The next time I woke, I wasn’t dreaming and I knew it. I was tucked into a bed in a small room. Weak light spilled from behind a drawn window shade. So, daytime. But what day?
I was in a nightgown, not my old, blood-stained clothes, and my eyes were clear of grit. Someone had been taking care of me. Also: though I was bone-tired, I felt little pain. My shoulder had stopped aching, and so had my head. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
I tried sitting up. I had to stop halfway and rest on my elbows. A glass pitcher of water stood on a night table by the bedside. In one corner of the room was a hulking wooden wardrobe. In the other—I blinked and rubbed my eyes, making sure—yes, there was a man sleeping in a chair. My mind was moving so sluggishly that I wasn’t even startled; I merely thought, that’s odd. And he was: so odd-looking, in fact, that I struggled briefly to understand what I was seeing. He seemed a man composed of halves: half his hair was slicked down while the other half was cowlicked all over the place; half his face was scraggly beard and the other half clean-shaven. Even his clothes (pants, rumpled sweater, ruffled Elizabethan collar) were half modern, half archaic.
“Hello?” I said uncertainly.
The man shouted, startling so badly that he fell out of his chair and landed on the floor in a clatter. “Oh, my! Oh, goodness!” He climbed back into the chair, eyes wide and hands aflutter. “You’re awake!”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you …”
“Ah, no, it was my fault entirely,” he said, smoothing his clothes and straightening his ruffled collar. “Please don’t tell anyone I fell asleep watching you!”
“Who are you?” I asked. “Where am I?” My mind was clearing fast, and as it did it filled with questions. “And where’s Emma?”
“Right, yes!” the man said, looking flustered. “I might not be the best-equipped member of the household to answer … questions …”
He whispered the word, eyebrows raised, as if questions were forbidden. “But!” He pointed at me. “You’re Jacob.” He pointed at himself. “I’m Nim.” He made a whirling motion with his hand. “And this is Mr. Bentham’s house. He’s very eager to meet you. In fact, I’m to notify him as soon as you’re awake.”
I squirmed up from my elbows to sit fully upright, the effort of which nearly exhausted me. “I don’t care about any of that. I want to see Emma.”
“Of course! Your friend …”
He flapped his hands like little wings while his eyes darted from side to side, as if he might find Emma in a corner of the room.
“I want to see her. Now!”
“My name’s Nim!” he squeaked. “And I’m to notify—yes, under strict instructions …”
A panicky thought flew into my head—that Sharon, mercenary that he was, had rescued us from the mob only to sell us for spare parts.
“EMMA!” I managed to shout. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
Nim went blank and plopped into the chair—I’d scared him silly, I think.
A moment later feet came pounding down the hall. A man in a white coat burst into the room. “You’re awake!” he exclaimed. I could only assume he was a doctor.
“I want to see Emma!” I said. I tried to swing my legs out of the bed, but they felt heavy as logs.
The doctor rushed to my side and pushed me back toward the sheets. “Don’t exert yourself, you’re still recovering!”
The doctor ordered Nim to go find Mr. Bentham. Nim ran out, bouncing off the doorjamb and flopping into the hall. And then Emma was at the door, out of breath and beaming, her hair spilling down a clean white dress.
“Jacob?”
At the sight of her, a burst of strength coursed through me and I sat up, pushing the doctor aside.
“Emma!”
“You’re awake!” she said, running to me.
“Careful with him, he’s delicate!” the doctor warned.
Checking herself, Emma gave me the gentlest of hugs, then sat on the edge of the bed next to me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. They said you’d be out for hours more …”
“It’s okay,” I said. “But where are we? How long have we been here?”
Emma glanced at the doctor. He was writing in a small notebook but obviously listening. Emma turned her back to him and lowered her voice. “We’re at a rich man’s house in Devil’s Acre. Someplace hidden. Sharon brought us here a day, day and a half ago.”
“Is that all?” I said, studying Emma’s face. Her skin was perfectly smooth, her cuts faded to thin white lines. “You look almost healed!”
“I only had a few nicks and bumps …”
“No way,” I said. “I remember what happened out there.”
“You had a broken rib and a torn shoulder,” the doctor interjected.
“They have a woman here,” Emma said. “A healer. Her body produces a powerful dust …”
“And a double concussion,” said the doctor. “Nothing we couldn’t handle in the end. But you, boy—you were nearly dead when you arrived.”
I patted my chest, my stomach, all the places I’d been pummeled. No pain. I lifted my right arm and rotated the shoulder. No problem. “It feels like I’ve got a new arm,” I said, marveling.
“You’re lucky you didn’t need a new head,” came another voice—Sharon, ducking to fit his full height through the doorway. “In fact, it’s a shame they didn’t give you one, because apparently the one you’ve got now is full of sawdust. Disappearing like that, running off without a clue where you were going—and after all my warnings about the Acre! What were you thinking?” He towered over Emma and me, wagging his long white finger.
I grinned at him. “Hello, Sharon. Nice to see you again.”
“Yes, ha-ha, it’s all smiles now that everything’s rosy, but you nearly got yourselves killed out there!”
“We were lucky,” Emma said.
“Yes—lucky I was there! Lucky my gallows-rigging cousins were available that evening and I was able to catch them before they’d had too much Ditch lager at the Cradle and Coffin! They don’t work for free, by the way. I’m adding their services to your tab, along with my damaged boat!”
“Fine, fine!” I said. “Settle down, okay?”
“What were you thinking?” he said again, his awful breath settling over us like a cloud.
And then it came back to me, what I’d been thinking, and I kind of lost it. “That you were an untrustworthy lout!” I fired back. “That it’s only about money with you, and you probably would have sold us into slavery the first chance you got! Yeah,” I said, “we looked into it. We know all about the shady things you peculiars get up to around here, and if you think for a minute we believe that you”—I pointed at Sharon—“or any of you”—I pointed at the doctor—“are helping us purely out of kindness, you’re nuts! So either tell us what you want with us or let us go, because we’ve … we’ve got …”
A sudden, crashing wave of exhaustion. My vision unfocused.
“Got better things to …”
I shook my head, tried standing up, but the room had begun to spin. Emma held my arms and the doctor pushed me back gently onto my pillow. “We’re helping you because Mr. Bentham asked us to,” he said tersely. “What he wants with you, well, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”
“Like I keep saying, Mister whoever can kiss my mmmff—”
Emma clapped a hand over my mouth. “Jacob’s not feeling himself at the moment,” she said. “I’m sure what he meant to say was, thanks for saving us. We’re in your debt.”
“That, too,” I mumbled through her fingers.
I was angry and scared, but also genuinely happy to be alive—and to see Emma whole and healed. When I thought about that, all the fight leaked out of me and I was filled with simple gratitude. I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning and listened to them whisper about me.
“He’s a problem,” said the doctor. “He can’t be allowed to meet Mr. Bentham like this.”
“His brain is addled,” Sharon said. ?
??If the girl and I could just talk with him in private, I’m sure he could be brought around. Might we have the room to ourselves?”
Reluctantly, the doctor left. When he was gone, I opened my eyes again and focused on Emma, looking down at me.
“Where’s Addison?” I asked.
“He got across,” she said.
“Right,” I said, remembering. “Have you heard from him? Has he come back yet?”
“No,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”
I considered what that might mean—what might have happened to him—but I couldn’t bear the thought. “We promised to go after him,” I said. “If he can get across, so can we.”
“That bridge hollow might not have cared about a dog getting across,” Sharon butted in, “but you he’d peel off and toss right into the boil.”
“Go away,” I said to him. “I want to talk to Emma in private.”
“Why? So you can climb out the window and run away again?”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Emma said. “Jacob can’t even get out of bed.”
Sharon wasn’t swayed. “I’ll go to the corner and mind my own business,” he said. “That’s my best offer.” He went and perched himself on Nim’s one-armed chair and began to whistle and clean his fingernails.
Emma helped me sit up, and we pressed our foreheads together and spoke in whispers. For a moment I was so overwhelmed by her closeness that all the questions flooding my brain vanished, and there was only her hand touching my face, brushing my cheek, my jaw.
“You had me so frightened,” Emma said. “I really thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m fine,” I said. I knew I hadn’t been, but it embarrassed me to be worried over.
“You weren’t. Not at all. You should apologize to the doctor.”
“I know. I was just freaked out. And I’m sorry if I scared you.”
She nodded and then looked away. Her eyes drifted briefly to the wall, and when they returned, a new hardness glittered in them.
“I like to think I’m strong,” she said. “That the reason I’m free right now instead of Bronwyn or Millard or Enoch is that I’m strong enough to be depended upon. That’s always been me—the one who could take anything. Like there’s a pain sensor inside me that’s not switched on. I can block out awful things and get on with it, do what needs doing.” Her hand found mine atop the sheets. Our fingers knotted together, automatic. “But when I think about you—how you looked when they pulled you off the ground, after those people …”
She let out a shaky breath and shook her head, as if chasing away the memory. “I just break.”
“Me, too,” I said, remembering the pain I felt whenever I saw Emma hurt, the terror that gripped me every time she was in danger. “Me, too.” I squeezed her hand and searched for something more to say, but she spoke first.
“I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything,” I said.
“I need you not to die.”
I cracked a smile. Emma didn’t. “You can’t,” she said. “If I lose you, the rest isn’t worth a damn.”
I slid my arms around her, pulled her tight against me. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s not good enough,” she whispered. “Promise me.”
“Okay. I won’t die.”
“Say, ‘I promise.’ ”
“I promise. You say it, too.”
“I promise,” she said.
“Ahh,” Sharon said airily from the corner, “the sweet lies lovers tell …”
We broke apart. “You’re not supposed to be listening!” I said.
“That was long enough,” he said, dragging his chair loudly across the floor and planting it next to the bed. “We have important things to discuss. Namely, the apology you owe me.”
“For what?” I said, irritated.
“Impugning my character and reputation.”
“Every word was true,” I said. “This loop is full of scumbags and creeps, and you are a money-driven lout.”
“With not an ounce of sympathy for the plight of his own people,” Emma added. “Though, again, thank you for saving us.”
“Around here you learn to look out for number one,” Sharon said. “Everyone’s got a story. A plight. Everyone wants something from you, and they’re almost always lying. So yes, I remain unapologetically self-directed and profit motivated. But I deeply resent your suggestion that I would have dealings of any kind with someone who trades in peculiar flesh. Just because I’m a capitalist doesn’t mean I’m a black-hearted bastard.”
“And how could we have known that?” I said. “We had to beg and bribe you not to abandon us at the dock, remember?”
He shrugged. “That was before I realized who you are.”
I glanced at Emma, then pointed to my chest. “Who I am?”
“You, my boy. Mr. Bentham’s been waiting a long time to speak to you. Since the day I first hung my shingle as a boatman—forty-odd years ago. Bentham ensured me safe passage in and out of the Acre if I promised to keep an eye out for you while I did it. I was to bring you to see him. And now, finally, I’ve kept my end of the bargain.”
“You must have me confused with someone else,” I said. “I’m nobody.”
“He said you’d be able to speak to hollowgast. How many peculiars do you know who can do that?”
“But he’s only sixteen,” Emma said. “Really sixteen. So how can—”
“That’s why it took me a while to put it all together,” said Sharon. “I had to go see Mr. Bentham about it personally, which is where I was when you two ran away. You don’t fit the description, see. All these years I’ve been keeping watch for an old man.”
“An old man,” I said.
“Right.”
“Who can talk to hollows.”
“As I said.”
Emma tightened her grip on my hand and we exchanged a look—no, it couldn’t be—and then I swung my legs out of bed, charged with new energy. “I want to talk to this Bentham guy. Right now.”
“He’ll see you when he’s ready,” Sharon said.
“No,” I said. “Now.”
As it happened, at that very moment there was a knock at the door. Sharon opened it to find Nim. “Mr. Bentham will meet our guests for tea in one hour,” he said, “in the library.”
“We can’t wait an hour,” I said. “We’ve wasted too much time here already.”
At this, Nim went a bit red and puffed out his cheeks. “Wasted?”
“What Jacob meant,” Emma said, “is that we have another pressing engagement elsewhere in the Acre that we’re already late for.”
“Mr. Bentham insists upon meeting you properly,” Nim said. “As he always says, the day there’s no time for manners, the world’s lost to us anyway. Speaking of which, I’m to make sure you’re dressed appropriately.” He went to the wardrobe and swung open its heavy doors. Inside were several racks of clothes. “You may choose what you like.”
Emma pulled out a frilly dress and curled her lip. “This feels so wrong. Playing dress-up and having tea while our friends and ymbrynes are forced to endure bird knows what.”
“We’re doing it for them,” I said. “We only have to play along till Bentham tells us what he knows. It could be important.”
“Or he could just be a lonely old man.”
“Don’t talk about Mr. Bentham that way,” Nim said, his face puckering. “Mr. Bentham is a saint, a giant among men!”
“Oh calm down,” Sharon said. He went to the window and pulled open the blinds, allowing a weak, pea-soup daylight to dribble into the room. “Up and at ’em!” he said to us. “You two have a date.”
I threw back my covers and Emma helped me out of bed. To my surprise, my legs took my weight. I glanced out the window at an empty street enveloped in yellow murk, and then, with Emma holding my arm, went to the wardrobe to pick out a change of clothes. I found an outfit on a hanger tagged with my name.
“Can we have some privacy to change,
please?” I said.
Sharon looked at Nim and shrugged. Nim’s hands flapped. “It wouldn’t be proper!”
“Ahh, they’re fine,” Sharon said, waving his hand. “No monkey business, all right?”
Emma turned beet red. “I wouldn’t have any idea what you mean.”
“Sure you wouldn’t.” He shooed Nim out of the room, then paused at the doorway. “I can trust you not to run away again?”
“Why would we?” I said. “We want to meet Mr. Bentham.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Emma said. “But why are you still here?”
“Mr. Bentham asked me to keep an eye on you.”
I wondered if that meant Sharon would stop us if we tried to leave.
“Must be a pretty big favor you owed him,” I said.
“Massive,” he replied. “I owe the man my life.” And bending himself nearly in half, he squeezed out into the hallway.
* * *
“You change clothes in there,” Emma said, nodding toward a small connecting bathroom. “I’ll change in here. And no peeking until I knock!”
“Okayyy,” I said, exaggerating my disappointment in order to hide it. While seeing Emma in her underwear was an undeniably appealing prospect, all the life-threatening peril we’d endured lately had put that part of my teenage brain into a kind of deep freeze. A few more serious kisses, though, and my baser instincts might start to reassert themselves.
But anyway.
I shut myself in the bathroom, all gleaming white tile and heavy iron fixtures, and leaned over the sink to examine myself in a silvered mirror.
I was a mess.
My face was puffy and crosshatched with angry pink lines, which were healing quickly but still there, reminders of every blow I’d suffered. My torso was a geography of bruises, painless but ugly. Blood was caked into the hard-to-clean folds of my ears. The sight of it made me dizzy, and I had to grip the sink to stay upright. I had a sudden nasty flashback: fists and feet thrashing at me, the ground rushing up.