Glitter & Doom: A Masque of the Red Death Story
Read Glitter & Doom: A Masque of the Red Death Story Online
Authors: Bethany Griffin
“B
E PRETTY,” HER MOTHER SAID, REARRANGING
April’s frilly skirts. “Keep your eyes wide and innocent. It’s the only thing that might protect you.”
The way her mother’s voice trembled made April shaky herself, and she wanted to feel like a princess in this dress. So she ignored the warning, pushing her carefully curled gold hair back, and not making the slightest effort to keep her eyes wide. She left their shared rooms, a royal prison within her uncle’s palace, and as she skipped to the indoor garden at the base of the tower, she enjoyed the way her skirts swirled around her. She was eleven years old.
“You look nice,” Elliott said from an alcove.
April frowned. Her brother had just turned thirteen and was prone to teasing. Except that, since their father had died, neither of them had the energy. Grief was exhausting. So was fear.
A little brown monkey swung down from the rafters and onto Elliott’s lap. It wore a tiny vest made of silk brocade. Charmed, she reached out, but the creature bared its teeth at her, hissing. Then it nestled into Elliott’s chest, looking up at him with big eyes—the sort of expression Mother had just encouraged April to present.
Elliott slipped something from his pocket and fed it to the monkey.
“No wonder he likes you better.” April heard the sourness in her voice, and hated herself for it. But the way the monkey curled against her brother made her jealous. Neither of them had ever had a pet, something to love them unconditionally.
Their mother swept down the staircase.
“For goodness’ sake, don’t get dirty,” she chastised, dusting April’s skirts. “Uncle has always been fond of you. He won’t hurt a pretty little girl.”
It might be true. Of the many people April had seen her uncle harm, none of them had been little girls.
Mother handed April specially made white gloves with pearl buttons.
Elliott watched from his alcove, and April felt a spiteful bit of happiness. The monkey might prefer Elliott’s company, but Mother had barely looked at him in the months since Father died.
Mother knew, somehow, that Elliott had seen what happened. That he’d hidden and hadn’t done anything to stop Uncle Prospero from murdering Father. Only Elliott knew that April had been beside him the entire time and so far he hadn’t told anyone. She didn’t think he ever would.
Her happiness faded though at the lost expression in her brother’s eyes. Unlike Uncle and Mother, their father had never played favorites. April ached for the past. For the safety of Father and the world before the plague. The world before they’d been brought to Uncle Prospero’s castle, where no one spoke of the disease, but everyone carried handkerchiefs filled with herbs that were supposed to prevent the illness.
Mother led April into the throne room, a shadowy place stained by torture and fear, still fussing over her appearance. When Uncle walked down the aisle to his raised dais, his eyes swept over them. He smiled vaguely but didn’t stop. Elliott followed their uncle. Mother let out a hiss, so low that only April and a few courtiers near them heard it, when she saw that he was dressed identically to Uncle Prospero in a black suit with an impeccable white shirt. Uncle kept his launderers working constantly. White shirts were easily stained, especially by blood.
April didn’t usually watch the onstage cruelty that passed for entertainment in the throne room. Mother encouraged her to look subtly away, but never to cry because that might draw attention.
Guards dragged in a boy and a man through the crowd to where her uncle was waiting. They stumbled up the steps to the dais. The boy wore spectacles with glass so thick that it magnified his eyes. April hadn’t spoken to another child in ages, not since Elliott had disastrously befriended one of the kitchen boys. She might have smiled as the boy on the dais now looked around the throne room with his enormous eyes, but her face was frozen. Chills ran through her at the memory of what had happened to the kitchen boy.
Prospero found it amusing to instruct Elliott in the art of torture. Each night he gave lessons on how to hurt people in increments and keep them alive. For entertainment.
“Welcome to my home.” Reveling in his showmanship, Prospero talked to the bespectacled boy in a friendly manner, gave him a treat. The boy accepted the treat with a whisper of thanks that carried across the room. April put her gloved hands over her face. He had no idea what he was in for. The man who stood beside him seemed resigned, already broken, but the boy . . . there was something desperately hopeful about him. The pearls at the sides of April’s gloves dug into her cheeks, until her mother noticed she was hiding her eyes and slapped April’s hands down.
And still Prospero smiled, offering tidbits of candy, like Elliott had to the monkey. The man bowed his head, and the boy, seeing his distress, slipped his hand into the man’s. April’s chest tightened.
Prospero called for one of the servants to bring a hammer. The audience shifted restlessly. Courtiers strained forward, but April saw them looking around, validating their anticipation against the responses of their neighbors. Some of them rubbed their hands together, some grinned. A few averted their eyes.
Elliott sat to the side, ignored. His face was tightly controlled as he watched his uncle, then stared out across the sea of hostile faces. The audience knew better than to show Elliott any warmth, just as he knew better than to show them any weakness.
“Come here, nephew,” Prospero rasped.
Elliott obeyed, but a flash of wariness crossed his face. He was taller than the other boy, and he practically shone, standing there above everyone else. No matter what happened in the throne room, the blood always got washed out of his hair, and it glimmered, clean and blond, in the combined light of torches and gas bulbs that Prospero favored.
Uncle handed Elliott the hammer. Elliott shifted it from hand to hand, waiting for his instructions.
“I want you to hit him,” Uncle said slowly. “Find the place that will cause him the most pain without killing him.”
The boy pulled back, his already magnified eyes widening. Elliott continued to shift the hammer. The boy closed his eyes. April could see that he was holding his breath. She held hers, too.
Slowly, with a strange sort of elegance, Elliott raised the hammer. And then dropped it on the other boy’s foot. The boy made a little mewling sound. Mother also made a tiny sound. So Mother still cared a little bit about Elliott. April looked up at her. It was better than looking at the stage, to see Prospero’s rage building.
She couldn’t help admiring her brother. His face had been emotionless, but dropping the hammer had been pure defiance. Prospero wanted agony; the crowd was waiting for it. And Elliott had ignored that, barely bruising the boy. No one defied Prospero. Elliott was in for a lot of pain tonight. And the boy wouldn’t be spared either. Elliott had to know that.
Her admiration evaporated. What use was resistance when Prospero always won? Why hadn’t Elliott just hit the boy properly? She didn’t care, suddenly, if the unknown boy was hurt, as long as Elliott could be spared. Not that it would happen now. Oh, Elliott.
The courtiers were ecstatic. They’d rather see the prince’s nephew tortured than a random stranger, and chances were that both of the boys were in for it now. April glanced up at the dais. Her uncle’s anger was still blazing bright. One of his men had already brought a selection of instruments from the table beneath the window. Someone had placed the tongs on the fire.
Without meaning to, she took two steps back. She hated when they heated up the tongs.
The courtiers spoke in hushed voices. They were constantly wagering over how long it would be until Elliott actually killed a man at his uncle’s orders. How long until he enjoyed it.
Uncle’s eyes narrowed.
Elliott stood straight, not looking at the boy’s foot, or the hammer, or his uncle’s anger. In the months since they’d lived at the castle, he’d perfected the art of looking at nothing.
She broke her mother’s rule and looked down then, so she didn’t see what happened next, nor did she want to. She heard one scream and didn’t think it was her brother. He was known for suffering in silence. But then their mother fainted, and servants carried her from the throne room. April followed, leaving Elliott, and his torment, behind.
All the next day, April searched for Elliott, but he didn’t want to be found. Two mornings later she went to the indoor garden once more, and stood amongst the great ferns and potted palm trees.
A silk cord hung from the ceiling. It looked for all the world like the ties that held back the curtains in her mother’s apartment. At the end of the cord was a tiny noose, and at the end of the noose, a monkey wearing a brocade vest. A tiny hat lay on the floor beneath the dangling body.
She couldn’t look away. And then Elliott appeared from behind the ferns. He bent to retrieve the tiny top hat. His eyes were red. But he wasn’t crying.
It wasn’t until later that it occurred to April that she didn’t know whether Elliott had found his pet dangling from the tiny noose, or whether Prospero had forced him to kill it himself.
FIVE YEARS LATER
April flipped her blonde hair and surveyed the line of umbrellas stretching around the block. Black umbrellas, like she used to see at funerals in the days when it had been possible to honor the dead with dignity.
Raising her own umbrella against the drizzling rain, April narrowed her eyes at the line of miserable wet individuals standing between her and her goal—the door of a new club called the Morgue.
If her mother knew where she was . . . she pushed the thought away. Moving back to the city was the most defiant thing her mother had done in the years since the plague struck and her father died. Since her father was murdered. April had no doubt that her mother was trying to protect her. And she appreciated it. But six months of cowering inside the penthouse apartment was enough to drive a sixteen-year-old mad. The line moved. April took three steps forward.
Two girls stood ahead of her, laughing together. The way they held each other’s arms was a painful reminder of the lie she’d told her mother. April wasn’t bothered by stretching the truth. Lies were often necessary. But pretending to her mother that she had someone to visit, a friend, bordered on pathetic. Nearly as pathetic as standing in this never-ending line alone.
“Are you looking for a good time?” The question came from a hooded figure who stood suddenly beside her.
April simply shrugged and rolled her eyes. Why on earth would she be standing in the rain, in the line for a club on an unseasonably cold Friday evening, if she wasn’t in search of a good time?
“A new club just opened across the street,” the voice said. April was becoming increasingly certain that it was a female voice. “Exclusive place.”
Definitely a girl—the hand raised to the hood was delicate, the palm adorned with a tattoo. April didn’t catch what it depicted, but her respect for the girl went up a couple of notches.
“Exclusive usually means boring,” April said.
“You don’t have to come with me.”
But as the hood fell back, April could see why she’d been wearing it. Not for protection from the rain as much as a way to hide her face. The girl had medium-brown hair that was pleasant enough, but her teeth were crooked and it made her face look misshapen.
“What do they have at this club that I can’t get at the Morgue?” April examined her own gloved hand, faking disinterest.
“If you have the money, they have the means to make you forget,” the girl said.
April looked up at that. Forget? She made her decision in an instant, a habit that she’d developed in her uncle’s castle. Split-second decisions were better than agonizing over choices with no obvious answers. Agonizing was what her mother spent her days doing. It had turned her hair prematurely gray.
“I’ll go with you,” April declared.
“Excellent.” The girl took April’s arm, and April let her, pleased at having someone to walk with. She hesitated only a moment before leaving the line. It stretched out behind her, around the building. If the other club didn’t work out, she would have lied to her mother for nothing, and who knew when she would manage to get out of the Akkadian Towers again. Her heart swelled with the need for adventure. The line to the club wasn’t moving, so she let her new friend lead her away from the lighted avenue.
“What sort of club is this?” she asked breathlessly, as the girl pulled her along toward an alley.
“Ex—”
“Don’t say exclusive again,” she warned.
“Exciting,” the girl said.
And then someone grabbed the girl, shook her, and threw her across the alley. April froze, pressing her back against the building. The only ways out of this dark passageway were blocked by two men, one in either direction.
“What do you know?” one asked. “Two girls alone on a Friday night. If nothing else, we’ll get an umbrella and a cloak.”
Thieves. Was the cloaked girl with them? But she was cowering where she’d fallen, plainly terrified. One of the men pulled her up and, without ceremony, slit her throat with a single vicious stroke of a knife. Blood sprayed everywhere. April threw up her arm to shield her face. The bleed-out was fast, and the girl collapsed, dead. The murderer threw her cloak to his friend.
“What about the other one? She looks a bit more affluent.” At least the man was observant.
April slid both hands to the wood handle of her umbrella, gripping it tightly. Defensively.
“Be a shame to kill her. She’s beautiful.” This from the man who had killed the cloaked girl.
Beautiful. She blinked. The man could’ve slit her throat already, but instead he was admiring her. Her mother’s constant advice, the repeating refrain of her childhood, played through her mind.
Be pretty. Be pretty
. April lowered her eyes. She’d applied her makeup by candlelight. She knew that even in the uncertain light of this alley her eyelids sparkled with glitter.
The murderer took one step forward, two. He reeked of garlic and poverty.