The thought that I might be walking into a trap was still trying to form when I opened the door and found Piotr waiting for me. His whipcord-thin frame was draped in a black suit that was the virtual twin of my own, but on him it seemed funereal, like he was perpetually on the way to someone’s graveside. The two largest members of his field team flanked him, one a former linebacker, the other a half-activated three-one-three, with the characteristic strength and stature of the giant’s daughter she had been born to represent.
I looked at the three of them, one by one, before settling on Piotr. “You’re being manipulated,” I said.
“Your breath smells like apples,” he replied. “Give me your hands, Agent Marchen.”
“This is a mistake,” I said, and presented my hands, wrists together, for him to cuff.
“I hope you’re right,” he said. He fastened the handcuffs loosely enough that they didn’t cut off my circulation. I was grateful for that.
My team would be catching up with me any second. I didn’t want them to see this. “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Piotr and his team closed in around me, and together the four of us walked off down the white-walled hall, toward the room that would decide my future.
#
Demi was probably in a room a lot like this one by now: small, with gunmetal-gray walls broken only by the large rectangular block of a mirror, as if anyone in the world still believed that they were looking only at their own reflections and not at the ghosts of the people hidden behind the glass. My hands were cuffed to the table in front of me; they’d taken my badge, jacket, and gun, leaving me feeling naked and defenseless. Worst of all, they hadn’t given me any mouthwash, and the taste of apples was still thick in my mouth.
“You know, while you hold me here, Birdie is getting farther and farther away,” I said to the mirror. “I’ve broken no laws, and my team supports my story. So while I understand that psychological torture is a big part of what we do in these rooms, I’d really appreciate it if you’d get on with things before we completely lose control of the situation.”
“I’d say you lost control of the situation when you picked up that apple, Agent Marchen,” said Deputy Director Brewer as he entered through the door to my left. He had a file in his hands, with my name written on the tab. “What the hell made you do that, Henry?”
“There was a bomb, sir. Escaping required me to think outside the box.”
He fixed me with a stern eye, walking across the room and sitting down on the other side of the table before he said, “The narrative has been pushing you to think outside that particular box since infancy, Agent Marchen. Why should I see this as a selfless choice, and not as the final excuse you needed to do what you had always wanted to do?”
“You know, Deputy Director, I’ve always sort of wished you were on the spectrum. It would make this easier for you to understand, which would make things easier on all of us.” I leaned as far back in my chair as the handcuffs would allow, looking at him. “I never wanted this. Nobody wants their narrative, not if they’re aware of what it means. We had no other way out of that house.”
“You keep saying that,” he said, opening my file. “Care to explain yourself?”
“That depends. Are you going to listen, or are you just letting me talk myself dry before you have me locked up as a dangerous memetic incursion?”
He hesitated, and for the first time since he had entered the room, I felt like he was honestly looking at me, and not the story that I represented. “I don’t know,” he said.
“That’s something, I guess,” I said, and began my explanation.
It took a while to tell him everything that had happened at Birdie’s house, from our arrival—when we thought we were on a rescue mission, not walking into a trap—to the moment that I bit into the apple and everything changed. He paled slightly when I told him what I’d done to the animals, less I think because that sort of behavior was unusual, and more because people tended to forget that the seven-oh-nines were just as dangerous as any other tale type. Everyone thinks of them in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections.
Worse, they forget that we’re still remaking those reflections. The whole “woodland creatures” thing is a relatively recent addition to the tale, borrowed from Disney and internalized by so many children that it has actually modified the narrative itself. Even as the narrative drives us, so do we drive it.
I wish I could find that thought more comforting.
I didn’t tell him about the whiteout wood filled with girls who could have been me in another lifetime; I just told him that the strain of activating my story had knocked me unconscious, and that when I’d woken up, Demi had already been taken into custody, and we had agreed to return to the Bureau. I stopped talking then, waiting for his response.
Minutes slithered by like snakes moving through tall grass while Deputy Director Brewer and I stared at each other. It was like he was daring me to blink first.
Do it, urged the small voice of Snow. Let him think he’s won. Kings like to think they’ve won.
But he wasn’t a king, and this wasn’t a fairy tale, and I was not a princess in hiding. I was Henrietta Marchen, field agent, and fuck the narrative if it wanted me to be anything else. I kept my eyes on his, daring him to look away.
In the end, he did. “This is your formal report?” he asked, looking down at the file. He hadn’t been taking notes. He didn’t need to; we both knew that we were being recorded.
“Yes, sir.” The only parts I had omitted were the parts that no one could give to him but me. My secrets, such as they were, would be safe until I chose to share them.
“This is what your team will tell me as well?”
“Yes, sir. Although they were awake when Demi was captured, so they may have additional details.”
“I never expected this from you.”
“Are you relieving me of duty?” It seemed like a silly question, given the situation, but it encompassed every other question I could possibly have asked. Was I under arrest? Was I relieved of duty? Was I going to disappear into that private warren of safe houses and sealed rooms where we kept the narratives that couldn’t be averted but couldn’t be trusted among the general population either? Sloane had always been afraid of vanishing into that maze. Until this moment, until this night, I had never really considered that as something that could happen to me.
Glass coffins take many forms, whispered a new voice, almost Snow, but not quite. Adrianna. I should have known that she’d be back to haunt me.
“I should,” said Deputy Director Brewer. “I refuse to believe that you truly had no other choice but to activate your story. Considering the training and experience represented by your team, you should have been able to find another way.”
He’d called them my team. “But?” I prompted.
“Birdie Hubbard is missing, as are many of the files she worked on,” he said. “The archivists are reviewing the last several years now. We have no real idea of the scope of the damage she’s done—or the damage she could still do, depending on what she’s managed to take with her. No one knows her better than your team … and your team is refusing to return to the field without you.”
Gratitude and satisfaction warred for dominance over my mood. In the end, they reached a peaceful compromise, and washed over me in equal measure as I fought the urge to smile. “I suppose that means your hands are tied. You need to return me to the field if you want Birdie apprehended.”
“Don’t think this is some sort of victory, Marchen,” he snapped. “You’re going to be watched more closely than you have ever been. The director has already requested regular updates on your activities, and that scrutiny is going to extend to the rest of your team. Do you understand? By agreeing to go back into the field and lead them, you are committing them to constant monitoring.” Deputy Director Brewer’s expressio
n was oddly sympathetic. For the first time, I wondered if he might not be on our side after all.
That made me think of Jeff, and his brush with the narrative, and Sloane, who was just barely keeping herself from pouring bleach into everyone’s coffee. Casting an additional spotlight on them couldn’t do anything good.
Leaving them wouldn’t do anything good, either. “I understand the risks, Deputy Director, and I am willing to accept them. I believe my team shares my willingness. Anyone who doesn’t can request a transfer to another field team as soon as the issue with Birdie Hubbard has been resolved.”
Deputy Director Brewer nodded. “I thought that would be your answer. Agent Marchen, do you have a plan for what you’re going to do next?”
“I thought I’d start with asking you to take off these cuffs.” I raised my hands and offered him a thin smile. “Come on, Deputy Director. Let me go back to my team. Let me figure out how we’re going to stop her.”
“Don’t make me regret this,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
“Believe me, that’s not my plan,” I said. Then I shut my mouth, watching silently as he unlocked the handcuffs holding me to the table. There was nothing else I could safely say, and I didn’t want to risk changing his mind at this juncture. I had too much left to do.
It was time to get this story started.
#
Jeff, Andy, and Sloane were already in the bullpen by the time I finished taking a quick shower, rinsing my mouth with three different kinds of industrial-strength mouthwash, and changing into a clean uniform from the locker room. It was a purely psychological choice: I would feel better if I was appropriately attired for the situation ahead of us. It would also help my team if they saw me looking like myself. At least that was how I justified things, and after the night I’d had, I felt entitled to a little justification.
I paused in the doorway, watching the three of them cluster around Sloane’s computer, staring at something that I couldn’t see. They were all I had left of the strange little family I’d built within the ATI Management Bureau. Demi was compromised, and Birdie … Birdie was the enemy, and had apparently been the enemy for a long time. These people and my brother were all I had to defend, and I was going to get them to happily ever after if it killed me.
True to form, it was Sloane who sensed my presence first. She’d always been sensitive to the stories around her, one more gift she hadn’t requested from the narrative. As I watched, she stiffened, pushed her chair back, and swiveled to face me. Jeff and Andy turned a few seconds later. Andy looked wary; Jeff looked hopeful. Sloane looked like Sloane: suspicious, bored, and annoyed.
“So they decided to let you go?” she demanded, not rising.
“Looks that way,” I said, finally walking toward them. “Show a little respect. I’m your field team leader.”
“Really?” asked Andy, the wariness not fading. “They’re going to let you stay in charge?”
“For now, yes. Once the Birdie issue has been resolved, well. I guess we’ll see.” I looked from face to face, trying to distance myself from the scene enough to be objective. I couldn’t do it. “Having me in charge is going to mean extra scrutiny. If any of you wants out, Deputy Director Brewer has indicated that he would be willing to approve a transfer.”
“Fuck Deputy Director Brewer in the ear,” said Sloane. “You may be a Snow-bitch, but you’re our Snow-bitch.”
“We’re staying,” said Andy.
“I’m staying, and don’t think you can change my mind,” said Jeff.
I flashed him a quick smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Now: where’s Demi?”
#
I had been correct: Demi was being held in a small interrogation room very much like the one where I’d been kept, with one major difference: the walls were draped in sheets of sound-dampening foam, and her wrists and ankles were bound with plastic cord instead of the normal cuffs, with very little “play” left to enable her to keep her circulation going. Her health mattered less than the prevention of music. She wouldn’t be able to get a good percussive beat out of the things she had available to her.
I walked into the room, feeling the eyes of my team through the mirror to my back, and moved to take the seat across from Demi. The scene felt faintly unreal, like something out of a story, and I made a note to ask Jeff whether the narrative could be making use of modern television tropes as well as urban legends and the like. I didn’t particularly want to find myself in the kind of crime drama where someone always gets shot right before the commercial break.
“Hello, Demi,” I said. “I’m sorry about the restraints. You understand that they’re necessary, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said dully. Her head was hanging until her chin almost brushed against her chest. All the fight seemed to have gone out of her. I hoped that was a good thing. “You’re going to lock me up forever, aren’t you? I’m never going to see my family again.”
“That’s sort of up to you at this point,” I said. “We need to understand what happened tonight. We need to understand why you decided to start working with Birdie.”
“But I didn’t decide to start working with Birdie.” She raised her head, anger and bewilderment dancing in her eyes. “I was in the forest and then I was in a different forest, and I was so angry that when she said to start playing, I did. I don’t even know what I was mad about. I was just mad, and following orders seemed like the right thing to do. I didn’t even realize it was you until Sloane was punching me in the face …”
I frowned. If Demi had been controlled by the narrative, she had a reasonable chance of getting out of this cell without permanent damage. We just had to prove it. “Do you remember anything about what Birdie said to you?”
“Not much. It’s all sort of blurry, like I’m looking at it through glass.” Demi suddenly stiffened. “No, wait—there was one thing. She said that you might take me back. That I hadn’t been hers long enough. She wanted me to give you a message.”
“What message?” Demi could be lying, but I couldn’t stop myself from hoping she wasn’t. She was part of my team. I wanted her back.
Demi worried her lip between her teeth before she said, “Birdie wanted me to tell you to concede or die. And then she laughed and walked away and left me in the woods.” Tears were starting to pool in her eyes. “She left me.”
“I’m sorry.” I stood. “We’re going to get the Bureau’s best psychologists and archivists, and we’re going to figure out what she did to your story.”
“You mean you’re going to figure out whether you can trust me.”
“Yes,” I said. “I hope we can.”
“Yeah,” said Demi, letting her head drop forward again. “So do I.”
I stood there for a moment, looking at her. And then I turned and left the room. Demi might have more information for us; we’d get it out of her. But right now, there was something I needed to do.
#
Sleepy crows roosted in their patched-together nests in the aviary on the roof. Jeff stayed outside as I walked into the small structure, clucking and croaking with an ease that I wouldn’t have possessed just a few hours before. Finally, a large crow stood and stretched its wings before cawing a cursory greeting.
I held up the letter in my hand. “Take this to Mother Goose and I’ll feed your entire flock for a week.”
In a twinkling, the crow was in the air, snatching the letter as it flew past me. I followed it out of the aviary, watching as it soared away into the dawn. Jeff stepped up to stand beside me. His hand found mine, and I tangled my fingers through his, holding tight.
“Are you sure the crow will find her?”
“It would work if this were a fairy tale,” I said quietly.
“What does the letter say?”
The sunrise was pink and gold and red, and it didn’t look like apple skins at all. I smiled, stepping a little closer to Jeff, and answered, “That she’s going to lose.”
Episode 10
Not Sincere
Memetic incursion in progress: tale type 138.1 (“The Little Mermaid”)
Status: IN PROGRESS
Michael stood frozen in front of the mirror, one hand pressed to the hollow of his throat, like that would somehow magically give him back the voice he’d so casually allowed to be taken away. He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw back his head and howl to the skies until some fairy godmother from a kinder story turned and took notice of him, waving her magic wand and making it all better. Making wishes had gotten him into this situation, hadn’t it? Was it being so greedy to ask for just one more?
Nothing made sense anymore and nothing was ever going to make sense again.
When he’d decided on plastic surgery as the solution to his troubles, he hadn’t been expecting miracles—just an improvement, maybe, to the face that he’d been left with after the automobile accident that had killed his parents and left his little sister a wheelchair-bound mermaid of a girl. Emily would never walk again, and was free to move on her own only when she was in the swimming pool in their backyard. Michael still had his legs, but he’d wanted…God, he didn’t even know what he’d wanted. Normalcy, maybe. A face that didn’t make the boys down at the club turn away and gag when he worked up the courage to ask them to dance. Lips that someone might want to kiss someday, once they’d managed to get past those first few all-important steps, like saying hello and learning each other’s names.
He hadn’t been expecting miracles, but he’d received them all the same. The face the plastic surgeons crafted from the ruins of his own could have belonged to an angel. His eyes were large and liquid, his lips were soft and kissable, and everything about him was unscarred and symmetrical. He had never even dreamed he could see a face like that in his mirror.