Masque of the Red Death (12 page)

“One child without a mask. That’s dangerous.” His voice is soft. I got the mask. Finn died. Neither of us ever forgets.

I want, right now, to ask Father if he blames me. If he thinks that I was right to make a vow that keeps me from happiness, and from Will. But what would I do if he said yes? How could I live with the guilt? And if he said no, how could I ever trust him again?

“I’m glad you don’t think you’re in love with the prince’s nephew,” he says, and then there is silence except for the guards shuffling their feet and the waves hitting the dock. I’m glad I’m not in love with Elliott, too. That would be … disastrous.

Some part of me believes that Father is preparing to say something meaningful and deep, but when he finally breaks the silence, all he says is, “I always wanted a house overlooking the water. The sea intrigues me.”

He’s changing the subject. I can taste my disappointment as surely as I taste the salt in the mist from the sea.

“Do you think there will ever be peace in the city?” My voice sounds normal. Conversational.

“I used to think that we were capable of learning from our mistakes. But now I’m not so sure. The only thing that might hold us together is if we find other people.”

He gestures toward the shiny new ship.

“Do you think…” My voice shakes a little. “Do you think there are other people out there? Towns and cities that survived the plague?” He is the scientist who saved all of humanity.

“It seems impossible that the germs reached every place. In fact, we may take germs to new destinations.”

“We could give people masks. The factory has been destroyed, but we know how to make them.”

“We didn’t even give them freely to our own people. Why would our benevolent prince give them to others?”

The guards are too far away to hear Father’s treasonous words.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a child sitting at the edge of the pier with his legs dangling, looking out at the steamship. He is the same color as the rotting pier, all browns and nondescript shadows. I take two steps forward and hold out the apple.

The boy stares at me for a moment. Unlike the children in the market, he does not associate us, and our entourage of guards, with free food. He does not put out his hand, but after a long moment of staring at the apple in my hand, he snatches it and then sits there, clasping it like a great prize.

The thud of running feet startles all of us, and we turn to see a man in a brown robe running across the pier. When he sees that he has our attention, he screams. “Science will destroy us!” His robe falls back to reveal bright purple bruises and seeping wounds. He raises his hand. A black scythe has been tattooed onto the palm.

I grab Father’s arm just as a guard dives in front of us. The other guards move in carefully. They don’t want to touch the man.

I stare at him, amazed. His robes are not enough to hide the extent of the illness. He should be dead.

His unmasked face is twisted with hatred. The guards shove musket barrels in his face. They won’t risk direct contact. I adjust my mask to be sure I’m not breathing the same air as this walking dead man, and I see one of the guards doing the same thing. They prod him, forcing him away from us. He glares at Father, and I expect him to lunge at us, but all he does is murmur, “Science has failed,” in a voice so sad and soft that we can barely hear it. And then the guards take him away.

“Don’t hurt him,” Father calls.

“Of course not, Dr. Worth.”

Father and I pretend we don’t hear a gunshot from behind the building.

“It’s going to rain,” the guard who stayed with us says.

The choppy ocean reflects the darkening sky.

We trudge back toward the Akkadian Towers.

“He had the disease,” I say in a low voice.

“Yes,” Father says. “Some of them last longer than others.”

I shudder.

The guard was right. It is beginning to rain. I think of Father’s furtive meeting in the bookshop. I could ask him if he is doing anything to endanger us. But then he might ask me the same thing. The only sound, as we walk back to the Akkadian Towers, is the raindrops falling on the sidewalk.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

T
HE DOORMAN IS BOWING AND USHERING US
into the ornate foyer of the Akkadian Towers when a movement from a doorway across the street catches my attention. Instinctively I move closer to Father. But there’s something familiar about these movements. It’s Will. My heart misses a few beats.

I’m not sure how to separate myself from Father and the guards. But it’s almost dusk, so I know Will has to get to the Debauchery Club and I don’t have time to go upstairs and slip back down.

Before I can think of a plan, I’ve been swept into the building. The guards are settling into their upholstered chairs. One of them shuffles a deck of cards.

I touch Father’s arm. “I’m going to stay in the lobby for a few moments,” I say.

Father is too dispirited to argue.

The hateful attack, followed by the gunshot that we pretended not to hear … these things take their toll.

No one seems to be watching me, so I step back outside, opening the door myself so the doorman won’t have a chance to ask questions. I hesitate in front of the building as two steam carriages pass. It’s unusual to see more than one an hour, but at this time of the evening people are looking for entertainment.

Will meets me halfway across the street. He reaches for me, but then his hands fall to his sides and he gestures me back to the alcove where he was seeking shelter from the rain. It’s the entrance to a store that closed years ago. The door is boarded up, and the display window holds nothing but dust and the disintegrating husks of insects.

A bit of fabric lies in the back corner of the alcove. I touch it with my foot. It is a small cloth cap. Whoever owned it probably slept here, out of the wind and rain. And I walked in and out of the ornate doorway across the street, never realizing that a child was living in the empty entrance of this abandoned building.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Waiting. For you.”

I feel a burst of total happiness. And then the doubt creeps in.

“Waiting?”

“Last night, after you left, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I was worried—”

The rain has evolved into a fine mist. Moisture beads dot his bare arms, and his dark hair is plastered against his face and neck.

Across the street, our doorman is taking a quick look around, pacing back and forth. He turns, speaking to someone … a guard?

“Let’s walk,” I suggest.

“Good idea,” he says. Even though he walked a very long way to get here. Even though it’s dangerous and he’ll be trudging back across town to work soon. “You’re fine?” he asks finally. “Nothing happened last night?”

I think of the terrifying ride home, ropes stretched across our path. The shattered crocodile skull.

“I’m fine.”

“The club isn’t safe for you. Not anymore,” he says. He clears his throat. “The men on the top floor rarely come downstairs. But last night they were looking for you. The girl with the violet hair. Elliott’s private rooms were ransacked.”

Elliott had the book in his hand when we left the club, but who knows what else they might have found?

“Those men were murderers before death became a daily occurrence,” he says.

I remember the old man’s eyes. Will doesn’t have to convince me that he is dangerous.

He gives me a quick look that I cannot interpret. “It seems they expected to find you in Elliott’s bedchamber.”

“How well do you know him?” I ask. “Elliott.”

We’ve reached the end of this city block and turn to walk down the alley that runs directly behind the Akkadian Towers.

“Not well. And I don’t want to know him any better than I do.”

I start to question him, but I’m distracted by something partially hidden behind a stack of wooden crates. A shoe, and when I look closely, I can see a thin ankle.

A child’s foot in a well-made boot.

It’s starting to drizzle again. No one would lie in the mud with the rain.... The boy is dead. He died in an alley so narrow that the corpse collectors cannot come for him. We are in the shadow of Akkadian Towers Building Two, the unfinished building that people say is cursed.

Will makes a sound that is somehow both horrified and unsurprised. The dead boy is wearing a mask. Perhaps he is a runaway. Or maybe he stole it. Will stares at the boy’s mask. It is pristine white, unusually clean for a child’s mask.

“I have trouble believing—,” he begins, and I know what he’s going to say.

“I know better than anyone. You can’t share.” I grab his other hand and stand facing him, though I can’t look him in the eyes. “My brother … was supposed to get the very first mask. He was frail, and Father had been especially worried about him. We’d lived underground for almost two years, trying to shield him from the air above.”

I’ve never told anyone this story. It’s difficult to find the words.

“I grabbed the mask from my father and put it over my own face. I was laughing. We laughed at odd things because we had so little to entertain us. I breathed through Finn’s mask. I didn’t know.”

I let go of Will’s hands.

“The mask became acclimated to me, the way that they do, and wouldn’t work for Finn.”

“What happened?”

“He died. When Father tried to change what he considered a malfunction in the masks, the prince told him no. He was pleased that the poor couldn’t steal them from the faces of the rich.”

Will looks at the dead boy. “It isn’t your fault,” he says. “You can’t possibly think it is.” When I don’t say anything, he takes my arm. “I didn’t walk all the way down here for you to stand in the rain and catch cold.”

He thinks I’m going to fall apart. But I won’t.

“Araby?” he begins again.

“Did you take the children downstairs early?” I ask, desperate to change the subject.

“I never went home.”

“You never went home?”

“I walked up here this morning. And waited for you. I hoped that eventually you would come outside. I didn’t realize how rarely people come and go in this part of the city.”

“You waited all day?”

“I had to. You didn’t come outside, and then when you finally did, you had guards. Listen to me. If you go back to the club, I’m afraid that you will disappear and there will be nothing I can do to help you. Elliott shouldn’t go back either. But I’m not worried about him.”

“Is that what happened to April?”

“No. I don’t think so. I saw her leaving. She must have disappeared from her carriage, outside the club.”

I won’t let myself look into his eyes.

“Who is watching the children?”

“A friend. Thank you for sending food, by the way.”

I have so many things to say to him, but it is almost dark. I know he has to go. So I don’t say anything. He’s the one who breaks the silence. “And thank you for telling me about your brother.”

When he pulls me close, there is no flirtation, no suggestion of anything except comfort. My heart beats faster anyway.

“I’m sorry that you lost him. And that you’ve chosen to punish yourself because of it.”

It was my fault. But there is no point in arguing. We are almost to the end of the alley, and I know he must leave me in just a few steps.

“Be very careful,” he says. “If you aren’t, I won’t get a chance to convince you that you are wrong.”

We are back to the front of the Akkadian Towers, and once again I’m lifting my hand without meaning to, reaching out to him, and once again he doesn’t see. He’s walking away, with his shoulders hunched against the wind and rain.

Everything is changing. April gone, the club off-limits. I don’t want to go inside, but then two of Father’s guards push through the door. The doorman looks nervous.

I smile at them all and sweep into the building. My bravado carries me up the first four flights of stairs, but with the elevator still broken it’s a long climb in near-darkness. When I stop to catch my breath, I imagine that I hear footsteps behind me.

Our hallway is empty. The courier has gone home for the night, but Mother is waiting for me, with Father standing slightly behind her.

“A message was delivered for you,” she says as soon as I step inside. She hands me an envelope sealed with red wax in the shape of an eye.

I hold the letter for several moments, not wanting to open it in front of Mother, but she is standing, waiting.

I break the seal with my fingernail and read quickly.

Had a wonderful time with you last night. We have been invited to visit Prince Prospero’s castle. I will pick you up tomorrow before noon
.

E
.

My first thought is that he must have found out something about April, but as I stare at the note I realize that the word
invited
looks odd. Holding it to the light, I can see that he started to write something else. Summoned? It isn’t really an invitation. I fold and refold the paper.

Mother rearranges roses in a jewel-encrusted vase, pretending that she isn’t watching me.

“What should I wear for a meeting with the prince?” I ask.

The vase shatters on the tile floor.

“Don’t go,” Father says. “It’s dangerous, Araby.”

“So is breathing.”

“Not in the same way. Araby—”

He’s said my name twice, within two breaths. I could almost acquiesce when he says my name like that, as if he cares.

Our front door bursts open. Two soldiers in the prince’s livery step over the threshold.

“We wanted to make sure that Dr. Worth was safe,” one of them tells us. “The prince said we should check inside the apartment periodically.” They are both carrying weapons. Inside our home. I search their uniforms for the emblem of the open eye that would indicate that they really work for Elliott. Nothing.

Mother collapses onto the couch and Father goes to her. “I’d appreciate it if you knocked next time,” he says. “My wife has a nervous disposition.” The soldiers shift from foot to foot. They are embarrassed, but not as polite as Father’s regular guards.