“Please, Miss Reese,” he cut me off. “Spin the needle.”
I see.He wasn’t going to give me more explanation, it seemed. Not until I spun the needle.
So, I did. I pushed the end of it down hard enough to make it move.
My feet took me back a step, and my lungs held onto the air in them, and my eyes held onto my lids as the arrow spun and spun and spun…
Then slowed down, moved from one section to the other, and finally stopped.
2 x bad
1 x neutral
“Luckier than some,”said the man standing on the other side of the spinner.
“Luckier about what?Whatare those numbers referring to?” Because I’d analyzed the entire board and there was nothing else on it except those words.
The man said, “Why, memories, of course.”
“Memories?” That would have been the last thing I expected.
“Yes.Memories.” And he moved.
His brothers moved, too, stood up from their chairs and pulled something from under the desk. Another board, except this one was atop a low table with small wheels underneath. The surface was pale wood veined with dark lines, and on my side of it there was this shallow indentation in the shape of a hand, the edges of it that had once been sharp now smoothed over, probably with use.
On the other side, near the three men all standing by the board now, rose a narrow spindle, no thicker than a finger, topped with a wheel. No markings, no nothing on it—just a needle resting against its edge.
The guy who’d made me spin the needle said, “Your hand, Miss Reese.” And he pointed down at the indentation on my side of the board.
“What for?” I instinctively brought my hand to my chest, as if to keep it safe.
“To pay the entry price. Without it, the mask cannot be worn.”
I shook my head again and again—why was everything soconfusing? “What mask?!”
He leaned down, his expression never once changing, and he grabbed something from underneath his side of the table.
It was a mask indeed, possibly the most beautiful accessoryI’d ever seen. Its color was a dark cherry red, with black satin strings attached to the sides, so smooth they looked like liquid. It was a big mask, too, meant to cover more than half the face. The edge of it went all the way below the nose to shield the upper lip of its wearer, and it was shaped the right way, too. The holes of the eyes, however, were shaped like a cat’s. The thing looked brand new.
“It’s a masquerade?” I wondered.
“It is, indeed. And to enter, you must pay the price you yourself picked.” He looked at the heart-shaped spinner.
“Memories,” I said, only I sounded like I was choking.
“Precisely. Two bad memories, and one neutral. Three,” said the man, his voice never changing tone, never lowering or rising. It was kind of unnerving.
“How would I do that? I’ve never paid for anything with a memory before.”
“Wewill do it for you, Miss Reese. You simply put your hand in place, think of the memories you want us to see, and we will do the rest.” He spoke like he was reciting words off a page.
“Will it hurt?” A silly thing to ask, but I was trying to be as prepared as I could be; otherwise, I was going to go running right through those curtains again to the darkness that would lead me outside.
Wouldit, though?
“Perfectly painless,” said the man, while the others looked up at me from over their glasses and waited without so much as a movement.
“And what…what happens to my memories then?Wherewill they go?”
