“With you, of course. They will go with you,” the man said.
“I see.” Well, I supposed, that wasn’t so bad, was it? If Igave them my memories, and they still remained with me, I supposed it wasn’t bad at all.
And before I could talk myself out of it, I leaned over the table and pressed my hand right on the indentation. To the Everstill with it—I had no other option. March would be in there already. The others would be beyond those doors, and I wasn’t going to run away now. Not when I’d made it this far.
Besides—what could possibly go wrong? It was the Turning Trials. I was perfectly safe.
“What now—oh!”
There was no pain, just like the man promised, but there was a warmth that spread from the wood and to my hand, inward, sinking right into my skin. It caught me by surprise.
They didn’t mind the little scream, though. The two men who’d hunched over the other side only began to turn the wheel together.
As they did, the needle began to spin.
“The memories, Miss Reese. Think of the memories,” said the other. “The first bad memory you want to give…”
A bad memory.What madness—what kind of a bad memory did I want to pay with?
My mind worked even while I was still not twelve-hours certain that Iwantedto be thinking about anything, and before the second was over, a bad memory was already spinning in my head, one of many.
One of me standing in the woods south of our house, kicking trees. Thrashing. Crying. Screaming until my throat hurt.
I’d done it plenty of times, that same thing, in the past two years. It was the only place I could go to cry, to let it all out, to be by myself without worrying who might hear or see me. Without worrying who might think (or perhapsnotice?) that I’d lost my mind.
It was easy toseethe blurry view of the oak trees, tall and proud and dark, and to hear my own voice, and to feel thatall-consuming helplessness and uselessness and worthlessness…
A pressure began in the palm of my hand—again, no pain. Still, I tried to pull back instinctively, only to find that I couldn’t. It was like my skin was attached to the surface of the wood, and the board was humming softly, too, and there at the front of the indention, something had begun to glow.
Strings of light were forming right at the edge, over a small hole I hadn’t even noticed before, just over my middle finger. Fine, luminous filaments were slipping out of the hole slowly, and they lengthened and traveled down the dark lines of the table’s surface, all the way to the other side.
I watched in awe as the thin strings funneled upward toward the needle—which was working still, but it didn’tstabthe light. It wound it.
Time’s Teeth, I’d never seen anything like it. The light was wrapping around it in tight coils. It was becoming athreadright before my eyes—andfast.
By the time all the strings had reached the needle, a thread the length of my pinky finger made of that glowing white light hung on the wheel, and the man reached slowly to pick it up with a small metal hook. He was careful with it, making sure he didn’t touch the thread with his bare skin.
One of the others held the mask steadily in both hands for him, and he settled the thread on the edges of the left eyehole. The thread hissed a little when it touched the fabric, then merged onto it like it had finally found its place.
My mouth opened and closed but no word came to mind.
“Another, Miss Reese. The second bad memory,” the man said, as his friends began to spin the wheel again, and he held his hook up, prepared.
The second memory that came to my mind wasn’t one I’d considerbad. More likepainful,but that’s what took over the center of my mind for a split second.
By the time I attempted to think of another that would better qualify asbad,the pressure and the warmth had spread on my palm, and another batch of light strings were slipping out the table. Traveling up to the wheel and the needle. Winding into another thread, identical in shape and length and color as the first.
The man used his hook to place it around the right eyehole of the mask this time, then turned to me.
“Now, the neutral.”
The memory was just there, within my reach. I remembered the lake near our house, the surface of it a rich green.The octopus,I called it, because Father called it that when I was little once, and it stuck. The lake was shaped like an octopus for real, complete with a round head and eight separate legs. We went there for picnics all the time when I was little, and when I grew up, I went alone at least a few times a week.
In this memory I thought of now, I sat there all by myself, breathed in the scent of the water, looked up at the sky stuck in twilight for a few moments, not light but not quite dark, either. I felt the softness of the grass beneath me, and I didn’t think. Didn’t feel. Didn’t dream or dread or worry. I justwas.
The heat lasted but a second, and then the top of the table was flooded with light once more. The strings did the same thing, wound around the needle, turned themselves into a thread, and the man put it over the first that was still glowing around the left eyehole of the mask.
When he was done, he turned to me. “Your price has been paid in full.”
