day. Roaches scuttled to and fro, and the aether feed was bad, so bulbs were constantly exploding, raining glass as fine as paper down on me and my sad excuses for dolls, which I usually constructed out of paper or shirts stuffed with packing material I found in the bins behind the building.
Terrible though it was, I had happy memories of that hallway. I’d listen to my mother singing to herself, or wait for Conrad’s footsteps as he came home from school. Usually he’d blow right past me without a word. We weren’t close then like we would be after our mother was sent to the madhouse.
Our only neighbor who wasn’t a drunk and stayed longer than a week was an elderly woman, Mrs. Loemann, who’d fled the war. She’d lost her entire family, grandchildren through husband, to the camps, and she used to come out and talk to me in German. She didn’t speak much English, and she made me hard, nutty-tasting cookies that I pretended to eat to be polite and secretly put out for the pigeons, but she was nice to me, and always patted me on the head with her knotty-fingered hand. She looked like a kind fairy-tale grandmother, like someone had carved her out of wood, put her on strings and moved her around.
She died just before we moved out, and nobody noticed until the hallway started to smell much worse than usual.
I always wondered what it would be like to be totally alone, knowing that everyone who was your blood was dead.
I had a much better idea now, as I stood in this hallway, the maze that the Yellow King had created.
At least it smelled better.
I resolved I wasn’t going to stand frozen like a scared rabbit, and took a hard left, pushing open the first door that my hand met.
Reality flickered around me, and I felt the same sick lurch as when I stepped through a Gate. Whether I’d traveled in time or space I didn’t know, but I’d definitely crossed some threshold.
This was different from when Crow had shown me my nightmares, made me face them and come through the other side. I’d crossed some other barrier this time, something that was real, as far from a dream as I was from the Iron Land right now.
Except I was in the Iron Land when I opened my eyes, in a snug cottage, all one room except for a staircase off to one side.
I tried to orient myself, and spun around as the door opened.
I was glad I was too shocked to make any sound, because the one that would have come out was a scream.
“Hey there, darlin’,” Dean said, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on a hook by the door. “Sorry I’m home so late.”
“I …” I was sure I was staring at him like he’d sprouted a second head. This wasn’t fear, this was just cruel. Whatever game Nylarthotep was playing was worse than anything I could have imagined.
“Princess,” Dean said. He approached and put a hand on my cheek. “Are you okay?”
He was real. Real and warm and alive, looking at me with concern. I put my hand over his, reflexively.
“I am now,” I said, squeezing it.
His warm silver-gray eyes, liquid like mercury, lit with relief. “Oh, good. Thought you might be sore at me, on account of my being late.”
“No,” I said softly. “No, I could never be mad at you, Dean.”
He laughed. “Never? Well, I guess that makes me the luckiest guy in Lovecraft.”
“I … what?” I peered out the window, through the sheer curtains. We were in Lovecraft, in Uptown, on one of the side streets of small neat houses that eventually gave way to the mansions of the wealthy residents. A street that had been thoroughly destroyed when the Lovecraft Engine blew.
This was wrong. This was all wrong. I’d expected screaming and nightmares, blood and all my worst fears laid bare before my eyes. Not this. Not happiness and everything I ever wanted.
“You sure nothing’s up?” Dean said. “You’re worrying me, princess.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I … This is going to be an odd question, all right?”
Dean squeezed my hand. “What’s on your mind, Aoife?”
“What year is this?” I said.
Concern flared on Dean’s face, but he did an admirable job of hiding it. If I hadn’t spent so many hours memorizing the planes of his cheeks, the square of his chin and the tiny lines around his eyes, I never would have seen it. “It’s 1956, Aoife. Just like yesterday, and the day before that.”
He touched me on the shoulder. “Is the cure your mother gave you not working? Is the iron affecting you again?”
I jerked, and Dean, thinking I was jerking away from him, stepped back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No!” I cried. I hadn’t even realized I wasn’t feeling the familiar prickle of iron poisoning. I was only part Fae, so the progression was slower, but when puberty hit, the iron built faster and faster, until on our sixteenth birthdays we changelings succumbed and went insane. Conrad had. I nearly had. But now …
“No,” I said in a calmer fashion. Whatever game this was, I could adapt; I could learn the rules.
I would still win Dean’s freedom. The real Dean, not whatever construct this was.
“My mother’s cure is working just fine,” I said. “I’m sorry, Dean. It was a joke, but I’m afraid it wasn’t a very good one.”
He didn’t believe me, but Dean wasn’t an alarmist like Cal. He could play along just as well as I could. “No, doll,” he said. “That was the opposite of a good one. But hey—I brought home those cupcakes you like.”
I smiled and looked at the sugar-spotted pink box tied up with twine. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll just go wash up.”
“Hey,” Dean said as I headed to a narrow ladder for what I assumed was the attic of the cottage. “I like this, Aoife. Never thought your pop would go for us living in the city, but the money he put up for this place—it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He looked so grave I almost ran back to him, comforted him. It caused a physical ache, from my head to my belly button, to stand still. “Love you, princess,” he said, and came to me and kissed my forehead.
Drawing back, I ducked my head and retreated so he wouldn’t see the tears forming in my eyes. This was worse than any torment. It felt so real.
I found the washroom in the snug attic, off a pocket-sized bedroom painted light blue and full to the sloped ceiling with belongings that were mine and Dean’s: my notebooks; some oversized furniture I recognized from my father’s house; my clothes and Dean’s leather jacket, draped over a bedpost.
I locked the door and leaned against it. I had to get my head on straight before I lost it completely.
First things first: it wasn’t really Dean down there. The Dean I knew was dead, and that pained me just as greatly as it had the moment I’d knelt in the snow, feeling his last breath on my cheek.
Second: this wasn’t Lovecraft. If it were, it would be in ruins and I’d be going mad from iron poisoning.
Third: I didn’t know what Nylarthotep’s endgame was. To make me realize what I’d given up? To break me because I was happy rather than terrified and alone?
Whatever it was, I had to ferret it out before this projection of Dean got suspicious and things turned ugly. I didn’t know how far Nylarthotep would go to keep me here.
I could do that, couldn’t I? Remember what it was like to have my old life? I could be normal for a few hours, long enough to satisfy the curiosity of the Yellow King.
A knock sounded at the door, nearly scaring me out of my skin. “Princess?” Dean called. “Your cupcake is gonna get stale. Come on out of there.”
The doorknob rattled. I waited, gripping the basin edge with all my might. This was it. This was when the illusion shattered and the nightmares began.
Dean rattled the doorknob once more and then I heard his boots pacing around the bedroom. “You sure you’re all right, Aoife?”
I forced my fingers to unlock from the copper basin and grip the doorknob. I threw the door open with some force and Dean jumped back. “Whoa. You’re edgy today. Maybe sugar isn’t what you need.”
He’d gotten Dean almost right, I thought. Almost but not quite. The real Dean wasn’t so close in, so patronizing. Not so much like all the boys I’d known in Lovecraft. He loved me and understood me. That had been
