Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

M
Y FATHER IS A MURDERER
. M
Y BROTHER IS DEAD
, and my best friend is dying of the disease that my father may have created. It’s a refrain that’s repeated over and over in my mind, through feverish dreams, and even now. And yet . . . my father is the gentlest man I know. He saved us from the contagion. I put my hand to the porcelain mask covering my face—my father’s greatest invention.

I blink several times because I don’t want to cry, though I’m alone on the deck of the airship. The crashed airship. We’re tethered between the two tall chimneys of a stately manor house. It must have been abandoned years ago, consumed by the expanding swamp.

From where I’m leaning on the railing, I can see the gatehouse where carriages would have paused before bringing guests to a ball. Only its rotting gables make the structure at all recognizable, since the rest of it is cloaked by the tentacles of swamp plants. In front of the gatehouse are two stone posts, topped with lions’ heads. One has fallen and nearly disappeared into the murk. The bog ripples around the other.

Behind me, from the roof of the house, is the sound of hammering and an occasional muttered curse. We were blown far off course, and eventually Kent was able to rig the steering for long enough to land on this roof. Otherwise, we would have landed in the swamp. He and Elliott are making permanent repairs to the ship now. We’ve been here for two days, and I’ve been asleep for most of that. Will did his best, but he isn’t a physician, and I can feel the burn of the gash across my back. Each movement pulls the careful stitches that he used to close the wound.

We managed to get out of the city, but getting back won’t be as easy as we had thought. We’re trapped atop this sinking house, a decaying man-made island in the swamp. Yesterday I could still see smoke rising from the city, but today nothing is in the distance but green water, patches of swamp grass, and a few trees. It looks calm, but that’s deceptive. The swamp is filled with predators. Diseased men. Snakes. Crocodiles.

Shading my eyes with my left hand to avoid pulling at my wounded shoulder, I watch insects land on the surface of shallow pools and reptiles slither this way and that. Though by foot we’re days away from civilization, Kent and Elliott aren’t sure this house is safe from Malcontent and his swamp dwellers. The man who chased Will and his siblings up the airship’s ladder as we launched is now our prisoner. He was one of Malcontent’s soldiers, and from him we’ve learned more of Malcontent’s nightmarish plot to spread the contagion through the city.

Now there’s also the Red Death, a new disease that’s sweeping the city, killing much faster than the original plague. I adjust my mask, running my thumb over the crack inside. We have to get the ship repaired, and quickly. We are in danger here, and we aren’t accomplishing anything that will improve the state of the city. Since I can’t do much else, I’ve assigned myself the task of watching for anything out of the ordinary. Anything threatening.

But this study of my surroundings isn’t enough to stop the refrain in my mind. My father is a murderer. My father might be a murderer. I need to know the truth.

When I was five years old, I sat on my father’s shoulders to watch a parade. Mother had kept my twin brother, Finn, at home to recover from some illness, so it was just the two of us. As Father lifted me above the crowd, I felt completely and absolutely safe. When he placed me on his shoulders, I wobbled a bit and grabbed a handful of his hair to steady myself. Though he flinched when I pulled, he kept his hands on my knees.

The parade route was lined with children, and none of us wore masks. We had no fear of the crowds, no concern that contagion would flit from person to person. In that long-ago world, I was safe because my father was with me.

People watched the city streets expectantly, pressed close, straining forward. The thought of so many exhaling bodies together now horrifies me. It seems like someone else’s memory, less real than the dreams that fill the spaces when my thoughts fade . . . dark dreams of murder and death. Only one person can dispel this never-ending doubt. I have to find my father.

The hammering has stopped. I grip the railing, ignoring the burn in my shoulder and watching the swamp, listening for footsteps crossing the deck of the airship. Elliott won’t like that I’m out of bed.

“Araby?” I know the look I’ll see on his face, the concern, before I turn. “You’re bleeding again. Let me give you something for the pain.”

My father used to mix sleeping drafts. Elliott prefers injections. My arm is dotted with bruises.

The sun is directly overhead, and a bit of sweat trickles down my back. The salt stings, but the pain is much deeper, nearly unbearable. A mosquito lands on my shoulder, and I swat it away with a wince I can’t repress.

Elliott whispers, “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

But I’ve already been hurt.

When the steamship exploded and I thought he was dead. When Will took me below the city and betrayed me to a maniac. When I found the pamphlet proclaiming that my father created the plague that destroyed our city.

And I survived it. Without the help of Elliott’s silver syringe.

I step back, shaking my head. Now that I’m healed enough to make the decision myself, I don’t want his “help” with the pain.

“At least come into the cabin and rest,” he says. “You need your strength.”

He’s right; I do. Even standing here for this short time has worn me out, and the railing is all that’s keeping me up. When we return to the city, I have to be able to fight. I have to search for my father. April has the contagion, and if anyone can save her, Father can. So, for now, I let Elliott take my hand and lead me toward the cabin.

I cast one last look over the swamp. Does something move out there? I stop, watching for even the tiniest ripple, but everything is still, and then Elliott pulls me through the door and the main cabin of the airship, to the small sleeping chamber where the prisoner was held before Will and Elliott secured him someplace within the house.

I’m still wearing my green party dress, though it’s inches shorter than it was when I put it on. April cut away everything that was ruined during our escape, leaving me with something close to indecent. One of the ragged edges catches on the doorframe, and there’s a rustle of paper from one of my pockets as the journal in it bumps against my leg.

Father’s journal has traveled with me across the city and out of it, through ruin and fire and flood. And I’m grateful that no one has taken it from me. Whatever revelations are in this book, I want to know them first. In private, not the middle of a crowd—the way I learned about Father and the plague. I never want to learn something so earth-shattering so publicly again. And today is the first time I’ve felt clear-headed enough to read it.

“Someone should watch the swamp,” I say as I lie down. “Malcontent’s men could be out there.” Elliott pulls the blanket to my chin and pats my good shoulder. He isn’t listening, but I know he isn’t blind to the danger we face from the swamp. He’ll have someone on watch.

I keep my eyes closed until he shuts the door, and then I pull the journal from my pocket. The pamphlet that calls my father a murderer sticks out from where I tucked it inside.

The journal’s paper is wavy from water damage, and it falls open to the first passage I ever read. The ink is still clear.
Everything is my fault
. My heart stutters.

But that is near the end, and I need to start from the beginning. Some of the pages stick together. Father is careful, though, and he’d never use an ink that bled, not for his research. I turn the page.

Spent the morning showing Finn how to use the microscope. Catherine dressed the twins in ridiculous matching outfits. She wants us to have their portraits painted. It’s amazing how alike they are. I don’t blame her for wanting to capture this stage. Already we’ve seen how fast they grow and change.

She doesn’t know that all of our savings have been spent. The things she wants are reasonable. But my research is expensive.

There was never enough money when we were young. Not until after the plague.

Have been hired for a new project, trying to locate a defect in local cattle. A quandary about local breeding. I’ve put my personal research on hold.

The next five pages detail the vagaries of cattle breeding. On the seventh page it says:

Araby dressed up in white lace and ribbons. Catherine planned to take her to visit relatives. She is a beautiful child. Finn spilled a cup of grape juice on her, and the excursion was canceled. Catherine went to bed with a headache. Entire day of research wasted.

Is that all we ever were, all I ever was? A distraction from Father’s work? But I push that aside. I’m not looking for clues as to whether Father loved me. I need information about the disease that destroyed our way of life.

Pages later, my father writes about working with Prospero, before he was prince. I nearly drop the journal. I try to think. Did Father ever speak of knowing Prospero, before? I force myself to keep reading, to learn all I can about the disease. It was originally supposed to kill rats. Only rats. But it did so much more.

This is confirmation of my worst fears. Whoever wrote the horrible pamphlet was right. My father created the Weeping Sickness. The last shred of hope that he was innocent shrivels.

My best friend is dying. My brother is dead. Because of my father.

But the one thing I can hold on to is that if he created it, he could also know how to cure it. The rumors Kent heard—that Father discovered something after Finn died—could be true. So it may not be too late for April. I read on until the words begin to swim on the page.

When I wake, the room is dim. Elliott is lying beside me, though there is another bed and the one we’re in is narrow. He’s propped on one arm, looking down at me. His eyebrows go up as I meet his eyes. The look on his face is gentle, and I have a distinct suspicion that he was stroking my hair. For the first time since I’ve known him, he looks calm.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

Crumpled. Dazed. The pain in my shoulder is a dull burn.

“Why am I so groggy?” This room is like being enclosed in a box. “Did you give me something after I fell asleep?”

He doesn’t have to answer. His silver syringe is on the table, beside the makeup bag that April keeps saving and returning to me.

“You were crying out in your sleep. You needed it.”

“I told you I didn’t want anything.” I shove away from him. How dare he? As I sit up, my hair falls against my mouth.

I put my hand to my face, hoping to touch cool porcelain, but my fingers find only skin. My mask is gone. Elliott isn’t wearing his, but then he rarely does.

My father’s last warning was not to take my mask off. And I know he wouldn’t give idle warnings.

“Elliott, where is it?” My voice is angry.

He tries to take my hand, but I pull it back. “Don’t worry, it’s here.” He reaches under the bed and holds up a black velvet bag with a drawstring. The same sort of bag we used to store our masks at the Debauchery Club.

I lean forward to take the bag from his him, and as I do, something rustles beneath the light coverlet. I fell asleep reading Father’s journal, never expecting that I would wake to find Elliott in bed beside me.

Elliott isn’t one to wait. What if he drugged me so that he could take the journal? Would he have returned it? I shift, sliding my leg over the book to keep it from rustling. I’ll show it to him, but not yet. Not until I’ve read everything. I open the velvet bag, extracting my mask. Dirt stains the line of the ugly crack, like a scar, but it won’t make the filter less functional.

Elliott stretches as I slide the mask on.

“They put us in here so that we could have some privacy,” he says with a smirk.

I look away, pretending to examine the oil painting of the sea on the far wall, determined not to let Elliott know that it makes me nervous, being so near to him. Determined to ignore his innuendos. To hold on to my anger at him.

“Privacy while we recover,” he adds, this time without the mocking tone. And now I do look at him. His shirt is open, and the side of his neck is pink and shiny.

I reach out but stop short of touching the painful-looking burn. “But you were working on the repairs with Kent.” I had assumed he had recovered from the injuries he sustained when the ship he was on exploded.

“I did what I can. Will is helping Kent finish. I asked April to watch the swamp, since you were so worried. You and I both need to regain our strength. We have a struggle ahead.”

“A struggle ahead,” I repeat. Now his eyes have that fevered look, and I am drawn to it despite myself. Before I met him, I didn’t know how to fight. But now I know what it feels like to have that power. And when he looks at me with the fervent expression that he usually uses for his revolution, something inside me melts.