The Stroke of Eleven Read online

  “Where did that come from?” I gently traced a finger along the scar.

  “I don’t know.” She scoffed. “Wonderful. A new addition to the long list of things we can’t understand.”

  “Do you think we’ve gone back in time? That seems the most likely explanation, doesn’t it? I mean, everything looks…old-timey. And the castle’s not all broken down like it should be after centuries.”

  “That would explain the disappearances. If the victims went back in time and then died long before they vanished…”

  “But wouldn’t there be some historical evidence of that? I mean, people would probably have written letters to themselves about it, don’t you think? ‘Hello Roger, it’s you, just wanted to let you know you’ve been dead for hundreds of years?’”

  “The ball happened a long time before The End, remember? There aren’t a lot of written records left from back then. The Hollow Wars destroyed or altered most of them.”

  I gave a mirthless laugh. “So this is it, then? We’re going to live out the rest of our lives in the ancient past, and no one will ever know what happened to us?”

  Cordelia’s face was grave. “Nick…I’m sorry.”

  “What have you to be sorry for? It’s not your fault. It’s that miserable Levesque woman.” I clenched my jaw. “I hope I can track down her ancestors. I’ll bet they’re as bad as her. Maybe if we get rid of them—or at least turn them into frogs, or something…”

  “You can’t change the past, Nick.”

  “Tell that to Malcolm. Sounds like his past changed a lot.” A sudden thought struck me. “Wait. Malcolm. Do you see him anywhere?” I scanned the crowd, but couldn’t spot him.

  “Not so far. I don’t see that girl from the drawing, either. Or any of the Mythfits.”

  “We’ve got to find them. There has to be some way out of this mess. Maybe with all of us working together, we can find one.”

  “Nick.”

  “No, Cordelia, I insist. I’m not going to take this lying down.”

  “Nick—”

  “Time travel or no time travel, I’m going to—”

  “Nick! Would you listen?”

  “What?”

  She pointed to something behind me. “Look over there.”

  I turned and saw that she was motioning to the punch bowl. A lone figure stood there, twiddling his fingers and looking pale and miserable. He had brown goat legs with white blotches, curly blond hair, and a pair of horns.

  “Gareth?” I exclaimed. It was Gareth the faun, one of the Mythfits.

  I started to run over to him, but Cordelia caught my arm. “Don’t draw any attention. Let’s move toward him slowly. There’s clearly something very wrong in this place. We don’t want to make any mistakes that will sabotage our efforts to stop it.”

  “Right.” We started up our dance again, and little by little, we edged toward him.

  “Gareth,” I said softly once we got within earshot of him. “We’re here to rescue you.”

  He didn’t acknowledge me at first. He was muttering to himself. “Have to keep dancing. Very, very important. But…I haven’t got a partner. Not any more. Ooh, that’s bad. Beatrice won’t be happy with me.” He ladled some punch into a small glass and tossed it down the hatch. “Mustn’t make her unhappy. Mustn’t be unhappy. Very, very important.”

  At the risk of seeming suspicious, I dropped the pretext of dancing and stepped toward Gareth. “What’s wrong? Where are the others? Alan and Bryn and Sylvia?”

  “Sylvia.” His eyes glazed over. “Sylvia was unhappy. That was a mistake. Terrible mistake. She shouldn’t have said anything. She should have kept dancing.” He took another swig of his punch.

  I gave his shoulder a gentle shake. “Oi. Gareth. Snap out of it. What are you talking about? What’s happened to Sylvia?”

  “She should have kept dancing,” Gareth repeated, a sad look in his eyes. “Then perhaps they wouldn’t have killed her.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  No Time to Say Hello, Goodbye

  I reeled in horror. “Killed her?”

  “Nick, quiet!” said Cordelia. “People are looking!”

  I seized Gareth by the shoulders. “Gareth, listen to me. What happened?”

  He continued staring into space. “Can’t talk now. I need to dance. Perhaps I can find someone to dance with…”

  “Is Sylvia dead?”

  “Have to be happy. Have to—”

  I gripped him tighter and shook him, causing his punch to splatter everywhere. “Is. She. Dead?”

  Gareth’s eyes finally seemed to focus on me. “Professor Barlow?”

  “It’s Nick Beasley. Remember? All that Barlow stuff was fake.”

  He seized my arm, his eyes wild with fear. “You shouldn’t be here, sir,” he quavered. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “Cordelia and I came to rescue you. All of you. Now where are the rest of the Mythfits?”

  Gareth became calmer. He went back to the punch bowl and ladled himself another glass. “Alan and Bryn are waiting for the rabbit-man, behind the lady with no arms or legs. He always arrives at a quarter past nine.” He looked sadly down at his hooves. “But Sylvia can never come back and dance again. Beatrice said so.”

  Cordelia lifted her hand. “Wait. Back up. The rabbit-man?”

  “Yes. Of course. You and Nick remember the rabbit-man, don’t you?”

  I struggled to think of how to respond to this. “I—”

  “No!” Gareth shouted. His glass fell from his hands and shattered on the floor, and he grabbed the lapels of my coat. “No, you don’t remember! You mustn’t ever, ever remember!”

  I pulled him off me. “All right, all right, calm down!”

  “If you start to remember, it’s all over! Don’t you see? That’s why it’s all over for me now!”

  “Gareth.” Cordelia spoke sternly. She pulled the faun off of me and slapped him across the face. “Snap out of it.”

  Gareth’s eyes cleared. “That’s better. I’m better now. Not that it matters. They’ll have noticed. I knew they would; that’s why I didn’t go wait for the rabbit-man again. It’s not worth it. I can’t do it anymore.”

  “Gareth, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but everything’s going to be okay.” I took hold of his arm. “Come on. We’re going to find the others, and then we’re going to get out of here.”

  “Nick,” said Cordelia, “maybe we should take a moment before jumping into anything. We don’t know all the facts yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Gareth sighed. “They’re on their way. See?”

  I followed his gaze to three cloaked figures standing along the opposite wall. I was fairly certain they hadn’t been there before. As I watched, they suddenly moved closer. Not by walking, though. It was more like a sudden jerk. They slowly lurched forward as if they were about to take a step, and then, in the next moment, they had moved about ten feet from where they were before.

  “Okay, Gareth.” I kept my voice low. “We’re going to move very slowly up the stairs, towards the door.”

  “Look, I appreciate your trying to help, but—” Gareth sniffled and wiped his nose. “But I want this to end. I miss Sylvia, you know? We actually got to like each other after a while. For the first few weeks, I thought she hated me, but then…”

  “Wait…weeks?” I stared at him. “Gareth, how long have you been here?”

  “I don’t know. Months? Years?”

  My jaw fell. “What?”

  “We started to remember eventually, but I don’t know how much time there was before that. The rabbit-man helped a lot after he arrived; kept us all safe as best he could, but Beatrice is starting to get tired of us trying to escape. Sylvia was the first to go. Now it’s me. Everyone else will be along shortly, I imagine.”

  “But Gareth,” I said, “you were only sent here a few days ago!”

  “You don’t understand. You never do. We’ve explained it to you so many times…but don’t worry
. It’ll all become clear once you start to remember. Just make sure they don’t find out.” He gripped my hand. “And thanks for trying to save Sylvia in that last loop. It was very kind of you.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “I think you’ve definitely had too much punch.”

  Gareth addressed Cordelia. “Sorry I couldn’t stop them from hurting you when you tried to get them off of her. Does your arm still hurt? Sometimes injuries still hurt even after the clock turns back.”

  I blinked. “How in the world do you know about Cordelia’s arm?”

  Cordelia, meanwhile, had gone white as a sheet, and she was clutching her arm as if the wound was fresh. “Nick…I think this is a lot worse than we thought.”

  “What’s wrong? Is it hurting again?”

  There was fear in her eyes. “Nick, I remember now.”

  “Remember what?”

  “We were wrong. We haven’t gone back in time. It’s a lot more complicated than that.”

  “Don’t, Cordelia.” Gareth’s stern tone surprised me. I’d never heard him talk that way before. “You understand? You can’t let them find out. You know that.”

  “It’s too late,” she said. “They’ve already seen.”

  “Seen what?” I yelled, exasperated.

  Cordelia clamped a hand over my mouth. “Quiet!”

  The cloaked figures moved closer with another sharp jerk. Now they were right on the other side of the table.

  “I’ll distract them,” said Gareth.

  “No!” said Cordelia. “Don’t you dare!”

  “It’s all right! I’m not going to do anything violent, just hand myself over. Then they’ll take me to the dungeons, and I can see Sylvia again.” He smiled. “That’ll be nice.”

  I removed Cordelia’s hand from my mouth. “I thought you said Sylvia was dead!”

  “Oh, that was a while back. She’ll be over it by now.”

  Cordelia grabbed the faun’s arm. “I won’t let you do this, Gareth.”

  He patted her hand, then gently pulled away. “You’ve got to. You two are our last hope. Go talk to the rabbit-man again, and find a way out of this, all right?” With a final, nervous smile, he walked around the table to where the cloaked figures stood.

  I looked at Cordelia in astonishment. “Are we going to just stand here and let him do something stupid?”

  She watched Gareth go, her face contorted in anguish. “There’s nothing else we can do, Nick.”

  “Here I am!” Gareth waved at the cloaked figures. “Now, I know what you’re thinking. You think I’ve started to remember, don’t you? I admit it. I have. So rather than try to keep it hidden from you, I’ve decided to come clean and turn myself over to the authorities.” He held out his wrists. “Go on, then. Clap me in irons.”

  Cordelia leaned closer to me. “Whatever happens now, don’t react. Look away and ignore it. I’ll explain everything later.”

  I moved toward Gareth. “I’m not going to let them—”

  She took my hand in a fierce grip. “There’s nothing you can do! We need to stay free to help the others!”

  The mysterious people threw their hoods back. They had no faces, or even heads in the conventional sense. For that matter, they weren’t even people at all—they were machines. Their faces were composed entirely of cogs, gears, and springs grinding against each other, and were more like skulls than anything living.

  I recoiled. “Eugh! What the—”

  Cordelia took hold of my ear and twisted it between her thumb and forefinger. It didn’t hurt, but it got my attention. “Don’t. React.”

  The clockmen reached out claw-like hands to fasten shackles around Gareth’s arms.

  Cordelia loosened her grip on my ear. “Stay quiet. Not a word.”

  “But—” I protested.

  “Shhh!”

  “Right.” Gareth cringed a little as the chains bit into his skin. “Off we go, then. Do you serve dinner down there? I’m famished. Nothing decent to eat at this party.”

  I watched in horror as the clockmen dragged him away. Their jerky movements were too fast for him to follow, and he nearly stumbled and fell. His cloven hooves scuffed on the floor as they dragged him to a small door at the back of the ballroom. A few seconds later, the door slammed shut, and he was gone.

  I glared at Cordelia. “There’d better have been a good reason for why we didn’t help him.”

  “Trust me,” said a voice from behind us, “there was nothing you could have done.”

  I whirled around to see a man dressed in white. Every article of clothing he wore was pure-white—coat, gloves, trousers, shoes. Even his long hair was white—though from what I could see of his grizzled face, he didn’t look quite old enough for that. It was difficult to guess his age, since he was wearing a mask. It was crafted in the shape of a rabbit’s face, and came down over his nose, leaving only his mouth and chin visible. By rights, it should have made him look silly, but somehow, its harsh angles made it seem menacing rather than funny. A chill ran over me as I looked at him. There was something uncanny about the man, even aside from his strange costume, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “We’ve met before.” His Annwish accent was so nondescript that I couldn’t tell where he was from. “Of course, you wouldn’t remember that.”

  “I do.” Cordelia’s brow furrowed, and she closed her eyes. “Not very well, but it’s starting to come back.”

  “Thought so. I had a feeling you’d be the next to start remembering.”

  I grabbed him by his jacket. “Let’s try this again, shall we? Who are you?”

  “Let go of me, Nick.” He wasn’t scared of me in the least. Odd.

  For reasons which I couldn’t entirely fathom, I released him. “Tell me your name,” I insisted.

  He smoothed the rumples I’d left in his coat. “You can call me Kanin.”

  “That’s an ancient word for ‘rabbit,’ not a name.”

  “It could be a name. Who are you to say?”

  I held up my hands. “Look, I don’t really care about whatever your problem is, Weird Rabbit Person. I only want to save our friends and escape.”

  “That’s exactly what you, and I, and Cordelia, and the others have been trying to do for a very, very long time.”

  “Good grief, why does everyone keep talking like we’ve been here for ages?”

  Kanin opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, something shimmered in the center of the ballroom. All the dancers stopped to look, and the musicians broke off in mid-crescendo.

  A pillar of blue sparks materialized and took on the shape of a plump, blue-skinned woman in a long sapphire-hued robe. Huge bluebird wings fluttered behind her. She beamed a motherly smile at the assembled guests. “Good evening, everyone!”

  No one spoke in reply. Instead, they all bowed from the waist—except for Kanin, Cordelia, and myself. I saw Kanin glaring at the woman through his mask.

  “For those of you who don’t know—and those of you who have forgotten—my name is Beatrice,” she said. “Don’t mind me. I mainly work behind the scenes. I’m just popping into make sure that everyone is happy.”

  Everyone except us was quick to assent to this. A murmur of “Oh yes, of course, very very happy” passed through the entire ballroom.

  “Excellent!” She seemed immensely satisfied. “I believe there was some small disturbance a few minutes ago involving a young faun. Nothing for any of you to be concerned about. The poor boy was simply over-tired. He should be right as rain in the morning.”

  Kanin smirked. “What morning?” he said in a low voice.

  “So never mind about all that,” said Beatrice. “You go on enjoying yourselves.” Her voice quavered with emotion. “That’s all I want for you, my dears. Happiness. Eternal, never-ending happiness.”

  I gave an involuntary shudder. “Okay,” I murmured to Cordelia, “she’s creepy.”

  “On with the ball
!” Beatrice clapped her hands, and the orchestra launched into a jaunty aria. All the couples began dancing again, as if their lives depended on it. Beatrice glided across the ballroom, smiling and greeting people one at a time.

  I glanced at Kanin. “She’s coming this way. Do we run?”

  “No. We most certainly do not. Stand still and follow my lead. Otherwise you’ll end up in the dungeons with Gareth and Sylvia.”

  “Do as he says, Nick,” Cordelia cautioned.

  I looked at her in confusion. “What, you trust him?”

  “I’m not sure. But I don’t think we have any choice at the moment.”

  “Nicholas!” crooned Beatrice as she approached. “Cordelia! So nice to see you both. I’m glad you could make it.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Er…thanks?”

  “I imagine you’re both a little confused, but I assure you, there’s nothing whatsoever for you to worry about. You relax and enjoy yourselves. It’s high time you both took a vacation from all this rushing about and fighting with monsters.”

  I frowned. “How do you know about—ow!”

  Kanin had stomped on my foot. “I’ll make sure they allow themselves to relax,” he assured Beatrice.

  Her cheerful demeanor cooled as she regarded the rabbit-masked man. “Kanin. A pleasure, as always.” Her tone was stiff and insincere.

  Kanin lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “The pleasure is mine, my lady. As always.”

  She withdrew her hand as if she’d been forced to touch something slimy, but her thin-lipped smile remained. “Have you seen the lower levels of the castle yet? I believe you would find them fascinating.”

  He grinned. “Oh, I’m sure I would. But there’s no need for me to rush down there right now, is there? After all…we have all the time in the world.”

  Beatrice’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment I thought she was going to let him have it. In the end, though, she merely gave him a curt nod. As she walked away, the air around her rippled, and she disappeared.

  “Harpy,” Kanin muttered.

  “How did you get away with that?” I asked. “If she’s the big cheese in control of this magical-ghost-castle business, she could have thrown you in the dungeons too.”