Monachopsis | Chapter One: The Fall (2/2)

Madder had almost finished stuffing her clothes into a sack when someone knocked on her door. She froze, her uninjured hand still hunting for stray clothes in her drawer.

“Madder? You okay?”

Percy’s voice, higher than usual with concern. The iron vice around Madder’s lungs eased open, and her heart slowed to a less frenetic pace. “I’m fine,” she called back, and then winced as the door slid open. Of course Percy would take that as permission to enter. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been.

“You weren’t at dinner,” Percy said. She had a tray of food balanced in her arms—borogove legs and some kind of hash—and looked vaguely ashamed of herself, although Madder couldn’t imagine why. “I, um… Are you going somewhere?”

Madder dragged her last pair of trousers out of the drawer and let them fall into her sack. It sounded louder than it should have. “I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m done with this place. I’ll never be able to do anything if I stay.”

She made the mistake of trying to clench her hands into fist, and a hot spring of pain shot up from the mangled palm of her right hand. Though she tried, Madder couldn’t suppress her flinch. She stared at the floor while Percy set the tray down on her bedside table, her face aflame with embarrassment.

“Is this about what happened in training this morning?”

If her cheeks had been burning before, now they were practically nuclear. “You know about that?!”

“I know you got hurt,” Percy said, her tone gentle. “Not how, or how bad. Uh.” Her gaze flicked down to the fresh bandages swaddling Madder’s hand, and then to the side. Madder shuffled, digging the toes of her left foot into the ground. Frostbite had destroyed the end of her big toe, leaving a nub of dead bone and tissue that cut her like a razor-blade whenever she touched it. The sharp, electric pain of that pressure was something familiar, and it helped her focus on not sinking into the ground out of sheer humiliation.

“Carmine thinks I might have a disease,” Madder said. Her voice came out flat, almost clinical, an imitation of the healer’s tone when he raised this possibility. “Something making my skin weak, easy to tear, so it’s too dangerous for me to—I’d never be able to do anything. I’d just sit in Queensquare all day, being waited on by nurses and… watching.”

Her eyes felt like melting; for a moment, she entertained the notion that they’d turn to wax and dribble down her face instead of tears. Maybe the rest of her would follow, and the world would look better from the inside of a puddle.

Madder shook the thought from her head and wheeled around to drag a shirt out of her dresser at random. She would not cry in front of Percy, would not ruin the one scrap of dignity she still had left.

“...And your solution is to run away?”

“Yes!”

“Madder—” Percy let out a quiet, frustrated growl and before Madder could even blink, she’d crossed the room and pulled Madder around to face her. “You’ll get killed out there if you go out alone. It’s dangerous.”

“I don’t care.”

Madder was aware that she sounded petulant, but it didn’t matter. For seven months she’d endured bed rest and coddling because there was an end date, a time when she would be better, but if Healer Carmine’s blood tests and biopsies returned a positive result, she’d never be better enough.

“There are bandersnatches and, and barmaglots and—”

“I don’t care, I’m not going to stay here and just be—breakable, Percy, I’m not.” Madder shook herself out of the other girl’s grip—easily enough, since Percy was almost a head shorter—and glared. “I’m not delicate.”

“I know you’re not, Madder,” Percy said. “But even the Chessers get killed by monsters, and you’re...”

“Weak,” Madder muttered.

“Just a kid,” Percy said, folding her arms. “You’re thirteen, Madder, and untrained.” She took a deep breath, and added, “Which is why I’m going with you.”

“...What?”

“I’m not going to let you go off on your own and get killed,” Percy said, in brisk tones startlingly reminiscent of the Red Queen. Madder blinked hard.

“You’re not trained either,” Madder said.

“I’ve got seven months on you,” Percy replied with a shrug. “Besides, I grew up on the board and Nonli’s taught me a few things. I know what squares to avoid and how to run really fast if we need to get away from something.”

“I know how to run too, Perce,” Madder said after a moment’s hesitation. Granted, her still-healing feet and Healer Carmine’s fretting had prevented her from ever actually running, but if it came to fleeing for her life, Madder thought she’d figure it out just fine on her own. Percy rolled her eyes.

“Red Queens have a special way of running from point to point without having to muddle through all the space in between,” she said, as if this sort of thing ought to be obvious. “Nonli taught me how to do it in case of emergencies.” Her gaze sharpened until Madder felt in danger of being impaled. “I’m coming with you, Madder, or else I’ll tell Nonli and she’ll stop you.”

“Fine,” Madder muttered. “Pack something and meet me by the stables.”

“Not the gardens? It’s easier to slip out through—”

“Not the gardens,” Madder said. Her skin prickled just thinking about it; the gardens grew right beneath the Looking Glass, and she had no intention of going anywhere she risked meeting her reflection again.

She still had nightmares about the first time.

“Not the gardens,” Madder said again, softer. “Half an hour, or I’m leaving without you. I don’t want to get caught.”

Percy gave her a little half-smile and began to retreat. “Eat your dinner,” she said. “See you in a bit.”

Madder waited for the door to slide shut behind Percy before she moved. A few more pieces of clothing found their way into her sack while she moved on automatic; she toyed with the idea of taking what she had now and making a run for it alone. Percy deserved better than to get caught up in all this.

Her stomach grumbling put that thought to rest by drawing her attention to the pinched feeling in her midriff. The last thing she’d eaten was a skimpy lunch of bland hospital fare, and that had been hours ago. And she didn’t have time to eat and leave without Percy, so selfish or not, she’d have to accept the other girl’s help. She didn’t want to escape the doldrums here only to collapse of hunger in the middle of the board, after all.

All the same, a cold, guilty feeling coiled in her gut as she tore into the food Percy had left her.