The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow Page 0,49
had the infinitely poor judgment to reveal such knowledge to one of our more, mmm, imprudent members.” He gave a little sigh and a what-can-you-do shrug. “Theodore employs rather rough-and-ready means, and I’m afraid he’ll be even more excited by your little magic trick with the locked door. Well, he’s young.”
He’s older than you. Is this how Alice felt, tumbling through the rabbit hole?
“And so I must find a way to keep you safe, keep you hidden. I’ve already made a few calls.”
I floundered, free-falling. “Calls to whom?”
“Friends, clients, you know.” He waved a square hand. “I’ve found you a place. I’ve been told it’s very professional, very modern and comfortable—nothing like those Victorian dungeons they used to throw people into. Brattleboro has an excellent reputation.” He nodded at me as if I should be pleased to hear it.
“Brattleboro? Wait”—my chest seized—“Brattleboro Retreat? The asylum?” I’d heard the name whispered among Locke’s guests; it was where rich people put their mad maiden aunts and inconvenient daughters. “But I’m not crazy! They won’t take me.”
Locke’s expression turned almost pitying. “Oh, my dear, haven’t I taught you the value of money yet? And besides: as far as anyone knows you’re a little half-breed orphan who heard about her father’s death and started gabbling about magic doors. Took a little extra convincing for them to overlook your coloring, I admit, but I assure you: they’ll take you.”
It played in my head like a movie reel: the title cards flashing out Mr. Locke’s lines to the audience, “Your father is dead, January!” and then jerky scenes of a young girl crying, raving. “She’s gone mad, poor dear!” And then a black streetcar slides beneath a stone archway reading ASYLUM, lightning flashes in the background, and it cuts to a scene of our heroine strapped to a hospital bed, staring listlessly at the wall. No.
Mr. Locke was speaking again. “It’ll only be for a few months, a year maybe. I need time to talk to the Society, let cooler heads prevail. Demonstrate your tractable nature.” He smiled at me, and even through my reeling horror I saw the kindness in it, the apology. “I wish it could be otherwise, but it’s the only way I know to keep you safe.”
I was panting, muscles quivering. “You can’t. You wouldn’t.”
“Did you think you could just dabble at the edges of things? Dip a toe into these waters? These are very serious matters, January, I tried to tell you. We are enforcing the natural order of things, determining the fates of worlds. Perhaps one day you might still help us.” He reached toward my face again and I recoiled. He drew a finger down my cheek the way he might have stroked a piece of imported china: delicate, covetous. “It seems cruel, I know—but believe me when I tell you this is for the best.”
And, as his eyes met mine, I felt a weird, childish longing to trust him, to curl up inside myself and let the world flow around me, as I always had, but—
Bad.
I tried to run. I really did. But my legs were still weak and wobbly and Locke caught me around the middle before I’d made it out of the parlor.
He hauled me to the coat closet, clawing and spitting, and slung me inside it the way the cook slung beef sides into the icebox. The closet door slammed and I was trapped in the darkness with nothing but the musty, rich smell of unworn fur coats and the sound of my own breathing.
“Mr. Locke?” It came out quavery and high-pitched. “Mr. Locke, please, I’m sorry—” I babbled. I begged. I cried. The door didn’t open.
A good heroine is supposed to sit stiff-lipped in her dungeon cell, formulating brave escape plans and hating her enemies with righteous heartiness; instead I begged, swollen-eyed and shivering.
It’s easy to hate people in books. I’m a reader, too, and I know how characters can turn into Villains at the drop of an authorial hat (those capital Vs like dagger points or sharpened teeth). It just isn’t like that in real life. Mr. Locke was still Mr. Locke—the man who had taken me under his suit-coated wing when my own father couldn’t be bothered to raise me. I didn’t even want to hate him; I just wanted to undo it all, to unmake the last few hours.
I don’t know how long I waited in the closet. This is the part of the story where time becomes fickle and flickering.