This blood also is soon absorbed into the boy’s flesh, the seal lapping up all traces of it. The seal now throbs and ripples across his skin, just like its counterpart on his other arm.
The shadow behind the boy further expands, and the teacher’s assistant finally sees the face that emerges from within its confines. It is another woman, this time one garbed in black. The strangeness of her face is caused by a round porcelain mask—eerily similar to the faces of the dolls in the room sheltering the boy’s mother— that hides most of her features. But parts of it have crumbled away. Ruined skin and a drooping eye stare out from behind the mask, repulsive and hideous.
The young woman screams again, but the boy does not see the woman. He moves and jerks about like a puppet. Both seals continue to crawl and twist like live snakes underneath the boy’s flesh. The woman in black reaches out for the teacher’s assistant, horrible triumph etched in her ruined eye.
But she rears back when she sees me standing behind the teaching assistant, who cries out as she, too, spots me.
I meet the masked woman’s livid gaze—for what feels like a few seconds, for what feels like a millennium—before the shadow takes a step back, and her face is soon swallowed up by the fog that hovers around the boy for several more seconds and then disappears abruptly with little warning. When she is gone, the boy collapses.
“Who are you?” The young woman whimpers, but that is not a question I can easily answer. I look down at her again, and I see her jerk in surprise.
For I no longer stand before her as a ruined horror; now she sees me as a girl; young, my hair coiled up around my head like I often wore it, with brown eyes and skin a pale white from the absence of sun rather than a mark of the long dead. I look at her looking back at the girl I once was, and the ghosts of the little dead children, freed from the Smiling Man’s taint, gather around me glowing.
The young woman faints. She recalls very little of what happens in the interim, only rousing herself when she hears shouts and cries from outside the room. She holds her breath at first, fearful, and knows no greater relief than when the voices become more distinct, drumming down the stairs.
“Tarquin Halloway! Callie Starr! This is the police! Can you hear us? Call out to us if you can!”
“I’m here!” the young woman screams, voice hoarse. “I’m here! Help us! Please, help us!”
For a moment, she is afraid that her pleas will go unheard, but after several more minutes, the door to the basement opens, and beams of light stream into the room.
“Miss Callie Starr? Stay calm, miss, we’re going to help you. Are you hurt anywhere?”
“My hand…”the teacher’s assistant whispers. “And Tarquin…” “Don’t worry about it, ma’am. The medics are here. We’re going to get you out as soon as we can.”
“He’s okay.” Another of the men reports, checking the fallen teenager. “Pulse is normal, no signs of injury on him.”
The young woman feels like laughing, and she does, startling her rescuers. No signs of injury on Tarquin! And yet the tattoos on his arms! The seals thriving like little creatures, feasting on his skin! “Oh my God,” she hears another of the men say. They shine their light on the other bed, revealing the Smiling Man, except his head is now missing. Shuddering, she turns away. Just before her strength fails again, she imagines she can see me as before, the woman in white with long hair and an ashen face, now standing in a darker corner of the room. I am surrounded by strange little lights, bobbing up and down as if they sit on an unseen river that flows around my frame. One by one, they move against the air, like shooting stars that rise up instead of falling down. I say nothing, only watching as they float into the refuge of darkness.
Callie Starr closes her eyes and does not open them again for some time.
The teacher’s assistant has never been here before, although it is every bit as frightening as she had imagined it to be. People in loose robes (sixteen) stare coldly at her as she walks past, suspicious of how she is free to leave this place whenever she wishes to, when they cannot. Some people ignore her completely, bursting into shrill, hysterical laughter at voices no one else can hear (twelve). Others prefer the company of their closets or their potted plants, conducting animated conversations with the imaginary things that live within (ten).
People call this place the Remney Psychiatric Institute. The teacher’s assistant looks tired. The bruises marring her face are lighter than two weeks ago, enough that they are easily hidden under a thin layer of makeup. The little finger on her right hand remains heavily bandaged, and she moves her arm with stiffness that suggests a midpoint between hurting and recovery. While sensitive to the touch, the small wound on the side of her head no longer requires dressing. She is pale, and the bright fluorescent lights overhead do nothing to hide her pain.
She has been released from the hospital with her doctor’s permission, avoiding the well-wishes and well-intentioned worry of visitors and friends as she did. But she cannot rest, not just yet. There is something else she must do first.
The White Shirt is nervous, and understandably so. He has agreed with extreme reluctance to allow the young assistant visiting rights, despite Remney’s stern rules restricting this to immediate family members only. But because the tattooed boy’s father personally requests this, the White Shirt unlocks the door leading into the Japanese woman’s room and steps back to allow the young woman entry.
The shoji screens are gone, but the dolls are still in their wooden stands, and like many others before her, this sight makes the young woman very uncomfortable. The Japanese woman sits on a chair at the center of the room, staring at nothing. She makes no sound, gives no signal that she is aware of the young woman’s presence. Nervous, the young woman hovers uncertainly a few feet away, torn between advancing and retreating.
“Mrs. Halloway? Aunt Yoko?”The woman rocks back and forth, eyes glued to the wall before her, staring at the large carpeted stand filled with imperial dolls.
The teacher’s assistant tries again. “Aunt Yoko? My name is Calliope Starr. I’m Doug Halloway’s niece. Tarquin’s cousin.”
A faint ghost of a smile curves along the older woman’s mouth. “Tarquin?”
“Yes,” the young woman says, encouraged. “Your son, Tarquin?”
“He’s a very lovely boy,” the woman says. “He was a beautiful baby. So sweet. So very innocent. That’s what’s wrong with him, you know. If there had been more cruelty in his nature, like normal boys have, he would not be suffering as he does now. Still—such a beautiful baby boy. Has something happened to him?” Alarm flickers in the woman’s eyes, and she attempts to stand. The White Shirt guarding the door stiffens, prepared to summon for assistance if necessary. “Has something happened to my Tarquin?”
“Nothing’s happened to him,” the teacher’s assistant says hurriedly. “Tarquin’s all right. He’s safe.”
“Liar!” The woman shakes her head. “Tarquin isn’t safe. And it’s all my fault. My fault, my fault…”
“Aunt Yoko, it isn’t your fault—”“It’s all my fault! I had no choice!” The woman sinks back into her chair, but her rocking motions grow more frantic and agitated. “He had to be sacrificed! I had no choice! She would have killed more!”