A Million Worlds with You
Page 11
Even if she does know, though, her future traps will probably take longer to spring. Not only does she need time to leap out, but she also needs time for me to leap in, if she’s going to have any chance of killing me, too.
From now on, the situations she puts me in will be less immediately terrifying. I have to remember: the danger is the same.
So, first order of duty—get out of here.
I start crawling forward, moving toward the uncertain light. Sand grits beneath my hands and knees. It’s so dim in here that I can’t see any doorway. No windows either. The air is cool, almost cold, and it smells musty. This has to be what it’s like to be buried alive . . .
A chill runs along my spine. Pull it together, I tell myself as I keep going. You can see firelight, right? Fire requires oxygen to keep burning. As long as it burns, you have air.
I reach a sharp angle in the passageway, and finally I see a door. The wood is old, worn, and dry, and there doesn’t seem to be a handle, but this has to be Wicked’s way in and my way out. I slide my fingers around the door’s ragged edge, where there’s just enough space for me to get a grip on it and pull forward. With one big tug, I feel the door give way—
—and the wall caves in, tumbling over and around me, a tsunami of sand.
I scream until sand falls into my throat. Coughing and spitting, I try to wriggle out of the crush, but dirt and sand just keep coming, burying my legs and immobilizing me. Even if I’m not completely smothered, I won’t be able to escape without digging myself out—and if the stuff pins my arms, too, I really will be buried alive.
Then I hear a voice echoing in the distance. “Marguerite?”
Paul. My heart floods with relief. “Yes! Help me! It’s all falling in!”
Another voice, this one my father’s. “Hold on! And whatever you do, stay still!”
I freeze. As hard as it is to let the sand keep tumbling over me, the pace slows the longer I don’t move. I can hear scraping and motion not far away. My heart still pounds with terror, but at least now I know help is coming. Wicked failed. I’m going to get out of this . . .
A shape emerges within the sand—something solid jerking forward through the avalanche of grit, more defined as it gets closer. It falls toward me and oh my God it’s a dead body.
I can’t help it. I scream and try to scramble backward, unleashing new waves of heavy sand over me. Now I’m buried to the waist, but that is not nearly as horrifying as the dead person leaning toward me. His—her—its corpse is dark and desiccated, hardly more than a skeleton. Pelvis, sternum, and half an arm are all falling apart right on top of me. Worst of all is its open-mouthed death’s grin and its empty eyes.
“Marguerite!” I turn my head to see my father crawling toward me. In the distance I can just glimpse a wooden ladder, and I realize that the light was coming from above. What underground death trap did Wicked bring me to? It doesn’t matter as much now that Dad is here. In the distance I see a pair of legs descending the ladder and know that Paul will soon be with me too.
When my dad reaches my side, I grab his hand. I’d hug him if it weren’t for the fact that I’m scared of collapsing yet more sand and burying us both. “Please, get me out of here.”
“In a moment, sweetheart. We’ve got to shore up this part of the wall first.” Dad seems totally at ease, which I should maybe find more soothing than I do. The firelight flickering behind us catches his wire-rimmed spectacles, hiding his gaze.
With one hand I gesture toward the grotesque skeleton dangling in the sand, held together by some kind of garment or bandages. “But—this—”
Dad grins. “Amazing, isn’t it? Just think, you found it all on your own!”
Over my father’s shoulder I can see Paul’s silhouette as he crawls toward us both. Paul seems to be carrying along some boards or metal bars, stuff they can use to build a barrier to replace the door I tore away.
The door Wicked meant for me to tear away so I’d bury myself alive. Knowing that I fell into her trap feels even worse than being face-to-face with this skeleton.
That doesn’t make the skeleton any easier to deal with. I imagine I can smell its rotting flesh, even though it must have decayed years ago. Decades, even—or centuries—
“We told you specifically not to chance this area until we’d worked on it some more,” my dad says. He’s not angry. His fascination with my grisly find has cheered him beyond any need to scold me. “Whatever were you thinking?”
“I—got confused. I thought you meant one of the others.” That explanation ought to work—it usually does. In every universe, everywhere, people just plain screw up.
Dad seems satisfied, anyway. He pets my shoulder. “You must be more careful, Marguerite. But I have to admit, there’s a bright side—we’ll put you down as the discoverer! You may wind up the most illustrious family member in the trade.”
Since when is my family in the “trade” of digging up rotting corpses?
Paul finally crawls into view. The narrow passageway doesn’t allow him to come around Dad and reach my side, but right now it’s enough to see him; the firelight paints his face in rich, warm gold. Paul wears a white linen shirt, olive-colored pants, and high boots—just like Dad, it seems. The line of his neatly trimmed beard accents the sharp angles of his jaw. Paul’s trim beard reminds me of Lieutenant Markov in Russia—and as always, thinking of Lieutenant Markov tightens my throat, makes me close my eyes.
When I open them again after only a moment, I can tell that Paul looks concerned and a bit confused—not relieved. If this were my Paul, and he had already followed me to this universe, he would be grateful to see me alive and well. He’d understand how I’d wound up in a place so dangerous my parents specifically warned me against it. So it’s this world’s Paul who has come to rescue me.
Mine must have remained in the Londonverse, waiting for a dead body to be dredged from the Thames.
That grisly image lingers in my mind for the few minutes it takes Paul and Dad to reinforce the wall. They dig the mummy out first, then me. Priorities, people. But I’m too relieved to see them, and my anger is reserved for the person who deserves it. For Wicked.
I bet she deliberately questioned my parents about the most dangerous places to go and went straight there, I think, while Paul’s broad hands scoop away the sand from my legs. If Dad and Paul hadn’t been close to the edge of the tunnel when I screamed for help, her plan could’ve worked. I could easily have been suffocated by sand. This world’s Marguerite and I would have died together.
From now on, the situations she puts me in will be less immediately terrifying. I have to remember: the danger is the same.
So, first order of duty—get out of here.
I start crawling forward, moving toward the uncertain light. Sand grits beneath my hands and knees. It’s so dim in here that I can’t see any doorway. No windows either. The air is cool, almost cold, and it smells musty. This has to be what it’s like to be buried alive . . .
A chill runs along my spine. Pull it together, I tell myself as I keep going. You can see firelight, right? Fire requires oxygen to keep burning. As long as it burns, you have air.
I reach a sharp angle in the passageway, and finally I see a door. The wood is old, worn, and dry, and there doesn’t seem to be a handle, but this has to be Wicked’s way in and my way out. I slide my fingers around the door’s ragged edge, where there’s just enough space for me to get a grip on it and pull forward. With one big tug, I feel the door give way—
—and the wall caves in, tumbling over and around me, a tsunami of sand.
I scream until sand falls into my throat. Coughing and spitting, I try to wriggle out of the crush, but dirt and sand just keep coming, burying my legs and immobilizing me. Even if I’m not completely smothered, I won’t be able to escape without digging myself out—and if the stuff pins my arms, too, I really will be buried alive.
Then I hear a voice echoing in the distance. “Marguerite?”
Paul. My heart floods with relief. “Yes! Help me! It’s all falling in!”
Another voice, this one my father’s. “Hold on! And whatever you do, stay still!”
I freeze. As hard as it is to let the sand keep tumbling over me, the pace slows the longer I don’t move. I can hear scraping and motion not far away. My heart still pounds with terror, but at least now I know help is coming. Wicked failed. I’m going to get out of this . . .
A shape emerges within the sand—something solid jerking forward through the avalanche of grit, more defined as it gets closer. It falls toward me and oh my God it’s a dead body.
I can’t help it. I scream and try to scramble backward, unleashing new waves of heavy sand over me. Now I’m buried to the waist, but that is not nearly as horrifying as the dead person leaning toward me. His—her—its corpse is dark and desiccated, hardly more than a skeleton. Pelvis, sternum, and half an arm are all falling apart right on top of me. Worst of all is its open-mouthed death’s grin and its empty eyes.
“Marguerite!” I turn my head to see my father crawling toward me. In the distance I can just glimpse a wooden ladder, and I realize that the light was coming from above. What underground death trap did Wicked bring me to? It doesn’t matter as much now that Dad is here. In the distance I see a pair of legs descending the ladder and know that Paul will soon be with me too.
When my dad reaches my side, I grab his hand. I’d hug him if it weren’t for the fact that I’m scared of collapsing yet more sand and burying us both. “Please, get me out of here.”
“In a moment, sweetheart. We’ve got to shore up this part of the wall first.” Dad seems totally at ease, which I should maybe find more soothing than I do. The firelight flickering behind us catches his wire-rimmed spectacles, hiding his gaze.
With one hand I gesture toward the grotesque skeleton dangling in the sand, held together by some kind of garment or bandages. “But—this—”
Dad grins. “Amazing, isn’t it? Just think, you found it all on your own!”
Over my father’s shoulder I can see Paul’s silhouette as he crawls toward us both. Paul seems to be carrying along some boards or metal bars, stuff they can use to build a barrier to replace the door I tore away.
The door Wicked meant for me to tear away so I’d bury myself alive. Knowing that I fell into her trap feels even worse than being face-to-face with this skeleton.
That doesn’t make the skeleton any easier to deal with. I imagine I can smell its rotting flesh, even though it must have decayed years ago. Decades, even—or centuries—
“We told you specifically not to chance this area until we’d worked on it some more,” my dad says. He’s not angry. His fascination with my grisly find has cheered him beyond any need to scold me. “Whatever were you thinking?”
“I—got confused. I thought you meant one of the others.” That explanation ought to work—it usually does. In every universe, everywhere, people just plain screw up.
Dad seems satisfied, anyway. He pets my shoulder. “You must be more careful, Marguerite. But I have to admit, there’s a bright side—we’ll put you down as the discoverer! You may wind up the most illustrious family member in the trade.”
Since when is my family in the “trade” of digging up rotting corpses?
Paul finally crawls into view. The narrow passageway doesn’t allow him to come around Dad and reach my side, but right now it’s enough to see him; the firelight paints his face in rich, warm gold. Paul wears a white linen shirt, olive-colored pants, and high boots—just like Dad, it seems. The line of his neatly trimmed beard accents the sharp angles of his jaw. Paul’s trim beard reminds me of Lieutenant Markov in Russia—and as always, thinking of Lieutenant Markov tightens my throat, makes me close my eyes.
When I open them again after only a moment, I can tell that Paul looks concerned and a bit confused—not relieved. If this were my Paul, and he had already followed me to this universe, he would be grateful to see me alive and well. He’d understand how I’d wound up in a place so dangerous my parents specifically warned me against it. So it’s this world’s Paul who has come to rescue me.
Mine must have remained in the Londonverse, waiting for a dead body to be dredged from the Thames.
That grisly image lingers in my mind for the few minutes it takes Paul and Dad to reinforce the wall. They dig the mummy out first, then me. Priorities, people. But I’m too relieved to see them, and my anger is reserved for the person who deserves it. For Wicked.
I bet she deliberately questioned my parents about the most dangerous places to go and went straight there, I think, while Paul’s broad hands scoop away the sand from my legs. If Dad and Paul hadn’t been close to the edge of the tunnel when I screamed for help, her plan could’ve worked. I could easily have been suffocated by sand. This world’s Marguerite and I would have died together.
