“I need to make you forget again. One last time.
Or you won’t be human enough to bring her back.
You’ll know what you need to do.
Time for us to go, my love.”
* * *
I regained my senses in front of a familiar gas station. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. Hardly surprising. As I reached for the handle of the pane-glass door, the image of Morgan, and of the man who’d abducted her, flashed again in my mind.
* * *
“The man in the glass? The one who took our daughter?
He is like me, except he does not have a heart.
He is my father, but Father is his title, too.”
* * *
The woman behind the counter noticed me as I walked in.
“Well, hello,” she said. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
It would have been foolish to trust her. Then again, I was pitifully low on allies.
“Hi again,” I said. “I’m Lucas.”
“Hi, Lucas. I’d like to tell you my name, but I lost it a while ago.”
There was an otherness about her. Her features were difficult to place.
“Pardon the question,” I said, “but are you human?”
She shrugged. “Same as you. Born human. But now… who knows?”
I nodded. That was something, at least.
“I doubt you came here on holiday, Lucas. Tell me what you need.” She said it gently, perhaps reading the exhaustion and frustration in my face.
I sighed. “I could really use some answers. And a way to find my daughter.”
She seemed to glance meaningfully at something (someone) beside me, then looked back at me. “No. If you don’t know something, then that’s for a reason. You’ve seen what knowing can do to a person.
“But I can help you with your daughter, I think,” she said. She began looking for something below the counter.
“People get stranded out here sometimes, normal people. They get off the bus, then they make the smart decision and don’t get back on. A long time ago, I made a bargain, for a way to get those people home. But it should work for you, too. Here, let me show you.”
She pulled out a little trinket, and handed it to me. It was a wooden pendant, shaped like a keyhole, but it didn’t look like it had been carved. The grain followed the keyhole’s outline, as if the wood had been bent into shape. A piece of cord was looped through the center.
“What do I owe you for it?” I asked.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said. “You’ll pay when you use it.”
“And, uh… how does it work?”
“Just close your eyes and find the door.”
I closed my eyes and waved my hands around in front of me. Sure enough, there was a door where surely none had been before.
I opened my eyes, and there was nothing there.
“Do I need a key?”
She gave me a smile, half amused and half sympathetic. “Your fingers should work just fine. Left hand only.”
I closed my eyes and put my left little finger into the gnarled wooden lock. It didn’t come back out.
* * *
“Bargains are sacred to my kind.
Our word is our bond.
And there is no word more powerful than a name.
You gave me your name and I took it as my own. Our names belong to each other.
But my father’s name is his own.
And there’s only one place he’d keep it.”
* * *
When I opened my eyes, I was in a motel room. The motel room, from the night I met Elise.
The closet was ajar. I slammed it shut on instinct. I noticed that the stub on my left hand had been bandaged. I tried to remember if I had done that.
The room had six sides. All the walls were at perfect right-angle corners, and yet there were six of them, somehow. I tried spinning around, and it took me an extra half-turn to get back where I started. It wasn’t the room: the other just had an extra half-turn. Had it been like that last time, too? I couldn’t recall.
I found the wall with the exit door, and took a quick inventory of my resources. A shotgun, six shells in the gun and one in my pocket. An aluminum baseball bat. A finger-door amulet and four left-hand fingers. Bandages and gauze. A phone, a flashlight, six road flares. It was pitifully little, considering the task ahead.
But the less you have of something, the more it’s worth, and I had a feeling that that might be doubly true in this place.
There was one last thing to try.
I closed my eyes, and pushed my left ring finger into the lock. I pictured Father’s study. The lock didn’t budge.
Of course it didn’t. It couldn’t be that easy. For that room, I would need a real key.
I stepped out into the night.
The unfamiliar stars that once mesmerized me were now like omens: one last fleeting refuge from what was to come. I knew, though I couldn’t say why, that a demon awaited me.
* * *
“When the stars go out, even monsters hide, for fear of it.
Only my father can control it. And he never misses the chance.
But in the dark, I can steal the key.”
* * *
The scant starlight barely illuminated the street in front of me. There was an intersection ahead - six-sided, of course. Two- and three-storey buildings cut out silhouettes against the night sky. A shape moved across a rooftop. I’d been spotted.
The creature would send for its master, now. How did I know that? How did I know any of this? It didn’t matter. Father would be carrying the key to his study, that much was obvious, so I needed him to come to me.
With shaky steps, I walked to the center of the intersection and waited for what was to come.
One hour until daybreak.
* * *
Already my mind was turning the night’s haze into shapes and faces, and conjuring images of monsters lurking in the dark. I blinked them away. The dark held monsters enough tonight.
I dug the road flares out of my pack and tore open the plastic wrapping, then stuffed them into my jacket pockets.
It didn’t take long before another set of footsteps traced their way towards me.
I could just barely make out his silhouette.
There was a sound like snapping fingers, then the stars went out.
* * *
I clicked on my flashlight. I didn’t take off running, nor did my shotgun leave my back. Light and time were my only allies tonight.
My beam searched the darkness, and the street stared back at me in monochrome. The light touched windows that were mirrors, alleyways which exited the wrong way, cars in rows and stacks.
I caught a flash of movement.
The flashlight bulb shattered.
When I blinked, the beam’s afterimage was not a circular halo, but a face.
I fished out a flare, stumbling backwards. My hands fumbled with the cap. Every instinct screamed at me to light it. But I couldn’t. Not yet. Not until I could make out words. That was the rule.
There was nothing but utter blackness. I couldn’t see my own hands. A murmur began to come up around me; first in front, then behind, then a turn-and-a-quarter away. Then all of those places at once. It moved closer; twenty feet, maybe, then ten. I fought down the urge to run.
“-ECTANS-”
I struck the flare.
The whisper had almost been in my ear. The thing had been five feet away.
The night was silent again, save for the hiss of the flare. My eyes blinked desperately, and I wiped sweat off my brow. I pulled another flare out of my pocket. All the while, I turned around slowly. I felt so exposed, in the middle of the street like this. Like any second something could grab me from behind. And this place had an extra half-turn of behind.
The flare burned slowly, then quickly, then slowly. The damn monster was toying with me, just to show it could. The flares were a terrible source of light and I didn’t have many of them. Which made them the only thing that would work. It blinked and died. I uncapped another.
I heard a sound like clattering insect legs now. Sharp, rapid clicks, but far too loud. Around me, then below me, then above. Then they moved closer and circled around me, closer and closer until I was sure I could reach out and touch whatever was making that damnable sound. But the voices underneath were still murmurs. I held the striker beside the flare, my hands quivering so much that they were at risk of lighting it by accident.
“LUCAS.”
I struck it. A face was staring me straight in the eyes. It jerked backwards violently as the light illuminated it, then shrunk away and out of sight. The flare burned out all too quickly.
I heard nothing for a full minute.
“HELLO.”
I twitched so badly I almost didn’t light the flare in time. A wall of limbs all around melted away as the light struck them.
The next time, it barely waited for the flare to go out.
“FLICKER.”
Another flare hissed to life. My hands were steady, now. It was only my body that shook. The visceral terror I’d felt was starting to melt into something far more rational, and far worse. Dread. These flares were only buying me minutes. Dawn was still a long way off.
The fourth flare winked out, and I tossed it aside. These moments of safety were feeling shorter and shorter.
“SOON.”
Red light erupted once more. I was so drenched in sweat that the shivers of cold and fear began to run together. The urge to run had passed - squashed by the omnimalevolence of my tormentor - and now I only felt an overwhelming urge to lie down and beg for mercy. The fifth flare died.
One flare left. One flare… but still four fingers.
I closed my eyes and pictured the tailor - there wasn’t much else I could remember of this place. I squeezed through and slammed the door shut.
* * *
I cowered beneath the toy store counter. I assumed this place was a toy store, at least, from the shelves full of irregular shapes that my phone’s flashlight had illuminated when I entered. Something told me I should be glad I hadn’t seen the merchandise in proper daylight.
I’d had no choice but to break the glass on my way in. But my pursuer would be searching the entire city. Surely I’d bought time.
I heard things moving around in the vicinity. It sounded like a crowd. Hushed whispers, frantic footsteps. Someone shouted something indiscernible. The wind picked up, causing the broken window to make a slight clinking. The voices moved away, then closer. A raven cawed overhead. I’d pulled out another flare already, just in case.
The voices began to die down; they were still there, but barely. I caught half a word, barely audible.
I panicked and struck a flare. Trigger-happy idio-
It was right on top of me. A rail-thin man with a raven’s face. It waited for just an instant, letting me get a proper look before it bolted for the exit.
Shit.
Every nerve in my body tingled. Breath came in short gasps. I was on the verge of shutting down.
It had found me far too soon. I was on my last flare.
I didn’t wait for it to burn out.
* * *
I stepped through the finger-door into the hall where I’d been married. I didn’t bother with a light this time, I just made my way towards the benches and picked one to hide beneath. I bandaged my new stump.
I still had my shotgun. Six muzzle flashes, and a seventh in my pocket. It had spent time toying with me even when my flares were out, so maybe even just a brief flash would buy me time.
The pump felt wrong in my mangled left hand.
I almost fell asleep, lying there. Or maybe I nearly passed out. I’d certainly lost a lot of blood.
It took longer to find me this time. It couldn’t trick me this time, either - the slow groan of the grand ash doors opening was unmistakable.
How long until sunrise? Not long, surely.
I shut my eyes and waited for death.
* * *
“FOUND YOU.”
I squeezed the trigger. The flash illuminated a circle of hanged corpses, and my eardrums nearly exploded.
Shit. I didn’t have any earplugs in. Of course I don’t, I need to hear the damn thing.
The shot echoed in my ears, then bled into a deafening ringing. My hand, half-mangled and wet with blood, slipped on the pump as I tried to cycle the round. I tried again, and it nearly jammed before I got it back in position.
I could barely make out the demon’s sounds. I heard something like half a whisper, and pulled the trigger. The flash illuminated nothing. I switched hands on the shotgun.
“GOODBYE.”
I pressed the trigger just in time.
I racked the gun. It was on me in a moment. It knew I was finished.
“THREE.”
BANG
“TWO.”
BANG
“ONE!”
BANG
“ZERO!”
I slammed my eyes shut and grasped for the door. But there wasn’t time.
* * *
And then, suddenly, it was morning.
I’d lost time again. Why wasn’t I dead? What had just happened?
An echo of a memory stirred in my mind.
She found me, just as death closed in.
As the dark roiled around her, she held a candleflame in her hands.
Twenty times it went out, and twenty times she begged it back to life.
* * *
I was in an unfamiliar town square. Though perhaps it should have been called a town hexagon.
There were rows of trees with leaves that grew bluer the higher the tree went, so that the tops blended seamlessly into the sky. I looked in two different directions and saw the same bird. I felt something in my pocket: it was a small wooden key.
As if on cue, a pair of footsteps approached. The bastard trying to turn my daughter into a monster.
* * *
“Five years.
It takes five years among humans for a changeling to grow a heart.
Morgan was so close. That’s why he took her, I’m sure of it.
But we’ll bring her back. We have to.”
* * *
His wrongly-placed eyes bored into me, while his face pulled apart - well past the lips - into a toothy grin. Just looking at him made my skin buzz with unease.
“Impressive showing,” he said. “Clearly some of my daughter’s competence has rubbed off on you.”
“Elise?” I said, only half paying attention. Could I get to my last bullet in time? “I haven’t seen her in months.”
He looked at me quizzically, then his eyes widened. “Ah. It seems you really do believe that.”
There was something in his topcoat, struggling desperately to get out. A bit of red peeked through the collar and he tucked it back in without blinking. His eyes stayed on mine all the while. The sockets seemed to spin, but were still always upside-down.
“What now, Lucas? It should be clear that you’re not taking your daughter back.”
I racked my shotgun.
His unsettling smile descended into an equally unsettling frown.
“Tut, tut, Lucas. I know what an empty shotgun sounds like.
Now, away with you. I need a word with my daughter.”
He whistled, and behind him something moved. In my peripheral vision, I had assumed the shape was a bus. But buses couldn’t jump like that. I summoned what strength was left in my legs and bolted.
* * *
As soon as I was out of sight, I closed my eyes and put the small wooden key in the lock.
It didn’t turn.
On a rooftop above me, something was running.
I took another look at the key. It didn’t seem like a proper key; it was tiny, for one, and only had one projection. It didn’t look like it would match the type of lock that you’d want to use to protect something precious. And now that I looked closer, the key’s surface was pristine, as if it had never been used. It was less like a key, and more like a token.
I closed my eyes and pushed my forefinger through the door, holding the key and picturing Father’s study.
Something hit the ground behind me. The lock clicked.
* * *
The strangest thing about Father’s room, ironically, was that it smelled like linen. It was completely out of place in a way that wasn’t quite weird enough to be other.
Everything else was weird, too, sure. The room had four sides. This would have been a welcome comfort, except space still had six sides, so the walls met at obtuse angles. Framed pictures hung all around: portraits of me, in the midst of searching the room. There was a small wooden spiral staircase in the center of the office, the top of which led to the bottom. When I stepped on the rug, the sound of my footsteps came from above me. To be honest, it all seemed perfectly natural. But not the linen.
I locked the door and shoved a desk up against it. then got to work trying to figure out where, exactly, someone would hide a name.
I tore all the paintings off the walls. I tore up the rugs, then started on the paneling. It took a few minutes before it occurred to me to check the drawers, but even then I barely bothered.
Someone was throwing their body against the door. I tried not to think about it.
One piece of paneling caught my attention. Carved in its surface was a celtic knot, much smaller than the one from the great ash doors of the grand hall but just as intricate.
A puzzle of some kind. There would be some pattern, some image of significance, that could be traced into the knot to get it to open. A brilliant feat of artistry and engineering.
I hit it with a candlestick until it broke.
I reached inside to find a glass box. The lid was open. It was empty.
I’d used up all but one of my fingers, all but one of my shells. I had no idea where the name could be now, and whatever was on the other side of the door was going to kill me.
* * *
Unless.
Father was clever, or at least thought himself to be. And the box was glass.
I couldn’t arrange my fingers the way Elise had done it. I was missing too many. Instead I touched the tips of my right thumb and index finger. I looked through, to the glass, and I willed it to show me.
And it did. A fuzzy image, buried in my subconscious, appeared in the space inside my fingers: it was Elise, holding baby Morgan, my hand in hers. I snapped my head away and nearly dropped the box. Something told me I shouldn’t have seen that. Not yet. I forced it out of my mind instinctively.
I tried again, this time picturing Father. My memories flashed in the box: him at my wedding, him confronting me, him with my daughter. Then things I wasn’t familiar with: a one-room schoolhouse, a spider-eater leading him into the forest, him with Elise and her human mother.
Then, there it was. His name. ████
At the same moment, an axehead pierced the door.
* * *
It was the chauffeur, the one without a face. He peeked through the door, then ducked back into the hallway.
“It’s over,” I said. “I have Father’s name.”
The chauffeur giggled. “If you know how to command me with it, then you’re welcome to try. But I bet I can get to you before you figure it out.”
I cursed.
His head peeked out into the room again, sizing me up.
I needed a clean shot. A shot he was unlikely to give me. I’d seen him move before. Twitchy and deceptively fast.
But he seemed cocky, too. Maybe I could use that.
“Don’t come any closer,” I said. I racked the shotgun, a herculean effort with my stump of a hand. “I’m warning you.”
“If you make this easy on me, I might just be merciful,” he replied. “I’ll eat you either way, but you get to decide whether you die first.”
I racked the empty shotgun again. I hoped his ears were as keen as Father’s.
He laughed. I slipped my last shell into the chamber. “It sounds like somebody’s out of bullets,” he said, pulling himself through the opening.
His movements were slowly, theatrical. Savoring the kill.
I slammed the slide home, and put a hole in his chest.
* * *
The bargain was simple. Father’s name, in exchange for protection for Elise and all of her descendants.
Despite it all, Father barely looked perturbed. He had something like pride in his eyes.
He led me to the bedroom where Morgan was being kept. She was in a deep sleep, which he said was for her benefit. Any memories of the other would taint her once she was back in the ordinary world. Why that was any concern of his, I couldn’t say.
He bid us goodbye and told us to visit soon. I could only nod.
* * *
I put my thumb in the keyhole and pictured my apartment. I was surprised to find my memory tattered, like an old shirt. It felt like ages since I had lived there. And longer since I had lived there. And something with the memory was… wrong. There were too many walls.
Still, the lock began to give, slowly. The last frayed threads linking me to the world where I was born would be enough, it seemed. I could bring Morgan home. But what then? I could follow her physically, maybe, but not in any real sense. I would end up losing her again.
If we all stayed here, at least we would be together.
It wasn’t even an option.
The lock clicked.
* * *
I laid Morgan down in her bed. Already the distortion was starting to fade from her face, and her eyes were turning in the proper direction.
“I love you, Morgan.”
There was more to say, but none of it came out.
I pulled the comforter over her, then turned off the lights .
* * *
Elise was waiting for me.
There was only one thing I could think to say.
“What’s in the boxes?”
She smiled.
“Memories.
Want to see?”
* * *
Five years. Five years as a human for a changeling to grow a heart. Five years until Morgan could come back with us, until we could be a family again.
She was almost my age, now. Time was strange in the other.
Elise and I stayed with her, but she couldn’t notice us, of course. It wasn’t long before she forgot about us entirely. Though she did seem to wonder why she never had to do her laundry.
Things were hard for her at first. The world had forgotten her while she was away.
But through every ignored hello, every person who turned away from her on the street, every new acquaintance who forgot about her, she refused to lie down and take it.
And in time, they remembered.
When she enrolled in college, she tried every club, made friends with everyone on her floor. She lived all the life she could. Every friend, every simple smile and wave, was a gift to her. She knew how it felt to be without them.
By the time five years had passed, she had a husband, and a child on the way.
It was clear she wasn’t coming back with us.
Her heart is more human now than mine ever was.
* * *
But every once in a while, when the night is late and the sky is clear,
She sits by the window with her hands to the glass, and watches the stars dance.
* * *