hook to place it around the right eyehole of the mask this time, then turned to me.
“Now, the neutral.”
The memory was just there, within my reach.
I remembered the lake near our house, the surface of it a rich green.
The octopus, I called it, because Father called it that when I was little once, and it stuck.
The lake was shaped like an octopus for real, complete with a round head and eight separate legs.
We went there for picnics all the time when I was little, and when I grew up, I went alone at least a few times a week.
In this memory I thought of now, I sat there all by myself, breathed in the scent of the water, looked up at the sky stuck in twilight for a few moments, not light but not quite dark, either.
I felt the softness of the grass beneath me, and I didn’t think.
Didn’t feel. Didn’t dream or dread or worry. I just was.
The heat lasted but a second, and then the top of the table was flooded with light once more. The strings did the same thing, wound around the needle, turned themselves into a thread, and the man put it over the first that was still glowing around the left eyehole of the mask.
When he was done, he turned to me. “Your price has been paid in full.”
Suddenly he came toward me, while his friends pushed the wheeled table underneath their desk again. It was done. It was over.
Before I knew it, the mask was on my face.
The threads still glowed on the outside, but they didn’t bother me.
The man went behind me to tie the satin laces tightly.
I breathed, and air slipped through the mask with ease.
I hardly felt it against my skin, though it had looked sturdy from a distance.
To my surprise, it wasn’t—it was soft and light, a part of me already, only a few seconds in.
“Remember—in the ballroom, voices are considered an offer already given,” the man said.
Johnny had said something like it outside, too. “Yes, but I don’t really know what that m—”
Of course, he didn’t let me finish.
“You may keep the mask on until you feel it is right to give it away. If you choose wrong, the ballroom will keep you forever.”
I paused.
“Excuse me?” Did he say forever?
Surely, he was joking. He had to be, but…
The man wasn’t smiling. He was already by the black doors, handles in hand.
He turned to me and said, “Until then—enjoy the party,” and pushed both doors open all the way.