John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

Vanity said, “Oh my God! She has floating eyeballs! Yee-uk!”

Quentin said, “I think you are being too harsh, Vanity.”

Vanity said, “You don’t understand! Girls get freaked out if we have a mole or if one breast is slightly bigger than another. Little things. A crooked nose. A blackhead. You know. The only thing you boys actually judge us on. So how do you think we should feel if we grow another hand out of our forehead or something? Even a nice-looking hand with long nails? And now she’s got energy and matter and music and God-knows-what coming off of her, and too many legs, and… Do you know a guy won’t look at you on the beach if you have one toe missing? One toe!”

Colin said, “You were never on a beach.”

Quentin said to me, “It really did not look that bad. There was something spiritual about the shape. It looked… hmm… more ‘real’ somehow and less frail, than the normal objects in the room here.”

Colin said, “There were other shapes, beyond what we saw. Maybe one for every different angle she can turn in this so-called ‘fourth dimension’ of hers, or whatever dumb visualization she uses to focus. There’s more. I sense the untapped energy.”

Victor said, “Shape doesn’t matter. Beauty is an arbitrary judgment.”

Colin said to me, “Look here, Amelia, a flat picture of a girl can be as good-looking as the 3-D real thing. Better looking, actually, if she takes off her shirt for the camera. So why can’t a 4-D picture of a girl look good?”

I said to him, “(A) I never said I thought I looked bad, only Vanity said that, so you don’t have to try to cheer me up, and (B) I thought you said I looked like a squid?”

He said, “A cute squid. What’s the problem? We’re all shape-changers. You just happened to be the first one to pop up a new shape.”

Victor said, “You also can manifest limbs at a distance. There was also a mist or cloud connecting various disconnected bulbs and wing elements around you. Wherever an object—I assume part of your body—was appearing or disappearing, there was always a puff of cloud and a visible light distortion. Parts of your body seemed to be energy fields rather than flesh and bone.”

Quentin said, “The misty clouds looked just like the ones we saw around the hands of the Hecatonchire last night.”

I looked at him in amazement, dumbstruck.

Vanity said, “How do you know that, Quentin?”

“Because I remember, now,” he said quietly.

And he smiled.

Vanity was staring at the two oblong clocks which stood to either side of the door. She cocked her ear to one side, listening.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“They sound funny. Weren’t they ticking slower earlier…?”

Meanwhile, Victor was saying to Quentin, “What do you remember?”

Quentin said, “Maybe things are more dangerous than we think. There was a woman in Dr. Fell’s office. A vampiress. She tricked Fell into stepping outside, and she tried to kill me.”

Colin said, “Why don’t we just leave? Right now, right this second, money or no money? We walk to Abertwyi and steal a boat.”

Victor said, “They’d send the police.”

Colin said, “So? So we tell the police that there are ancient Greek gods kidnapping us, and they lock us up in a madhouse. At least we won’t be here. And if our powers work on Earth, you point your little pinky finger at the locks and we walk out. We could hunt in the woods for food, or work, or live off the dole. They don’t let children starve in England, despite what Maggie Thatcher wanted.”

Quentin said, “Amelia, you’re not going to leap to Prime Minister Thatcher’s defense? You are her biggest fan.”

I said, “Those clocks are in time with each other now.”

Victor said, “What?”

I said, “They were out of synch before. Now they are in synch. When I was in the Fourth Dimension, I sensed their internal nature was watchful, and trembling with hate. They’re beings. Alive things. I think they may be listening to what we say.”

Quentin turned to Victor. “They know we know. The Head of Bran appeared out of the tabletop here and called us by name. They saw us do our magic. There is no chance of fooling Boggin any longer.”

Colin said, “I’ll go get the fire axe.” And he ran out the door and down the corridor. We all knew which axe he meant; it hung by a fire extinguisher on the second-floor landing.

Vanity said, “If we chop up his clocks, Boggin will know.”

I said, “What if we chop up the clocks and take Colin’s plan and just run away? Now, before they wake up or get back from wherever they went?”

Quentin said, “There is an amnesia drug Dr. Fell used on me. I could go down to his office, steal some, and bring it back.”

Victor said, “Where would we inject the clocks? Do they have veins?” And he went over, stooped to examine the panel in the front of the clock. He ran his hand over the lock, it clicked, and the front little cabinet opened just a crack. Victor peered in.

“Oh, that’s just lovely,” said Victor in disgust.

“What?” we all said.

He pushed the door shut and the lock clicked. “It’s nothing I want you girls to see. Quentin, do you know those large canvas sacks we found in the kitchen? Go down and get me two. If you pass Colin charging back up here, tell him to go steal a shovel from Mr. Glum’s shed.”

Quentin pointed. “There are corpses inside those clocks, aren’t there? Dead bodies.”

Victor said, “Yes.”

Quentin blanched and Vanity said, “Yeeew!”

Victor said, “I was going to pop them in sacks and give them a proper burial once we’re all in the woods somewhere. If I do that, and reset the clock mechanism, maybe whatever inside this clock Amelia says is watching us will be disabled. It’s just a guess, mind you. But I thought it would give us more time before they noticed anything wrong. Amelia, bring me Mr. Glum’s hammer. If we leave it in this room, maybe they’ll think he did it.”

Colin was at the door. “You mean I don’t get to chop down the clock?” He had the fire axe in his hands.

Victor said, “We must be unanimous in this. Is everyone willing to leave? Now, this minute?”

I said, “What about the things in the safe?”

He said, “Tell Vanity what of your things from your room you want. Vanity, we’ll give you ten minutes or so to pack. We boys will go bury the remains in the clock.”

Colin said, “There are dead bodies in the clock? You were all looking at dead bodies and I missed it?”

Victor continued, “That will give you ten minutes, Amelia, if you think you can bluff or brass your way past the workmen and get to the safe.”

Colin said, “Wiggle your nipples in their faces, Aim. It worked on your boyfriend, Glum.”

Victor said, “If you want to take the risk. Otherwise, we can always try to sneak back on the grounds later on, and crack the safe then.”

I said, “You should do that, not me. You can wave your hand and get it open. I don’t think my powers will turn on unless the sphere is ringing, and the sphere only rang because Miss Daw’s music was shocking it.”

Vanity said, “I want to hear Quentin’s story!”

Quentin, as if summoned by his name, came trotting back in, carrying empty canvas potato sacks. “Mr. Glum is still sleeping soundly. But out through the window, I thought I saw two people walking toward the Great Hall. Miss Daw and a man in a coat. I didn’t recognize him, but he was too short to be Dr. Fell.”

Victor said, “I hate doing things in haste, but we’re short on time. We have an opportunity to escape while everyone is drunk or asleep or whatever happened to them. We have to be unanimous in this; we have to be of one mind. Who wants to escape now?”