15
“Where’d you go?” Eric asked, running up quickly. “I turned around and you weren’t there!”
Melody stood next to the platter of cakes and fruit, staring down as if seeing them for the first time. She brushed his concern aside as she reached for a glass of water.
“Melody!”
“I— I don’t know,” she stammered. Her mind was clouded. Confused.
“What’s the matter with you? And why is your hair wet?”
She sipped the water, fighting back another yawn. Suddenly she was very tired. So sleepy and utterly exhausted, she could barely keep her eyes open.
“We should… The house. The bedrooms…”
She didn’t even know what she was saying. It kept eluding her.
The bedrooms. Check the bedrooms for the egg…
“We should check the bedrooms now,” Melody finally managed, “while everyone’s outside. This would be… a perfect time… to…”
Her sentence trailed off. A little alarmed, she realized that Eric was now holding her up. He guided her over to the nearest chair.
“Maybe you should lay down,” said Eric. He looked genuinely concerned. “You’re still shaken up from last night.”
She resisted that last part. “No, no I’m not. It’s just that…”
Another bone-cracking yawn. Melody looked down and her water glass was empty. Did she drink it? Her head was still spinning like a top. She didn’t feel any cooler.
“Alright,” she conceded. “Maybe I’ll just close my eyes… for only a minute or two. To clear my head…”
“Come on,” said Eric. “You’ve been running around that maze like you’re Pac-Man, being chased by ghosts and—”
“Wait…” she said tiredly. “H—How do you know I was in the maze?”
“I’m taking you up to your room,” Eric said, ignoring her. “You need to rest.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No, not my room.” Her breathing was slow now, very even and deep. “I—I’ll be fine right here. This is… fine…”
Her head lolled back against the frame of the little antique chair. She blinked and was staring up at the whitewashed ceiling of the Sun Parlor, at all the tiny knots and imperfections and scratches in the wood. Her eyelids felt like they had weights dangling from them. Weights that seemed to weigh a thousand pounds a piece.
“I… just… need to…”
And then she was out.
Melody dreamed. And in her dream, she wasn’t alone.
She was back in her room, back in the uncomfortable little bed she hadn’t slept in last night. It was pitch dark, except for the moonlight. She had no blankets, no sheets or comforter. She had no clothes on either, and yet for some reason she wasn’t cold.
SKRIIIIIIT!
She bolted upright, and suddenly Melody was wide awake. Her heart pounded in her chest. She listened again for the noise, struggling to hear it, hoping not to hear it again but listening for it anyway.
But then it came, only this time it was a different noise entirely. One that was very close by. Just on the other side of her room…
The knob to her door was rattling.
Melody reached for the covers and came up with nothing. She looked around the room, desperate to find something — her underclothes, the ball gown, anything at all — but her little bedchamber was totally stripped bare. Even her chamberpot and wash basin were gone.
“Eric?”
Her voice was so loud against the silence it seemed to split the night. No answer. The little antique knob kept twisting and turning, revolving left and right. Trying to reach that point at which it would draw back the latch bolt and allow the door to open…
“ERIC!”
She jumped up now, alarmed, and was horrified when something on the other side of the room moved. Melody’s gaze shot over quickly, afraid to both see and not see. Relief flooded through her as she realized it was only the mirror.
Oh my God…
She was naked in the mirror. Naked and disheveled, her feet and legs covered in mud. But there was something different too. Something about her face…
The knob rattled, this time hard. The whole frame of the door shook.
Slowly, unable to look away, Melody approached the mirror. In her reflection, the left side of her face seemed somehow distorted. Sort of like in a funhouse mirror, but not quite. It was almost as if part of the mirror had melted, yet when she looked at it the glass was smooth and unwarped and unblemished.
Your eye. Look at your eye!
She did. In the reflection, her left eye seemed somehow bigger than her right. Darker too. Like she couldn’t find the iris… like her entire eye was all pupil, all black, with just a little bit of white left in the sclera.
The knob rattled again, but this time she ignored it. All of her attention was focused on the mirror. Melody reached up with one hand and pulled down on her eyelid. Reached up with the other and pulled upward, too.
Her eye grew wider, even stranger still. And now there was something inside the pupil — an image or negative image embedded against the glossy black surface. Her eye was like liquid ink. Velvety black ink with ripples that shimmered when she touched it, when she began sliding her fingernail slowly through the liquid surface…
There was no pain, only fascination. No fear, only the thrill of impending discovery. There was something she needed to see. Something that needed to see her. Melody’s face was inches away from the mirror now. Centimeters. Her nose was touching it, all cold and dark and—
The knob clicked. The door flew open.
SKRIIIIIIT!
Something scrabbled in.
SKRIIIIIIT! SKRIIIIIIT!
Melody couldn’t look at at it — couldn’t draw her gaze away from the mirror even if she wanted to. But the thing was coming. She could see it peripherally, a shambling, horrendous thing in a vaguely familiar form.
It rushed straight at her, stirring a hot, fetid wind along with it. The smell of something rotten. Of something—
Her eye yawned open, and then she saw. She saw it all. Saw everything.
Melody’s mouth stretched wide, her throat opening in a bloodcurdling, terrifying scream…
“MELODY!”
A spike of terror split her soul, causing levels of fear she couldn’t ever have imagined. Even now it continued to grip her. Continued to squeeze its cold fist around her heart…
“MELODY WAKE UP!”
Her eyes blinked open while she was still screaming. A hand shot over her mouth. Her own hand.
“Melody it’s OKAY! It’s just a dream!” Eric was at the edge of the bed, shaking her. “Stop, please. Just stop—”
She jumped out of her bed, landing on cold, numb feet. In seconds she was at the mirror. Staring… searching…
Her eye was fine. Both eyes.
“Melody what the—”
“WHY?” she screamed at Eric. “Why did you put me back in my room!”
He was stunned by her reaction. Staring her up and down.
“You were falling asleep on your feet! I… I just thought you needed—”
“I told you not to,” she snapped. “I told you to leave me right where I was!”
She put her hand to her chest. Her heart was still pounding. Melody glanced over at her bed, then turned quickly away. She knew it was silly, but for some reason it bothered her to even look at it.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Really, I am. I— I didn’t know…”
He opened his arms and she went to him, still shivering. The heat and strength of his body was reassuring. The dream faded as she allowed him to hold her, stroking her hair.
“How long was I asleep?”
Eric didn’t answer. Instead he held her against his chest, rubbing her on the back, soothing her with his slow, rhythmic breathing. Melody noticed the sky was darker — much darker than before. It was almost night.
She pushed abruptly away from him and stood up straight.
“What the—”
“It’s almost supper,” said Eric.
“Supper?” Her voice was frantic. She couldn’t spend another night here! How could it already be evening again? Could she really have slept that long?
The window of opportunity is small and narrow…
Xiomara’s voice, warning her before she even got started.
And rapidly closing…
“We have to find the egg!” Melody cried, rubbing her eyes. “Tonight, Eric! Right now!”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” Eric told her. “We don’t even know wh—”
“Lady Neveux. She has it.”
A glimmer of light passed through Eric’s eyes, like the flash of headlamps from some passing car.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you know that?” he went on. “Who told you th—”
“I just know.”
Her companion scratched his chin for a moment, staring down at his feet. When he looked up at her again, he seemed determined.
“Tonight then,” he said. “The Lady should be at dinner with us. If the egg’s not with her, we go looking for it immediately afterward.”
“Come hell or high water,” Melody agreed.
Eric looked back at her solemnly. He held up his hand in some kind of promise or Boy Scout’s salute.
“Come hell or high water.”