I wondered ifIfroze the same way, and for such a short time, too. To me it had felt like hours passed while I was inside the memory of my first dance partner.
Not that it mattered, anyway. By now I knew that I had no other choice but to touch his mask, too.
I did.
The ballroom fell away just as quickly as the first time. Suddenly, I was in a small room, sitting at a table beneath a single lamp spilling warm orange light. Rain traced neat lines down the window in front of me, and in my hands I could just feel something cold, something that had sharp edges, yet when I thought to look down to see what it was, I couldn’t.Theseeyes didn’t respond to me, either, because they weren’t mine.
And just like before, every single thing about me was perfect.
The way the rain fell, the sound of it—tick-tick-tick-tick, and the lines it drew on the glass. The way the light fell everywhere, yet there were no shadows on the wall or the hardwood floor.
Wet on my cheeks, and I thought the man might be crying, but there was nothing in my chest at all. No sorrow, no pain, no longing. Just…the sound of a heartbeat that sometimes felt hollow.
Nothing about it changed with the passing moments, not even the rhythm of the raindrops.
I pulled myself back, wanting away from that confined place, from that cold body. Nothing stopped me, and when I was back to myself again, I was no longer touching the man’s mask.
The strangest thing, though—when I let go of his hand and moved back, I lost balance, slammed against the edge of a partition, and almost fell. The man reached out to help, I thought, and when he did, something shimmered on his skin. The back of his hand, his knuckles. Like they suddenly changed color. Changed substance.
Like he suddenlywasn’t real.
Words came back to me as I moved farther and farther away, and he only took a couple steps toward me before he lowered his hands again.
I myself cannot wait to see you tangled in a waltz of illusions—wasn’t that what Johnny the speaker had said before we entered the dome?
I hadn’t understood what he’d meant then, thought it was just a figure of speech, but what if he’d meant it literally? What if I was truly dancing with illusions?
Time’s Teeth, they’re not real,I thought, and would have said it out loud if the ballroom allowed. As it was, I stayed by the partition and watched the people closely as they danced and touched each other’s masks, then turned and switched partners again and again and again…
I watched closely, and I began to notice how their skin shimmered here and there, how an entire limb disappeared for seconds at a time while they danced, how their bodies moved in a way that wasn’t all natural. It wasn’t likewemoved at all.
I knew then what the point of this game was. I knew I hadto find a real person among the illusions, possibly one of the Hands.
Except to stop and analyze each one of them was impossible—they moved so swiftly that I couldn’t hope to keep track of whom I’d seen and whom I hadn’t. It was on purpose, I supposed.
There was no other way to find someonerealother than to dance, and to touch as many masks, to see as many memories as I could.
When I turned around, hoping to find more water for my dry mouth, a man wearing a white and red suit was already waiting for me. He grabbed my hand, wrapped his around my waist, and he pulled me toward the dance floor with such ease you’d think I weighed but a feather. My own body was to blame for it, too—the moment they touched me, I began to dance no matter what I felt like. If they led, I was moving, and I didn’t even need to think, or worry about stepping on any toes.
So be it,I thought. Water would have to wait. I needed to find what was real in this strange place first.
Time passed so fast,and far too slowly at the same time as I danced.
Forever-forever-forever—the word echoed in my head, and I had to remind myself that the Heart man hadn’t meant it when he said the ballroom would keep me here forever if I chose wrong.This was all part of the game. Nobody in the history of the Turning Trials had ever even been hurt badly, let alonestuckinside a ballroomforever.
I was going to be out there again in no time. There was no other option.
In the meantime, I walked through a field of bright yellow flowers at dawn, where every blade of grass bent at the same angle at exactly the same time, but the body I was in didn’t feel any wind at all. Then I stood at the edge of a celebration—music, movement, color—yet I couldn’tseeany of it. It was all a blur, like the eyes I looked out from were perfectly out of focus, or maybe in need of some glasses.
Or maybe they weren’t real eyes at all.
I watched snow fall onto outstretched hands and never felt the cold, sat beside a fire that crackled while the flames danced all in the same way, in the same rhythm, but the heat of them never reached me, and ran through rain that never soaked me, too.
Over and over again, I hopped from one memory to the next and lost a little bit of myself in each.
It got me thinking, what if I couldn’t even tell what was real? What ifIwas the problem? What ifIfelt way too much, andthiswas normal?
But how was I supposed to even know, whenthiswas what I’d felt my whole life? I was lost in a sea full of things that looked real but weren’t—and I wasn’t even twelve-hours certain of it.
