Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death) by Bethany Griffin
Father doesn’t know. But I do. I try to put all of my loathing into my eyes, but he won’t really know how much I hate him until my blade meets his throat.
I listen for sounds of fighting or screams. For an ambush. Surely Elliott will send his men to try to stop the prince and all of these steam carriages.
But nothing happens; no one attacks. It’s just me and him, alone.
With my left hand I push the window covering aside, fully expecting him to reprimand me, but he is silent. We’ve left the lights of the city behind.
“So this is the end, for you and the city,” I say.
“Yes.” He watches me stare out the window. “It’s a shame your father ruined my plans by creating a disease that killed everyone, rich and poor, indiscriminately. But at least I have saved a thousand of its shining citizens. They’ll have the experience of a lifetime and be safe from the dying masses.”
I have nothing left to say to this man, so we ride on in silence.
At some point he realizes that he’s lost the gold key ring. I watch him searching his pockets, but he doesn’t mention what he’s looking for.
“I thought you were giving them to Malcontent,” I say.
“Not after he tried to ambush me. Not after—” He stops talking to wipe his face once again. He can’t speak of what that diseased man did to him.
He deserved it. But he won’t live long enough to die of the contagion.
“So the keys go to something . . . a device that can save the city from the swamp?” I ask.
He shrugs. “My scientists claimed it would work. I never tried it.”
“Where is it?”
He smiles a toothy grin.
“Does Malcontent know?”
“My brother is too busy whipping his disease cult into a frenzy. But he would know if he was paying attention. I’m surprised he and his acolytes haven’t tripped over it.”
The swamp. The device is in the swamp. The doctor who escaped from the dungeon said the other scientists were heading there. But where?
If only I had paid more attention, the times I’d flown over or skirted around the swamp. Where would someone who wanted to hold back the swamp build a device? And then . . . I think of the manor house. The horror the family must have felt as the swamp approached their home. And I remember how all the doors were locked. That had to be it. The device was hidden there. Now I know where the device is, and I know where the keys are. And I’m trapped in a carriage, headed to Prospero’s stronghold.
When we pass out of the forest, the sun is rising. A figure is standing on the bluff, looking down at Prospero’s fortress. I hope it’s someone who has come to fight, but neither Will nor Elliott could have gotten there before us. Could they?
Prospero’s eyes mock me.
“You aren’t the first prisoner in this carriage who wanted to kill me,” he says. “None of the others have succeeded either.”
“Why would I want to kill you?” I ask, trying to emulate April’s sarcastic tone. He ignores my words, but keeps his eyes trained on my mouth, exposed without my mask.
“You know, I can cause you excruciating pain,” he says conversationally.
“I’ve been through excruciating pain,” I say.
He smiles, as if to suggest that he can prove me wrong. That he will.
As we approach the palace, it is evident that this is where all the smiths in the city have gone. Huge iron gates surround the palace, taller than before, forming rings around the other fences and ultimately the fortress itself.
“They sank the iron poles far into the ground, in case there are tunnels I don’t know about,” Prospero says. “And I flooded the dungeons. No one will be visiting my ball without an invitation.”
“I hope you removed the prisoners.” I wish I could take the words back the moment I say them. I keep giving him opportunities to show how frightening he is.
The fences and barricades are much too high to climb. Without the tunnels, how will I get April out of here?
The prince toys with his silver cufflinks, in the same way that Elliott does his. “I wonder which of your suitors will show up for my ball,” he says. “Elliott hates being left out. And I gave William an invitation myself.”
My heart misses a beat.
“When . . . did you see Will?”
“When I retrieved my niece from the Debauchery Club, of course. I almost thought he might try to stop me. He was prepared to fight, but he was outnumbered.”
Will. I can’t consider the possibility that he might come for us. I don’t want Prospero to see the hope in my eyes.
“Elliott won’t come,” I say, to distract myself. And to distract Prospero. “He has to save the city.”
“Against his own father? Do you really think he’s strong enough for that?”
“Yes.”
“I did try to teach him ruthlessness.” He pauses, and when I don’t respond, he continues. “Surely you are a better prize than a dying city.”
I fold my hands in my lap, trying to keep them still. How difficult it would be to strangle a man with only one free hand?
We pass the first gate, and I see the open flame of a smithy.
“They are sealing it,” he says, though I did not ask.
When the carriage pulls to a stop, it’s near a dead man hanging from the end of a noose, his body twisting against the inner fence.
“What did he do?” I ask.
The prince climbs out, smiling. “He was overwhelmed by one of my parties. Frenzied. He tried to leave.”
Servants and courtiers rush out, and one comes to unlock the manacle. I can’t help noting the clean and ornate clothing. Women wear floor-length silk dresses. Men wear brocade vests.
I search the crowd for April, though surely she is already in the palace. Her carriage left the city long before ours.
Rubbing at the welt that the manacle left on my wrist, I follow the prince inside. And that’s where I spot her, standing in the shadows with a white bandage plastered to her forehead. So that’s how she’s hiding the contagion. At least for now, by candlelight.
Several courtiers stand near April, watching her suspiciously.
“Did something happen?” I ask, gesturing to the bandage, hoping she has a story.
“I was attacked. You know how it is, in the city.”
The listeners whisper to one another, seeming satisfied to be able to report that the prince’s niece was attacked by ruffians. That the city is as violent as they’ve heard.
We follow the prince’s entourage. When he takes his seat, the room goes silent for half a second. Just long enough for me to hear a familiar tune. Somewhere in this great echoing fortress, my mother is playing piano.
And yet the piano in this room is empty.
I look around, at a loss, but April summons a servant who ushers me through the castle, past the rows of rusty old cannons, to the tower. At the top I push past the servant into the room with the piano.
Mother is wearing a light-blue dress with a lace collar. She turns, and I watch the emotions cross her face. Relief. Shame. She doesn’t stand, and we don’t embrace.
“You’re alive,” she says, and for a moment I think she’s going to fall from the piano bench. “Thank God. I hoped . . . but the prince told me that the ship exploded. I didn’t know what to think.” So both of my parents believed that I was dead.
I look around the room at the textured wallpaper, the doilies that stand under oil lamps. It is warm and inviting, until you see the bars on the window. The piano dominates the room. It’s how I knew this was her prison, when Elliott inadvertently brought me here.
“I missed your childhood and the last years of Finn’s life in this room,” she says. The tone of her voice is neutral. As if she is expecting me to judge her for being a captive here.
And I did for years. I thought she chose to spend time with her rich friends instead of in the basement with Finn and with me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “So sorry.”
A cacophony of hammering wakes me sometime later. When I walk over to the window, it’s impossible not to remember how Elliott put his hands on my shoulders last time I stood here, gently drawing my attention to various escape routes. All of which now might be gone.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” Mother says from behind me. “You need to be fitted for your ball gown.” A woman is already in the sitting room, waiting with measuring tapes and pins.
The seamstress measures Mother first, clicking her tongue and remarking that Mother has lost weight. And then she measures me, writing numbers in a small book.
“The gowns will be ready tomorrow afternoon,” the woman says, and then she’s gone and Mother and I are alone, awkward and silent.
She hasn’t asked me about Father yet. Doesn’t she want to know if he’s alive? Does she care? Or has the Red Death finally given her too much to forgive?
“I usually play in the afternoons,” she tells me.
“Is that why he keeps you here, to play piano?” I’m not really sure what I’m asking her, what I want to know. But I feel the need to put her relationship with Prospero in some perspective. How did it happen? “How did you meet him?”
“I’ve known him since we were children. He likes having someone from that part of his life. Even then, he was driven, though not like . . . now.”
Driven? Is that the way to describe a megalomaniac? “Father is also driven,” I suggest, trying to determine how she is defining the word.
“Yes. Both of the men in my life have been consumed by a higher purpose.”
A higher purpose? They worked together to destroy the world. She sees the disgust on my face, and for once she stands up for herself.
“I didn’t choose to be his hostage. I’ve tried to be his friend because it’s the only way I could help. I kept him from hurting people when I could. I stood beside him in the throne room and begged him to stop. Occasionally he listens.”
“I don’t blame you,” I say. “It must have been terrible.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re alive. And we have to keep you that way.”
I give her a quick hug. “I’m sorry,” I whisper again.
“Come with me,” she says. “I play for the young ladies who like to practice their dancing in the afternoons. I don’t want to let you out of my sight.”
I’ve rejected her every time she’s acted motherly toward me since Finn died. I may not have many chances to make up for my cruelty. So I follow her downstairs to a ballroom with a gilded ceiling, hoping that April will find me there. Dozens of girls glide about the room, not waiting for the music to begin.
Mother sits at the piano, arranges her skirts, and begins to play. Beautiful dresses swirl this way and that. I settle in a corner to watch.
One after another, the girls approach me to ask breathless questions.
Have I come from the city? Was it frightening? Did I see anyone dying? Did I see anyone with the Red Death?
I answer honestly. I have seen people dying, and it was terrifying.
One of the girls puts her hand on my shoulder. “At least you are here now,” she says.
“Don’t even think about the outside world. I pretend it doesn’t exist,” says another.
“It’s safe here. We’re safe.” They grasp hands and start a dance that takes them in a circle.
What silly, deluded girls.
One of them glances out the window, then breaks away from the circle. At her squeal, everyone else follows. I join them warily. What horror is the prince constructing now?
“A new arrival.” The girls are pressed against the glass.
“He has to be the last,” another girl says. “My mother told me there are already one thousand. Someone must have died.”
“Or someone is going to die,” another girl suggests.
The girls laugh nervously, but they don’t turn away from the window.
“How are you safe, if this is what happens here?” I can’t help asking.
A blond girl frowns at me. “We’re safe as long as we don’t anger the prince,” she says, as if I might be stupid. “Or draw his attention.”
And then they are peering down at the guest once more.
“He is very handsome.” The wistfulness of the girl’s voice makes me think of how April and I used to admire Will.
Could he have come?
I push my way through to the window. The figure is on foot. Could Will have walked all the way from the city? Dark hair spills over the collar of the man’s coat. But that’s all I can see.
Mother has stopped playing. She watches me from across the room.
“He’s tall,” one of the girls observes. And then they are all talking at once. I will him to look up and show his face, but he never does.
“I’d give anything to dance with a young man,” the girl continues. The others agree.
“All the men our age have gone to the city,” another tells me.
Nervous excitement stirs in the pit of my stomach as the girls press in around me. I was sure that I would know Will anywhere, but now I’m afraid that I’m indulging in wishful thinking. I shouldn’t hope that it’s him. I shouldn’t want to see him as badly as I do. I must be strong for Mother and April. I don’t need Will to come and save me.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE GIRLS EVENTUALLY GO BACK TO DANCING, with Mother playing the piano and smiling indulgently at them. They swirl around the small ballroom, and April finds me in the corner. Her bandage is smaller today, a white square affixed to her forehead. She’s arranged her hair to mostly hide it.
“Do you have a plan?” she asks immediately. “An escape plan? They say that no one has left. Not since Prospero put up the new gates and fences.”
“We have to find a way for you to leave,” I say. I glance around to see if anyone is listening, but all the girls are caught up in their dance, so I finish in a rush. “And you have to take a message to Elliott for me. You have to tell him that the pump is in the manor house. He’ll know what you mean.”
April blinks her blue eyes several times. “Wait, aren’t you coming with me? I need you, Araby.”
Her voice quavers. She’s been so brave. But I can’t go with her. I put my hand on her arm.
“We can’t let the prince continue,” I explain. “And if someone were to kill him, all the supplies stockpiled here would be free for Elliott.”
“What makes you think you can kill the prince?” April studies my face, frowning.
“I’m the one who has to do it. We can’t wait for Elliott or Will to rescue us,” I tell her. “Elliott is saving the city, and Will . . .” I’m not sure about Will, so I don’t say anything more about him.
A clock strikes, and the courtiers flock through assorted doorways toward the throne room.
“Time for dinner,” April says. “Someone will die before the night is over, but unfortunately, I doubt it will be the prince.”
A line of performers stands near the doorway of the dining room, juggling the porcelain heads of china dolls. The stuffing hangs from some of them. The performers do their juggling emotionlessly, not looking to the left or the right.
“Don’t distract them, Araby.” April pulls me along. “If one of them drops a head, the prince puts the juggler’s head in a vise. It’s . . . terrible.”
And that is what Prospero wanted to do to Elise. He wanted to make her one of his performers. In a little swan costume.
April and I sit across the room from the princ
“The masked ball is tomorrow night,” April says. “They’ve been holding nightly parties for weeks. Decadent, horrible parties. But the real fun begins tomorrow.” She slumps for a moment, closing her eyes. She should be in bed.
Servants lead my mother across the room to the prince’s table. She seats herself calmly.
“You’d think he would’ve replaced her by now,” April murmurs. I’m not sure how to respond to such an observation. It never occurred to me before that if Elliott knew my mother, then April must have too.
“Why did you never tell me?” I ask. She raises her eyebrows. “That my mother was a hostage here?”
“Everyone is a hostage here. I just knew that the lady who played the piano, and who my uncle occasionally smiled upon, turned out to be our neighbor. I was pleased to learn that she had a daughter my age.”
A group of entertainers are escorted into the dining room, and I notice how they cower when Prospero turns his gaze their way. He shakes his head, and they slink back to the shadows.
“Trained in the orphanages?” I ask.
“Yes. And even here, people have heard that we saved those girls.”
“News carries fast.” I’m surprised that anyone here knows what we did in the city.
The prince turns to my mother, and she goes to the piano.
The song she plays is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Haunting and sad, but also defiant. I feel like she’s speaking to me, like she’s trying to express everything that we’ve never been able to say to each other. The crowd is mesmerized.
Finally she raises her hands and pushes back. The prince stands, signaling that dinner is over.
While Mother’s song still echoes in my head, he leads us to the throne room. Each beam that stretches across the ceiling of the hall is in the likeness of a reptile—mostly dragons, but some are snakes or even crocodiles. I hadn’t noticed that during my previous visit. The stained-glass windows are familiar, and the odd artifacts and objects of torture that lie on tables beneath. Prospero has gaslights throughout his palace, but for this room he’s chosen open flames, which give the chamber a primitive, frightening look. The shadows are deeper and darker than ever.