with time indeed.”
She blushed. “Thank you, John. But it’s not Huff. I’m married now.”
“’Tis well and good. ’Tis how the world enblooms anew.” He started up the stairs, and for all his age, you would hardly know he was carrying a man on his back. “I know not how this fool fits in along this path, but hereabouts Peg’s father searches wild. I feel clasped to thy purpose, lad. I’ve bound him tight and must, I think me, bring this doom along.”
I didn’t particularly like the idea, but I couldn’t disagree. The idea of having Wald come along was comforting, and at least this way I would know where the crazy man was. For now I shoved aside the question of how he could be here.
At least he was tied up.
John seemed mildly surprised at my downtime access, but there was no time for questions. I let Lilly in first to see if the coast was clear. John needed my help to wrestle the wild man inside. As soon as he realized where we were going, he began to strain against his bonds. John grabbed him by his torn shirt-front and pulled him close. “Peace. Thou must be bound. We’ll help that girl to birth her child and then turn back to riddling thee.”
He went in first carrying the man’s shoulders while I, with my string and spoons, followed trying to help, but mostly just avoiding kicks in the face.
Lilly was waiting in the Silverlands. “I can hear talking downstairs. We’ll have to just go out and in again.”
As soon as he emerged into 1937, the wild man began to scream into his gag, the frantic shriek of a desperate animal. We carried him out, Wald almost tripping on Lilly’s bed, Lilly herself shutting the door to give us a few seconds extra. “Hurry,” she whispered.
I held onto his feet by the rope and went right back into the mirror as soon as I was all the way out. The Silverlands widened by the day, and the pain of that long, cold passage was distracting.
As I stepped down from the low dresser, the man kicked me with all his strength. His feet caught me in the chest and I was flung back, tumbling over Rose’s bed and falling between it and the dresser.
The wild man was on his feet first, and before I had a chance to react, he launched himself at me. I had nowhere to go. His full weight fell on me. My left arm was trapped under the bed, and my right pressed against the dresser. He thrashed frantically, trying to hit me in any way he could. His head slammed against mine, and some part of him dug into my stomach. I felt what little air I had been able to get into me rush out. A second, then third blow to my solar plexus, and I was about to throw up. All the while, his muffled screams filled my ears.
“Leave him alone!” shouted a voice, and the man was partially heaved away. I tried to push upward, but now there were two bodies pressing on me, struggling and grunting. I tried to punch, but there was no room.
For his part, the crazy man still struggled and screamed as though he were being burned alive. Curtis had him from behind, and was trying to pull him by his bound arms, but his face was contorted in pain.
Then at last, John Wald arrived. He leaped from the dresser directly to the bed, grabbed the spitting wild man by the back of his collar, and lifted him bodily off me and out from underneath Curtis.
Just as Lilly followed him through the mirror, Mrs. Hollerith burst into the room. “Curtis, what on—”
We all froze. Even Prince Harming stilled in Wald’s grasp, his head turned toward the newest arrival. Lilly slowly withdrew her arm from the mirror. Neither Curtis nor I, half hidden by the bed, moved a muscle. We must have looked like a bunch of kids caught fighting by a teacher.
It was me she looked at first. The stern expression on her face melted.
“It can’t be,” she said. “You’re that boy.” Then she looked at Lilly. “And you. The one who helped. Ten years gone and you haven’t aged a day.”
Two
Truth and wisdom deeply walled.
Lilly was the fastest-thinking of all of us. “What was wrong?” she said to Mrs. Hollerith. “I’m going to her now. Tell me. Ten years ago—what was wrong? Why was the delivery so hard?”
Mrs. Hollerith’s hand went to her mouth. “It can’t—you can’t blame—I didn’t know.”
Lilly stepped down from the dresser and toward the woman. “Tell me,” she said. “What was wrong? I can go and help her, but only if you tell me.”
“B-breech,” the woman stammered. “Early. That and—and—”
And with that, she fainted dead away. Lilly caught her, easing her fall.
“Kenny, what’s going on?” said Curtis. He was looking at the man in Wald’s grip, and for once, the crazy man’s eyes were off me as he returned the stare. “Is this the bad man?” said Curtis.
“Curtis, maybe you should—”
“Rose told me,” said Curtis. He was almost hypnotized, unable to take his eyes of the filthy, unshaven face. The wild man had stopped struggling against Wald. He let out a whimper under his gag. “Prince Harming. She said all the mirror children had to watch for him. Like a curse. Is that it? Is that why it hurt to touch him?” He looked at Wald. “Does it hurt you to touch him?”
“Nay, lad,” said Wald. Despite holding up his prey steadily in one hand, he spoke as calmly as if we were all sitting under a tree on a shady hill. “These deepnesses are past our wits. Leave off for now.” He pointed with his chin to where Lilly was placing a pillow under Mrs. Hollerith’s head. “Look to who needs thee, and we must through the glass.”
Lilly spoke up in support. “Come help her, Curtis. Here, she’s just fainted. You’re going to sit with her and stroke her arm. When she wakes up, you’ll tell her we’re gone and you don’t know what happened. It’s okay.”
“It’s you, isn’t it?” said Curtis. “Lillian.”
“Yes. A long time since I saw you, Curtis.” There were tears in her eyes. “You look good. Can you be strong for—for your mother now?”
His lips set in a determined line. “I’ll take care of her. I will, Lillian.”
“I believe you,” said Lillian with a smile. Then she turned to Wald. “Maybe you should leave that man up in 1947,” she said. “We’re going to help a girl give birth. If he gets free … ”
Wald shook his head. “He is too deep a danger to let loose. I’ll curb him better this time. My culpis, Kenny. I didna mean for that.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“Then let’s go,” said Lilly. “Breech means the baby is coming out backward. It’s dangerous for Mother and child. This isn’t going to be easy.”
Wald went first this time after I opened the mirror. He dragged the crazy man after him. Lilly and I gave him a moment to get down off the dresser in 1917 and followed.
The first thing we heard was a cry of pain from Rose.
Wald had thrown his captive to the floor and, with a warning foot on the man’s stomach, was lifting Rose in a blood-stained gown onto her bed.
Seeing the blood, Lilly immediately took charge. “I’m sure you’ve seen some births,” Lilly said to Wald, “so you’re going to have to help me.”
Within a few minutes, Wald had tied Prince Harming, now docile, but still shooting fiery glares at me, to a chair downstairs, and set me to watching him from a distance.
“That’s good,” said Lilly to me. “You might have orchestrated this, but the birth of a baby is no place for a boy. Call John if that man so much as blinks the wrong way.”
She didn’t talk to me much after that, just busied herself with trying to save Rose’s life.
I spent the next few hours listening to Rose’s groans and sobs, and to Lilly’s directions to both Wald and Rose. All the while, I never took my eyes off the prisoner. He eventually dozed, though he’d wake up now and then to glare at me.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” I said at one point. “And I’m not going to.”
I don’t know why I felt it necessary to justify myself. He looked even crazier than he had two months ago when he shot me. His hair was matted and dirty, his sunken cheeks covered in a scrubby beard, and his skin burned by sun and wind.
