Masque of the Red Death Read online

  Father comes out of his laboratory and takes off his goggles.

  “Is anyone ready for lunch?”

  We’re always ready for lunch. It breaks up the monotony of our day. We follow him into the kitchen, where cases of preserved goods are stacked to the ceiling. Father pours something into a bowl and puts it into the steam oven.

  “I don’t think it’s—” I try to warn him.

  There’s a loud crackling explosion, and the gas bulb dangling above us goes dark.

  “No point in fixing it, not when I’m so close to a breakthrough.” Father says this pretty much every day.

  “I’m having peaches,” Finn says. “Preserved peaches are good cold.” He isn’t angry at Father for taking us underground. For not keeping his promises and for disappearing for days on end to work on god knows what. Finn isn’t even mad at Mother for not wanting to live here with us.

  “I love peaches,” I say, because Finn brings out the best in me. Darkness and light, Father calls us.

  “I’m so lucky,” our father says. “Blessed with patient children.” His voice is shaking, and in the murky light I think I see tears in his eyes. He is looking past me, at Finn.

  There’s a knock at the door, and then it’s shoved inward and a man stands above us, silhouetted by the light shining through a front door that we haven’t stepped through in ages.

  “Dr. Worth,” the man says. “My son, he has the contagion, but he hasn’t died.... It’s been over a month.”

  He must be wrong. If you get sick you die. Everyone knows this.

  “Give me your address,” Father tells the man. “I’ll come later, when their mother is here to mind them.” So Mother is coming for a visit. That will please Finn. The man rattles off his address, his voice low and steady. As if he’s lived through so much horror that nothing can really bother him anymore.

  We return to the chessboard with one jar of peaches and two forks.

  “It’s still your move,” Finn says. “Araby?”

  I glance up at him, to see if he’s irritated yet. Is he really this inhuman, this eternally patient? But I can’t see him. The humidity is so thick, and the lantern is so dim. I strain my eyes. His calm voice resonates, but I can’t quite, can’t quite see....

  And that’s when I wake up.

  “Oh, God, how’m I supposed to carry you?” April’s voice asks. The cold air hits me and I realize that we’re outside. It’s raining. Out of the club, in open air. I feel myself begin to panic, not because I care, but because I’ve been programmed to fear the airborne contagions. I put my hand up, feel the ridged porcelain surface of my mask, and sigh with relief. I’ve worn this thing so long that I no longer feel it.

  I try to curl back up. Sleep is difficult for me, and this euphoria is a beautiful thing. Cold rain hits the bottoms of my feet. Where are my shoes?

  “You should be careful,” someone says. “It isn’t safe to be out at night.”

  “I need to get her home,” April says. The tone of her voice reminds me, not exactly of the first time we met, but of the way she tells the story. She thinks she saved my life. “We have guards. We’ll be perfectly safe.”

  If it isn’t one of the guards warning her, then who is she speaking to?

  I’m lowered onto the plush seat of April’s carriage.

  “Thanks for your help,” she says.

  “I doubt it’ll be the last time.” The velvet voice holds a hint of amusement and a hint of something else. He leans over and looks down into my face. My disorientation intensifies when my eyes focus on his. The tattoos, the dark hair. My heart speeds up. I think… I think … can a person’s heart stop if she is only seventeen years old? I suppose that if I do fall apart, my father can put me back together again.

  “You were lucky this time, baby doll. It won’t hold out, though. Luck never does.”

  Yes. I’m the lucky one. It’s something I never forget.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  I REST MY CHEEK AGAINST THE COOLNESS OF the glass window. I have been here so long that my cheek is frigid, even when I touch it with my already cold fingers. Curled on the window seat, I gaze through the window. But I’m not looking out, I’m looking in. There are two penthouses at the top of Akkadian Towers. We live in Penthouse B. The team of architects who designed this place created a lush garden between the luxuriously appointed apartments. An indoor Eden.

  Sick down to my bones, I stare into the thick tropical plant life. I’ve been dry heaving all morning.

  My mother enters the room, and though I don’t turn my head to look at her, I know what she is doing. She is wringing her hands, the slender white hands that she soaks in peppermint oil.

  A platter sits in front of me. Four types of crackers, fanned out like … well, a fan. I rub the chilled glass bottle of water against my face, leaving trails of icy condensation across my cheekbones and down my neck.

  Then a movement in the garden catches my eye. The guy from last night, the one who gave me the silver syringe, is standing with his hands in his pockets, watching me.

  But that’s impossible.

  When the world got lush and humid and the diseases started multiplying, the Akkadian Towers closed this particular garden, bricked over the doors and sealed everything with mortar.

  I sit up, but my stomach doesn’t like the sudden movement. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Expensive perfume gags me.

  “Araby?”

  Mother puts her hand on my forehead. While we hid in the cellar, she stayed here at the Akkadian Towers to play the piano. Her music calmed the rich people while they figured out if they were dying or not. When they identified someone with the Weeping Sickness, they threw them out into the street. I open my eyes.

  “Sweetie…”

  I want to curl up in her arms and cling to her, and that makes me feel worse than the drugs that my body is trying to expel.

  The world is spinning.

  “Why do you do this to yourself?” she whispers. She blows out the candles on the side table and covers me with a quilt. Light comes in through the windows, both from the outside and from the garden, which is empty now.

  Some hours later, my father comes into the room. His hair is wild and his mask is pushed up on top of his head.

  “I want you to walk with me, Araby,” he says.

  He asks me this maybe twice a week. It’s the only time he says my name. I like for him to snap out of his daydreams and remember that he still has a child. He puts on his coat and holds out mine. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, ignoring the last vestiges of queasiness, and follow him.

  As we step out of the elevator, we are approached by one of Prince Prospero’s guards, hired to keep my father safe. We all know that our scientists are our greatest assets. And our most dangerous weapons. There was a sort of chaos after the prince opened a factory to mass-produce the masks. No one knew how to respond to hope. People painted slogans on the sides of buildings. SCIENCE HAS TRIUMPHED. SCIENCE HAS FAILED. Always together, the second statement contradicting the first. The same dripping red paint used in drawing scythes on the plague-stricken houses.

  The city was a smoldering heap of rubble, and yet people crept out during the night to put messages on the sides of collapsing buildings while the rest of the populace slept peacefully or died quietly.

  “It says something about human nature,” Father said. But he never shared his interpretation—at least, not with me.

  “Where are you going, Dr. Worth?” the guard asks.

  “I’m taking a walk with my daughter,” he says.

  “We’ll arrange an escort.”

  “Just a few men. We aren’t going far.” Father toys with something in his pocket, resigned.

  We wait in the foyer while they are assembled. The fake plants are dusty. The ferns are the worst offenders.

  The first guard opens the door and the other three spread out, walking beside us. They carry short swords as well as guns, ready to protect Father from
any threat, man or beast. No matter what creatures people fear in the dead of night, in this city, violence is more likely to be carried out by men.

  “The shipyard is open again,” Father’s tone is conversational.

  “Is it?” There’s a breathless quality to my voice that someone who doesn’t know me might interpret as excitement.

  When I was a child, when Finn was alive, we loved to walk down to the harbor. This area was busy then, a giant pageant with sailors working on the ships. Father’s feet often lead him here; I don’t know if he can help himself.

  The harbor is different now. Debris litters the shore, and the blackened hulks of ships fill the bay. The mob destroyed most of them. The Weeping Sickness might have been spread from a passenger, or some rodent who arrived via ship.

  These days the fishermen use a different port, farther south, to avoid this devastation.

  I catch my breath. The afternoon sunlight gleams off the white masks of the sailors, who are outfitting a shiny new steamship.

  “She’s called the Discovery,” Father says.

  The last time a ship came into the harbor, I was ten years old. Unlike the steam-propelled ship in front of us, it had a tall mast and heavy canvas sails. It might’ve come from anywhere.

  I remember how the passengers hurried ashore, anxious for the feel of solid earth under their feet. They wore modest dresses that reached their ankles, high collars, long sleeves. When I was very young we wore such restrictive clothing, even in the heat of summer.

  But the contagion changed all that, and instead it became necessary to show as much skin as possible. Preachers denounced the new fashions, saying we would all be destroyed, even as we wondered what was left to destroy.

  I imagine that those who disembarked that day had set out from some distant shore to find hope. What they found was a mob that tore them apart before they knew what was happening. Finn and I watched, horrified.

  Mother was the one who came looking for us. We were wandering through back alleys, crying.

  The drama pulled Father from his lab. He said that the city had gone mad, and we must not go outside again until the disease had been contained. Hiding wasn’t unusual. People quarantined themselves in cellars and attics. Some families fled. Finn and I heard the adults predict, in hushed voices, that they would die in the forests, or the wilderness beyond.

  “This is good,” Father whispers now, gesturing to the gleaming ship, the Discovery. “The first good thing I’ve seen in a long time.” I love hearing the hope in his voice. “We will see what is left in the rest of the world.”

  The wind that ruffles my hair smells of salt, and white seabirds come and go.

  If I don’t look over at Father, I can imagine that Finn is standing beside me. I could lose myself to this sort of meditative state that is sometimes better than oblivion. But Father checks his pocket watch and then pulls me along; all of a sudden he’s in a hurry. He doesn’t ask questions. He stopped being interested in me a long time ago.

  We walk back toward the periphery of the old city. This part of town is a little higher than the rest, and the buildings are tall. Fairy-tale towers and spires. Security officers line the sidewalks to keep people without masks out and away. Out of sight and away from our air.

  We’re heading toward the bookshop. It’s the last one in the city, and Father makes a pilgrimage to it at least once a week, to see what treasures people have unearthed in their attics and cellars. The guards are accustomed to coming here. They gather in a circle outside the door, leaning against the wall.

  The proprietor greets Father by name while I wander up and down rows of heavy dark tomes. I browse the shelves, but as I turn a corner, I see Father standing between two men. One of them clasps Father’s hand, and then puts his own hand quickly in his pocket. I’m sure that something passed between them. The younger man sees me watching and stares back at me through thick eyeglasses, his expression unfriendly.

  I step back a few paces, nervous about this meeting.

  Suddenly the bookshop feels ominous, with its smells of earth and dampness. I wrinkle my nose in distaste. Boxes of books sit near the proprietor’s desk, but some of them are moldy. Newly excavated from some rotting cellar. I pick up a small volume of poetry while I wait for Father.

  Without meaning to, I glance back to where he is speaking to the young man. Now he’s clapping him on the back. These men have the look of scientists, but all the scientists besides Father are holed up in Prince Prospero’s castle, behind thick stone walls and barred windows, for their own protection.

  I put down the book and walk to the door. Father comes to the front of the store and makes a purchase, and then we walk outside. For a moment I’m blinded by the glare from the setting sun; it will soon be evening. This day has passed in a blur, like so many others. As my eyes adjust, I scan the alley. Our guards stand together, leaning against a wall, smoking. Above us, faces peer out of dirty windows. Two children play outside a half-open door. And there are long shadows that my eyes can’t penetrate.

  Father puts his hand on my arm, as if he can tell that I am ill at ease, but he does nothing else to comfort me. And he makes no effort to explain. I try to think of a way to ask what he’s gotten involved with, but it’s a short walk back to the Akkadian Towers and my head is aching. We leave the guards in the lobby, and the ride up to our floor is silent. Father reaches into his overcoat.

  “I thought you might like this,” he says.

  It’s the leather-bound book of poems. Either he noticed or he knew it was the sort of book I would treasure.

  “Father—” I’m standing there with my arm still extended, trying to find a way to ask what is going on without alerting the elevator attendant that Father may be committing treason, when we reach the top floor.

  The gilded door slides back, and there’s April, tapping her foot. She hates waiting.

  “You have to come with me,” she says. She’s wearing a red corset, and her hair is piled artfully on top of her head and decorated with shiny black feathers.

  I turn, ready to tell her that I’m not dressed for going out, that I don’t have the energy, and Father slips away. I’ve lost my chance to question him.

  “Elliott will be there.” April knows how curious I am about her brother. I owe him for getting me into the club.

  “I don’t know....” I gesture toward Penthouse B.

  “I doubt he’ll stay at the club for long. We need to hurry.”

  The elevator operator is watching us curiously. April holds up my bag, triumphant. “You don’t need anything else.” I tuck the book into my purse and cross my arms over my chest as we descend. She leads me through the lobby to her ridiculous steam carriage.

  The carriage is a marvel as well as a monstrosity, a gift from her uncle. The conveyance has a retractable roof that can be closed when the weather is bad so the rain won’t ruin her hair, and it’s painted white with gold inlay, like something a fairy princess would travel about in. Except that an armed guard drives it and two guards ride up front. In the back there is a boy who puts coal into the furnace that heats the water for steam.

  They say that the scientist who created this thing blew up a turret in Prince Prospero’s castle, but I don’t know if it’s true. Still, we have to have some way to get around since the plague killed off all the horses.

  The evening is gray but not rainy. April laughs. “Leave the top open. I like the wind, and I dare bats to land in my hair.”

  Bats. They were brought in to try to contain our mosquito problem. The scientists did something, made them bigger, so their bellies would hold more mosquitoes.

  The bats caught the virus from the mosquitoes, but they didn’t die. They just carry the disease. No one speaks of it—or of the people who carry the disease for weeks or possibly months. Everyone is supposed to kill them on sight. Both the diseased bats and the people. The military gives rewards for bringing the bodies of bats.

  April hands me her flask, and I take a lon
g drink.

  “I’m not afraid of bats,” I say.

  We both laugh, but it wouldn’t be funny if we weren’t drinking and weren’t together. We are passing through the ruins of what used to be a bustling city, but now it’s really just a monument to our dead.

  Someone has painted large black letters on the side of a building. I strain to make them out. LIFE IS SACRED. DEATH IS EVEN MORE SO. I stare at the letters, ugly and lopsided, and then April gasps and shoves me forward into the upholstery.

  With a dull thud, a rock slams into the velvet seat where my head was just resting. The guard on my left raises his musket and shoots another, shattering it in midair.

  April is more shaken than I’ve ever seen her. Terrified. She picks up the first stone, large as her hand and jagged, and drops it to the street. We both wince at the sound it makes. The same sound it would have made if it hit a mask or the bones of my face. If people want to throw stones at us, there is no shortage of them. The city is crumbling to bits that can be used as ammunition, anywhere, anytime.

  April’s guards scan the area, while her driver adjusts his own mask and accelerates.

  “I guess I just saved your life again,” she says finally.

  I guess she did.

  The first time I met April, I was standing with my toes barely over the edge of the roof of the Akkadian Towers. Less than two years ago.

  No one ever came to the roof, but she walked up to me and said, “What are you doing?”

  I was so surprised that I answered honestly.

  “Imagining what it would be like to jump.”

  She laughed. It was quintessentially April, but at the time I was shocked. I had tried to hide my suicidal thoughts from everyone, and this girl was laughing!

  “I like you,” she said. “I heard there was a girl living in the prince’s old apartment. I need you to help me braid my hair.” She took off her hat and showed me her hair, which was half braided and half loose. Her mother had gotten too drunk to finish it. “Don’t jump right now, okay?”