Jean kicked and squirmed and tried to scream, but a hand was over her mouth, a thick, gnarled hand that smelled like wet dog. And then she was moving, so quickly she could not wriggle away. One minute Liyla was smiling, and the next the smile was a grimace as Jean flew past her, fighting, pinned to someone large and swift moving.
“This way!” she heard a man growl, and the trees whipped by as she was jostled and bounced, her captor’s ragged, moist breath against her neck.
They didn’t go for long. Over another hill, and she saw them, hundreds of soldiers of the Genius, their red cloaks garish and out of place in the muted, sunlit wood.
“We’ve got one!” the guttural voice called. Jean could feel the scratch of his whiskered face against the back of her head. The soldiers lounging against the trees looked up. One nodded briskly, turned, and ran off.
The man carrying her slowed to a walk. He marched past the others, who peered at her and laughed when she thrashed and tried to wrench free. She kicked and fought as they hurried up another rise and down a small hill, to where the forest thinned into a wide, low clearing. Tents like red spiders crouched in the dirt there, and felled trees, their stumps wet and yellow as skinned knees, sat beneath a haze of new sawdust. The man carrying Jean breathed hard, jogging again toward the largest of the tents. A soldier stood at attention there, holding a flagpole in his rough hand. Jean stopped squirming. At the tip of the pole, lashed with a red wire, hung Kate’s Barbie.
Ker emerged from the tent, dressed in a long red tunic, leggings, and a half skirt that flowed behind her so the back brushed the ground just enough to have picked up a crust of sawdust around the hem. She saw Jean and smiled.
“Well done,” she said. “I knew you would become a good, obedient girl yet. Come here.”
Her shoulders slumped, Liyla slipped past Jean and moved toward the woman. She didn’t turn to look in Jean’s direction.
Ker smiled her ghastly blunted smile and blinked with eyes like slits at the girl. “The Genius always keeps his promises,” she said to her. “And he remembers his friends.”
Liyla nodded faintly, head down.
But Ker had already moved past her, and she was beckoning in Jean’s direction.
“This way,” she said, indicating the tent behind her. “Here. And put her down. She is our guest, after all.”
Jean found herself slung to the ground. Immediately, she turned and slammed her doll across the knees of the red-uniformed man behind her. He wrenched it away and handed it over her head to Ker, whose smile widened.
“The mate. He’ll be pleased. What cunning things these are.”
She reached down and snatched Jean roughly by the wrist.
“Careful, now,” the woman hissed. “You’ll want to be on your best behavior here. The Genius does not abide disobedience. Even from guests.” She dug her fingers into Jean’s skin for emphasis.
Jean didn’t want to go into the tent. Her breath came in rasping gasps and she drew back, trying to force her heels into the dirt, to keep Ker from pulling her forward. But the woman was strong, and she leaned down to Jean’s ear.
“You’re not with the others now, child,” she whispered. “No strange wind will save you this time. Obey me, or you’ll see what comes of those who don’t.”
She yanked Jean upright, hard, and thrust her forward into the tent.
The air was sticky inside, and the light came red through the canvas. Toward the back, the Genius sat in a stiff jacket of ruby brocade, too heavy for the weather, his raw, unnatural face flushing with the heat, and his knobby hands clenching wetly at the arms of his chair. His black dog lay beside him, but as Jean stumbled in, it raised its head.
The Genius leaned forward and rubbed his perspiring palms on his legs.
“Well,” he said, “so the girl did it after all.”
“She did,” Ker said. “This is the smallest one. And I’d dare say the weakest.”
The Genius grinned, and his ugly, too-large teeth made Jean shudder. “Oh, I remember her,” he said. “This one especially. We know each other, don’t we, child?”
“You don’t know me,” Jean said, and she blushed to hear her voice shaking.
The Genius only grinned wider, his square teeth like stones in his mouth. “Oh, but I do. You’ve lived here so long.”
He tapped his head when he said it. The man was crazy, just like Nell had said.
“I’d thought you were bigger, older. But our memories play tricks on us, don’t they?”
She found nothing to say to that, and the man looked at her a little longer with those wet eyes of his, pale as shells. His face was hairless as a worm; he had no brows or even lashes. Only the bony edges of his forehead and cheeks, too sharp, framed those hollow eyes.
At last he turned to Ker.
“Will they come for her, then?”
Ker shoved Jean closer so she nearly fell; she caught herself several feet from the Genius.
“Such a pretty thing?” Ker said. “I believe they will.”
“Let me see her,” he said. And Ker jabbed her again, so she’d go close. The ugly hand came up to her cheek, and the Genius ran a finger along it. His touch was gritty as sandpaper.
“So perfect,” he said. “Just like the miniature. And this time, really mine.”
Ker leaned over and took Jean’s hand, forcing her palm flat. “Everywhere. Look here, at the fingers. See how straight they are? And the nails?”
Jean struggled, but the woman’s grip was heavy as cement, and Jean felt the Genius’s humid breath across her knuckles. He took her hand in his, cupping it in his gnarled palms, and laughed.
“And the others so near. If it’s as our mysterious friend says, this will be a most rewarding trip. Soon, now, I’ll have them all.”
He
