The Ten Thousand Doors of January(38)

Locke dragged another chair across the room, rucking up the rug beneath its feet, and sat so close in front of me his knees pressed against mine. He leaned back in a posture of false calm.

“I’ve tried very hard with you, you know,” he said conversationally. “All these years spent caring for you, polishing you, protecting you… Of all the items in my collections, I’ve treasured you most of all.” His fist closed in frustration. “And yet you insist on flinging yourself into danger.”

“Mr. Locke, please, Bad—”

He leaned forward, arctic eyes on mine, hands resting on the arms of my chair. “Why couldn’t you learn to mind your place?” His voice went low on the last three words, heavy with some foreign, guttural accent I didn’t recognize. I flinched; he leaned away and drew in a long breath.

“Tell me: How did you get out of your room? And how in the name of every god did you find out about the aberrations?”

Does he mean—Doors?

For the first time since I’d heard those awful boot-on-flesh sounds, Bad was driven entirely out of my mind. But nothing seemed to replace it except the distant thought that Mr. Locke had certainly not given me The Ten Thousand Doors.

“It wasn’t your father, I think we can be fairly sure. Those tepid little postcards barely had enough room for postage.” Locke snorted through his mustache. “Was it that damned African?”

I blinked at him. “Jane?”

“Oh-ho, she does have something to do with it, then! I suspected as much. We’ll track her down later.”

“Track her—? Where is she?”

“She was dismissed this morning. Her services, whatever they might have been, are certainly no longer needed.”

“But you can’t! My father hired Jane. You can’t just get rid of her.” As if that mattered. As if I could get Jane back through some technicality or loophole.

“Your father no longer employs anyone, I’m afraid. Dead people rarely do. But that’s not our chief concern right now.” Somewhere in the conversation Locke had lost his wrathful edge and become clipped, cool, dispassionate; he might have been presenting at a board meeting or dictating orders to Mr. Stirling. “In fact, it hardly matters how you came by your information at this juncture; what matters is that you know entirely too much, entirely too independently, and 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—